Tattooed

Summary: "I've lost everything to drugs, do you know that?" Sakura told him with tears in her eyes. "The funny thing is I've never even touched a drug in my life and yet it destroyed me. It took everything." She turned to face him then. "Please, don't let it take you away from me. I won't be able to handle it, not this time, not again." S x S.

Author's Note: Fashion Fairy 26, , lhaine07, ginnna, deadflo:

Yes. I believe in magic. Magic is everything, and it is real. If it weren't for magic, you and I wouldn't be here. Truth of life.

A word to YonaxHak. She, apparently, thinks my story has made absolutely no progress so far and she thinks that I am boring her to death. Thank you for telling me what you felt. I understand, I wouldn't read a story too if it bored me. Thanks for your time anyway.

In other news, this story's DONE! Yes, that's right. Tattooed is officially done in writing. We've got exactly four chapters till the epilogue. :)

Disclaimer: Not mine.

xxxxiii.

When I was younger
I saw my daddy cry
And curse at the wind
He broke his own heart
And I watched
As he tried to reassemble it

- The Only Exception/Paramore

Kero's barks were loud that morning over the television as Sakura and Tomoyo tried to get as much work done as possible. Prancing between table cloths, jumping on piles and piles of clothes, Kero seemed to be having the time of his life. Between blanketing furniture and boxing up much needed belongings, Tomoyo decided to explain the reason for that sketch of Sakura's ending up at her doorstep one early morning.

"Mei Ling's left Glasgow," she paused then, putting in some scarves into a suitcase. "Syaoran went with her."

Sakura nodded nonchalantly. "How come?"

"I don't know. Mei Ling wouldn't say, really."

Sakura tucked her hair into a bun and huffed. "God, all this packing is exhausting."

"Which reminds me, why are you going home again?" Tomoyo asked her with her hands on her hips.

"I don't know. Don't you think it's time?"

"Time for what?" Tomoyo asked incredulously.

"Time to face my father?"

Tomoyo's eyes bored in Sakura's. "Sakura. It is never a good time to face your father but if that's what you think then fine."

Sakura sensed there shouldn't be more of a debate on the matter. She let that be and went on packing her collection of CDs and books.

"I need you to take care of Kero for me," Sakura told Tomoyo after sometime.

"Really? Sakura? A dog? As much as I love Kero, you know I don't have time for dogs."

"I can't take him with me and you know that. In any case, it's only temporary."

Tomoyo huffed as she dumped another load clothes in. "Fine. First chance I get I'm dropping him off."

Sakura smiled as she pet her sweet Kero, who'd been there with her through the hard times. She felt him tame beneath her touch and lay back on his belly for a rub. Sakura laughed. The dog was a real glutton for affection.

*.*

"I won't pretend I fully understand your reasons, Sakura, I just hope you know what you're doing." Tomoyo told her as she unloaded the trunk of the car with the few suitcases that Sakura could round up in the few days that came next. After sorting things out with the landlord, with the school, cutting off electricity, newspaper subscription, cable and telephone connection, finally, Sakura was ready to leave. Not really, no, but she was ready in the sense that all was taken care of. Mentally, Sakura had another story building altogether.

"Will you promise to call me the second you reach?" Tomoyo asked. "Never mind. I'll just call Touya anyway."

Sakura hummed in response as she shrugged on her cardigan and coat, then her backpack and bag. She loaded the luggage onto the trolley and smiled at nothing, really. Then, she pet Kero one last time, and obediently the dog held his head up, glad for the attention. Tomoyo would be taking him back to her place from here directly. Sakura sighed. She would miss Kero, even if it was only for a few weeks. Would she miss Glasgow, though? Of course not, she told herself, she was coming back after all. It would be a while maybe, but she would be back.

"You're not talking. You scare me when you don't talk."

She turned around to her best friend following her as she walked to the gates of the airport, grinning.

"Don't fake a grin at me, Kinomoto. I know you better than that. Are you scared? You know you don't have to do this. Touya can shove himself—"

"Tomoyo," she stopped her best friend from further abusing her brother. She smiled. Tomoyo was always so sweet. "I'll be fine," she told her with conviction.

"I need to have your word, Sakura, that you will come straight back if one thing goes wrong." Tomoyo said seriously, her eyes blazing.

"I promise."

"I want you to call me every day. I'll come see you as soon as I can. You know that." She told Sakura as they neared the departure gates. Sakura sighed softly. Glasgow was so beautiful in the night, always so cold and dark and mystical. It had been one of the things she'd fallen in love with.

"I know, Tomoyo."

"Sakura," Tomoyo stopped her. "One call from you and I'll be right there with you."

