Chapter Twelve
Chill

Tomoyo rubbed her shoulders with one hand while keeping the camcorder steady with the other. A cold front had moved in overnight, covering Tomoeda in about a foot of fresh, powdery snow and breaking the delicate distinction between the end of fall and the dead of winter. The courtyard outside the school was practically deserted; everyone wanted the warmth of heated classrooms. But Tomoyo was determined to see her weekday morning ritual through— rain, shine, or even bitter cold. Sakura's ultra-adorable blushing as she appeared over the hill (with Syaoran following several paces behind her and his stare boring into the back of her head) was much too precious to miss.

However, instead of the usual shot, Sakura and Syaoran appeared in Tomoyo's viewfinder walking side by side. Sakura was chatting animatedly and walking with a bounce in her step that had been missing since Syaoran and his staring problem had arrived. Tomoyo smiled behind the lens. She just knew that once Sakura got over her fear of Syaoran that they'd become fast friends. The sight made Tomoyo's heart swell. Maybe this wasn't a lost cause after all…

Tomoyo couldn't help but notice the change in Syaoran's character either. It had only been a day since she had seen him last, but he had changed notably in that short amount of time. Besides his skin having a lot more color in it, his eyes didn't seem as… dead. His face was as stony as ever, but his eyes were bright and focused, as if he was taking in the world for the first time in a very long while. And besides the physical changes, he walked without the stiffness in his arms or hesitation in his steps. It was like he had finally gotten the hang of gravity and the power it had over the human body.

Tomoyo didn't believe Syaoran when he said that he wasn't getting over an illness. When he had first arrived at the school, he had been pale, robotic, and awkward— as if he hadn't associated with human beings (or even been out in the sun, for that matter) in years. Also, he claimed to have lived in the area his whole life, and yet he had transferred to this school as if he had come from somewhere very far away. Syaoran didn't seem like the person who would blatantly lie, more like he'd bend the truth to keep from revealing too much about himself.

Tomoyo took a few more seconds of footage before quickly tucking the camera out of view. Sakura would begin to suspect something if she kept filming her and Syaoran together out in plain view; there was only so many times she could be fooled. Tomoyo was going to have to be much sneakier about her filming from now on.

"Well, that's a pleasant sight," Eriol said, appearing, as he did, next to Tomoyo. He was staring off in the direction Tomoyo had been filming.

Tomoyo had long ago gotten used to Eriol's sudden appearances. She nodded. "Seeing that has brightened my entire day."

"How did you do it?" he asked, leaning against the gate.

Tomoyo shook her head. "I didn't do anything, really. Everything just… kind of fell into place on its own."

Eriol winced. "That's not a good thing."

"Oh? And why not?"

"There's a chance that Chaos had a hand in this," Eriol said.

"We all need a little chaos in our lives," Tomoyo said. She had gotten used to Eriol's strange topics of conversation long ago. She learned to say whatever came to the top of her head. That seemed to please Eriol the most and evolved into some of the most interesting conversations Tomoyo had ever had with another human being.

"Of course we do, but this might be more than they can handle," Eriol said seriously. Then he turned to Tomoyo and smiled radiantly. It made his eyes glow. "By the way, good morning."

Tomoyo smiled right back. Eriol's grins were disarming and contagious. "Good morning, Hiiragizawa-san."

She couldn't be sure, but she could've sworn Eriol had winced again.

"You know…" Eriol started, his perfect smile faltering just a bit.

Was this Eriol Hiiragizawa being awkward? Yes… it was! Tomoyo tried desperately to hide her surprise and just basked in the rare moment.

"My surname is rather long and unwieldy," Eriol said, talking faster than normal by just a bit.

Wait. What?

Why is my heart pounding? Tomoyo asked herself suddenly, just then recognizing the drastic change in mood.

"Why don't you just call me Eri—"

"Good morning, Tomoyo-chan," Sakura said cheerfully. She didn't see Eriol standing just behind the wall until he poked his smiling face around the bend.

"Oh, hello Eriol-kun," Sakura said a little awkwardly. She was apparently aware that she had interrupted something important. She shot an apologetic glance at Tomoyo who flashed an "it's no big deal" smile in return, even though her chest was still aching.

Despite her own inner turmoil, Tomoyo couldn't help but notice the way Syaoran's hair stood on end as Eriol came into view. He remained totally silent, however glared with a stare that would paralyze a rattlesnake.

"Good morning Sakura-san, Reed-kun," Eriol said. He stepped away from the wall and tipped a very gentlemanly imaginary hat to the three of them. "I had better get inside. This cold weather could make me say crazy things."

"I'll follow you in…" Tomoyo's words trailed off as she fought a battle with herself.

Dare I? Tomoyo thought, the pessimistic part of her taking over. Is it really what he was trying to say? Maybe I've misinterpreted… Then I'd look like a fool!

