T minus 149 days

"We have fifty people live in a compact space - but we can't make it suffocating or claustrophobic. It can't be too big, it can't be too small..." Sakura muttered, waving her hands around to emphasize her point. Jutting out her bottom lip, she blew at her bangs, looking up at the white ceiling. She then - gently - laid on her back, stretched out on the floor. Raising her hands, she created a cube with her fingers, tilting her head, then a circle, then a triangle.

The pair had often gone to the White Space, both to imagine their idea in its setting and for inspiration. An empty space for inspiration, you ask incredulously? Indeed, Sakura had found the space able to give her unlimited imagination, while Syaoran felt like he was working with a fresh, new canvas.

Syaoran sat beside her, crouched over his sketchbook with a pen in his hand. He drew lines, square after square, stacks on stacks, but with a shake of his head, he scratched it out. With a careless toss of his sketchbook, he stood up.

Sakura's eyes strayed to his figure as he walked towards the middle of the large room. There was Tomoyo's old easel given to Sakura a few years back, and a large whiteboard - Syaoran just casually had one in his apartment - propped up on it. In Sakura's neat handwriting were a list of general living space needs; bathroom, bedroom, kitchen, dining area/living room area, study, storage, and laboratory.

To the left edge of the board were Syaoran's handwriting; materials: lightweight nanotech. - carbon and silica and polymers.

Focusing back on Sakura's handwriting, Syaoran spoke up, "This is a shelter." He turned to see Sakura sit up. He matched her gaze evenly, "Not a home." He turned back to the board to pick up a marker, crossing out dining area/living room area.

"We still need a kitchen." Sakura came to stand next to him.

"A small one." He crossed it out.

"The storage is mostly for food, and other things," the female partner tapped her chin in thought, "we could mix in the kitchen there."

Nodding, Syaoran wrote in /kitchen next to storage.

"And then the laboratory-"

Syaoran knew where this was going, "- and study could be combined." He wrote in these additions. "Not everyone needs a bedroom."

"It could be like bunkers." Sakura agreed. They then looked at their modifications. "That narrows it down to four areas to design. Bathroom, bunkers, storage-slash-kitchen, lab-slash-study."

"But let's look at the big picture," Syaoran changed the subject of their study, "we still haven't decided on a general structure."

"If we do a layout of these areas and where we want to put them, then a general structure will form." Sakura disagreed with his method.

Her partner frowned deeply. "I'd rather have a structure to work with. If I don't have a general shape, where would I even begin?"

"But that requires conforming to a set of rules!" Sakura exclaimed in frustration, "and that's limiting!"

Syaoran turned to look at her oddly, his eyes studying her expression.

Sakura looked down at her outburst, muttering a quiet "sorry".

"Don't be sorry for expressing yourself," He responded as quietly, letting out an ironic smile.

She glanced up at him with look, showing that she was not amused.

After a moment, Syaoran finally asked the question that bugged him since the beginning of their meeting, "Why don't we have a babysitter today?"

Sakura stroked her hair, twirling it around her fingers, instantly uncomfortable. Avoiding eye contact, she mumbled something about not wanting to bother people.

"Sakura." Syaoran stated firmly, catching her attention and holding her timid gaze. Putting on his I-can-see-into-your-soul look - it works on almost everybody - Syaoran watched as she shifted her gaze to anywhere but his sharp eyes.

Glancing distractedly at his wrist, Sakura inquired in an attempt to change the conversation, "what happened to your watch?"

Syaoran neither looked down at his wrist nor softened his gaze. "Stolen."

"From your wrist?" She asked incredulously.

"No, I had a collection. Our apartment got broken into. Those were the only stuff stolen." Syaoran explained curtly, not wanting to spotlight to turn on him.

"Oh, I remember Eriol mentioning that a few days ago. You have a collection of watches?" Sakura expressed wonderingly. But her mistake was making eye contact.

Holding her glance, Syaoran looked at her pointedly, "Sakura, what's going on?"

After a bout of seemingly inner struggle, Sakura broke down. "Josh and I had a fight." Sakura revealed.

"You always have a fight. Or so I heard." Syaoran stated, unconvinced, "Eriol and Tomoyo fight a lot too. We just had a fight, ish."

"We had more like a disagreement." Sakura shook her head. "Josh and I had a fight about the rules." She elaborated, "I just...I thought it was because the relationship just started but it's been four months and he still doesn't seem like he trusts me and I don't - I'm naturally free-spirited so this - I can't do it anymore."

"Is that it?" Syaoran asked, sensing there was more.

"I…" Sakura bit her lip, not sure if she should tell him. But seeing as Syaoran was a trustworthy person, she went ahead and explained, "I started asking for an exception to the rules, at least. You know I don't have a lot of free time, and Meiling or Tomoyo or Sharon or whoever is busy, and I hate always asking if they could just accompany me and I- we need to work on our project. So…."

As Sakura trailed off, Syaoran nodded in understanding, his sympathetic vibes settling her nerves.

"Then he refused and you told him you couldn't do the rules anymore?"

Sakura bit her lip. "basically."

"And I don't suppose he took it well." Syaoran made a wild guess.

