foreword:
*this is cardcaptor sakura in an alternate universe, though it closely follows the manga version more than anything... here there is no meiling, no kaho, no li leaving for hongkong. (mercy, please.) why? well, because. alternate universe, ringring. once again, this is cardcaptor sakura in an alternate world, a few years after the series ends. sakura-chan and friends are in high school, and just a few weeks from the prom.
+if characters appear OOC, don't worry, they ARE OCC. i just hope i did them all justice.
obligatory blah: cardcaptor sakura, its many characters and various "hoe"s belong to the goddesses, clamp. original characters that bear eerie resemblance to any human, animal or plant, living, dead or both are purely coincidental. the terminology, "obligatory blah" is (from what i know) kiya asamiya's. this piece of fiction is mine and is based on a true story, the details of which i shall keep mum. mummmm... this high school student is broke, so no suing, please.
send flowers, flames and anthrax to june@rt.nl
(and r&r, tell me if i should quit writing.)
on with the show!
_______________________________
[the dance] by tamasaburou
act one .nice job.
It was lunchtime at Seijou. The classrooms were hollow shells for that one- hour with ghosts of its former cheer ringing about, in and out of the rooms. For this one-hour Seijou's many inhabitants were elsewhere on the sports fields, at the rooftops, under trees and at the assorted wooden benches that scattered around the campus. This story, however, begins where Seijou High connects with Tomoeda Elementary at the metal fence that separated them both.
"Your late."
"I know... I... know," Sakura Kinomoto's words came out as long gasps. "I can explain, Tomoyo!"
Tomoyo Daidouji put a playful finger on the tip of her bestfriend's nose, "No, never mind. It's alright, just don't make me wait like that again, okay?" she mused, "Here, take a breather." she added with a smile, readily handing Sakura a pre-packed bottle of water.
"Thanks."
Sakura drank and Tomoyo waited for her to catch back her breath, absently twirling a long wisp of her own ebony tresses. Her rich blue eyes drifted toward Tomoeda, Its been a while, she thought. Being there, there near that great divide, reminded her of the recess bells and magic spells of a life she left too long ago. She looked back with much fondness, almost smiling.
"Oh, that feels better." Sakura had a hand on her chest, wearing a look of sheer hanyaaness.
Tomoyo blinked free from her brief reverie, "Does it?"
"Much!" she smiled.
Today they were meeting an old friend, Mr. Yoshiyuki Terada, their former fifth grade homeroom and Rika Sasaki's unexpected longtime lover.
Correction, fiancé.
You see, Rika revealed her little secret not too long ago at Seijou's traditional, unofficial 'breaking in' party, a rare occasion where in freshmen were given the chance to mix and socialize with seniors and miscellaneous undergrads over bite-sized sandwiches and illegally purchased alcoholic beverages. Rika, a freshman back then, gave herself away at a game of warped spin-the-bottle. And the rest can only be the fault of one too many glasses of spiked fruit punch.
So now, everyone knew. And everyone accepted without malice.
"Sakura-chan! Tomoyo-chan!" came a deep male voice from the Tomoeda side.
The genki Sakura called out, "Ohayou Terada-sensei!"
Yoshiyuki-sensei, a man in his late twenties, looked no older than when they last saw him when they graduated from Tomoeda. They had to admit, it was rather amazing how time seemed to have stopped only for him. After all these years he still wore the same funny spiked hair and the same boyish sensei-like smile and that same little something in his eyes. And Rika forgive them, it was hard not to stare! Yoshiyuki Terada was one HOT teacher...
"Its nice to see you again, mister Terada." Tomoyo bowed, her voice ringing with her usual honorific tones.
"I'm sorry I took so long," he apologized, shyly. "I lost myself checking papers at the library."
"Oh no, its okay." the same honorific tone protested.
"Hai, we just got here ourselves." Sakura agreed, genkily.
"A-HEM." Tomoyo shot Sakura a look that was short of nasty. Sakura cringed. Terada-sensei smiled.
"A-ano, what about those tickets Sensei?" Sakura asked in an amateurish business tone.
"I'll take two, by the way." Terada-sensei announced, reaching for the billfold in his back pocket and took out a few cash notes. "And lets keep this between the three of us, all right?" he took his index finger into a little shhh smile.
