Why, hello everyone! I want to thank you all for your kind, sweet reviews! You're all so cute! ha! So, last chapter. Yeah, I know. Short, short, short, short, short! I'm so very sorry, but my mommy made me get off, and I wasn't done with the chapter. She wasn't even gonna let me post it! But I begged, and groveled, and there you have it. So, I'm hoping this chapter will be longer. So! Remember if you can't get what you want with dignity...BEG! Nah, I'm just kidding! Okay! Enough useless chatter! On with the story!
I've Found You
Chapter 5 (or more of part 4)
By: DreaDreamer
"So, everyone pick someone they've never met, which should be just about anyone in here, and talk a little to each other", finished Prof. Shrin.
'Ugh. How kindergarten', thought Sakura, as all the guys in the class started to eye her. She didn't want to talk to anyone, so she pretended to be very interested with something in her bag.
"Excuse me." Sakura stopped looking through her bag, and glanced up. Syaoran was standing over her.
"What do-", began Sakura but she was cut off with surprise when Syaoran grabbed her hand, pulled her up out of her seat, and gave her a firm handshake.
"My names Syaoran Li. What's yours?", he said smiling.
"Are you joking?", asked Sakura, shocked.
"Oh! Look at that!", said Syaoran turning Sakura around to face the window. He came up close behind her and whispered, "I don't want to talk to anyone new either."
"How d-did you know?", asked Sakura, stuttering with surprise from being so close to Syaoran. He smelled like soap and the fresh morning air. She closed her eyes and inhaled his scent as he spoke. She was glad he couldn't see what she was doing.
"I looked at your bag, and it's not even near a quarter full. You only have one book." He stopped, seeming reluctant. "And...you and I aren't so different from each other, you know."
Sakura opened her eyes and she and Syaoran stood looking out the window together. He stood tall and relaxed behind her, and she the same in front of him. 'I know what you mean...', she thought silently.
Sakura realized what she was doing, and seemed to snap back to reality.
'Remember, Sakura! He's not your Syaoran!'
The other voice from earlier came back into her head.
But you can still be nice to him.
Sakura thought about this. 'Yeah, I could huh?'
"So", said Sakura. "My name's Sakura Kinomoto." She turned around smiling. Not a sarcastic smile. Not a forced smile. The kind of smile she had smiled the first day in the apartment, two days ago. Syaoran looked down at her, and couldn't help but smile back.
"I enjoy dancing, and I hope to do a lot while I'm here in Hong Kong", Sakura said. "How 'bout you?"
"I like the Arts and History. I really like Math, too", said Syaoran.
"Yeah I know...", said Sakura looking at him sadly. He looked at her confused. Sakura jumped and said, "I mean- Math? It's so hard!"
Syaoran looked at Sakura surprised for a moment then smiled. "That's why I like it. Y'know, not everything is as easy as dancing."
"Hey, I never said dancing was easy. I bet you couldn't do one dance step without tripping."
"Tch. I could dance circles and leap bounds around you!"
Sakura and Syaoran laughed together, not noticing how the girls were staring enviously at Sakura, and the guys jealously at Syaoran.
But the one person in class who was staring at Sakura with daggers that might have actually been able to kill, was Casaki Aino. She had known something was weird about Sakura Kinomoto the moment she had walked into the classroom. Staring at Syaoran like that. She didn't want to admit to herself that Syaoran had been staring back. She also didn't want to admit how good they looked together. They were the only two in the whole room whose hair was a different color other than jet-black. Caskai desperately wanted hair that was a different color.
She was also mad because all of the guys had gone to the Kinomoto girl before her.
'Eh. They only like her because she has a different color hair. Probably not even her real hair color.' (Eww! Casaki's jealous! ha ha ha!) 'You better watch it, Kinomoto. No one can resist Casaki Aino!'
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Sakura's day from her first class had gone extremely well. She was happy to find that she shared three more classes with Syaoran. She was walking home now, almost skipping with bliss. It had been one of the best days she'd had for a very long time.
Finally reaching home, Sakura raced up the stairs three at a time to call---Tomoyo! 'Oh my gosh! I haven't called Tomoyo for three days!' She hurried with the keys when someone came up beside her. Sakura looked up at the person. It was a young woman, about the same age as Sakura herself. She had come up silently beside Sakura without her noticing. She looked familiar.
"Hello. My name is Casaki Aino", the girl said. "You might remember me from class this morning?", she said when Sakura continued to look puzzled.
"Oh! Yes! Of course, nice to meet you!", said Sakura congenially thrusting out her hand.
"Yes." said Casaki shaking Sakura's hand.
She stood staring at Sakura for a few moments and Sakura stared back.
Sakura started to feel awkward with Casaki just staring at her. "Um, do-do you need something?"
"Glad you asked. It seems, since I've been following you," -- "What!?!"-- "that you have arrived at Syaoran Li's apartment. I just wanted to let you know since you may be a little confused. Perhaps I could help you find where you really live."
