Oddities in Oak Trees

-Three-

Li Syaoran had recalled the events that afternoon, his face buried in one of his pillows.

He had never expected that liking someone that much could feel so liberating yet suffocating at the same time.

He couldn't breathe as he thought of how Sakura's face turned beet red, her eyes widening as she said that she had no words for him. Would he, could he see her again? He had had many embarrassing moments in his life that he shrugged off, but this time, he was too embarrassed to even think. He closed his eyes shut as he recounted how he had pointed his finger at her (quite rudely at that) and how he had confessed so abruptly after she herself confessed to the man she loved as well. She had run off as he bowed at her and asked to show how much he liked her. It was evidently the wrong move, and he regretted it to no end.

He let his phone ring six times before picking it up.

"Hello?"

"Hey, dude!" It was Takashi who was on the other line.

"Yes?" Syaoran winced as he realized how irritable he sounded.

"What's the matter? You sound annoyed. Anyway, I found this cool website full of chicks you can call up anytime and get to hang out with you!"

"You are probably going to choose the blondest bimbo of the bunch. That site sounds shady; I think you shouldn't bother with it."

"What! It sounds legit enough to me! Here, I'll read out loud what the banner says: Eligible women: so glamorous will fit you like glove; truly auspicious and amazing to behold!"

"Sounds like some ad for Spanx in bad English. The ones my sisters wear from China."

"I'll hook you up with one of them."

"Wait, wha—!"

"Bye!"

The resounding sound of the call ending seemed to echo throughout the room as Syaoran held his phone stupidly in his right hand.

What just happened?

Sakura Kinomoto paced back and forth in her room. It was the first time a guy had confessed his feelings to her; she had been so keen on avoiding any confessions from the boys in her high school because she wouldn't know how to react to them. But this one, she never saw coming. Odd; the boy was truly, utterly, absolutely odd.

Yet, she was odd as well for thinking about him for too long.

Four years had gone by when she had vowed to herself that she wouldn't like anyone else, aside from Yukito.

Today should have been like all the other days for that past four years. Today should have been the time for her to hope that her unrequited love for Yukito would be returned.

She looked at the cookies Syaoran had given her, neatly kept in their plastic container. She could feel a certain magic in the air as she had thought of how he had confessed to her again. It was strange; terribly strange. Yet, it was also pleasantly strange. It was all sorts of contradictions, the way she felt.

"What do I do now?" Should she apologize for running away?

That afternoon happened so fast it was like a blur to her. What was supposed to be an innocent encounter with a new friend turned into… whatever that was. But you see: many—if not all—things happen for a reason. What Sakura would not be able to comprehend at that moment was that she was quite smitten with Li Syaoran. She was caught up with the habit of the idea of loving Yukito that she had forgotten how to break away from that thought.

Tomorrow.

Yes, she'll think about it tomorrow.

Syoaran gawked at the red wall clock at the café. It was fifteen minutes past four.

Li Syaoran had left school early that day, hoping that he would meet a certain Sakura Kinomoto at the same café again. He slapped both cheeks with both hands as if that action would be able to erase what he had done yesterday afternoon. I want to see you again, he thought to himself as he continued to slap himself silly, his cheeks reddening with each movement against his skin.

"Dude, meet your dudette!"

He swerved around to come face-to-face—well, more of face-to-chest—with a busty blonde bimbo. The same kind of girl he had described Takashi would pick out from the shady site he had visited the previous day. It was no surprise that the so-called 'dudette' had Takashi behind her, his slanted eyes appearing even more slanted as he gleefully introduced the blonde to Syaoran. Syaoran could see that her hair was bleached since she had undeniable Japanese features that didn't quite match well with the colour of her hair. He stood up from his chair and edged away from said girl, careful not to accidentally brush against her well-endowed chest.

"What's this all about?!" he hissed at a confused Takashi, who was at the moment eyeing anything but Syaoran's face.

"Well, y'see here mate, I came across that website I told you about yesterday…"

"What about it?"

"Let me finish before you lash out on me, buddy! I came across that website and I told you about the banner, didn't I?"

"…Banner?"

"It clearly said it was auspicious to date one of the girls in their site! Auspicious! Lucky, in other words! And I figured, if you date an auspicious person, being the lucky lad you are, then the luck surrounding the both of you would increase…" he counted with his fingers before holding all ten of them up ,"…TENFOLD!"

Syaoran stuttered for a good fifteen seconds before he shook his head, clearly flabbergasted at how superstitious his good friend was. "You don't have to believe everything you see as 'lucky', you do know that, don't you?"

"I'm telling you, it's true this time!" Takashi nudged the brown-haired boy towards the busty blonde. "This is Sakura."

Syaoran's eyes widened at the mention of the name. "…Sakura?"