Sakura counted the bills and handed him in turn a crisp pair which she had kept in a neat bundle in her coat jacket. "I don't understand you, Terada- sensei. Why so?"
"True, wouldn't it have been easier if Rika purchased them herself?" Tomoyo had watched the exchange half-puzzled by the discretion the meeting took place in, half-knowing the reason why. It was still just so Tomoyo to ask.
"I'm sure Rika wants to go, you know."
"No doubt about that."
Terada took the tickets, held them at eyelevel for a while, then took them aside. "It's a secret," he smiled, and left.
"Now, I didn't understand any of that." Sakura whispered to herself in class, panning her eyes over the green blackboard. Her emerald eyes closed partway as she drifted off into the zone between wakefulness and sleep.
This was Seijou class 3-5, geometry period. On the board, neatly written in white chalk was a note assigning the class problems 15-35 on page 486 of their textbooks while the teacher was away. Not that Sakura cared. She was tired and all she wanted now was the peaceful quiet of the wind through the open windows through the droning of her fellow students.
Then a familiar voice broke the silence, taking Sakura's mind back to the classroom where it should have been. "Oi."
"Hey," Sakura mumbled sleepily, straightening up to make eye contact with the speaker.
It was Shaoran Li, once a boy now a man, Sakura's high school classmate for two whole years and counting. He had grown so much from his days at Tomoeda, now a few ample inches taller than she was, with his chestnut hair and his amber eyes darker, far more refined. And now Sakura was finding it difficult to getting used to all that change, having to look up when he spoke, fighting the girlish urge to tuck her hair behind her ear and that ridiculous secret smile that rose whenever he was near... which wasn't all that strange, since everyone else was doing it anyways. As a matter of fact, it was Shaoran's handsome features that made him the second most popular guy in school. He was now officially a high school pretty boy and a eye candy favorite of ladies, a few in-closet gents, upperclassmen and undergrads a like.
Tomoeda's introverted Chinese boy, so generously pissed with the world was different now, with a new clique (he rarely hung out with), a new image and new set of admirers, (make no mistake though, he still was, without a doubt, very generously pissed.) It was almost a wonder how he still had time for her, Sakura, an old childhood friend. A *girl* friend, but not *his* girlfriend. No, never that... Though some rumors begged otherwise. How and why he stuck with her was something she bothered not ask. She knew he had his reasons, just as she had hers, and that was that was that.
He dropped himself on an empty seat beside hers, pausing a bit before speaking a small grunt that was so very Li. He sorted his mind for a topic before realizing he had one at the tip of his tongue, carefully thought out and pre-prepared.
"Strawberry Pocky?" Li finally managed to say, pulling out an open pack from hammerspace, thrusting it to her face.
"Huh?" Her bright green eyes blinked as they grew to saucer-sized proportions, "Wh...? Sure," she smiled a groggy smile, taking a cracker stick of strawberry cream from the box. "Thank you, Li."
"Nandemo nai." Li took a stick of Pocky with his lips straight from the box the way a smoker would pull a cigarette from a carton.
Smooth, she thought.
"So, how are sales?" he asked, automatically running a hand through his hair to keep them from drumming at his desk.
"Ticket sales?" she lit up, feeling her sleepy disposition fade away. "Pretty good," Sakura admitted, rather pleased. "The prom's been popular nowadays, with it just two weeks ahead. Tickets are selling real fast, and soon we'll have sold them all! We're gonna reach our quota, I'm sure of it!" she finished with a spirited hand-sign 'V.' ('victory!' ... or to those in my part of the world 'verizon wireless' ^__^0)
"Uh... really?" was practically all he could mouth after her sudden burst of genki... ness.
She nodded a smile.
Li smiled back, a reaction foreign to him in his younger years, with an almost wistful air about it. "That I can believe." His tone turned mischievous, "What remains a mystery to me is what convinced a slacker jock like you to volunteer for the prom committee."
"Oi!" Sakura slammed a hand hard on her desk, "That was ice! I am not a jock!" she blushed suddenly, realizing what that meant. It was true, Sakura never had much inclination to academics and her athletic status didn't help fighting Li's jock statement. She fell back to her chair feeling very much upset.
Li found this strangely amusing, "I was joking."
"I don't like being called a jock." She huffed, arms crossed over her chest.
"I know."
Sakura gave him her open hand, "You owe me another Pocky for the all the possible emotional damage you could have caused if you didn't take that back!"
