a/n: First off, I'd like to give a giant huggle to those who reviewed! Your comments made me smile and (on occasion) laugh out loud. I also feel very guilty for making you all cry so much (for more details, please see the Epilogue). Speaking of the epilogue...I confess, it is somewhat insubstantial in comparison to the rest of the fic. I'm not exactly thrilled with the ending I gave it either. So it may or may not stay up. I dunno, I find it kind of compromises with the quality of the fic. Maybe I'll just edit it a bit. Time shall tell. :D
Anyway, we come to it. The long-awaited (cough) preview of my latest fic. Do read and tell me what you think of it!
Title: Literary
Summary: Sakura is a famous fanfiction author. Syaoran is the best beta she's ever had. They share a world made of the words and tales they weave and write. But they don't know that they know each other...in real life.
Full Summary: He promised he'd come back for her. She promised to wait for him. But a misunderstanding creates a giant rift between Sakura and Syaoran. What they don't know is that jaded bookworm Sakura is really Sayuri (the famous fanfiction author), and Syaoran is Lang...her faithful beta.
Excerpt from the Prologue...
She managed to save her tears until she reached her bedroom. Once she locked herself safely behind her door and closed the drapes around her windows, she flung herself onto her bed and sobbed uncontrollably into her pillow.
Kero watched Sakura sadly.
"Do you want to talk?" he asked, uncharacteristically serious as her sobs subsided into hesitant little sniffles.
She shook her head, wiping her eyes with the back of her palm.
"Not really," she said, pulling a face. She swung herself into a sitting position and glanced around her room. It already felt so boring without Syaoran here!
"Maybe you should do something to take your mind off of Sy – him," Kero suggested innocently.
"Like what?" she asked, tilting her head back to stare at the ceiling.
"Um -" Kero paused, trying to think of something. "Do something ridiculous like...uh..." Skinny dipping? No. Singing karaoke? ...definitely not. Movie making? No, Tomoyo's camera isn't with her...
"Writing fanfiction!" he burst out.
His words hovered on the air.
Where'd that come from? Kero asked himself, scratching his head with his right paw.
Sakura's blank look transformed into an incredulous stare.
"Yeah right!" she snorted. "Thanks for the idea though."
"No, no!" Kero said desperately, trying to convince her although he didn't really know what he was talking about. "Writing fanfiction is...awesome. You get to borrow your favourite characters from your favourite books and movies and stuff, and then you get to make them do funny things, and change around the endings, and even just change the whole storyline altogether! Plus, random people all over the world can read your stories and they even leave you reviews and -"
He paused in mid-rant as Sakura gazed at him, goggle-eyed.
"I'm not making this sound very appealling, am I?" he asked dryly.
Sakura shook her head, giggling a little.
"No, but you cheered me up," she said with a small smile. "Thanks, Kero."
"Ah...no problem," Kero said, relieved. He didn't know what was getting into him lately. Fanfiction writing. He couldn't imagine Sakura being one of those crazed, obsessive, cyberspace authors. Just the thought of it made him laugh. Fanfiction. What a truly ridiculous pastime.
"Maybe you could get the Cards out," he suggested. "I'm sure some of them are getting bored, being locked up all day. Why don't you take one of them out for a walk or something?"
Sakura gave him a stern glare.
"The Cards aren't my pets, Kero," she said reproachfully. "You know that."
"Ah..." Kero said, wincing a little When Sakura was depressed, it threw him off. He didn't know what to say or think anymore...
I know! He thought, eyes lighting up. I'll make her a nice big cake. That'll cheer her up for sure! Forget karaoke and movie making and fanfiction and all that crazy stuff. Chocolate's the way to go!
"I'll be right back," Kero said, getting up and making his way to the door. "Oh, and don't do anything ridiculous while I'm gone."
"Like write fanfiction?" Sakura teased, and Kero disappeared with a nervous giggle.
Sakura shook her head, smiling to herself. Kero and his ideas! Okay, sometimes he got a little bit farfetched, but fanfiction?
...actually, she thought to herself, I don't think that's too bad at all.
She glanced sadly at the framed picture propped upright on her bedstand. It was of her and Syaoran, taken just two weeks ago. Syaoran had invited them over to his mansion, and he, Sakura, Tomoyo, Eriol and Meiling spent the entire afternoon in his giant basement watching movies on his enormous home theatre. Tomoyo had snapped a picture of the two right in the middle of the first Lord of the Rings movie. A giant troll had just appeared out of nowhere, and Sakura had screamed and grabbed the closest thing to her, which in that case happened to be Syaoran. Seconds later...snap! Bright white flashing lights.
Sakura smiled wistfully at the identical shocked expressions on her and Syaoran. What a happy time. The best part had been when Tomoyo had snapped a picture of them laughing together after recovering from the double shock of the big ugly troll, and then Tomoyo's camera. Sakura loved that picture. Syaoran had kept that one. Maybe he'd keep it by his bedstand in Hong Kong and stare at it every night, wishing he was in Tomoeda...
