Disclaimer: I do not own CCS. Now, if I had a penny for every time I said that, I could… Buy CCS!

- Butterflies -

- Twelve -

- Push Harder, Godammit! -

Eriol (A.N. Yay! He finally made an APPEARANCE! I managed to keep a PROMISE! Woohoo!) looked at Tomoyo with all the disbelief in the world in his blue eyes.

"You're not serious," he said, sounding damn serious himself.

"Believe me, dear, when I say I'm one million percent serious," Tomoyo said with a sigh.

"How could this have HAPPENED! We were so CAREFUL! This is the last thing we need right now!" Eriol ranted.

"I KNOW THAT! Believe it or not, I didn't WANT this to happen EITHER!" Tomoyo yelled.

"How are we going to tell your mother?" Eriol asked.

...

Hibiya Ueda had plenty of reason to smile as he walked down the corridor. It was a bright sunny morning, birds were singing… And there were some strange sounds coming from behind the door of the office he had just passed. Kinomoto and Li's office - they had arrived an hour ago, along with the other employees he had managed to convince to return.

He walked back a few paces and leaned against the door, listening intently.

"Push HARDER, GODAMMIT!" a female voice, undoubtedly Sakura, yelled.

"I'm pushing as hard as I can!" Syaoran replied, his voice also a yell.

"Well, it's not good enough!" Sakura replied with a groan.

"We shouldn't be up on this table, we're gonna break it!" Sakura yelled.

"We have to be on the table for this part!" Syaoran replied.

As this dialogue was puntured by bouts of grunting and groaning, Ueda began to get rather a… Disturbing… I dea as to what the two inhabitants might be doing.

"Try a little harder! Are you a man or aren't you?" Sakura asked.

"YOU should be the LAST person in any doubt of THAT," Syaoran replied.

"I KNEW we should have got someone to help us with this!" Sakura exclaimed.

HELP THEM? Ueda couldn't quite believe his ears.

"Maybe if I turn around on to my back…" Syaoran said thoughtfully.

"No need! I can see it now!" Sakura exclaimed.

"Well, where is it?" Syaoran asked.

"You should know!" she shot back.

"This table's too slippery!" Syaoran moaned.

"Well, we tried being down on the carpet, but that didn't work!"

Ueda whimpered.

Sakura yelped.

"You deserved that," Syaoran said, "you were the one who told me to push harder!"

"Well, how was I to know you would push quite that HARD?"

"Did you know there's a hole down here?" Syaoran asked.

"Well, that's what I EXPECTED!" Sakura shouted.

"Try using your fingers!" Sakura suggested, "and poke around a lot."

"I can't! My fingers are too big!" Syaoran protested.

"Well, if the hole's too small, there's not much I can do about it!" Sakura exclaimed.

"Maybe if you would hold still…" Syaoran grunted.

"But I like moving around!" Sakura protested.

"Maybe you should get off the table," Sakura suggested.

"Well, if I'm getting off the table, then YOU'RE coming too!"

"Yeah, I kinda figured that. You sorta need me for this, don't you?" Sakura said with a laugh.

"Oh wait, Li, you're almost there!" Sakura gasped.

Syaoran grunted in response.

"Just a little further…" she said.

"Hey, this is harder than it looks, you know!" Syaoran snapped.

Ueda decided he had had enough.

"WHAT IN HELL ARE YOU TWO DOING IN HERE?" Ueda yelled as he pushed the door open to reveal Sakura and Syaoran looking flushed and sweaty, but still perfectly innocent.

...

"How are we going to tell my mother WHAT exactly?" Tomoyo asked.

"I mean, we'll have to tell her that there is no way -" Eriol began.

"She's going to be allowed to organise our wedding. I know," Tomoyo said with a sigh.

"I just can't believe she offered. We were so careful to make it seem like we knew exactly what we were doing as to all the wedding arrangements. Your mother meddling is the LAST thing we need right now," Eriol said with a sigh.

"I know, dear, I know," Tomoyo said softly.

...

"Anything wrong, Ueda-san?" Sakura asked politely.

"You! Him! I! Thought! What? Why?" he babbled, as he pointed at them.

"Oh, Mr Ueda, you thought we were doing it again, didn't you?" Sakura asked with a laugh, as if it were funny. Even though it wasn't.

"There's a totally innocent explanation for all the noises, Mr Ueda," Syaoran said with a glare at Sakura.

"You see, I dropped my pencil," Sakura began.

"And it rolled along the floor and under that really tall filing cabinet," Syaoran continued.

"So Syaoran and I tried to move the filing cabinet while standing on the floor. Li was rather reluctant to help, but since it was his fault I dropped it in the first place -" Sakura said, giving Syaoran a Look.

"It was NOT my fault!" Syaoran objected.

"It WAS your fault! You scared me on purpose so I would drop it and you KNEW that was my favourite pink Hello Kitty pencil!" Sakura exclaimed.

