Chapter 1 – Blurb of Two Lives
Published: Saturday 18th October
Hi, this is Sayuri. This is my first story and thereby my first chapter on this site. I apologise for any hiccups in the uploading – I just took a look at this website and it looks bloody difficult! – but we must soldier on none the less. I really hope for reviews because it'll give me indicators of how I should continue writing and what things I should include… or you might just hate it and want to tell me to shut up.
SS change of time/place within one scene
SSS totally different scene
italics thoughts
Hope you do enjoy reading if I ever get this thing uploaded, Love Sayuri xxx
A girl of diminutive stature with long reddish-brown hair, tried back in a long, fat plat that hung over her left shoulder, approached a boy who was sitting facing some bushes on a grassy knoll at the side of their primary school playground. The boy, as it appeared to her, had brown hair that hung on his head like a mop or some particularly shaggy animal and was crouched to the extent that one could almost believe he was guarding something very small from the light of the world. This girl, never being one to be bashful or shy, feeling curiosity at the boy's peculiar image, at once decided that she would satisfy said curiosity. After all, it simply would not do to be pondering it for the rest of the day, especially when she had so many more pressing matters on her six year old mind. Her onii-chan had faithfully promised earlier that week that he absolutely would take her down to the Tomoeda gym, where she was becoming deeply interested in joining a rhythmic gymnastics club.
It had been two weeks previous to her brother's promise that she had been hanging around the entrance to the largest gym in the hanimachi waiting for her illustrious sibling to finish his football practice. As her presence cluttered the reception area, her eye had been drawn to four or so young girls, all dressed in variously coloured leotards, entering a room with petrol blue painted double doors. They had had in their arms, well all manner of things really. One girl, the one with the lavender leotard, had had her arms filled with large coloured balls, another had been loaded up with boxes of ribbons, which had admittedly been looking a little worse for wear.
As always the girl's curiosity had been piqued and she rushed to slip through the heavy door just as it was about to close. Inside she discovered that there were a total of about ten girls and much fewer boys all twirling bright metal stick type things in a manner which to our heroine looked remarkably impressive. The young woman who had been standing at the front of the room, it seemed, had noticed this new intruder and came over with a smile adorning her pretty face.
"Hello, what are you doing here? Did you get lost sweetheart?" the woman had a kind voice and her smile seemed to reach her brown eyes while her red hair swayed around her face as if it were caught in a breeze only it could feel. "My name is Miss Mizuki, what's yours?" she continued to inquire.
"I… I'm erm…"
"OI! Oi, Monster! Get over here!" came a bellow from the door through which she had entered.
"Oh, oh gomenasi. I have to go…"
"Well okay then, you should come back and see us again sometime." The sweet lady bade the small girl.
SS
"Onii-chan?" the girl later piped up while crossing the road and hanging off her brother's hand on the way back to their home. "OOOnnniiiiiiii-cchhhhaaaaannn!" she pressed again, impatiently waiting for a response.
"What is it Kaijou?" he replied in a monotonous voice, clearly not particularly interested in anything his six year old sister could possibly have to say. He being a grown up nine year old, he couldn't possibly be bothering with such trifling matters as the whinings of his little sister, who had become his responsibility recently due to their father's time consuming job.
"What were they doing in that room I was in?" she pressed on, in a voice that demanded answers. She had been slightly ticked off at being removed quite so crassly from the room that had held the smiling Miss Mizuki and the other young children, some of whom she recognised from school. Honestly, her brother was impossible some times.
"How on earth should I know? What did it look like they were doing?" he answered in a rather peeved tone.
"They had sticks." His sister helpfully offered, as if this of course made everything very plain.
"Sticks?" he repeated in a patronising voice. "Well thank you very much for clearing that up. They must have been the stick club. It's an Olympic sport, you know? Sticks. God you can't beat a good game of sticks." He carried on sarcastically.
"Honto?" she inquired both awed and perplexed at the same time. "But they had balls too… and ribbons. Do you need them to play sticks?"
Her brother rolled his eyes, not prepared to get in to the ins and outs of sarcasm just at that moment. "Look I'm joking Kaijou, I'm joking. They were probably doing rhythmic gymnastics. It's kinda like dance and gymnastics and something with objects rolled into one. I know lots of the cheerleaders in the high school used to do it. They were good too, used to compete and everything."
"Do you think I could do rhythmic gymnastics onii-chan?" she desperately wanted to be one of the children she had seen in the gym before. Just think, she could one day be one of the athletic cheerleaders that she too had seen practicing out on the high school football pitch.
"You Kaijou? Well I guess, you'll have to ask dad though, he's the one who has to pay, but I suppose yeah, it'll give you something to do while I'm at football."