Kero's right, she thought to herself suddenly. You need to do something. How about fanfiction? It's probably ridiculous enough to get my mind off of all this.
With that thought in her mind, she got out of her bed and seated herself in front of the desktop in her room. She was glad that she had closed the drapes, because her window had a perfect view of the mansion where Syaoran used to live. She giggled, remembering the times she'd be awake in the middle of the night and so would Syaoran, and they'd communicate by flicking their light switches on and off -
She abruptly opened up an Internet browser, and got to a search engine.
Now, she thought to herself, where's a good fanfiction site?
She typed in her query and her mouse found thousands of results. She scanned the page, her eyes hitting a number.
804 567 results found.
Wow, Sakura thought to herself. A lot of people out there write fanfiction. I guess I'm not the only crazy one here for wanting to write.
She began to search through the pages, not knowing what she was looking for, but searching nonetheless.
A homely looking site loaded onto her screen. The header read, The Fanfiction Corner.
There were nearly 6 million authors registered on that site, writing under almost a million different works. Sakura's jaw dropped as she saw the titles of familiar books, movies, TV shows, video games...
This is insane, she thought to herself. There must be a fanfiction out for every media piece released!
And curious words jumped out at her. Canon, fanon, fluff, ship, AU, Mary Sue, OC, R&R...
Okay, Sakura told herself. Fanfiction is crazier than I am.
It was like learning a different language. Being part of a completely different world. And she welcomed the change. It was in fact, as Kero had suggested, enough to get her mind off of her previous depression.
Sakura didn't have to think twice before opening up an empty Word document and typing away at something. She didn't care if it was badly written or not. All she knew was that the pain inside of her needed to come out, and this was an excellent way of doing it. She wrote about partings and endings and friends who could never see each other again. She wrote it entirely in the first person perspective. And of course, she chose to write in the Lord of the Rings fandom, simply because of the memories the movies brought her. As she finished her first chapter (barely five hundred words long), she turned around to face the picture of herself and Syaoran, and gave it a very small smile.
"Wish me luck," she said to the terrified-looking Syaoran in the picture before signing up for an account at Fanfiction Corner. She chose her penname as Cherry Blossom, the English translation of her name. Her account was made, she uploaded her first chapter onto the site and set about making her first story.
She titled it The Parting of Ways and within moments, it was published. One of the forty thousand fanfictions based on Lord of the Rings. She wondered if anyone would read it or post a review.
To her annoyance, she saw that, in her hurry to create an account, she had typoed her penname. She was not Cherry Blossom. Instead, she was Cheery Blossom.
She groaned, burying her head into her arms. Well, Cheery Blossom was better than nothing at all. Besides, penname Cherry Blossom was already taken, she observed.
...she still couldn't believe she'd followed Kero's advice and gotten into fanfiction. And what was worse, she was actually enjoying herself.
This was getting addicting.
"Ta-da!" Kero sang, pushing the door open. "Feast your eyes on this!"
Sakura whirled around in her chair. Her eyes went perfectly round as she saw the gigantic, three-tiered cake he had baked for her. A masterpiece of chocolate, whipped cream and glazed strawberries. Piped icing spelled the words, Feel better soon, Sakura.
Sakura's face split into a grin as she ran from her desk to grab the cake, placed it carefully on her desk, and then grabbed Kero in her arms.
"Aww," she said, squeezing him tightly. "You're so sweet. Did you know that?"
Kero felt himself turning purple.
"That's – that's nice -" he gasped, choking. "You can let go of me now!"
Sakura promptly let go of him with an "oh! Right!" and a murmured stream of apologies. The two of them then proceeded to work their way through the giant cake, which was absolutely delicious.
"Oh yum," Sakura said happily. "I'm going to be so sick tomorrow..."
"It's worth every bite," Kero said dramatically, popping a giant slice into his mouth and chewing slowly with his eyes closed.
"Anyway," he said after swallowing, "what were you doing all this time? You're in such a good mood now."
Sakura grinned at him.
"Writing fanfiction," she said brightly.
Kero fell onto the ground in disbelief.
a/n: And that's that for the preview posting of Literary. I have another preview posted in my writing journal. You can find the link on my profile, under the Forthcoming... section. Just click on Literary and it should take you to the second preview. (don't forget to comment:P)
It seems like it's going to be all innocent and cutesy and stuff...but the prologue is the only excerpt of their childhood that I'm including. The rest of the time, they're all angsty jaded teens in high school. So I may actually end up rating this M because of Sakura and Syaoran's...er...colourful language.
Tell me what you thought of it! (This is my first time writing something that somewhat follows the CCS plotline and includes Kero! I've never used him as a character before!)
The story will be posted sometime this month. Coincidentally enough, I have to wait for my beta to return from Hong Kong to edit the...(counts)...three chapters I have written so far. :D
Review, review! If you have suggestions, let me know! If you think the title, summaries, or certain parts of the story sounded sketchy, pm me about it. I don't bite. I'm actually quite friendly. (grins)
Cheers!
- Celestiana