Disclaimer: CCS doesn't belong to me.

The story is a satire. Some parts of the story are intended to appear exaggerated.

Anyway, enjoy! :D

You're My Check~Mate

~ o ~ O ~ o ~ O ~ o ~ O ~ o ~

Plan #1:

Life is like a game of 'chess'.
You don't plan. You just attack.

~ o ~ O ~ o ~

"So you're telling me that after all you've done for him, all he did was throw up, glare at you, force you to sleep on the couch instead, and blame you for getting sick the next day?"

The auburn haired girl rubbed her temple. "Tomoyo, you didn't have to repeat everything I've just said. It only makes me feel worse."

"Well, I couldn't blame him," the girl on the other line of the phone laughed softly. "Cooking isn't exactly your talent."

And her friend had yet to add more salt to her wound.

She never said she had a talent for cooking. It was merely her passion! Couldn't anyone understand the difference between 'talent' and 'passion'?

"I never said it was my talent," the defensive girl scoffed at the phone. "It's my passion."

She heard yet another laugh.

Alright. Maybe she wasn't as good as Tomoyo when it comes to cooking but the food she made could never be that bad. Besides, she loved to cook! So, it didn't really matter if all the food she made were just 'normal', in a sense, right?

"Oh, Sakura… Don't worry! I'm sure that everything is going to be just fine. He managed to survive until now after eating everything you've made for him. So why wouldn't he survive it this time?"

"Haha. Very funny, Tomoyo." Sakura stuck her tongue out at the phone. "And come on. You know that's not what's really bothering me right now."

"Yeah, I know. I'm sorry. I was only teasing you."

Sakura chuckled. "Nah, it's alright." She sat up on the couch and stared at the white ceiling of the living room and sighed heavily. "Ever since last week, it had always felt like we're just two strangers forced to live together under the same roof. I even put my heart and soul into his favorite dish just so that we could finally get along! But nothing's working…"

"Were you both quarrelling about your soon-to-be-husband?"

Hearing that just had to remind her of the cruel life she was about to face in a few months count. She didn't want to get married . Not that she didn't want that forever; just… not yet. She was only twenty-four—if you'd call that only—and she believed that it was still too early for her to spend the rest of her lifetime with someone whom she had never even met.

Her father confessed how worried he was of her because of her lack of interest for men. He didn't want his one and only lovely daughter to live miserably alone for the rest of her now-about-to-be miserable life. And his worst possible solution: find her a husband. And the sole suspect for giving her father the fantastic idea of a worst possible solution: her brother.

How I want to kick his ass right now.

She feared how people could change after their marriage. What if her fiancé was someone who was very sweet at first and he would unleash his devilish, demonic powers right after the marriage? Or he could be someone as revolting as her older brother who was a giant muscle narcissist. Yuck.

I'm going to die puking if my fiance's going to be someone like him.

"Promise me you'd always visit my grave after I get married."

"Wha—" Tomoyo coughed into the phone in surprise. "—Your grave?!"

"I'm about to spend the rest of my life in hell."

"Sakura, you won't be 'spending the rest of your life in hell'," the other girl laughed. "Look at it this way. I'm married and I've never once thought of our life together as what you'd call 'hell'."

"Easy for you to say. You always become love drunk every night."

"Sakura!" Tomoyo laughed.

"Oh, just admit it. Whenever I think of calling you every night, I'd remember that horrible experience I had and just end up delaying the call for the next morning."

Sakura would never forget that time when she called Tomoyo's home in the middle of the night. When a male voice answered, she knew for sure that it was her friend's husband Eriol. She had never yet met the guy because he and her friend married in England; but since he often answered the phone every time she called, she already recognized his voice.

She remembered how Eriol's voice sounded so tired and husky, like he was drastically panting for some air. He seemed like he was struggling to speak to her normally when a loud moan came out right behind him.

And the fact that it came from a familiar girl's voice made it even worse.

"That was really disgusting," she told Tomoyo. "I'm begging you to please remind your man to take a short break before answering the phone again, most especially at night."

Tomoyo giggled. "Sorry."

"Oh, hey! Look at the time! I have to catch up at the supermarket!"

"The supermarket?"

"Yeah! There's this big afternoon sale today and it will only last until five! It's a chance for me to save on our supplies!"

Sakura could hear a long sigh from the other line. "Alright. Take care then!"

"I will! Thanks."

After she hung up, Sakura sighed quietly and walked to her brother's bedroom. When she was finally standing before the closed door, she cautiously raised her hand until she finally brought herself to knock on the door.

"Onii-chan? Are you still resting?" Sakura asked sweetly but no one answered. "I'm going to head outside for a bit, do some shopping and stuff. Do you need me to buy you anything?" Still, no one answered but she was sure that he was beyond that door.

Although she felt guilty for making her brother's stomach upset the other night, her patience still had its limits. Just who the hell did he think he was? She understood that girls could get really over-emotional over so little things, but men?

What? Is he undergoing his own period as well?

"If you don't open this damn door, I swear I'm going to cook something you'll regret for the rest of your life!"