SS
"Dad? I can do rhythmic gymnastics at the gym while onii-chan is doing football, yeah?" she was no fool in these matters. She knew the best way to her father to agree was to phrase it so he'd think they'd already discussed it and had come to an agreement and she, like the good girl she was, was just checking. Her father, unfortunately for him, had not cottoned on to the fact that she knew this and merely agreed but telling her that her brother would have to take her in and sign her in for the classes. Now there arose the problem.
Her onii-chan could not be as easily talked around as her father. Which is why it had taken her two weeks to convince him to take her in and even then it was not immediately. She'd had to wait five days on top of that, but the day had finally rolled around and they would be going in tonight.
These thoughts seemed to replay themselves in her memory over a nanosecond of time as she headed over to the mysterious, brown haired boy whom she had not seen before.
She stopped about three feet away from the boy. He was not big she could see, but neither was small or skinny like her. There seemed a leanness about him that made her tentative to approach further. She was petite, but she knew she could handle herself if it came to blows, as it so often did when two members of the opposite sex approached each other around their age. When it came to this boy however, she was not so certain. She could not categorise him as small and weedy or big and slow, and so she was at a loss as how she might have to beat him.
As it transpired, all these thoughts and queries were totally unnecessary.
"Hey." there we are. Not dismissive but not overbearing and on the whole; reasonably cool.
"What do you want?" this blunt answer was rather disappointing for her and so she answered in the only way that made sense to her. With another question.
"Wanna be friends?" this surprised him. He had always been of the opinion that his hostile nature drove any potential friends away. This new development didn't upset him, just surprised him. Who was this girl? He turned, looking over his hunched shoulder in order to get a better view of her. She was very pretty. Her hair looked think and healthy as it glinted in the sunlight. And her eyes… they held his attention more than any of her other attributes. They were a perfect colour match for the green grass beneath them and seemed to sparkle as if they contained a tiny model of the stars inside them.
She got a better view of him as he curled around to see her. His skin was lightly tanned in an attractive gold-brown tint and his eyes were a deep chocolate brown. She was amazed that anyone could have such clear and yet so deep eyes.
"Okay." came his reply, somewhat unexpectedly as they had been taking each other in visually. "What's your name?" he asked, suddenly desiring to know more of this girl.
"Sakura. What's yours?"
"Syaoran." Why he told her his first name he'd never know, when so few of his family actually called him that let alone his school peers but something in him wanted her to have that closeness.
"Cool name. Wanna play?"
"Sure."
Such is the simplicity of relationships as a child, but does it not always follow that the smallest acorn, easy to plant at first, will one day grow into the largest oak tree with roots that go deep and branches that reach far up into the sky?
SSS
"Syaoran! Stop it!"
"It's only a spider and look it's not even a big one. It's far more afraid of you than you are of it." he teased his best friend.
"Shut up! Shut up!" she clamped her hands over her ears in an attempt to drown out his teasings as she ran about twenty metres in the opposite direction again. As before he followed, spider still in hand, determined not to let her get away.
"Spider's gonna eat you Sakura!" he took this opportunity to jump the remaining distance closer to her. It wasn't until he was virtually on top of her that he noticed just how distressed she was. She'd gone dreadfully pale, she trembled as she kept her eyes tight shut, tears trickling silently down her ashen face. Seeing this brought a great wash of remorse sweeping over him. He moved a few metres to the side and unceremoniously deposited the spider in a bush before returning to his best friend of two years.
"Oh God, Sakura… I'm sorry I didn't know, I was just playing, but…but…" he looked like he was about to cry now and so did the only thing he could think of to atone for his foolishness with the arachnid. He tightly wrapped his arms around the quivering Sakura in an attempt to sooth her of her fears. She continued to cry into his chest and he decided to try and apologise again. "I'm so sorry, I mean I knew you were frightened of them but I just thought… I'm sorry." He repeated again feebly.
"It's okay," she said, slightly recovered now. "you weren't to know. I've always been scared of them, I can't really explain it, I think it might be the way they move."
"Still," Syaoran said still filled with guilt "I should have stopped when you told me to."
"I suppose you must think I'm a dreadful cry-baby-girly-girl now." she mumbled, moving away towards the swings of the play park they were in, subtly wiping the tears away with her sleeve.
Syaoran couldn't help but chuckle, "A what?" he asked incredulously "of course I don't think that. You're my best friend. How long have I known you?"
"Be coming up to two years now." Sakura answered, still sounding slightly nasal.
"Yeah and now I know you're frightened of spiders, same way you know that I…" he trailed off as if it was going to cause him physical pain to say it "that I, well…"
"Don't like aeroplanes?" she supplied helpfully with a wry smile on her face.