Surely he meant what you think he did! Just say it!

"Eriol-san," she said steadily, flashing a confident smile. It didn't sound awkward and barely a moment had passed while she battled herself. But she could feel the heat rising into her face.

The smile on Eriol's lips never faltered. Nothing about his being changed in the slightest.

"By the way, good morning," he said, smiling radiantly as ever. "Tomoyo-san."

"Wonderful!" Mizuki-sensei said cheerfully, taking the consent form from Syaoran's hands. She gave it a quick glance, then nodded. "We can start with the extra lessons today. Unless you have any objections?"

Syaoran shook his head. "I'd like to start as soon as possible."

"Then meet us in this classroom right after school," the woman said.

Syaoran nodded.

The two stood there for a few awkward moments. Syaoran was waiting for her to make the next move.

"Dismissed," Mizuki-sensei said, smiling.

And so Syaoran left. Slowly.

He headed outside for recess. Unconsciously, he found his way to the tree Sakura sat by with all her friends. He was almost surprised when he found himself standing in front of the tree, looking down at the group of friends.

But Sakura wasn't there. Panic seeped into his being and began to multiply like a virus.

Eriol was sitting there next to Yamazaki. He smiled brilliantly, which sent ice-like thrills down Syaoran's back. Something about the guy gave Syaoran bad vibes.

"Hello Reed-kun," Tomoyo said cheerfully.

"Hello," Syaoran said, trying to hide his panic. He couldn't very well ask where Sakura was in front of Eriol. It could be dangerous.

"If you're looking for Sakura-chan," Tomoyo said suddenly, the name resounding somewhere deep inside Syaoran's soul. "She's in the gym with Rika-chan. They're holding lunchtime practice for the cheerleading squad, since Sakura-chan doesn't have any free time after school anymore."

"Ah," Eriol said pointedly. "She's been very busy these days, hasn't she?"

Tomoyo nodded. "Because of the extra lessons she's taking with Mizuki-sensei, she's been working really hard to catch up with all her after school activities. And then, because she took the extra time to catch up on those, she has to make time to do her regular class assignments. She was at the library all day yesterday trying to finish her English worksheet. I wish she wouldn't leave homework until the last minute…"

Syaoran turned and headed in the direction of the gym. If that was where Sakura was, that's where he needed to be. He didn't need to engage in polite conversation with Eriol of all people.

As Syaoran approached the gym doors, his entire body physically shuddered from head to toe. It physically hurt and made him feel like he wanted a warm summer day more than anything else in the world. For a moment he felt like the blackness of space had seeped under his skin and into his bones.

What bones? Syaoran thought wildly as the feeling deepened, slowing down his ability to think. I don't have bones.

And then, as suddenly as the sensation had come on, it was gone again, leaving him wondering if he had actually felt anything at all. Already the feeling was fading away like the memory of getting a shot at the doctor's office.

Syaoran glanced warily around him, but didn't see any threat. Even Eriol was chatting animatedly and innocently with Tomoyo. The sensation had come from inside him, anyway. It was something restricted to him alone.

"I'm still getting used to this body," he mumbled as he stepped into the gym, shrugging off the strange event as unimportant. If it was something restricted to himself, he really shouldn't give it another thought. The only person who mattered was Sakura. Everything else — including whatever happened to him — took a distant second place.

There was a myriad of activity inside. The basketball team was running back and forth across the court, while a construction crew was doing some maintenance on the bleachers. Sakura and Rika were off to the side, practicing the new cheerleading moves. Syaoran sat down on the bleachers near the two, feeling rather relieved. Just being able to keep Sakura in sight was enough to chase away the panic that had been welling up inside him for the past few minutes. He felt like there was nothing he couldn't handle right then— just as long as Sakura was right in front of him.

"Like this, Rika-chan?" Sakura said, turning out a complicated-looking move that involved a lot of spinning.

"Perfect!" Rika said. "You really do pick it up quick, Sakura-chan. It took us all day last week to get it down."

Sakura put her hand behind her head and laughed. "If only I could transfer some of my cheerleading talent into math talent, life would be good."

Syaoran leaned back in the bleachers, clasping his hands behind his head.

He understood math. Math made sense. One plus one equals two. This simple equation is what creates the basis for reality and, thus, makes up the laws of nature. It never changes. One plus one would never equal three. If for some reason it did, reality would break apart as we know it and the universe would fold in on itself and disappear. Numbers are constant, consistent, and reliable. One equation never contradicts the other. If a number came out in one equation, that same number would come out the same every single time without fail— save for human error.

Yes. Syaoran understood math perfectly.

What he didn't understand was what Sakura had mastered: laughing, talking, socializing, moving, breathing… Sure, Syaoran may have understood math, but Sakura was better at everything else. Syaoran was convinced that Sakura had this "living" thing down better than anyone in the universe. He thought about this as he took in her aura that was washing throughout the gym like a refreshing breeze.

