This is for all the people that reviewed my story.
Miss Dace: Well I used CCS for this story because I think Syaoran would fit the character as a bit of a playboy. Sorry! It is not exactly according to manga but at least Tomoyo and Sakura are best friends! ^^;; Thanks for reviewing!
kawaii-syaoran713: Hey! Thanks for reviewing and thank you!
dark-death-angel: Thanks for telling me my mistake and thanks for reviewing!
The Rogue Shadow: Thanks for the tips and thank you so much for reviewing!
Dark Koorime0-0: Thanks for reviewing!
Feyla: Thanks for the note and noticing my slip. Thanks for reviewing!
Little Wolf Blossom: Thanks for the tip! And thank you for reviewing!
BGR: Sorry! I promise that it will make more sense in the coming chapters. Just hang in there and thanks for reviewing!
MarikIshtarRH01970: Thank you! Thank you for reading my fic and reviewing!
Sakura Blossom-Cilla-85: p: Thanks! Thanks for reading my fic and reviewing!
Erika: Thank you! And thanks for reviewing!
Disclaimer (I forgot to put it in last time! Thanks Clarice!): I do not own C.C.S. also the plot is from Violet Eyes. Read it! It is a great book.
~Angel of Silver Light
"…" – regular conversation
(…) – Me! (Though not too much)
~*Renaissance Children*~
I dreamed of choking smoke and twisting orange flames. Flames that roared, taller than my head, taller than the ceiling. I was small, crawling on hands and knees like a mouse chased by a cat, searching for a bolthole. But the fire cut me off, climbing the curtains and ringing the window. Burning timbers fell from the ceiling, and I screamed, trapped. As the ferocious heat of the blaze began to singe my hair, I squeezed my eyes shut.
Fire painted the inside of my eyelids…
I jerked awake and found myself still in Tomoyo's basement. No smoke, no fire, just a florescent light overhead that all but blinded me. I tolled over and tried not to shake with relief. It was just a dream. And old dream, at that. An old memory I wished to forget.
"It's eight o'clock," Raven said. She was standing at the top of the stairs. Heartlessly, she turned on the rest of the lights. She was a tiny, exotic-looking woman with dark hair and high cheekbones. Tomoyo had once told me she had the blood of Indian princesses in her veins. I could almost believe it. Raven had an inborn serenity that made me think of royalty.
When Tomoyo pulled a pillow over her head and grumbled that it was too early to get up, Raven calmly reminded her that Eriol was coming to pick her up at eight-thirty.
Tomoyo gave a shriek worthy of a scalded cat and leaped out of bed. "I haven't even taken a shower yet!"
Raven looked amused. "Don't worry. I told him to give you an hour."
"You told him?" Tomoyo raised an eyebrow in disbelief. "You actually spoke to him on the phone?"
For reasons that baffled me, Tomoyo's parents did not approve of Eriol.
"Yes," Raven said evenly.
Tomoyo nodded. "Of course, if you hadn't told him, he would be sitting in your driveway for half and hour." She headed for the bathroom, and Raven went away.
We each took a shower, and then shared the tiny bathroom to do our hair and makeup. It took me ten minutes to blow-dry my hair, put on a touch of eye shadow, and blush.
Tomoyo carefully outlined her left eye with black eyeliner and mock-glared at me. "How can you be done already? I still look like I've been hit by a tornado!"
Tomoyo had twice as much hair to style as I did, and her recent perm had left her with a tangled mess of corkscrew curls, but I struck a pose and said, "It's because I'm perfect and you're not."
She laughed. "Well, that's true. We mortals can't be expected to compete with a goddess like you."
Her remark disturbed me. "I'm hardly a goddess."
"Next thing to it. Honey-brown hair, green gold-flecked eyes, skinny. You've got all the boys after you."
"Not all of them."
"Name one."
"Eriol." His loyalty to Tomoyo was legendary.
"That's different," Tomoyo said without explaining why. "Name another one."
"Sasuke, then", I named my ex-boyfriend. We had had a particularly messy breakup a month ago.
"Ha. Sasuke had the biggest crush on you of the lot. Why do you think he acted like such a jerk when you two stopped dating?"
I had not thought of it quite that way. "Yoshiyuki Terada." Everyone knew that he liked Rika.
"Only because you've never paid any attention to him. He was sweet on you back in January. If you smiled he'd switch loyalties in a minute."
"You're exaggerating," I said, a little more sharply than I had intended.
She shrugged. "Not really. You could be a movie star if you wanted to. You naturally attract people. Even Syaoran. You snubbed him horribly yesterday, and he was still asking about you."
I did not want to hear about Syaoran. "I'm hungry. Are you almost done?"
