Disclaimer: All rights and privileges to Card Captor Sakura and all related art, characters and story are trademarks and property of CLAMP, Nelvana, Kodansha, NEP21, Tokyo Pop and associated parties. The characters of these works are used without permission for the purpose of entertainment only. I, Hally Dang, do not claim Card Captor Sakura and all related art, characters and story as my own property.

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This Side of Paradise
By Hally Dang

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One. Choose Your Poison

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Sakura's poison was a Tequila sunrise. If she couldn't get that she could make do with any sweetened cocktails and should all else fail, she'd go with a fine champagne cognac, on the rocks. She never liked the taste of alcohol but she liked what it did to her.

Tonight was like any other Friday night party. Sakura was already shitfaced and it was barely past midnight. Loud music made everything throb; the room was filled by smoke and she could barely see anything, but she didn't care because she already had two drinks; it was sufficient to make her forget enough, like losing her favorite vintage purse, which had been 150 dollars, at Homecoming.

Growing up in Manchester could only mean two things: affluence and expensive taste. No one settled for anything less than the outrageously and often unnecessarily costly. Only the best was acceptable. Even the glassware used at the party was imported Austrian crystals.

Sakura first moved to Manchester, a town near Boston and Cambridge, soon after her father, Fujitaka Kinomoto, was offered tenure, along with considerable funding, at Harvard University's Department of Anthropology for a groundbreaking discovery in Africa. She was still a baby when both she and her brother were uprooted from their lives in Japan to join their father in Massachusetts.

Manchester was not an easy place to grow up in. Filled by multi-million homes and the enormously wealthy, Manchester was like a dream world; everyone had what they could possibly desire and was rich enough to buy anything else. But it was also a snobby and haughty town. Anything less than perfect, less than ridiculously expensive was looked down upon.

Manchester High School was no different. Having an outstanding reputation for college placement, Manchester High also has strong athletics, music, and theater arts. This year, there had been over 20 National Merit Scholarship finalists. It is where students paraded through classes in 300 dollar outfits and packed the school parking lot with foreign sport cars.

When the students were spoiled at an early age, in high school, they looked for other ways to amuse themselves. Everyone used some type of substance, especially, if you wanted to stay in your place in the high school hierarchy. The students were rich enough to buy the finest substance available and with often absentee parents, it was even easier to have all night parties where everyone got smashed and high. Money, influence, raging teenage hormones, alcohol and drugs was an intoxicating and exhilarating combination.

This was the life of the fabulous, young, rich and spoiled-rotten.

She chuckled in spite of herself; if only her father, the Harvard professor, could see her now. His baby girl now reduced to this. Some life.

Sakura was vaguely aware of the pale carpet she sat on, the two empty highball glasses beside her, and the swirl of people around her. What was left of her dress—it had been specially ordered from New York City designer for the Homecoming dance—was wrinkled and scrunched about her knees as a pile of pink chiffon. Her hair, which she had spent 250 dollars to get done in Boston, was falling apart like a melting ice sculpture.

Under the heavy haze of cocktails, everything was coming undone.

"Oh, fuck it," she muttered and tried to get up from her seat on the floor. Sakura balanced herself slowly, still tipsy, and started to look for her hot pink stilettos which had disappeared somewhere between her first and second drink. "Hey, Tomoyo, let's go. This party's getting lame," she screamed against the music.

"Hm?" someone made a sound behind her.

Sakura spun around to see her best friend collapsed on a leather armchair. Tomoyo Daidouji, the single heiress to a billion dollar toy industry, was a sight to behold. She has beautiful purple eyes, jet black hair, and a body of a runaway model. Tomoyo's poison had always been red wine; it went down much smoother. In her right hand, she was still swirling a half full wineglass. The wine made her soft and pliant. Despite the dim light, Sakura noticed a tear at the hem of Tomoyo's black silk tea-length dress.

Tomoyo absentmindedly touched the rip in her skirts. "I had some fun with Mike earlier," she said in her mild indifferent voice, a soft drawl, "I happened to like this dress. What a shame." Tomoyo took another sip of wine. "My house is free," she added coldly.

Tomoyo was beautiful, gifted, and full of disdain. She didn't give a shit about anything, completely detached from everything. Tomoyo was the quintessential ice queen: aloof and contemptuous.

"Fine," Sakura replied, trying hard to concentrate. "Where are KT and Alex?"

Tomoyo had gotten up from the armchair. She sat down the wine glass on the table. "With Emma," Tomoyo nodded to their direction. She looked up at Sakura and gave her a small smile, somehow it still seemed rigid. "I'll call the limo, you get them."

Sakura complied. She made her way across the large living room, careful to not trip over the people who have already passed out but did anyway. "Fuck," she said when she stumbled on top of a black tuxedo—wait, it was one of her classmates, only she couldn't tell which one.

"Hey, bitch," he protested, his speech slurred. "Watch where you are going!"

Sakura straightened, struggling to keep her mind from spinning out of control. "Piss off!" she shot back. But her words were lost on him as he busied himself with taking another drag of pot.

She wrinkled her nose in disgust. For moments, she forgot what she was supposed to be doing. She looked around for a reminder of her task. Then she saw her date, Christian, making out with some red-head she couldn't see.

"Typical jackass," she muttered. Normally, she'd feel betrayed. Funny, how the cocktails made her insensitive. She didn't give a damn what Christian did; it felt good.

When Sakura finally found her friends, the three of them were leaning against the wall on the floor.

"C'mon," Sakura screamed over the loud rock music. "Let's get out of here."

KT stirred and looked up at Sakura. "God, you look like shit," she commented and bent over laughing. KT's poison was vodka and weed. It was a heady mix and made her burst out in laughter spontaneously.

