Chapter 1

He watched her carefully, the way she moved, her little quirks, her hand gestures, her smile, everything. She now turned, facing him and as she searched for his eyes and found them, she smiled. He smiled back, a bit nervously. Awkwardly he raised his hand to wave at her but when he finally got it up to a level where one could be sure that he was executing the movement which one could identify as a wave, she had already turned around and was facing her friends again. He turned red at his lame attempt to make some sort of contact with her, that had failed so miserably, and quickly looked around to see if someone had seen it. His eyes met with that of an black haired girl who smiled wickedly at him. He let out a silent groan and his entire body slumped over in his chair.

"Fuck!" he muttered under his breath and to his annoyance the girl started making her way toward him. She sat down in a chair beside him and looked straight ahead at the girl he had been looking at seconds before. He stared unwaveringly out the window, a little of the red left from earlier on his cheeks.

"Wow . . . that sure went well," the girl in the chair next to him said. His eyebrow twitched in irritation.

"Shaddup." he mumbled, irked by her attempts to vex and embarrass him further.

"Didn't know you had a thing for her. How come I haven't noticed this before, eh?" she asked knitting her eyebrows together while she stared intensively at his face, piercing him with her scarlet eyes. He straitened up and leaned back on his chair finally looking her in the eyes.

"Maybe you don't know that much about people, that you think you know," he replied, all embarrassment gone and with a somber expression on his face. She gave him a dry look and raised one eyebrow at him before resuming looking at the strawberry blond girl, who was the object of his affection.

"Well I must say that you have rather good taste though."

"Of course."

After a minute of silence and looking straight ahead of them the black haired girl suddenly broke the silence.

"You've already had your way with her several times in your little fantasies haven't you?" she said unperturbed. His face twisted into an complicated expression, which seemed to be made up of bewilderment, embarrassment and disgust at the same time. He just turned to her and stared wide-eyed at her. After some time of calming down, still tinted red in the face though, he said to her brusquely,

"Can't you just leave Meiling? Go play Daidouji or something."

As on cue a girl with amethyst hair emerged from the classroom door and waltzed over to the two youths discussing the strawberry blond girl and the boy's interest in her. She pulled up a chair and sat down opposite Meiling.

"What are you two discussing?" she asked and looked quizzically between the two.

"Oh nothing, we're just discussing Syaoran's newfound fondness for the lovely Sakura," Meiling answered a bit amused.

"Newfound? Hasn't this been going on for some time now?" the amethyst haired girl asked and looked puzzlingly at Syaoran. Meiling's eyes shot open in surprise and anger as she understood that her girlfriend had known this for a far longer time than she had.

"Why haven't I heard of this sooner? Why did you tell Tomoyo and not me? Huh!" she shouted and stood up so violently that her chair almost fell over.

Syaoran shoot her a deadly glare and answered her with a low almost threatening growl, "Because you make a so big fucking deal out of everything and you're fucking annoying, that's why!" She pouted at this, but then breathed out heavily and sat down again. People were looking at them because of Meiling's little outburst, and so was Sakura. Syaoran could feel her eyes on him and started blushing a little out of humiliation.

"God, you're such a drama-queen!" Syaoran muttered, and Meiling was just about to retort something when she was interrupted by Sakura, who had walked over to them, while they were bickering.

"Ehm, sorry if I interrupted something, but we're supposed to clean the P.E.-equipment room," she said directed at Syaoran. He looked up at her surprised, "Like, eh right now?" he asked and then directly after scolded himself in his head for sounding so stupid. She smiled at him and answered in a voice, which he thought sounded a bit amused, "Yeah, like right know."

He blushed a bit at her making fun of his question and got up from his seat. She smiled at him again and started walking towards the classroom door. He started walking after her but stopped when Meiling called from behind him.

"Good luck!" She smiled impishly at him and he shoot her an angry glare before stomping after Sakura. He soon caught up with her and walked beside her as they made their way to the P.E.-equipment room.

As they were tiding up the room which contained all of the things one could possibly need for P.E. Syaoran's mind couldn't help but wander to the beautiful girl who was in the room with him. He just couldn't stop thinking about the fact that they were all alone and that even though he thought that their school uniforms were rather dull and unflattering, they somehow looked good on Sakura. He glanced at her several times and after a while he was getting mad at himself for doing it all the time, for he was sure that she would notice it.

They had been tidying up in silence for some time now, and Syaoran started to feel a bit uncomfortable. Sakura didn't seem uneasy at all by the silence though.

"D-do you live on campus?" Syaoran asked a bit awkwardly. Sakura looked up from stacking cones onto each other and peered over to were Syaoran was arranging mattresses. She looked back down at the cones and answered mellowly,

"No, I live at home with my father and older brother. He's a real annoyance though, my older brother." She frowned and continued, "He's been teasing me ever since I was young and you'd think that when he got older he'd stop, but he just keeps doing it, argh! It drives me crazy!" She sighed and then looked up at Syaoran's astonished face and blushed as she realized that she'd been rambling on about her brother to her classmate, who she didn't really know that well.

"Ah, sorry that I just talked away like that."

"It's fine, I mean I asked, right? I was just surprised that you were so talkative."

Syaoran smiled at her and she quickly lit up a bit.

"So, do you live on campus or at home?" She asked encouraged by Syaoran's smile.

"I live at campus, well cause my family lives in Hong Kong."

Sakura turned around completely to face Syaoran with genuine interest showing on her face.

"Wha, you live alone here in Tomoeda?" She asked big-eyed and with eyes sparkling. Syaoran was a bit taken aback by her enthusiastic participation in their conversation, which made him a bit insecure.

"Erhm well, no or yes, ah . . . I live here with my cousin, Meiling."