Sakura had suddenly decided that she did not like Casaki Aino. Choosing to play around with her, she said, "Oh no. I'm afraid you must be confused sweetie. I'm afraid that this is *my* apartment. I don't know any Syaoran Li. I'm sorry." Sakura turned back to the door, unlocking it with ease.
Casaki's mouth gaped open. She caught some sense as Sakura started to walk into the apartment. "B-b-but! This can't be yours! This is Syaoran Li's apartment!"
"No thank you. No cookies for me today. I just bought some from another one of your little friends just a while ago. I'm sorry." And with that Sakura closed the door. Sakura held her breath and closed her eyes trying to keep her snickers very low. She walked forward and into someone. Sakura gasped on the breath she was holding and started to choke, then cough. She bent over gasping. She looked up into the face of Syaoran.
"Stop doing that!", she gasped out, standing up. "Your going to kill me one of these days!"
"Sorry", said Syaoran. She saw that he was smiling. "That wasn't a very nice thing of you to do to Casaki."
Sakura started to smile too. "I have no idea what you're talking about. And, if you just watched, she wasn't being very nice to me."
"Yeah, I saw." Syaoran turned his head to one side not looking at Sakura, and brought a hand around to scratch the back of his head. "So...are ya doing anything today?"
Sakura looked at him slightly puzzled. The side view of his head reminded her so much of her little Syaoran. She shook her head to rid herself of the comparison.
"You're not? I was wondering, i-i-i-i-", Syaoran looked down at his feet, closed his eyes and cleared his throat. "(ahem) I was w-w-w-wondering...if...ifyou'dliketoeatdinnerwithme?" He prayed silently that she wouldn't make him say it again.
Sakura stood looking at him for a few seconds. Syaoran sighed internally. 'I knew it. She's busy and she doesn't know how to tell me. Why should I care? Why am I even ask-"
"I'd love to." Syaoran looked up to see Sakura smiling at him. She was smiling one of her 'rare' smiles again, the ones that Syaoran couldn't help but smile back too. So he did. "G-g-great!"
"Right. Okay. So I'll see you here later." And with that (I know, I say "and with that" a lot, but hey! I like it!), Sakura hung up her jacket, put her keys on the table by the door, and went down the hall like nothing had happened. Syaoran had a feeling that she knew how hard it had been for him (Not hard to tell with the s-s-s-stuttering. Syaoran: Hey! Shut up! You go all goo goo over *Caaalllllvvvvinnnnn!! haha ha haa! No! No! Shut up! AAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!).
"Wow. She *is* incredible..."
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Sakura sat on her bed with a sleeping Kero, winding her fingers nervously in the phone cord of her phone, waiting for Tomoyo to answer.
"Hello?!", someone urgently asked from the other side of the line.
"Uh, uh...I mean, is Tomoyo there?", asked Sakura thinking she had dialed the wrong number.
"Sakura! Why haven't you called me? Is everything alright? How have you been? How's your new roommate? Is he nice to you? What's his name Ranzaki? How was the first day of-"
"Whoa, whoa, whoa! Tomoyo calm down! I'm sorry I haven't called you, my mind has been somewhere else these past few days. Everything's fine, I'm fine. And my first day of school was great." Sakura took in a deep breath from answering all of Tomoyo's questions (skipping the ones about her roommate on purpose...), and waited. And waited. And wait-
"TOMOYO? WHAT'S WRONG?!"
"I'm sorry Sakura!", said Tomoyo breathlessly. "It's just you sound so different from when you left! I was expecting something like, 'I fell horrible, this sucks...'", Tomoyo stopped and went on sadly. "... 'I want to go home' ..."
"Oh, Tomoyo!", said Sakura, wishing she could be back home just for her friend. "I'm so sorry!"
Tomoyo said, sniffling, "You...You even forgot about me."
"No! No, no, no Tomoyo! That's not what I meant! I meant I forgot to *call* you! I went shopping for gifts yesterday, and I *was* gonna call you, but I ran into Syaoran and-"
Tomoyo's sniffling abruptly stopped. "You ran into who?"
Sakura froze, her fingers digging into the receiver so hard she thought her nails were going to break off (those of you who are queasy, like me, it was just an expression...). "Er, uh, what I meant to say was, I saw my roommate."
"Oh, Sakura!", and Tomoyo went off into a crying fit, again.
"Tomoyo! It's all right! I'm okay, don't cry", said Sakura pleading.
"I'm so sorry Sakura!", wailed Tomoyo, "I thought I was doing you a favor taking your medicine out of your bag! If I'da known-"
Tomoyo stopped abruptly but Sakura could still hear her sniffling. Sakura was frozen, holding the phone tightly again. "What did you say?", asked Sakura, showing no emotion in her voice.