"What emotional damage? Its not like I meant it." he answered rather defensively.
"All jokes are half meant."
"What, you admit you're a jock?"
"Don't you start that again!"
They went on arguing for some time until Li finally agreed to give up all of his strawberry Pocky to the former mistress of the cards who temporarily forgot about the whole jock deal crunching away till next period's bell rang. The clouds of the upper outside raced across the blue and the green ginko leaves swayed. For a while amber eyes watched in silence, listening to the silent murmur of gossiping students and a few questions related to the answer to the page 486's number 20 and the sound of the english teacher entering the room and the periodic munching nearby.
A month and a day ago, when the prom hype had first taken wind, Sakura Kinomoto had been inwardly disturbed. She spent mornings and afternoons a notch quieter than she would have on any regular day, refusing group lunches and after-school ice cream with the girls. It was that bad. Though there was nothing wrong with being with Naoko, Rika, Chiharu and Tomoyo-- nothing wrong with Tomoyo especially, being her best friend whom she couldn't imagine being without. It was just... Things have been different lately. Nowadays hanging out meant having something nice to eat and basically talking about school and boys and things that would eventually come up. And well, apparently, there were things that Sakura didn't want to talk about, things that made her feel different, things that would eventually come up.
And so, one day when Sakura passed up going to a horror movie Chiharu, Naoko and Rika were determined to see, Tomoyo stole the chance and made her cousin an offer she couldn't refuse.
"Mind if I walk with you?" Tomoyo took her by the hand.
Sakura blinked, "Of course not," there was an obvious lack of something in her 'happy' voice.
They walked past familiar streets in awkward silence, Tomoyo not bothering to let go of the other's hand and Sakura being unnaturally antisocial until they came to Penguin Park where Tomoyo stopped and popped the question.
"It's the prom, isn't it?"
Sakura was caught by surprise, "Huh?"
"The prom," she repeated, "That's what's bothering you."
"Of course not, Tomoyo! What ever gave you that impression?" she looked away, trying her very best to casually brush the issue aside.
Tomoyo frowned.
Sakura cleared her throat.
Tomoyo frowned. Hard.
"Oh... damn it, yes." Sakura sighed heavily, almost spitting her reply, visibly disgusted with herself.
A comforting hand fell on her shoulder, "Sit down, lets talk about it." the dark-haired girl suggested as she gestured to the swings as an ice cream vendor conveiniently passed by.
Half a chocolate ice cream cone later, Sakura finished explaining through gritted teeth, "... and that's how it is."
"Pardon me for saying this, but I don't understand what the problem is." Tomoyo lied, eating the last of her frozen fruit pop, "Your locker spills over with loveletters from admirers everyday, surely finding an escort to a single dance isn't a problem." She looked at the changing expression on her friend's face and added, "Unless, of course, you don't want to go."
"But that's not it, I--" Sakura stoppped herself from speaking. That wasn't it at all. "Tomoyo, I WANT to go. But I don't want to be forced into going with just anyone. I mean, everybody has somebody special these days. Chiharu has Yamazaki, Rika has Sensei and now Naoko has that boy from the paranormal extraterrestrial enthusiast club. Its just so awkward, you know what I mean?"
Tomoyo nodded thoughtfully.
A sigh escaped Sakura's lips, "I want to go and have fun, without thinking about formal social ettiquette and the proper way to cut my dinner steak while dating some horny fanboy. And I can't go alone either... even if I wanted to, I'm sure to get picked on by that British frog," she ended with a scowl.
The aforementioned 'frog' was Estella Saxon-Lowe, a beautiful blonde European girl their age who had recently transferred from abroad as the result of an international exchange program. She was a girl Sakura had a passion to hate. This blonde girl had disliked Sakura just as much, concidering her a rival populartiy-wise, which wasn't at all the brown- haired girl's fault. This Japanese WAS noticably attractive and a star athlete to boot. All Seijou's sports clubs looked to her when they needed help and her 'one-of-the-boys' charm did compete fairly well against miss Estella's regal status when it came to male attention.