"Oh, I didn't know you were relatives."

"Well, we are." As soon as he spoke the words he felt really, really stupid. What kind of answer is that, 'Well, we are'. Now he just sounded incredibly obnoxious. He quickly turned around to the mattresses and started arranging them again. Sakura continued looking at him for some time before returning to the cones, a confused expression enveloping her features. She wondered if she had hit a nerve or something like that.

They finished their remaining work in silence and when they were done, they bid each other goodbye and Syaoran made his way to his dorm room, all the while cursing himself, for acting stupid.

When he reached his dorm room and opened it, he was greeted by his midnight-blue haired roommate.

"Yo. Heard you had some alone time with Kinomoto. So, did your love blossom into a beautiful flower?" he smirked at Syaoran and adjusted his glasses.

"I'm really not in the mood, Hiiragizawa," Syaoran said curtly and glared at the boy, while he walked over to his bed and slumped down on it.

"Huh, so it didn't go that well then I guess," Eriol continued, peering at him over his glasses from across the room, as he lay in his bed. Syaoran sighed at Eriol's probing about his encounter with Sakura and rolled over on his side, away from Eriol. A loud bang almost made him fall out of his bed and both of the boys looked surprised at the door. Meiling had burst the door open and walked into their room with Tomoyo behind her.

"Really Meiling, maybe you should go easier on the poor door." she said and brushed some of her hair of her shoulder. She walked over to Syaoran's bed and carefully sat down but waiting a few seconds so that Syaoran had time to sit up.

"Anyway, we came here to give you some advice on your love- well, problem."

Syaoran groaned loudly, curled himself into a ball and laid down facing the wall. As a final act of defiance he covered his ears with his hands and made the face of a five year old, who didn't get to play his favorite video games. Tomoyo rolled her eyes and looked over to Eriol to get some sort of support.

"Sorry, but I already tried, and it sure as hell didn't work," Eriol stated.

Meiling who was still standing up walked over to Syaoran and pulled away his hand from his ear and shouted in it,

"Stop being such a fucking pussy!"

Syaoran quickly hurled around making him sit up in the progress.

"What the fuck Meiling! You almost burst my fucking eardrums!" he shouted back at her.

"But it worked didn't it?" She asked and smiled while going over to Eriol's bed to sit down. Eriol scotched over and made plenty of space for Meiling to sit down, he didn't want her shouting into his ears.

"Oh..kay..., eh well anyway, let us help you Li, 'kay?" Tomoyo continued and smiled at him. Syaoran sighed and finally gave in and started telling them about what had happened.

When he was done with the part about the whole 'Well,weare.'-part Meiling was laughing her ass off, Eriol looked at him like he didn't believe him and Tomoyo looked like she was ashamed of him. His face crunched up in an insecure facial expression and he asked meekly,

"Was it really that bad?"

Tomoyo placed a hand on his shoulder and looked down with an expression of pretend hopelessness.

"I'm sorry Li but that was- that was like- like a-"

"Punch in the face!" Meiling exclaimed between fits of laughter.

"But, well you had a nice start at least," Eriol said comforting.

"Please tell me you somehow at least recovered by saying something after it, really anything would do in that sort of situation." Meiling inquired as she wiped tears from her eyes. Syaoran looked at her dejectedly, all color drained from his face.

"No," he whined and threw himself down at his bed again groaning. Tomoyo sighed but then said,

"Well you obviously have some problems maintaining a proper conversation, but it's nothing we can't do something about."

Tomoyo smiled encouragingly at Syaoran and he at least felt a little better about himself.

"Okay, so let's pretend that I'm Kinomoto, and you're gonna talk to me."

"What? Urhg, let's not do that Daidouji. That's just so stupid," Syaoran sighed. Tomoyo raised her eyebrows at him and gave him a significative look.

"Well, we don't want it to end like it did the first time. Like a disaster, do we?" she asked cocking her head a bit to one side. Syaoran winced at this and looked at her, defeated.

"No," he said unhappily.

"Okay then, great!" Tomoyo exclaimed, a cheery smile adorning her face. She then continued with a overly silly high-pitch voice.

"Hi Li, how are you?"

Syaoran lifted his eyebrows and squinted at her.

"She doesn't sound like that."

Tomoyo rolled her eyes at him and then continued in her normal voice,

"Don't be so difficult. So, once again from the top. Hi Li, how are you?"

Syaoran looked uncomfortably to on side and stayed silent for a couple of seconds before answering.

"I'm fine, and you Kinomoto?"

"Oh, I bought this wonderful new dress this weekend, it's really great!"

"Eh, okay."

"You can't just answer with an okay! Even if you really don't care about her new dress, pretend that you do! Ask her something about it, like how it looks or something. You have to keep the conversation flowing. If you do that you'll probably find something that you have in common that you can talk about. And then the conversation will flow more naturally after some time," Tomoyo told Syaoran and gave him a stern look. Syaoran sighed but then asked in a strained voice,

"So, what does it look like?"

"Oh, it has a v-neck, and it's tight-fitting over the chest and then hangs loosely from a little bit under the hip and it has a bare back and it's deep blue."

"Daidouji have you by any chance bought a new dress?" Syaoran asked suspiciously.

"Yes," Tomoyo answered enthusiastically, "I have a picture, wanna see?"

"No . . . I'm fine."

Tomoyo pouted a little but then looked at her wristwatch.

"Well, I guess I should be heading home."

"Yeah, okay. Goodnight."

Tomoyo got up from the bed and headed for the door with Meiling behind her. When they were both at the door Tomoyo turned around.

"Good luck tomorrow."

"And sweet dreams." Meiling finished with a grin before closing the door behind them.