"I-I-I took your medicine out of your bag, because I was so afraid that if your dad and me weren't there, and you had all that dangerous stuff in your hands, that you might, you might-"
Sakura was shaking with anger. "What?! Afraid I might kill myself?! Huh? Is that what you and my darling dad think of me?! That I'm a suicidal lunatic?!"
Tomoyo was hiccupping on her words. "N-No! We-We-We were-hiccup!- just trying to-to- look out for you! -hiccup!-" Tomoyo sounded so distressed that Sakura immediately felt horrible for saying such things. But she was still very angry. She listened to her friend gasping on her words of apology, and didn't have the heart to hurt her anymore.
'I mean, it's not like I haven't thought about it. Poor Tomoyo. She must be so worried with me not there', thought Sakura, her anger leaving her body quickly so that she felt drained and weak with guilt and sadness.
"Tomoyo, I'm sorry. Don't worry, I love you and everyone there. I would never want to hurt you. I'm sorry I made you cry. Are you all right?"
Tomoyo kept sniffling, but she had stopped hiccupping. "I'm sorry Sakura. We should have had more faith in you. You'd never do that to us, I know. I'm sorry."
"Don't be Tomoyo. It's perfectly fine. Now! Let me tell you about everything I bought!", said Sakura kindly to her friend. Tomoyo laughed and listened intently. Sakura looked at the sleeping Kero.
'What a dork', she thought.
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An hour later, Sakura got off the phone with Tomoyo when she started to smell the heavenly smell of food coming from the kitchen again. Once again, Kero had left to find some nice food to eat, and Sakura didn't tell him that today, she was invited to eat the delicious food with the maker.
'I'm glad I don't have to go through torture again', thought Sakura, putting on a nice blue shirt with dark jeans.
Stepping out into the hallway, Sakura looked down into the living room. She took a deep breath and walked down the hall, and into the living room, and looked over at the kitchen. Syaoran had his back turned toward her, so he didn't notice that she had entered the room. She smiled and sat at the small bar and watched him with her head on her arm. He was humming while putting things on the stove. She listened closely and heard that he was humming a Cinderella song. (Yeah, uh, I don't know if they have Cinderella in China or Japan, and if they do, I don't know if they have the same song I'm thinking of. I'm sorry. If you know a good girly song that's in Chinese, tell me and I'll fill it in. Pretend there's a _______space okay? Okay!)
He turned around and put a pan right in front of Sakura. He looked up slowly to her face and saw she was smiling. His humming slowed and stopped abruptly. He had been grinning but he had now stopped and was starting to get a red, red, red, etc.... blush in his face. He turned away and pretended there was more in the oven.
'Dork dork dork dork dork dork', thought Syaoran. 'Why do I care so much anyway? I've never blushed.' And even though he couldn't recall it, he felt as if he had blushed before, the same way he was doing now. With all the girls Syaoran had dated, he had never really been interested even though they were all pretty, all extremely smart, all had special hobbies and abilities, and yet none had ever interested him.
'And now a total stranger who I've known for two days, and I feel like I've always known her.' Syaoran was still bent over the open, empty oven, and was just staring into it thinking.
"Ahem." Sakura cleared her throat behind him, and he stood up very quickly and burned his hand on the top ceiling of the oven.
"Ouch!", yelped Syaoran sucking on his hand. He turned around and looked at Sakura. She was staring at him, concerned. He felt the blush that had gone away when he burnt his hand come back into his face just a little.
"Are you okay?", asked Sakura standing up from the counter, "Let me see it."
"Mm-mm. I'm fi-", but Sakura had already snatched his hand away from his mouth, and had started to look at it. "Really, I'm okay."
"Yeah right. Look at the size of that thing", said Sakura showing his hand to him. It was a huge welt that covered the backside of his hand.
"It looks more painful than it is", lied Syaoran. 'Liar liar liar liar liar', he thought to himself. Sakura also seemed to know that he was lying. She was staring at him with her eyes narrowed in concentration. He put on a big, toothy smile. Sakura gave him a funny look.
"Don't lie to me", she said looking back at his hand.
"I'm not." 'Liar liar liar...'
"Okay. Does this hurt?" She pressed lightly on his welt.
"OUCH!!!!", he shouted in pain.
Sakura smiled satisfied. "I'll be right back. Don't move and don't try to fix your hand." She left down the hall.
Syaoran waited in the kitchen for a few moments feeling stupid and wimpy. He *hated* that feeling, but it seemed to happen a lot around Sakura.
Sakura came back into the kitchen looking a little nervous. Syaoran felt a funny aura coming from her. Not the one he had felt all that day around her, but close to it. "Okay, I haven't done this for a while, but I think I know what to do. Come sit at the counter." Sakura led him to the counter and sat on the opposite side of him with his hand outstretched over the counter.
"Look the other way", she ordered, staring focused on his hand.
"Is this going to hurt?"
