Here it is! Another oneshot of mine. The idea just came to me, and Fairytale was born in about, say, 15 minutes or so :DD Enjoy!
It was our final year in high school, and we were more than ready for the highlight of the year - the Homecoming Dance.
Tomoyo and I had spent the two days before busying ourselves crazy. In fact, Tomoyo had planned out everything. Shopping for our dresses was done on Wednesday, at a string of boutiques downtown, with about five hundred bucks in our wallets. Tomoyo picked out beautiful black frocks for us.
"We'll have these two, Miss!" she had hyped to a posh-dressed salesgirl. "Sakura, these dresses are so stunning!"
"Yeah, Tommy, so are the prices..."
Our accessories took up the whole of Thursday, but this time at Mrs. Daidouji's super huge showroom in the city. There was a whole level of necklaces, rings, shades and earrings. By the time we had reached Tomoyo's doorstep at the end of the day, the only shillings we might have had left probably dropped out the gaping hole in our pockets.
We spent that night preparing where we would meet, where we would dine, and where we would have supper after the prom. I fell asleep in the middle of her Dance Steps We Absolutely Must Avoid lecture, and when I woke up, there was a guilty wet spot on Gwen Stefani's Elle cover.
The whole afternoon on Friday we were in her room, inhaling the glorious fumes of enamel and nail polish. Tomoyo, being a fashion designer herself, is superb at manicure. She did a gorgeous black coating for my fingernails, topped with sparkling glitter and pearl drops, and for my toenails she had them whitewashed, with gold trims. She settled with her favourite silver-and-black combination. Mrs. Daidouji came into the room once, and she helped us style up our tresses.
"Alright," Tomoyo gushed, barely containing her excitement. "We're all done!"
We were two hours shy of the biggest night in our lives. Yes, it seemed that we had the perfect fairytale planned.
Para para!
"Hello?"
The only thing we hadn't planned for -
"WHAT?"
Was the breakup.
"He can't do that to you! That bastard!" Tomoyo comforted me, after hurling a very apathetic 'IT'S BECAUSE YOU'RE GAY, ISN'T IT?' into the phone to my apologetic ex-date.
"He just did," I sobbed.
"Did he say why?" she asked.
"He said there's a freshman, Kaoru Mika."
"Well, cheer up, you can still come with Eriol and I..."
"What's the point?" I wailed. "I can't go to homecoming dateless!"
That was when my feet, with its bejeweled toenails, propelled me out of the Daidouji residence.
"Sakura?" Mrs. Daidouji exclaimed faintly as I hurtled past her and out into the street.
Homecoming. Now I knew why they called it that. It's because the girls usually come home.
I had spent the hour after that in my room, sobbing into my pillow. Otou-san had tried to lure me out with my favourite chocolate chip cookies, but I told him I didn't have the appetite, although my stomach was growling like a tiger. I heard Touya snarl, rather menacingly, that he would bludgeon that baka if he didn't show up at the door in half an hour. I assumed he meant my date. My ex-date.
It made me cry even more.
When I finally got sick of lying in my wet-as-a-sponge pillow, I got up and switched on my cellphone.
Due to improper shutdown of system, some contents of phone may be lost.
Damn it.
Para para!
It was a message. I had expected it was from Tomoyo, but it wasn't. It was from the telephone company.
GI Joe tried to call you while you were unavailable. This is a free service offered to you by...
GI Joe. That's my childhood friend. He's two years older than me, and he lived right next door. GI Joe is just a nickname I'd gotten the habit of naming him, since he had an entire collection of GI Joe models. When we were young, we used to play Fairytale Figurines together in his backyard. He's in college now, and although he would never admit it to any of his buddies, sometimes he would to let my Barbie doll kiss his favourite GI Joe for fairytale endings.
Why would he try to call? He's away in college, and that was miles from here.
Ding-dong.
And I expect that would be him. Yeah, right! He probably just called me up for a chat. Maybe he just dumped another one of his college girlfriends. Okay, I'm not hiding anything, but I've had the biggest crush on this neighbour for years. But I'm probably just another girl in the million who swoon over him.
Ding-dong.