So Sakura was taunted, teased and heck-- a victim of female bullying, which was so very uncharacteristically Sakura! But as much as she ACHED to mercilessly pound Estella into a bloody pulp, drag her lifeless body through dog manure and burn on a stake with the aid of the Fire card, or at the very VERY least verbally assult, she couldn't. Apparently, with Estella operating under the foreign exchange banner the school was naturally obliged to protect her from angry schoolgirls with the intent to kill, even if they were victims of Estella's injustices. It soon became painfully clear that even if Estella was plain as day wrong, the authorities would let it pass, keeping priority on getting on the good side of her British Academy. Unfortunately, this European girl was fully aware of this. And so, Sakura continued being taunted, teased and heck-- an unhappy victim of female bullying, without being able to slap the wench once.
Tomoyo thought of this in silence. "Eurobitch." she muttered.
"Huh?" Sakura raised a brow, "Did you say something?"
"Sakura?" she decided to briefly change subjects, "I was asked by the student council board to help with the prop preparations," Tomoyo took out a sheet of paper roughly the size of a standard computer print, "They said I could do a lot of good with the over all design and house planning."
"Ne, Tomoyo, that's great!" Sakura took hold of the paper.
Her dark purple eyes were smiling, "I think so to. Hiiragizawa-kun's also part of the team, he's in charge of logistics and technical planning."
And for the first time that evening, Sakura was trully smiling, "Working with Hiiragizawa? Ooo, To-mo-yo~!"
Tomoyo flushed, ignoring the remark, "Anyway, he passed by my classroom this morning--"
"You're so red now Tomoyo!"
"Stop it! Let me finish!" she regained her composture with a 'hmp,' "He passed by my class this morning to tell me about how much I would have to dedicate for this. He says that we might all even find ourselves too busy to concider keeping dates, which is why the whole prom committee has decided to attend the prom without."
Sakura was busy reading the committee flyer, "It says here that you still need recruits for sales."
"So?" Tomoyo looked hopeful.
"Ohh."
"Won't you?"
The silence between them was brief, with only time for an encouraging smile from Tomoyo and a squeeze of a hand.
A tiny smirk crept across her lips, "It sounds like a nice job."
A month later, at lunch of that Friday, Sakura was making her usual rounds alone selling prom passes from hall to hall. "There's a free CD souvenir per head," she mused, making another sale. Along that same route she was asked ba a generous number of boys to be their dates, including a few young school teachers (all of which were gigantic shocks to her.) She respectfully turned them down one by one, eplaining her full time volunteer status. All in all, she was greatful Tomoyo arranged everything.
"Ticket lady, over here!" a shrill accented tone called from a clique of noisy girls.
"Sure thing," Sakura spun around to meet her next customer. "You!" she hisses almost immediately.
It was Estella and her social climbing minions.
Estella Saxon-Lowe raised a perfectly plucked eyebrow, "Well, I'm not exactly charmed to see you too, Kinomoto dear." She breathed a generous amount of sarcasm to the word 'dear.'
The ticket vendor fought an increadible urge to scalp the blonde.
"You buying or not?" she asked curtly.
"Honestly, darling," Estella lowered her lids over her clear blue eyes, "We have plenty of time to do business..." a cold, sadisticly pleased glare met Sakura's equally chilly stare. "So tell me, public servant, is this so- called saleslady act supposed to win the general public?" she pursed her glossed lips, "Though your motivation sickens me, I must say, I find it particularly amusing watching you play the slave."
Sakura's knuckles were a bloodless white. "No need for pretense, Kinomoto. I know exactly why you're here," she continued, completely missing all the 'r's in her sentences, "Its because you're such a loser. I'm willing to bet everything that you joined that peasant prom com because you can't get the man you want. And I'll tell you why, its because you're such an ugly tramp." She burst into tiny high- pitched giggles with the rest of her cronies following robotically.
Stupid bitch. Stupid Eurobitch. Sakura repeated in her head as images of bloody murder flashed before her eyes.
"Are you buying or not?" Sakura repeated in a clipped tone.
"Shut up!" she sputtered between laughs, "I wouldn't dream of purchasing anything from trash like you!"
Soon mocking laughter turned into horrified screams.
Sakura was breathing heavily, her clenched fist remained in suspended animation, restrained by the firm grip of Eriol Hiiragizawa.
"Enough, Kinomoto. Enough."
.:e n d o f a c t o n e:.
~waiiii! ^__^ thats all we have for todays episode. keep reading, onegai. more stuff in the next installments of 'the dance.' honestly, this chapter was supposed to be longer, but i got lazy... bad author! bad!
