What He Wants: Chapter 1

Full Summary: After failing the Final Judgment and causing Sakura to also fail, Syaoran Li lost his magic, and his memories. Separated from Sakura by time and space, he became a cold, ruthless man. But he has unconsciously been searching for love—Sakura's love—for many years. Without magic, can he find her and the love they were once destined to live out together?


Chapter 1: Predator

The Lone Wolf

Syaoran Li, president of the Li Hong Kong Finance Group, and next head of the Li Clan, was used to getting his way.

He had grown from a cute young boy into a wildly handsome man. Tall, with deep-set cold amber eyes, tousled brown hair, a lean physique, chiseled cheekbones, and a haughty demeanor, Syaoran was well aware of his effect on the opposite sex, and wasn't above taking advantage of it...but only when he wanted something, or someone. As a result, he'd badly broken a few hearts when he discovered that the woman he was with was not the one he wanted.

Not that he knew who she was. Yet.

He also inspired much hatred with hostile takeovers and mergers; he was quick to spot floundering companies and come in with aggressive tactics. Syaoran was known for buying into losing companies, which then suddenly turned around and became profitable.

So he believed everyone had a price, and he hadn't been wrong so far. In Hong Kong, people could be bought and sold if you knew what to pay, and he was a master of the game of buy and sell.

But there were some people for whom the price was too high, even for someone like him. And he was arguing with her right now.

"Who the hell cares if I'm unmarried, Mother?" Syaoran paced in front of his tall, stately mother Yelan Li. "I will choose who to marry, not force the issue with some stranger just because I need to do so! Is there even a good reason to marry to begin with? I am not dying soon, and I'm not so stupid that I haven't made provisions in case something happens to me."

"If you reach thirty without an heir, I will be compelled to name a new heir," Yelan said coldly, praying he would not notice the urgency she felt. "You're almost twenty-eight, Syaoran, and I am required by clan tradition—which, if I might remind you, governs inheritance—to tell you to marry. We need to ensure that the company goes to Li blood. Preferably yours."

"Like anyone else can take my place," Syaoran smirked. "Now let's see anyone else take this company in the direction that I have. I'm indispensable, Mother, and you know it. I've grown the company into twice the size Father left it, and practically half of Hong Kong owes us money in one way or another now."

A long pause, in which Yelan stared at her son. "You're right. No one else can do what you do with the Li Group, Syaoran. But it means you've invested yourself into the business, and so I know what will force you to see things my way. If you don't get married before your thirtieth birthday, I will sign over control of the Li empire to your distant cousin Eriol Hiiragizawa."

"What? Ridiculous! He doesn't even know we exist. I built the Li Group into what it is today, goddamnit!" Syaoran yelled. "And Eriol doesn't even live in Hong Kong! He's in Britain, for god's sake!"

Yelan ignored Syaoran's outburst. "He has an MBA. I'm sure we'll survive with him. Don't worry; you'll have a comfortable allowance, and you can do whatever you like without having to worry about money."

Syaoran cursed. "You can't do this to me, Mother."

"You're right," Yelan agreed. "I don't want to do this to you. Nevertheless, I am bound by the rules."

"Ah. So the mysterious Elders, whom I suspect do not even exist, must have handed down God's word," Syaoran said sarcastically.

Again, Yelan ignored him. "They think Eriol can take over. He is married, and for the Elders, that's good enough," she baited.

"Mei Ling would do a better job!" Syaoran snarled. It was true; he relied on his quiet, efficient burgundy-eyed cousin to take care of the details while he took care of the big business. He looked at her to see what her comment would be, but was surprised to see that she was silent, lost in her own thoughts.

Syaoran turned away, cursing silently. Getting married wasn't the problem. Finding the one he wanted...that was the problem.

If Syaoran could admit it to himself, he was lonely, but his pride would never let him acknowledge it. He absolutely hated that he had everything he wanted...except someone to love and to love him the way he needed to be loved.

Not that he would ever admit it. He hadn't even recognized it.

