A/N: Experienced the Christmas dance, and now I'm DEFINATELY gonna get my moolah, since Jacob is not the person to lie. (I don't think he is, anyway.) Well, no reviews, no chapters, remember, and gitchy gitchy zsa zsa whatever. French oui oui something. I'm filled up coz I just ate, so I am acting soo mental. Ain't I always, tho?
Later: I just watched White Oleander. OMG!!!! It was soooooo good! It ACTUALLY had a story to it! (But really...it did.)
Note: There's cussing in this one, from from now on, there will be. But it's not heavy, so it's ok.
Disclaimer: I don't own CCS, but I tooka dang sliver of the sliverish pie. Oh yah babee.

I'm LivingDead or Gone, Part 4

I stare at Syaoran with big, rounded eyes and an innocent look. But do I mean it? More importantly, does he mean it? My eyes suddenly flood with thin tears that drop down onto my already damp sweater.The feelings, they flood, they burn, they hurt.
He notices my reaction and takes my hand. His is warm and soft and I wonder, with all of his time playing soccer and doing pull-ups on the heavy wooden bar in the gym, why is hands are the way they are. Does he have a special secret? It doesn't matter, anyway, because if I ever find out I'll be dead. Dead because no one seems to want me.
"Sakura," He says, his hand form and gentle, "You've got to believe me. I can help you. No one should be a shadow." He carresses my wet and trembling cheek. "Especially not you."
He sits down next to me and lets my cry into his shoulder. He doesn't care that I'm sobbing into his shirt. He smells nice, like flowers and rain mixed together, and he is soft. I know now that he can help me.
Now all I have to do is discover how.

The next day, after the dance, I'm a shadow once more. In my heart I am broken and torn, heavy and hated. Syaoran said he would help me, and now he's Tomoyo's boyfriend. How the hell can he discover that I'm a person this way? He'll just get smothered in the perfume-lavender flames of Tomoyo's wrath. Everyone does.
In between classes I follow Tomoyo into the girl's bathroom with her clique. They stand, one or two at a mirror, reapplying mascara or eyeshadow or lip gloss or concealer. I don't wear makeup-I wouldn't want to wear make-up. It's a waste of time, and besides, the whole fucking thing gets washed off your face anyhow at the end of the day. But still Tomoyo forces the concealer under my eyes.
When we get out at lunch, Syaoran sees me over at the cherry blossom tree, drawing. He runs over, yelling to his friends he's got to get 'some supplies' from the market. I try hard to pretend to be drawing still, but he looks into my watery green eyes with his shining amber ones and I am captivated.
"Do you want me to show you how?" I nod. I know what he is talking about. We run off and skip seventh period, but what the hell, I don't care. I've got my own prince in baggy clothes right here-and I can become a princess with his help.
On the way to the store, his baggy jeans rustling, my knee-grazer skirt flying, he explains.
"You need to be your own person," He says, looking my straight in the eye. "You need to escape the purple shadows, you need to become one and not be one. You need to look for yourself by yourself and not in someone else. You, Sakura-" He takes my hand then- "You need to be Sakura."
He softly kisses my cheek with his Italian Reissiance lips and runs off, to his home. To disappear. To be loved, to love, to kiss his angel's lips. But he has helped me, and now I can-and will-become my own person.
Me. Sakura Kinomoto. No shadow, no silence.
Myself.

********
Don't worry, everyone!!! IT'S NOT OVER!!!! There's a continuation, and Syaoran does someting with Sakura. But what? Dang, I'm not gonna tell you, find out for yourself!!!!!!