DM: Well I'm back. Thanks so much for your reviews!
Disclaimer: I don't own CCS. I also don't own anything that this fic reminds you of. My brother wrote the shopping list.
Curses!
Chapter Two
At the Li Family Mansion
"That's your house!" Sakura yelled, "I was separated from my school and friends so I could go to your stupid house?"
Syaoran was dangerously silent, his face contorting into a frown. Sakura glanced over and was startled. She still wasn't used to the whole "body-switching" thing.
"Listen," he said, gripping her shoulder tightly, "you have to pretend to be me, and I will be an exchange student that's come to live with us."
"What? Why can't you just freaking apologize?"
"It won't make a difference…" he said softly, and began walking towards the house, trying several times to shove his hands into nonexistent pockets.
Sakura had never seen herself from the back before… this was weird. Her butt was kind of cute, though…oh the pants were getting tight again. It sucked being a boy.
The door was large and a deep burgundy hue, with a gold doorknocker in the shape of a dragon's head. Syaoran ignored it completely and rang the doorbell located to the right of the door. An older man with glasses answered the door.
This must be Li's father, Sakura thought, although he had a very kind (albeit a little wrinkly) face that didn't really resemble Syaoran's. His hair had gone completely gray.
"Hi, Da—"
"Mr. Wei!" Syaoran caught her just in time, shooting a glare in her direction, "I finally get to meet you!"
The man called Wei smiled at the two teenagers and ushered them inside. Sakura's mouth fell open at the interior of the house. It was so nice! The floors were made of very shiny white marble, and two large rose-colored columns marked the beginning of a beautiful spiral staircase. The handrail seemed to be made of gold.
"If you keep your mouth open like that, you'll swallow some flies…" Syaoran whispered, clearly irritated. Sakura clamped her mouth shut and glared at him.
"So why can't we just switch back, Li?" she hissed under her breath as Wei led them to a sitting room.
"Oh baby brother!" a tall girl with black hair tied in a high ponytail cried out.
"That girl is so cute!" remarked another tall girl with her hair done in loops about her ears.
"Is she your girlfriend?" asked a short girl who resembled Syaoran strongly.
"Oh she looks Japanese!" the fourth, also short but with black hair, noted.
Syaoran looked extremely irritated as four girls ran towards the two of them and began pinching their cheeks. Both facial and otherwise. Sakura nearly yelped when the tall one prodded her butt with interest. Syaoran sighed.
"Uh…hi…" Sakura said. Her face was going numb as one girl took a cheek in each hand and began to stretch.
"Girls, girls…" a woman said from behind the onslaught, her voice low yet carrying throughout the entire room. Sakura felt a strange aura radiating through the wall of hyper girls.
"Sorry mother…" they chorused, and they sat back down. Syaoran still looked incredibly irritated.
So that was why they couldn't switch back, because Syaoran would keep getting angry at his sisters anyway.
"So, Xiao Lang, who is this?" the voice from before asked Sakura in Chinese. She was very beautiful, with long black hair and Syaoran's amber eyes. She sat in the most impressive chair in the room and wore what looked like Chinese robes, made of burgundy velvet and trimmed with gold. Her look was gentle, yet imposing as she surveyed the two of them.
"Uh…well, this is Kinomoto Sakura, she is an exchange student from Japan," she began in Japanese, "I think it would be best if we all spoke Japanese around her for the first couple of days to make her feel more comfortable."
She looked nervously at Li's mother. She had a glazed expression on her face, like she was trying to remember something long forgotten.
"Kinomoto…Kinomoto…" the woman pondered, looking regal as she did so, "Not by any chance Fujitaka's daughter?"
"Y-yes, I am," Syaoran said, looking confused by his mother's behavior. She was usually much more self-assured.
Abruptly, his mother narrowed her eyes and stood up. She gave Syaoran and Sakura a meaningful look and excused herself quietly, floating out of the room. The girls promptly returned to their pinching.
"Is she always like that?" Sakura asked, forgetting for a moment that she was Syaoran.
