Sakura's heartbeat was faster than usual. She could not help it but worry and be scared of facing the whole school with going public with Syaoran. She sat parked her car and got off. She saw Syaoran waiting for her under a cherry blossom tree. She gave a faint smile to herself.
At least we'll face it together.
"Hey." Syaoran gave Sakura a kiss on the cheek.
"Hey back."
"You ready?" Syaoran asked. He seemed not at all worried about this whole thing considering his rep was on the line.
"Yes." Sakura replied.
Syaoran gave her a smile and took her hand. They started to walk on the main pathway towards the main doors of the school. They were unnoticed yet but how could Syaoran be left unnoticed? Soon they got strange stairs at the passerby's. Sakura squeezed his hand and he squeezed it back. He could tell that she was scared.
Don't worry I'll be here all the way…
Syaoran silently thought as he looked down on her as they walked along the main pathway of the school. They reached the main stairs and both stopped. They looked at each other and nodded. Syaoran smiled at Sakura and she smiled nervously. She has never felt anything like this. The anxiety was killing her. They started to climbed up the steps getting more weird looks and hushed whispers. Sakura thought that was the worst of it. But she was dead wrong. Syaoran opened the door for both of them. They were overlooked at first but soon the whole hallway was in hushed whispers. Shocked looks and raised eyebrows befell on the faces of the bystanders. But the worst part was yet to come. They stopped at Syaoran's locker first since his was closest.
"See it wasn't SO bad." Syaoran said. Getting his books out.
"Easy for you to say. You're like the king of the school." Sakura sighed.
"Hey, I thought you didn't care what people said about you?" Syaoran asked as he closed his locker.
"Yeah, but this is different. I don't care what people think about me but I do care what people think about us."
Syaoran sighed. "Like I said, don't worry about it. I'm here. I wont leave you. And who cares about what they say? They're just jealous." Syaoran smiled.
Sakura couldn't help it but smile back. Syaoran always knew how to make her feel better. But that smile quickly dissipated when she saw Syaoran's friends coming.
"Do you care what they think?" Sakura said looking to their way.
Syaoran turned his head and faced Eriol and Takashi.
"What's this all about?" Eriol asked. His face looked absolutely confused.
"What do you think?" Syaoran replied.
"What I think is that you're being an idiot. And this girl has done something to turn you away from us." Takashi said coolly. Syaoran has never seen him like this. Was it sadness or anger he saw? He couldn't tell.
"This girl is my girlfriend and her name is Sakura. She's my girlfriend whether you like it or not." Syaoran shot back.
"Are you out of your mind? Being seen with her is suicide. But you're actually going out with her, that's… just crazy!" Eriol exclaimed.
Okay that hurt. I never knew how much they didn't like me…
Sakura thought. She moved closer to Syaoran and he continued to speak.
"I love her. You don't understand how I feel. Plus I don't care what you think about being with her, or us. Get it?"
"Your through man." Takashi said simply.
"Fine with me." Syaoran looked straight into Takashi's eyes. He saw nothing but anger.
If you were really my friend you'd understand.
"You're making a mistake Li." Takashi said.
Syaoran did not say anything back. He already said what needs to be said, that was that.
Takashi shook his head. "Let's go Eriol."
Eriol hesitated at first, but what choice did he have? He followed Takashi down the hall leaving Syaoran with a broken reputation and lost friends. He turned back to Sakura.
"Let's go."
Sakura looked into his eyes. She knew he was sad losing his one of his closest friends. Even though they did a lot of bad things they were still pretty close. Sakura held his hand in hers.
"Don't worry they'll come around." She smiled.
Syaoran smiled back.
I hope so…
Syaoran walked her to her first class.
"I'll see you at lunch then." She said.
"Yeah, see you then." Syaoran gave her a quick kiss and he walked off.
The students started to file out of class when the lunch bell rang. Sakura headed to her locker to put her stuff away. Syaoran was going to meet her there. She opened her locker and took her wallet out because she was going to eat lunch at the café. When she closed her locker she found Meilin beside her.
Startled she said. "H-hey Meilin…"
"So what Eriol and Takashi said was true then." She said in an unpleasant tone.
"What's true?" She asked.
"Don't play dumb Kinimoto, I'm no stupid." She snapped.
Sakura said nothing for she knew what she was talking about.
"Syaoran is mine, so stay away from him." Meilin warned.
"I'm sorry to say Meilin but he's with me." Sakura said as nicely as possible. Hey she didn't want to rub it in that Syaoran chose her over Meilin.
