Have any of you realized that i'm always late??? Well I'm sorry I was out of town… long story so ok this is a long chapter and I hope is good ok???
So I want to thank…
watercircle: ja that's ok i do the same thing, i check it like 10 times, hey I love Hamlet too I can read it a thousand times if you ask me, I loved the movie too, I love shakespeare I think is a great writer… and you're right I'm trying to pay more attention but we all make mistakes right??? Well I hope you like this chapter too, thanx for the review!!
vampire wolverine: Thanx for the review and for putting me in your favorites I just hope I wasn't the cause of your sleep deprivation… well I hope you like this chapter too
Ange Noir: Well you were reminded of it because it is like that... the original that's it… you know what?? I loved your reviews I don't think I hate you and you're right thanks to you I have more reviews… I think that's cheating but what the hell right?? An I love the comment of nowhere and yeah life's a killer, well thanx for all the reviews!!
Apelles: Yeah it was short i think this is larger than the other but well.. oh and she's really depressed… and maybe a little insane, who knows? Well thanx for the review and the comments
NehoMiko: Thanx!! I just hope you like this chapter too, thanx for the review!!!
Karla: Thanx, and it's Syaoran but no worries everyone call him like they want… so thanx for reading and for sending a review, I hope you like this chapter too!!!
AFAN: Thanx… I was going to write more thanx but well I'm lazy… so thanx for the review and thanx for reading I hope you keep reading ok??? Thanx!!!
TOFU: Well I'm not that great but thanx… I hope you like this chapter too!!!
Janey: Yeah they are all crazy, specially Sakura but I love her attitude… well thanx for the review!!!
Spin
Summary: ExtremelyAU Something happened in Tomoeda a long time ago and now it's all screwy and everyone's in a bad mood. Eventually SS
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Spin.
Lots of things spin.
Rollercoasters, lives, minds, bottles.
Right now, what happens to be spinning is the wheels on Syaoran's car as he quasi-kidnaps me.
Of course, I'm a willing participant, but that doesn't make it any less scary. I don't know how fast or slow I want this to go. I don't know what he has to say in order to make me stay in Tomoeda.
He's sweet, you know, like he is in my diluted little fantasies. But it's different in real life. I don't know how to be the center of someone's attention. I have no clue how to take a compliment other than to refute or deny it. I didn't know what he saw in Kaho and I equally don't know what he sees in me. And while I would love to know all this, there's no way in hell I'm going to ask.
This isn't a self-esteem thing, I don't think. I know I don't look like a wild beast and maybe I'm fun to be around and yeah, I saved his ass a couple times.
But why me, and why here and why now. Was I just in the right place at the right time?
He's quiet now as we drive past the outskirts of Tomoeda. His gaze steadied on the road ahead of us. He's got that look, you know the one, the quiet, contemplative, stoic one that drives all the girls crazy. The one you would pay millions of dollars for just for a peek inside.
This is how he usually is in the Magic Blast, and at school. I actually have seen him laugh and smile and be evil, that was a rare thing. But I was his best friend, I guess it just came along with the territory.
"Having second thoughts?" I ask.
He glances at me stubbornly, "No, are you?"
"If you are you can turn around, I won't say a thing, It's still not too late."
He shakes his head, "I'm not turning around, I'm just thinking about where I should start. And try as you might, you're not gonna convince me that I don't like you."
"Where you should start what?"
"Apologizing."
We get on the highway.
He shifts into a higher gear and his arm pushes a little out of his shirt. His arms, there's something about his arms, you know, like you just wanna bite 'em.
When did I become such a girly girl?
He smiles and says, "I've never groveled before, I've never even come close."
"Well please don't start on my account."
He glances at me doubtfully, "I have a feeling you're not gonna let me off easily."
I look out the window, "Let you off. Consider yourself let off."
"Why are you so uncomfortable?"
"I'm not."
"Sakura, you're sitting as far away from me as you can."
He's right, I'm plastered against the door.
He says, "I hate this."
"Hate what?"
"I hate feeling like some perverted kidnapper."
"That's a second thought, turn around."
