Muahaha! Another chapter! I want to tahnk all of my reviewers! You guys rock! And I know that the last chapter was a little short, but I just couldn't stand to have you guys wait any longer.So here's the next chapter!

Disclaimer: I don'w own CCS... wthat a shame...

Previously on Queen of Clubs:

Finally dragging herself away from the madman's door, Meilin ran towards the stairs that led to the upper level. 'I hope Syaoran is still with Uncle. Both of them need to hear this…'

Chapter 12 – Glad to Do It

After surviving Clow Reed's jokes at the expense of his own love life, Syaoran managed to finally get himself out of his uncle's quarters. Closing the mahogany doors behind himself, Syaoran began walking towards the stairs that led to the bottom floors of the mansion. As soon as he reached the steps he nearly collided with the huffing and puffing Meilin.

"Syaoran," Meilin cried in between wheezes, "Just the man I was looking for!" Meilin leaned on the railing of the stairs for support as she tried to catch her breath.

Syaoran gave his cousin a questioning look, saying, "You seemed to be in a hurry. Is anything wrong?"

"Yes," rasped out Meilin, "I heard Sirota say some pretty crazy stuff while he was by himself. I thought you might want to know…" This got Syaoran's attention. He furrowed his eyebrows and asked, "What did you hear?"

Meilin straightened out her form and faced her cousin with uttermost seriousness. "I heard him yelling out things like 'She's mine!' and 'How dare he not let me have her!' It was pretty intense… I heard crashes and glass shattering from his room. I think he might get violent."

Syaoran's jaw became slightly clenched as he heard Meilin repeat Sirota's outbursts. He took a few moments to subdue his desire to go and fling the creep out of the house right at that second and gave Meilin a quick nod towards his uncle's door. "Go alert uncle. Tell him that Sirota's getting worse and that he should hurry in his contacting of the other ambassadors. I'll go and figure out what to do to protect Sakura."

Syaoran was about to walk of before he heard Meilin give out a loud chuckle. He turned around a raised one of his eyebrows at her. "I hardly think this is a laughing matter, Meilin." Meilin laughed, "You're right – it isn't. I was just happy to hear that you and Sakura are finally on a first-name basis."

Meilin gave her cousin a playful wink before hastily walking to Clow Reed's door. Syaoran stood rooted in his spot, cursing himself for his slip up. A deep blush adorned his cheeks while he continued his way down the stairs to find Sakura and figure out a way to keep her safe from Sirota.

Meanwhile, Sakura was happily putting on the new linen on one of the beds in the new wing. After taking a quick shower and having some breakfast, she felt like she could conquer the world. 'I'll finish this task in no time!' She had to admit to herself that she was doing pretty well. It was 1 o'clock in the afternoon and she had already completely finished decorating one of the bedrooms (and the bathroom that went along with it) – the room that she painted light green to be themed after the lily flower. Now she was working on the second room - this one done in a pretty peach in the theme of peach blossoms.

Struggling with getting the comforter cover on, Sakura didn't hear someone quietly walk into the room. One by one, the heavy footsteps neared Sakura's preoccupied form. By the time Sakura realized that she was no longer alone, it was too late – the man took one of her hands into his own.

Startled Sakura let out a loud scream. She yanked her hand away and attempted to jump away from the intruder. "AHHHHHH!" Sakura kept yelling as she moved away with her eyes tightly closed in fright.

Noticing that the man isn't following after her gave Sakura the courage to open her eyes and actually look at who the trespasser was. Slowly opening her eyelids, she found two amber eyes peering at her in mock alarm.

Syaoran stood in his spot looking at Sakura as if she had gone mental. "What's with the yelling?" he finally asked, "Can't a guy offer a hand?"

Realizing that she had nothing to fear but Syaoran's wrath, Sakura eased up and gave out a sigh of relief. "Well," she said defensively, "you should know better than to sneak up on me like that! You nearly gave me a heart attack!"

She walked over to her previous spot and once again picked up the comforter cover to try and put it on the bedding. "YOU scared ME!" Syaoran retaliated in the same defensive tone, "I was only going to help you get this cover on." With that he took the other end of the comforter at proceeded to help Sakura with putting the cover on it.

