A/N: Thank you guys so much for the reviews! Reading them made me decide on a whim to upload this chapter earlier than I originally planned to. They were so encouraging and made me feel a little bit more confident about this cringe-worthy story:'D.

Beware: THIS ENTIRE CHAPTER IS A FLASHBACK OF THEIR PAST!

So, let's get on with the story!

(Sakura's Pov)

Syaoran had been acting really weird lately since he came back from Hong Kong after summer vacation. He hadn't really spoken to me much like he normally did and when he did, he would cut me short and he wouldn't even tell me if there was anything wrong.

He thought that I was oblivious, but I could always tell when there was something wrong. It was almost like my sixth sense.

We'd been best friends for eight years, so it was common for best friends to tell the other if something was bothering them, right?

We'd been inseparable ever since he came here. We told each other everything and there were never any secrets between us. We were now in eighth grade and he was keeping things from me for the first time, out of all the years we'd known each other.

He even knew how I felt about him for crying out loud!

After he confessed to me in fifth grade, I finally came to the realization that I was in love with him too.

We didn't act on our feelings, though. We only grew closer to the other even though we never agreed to the title of boyfriend and girlfriend.

We just simply hung out more, if that were possible, and stuck by each other's side no matter what.

He even stopped flirting around with all of the other girls and gave me all of his attention.

We should've had the title of girlfriend and boyfriend, but neither of us wanted to put that title on us yet. We were only in junior high.

What was the use for the 8 years that we'd known each other for him to just cut me off like it was nothing? It just wasn't fair on my part and I wanted answers from him to the many questions I had for him.

I could feel my eyes start to water, feeling helpless that he wasn't being honest with me for the first time.

Why couldn't he just talk to me about what was bothering him? Maybe I could help him figure out a way to solve the problem.

I knocked on the door that I grew so familiar with. This was like my second home and nothing could change that.

I would often just walk straight in but Wei-kun, Syaoran's butler, was there.

It opened to reveal the one man who I grew very fond of.

"Hello, Sakura-chan. How are you?"

"I'm good, but is Syaoran home?"

"Yes, but he's not feeling quite well today, so he doesn't want any visitors."

Wei-kun was so kind and caring. He was even willing to lie for Syaoran so I couldn't see him.

This was the excuse that Syaoran used every time I tried to come around and talk to him so he had to be the one who put Wei-kun up to this terrible lie.

"I know Syaoran put you up to this, but I really really need to see him, Wei-kun." I was speaking very low, just in case Syaoran was around.

He let a sigh escape from his mouth, "You are probably the only one who can make him feel better, Sakura. You pushed me aside and ran in the house." He stepped to the side so I could enter.

"Thank you so much!" I bowed my head very low before running in the house, straight to Syaoran's room.

I didn't even bother to knock as I pushed the door opened and closed it behind me, for privacy.

There, Syaoran lied on his bed with his face buried in the pillow. It almost broke my heart seeing him this way so I walked to the bed slowly.

I sat down on the edge of the bed and rested my hand gently on his back and he jumped up.

"What are you doing here, Sakura?" he asked harshly, glaring at me as he bolted up from the bed.

A frown formed on my lips and I took a hold of his hand, resting it in my lap. "Tell me what is wrong, Syaoran. I'm done listening to your excuses of why you don't want to talk to me. Please tell me! It's killing me," I begged, feeling the tears burn the back of my eyes.

I was going to cry in front of him again, but I didn't care!

"I haven't made up any excuses. I was being honest when I said that I didn't feel good. Wei-kun should have told you that before he even let you in."

"He did tell me…I just…I burst through the door and ran past him because I'm tired of your lies. It's hurting me Syaoran! Do you not care about my feelings anymore?"

A single tear rolled down my cheeks.

His entire body stiffened.

"How could you ask such a stupid question like that?!" he asked angrily as he pulled me in his arms roughly, hugging me tightly.

"Of course I care about you. I care about you more than anyone so don't you dare ask such a stupid question again."