"That's what I said!" Takashi flashed a toothy grin at him, his hands resting on the shoulders of the girl. "Have fun! And don't forget to spread the luck!" he waved his hand goodbye.

"Wait, is this even legal?!" Syaoran looked at the girl Takashi had set up for him and then to the retreating figure of his friend.

"My name means cherry blossom, you know", the blonde placed an arm around his, a playful smile gracing her red-stained lips. "You know, cherry blossoms are edible."

"I don't like to eat flowers. You can eat them yourself, but I prefer not to." He visibly tried to remove himself from the busty girl with no such luck.

"Not very friendly, are we? I don't know if you have noticed, but I'm being a delight here." she winked at Syaoran, causing him to try twice as hard to yank his arm away from her.

Another girl named Sakura, surname Kinomoto, stopped at the entrance of the café where she had met the boy who had confessed to her just the other day. She exhaled loudly as she thought to herself. Today is 'tomorrow'. She had promised herself that she would think about certain events that day, and she did that precisely. Time to go in. Part of her hoped that he wouldn't be inside.

You probably know where this would lead to.

Takashi had set up a girl (a busty one at that) with Li Syaoran. Sakura, surname Kinomoto, just wandered into the café they were in.

Syaoran's eyes looked like they were about to pop out of their sockets. "…Sakura!"

"Yes?" the blonde one looked at him, a bit confused. Her arm was still laced around his.

"Not you! The other one!"

"Oh… hello." Sakura looked at the other Sakura, and then to Syaoran. She really didn't know what was going on between the two, but the lady with him looked a good ten years older than they were. Her guess was close enough. The girl was twenty-five years old.

"I-it's not what it looks like!"

"What is it supposed to look like?"

The blonde Sakura looked at the two, one of them oblivious to what the other one was trying to explain. "It's supposed to look like we're on a date," she responded. Her response was clearly uninvited by the increasingly red Syaoran.

"Oh." For it to be less confusing, we'll call the blonde Sakura Blondie, and the Sakura Kinomoto as, well, Sakura. It was Sakura who let out the 'oh'. Syaoran couldn't tell if it was an 'oh' of disappointment or an 'oh' of comprehension.

"Well, I was just about to…" she shifted her green eyes from left to right as if in doubt of what to say next, "…get coffee! Right, that's why I'm in a coffee house, duh! Ha, ha, ha…ha…" she visibly gulped as she struggled to make it to the counter, careful not to trip over herself.

"Sakura…"

"Yes?"

"Not you, the other one! Wait, Sakura!"

Syaoran managed to break free from Blondie, staggering towards Sakura. But for all reasons we might not be able to comprehend at the moment, he tripped.

T-r-i-p-p-e-d.

Tripped.

And for all reasons we might be able to comprehend, since this is the same boy who once delighted in bashing his head against the palm of his hand, he wasn't embarrassed at all as he stood up and continued to stagger towards Sakura.

"It's really not what it looks like! You see, a friend of mine set this up since I'm lucky and she's lucky…" he pointed at himself then to Blondie, a flustered look on his face.

Sakura blinked. Twice. And then thrice. This was before she started laughing, her left hand clutching her stomach.

Now it was Syaoran who blinked. But he blinked six times instead of five. He was at first confused, and then he was angry. He pouted at the laughing Sakura, eyebrows furrowed together. "What's so funny?" Was it that hard to believe that he might have been on a date? He had confessed to her the day before, but it didn't mean that he was a hopeless case even after she ran away from him. He wasn't that bad-looking, was he?

It was the first time he grew to be self-conscious of his looks.

All seventeen years of his life, that was the only time he had thought of what he looked like: his messy hair, his awkward stance, the weird colour of his eyes. He hadn't thought that maybe… maybe he wasn't right for someone as pretty as Sakura after all.

He clenched his fists. He was probably fooling himself that he had a chance with her and all he had to do was show her how much he liked her. He bowed fervently at Sakura, who at that point had stopped laughing, realizing that it was rude to do so. "I'm sorry!" And then he ran away, all sense of hope in him gone in that one split-second.

"Guess he'll never know what he missed," grumbled Blondie as she sat in one of the empty chairs in the café, ready to call her manager.

Li Syaoran imagined being drunk as he mumbled and walked along the side of the road, a peculiar sway to his movement as he did so. He was a minor, so he couldn't buy any alcoholic beverages. And all he could do then was imagine. He was good at that anyway.

"Everybody's looking forward –hic—to the weekend—hic—weekend…" he waved his hands in the air as he sang an awkward tune, mimicking how he sounded during his first drunken night. He passed by a group of kids by the park he had found himself wandering into, their face scrunched up as they doubled over with laughter while they ran around playing tag. He frowned at the sight, remembering how the object of his affections had made fun of him.

And then he stopped in his tracks.