Meilin looked furious. "Why you slut!" She raised her hand ready to slap her. From behind Syaoran unexpectedly stopped her.
"Don't you dare hurt her." Syaoran said coldly.
Meilin turned around facing Syaoran's angered face. "How dare you be with this low life?"
He was furious now.
She did not just call her that…
"She's not a low life! And leave us alone, I don't care if you're a girl I will hurt you if you dare go near Sakura again." Syaoran barked.
Meilin has never seen him this angry. This frightened her; he was dead serious about protecting Sakura. She dared not to go any further. She'd have to hurt her a different way.
"Fine." She shook her hand off his and stomped off.
He turned to Sakura. "Are you ok?"
"Yeah. Just a little shaken." She admitted.
Syaoran pulled her to warm embrace. "Don't worry she won't try and hurt you again."
Sakura hugged him back. Syaoran pulled away and said. "Let's go to the cafeteria. I'm hungry from all those math problems."
"Yeah, me too." Sakura laughed.
They went inside the cafeteria, by now Sakura was used to the stares and whispers. At this point it didn't matter. They couldn't bring them down, no one can. Syaoran told Sakura to stay at the table as he gets their food. When he came back he saw her reading a book.
He set the fries down, one for and Sakura and said. "What's that book you're reading?"
Sakura looked at him. "It's not really a book, it was my mom's. She gave to me before she died."
"I'm sorry…" Syaoran said sympathetically.
"It's ok. This book contains her favorite quotes and some journal entries. Some her entries are a bit puzzling though." She said popping a fry into her mouth.
"Can I see?" Syaoran asked.
"Sure." Sakura handed him the book and he flipped through a couple of pages.
He read on out loud. "This thing and you shall never part, for the gift I give you, is all of my heart... Deep." Syaoran said.
"Yup. Read this one. That's my favorite." Sakura pointed at the bottom of the page.
Syaoran read that one out loud too. "The best thing about loving and being hurt is that you get to know what true love really is. For as gold is tested in fire, and so will love be perfected in pain."
"It speaks a lot of truth." She said.
"Hm…true." Syaoran agreed.
Syaoran flipped through more pages and he ran into one of her mother's journal entry. However he did not read out loud:
March 15
I can't believe it! Fujitaka just asked me to be his girlfriend! Wolfgang prince didn't look too pleased. I tried to tell him that I loved someone else but he just wouldn't listen. Just last night I found him waiting outside of the porch while Fujitaka was meeting my parents. Talk about an unfortunate encounter. They nearly had a fistfight in the front lawn. Those two will never get along no matter how hard I try. Those two were the best of friends but now they were the best of enemies. And it's all because of me. I feel terrible. They never made up after that incident. I hope they do…soon.
"Who is wolf gang prince?" Syaoran asked puzzlingly.
"Yeah that's the confusing part. I don't know who he is and my dad never spoke of a guy like that." She replied.
Sounds familiar…
He thought. The bell rang once again and both headed for class. Before they knew it the whole day ended all together.
Syaoran was right, this day wasn't half as bad as I thought it would be. If you take out the bad parts.
Sakura thought on her way out of the front door. Syaoran was waiting for her on the front steps. He took her bags and they walked to his mustang.
"See the day wasn't all that bad." Syaoran said when he got in the car.
"Yeah, well at first only but overall it was a fine." She said.
He smiled at her and started the car. Before dropping her home he brought her to a small escarpment and parked the car. They both got out and Syaoran lead her to the edge of the cliff. Sakura was breathless as she saw Tomeda before her. She could overlook the whole city.
"Syaoran… Why did you bring me here?" She asked still aghast.
"A special present calls for a special place." He said taking out a small box.
Sakura smiled. "What is that?"
He opened the box and it revealed a silver necklace gleaming at the setting sun. He went behind her and put the necklace on her. From behind her held the small piece which held onto the small chains of the silver.
"This too has a special meaning. You see this ring, that's me. The other one is you. Together we make an eternal love that will never end. And the small diamond piece there represents my heart, and you hold it."
"Shaoron… you didn't have to…" Sakura was more than surprised she was a bit hesitant to accept sucha expensive present.
"Oh but I do. Just let me do this. I really want you to have it."
"I love it Shaoron." Sakura kissed him on the cheek and he wrapped his arms around her waist. He leaned close to her face and whispered. "I wont ever stop loving you as long as there's night and day, I will be here."
"And I wont ever leave you even if the world has stopped spinning." She said softly.
So they stood there in each others arms hoping that the promises made that day would be kept for the rest of their lives.