His hold on me tightened and more tears rolled down my cheeks as I kept my eyes closed tightly, savoring the warmth his body radiated.

I wrapped my arms around him tightly. "Please, tell me what's been going on then? Why haven't you come around? Why don't you want me around anymore? You've even gone back to flirting and talking with other girls more than talking to me now…" I said weakly. How could he even do such a thing?

"Sakura…"

He pulled back from the hug, but kept his hands around my waist. "It's just…there's just been a lot going on. I need something—anything to distract me from everything."

"And I can't do that for you?"

He let out a sigh and shook his head. "Stop it. You know that I hate when you try and twist the meaning of my words up. That's…not what I'm saying."

"What are you saying then?"

More tears started to form in my eyes, scared of what he would say.

"I just…I'm sorry that I've been an asshole lately. Maybe you shouldn't stick around me if all I do is hurt you—"

"Stop it! Don't you dare try to push me away like that," I interrupted angrily.

I hated when he did this. It wasn't the first time that he'd tried to push me away by saying he hurts me too much or all he did was hurt me. It was so infuriating whenever he did it, every single time.

He pulled me in for another hug and he pulled us down, so we were lying on the bed.

"Can we stop talking about this? I just want to…enjoy having you here right now and stop crying. You know what that does to me."

He let his hand slide down to my sides and poke me lightly.

I jumped reflexively and gave him a sad smile.

He was back to his normal self again, so for his sake, I wiped my tears away.

"Let me see that gorgeous smile that melts my heart." He kissed my nose and a blush formed on my cheeks as I smiled for him.

"That's much, much better than these tears." He wiped a tear streak off my cheek and I snuggled against him.

"I still want you to tell me what has been bothering you though…you know how I feel about you trying to keep things from me."

"I'm not keeping anything important from you baby, so stop worrying about me please. You know how much I hate to trouble you. I already cause you so much pain and I don't want to add to it any kind of way."

He kissed my cheek and pulled me to his body more, even though the position we were in felt extremely uncomfortable.

I moved over, so I wasn't half-way on top of him and turned my body to the side, facing him and snuggled up against his side, draping a leg over his.

"I still want you to be honest with me as much as possible," I whispered before placing a light kiss on his neck.

"I will be, Sakura. Trust me please."

"Of course I trust you."

"Good."

He smiled at me before closing his eyes and I closed mine too, falling into a deep slumber with him.

(Syaoran's Pov)

Sakura was just so assertive and caring…

She wouldn't take no for an answer for anything.

I knew what I was doing when I was trying to avoid her. I couldn't let her sense that anything was wrong with me. It was like that girl had a sixth sense about my emotions or something.

All my emotions were towards one thing, thoughm

Mother.

The cancer had come back again in my Mom's body terribly and it was just so hard seeing her that way.

All the blood…her skin…her hair…everything was just terrifying to see with my own eyes.

All summer vacation, I had to see that every single day and take care of her—though I did not mind—it was still traumatizing every single time I had to see her throwing all her insides out.

She was my mother for heaven's sake. What kid would not be terrified at the sight of their mother being that sick?

When I returned to Japan, I couldn't shake the images out of my head, so I decided to avoid the one person I knew would try to make me feel better, even if it meant causing her to lose hair over the situation.

She would never stop at any cause whenever it came to me having a problem. It wasn't like she could do anything about it, so there was no reason to tell this person. This person was Sakura Kinomoto—my long time best friend.

I was tired of causing her so much pain because of me being me, a bothersome. Whenever she cried, it was because of me and it hurt me more to see that I was the cause of her pain.

I'd confessed to her three years ago and was glad to this day that she returned the feelings. I was so grateful, but I didn't deserve her.

Even though I was in love with her, I still didn't know how to talk to other girls without causing her to be hurt in the process.

I was a natural 'flirt' as some people may put it because I couldn't help it. My dad raised me, so whenever the word girl came up, all I could think about was the intimate parts of one.

The women my dad brought around were beautiful and they had taught me so many things that they claimed I needed to know.