*this is cardcaptor sakura in an alternate universe, though it closely follows the manga version more than anything... here there is no meiling, no kaho, no li leaving for hongkong. (mercy, please.) why? well, because. alternate universe, ringring. once again, this is cardcaptor sakura in an alternate world, a few years after the series ends. sakura-chan and friends are in high school, and just a few weeks from the prom.
+if characters appear OOC, don't worry, they ARE OCC. i just hope i did them all justice.
obligatory blah: cardcaptor sakura, its many characters and various "hoe"s belong to the goddesses, clamp. original characters that bear eerie resemblance to any human, animal or plant, living, dead or both are purely coincidental. the terminology, "obligatory blah" is (from what i know) kiya asamiya's. this piece of fiction is mine and is based on a true story, the details of which i shall keep mum. mummmm... this high school student is broke, so no suing, please.
send flowers, flames and anthrax to june@rt.nl
(and r&r, tell me if i should quit writing.)
on with the show!
_______________________________
[the dance] by tamasaburou
act one .nice job.
It was lunchtime at Seijou. The classrooms were hollow shells for that one- hour with ghosts of its former cheer ringing about, in and out of the rooms. For this one-hour Seijou's many inhabitants were elsewhere on the sports fields, at the rooftops, under trees and at the assorted wooden benches that scattered around the campus. This story, however, begins where Seijou High connects with Tomoeda Elementary at the metal fence that separated them both.
"Your late."
"I know... I... know," Sakura Kinomoto's words came out as long gasps. "I can explain, Tomoyo!"
Tomoyo Daidouji put a playful finger on the tip of her bestfriend's nose, "No, never mind. It's alright, just don't make me wait like that again, okay?" she mused, "Here, take a breather." she added with a smile, readily handing Sakura a pre-packed bottle of water.
"Thanks."
Sakura drank and Tomoyo waited for her to catch back her breath, absently twirling a long wisp of her own ebony tresses. Her rich blue eyes drifted toward Tomoeda, Its been a while, she thought. Being there, there near that great divide, reminded her of the recess bells and magic spells of a life she left too long ago. She looked back with much fondness, almost smiling.
"Oh, that feels better." Sakura had a hand on her chest, wearing a look of sheer hanyaaness.
Tomoyo blinked free from her brief reverie, "Does it?"
"Much!" she smiled.
Today they were meeting an old friend, Mr. Yoshiyuki Terada, their former fifth grade homeroom and Rika Sasaki's unexpected longtime lover.
Correction, fiancé.
You see, Rika revealed her little secret not too long ago at Seijou's traditional, unofficial 'breaking in' party, a rare occasion where in freshmen were given the chance to mix and socialize with seniors and miscellaneous undergrads over bite-sized sandwiches and illegally purchased alcoholic beverages. Rika, a freshman back then, gave herself away at a game of warped spin-the-bottle. And the rest can only be the fault of one too many glasses of spiked fruit punch.
So now, everyone knew. And everyone accepted without malice.
"Sakura-chan! Tomoyo-chan!" came a deep male voice from the Tomoeda side.
The genki Sakura called out, "Ohayou Terada-sensei!"
Yoshiyuki-sensei, a man in his late twenties, looked no older than when they last saw him when they graduated from Tomoeda. They had to admit, it was rather amazing how time seemed to have stopped only for him. After all these years he still wore the same funny spiked hair and the same boyish sensei-like smile and that same little something in his eyes. And Rika forgive them, it was hard not to stare! Yoshiyuki Terada was one HOT teacher...
"Its nice to see you again, mister Terada." Tomoyo bowed, her voice ringing with her usual honorific tones.
"I'm sorry I took so long," he apologized, shyly. "I lost myself checking papers at the library."
"Oh no, its okay." the same honorific tone protested.
"Hai, we just got here ourselves." Sakura agreed, genkily.
"A-HEM." Tomoyo shot Sakura a look that was short of nasty. Sakura cringed. Terada-sensei smiled.
"A-ano, what about those tickets Sensei?" Sakura asked in an amateurish business tone.
"I'll take two, by the way." Terada-sensei announced, reaching for the billfold in his back pocket and took out a few cash notes. "And lets keep this between the three of us, all right?" he took his index finger into a little shhh smile.