KT (which stands for Kira-Tiffany) Thompson was the oldest child of two top cancer specialists, both of whom worked at Brigham and Women's in Boston. KT's mother was also a teaching affiliate for Harvard Medical. Her parents were rarely home, pulling triple shifts at the hospital, and it made KT bitter, cynical, and sarcastic. KT has a lean and petite figure. She had amazing hazel eyes and long, voluminous dirty blonde hair that was always expertly curled.

Only after Tomoyo, it was KT whom Sakura felt closest too. KT was brutally honest about everything, almost to a point of being cruel, and didn't take crap from anyone. But Sakura appreciated that from KT. Sakura had enough deceit from everyone else she knew.

Sakura pulled KT up from the floor and continued to drag Alex from her seat. "Damn girl," KT exclaimed. "Did you like gain weight?"

That comment snapped Alex out of her daze. "Like no!" she retorted loudly, "who turned you on bitch mode?"

Alexandra Petrovsky was the youngest daughter of a famous retired model and a professional photographer. Her parent underwent a messy and very public divorce last year which took an ugly tow on her. Alex rarely drank, rather her poison was weed. It went down easy and dulled any unpleasantness. Apparently, or so she claimed, it also helped to control her weight.

Of their group of friends, Alex was the quietest. She was self-conscious and anxious, but she had her mother's stunning model look. Alex had striking ice-blue eyes and long straight black hair that seemed only possible in shampoo commercials.

Alex crushed her joint in a crystal ashtray by her feet. "Where are we like going?"

"Tomoyo's," Sakura replied and turned to Emma. "Get up, c'mon."

Emma was lying flat on the floor, her eyes cloudy. She was muttering something incomprehensively.

KT laughed again. "Don't brother," she told Sakura. "She's like so fucking wasted."

Emma York was the experimenter. She had experience with countless different combination of alcohol and drugs. Although Emma would never admit it, but her ultimate poison was cocaine. She did limit herself, one of the rare limits she has, because the crack made her gain weight and the high was definitely not worth that much.

Emma's family was minor British nobility. Her father was a top international attorney and jetted back and forth between London, New York and Boston. Her mother, the trophy wife, was never home, instead she traveled the world with other unhappy wives of Manchester and spent ridiculous amounts of money. Emma often felt neglected and abandoned, so she made up for it by always being the center of attention and the life of the party. She was arrogant, narcissistic, loud, and excitable; and she swore like a sailor. But like the rest of her friends and the students of Manchester High, she was pretty and skinny, with hazel eyes and curly brown hair which she straightened every morning.

"Just leave her." Alex was stoned and couldn't think straight.

The prospect was tempting of a minute. "Guys, you know that we, like, can't do that," Sakura said and frowned. She bent down and tugged at Emma's arm.

"Fucking stop it!" Emma protested in a garbled speech.

It took another five minutes to coax Emma to stand up. KT and Sakura half-carried and half-walked Emma out of the smoke infested party, both careful to not trip over each other's evening gowns.

Sakura suddenly realized how much she hated everything. Homecoming was a complete disaster and the party was slowly digressing into a drunken orgy. Her date ditched her and her friends' dates were no where to be seen. For a brief moment she hated Christian for cheating on her like that; at least he should have had the decency to wait until tomorrow when he was longer her date. Then that hate dissolved into self-loathing. Shit, she needed to get another drink in the limo.

Tomoyo was waiting outside on the front steps. Sakura slammed shut the double French doors and looked back at the expansive French-eclectic style home. She had forgotten who it belonged to but she wanted to get out of the smoke and music and people.

As the five of them piled into the white stretch limo, stumbling over each other, Sakura noticed how outrageous they looked all dressed up in their luxurious designer gowns that were dirtied and wrinkled out of recognition; their make-up running and perfectly styled hair distorted into unsightly forms. But she didn't care; her better judgment along with her reasoning were gone hours ago.

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Author's Note: I wanted to write something real for once. The backdrop of this story is based my own life, my own friends, my own experiences. I grew up in a town, much like Manchester, outside of Boston. Manchester is not an actual place; it is my own spoof version of my own hometown and my own high school. Otherwise all other references are real. Recently, I noticed that there were quite a few stories out there that romanticized the lifestyle of the young and rich, but in reality it is nothing like it. Consider this an insider look—albeit, slightly exaggerated for the right satirical effect.

I'm not much a SxS writer but I really felt that this story would work better with Sakura. This first chapter is the exposition, so just bear with me a little while to go on with the plot.

Tequila sunrise is a very sweet but potent cocktail. Cognac is a special type of brandy, and fine champagne means that it is aged longer (if I remember correctly, something like 17 years) and has a richer taste. Usually, it is bad to drink cognac on the rocks (with ice) because it dilutes the rich flavor—which goes back to the fact that Sakura hates the taste of alcohol. Shitfaced, smashed, wasted is slang for being drunk.

I'm not quite sure if this story is suppose to be rated M (I really think it hinges between a T and M); there is a lot of swearing and drinking and all that jazz, but the story is about girls who are high school juniors (or at least that's what you'll find out later) and that's 16 to 17 year olds. It seemed a little drastic. I knew about this type of "activities" when I was a freshman so I wouldn't be offended or nervous about what goes on. But, yet again, I did grew up in a place like Manchester. I can't speak for your life or your preferences, so I'm sorry if you are upset by any part of this story. It was not my intention.

As a final note: please, do not do drugs or drink! It's bad for you and, trust me, it's not worth it in the end.

If you can any questions, comments, please review before you leave.


Revised 07-10-06.