After being around my dad since a toddler and seeing the way he talked to them, I sort of just picked up on his habits. It seemed like the right thing to do since it made the women happy, so that was sort of what shaped me to be the way I was towards them all.

I had lost my virginity to one of my dad's mistresses at the age of eleven—the end of fifth grade year before I confessed to Sakura.

Her name was Mingxia, a 27-year-old at the time and she was beautiful.

She had the longest, jet-black hair that I had ever seen and light blue eyes. She was half Caucasian and half Chinese with the figure of a model.

My dad was working late one night and she came to my room and somehow persuaded me into doing it, telling me that it would make her happy—and my parents. I didn't understand why it would make my parents happy at first until she told me why it would.

She had somehow convinced me that they would be happy because I would be experienced with sex, so I could reproduce the next heir to the Li clan after I took over it.

It was dumb and foolish to believe at the time, but I was a naïve kid who knew nothing and it made sense at the time to me.

Shaking my head from the images that played through my mind, Sakura crept back into my mind.

I never even told her about this—anyone, in fact.

I felt so guilty about it, but it would only cause trouble to her. I had already told her that I wouldn't interact with other girls like that unless I had to, even though she tried to tell me that it wasn't necessary. She trusted me fully, which she shouldn't have.

Once I had a taste of what sex was like, it was almost addicting. I was only eleven—barely hitting puberty when it happened, but I could still remember what it felt like to be in a woman. I could almost imagine myself in any woman's body.

The weird thing was, I couldn't see Sakura like that.

She was…too innocent and precious to me and I respected her to the utmost. I couldn't even imagine violating her body or taking her innocence from her.

I was too dirty for her and if she did decide to give it to me, I would just taint her.

A sigh escaped my body and I raked a hand through my unruly, chestnut hair. It had been a week since Sakura came to my house, forcing me to accept her caring personality and I could feel myself pulling further and further away from her.

My mother had still been on my mind and I was constantly wondering how she was doing every second of the day, so I went back to avoiding Sakura.

Her caring nature was hard to resist when she was so persistent with me though and she seemed to always know that there was something wrong.

I wasn't even talking to her much, yet I was still causing her to be worried sick about me. She knew that I was in pain, so that meant she was in pain too.

She could normally feel what I feel, even worse for her sometimes. If I was in minor pain, she would be in major pain for me. That was just the type of person she was with me.

Weeks passed—even months—and my mother's health was only getting worse. She had started chemotherapy so she had lost all of her long, jet-black hair again.

I had managed to avoid Sakura for the past few weeks, thankful that we had different classes for this semester. My state was even worse than it was before. I could slowly feel myself becoming cold inside to everyone.

I avoided going to my own home throughout the entire day, knowing that she would stop by every day. I would come in late at night and go straight to bed, with the thought of my mother's trembling body, fighting for her life every second of the day.

I needed to do something–anything to distract me from everything I was feeling in my life. I was just tired of moping around about my mother's health and getting nowhere with myself.

I had even started failing most of my test and midterms were coming up soon for the semester.

I needed to pass them in order to pass the semester or word would get back to my mother. It would just cause her trouble, so I needed to find something to distract me from my mother's situation.

Sex.

That word kept ringing in my head and I didn't even know why, until a thought crossed me.

'Sex is something that helps relieve the stress and tension from you, physically, mentally, and emotionally.'

That was what Mingxia told me when we would have our nightly routine 'lessons' whenever my dad worked late.

I was stressed and my body was tense from all of the stress that my mother's condition had caused me.

I needed to give it a shot just to see if it worked. Who could I go to though?

That was a stupid question to ask.

Every girl at that school—with the exception of Daidouji and Sakura—had tried to get in my pants, so there should not have been any problems.

Sakura...

I shook my head, believing it would just be a one-time thing and she didn't even have to find out about it. It was just an experiment and I needed to see if it would work.

I closed my eyes, lying in my bed as I put together a plan.

