Summary: AU-She was kind and too forgiving. Everyone picked on her, beat her. She never seemed to hear them, but it was a heavy burden. What happens when she meets Syaoran, a seemingly ordinary bully? Will she forget the past, and move on? S/S

AN: Thx for the reviews! It makes me feel so loved. I can't believe it, but I spelled Droplets wrong in my title………oh well

NOTE: THE STORY IS NO LONGER IN SAKURA'S POV, AND ALL OF SAKURA'S CLASSES ARE TAUGHT BY THE SAME TEACHER, IN THE SAME CLASSROOMS.

"talking"

'thinking'

flashback

Crystal Dropplets

By Dream4luv

Chapter 2-Trouble at Work

Sakura cleaned herself up to a partially acceptable appearance. She turned off the faucet and walked into the hall, heading for her class.

It was so empty in the hallways, just like her home.

Sakura shivered. She sucked in her breath and pushed her fingers on her hair to make sure it wasn't sticking up in strange directions. She then slid open the door to her class room.

"Nice of you to join us, Kinomoto-chan." The teacher said, looking at the disheveled girl, but not showing much sympathy towards her.

"Um…I, well, I…just spilled some of my makeup, so I was cleaning up." The girl lied.

"Take a seat. If you show up late again, I'll have to give you after school detention."

"Yes, ma'am." She said quietly, heading towards her desk.

The teacher coughed. "Anyways, on with the lesson."

Sakura pulled out her workbook and looked at the board to take notes.

Class passed quickly, with no further disturbances. And soon, the lunch bell had rung, signaling for the forty minute break that all the students of the class looked forward to. Everyone rushed out of the class, either carrying their lunches or their lunch money.

Sakura was the last one out of the classroom. She carried a lightweight paper sack containing her lunch.

Upon arrival at the cafeteria, Sakura spotted a lone table in the corner and took a seat. She knew no one would sit beside her. No one wanted to because everyone hated her guts.

A nerdy student with big glasses walked past her, heading for the next table. The girl was clutching two big lumpy textbooks in her arms along with some note paper. She suddenly tripped over the leg of a lunch table, and fell, books and everything scattering all over the floor.

Sakura saw and immediately set her sandwich down to help the girl pick up her stuff. She picked up the scraps of paper, and neatly piled them together, handing it to the other girl. "Here." She said, holding the papers out and smiling. "You dropped these."

The nerd pushed her geeky glasses up her nose, and looked Sakura in the face. She rudely snatched the papers back. "I can pick them up myself, Kinomoto!" The girl got up and left for her friends, leaving Sakura kneeling on the floor.

Sakura slowly got up and walked back to her table. She sighed. 'No one likes me, and I don't belong. Everyone belongs but me…I'm such a stranger.'

"Now listen up class, we are going to be doing more than a few projects in this classroom. I will be ASSIGNING the partners, and they will REMAIN your partners for the whole school year. No complaining, got that?"

The class groaned, but nodded their heads.

"Now, here's the list…" The teacher unfolded a piece of paper that had been sitting on her desk.

Unfortunately for Sakura, the list was also in alphabetical order.

"…Kinomoto, Sakura and Li, Syaoran…"

Sakura felt like bashing her head into the desk. 'I'm dead.'

Syaoran grinned, his amber eyes shimmering in delight. Raising his hand he asked, "When will our first project be?"

The teacher glanced at him and smiled, "I was just getting to that. In this class, you are required to turn in a project every three weeks. It will be done outside of school, meaning there is absolutely no class time to work on these. The first few will be relatively easy to get you going. I will hand out the rubric for the first project tomorrow."

"This'll be fun." The boy whispered to no one in particular.

After school, Sakura ran outside the school building quickly, hurrying home. She only had half an hour to change into her work clothes.

By the time Sakura had opened the door, she was out of breath. Laying down her backpack on the table, she hurried upstairs to change.

She combed out her mussed up hair, making it a little more presentable than it had been before. Then she ran out the door again, making sure to put some cat food into her pet, Kero's, dish.

"Hi, everyone!"

"Oh hey, Sakura, I'm glad you could make it on time…for a second, I thought you wouldn't come." Rika said, smiling.

"Of course. I just…had to get myself cleaned up, that's all…"

Rika's face darkened. "Look…Sakura, I'm sorry for what happened at school today. I…I should've stopped them, but they…"

"I know, they would've turned on you too. It's okay. We don't need the both of us to be in a mess." Sakura said.

Rika hung out with Tomoyo on a daily basis, and hanging out with her meant she had to bully others. She constantly felt awful about it, but, she was so scared. Scared of being bullied if she angered Tomoyo.

"Thank you, so much, Sakura…" Rika said sadly, folding her hands together and looking down, ashamed of herself, "how can you be so forgiving, after…after everything I've done?"

"It's not your fault." Sakura replied. Rika was her only friend, even if it was just part-time. She could never blame a friend. She laughed to herself. She could never blame anybody. Surely everyone had a reason as to why they acted the way they did.

"Still………..thank you."

"Alright, alright, girls, enough chit-chat. It's time to get to work. Rika, I want you on counter, Sakura, I want you waiting tables. Got that?"

The girls nodded.

The customers soon came in and the girls took the positions of people who had been working before them.

The next group came in, chattering loudly. Sakura looked up to find them picking a table to sit at. She groaned. It was Tomoyo, with a group of her closest friends: Chiharu, Yamazaki, Naoko, and of course her boyfriend, Eriol.

Eriol was the whole reason Tomoyo was popular to begin with. Before, she was just a regular girl with a close group of girl friends. But then, at the end of grade 9, Eriol Hiiragizawa had asked her out, and they'd gone out until the middle of grade 10. They'd broken up after that, and no one really knew what the reason was. Tomoyo was prepared to being her regular self, but she'd been excepted into the inner circle. Everyone had cooed "aww, poor Tomoyo-chan, Eriol's first long-term girlfriend, such a shame that a perfect couple like that would break up." No one knew they had gotten together again until today.

Sakura mentally beat herself as she took a notepad and a pencil over to the table.

"Good afternoon, may I take your orders, please?"

Tomoyo looked up, and grinned, "Oh, hi, Kinomoto, didn't know you worked here. I guess we'll have to visit more often, huh?"

"Your orders, please."

"Aww…you don't have to be so stiff with us…"

Sakura really didn't want to make a scene. She just smiled tightly and said in a cheerful voice, "I'm sorry I can't stay and chat, Daidouji-san, but this is my job, and I don't get paid for making small talk with my customers. May I take your orders?"

Tomoyo grunted, "Whatever. I'm sure your boss doesn't mind that much."

"If you feel uncomfortable giving your orders to a schoolmate, then I suppose I could get someone else to take them…"

Tomoyo blew her bangs out of her eyes, "Fine, fine, you're no fun! We'll have three vanilla cappuccinos and one cup of iced tea."

Sakura wrote the orders down on the notepad and came back shortly. She left to attend to another group of people and sighed.

Why did she have this awful feeling that work days were going to be just as bad as school?

AN: Whew, that took a while to get out of me…PLEASE REVIEW? PLEASE? PRETTY PLEASE?