Roses and Wine
Hello again readers! It's Ciuline Ihmenjo with my (first?) Valentine's Day fiction!
Valentine's Day has passed. The one day of the year where single men around the world spend countless dollars on gifts for the opposite sex. Yeah right… you, me, and the rest of the world know that guys are spending it on a bottle of cheap wine or a six pack. Females just buy the former, not the latter. After that, both sexes buy some cheap romantic movie and deal with the rejection. Either way, this is my (short) Card Captor Sakura tribute for Valentine's Day. More will possibly come in the future.
Oh, please read my joint fiction with the author(ess), Candyland. The name of it is Splinters. It's Eriol and Tomoyo, not really my usual forte, but I'm sure that anyone who has read any of my previous works will like it. It puts her unique spin on characters with my limited grasp on development and storyline. Hope that you guys enjoy it lots.
The link for it is www(dot)fanfictiondot(net)/s/2800079/1/
I know I should have to be posted this story a week ago, but school comes first.
I don't own Card Captor Sakura, any of the character within it. CLAMP owns them all.
o()o Roses and Wine o()o
Meilin Li was intent on attempting to drown her sorrows in a bottle of cheap wine. In fact, she had already attempted this feat… twice. It hadn't helped. Now all she had to show for a total of four hours of drinking was one hell of a headache and the sudden craving for sardines. Why, she had no clue, but she figured that the alcohol was causing hallucinations. After all, she hated sardines.
In retrospect, spending a total of roughly 5000 yen on wine was not the best idea. Sakura and Li had already left the apartment for whatever dinner plans they had. Usually diner ended with first a trail of cloth puddles into the bedroom followed by squeaking noises. She remedied this by blasting whatever music she had pulled up on iTunes. This endeavor successfully drowned out the noise. In her own world of cheap English love songs, she was content with her single life. But now, at 18, the single life was not all that it was cracked up to be.
She wanted out.
And that was how she found her way to the local convenience store. Of course, she then found herself walking out of the same store with a significantly lighter wallet and two brown paper bags. Of course, walking out of the store was the last thing she could clearly remember.
It did not surprise her at all to find herself slumped against the slide of King Penguin. She decided there were much worse places atop of which she could have awoken. A shudder ran though her body as a few of those worse places popped unattractively in her mind.
Her little binge had started sometime around the middle of the afternoon. Sakura and Syaoran were doing their best to collapse the bed, and her music, for once, was just not up to par. So, she stormed out of the apartment, slammed the door behind her, and went out for a walk to clear her head. Of course, now her head was anything but clear. It felt as if something was pushing against the insides of her skull. Thousands of tiny little hammers were tapping her head as she stared aimlessly up at the night sky.
The stars were out. At least, what little of the heavenly specks she could see through the haze of ambient lighting from the numerous lamps that cast a dim path through the park. She sighed, interlacing fingers behind her head, before chewing her lower lip.
Over the past few years, nothing much had changed. Sure, everyone was older and more mature. Li and Sakura were about as dense as ever. Eriol still had Kaho and Tomoyo still taped Sakura. Though, these days, most of the enemies were those brought into existence through the magic of The Create. Even Chiharu and Yamazaki had a budding romance (space with interludes of slight violence). Only she was the one who was truly alone. Hell, even Sakura's older brother had found that special someone.
Meilin sat up and gaze silently ahead. That only sent the world around her spinning as the blood rushed to her head. She grumbled and pounded a fist against the ground, sending a tiny screen of sand into the air. Why was she the only one spending Valentine's Day with two empty bottles of 2000 yen wine? Why was she the only one out of all of her friends who was not spending the day cuddled up against some special person? Hell, Eriol and Tomoyo were baking cookies while enjoying each other's company! COOKIES! She wanted to scream.
And she did. Her frustration, her anguish, her sorrow, her loneliness, her pain. All of it came out in a loud cry. Finally, she felt her breath give as spots swam in front of her vision. She had probably woken up half of the surrounding block, but she didn't care.
She wanted out of this lonely, single life. She couldn't understand what males saw in this bachelor lifestyle.
Her headache was beginning to wane and her legs no longer felt like they were made of rubber when she moved them. So, she attempted standing.
Bad mistake.
The world went swimming again as she nearly toppled over.
Maybe momentum would help? If she could only get moving, maybe she would find the path back to the apartment. She could probably stand a squeaking bed masked by poor music that she couldn't understand with people singing words full of love and broken hearts. Anything was better than sitting on this stupid slide in the middle of the night.
She started moving. Her legs, without any command from her brain, began to carry her forward. And they were beginning to move faster and faster. She was running now. She didn't want to run because the swimming was returning as well as the rubber-legs sensation. At that point, her two feet betrayed her.
It was how she felt herself stumbling blindly into someone's arms. At that point, she panicked, flailing wildly until a soft voice spoke up on the other end of the arms.
"Hey, hey, calm down!"
She recognized its owner instantly.
"Kinomoto?" she managed to slur. She hoped it came out the way that her brain had told her that it was. Although, she very much doubted that fact.
"Meilin? What are you doing here?"
"What does it look like," she demanded. Again, she prayed that she was actually speaking coherently.
"You look like your crying."
"What?" His words cut through the mild stupor, instantly bring her out of it.
"You're crying," he said softly, running a hand over her face. When he held his hand up in the light, moisture shimmered on its surface.
"Yeah… right… I don't cry!" she declared.
"You're crying right now."
She rubbed a hand over her face and pushed him away. "Just… just… shut up!"
"Sure, sure, if that's what you want." He shrugged. "What are you doing out here, any way?"
"Haven't we been through this?" She wasn't surprised at all to find that she was now seated on a bench. The lamp overhead bathed her body in a yellow, flickering light.
"Not really." He sat down next to her.
She folded her hands in her lap and started at the cracks in the concrete path inches in front of her feet. Perhaps, if she studied the little grains and spider web lines long enough, she could find the answers to her questions. Most likely, this chance was slim, but the illusion of solace it gave her was good enough. "I'd prefer it if you leave."
"Well, you look like you could use the company."
"Kinomoto," she said softly without looking up, "please go."
He peered at her as if examining a piece of fine jewelry. She cringed slightly under the gaze. "You don't look like you're doing all that well. Hangover perhaps?"
She put her head in her hands, massaging her eyes. "Something like that."
"Maybe I can give you a ride back to that gaki's apartment if that's the case."
"Li is not a gaki," she muttered.
"He'll always be a gaki as long as he's dating my sister."
"And if he marries her?"
"Still a gaki."
Meilin let out a tiny chuckle, stifling it with her hand.
"Anyhow, I have to get going. Yuki is expecting me home any moment now and you need to get back the apartment." He stood and brushed his pants off. "If you want to, I can give you a ride. The offer is still there."
With a smile, he held up the bouquet of roses that were tucked under one arm.
"You look like you could use this more than the Yuki could ever use them."
She looked up at him and dove forward into his arms.
End
This is another one of those, "why the hell am I writing this?" stories. I was on a caffeine rush and seated at my computer, supposedly doing homework, when I noticed I had typed the beginning of a story. So, being the author that I am, I figured that I'd keep writing said story. Hopefully, my (usually faithful M+T) readers will come to my aid and say, "Gee, this is a pretty good story."
By the by, if you're wondering about the story suddenly ending like that, I thought it would be best to just kind of end it all with a cliffhanger-yet-not.
Either way, see you next update: Ciuline Ihmenjo