Syaoran wanted to roll his eyes. Of COURSE he scared her on purpose - he had to do something mean to her to remind him that, with Kinomoto, that was what he was supposed to do. Of course, like the idiot he was, he just ended up feeling bad for doing it. Damn.

"Well, I tried to help you get it back, didn't I?" Syaoran snapped. Sakura had to admit that that was true, but she didn't say anything. Eventually Syaoran said something to break the uncomfortable silence that had settled over the trio.

"But, because the filing cabinet was so tall, it was impossible to get the momentum required to move it while standing on the floor," Syaoran explained.

"In plain Japanese, that means 'we had to get up higher.' So we climbed on to my desk, which is beside the cabinet," Sakura said helpfully.

"And we pushed REALLY hard, and at the start it didn't work, but eventually we managed to push it far enough over," Syaoran said.

"Well, actually, I pushed," Sakura said with a sigh.

"I pushed too! Why do you think I'm so tired-looking then, huh?" Syaoran exclaimed.

"Anyway, we found there was a hole in the floor which the pencil must have rolled down," said Sakura, expertly ignoring Syaoran in the way only she could.

"And I tried to lean down and reach it while still on the table, but that didn't work," Syaoran continued.

"So we went down on to the floor - I went too because Li was going to need me when he finally admitted his hands were just too big and weren't going to fit," Sakura said.

"And I had almost reached it when you came in," Syaoran finished.

"Well, that all seems to check out, except that it doesn't explain why you were telling Sakura to hold still," Ueda said slowly. Sakura immediately looked sheepish.

"Well, I was shaking the table on purpose to be annoying," she explained as she rubbed the back of her neck and sweatdropped.

"And why did Sakura yelp?" Ueda asked in tones of wondering.

"Well, I pushed the cabinet so hard she lost her balance," Syaoran said, looking just as embarrassed as Sakura at his childish behaviour.

"And you're all flushed and sweaty because of the effort required to move the cabinet," Ueda continued. Sakura beamed at him, as if he were a three-year-old who finally understood that one and one equal two.

"Exactly," she said.

"Oh, well I'm glad it wasn't what I thought," Ueda said with a relieved sigh.

"Oh, and I meant to ask, how's the packing going? You're leaving tomorrow for that convention thing, aren't you?"

...

(A.N. Ah ha, and YOU all thought I had FORGOTTEN the business convention, didn't you?)

"Sakura-chan," Tomoyo asked Sakura later that night, in a perfect imitation of Ueda earlier, "how's the packing going?"

"Unsurprisingly," Sakura answered from her position reclining on her bed, "not good."

Tomoyo rolled her eyes. She was standing in the doorway to Sakura's room and poking her head around the door.

The room was a mess, with clothes thrown everywhere and an empty, open suitcase lying in the middle of the floor.

"Why am I not surprised?" Tomoyo asked with a smile.

"Possibly because I'm the WORST packer in the world," Sakura replied with her own grin.

"It's also possibly because you're lying on your bed not doing anything, and also possibly because you don't really want to go, so you can't face packing," Tomoyo said, her finger on her chin in a thoughtful pose.

"Tomoyo," Sakura said with a sigh, "you know me too well."

"So, since you have to leave TOMORROW, and you haven't even STARTED, would you perhaps like a hand from possibly the BEST packer in the world?" Tomoyo asked with a laugh.

"By the way, Tomoyo, have I told you lately that you're my very best friend and I love you to pieces?" Sakura asked as she hopped off her bed.

"Well, you were the one who crowned me 'best packer in the world' the last time I helped you pack for something, so that's enough of a compliment," Tomoyo replied as she began to pick up the clothes and ask Sakura whether or not she wanted to take each garment before folding it up in the way only Tomoyo could, and putting it away neatly.

...

Li Syaoran was in a very bad mood. His packing was only half-way through, and he couldn't for the life of him find his passport. The plane to Tokyo was leaving in six hours, and, unless he got a move on, he wouldn't be on it.

...

"Sakura-chan, you really must go to bed," Tomoyo said worriedly.

"But I'm not tired," Sakura protested, rather like a small child.

"You will be in the morning if you don't go to bed right now. You have to be at the airport to catch the plane for six. Now march your butt straight upstairs this second!" Tomoyo ordered, pointing in the direction of the stairs to add extra athority.

Sakura grumpily made for the stairs, muttering a "yes, okaa-san" as she went. Tomoyo rolled her eyes at her housemate's childish behaviour.

Syaoran fell asleep in his clothes at three A.M. the morning of the flight, in the middle of his bedroom floor, his packing STILL not quite finished, but his passport safe on his nightstand.

Tomoyo went to check on Sakura fifteen minutes after she sent her to bed, and she chuckled when she saw her best friend already sound asleep.

''Not tired', my ass,' she thought with a smile as she headed to her own bedroom.

...