Your Shadow
By: DEVILZ CHIK


Author's Notes:
Hello, everyone. I'm so happy that my story has more than 200 reviews and for this chapter, I'm going to use the third point of view just so we get both of the characters' perspectives. I'm sorry for not being consistent but it's just really necessary. I hope you like it!

Disclaimer: I don't own CCS.


Chapter 8: First Déjà vu

Her hand felt perfect in his. The nerve endings of his other hand seemed to be attracted to her face but he didn't move. His face was determined yet calm, giving her the impression that he was not about to let go. Not now, not ever.

Yes, she had grabbed his hand lots of times before but he never refused to let go of it. A feeling of familiarity rushed through her body and a memory vaguely triggered in her mind. Her hand was held like this before – by the same person, who had given her strength to… accomplish something.

Her head throbbed as she forced herself to remember but she didn't show any sign of pain to the person in front of her.

"What do you think you're doing?" she asked him roughly.

"Let's go somewhere," he said calmly. Still holding her hand, he walked with her towards his car.

His two bodyguards reluctantly looked at each other, wondering what the two teenagers were up to. They all settled inside the car and above their heads hung the image of Kinomoto Touya just a while ago.

Touya had proceeded inside the school building when he walked away from the couple and no one bothered to ask why. Sakura was too preoccupied thinking what Syaoran was planning.

"Where are we going, sir?" Ken asked as he sat himself behind the wheel.

"Yes, enlighten us, sir," Sakura said through gritted teeth, hating Syaoran's guts more and more.

"Let's go to the mall," Syaoran answered simply, ignoring Sakura's glare on him.

Ken began to drive. From the looks of it, Syaoran was trying to not think about Touya for the meantime. He would have to deal with him later, though he didn't know exactly how. He just wanted to decipher the meaning of his actions a while ago.

Even for him, his refusal to let go of her hand was unexplainable. He didn't want to let go – it was as if he had let go of the same hand once but in a very complicated situation and he had regretted doing so.

Syaoran glanced at the person next to him. His first impression of her had lasted – she would always look delicate, fragile and sweet to him, no matter how tough she may actually be.

He watched her sigh and observed how she had rested her chin on her right palm. "If you're still planning to buy me a ring," her words were mumbled because of her hand. "I think everyone will figure out that you're just buying it now."

He looked away as he knew she had a point but he did not let her see this. She sure was smart. "No, we're going to eat," he lied. "There's a really nice café that I know – let's spend the afternoon there."

Once again, the two bodyguards on the front seats looked at each other. They were silently asking each other if the world had gone upside down – perhaps what they read in the school newspaper was true? But it couldn't be – of course, it wasn't! Their young boss never ordered a thousand of roses for Touya's sister. And check that out, he had not given her a ring!

"I wonder why you waste your time," she said coldly at him, now turning to his side. "When you bring me home later, I'm sure you'll be killed by my brother."

He smirked at her statement quite confidently. "And I'm sure you won't let it happen," he said, his smirk never fading away.

"Why won't I let it happen?" she demanded, arching one of her eyebrows.

"You don't want your fiancé getting murdered by your brother now, do you?"

An undisciplined driver just crossed the intersection as the light had turned green for their car to proceed. The sudden step on the brakes by Ken stopped her from making a smart comeback. It caused them to lunch forward and back again. Sakura paled while Syaoran looked at her concernedly.

"I'm sorry, sir," Ken muttered softly then drove normally again.

"Is everyone ok?" Yuri asked the teenagers behind him.

Sakura nodded slowly while Syaoran still stared at Sakura worriedly.

She noticed his eyes on her and quickly snapped, "Stop staring at me! I'm fine!"

Syaoran shrugged and sat back on his seat. Then, it was silent.


The two distinct figures in the corner of the café had totally ruined the very calm atmosphere of the welcoming place. Sakura was still glaring at Syaoran across the table while the guy innocently brought his mug up to his lips to drink his hot chocolate.

