Love the Accidental Way
By Kukaburry
Chapter 4 - Chemical Bonds
*Thanks for the reviews and way to guess what happened in this chapter ;) *
Sakura found a slightly sandy park bench just down the road near a flickering street light and sat down with her book and four stacks of homework sheets. Flipping open her phone, she clicked 'go' to start her hour timer. Fifteen minutes in a male voice above her head snapped her out of her mental zone. "What are you doing?" She blinked up at the shadowed face and recognized it after a few seconds of scrutiny.
"Syaoran? Why are you out here?"
He folded his arms across his chest with a bemused smile on his lips. "I should ask you the same thing." Nodding his head at her books he continued, "Got bored of the party so quickly?"
"Oh no, not really. I just wanted to start working on stuff," she murmured, face starting to feel flushed. "We've got a lot of homework due on Monday."
He peered at the books and assessed her uncomfortable position. "Do you want to do it at Eriol's place?"
Startled by the idea, Sakura merely gaped at him for a moment. "I don't want to stop you from going out somewhere."
"I just got back from dinner at that diner down the street."
"You ate by yourself?" Syaoran shrugged, unconcerned by the idea of eating alone. "Alright well, are you sure you don't mind?"
"That doesn't look very comfortable. It doesn't matter to me though," he said with a lazy flick of the wrist. "Stay here if you'd like. Or you can follow me."
She watched his retreating back for a moment before throwing her papers in her backpack and scurrying after Syaoran. "Okay I guess it would be nice to have better lighting."
Syaoran shrugged. "Yeah."
"And better seating."
"Yep."
She looked at him quizzically, wondering why he was giving her one-word answers. "You don't talk much do you?"
"Nope." She almost took her shoe off and beat him with it, but stopped when she saw a teasing grin on his face. A cold wind began gusting right as they reached the front porch. "Lucky I came by, huh."
"Yeah, thanks, I would've eaten a lot of sand."
"Increase your daily fiber content," he replied with a smile.
"Ugh, that's gross." In the brighter lights, Syaoran finally got a look at the cute outfit Sakura was wearing. His eyes swept from her face to her feet while she was occupied with pulling out wads of papers. "Man this class is going to suck." She glanced up and frowned. "Why are you all red? Are you feeling okay?"
"I'm fine," he mumbled, turning away with a frown.
She watched as his color got even darker and she reached out a hand, "Here let me check," but he shied away and sat down on the other side of the couch. "Alright, fine," she mumbled, opening her book to chapter one and continued to on the first problem set.
"Do you want something to drink or eat?" Sakura's stomach gurgled from lack of food. "I'll take that as a yes. Want some popcorn and a coke?"
"Yes, please." The smell of freshly melted butter filled the house.
After bringing out the popcorn and sodas, Syaoran grabbed the remote and turned on the TV. "Sorry I'll turn it down," he said when her head snapped up quickly at the sound. "What are you working on?"
"AP Chemistry. We're learning acids and bases and ph levels right now."
"Oh that's the easy part."
She looked up at him with a questioning glance. "Did you take this back in Tokyo?"
"Sure. Last year with pretty much everyone else."
Sakura tried not to look too impressed. "So everyone there takes AP Chemistry?"
"Almost everyone. If you want to do anything worthwhile after college then you take your base level classes in high school."
"Wow, it sounds like you had to work really hard there." Syaoran gave a noncommittal nod. "Did you parents make you do it?"
Syaoran's expression turned dark and brooding instantly. "This conversation is done." Cheeks burning from embarrassment, Sakura bent her head over her book and blinked back sudden tears. They sat in silence for several minutes after that, only broken by the announcer on TV. "Look, sorry for snapping. Let me see what you're doing." He nudged her books aside and stared over her shoulder. Sakura lifted her head slightly to give him a clearer view. "Look, you did these first two right, but the third one needs to have the reverse log to find the acidic ph."
She peered at the page for several minutes, flipping through her book for answers. Finally she looked up, frustrated. "Why do I do that?"
"Well they gave you the OH- ph now you need to find the H+ ph using reverse log."
Sakura looked at the page and turned her head to read a couple of paragraphs. "Oh, I see. She didn't mention that part during class." A smile spread across her face. "Thanks." She worked through several more problems correctly before hitting number eight. She wrote and rewrote the problem before leaving large black streaks across the page. "What does this one mean? I can't figure it out."
