Chapter Seventeen
Kyoto
The day of the trip arrived and Sakura met Tomoyo to go together to the school gates. The bus would pick them all up at five in the morning there, seventy students and four teachers were going in total.
When they arrived, most of their friends were already there.
The teachers informed them that they would be divided into rooms of four or five students, and of course girls on one side and boys on the other... no mixing. Tomoyo, Chiharu, Meiling, Naoko and Sakura signed up to go in the same hotel room.
When they were going to get on the bus, Sakura heard a deep voice behind her back.
"Save me a seat at your side."
Turning around, she saw Syaoran winking at her. She smiled and nodded, climbing in behind her friends.
There were four seats in each row of the bus, separated two by two by the aisle. Sakura made her way to where her four friends were, one in front of the other, and sat in the seats just behind Tomoyo and Naoko.
Sakura put her backpack on the seat next to her to save it and knelt down, her chin resting on the seat in front of her to chat with her friends. After a while, all her classmates were there and Syaoran came to her side.
"Will you let me have the window seat, please?" he asked with pleading eyes.
Sakura rolled her eyes, stepping aside so that Syaoran could sit where he wanted. The bus set off, they had almost five hours left until they reached Kyoto.
"I'm sleepy," she muttered, yawning.
Syaoran tilted his body and pulled her arm, letting her back lean against his chest. He put one leg on either side of her body, wrapped his arms around her and rested his chin on her head. In a few minutes, they were both completely asleep, breathing quietly.
"You two have to wake up. We're almost there," Tomoyo whispered, looking at the two people in the seats behind her.
Syaoran opened one eye and looked at her.
"Already? So soon?" he asked hoarsely.
Tomoyo giggled.
"You've been asleep for more than four hours."
Sakura stirred slightly and yawned.
"Just a little more," she mumbled, still half asleep.
Syaoran stroked her arms gently.
"Wake up, sleepyhead," he breathed close to her ear.
Sakura opened her eyes slowly and saw Naoko and Tomoyo, who were watching her leaning against the backs of their seats.
"I've taken some pictures. You both looked so cute, cuddling each other and asleep," Tomoyo said with a mocking smile.
"Did you really take pictures of us sleeping?" Sakura asked, waking up completely.
She heard her best friend's laughter.
"What did you expect? You know Tomoyo," Syaoran replied, still laughing.
Sakura snorted.
"Show them to me," she said, extending her hand towards Tomoyo.
She gave her the mobile phone. There were three photos, in which they were both hugging and very asleep.
"Don't delete them, I want them," murmured Syaoran, who was also looking at them.
"But I'm embarrassed! Whoever sees them will laugh at us," she replied, feeling uncomfortable.
"I'm not going to send them to anyone, Sakura," Tomoyo assured her.
"Then it's fine," Sakura agreed, handing the phone back to her.
"Send them to us, but to no one else," Syaoran said.
Tomoyo nodded and Sakura sat up, pulling slightly away from Syaoran. She rose from her seat for a moment to stretch her legs and sat back down, resting her head on his shoulder.
"The teacher just said that we'll be there in twenty minutes. We're going to go straight to the hotel to drop off our bags, and then we'll go visit various temples," Naoko informed them.
"Very funny," Syaoran snorted, rolling his eyes.
"The fun will be tonight, when we're back at the hotel and we all take out the alcohol we brought," Tomoyo mumbled, a wicked smile on her lips.
"If we get caught, we'll be grounded for the rest of the year."
"What are they going to do? Punish us all? There are too many of us," Syaoran replied.
"I wouldn't want to be one of the teachers tonight," Sakura whispered.
The four of them laughed quietly, trying not to let the teachers hear them.
They finally returned to the hotel, after all day touring the temples of Kyoto. The five girls entered their room and Naoko plopped down on her bed.
"I'm sure they did this to tire us out, so we won't do anything tonight," she growled, closing her eyes.
Sakura and Tomoyo sat down next to her.
"Well, they forget that we are seventeen years old. In half an hour, we'll be as good as new," Tomoyo answered, grinning.
"I'm first to take a shower!" said Meiling, opening her suitcase to take some clothes.
