Roller Skates
By Melody
Six years ago, Kinomoto Sakura had craved and would give up anything for a pair of roller skates she could call her own. Six years later, the same Kinomoto Sakura would have given up anything to have not owned that pair of roller skates... But why?
A/N: Yes, I know Sakura's 'wheel shoes' are called roller blades, not roller skates, but, you know, they just sound nicer. By the way, roller skates are four-wheeled shoes, with two wheels on each side, while roller blades are shoes with wheels in a straight line. Many people can't tell the difference. No offence, though. :D
"Please, Onii-chan, let me follow you! Just this once, please?" Kinomoto Sakura squealed delightedly as she bounced up and down, upon hearing that her brother was going to work part-time. Again.
"No, fat kaijuu. You'll only get in my way." her brother, Kinomoto Touya, said extremely irritably.
Their father, Kinomoto Fujitaka came rushing down the stairs, staring at his watch all the time. Upon seeing his beloved children, he flashed a kindly smile, threw a casual "Enjoy your day, children" and hastily pulled on a pair of shoes, slamming the door firmly behind him.
Touya and Sakura watched as their father rushed off hurriedly for work, then Touya turned back to his kid sister. "On second thoughts, you might be useful in attracting lots of attention." he ruffled Sakura's messy tresses and smirked evilly as Sakura glowed with happiness.
"Kaijuus do attract a lot of attention, don't they?"
Sakura fumed and started pouting in the background. "Hmph! I DON'T LIKE Onii-chan anymore!" she folded her arms and stomped her foot. Ow. It hurt. But she wasn't going to let it show.
When Touya ignored her silly antics, Sakura yanked on his arms and pulled him towards the car porch. She was still pouting when they got on his bike and started riding along a road full of cherry blossom trees.
"Ooh, Onii-chan! Look at all those sakura trees! So beautiful!"
Touya rolled his eyes a little but still couldn't suppress a loving grin. "Someday, Sakura, you'll be as pretty as those sakura flowers." he muttered under his breath, making sure that his little sister couldn't hear him. He wondered how giving out balloons could make seven-year-olds so excited. To him, a sixteen-year-old, (A/N: this is an AU story, so the age might be slightly different) it was like mundane work and he wasn't going to start bouncing off the ceiling because of it.
A slight breeze blew across the siblings' cheeks. It was the start of another beautiful, serene morning.
Sakura hopped off the back of Touya's old bike immediately when they had arrived and began skipping towards the shopping mall, still humming the tuneless song to herself, unsure of what she was actually humming. She's so happy, Touya thought, letting a satisfied smile escape through his seemingly cool and emotionless face. And for that, I'm grateful.
Kids' First Choice Inc. was a huge single-level departmental store that offered just about everything kids loved. Touya had to practically drag Sakura away from the toys and clothes section. Her rich glimmering emerald eyes were torn away from the sight of so many fluffy pink dresses, and a pair of roller skates. "Buy me those wheel shoes for my next birthday, Onii-chan!" she squealed, her eyes dancing with delight.
"Those aren't wheel shoes. They're roller skates, kaijuu. And they're really expensive, you know. I can't afford it."
"Fine! ROLLER SKATES! But I still want them."
"I can't afford it, fat kaijuu. Why not you help me later to get extra income by screaming your head off and performing a little kaijuu ritual? Oooh, how the police would love to see you! They would want to get their hands on a nasty lil monster, won't they?" Touya's eyes shone with mischief as he yanked on his sister's arms to get her away from the departmental store and into the Out-Of-Bounds-For-Unauthorized-Personnels sales and marketing manager office.
"Good day, Kinomoto-kun!" the young and handsome manager whirled around from the window in his roller-chair to face Touya and Sakura. "It's good to see you again! Oh, and I see that you have brought an extremely cute girl! How I'd love to have her as our mascot!"
