Chapter One

"You look like you're having a good day" Said a pretty dark haired girl, falling into step with her friend. The brunette girl was humming to herself as she walked through the big gates of her college. This was the first day back after summer break and she was lucky enough to have bumped into Yuki on the way. Yuki was her brother's best friend but they'd known each other since childhood and he had been nice enough to bike her to the gates before heading off to his part time job down the street. College still fascinated her because although they went to her friend's college, they all had different class times- especially Yuki who was a few years above her.

Sakura couldn't help the small smile on her face as her cheeks went a bit red. "Yeah… I guess I am…" she said quietly. The dark haired girl raised a brow at her friend's reaction "I know what THAT means." She nudged her with her elbow which just made Sakura blush more. "But anyway…" Tomoyo left it and looked forward linking her hands behind her back as she walked,

"Did you do the homework Mr Terada set for us before break?"

"I was going to ask you-" Sakura started but a loud yelling across the yard had both the girls looking up.

"SYAORAN-KUN!"

A hoard of girls were running at full speed across the quad to a shady patch under the tree where a brown haired boy sat sitting at a free standing picnic table. He had messy, brown hair but in the scattered patch of shade that he was sitting under, it looked almost golden in the specked light. His amber eyes were scanning the pages of a text book and he wore a necklace with an expensive, black ring attached to it. At the announcement of his name he sighed and looked up with his eyes but not with enough effort to move much more then that. The crowd of girls that had shouted his names surrounded him and he was sheltered from view from the mass of excitable bodies.

"I guess Syaoran's just as popular as ever." Mused Sakura looking mildly amused. Though they were in the same course, she had never spoken to him… actually, she doubted he knew she existed.

"Well that's what comes with becoming this month's "most desirable male of the university" according to our university magazine."

"Wait, what?"

Tomoyo laughed. It's actually a thing now. The president of the magazine club Mikoto Tayoya decided to make this little addition into the magazine.

Sakura laughed. Mikoto Tayoya was the most popular girl at their university.

"As if he didn't have enough popularity already."

"Fans will be fans." Tomoyo shrugged. She pulled out the latest issue from her bag which had a large, glossy picture of Syaoran as the front cover leaning against a brick wall and smoking a cigarette. To Sakura, it looked suspiciously like a photo that was taken when the boy didn't know. The magazine was titled "number one boy". Sakura rolled her eyes.

"Although…" Tomoyo thought, tapping her lip with her finger "the latest article on him WAS pretty interesting…"

"Oh?"

"Yeah…" Tomoyo said, "apparently last week he was caught emerging from South District with a busted lip." She opened the magazine to a few pages in and it showed a small picture of the boy in question walking out of a back alleyway swiping his lip with the back of his hand which had a small cut on it.

This one made Sakura pause and look at her. Her parents had warned her against South District since she was a child because it was known for it's black markets, gangs, drugs and general bad inhabitants.

"Although I don't know how true that is… that could have as easily been an alleyway in this district although I suppose it doesn't make things much better seeing as he's been in a fight regardless."

Just then, the bell went which snapped Tomoyo out of her musings. "Anyway, I'll catch you after class?" she hugged her friend

"Yeah… Ja ne…" Sakura said, hugging her back.

"Ugh. Move, loser." A pretty blond girl said as she elbowed Sakura out of the cafeteria. She had long, golden hair and dark blue eyes that were looking at her with distaste. It was lunchtime and the quad looked particularly busy today "What are you, a first year? You're so small…" she looked her up and down.

This pleasant piece of work was named Mikoto Tayoya and no. Sakura was not a first year. They had been in the same class for two years now and they were going into their third.

Sakura couldn't be bothered with arguing so just let her in, despite having been the next in line to get her food.

Mikoto flicked her hair over her shoulder and turned back to the front to talk to the cafeteria lady.

"Pleasant as always, isn't she?" said a voice in her ear. She turned around. A girl with curly brown hair and a friendly smile was bouncing on her heels holding a full lunch tray. Today she had a jam sandwich and some animal crackers. Sakura laughed.

"Rita, seriously?"

"I can't help that I'm allergic to basically everything on this planet." Rita shrugged. The funny thing is, Rita was pretty and talented enough to be one of the most popular girls on campus but because of her severe allergy to basically every food, her eyes or lips or ears or a mixture were almost permanently swollen and people picked on her because of it… which is why she ended up in Sakura's group.

Today, however, she looked perfectly normal with her bright smile and normal sized features.

"Nice to see you're not all puffy today."

"Right?" she shrugged "I've been dialing my food back to the basics this week and it's really been helping."

"Next." The lady at the front counter interrupted them.

