A/N: All the titles in this fic will be from My Favourite Highway lyrics or song names. I try to base chapter themes on the songs, but…life's not perfect.

SxS. Can't have it any other way.

None of these characters belong to me. I own nothing. Not even the words that compose the chapter titles. Depressing.

[ Nothing Left to Lose

Chapitre I - Unaware

Sakura fiddled with her hands. A nasty habit, perhaps, but somewhat essential, like rinsing or coughing. She was in room D23 Philosophy again – and she was nervous. Not because of the topic; it was never because of the topic. Sakura never listened to the bombastic professor anyways

Nope. It was because of the figure next to her, whom she only dared peek at through her peripheral vision.

Fate, it seemed, had decided to pity Sakura. The school year in which Eriol's notorious crush left the country was the exact same school year in which Sakura met Eriol – in four classes. They became friends, with common interests and whatnot, but eventually, Sakura's feelings grew. And it became more awkward than she could bear.

Now, it was the middle of the semester, and Eriol was breathing and thinking next to her, in room D23 Philosophy.

Of course, Sakura would never admit her obsession…her feelings, whatever they may be. She was afraid of many things – rejection, loss, commitment, inexperience…a relationship. Yet she craved this very relationship more than anything else.

She could imagine his hands, working on some doodle or another next to her. But she didn't dare look over. Her own hands itched for her pen.

Sakura felt pathetic.

The early days of their friendship had far more eye contact and conversation. Now, Sakura would look away when he looked at her, for fear of examination. When he talked to her, she felt as if every zit on her soul was being exposed. And she was most afraid of her voice and the banal, bombastic nonsense that would come out of it.

After all, Eriol had many other friends who were smarter, prettier, and more socially apt than her.

But she had already admitted her feelings to her heart. It was too late to take it back. She had let it sink too far into her, and she was drowning.

"Sakura?"

Sakura froze, the electric buzz from earlier fading.

"I'm sorry, ma'am," she muttered, cringing at the sound of her own pubescent voice. "What was the question?"

She could hear Eriol chuckling slightly beside her, but she couldn't bring herself to smile back. Her smile, she had recently realized, distorted everything about her.

[ - - - - - -

Room D23 Philosophy was the last class of the day. So ended another eventless March 31st. Optimism was not in Sakura's inner list of virtues.

Yes, Sakura had figured out a long time ago that she had two different personalities. One buried deep inside, which hurt her every day, and one on her surface, trying to convince everyone that she was alright – people who were too out-of-it were sent to counseling, a place Sakura did not intend on going to. They would find out too much.

Her outer personality was quiet, yet happy. She tried to keep a smile on her face, and she tried to keep it real. Her outer self actually cared for the ones who dropped their books in the hallway. It feared tears.

The perfect juxtaposition of that was inside her.

As Sakura gathered up her books that day, her inner self broke free, however cliché that sounds.

Warm, wet tears dropped onto her philosophy textbook, titled "The Inner Mind". She almost laughed at the irony. But this was her time to reflect…in the empty room D23.

[ - - - - - -

"Why are you showing me this?" the Mother asked grimly, her voice dangerously low. "Why would I care? It's too late to do anything to please me now. You stole him away. YOU STOLE HIM AWAY. IT'S YOUR FAULT, AND YOU KNOW IT." The woman sank to the floor, breaking down. "…it's your fault…"

Sakura had been trying this every day for the past three weeks, but her form was nowhere near signed yet, and the Mother's signature was too complicated to forge.

Recently, it had become quite difficult to find the Mother in her normal state. Her condition seemed to be getting worse and worse, and Sakura wasn't sure how much longer she would last.

It had all started with the Father's suicide.

The Mother had told Sakura that it was her fault…so many times, in fact, that Sakura was starting to believe it. Sometimes, Sakura perversely wished that her father had left a suicide note…or even that the Mother had died instead.

After all, the Father loved her very much. The Mother never liked Sakura, as she took away the Father's love for the Mother. She took away a man's love for a woman. And that was not acceptable.

After the Father's suicide, friends of the family had all blamed the Mother. She would always confront him about his love for his daughter. "Isn't a daughter meant for us to love, Nadeshiko?" he would always say with a gentle smile. The Parents fought many times, the Mother always fueling the hate.

She went mad.

Her friends all agreed that she deserved it.

No one spared a single thought on the six-year-old, looking on with a blank stare.

No one ever did.

[ - - - - - -

"Sakuranee-chan!"

"Waaa, Kero-chan. You scared me there!"

Sakura turned from her homework to find her little cousin, Kero, in the seat next to her. She gave him a bright smile.

"Why are you always at the library, nee-chan?" Kero asked, playing around with Sakura's auburn locks. Sometimes, Sakura feared for his sexuality. She smiled warily.

"Because it's quiet."

"But, your house is quiet too! And big!"

Sakura let out a breath. Sure, her house was quiet. When the Mother calmed down, she usually sat in her overstuffed armchair and gazed emptily out the window. She could stay there for hours.

But it was the house – it scared Sakura to no end. She could see shadows everywhere…chains, bars, screeches, and crashes. They were all too real in there, and hopelessness was written all over her lifeless residence.

"It's the right soundtrack, Kero-chan…but the wrong film," Sakura whispered slowly, not wanting him to understand. It wasn't that no one would understand – she wasn't that angsty – it was that her confusion could not be shared. To bring that upon someone would be even more evil than the Mother's actions towards her.

That was another reason she could not approach Eriol.

A/N: Gasp. A slash pairing? Nope. I do not lie in summaries.

Also – Gasp. Weird family names. I thought the characters in this fic would be too OOC for a CCS fic. So, it became a TRC-ish fic, but with borrowed CCS characters. And in TRC, Sakura and Syaoran did not have family names of Kinomoto and Li.

Nevermind. The screwed up family names are purely for me and my obsession in making the plot fit.