He could never explain why there had been something empty in his heart for years. It didn't make sense, and loneliness, for him, was a weakness. When he entered into a relationship, he sometimes stayed even when he knew the woman was not the one he was searching for, because he hoped it would help him ignore the strange hole in his heart, even if for a while.


Mei Ling

Over to the side, where she had retreated when Yelan and Syaoran started arguing, Syaoran's cousin Mei Ling Li shifted uncomfortably. She did not want Syaoran's job; in fact, her dearest dream was to live somewhere other than Hong Kong, where she had been tethered to Syaoran by the Clan.

She no longer wore her long, beautiful hair odango-style; her straight hair reached almost to her tiny waist. Mei Ling was a delicately lovely woman; despite never wearing makeup save for some powder and lipstick, she nonetheless always turned heads wherever she was. She was also no longer impulsive and aggressive as she had been when she was a child; Clan members had tired of remarking on this over the years, and she was grateful.

Originally betrothed to Syaoran, she had begged him to break off their engagement when they were teens. She could not imagine living the rest of her life with the cold, haughty man he had become, and surprisingly, he and the Clan Elders had agreed. But she had been bound to him as an assistant instead, and somehow, that had been worse for her. Because now she was at his beck and call. It wasn't easy on her own relationships, and she knew it.

As mother and son argued, Mei Ling fell into a familiar reverie.

Mei Ling couldn't help but think that something was wrong. She and Syaoran rarely discussed it, but they had missing memories from when they were in fourth and fifth grade. But each time she tried to remember, nothing would come up. And she could not ask him for confirmation because each time she tried to bring it up (which was only twice or thrice since they were eleven), he would deny it, and look scornful.

She did know she had returned from an area in Japan, and that she and Syaoran had studied there briefly. Why had they been there? She did not know. But she could trace his coldness, the change in him, to when he returned to Hong Kong a year after she had.

She first sensed that something was wrong with Syaoran when he'd come home from Japan...alone. He seemed defeated; certainly he bore marks that he'd been beaten, though he denied it vehemently. He had no schoolbooks, no photos...nothing to even prove he'd been there except a knowledge of Japanese. He couldn't remember why he was home, nor could he remember why he'd been in a tiny suburb of Japan...Tomo-cho? Tomoda?...in the first place.

But on his first night home, he had wound up screaming, "Don't hurt her! Somebody help her! Stop it, Yue!" She and Yelan had run to his room, and shaken him out of a nightmare so violent, he was wet with sweat.

When he woke up, he denied it, claiming he had said nothing, dreamed nothing. And as he tried to remember his dream, his eyes...that was the first time Mei Ling had seen his eyes go cold and hard, a sight she would grow accustomed to over the years. "Me, have a nightmare? About a girl? Let's not be ridiculous. Nothing happened," he said, all the while denying anything had happened in Japan. He had no memory of it anyway, and so they had given up asking him about it. Syaoran had then forced her and his mother out of his room

The next morning, though, she'd found Syaoran's green ceremonial costume shredded in the garbage outside the Li compound. Mei Ling, obeying a strange impulse, decided to save it, but hid it from Syaoran and Yelan. She still didn't know why she'd done it.

Syaoran had also hung up his red-tasseled sword Jian in the Li armory display, and had not touched it since. He had then buried himself in studies, always coming out on top, always wanting to be first at everything, whether sports or academic honors. He hated failure...and when he wanted something, he always found a way to get it.

He continued his martial arts training, but was removed from the dojo because he could not control his ferocity; he often wound up bloodying sparring partners and breaking equipment. Yet when asked about what made him so angry, Syaoran would snarl and dismiss the questioner brutally.

Mei Ling noticed that in high school, he'd become quiet and withdrawn, making no friends and violently spurning all girls who made a move towards him...except if the girls concerned had brown hair or green eyes. Even then, they always fell short, somehow, and he'd taken to throwing away everything he got on Valentine's Day without even looking at it.

