A/N: Written for the Fall Event: Rlt Green Room on The Reviews Lounge, Challenge 4/10 – write a story about writing. Also for the 5,10,20,50,70,100 fandoms challenge, challenge 53, since this is my first time writing CCS, and for kokoruu on AO3 as part of the Magical Girl Exchange 2013. Maybe with some editing; I'm not sure I'm happy with how it turned out, in the end.

Booking It

Tomoyo sighed and closed her book. Stories that finished on an inconclusive note were fine and all, but there were so many details she had wanted to know. Still, it was a well-crafted story – written as though the character was truly living and experiencing as opposed to being an artefact of the author.

The consequence of that, she thought a little sadly, was that some things – those that escaped the narrator even by the end – escaped the reader as well. Perhaps there was a hint buried somewhere within those seven hundred pages, but she imagined she would need a fair amount of time on her hands to be able to find them.

The homework assignment – another book report – did not afford her that luxury. The absence of Sakura did, except when Tomoyo found her thoughts drifting in the direction of her best friend, wondering what she was up to now, in Hong King with Syaoran…

She had to admit it to herself, and to a few select others: she was jealous of Syaoran, who had warmed his way into Sakura's life so quickly and effortlessly, Tomoyo who'd known her far longer found herself lagging behind. Meiling understood: Meiling was one of the few people Tomoyo had told, as her feelings towards Sakura were much the same. Except Meiling was in Hong Kong, with Syaoran and Sakura, while Tomoyo was in Tokyo alone.

She sighed again and stared at the close cover of her book. It was remarkable, really, how much more distracting Sakura was in absentia. But it could hardly be avoided; Sakura was just that sort of person to her, and the prospect of writing a book report was not nearly as attention-grabbing as the final pages of a horror novel. And Sakura wasn't there to drag her to the lake for some fresh air, or to complain about her own far shorter story.

Still, she had little choice in the matter; she wasn't too keen on letting her grades suffer for her absentmindedness, and so she pulled out her notebook and pen, uncapping the latter. The words she had, not too long ago, breezed through now melted in her mind, becoming indiscreet. She sighed a third time, and tried to sort them out.

A half hour later, her page looked more like a story-board than a review, but her thoughts were more sensible as a result. Or she hoped they were: she still couldn't make heads nor tails of the curse which dominated the book, though she had pretty much everything in between down pat. Of course, it didn't help that she was constantly wondering about Sakura's thoughts on the material…starting with its length.

Still, it looked as though she would actually start writing her report that afternoon. Or, it had, until her phone rang.

'Moshi moshi,' she said, before recognising the happy "Tomoyo-chan" from the other end. 'Sakura-chan?'

'Yep.' There was no video, but Tomoyo was sure her best friend was grinning widely somewhere in Hong Kong. 'It's been a while, so I thought I'd check up on you.'

'I'm doing alright.' Tomoyo let a little giggle escape; Sakura's enthusiasm really was contagious. 'What if I had been in class?'

It was a little after three, so she could have been if it weren't Sunday.

'Class?' There was a bit of shuffling on the other end before Sakura's voice returned, a little higher than before. 'It's Sunday, isn't it?'

'It's Sunday,' Tomoyo reassured, before falling silent. Time-zones weren't the best source for a long conversation after all, and she had never been a good instigator of them.

'Don't scare me like that,' Sakura scolded. 'Your homeroom teacher sounds scary; I don't want him yelling at me.'

He might do that, Tomoyo mused. He would certainly not be pleased with her lack of discipline in having her phone on in class, but she didn't often have him for final period so the odds were slim – unless Sakura chose an earlier time to call.

That wouldn't be a surprise; Sakura had called her at two in the morning on New Years.

'So.' Sakura quickly shifted topics. 'What was I interrupting anyway?'

'Nothing,' was the response, and a true one at that. 'I was between planning my book review and actually writing it.'

'Book reviews again?'

Tomoyo chuckled again at the exasperation.

'How can you read those monster volumes? I'm surprised there's no Clow Card for them.'

'I'm rather fond of them.' Tomoyo closed her eyes. 'This one was a horror –'

'Stop right there!' the other cried. 'You know good and well I can't stand horror.'

Tomoyo did know.

'It's not that bad,' she comforted. 'It actually takes quite a while to get to the point, so you don't really notice any of the gruesome –'

'Tomoyo-chan!'

'Alright, alright.' There was no warming Sakura to horror films. Although… 'So you don't go to horror flicks and hang on to Li-kun's arm when you're scared?'

'Of course not.' Sakura "hmmphed", oblivious to the slight change on Tomoyo's tone. 'Syaoran-kun knows full well I won't go anywhere near those stuff.' There was a pause. 'Though we did see a couple of really cute ones. Syaoran-kun looked really cute blushing too; you would have loved it.'

