Since this is my first post, I feel like I should be entitled to a hello, right? *is a noob* So hello. I've always wanted to try writing a fanfic, and in reading Autumdragon's fanfic on here, the concept was interesting, so I wanted to write my version of it. If you're Autumdragon and this isn't okay please let me know and I'll remove it immediately =x

Anyways, I think I'm supposed to put some disclaimers here like: This is purely fiction, I don't own CCS or any of the characters, heck, I don't even own the concept of this story... To add to these disclaimers I guess I should mention this first chapter is mostly boring scene-setting stuff, and I promise I'll try to make it better from here. So if you read this please R&R so I can try harder to suck less in the next chapter ^^"

Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.

Sakura stared absentmindedly at the clock above the blackboard, trying to urge the small, thin second-hand to move faster by glaring at it with her emerald green eyes. It had probably been less than 15 minutes since class had started, but already she was bored and looking forward to the end of class—even though she knew she had absolutely nothing to look forward to now that her much-awaited after school plans had been cancelled on her by the very person who had invited her out.

She cast an annoyed stare in the direction of the girl sitting beside her who appeared to be diligently paying attention and was completely oblivious to her stare. As the girl brushed a strand of her long, raven-coloured hair away from her delicate face, Sakura caught a glimpse of a cell phone, tightly clasped in the girl's other hand. At that moment, the cell phone buzzed and the girl took a moment to discreetly sneak a peek at the screen before returning her eyes to the front, her violet eyes gleaming with happiness. Sakura rolled her eyes. There was only one person whose message would keep the honours-student Tomoyo from paying full attention to her class material, and he was probably the same person who was responsible for her cancelled after school plans.

It had been months since Tomoyo had started dating her boyfriend, Eriol, and the two of them STILL hadn't gotten over the initial lovey-dovey "I'm-only-alive-for-the-purpose-of-being-with-you" phase. Don't get things wrong. Sakura was happy at the fact that her best friend—heck—her only friend had finally found the person she felt she was—and I quote—"destined to be with", but she was getting really tired of playing second fiddle to a guy who seemed to want to do nothing but lock lips with her friend at every given opportunity. Not to mention the fact that Eriol was one among the most popular guys in school and, given the messed up rigidity of the social hierarchy system at their school, meant that he was always sweeping Tomoyo away to join their circle of friends between every class.

At first Tomoyo had occasionally thought to hesitantly invite Sakura to join her with Eriol and the others, but that would have meant sitting with that group and listening to nothing but their pointless high school gossip and badmouthing of other people while Tomoyo and Eriol were lost in a world of their own. Not to mention the aftermath of questions and glares that she'd have to deal with from other girls who wanted to know how a nobody like her could ever have managed to join the ranks of the popular, even just to sit at the same table as them. Sakura rolled her eyes again. Why should it even matter who hung out with the popular kids? If anyone else wanted to join them that badly, they should walk up to them and ask to sit with them themselves, shouldn't they? What was so good about dealing with such flashy and shallow people anyways? Always ranting about the colors they would paint their nails with and what clothes they would wear to attract the attention of some "hottie" who was their fancy of the month. Useless.

To Sakura, sitting at her desk in her plain-Jane t-shirt and jeans as she did every day was more than sufficient and didn't involve hours of discussion and deliberation to pick out. Yeah, she was plain and boring. Yeah, that was probably the reason no one paid her any mind. But whatever, she could live with it. Sure, it sucked when it came to group work or pair activities because she was always the odd one out who had to wait for everyone to be paired up before being paired with the leftover person. But that was fine. It was actually good. Better than when she was the odd one out and had to join another pair—meaning she would join her only friend Tomoyo's pair and shoot dirty looks at the guy who had taken the place she should have occupied.

A sudden rap at the front of her desk made Sakura start and turn to find herself face to face with her history teacher—what was his name?—who did not seem all too pleased with his student's daydreaming. "I don't know what you find so fascinating about Ms. Daidouji's face at the moment Ms. Kinomoto, but I would appreciate it if you spent half as much time staring at the textbook where we are supposed to be reading from." He said in a harsh tone. A couple of people sniggered, and Tomoyo's gaze was finally averted from her cell phone to glancing questioningly at Sakura.

Sakura's cheeks coloured as she looked away and back to her textbook sheepishly. "Yes sir." She muttered, not daring to look back at her teacher, nor at Tomoyo. God. Why did teachers have to point out every detail of what she was doing so that the rest of the class could hear?

Sakura kept her eyes trained on the book for the remainder of the period without ever flipping away from the page that she had originally opened the book to at the start of the lesson. History was a pointless lesson. Who cares who killed whom 200 years ago and how that led someone to start a rebellion? Not like those dead guys would come back and go at it all over again. It was pointless. All pointless.

"…kura… Sakura?" Sakura finally lifted her eyes from her book as she realized someone was calling her name. She turned to find Tomoyo standing beside her, noticing that half the class had already left when they had been dismissed. "Are you okay Sakura?" Her friend asked with a small frown.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Just not all here at the moment it seems." Sakura replied bluntly with a shrug. "Are you sure you still have time to be chatting with me? Isn't Eriol waiting?"

"He said he'd meet me outside the school in 10 minutes…" Tomoyo hesitated. "Listen Sakura, I'm really sorry I had to cancel our plans again. I forgot to mention we had plans to Eriol before he went and bought the movie tickets for today."