"I didn't ask for your help," Sakura mumbled out under her breath while slightly pouting. Syaoran heard her quiet comment and replied with, "You didn't need to. I'm glad to do it."

Sakura's mouth gaped open as she stared at Syaoran while he finished her job of putting on the comforter cover. 'At first I wasn't allowed to ask for help. Then, I could ask him if I wanted to. NOW I don't even have to do it!' She noticed that Syaoran's cheeks were slightly red from blushing and her heard skipped a beat.

Knowing that her gaze was on him made Syaoran blush even more. He cleared his throat and then added to his previous statement by saying, "Unless you don't want my help…"

It was then Sakura's turn to blush for she really DID want his help. It's not that she needed help to finish the task, but after spending time with Syaoran when he was helping her hang up the curtains, she could not help but wish she could once again be around him.

"N-no," she stammered out, her cheeks flushed in a deep pink, "I'd love to have your help."

A slightly embarrassing silence filled the room while the couple stood and blushed at one another. Being too nervous from the tension, Sakura broke the hush by asking, "Did you really come just to help me?"

"No," was Syaoran's curt reply, "I also came to tell you that Sirota's acting up. Meilin heard him throwing things and yelling in his room. We fear that he might become violent towards you."

"WHAT! What do you mean he might become violent!" Sakura was practically loosing her mind from the horror. Syaoran walked closer to her and put his hands on her shoulders in an attempt to calm her down.

"I know this sounds pretty bad, but I don't want you to worry. Meilin is currently with The Ace and I'm sure they are already in the process of figuring out how to get rid of Sirota without much conflict. And in the meantime, I will keep you company until your friends return tomorrow. Sirota will not dare to come near you if I'm around. Nor will he try to attack you when you're with your friends."

"So you'll be with me the entire day?" Sakura asked meekly. The thought of spending the entire day with The King no longer repulsed her. In fact, it seemed like a rather good prospect. Yet she was still worried about what Syaoran said about Sirota.

"Yes. I'll be with you the entire day. And I would also like to ask you to spend the night on the fourth floor of the castle – the Royals floor. I think it would be best for you to stay there so that I can be nearby in case something happens."

Sakura's heart made another leap. Not only was she to spend the entire day with Syaoran, but she would even be sleeping close to him! 'I wonder why he's so concerned… and nice! It's hard to think that only a few days ago we were going at each other's throats.'

"Thank you," she finally said to Syaoran. And then, sweetly smiling and looking into his eyes she sincerely added, "You're so kind…"

Syaoran's entire face colored into a deep shade of maroon. He let go of her shoulders and looked away, mumbling out, "I-I just don't want you to get hurt…"

Sakura blushed as well. Syaoran's genuine concern for her was slowly getting him a large part of her heart. Yet while her heart seemed to warm up to him more and more, Sakura's mind was confused. 'Why is he suddenly so nice to me!'

Knowing that the silence was again filling the room, Syaoran tried to quickly change the subject. "So… Since I'll be hanging around you for the day anyway, I might as well help you out with your task. What should I do?" He looked at her, expecting her to give him a decent job to do to occupy his time.

Sakura looked at him with a nervous expression. "A-are you sure you want to help me? I don't really have that much work left… I - " her babbling was cut short by Syaoran himself.

"I already told you that I'm glad to do it. So just tell me what you need help with and I'll do it." He stuffed his hands into the side pockets of his khaki slacks in a gesture of slight irritation. 'Jeez… Can't she just accept my help when I offer it?'

Feeling that she would be much worse off if she tried to persuade Li that he didn't need to help her, Sakura decided to take advantage of his niceness. "Well… If you really don't mind – There are paintings that need to be hung on the walls. It would be a big help if you could hang them up for me. I'm afraid I'm not the best person to use a hammer."

She let out a sheepish giggle and walked to get Syaoran a hammer and nails to hang up the pictures. Returning, she continued, "The pictures are already sorted out in each room. You can either ask me where to hang them, or decide for yourself – I'm sure you'll make it look nice." She gave Syaoran a bright smile, handing him the hammer and nails.