Touya grimaced at the thought of seeing his kid sister's face all over Kids' First Choice Weekly Newsletter and the seven o'clock news. He could just imagine: "Konbanwa, minna-san! Today, the telecast features Kids' First Choice Incorporated, with its new mascot, young Miss Kinomoto Sakura! With her scintillating rich emerald eyes, her cute facial features and bubbly optimistic character, she'd be sure to bring lots of young customers to our largest kids departmental store!" he winced again.
"She's my sister."
"Yes, yes, I know! But wouldn't it be simply lovely to have her!" the young manager said, brushing his greyish fringe out of his eyes, or rather, glasses. Then he gave a lopsided grin and lowered his tone. "Sonomi-san needs a mascot, or that's what she says. I think her daughter needs a friend. Rich kids don't usually have a lot of friends, you know. They're just so isolated from the rest of the world."
Turning to Sakura, he continued, "Hey, young girl, would you mind if we ask you to try all of our toys? Since this is the promotion period, you may just choose to bring home any one. You should try on those clothes too!" he picked up a phone, dialled a few buttons and started whispering into the receiver.
"Later, a lady aka my secretary will bring you to a place to try on everything, all right? If there are flashes of lights here and there, don't be afraid. Okay?"
Sakura nodded happily, her messy tresses bouncing up and down. Seeing this, the young manager smiled kindly and handed Touya a bunch of balloons.
There was a soft knock on the door as a young lady in her twenties, wearing a beige ankle-length office dress walked in, followed closely by a queer but pretty-looking girl, about the same age as Sakura. Sakura quickly joined them and the threesome engaged themselves in an introductive conversation.
"Hi! My name is Daidouji Tomoyo, the daughter of this company's owner, Daidouji Sonomi. Nice to meet you! I'm eight, by the way." the girl's amethyst (A/N: or violet. argh, what is it?) eyes shone confidently as she spoke. Sakura thought she sounded much older than eight. Her long flowing violet hair swished elegantly with her every movement.
"Hi!" she replied in a cheery tone. "Good to see you! My name is Kinomoto Sakura. And that is my onii-chan, Kinomoto Touya." she eyed the teenager gloomily, who was still holding on to a bunch of heart-shaped balloons, the letters KFC (A/N: whoa I didn't realise it had the same first letters as Kentucky Fried Chicken until I typed it out... my gosh) printed on it with black ink.
On the other side of the room, as the two males watched the females introduce themselves, Touya spoke up. "Yuki, are you sure this would be o -"
"Don't worry, Touya," the manager, Tsukishiro Yukito, reassured his ex-high school friend. He graduated two years before Touya and was currently in a business university, while working as a manager to earn his school fees, since he was an orphan. Touya heaved a dramatic sigh and went outside, with Sakura joining him soon after.
"I'll be trying on all those things right after you finish giving out the balloons, Onii-chan! So you'd better hurry!" Sakura said. As they walked out of the shopping mall, she sang happily: "Hanyaan...! The manager was so nice, Onii-chan! Nicer than you! Oh, and I'm going to get those wheel shoes too! Whoopee!" she started performing a little dance, basically consisting of a jump and a twirl, and after her third twirl, she lost balance, tripped and fell face down onto the hard cement.
"Ouch," Touya said sarcastically while helping her up. As he was doing this, his hands automatically let go of the balloons. The freed balloons raced down the pavement, knocking into pedestrians as they rushed by. Most of them ignored the balloons, and so did Touya. His sister's safety was more important than stupid balloons. He was sure Yukito wouldn't mind either.
Sakura was crying, her face buried in her hands. There were minor scratches here and there, but all Sakura was crying about was: "Onii-chan didn't give out -sob- the balloons... I won't get the -sob- wheel shoes! Onii-chan -sob- naughty!"
Touya sat on the pavement, all the while resting Sakura's head on his lap, trying frantically to stabilize her struggling and kicking legs. "It's all right, you'll get the roller skates..."