"Why did you bring me here?" she asked him, speaking softly so that the others who were curiously looking at them would not hear. It was such a public place and Sakura did not like being there at all.

"I think it's about time that we learn about each other," Syaoran replied almost chirpily.

"Why?"

"So we know more about each other," he said, not convincing her at all. "Look, Sakura," he paused, making an eye contact with her. As soon as their eyes locked, he tried his best not to get lost within the green depth of her eyes again. "I'm not the one who ran up to you asking for a ring a while ago now, am I?"

Sakura growled and angrily bit on her cookie. She couldn't explain to him that she was confused, scared and ambushed by the questions of the students about their supposedly engagement ring. She was not the type of person who would lie – most of all, if she didn't really understand the cause.

All she could think about was Syaoran's selfishness and cowardliness. He dragged her into this and yes, she usually blamed no one but it was clear that he was to blame for all of this mess. Because of Syaoran, her brother would soon be jailed for murdering a prominent person in the world.

And because of him, she could no longer enjoy having a single life throughout high school and possibly share her first kiss to someone she actually loves dearly.

"I thought we've already decided that we're not buying a ring here so why don't you just bring me home?" Sakura managed to say calmly. Syaoran continued drinking his hot chocolate. Sakura, not liking being ignored, growled lowly again and almost pouted. "And why didn't you let Yuri and Ken come along, by the way?"

She knew the dangers inside the mall. Although her training was certainly enough to protect Syaoran, she started thinking of a group attack and being outnumbered.

"You're my bodyguard, right?" he said matter-of-factly.

"Just in school!"

He simply waved his hand to brush off her response. "I can handle myself, anyway," he sighed, finally giving up on softening the girl in front of him. He realized she would never comply to fully act out as his fiancé in and out of school.

Sakura looked at him curiously after he let out his sigh. He seemed lonely to her all of a sudden. "Are you done?" he asked her and she nodded. "Let's go then. Let's go to my house first."

Syaoran surprisingly did not bother her on their way to his house and she did not complain about his decision on the matter. She assumed that maybe he was just delaying to go to her house because he knew what would be waiting for him.

The Li mansion was huge. It had a wide garden and a small fountain at the center of it. The tall gates opened for their car and Ken neatly parked it inside the garage nearest to the front doors.

Sakura followed Syaoran walk up to the driveway to the front doors. She was mostly amazed how the garden was tended and was absolutely excited to see the interior of his house. Someone opened the doors for them and the man merely nodded when he saw Syaoran.

"Is mom home?" Syaoran asked the man.

"Yes, young master," the man replied. "In fact, she would like to see you in her office right away."

Upon hearing this, Syaoran turned to Sakura. "I'll be right back," he told her and she just nodded, still awed at the grandness of the place. There were black suited people around the floor and a spiral staircase was in the middle that leads up to the second floor.

"Wei, can you bring her to my room?" Syaoran asked the man. "Just stay there, ok?" he asked her so gently as if he really didn't want her to leave and as if he thought that it would be the last time they would see each other again.

Because his instincts were telling him that this happened before. He came back home with a certain person then his mother asked for him to her office. After his conversation with his mother, he no longer saw the person he was with again. Yes, it felt like it had occurred before – what was the term for this? Ah, déjà vu.


Syaoran hesitatingly proceeded to go to his mother's office. He lightly knocked on the door and after hearing his mother's monotone "come in", he opened the door and settled on the seat in front of his mother's desk.

His mother was standing up, looking out the window. She turned to him when he was comfortable on the chair. The hard look on her face told him that this was definitely serious.

"How was your first week of school?" she asked him casually, though the tension was really obvious.

"It was okay," he replied nonchalantly. "And you were right – I mostly learned what they're learning right now."

"How's Sakura as your bodyguard?" she said in the same tone.

He tried his best to keep his face straight so his mother would not suspect anything because he had no intentions of telling his mom about the 'engagement'.

"She's good," he said. "We have the same classes so there's nothing to worry about – she's basically always with me."

