Disclaimer: I do not own Card Captor Sakura. They belong to CLAMP. Please don't sue me.

Warnings: AU. Different behaviors and lifestyles of the characters. SXS, EXT.

Feedbacks: Please review! I love feedbacks!

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Forbidden Love

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Chapter Four: Deal!

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"It couldn't be that bad," Tomoyo argued. "Nothing could be that bad."

"You're right. It's worse than bad. Catastrophic. Maybe even cataclysmic."

"Cataclysmic?"

Sakura slid her ten-speed into the bike rack at the upper end of the parking lot, then snapped the lock in place. In spite of everything, she was thankful that Tomoyo was on her diet-and-exercise kicks so at least she wouldn't have to ride the three miles to and from school alone—at least not until Tomoyo gave up on her diet.

"I just don't know how I can face Syaoran after last night," Sakura said, moaning. "He must think I'm the world's biggest rat!"

"How do you know that? Give the guy a chance, will you? Besides, you didn't really do anything. It was your father mostly."   

"My father's not the one who wrecked Syaoran's car."

"Well, I'm sure Syaoran knows you didn't do it on purpose. I mean, I know you were desperate to meet him, but you'd never go that far."

"Seriously, Tomoyo, what am I going to do? What am I going to say when I meet him?"

"I don't know. Do you have to see him? Maybe you could transfer to another school." Tomoyo was struggling, unsuccessfully, not to smile. "What's in Anchorage?"

"I don't know—lots of snow, I guess. Maybe I could get myself a dog sled. Then I wouldn't ever have to drive another car."

"Yeah, but think of all those dogs you'd have to feed."

Sakura looked at her friend in dismay. "This is just great. My life's falling apart, and my best friend is cracking dog jokes."

"Well, all I can say is, if this is all it takes to make your life fall apart, I'd hate to see you in a real crisis," Tomoyo responded as they clomped up the worn slate steps of the main building. "Honestly, Sakura, maybe all this is a blessing in disguise. Who knows how long it would have taken Syaoran to notice you otherwise?"

"Notice me! He's going to break out in hives whenever he hears my name after this!"

"C'mon, Syaoran is nice… you said so, too! He'll take this whole thing in a stride." Tomoyo gave Sakura a sheepish smile. "Actually, that's what my father said to me last night about Mr. Terada when I spilled hot chocolate all over my book report. He said there are worse things in life than Ernest Hemingway getting a cocoa mustache."

Sakura giggled. "Like drinking hot chocolate when you're supposed to be in a diet, right?"

Tomoyo groaned. "Why can't I learn to keep my mouth? And in more ways than one!"

They had barely reached their lockers when the first bell went off, clattering and clanging its way through the cavernous, lime-green corridors. Suddenly the lazy stream of students drifting by turned into a jostling, frenzied throng. Tomoyo grabbed Sakura's arm.

"Listen, I gotta go. But we got so involved talking about Syaoran, I forgot to tell you—Eriol called last night. He wanted to know if I'd go to the Spring Fling with him."

"That's terrific, Tomoyo! I guess I was being pretty selfish about my problem, but how could you forget to tell me a thing like that?"

She shrugged casually, but her beaming face was a dead giveaway. "I guess I knew how I'd feel if I were you. When you're miserable, the last thing in the world you want to hear was somebody else's good news."

"Well, miserable or not, I still think it's fantastic. What did you tell him?"

"That I had another date with Mick Jagger and couldn't make it. What do you think, dummy?"

"Sorry I asked. Have you decided what you're going to wear?"

"Hey, give me a chance. The dance is still a three weeks away. Eriol said he wanted to ask me before anyone else did. Can you imagine anyone being so sweet?"

"I don't see what's so sweet about it. There's no reason he shouldn't think you've got lots of boyfriends."

"Yeah, you can see them lining up for me every day at lunchtime," Tomoyo said and laughed.

"Don't knock it. At least you're going to the dance."