Sakura looked up at him from his hand, and smiled. He stared back eyes wide narrowing them after a second. "Er, I-I was just kidding." Sakura found this even more funny and laughed.
"You're a real dork, y'know", said Sakura laughing. "Now look the other way."
Syaoran turned his head. "And close your eyes." Sakura commanded. He did.
Sakura took a deep breath and took something out of her pocket. A Clow card.
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Syaoran could feel a slight power so near him he felt as if he could taste it. His eyes opened and peeked over to Sakura as she started to mutter words he could just hear. She had her eyes closed as if she was meditating, and had a piece of paper over his hand. He looked at the--card?--in her hand closer and saw that it was a...a....
'A Clow card?', Syaoran thought thoroughly confused. He listened closer to what Sakura was saying.
"...Fire!
Take away the mark which you have caused!
Clow Card!"
(If you thought this was stupid, you wouldn't believe the one I had before this. In fact, why did I even put it in here?...)
Syaoran felt something less than a second fill his hand with a searing pain and he closed his eyes. And then a sudden coolness went over his hand like a wave and he opened them.
He looked at Sakura and saw that the card had gone and her hand was over his. Her eyes were closed and he saw that the welt on his hand had...disappeared?
Sakura's eyes opened so unexpectedly, that Syaoran didn't know whether to flinch or laugh from surprise. She blinked her eyes a couple of times and then smiled.
"So. What's for dinner?"
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Kero came in with a breeze through a window feeling defeated and angry.
The arcade closed on Mondays.
"Darn't", mumbled Kero angrily. "Frizzin kizzin mizzin lizzin".
Kero looked around for Sakura to complain to. No one was in the room and the lights were off. 'Strange...', Kero thought. He heard voices coming from the living room, and set off to investigate.
He started to fly down the hall when something bright and glowing went straight for his head.
"Whoa!", he shouted, ducking and turning around ready to fight. But the glowing object just kept flying into Sakura's room. Kero soared into the room, searching for the glowing thing. But he couldn't find it.
Something snapped inside of the closet behind him and he zoomed over to the closet to see. He saw a box on the top shelf with old, yellowed newspaper all around the top of the closet. He cautiously went closer to the box and lifted the lid fast and backed away. But nothing came out.
'Strange...', Kero thought again. He got up closer to the box when he saw something extremely familiar. The Clow book.
He opened the book and saw a now slightly glowing card settling in over the rest. He lifted the card and looked at it. The Firey.
'Hmmm...Only Sakura can open the book, so why is she using them?', thought Kero extremely puzzled. He decided to continue his earlier investigation and flew down the hall a little more warily.
Kero heard the voices louder now that he was near. He lowered himself to the ground and peeked up. Sakura was sitting next to a guy, and they were talking and laughing and...eating dinner? Kero was totally confused by now and had no idea what was going on. He didn't like that. He always knew what was going on. (Yeah, right! hahaha! Kero: Hey, shut up!)
He listened closer to what they were saying:
"...Hoe! No! You are so mean! I can't believe you did that!" 'That was definitely Sakura', thought Kero.
"Yup, I did. It was sooo hilarious! You should've seen her face!" 'Now who the heck is that?', thought Kero.
"Well that's even meaner than what I did. I'm glad you told me cause now I don't feel so bad about closing the door in her face."
"You felt bad about that?"
Sakura blushed at this. "Well, yeah. I mean, I know she's a brat and stuff, but I'm not a mean person."
"Yeah, I didn't think you were." The guy now looked away and stuttered, "I-I mean, of c-c-course, that I had a distinct feeling that you weren't. I could feel it." Realizing that this was even worse than before he began again. "I-I-I-"
Sakura was in a huge fit of giggles that Kero hadn't seen for a long time. "Stop, stop! Your killing me, Syaoran!"
Kero froze where he was beginning to smile seeing Sakura so happy.
'What did she say?', he thought. 'Syaoran? Did she say Syaoran?'
Kero listened for a little while longer as they talked and laughed and Sakura said Syaoran a lot. Kero couldn't believe it. 'No, Sakura, no...' He flew back down the hall sadly to Sakura's room.
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Sakura had had a wonderful night. She felt a million good feelings all at the same time. She had helped Syaoran with the dishes and now she was going to bed. He was in the kitchen watching her. She could feel his eyes.
'Don't trip, don't trip, don't trip...', thought Sakura.
Finally she made it to her room and closed the door smiling. She turned back around to see Kero was sitting cross-legged on her bed.
"Kero! What are you doing here? Why aren't you at the arcade?", Sakura asked very, very surprised.
Kero looked straight at her, right into her eyes and said something that Sakura was not ready for:
"He's not Syaoran, Sakura."