Tomoyo gave her hair one more touchup and nodded. "Let's go."
Tomoyo was wearing a tight, black shirt that spelled REBEL in glistening white crystals. A fitted jean skirt loosened towards the bottom of her model-like legs with a long slit up the right side. Her silky violet hair hung up high in a ponytail.
A fitted pink spaghetti strap faded from dark to light. With a matching jean jacket on top, I wore low-rise stretch denim jeans with a large white leather belt. My sleek auburn hair dangled down in loose curls.
If I had been voting on the perfect person, I would have voted for Raven. My mother would let us feed ourselves with toast and cereal. On a special occasion, she might have made bacon and scrambled eggs. Raven had set out cloth napkins and cutlery that matched. Golden waffles steamed on a china plate and fresh fruit brightened a crystal bowl. The sun shone in through the kitchen windows and all the white counters and cupboards gleamed.
Tomoyo's jaw set. "I told you not to go through all this trouble."
"I enjoyed it", Raven said mildly. "Besides, it wasn't all for you. Your father and I already ate. He had a golf game." School would begin next week and Mr. Daidouji would soon have to give up his early morning games.
I dug in. The food tasted delicious and I said so. Raven nodded serenely from her rocking chair in the corner of the living room. The turquoise baby blanket she was crocheting frothed over her lap.
"What are you going to do today?" Tomoyo scowled suspiciously.
"I thought I might do the laundry today", Raven said unruffled.
"I'll go get my hamper." Tomoyo stomped down the stairs.
Raven stared after her a moment, yarn wrapped around her fingers. "I don't understand that girl. She's furious at her father about the baby, but ever since she found out that I am pregnant, she will not let me do any hard work. She does all the vacuuming, all the hauling things up and down the stairs, and all without my saying a word. I turn around and it is done. Every time I sit down to supper, she would pour me a glass of milk and when I was having morning sickness, she did all the shopping and cooking. Yet she is not any friendlier. We aren't any closer." She sighed.
"How long have you and Mr. Daidouji been married?" I called Raven by her first name, but because he was my teacher, I had trouble thinking Mr. Daidouji as Keiji.
"Six years, but Tomoyo's been living with us only for the last four."
I wanted to ask where Tomoyo had lived before that; I'd never heard her so much as mention her real mother, but she came back up the stairs, hauling a basket of dirty clothes. She vanished into the laundry room and we heard the sound of a load being put in the washer. I was starting to see what Raven meant.
The doorbell rang, and Tomoyo ran to get it. "That'll be Eriol."
"Of course." Raven looked pointedly at the clock. It was exactly nine o' clock. Eriol was never early or late, always on time.
I got up to follow Tomoyo, but Raven stopped me. "You seem like a nice girl, Sakura." She pronounced my name with an odd accent. "Tomoyo's father and I are concerned about her…attachment to the boy."
"Boy?" I forced her to say the name.
"Eriol. We would appreciate your help." She did not say it directly, but she wanted me to break them up.
The half-liking I had been feeling for her slithered down the drain. I could have told her the same thing I had told Mr. Daidouji, that Eriol was the best thing that had ever happened to his daughter and that I was a far more dangerous companion to her, Eriol would have never pulled the stunt I had on the bridge. Instead, I just said, "I like Eriol", and left it at that.
"If you truly like him, you will help me. Tomoyo is no better for him than he is good for her. She is only dating him to rub it in her father's face. The situation is dangerous." Raven's voice was low and serious.
Dangerous?
"No." I went down the hall and found Tomoyo waiting for me at the door. She was tying her shoes and I could not see her expression, but I felt a slam of fear. Had she heard me talking to Raven?
Tomoyo's relationship with her parents was fragile enough as it is-I did not want to damage it unduly-but at the same time, if Tomoyo had heard, I could not risk not telling her.
It was a bitter thing, but even if I had not liked Tomoyo-and I did like her: her cynical sense of humor, her wildness, her absolute loyalty to her friends-we would still have been best friends, Because Tomoyo was sometimes indiscreet. Her tongue slipped and I got hints of puzzles within puzzles as I had last night. I needed her information, so while we were walking to Eriol's pickup truck I said, "Well that was interesting. You stepmother just tried to enlist me to her cause."
Tomoyo's shoulders relaxed infinitesimally inside her purple windbreaker. She had heard. "Oh yeah? What did you tell her?"
"That Eriol was nice"
"He is," Tomoyo said softly. We had reached the pickup. "Don't tell him okay?"
I mimed zipping my lips together, something that always cracked Tomoyo up. They must not have done that at her elementary school.