I got up and headed out of my room. Otou-san had shouted through the door that he and Touya were going to the supermarket to pick up some groceries. Touya had protested, insisting he stay at home to make sure that baka shows up at the door, but Otou-san dragged him out anyway.
"I need you to push the trolley for me," I heard his blunt, muffled voice through the door. "What's more, I'm too old and frail to carry the bags."
So, seeing as to how I was pretty much the only one at home, I had no choice but to open the door.
"Coming, coming!" I flung open the door, and my mouth dropped in unison.
"Hey Beanie," the smart, handsome boy on my doormat greeted with a smile.
When I was about ten, I was as flat as a washing board, and I hadn't a single ounce of meat on my bones. The kids at school called me skinny-beanie, and that included him. But he wasn't so mean, since we were neighbours. So he called me Beanie instead.
"Hey!" I smiled back, and frowned slightly. "I thought you were in college?"
"And I thought you were supposed to be at some posh prom with your date?"
"He... He dumped me for a freshman."
"Just like Touya..." He cringed. "... Said. He called me up and growled, rather menacingly, that if I didn't show up at your door tonight, he would bludgeon me. Dammit, he just won't stop calling me baka, will he?"
"You mean... Touya was talking about you?"
"Who else could he be talking about, when he mentions the word 'baka'?"
"Um, my date...?"
"'Baka' is too good a word for someone who would dump you, honey. It should be something like 'bastard', or 'sonofabitch'. That guy just doesn't know what he's lost from right under his nose." he smiled again. "Oh, by the way, I called you, but your phone..."
"Sorry, Tommy hurled it on the ground."
"So, aren't you supposed to be rushing off? I mean, you're already in your party dress."
"What's the point? I don't have a date for it."
"Well, now you do." He extended a hand and beamed. "Shall we?"
"What?"
"Can I take you to Homecoming?"
"You really will?"
Maybe he was about to answer, but I was so elated I just jumped onto him and laughed until I started crying.
So, I made it to Homecoming. We had to do without dinner, since we could barely make it in time for the dance. We were about the last to step through the doors of the ballroom, and Tomoyo was staring at us, her mouth wide open. Eriol had to close it up for her before the eclair fell out. We danced to all the songs, even the techno one that someone placed on the DJ's queue. I was starting to get hungry, but there was no more food left on the table.
"Sakura, is that your tummy?"
"I'm hungry!" I laughed. "And it's all your fault, Syaoran!"
"Whatever happened to GI Joe?"
"Whatever happened to Beanie"
"Okay, anyway, we'll just head to town for supper," he remarked, and I could see him blushing slightly, even under the dim lights.
"Yeah, and it's your treat!" I teased him, poking a finger in his ribs.
"Oh no, you don't! I came to save you, so you owe me for having a date to Homecoming!"
"But you were late! So it is your fault we didn't have dinner!" I pointed out, and laughed even more when Syaoran made this distorted face that read what! You - oh, someday, I'm gonna get you for this!
"Fine," he sighed in defeat. "I don't know why, but I can never win you at this."
When the final song came on, Syaoran led me onto the dance floor again. He put his arms around me, and that feeling - warmth and security - I missed it while he was away. As we waltzed to the slow rhythm of the song, I caught a glimpse at my ex-date. Kaoru Mika was towering over him, and I began to wonder just what I saw in him that made me agree to his invitation. It was amusing, too, because Kaoru was checking my GI Joe model out. I giggled, and when Syaoran asked me what was so funny, I just shook my head. He leaned down and kissed me on the cheek.
"See you in college next year," he whispered, a precious sound so barely audible, yet it set fire to my senses. I looked up at him, only to melt in his charming smile, and get lost in his endless eyes.
And that's when I realised that this was my fairytale come true, GI Joe style.
Author's Note
Okay, I don't know what you thought of that, and that's what the little blue button at the button is for! This is based on a true story, only it didn't happen to me D: Can you imagine Syaoran, GI Joe style? Hmm... I prefer him with profanities. Sounds sexy coming from him :DD
Anyways, hope you enjoyed that. I really look forward to writing some fluff/drabble oneshots someday, but I can never get around to it. Oh well. So you can click the button now. :DD