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: Hey everyone. It's been superrr busy! So sorry if this chapter's kinda…ick, I mean, I didn't get that much time to think of a good idea for this chapter, but I will try my best. I mean, I DO think of what I'm gonna write during random times in the day…but just sometimes…
"talking"
'thinking'
written/typed
flashback
Crystal Dropplets
By Dream4luv
Chapter 9-Fever
Sakura sat up in bed as the sharp beeping of her alarm clock woke her from her slumber. It wasn't only that either, she had a bad headache, and it felt oddly chilly in her room. Maybe because she had left her window open last night. It was still raining outside, although the rain was much lighter now.
As soon as she stood up, she could feel something was wrong. She felt nauseous. She shook the feeling off…she had to get to school, and she couldn't ditch. For one thing, it was her day for cleaning duty today, and she just couldn't miss school because of some passing illness. That would leave her partner all the work, she couldn't do that. Not to mention, if she wasn't there for class, she'd fall behind in her studies. Missing one day of school was a lot of catch up work.
She fumbled her way downstairs in her pajamas and poured herself a glass of cold water. She gulped it down, and it momentarily made her feel a bit better. The water ran down her sore throat, relieving the dryness of the inside of her mouth.
The girl headed slowly back upstairs, accidentally tripping over the last step at the top of the stairs. Picking herself up, she rubbed her hands over her arms trying to keep warm. She proceeded to rub her emerald eyes, trying to rub away the fuzziness from them. She pulled her uniform over her head in a slow lethargic motion. Maybe there'd be medicine in the cabinet? But then again…no one in her family had been sick since well…a long time ago.
She pulled open the cabinet, finding an assortment of vitamin and calcium bottles. All of them were out dated. She dug through the cabinet trying to find a bottle of cold pills, but there were none.
"I'm sure my immune system can fight it off," she assured herself quietly, "I'll go buy some after volunteering, if I can find the money to…"
She pulled on her skates and backpack, remembering to stuff a bottle of water into her pack. She gently closed the door behind her, and started skating through the light rain at a slow pace. Even so, she had managed to trip over many bumps and cracks in the sidewalks. She saw Rika's car up ahead of her, for some strange reason.
"Sakura-chan?"
"Rika-chan, what are you doing here?" Sakura asked lightly, squinting her eyes to see the girl.
"It's raining. I thought, that…um, you might need a ride again?"
"What? I'm sorry Rika-chan, I guess I just blanked out for a minute." Sakura said rubbing her eyes.
"Sakura-chan? Are you ok? You don't look to well."
"O-oh, no. I'm fine, just a little tired." Sakura said offering a smile.
"Well, come on, I'll take you to school." Rika smiled as well.
Sakura climbed into Rika's car in the same fashion as the day before, removing her wet skates. "You don't do this have to, you know." Sakura said struggling to say what she wanted, but her headache was ringing through her brain, and she couldn't think straight.
"What?"
"Sorry. I-I guess I'm a little off today." Sakura mumbled quietly.
As soon as Sakura got off of Rika's car, she felt sick to her stomach. She walked quickly to the girl's restroom, set her backpack down and ran into one of the stalls. She threw up in one of the toilets, choking and coughing. Just as she flushed the toilet and walked out of the stall, Tomoyo's group walked in.
"Well well, look who it is. Kinomoto." Tomoyo said.
"G-good morning, Daidouji-san." Sakura greeted, her face pale.
"Whatever. The bell's going to ring soon. We don't have time for you today." Tomoyo said roughly knocking into Sakura as she walked past her. All her friends followed suit as they pushed past the girl, bumping her on the shoulder, some going far enough to elbow her in the stomach.
As Sakura left quietly, Tomoyo's friends missed the look of worry that passed over her face. 'Maybe I shouldn't have done that, she looked sick. Really sick.' Tomoyo looked back to her reflection with shame and guilt. How could she have done that? Why did she do it?
Sakura moved slowly to the classroom. Cleaning duty. She had already taken all the cleaning supplies from the storage room. As she walked in the room, she saw Eriol standing in front of the chalkboard, almost done wiping it off.
"You're late," he said simply without turning to look at her.
"Um, I'm really sorry. I didn't-" Sakura started.
"It's ok, you know. To be late, I mean. Everyone's late all the time. No one really cares." Eriol continued still wiping at the board.
"Well, still, it isn't bad being on time." Sakura said slowly as a sharp piercing feeling shot through her head.
"Whatever you want." The boy said, shrugging his shoulders.
"Then, we will continue our math lesson by talking about functions, and how to graph them, how to tell if they are functions, how to tell if they're even or odd, or neither..." The teacher said, reading and flipping through the pages of her math book.
Sakura closed her eyes, she didn't want to, but it felt necessary. Her eyelids felt so heavy, and it felt like everything that she normally didn't notice was occurring all at the same time. She could hear the rustle of papers from the girl next to her, and she could hear the boy two rows away from her yawn loudly. She could make out the noises of the chairs scraping against the floor in the back of the room. It was all giving her an extreme feeling of nausea.
