Thank you for my reviewers and "favoriters" and "story-alerters"!

I swear, I thought I already put a Jesse Barrera song on here but whatever.

You pick me up
You turn it up
We roll the windows down
And that's just enough

You look at me
Sunglasses on
You see any ride with you is never too long

You could be the one that ch-ch-changes
Changes everything.
...
Anything to make this last
...
I'm going on a whim
I'm shaking off the butterflies
You got me tangled up in

Anything to Make This Last - Jesse Barrera

"Hey," Hotaka plopped down on the chair next to Tomoyo, "The talent show is this Saturday. You excited?"

"Yeah, can't wait." Tomoyo said lazily, her eyes still gazing over her computer screen, checking for any grammar mistakes in her essay. Her English AP teacher decided to pull up a surprise essay right before Talent Show night, which made Tomoyo rush in doing her paper to have time left over to practice her act with Eriol.

"Doesn't seem like it." Hotaka leaned back in his chair as he watched Tomoyo glare and type at her mistake of spelling a common word wrong.

She sighed, and leaned back on her chair, "I'm just busy. I hate having to do an essay when I have a talent show to worry about."

Tomoyo lied. She wasn't really worried about the talent show, but rather, her father coming to watch her sing. Her relationship with her father was going well, but singing in front of him was something nerve-racking to her, like slapping a cold, raw fish on Ebenezer Scrooge's face right after he decided to repent of his ways, you don't know what reaction you're going to get. But then again, this was her father, and she knew him best, well, second to her aunt; he might give her a slight pat on the back or criticize after congratulating her, he wasn't one to praise another so easily without giving it some balance.

Another thing that was racking up Tomoyo's head was Hotaka. He seemed to talk to her more often in the halls, in the classroom, or whenever he was around, it seemed like he would find a chance to talk to her. Tomoyo didn't mind, but she was unconsciously comparing him to Eriol whenever she found herself talking to him. She noticed that talking to Hotaka was like talking to somebody new, you'd always have to force out a subject just to talk to him or else there would be an awkward silence, but talking to Eriol came easy to her, like there was always something to talk about, but never enough time.

And another thing, whenever it came to Eriol, Tomoyo seemed to find herself always thinking about him, making sure her feelings weren't a result of being a hormonal freak, like with Hotaka, and she kept thinking to herself, was she willing to take a chance of being in a relationship with Eriol? And was he even thinking of her the same way? Those were the questions that always seemed to find her way back to her as she went around in a circle of her thoughts.

"Tomoyo," Hotaka's voice snapped her out of her thoughts, "Your paper is out of the printer."

He pointed to her right, where her paper was laid neatly in front of the printer.

"Thanks." She mumbled and got up from her chair to pay the librarian ten cents for using up the library printer's ink. She stuffed the paper in her folder, and gathered her things to leave the library.

"Hey, wait up!" Hotaka threw his backpack over his shoulder and followed after Tomoyo, who was holding open the door for him and smirked as the library glared at his shouting, which he didn't notice. Tomoyo thought it was inconvenient for him to be around. It was both of their free periods, but he was bothering her, nevertheless she politely conversed with him. She knew he had other things to do during his free period, like planning student council meetings, but every time she reminded him, he shrugged it off saying he'd rather prefer her company then he would follow it up with his smile that would make any other girl swoon, but instead it made Tomoyo roll her eyes and tell him to stop procrastinating.

"You should eat lunch at my table." Hotaka said, walking side-by-side with Tomoyo. She fidgeted with her backpack strap as students stared at them, in admiration rather than what Tomoyo was used to: glares from her "anal" personality. She'd been getting these looks since the homecoming and CPR incidents, it had been a week since then, but she still wasn't used to it. People she didn't know would smile at her, and the more "well-known" or "popular" kids would ask her to hang out or talk to her like they'd been friends since forever. She would respond with a 'No, thanks, I'm working' or 'Hey…you', since she didn't know what most of their names were. They would stare at her bewildered, like they never heard of a high school student having a job, and they wouldn't mind when she forgot their names. It seemed acknowledgement from her was just enough to make them satisfied.

"No, thanks, I'm eating with Sakura and them." Tomoyo rushed past Hotaka, avoiding the conversation, knowing he would just keep pushing her to sit with him, and entered into the cafeteria, making a beeline for Sakura, Naoko, Syaoran and Rika.

"Are you ready, Tomoyo?" Rika asked, referring to the talent show. She was getting tired of hearing the same question over and over again, from the student council and Chiharu, who glared at her whenever Hana greeted her during passing periods.

She sighed, "Yeah, yeah."