Sakura shook her head and chuckled. Her best friend was worrying, over reacting, and slowly, it was creeping into Sakura as well. Slithering its way into Sakura's mind, bleeding into her heart and making her wonder if Tomoyo remembered better than she herself did. It was possible. She had walked around like a corpse on most days, not knowing what to do, what to say. Sure, but then again she'd been unarmed while walking into war. Not this time, though. No. This time, she was prepared. This time, she would handle it better.

"I'll see you soon, Tomoyo." She told her best friend and hugged her tight. A kiss to her forehead and cheek, and Sakura had pushed the trolley forward before another word could have been said.

Sure, she was better prepared. Then again, it'd been so long that Sakura could barely remember why she'd been so angry with her father, why she'd left Tomoeda at all.

Kero's barks traveled all the way inside with her as she passed security to show her ticket. Sakura turned around to wave at her dog and best friend, and then, she was gone.

Maybe it was time to relive it all and see for herself why Tomoyo was so terrified of this visit back home.

*.*

"Do you want some coffee?" Sakura asked her father at the table over breakfast as she bit at her toast. Her father's toast was left untouched.

"No."

Sakura breathed in and out, once, then twice, before she kept counting her breath. She thought about that last bit of math homework she had left, and then she wondered if Hiro would help her out again. He'd helped her the last time. A complete coincidence but it was worth every coincidental second.

"I'm going to school. Are you going to work?" she asked her father, scrutinizing his rumpled suit, his eyes dull and dilated. "Are you feeling alright?"

"I'm fine," was his abrupt and crass response.

Sakura didn't bother asking again. She'd put on her headphones, turned the volume to high and peddled her way to school on Touya's bike. She missed her roller skates. She was too old for them, though. Every fourteen year old rode their bikes to school. So did Sakura.

*.*

"Would you like some coffee, miss?" asked the polite air hostess. Sakura raised her cup as she kept her eyes out the window with Beethoven playing in her ears. She always loved the window seat. It was like looking out into a dream. This high up, the clouds were like cotton balls, large and splayed around everywhere, something like in heaven. When she was younger, the first time she'd flown, she wondered if she could stop the flight and get out there and simply jump in and out of the white heavenliness.

"Excuse me," the woman, middle aged and fat and very much Japanese, said. "Can you give me that copy of the newspaper please?"

Sakura smiled and passed her the paper. The old woman thanked her. Sakura pulled away a earphone when the woman looked like she was going to say more.

"Going home?" she asked Sakura. Sakura nodded.

"Me too." She confirmed as she opened the paper. "What's your name, darling?"

"Sakura,"

"Kasumi Aganawe," she told Sakura with a grin. "Call me Kasumi, please."

Sakura nodded, looking out the window again.

"Are you married?" Kasumi asked her. Sakura snorted.

"No, are you?"

"I have been, for ten years now. I have three children, actually,"

Sakura nodded.

"I'm actually going home to visit my father," she told Sakura. Sakura blinked then.

"So am I," she told Kasumi truthfully. Kasumi nodded politely and resumed reading the paper.

Sakura stared out of the window once more, trying her very best to keep her mind off the F word.

*.*

The smell of something foul, like rusted iron or burning plastic, filled the air as Sakura entered the house. Sakura had smelled that before, and she didn't think that was the smell of burning food.

"Dad?" she called out into the house. "Are you home?"

A door slammed shut as she walked up the stairs. A sigh left her lips as she stood still, wondering why the hell her father had to be such a recluse. Since when did he start coming home in the middle of the day anyway?

She banged on his door. "Dad?" No response.

"Daddy? Is everything alright?"

No response still.

Sakura sighed and walked away, first to her room to clean up and then downstairs.

Someone had to cook for the both of them.

*.*

Sakura awoke to gentle shaking.

"Sakura?" the woman –Kasumi- gently called out. "We're at Paris."

Sakura groaned as she sat up straight and stretched as people piled along the walkway to take out their carryon baggage. She didn't even realize she'd dozed off. Sakura sat until the very end, till everyone was off board. So did Kasumi.

After having collected her backpack, she walked out of the plane, Kasumi probably behind her, smiled at the air hostess and wondered what to do about food as she walked through the aerobridge. According to Paris time, it was lunch time.

Kasumi had disappeared by the time Sakura had made it through the gate, lost somewhere with the crowd. Sakura sat down at an airport cafe and picked up a scone and some coffee. She decided not to bother more about lunch. She'd have something on the plane in three hours anyway.