Sakura hadn't even realized that Mikoto had ordered and was now happily sitting and chatting with her group of giggling girls in her sunny seat in the courtyard.

"Oh, sorry!" Sakura said, "I'll have a cheese toastie please." The lady nodded and rushed off to get it. Sakura paid and followed her friend who had already gone on ahead to their usual eating area which was a much less impressive area on the ground under the bleaches near the basketball courts. On the way she was bumped aside by a few more passing students, a few of whom had stopped to apologize but that suited her just fine. Sakura was used to being invisible and she quite liked it that way.

Sakura made it to her friends and took a seat. Rita and Chiharu were already in conversation about something, Chiharu having a myths and legends book open on her knees whilst Tomoyo flicked through a fashion magazine beside her.

"did you know that there was once a cult that cursed pieces of jewelry to cast bad luck? Their cult used to practice magical rituals back in the 1300s and were cast aside by society because of that. When they were nearly wiped out by the townspeople who feared their power, they started cursing random pieces of jewelry and selling them on the black market as revenge. It wouldn't be until years later that these items were revealed to be bad luck." Chiharu gushed,

Rita laughed.

"I told you, this sort of stuff is never true! You can't seriously believe those legends Chiharu, can you?" she asked, "where did you even find that rubbish book?"

"It's not rubbish! And I found it in an op shop in the weekend" Chiharu said, looking through her glasses at them with a hungry look. To anyone else it would be scary but the girls knew she was just passionate about weird and dark things.

"Okay…" said Rita, humoring her, "say this book isn't rubbish, what bad luck does it say to have caused?"

"Well it started the plague." Said Chiharu, pointing to a paragraph, "one of the necklaces apparently made the owner sick with an unknown disease which spread throughout England."

This made Rita laugh even more. Sakura quietly unwrapped her toastie, not wanting to bring any attention to herself and risk being dragged into the argument.

Tomoyo seemed to have the same idea of staying out of it and had buried her head more intently in her magazine.

"Tomoyo, what do you think?"

"Ah…" Tomoyo looked uncomfortable "Actually you know what? I totally forgot that I left my uh… sewing kit in class…" she stood up. Sakura felt instantly alarmed, if Tomoyo left then the girls would turn to her.

She gave Tomoyo a pleading look.

"Sakura, do you want to help me find it?"

"Yes please." Said Sakura standing to her feet. Sakura and Tomoyo quickly packed up their things, ignoring Rita's protests before high tailing it out of there.

"You're a savior." Said Sakura, as they made their way back across the basketball court. She opened her sandwich again and took a bite "but it would have been nicer if you just gave a nonchalant reply and didn't plan on ditching me in the first place."

"Aw, sorry, Saku." Said Tomoyo, "you know I'm not fantastic at dodging questions. But I still got you out, ne?"

Sakura sighed, looking across the courtyard "I supposed you're right. So where do you suppose we go? All the good spots are taken."

Tomoyo looked across the courtyard. All the seats in the courtyard were indeed taken and both girls knew they weren't high enough in the food chain to sit next to anyone else from uni… heck, they weren't even in the food chain let along held some form of social standing.

But they were saved from trying to decide when another fashion student ran up to Tomoyo. "Tomoyo, we need your help with the dress. The rest of the group are arguing about what length to make it and Amy is about 5 minutes off making it the length of a long top…"

Tomoyo's eyes widened. "Oh, no, no, no. I'm coming. I'm coming."

She turned back to Sakura and flashed her an apologetic look "see you after uni?"

"See you…" Sakura waved. She smiled lightly at Tomoyo. Tomoyo was the president of the sewing club so she often got whisked away at random times.

The two disappeared.

Now what was she going to do?

She couldn't go back to Rita and Chiharu because they would bombard her. But there wasn't really many other places to go. Yes, she was invisible but if someone saw her sitting by herself in public she was sure to get picked on. One of the classrooms, perhaps?

She was just in the middle of her musings when she saw a particular boy run past. She noticed the glint of a necklace bouncing as he ran. He stopped to pause around a classroom corner, pressing his back to it and looking around the corner like he was checking for something.

His amber eyes and handsome features were unmistakable.

… Syaoran?

A minute later, a hoard of girls entered from the other end of the quad in a flurry of "I think he went this way" and "lets try the music block…"

She saw Syaoran look a bit fed up before taking off in the opposite direction to them. Unfortunately one of the girls spotted him.

"There he is!"

The group followed him.

Sakura stifled a small laugh. She was so glad she wasn't popular. That type of boy would probably do quite well dating somebody as popular as Mikoto. At least their popularity would compliment each other. She shook her head before continuing to her destination. She thought it would be best to try the English wing as they had a fair amount of classes and with any luck one would be open. She started trying door by door and on about the fifth door, the lock clicked open and let her in.