Sakura's aura was like a bright white light. When she had first invaded Syaoran's old home, her light had been obnoxiously blinding and annoying to his limited perception. However, the more he got to know her, the more he began to take Sakura's light for what it really was: a warm, steady glow that brightened the lives of everyone she met.

And Syaoran would be damned before he'd let that light go out.

He was so engrossed in Sakura's aura that he almost missed what happened next.

A PE teacher was wheeling out a ribbed stand that held several rows of volleyballs out onto the court for next period's gym class. As she got close to the court, one of the kids playing basketball missed a short pass from his teammate and fell out-of-bounds. The teacher and the student, oblivious to their surroundings, crashed violently into each other. The impact sent the teacher careening into the rack of volleyballs. The volleyballs were jostled from the rack and suddenly nearly two dozen balls were rolling in all directions. Several rolled toward the maintenance crew, but they simply looked on in amusement. However, just then a student entered the gym and, unaware of the rolling hazard, stepped on one of the volleyballs. The sudden unsteady surface forced the student off-balance, leaving him to windmill wildly in the air for several seconds before falling face-first toward one of the bleachers being worked on by the crew. He hit a large piece of sheet metal at an odd angle, sending one half of the piece into the air seesaw style.

Syaoran didn't see the hammer until it had reached its zenith by being propelled into the air when it had been laying unassuming on the sheet metal. Like any good parabolic equation, the hammer was now falling to the gym floor… in perfect alignment to Sakura's head. She and Rika, startled a little by the crashing noises, had gone back to practicing, none the wiser to the other set of events the initial crash had caused.

Chain reaction, Syaoran thought dimly as he hurtled the bleachers toward Sakura's oblivious form, one eye on her and one eye on the hammer as it made its malicious descent.

"Look out!" someone had the rational to yell. Syaoran didn't have the chance to see who.

Sakura paused to look around, but it would've been too late by then. Syaoran reached out with both hands and shoved her roughly out of the way. His momentum carried him in her place.

Thunk. Cha-clang.

The sound resounded off the gym's acoustically designed walls. Syaoran felt the metal of the hammer contact his head only in the way someone feels a strong punch through a mattress. But it made the most sickening noise… Had any real person been under that blow, surely they'd be dead. Syaoran breathed a sigh of relief to see Sakura standing unharmed just a few feet away.

"Reed-kun!" Sakura gasped, seeing the hammer laying at his feet and putting two and two together. "Are you okay!"

She ran the short distance over to him, hesitated for just a second, then drew him close and put her hands in his hair, searching for injury.

"I'm fine," Syaoran said pleadingly, trying to pull away. Sakura had him held fast, though.

"There's no way that's true," a construction worker had come over. "That hammer landed square on top of your head, boy."

"No, really, I didn't feel a thing," Syaoran said, finally wiggling out from under Sakura's grasp.

He wasn't thinking clearly. Too much had happened in such a short amount of time that it left Syaoran barely clinging to sentient thought. And the fact that Sakura was so close didn't help matters. Why did her aura make his mind numb like that?

But really, Syaoran was just focusing on the fact that he had foiled a chain reaction. Could this have been the Chain Reaction that Chaos had been talking about? Surely it couldn't have been just an accident. Too many seemingly improbable variables had come together to form a potentially fatal event.

Had Sakura been hit as Syaoran had, they would've called her death a "freak accident."

"Reed-kun," Rika said, an expression of horror on her face. "I saw the hammer come down. It made that horrible noise… I thought for sure you were dead."

Sakura was standing off to the side looking at Syaoran very strangely. She looked hurt, scared, worried, and there was something else there that Syaoran couldn't quite define. Whatever she was thinking made her chew her lip and stare at Syaoran's head.

"I'm fine," Syaoran said. He bowed his head and parted his hair to show that there was no injury. "The hammer didn't fall on me. It almost did, but it didn't. I don't know what you saw, but I think there'd be something to show if it did, right?"

That seemed to satisfy most of the onlookers. The construction worker put his hand on his chin. "You're right, of course. It must've hit the bleachers here or something. You'd be on the ground if the thing had hit you."

The crowd broke up. Even Rika looked a lot less horrified now.

"That was a close one," she said, finally taking her hand from her chest. "I thought for sure… But you're right. I must be seeing things." She turned to Sakura. "Let's take it from the top, okay?"

Sakura seemed to snap out of her trance. "Yeah, okay." she said, tearing her eyes away from Syaoran's head. She gave him one more confused look.

"I'll see you in class," Syaoran mumbled, but he felt reluctant to leave. He climbed back up the bleachers (this time much closer to the floor) and stayed there until recess came to an end.

Just in case.