Valkyrie85: Sorry for the long wait. Here is the chapter. Please enjoy and THEN REVIEW!
Disclaimer: I do not own CCS. Only the new characters and plot did I create.
Complications-Chapter 11
"Where are you planning to go with that big bag of stuff, Mei Ling?" Syaoran asked, accusingly, leaning against Mei Ling's door frame.
"I'm going to stay over at Tomoyo's house, tonight," Mei Ling explained, continuing her brisk packing. She rushed out of her bedroom, pushing Syaoran out of her way.
"And did you, by any chance, plan to tell me about this event?" He turned to the busy Mei Ling who was collecting random bottles of toileteries into her arms in the bathroom.
"What am I doing right now, then?" she asked impatiently. "Now, get out of my way, Syaoran!" She pushed Syaoran aside and stuffed the bottles into her traveling bag.
"Why are you in a hurry?"
"Because she's sending a car to pick me up at 6:00." With a final zip, she swung the bag over her shoulder. Syaoran checked his watch. It was only 5:30 as he rolled his eyes. "You're half an hour early, Mei Ling."
"Well, have you forgotten that THEY don't know I'm your cousin?" Mei Ling returned the gesture.
"They?" Syaoran asked curiously. "Who else is going to Daidouji's house?"
"SAKURA, Tomoyo and I are spending the night at Tomoyo's house, alright? Argg." Mei Ling groaned in annoyance. Sometimes, Syaoran just asked too many questions that made her wonder if he did that on purpose just to annoy her.
"Sakura?" Syaoran whispered lowly, hardly unintelligible to Mei Ling's sharp ears. She shot a secret glance at his direction because of his sudden change of expression.
"That Daidouji," Syaoran continued thoughtfully in a different manner, "likes to make things so conspicuous. She is quite an attention hogger, don't you think? She constantly tries to show everybody how rich she is, it's as if-- OWW!"
As soon as the words came out, Syaoran received a hard knee-in-the-ribs from Mei Ling.
"That's what you get for talking about my friend, Syaoran!" Mei Ling yelled angrily, a combined after affect from his irritating questioning and rude comments.
"Why?! That is the truth though!" He struggled to rise from the floor, not one bit regretful for what he said.
"Well, talk about someone else AFTER fixing your own problem, Syaoran!"
Syaoran gave a confused look.
"Remember what I asked you to fix? You and your friends might not realize this, but there are more people than you think in the school who don't appreciate your huge attention commotions everyday. EVERYDAY! Damn it! Is it so hard for you NOT to act so special? Is it simply that hard to--"
"But, I didn't choose--"
"NO! Don't give me 'buts' because you know, deep down, that you want all this attention to satisfy your cravings for attention. So there's no need to lie to me or to yourself." With a final glare at Syaoran, Mei ling bent to tie her shoelaces.
"Before you talk about others, think about who you're addressing your rude comments to. The person, no Tomoyo, is MY friend and ERIOL'S girlfriend."
"She--" Syaoran knew it was totally useless to interrupt because Mei Ling never "pause" her anger in the middle of something which she thought was right. And trust him, she was ALWAYS right.
"Okay, END OF CONVERSATION! I don't want to talk to you until I get back from Tomoyo's house. So if you ever dare to CALL ME, Syaoran Li, you will not see the sun rise tomorrow!" Mei Ling threatened dangerously, sending chills down Syaoran's neck. The finger she was pointing at him dropped the instant she finished her scolding.
"Man, I wasted so much time on this idiot!" She groaned, looking at her watch, and rushed out the door, leaving a wordless Syaoran behind.
"My turn. My turn!" Sakura called out excitedly. She, Tomoyo and Mei Ling were currently in Tomoyo's humongous bedroom, each seated in a comfy couch, playing truth or dare. So far, only Mei Ling, the riskiest person out of them all, chose to do a dare, a dare given by Tomoyo.
She was dared to lick the walls in Tomoyo's bedroom, not a too risky dare in her opinion.
"Tomoyo, truth or dare?"
"Truth."
"Alright. Do you LOVE Eriol?" Sakura asked the most obvious question.
"Of course..." she blushed furiously, satisfying Mei Ling and Sakura's evilness.
"Now my turn," Mei Ling said. Her face became thoughtful.
"Sakura. Truth or dare?"
"Um...truth?" Sakura asked. Mei Ling rolled her eyes but knew anyways that Sakura would most likely choose truth.
