The Ripple Affect
By: Xiao

` Remember this is an AU and OOC. I added Syaoran as Eriol's brother, but only used the name. `

-- Chapter II --

"Well," Tomoyo's voice rang in as she entered the abandoned hallway, where she found her new locker assignment, which was right next to his. With a faint smile, she looked at him, while he ignored her gaze and continued to put his things away and gather what would be needed for class. "Fate seems to be taking it's toll. Speaking of which, are you going to give in anytime soon, because I'm not."

"Relentless." He commented with a sigh, without taking a glance at his new dark lavender haired stalker. She took a side-glance at him, and frowned lightly, decided that she really didn't want him to hate her, and by the tone in his voice, he just might hate her right now.

"Ah," she said, as she pulled her books from the small crème colored locker and looked at him. "Listen, I'm sorry, it's just I want to be your friend and your making it really hard."

"A challenge should be nothing for Tomoyo Daidouji, but maybe this one is out of your league." He said, as he quietly shut the door and made his way down the hallway to the room of his first class of the day. She trailed a few feet behind him.

"You know, the last you could do is tell me a real reason why I don't want to hang out with a guy like you." She finally said, causing him to stop dead in his tracks, his pale digits gripping his binder a bit tighter. He took a moment to sigh, and then nodded slightly, signalizing that he would tell her sometime, and then entered the classroom. Tomoyo still trailed at his feet, since this had been her first class as well. "So, how about after school today?"

"Yeah, that's fine." He said as he took his seat at the back of the classroom, while Tomoyo took her own right in the front row. "I guess." He added, as he sighed and put his head down as the chatter slowly died and the teacher began their lesson for the class period.

---

Students quickly erupted from the doors of the high school, each chatting happily about whatever topic seemed to be on their minds. Some sat on the benches, sun shining on them as they waited for their ride home, while other either had their own car, took the bus, or just walked home. Eriol had been one of the ones who walked home, considering he wasn't all that far from his house, only about a mile, and after all, he hated the stuffiness of buses, and didn't have his own car, anyway.

His sapphire eyes scanned the scene slowly, wondering if Tomoyo had been anywhere on the premises, eager to find out his reasons. No girl stood present, and thus he pulled out his headphones from his backpack and hit play before sliding them over his ears and making his way down the sidewalk, the cherry blossoms slightly shading the sidewalk and general area.

Tomoeda had been a small town, placed on the outskirts of the ever so busy Tokyo. It had consisted of one grade school, one high school, a few stores, and one mall, a few parks, and several houses placed around it. Students around Eriol's age, which was fifteen, were usually found hanging around the shopping area, while younger kids were usually found at the parks and grade school. The neighborhood consisted of a wide range from the mansion type, to the one-story houses, and then everything in between. Weather was delicate, usually warm summers and generally cool winters, and occasionally there was some snow.

"Eriol!" Tomoyo said, as she held her backpack to her shoulder and continued to run in his direction. "Eriol, hey, stop for a second! Wait for me!" He barely heard the voice of her through his headphones, but quietly stopped and waited, without even making sure that it was Tomoyo. "Finally!" She said as she came to a stop besides him. He had pulled the headphones down and they were now dangling from his neck. "Okay! Come on, we'll go to my house."

"No, Tomoyo, matte--" He tried to refuse, but she had grasped her hands in her and broke out in another run.

"After all," she said, as they slowed and came to a large house, gates placed at the front, with a perfect green lawn placed around the path. A maid had been waiting at the door, as if she had been doing the same task for years. "My house is close anyway. Here, I'll introduce you to some people." She grinned, and dropped his hand before placing her hand onto the screen on the side of the wall, and the gates quietly opened.

He frowned as he saw Tomoyo happily walk on the path, without any worries. With a sigh, he followed quietly behind her and watched as the maid greeted her happily. "Ne, Konnichi'wa Rae-Lynn! I have a guest today." She smiled as she turned and waited for Eriol to stand beside her. "This is Eriol Hiiragizawa."

Rae-Lynn bowed lightly, her hands folded on the apron of her black dress. He did the same. "Konnichi'wa Mr. Hiiragizawa." She greeted. Eriol slightly grinned, as he realized that atleast here he would be treated respectfully.

"Eriol, please." He said. Rae-Lynn nodded and led the two into the house, which caused him to hold his breath and tense up. Everything had been so different that he had been used to -- everything nicely cleaned, the walls drapped in a white colour, while the carpet in the same. The rest of the walls and such had been brilliantly designed and easily caught the eye. There had been stairs leading up to the next floor, and a kitchen placed a few feet away from them. He stared at everything, without realizing that Rae-Lynn was informing Tomoyo that her mother was out on a business trip, and would be home later in the evening.