Laughing, Tomoyo climbed into the pickup truck and scooted over close to Eriol. She gave him a slow kiss on the lips.
He did not smile-he did so rarely- but his gaze was tender and his hand covered her for a moment before he shifted the truck into reverse and backed out of the driveway.
(A/N I know. But as I said, Eriol is very OOC in this story. So are Sakura and Tomoyo.)
His movements held a calm deliberation that I found soothing. Eriol could never be accused of being chatty, but when he did say something, it was usually worth listening to. His observations were concise and to the point. I often thought he was Tomoyo's rock, her anchor in the wild sea of her recklessness.
Mr. Daidouji referred to Eriol as "that damn robot". If someone talked to me like that, I would not be too eager to pin my heart on my sleeve either.
When Tomoyo and Eriol had first started dating five months ago, a buzz had gone through the entire school. Rika had whispered the news tome as if it were a scandal. I had not understood it then but Eriol was calm and reserved while Tomoyo was reckless and hyperactive at times. No body had so much as blinked when Sasuke and I had dated. It was the exact same situation. Sasuke was a party animal while I enjoyed parties but did not go to many.
"Are you sure you don't want to come Sakura?" Eriol asked me as he slowed to a stop in front of my house. Raven probably thought we were all going to the movies together, but I was not dating anyone and felt like the odd man out.
"Positive. All I want to do is laze around by the pool and improve my tan." A small lie. I fully intended to swim some lengths first.
"All right", Eriol said, but there was a tiny crease in his forehead-the equivalent of a frown from anyone else. I remembered that he, too, had seen my odd reaction to Syaoran Li, and I was touched by his concern.
(A/N Don't worry. This is an S+S fic.)
"See you Saturday," I said cheerfully, before hopping out of the pickup. Saturday was the second-last day of summer vacation and our group had a big party planned.
Inside the house, my mom sat in the living room with her long violet hair swept up in an elegant bun and newspapers all over the floor. She was taking a class in watercolors and was trying her hand at painting.
I studied the greenish blue blobs on the easel and conclude them to be turtles in an ocean. At least I thought they were turtles.
"What do you think?" mom asked cheerfully. "Should Picasso be shaking in his shoes?"
"I don't think Picasso did watercolors," I said. Our eyes met and we laughed together.
"Oh well," mom said, "I'm having fun. Do you have any plans for today?"
"I thought I'd head over to the pool this after noon."
"Can you pick up some green onions for supper? We're having company tonight."
"No problem."
The pool was full of little kids splashing around when I arrived so I decided to save the laps for later and sprawled out on one of the lounge chairs. I let the sun soak into my skin and tried, unsuccessfully, to not to think about Syaoran Li.
I had just gotten relaxed when a shadow fell over me.
Without looking up I said, "Would you mind moving? You're blocking the sun."
"Why go to the pool if you're not going to swim?"
I recognized the voice. Fortunately, my sunglasses hid my reaction to Syaoran's appearance. "To tan. The sun reflects off the water and you tan faster," I explained slowly as if I were talking to an idiot. I flipped over onto my side, ignoring him.
He did not like that. Probably not very many girls had ever ignored him.
"So what you're saying is that the closer you get to the water the better you tan?" he asked.
"Give the man a prize," I said with obvious sarcasm.
Quick as a cat, he scooped me up in his arms. I am five feet six, not exactly petite, and I have never been carried by a guy before. The shock of it blunted my reactions for a precious second.
"What are you doing?"
"Just trying to be helpful", he said blandly and kept walking.
"Let me go!" I hit his chest with the heel of my hand.
"Okay."
At the last second, I realized he was holding me over the water and I grabbed furiously, trying to get a lock on his wrist so I could drag him in with me. He slipped free but I twisted while falling and grazed my head painfully on the side of the pool.
I let myself slip down into the water, limp, trailing bubbles, then slowly bobbed back up in a perfect dead mans float. I was on the swimming team and could hold my breathe for close to two minutes.
I felt a splash beside me and Syaoran grasped me under the arms and towed me back to the edge of the pool in a perfect lifeguard's hold.
While he was hauling me out, I took two shallow breaths, but stayed perfectly limp. He positioned me on my back on the tile but instead of calling the lifeguard, he tipped my head back. Air passageway open. Then he pinched my nose closed and began to perform mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
A very strange form of resuscitation, I realized, as his lips shaped mine. More like a kiss.
'He knew I was faking!'
I almost jackknifed upright at the realization but managed to turn it into a weak cough instead. I rolled onto my side and heaved in several breaths just as two lifeguards dashed over.
"Is she okay? What happened?"
"I'm fine," I said weakly and coughed again.