"Never," Syaoran said through clenched teeth. This was quite out of character for his mother.
Insert Line here
Sakura was in Syaoran's room, examining his stuff. The walls were a surprisingly docile green, although several posters of martial arts positions decorated the walls. In the corner there was a bin that contained what looked like practice swords.
She walked around and noted that on his desk was a shopping list for school. It read:
6 Binders
10 black pens
4 packets of paper
1 cannon with a 45 degree arc
1 grenade with 35 yard blast radius
450,000 boxes of Altoids
The Moon
1 finely crafted Miracle, with a side of coleslaw
A little further down, near the bottom of the page, he had scribbled: That's what you get for snooping into my stuff, fools!
He is so weird... she thought, putting the paper back down and chuckling a little.
Sakura snapped herself out of it. She had more pressing things to think about!
"What am I going to do? I have to tell my family, and my school. No one is ever gonna believe me! And all those people that saw us…will they just think it's an act? What if they report us to the government??"
Her door swung open and she let out a yell, holding her pillow up to protect herself.
"Don't dissect me, please!"
"What are you rambling about now?"
Sakura looked up to see herself at the door. Syaoran put his hands on his hips and raised an eyebrow.
"I was worried that if the government finds out about us, they're going to dissect us!"
Syaoran sat down next to her on his bed. His warm, fluffy green bed on mahogany. So nice… He didn't like sleeping in the guest room, to say the least.
"Don't worry, my mother will protect us."
"But she doesn't know!"
"Exactly. You think she'd let them dissect her son and his cute exchange student friend when nothing is wrong with them?"
"Cute? Friend?" Sakura asked, confused and blushing. Syaoran also blushed and turned away.
"It's part of the act, Kinomoto," he assured her.
Sakura stared at her pillow. That still left the issue of her school and family.
"What about my family? They're never gonna believe this. If only I could convince big brother to let me transfer to your school…"
Syaoran tapped his chin thoughtfully.
"I think he'll believe you," he said quietly. Sakura looked at him questioningly.
"Well your dad, he was good friends with my dad, and I know that my dad believed in magic."
Believed? Was?
"So why didn't you?" she asked, as he grabbed the phone and handed it to her.
"Because my—"
"Syaoran! Please come downstairs for a moment!" one of his sisters called. Sakura thrust the phone at Syaoran and gave him a glare that said 'Just do it!' before running down the stairs. However, the stairs were made of wood this time and looked nothing like the ones she'd seen at the entrance.
Unfortunately there were several different sets of stairs, each leading to a different wing of the house. She tried to follow the sound of the voice, but let's face it. Her sense of direction has never been great.
"I'm so screwed…" she said as she began to wander, already hopelessly lost.
Meanwhile, Syaoran had dialed the number on Sakura's backpack on his cordless phone. As it rang, he grew more and more nervous.
What if nobody's home? Her school knows by now that she left with me…
"Hello?" a male voice picked up.
"Hello, Father?"
"Father left on his trip to Egypt yesterday, Monster, you should know that! It's your ultra handsome fantastic older brother!"
Syaoran practically gagged. Sakura had left out that important detail! Syaoran could never convince her older brother that he was her!
"Well I met a family that Dad used to be friends with, and they wanted me to transfer to Hong Kong, because—" he scrambled around for a reason, "Because Dad and them agreed a long time ago that I get to know them well!"
"Oh?" her brother's voice sounded skeptical, "which family?"
"The Li family," he said hopefully.
There was a silence on the other end. Her brother must have been thinking carefully.
"Very well, dad was always really close with that guy…But didn't he have a son?" his voice was dangerously soft.
"Uh yea, but he has four sisters and I only hang out with them! He's an icky meanie!" Syaoran quickly blurted out, hoping that that was what he wanted to hear.
"All right then, Monster, I'll call the school right now. Be good!"
Syaoran let out a huge sigh of relief as he hung up the receiver. He wondered what was taking Sakura so long. As he waited, he set about examining her body. Just a little bit.