She could hear Syaoran behind her whispering to the boy behind him about something or other. He tapped her on the shoulder.
She turned around at him and gave him an unfocused smile.
"Don't be late today." He said, giving her a frown.
"I won't." the girl promised, although she wasn't too sure. She wasn't even sure what Syaoran was talking about.
"You better be telling the truth, Kinomoto. Make a promise, keep a promise." He whispered harshly at her.
"I'll be sure to make it." Sakura said, staring fuzzily up into his amber eyes.
"Lunch will be in 10 minutes, so you have the remainder of the period to do your homework." The teacher said as she closed her math book.
School was out, and Sakura had run as fast as she could to her locker, then proceeded out of the school to the front gate where Syaoran was standing.
"I'm not late am I?" She managed to choke out between coughs and heaving.
"No." he answered simply. "You forgot your umbrella again?"
It was more of a statement really.
"It's not raining too hard today," Sakura answered meekly…she didn't want to tell him that she couldn't afford to buy an umbrella.
"Whatever." He said stiffly, but was too embarrassed to ask her if she wanted to come join him under his umbrella like the day before.
"U-um, Li-kun?" Sakura started, unsure of how to ask him. She stared at him shifting uncomfortably. It was like one of those moments that one of your acquaintances have that oh so delectable looking bag of Skittles in their hands, but don't offer you any, so you have to ask (and hope your not intruding on their candy) for some. "L-look, I know you don't think of me as a friend or anything like that…but, umm…would you mind if I shared your umbrella?"
"Do what you want." Syaoran said equally uncomfortable.
"This means a lot. I mean, you probably don't care, but still…Thank you." She said quietly looking him in the eyes, knowing it was respectful to do so.
After getting to the hospital, they checked in with the nurse again. The happy go lucky nurse directed them to where they needed to go. Obviously, Syaoran went upstairs to Fuji's room. Sakura was assigned to some easy organizing duties in the lobby: stack magazines, rearrange books, water the plants…things like that. She worked slowly and without energy. Her headache was only making it worse, but still. She needed to focus on the task at hand and give it her best.
And this was definitely not what she'd call her best.
She picked up one of the magazines on the table and walked over to the magazine shelf. She glanced down at the title of the magazine, and looked up to see where its proper place was. Then she realized, that for some strange reason, she hadn't actually looked at the title, maybe she had merely skimmed over the cover? She looked down again at the magazine in her hands, and frowned slightly when she couldn't read it. The letters fuzzed up and her body felt heavy, as her mind clouded over.
She didn't even feel it when she hit the floor.
Syaoran said good night to Fuji-san and stuck his hands in his pockets as he walked down stairs. His feet echoed down the tiled steps as he made his way to the lobby.
'I guess I have to walk Kinomoto home again.' He thought to himself. It was more of a fact in his mind than an annoyance. He sat on one of the soft seats in the lobby, waiting for Sakura to finish doing whatever she was doing.
He waited…and waited. 15 minutes passed, than half an hour, and she still hadn't come. He rolled his eyes. He walked quickly to the front desk, and found the nurse in charge of all the volunteers. She apparently had just started her shift since she hadn't started doing anything yet.
"Where's Kinomoto working today?"
The nurse checked her list as her eyes passed over all the names arranged in alphabetical order, "Sakura-chan is supposed to be working in the lobby. Isn't she there?"
"No."
"Well, hmm…lemme just go check real quick, stay here, ok?" The nurse said as she smiled gently at Syaoran. She wrote some information a sheet of paper as she ran down the hall.
"Like I have anywhere else to go."
The nurse returned in just a few minutes, and took her seat at the front desk. "I'm sorry Li-kun. Apparently Sakura-chan has a fever, and she's in one of the hospital rooms right now. She'll probably have to stay overnight because her fever's pretty bad, about 104.7, we don't want her leaving. She hasn't taken any medication so we're assuming that's the reason her condition's so bad."
"But she looked fine today!" Syaoran argued, not really knowing the reason why. If someone was sick, they're sick, you don't argue about it.
"Are you sure? Maybe you weren't paying attention, she looked a little out of it when she came in, but she acted fine, I really didn't assume anything."
"Well, what do you want me to do?" Syaoran said expecting the nurse to ask him to help with something or other.
"Oh…well, you can just go home. You don't have to stay here. I'm sure you're busy with homework and such." The nurse waved lightly at the exit. "It's not like you're obligated stay. Sakura-chan will definitely not be showing up anytime soon. She's probably going to miss school tomorrow."
Syaoran looked at the nurse for a brief second before he walked out the doors. As soon as he stepped outside, his stomach churned, and he felt a little guilty for leaving his partner behind. But whatever, right? She's the one who got herself sick. Not him. He opened his umbrella and began walking to the right, before he realized that he didn't live in that direction. Syaoran berated himself for making such a stupid mistake before turning around and walking home.
AN: Hahaha…I really AM going to update on the 5th! Yay! I didn't think it was possible, but I did it!