"Tell me, Sakura. Tell me things about you that I, as a two-week friend, don't know about." Mei Ling smirked.
Sakura's eyes widened in surprise. "In which field?"
"How about, in the romantic field, like who did you date and so on." Mei Ling curled up her legs on the sofa, listening quietly to her confessions. She glimpsed at Tomoyo, whose face was buried in a mixture of wary and anxiety.
"I-I'm sorry, Mei Ling," Sakura apologized in a small voice. Uh-oh the request got rejected?
"I'm sorry for not telling you my past even though you're one of my closest friends now," she continued with a tiny smile on her face.
"I grew up with this boy who lived in my neighbourhood. He is 3 years my senior and came over to hang out with my brother, Touya, when we were little. His name is Ken Kwon." She smiled inwardly to herself.
The familiar name reminded Mei Ling of a memory which she could not remember, but for sure the name was very, very familiar. Gosh, she hated when things like that happened. Her attention was respectfully brought back to Sakura's story.
"...We started dating after a few years-- when I was in grade nine. It was probably one of the most happiest experiences in my life. Then, he decided to enroll in the University of Tokyo because you know, he was a really smart dude. So we decidedly chose to end our relationship, considering that it will be a long-distance relationship and a hold-back to his future. BUT!" Sakura emphasised the last word, sticking out her arms in front of her, to stop both Mei Ling and Tomoyo's approach towards her couch.
"I was happy about the decision. We both were actually, because our relationship became closer than ever, even though he was always so busy with his school work and NEVER, EVER had time to call me or email me for the past one and a half year." Sakura smiled at Tomoyo then Mei Ling, whose worried faces were replaced by casualty.
"Past one and a half year? So, he's finally got time to call you now?" Sakura couldn't tell if the edginess to Mei Ling's question was due to her anger for what Ken had done or just simply, curiousity towards her love story.
"No, no," Tomoyo cut in, "he's back in Tomoeda for this year's 4-month break."
"So, he's in Tomoeda at the moment?"
"Yes," Sakura replied. "Anyways, on with my story. I have to apologize one more time for my negligence in not telling you about my past, Mei Ling! But please don't get mad at me, for this second relationship was unmistakenly the WORST nightmare that could ever happen. It was not meant to happen. I didn't want to talk about it at first, however, I thought it would be unfair that only you are clueless about my history." There was pungent bitterness in Sakura's words. God forbid anybody rudely interrupting her sudden solemn confession.
"The second relationship was with Syaoran Li--"
"OH MY GOSH! SYAORAN LI!?" Mei Ling's eyes widened in disbelief. Sakura shook her head with a grave grimace. Mei Ling had 'rudely interrupted' her.
"Yeah, but that was, as I have mentioned, the biggest mistake I've ever done in my whole entire life." Although Mei Ling's astonishment had abated, the shock within her was still restless seeing Sakura's painful reaction.
"Shortly after the beginning of grade 10..."
Flashback-Grade 10
OOOf!
"I-I'm really sorry!" the beautiful Sakura exclaimed, bowing her head continuously to the person she had carelessly bumped into. She quickly bent down to the floor to collect hers and the person's books.
"That's okay," said the person softly. "There's no need to apologize for something of my fault." His voice was low, soft and polite. Sakura gathered the person's textbooks, the ones which she remembered not bringing: Chemistry and Japanese. Then, she stumbled on the two duplicated copies of Math textbooks. Which one was hers? The one that looked older? Yeah that was it!
Gathering her own, Math and Biology, and the other person's, she arose from the floor, unbalanced, due to the weight of the textbooks. Before she dropped the textbooks again onto the marble floor, the person wrapped his arms around her waist to support her from falling. From what Sakura can tell, the person had a well-toned chest, covered by their school's fine uniform and had an attractive, intoxicating smell coming from every part of his body.
"Are you alright?" The person whispered into her ears.
"Y-Yes, t-thank you," Sakura replied, looking up at the person who was much taller than her. Suddenly, she felt the hard pounding of her heart against her rib cage which brought dark shades of red to her beautiful face. Her mouth, unwillingly, dropped open while she stared at the handsome, famous Syaoran Li smiling back at her warmly.
"Here are your books." Sakura walked out of his embrace and handed him his textbooks. Without another word, Sakura walked off towards her class nervously.
Thank God the hall they were in was already cleared.
"Thank you!" Syaoran called out to Sakura.