I know, I know: Get with the picture Sakura, be the cute little girlfriend we all know you can be.
Syaoran takes a hand from the steering wheel and slides it down his face, "I am not having second thoughts, you're not being yourself, you're closing off."
"Maybe that's just the way I am."
He shakes his head, "That's not the way you were with me."
It's one of those statements that you know is right, so you just shut up.
He pulls off the highway, "We need gas."
I fish the little skeleton and magician out of my pocket. This is us you know, almost. Syaoran is the magician, this is his secret, this is why he punishes himself. I'm not the skeleton yet, I could be. First I have to expose myself, right down to the bone. Put all my secrets on display for him to see like he has with me.
Skeletons have no secrets, they tell no lies, they can't close themselves off. Exposure, they have no places to hide anything. Me? I have plenty.
Syaoran returns with a huge bag of who knows what.
He sifts through the bag and says, "We've got water, soda, Cornuts, ummmm... chocolate? Gum..."
"What kind of chocolate."
"M&M's" he says pulling out the little brown bag.
"OOHH." I reach for it but he pulls away.
He says, "First, you have to promise to be nice."
"My chocolate."
"You're not big on sharing, are you?"
I smile, "Mine."
He rolls his eyes, "Fine, fine. Today it's chocolate, tomorrow you'll be wanting my car, my house."
I say, "Your money."
He nods, "My money."
"Your book collection."
"You're ruthless."
"Don't I know it."
Ladies and Gentlemen, I believe I just flirted with Syaoran Li.
That doesn't mean I'm ready to let everything go just yet.
He pumps the gas and we get back on the highway. I don't know, call it self-punishment, but there are certain things I need to know.
"So did you and Kaho get it on?"
I see a slight frown pass over his face, leave it to me to ruin a perfect best buddy moment.
He says, "No... we just…"
"Made out a lot?"
He shifts in his seat uncomfortably.
I say, "Dry humping, groping?"
"Sakura."
"You did not have sexual relations with that woman."
"Stop it."
"Sure you didn't, President Li."
"We kissed."
"Where?"
"Where?"
"Yeah, where?"
"Ummm... at my house?"
"That's not what I meant, I'm talking body parts here."
"Whoa, whoa whoa whoa, wait a second, Sakura, we kissed, there was no removed clothing."
"Oh." I say, "What about wandering hands?"
"There was no groping."
"You know, I made out with Kaji."
"You did?"
"Yea, you're jealous?"
He raises his eyebrows, " Yes!"
"I'm just kidding."
"Oh.... good."
I nod.
He nods.
We drive.
"What are you going to tell your parents?" I ask.
He shrugs, "I don't know yet, you?"
"I'm gonna tell them to call the cops, I've been kidnapped."
"You're having fun and you know it."
"Possibly. I'll just say I went camping, they don't care, I was about to move out anyway. You're missing school."
"Three days, big deal."
"That's very delinquent of you."
"Where should we stay?"
"Stay?"
"Yeah, tonight."
"Stay the night?"
He says, "The middle of Tokyo is about halfway, we might want to go a little further than that."
I say, "In a hotel?"
"Yeah"
"Together?"
He smiles, "Well I was thinking maybe I could get a room and you could sleep in the car."
I say, "Good idea."
"This is fun."
"Yeah, so don't ruin it."
"Let me apologize."
"Knock yourself out."
"Don't freak out."
"Who, me?"
Inside, my stomach is doing a kickflip 180 double ollie nosegrind.
He takes a deep, shaky breath. The kind that people take when they're about to say something big.
He says, "I've never had... so much fun... with anyone... in my entire life." He looks out the window, that's what people do when they're giving out a big dose of truth. "I mean... you knew about me... god this is embarrassing."
"Then stop."
"I didn't plan this either, ok? But I like you Sakura, in that scary, nervous, I-hope-you-forgive-me-soon kind of way."
I swallow.
"And Kaho, she doesn't even compare, Sakura. I mean, she's nice and pretty and all but you... you... I don't even... know how to describe it. When I was in that pool with you... I was so..."
"Horny?"