His mother nodded and seemed to be satisfied with his answers. He was almost confident that that was all and that he could go but his mother walked over to her desk, opened a drawer and took out a newspaper.

Not any ordinary newspaper but their school newspaper. Syaoran looked at it in horror and opened his mouth in shock.

He looked at his mother to see her reaction but all he saw was her smirk – much like his own. "You thought you can hide it from me?" she told him smartly. "The principal actually called last week about your engagement because he was absolutely curious about details. But hey, who am I to say anything? I don't even know a thing!"

The son remained silent.

He heard her sigh and she decided to sit down. In all honesty, she was tired of thinking about his son's strange behavior.

"I told you to not do anything to ruin the girl in school!" his mother scolded. "Give me a good reason why you did this."

Syaoran had never thought of a strategy to get away from his mother once she found out. He may not be prepared for Touya as well, but at least he was aware of the fury that Touya would have on him. His mother, on the other hand, was an unpredictable creature.

He took in a breath and began telling her the truth, starting from where he met Haiku. He was really glad that his mom didn't know about their family or else he would have been totally dead.

"And what are you planning to do after the school year?" she asked him after he had finished the story. "You do know that you're going back to Hong Kong, right?"

He remained silent and his mom sighed in annoyance as she knew what his silence meant.

"You haven't even told her, have you?" his mother said in a fed up tone.

"I bet she knows about it, anyway," he said.

Another long silence.

"Xiao Lang," he wasn't even surprised his mother used his Chinese name. "What if you fall in love with her?"

He was taken aback by the question and he would have literally walked backwards and out the door if he hadn't been sitting. No, he preferred not to think about what would happen if he falls in love with her.

But isn't he starting to fall for her?

So maybe it's time to be thinking about it.

No, I cannot fall in love with Sakura, he said over and over inside his head.

"It's not possible," he finally managed to reply weakly.

His mother shook her head in disapproval of his lame response. "What if she falls in love with you?"

"It's not possible, too," he replied, still weakly.

Why was his mother making him think about this? He didn't want anything to come out of this pretend engagement. He just wanted to send the girls away from him in school.

"It's unfair, Xiao Lang," his mother stated wisely. "It's unfair for both of you." She paused. "What were you thinking?"

He could sense his mother's anger more and more but he chose to ignore it.

"I have to go, mom," he finally said, having enough of her lecture. "Sakura's waiting for me in my room."

He also ignored the surprise look on his mother's face with the mention of Sakura being in their house.


Sakura slowly followed the man to Syaoran's room. As they walked along the corridor of the second floor, she admired the magnificent portraits of different landscapes that hung on the wall. There were occasional pictures of family members but it was mostly of the Li parents.

When she entered his room, she was surprised to see how clean it was. It was totally not a mess (like hers) and definitely looked like his kind of room. The wallpapers were pale green and the bed sheets were black with green linings on them. A wooden desk was not far from his bed and across from it was another desk with his laptop. There was a door on the far end of the room, which was probably the bathroom and another door which leads to his walk-in closet.

His nightstand had three picture frames and just when she was about to check it out was when she noticed that the man had left her alone there. She shrugged, not minding being alone and bent down to look at the pictures.

One picture was of a younger Syaoran with his family – four identical older sisters and his mother.

One picture was of himself – probably the most recent one among the others.

The other picture was taken almost three years ago and Sakura knew that she had seen it before. Yes! Touya had the exact same picture in his room. It was a picture of Touya, Syaoran, Ken, Yuri, Kouta (the other man from the hospital) and two other bodyguards.

Syaoran had a huge grin on his face and everyone had pleasant expressions except for her brother who was scowling. It was taken in front of the planetarium which had been the venue of his proposal to her.

Just three pictures? she thought. It made her wonder if Syaoran had previous girlfriends but decided that it was none of her business.

She sat on the couch near the door and literally stared into space. She was bored after two minutes of sitting down. Why did he tell her to wait here? Why not in the living room where she could possibly watch TV? Why didn't he have a TV in his room anyway?