It kind of stung to hear that her best and only friend had forgotten to mention that she had plans with me when she was making plans with her boyfriend. Sakura knew was definitely a big priority in Tomoyo's life. Not. She fought hard to repress a sigh and forced myself to smile. "It's okay Tomoyo, we didn't have any big plans anyways. Go have a good time with Eriol. I kind of have some stuff to do today anyways." That was a lie. Sakura was as free as free could be, but telling her friend that would make her feel even more guilty. Not that that would have necessarily been a bad thing. Sure, Sakura would have been annoyed but not upset if this was the first time Tomoyo had unexpectedly cancelled on plans with me to prioritize her boyfriend, but this wasn't the first time. This was the third.

"Thanks Sakura, you're the best!" Tomoyo flashed a quick smile. "Then I'll message you later and take you out some other time to make up for it. 'later!" And having cleared her conscience, Tomoyo hurried out of the classroom to where Eriol would undoubtedly already be waiting.

Sakura finally let out the sigh She had been holding in and started to pack up her things. She had always scoffed at stories about how some girls could really get so obsessed with their boyfriends and relationships that they would do anything to spend time with them and spend every waking moment of their lives while they were apart thinking of them. While she know that sensible Tomoyo would never really stoop that low (hopefully), the fact that even she would become so deeply involved with him—even to an uncharacteristically Tomoyo-ish level—really made Sakura wonder if those exaggerated stories were really as exaggerated as she had first thought. Sakura shuddered, hoping that she would never be a love-obsessed person who could only derive happiness from being in the presence of another. After all, who needs love? Sakura knew she stronger than that, and she told herself so for the umpteenth time.

Since it's a nice day out and she had nothing better to do, Sakura decided to take the long route home. Walking briskly past groups of girls and guys from her high school without stopping to greet anyone, she rounded the corner towards a less crowded path. Only when the number of students thinned did Sakura allow herself to slow down her pace. The late-April breeze as it brushes through her honey-coloured hair, and she relished the feel of the afternoon sun on her skin. At 16 years, her hairstyle was still the same as it was when she was five—short and partially tied up on each side. Not because I'm uncreative and lazy to change her hairstyle, certainly not. Sakura was just going for… um… consistency. Yeah, definitely consistency, she told herself. Agh, why did it even matter, the point is that she was enjoying her walk home, okay?

So anyways, she was enjoying her walk home, when she noticed some cute-looking desserts being advertised at a shop along her way. After the cherry blossoms had finished blooming, the next seasonal ingredient was out: strawberries. Yum. Seeing no reason to return early to an empty house, particularly since she was supposed to have had plans with Tomoyo, Sakura decided to treat herself to a strawberry cake, hoping to raise her mood.

The shop was a posh little café that she had been to with Tomoyo once or twice before. After ordering her dessert, Sakura's gaze slid absentmindedly out the shop window, observing bypassers in boredom. When her dessert arrived at last, she took a moment to admire how well decorated it was, before lifting her fork to dig in.

"—but why? WHY are you dating her Syaoran?!" A whiny voice from the girl sitting behind her practically screamed. Sakura was vaguely aware of two people who had been sitting in the booth behind her, mostly because the girl's voice had been increasing in volume since a while back.

"Meiling, you know I have my reasons… and she's not a bad person, really. I'll introduce you to her one day." The guy replied. Sakura raised an eyebrow before returning to her dessert. 'Must be a conversation with an ex or something, oh well,' she thought to herself.

"Just because she's 'not a bad person', that doesn't mean you should date her! Do you even love her? What are you thinking?!" The girl questioned, frustration clearly lacing each word. The girl's question was followed by a moment of silence, to which Sakura chanced a casual glance. All she could see of the girl was that she had long and straight jet-black hair tied in two ponytails since her back was to Sakura, but she saw a guy roughly her age with dark chestnut-brown hair and bright amber eyes. Sakura frowned slightly to herself as she scanned his face, wondering why it seemed vaguely familiar. 'Probably some kid from her school', she dismissed.

His expression was cool, betraying no emotion as he replied, "of course I do" in his consistent, calm and collected tone. 'Way to be frank to an ex.' Sakura thought, swallowing another bite of her cake, figuring that she should probably tune out about now.

"No…" The girl whispered in a tone that was barely audible to Sakura. "I know it's a lie. I know you don't love her. You don't love her, especially as much as I love you. Dating her is all just an excuse to distance yourself from me, isn't it?" The girl's voice wavered but grew in desperation. 'Confident much?' Sakura wondered, surprised by the girl's strong insistence that it was all about her.

"I know that you might find it hard to deal with my feelings for you because I'm your cousin, and I know that our temporary engagement was something we carelessly decided on as kids, but I want you to know that my love for you doesn't have anything to do with family names or relations, and I won't back down if this half-hearted explanation is all you can give me." The girl continued, sounding frustrated, determined, and on the verge of tears all at once.

That's some strong fee—wait what? Did she just say his cousin? Sakura stopped trying to avoid eavesdropping, at full attention now.

"Meiling. You know it's not because of you that I'm dating her. Try… try to think about it more carefully, you don't feel that sort of love for me the way you think you do."

Ouch. Harsh much? Sakura thought, wondering how the girl would take that rejection.

"DON'T TELL ME WHAT I FEEL OR DON'T FEEL AS IF YOU UNDERSTAND ME LI SYAORAN!" The girl screamed loudly, causing other customers to turn and one passing waitress to stop and stare a little nervously. Aware that she was causing a scene, the girl stood up and ran out the door. Sakura caught a glimpse of her pretty but tear-streaked face as she ran by. The boy watched sadly as she left, but made no effort to chase after her. He continued sipping his coffee, even after Sakura paid her bill and left.