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*D/N: Wow. Finally it's finished. I'm sorry, I would've had it up sooner, except I've been punished so...you know. But I've had a lot of spare time to write it! Ahahahh haahaahaa! Okay. So! Here it is! and I think there's only 2-4 more chapters. 4 at the *very* most. Very very very most. Okay? Okay! So I'll see you soon if I can sneak on-line again! hahahahahahaa! alright. bye for now!*
I've Found You
Chapter 5 (or more of part 4)
By: DreaDreamer
"So, everyone pick someone they've never met, which should be just about anyone in here, and talk a little to each other", finished Prof. Shrin.
'Ugh. How kindergarten', thought Sakura, as all the guys in the class started to eye her. She didn't want to talk to anyone, so she pretended to be very interested with something in her bag.
"Excuse me." Sakura stopped looking through her bag, and glanced up. Syaoran was standing over her.
"What do-", began Sakura but she was cut off with surprise when Syaoran grabbed her hand, pulled her up out of her seat, and gave her a firm handshake.
"My names Syaoran Li. What's yours?", he said smiling.
"Are you joking?", asked Sakura, shocked.
"Oh! Look at that!", said Syaoran turning Sakura around to face the window. He came up close behind her and whispered, "I don't want to talk to anyone new either."
"How d-did you know?", asked Sakura, stuttering with surprise from being so close to Syaoran. He smelled like soap and the fresh morning air. She closed her eyes and inhaled his scent as he spoke. She was glad he couldn't see what she was doing.
"I looked at your bag, and it's not even near a quarter full. You only have one book." He stopped, seeming reluctant. "And...you and I aren't so different from each other, you know."
Sakura opened her eyes and she and Syaoran stood looking out the window together. He stood tall and relaxed behind her, and she the same in front of him. 'I know what you mean...', she thought silently.
Sakura realized what she was doing, and seemed to snap back to reality.
'Remember, Sakura! He's not your Syaoran!'
The other voice from earlier came back into her head.
But you can still be nice to him.
Sakura thought about this. 'Yeah, I could huh?'
"So", said Sakura. "My name's Sakura Kinomoto." She turned around smiling. Not a sarcastic smile. Not a forced smile. The kind of smile she had smiled the first day in the apartment, two days ago. Syaoran looked down at her, and couldn't help but smile back.
"I enjoy dancing, and I hope to do a lot while I'm here in Hong Kong", Sakura said. "How 'bout you?"
"I like the Arts and History. I really like Math, too", said Syaoran.
"Yeah I know...", said Sakura looking at him sadly. He looked at her confused. Sakura jumped and said, "I mean- Math? It's so hard!"
Syaoran looked at Sakura surprised for a moment then smiled. "That's why I like it. Y'know, not everything is as easy as dancing."
"Hey, I never said dancing was easy. I bet you couldn't do one dance step without tripping."
"Tch. I could dance circles and leap bounds around you!"
Sakura and Syaoran laughed together, not noticing how the girls were staring enviously at Sakura, and the guys jealously at Syaoran.
But the one person in class who was staring at Sakura with daggers that might have actually been able to kill, was Casaki Aino. She had known something was weird about Sakura Kinomoto the moment she had walked into the classroom. Staring at Syaoran like that. She didn't want to admit to herself that Syaoran had been staring back. She also didn't want to admit how good they looked together. They were the only two in the whole room whose hair was a different color other than jet-black. Caskai desperately wanted hair that was a different color.
She was also mad because all of the guys had gone to the Kinomoto girl before her.
'Eh. They only like her because she has a different color hair. Probably not even her real hair color.' (Eww! Casaki's jealous! ha ha ha!) 'You better watch it, Kinomoto. No one can resist Casaki Aino!'
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Sakura's day from her first class had gone extremely well. She was happy to find that she shared three more classes with Syaoran. She was walking home now, almost skipping with bliss. It had been one of the best days she'd had for a very long time.
Finally reaching home, Sakura raced up the stairs three at a time to call---Tomoyo! 'Oh my gosh! I haven't called Tomoyo for three days!' She hurried with the keys when someone came up beside her. Sakura looked up at the person. It was a young woman, about the same age as Sakura herself. She had come up silently beside Sakura without her noticing. She looked familiar.
"Hello. My name is Casaki Aino", the girl said. "You might remember me from class this morning?", she said when Sakura continued to look puzzled.
"Oh! Yes! Of course, nice to meet you!", said Sakura congenially thrusting out her hand.
"Yes." said Casaki shaking Sakura's hand.
She stood staring at Sakura for a few moments and Sakura stared back.
Sakura started to feel awkward with Casaki just staring at her. "Um, do-do you need something?"
"Glad you asked. It seems, since I've been following you," -- "What!?!"-- "that you have arrived at Syaoran Li's apartment. I just wanted to let you know since you may be a little confused. Perhaps I could help you find where you really live."
Sakura had suddenly decided that she did not like Casaki Aino. Choosing to play around with her, she said, "Oh no. I'm afraid you must be confused sweetie. I'm afraid that this is *my* apartment. I don't know any Syaoran Li. I'm sorry." Sakura turned back to the door, unlocking it with ease.
