hi, guys! just a quick note: i'm actually editing these chapters now (months and some a year or so after i've posted them, so i'm making a few changes! of course i'm editing the story as well, but i am, for the most part, getting rid of the author's notes at the beginnings of these chapters, because i mainly just use them for apologies for my lateness and gratitude for my reviews. i'll keep the notes at the end, because i like to explain certain things there and give you updates on how the next chapter is coming along. but i want you guys to know that just because i'm removing the notes from the front of the chapter doesn't mean that i'm not sorry that i don't update as frequently as you'd like-i do try, as hard as it is to believe, haha-and it also doesn't mean that i'm not thankful for your reviews. you are all so thoughtful and wonderful for leaving me such great reviews with each chapter, even when i post a chapter that i feel did not deserve so many. so, please just remember that you always have my permanent thanks (and apologies, haha). enjoy the story (and its rewrite!).


radio star

ii. paparazzo

Sakura Kinomoto pushed her shopping cart slowly through the supermarket, mentally kicking herself for forgetting to bring a grocery list. Worried she'd forget to buy something or another that she needed—and she always did—she had resorted to walking around the entire store to peruse the shelves and see if anything stood out to her.

Finding herself at the office supplies aisle, she stopped. You don't need more notebooks and pens, she chided herself, but really, who was she kidding? After hesitating only for a second, Sakura gleefully pushed her cart through the aisle and pored over the colorful notebooks and various packets of pens, reacting to the supplies as a child would to the content of a candy store.

Sakura was an aspiring journalist with a natural love for writing, and as such, she had a bit of a fetish for pretty notebooks and good pens. She had plenty at home that were unused, most notebooks only half-filled, but there was something magnificent to her about opening a blank notebook and knowing she had the power to fill it to its brim. She was addicted to the feeling, and so she found herself engaging in the bad habit of buying too many supplies when she didn't even need them.

Sighing, she forced herself to push her cart onward and out of the aisle. She'd been eyeing a cute notebook with a cartoon dog on the front that reminded her a good bit of her own dog, Kero; but she remembered her dwindling bank account and reminded herself she couldn't afford to spend money on anything she didn't need at the moment.

A recent college graduate, Sakura had ended her post-secondary education on a high note, earning high marks and a bachelor's degree with honors in journalism. She specialized in magazines and newspapers, but she was also proficient in web design and photojournalism, and she had interned for Internet news sources as well to adapt to the times. She planned on taking a couple of years off to intern with a respectable magazine, and then she hoped to attend a graduate school of her choice.

These were the facts she had listed on her résumé, which, while impressive, had failed to get her any kind of interview with any magazine to which she had applied. Everyone was reluctant to hire at the moment because the economy was in a terrible place, which meant that people were cutting things they deemed unnecessary—magazines and newspapers, for instance—out of their usual budget. Without the right connections, Sakura didn't have much hope of being hired anywhere, regardless of how good her history was.

It had been two months now that Sakura had been out of school. The only place that had called her back had done so not because of her résumé, she later found out, but because her best friend's mother, a friend of the fashion industry, had pulled what strings she could to get Sakura a job. But she had managed to bomb even that, letting her nerves get to her; she was not surprised when they did not invite her back for a job. What kind of magazine would want a bumbling, clumsy girl who didn't seem to know what she was doing to write for them? In all reality, Sakura prided herself somewhat on her writing skills and her ability to catch the audience's attention with her words, no matter the subject. But ultimately, she had been unprepared for the sudden interview, and consequently, she was unable to convey or demonstrate these abilities in the process.

As she pushed her cart up to the checkout counter, Sakura willed herself not to wince at the price of the groceries. And these are just the bare necessities, she thought. Twirling a finger through her short auburn hair, she sighed as the final price came up on the register screen, and she pulled a handful of bills out of her wallet and handed them to the cashier.

Sakura was getting desperate; she had insisted to her father that she could make it on her own, and so she had triumphantly moved into her own apartment and lived by herself in the months following college graduation. But now, she was in danger of falling behind on rent, and her budget for groceries every week was growing tighter and tighter. She had odd jobs here and there and worked part-time as a waitress to pay the bills, but it was simply not enough.

She needed a job, and she needed one soon; and at this point, she was almost willing to settle for anything.


"Tomoyo!" Sakura called, running towards a pale, black-haired, violet-eyed girl standing patiently on the sidewalk behind the diner at which Sakura worked.