End of Flashback
"When it was lunch, Syaoran came to our table to exchange the math textbooks we had mixed up. In return, he told me to sit at his table, so he could thank and apologize for the incident." Sakura recalled the memory. Her eyes were closed to help her focus on telling the story.
"It was obvious that he had wanted to ask me out, but as you know, I was still in the middle of my break-up aftermath. After days of just him and me befriending each other, something that I fearfully but honestly want to admit happened. We slowly moved our lunch hours into the cafeteria V.I.P. room where only students who paid could go in." Taking an unnecessary breath, she continued.
"That day, so awkwardly, I ordered Strawberry Shortcake as my dessert. When it was brought in, there was this silver ring with three cherry blossom pebbles on top of my cake. Along side, in dark chocolate icing, there was 'Will you go out with me?' on the white plate. As much as I hate to admit this, I was awestruck and..."
"You agreed?" Mei Ling could hardly make the words come out of her mouth. There was clear awe in her voice.
"Y-Yeah and on with our relationship." Sakura's eyes started to swell as her words came out between short pauses. Her effort trying to push back the tears from her betraying eyes wasn't successful. Even as she bit her lower lip, her tears were slowly dripping down her face.
"Sakura. If you don't want to talk about it then don't." Tomoyo reached Sakura's side, pulling her into a hug. Mei Ling took the tissue box on the table in front of her sofa and reached Sakura to wipe away her tears.
"I'm sorry, Sakura. Please don't continue if you don't feel like it!" Mei Ling soothed her arm comfortingly.
"No," *sniff* "I'll just finish telling you how it ended."
"I should have known from the beginning that it was just pure lust that made him want to ask me out. I should have known something like that was coming. I should have known to never fall for him but I never knew he was going to betray me in such a way!" Sakura was yelling now.
"He told Lydia all that crap about me so he could claim her sympathy! I knew he was a player, but why couldn't he just say those things to my face?"
"How did you know he said that?" Mei Ling inquired carefully.
"Because I was there, in the washroom stall, when he and Lydia said all those things!" She buried her head in her arms.
"I know that Syaoran Li never, EVER breaks up with anybody like that, telling people how his current girlfriend sucks just to get a new one," Tomoyo forcefully added. "Everybody knows that! He just gives a check to the girl and breaks up. Sakura didn't deserve this cruel treatment."
"And he thought he could lie about this whole betrayal thing even after he'd said all those things about me!" Sakura bursted into a whole new set of tears.
"Why do you say that?"
"He acted like nothing happened even until the mere minutes after I confronted the things I heard!" she took a deep breath. "I guess," her voice started in a calmer voice, "that was all my fault for falling for a playboy. It was all my fault for beliving that I could change him. It was all my fault for being in the washroom stall at the wrong time in the wrong place. It was all my fault for--"
"ENOUGH!" Mei Ling protested. She couldn't stand seeing Sakura so painful anymore so she had to shut her up. "Shhh, Sakura," she soothed. "It's okay. Everything's going to be fine. It wasn't your fault anyways, right?"
"Sakura," Tomoyo added, "it was not your fault for doing all those things. It was HIS fault for breaking your heart, in the first place."
"Yes, Tomoyo's right. He broke your heart so he needs to deserve the utmost punishment. No matter what, if he doesn't know what he's done to you, then you need to let him know through your action. Sakura, there's no need for you to act so normal around that guy. Seeing you act nice around him, I had no idea that you had once gone out with him. YOU NEED TO LET HIM KNOW THAT HE HAD DONE SOMETHING WRONG."
Sakura smiled dryly. "So what if I treated him like poorly? He's not going to learn--"
"No, you listen to me young lady." Mei Ling made Sakura look at her in the eyes. "If he does have the least bit of human consience to figure out wrongs and rights, then he will learn. If you don't do anything, he will never know what he did wrong. He might even think that you still have feelings for him, which you don't...right?" She searched deeply into Sakura's eyes for the answer.
"N-No, definitely. After what he had done to me? NEVER!" Sakura protested.
"O..okay." Mei Ling looked at Sakura awkwardly. Sakura was over-reacting.
Though Sakura was in hysterics just moments ago, she felt good--relieved to be able to confide her feelings to her two best friends-- for finally admitting her feelings she could have never done.
As the first night alone ever since Mei Ling moved in with Syaoran, he asked Eriol, Takumi, and Ryu to stay over just like what they had done constantly before Mei Ling came. The four of them gathered around in the living room, playing a game they had boringly made up in the past few hours, Truth AND Dare. The instructions for the game: A person is asked to answer a question honestly, and then is asked to perform a dare related to the Truth.