GAH. I just can't keep my stupid mouth shut.
He smiles, "Well that too. I was confused. You read the file Sakura, Kaho was nothing but an unhealthy preoccupation. And it took me... way too long... to realize how... amazing you were. And then you almost died and... and then you saved me."
He glances at me, "You saved me from everything Sakura. So forgive me already, cause this friendship thing? It's great and everything but it's really not satisfying my needs here."
"Your needs being?"
"You."
I close my eyes because I'm getting chills now. The lingering kind that won't go away, and when they do go away another one comes.
I say, "She has purple bras."
"Huh?"
"Kaho has purple lace bras."
"Ummm... ok."
"Mine are white."
He laughs.
I say, "Cotton to be exact, is that going to be a problem?"
"Well," he says, "You could just show me and we can get this matter cleared up immediately."
"Very funny."
"We went from apologizing to talking about your underwear, so pardon me if I have a hard time concentrating."
Syaoran is having sexual thoughts about you truly. If the earth opened up and swallowed me whole, I wouldn't be surprised.
I say, "Are you always this honest."
"I'm never this honest, ever."
I close my eyes and listen to the hum of the engine. In the rear view mirror, I can see the wheel spinning around and around. Maybe fantasies and love from afar aren't so great after all. They're less scary, but there not so great. I just hope I can get my foot out of my mouth long enough to let myself be happy.
"Maybe I should be honest too."
"That would be nice."
I say, "Let's get to the hotel first."
He nods.
I say, "I lie a lot."
"I know."
"It's getting kind of old."
He says, "Ok."
I say, "Wanna hear a teensy weensy secret?"
"Yea."
"Promise you won't get mad."
"I promise."
"I told Rei Ayanami you were gay."
This is what he does: Not a damn thing.
His eyes are motionless, steadied on the broken yellow line as it disappears underneath the car. The corners of his lips turn upwards slightly.
I say, "I'm serious."
I'm hoping he can handle this, there is more brutal honesty to come later, scores of it, washloads of it.
He nods in that non-chalont way people nod when they're talking about the weather. His fingers tap against the steering wheel. He says, "That's ok, I told her you were a lesbian."
"WHAT?"
"Yep, you and Kaho," he laughs, "You should have seen her face, I think she has a thing for you."
I set my face in stone, "I guess I can understand, she was so heartbroken when she heard you were gay. By the way, you're wearing her favorite shirt."
He looks at me, "You're mad because I beat you at your own game."
"In no way, shape, or form could you ever beat me at lying," I say, "You're mean."
"Me? Not only did everyone think I was trying to steal Kaho from Touya, then they think I'm gay. I probably don't have to tell you that Touya's jock friends don't hold me in high regard," He says, "I'm a hate crime magnet, if someone eggs my house, you have to clean it up."
I say, "Keep wishing."
"Can I have a M&M?"
"My chocolate."
"Share!"
"What color."
"It doesn't matter."
"Yes it does."
"Umm… okay... red."
I hand him a red M&M and pull a green one out of the bag for myself, holding it up. "You know," I say, "It's scientifically proven that green M&M's make you horny."
He says, "Eat up."
"When did you become such a guy?"
"When you started talking about your underwear and horniness out of nowhere. Your head is in the gutter too, Kinomoto."
"Just making polite conversation, Li"
He rolls his eyes and shakes his head.
I say, "So lets go to some hotel and hump like rabbits."
"That's not what this is about and you know it."
"Well, what are we going to do? Hold hands all night?"
"Sounds good to me, we haven't even kissed yet."
"How incredibly chaste of you."
"Fine," he says, "You wanna hump like rabbits? We'll hump like rabbits."
I say, "We've kissed."
"No Sakura, we didn't kiss, I kissed, you just stood there." In his voice, I have to wonder if that's disappointment. And the way he's gazing out the window, I have to wonder if he's reliving that moment.
I am.
I wonder if he can see this from my perspective. I told him he should wait for Kaho and he apologized. He apologized for kissing me, and he wonders why I didn't kiss him back.