What a boring guy, she decided.

She played with her phone as she waited for him to come. She even made herself comfortable on the couch by removing her shoes and bringing her legs up on the couch.

"What was taking him so long?" she wondered loudly as she experienced another game over of Tetris.

Completely jaded, she opened the door and looked out towards the lit hallway outside. There was no one to be seen except for a bodyguard not far away from the stairs. Sighing, she went back to his room again and dropped herself on the couch. She was beginning to become sleepy and her eyes was about to close when finally the door creaked open.

"Sakura?" Syaoran called out.

She groaned from the couch and fixed her skirt at the sight of him. "What took you so long?" she demanded. "I almost fell asleep! And your room is so boring."

"Why didn't you watch TV or played some music?" he asked her curiously.

"What TV?"

Syaoran only smirked and opened the door which she thought led to the bathroom. She lazily stood up and followed him inside only to find a media room, complete with a mini fridge and exercise machines.

"I thought it was the bathroom," she muttered, looking down.

He only chuckled and said, "the bathroom's part of my walk-in closet."

"It's not like I had a tour guide in your room," she muttered once again and settled herself on one of the beam bags in the room. "When are you going to take me home?"

"Later," he said dismissively. "We have to choose a ring for you. Why do you keep forgetting?" He almost sounded irritated.

"I thought we've already established that we're not going to buy a ring," she reasoned out.

"We've already established that we're not going to buy a ring in the mall," he corrected her. He left her inside the media room and came back afterwards with nine or ten magazines.

Sakura rolled her eyes, seeing the magazines laid out in front of her. It was not like she was not a fan of magazines – not that, at all. In fact, she liked flipping through fashion magazines, most of all, when one of Tomoyo's designs would be featured. But the magazines he just brought out were purely about jewelry.

"No," she said exasperatedly, figuring out what was on his mind. "We are not going to order a ring from these magazines!"

Syaoran did not like Sakura's reaction at all. "Why not?"

"Because!"

He waited for her to continue but she couldn't even give a reason why she didn't want to do it so he smiled triumphantly and began flipping through the pages, looking for the perfect engagement ring.

Giving up, Sakura started to look for a ring that she would like as well. Honestly, everything looked the same for her – nothing really stood out. The same went for Syaoran. The rings were all starting to look the same and the ring hunt was starting to be harder than they thought.

"Aren't you scared of my brother?" she asked him randomly. She hadn't looked up from the magazine she was looking at and patiently waited for his answer.

"I am," he admitted.

"Then why do you still want to continue this act?"

He just shrugged and since Sakura was not looking at him, she didn't see it. So she looked up and saw him still looking at the magazine.

"You didn't answer my question!" she chided childishly.

He finally looked up at her. "I don't know, alright?" he said, almost impatiently.

He didn't want to be asked anymore. He wanted to put a sign in front of him saying, "not going to accept questions anymore". He hated not having answers. He hated being unsure of something. All he wanted to believe now was not everything a person does should have a reason.

Silence filled the room except for the constant flipping of the pages. Maybe another ten minutes later, Sakura beamed at one of the magazines and gleefully called out, "Li! Check this out!"

She pointed at the picture of a silver ring with a little diamond at the center of it. There was a dash of pale pink at the bottom of the part that hold the little diamond and the diamond was almost shaped like a flower.

It was beautiful.

"You like that one?" he asked her, smiling slightly at the happy expression on her face.

She nodded and all of a sudden, her smile fell as she looked at the price. "I can't afford it though," she said sadly. "It's too expensive."

"I'm going to buy it, anyway," he assured her.

"I'm not going to let that happen! We should share the payment."

"Consider it as my belated birthday gift," he pressed on.

"No, it's too much," she insisted on not buying a ring at all afterwards and Syaoran had no choice but to comply with her wishes.

No, that was an understatement. He marked the page of the magazine.