So he'd grown into a cold, arrogant, cunning, and haughty adult, with no friends. His first conquest, after college, was Hana, the beautiful, green-eyed heiress to an airline company. The young woman had fallen so deeply in love with Syaoran, she had surrendered her virginity to him in just a week, and had hinted that she would like to marry him.

Mei Ling had wondered about this until she saw how Syaoran acted around Hana. He was sweet; he was gentle and passionate, possessive, even, constantly attentive and loving. The girl had stood no chance; she fell deeply, irretrievably in love with him.

Everything seemed fine for a while; Syaoran had even introduced Hana to Yelan, and Hana had happily prepared her parents for when Syaoran would ask for her hand, because their relationship was so intense and passionate.

But after six months, he had discarded poor Hana, almost in anger; it was only that one time that he had confided in Mei Ling, and said "She can't fill the hole in my heart. She's not enough...she'll never be enough. Why is that so? She even smells wrong!"

He'd gone on to say that he'd hung on for so long because he kept thinking he'd feel different the next day...and the next...and finally, the day never came.

Mei Ling ventured that perhaps because he needed to be loved in a certain way, by a certain person, then perhaps he should begin looking for that person. She looked at Syaoran, and was shocked to find him frozen by her words.

In response, Syaoran had angrily punched a hole in the wall of his office, making Mei Ling flinch. Syaoran did not know where to direct his anger: at himself, or at a world that wasn't giving him what he wanted most.

He'd never spoken of it again. But he became choosy; he refused to date unless it was someone he chose, and even then, it was rare for him to choose a woman to date. He refused to go the playboy route, openly and cruelly insulting women who were too aggressive or flirtatious with him. Syaoran preferred to choose women, not to be pursued.

When he did choose a woman, she was always at least a head smaller than him, had auburn hair, green eyes, and a lovely smile. Each time Syaoran seduced someone, he would go after her aggressively, then after fighting to win her heart, he would stay...for a while...then leave. He always paced his relationships quickly, desperate to discover if this time, she could be the one.

No woman had ever left him, because once he'd given them a taste of what it was like to be with him, they could no longer be without him.

And each time, he wound up disappointed and angry; it was as if the woman had failed him in some way. Each time, he would break it off abruptly, cruelly. And he learned to make his relationships faster, to use clichés and calculated caresses, to use the lies of love in order to find what he wanted...if it was there.

Mei Ling knew when a relationship had ended because Syaoran would schedule hostile takeovers then. He'd be so ferocious in the boardroom, even elderly statesmen feared him.

Each time he left women, they had been devastated, and one cried on Mei Ling's shoulder, weeping about how Syaoran had told her coldly, "You're not the one I'm looking for. You're not the one I want."

He's looking for something, Mei Ling thought. But what, or who?

Not that he would discuss it with her. Even the gentlest of attempts to open the topic with Syaoran always met with a bristling, angry response.

But it had been two years since Syaoran had last found a girl who he wanted to go after. Things were quiet, until Yelan had brought up the subject of marriage.

It wasn't Yelan's style to pressure Syaoran, and Mei Ling wondered about that. Yelan never did anything without a purpose.

"I would be happy to help you find a woman. Name what you want, Syaoran, and I will gladly cover your back with the Clan if we can't find her before your thirtieth birthday," Yelan said.

Mei Ling's gaze slid to Syaoran, who was staring at his mother. When a feral grin split his mouth, she sighed softly; he'd thought of something, then. It was never a good thing.

Silence. Mei Ling shifted uneasily, clearly not wanting to be involved, and sensing that Syaoran would manage to manipulate things to his advantage—as he always did.

Syaoran suddenly smirked. "Fine then. You want me to get married? Find me a girl. Not a woman...a girl. I want a beautiful young girl who'll look good on my arm, very innocent, the kind I can control and own. She has to have a sweet, cheerful, yet interesting disposition. She has to be intelligent but still be someone who can't possibly dominate me, someone who will submit to me so completely so that I won't ever have to explain anything to her. I want her to be inexperienced in love. Green eyes. Auburn hair. Smaller than me. Compatible with me astrologically. Find me that girl and I will marry." He stared Yelan in the eye aggressively.