"Well if you must put it like that then yes. But I don't think you realise just how many aeroplane related deaths there are each year." He broke off looking slightly impatient as she started to laugh. "You don't have to laugh you know." He was clearly getting pissed now.
"But it was funny, you mum offers to take us up to visit Sapporo and I don't think you let go of my hand the entire flight." To Syaoran's chagrin, she continued to laugh but he couldn't resist not joining in for long and had soon joined into her infectious laughter. He was just pleased that she wasn't crying anymore. Even at the tender age of eight, he knew he cared greatly for the small red head and he simply hated seeing her cry, especially when he was the cause of it, as before.
When the laughter had finally dwindled and they stood in relative silence Syaoran asked "So, wanna come round mine?"
"Yeah, alright." She moved over to link arms with him and that's how they walked to Syaoran's house in the waning sunlight.
SSS
When they were twelve years old, on a summer day, August to be precise, the pair were sitting up in the tree house they had built the previous year with the help of Sakura's brother, Toya. The magnificent structure was securely settled in the bows of the sakura tree which grew in the Kinomoto's garden, rather like a large bird's nest and stood about twenty feet proud of the ground. It was reachable only by scaling the oversized metal staples that had been sunk into the trunk of the tree. Actually reaching the top and entering the house was a skill that only Syaoran and Sakura had ever truly mastered, for which they felt very smug when they were held up in their own personal fort.
On this day in August however, they had not felt so very smug. Both young preteens feeling quite miffed by the audacity of the sun to shine quite so bright, had decided that the only fair way to decide who would go back down the tree for snacks was by playing rock, paper, scissors. As Sakura had used paper against Syaoran's rock, it was a grumbling boy who descended the tree down the regular route. He returned a few moments later with two packets of crisps and two apples in hand. After one or two failed attempts to climbs the tree while still carrying his load, Sakura had shouted at him to get a move on and just chuck the bloody things up, which he had done. The first three items had gone up well enough, with Sakura leaning out the gap in the tree house wall to grab what Syaoran threw, but when it came to the last apple Sakura leaned out too far to catch and tumbled.
"Sakura!"
Sakura shrieked just before she landed hard on her side. Syaoran heard a sickening crack when she impacted with the ground and before he had a chance to think was running over to the fallen girl.
"Sakura! Sakura are you alright? Where does it hurt?" he was panicking, "Oh God, Sakura… I don't want you to panic but you've banged you're head, there's blood… Sakura stay with me… onegai…"
Sakura's vision was blurry but she could hear Syaoran.
"Sakura I have to go get help, I promise I'll be back in a second, just try to stay awake and don't move."
"No… no don't go… please don't leave me… I don't want to be alone…" she whimpered pitifully. What could Syaoran do to resist a request like that? She needed help, he knew that and yet she pleaded for him to stay. The angel and devil on his shoulder battled it out brutally but in the end he decided he could not possibly leave her when she asked him to stay. He pulled her as close to his body as possible given her injuries. He suspected the crack he had heard before had been her fragile right wrist breaking and with that combined with her head wound it wasn't long before she could no longer fight the darkness that beckoned her and she fell into unconsciousness.
Her disappearance into oblivion was what had weakened his resolve, and though it pained him to do it, while he could without her knowledge he dashed into the house in order to phone an ambulance. Almost immediately he was back in the garden beside her again, and he didn't leave her side till they got to the hospital and he was allowed to stay with her no longer.
SS
Syaoran looked at the clock. It had gotten late very quickly it seemed to him, although, now he came to think of it must have been around dusk when the ambulance arrived. Toya and Kinomoto-san were in with Sakura now. He had been right; head would and broken wrist. They wanted to 'keep her in for observations' overnight and it had taken the power of the doctor, Fujitaka and Toya to convince him that he shouldn't stay with her all night. Some internal part of him chuckled at the thought of how pleased Sakura would be not to have to finish her summer homework due to a broken writing hand.
Syaoran blamed himself though. It was his stupid fault that she had fallen, same way it was his fault that she'd gotten upset all those years ago. Baka! Can't you love her without hurting her? Hang on a minute… love? Oh no, oh no no no. there was no way on God's green earth. Was there? But I feel no more for her than I always have, does that mean I've always loved her? Maybe this is brotherly feeling.
Yeah, you keep telling yourself that.
Shut up!
"Syaoran," Fujitaka had emerged from the opposite door "Toya and I will be heading off in a minute but we'll wait outside for you to go in and then we could give you a lift." Toya followed after his father, his eyes cast down to the floor. Syaoran would place money on the fact that he had had a go at Sakura about himself and being stupid and by the looks of him; Sakura had put him in his place. Fujitaka must not have had a problem with this judging by the smile that was firmly on his face, the evening's previous worry lines smoothed away.