Sakura counted the bills and handed him in turn a crisp pair which she had kept in a neat bundle in her coat jacket. "I don't understand you, Terada- sensei. Why so?"
"True, wouldn't it have been easier if Rika purchased them herself?" Tomoyo had watched the exchange half-puzzled by the discretion the meeting took place in, half-knowing the reason why. It was still just so Tomoyo to ask.
"I'm sure Rika wants to go, you know."
"No doubt about that."
Terada took the tickets, held them at eyelevel for a while, then took them aside. "It's a secret," he smiled, and left.
"Now, I didn't understand any of that." Sakura whispered to herself in class, panning her eyes over the green blackboard. Her emerald eyes closed partway as she drifted off into the zone between wakefulness and sleep.
This was Seijou class 3-5, geometry period. On the board, neatly written in white chalk was a note assigning the class problems 15-35 on page 486 of their textbooks while the teacher was away. Not that Sakura cared. She was tired and all she wanted now was the peaceful quiet of the wind through the open windows through the droning of her fellow students.
Then a familiar voice broke the silence, taking Sakura's mind back to the classroom where it should have been. "Oi."
"Hey," Sakura mumbled sleepily, straightening up to make eye contact with the speaker.
It was Shaoran Li, once a boy now a man, Sakura's high school classmate for two whole years and counting. He had grown so much from his days at Tomoeda, now a few ample inches taller than she was, with his chestnut hair and his amber eyes darker, far more refined. And now Sakura was finding it difficult to getting used to all that change, having to look up when he spoke, fighting the girlish urge to tuck her hair behind her ear and that ridiculous secret smile that rose whenever he was near... which wasn't all that strange, since everyone else was doing it anyways. As a matter of fact, it was Shaoran's handsome features that made him the second most popular guy in school. He was now officially a high school pretty boy and a eye candy favorite of ladies, a few in-closet gents, upperclassmen and undergrads a like.
Tomoeda's introverted Chinese boy, so generously pissed with the world was different now, with a new clique (he rarely hung out with), a new image and new set of admirers, (make no mistake though, he still was, without a doubt, very generously pissed.) It was almost a wonder how he still had time for her, Sakura, an old childhood friend. A *girl* friend, but not *his* girlfriend. No, never that... Though some rumors begged otherwise. How and why he stuck with her was something she bothered not ask. She knew he had his reasons, just as she had hers, and that was that was that.
He dropped himself on an empty seat beside hers, pausing a bit before speaking a small grunt that was so very Li. He sorted his mind for a topic before realizing he had one at the tip of his tongue, carefully thought out and pre-prepared.
"Strawberry Pocky?" Li finally managed to say, pulling out an open pack from hammerspace, thrusting it to her face.
"Huh?" Her bright green eyes blinked as they grew to saucer-sized proportions, "Wh...? Sure," she smiled a groggy smile, taking a cracker stick of strawberry cream from the box. "Thank you, Li."
"Nandemo nai." Li took a stick of Pocky with his lips straight from the box the way a smoker would pull a cigarette from a carton.
Smooth, she thought.
"So, how are sales?" he asked, automatically running a hand through his hair to keep them from drumming at his desk.
"Ticket sales?" she lit up, feeling her sleepy disposition fade away. "Pretty good," Sakura admitted, rather pleased. "The prom's been popular nowadays, with it just two weeks ahead. Tickets are selling real fast, and soon we'll have sold them all! We're gonna reach our quota, I'm sure of it!" she finished with a spirited hand-sign 'V.' ('victory!' ... or to those in my part of the world 'verizon wireless' ^__^0)
"Uh... really?" was practically all he could mouth after her sudden burst of genki... ness.
She nodded a smile.
Li smiled back, a reaction foreign to him in his younger years, with an almost wistful air about it. "That I can believe." His tone turned mischievous, "What remains a mystery to me is what convinced a slacker jock like you to volunteer for the prom committee."
"Oi!" Sakura slammed a hand hard on her desk, "That was ice! I am not a jock!" she blushed suddenly, realizing what that meant. It was true, Sakura never had much inclination to academics and her athletic status didn't help fighting Li's jock statement. She fell back to her chair feeling very much upset.
Li found this strangely amusing, "I was joking."
"I don't like being called a jock." She huffed, arms crossed over her chest.
"I know."
Sakura gave him her open hand, "You owe me another Pocky for the all the possible emotional damage you could have caused if you didn't take that back!"
