"2:45; just fifteen more minutes, then were out of here! Maybe Terada Sensei won't call on me within that time,"
Sakura Kinomoto sits in her last class of the day, Science, calmly looking out the window at the playground. It was the day her project on her animal, the penguin, was due. She had done the project perfectly; she just hated to present something to her class. Sakura was normally a very energetic person with a lot of confidence, but not today for some reason.
"And that concludes my project on the Nereid! Thank you very much for you attention," these words caught Sakura's attention, pulling her from her slight fading. She looked up to the front of the class to see her teacher shaking her best friend, Tomoyo, hand before she gathered her stuff and returned to the seat beside Sakura. Before she sat down, she gave Sakura a sweet smile.
"Thank you Tomoyo. Okay, we have time for one more project. Would anyone like to volunteer?" as these words were being said, almost every student that still had a project to present lowered in their seat. "Okay then, I guess I'll have to pick," Terada Sensei mawkishly said.
"Please, not today Terada Sensei. Pick someone else, just not me!"
"Kinomoto, you haven't gone yet, have you? Come on up!" Terada Sensei gave her a funny smile. Sakura nodded slightly to her teacher in accepting sense. She stood up and quietly walked to the front of the room with her project in her hands.
"Um, my project was on the penguin and how it lived," Sakura said shyly.
"Speak up Sakura!" cried Terada Sensei.
"Yes sir. Now, the penguin is…" and Sakura faded into her report with her confidence growing in every word she said.
In the back of the room sat a quiet boy with an interesting expression on his face. He was frowning, but blushing at the same time. His eyes looked like they were trying to focus on the window and all that was out there, but they seemed to find their way wondering up to Sakura's seat, and then to Sakura in the front of the room. He would pull his eyes from the front of the room back to Sakura's seat, which sat in front of him, then eventually out the window again.
"What are you doing Li?! Stop that!" he yelled to himself.
Sakura cleared her throat quickly before moving to her last topic. "The last thing that I would like you to know about the penguin is how they mate. Once a penguin has found its mate, they have children and remain together forever. Penguins and humans are very alike in this area of life!" Sakura exclaimed.
Li's cheeks started to glow a little bit brighter.
"Thank you, that concludes my project," Sakura gave a quick bow to her class and took her seat. Li tried not to watch her as she walked, but he couldn't help it. She had grown so much in the past two years of them knowing each other. Her hair now reached slightly below her shoulders, but she still had her bangs. She had also developed a young woman figure in replace of the childish one she had when she was ten. The one thing that hadn't changed was her emerald green eyes, which he couldn't help but to stare at from time to time.
"Thank you Sakura. You are all free to leave now, see you tomorrow," Sensei said, dismissing the class.
"See you tomorrow!" the class replied back.
Sakura stood up and turned her body so that she could face Li as she gathered her stuff. "Li, did you like my project? Yours on the Panda was so good!" Sakura exclaimed.
"Uh, thank you. Yours was good as well. I liked the part at the end where you compared us to penguins," Li smiled and chuckled a little bit.
"Hey, don't laugh! It's true!" Sakura pulled her scarf out of her bag and threw at Li.
"Hey!" Li quickly threw it back to Sakura, then stood up to get his book bag from the back of the room. "So, do you have anything to do when you get home?" he asked, slightly blushing, but quickly brushing it away.
"No, I don't think so. Why?" Sakura slightly cocked her head to the right, causing all her hair that was pulled back behind her back to barely fall to her face, causing Li to blush once again.
"Thought we could hang out for a while. That's all," Li boldly said.
"Sure! Let me tell Tomoyo though, she's probably waiting for me outside. I'll wait out there for you, okay?" Sakura asked while picking up her book bag.
"Yeah, okay. It'll be a minute though. I need to get some papers from another classroom real quick,"
"Okay, I'll be on the front lawn," Sakura replied before running out the classroom.
A few seconds after she left, Li walked over to the window that he was looking out earlier to see Tomoyo standing close to the gate. After a few seconds, Sakura appeared by her side, to Li's eyes, explaining that she was going to be with him today. He watched the two talk for about a minute, then he saw Tomoyo give Sakura a hug goodbye, then walk off. Now, Sakura was the only one standing by the gate. She looked so beautiful to Li, he started to blush the deepest red that her probably had ever seen. He stared for a few seconds, then pulled himself away and finished gathering his stuff. He took one more glance at the young woman that he had loved for almost two years now before walking out of the classroom and into the court yard.