Wait.

That sounded wrong.

It was as if she already admitted that her cooking wasn't really good. But who cares. As long as she could make him get his stinking butt off the bed and answer her, anything would do.

Just then, the door suddenly slammed open in front of her and her brother finally showed himself. The guy's expression was oh-so priceless! It was as if his whole life was about to be in jeopardy.

She knew using her passion for cooking would work.

"Don't. You. Even. Dare." Touya glared at her.

But instead of shouting back at him for ignoring her all day long, she merely stared into a whirlpool of nightmares that was standing right in front of her.

"Oh, God! My eyes! They're buuurniiiiing!" Sakura immediately shielded her innocent little eyes from the big half-naked man.

Her brother merely rolled his eyes. "Stop sounding like you've never seen these abs."

'Or you meant flabs,' Sakura snorted in her head.

"Anyway, why weren't you answering me?"

The tall man shrugged. "I was sleeping."

Sakura rolled her eyes. "Yeah, right!"

"Fine. I'll listen. Just let me do the cooking from now on. I don't want to risk losing another year of my life."

The corners of Sakura's lips twitched.

My cooking couldn't be that bad!

"Whatever!" Sakura raised her hands in surrender. "Anyway, I'm gonna go shopping. You know, there's going to be this big sale in the supermarket." And she slowly started forgetting her anger and started sounding so excited. "They said that there are items at fifty percent off! But the sale will only last until five so I have to hurry. Well, you wanna come?"

When she noticed that the guy she was talking to was already dozing off on her, her excitement quickly went off. Her temper began to rise as she unconsciously cracked her knuckles.

"Stupid onii-chan! I'm going to cook your stupid dinner!" she shouted as she stormed off. "Don't tell me I didn't warn you!"

- O -

Sakura took her wallet from her bag and handed her money to the cashier. While waiting for the cashier to process her payment into the cash register, she took a glance around her and found the place so quiet and normal. She really felt so stupid for getting excited over nothing.

She remembered when she finally got inside the supermarket. She was expecting to run over a wild horde of sale-hoarders but surprisingly, everything looked 'normal'. No scary mothers pushing each other around, no poor salesmen lying dead all over the floor after being stepped on numerous times, no nothing. It was until she finally asked one of the cashiers when she found out that the big sale was over days ago.

Of all the details she had to miss, it had to be the date.

"How stupid can I be?"

The cashier turned to look at her questioningly. "I wasn't saying anything."

Sakura quickly covered her mouth with her hand. She couldn't believe that she was really so stupid to even say out loud that she was actually stupid. "Oh, please don't mind me."

She eventually let out a soft sigh and looked down and depressed when she suddenly heard a quiet laugh by the counter. When she looked back up, she saw that it was the same cashier who was already putting all her groceries into the plastic bag.

"Is… Is something wrong?"

"No, it's nothing. I'm sorry." The cashier finished packing all her groceries before turning to her while wiping off a tear of laughter from his amber eyes. "It's just that I find you quite amusing."

Sakura merely stared at him disbelievingly. She couldn't tell from his tone if he was giving her a compliment or if he was really just mocking her.

"That was a really interesting move you made back there."

"Pardon?"

"You know. When you came in," the guy continued. "You reminded me of an amazona who's ready to eat the store alive."

The nerve of that guy to call her an 'amazona'.

Sakura didn't want to cause a ruckus in public so she decided to take note of the rude guy's name instead. She looked at the cashier closely until she saw the nametag pinned on his shirt. "Li Syaoran?" she asked.

"Yes, ma'am?" the guy smiled ever so kindly.

Sakura leaned a little closer to his face and whispered, "I'll remember that name." She smiled sweetly with a hidden intention beneath her tone, and took the plastic bags by force from the cashier's hands.

"How tempting," the man just had to pull her hand and whisper right into her ear with a sexy, hot voice, making Sakura quickly blush away.

"D-Don't get the wrong idea!" Sakura tried to hide the embarrassment visible on her face.

How could a guy like him flirt openly at a time like that? And he was working, for heaven's sake. Wasn't he afraid that he might lose his career? And to make things worse, he just had to give her a flirty wink.

Sakura turned her head away. "Hmph."

As she was walking away, she heard the young man say, "Thank you for shopping and please come again," with his seemingly innocent employee voice.

Like I'd ever want to see you again, she scoffed under her breath.

- O -

"I'm home."

When Sakura walked in, her brother immediately went out to the corridor to welcome her, which was weird.

"Welcome home, Sakura!" he flashed her that big smile which weirded her out even more.

Sakura looked carefully around the house. "Did an earthquake just happen?"

Touya looked at her bafflingly. "No. What made you ask?"

"Oh, nothing. I just thought that maybe an earthquake have shaken your head so bad that you're acting like that."

She saw her brother clenching a fist before hiding it behind his back while mumbling a few words under his breath.

"Anyway, why don't you come over to the kitchen?" Touya told her while forcing a smile on his face. "I've got something special to show you."