She shook her head, confirming, "not well is an understatement."

Syaoran took a deep breath, studying his friend. He wished he could solve her problems. Gently, he asked, "Did someone call it off?"

She shook her head again.

"So you two are still okay," He tried to sound reassuring, but ended up adding, "if that's what you wanted."

Sakura looked up, and her emerald orbs were filled with inner turmoil. her voice barely above a whisper, barely repressing the confusion she felt inside, she replied honestly, "I don't know."

As much as he wanted to help, Syaoran knew this was something between them that they had to fix. He turned back to the board, "fine. We'll do it your way." He pretended to look disgruntled, grumbling, "you seem like the type to always get what you want when you were a child, hm?"

Sakura looked up and to her left as she thought. Then her eyes returned back to Syaoran's, with a delighted smile, she nodded childishly, "Yup!"

Syaoran shook his head, sitting down on the ground as she followed across from him, emitting defeat, though he was glad to see a smile back on her face.

Grabbing a large sheet of paper to put in front of them, he grabbed a pencil. The engineering minor looked up confidently at his partner, with a voice like that of a coach pep talking his team, he exclaimed, "let's do this layout!"

Grinning excitedly, Sakura grabbed a pencil, and pumped her fist in the air, "yeah!"

"You know you're an architect when you get excited about layouting." Syaoran commented, rolling his eyes.

Sakura giggled, "it's all in the mind, Syaoran, if you believe that it'll be fun, then it's gonna be fun."

"Yeah, that makes sense." Her partner grumbled sarcastically. Putting on his serious mask, Syaoran stated in a questioning tone, "So we want the bathrooms to be spread out."

"Definitely," Sakura turned serious as well. "maybe around five? For fifty people?"

"That's gonna be one hell of a line to shower." He commented with a light chuckle.

"They'll live." She waved a hand dismissively, "we should have three parts. The beds and personal areas, then the kitchen and that stuff in the middle, then the labs and studies on the other side. Two bathrooms in the bunker area, one in the kitchen area, and two in the lab - since they'll probably spend lots of time there."

"Instead of a long layout," Syaoran suggested, "what about floors? Like a layered design. It'd be better to build up than to build across."

"Yeah, but which area would you want to walk into first? The labs, kitchen, then bedrooms? or bedrooms, then kitchen, then labs?"

"If we build up, the base has to be wider than the top."

"I think we'd need more space for beds-"

"But if everyone were to go to sleep at the same time, we don't want all the weight on one area."

"Then we spread it out." Sakura nodded firmly, then she paused, an idea springing to her head. "Instead of having these three areas as major areas, we should break it into components and parts."

"I don't follow." Her partner shook his head slowly.

"Like, for each section we can have a bathroom, ten beds, and lab space for ten people. Multiply that by five, we'll have five bathrooms, fifty beds, and lab space." Sakura explained clearly as Syaoran began to nod, "And so we'll have five different components that'll come together to become one big thing."

"Separating into five parts would make the whole structure easier to transport," He added, "we can have the lab space and bathroom on the lower level, and bunker area on the upper level."

"Exactly!" Sakura grinned at Syaoran's additional input. She loved working with him especially because he would take her half-baked ideas and make it even better.

"Yeah, but what about the kitchen and storage areas?"

Sakura bit her lip, thinking out loud, "maybe we could...have one of the components be bigger than everyone else's and be like the center point where everyone convenes, and it'll have a floor between the beds and the labs where there'll be storage and kitchen areas."

Sakura also liked Syaoran as a partner because he was never too nice to turn an idea down. If he could see flaws, he would bluntly point it out. Such as now. "You don't want the kitchen on top of the lab. If harmful fumes or something they're testing in the lab flows upwards into the kitchen, there goes your three months supply of food. And to have all your supplies in one location is risky, if the other parts had some accident during transportation and never got to the center piece and they don't have any food or anything in storage, they're doomed."

"Then instead of two, we'll have three floors. Lab as one floor, bathroom and storage space as one floor, and bed areas as one floor." Sakura furrowed her eyebrows, "that point you made about the lab...No matter where you put it, there'll still be a chance of toxicity. If you put it above, the fumes may flow down and hit the supplies. If you put the bunkers in between, the fumes may flow up or down and harm the people. If there no one to use the supplies, it doesn't matter whether or not the supplies are spoiled."

Syaoran frowned deeply, "We'll have to separate the labs somehow."

Their discussion went on into the night, interrupted only once when Tomoyo went to check up on them and was sent out again to buy them coffee. She brought back four cups, two for them, and two for her and Eriol, for she was going to meet him for their project.

Once she left, the partners went briefly off topic to agree that the pair with the on and off relationship were back on track, and everything was better that way.

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Note: Someone was like, "not much happened in this chapter" well...not much here either. It'll pick up quickly, I promise.

Sorry if you're not into architecture, even though this story is based around architecture, I can assure you there'll be more story than architecture.

Personal Note: If you read my personal note in the last chapter, I just want to reiterate that the contents of this chapter and what follows in Sakura and Josh's relationship is completely fictional and no longer based on real life.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!