Casaki's mouth gaped open. She caught some sense as Sakura started to walk into the apartment. "B-b-but! This can't be yours! This is Syaoran Li's apartment!"
"No thank you. No cookies for me today. I just bought some from another one of your little friends just a while ago. I'm sorry." And with that Sakura closed the door. Sakura held her breath and closed her eyes trying to keep her snickers very low. She walked forward and into someone. Sakura gasped on the breath she was holding and started to choke, then cough. She bent over gasping. She looked up into the face of Syaoran.
"Stop doing that!", she gasped out, standing up. "Your going to kill me one of these days!"
"Sorry", said Syaoran. She saw that he was smiling. "That wasn't a very nice thing of you to do to Casaki."
Sakura started to smile too. "I have no idea what you're talking about. And, if you just watched, she wasn't being very nice to me."
"Yeah, I saw." Syaoran turned his head to one side not looking at Sakura, and brought a hand around to scratch the back of his head. "So...are ya doing anything today?"
Sakura looked at him slightly puzzled. The side view of his head reminded her so much of her little Syaoran. She shook her head to rid herself of the comparison.
"You're not? I was wondering, i-i-i-i-", Syaoran looked down at his feet, closed his eyes and cleared his throat. "(ahem) I was w-w-w-wondering...if...ifyou'dliketoeatdinnerwithme?" He prayed silently that she wouldn't make him say it again.
Sakura stood looking at him for a few seconds. Syaoran sighed internally. 'I knew it. She's busy and she doesn't know how to tell me. Why should I care? Why am I even ask-"
"I'd love to." Syaoran looked up to see Sakura smiling at him. She was smiling one of her 'rare' smiles again, the ones that Syaoran couldn't help but smile back too. So he did. "G-g-great!"
"Right. Okay. So I'll see you here later." And with that (I know, I say "and with that" a lot, but hey! I like it!), Sakura hung up her jacket, put her keys on the table by the door, and went down the hall like nothing had happened. Syaoran had a feeling that she knew how hard it had been for him (Not hard to tell with the s-s-s-stuttering. Syaoran: Hey! Shut up! You go all goo goo over *Caaalllllvvvvinnnnn!! haha ha haa! No! No! Shut up! AAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!).
"Wow. She *is* incredible..."
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Sakura sat on her bed with a sleeping Kero, winding her fingers nervously in the phone cord of her phone, waiting for Tomoyo to answer.
"Hello?!", someone urgently asked from the other side of the line.
"Uh, uh...I mean, is Tomoyo there?", asked Sakura thinking she had dialed the wrong number.
"Sakura! Why haven't you called me? Is everything alright? How have you been? How's your new roommate? Is he nice to you? What's his name Ranzaki? How was the first day of-"
"Whoa, whoa, whoa! Tomoyo calm down! I'm sorry I haven't called you, my mind has been somewhere else these past few days. Everything's fine, I'm fine. And my first day of school was great." Sakura took in a deep breath from answering all of Tomoyo's questions (skipping the ones about her roommate on purpose...), and waited. And waited. And wait-
"TOMOYO? WHAT'S WRONG?!"
"I'm sorry Sakura!", said Tomoyo breathlessly. "It's just you sound so different from when you left! I was expecting something like, 'I fell horrible, this sucks...'", Tomoyo stopped and went on sadly. "... 'I want to go home' ..."
"Oh, Tomoyo!", said Sakura, wishing she could be back home just for her friend. "I'm so sorry!"
Tomoyo said, sniffling, "You...You even forgot about me."
"No! No, no, no Tomoyo! That's not what I meant! I meant I forgot to *call* you! I went shopping for gifts yesterday, and I *was* gonna call you, but I ran into Syaoran and-"
Tomoyo's sniffling abruptly stopped. "You ran into who?"
Sakura froze, her fingers digging into the receiver so hard she thought her nails were going to break off (those of you who are queasy, like me, it was just an expression...). "Er, uh, what I meant to say was, I saw my roommate."
"Oh, Sakura!", and Tomoyo went off into a crying fit, again.
"Tomoyo! It's all right! I'm okay, don't cry", said Sakura pleading.
"I'm so sorry Sakura!", wailed Tomoyo, "I thought I was doing you a favor taking your medicine out of your bag! If I'da known-"
Tomoyo stopped abruptly but Sakura could still hear her sniffling. Sakura was frozen, holding the phone tightly again. "What did you say?", asked Sakura, showing no emotion in her voice.
"I-I-I took your medicine out of your bag, because I was so afraid that if your dad and me weren't there, and you had all that dangerous stuff in your hands, that you might, you might-"
Sakura was shaking with anger. "What?! Afraid I might kill myself?! Huh? Is that what you and my darling dad think of me?! That I'm a suicidal lunatic?!"