He took a good look at his leather shoes and then at his uniform. They had art classes that day and he noted how dirty he looked, except for his shoes (oddly enough). He felt like a fool.

That was when he made a vow to himself.

Tomorrow… tomorrow would be another day.

And he was going to make sure that he would be suitable enough for Sakura by being as 'normal' as possible.

He subconsciously combed his hair with his fingers.

That's right; tomorrow will be a new day!

It was Sakura Kinomoto's turn to gawk at the doors of the café, afraid that she had offended the odd boy she had recently taken a liking to (but not really knowing).

"Oh no…" she smacked her forehead with right hand as she let out a groan, left hand clutching the coffee she had ordered out of impulse. She thought about chasing after him but he had gone away too fast. So all she was left to do was drag her feet as she went home, her head bowed with guilt.

She looked up as she passed by the bakery as she crossed the street, wondering if the strawberry cookies were still inside. Should she wonder if Yukito was there as well? She bit her lower lip at the thought that he might be inside, but nonetheless went in the pastry shop anyway.

"Hello?" She sheepishly called out, and was relieved to find that an old woman wearing a blue apron greeted her instead of the silver-haired boy she fancied.

"May I help you, young lady?"

"Yes, umm… I'd like to know if there are still some of those strawberry cookies…?"

"…Strawberry cookies? Oh, dear, I'm afraid there aren't any for today. They didn't sell very well."

"Oh…"

"I recall only this one fine young lad bought those from our store."

"Oh…"

"I remember clearly because he was so eager buying it, you see… never thought I'd see anyone as happy as he was when he bought them. Made me happy too."

"Oh…" Sakura lowered her gaze, not really knowing what else to say aside from that. She remembered how she once was eager to give Yukito gifts back then, and how he flat-out refused them each time. And then she began to wonder why she liked him again.

Was it out of pure habit, why she still had feelings for Yukito? Or were they truly genuine?

She thought about this for a time as she exited the bakery and said her goodbye to the old woman in the shop.

She remembered the very first gift she had tried to give him. It was a letter saying that she liked him, and she recalled how she stayed up most of the night to be able to write it. She had written it as nicely as she could, careful to keep her hands from trembling, even decorating the letter with stickers. She was thirteen at the time. And she had promised to herself right then and there that he would be the only one she would love, for she was a pure-hearted girl, and we can only guess what pure-hearted girls think. He rejected her the following day, and it hurt a bit. But she still kept her hopes up.

Did she unknowingly reject Syaoran when she laughed at him? She didn't mean to, but was she being like Yukito who had always taken her feelings with a grain of salt?

These were something she had to think about for the rest of the day.

"What are you talking about? Of course you're fine just the way you are! Completely normal!" Takashi reassured Syaoran on the phone, and the russet-haired boy could easily imagine his friend waving his hands dismissively as he cradled the phone on the crook of his neck.

"I always thought I was, but I can't help but feel like I'm too… weird."

"You should've gone out with the blonde Sakura instead! She wouldn't have put those silly ideas of you being 'weird' unlike that Kinomoto chick!"

Syaoran tapped his left foot eight times before he caught himself doing so. "She wouldn't have because she got paid to do so."

"Who said she gets paid?!"

"The website. Apparently auspiciousness comes with a price."

"So… you have been looking at the site!" he could hear Takashi clap his hands with glee.

"No, I… I just remembered, okay!"

"Fine, I'll take yer word for it, matey!"

"Thanks."

"Yeah, yeah."

"You're a pretty normal guy aren't you, Takashi?"

"What?! I'm appalled by such a description! I'm super ordinary!"

"Super ordinary?"

"I mean, extraordinary! You know what I mean."

"Yes. But can you help me be 'normal'? I don't really know how and where to start. I didn't realize until now that I was so… out of her league. I'm too weird."

"Aw, shucks, buddy! You're not weird in my book. But you know: it's never a bad thing to be strange."

"I beg to differ. There are two kinds of weird: the adorable, eccentric kind and the annoying, repulsive kind. I'm more of the latter than the former."

"What! That's not true! You're as adorable as a…a… puppy curled up in bed!"

"Give me a break! In all seriousness, I need your help."

"Well, I don't really know how to be normal, since I am a bit too great to be that way, but we can ask this kid in school to help you out."

"You don't mean…?"

"Eriol Hiiragizawa!"

Syaoran could not help but groan inwardly. Eriol was the freshman who liked to trip him during club meetings. He was also the one kid in school who could and would do any 'favour' for the right price. Of course, all but favours of the sexual, drug-related or violent kind. He was only thirteen going on fourteen, after all. "Tell me more."

Syaoran was almost certain he could hear the wheels turning in his buddy's head.

A/N: For those of you wondering, in the first chapter/prologue it was mentioned that Syaoran doesn't actually have autism. He's just very strange. Enjoy the next chapters; they'll be coming soon!