Sakura politely went to Syaoran's mother's office with Syaoran to say goodbye. He had not mentioned to her that his mother knows and it was a good thing that his mother didn't say anything about it.

She invited Sakura to stay for dinner but she courteously declined the offer, thinking of her angry brother back home.

The ride was so silent that it was almost painful to their ears. Yuri turned on the radio of the car for some music, which lessened the tension but the traffic did not make it a lot better.

"It's time to hear some news from the lovely Lynette," the DJ was saying over the radio. "In a private high school, everyone was shocked as a student walking normally on the grounds of the school suddenly fainted. First, it was thought that the student was attacked but when he was brought to the hospital, the doctors said that the teen was experiencing a standstill. According to his medical history, three years ago, he had experienced the same thing and had lain unconscious for almost a month…"

The words of the news reporter were died down as Yuri thought loudly, "what's a standstill?"

"A person just loses his or her consciousness and well, sleep," Sakura answered. Syaoran looked at her because he sensed some sadness in her voice as if a standstill was a delicate topic for her.

"So the person just sleeps?" Yuri asked and Sakura nodded. "I want to have a standstill."

"Why?" she asked him suddenly. "You want to be idle? You want to be sleeping while the rest of the world moves on around you? The student is lucky to have experienced it only a month previously…" she trailed off. "Some had standstills that lasted for years."

Yuri audibly gulped. "Never mind," he muttered. A new song came on the radio. "Why would I sleep anyway? I have work to do." Yuri smirked as he looked at his young boss through the rear view mirror. Syaoran just smiled at him but was still worried about Sakura.

He knew something was up.

After twenty minutes, they finally reached Sakura's house. Yuri and Ken gladly remained inside the car, too afraid to witness Touya's wrath.

Sakura and Syaoran walked side by side towards the front door. Before she touched the doorknob, she turned to Syaoran.

"For the record," she said. "I won't let Touya kill you." He smirked but before he could start being cocky again, she continued, "but, we have to tell them the truth that we're only pretending."

She touched the doorknob, ready to open the door. There was a nice smell coming from inside the house which told her that her father was cooking dinner already.

"Sakura," he said. "What if the time comes that we're no longer pretending?"

It was a stupid question and I wanted to beat myself up for even opening my mouth.

They stared at each other for the longest time. Her grip on the doorknob never changing since she was so concentrated on the deep shades of brown of his gorgeous eyes.

"It's not possible," she answered finally.

Yeah, I thought so, he thought to himself. But he was a bit disappointed at her answer.

She finally opened the door. "Dad! Onii-chan! I'm home!" she shouted while she removed her shoes. "I have a guest!" He followed her to the living room where Touya was sitting on the couch with a gruff expression on his face when he saw them walk in.

Sakura's father entered the living room soon afterwards with an apron.

"Well, hello, Mr. Li," Sakura's father greeted Syaoran politely as the man set eyes on the teenaged boy. "I never knew you were engaged to my daughter." They shook hands although Syaoran was still not over his astonishment of how relaxed Fujitaka was taking the situation.

The three watched the oldest man in the room remove his apron and settle down on the couch beside Sakura. "Now, Sakura, are you pregnant?" Fujitaka asked his only daughter with the same calm voice that she had always known.

But then, there was a growl coming from her brother across the room.


Preview of Chapter 9:
Touya really talks to Syaoran now.
Tomoyo talks to Syaoran, too.
Acquaintance party coming up!

Author's Notes:
I know I said that Touya will confront Syaoran in this chapter but that didn't work out very well since I wanted to have a little bit of SS moments. And I wanted Syaoran's mom to find out about it first. Don't worry; the next chapter is dedicated to the big brother and Syaoran.

Sorry for not explaining a standstill very well – I'll do that later on. It will definitely be a huge part in this story.

Any further questions, please feel free to review. And please, please, please review! It's unwritten (but I guess now, it's written) but reviews do fuel up the author to update soon. P

End of Chapter 8

xx DEVILZ CHIK