Someone crouched by my side. The devil himself. "Are you alright Sakura? You scared the hell out of me." Syaoran's voice was perfect, rough, and concerned but his eyes held unholy glee.
It made me want to kick him. Hard.
"You-you dropped me." My voice quavered.
Our audience thought I was being a tad ungrateful. "He saved your life," someone said.
"Did he?" I smiled bravely. "I don't know how I'll ever repay you." I will pay you back for this if it is the last thing I do.
Syaoran caught the unspoken message loud and clear, but he just grinned.
I accepted the lifeguard's help up. "I want to go home now."
Both the lifeguard's were male, so an older woman with two kids went into the dressing room with me to make sure I did not faint.
I took and extra-long time washing my hair to make sure Syaoran would not hang around waiting for me outside. Then I thanked the woman and climbed on my bike.
I pedaled home furiously. I was mad at myself for pulling such a juvenile stunt. I had wanted to get back at Syaoran for his trick, but I had not meant to worry anyone else. Stupid stupid! But mostly I was mad at Syaoran for seeing through my ruse so easily. Every time I thought about the way he had kissed me, a red wave of fury and embarrassment rushed through me.
The only good thing about it was that from now on I would not have to just pretend he was my enemy. Now he really was.
Two blocks from home, I remembered the green onions and had to go back for them.
I was sweaty, how, and mad when I finally arrived home. I heard mom laugh as I went in the door and swung around to the kitchen to drop off the onions.
What I saw made me drop the onions and my jaws hang open. Sitting in one of the kitchen chairs, laughing with my mother, was Syaoran.
"W-what are you doing here?" I said like a bumbling idiot.
Mom frowned at my tone.
"I came here to apologize," Syaoran said.
Apologize my foot. "I meant, how did you know where I lived?" And could I live somewhere else?
Mom spoke up unexpectedly. "Your father and Mr. Li work together. I have invited the Li's over to dinner this evening. Syaoran came over little early when he realized you were the one he would run into at the pool.
My back prickled, and I glared at Syaoran. Exactly what had he told my mother about what happened at the pool? That I had almost drowned or that I had pretended to drown? I did not know which would be worse.
As if he was reading my mind, Syaoran said, "I'm sorry for throwing you in the pool." He looked sincere but I did not trust him.
"Good," I said bluntly.
"Sakura!" Mom seemed to expect something more.
"Apology accepted. And I apologize for calling you a brainless turd."
Syaoran's lips quirked. "Friends then?" He held out his hand.
Mom was watching, so I had to agree. "Of course." I said. All the while baring my teeth so Syaoran would know I was lying. I then gave his hand the limpest of handshakes then swept up to my room.
My mom followed ten minutes later. "You weren't very gracious."
"You weren't there," I said shortly.
She looked impatient. "All he did was throw you in the pool. I've seen you push Tomoyo in lots of times."
She was right, I acknowledged silently. It was not getting thrown in the pool that had shaken me. After lying in the sun, the water had been a pleasant shock.
What had rattled me was his kiss.
*A/N And that's chapter two! Here is a preview of the next.
She did not seem to hear. "Read scene one Sakura."
Syaoran smiled down at me. "Come on Sakura. I promise I won't bite."
That did it. I marched up on stage. But I refused to do scene one where Laura first arrived at a decrepit mansion and made a fool of herself in front of Giles. I flipped quickly through the script. Didn't Laura have a scene where she did not scream, cry, or faint?
I finally glimpsed a promise looking one.
"Page fifty one", I told Syaoran and launched into furious dialogue. " 'You're just like all the others. All you're interested in is my money!' "
" 'That's not true! Will you listen to me? I can explain.' "
" ' Explain?' "I shriveled him with my contempt. " 'How can you explain? The facts are self evident' "
" 'There are extenuating circumstances,' " Syaoran/Giles pleaded.
" 'Your name isn't Giles Foster, it's Gary McFadden. You lied to me. How can you explain that?' " I demanded passionately, barely glancing at my lines, using Laura's anger to yell at Syaoran.
" 'Do you hate me?' " He asked the question through white lips afraid of the answer.
I threw it in his face, just as Laura, hurt and betrayed, would have done. " 'Yes! I hare you, I hate you, I hate you!' " She was hysterical. I skimmed quickly ahead to my next line-On no!
I looked up, horrified, and saw Syaoran swallow a grin before Gary/Giles said grimly, " 'well since your opinion of me can't sink any lower, I might as well do this.' "
I look frantically at Ms. Velez, hoping she'd call a halt to the scene, but it was too late. Syaoran had seized my shoulders and bent me backward in an old-movie-villain-style kiss. A real one, not a stage kiss…