"Yeah, yeah that would be great." As Syaoran moved to go through the hospital door he was struck be sudden panic. Or maybe not panic as such, more nervous, he could feel the butterflies in his stomach. Not now you don't. Syaoran took the initiative and decided to stomp on said butterflies until he had a larger amount of time to reflect on them. Now is for Sakura.
"Hey you," he was faced with a red haired, smiling girl who was stat cross legged on the hospital bed dressed in plain pale blue hospital pyjamas. Still looks beautiful. Shut up, I told you, not now. "my onii-chan hasn't been giving you grief has he?" a worried expression crossing her features. He could see a small line of delicate stitches appearing from just below her hairline and the wrist of her right hand was in a stiff bright pink caste.
"No such worries, you choose the colour?" he said gesturing to her brand new caste with his head.
Sakura looked at him, non-plussed for a moment before it clicked. "Oh yeah," she giggled, "you know I can't help myself when there's anything pink on offer."
"That's true enough." He replied, joining in her laughter. After they had finished an awkward silence followed however, neither knowing quite what to say in this unnatural situation. "I'm so sorry Sakura, I never meant for you to get hurt, it was all my fault, I…"
"Stop Syaoran, just stop. It was an accident, alright? Let's not say anything more of it."
"But…" Syaoran tried to interject rather feebly.
"Please Syaoran? I don't blame you, you shouldn't blame yourself. Besides, I'm fine now aren't I?" she smiled coyly, trying to wheedle a submission out of him. If it had been anyone other than her, she still wouldn't have success after a thousand years; Syaoran didn't really have any friends besides herself and never had the inclination to make any. Most regarded him as sullen and unfriendly and could never understand the bright bubbly young girl's desire to be friends with him. Especially given the fact that the majority of their classmates were uninfluenced to hang out with her given the presence of him always seemed to be looking over her shoulder.
Gods, he was powerless to her will when she looked at him like that "Fine," he conceded "we'll say no more on the subject, but do me one favour?"
"Anything."
He held out the little finger of his left hand, taking into consideration that this wouldn't work right handed given the current incapacity of her own hand, and said to her "Kinomoto Sakura, I promise that I will never hurt you, in any way, again and will kill anyone who ever does." The look on his face as he said this was so serious that it would have made any other preteen girl laugh, but not this one.
"Well then," she said wrapping her little finger around his offered one "things are going to be just great."
He smiled. She smiled. And then they both burst into fits of uncontrollable laughter.
SSS
"Do you know when you'll be coming back?" a devastated Sakura inquired of the teenage boy in a trembling voice.
"Okaa-san wasn't sure, she just said that there was very important business in Hong Kong that we had to go back for." Syaoran's voice seemed hollow. It was killing him inside seeing her so shocked and upset but after pleading for weeks with his mother, she hadn't backed down and now he'd be leaving for Hong Kong in a week. It's not fair! Mother never had any problem leaving me alone for long periods of time in Tomoeda, why does she care all of a sudden that I come with her? Syaoran did know that it might me something to do with his pretentious family but he didn't particularly feel like trying to explain that to Sakura as it would only raise the question 'Why didn't he tell her before?' which would make her more upset.
"Are you going indefinitely?" the small girl squeaked out.
"No… maybe… I really don't know Sakura. I don't think so, even if she wants me to, she can't keep me there forever. I'll be back at the latest by the time you graduate, I'll be eighteen then, she won't be able to make me do anything. Then it'll be just you and me, best friends" something else "I promise that I will be back for you, and we can go to Europe like you always wanted." He really didn't know if any of this would be possible but he was saying to keep himself strong just as much as Sakura.
The thirteen year old boy was now sure what he felt for his oldest friend was love. He had been thinking of asking her out before his mother had intruded with her plans and now Syaoran didn't want to tell her, afraid it would only hurt her more once they were separated. Actually, that was more wishful thinking on his behalf as he had absolutely no assurance that Sakura felt the same way about him but he had to dream otherwise he would go mad.
"H-honto?"
"I promise, when I come back everything can be the same again."
SS
"I'm going to miss you." A sobbing Sakura spoke into his shoulder. "Promise that you'll phone and write and text and email and… talk on instant messenger and…"
"All those things Sakura, every day." He was on the verge of tears himself as he held her tight in his arms but was determined not to show weakness in front of his mother. She did not approve of the Li men showing their emotions.
"Li, they're calling at the gate, we have to be off." His okaa-san interjected.
"Hai okaa-san. Bye Sakura-chan, till we see each other again." He said as he gave her one last squeeze.
"Bye Syaoran-kun."
He knew if he looked back he would cry, so he carried on with his mother toward the boarding gate. I'll be back Sakura. I love you.
SSS
To be continued…