-- Last Chapter --
"Welcome!" The door creaked open, revealing an old lady with a wrinkled face, and when she stretched her mouth into that feigned smile, more wrinkles rippled across her face, the bags under her eyes… and… was that a banana peel upon her head like a crown? Were those fruit stains on her pants and shirt? Was that a bunny slipper on one foot while a can of tomatoes on the other? All they could do was stare at her, imagining her clumsiness.
"Hurry, hurry, your rooms are upstairs to the left corridor, the file rooms if you need to read about anybody's profile is downstairs in the right room… kitchen on the left, the little babies room in the right corridor… yeah yeah… here's a map… whatever… I'm out of here."
"Hoe?" Sakura blinked as the old lady zoomed away… away from the orphanage where a little kid has a vile grin stretched from one side of his face to the other, his glasses gleaming. Two adults in sight… but they had no idea what was going to happen to them… they had no idea that they were the little kids and the kids were the adults… because that's how it was in the orphanage.
-- Last Chapter --
Chapter 2: The King of the Orphanage
"Hello!" Sakura said timidly, walking up to the blue-haired boy. "Wh-what's your name?" To be honest, Sakira was slightly scared of this boy...and his grin.
"Eriol," the three-year-old replied, and pulled a spider from behind his back.
"HOEEEEEE!" Sakura screamed, and fell backwards. She was deathly afraid of spiders. She grabbed hold of the first thing she found, and buried her head in it to shut out the spider.
"Er...Kinomoto?" said a voice. Sakura looked up and saw she was clutching to Syaoran's arms, and had buried her head in the front of his shirt.
"Oh..erm..sorry," she muttered, blushing a brilliant shade of crimson. But then she caught sight of the spider again, and clutched hold of Syaoran's arms tightly. She whipered slightly as Syaoran gently undid her hands, and walked over to the little boy.
"Listen, you," he said firmly. "You better apologize for scaring Kinomoto like that." Eriol look deftly into his eyes, and then broke contact. Stopping a few feet in front of Sakura, he held out his hand.
"Sorry," he muttered. Sakura went to him to say it was okay, but her foot caught something very slippery.
"Hoe?" she said shortly, and tried to grab Syaoran's arm for balance. However...
They both ended up on the floor, Sakura on top of Syaoran and extremely dizzy.
"Ouch," she said softly, before sitting up and rubbing her head. "Li, are you okay?"
"Where is that little-" Syaoran started, but the blue-eyed three year old was nowhere to be seen. "What the-? But he was here just a second ago...?"
"Maybe he went to the others?" and without replying, Syaoran got up and headed to the door, leaving Sakura on the floor.
She pouted, How rude, before following him through the door. And what they saw was chaos.
The few remaining pictures on the walls were hanging lop-sided, while the rest lay smashed on the floor. Finger-paints where "decorating" the room, and toys littered the carpet like a mine-field. Children from two-months to five-year-olds ran accross the room every which-way, screaming and shouting, throwing things at each other and writing on the walls.
"Oh my," whispered Sakura, and clapped her hands. "Listen, everybody, please stop!" But the children kept running around, not paying her the slightest attention.
"Please, stop that-"
"Everybody QUIET!" roared Syaoran, and all the kids stopped dead in their tracks. "That's better." He stated firmly.
"Now, sit down!" The children did so, and Sakura marvelled at the boy. Wow! How did he do that?
"I'm looking for a boy, what was his name again? Oh yeah-Eriol," said Syaoran, and then several of the children gasped. There was an outbreak of murmering between the children, and of course, Sakura and Syaoran didn't know what they were speaking. It had been when they were about five that they had forgotten 'Baby Talk'.
Eventually the children parted, making a long path way down the middle, to show the blue haired boy that had scared Sakura a few minutes ago. Eriol marched defiantly up towards the two adults. Sakura and Syaoran saw how the other children either shrunk away from him, or bent their knees slightly in an awkward bow.
Why are the other kids acting like he's a king or something? questioned Syaoran, but when he spoke he made sure tht the blue-haired boy got the fact that he was not one to be pushed around.
"Listen you, that was not a very good stunt you pulled back there, me or Kinomoto could have broken are backs or something."
"And?" replied Eriol in a bored voice.
"And if you pull anything like that again you are seriously going to regret it."
"...are you done yet?"
Sakura had to grab Syaoran's shirt to stop him from throwing the boy out of the window. "Calm down, Li!"
"That little..." muttered Syaoran. Sakura bent down to Eriol's level.
"Listen," she said. "I forgive you for the spider and that banana peel thing, but, don't be rude to Li. Also, seeing as everyone here seems to look up to you, do you think that you could ask them to tidy this up?" she smiled at Eriol, who inwardly grimaced.
No-one ever smiled at him like that, or was ever that kind. Well except Tomo-- Ack! and Eriol forced that thought out of his head, and looking directly into Sakura's eyes, nodded. He turned around and walked back through the path, and as soon as he had gone into the back garden, the children started bustling around cleaning up the various messes.
Syaoran looked at Sakura in the same way she looked at him when he had first gotten the kids to stop what they were doing.
"Well," said Sakura, getting up. "We better start unpacking..." And the two left the cleaning and went in search for their rooms. After about thirty minutes trying to look for the stupid room they were ready to just drop down onto their beds and--
"What!" shouted Sakura. The room was about two king-sized beds wide and three long. There were two single beds squashed into the corners, with dirty brown sheets, and had an old bedside table next to each. On the floor was a stained mat and the curtains were moth eaten. "Oh my! They expect us to sleep here?"
"And in one room as well..." Syaoran pointed out, and started to regret taking on this job more than ever.
"Well, it just needs a bit of redecorating!" said Sakura, trying to look on the bright side, and started to unpack her things into her small chest of draws, leaving Syaoran to do the same. After unpacking, Sakura went to the window, and laughed a bit. "Li, come here." Syaoran came forward and looked out.
In the garden was a pretty cherry-blossom tree, which contrasted highly with the rest of the Orphanage. Hanging from one of the lower branches was a cute little rope swing. Sitting in the shade of the tree was a little girl, only about two or three months old.
Eriol was shyly making her way to the girl, with something behind his back. He bent down and pulled the thing he was holding from behind his back. It was a small purple flower, freshly picked. He gave it to the girl, who hugged Eriol and accepted the flower from him. Sakura smiled at how when the black haired girl had hugged Eriol, his glasses went askew and he started to blush fiercely.
"I wonder why the cherry blossom tree is so well kept..." Sakura commented.
"I don't know, Kinomoto." Syaoran replied and turned back to his unpacking.
"Erm...Li?" Sakura said timidly. "You can call me Sakura if you want."
"And why would I do that?"
"Oh. Because, we are going to be living together as long as we both work in this Orphanage and so, we should start calling each other by our first names if we are to be friends?" Sakura was already wishing she hadn't said anything.
And not knowing why he said it, or what he was thinking at that time, Syaoran replied: "Who would ever want to be friends with you?" and stomped out the room, leaving Sakura by herself as a few tears started to drip down her face.