Time of My Life

Disclaimer: Nope. Don't own them.

AN: After all the beginnings and middles, but never the endings I've written. I promise. This one, I'm going to finish. I'm just not sure how long it'll be however.

Fly a little higher. Try a little harder.

It's funny how the morals of my family stick by me to this day. Even after all the trouble I did to get away from them.

I suppose one really can't get away from who they're born to be.

Hoping that one day I would get to work to my heart's content teaching martial arts I moved to the oddest place imaginable but not very unexpected.

America.

More specifically, Hawaii.

Hey, don't look at me all funny like that; there was a reason why the country is known as the land of the free. 

I'd be free there!  From practically every single thing that had held me down before.  It'd be awesome!

Moreover why not? I mean I had only heard the best things about these islands in the middle of the Pacific. Besides I could speak English perfectly well.

Hawaii was beautiful, care-free, and more or less ... secluded.

And so I had hopped onto a plane after explaining extensively to Syaoran and Wei that I, Meiling Li was to move to Hawaii, USA ... in about two hours.

You should've seen Syaoran's expression. It was priceless. I thought he was going to faint from the lack of oxygen.

Wei on the other hand, was pretty open minded about the whole thing. And now that I think about it, the Clan was pretty lenient on my decision too, I know suspicious huh?

But the new Clan Elders, now led by my Uncle Quei said that it would be a nice new experience for me. It would be fun, I would be the first female to ever go to America. Huh, another first.

Yeah you should've seen my mothers face when they told her that.

New experience? Yeah right. My mother would hear none of those things.

She almost went ballistic. I think she would have if Syaoran's mother hadn't been there to calm her down. There was no one to take care of me over there, no family, no friends, no nothing! I would have to start over, she had said.

I, of course knew this already. Why else do you think I want to go there, I wanted to ask but I bit my lip and held it in.

I knew she would be sad if I had spouted that, so ... she didn't have to know.

After several rants about staying away from strangers, picking a nice neighborhood to settle in, and something about not dressing too slutty-ish, she finally decided to let me go. But not after a few more hours of fussing and trying to pack for me.

My step-dad even offered to buy me a plane ticket ... I just think he wanted to get rid of me again. He never really liked me at all since he married Mother six years ago ... especially after I punched him in the face a few Christmases back. But that story is for another time.

All I have to say is that I deny all claims as to my knowledge of how the hair dye mysteriously turned out to be a different colour than what was said on the box.

Of course the free plane tickets was not to be rejected, I mean I'm all for the not taking money from your poor parents part, but really I needed to save all the money I could get my hands on.

Furthermore, they were far from poor. It wasn't like I was robbing them or something.

So that's how I got a free one way ticket to Japan for final goodbyes. And an all expenses paid trip to Hawaii! Well, until I got there and had to pay my landlord that is.

I knew the move was going to be wacky, but oh boy. I didn't know it was going to be like this.