Hanging by a Moment

Chapter 3

Disclaimer:

CCS belongs to the one and only CLAMP!

Author's Notes:

*Ducks from tomatoes and random objects thrown at her* Gomen ne! I know I haven't updated this story in…ano…a really, really long time! But here is Chapter 3! You see, I just finished my first fic, The Right Kind of Wrong, and Of Lions and Dragons is my most famous and well-liked story, so I have a tendency to update that one more. This is going to be a short side story and I'm changing it to PG-13 because I decided to remove some 'elements' ((if you know me, I tend to have a recurring theme in each of my fics *wink, wink*)) So yeah…that's 'bout it.

Chapter 3

Daidouji Tomoyo glanced around the 11th grade classroom; violet eyes averting to the ever-ticking clock mounted on the north wall. But this video-crazed girl was completely at ease. This was a recurring process she completed every morning of school. Sighing with a smile, she strode silently over to the window and sat daintily in her desk, folding out the creases in her uniform skirt as she did so. Her gaze traveled to the pane of glass in front of her and she smiled thoughtfully. She perceived the sliding of a door and without turning her head she waved nonchalantly. "Ohayo, Li-kun, Meiling-chan."

The duo of cousins looked at each other and smiled knowingly. Li Syaoran took his seat to the back and left of Tomoyo and leaned casually back in his chair. "You're getting quite good at that, Daidouji , you know that?" He was silently amazed at how the artistic teenager had such good perception concerning her friends. He didn't smile, but Tomoyo nearly giggled at the kind gleam in his warm amber eyes.

"Hai," Li Meiling smoothed a long ebony ponytail in her slender fingers and rested her chin on her hand. "You really do know us too well."

Tomoyo closed her amethyst eyes and smiled. "Hai, hai, stop it; really I'm blushing." She retorted derisively with a dismissive gesture of her hand. "But then again…" Tomoyo winked slightly to Meiling, praying that the magic-lacking teen would catch on to her taunt.

Meiling blinked in confusion and suddenly it hit her. After seven years she had become quite used to Tomoyo's teasing; even she was beginning to find out why it amused her so. "Hai, I don't think anyone blushes more than you, Syaoran."

Syaoran had been tilting his chair on its back legs and suddenly all four came crashing to the ground as he flashed his friend and Cousin a warning glare. "Ehhhh?!"

Tomoyo began to giggle; taunting him was just too easy to do. Innocently, she put a finger to her temple and squinted her eyes as if trying to find information from the remotest part of her brain. "Oh my, but it only seems to occur when a certain someone is around…who is it again?"

Syaoran glowed low in his throat; signifying the Li Clan sorcerer's growing annoyance. "Daidouji…I'm warning you."

"Hmmm…her name seems to sound familiar…we know her Tomoyo-chan, ne?"

Syaoran's ocher eyes darted over to his Cousin and widened in baffled shock. Her too?! "Hey come on, you two…not funny."

Tomoyo grinned devilishly to Syaoran and clapped her hands together. "Ne, Li-kun I bet you can help us!"

"Not a chance." He crossed his arms defiantly over his chest and returned to his chair tilting. Meiling and Tomoyo were getting dangerously close to revealing his most coveted of secrets.

"Ah! I know!" Meiling and Tomoyo chorused together. "It's Sakura-chan!"

This time all of Syaoran's training left him and he fell sideways out the side of his chair.

Meiling and Tomoyo peered over him with eager and curious faces; quite in semblance to six-year-old little girls. "Ne, ne, are we right?"

Syaoran groaned a bit and began to tenderly rub his head where it had come into contact with the wall, ruffling his already messy chestnut hair even further. "Itai…" His eyes darted up to them and both teens flinched a bit from the hint of devious menace present in those tawny orbs. "T-That's n-not it…" He managed to stutter with a blush.

Tomoyo smiled at her handsome friend's discomfort and tried to suppress a giggle behind her hand. She understood why Sakura liked him so, he was absolutely adorable when blushing; the young artist had to admit. "You're not a very good liar, Li-kun."

"I'm not lying." He stated awkwardly, desperately trying to regain composure as he seated himself back in the desk.

"Is this you lying?" Meiling glanced sideways to her Cousin, his eyes darting to her nervously. "Because you suck at it."

Syaoran ran a hand through his hair and sighed in defeat. He had fallen for their antics again. No doubt he was probably one of the most, or even the most intelligent young man in their grade but he had the tendency to be quite gullible. He faintly recalled falling for Takashi's lies all throughout his years at Tomoeda Elementary and now he had fallen into another one of Meiling and Tomoyo's traps. It was entirely possible they knew of his affection for the teen Card Mistress; they just amused themselves with taunting it out of him. "Fine so maybe I…" He trailed off, coppery chestnut bangs hiding his eyes.