Yelan blanched. Clever, as always. Those were impossible standards, and they all knew it. But he'd left an opening, and so she took it. "All right then, Syaoran. We will find that girl."

Syaoran snorted, and walked out without saying goodbye. He knew that Yelan and Mei Ling would never find the girl he yearned for. What they did not know—and they already were the two people closest to knowing him best—was that he had given his mother all those conditions because that was the only kind of girl who could make him fall in love. He kept looking for delightfully messy auburn hair, melting green eyes, an open smile, and a sweet disposition. He needed unconditional love; he wanted someone to see past his cold, cruel exterior to who he was. Not that he knew who he was at times.

Syaoran would never admit it though. Nor would he admit why he could almost picture the girl he wanted. It was insane; he'd never met her yet he found himself longing for someone. In unguarded moments, he could almost imagine she existed, waiting only for him to find her.

He prided himself on being a logical man, on being strong and emotionless, so he learned to squelch those thoughts as soon as they appeared.

But his heart had other plans.

Mei Ling watched Syaoran go, and wished with all her heart that Syaoran would find what he was looking for. She immediately laughed at herself though. Nobody hears wishes anymore. Nobody can grant them.

But if they did ...and Mei Ling smiled. She had two. One for Syaoran...and one for herself.


Yelan

When Syaoran had left, Yelan and Mei Ling looked at each other quietly.

"I worry about him," Mei Ling said suddenly. Yelan nodded, waiting for her to continue. "Because when he finally falls in love, he's going to hurt himself. Because he's never been in love."

"He's setting impossible standards," Yelan noted. "While he's not promiscuous, he uses and abandons women after he's played his games with them. He chooses them carefully; I don't know how he came to this."

"I think it's a power thing for him, or perhaps the thrill of the hunt. He's looking for something—maybe someone who is unaware of the depth of his feelings for her? You'll notice, Auntie, that he chooses women who aren't easy to win over," Mei Ling said slowly. "When they return his feelings and fall in love, though...that's when it ends. He expects them to live up to something he wants but no one knows what it is. So he's become jaded. The bad part is, the only answer to his jadedness is pure innocence...but if we find him someone like that, he may wind up destroying her."

Yelan knew that Syaoran believed love was a weakness—and that he'd never told any of the women he'd pursued that he loved them. He only briefly allowed them to touch his heart. She sighed, and wondered what had happened to him for what felt like the millionth time in sixteen years. She felt that she didn't know Syaoran anymore, most of the time. He was not like his father at all, and no one else in the family was as ruthless and heartless as Syaoran.

His father Xiaolong had had a gentle, sweet side to him, one reserved only for Yelan and his children. But he'd died when Syaoran was young, and Syaoran had never gotten to know him. His sisters, all older than him, were already in happy marriages and scattered across the globe: Japan, France, the US, and Britain.

Syaoran had been a serious child, but he had small episodes of kindness and tenderness then; he'd even rescued Mei Ling's missing pet bird in the rain once. And Yelan had a memory—a very vague, fleeting memory which she fought hard to keep—of Syaoran looking at someone with tenderness in his eyes...a small girl whom Yelan had kissed gently, knowing she was destined for him.

But that was all Yelan remembered. She wasn't even sure it was a real memory anymore; had it been a dream? She'd long probed strange gaps in her memory, one which existed in Mei Ling, Syaoran, and even Syaoran's four sisters.

Yelan could not remember why she had sent Syaoran to Japan when he was ten. He'd returned changed completely—he'd become aggressive, driven, even angry. No one could figure out what had happened, but by the time he was in high school, he'd become a cold, haughty person, intolerant of weakness in others, and quick to take advantage when others showed theirs.

Only her heart allowed her to know the extent of what was wrong. And she knew Syaoran was desperately lonely, but it pained her as his mother to know she could not reach out to him; he would not allow it, and would not forgive her for knowing of that weakness in him.