"What emotional damage? Its not like I meant it." he answered rather defensively.
"All jokes are half meant."
"What, you admit you're a jock?"
"Don't you start that again!"
They went on arguing for some time until Li finally agreed to give up all of his strawberry Pocky to the former mistress of the cards who temporarily forgot about the whole jock deal crunching away till next period's bell rang. The clouds of the upper outside raced across the blue and the green ginko leaves swayed. For a while amber eyes watched in silence, listening to the silent murmur of gossiping students and a few questions related to the answer to the page 486's number 20 and the sound of the english teacher entering the room and the periodic munching nearby.
A month and a day ago, when the prom hype had first taken wind, Sakura Kinomoto had been inwardly disturbed. She spent mornings and afternoons a notch quieter than she would have on any regular day, refusing group lunches and after-school ice cream with the girls. It was that bad. Though there was nothing wrong with being with Naoko, Rika, Chiharu and Tomoyo-- nothing wrong with Tomoyo especially, being her best friend whom she couldn't imagine being without. It was just... Things have been different lately. Nowadays hanging out meant having something nice to eat and basically talking about school and boys and things that would eventually come up. And well, apparently, there were things that Sakura didn't want to talk about, things that made her feel different, things that would eventually come up.
And so, one day when Sakura passed up going to a horror movie Chiharu, Naoko and Rika were determined to see, Tomoyo stole the chance and made her cousin an offer she couldn't refuse.
"Mind if I walk with you?" Tomoyo took her by the hand.
Sakura blinked, "Of course not," there was an obvious lack of something in her 'happy' voice.
They walked past familiar streets in awkward silence, Tomoyo not bothering to let go of the other's hand and Sakura being unnaturally antisocial until they came to Penguin Park where Tomoyo stopped and popped the question.
"It's the prom, isn't it?"
Sakura was caught by surprise, "Huh?"
"The prom," she repeated, "That's what's bothering you."
"Of course not, Tomoyo! What ever gave you that impression?" she looked away, trying her very best to casually brush the issue aside.
Tomoyo frowned.
Sakura cleared her throat.
Tomoyo frowned. Hard.
"Oh... damn it, yes." Sakura sighed heavily, almost spitting her reply, visibly disgusted with herself.
A comforting hand fell on her shoulder, "Sit down, lets talk about it." the dark-haired girl suggested as she gestured to the swings as an ice cream vendor conveiniently passed by.
Half a chocolate ice cream cone later, Sakura finished explaining through gritted teeth, "... and that's how it is."
"Pardon me for saying this, but I don't understand what the problem is." Tomoyo lied, eating the last of her frozen fruit pop, "Your locker spills over with loveletters from admirers everyday, surely finding an escort to a single dance isn't a problem." She looked at the changing expression on her friend's face and added, "Unless, of course, you don't want to go."
"But that's not it, I--" Sakura stoppped herself from speaking. That wasn't it at all. "Tomoyo, I WANT to go. But I don't want to be forced into going with just anyone. I mean, everybody has somebody special these days. Chiharu has Yamazaki, Rika has Sensei and now Naoko has that boy from the paranormal extraterrestrial enthusiast club. Its just so awkward, you know what I mean?"
Tomoyo nodded thoughtfully.
A sigh escaped Sakura's lips, "I want to go and have fun, without thinking about formal social ettiquette and the proper way to cut my dinner steak while dating some horny fanboy. And I can't go alone either... even if I wanted to, I'm sure to get picked on by that British frog," she ended with a scowl.
The aforementioned 'frog' was Estella Saxon-Lowe, a beautiful blonde European girl their age who had recently transferred from abroad as the result of an international exchange program. She was a girl Sakura had a passion to hate. This blonde girl had disliked Sakura just as much, concidering her a rival populartiy-wise, which wasn't at all the brown- haired girl's fault. This Japanese WAS noticably attractive and a star athlete to boot. All Seijou's sports clubs looked to her when they needed help and her 'one-of-the-boys' charm did compete fairly well against miss Estella's regal status when it came to male attention.