Three hours. Three hours of doing nothing but waiting and wondering and thinking. Three hours of being alone with herself. She could barely stand being with herself for the twenty minutes stretch between home and school. Her i-pod was running on low, so there was no music to keep her occupied. Commuting was always the easy way to get lost in thought, not having much to ponder on in the first place was always dangerous.

Too bad she knew exactly where she was sitting; else Sakura could have sworn she was lost with the crowd too.

*.*

"Let's go eat some frozen yoghurt."

"I want dumplings,"

"Tomoyo, we always have dumplings!"

"We always have frozen yoghurt too."

They sat on the bed, clearly having reached an impasse.

"Fine, we have popsicles," Sakura offered.

"Orange flavour." Tomoyo dictated. Sakura sighed. She made her way to her father's room to search for some spare change. To her surprise, her father was searching through his drawers for something too.

"Dad?"

"How much money do you have on you, Sakura?" her father demanded to know. Sakura shook her head.

"I don't have any money, dad. I was going to take some from you."

The slam of the drawer made Sakura wince, as she shrank away from her father's approaching form, suddenly scared. He left the room without a word.

Why had she been scared?

She quietly made her way to the familiar pen-stand and emptied it, finding enough coins for two popsicles.

Apparently it wasn't enough for whatever her father had wanted to buy.

*.*

Sakura tried her very best to keep from thinking about it, about her father, about the past. As she made her way to the plane she wondered if she could ask for some wine to knock her out.

It seemed that even in sleep she couldn't find peace, so that was no option to consider. She settled into her seat, irritated. The closer she got to home, the closer the pain was, the more real it all felt.

She thought of the first time she realized that her father was a drug addict. It'd been one heartbreaking autumn evening when she'd returned home from school and found his bedroom door open for a change.

It had all happened so quickly, but Sakura registered some things quite easily.

The slurred speech, the red eyes, the powdered lines on the table, the small paper pipe, the shaking hands and legs...

"Tell me how I can help you, daddy," she had asked her father between breaths, between tears as she hugged him close, taking in his deep, musky drug like scent. How old had she been? Maybe fifteen... she wasn't sure now. She hadn't even bothered with asking him why he'd been doing it in the first place. Somewhere, deep down, she'd always known her father hadn't really coped with her mother's death.

"You can't help me darling," he told her with a pitiless smile.

"Okay, should I call Touya? He can come home and help you. I'll call him." She had gone to the phone to call him, but her father had stopped her.

"Touya can't help me,"

"Tell me who can, daddy."

"Nobody can, sweetheart." He'd told her without emotion, without effort as he slumped onto his bed and fell into sleep.

Sakura felt a tear fall over the lid of her eye onto her cheek, the wetness of the tear so fresh, it felt real. It was real. She was crying.

After all this time, after all that had happened, still thinking back over the things she'd missed, the things she hadn't known, it all still depressed her. Now, she'd agreed to go back to the same place she'd walked out of.

What was she doing?

No wonder Tomoyo had been afraid as she saw off her best friend. This was madness. There was no real way to counter a drug addict, former or not, and Sakura knew that well. What was she expected to do now? Go back to the home where her father had abused every single drug known to mankind? What was she supposed to do, go home and spend quality time with a father who'd never really been a father for her?

Touya was such a double sided fiend, Sakura thought maliciously. He'd never really understand her side of it all, and now he was making her go back home to all that was a mess and astray, where all the memories that made her break could come to life and kill her slowly, painfully, once again.

Sakura touched the bag that lay on her lap, imagining feeling the envelope she'd tucked into it against her fingertips as she thought about sleeping.

No, she decided as she pulled out the envelope, then the sheet of paper on which the sketch of her was drawn. She looked at it, wondering why she'd left Syaoran, wondering if he was happy at his home, with his sisters and family.

Sakura did not sleep through the remainder of that journey. She simply let the memories take her, and felt the tears slip past her cheeks as she wiped them off the way Syaoran would have.

Now, more than ever, she wished she'd never let go of Syaoran Li.

Now, more than ever, she wondered why fate had mixed her up with a drug addict for the second time in her life.

Nevertheless, she'd been able to let go of her father. Even now, when she'd see him, she would be practical, she would be logical and she would be detached. She would be the dutiful daughter and stay for a few months, and then she would pack up and leave for a second time, and leave it all behind once again. Fulfil her obligation as the next of kin and all that.

Sakura knew for a fact that she could never say the same about the brown eyed boy, though, the very same one who had taken her breath away with just the first glance.

And I've always lived like this
Keeping a comfortable, distance
And up until now
I had sworn to myself that I'm content
With loneliness
Because none of it was ever worth the risk

So we know who Sakura's exception is.

QUESTION: What do you think happens after death?

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