Tomoyo was hiccupping on her words. "N-No! We-We-We were-hiccup!- just trying to-to- look out for you! -hiccup!-" Tomoyo sounded so distressed that Sakura immediately felt horrible for saying such things. But she was still very angry. She listened to her friend gasping on her words of apology, and didn't have the heart to hurt her anymore.
'I mean, it's not like I haven't thought about it. Poor Tomoyo. She must be so worried with me not there', thought Sakura, her anger leaving her body quickly so that she felt drained and weak with guilt and sadness.
"Tomoyo, I'm sorry. Don't worry, I love you and everyone there. I would never want to hurt you. I'm sorry I made you cry. Are you all right?"
Tomoyo kept sniffling, but she had stopped hiccupping. "I'm sorry Sakura. We should have had more faith in you. You'd never do that to us, I know. I'm sorry."
"Don't be Tomoyo. It's perfectly fine. Now! Let me tell you about everything I bought!", said Sakura kindly to her friend. Tomoyo laughed and listened intently. Sakura looked at the sleeping Kero.
'What a dork', she thought.
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An hour later, Sakura got off the phone with Tomoyo when she started to smell the heavenly smell of food coming from the kitchen again. Once again, Kero had left to find some nice food to eat, and Sakura didn't tell him that today, she was invited to eat the delicious food with the maker.
'I'm glad I don't have to go through torture again', thought Sakura, putting on a nice blue shirt with dark jeans.
Stepping out into the hallway, Sakura looked down into the living room. She took a deep breath and walked down the hall, and into the living room, and looked over at the kitchen. Syaoran had his back turned toward her, so he didn't notice that she had entered the room. She smiled and sat at the small bar and watched him with her head on her arm. He was humming while putting things on the stove. She listened closely and heard that he was humming a Cinderella song. (Yeah, uh, I don't know if they have Cinderella in China or Japan, and if they do, I don't know if they have the same song I'm thinking of. I'm sorry. If you know a good girly song that's in Chinese, tell me and I'll fill it in. Pretend there's a _______space okay? Okay!)
He turned around and put a pan right in front of Sakura. He looked up slowly to her face and saw she was smiling. His humming slowed and stopped abruptly. He had been grinning but he had now stopped and was starting to get a red, red, red, etc.... blush in his face. He turned away and pretended there was more in the oven.
'Dork dork dork dork dork dork', thought Syaoran. 'Why do I care so much anyway? I've never blushed.' And even though he couldn't recall it, he felt as if he had blushed before, the same way he was doing now. With all the girls Syaoran had dated, he had never really been interested even though they were all pretty, all extremely smart, all had special hobbies and abilities, and yet none had ever interested him.
'And now a total stranger who I've known for two days, and I feel like I've always known her.' Syaoran was still bent over the open, empty oven, and was just staring into it thinking.
"Ahem." Sakura cleared her throat behind him, and he stood up very quickly and burned his hand on the top ceiling of the oven.
"Ouch!", yelped Syaoran sucking on his hand. He turned around and looked at Sakura. She was staring at him, concerned. He felt the blush that had gone away when he burnt his hand come back into his face just a little.
"Are you okay?", asked Sakura standing up from the counter, "Let me see it."
"Mm-mm. I'm fi-", but Sakura had already snatched his hand away from his mouth, and had started to look at it. "Really, I'm okay."
"Yeah right. Look at the size of that thing", said Sakura showing his hand to him. It was a huge welt that covered the backside of his hand.
"It looks more painful than it is", lied Syaoran. 'Liar liar liar liar liar', he thought to himself. Sakura also seemed to know that he was lying. She was staring at him with her eyes narrowed in concentration. He put on a big, toothy smile. Sakura gave him a funny look.
"Don't lie to me", she said looking back at his hand.
"I'm not." 'Liar liar liar...'
"Okay. Does this hurt?" She pressed lightly on his welt.
"OUCH!!!!", he shouted in pain.
Sakura smiled satisfied. "I'll be right back. Don't move and don't try to fix your hand." She left down the hall.
Syaoran waited in the kitchen for a few moments feeling stupid and wimpy. He *hated* that feeling, but it seemed to happen a lot around Sakura.
Sakura came back into the kitchen looking a little nervous. Syaoran felt a funny aura coming from her. Not the one he had felt all that day around her, but close to it. "Okay, I haven't done this for a while, but I think I know what to do. Come sit at the counter." Sakura led him to the counter and sat on the opposite side of him with his hand outstretched over the counter.
"Look the other way", she ordered, staring focused on his hand.
"Is this going to hurt?"
Sakura looked up at him from his hand, and smiled. He stared back eyes wide narrowing them after a second. "Er, I-I was just kidding." Sakura found this even more funny and laughed.
"You're a real dork, y'know", said Sakura laughing. "Now look the other way."
