Birthday Wishes
By: Sachiko Suigin
Dedicated to: Ashala13 (I wrote this for her birthday) and to singr4now, because she's a good friend who appreciates CardCaptors.
Author's Note: I hope you enjoy this...it's like, the only fic that I sat down and wrote straight through in one day. Oh, and Card Captors/ Card Captor Sakura does not belong to me. Thank you. Enjoy!
Sakura looked up from her plate in the cafeteria, excitement surging through her veins. Tomorrow. Her birthday...her fourteenth birthday....and Li was going to be there. She giggled quietly to herself in girly anticipation. She had invited people of the more masculine sex-- Eriol, Li, Yukito, and plenty of people of her own gender--Mei Lin, Tomoyo, Chiharu, Naoko, and Rika. And, of course, Touya would be there. Her eyes sparkled with delight at the thought of how much fun they were to have.
"Sakura..." It seemd as if a voice had entered her head. "Sakura," it said again. She suddenly came out of day-dream mode and turned around the see Tomoyo standing right behind her. "What were you thinkin' about?" she asked with her head cocked.
"Nothing important," Sakura replied with a cheery smile.
"I bet you were thinking about Li and your party," her friend chided.
Sakura shook her head in attempt to make the lie she was about to make seem more true, "No, I wasn't." Tomoyo gave her a skeptical look, but said nothing more about it.
"Did you get your aglebra homework done?"
Sakura crinkled her nose, "No, I hate math." She stuck out her tongue.
"Okay, well....you just might want to get it done....we have it next hour after all...."
"Tomoyo, can I just copy off yours?"
"No, you may not! You don't learn anything that way...anyway, you have your own book to--"
Sakura cut her off, "That's right! I my book has the answers in the back! Tomoyo! You're a genius!"
Tomoyo sweat dropped and sighed. "That's not what I meant, Sakura..." But her friend couldn't hear her over the noise of pencil on paper and her heavy breathing as she labored to copy the answers.
Li hung his head low. He was clueless, absolutely clueless, and he knew it. He turned to Eriol for help.
"Eriol, what should I get Sakura?"
Eriols face transformed to show shock rather than his usual smirk. "You still haven't gotten her anything!?!" Why, I got her gift last week!"
"Well, I started looking two weeks ago, but I still haven't found anything perfect enough!"
Eriol's smirk returned.
"Eriol! Help me!" Li demanded, nearly choking him.
"Okay, okay, I'll help you..."
Li released his neck. "So, what should I do?"
"Hmmmm..." Eriol pretended to be deep in thought. "How about you get her a jewled fan....dress up one day...in mathcing colours, and get your picture taken with her, with her holding the fan."
Li thought a few moments. "That's a great idea."
Eriol's smirk widening with pleasure. "I know." Then Li left the room in a rush after slapping Eriol hard on the back, knocking the air out of him.
The doorbell rang rang for the fifth, and probably last, time that day. Sakura excused herself from the party and went to go answer it. She opened the door quickly to see a huge amount of colourful balloons in her face.
"Wha'!?!?!" she exclaimed in surprise. Suddenly the balloons started walking toward her and she figured out that someone, undoubtedly one of her guests, was carrying them. When all the balloons were inside the house, she discovered that Li had been carrying them.
"Li!!!!!" she cried happily, wrapping her arms around his neck. He laughed good-heartedly at her reaction. God, did he love her. Soon they joined everyone in the living room.
"Hi Li!" shouted Mei Lin who was sitting in a circle with Chiharu, Naoko and Rika.
"Hey, Mei Lin," he said casually. It appeared that he was the last to arrive, for Eriol was already in the kitchen talking to Yuki.
"Let's have Sakura open her presents!" Chiharu exclaimed, standing up suddenly.
Sakura protested, "But shouldn't we have cake first?"
"No," Eriol reassured, "we should do gifts now." He gave Li a wink. Li smiled back.