"Hurry up. There's half an hour left until dinnertime, and we all need a shower," asked Sakura.
Meiling nodded with a smile and went into the bathroom.
Meanwhile, Syaoran was in the bathroom of the room he shared with Takashi and two other boys- They had played paper, rock, scissors and he had to shower first. As he stepped out of the shower with his towel wrapped around his waist, Syaoran saw that Takashi's suitcase was open and he was showing the other two a bottle of rum.
"Eat well, it's going to be a rough night," he said in an amused voice.
Syaoran let out a laugh, walking over to his suitcase to get dressed.
"Come on, Takashi. Put that down and take a shower."
His friend smirked, hid the bottle in his clothes again and closed the suitcase before he entered the bathroom.
An hour later, dinner had been eaten and each group was back in their rooms. The teachers' rooms were on the first floor, and the students' rooms were spread out on the second and third floors.
Tomoyo took out a bottle of vodka from her backpack and Naoko some cans of orange fanta and five plastic cups.
"Well... let's play never have I ever."
The five of them sat on the floor, filling their glasses.
"Never have I ever had sex," Naoko said, smiling mischievously.
Meiling and Chiharu drank.
"Chiharu, you and Takashi have already done it? you didn't tell me!" Tomoyo protested.
She blushed.
"It was a few days ago, I was going to tell you all tonight."
"It's not bad, he's waited some months. I thought he'd throw himself at you in your first week together," Sakura muttered, causing her friends to laugh.
"It's my turn. Never... never have I ever kissed my best friend," Meiling said, glancing at Sakura and raising an eyebrow.
None of the five drank.
"Really, Meiling? You still think I like Syaoran?" Sakura asked, her voice annoyed.
"It was just a joke," she replied, nudging her softly.
Sakura rolled her eyes. She doubted very much that Meiling had said it as a joke.
"Never have I ever had erotic dreams," Chiharu said, grinning at them.
The five of them drank, laughing loudly.
An hour later, the corridor where their rooms were was all chaos. The students were going from one room to another, visiting each other and trying not to make too much noise so that the teachers wouldn't find out.
Sakura had already been in three other rooms, including Syaoran's. When she returned to hers, she found Meiling and Chiharu quite drunk, texting on their mobile phones.
"You shouldn't text when you're like this," Sakura mumbled, approaching them with a little smile.
"Takashi is texting me too," Chiharu replied, shrugging.
"You should go to his room to see him, instead of sending messages," Sakura suggested, arching her eyebrows.
"No. It's better if he comes here," Chiharu muttered, leaning against the wall with her mobile phone still in her hand.
"I'm texting Syaoran," Meiling said with a small giggle.
Sakura and Tomoyo stared at her, their eyes widening in surprise.
"Really?" Tomoyo asked.
She shrugged, still texting.
"I don't care about anything today, and he already answered me once. I'm going to tell him that we should talk, and that he should come over. Maybe I can hook up with him again."
Sakura sighed, covering her face with her hands.
"That's not a good idea, Meiling... you've both been drinking, and I know Syaoran doesn't want to get back together with you."
"We'll see. Maybe he'll change his mind if something happens between us today," Meiling answered, typing on the screen.
Someone knocked on the door and Sakura went to open it. Takashi was there, with red cheeks and a dark face.
"You're here to see Chiharu, right?"
"You have to come with me, Sakura. Syaoran is very bad, and he won't stop calling your name," Takashi said with a trembling voice.
Sakura's smile faded away. She closed the door behind her and followed him to his room.
"What's wrong with him?" she asked, worried.
"He's had too much to drink. Let's see if you can calm him down," Takashi answered, opening the door.
Sakura didn't expect to find that scene. Syaoran was pounding on the wall, his hair disheveled and his eyes red, while his other two roommates were trying to hold him down. She ran over to them and grabbed his friend's hand, which already had several cuts and wounds.
"Syaoran, what are you doing? Stop it right now!" she shouted, feeling scared.
Syaoran turned and looked her in the eyes.
"Sakura, is that you? You finally came," he murmured, dropping on top of her.
Sakura held him as best she could, glancing at Takashi.
"How much has he drunk?"
She had seen Syaoran drinking many times, and it had never gotten this bad.