Syaoran turned his head. "And close your eyes." Sakura commanded. He did.
Sakura took a deep breath and took something out of her pocket. A Clow card.
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Syaoran could feel a slight power so near him he felt as if he could taste it. His eyes opened and peeked over to Sakura as she started to mutter words he could just hear. She had her eyes closed as if she was meditating, and had a piece of paper over his hand. He looked at the--card?--in her hand closer and saw that it was a...a....
'A Clow card?', Syaoran thought thoroughly confused. He listened closer to what Sakura was saying.
"...Fire!
Take away the mark which you have caused!
Clow Card!"
(If you thought this was stupid, you wouldn't believe the one I had before this. In fact, why did I even put it in here?...)
Syaoran felt something less than a second fill his hand with a searing pain and he closed his eyes. And then a sudden coolness went over his hand like a wave and he opened them.
He looked at Sakura and saw that the card had gone and her hand was over his. Her eyes were closed and he saw that the welt on his hand had...disappeared?
Sakura's eyes opened so unexpectedly, that Syaoran didn't know whether to flinch or laugh from surprise. She blinked her eyes a couple of times and then smiled.
"So. What's for dinner?"
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Kero came in with a breeze through a window feeling defeated and angry.
The arcade closed on Mondays.
"Darn't", mumbled Kero angrily. "Frizzin kizzin mizzin lizzin".
Kero looked around for Sakura to complain to. No one was in the room and the lights were off. 'Strange...', Kero thought. He heard voices coming from the living room, and set off to investigate.
He started to fly down the hall when something bright and glowing went straight for his head.
"Whoa!", he shouted, ducking and turning around ready to fight. But the glowing object just kept flying into Sakura's room. Kero soared into the room, searching for the glowing thing. But he couldn't find it.
Something snapped inside of the closet behind him and he zoomed over to the closet to see. He saw a box on the top shelf with old, yellowed newspaper all around the top of the closet. He cautiously went closer to the box and lifted the lid fast and backed away. But nothing came out.
'Strange...', Kero thought again. He got up closer to the box when he saw something extremely familiar. The Clow book.
He opened the book and saw a now slightly glowing card settling in over the rest. He lifted the card and looked at it. The Firey.
'Hmmm...Only Sakura can open the book, so why is she using them?', thought Kero extremely puzzled. He decided to continue his earlier investigation and flew down the hall a little more warily.
Kero heard the voices louder now that he was near. He lowered himself to the ground and peeked up. Sakura was sitting next to a guy, and they were talking and laughing and...eating dinner? Kero was totally confused by now and had no idea what was going on. He didn't like that. He always knew what was going on. (Yeah, right! hahaha! Kero: Hey, shut up!)
He listened closer to what they were saying:
"...Hoe! No! You are so mean! I can't believe you did that!" 'That was definitely Sakura', thought Kero.
"Yup, I did. It was sooo hilarious! You should've seen her face!" 'Now who the heck is that?', thought Kero.
"Well that's even meaner than what I did. I'm glad you told me cause now I don't feel so bad about closing the door in her face."
"You felt bad about that?"
Sakura blushed at this. "Well, yeah. I mean, I know she's a brat and stuff, but I'm not a mean person."
"Yeah, I didn't think you were." The guy now looked away and stuttered, "I-I mean, of c-c-course, that I had a distinct feeling that you weren't. I could feel it." Realizing that this was even worse than before he began again. "I-I-I-"
Sakura was in a huge fit of giggles that Kero hadn't seen for a long time. "Stop, stop! Your killing me, Syaoran!"
Kero froze where he was beginning to smile seeing Sakura so happy.
'What did she say?', he thought. 'Syaoran? Did she say Syaoran?'
Kero listened for a little while longer as they talked and laughed and Sakura said Syaoran a lot. Kero couldn't believe it. 'No, Sakura, no...' He flew back down the hall sadly to Sakura's room.
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Sakura had had a wonderful night. She felt a million good feelings all at the same time. She had helped Syaoran with the dishes and now she was going to bed. He was in the kitchen watching her. She could feel his eyes.
'Don't trip, don't trip, don't trip...', thought Sakura.
Finally she made it to her room and closed the door smiling. She turned back around to see Kero was sitting cross-legged on her bed.
"Kero! What are you doing here? Why aren't you at the arcade?", Sakura asked very, very surprised.
Kero looked straight at her, right into her eyes and said something that Sakura was not ready for:
"He's not Syaoran, Sakura."
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*D/N: Wow. Finally it's finished. I'm sorry, I would've had it up sooner, except I've been punished so...you know. But I've had a lot of spare time to write it! Ahahahh haahaahaa! Okay. So! Here it is! and I think there's only 2-4 more chapters. 4 at the *very* most. Very very very most. Okay? Okay! So I'll see you soon if I can sneak on-line again! hahahahahahaa! alright. bye for now!*