"You seem tired. Is it 'cause your popularity is sky-rocketing and you're tired of having to greet the hundreds of people that say hi to you every day?" Naoko asked with a smirk in a more friendly way than sarcastic. Nevertheless, it was sarcastic.

"Popular?" Tomoyo's ears perked up. If anyone was getting popular at her table, it was Syaoran, who rejected girls left and right just to hang out with Sakura.

"Yeah, you didn't notice it yourself?" Rika added.

"What are you talking about?" She thought they were crazy. Nobody liked an "anal" person, no matter how pretty or rich they are.

"Everybody likes you, Tomoyo." Sakura said, trying to confirm Rika and Naoko's accusations.

"Ever since the CPR thing, people think you're so cool and everything. It's nasty and annoying hearing the guys talk about you in the locker room." Syaoran picked at his food, which his butler probably made. Tomoyo could tell Syaoran was starting to get used to Sakura's homemade lunches, which wasn't made today due to her tardiness.

"They talk about her in the locker room? What do they say?" Rika leaned forward.

Syaoran scrunched his face in disgust, "Something about her not having big boobs, but her figure makes up for it." He groaned and abandoned his fork to smack his forehead, "Can we not talk about it? It's like talking about my sisters."

"I see what he's talking about. Guys give you looks all the time." Naoko nodded.

Tomoyo followed Syaoran's lead and also scrunched her face in disgust as she thought back to the looks she was getting often in the hallways, "Do they think I'm a piece of meat or something?"

"Throw them a bone." Naoko added, while everybody laughed. Tomoyo shook her head with a smile then stood up from her spot at her lunch table to throw away her juice carton, and bumped into a girl.

"Who the hell-", the girl turned around to face Tomoyo, "Oh my God! I'm so sorry! Are you okay?"

"Huh?" Tomoyo checked herself out, she was fine, but responded, "I'm fine. Are you okay?"

The girl blushed, "Yeah, thanks." The girl walked backed to her former table. While Tomoyo threw away her carton, she saw the girl she bumped into talking with her friends in what seemed to be excited chatter. Tomoyo flinched slightly, as she heard them squeal excitedly, sneaking peeks in her direction.

"What's up with them?" Tomoyo pointed her thumb at direction of the girl she bumped into.

"Well, it's not every day a beautiful, popular person bumps into them." Rika said, as she slurped her noodles.

"I'm tired of this." Tomoyo said, frustrated, she couldn't see the influence she had over the school's population, "I'm not popular-"

"You are." Naoko confirmed, "It's because you've got the looks and your personality is what keeps them hooked."

Syaoran chuckled, "You got what you've been avoiding."

Syaoran was right. The popularity she was avoiding was coming back, but it didn't seem to bother her as much as it did at St. Augustine. There wasn't any drama that came along with it. But, even though, Tomoyo knew to keep her guard up. And it came handy when she walked her way to Eriol's car that afternoon.

"Tomoyo!" Chiharu ran up to her in her sports bra and booty shorts from cheerleading practice, "Hey. Just wanted to wish you good luck on Friday."

"Uh." Tomoyo raised a brow, "Thanks. You should get back inside."

"Huh?" Chiharu cocked her head to the side.

"Aren't you cold?" Tomoyo already knew she was since it was showing through her sports bra, which passer-bys couldn't get enough of.

"Okay." Chiharu shrugged and skipped back to the gym, which again passer-bys couldn't get enough of. Chiharu didn't seem to mind. As long as people watched her being nice to the now-popular Tomoyo, then people wouldn't turn her back on her.

Tomoyo rolled her eyes and shook her head, knowing her encounter with Chiharu was just a publicity stunt. She turned around to make her way to Eriol. How can somebody like attention like that?

"Are you okay?" Eriol asked, tilting his head to try and get a better look of her face. She looked up and grinned at his concerned attention over her.

"I'm fine." She replied and grinned wider noticing he didn't even ask who the "hot" girl she was talking to.

"I've been really busy this week, so I don't think we have time to practice together for the talent show." Eriol said, while driving to Tomoyo's house. Eriol felt that picking up Tomoyo and driving her back home seemed to be routine and coming back to his own house seem to feel nostalgic.

"Ah." She replied weakly, disappointed at her limit with spending time with him, "With training, I know. As long as you know your part and I know mine then I'm sure we'll be okay."

"You're really confident, Daidouji." He smirked, with his eyes on the road.

"I'm confident in both of our abilities." Tomoyo replied with a big grin; the rides home with Eriol were short, but satisfying nonetheless.

Yeah. I know.

This chapter is pretty boring, but I'll be posting up chapter 11.

This chapter is basically something to show the development of how the majority sees Tomoyo now.