"Hi, Sakura. How was work?" Tomoyo smiled kindly at her closest friend, who was busy tugging off her apron and re-tying her ponytail.

"Oh, it was ridiculous," Sakura said, her words slightly muffled as she held her hairtie between her teeth while brushing her hair into a short ponytail with her hands. Grabbing the hairtie with one hand and holding the ponytail with another, Sakura watched in exasperation as the apron she'd been holding in the crook of her arm began to flutter to the ground, which was wet with the rains of the previous day. She smiled gratefully at Tomoyo, who caught the apron just before it touched the ground. "Thanks. Anyway, it was so busy, everyone was running left and right... You know how it goes. Tourists start coming here and families start visiting since it's summertime."

"You must have made a lot of money today, then!"

Sakura sighed. "Nope."

"Why not?" Tomoyo asked, frowning at her friend. She looked exhausted.

Sakura laughed wryly. "I dropped another tray..."

Tomoyo sighed. "Again?"

Sakura nodded. "Yeah. Miki wanted to pay me in full, but she said she didn't know where the money for all the things I've broken would come from if not out of my salary."

"Friendly as she is, she's still your boss, so I guess it's only fair," Tomoyo responded.

Sakura and Tomoyo Daidouji had been friends since before either even knew how to hold a pencil. Having come from the same hometown of Tomoeda, they had attended elementary, middle, and high school together; and although they had attended different universities, both had moved to Tokyo for secondary education. Polar opposites, they were—Sakura was outgoing, clumsy, and talkative, whereas Tomoyo was more reserved, shier and quieter, and definitely the more graceful of the two. But at their roots, both were kind, intelligent, quick to trust, and incredibly insightful when it came to reading others (although not quite so much when it came to themselves), and ultimately, those factors made the bond of their friendship unbreakable, even upon entering separate colleges.

Tomoyo had also recently celebrated her college graduation, completing her major in the field of fashion design with a minor in photography, two areas that essentially defined her character. When the two girls were younger, they had dreamed of growing up and working together—Sakura writing for some posh magazine with Tomoyo's photographs to accompany the words, or Sakura writing articles on Tomoyo's latest designs. As Tomoyo's mother, Sonomi Daidouji—the woman who had pulled strings to get Sakura her botched interview—already had connections with the fashion industry, Tomoyo had her foot in the door and was destined for success. While she still had a long way to go, heads of prominent fashion houses were, as Sonomi had so proudly put it, "keeping a keen eye on her."

As Sakura was like another daughter to Sonomi and Sonomi was very well-off, she had offered countless times to pay for Sakura's rent or aid her in buying groceries, but Sakura had insisted that she work on her own to make the money, wanting to be able to respect herself. Oftentimes—like in the supermarket the other day—Sakura almost regretted her stubborn independence, but usually, she was quite satisfied with herself since she was at least trying to stay true to her word.

"So, any word on job interviews?" Tomoyo asked.

"Nope," Sakura said, sighing as they turned a corner to head to her apartment. "Maybe I should just lower my standards a little. It's not like I've tried every magazine in the city, you know?"

"Right. And it's not like everyone starts from the top! Some of the greatest stars worked their way from the bottom up!" Tomoyo responded enthusiastically, following her friend up the apartment stairs.

"True," Sakura said, turning the key in the lock and letting herself in. She dropped her bag and apron on the loveseat in the living room, plopping down herself on the sofa that sat opposite the loveseat across the coffee table. "I guess I can go job-hunting tomorrow, since I have the afternoon off... I'm so tired, though," she mumbled, letting her head loll onto the back of the sofa.

Tomoyo sat down beside Sakura, her perfect posture providing a stark contrast with her best friend's—Sakura's limbs were everywhere as she lay sprawled out over the sofa, looking rather silly. "Well, actually, I could set you up!"

Sakura grinned. "I really appreciate the thought, Tomoyo, but I thought we were going to work from bottom up here? Besides, remember what happened when your mother got me an interview? I can't afford to bomb another valuable one, they'll send my name out to all the good magazines and blackball me," she said, laughing.

"But this is from bottom up! I promise. Remember how I used to do competitive cheerleading when we were teenagers? My friend from the team, Chiharu Mihara, works for a magazine now! She's sort of seeing the editor-in-chief, so she could totally get you an interview!"

Sakura pursed her lips. "I don't know... I really want to try this on my own..."