You're not supposed to kiss people when you're confused like that. It isn't fair, he's not being fair to me.
I'm not being fair to him because I'm not telling him all of this.
I say, "It didn't feel right."
He doesn't look at me, just keeps gazing out the window and nods his head.
I say, "I was kidding about the rabbits."
"I know."
Another kind of lie is when you only tell half of the story. If I were to tell him the whole story, I would say that holding hands all night sounds good to me too. Instead, I joke about sex.
Rationalization: You're about to spend the night in a hotel room, alone, with the object of your obsession. The prospect of having sexual intercourse is one that causes much anxiety. so what do you do? You joke about it, pretend you don't care. That's what.
I could tell him all this. I should. But not here, a moving vehicle is a shotty place for resolution. Plus, there's nowhere to hide. Not me, mind you, but him, there's nowhere for him to hide. He might not like what I have to say, you know. And I have an awful lot to say.
I have an awful lot to change.
I say, "We're getting further away."
"From where?"
"From Tomoeda."
From safety, Syaoran. Tomoeda is secrets and lies. Lies are safety. Truth is exposure. Truth is standing naked on a pedestal.
He thinks that this is what I want.
He think I actually know what I want.
He thinks he's saving me from Tomoeda, but he's saving me from myself.
Syaoran says, "We have a long way to go."
He doesn't know how right he is.
He says, "You should go to sleep, It'll seem faster."
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In a car, your never really asleep. You're in limbo, the place between heaven and hell, the place between awake and asleep. Your teetering on all sorts of gaps and chasms and edges. Your eyes are closed, and you hear every song that comes on the radio, but your brain just isn't completely there. Every time you open your eyes you see the sun has gone down just a little bit more and you wonder how long your eyes have been closed. Every time you open your eyes, you see a desert, but the desert is always morphing into a different kind of desert.
You open your eyes and you see desert chaos. Rocks pointing accusingly to the sky. Canyons sinking guiltily into the ground. so many holes and corners and shadows for secrets to crawl under.
Even nature has something to hide.
On the radio, Jimmy Buffet is singing "Lets get drunk and screw."
Syaoran says, "You awake? Do you hear this song? It's insane, they've played it three times in the past two hours."
I roll my neck to the side and try to say something. He grins at me and whispers, "Go back to sleep." He touches my hand. I wish that I wasn't half asleep so that I could feel it. He says, "Close your eyes."
Limbo. You keep opening your eyes and seeing desert confusion. You keep opening your eyes because you want to see what kind of desert you'll be in next. Deserts are like people, you know, or snowflakes, no two are the same. You open your eyes and you see fat deserts and skinny deserts, deserts with trees and deserts with mountains. Naked deserts. Deserts without buildings for miles and miles and some lined with gas stations.
Deserts with one little house in the middle of nowhere and you just know that the person that lives there is either dead or psycho. Deserts with fences that have bones hanging off of them, making you wonder what kind of sick people go looking for dead animal bones to hang on fences.
Bones, skeletons. Heaven help me, give me something beautiful to look at. You open your eyes and you see roadkill. You open your eyes and you see cows that will be sent to the slaughterhouse when they're fat enough. Blood has been my best friend for the past two weeks, blood and Syaoran Li.
Show me a flower, Syaoran. Show me your poppy field. I'm not a girly girl, I just want to see something alive and breathing.
You open your eyes and Johnny Cash is singing "Burning ring of fire." You wonder what the song is really about, anyway. Syaoran wants to know if I have to go to the bathroom.
You open your eyes and Patsy Cline is singing "Crazy." You notice how late and dark it's getting. The desert has morphed once again, you can see this because of the moonlight. In the desert, the moon has nowhere to hide. The desert is completely flat, no cracks or crevices, no secrets or lies, completely exposed. This is the kind of fear you feel when you look at yourself in the mirror, mentally naked, emotionally naked.
Face your future, Sakura Kinomoto, save yourself from whatever. Let him help you, you helped him.
I used to have this theory: Why live in the world when you can live in your head.
