"Don't stay -- run. Run for your life," Touya said, nose buried in the newspaper. He nimbly dodged a chopstick which had been thrown from the kitchen.
"Worry about yourself, big brother," Sakura shot at him from the doorway. Then she turned and smiled at Li. "Please stay -- the recipe makes too much for us to eat alone."
"Let me call home and tell Wei," he replied, giving in.
Sakura bounced back to the stove, cheerful. Syaoran was having dinner with them!
A little while later, warm furriness rubbed against her ankles, purring. "Touya!" she called. "Come feed Kero!"
"I'm busy," he called back.
"Come feed him, or I'll poison you."
She could hear him grumbling as he folded his paper and smiled to herself. When he was in the kitchen, she glanced over her shoulder at him. "Do you think Yukito would like to eat with us too?"
He dusted the cat food off his hands and stood. "He never passes up food. Should I call him?"
"Yeah," she said.
So the five of them sat down at the Kinomoto family's small table and began to eat.
"This is wonderful, Sakura!" Yukito said when he had tasted the food. Li, keeping his eyes down politely and chopsticks moving, nodded his agreement but didn't say anything.
She blushed. "Thank you, but I have a long way to go before I'm as good as dad."
"I'm just waiting for the poison to set in," Touya said. He ducked another flying chopstick without blinking and continued to eat.
Sakura, left with only one chopstick, excused herself to get another set. When she came back, she caught a small, laughing smile Syaoran was throwing her and flushed to her hair roots.
Near the end of the meal, Syaoran noticed a photograph sitting to one side of the table. He was curious about it but didn't ask. Even though Touya and Yukito had shown Meilin and him around the school, he barely knew them. Fujitaka's assumption that he and Touya were friends that night Meilin offered to cook was only an assumption. Yukito and Meilin had made the plans. Touya and Syaoran had just let them, not even bothering to exhaust themselves protesting.
In an odd twist, Syaoran felt most comfortable with the sister, Sakura. As tutor and tutee, their relationship was straightforward; he had always liked knowing where he stood. But she also made him smile more than he usually did around others -- he'd even opened up to her about Meilin.
"That's mom."
He pulled himself out of his thoughts and looked at Sakura. She was giving him a soft, cheerful smile. "Mom died when I was too little to remember, but we like to keep her close by."
"That's nice." He suddenly saw the stark contrast between his family and hers. Both single-parent families, yes, but this was an example of warmth and compassion and never-ending love. His family . . .
His mother was an impressive, dominating woman who demanded high standards of her children. His sisters . . . well, he had finally gotten too big for them to put their old dresses on him.