"So maybe you what?" Tomoyo inquired softly.

"I…I…" He never lifted his eyes from his desk, only thinking of the one engraved so deeply into his heart. "I love her…" He whispered in a hush audible to only his two companions.

"Hai…we knew as much," Tomoyo admitted patting him gently on the arm. "But you have to tell her or she'll never know."

"But I can't…" Syaoran's warm amber held a look of forlorn sadness. "I've been trained to handle all sorts of things but…rejection was never one of them."

"Who says you'll be rejected?!" Meiling exclaimed, immediately clamping her hand over her mouth as she received a swift kick in the leg and a warning look from Tomoyo.

Suddenly a light of hope shone in Syaoran's eyes. "Meiling what do you— " But before he could question his Cousin further, a warm sensation engulfed him from head toe and he shivered pleasantly from its warmth.

"Syaoran what's wrong?" The ruby-eyed young woman inquired nervously. One moment Syaoran had been despondent, the next moment he was smiling tenderly and he had shivered. Frankly she was a bit baffled.

Syaoran did not answer, only averted his golden-brown orbs to the clock and carefully ticked off numbers on his fingers. "Three, two, one…"

"Ohayo minna-san!" A soft melodic voice floated about the classroom, belonging to that of none other than Kinomoto Sakura.

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 "All right minna-san settle down." Mizuki Kaho reprimanded gently as her students began to settle into their respective seats. Once everyone was seated she continued and lifted a few sheets from her clipboard. "Today I'm going to assign you your teams."

Various groans and hopeful gleams circulated around the room and Kaho laughed gently. "Oi it won't be that bad I promise."

"I hope we're all in the same team…" Sakura whispered to her friends.

"Team One…Mihara Chiharu, Yamazaki Takashi, Yanagisawa Naoko, and Sasaki Rika."

Chiharu bopped Takashi on the head just as he began a tall tale and Naoko and Rika clapped their hands in amusement.

"Team Two…Daidouji Tomoyo, Kinomoto Sakura, Li Syaoran, and Li Meiling." ((AN: Minna-san saw that one coming, ne?))

Sakura's eyes widened in surprised glee and she barely managed to suppress her ecstatic cry from escaping her lips. She was going to be on the same team as Syaoran! What luck! Stealing a furtive glance over her shoulder she met with Syaoran's tawny eyes and melted inside when he flashed her a genuine smile.

Kaho began reading off the rest of the teams, diverse and various whispers floating about the classroom. When she had finished a hand shot up into the air. The ginger-haired teacher sighed exasperatedly. "Hai Masayuki-san?"

Masayuki Keizo glared toward his teacher. "Why do Li and Yamazaki get to be in teams full of women?"

A ripple of laughter passed from one end of the classroom to the other and Kaho placed her clipboard back on her podium. "Because those are the teams I assigned. If you have any other further tribulations, you can discuss them after school." Keizo glared rebelliously but said nothing. "Am I clear Masayuki-san?"

"Hai, Mizuki-sensei," Keizo mumbled.

After Kaho had returned to the morning's lesson, Akemi reached over and punched Keizo playfully in the arm. "Don't worry, we'll think of something…"

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"HOEEEE! I'm going to be late!" Sakura scrambled about her room; her incessant shuffling disturbing the slumber of her peacefully sleeping guardian.

"Oi, Oi, some of us are trying to get some sleep, Sakura!" Kero reprimanded his Mistress. But inside he laughed a bit at her expense. He had been with Sakura for seven years and even now she made the mornings a mad dash against time; to put it blatantly, he found it flat-out amusing. The Beast of the Seal then frowned on reflection of his succeeding thought. While his Mistress was off in the Bahamas with her friends, he was confined to the walls of the Kinomoto Residence with nothing to do but count cracks in the wall. ((AN: A recent incident with a pudding filled kitchen left Kero-chan without his Nintendo Gamecube ^_^)) He fluttered over to her shoulder as she frantically threw last minute things into her suitcase.

"Ne, Sakura?"

Sakura—despite frantically searching for a misplaced plane ticket ((-_-;;;))—managed to avert her spring-green eyes to her Guardian. "Nani Kero-chan?"

Kero stretched out on his tiny stomach and pouted adorably. "Can't I come? Onegai I'm promise I'll be good!"