Tomorrow I would talk to one of the girls in my class as soon as class ended and see if she could come over after school. She'd most likely say yes, but I needed to find a way to get a condom…

Kazuya.

He had to have some with how many girls he had told me about.

I picked up my phone and sent him a quick text that read,

'Hey man, you got condoms?'

I didn't expect him to text back, considering it was 3am on a school night.

My phone buzzed five minutes later though and I was surprised to see that it was Sakura who texted, instead of Kazuya.

'Syaoran…I don't know what's been going on with you for the past few months, but I hope that you'll get better soon. I really miss you…and know that I'm always going to be here for you if you need me. I just wanted you to know because it was heavy on my heart so I couldn't sleep. Love you, night! XoX'

I stared at the text and my eyes started to burn a little from the tears threatening to spill.

It wasn't like this was the first text I'd received from her. She blew my phone up with calls and texts every day, but I normally just deleted them or sent her straight to voice mail.

How could she still say that she loved me after I'd ignored her for the past few months? She was just so…

My phone buzzed again and I saw that it was Kazuya.

'You asked at the right time! I was just getting ready to use the last one I have. I'll give it to you tomorrow at the back of the school yard. Say…7 in the morning?'

I stared at the text, clenching my phone tightly.

I could always tell him never mind and go back to the way I'd been for the past few months or tell him okay and possibly have a better chance at becoming myself again.

With shaky hands, I texted back, 'Okay.'

It was done and over with, so why couldn't I shake the guilt off my chest?

Was it Sakura's text?

I should delete it then maybe the feeling would go away.

I went to her name on messages and clicked the delete button, but it popped up,

'Are you sure you want to delete this?'

My hands couldn't press yes though, so I sat the phone down on the desktop by my bed then lay back down.

I was doing this for her anyway. I would be able to hang around her again without being depressed and causing her trouble. I needed my life back and I couldn't cause any trouble for my mother anymore either.

I really believed that this would work so I had to at least give it a try.

With that thought in mind, I fell into a restless slumber.

Class was over and I could see Ichiko, a ginger-haired girl with green eyes, eyeing me.

She did this every single day, but I never really payed attention to it. Today would be an exception though.

Plus, she seemed like an easy target and I wouldn't have to do much work, as bad as that sounded.

I wasn't really a bad guy. I didn't normally sleep around with girls I'd never really became friends with. And, this would be my first time sleeping with a girl who was actually my age.

Why did I feel so guilty though when I'd done it with multiple older women?

I took a quick look at the gingers body.

Her body was fairly attractive, but she didn't look as nearly good as Sakura did.

In fact, no one did because only Sakura looked good, as crazy and bizarre as that may sound in my current situation.

I walked over to her with my charming smile on and leaned in towards her slightly, "Hello, beautiful. You seem to not be able to take your eyes off of me," I said smoothly and she giggled.

I had the urge to roll my eyes at it, but I held it together.

Sakura's giggles sounded much sweeter than that.

"Well, who in their right minds would?"

She batted her lashes at me flirtatiously and I remembered Sakura's long lashes and the way she would look up at me shyly through them whenever I said something that flattered her.

Gods…Sakura was so beautiful…

"That is a good question, but I have a better one."

"Enlighten me, please," she purred.

"Would you like to head back to my place?" I smirked, sexily.

A gasp escaped her lips. "A-are you being serious Li-sama?"

I nodded my head, hesitantly. "Yes. It would be of great pleasure to me," I lied straight through my teeth.

"Of course I would love to!" she said excitedly and clung to my body like glue.

I was already annoyed with her, but I could do this.

My goal was being able to have Sakura around again and not disappointing my mother in anything else I did.

We left the school together and I was glad that Wei was not there because it would have been awkward as hell.

Ichiko talked non-stop the entire way to my house and I wanted to tell her to shut up, but thought better of it.

We reached my bedroom and I immediately attacked her, not wanting to beat around the bush. I wanted to get this over as fast as possible.

And that was exactly what I did.

It worked.