"Alright, and finally, after ALL of those tries, Sakura said she will date me," Syaoran empahsised on the word "all" to exagerate his hardship when trying to ask Sakura out.
"..." His friends kept quiet.
"Any of you listening?" Takumi, Eriol and Ryu responded to his story quietly, almost as if they weren't listening to his 20-something minute response to the "Who was the hardest girl to get out of all of your girlfriends?" question.
"Yeah...just thinking, you know," Takumi shrugged. "It's hard to believe that Syaoran Li had to make such a huge effort to ask a girl out."
"What do you feel about her now?" Eriol talked for the first time since his story ended.
"One question--"
"Don't even try to leave out the question," Ryu pushed. "There's no need to lie anymore, Syaoran. We just want to know the simple truth. Either you still have feelings for her or you don't. Simple."
Syaoran considered Ryu's words. Needless his words, he knew there was no need to lie about what he'd thought about things because he knew they will not spill the secret. However, why was he so hesitant to answer this question? Was it so hard to confess his feelings for Sakura that was over and long gone? Yeah, it was hard because he didn't recognize this awkward feeling. Neither did he have feelings for her, that would be something impossible. He never had any feelings reappearing for girls he broke up with. That was something he knew will not happen. Why is it that whenever it came to Sakura, he felt so frustratingly irritated?
"I..." he finally let out, "honestly don't know if I do or don't." His voice was hesitant from the first try after he organized the words in his head.
"Honestly, I don't know what I feel about her. I mean, I don't have the same feelings for her as the other girls I date but when I see her close around guys, I don't feel comfortable. There's this prudent dislike if I see her getting close around guys. Other than that, I honestly don't know why and how I still feel about her," Syaoran frowned at the thought of this complicated explanation. However, behind all of these unknown tortuous emotions, he felt relieved to finally let things out. Maybe it was true that letting things out would be better for someone's health.
Exchanging secret glances, Takumi, Ryu and Eriol didn't know what to say about Syaoran's confession which he had never done before in front of them. Obviously they knew a long time ago that there were hints of maintained feelings left from Syaoran and Sakura's relationship, but never had they thought he would confess.
"YOU, Syaoran Li," Eriol emphasized, "in the most obvious way still do have feelings for Sakura. It is, however, confusing you with the guilt you feel when you betrayed her last year. It's cool that you don't feel the same way about her as the other girls. That's because this is real love you're talking about, not just some foolish games of lust that you share with the other girls. As to why you are uncomfortable when you see her around guys, that's jealousy, buddy." Eriol hit Syaoran's shoulder lightly. "You're in love, my friend!"
"No, I'm not," Syaoran protested. "I am a playboy, afterall, who knows what women think. I can 'relate' to them for I've dated way too many girls. I know I don't 'love' Sakura. I mean there is guilt within me for betraying her but definitely, it's not love. I know when it's love or not." Syaoran said proudly, proud of how he could "read" women.
His friends looked at him in disgust.
"Sure you can," teased Takumi who received a death glare from Syaoran.
"Yeah, I know you can read women but because you are a dating expertiee, you don't have the instincs like normal people to understand what realy love is like."
"W--"
"They say, love is blind. Know what that means?" Takumi. "When love is here, people tend to not realize this occurring. It makes people think twice about things which will end up causing them to make the wrong decision. There is more than one definition for this phrase, but for you, this is enough. This is what you need to consider."
"No--"
"If you want to prove we're wrong, then here's my dare." Takumi stared into Syaoran's amber eyes solemnly. "Next week is our school's award ceremony. I heard that there will be a ball in honour of Seyur Kose, the school founder. I dare you to ask Sakura to be your dance partner, but you know what, not to discourage you buddy, you will get rejected. I know that for sure. Be warned." Takumi gave a devilish grin.
Expression shifting from solemn to pride, Syaoran said, "Thanks for yor warning, but it's not needed. There's no way a girl will reject my offer." With that, he walked off into the bathroom.
"Sakura's different!" Takumi called out after Syaoran. He, Eriol, and Ryu each let out a frustrated sigh of defeat.
Valkyrie85: My gosh! This is the longest chapter I've ever written! 3 thousand something words. That's a lot, right? Anyways, I've already planned out another story to be written in a few months, hopefully before this story ends. So, stay tuned to the new story and the new chapter updates for this story! Thank you so much for supporting the story!
Oh yeah, please review! Thanks!