She had an athletic figure, with smallish breasts and long legs. On a whim, he took off a sock. Her feet were so cute! He blushed and pulled the sock back on. What was he thinking?
"Xiao Lang, I asked you to come down ten minutes ago…" Feimei said as she entered the room. Her hair was still tied up in its ponytail. Syaoran looked at her, confused.
"He left when you called, maybe he got distracted?"
Feimei left without another word. Syaoran turned to the mirror and touched his face.
"Xiao Lang…I'm Xiao Lang…"
But no, Sakura had not gotten distracted. She had merely wandered down a totally unused corridor that was probably haunted—she shuddered.
"There you are! Why are you here?" one of Syaoran's sisters found her at last. She tried to look more annoyed than relieved.
"Well…" What could she say?
"Never mind. Let's go to the study. Mother wants to show you something."
Sakura let herself be dragged down the stairs, when suddenly she was hit by something with black hair moving at a very high speed.
Sakura blushed. It was a girl. Here hair was tied up in two odangos, and her slanted terra cotta colored eyes shone as she spoke. She was wearing workout clothes that were similar to a karate gi.
"Xiao Lang! How I've missed you, my love!" Sakura looked up to see Syaoran at the top of the stairs, smirking.
"You must be Miss Meiling," he said, feigning friendliness, "the fiancée that Xiao Lang has told me about!"
"Yes," the girl said proudly, squeezing Sakura a little harder, "And who are you?" she asked, her eyes narrowing.
Sakura was mildly dazed as Syaoran introduced himself as Kinomoto Sakura.
I'm Sakura…she thought.
She snapped out of her daze to see Meiling nose to nose with her, a pleading look in her eyes. She had missed whatever she had said. Well, there was only one thing to do:
She kissed Meiling on the mouth. That was an odd experience. Her pants didn't get tight with this girl though…it was kind of a pleasant sensation now that she thought about it.
"Xiao Lang!" Meiling screeched, and jumped back, a hand over her mouth, "You're not Xiao Lang! He would never do that!" and with that she ran away.
Syaoran looked mildly impressed.
"I wish I'd thought of that…if only I had known that that would get rid of her…So are you a lesbian?" he whispered, smirking, as they followed Feimei.
"No! It just seemed appropriate, since she's your fiancée!" she hissed back. For a minute, Syaoran actually smiled, but it was gone when he saw where Feimei had led them.
It was the oldest library in his house—the one with the stupid magic books and diaries in it. His mother was there, holding a long scroll and tapping her chin thoughtfully. It must be a Li family thing. Two walls were covered in old, leather-bound books from floor to ceiling, but the third looked like a cubby and held nothing but scrolls in various stages of decay.
"Ah, Xiao Lang, it seems your father left something to this Kinomoto girl in his will." Sakura froze. So that's why Syaoran behaved so strangely, she realized. Wei was actually the butler, and Syaoran's dad was dead. She felt a pang of sadness at the thought.
"What was it?" Syaoran asked, dying of curiosity.
"This," she said simply, holding up a cute pink key on a chain, "I don't know what it unlocks, though."
Sakura took it from her and examined it. She had never seen anything like it in her life. It looked kind of like a miniature bird's head, with a red beak and little white wings. The style of the wings reminded her strongly of the clock she saw in the magic forest. She silently handed it to Syaoran, who also examined it. Mrs. Li and Feimei left the room, but she and Syaoran hung back.
"I'm sorry," she said, feeling again the dizzy sensation that meant she was back in her own body, "about your dad."
Syaoran didn't say anything, only pretended to be interested in the books on the shelves. Sakura joined him in looking. Neither of them spoke.
As Syaoran's eyes scanned the shelves without really seeing them, he fought with himself. He wanted to open up to her, but at the same time, she wouldn't understand.
"If you ever want to talk about it…" Sakura began, "I'd listen…"
Syaoran smiled to himself as he examined a book that had caught his eye. It was a very old diary, bound in coarse brown leather. The lock had all but rusted away. He felt a hand on his shoulder and turned around, forgetting to wipe the smile from his face.