A tiny figure loomed over him. The figure's shadow was casted beside Touya's, giving him away. Touya and Sakura both looked up at the same time, only to see a boy no older than eight, holding one of the green heart-shaped balloons that he must have caught while it 'flew' down the pavement. Its shade was somewhere between emerald and serious green, appearing extremely beautiful to Sakura.
"There, girl. Your brother did give out balloons. I have one right now. So stop crying." he looked away and muttered under his breath: "Can't stand crying girls."
Then he turned back to Sakura. "Stop crying like a baby. Crying won't help. I have a plaster here; you want it?" as he spoke, his piercing amber eyes showed no trace of concern, curiosity, or even the innocence eight-year-olds' eyes were supposed to hold. Sakura, however, seemed hypnotized, as she took the plaster with much gratefulness.
"Arigatou! That was really nice of you! My name's Kinomoto Sakura." she replied, her voice still a little sore from crying.
"Li Syaoran." Sakura. Wasn't that the name of a flower? "I'm a tourist from Hong Kong who plans to live here, if this tour gives my family and I a good impression of Japan. And you -" he glared pointedly at Sakura. "Are the first person I've talked to."
He smiled most unexpectedly. It was the one-of-a-Li-Syaoran-kind rare smile. He never gave that smile to anyone but his cousin, Meiling. And that was only once. "It's nice to meet you. Even though you seem like an awful crybaby to me, you're still cute."
Sakura decided against protesting that she wasn't an awful crybaby, and stood upright, holding out her right palm. Resting on it was a cherry blossom she had caught floating in the wind earlier, when Touya was riding the bike along the road full of cherry blossom trees. "This is for you! Because... I know we'll meet again! And by then, you can return this to me, even if it had died!" (A/N: she doesn't know flowers wither, not die.)
Li accepted it while muttering an inaudible 'arigatou', leaving with his mother who had come to search for him. Sakura stared at Li's back until he was out of sight, and walked back with a groaning Touya who was mumbling something about where she had gotten that cherry blossom from.
Kinomoto Sakura came out of the fitting room, wearing a pink fluffy dress. Wait, another pink fluffy dress. Ooooh, how it delighted Sakura! It was the last piece she had to try on, and, just like all the rest, when she stepped out of the 'small room with a mirror', cameras, or, known by her as 'lights that flashed', were clicking away, busy taking Sakura in her dress from all angles.
Tomoyo smiled as Daidouji Sonomi joined in the crew. "Oh, Sakura-chan, you look lovely! You are simply so adorable... Would you mind being friends with my daughter?" she said, as soon as she walked near Sakura.
Sakura, being her innocent and clueless self, returned a bright smile and followed Manager Yukito's secretary to the toy department. Her face lit up so much that it would have glowed in a pitch-dark tunnel. She looked around for directions, then immediately grabbed the pair of roller skates. "May I try this on?"
"Sure, sure, sweetheart!" Sonomi trilled. "Go ahead and try all you want. Just don't spoil it, it's very costly!"
Sakura fitted her tiny feet into the oversized shoes and tried to move. If not for her being a natural, she would have fallen many more times than this. But very soon, she had mastered the skill to balance herself on wheels and glided between the aisles like a flitting butterfly.
Everyone watching clapped tremendously and agreed that this seven-year-old girl was a perfect natural. "May I have this pair of wheel shoes?" Sakura pleaded, getting all excited.
Everyone saw Sonomi's pencil-thin eyebrow furrow. "Ano, cupcake, that is for my daughter. She is about to learn it -"
"Okaa-san!" Tomoyo stared at her mum with an air of reproval. "Give it to her. I don't believe you can't afford another pair of roller skates."
"Yes, please! I can be your miscat (A/N: mascot) if you want! I really want to have that pair of wheel shoes!" Sakura looked away, hiding the craving for the roller skates in her eyes, shining ever so brightly. "But if you really can't give it to me, never mind..."
The pair of roller skates was gently shoved into her hands by slender delicate fingers. Sakura looked back in surprise and delight as Daidouji Tomoyo gave her a warm smile, enough to bring spring into winter...