Hearing her brother say the word 'special' made her heart jump with joy. Is he trying to make up with me?

She never knew that her brother would also be kind enough to actually initiate the process of getting along with her. Back in the days, it was usually—always, actually—her who had to go and ask him for forgiveness whenever they got into a fight.

Maybe he finally realized he was in the wrong for giving otou-san that unbelievable advice.

When they both got into the kitchen, Sakura first dropped the two bags of groceries on the kitchen counter before heading towards where her brother was standing.

"What's that?" she asked as she was staring at a bowl of delicious-looking ramen on the dining table.

"This, my dear Sakura, is what we normal people call 'ramen'."

Sakura arched her eyebrow.

"I obviously know it's ramen," she said. "I'm asking what's so special about it that you had to show it to me."

Sakura watched as her brother walked over to the kitchen counter and opened the cabinet under it. He later took out another bowl with green bubbles popping out of what seemed like—

My ramen!

"This," Touya spoke as he showed her the other bowl, "is the magnificent work of my genius sister that is said to kill a person immediately in just one gulp. It is very deadly."

Deadly, my ass.

"Hey! It's edible!"

"Edible?!" Touya screamed in utter shock and annoyance. "You know what? Maybe you're the one whose head was terribly shaken by an earthquake."

"I've had it!" Sakura yelled at him. "And here I thought you were finally going to tell me that you're sorry."

"Sorry?" her brother sounded like he never knew what they were fighting about in the first place. "Just what the hell should I be sorry for?"

"See? See that?" she pointed at him. "You always act like you did nothing when in fact, you're the one at fault!"

Touya looked at her incredulously. "But what did I do?!"

"Ugh!"

Sakura heavily stomped her feet as she hurriedly walked away from him. She wanted to head outside, a whole farther away from her unbelievable brother, and take a breather. She honestly couldn't believe how her brother, and her father, could be so dense over what she was feeling at the time.

She just wanted to find love on her own. She didn't need her two overly-protective family members to spat the whole 'you have to get married' on her face. She was going to get married!—to someone she would choose, that is. It was just that she hadn't found the perfect man yet. There wasn't a rule that said every girl had to get married before she reached the age of thirty. So what if she found the man of her dreams at forty? Or fifty? Or sixty, even? She just didn't want to live her entire life with a man whom she might not get along with.

Tomoyo once told her to give her fiancé a chance, that maybe he could be the right guy for her. There was nothing wrong with that. She was okay with the idea, but…

I just wanted to fall in love 'in the process'.

When Sakura opened the main door, her jaw dropped at seeing a very familiar guy standing at their doorstep.

"Oh! I was just about to knock."

Sakura's eyes widened.

"I know it's already late at night but," the guy started slowly.

"You…"

"I came to return something."

"You're that RUDE cashier!" the furious woman finally shouted.

"I'm honored that you actually remembered," Syaoran said with an innocent smile on his face.

"Just what is your business here? And how did you know that I live here?" Sakura asked, annoyed even more by his pathetic smile with the word 'evil' hidden behind his face.

The man started explaining for himself but before Sakura could pay any attention to what he was saying, she suddenly heard her brother's footsteps coming her way.

"Sakura? Who are you talking to?"

Oh, crap. If onii-chan saw us, he might accuse me for having an affair with this guy!

Suddenly, a light bulb appeared over her head. And that could actually be a good idea, she thought.

If Sakura took that chance to make it appear that she was having an affair with the cashier boy at her door, she would have a reason not to continue her marriage with her never-before-seen fiancé. Moreover, if she showed her father and her brother that she was actually having a 'secret relationship' with the cashier even before her father announced that she was engaged, she could actually have a big shot at breaking off the engagement!

Sakura, you are a genius!

"…So," Syaoran continued. "I looked over your wallet and saw your I.D. and that's how I found out that you live here. And that's why I'm here to return your wallet," he said and brought out her wallet from his pocket.

Sakura smiled sweetly. "I'm sorry. What was that again?" Obviously, she never caught anything he had said as she was too busy thinking over her devious plan.

"If you don't want your wallet back, that's a whole lot fine with me."

"Sakura," her brother's voice interfered, and it sounded even closer. "Who's that?"

Sakura glanced at the back and when she saw that her brother could finally see them together, she decided that it was time to put aside her shame and do what was needed to be done.

Now's the chance!

She grabbed Syaoran closer to her by holding onto the collar of his shirt and forced a long unromantic kiss onto his lips.

The poor man who was victim to her plan was too shocked to react to whatever was going on. As he was holding onto the kiss, he saw her brother's eyes fuming with flames so hot that he could nearly melt in fear.

When Sakura finally pulled away from the kiss, she immediately linked arms with Syaoran like how she pictured sweet couples should look like.

"Onii-chan," she smiled happily and pretentiously. "I want to introduce to you my boyfriend."

The two men exchanged staggered glances at each other. The expression on their faces looked like they heard the most absurd thing in their entire life.

When realization hit, Touya's veins suddenly popped.

"He's your what?!"