"Sakura, you're one of the hardest-working people I know. No one will dispute that. Take some help every once in awhile! Everyone needs it, you know," Tomoyo said, and then she turned on the television and got up from the sofa. "You can sit and rest, since you're so tired from work. I'll go ahead and make dinner."

"Wait, but we were supposed to do it together—"

"Ah! What did I just say about accepting help?" Tomoyo said, her eyes flashing as she smiled. "Just relax. I can cook just fine on my own."

Uneasily, Sakura settled back into the sofa. "Well... All right. But don't hesitate to call me if you need any help."

"Got it. Oh, and think over my offer, will you?"

"Sure."


Ultimately, Sakura had given in; with every day that she had come home from work, exhausted and covered in a coat of grease from hours at the diner, the more Tomoyo's offer had plagued her. To say Tomoyo had been excited was a bit of an understatement.

"You'll go to the interview?" Tomoyo had shrieked over the phone, and Sakura had had to hold her own phone away from her ear briefly.

"Yes, yes, I'll go to the interview," Sakura had said, feeling sillier by the moment. "Yeesh, if you'd told me before how happy it would make you, I'd have taken up your offer on the spot..."

And so Tomoyo had booked the interview and sent some of Sakura's writing samples to the magazine, although she had remained mysteriously quiet on details. The magazine was called Glimmer, she'd said, and by the name, Sakura had thought it to be some kind of fashion magazine. But that was the only real detail she'd divulged, and Sakura had been left to her own devices to figure out the rest. She had looked online but gotten few reliable results; most were publications outside of Japan, let alone Tokyo, and the only one whose headquarters was within Tokyo was a gossip magazine—a tabloid. Sakura knew that Tomoyo wouldn't recommend her to a tabloid, not only because that was a little too low, but also because Sakura was embarrassingly behind on her pop culture.

So, left clueless, Sakura had merely followed Tomoyo's directions to the building on the day of the interview, hoping for the best.

And now, here she was, sitting in a flimsy-looking waiting room on an uncomfortable metal folding chair, the receptionist clicking away noisily at a keyboard. She'd been tempted to ask the receptionist exactly what the magazine specialized in, but she was worried it'd ruin her chances at making a good impression. Better to feign knowledge, she thought, and just run with whatever came her way. The lobby had held framed photographs of what Sakura figured were celebrities; she wasn't familiar with any of them, but she did recognize faces she'd seen on TV or the covers of magazines in grocery stores every once in awhile. Perhaps the magazine was an entertainment magazine, like Hito.

"Sakura Kinomoto, Mr. Yamazaki will see you now," the receptionist said, not looking up from her computer screen.

"Er... Thank you," Sakura said, bowing, and she stepped hesitantly into the editor-in-chief's office...

And had to stop herself from running out.

Sakura felt a peculiar sensation within herself as she took in her first .05-second survey of the office. For the editor-in-chief's office, the room was rather tiny and old-looking, the white walls a little too sterile and the golden-potted plants in the corners looking a little too fake. But what Sakura spent the most time observing were the covers reading Glimmer in big, bold, tacky font, framed and placed all around the room. For on those covers were the most outrageous headlines Sakura had ever seen, accompanied by pictures of people—and once again, Sakura presumed they were celebrities—all looking either shocked or angered or on the verge of tears. The headlines jumped out at her like overzealous hosts, ushering her in but in reality driving her out.

"GOLD DIGGER OR GIRLFRIEND? THE SHOCKING PAST OF HIROMI MIZUSHINO!"

"AYA MATSUURI—BAR CATFIGHT, AGAIN?"

"RYOUKU AIKANO LEAVES WIFE AND CHILDREN—'THIS IS THE LAST STRAW,' HE SHOUTS!"

"SYAORAN LI, SCANDALOUS AFFAIR WITH CRAZED FAN?"

Sakura was horrified at how intrusive these headlines seemed. I am going to kill Tomoyo! How could she ever work at a place like this? She found herself backing up towards the door she'd entered only seconds ago...

"Sakura Kinomoto?"

Sakura tore her eyes away from the framed magazine covers and looked at the person seated at the desk in the middle of the room, and to her surprise, he looked... friendly. With soft black hair and eyes that seemed to smile whether or not his lips were smiling, the editor-in-chief seemed very young—he hardly looked older than Sakura herself—and very not tabloid-editor material.