"You'll probably get asked, too. There's still plenty of time." A mischievous gleam crept into her eyes. "Who knows? Maybe Syaoran will ask you."

"Ha, that's a laugh. Even if he didn't hate me—he probably has a date lined up."

"Don't be so sure. Anyway, the dance theme is Hawaiian luau, so you won't have to worry about any references to a car." Tomoyo scooted out of the away as Sakura held up her loose leaf and threatened to throw it at her.

Sakura had modern dance first period, which was part of the PE program. Never had she been in a mood to "soar," as Ms. Spencer put it, to the strains of The Rite of Spring. It was not that she hated dance itself—it was doing it that was the problem. To say she was klutzy was putting it mildly, Sakura thought. For instance, at the end of a recent pantomime exercise, Sally Berger came up to Sakura and asked quite seriously if she was supposed to be a puppy on a leash. Actually, Sakura had been trying to imitate a hummingbird, but she kept that to herself after Sally's question and pretended she had guessed right. Ms. Spencer awarded her a C+ for originality.

As the class sunk into deep knee bends, Maureen Collins brushed up against Sakura and whispered, "Heard about how you snagged Syaoran the other day. Neat trick. Wish I'd thought of it."

Sakura shot her a dirty look, and Maureen giggled. There was no chance for her to reply as Ms. Spencer, looking like a purple sausage in her leotard, went twirling across the floor with everyone in hot pursuit. "Light-ly, girls, light-ly," she trilled. "We're butterflies in flight, not a herd of elephants. . ."

Although Maureen's comment in dance and Eddie Talbot's announcement the day before in Chemistry had given Sakura some idea of how many people were finding out about the accident, it wasn't until she was peeling off her sweaty tights in the locker room that Sakura discovered just how fast gossip really traveled at Hanover. It seemed everyone in the whole school had heard about the accident and thought of it as some huge joke.

"Nice going, Kinomoto," yelled Leona Hanson over the roar of the showers. "I heard you really socked it to Li Syaoran!"

"I hope you know you've set back the cause of women drivers at least a hundred years!" Ella Preston cried militantly.

Sakura bore all the teasing with good-natured embarrassment. But any hope she'd had of the whole disastrous affair settling quietly were crushed as the bantering continued throughout the rest of the day. She sat through whispered wisecracks in English and in typing messed up a test, coming out with a score of eighteen words a minute after subtracting two points for each mistake. It was beginning to look as if she could do nothing right. By lunchtime she felt like a walking jinx.

"Maybe I should tape a big sign to my back: Beware of Klutz!" she complained to Tomoyo and Rika, who were sitting and sunning on Hanover's front lawn.

"How about 'Disaster in Progress'?" suggested Rika sweetly.

"Some help you guys are," Sakura muttered, "I thought you were my friends."

"We are, we are!!" they said in chorus.

"Have you run in—I mean, have you seen Syaoran yet?" Chiharu asked, flopping down beside them on the grass.

Three-quarters of the student body could be seen sprawled across the spacious lawn in front of the school. It was much too nice to stay inside. The thermometer outside the gym read eighty-nine degrees, and a cloudless sky the color of well-faded denim sailed serenely overhead. On a day like this, Sakura thought, she should be kicking up her heels instead of kicking herself. Worry had worked itself into a tight knot in the pit of her stomach, making her cheese-and-sprout sandwich taste like rubber between two pieces of dry bread.

Before she could answer Chiharu's question, Tomoyo nudged her in the ribs. "Speak of the devil!" she whispered. "Don't look now, but someone you know is coming this way."

Sakura whirled about to find a pair of familiar amber eyes gazing down at her. "Syaoran!" she almost screamed, swallowing hard to clear her throat of the bite of sandwich that was lodged firmly there. A surge of heat rushed up her neck. Say something! a voice inside her was shouting, but she couldn't think of a thing to say.

"Hi, Sakura," Syaoran said, stuffing his hands self-consciously into his jean pockets.

Of all the things she'd lain awake the night before imagining what he would say to her, "Hi, Sakura," definitely wasn't one of them.