While she was handing him the things, their hands touched and both of them blushed at the contact. Syaoran tightly gripped the hammer in his hand and prepared to get to work. "I'll get started then... But I must say," he suggestively said before moving away, "this sounds like a pretty easy task for a strong guy like me. I suggest that you think of another chore for me. I'm pretty sure this will take me no time to finish." He gave her a confident grin while Sakura only rolled her eyes.

"Humble, are we?" she said with playful sarcasm, "In that case, I'll try to find a decent task for you, oh Manliest of all Men!" He gave her a wink and another smug grin before he exited the room, adding, "That's what I like to hear…"

Sakura blushed at his playful actions. 'Did we just flirt!' Her mind replayed Syaoran's wink. 'Yup… Definitely flirting.' Her heart skipped a beat, but she decided to ignore it and go back to her task.

After about half an hour of working on the Peach Blossom room, Sakura happily declared it finished and decided to move on to the room with lavender walls – The Lilac room. When she entered that bedroom, she noticed that the paintings she chose to decorate it with were already neatly hung on the wall. 'Li did a pretty good job…' She stared at the pictures before a loud tapping on the room's window caused her to break her stare.

Surprised by the sudden sound, Sakura let out a loud yelp, but realizing that it was only Takahiro – the inductee in charge of the gardens – she sighed and went to open the window. 'I really need to calm down. I'm way too jumpy!'

Right when Sakura got to the window a startled Syaoran ran into the room. "What's wrong!" he yelled, rushing over to the surprised Sakura. Se gave him a sheepish smile saying, "Oh, nothing. It's just that Takahiro knocked on the window and scared me. I guess I'm a little jumpy today…" she turned around and opened the window for the short frame of Takahiro.

The inductee brightly smiled at Sakura and Syaoran saying, "Sorry to have scared you." Sakura nervously laughed and leaned out the window to better speak with Takahiro, "Don't worry about it… Did you want something?"

Takahiro's smile only brightened at Sakura's question. "Actually, I have something for you…" He then bent down and came up again holding several small bouquets of flowers. "Seiriu told me that you were decorating the wing in the theme of flowers. He also told me which ones you'll be using for inspiration. I thought it would be nice to have some real flowers in the room for tomorrow, so I allowed myself to go through the gardens and pick the flowers I know you could use for decoration."

Takahiro then presented Sakura the beautiful arrangements of lilies, roses, peach blossoms, lilac, and peonies. Sakura gasped and gratefully took the flowers from Takahiro. "Oh, you shouldn't have!" she cried.

"I just thought you might like the idea…" Takahiro said, a small blush forming on his cheeks. "I love the idea! Thank you so much!" Sakura gave Takahiro one of her sweetest smiles.

Yet the Kodak moment was ruined by a loud cough sounding from behind Sakura. "Hoee?" Sakura said as she turned around and found Syaoran coldly glaring at the poor little Takahiro.

"Yes. Thank you for your concern, Mr. Mimoko," Syaoran said while walking up to the window, "Now go back to your task." With that he pulled Sakura out of the window with one hand while using the other to slam the window shut.

Both Sakura and Takahiro looked at Syaoran as if he was from another planet. I planet where manners obviously didn't exist. Not wanting to anger The King, Takahiro quickly scrambled away from the glass, while Sakura gave Syaoran a quick glare.

"That was rude," she said accusingly. Syaoran returned her glare and retaliated, "He should be spending his time working on his task, not flirting with other inductees."

"Flirting? He wasn't flirting! He was just being nice! Besides, why do you care?" Sakura asked defensively. Syaoran stood still at her question. He couldn't just tell her that he cared because he was jealous and didn't like another male to be in a five mile perimeter of her.

Sakura caught Li's hesitation and decided to take the chance and play it up. "Jealous?" she asked him, raising one of her eyebrows. She expected him to fire back with a scoff or argument, yet to her surprise Syaoran simply turned away and said, "Just get back to work."

Sakura stood rooted in her space as she watched Li exit the room. 'He didn't deny it!' Syaoran, in the meantime, was thinking of how to make sure every guy in the society knew that he claimed Sakura as his. 'This will be difficult since she's not technically mine…' he thought in dejection, 'I'll need to find a way to get them to back off.'

Luckily for Syaoran, he wouldn't need to do anything to make sure every other male in the castle knew that Sakura was his for at the same time Meilin was busily working on something that would make that fact clear to the entire society.