I was happy and feeling like I was on cloud-nine. There wasn't any tension in my body anymore and everything just felt great.

Sex really was good and I could become addicted to it, if I wasn't careful. I was only thirteen and it would look bad on the Li's name to know that the next leader was an addict to anything. Sex especially.

Ichiko was great in bed—minus the extra noises she made. I mean, I was taught by the best, but you could just tell when someone was being dramatic.

She lied naked in the bed, tired and completely still.

The urge to tell her to get up and leave was so strong, but I was still a gentleman at heart.

I stood up from the bed, stretching my fully naked body as a smile formed on my lips when a certain auburn-haired girl came to mind.

I needed to see her now. I really missed her.

I heard the door opening to the house and footsteps making their way to my room.

Shit.

I hurriedly jumped in the bed with Ichiko to cover my lower-body.

The door opened and what was before my eyes shocked my entire body.

There standing at my room door, was Sakura in her school uniform. She was just coming from school.

Realization hit me like a bucket of ice, cold water. How could I forget that she was coming here every single day after class to talk to me?!

The look on her face tore my heart into a million pieces as neither of us said anything while staring at each other in shock.

"Sakura…I—"

She threw something at me before bolting out of the room and I automatically took off after her, not caring that I was bare naked.

"Sakura! Wait, please!"

I ran as fast as I could, but she was already out of the house.

"Damn it! Damn it, damn it, damn it!" I yelled before slamming the door shut loudly.

"Li-sama, what the hell is going on?" Ichiko asked standing in front of me with the blanket wrapped around her naked body.

"Get the hell out. NOW!" I barked at her before storming past her and walking straight back to my room to get some clothes on. I needed to talk to Sakura, fast.

I didn't even bother picking my uniform up on the floor as I slipped on a pair of jeans and a random T-shirt I had found on the floor.

"Li-sama…did you not have a good time?"

That damn annoying voice again needed to go away. "I told you to get the hell out of my house!"

I slid random shoes on before grabbing her clothes, throwing them in her direction.

"Put your damn clothes on and get the hell out of my house," I said before storming out of my room and the house to find Sakura.

I took my phone out of my pocket and dialed her number as I ran in the direction where her house was.

It was stupid, but I could give it a try.

She didn't pick up, just as I expected.

She wasn't at her house when I arrived there. She wasn't at Penguin Park, Daidouji's house, our secret hideout, any of the stores in town.

She wasn't anywhere insight and I started to worry.

Did someone take her? Was she murdered and someone hid her body?

She was being reckless like she always had been.

I never found her that night and Touya never picked up his phone, so I automatically knew that she was with him.

This was the worse that I had ever felt before and I didn't know what to do, so I did the unthinkable.

I called Mingxia, the lady who taught me everything that I knew about pleasing a woman in every possible way.

And that was how I became a completely new person. Or a better me, as she put it.

(Sakura's Pov)

It had been 2 years since I walked in on Li Syaoran in bed with another girl after he had ignored me for months and months on end.

I was instantly over him after he became a completely different person. He was the guy that every guy wanted to be and the guy that every girl wanted in bed.

A few months after the incident, it was like he forgot that it even happened. He was so cocky and even took my first kiss without my permission, assuming that I wanted him to!

He thought that I was just going to bend at his whim and comply with whatever he wanted to do like all these other girls did, but he was so wrong.

Always teasing and playing around with me like he had a right! It still infuriated me even though we were in tenth grade now.

He was an asshole, jerk-wad, bastard, scumbag—whatever terrible names anyone could think of!

I hated him.

I really hated him.

He should've just rotted in hell for all I cared!

How could he think that it was okay to trample all over my heart and expect things to be fine between us?

I didn't ever hold grudges towards anyone, but what he did was unforgivable.

I would never ever forgive him for what he did to me.

I doubt if you guys thought that this was a good chapter at all. It was long overdue though because I've been getting questions about why they feel whatever way they feel towards each other since chapter 1 lol. Let me know by your reviews what you thought of it at least, even if you didn't like it.