"It's like the other problems you've been doing. It's asking to change the ph scale from basic to acidic depending on the number of OH- or H+ ions in water." Sakura nodded her head. "If there is 10^-7 OH- then there is 10^-7 H+."
"Which is neutral, right?"
"Right. If there is 10^-3 H+ ions then there is 10^-11 OH- ions."
"But why is all of this about H+ and OH-?"
"What is the molecule for water?"
"H2O."
"Right, how do you get H20?"
She stared at him for a moment before a light bulb clicked in her head. "Oh! OH- and H+. I should have remembered that from chem 1. So there are H+ and OH- ions floating around in all bodies of water."
"Exactly. It becomes acidic or basic if it loses or gains H+ ions. See? Easy."
Sakura glanced up shyly. "You know, you would be a good tutor," she said softly.
"No way, I have no patience." He tapped the pencil nervously against his thigh.
"You've been fine with me." Syaoran looked down for a second, catching sight of more cleavage than he should have, and once again turned fire engine red. Sakura's hand shot forward and she placed a cool palm against his heated cheek. "Here I'll get you a glass of water and aspirin. You definitely have a fever."
"Yeah you're right. I'm just going to go lay down," he stood up quickly to escape his position next to her. "You should go back to the party."
"Oh," Sakura stammered for a moment and grasped her papers then shoved them back into her book. "Yeah you're right. It's getting late." She swung the faded denim bag over her shoulder. "Um.. If I have trouble with any of the problems tomorrow do you think..." she trailed off and looked up at Syaoran who was now perched on the first step leading upstairs. "Do you think I could come over here and ask for help?"
An inner dialogue seemed to commence inside Syaoran's head because he remained silent for nearly a minute. "Sure, I guess that would be fine." A sarcastic lilt attached to his final comment, "As long as your boyfriend doesn't mind."
"Who? Adam?" Syaoran gave her an unbelieving glance. "Well he's not my boyfriend... yet." A girlish giggle escaped her lips. "Maybe after this weekend..." She could tell the conversation was making him uncomfortable. "Okay, are you sure you're okay? Here's some aspirin that you should take before going to sleep." She placed the bottle on the edge of the coffee table and backed away towards the door. "Alright, feel better."
She snuck back inside Tomoyo's house and threw her bag into her room right as loud cheering erupted from the kitchen area. Pushing through several sweaty bodies, Sakura found Eriol and Adam playing beer pong against two random people. From the looks of things, Eriol and Adam were winning. "Hey, I've been looking all over for you," Tomoyo pulled on her arm. "Where have you been?"
"Oh, just went out for a little bit. I took a walk down to the uh..." She thought about it for a minute. "The diner you know, down the street. I was kind of hungry and it was too loud in here." She did not know why that lie popped out of her mouth.
"Oh well there's stuff in the fridge if you were hungry. You didn't have to eat alone."
"It's fine, don't worry about it," she said evasively. "Are you having fun?" She noticed that Tomoyo's eyes were slightly unfocused.
"Our boys are kicking ass over there." Tomoyo's gaze caught Eriol's and she blushed slightly.
"What exactly happened while I was gone?" Sakura asked curiously. "On Wednesday you couldn't stand the guy."
"Things happen sometimes," Tomoyo replied mysteriously. "Speaking of, Adam's been asking for you for the past ten minutes." Anticipation tingled from Sakura's heart down to her stomach. Adam looked over in her direction and broke out with a goofy grin.
"There she is!" He waded through the reaching arms of several girls and stopped right in front of Sakura. "I was worried you had run away," he teased, pulling her into a warm embrace. "I missed you." Before he finished the sentence, his lips descended onto hers. His mouth was hot and wet and tasted strongly of beer, yet his lips were gentle. "You know what?" He breathed into her ear, voice suddenly dry and husky, "You and Tomoyo should play against us after this round. Show us your skills." He winked while taking her hand and leading her back to the beer pong table. Several girls threw Sakura piercing glares as she passed.
Two hours and six beers later, Sakura had forgotten all about Chemistry.
I am tutoring someone in chemistry right now so all of this acid/base crap is stuck in my head :P.