When everyone was situated in a wide circle with Sakura at the head and the gifts in the middle, they all discussed whose she should open first, last, and all places in between. Inevitably, they let Sakura open Tomoyo's first. It ended up being one of the new cell phones her mom's company produced with the mini tv screen that allows you to see the person you're talking to. After thanks was given and the phone was passed around, everyone sat it aside and let Sakura open Chiharu's next. It was a gorgeous diary with cherry blossoms on the cover with a matching mechanical pencil and black ink pen. Next was Rika's. She had given Sakura a set of absolutely glamorous hair pins made of rhinestone, pearl, and aquamarine, shaped like butterflies and oriental flowers. Naoko then begged Sakura to open hers. As Sakura fumbled with the pink and red paper she discovered the contents was a new CD-ROM game for her laptop! She squealed with delight as Eriol's present was placed in front of her.
Beyond her surprise, Eriol had given Sakura a book. However, it wasn't just any book. It was a book that was written by Clow himself. Her eyes widened, but she hid her surprise since not everyone there knew about the Clow Cards and their creator. Yukito's gift was next. It ended up being a beautiful China tea set. The designs were cherry and peach blossoms on ivory coloured glass-ware. She thanked Yuki and decided to hold the set close to her heart. Touya's gift was next, for everyone decided to let Sakura's beau's gift go last. Touya had gotten her a picture album filled of pictures of their mother and of good times that they had in the past as a family. She thought she was going to cry in front of everyone as she flipped through the pages.
Finally it was Li's turn. He handed Sakura a slim wrapped box. She opened it casually, then lifted the lid. Her emerald eyes became saucers and her mouth dropped to the ground. The box had contained an ivory fan. A silk fan, she discovered. A silk fan embriodered with pearls, emeralds, and diamonds. She turned her astonished expression to Li who was smiling like a drunken fool.
"Are, are these r-r-real?"
He nodded with pleasure his response. Tears filled Sakura's eyes as she ran up to Li, who had been standing, and hugged him hard as her tears finally streamed down her pale face.
"Oh, thank you! Thank you Li!" And with that, she kissed him. Kissed him; hard. Everyone stared at the lip-locked couple as their tongues found each other's mouths. Eriol scooted over toward Mei Lin and put his arm around her suggestively as they all watched.
It had been three weeks after her party and Sakura still had the huge bunch of balloons Li had given her. They had already gotten their pictures taken with her fan. They had each worn an ivory coloured outfit, with a soft, white background. The picture lay framed on her desk.
Sakura walked into her room. It had been a long day at school. She found Kiro floating mid-air, asleep, as usual.
"Kiro...." she nudged her friend a little, trying to awaken him. "Kiro...." she probed some more. Suddenly Kiro shot up, still not fully awake, and slammed his body into the corner where she had been keeping the balloons.
"No! Kiro! You're going to--" But Sakura was interrupted by the loud pop of one of the balloons. She sighed as Kiro finally regained full consciousness.
"What? What happened?" he asked, stunned.
"You popped one of my balloons..." Sakura answered, "one of the balloons Li gave me....one of the yellow ones."
"Oh!" Kiro said, sincerely sorry that he had, for he knew how much they ment to her. "I'm sorry, Sakura."
"Oh, it's alright, I guess," she said in a depressed tone, "They were probably going to pop sooner or later anyway." She went over to the corner to clean up the broken pieces of balloon.
"Hey, what this?" she asked more to herself than anyone else. She picked up a sheet of paper that appeared to have come from inside the balloon, unfolded it and read. It read:
Yellow balloon--Happiness
I'm wishing you are very happy on your birthday.
Sakura cocked an eyebrow, then got an idea. She picked up one of the rhinestone stick-pins Tomoyo had given her, and popped one of her pink balloons.
"Wha'?" Kiro cried in confusion.
Sakura paid him no heed, and rumaged through the debris the pink balloon had left. Finally, she found what she was looking for. This time the paper read:
Pink balloon--Love
I'm wishing you know how very much I love you on your birthday, and every day.
"Uh?" Kiro peered over Sakura's shoulder to read what she was holding. He quirked an eyebrow. "So, what are those, Sakura?"
Sakura sighed deeply with bliss and replied, looking up to the heavens with glistening eyes, "Birthday wishes, Kiro. Birthday wishes."
Author's Note: Well, I hope you liked it! ^^ Review if you want! Thanks!
~Sachiko Suigin