"Hi," she finally managed to spit out.

He started to say something, then glanced nervously at her friends. Tomoyo took the hint right away. "We were just leaving, weren't we?" she piped up, jamming the remains of her lunch back into its bag and casting fierce looks at Chiharu and Rika. The three jumped to their feet almost in unison. "See ya, Sakura!" they yelled, breaking into telltale giggles as they hurried off toward the cafeteria.

Sakura wasn't sure being alone with Syaoran was better than having him yell at her in front of her friends. She sat there dumbly, struggling to find the words that would show Syaoran how sorry she was. But "sorry" wasn't going to fix his car, she knew. My father stuck bamboo under my fingernails to make me give him your number, she thought of saying as her desperation grew. No, he'd never believe it. What about the truth then? About how she'd tried to explain to her dad, and somehow it had come out all wrong.

"Syaoran, I—"

"Wait a minute, Sakura," Syaoran interrupted, dropping down beside her. "There's something I want to say first, so you can stop looking at me like I'm a policeman getting ready to arrest you. I know you didn't have anything to do with your father calling up last night."

Sakura's eyes widened. "You do?"

He grinned. "Yeah. I figured you tried to tell your dad and it got blown out of proportion, right?"

Sakura breathed a huge sigh of relief, then recounted the previous night's episode at the dinner table. "I've never seen him so determined! Once he'd made up his mind, that was it. He wouldn't even listen to me. And when he found out who your mother was—" she stopped in mid-sentence.

Syaoran nodded in sympathy. "It's like the song: 'immovable object' meets 'irresistible force.'"

Sakura stared at him uncomprehendingly. "Huh?"

"Our parents," he said, "Looks like my mom finally met her match. I didn't think there was another person on this planet as stubborn as she is."

"What did your mom said after my dad called?" she asked.

"She did a lot of hopping around yelling at first. Then she calmed down and decided to sue your dad's company for the money to fix the car."

Sakura groaned. When dad finds out about this! "I can't believe this! It's like they're having some kind of a personal war and using us as an excuse."

"Kind of looks that way, doesn't it?" he slouched back on his elbows, adjusting his faded orange visor against the glare of the noonday sun.

"I wish I had the money—I'd give it to you myself," she said. "Maybe I could pay you back when I get a summer job?"

"No way. You don't know my mom, anyway. Once she sinks her teeth into something like this, there's no letting go. You can bet she'll see this to the gruesome end."

"Well, she's in for some stiff competition then. My dad isn't known for giving up easily, either. He doesn't even think women should be lawyers in the first place. Isn't that awful?"

Syaoran stared at her for a few seconds, then they both burst out laughing.

"It's incredible," he said, "There's supposed to be the grown-ups, and they're acting like a couple of kids!"

"Hey, that's not fair!" Sakura argued, "We're kids, and look how reasonable we are."

"Let's face it. You and I are special—that's what comes of being only children."

"Do we have to give up?" Sakura asked. "Isn't there something we could do to change their minds? There's got to be a better way of working this out than fighting about it."

"Tell you what," Syaoran suggested. "You work on your dad, and I'll see if I can't make a crack or two in Mom's armor. Meanwhile, I don't see why you and I can't be friends. Deal?" He stuck out his hand.

"Deal." His clasp sent tingles up her arm; but she was not prepared for the rush of sensation that overwhelmed her when he brushed her chin with the back of his other hand, tilting her head back to meet his gaze.

"I like you, Sakura Kinomoto," he said, his eyes twinkling. "Even if your driving isn't worth beans."

Tbc. . .

Hi! Thanks again for the reviews! Please review some more!

Should I continue this? *ducks as fruits flew past her* I know, I know! I wouldn't say it again! *giggles* actually, I'm saying it to tease you. *ducks again* Especially miss_k!

To Miss_k ~ I'm no teenager! I'm already seventeen and in college. *snickers* but I just wanted to write a teenage fic so here I am. Thanks for your support!

Thanks again to everyone else!

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