Okay… so it wasn't the prettiest room. Actually, it wasn't a classroom at all. The room was about the size of a public bathroom cubicle with shelves on either side filled with old books, paper and random pieces of stationary. The door was different on this room too, it had blinds which were thankfully closed. Someone must have accidentally left the storage cupboard open, she concluded. Still, it was better then nothing.

Sliding her bag off her shoulder she placed it in the corner. She had just perched herself on the windowsill on the back wall (it was barely wide enough to fit a window) and opened her toastie when the door ripped open and closed again. Before she could register what had happened, a pair of strong arms were wrapped around her pulling her small frame against a larger one which was pressed with it's back against one of the shelves. A hand clasped around her mouth, her sandwich lay forgotten on the floor by their feet.

She tried to scream but nothing came out.

Oh dear lord this was it. She was getting kidnapped. She was going to die.

… Still, her kidnapper had a really strange smell, was that cinnamon…?

Wait. Shut UP brain. This was NOT the time to be thinking about smell…

She tried to squirm. The arms tightened. She tried to squirm again. What was this person made of, bricks? She vaguely felt her necklace pulling at her neck and was really starting to panic. She was going to suffocate. He was trying to kill her. Suddenly, the pulling stopped and with a thud, her necklace rested comfortably around her neck again.

"Would you stay still?!" a deep voice hissed in her ear. She froze, mid squirming. She had heard that voice before.

Her suspicions were confirmed when the loud shrieks of fan girls came from the corridor.

"I think he went down there!"

"Syaoran-kun!"

"Marry me, Syaoran-kun!"

She saw the shadows of multiple girls run past the door through the blinds. Her heart was beating loudly in her chest. There was no WAY she was in a small closet with the most desirable man on campus. No, no, no, no, no…

She dared to slowly turn her head to the side. A little bit of stubble, sharp jawline, amber eyes…

"Mmf!" she tried to yell, whacking her hand backwards and hit his thigh, "Mmmmff!"

He flinched and loosened his grip in surprise which allowed her space to squirm again for a second before he realized and tightened his grip again.

"Would you-"

"Pervert, pervert, pervert, pervert, pervert!" she managed to pull her face away from his hand before it quickly snapped over her mouth again "mmf!"

"Shut up!" he hissed again, pulling her closer. She could feel his taught body pressed up against her back "and if you wouldn't mind…" he said calmly, "could you remove your hand? If anyone was a pervert in this situation it would be you…"

She paused for a second and experimentally squeezed the hand that she had used to hit him earlier. Something long and lumpy rested under her hand. He chuckled.

Realization dawned.

She went beet red and pulled her hand away.

"Why would you let me touch that?" she hissed at him pulling her head away from his hand. She felt a mixture of embarrassment and anger.

His brow rose.

"If I remember correctly, you were the one that put your hand there."

"Only because you started touching me!"

"Oh give me some credit." He looked scandalized, "if I was trying to touch you, you'd be doing much more than squirming."

Sakura's cheeks heated.

She whacked him again.

"And here we go again with the perverted hand"

"My hand is NOT perverted"

"Do you make a habit of touching random boys around campus?"

"No!"

"So just me then?" he raised a brow

"Ugh!" she exasperated,

He chuckled again, his amber eyes dancing with mirth "If you wanted to touch me so badly, Sakura, you should have just said…" He winked at her which pushed her over the edge, making the brunette girl fight her way out of his grip.

"If I wanted to touch you" she seethed, turning at the door to look at him with her hands on her hips "Then I wouldn't be doing it in a closet of all places. And for the record, I'd rather cut off my own foot and swallow it then touch you again. You." She jabbed her finger into his chest "arrogant." jab "prick."

"…Is that why you're touching me right now?"

She looked down at her finger. Her blush reached her ears.

"Ugh!" she threw her arms up in the air, storming out the door.

" I don't know what you think this is Syaoran," She paused at the door to shoot him an angry look over her shoulder "but I hope the she-devils get you. At least they'll take you back to hell where you belong" And with that she turned on her heels and left, not sparing the handsome boy or the forgotten sandwich another glance.

Syaoran watched after her feeling the most amused he had all day. It wasn't often he found somebody he could wind up quite as much as this girl… he was pretty sure this girl was in one of his classes though he couldn't put his finger on which one. His hand subconsciously went to fiddle with the ring on his necklace- a habit that he'd picked up whenever he was thinking but something was wrong.

Something was very wrong.

The ring was missing.

7