Open Your Eyes

By Ukyou

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Her face was hidden in a sea of petals, laying on the dock. Her hair was spread out into a shapeless wisp, her eyes illuminated by the moon above us. She looked towards me and smiled. I smiled back.

The stars were scattered across the night sky, a can of glitter spilled on a black table. I could taste the salt that was floating in the air, I could hear the water that shyly edged the sides of the dock.

"Sakura, right now … I feel like this is where I want to be. I'm just … happy." I said to her, her glowing face making my heart spin in circles. Then she smiled.

"Syaoran, you have no idea what's going on, do you?" She asked me in a tone I had never heard before. It was like hearing an alarm clock blasting in your ears. "It's not me. It wasn't me."

"Syaoran, open your eyes."

"Open your eyes."

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Chapter Two - Ordinary People

One. Two. Three.

I wish I could forget about all of this.

Splash.

I never thought I was the superstitious type. I had been raised in a life of superstition, but as I grew up, I gradually accepted some and abandoned others. I don't know why I suddenly felt like throwing something into the lake. It seemed so natural. The coin's gleam was lost to the rigors of being carried around all the time. After I threw it, I kinda felt like going to get it again - but it was already too late. There was a dock far off with a pretty cherry tree perched right next to it. Maybe the next time I come around here, I'll try to throw a coin and hit that dock. Yea right.

There was some kind of supernatural beauty about this forest. The road wound through it like a ribbon in a cloud of grass. It ended somewhere out there, leading towards some city or town or somewhere else that was just so cloudily mysterious.

Still, there was some stillness that had overtaken me here. It was calm. It was nature at its greatest. A completely different place from the outside world, this was somewhere safe. Somewhere secluded.

Then I had a bit of an impulsive thought. I took the old brown book bag off my back and finally opened it, reaching in to find Sakura's package. It was a musky smell opening that bag, the box's snow white now a dirty dusty gray. As if it hadn't been taken out of there for years.

No matter how hard I tried, I just couldn't get myself to open it. My hands shook, but gave no response. This wasn't the time or place to open this thing. No, it was time to go. Time to go.

And you know what, when riding and looking forward, its so easy to just set yourself to autopilot and to just think. Daydream. Remember something.

---

A month earlier

The one thing I hated was to be seated next to someone that I didn't know at all. Past an awkward hello, I'd do my best to make sure I didn't say anything. It was better if I had a window seat, because then I had something to keep myself busy with.

Today I was lucky. My luck had been running low, but today I finally got a window seat. The lucky passenger today was a girl, wearing a jacket that looked like it was two sizes too big for her. Her hair was a frantic everywhere, her face turned the other way.

I checked my messages on my cell phone - another dozen single word messages from Sakura, who seemed to forget that a cell phone could be used for talking too. These were followed by a single message that I had sent to myself as a reminder for something I did several days ago. I promptly deleted it.

Then came the long silence, when I would just sit and stare blankly out the window. I generally expected the other person to be just as quiet, doing something more wildly important than engaging in conversation with me. Maybe this person just wanted to be special or something,

"So, all you do is stare outside the window on these train rides?" she asked me, her face still turned the other way.

"Well, it's a part of my job." I answered, still looking outside.

"And what's that, a professional window watcher?" she replied. I was guessing by now that she was looking at me, but I couldn't tell.

"No, I'm a photographer." I said, finally facing her and showing her the camera that was wrapped around my neck. "I take photographs and I sell them to newspapers or magazines or anybody."

"Ah, well, same thing anyways. At least you have something steady going on. All I do is play piano." she sighed, slouching back in her seat and trying her best to hide behind her cap.

"I'm sure you can do other things too besides play piano."

"No, I mean - that's my job. I play piano for a living, crazy huh?" she grumbled. "I thought it would be this great thing, you know? Like, just drop out of high school and go all over the world and just play play play. Once I did it as a job though, it was such a drag."

"Well, if it means anything to you, I don't make much money either." I said back. She looked at me for a moment and laughed. I kind of laughed too, trying to pretend like I understood was we were laughing about.

"You know, we're really pathetic. We're just natural born losers." She said, still trying to hide a chuckle under her voice. "Well, my name is Kaori. Kaori Hideki"

I smiled, and answered her question. "My name is - "

"You're Li Syaoran, the photographer who regularly submits images to the newspaper I read. You don't think you're famous?" She laughed again, putting her hand on my shoulder as she cracked up.

"I never said I wasn't famous, I just said that I wasn't rich at all." I responded, waiting for her to let go of me. "You laugh really easily, don't you?"

"I don't laugh easily." She seemed to be a little annoyed with that comment. You could tell that a lot of people asked her that question just by the look she gave me. At least she finally got her arm off my shoulder. She was just a very strange, yet surreally interesting person.

She seemed to be really bad at being angry at someone, because she started laughing again for no reason at all. She made sure to inform me this with an "I'm sorry, I'm just laughing for no reason right now."

I smiled. "That's okay, laughing never hurt anybody."

She calmed down, resting back on her half of our seat. I went back to work, adjusting the small knobs of my camera.

"You know, Li Syaoran, I'm having a little show in Kyoto, I mean - we're obviously going there right now, and uh - if you want, you can always just drop in." she coyly looked at me. Her voice now was different, it spun in circles as if they were ready to just explode and scatter all over me. "…and I promise you a great photo opportunity, I mean, I'll be all dressed up and everything."

I was guessing that I was being asked out by this random stranger on this train. Right then, my phone beeped. I had a text message.

She then seemed a little hesitant. "You know, maybe I was being too … (oh god, what's the word) … forward. I'm sorry, I mean, I just met you today and suddenly … oh man, look at the mess I'm making."

I put my cell phone back in my pocket and thought about it for a moment.

"Actually, you know what - I'll go, I'll be there."

"Oh great! Amazing!" She just jumped on top of me and dug her face into my arm. "Thank you, thank you, thank you!"

"You know, Syaoran, I don't usually have a guy to hang out with. Sucks being single, you know?"

Then it hit me right about then. I had a girlfriend already. What the hell was I doing.

Kaori finally sat back n her seat, a big smile painted all across her face. It was as if no one ever came to watch her play. I took out my cell phone to check what Sakura had to say now.

Hungry.

Wow. An exhilarating message, Sakura.

Message deleted.to be continued

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