"I lost my mom you know, so I understand how you feel."
Syaoran's eyes widened. Thinking she had made him uncomfortable, Sakura quickly looked at the book over his shoulder, her breath tickling his hand. He couldn't lie to himself. She was very attractive.
"This is from the Ming Dynasty, Li." At the sound of his surname, Syaoran felt his heart harden a little.
"Yea, maybe it has something about Clow Reed," he said. They tried to turn the page. Their hands touched, and they jumped apart, blushing. The book fell open on the floor, miraculously unharmed. It fell open.
"Sorry…" they both muttered, and Syaoran got on his knees to pick it up. Sakura did the same, and their hands touched again, causing them to pull back. It was then that Sakura noticed the name "Clow" on the diary page. She read it aloud:
"Today Clow and I arrived in Egypt, where he said he had magical business to attend to. He told me about the most marvelous joke he and the emperor played on the concubines! The emperor was complaining that they fought too much, so Clow made a fountain that made them switch bodies when they fall in together!"
Sakura and Syaoran groaned. This was his idea of a joke?
"Of course there are innocents who fall into the fountain as well, and so Clow has set up a path to make it easy to find him or one of his descendants…a marvelously complex bit of magic, really…he has enchanted several people (who will pass the enchantment on to his descendants), objects and places to aide the accursed in their quest. The amazing part is, the objects only react to those afflicted with the curse! Marvelous, really…"
Syaoran's mouth hung open. Sakura smirked and said, "You'll catch flies if you do that, you know." He shut his mouth angrily.
"Yea ok Miss Pervert-girl."
"Pervert? Me?" Sakura asked angrily, and before she knew it she was back in Syaoran's body.
"Oh nice one, Kinomoto!"
"Well you shouldn't have been teasing me like that!" she growled.
"Well you just take everything too personally! Jeez!"
He picked up the book and closed it. Sakura continued to glare at him.
"I think this book is one of those magical objects…that's why it's been preserved so well…"
Sakura nodded.
"What do we do now?" she asked, "Go to Egypt?"
Syaoran smiled.
"How do you propose we get Mother to give us permission to do that?" he asked in reply.
"It's already granted, Xiao Lang," his Mother said from behind them. She had seen the whole thing! And she had called Syaoran by his name even though he was in Sakura's body!
Syaoran panicked, "Uh Mrs. Li—Xiao Lang is over there!" he pointed frantically at Sakura, who nodded about a zillion times. His mother only looked amused. She sat down on the floor in front of Syaoran.
"Your father died by maintaining his belief in magic. You think I wouldn't believe in it after that?" she asked him softly. Sakura's eyes widened.
Now I see…
"You will leave for Egypt tomorrow," she said, "you must be rid of this curse as soon as possible!"
Sakura and Syaoran stared at each other, aghast, and nodded dumbly. They walked up the stairs to Syaoran's room in silence. When they got to the door, their hands touched again, but this time they held them there.
"Uhm," Sakura said, embarrassed, "You're sleeping in the guest room, remember?"
"Oh…right…" Syaoran's eyes were downcast. He turned to go.
"Wait!" she said, grabbing his shoulder (he was still in her body), "You can stay here. Let's just switch back."
"Alright…" he seemed suspicious about her kindness, "I'm sorry, Kinomoto."
They switched back, and Sakura took several steps before turning around, embarrassed.
"Where's the guest room?"
Syaoran stopped. He took her by the hand (she felt like her stomach did a flip) and brought her to a room a little ways down the hall from his own. It was a plain-looking but comfortable room. Everything was a pale gold, from the four poster bed to the walls and walnut wood.
"Thanks," she said, "Good night."
"Good night." He turned and went back to his room.
Maybe he's not so bad after all…
DM: Aw they're bonding! Sort of… Let's see how they handle their trip to Egypt! Oh hey, Sakura's dad is in Egypt too! Hmmm… Anyway, please review!
Next chapter: In de Nile