So Sakura was taunted, teased and heck-- a victim of female bullying, which was so very uncharacteristically Sakura! But as much as she ACHED to mercilessly pound Estella into a bloody pulp, drag her lifeless body through dog manure and burn on a stake with the aid of the Fire card, or at the very VERY least verbally assult, she couldn't. Apparently, with Estella operating under the foreign exchange banner the school was naturally obliged to protect her from angry schoolgirls with the intent to kill, even if they were victims of Estella's injustices. It soon became painfully clear that even if Estella was plain as day wrong, the authorities would let it pass, keeping priority on getting on the good side of her British Academy. Unfortunately, this European girl was fully aware of this. And so, Sakura continued being taunted, teased and heck-- an unhappy victim of female bullying, without being able to slap the wench once.
Tomoyo thought of this in silence. "Eurobitch." she muttered.
"Huh?" Sakura raised a brow, "Did you say something?"
"Sakura?" she decided to briefly change subjects, "I was asked by the student council board to help with the prop preparations," Tomoyo took out a sheet of paper roughly the size of a standard computer print, "They said I could do a lot of good with the over all design and house planning."
"Ne, Tomoyo, that's great!" Sakura took hold of the paper.
Her dark purple eyes were smiling, "I think so to. Hiiragizawa-kun's also part of the team, he's in charge of logistics and technical planning."
And for the first time that evening, Sakura was trully smiling, "Working with Hiiragizawa? Ooo, To-mo-yo~!"
Tomoyo flushed, ignoring the remark, "Anyway, he passed by my classroom this morning--"
"You're so red now Tomoyo!"
"Stop it! Let me finish!" she regained her composture with a 'hmp,' "He passed by my class this morning to tell me about how much I would have to dedicate for this. He says that we might all even find ourselves too busy to concider keeping dates, which is why the whole prom committee has decided to attend the prom without."
Sakura was busy reading the committee flyer, "It says here that you still need recruits for sales."
"So?" Tomoyo looked hopeful.
"Ohh."
"Won't you?"
The silence between them was brief, with only time for an encouraging smile from Tomoyo and a squeeze of a hand.
A tiny smirk crept across her lips, "It sounds like a nice job."
A month later, at lunch of that Friday, Sakura was making her usual rounds alone selling prom passes from hall to hall. "There's a free CD souvenir per head," she mused, making another sale. Along that same route she was asked ba a generous number of boys to be their dates, including a few young school teachers (all of which were gigantic shocks to her.) She respectfully turned them down one by one, eplaining her full time volunteer status. All in all, she was greatful Tomoyo arranged everything.
"Ticket lady, over here!" a shrill accented tone called from a clique of noisy girls.
"Sure thing," Sakura spun around to meet her next customer. "You!" she hisses almost immediately.
It was Estella and her social climbing minions.
Estella Saxon-Lowe raised a perfectly plucked eyebrow, "Well, I'm not exactly charmed to see you too, Kinomoto dear." She breathed a generous amount of sarcasm to the word 'dear.'
The ticket vendor fought an increadible urge to scalp the blonde.
"You buying or not?" she asked curtly.
"Honestly, darling," Estella lowered her lids over her clear blue eyes, "We have plenty of time to do business..." a cold, sadisticly pleased glare met Sakura's equally chilly stare. "So tell me, public servant, is this so- called saleslady act supposed to win the general public?" she pursed her glossed lips, "Though your motivation sickens me, I must say, I find it particularly amusing watching you play the slave."
Sakura's knuckles were a bloodless white. "No need for pretense, Kinomoto. I know exactly why you're here," she continued, completely missing all the 'r's in her sentences, "Its because you're such a loser. I'm willing to bet everything that you joined that peasant prom com because you can't get the man you want. And I'll tell you why, its because you're such an ugly tramp." She burst into tiny high- pitched giggles with the rest of her cronies following robotically.
Stupid bitch. Stupid Eurobitch. Sakura repeated in her head as images of bloody murder flashed before her eyes.
"Are you buying or not?" Sakura repeated in a clipped tone.
"Shut up!" she sputtered between laughs, "I wouldn't dream of purchasing anything from trash like you!"
Soon mocking laughter turned into horrified screams.
Sakura was breathing heavily, her clenched fist remained in suspended animation, restrained by the firm grip of Eriol Hiiragizawa.
"Enough, Kinomoto. Enough."
.:e n d o f a c t o n e:.
~waiiii! ^__^ thats all we have for todays episode. keep reading, onegai. more stuff in the next installments of 'the dance.' honestly, this chapter was supposed to be longer, but i got lazy... bad author! bad!