The teen Mistress of the Cards sighed and raised both of her slender hands to her shoulder, removing her Guardian in the process and holding him out in front of her. "Gomen ne, Kero-chan…"

"MOU! Why not?!"

"Because," Sakura brought Kero to her cheek and snuggled him affectionately. "What if someone sees you? We couldn't risk you getting seen."

Kero remained silent and crossed his tiny paws across the front of him diminutive body.

"Tell you what…when I get back, I'll have Tomoyo-chan make a picnic lunch with all your favorites! Then we can invite Meiling-chan and…" Sakura trailed off as a slight blush colored her cheeks and she looked whimsically out the window. "And Syaoran…" She ended in a hush.

Kero twitched slightly, he knew where this was about to go. Every time the Kid was mentioned, Sakura would get all dreamy-eyed, losing all sense of time and everything around her…she only thought of him. Honestly, Kero did not understand just what Sakura saw in Syaoran, he just knew that the 'Kozou' was annoying as hell to him. "Sakura…Sakura?" The Beast of the Seal patted Sakura's cheek gently, snapping her out of her reverie and calmly reminded her of the ticket she still had yet to locate.

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Syaoran's tawny eyes quickly darted down to his wristwatch again, five more minutes… The airport at Tokyo was so crowded it was nearly impossible to discern his emerald-eyed love in the thongs of people busily hurrying along. He had only one chance; to sense her.

"What's wrong Li-kun? Afraid your girlfriend won't make it?"

Syaoran turned to Tomoyo with a look that said, 'I don't care if you are the love of my life's best friend, keep going and I WILL hurt you.'

Tomoyo flinched slightly but only recorded the young man before her with even more avid curiosity. "You still haven't answered me."

The future leader of the Li Clan chuckled slightly to himself. One thing that could be counted on for Tomoyo, she was stubborn; probably just as stubborn as he himself was. No matter how many times he had glared at her or chided her, she never seemed to be phased by it. "Maybe because I don't deem you worthy of an answer."

Tomoyo pretended to stagger back and held a hand to her heart, the other hand with her camcorder up near her forehead, suggesting the act of fainting. "Oh no, Li-kun now you've hurt the organ that pumps the blood." ((AN: LMAO! Brittany-chan, that's for you, LMAO))

A slight giggle came from nearby and Meiling tucked her legs underneath her body as she faced the back of her plush chair. "Tomoyo-chan…somehow I have a feeling that isn't the first time…nor will it be the last."

"Hai, hai…" Tomoyo dismissed the teasing insult with a gesture of her hand and then turned to Syaoran again, his eyes frantically darting back and forth. She let a smile play onto her lips and a mischievous gleam to sparkle in her violet eyes. "You're not coming if she doesn't show up, are you?"

Syaoran scratched the back of his head and smiled sheepishly. "Am I that obvious? Of course I'll still go."

"I already told you that you suck at lying so give it up, will ya?" Meiling chided teasingly from her position on the chair.

Syaoran faced both of them with a glare. "Don't you two have anything better to do than pry into my personal life?"

"NOPE!" Meiling and Tomoyo chorused together.

Suddenly, Syaoran recognized a very familiar pink aura and a grin spread across his lips, his two companions looking to each other knowingly. Sure enough, Sakura emerged from the throngs of people and her emerald eyes lit up when they fell upon her three best friends. "Ohayo minna-san!"

"Ohayo Sakura-chan!" Meiling and Tomoyo chorused together. "We didn't think you'd make it on time but I think Li-kun was the most worried." Tomoyo added with a  sly smile.

As if on cue, a rosy tint colored Sakura's cheeks and she stuttered. "Honto ne?" Shaking her head and regaining a bit of composure she smiled happily to Syaoran. "Ohayo Syaoran-kun…I…" She trailed off and Syaoran stepped up to her, only his feet visible to her bowed head.

For the life of him he could not understand why a girl as beautiful as she should hide her face so often. Gently placing a finger under her chin he lifted her face to look up at him, her neck craning a bit to gaze at him standing a head taller than her. "Ohayo to you, Sakura…" He ended in a near hush and let his fingers trail slightly down her neck before grabbing her bags wordlessly in one hand and heading for the plane. Sakura blushed a deep crimson and tenderly touched the place where the young sorcerer's fingers had been only moments before. "Syaoran…"

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AN: Well I know it wasn't very mushy and it's only about four and a half pages but I need to update SOMETHING! Well, well, well what do Akemi and Keizo have up their sleeves now? Review please!

Brittany-chan ~ I HAD to put the "hurt the organ that pumps the blood" thing…it was the perfect spot for it too…Arigatou for telling me 'bout that, *woo* LoL