"Hello," Sakura said, rushing over to shake his hand, not wanting to seem impolite. She was sorely tempted to bolt out of there, but the man seemed too nice. She figured she could just try to let him know the situation, that she'd been set up without a clue as to what Glimmer was, and that it was just not the job for her.

"I'm Takashi Yamazaki," he said, shaking her hand enthusiastically. "Welcome to Glimmer," he said, the tone of his voice proud.

Sakura had to keep herself from laughing in spite of her horror at the situation at hand. She wondered if he knew that the name of his tabloid made it sound like a tween girls' magazine.

"I've read over your writing samples," the man said, still smiling. "You have excellent writing skills! On par grammatically and attention-grabbing, even if the subject itself might not always be of interest. I was very impressed."

"Oh, thank you," Sakura said, blushing. "Er... Mr. Yamazaki—"

"Oh, you can just call me Yamazaki," he said, throwing his hands behind his head and leaning back in his chair. "Everyone does."

"Oh—okay," Sakura said, not knowing what to make of this interview. It was hardly like the formal, rigid one she'd gone to—and bombed—before. "Y—Yamazaki, I'm not really sure if this is up my alley—I'm used to doing more formal pieces—"

"Sakura," he said, interrupting her, and the look on his face was suddenly so serious that Sakura was startled into silence. "Can I call you that?"

"Er... Yes."

"Sakura, I'll be honest with you. I'm in desperate need of good writers. Desperate. Glimmer is a fledgling magazine, and so we haven't been having the best sales. If we don't raise our numbers by next year, we'll probably go under." He sighed, and Sakura couldn't help but think that he seemed a bit too dramatic. "Look. I'm not a fool; Tomoyo told me you were looking for work at a classier, more respectable publication. But work for me for a year, and you'll actually be surprised at what kind of training you can get for the business, regardless of what sort of journalism career you'd like to pursue. I know it hardly sounds impressive to say you worked for a tabloid, but if you choose to believe me, I do have connections. I think you'll be a good worker. Prove me right through the year, and I can help you."

"Oh," Sakura stammered, blushing again. "I—I'm not embarrassed..."

"Sure you are," Yamazaki said cheerfully, all traces of his seriousness suddenly gone again. "It's okay, really. But I am serious about my offer. What do you say?"

Sakura bit her lip and looked off to the side. Thoughts of all the places that hadn't called her back, all of the nights she'd spent working at the diner, the times she'd literally had to count change to pay for her groceries, came flooding back to her, and she felt her resolve wavering. He'd said he had connections. How reliable was he? He may very well have been bluffing. A year spent working at a tabloid, as he'd said, wouldn't be that impressive, but then again, it wasn't like any other publication was running down her door trying to get her to work for them. "I really don't know..."

"I'm flexible. I'm not a terrible boss. You'll make good friends here. And... don't make me beg. Because I'm not above it!" Yamazaki added jokingly, but Sakura was uncomfortable with how easily she could see him getting on his knees, that goofy look on his face, and rubbing his hands together as he pled for her to work for him.

She pursed her lips and deliberated for a moment, but after a few seconds, she sighed. What was the use in fighting it? If she turned it down, she'd just end up regretting it later when she had to spend another night scrubbing down the grills at the diner. "All right."

"Excellent!" Yamazaki said, grinning. "Welcome to the family."

Sakura laughed nervously, unsure how to respond.

"Oh, sorry if that sounded creepy. We have a pretty small staff here, so it's like we're a family. That's all I meant," he said, sounding half-distracted as he pulled open a drawer in his desk and rummaged around for something.

"Oh," Sakura said. That sounded kind of nice.

"Here you go," Yamazaki said, pulling a manila envelope out from the drawer and placing it on the desk. "If you'll just look over these forms and go ahead and sign them. Just be sure to read everything carefully. And..." He paused and rummaged through another drawer, pulling out a smaller envelope. "Here's a review of what your first assignment will be. Look that over carefully, too. Shall we have you start next Monday?"

"Sure," Sakura said, still a bit uncertain, but even so, she found herself signing the forms.

"Great." Yamazaki enthusiastically looked over Sakura's signatures on the forms, and then he looked up with a sheepish expression on his face. "Er... I would feel bad for dragging you into this without warning you, though."

Sakura looked at him with a puzzled expression.