On film perhaps, and Tomoyo suspected that was what Sakura meant. The neat boxes on her page glared at her, and she shut the notebook and returned it to her bag. In lieu of a phone-call with Sakura, she wouldn't be working on her book report again for awhile. 'I'll have to contend myself with whatever pictures you can manage,' she said lightly.

'It's too bad,' Sakura mused in reply. 'I'm really missing all those times you'd dress me up, you know? I always fell like a doll!' She laughed at her own statement, and while somebody listening to their conversation might have mistaken her comment for jest, Tomoyo knew her friend better.

'You look gorgeous in anything, Sakura-chan.'

'But "anything" isn't as gorgeous as your hand-made stuff.'

Judging from the tone, Sakura was pouting over the phone again. The conversation diverged from there, hovering a little further on Syaoran until Sakura deflected the topic to Meiling, her family, and then back to school.

'I still can't believe you have a book report to write every time I talk to you.' Sakura sighed, but unlike Tomoyo's quiet one hers was overdramatic at best. 'Seriously? Don't they teach anything else?'

'Of course they do,' Tomoyo explained. 'Apart from the other subjects –'

'I know that.' The over-drama had yet to cease; Sakura sometimes enjoyed teasing her more scholastic friend a little too much. 'Japanese, I mean.'

'We've started poetry in class,' Tomoyo offered. 'I think we're covering Haikus next week.'

There was a sound suspiciously like a grimace. 'Haikus. Those are worse.'

'They're not so bad, Sakura-chan.' Tomoyo had found herself rather endeared to the topic of poetry, in general. Far easier to write than the regular prose they'd been subjected to…and certainly easier than book reports or, the worst of them all, reflections. 'You should try it.'

'I'll have to at some point,' she groaned. 'At least they're not teaching it here yet.'

'What are they teaching?'

There was a pause. 'Theatre works,' Sakura admitted. 'It's certainly more fascinating than books, but so confusing.'

'Theatre,' Tomoyo repeated. 'I'm jealous.'

'It's not that glamorous,' Sakura hurriedly said. 'It's more the old traditional theatre pieces. Nothing about cameras at all.'

'Sakura-chan!' Tomoyo giggled a little at her friend's tirade. 'You're really getting carried away there.'

Sakura laughed as well. 'It is easy to,' she pointed out. 'How distracting am I being?'

'Not at all. My books are nowhere in sight.' And they weren't; they were in her bag, nice and snug.

'Tomoyo-chan's books?' Sakura's voice rose in mimicry of old-class swooning. 'No, not her books!'

'You're impossible.' Tomoyo was sure her stomach would hurt a little later; she'd gotten out of the habit of laughing that hard when Sakura had gone on exchange. The phone calls they shared simply did not make up for hours of company spent almost every day.

'I try,' Sakura quipped, her tone sobering a little. 'Ah, I'm running out of credit...and you probably need to finish that book report.'

And with a flurry and a quick goodbye Sakura was gone again, and the echo of light-hearted laughter they had shared together turning into something more soft and grey. The grin on Tomoyo's face also simmered to a smile of melancholy, something she felt rather self-conscious about because it made her feel like a love-sick girl pining after a long lost lover.

But she had no shame admitting that to herself, because Sakura was like a wind that blew her troubles out of reach when she was there. And phones connected the space of two people, brought them together…

She made a mental note of that point for future poetry and glanced at the time and then the empty desk before her. Sakura really was a distraction, despite everything else she was; Tomoyo realised closing time wasn't too far away, and she'd have to leave the book behind when she departed. It was due back that day after all, and somebody else had requested it.

She withdrew her notebook again and opened it, scanning her plan and turning to a new page. The story was still as confusing as before, but this time those stray threads were easier to ignore. She'd never manage to get a full picture after all, and if she did it would fade as quickly as the wind around her, losing the vibrant colour that gave it complete form.

She knitted an eye-patch in her mind: a physical representation of the mask the narrator had constantly found himself drawn toward. For a fleeting moment she imagined a more extensive design thereof, then filed it away in another corner and picking up her pen.

When words spilled out from under the tip instead of dress designs she nodded to herself in satisfaction. Sakura might seem straightforward to other people: a sport star and a klutz but no academic, Tomoyo knew her far better. Perhaps not to the degree to which Syaoran would – or did, perhaps – but they shared a special bond all the same.

Maybe she had been pining for a long-lost lover, because it was far easier to focus now that that had been, for a while, put to rest. Her mind abuzz with random threads of social conversation made for a good cushion for drifting review-related thoughts.

That didn't change the fact that she still felt some displeasure towards certain hanging plot-threads, but that was a problem that wasn't so easy to pacify.