Mei Ling, on the other hand, had become subdued and quiet after returning from Japan; while still continuing her martial arts training, she was chastened by something that had also affected her when Syaoran had returned. She, too, had not had much luck in love; her relationships were short-lived affairs that ended quietly, with sad little whimpers. Though Mei Ling never said anything, Yelan knew the young woman was lonely.

Yelan also knew she owned mystical objects that had been handed down in the Li clan for years, but after Syaoran had returned from Japan, she had kept them in a secure vault. These included Syaoran's strange board—lazin? Lasin? She could never remember the name—and her fan. A week in Syaoran's eleventh summer was likewise missing from her memory. The Elders had cautioned her never to mention it to anyone, and though they hadn't explained why, she had obeyed, somehow knowing it was for Syaoran's own good.

He lost his magic, she thought idly. But there is no such thing as magic, her conscious mind firmly reminded her.

Her heart wished that there were, though...and that Syaoran would find someone who could make him look at her the way he had in Yelan's memory...with a look that promised love.


A Green Eyed Girl

The woman Syaoran wanted and needed did exist. She, in fact, had been destined for him.

But through his own mistakes, she had been trapped in a dream dimension closely like his own, except for one thing: he didn't exist in it, and she had never known him.

Her name was Sakura, and if a person embodied the beauty and innocence of cherry blossoms, it was her. With large thickly-lashed green eyes, rosy cheeks, smooth lightly-tanned skin, and auburn hair that fell to her shoulders in a delightful mess, it was a good thing she was completely oblivious to her effect on the opposite sex—which then made her even more attractive.

Sakura was the kind of girl who inspired the urge in others to protect her, even though she had made her way through high school and college all on her own, relying on her unfailing optimism and pluckiness to see her through. She was a small person, on the borderline between being a girl and a woman, with a sweet, cheerful disposition; what fascinated people about her was that she could be constantly happy.

Most people in Sakura's position would be lonely to the point of depression; everyone she loved was gone. Her parents, her older brother...and sometimes, it bothered her that she did not clearly remember why they were gone. She knew her parents had been with her, along with her brother...until she entered college? Sakura was never sure about that.

Because she had gaps in her memory, and sometimes her memories seemed like frames from a movie, somewhat unreal. A campus psychiatrist had called it "post-traumatic stress disorder" and given her some pills. They made her giddy, and so she stopped taking them, resolving to deal with her unhappiness herself.

That night, she tried to probe the gaps in her memory. Sometimes she dreamed of brown hair and eyes, though she couldn't understand it. Occasionally there was a silver-haired boy in glasses, and a talking...mouse? Bear? With wings? There was also a raven-haired girl with gorgeous violet eyes—warm, loving eyes.

How can I have these memories?

Sakura wished she could find out why she had those gaps in her memory...and wished as well that she could find the one she was destined to love. Because, cheerful creature as she was, she longed to be loved.

Someone once said, "Be careful what you wish for."

Sakura would have done well to remember the saying on that stormy night.


Many Wishes

Hong Kong is a place where many mystical forces align. Every so often, they say that a freak storm allows dimensions to touch, and to cross over.

This only happens when someone with powerful latent—and suppressed—magical powers makes a heart's wish: a deep, desperate desire for something that he or she cannot have without divine intervention.

And when more of them make the same heart's wish, even the barriers of time and space can be broken, if only for a while.

That night, a freak storm erupted over Hong Kong in two dimensions. One large bolt of lightning struck a small house in a dream dimension that existed alongside the real Hong Kong, scaring its sole female occupant very badly. Her house shimmered out of existence, then reappeared when the storm cleared...in the real Hong Kong.

Halfway across the world, a blue-eyed man felt the rift in time and space, and smiled. "It has begun," he said softly to no one in particular.

The next morning, when Sakura examined her house, there was no visible damage, and she sighed in relief, thanking her lucky stars.

Hong Kong was such a frightening place sometimes, she thought. But it was her home now, and her first home in Tomoeda in Japan was long gone.