"Most tabloids can buy their photographs off of paparazzi, but we don't really have the funding or the connections for that kind of thing yet—at least, not for consistent sources. For now, we have our own photographers and some of our writers going around and photographing their targets as well, on occasion... I know it sounds like a lot of work, but we pay you for both the photography and the writing."

Sakura was alarmed. "I have to run around and take photographs of celebrities?"

"Only as a bit of a side job," Yamazaki said hastily.

Sakura bit her lip. She didn't know much about this whole process, but... "Won't that be difficult?"

Yamazaki shook his head. "You'd be surprised at how easy it can be."

"And the pay is more than if I were just writing?"

Yamazaki nodded solemnly.

"Well..." Sakura sighed. "I guess it wouldn't hurt. Sure, why not?"

"Great! Here's my card," Yamazaki said as he handed her a business card. "Call me if you have any questions. I'm so glad to have you on board!"


After exchanging goodbyes, Yamazaki watched as Sakura left his office. He leaned back in his chair and grinned to himself.

So maybe Glimmer wasn't in as much of a crisis as he'd made it sound; maybe he wasn't so short on staff. And getting photographs of celebrities wasn't quite as easy as he'd written it off to be. But she was an excellent writer and definitely a hard worker, and he had wanted her on his team badly, so he'd spun a few tales to get her to work there; hell, wasn't that why he was the editor-in-chief of a gossip rag?

Sakura Kinomoto had seemed fairly straight-laced, if not a bit clumsy. She was friendly, hesitant to say anything that she felt would hurt Yamazaki's feelings. It would be interesting, he thought, to observe the effects of this new world she'd just been thrust into on such a personality.


"Tomoyo, I got the job!" Sakura said into the phone, a skip in her step.

"Of course you did," Tomoyo said happily from the other end of the line. "I knew you'd do it!"

"I can't believe you referred me to a tabloid, though!"

"But you've still decided to work there." Tomoyo's voice was smug.

"Oh, whatever."

"Well, did they tell you what kind of work you'd be doing?"

Sakura examined the envelope in her arms as she walked. "He did give me an overview of my first assignment. I haven't looked at it yet."

"Well, let's hear it!"

Sakura opened up the envelope and pulled out a glossy photograph with a note paperclipped to the photo. She read the note aloud. "Tail on regular basis; attend regular locations (see back for list) and develop a schedule, if possible; try to get interviews, answers to 'essential questions' on spot; get pictures. Carry camera, preferably video camera, and tape recorder at all times. Write articles based on information gathered. Mostly, you'll receive topics." She balked. "This sounds a bit creepy..."

"I'm sure it's not as bad as it sounds," Tomoyo said reassuringly. "Who are they asking you to tail?"

"I'm not sure. It's a photograph of a guy..."

"What's he look like?"

"Dark brown hair, bright brown eyes, youngish. He's good-looking," Sakura admitted. "Is it bad that I have no idea who this guy is?"

"Any other details? That's pretty generic, but the first name that would pop into my head is Syaoran Li. I can't be sure, though. If so, you're a lucky girl. He's super-popular. And gorgeous. He's been embroiled in a bit of a scandal lately, though, which might be why he's even more of a hot topic right now."

Sakura turned the photo over and saw a name printed on the back. "Oh, you're right. That's what it says... 'Syaoran Li.'"

"Lucky!" Tomoyo squealed. "Oh, and he's recently single, too! Sakura..." Tomoyo trailed off, and Sakura could practically hear the stars in Tomoyo's eyes.

"Tomoyo, please. He's a celebrity, okay? And if he's as big as you're saying he is, it'll probably be difficult to even get a picture of him. Great," she muttered. "I haven't even started yet and they've already given me a hard assignment."

"Don't take it so seriously! Have fun. But hey, Sakura, I've gotta go, I'm meeting Mother for dinner. Call me later, maybe we can meet up!"

"Yeah, that sounds good. Talk to you soon!"

As Sakura hung up the phone, she examined the photograph once more.

I'm really starting from bottom, aren't I?


As the last chapter was all about Syaoran, this one is all about Sakura. Although her life may not be quite as exciting as Syaoran's is—hers is a lot more normal—it definitely gets more exciting with this job (which, as Yamazaki explains, is not the typical tabloid job, but a bit of a hybrid of paparazzo and tabloid journalist, for plot purposes). I hope you've enjoyed so far! Chapter three is in the finishing stages and should be up soon. Please leave a review on your way out!

Love,

boreum dal