I wanted to hate him so badly. I wanted to blame him for sending Tomoeda to hell in a hand basket. I never could, you know, because I never really hated Tomoeda. It was my safety, my haven, my excuse, my big fake problem.
And Syaoran, he's not just some guy, not just some magician. There's something you can see in his eyes when he's not paying attention to anything. Something that tells you he can understand things, he might understand you. If he would just look at you in the eye.
I never wanted him to know that I kept his secret, or that I almost died. I just wanted him to stop punishing himself, so much of him is wasted on punishing himself. I wanted him to be happy, with Kaho if that's what it took. I would just stand on the sidelines and observe, live in my head.
But it doesn't work like that. I know that now because of stupid things like the skeleton exposed in my pocket and the exposed desert outside my window. The situation is defining itself. The exposed hotel in the middle of the exposed desert is my forum. This is where I show myself to him, stop lying to myself, fix myself.
This is where I realize that this, this - whatever this is, this is about me.
I thought that the climax of my life was a gun in my face.
And I couldn't have been more wrong.
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From the outside, the hotel is disgusting. Desert culture, deserts aren't places that you visit, they're places you pass through to get from one place to another. Specifically, desert culture means truck drivers. And not to put down truck drivers but they're not the cleanest people in the world. I can only imagine how lovely the room will be. It's ok though, I'm not a princess. If I can handle blood and bones then I can handle a little dirt.
Syaoran pulls into the lot and lazily shifts the car into park. He's tired, so tired he can barely keep his eyes open. He's been driving for more hours than you can count on two hands.
I say, "I'm sorry I made you drive the whole way, I'll drive home."
He looks at me through his half closed eyes, "You don't know how to drive a stick shift."
"It's a sixteen hour drive, I'll learn."
"Sounds dangerous."
"Yeah, but you're danger-boy, you laugh in the face of danger."
"Good point."
The hotel room is my future, eyes on the prize, no pain, no gain. In situations like this, motivational cliches rule your mind. It's funny, you know, he thinks I 'like' him. I like him - yea right - like this is some schoolyard, chocolate box, puppy love type deal.
It's not. It's dirtier and darker and deeper than that.
This is the kind of thing they don't even make a word for because it's too scary to talk about.
I say, "So we should... go get a room."
He says, "We? You're sleeping in the car, cootie girl, remember?"
If I wasn't holding all of this stuff inside I could be having fun right now.
He says, "Maybe if I'm feeling nice enough I'll bring you a blanket, knock if you need anything, I reserved room 318 at the last gas station." He crawls out of the car, "Got it?"
I smile weakly as he shuts the door. I stay here, staring at my shaking hands.
I'm crazy-psycho obsessed with you Syaoran Li. I don't know if guys like to hear this sort of thing.
My door opens and Syaoran is pulling me out of the car with his arm around my waist. His palm is pressing against my stomach. How am I feeling?
He's touching my stomach, how the hell do you think I'm feeling?
He has no problem picking me up with one arm, he sets me down and puts his arm around my shoulders, we start walking to the lobby.
I say, "What about my cooties?"
He says, "I got lonely. Anyway, girl cooties got nothing on magician blasting powers."
We pick up the key from the tired looking motel worker, poor guy. We make our way to the room. Two double beds.
He lays down on one of the beds, I'm still trying to get through the door.
Why? Because this is where I'm going to stop lying to him.
He says, "Come here."
I walk over and stand by the bed, the ugly room isn't registering in my head, nothing is.
I say, "We should talk."
He frowns at me, "Sakura, talking sucks, we've been talking for the last fourteen hours."
"This isn't the kind of stuff you talk about in the car."
He looks at me. Me having a nervous breakdown and not hiding it very well. Me being very serious. He says, "What is it?"
I'm neurotic, that's what it is.
I say, "Do you want to know what I've been thinking about for the past couple of weeks."
"Of course."
"Do you want to know... what I think... about you?"
The look on his face, he's beginning to understand what this all means. He says, "Yea."
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Long chapter... so we're heading to the poppy fields, and also the end... well I'll see you soon ok??? Maybe the day after tomorrow (I loved that movie ja!) well ok that's all… see ya!!!