Tomoyo walked across the soft carpet, and realized that Eriol wasn't following her. "Eriol? Hey, come on. We'll go outside and talk." His eyes turned in her direction and he nodded as he followed her to the sliding glass door. To his suprise, the backyard had been fairly small, but none the less beautiful. The grass as green as the front yard, flowers placed around the edge, as well as a deck placed at their feet. To top everything off, a childish touch of a swing set? She blushed lightly. "The previous owners had lots of children. I don't mind though," she said as she made her way over to the swings. "I like swinging and it's better than going to the park." He nodded.

"Well," she said as Rae-Lynn brought a pitcher of lemonaid to the deck and set it on the table with two glasses filled with ice. "Where do you want to begin?" Eriol bit his lip, and scanned his past through his mind while Tomoyo slowly pushed back on her swing and let it go. She noticed his quietness and still waited. "What's your family like?" she finally asked, hoping to break the ice.

He looked down at his feet, swiverling them lightly in the grass. "My parents are divored, so I live with my dad. I have an older brother, he's seventeen." He took a glance at her. "What about you?"

"It's just me, my mom, and all the maids." She chuckled lightly. "Well, that's different isn't it? You live with all boys and I live with all girls." She smiled. He nodded, looked and the opposite direction of her.

She paused, and leaned back, pushing her feet infront of her as she looked up at the tree shading them from the sun. "Do you just want me to ask you questions," she said, as she sat up right and looked at him. "Or would you rather just give me your life story."

He sighed. "My mom and dad divorced when I was eight. They fought a lot and it turned out that my mom was cheating on my dad. Well, my parents didn't like eachother after that but figured they would try to continue considering they had two sons, so they were always kind to us, but they still fought a lot. Finally, my mom gave up and moved to America, and left dad with me and Syaoran." He paused. "Tomoyo, do you remember your dad?"

"Yeah."

"Did they ever fight?"

"Yeah."

"Didn't you hate it?"

"Yeah."

"It drove me insane. Same with Syaoran, but Syaoran got over it. But since I was still a kid it was really horrible to see my parents yell at eachother over silly things. Well, every child expects their family to be great and perfect like a fairytale. Thought my family was bad, that we were different, and that it was always my fault for their arguments." He sighed, placed his hands on the chains of the swing sets and gripped them tightly, as if anger was swelling up in him and he had to take it out on something.

"Ehh.. Once my mom left me and my brother with my dad," He said, finally, after a long inhale and exhale. "things kind of got hard to deal with. I guess I should mention that part of the reason that my parents fought was because my dad drank a lot, meaning, you know.. Coming home drunk and everything. So, when my mom wasn't there, whenever he came home drunk he kind of.. Err.. changed."

"Changed?" She asked, a bit confused. "Why, what was he like when he wasn't drunk?"

"Let's just say my dad was a nice guy, and that everyone liked him. Then when he got drunk, he would come home and blame everything on us, that probably never happened, and a few times Syaoran tried to make him calm down and, yeah, he hit him." He said, his voice tensing up. He took yet another long inhale and exhaled slowly.

"Oh," she said, softly. She didn't know what to say to him.

"Well, me and Syaoran are kind of close brothers and all so, that kind of affected me when he hit Syaoran. Syaoran isn't very tolerable," he said quietly. "So, he hit him back."

It seemed that every bird in Tomoeda had stopped it's happy chirping to listen to Eriol's story, and that every child had stopped reciting 'Cinderella dressed in 'yella, went upstairs to kiss a fella! Made a mistake and kissed a snake, how many doctors did it take?' and their jump ropes lay deadly still on the ground. It seemed that the world stopped spinning, the air became thick. Eriol tightened his grip around the chains, his knuckles turning extremely pale. He looked down, and realized he was beginning to tremble, and mouthed a silent, "Oh, my God, what am I doing.." before looking at Tomoyo. She stared at him.

He stood, and walked off to the sliding glass door, shaking his head lightly, as a small tear slid. She stood herself, and watched as he slowly walked away, and frantically searched her mind for anything to make him stay. She wanted to know, and since she was already told part of the story, she needed the ending. "Eriol," she began as she began to run and caught up to him, grabbing his hand. She took in a deep inhale before exhaling. He looked at the ground, ignoring her. "Did you cut yourself over it all?" He took a side glance at her, his head still down. He pulled his hand free of hers and left.

The cuff of his black long sleeved shirt had come undone when he had pulled away and exposed the red slashes against his natural pale skin. She gasped lightly, realizing everything with just one glance.

'This can't be happening..'

'It wasn't suposed to be so serious as it actually is..'

'Oh, my God..'

As she heard the glass door come to a sliding and then a quiet thud. She quietly fell to her knees, and put her hands to her face and her elbows against her knees and began to cry silently.

'Why couldn't it be someone besides him?'