radio star

iv. momentum

"YOU MET SYAORAN LI?"

Several heads turned towards the source of the voice.

"Tomoyo, please," Sakura said, grinning nervously. For a quieter girl, she thought, Tomoyo can get awfully overenthusiastic about some things... "I know it's exciting, but we're in a public place—"

"Sorry, sorry! But that's just... incredible!" Tomoyo squealed, brightly ignoring those around them who continued to stare.

The two were catching up over lunch, both having been too busy with their work recently to meet up. Proud of her first paycheck—which, as Yamazaki had promised, had been much more than Sakura had been expecting, due to the great snapshots she'd gotten of Syaoran Li—Sakura had offered to treat her best friend, leading to a discussion of how she'd met the star and consequently gotten said paycheck.

Sakura shoveled food into her mouth, her grumbling stomach thanking her profusely, as Tomoyo fired questions at her, clearly too interested in the topic to even touch her food.

"So, what was he like?"

"He was nice. Are you going to eat or not? Because I'm starving, and if you don't want your food, I'll gladly take it. Although, I think you're skinny enough, Tomoyo, so you really shouldn't skip your meals—"

"Sakura," Tomoyo said exasperatedly, spooning some of her own food onto Sakura's plate. "You met the country's biggest star. I'm going to need a bit more of a description than that."

Sakura took a sip of her drink and swallowed, rolling her eyes. "It wasn't that big of a deal..." But her grin betrayed her. "Okay, it was pretty neat."

Tomoyo smiled. "Go on."

Sakura explained the meeting, and she appreciated how good of a listener Tomoyo was. It was already an exciting story, but Tomoyo laughed, gasped, and raised her eyebrows in all the right places, making Sakura feel like something special truly had happened, even if she had just been doing her job.

"I can't believe you didn't know who he was! I bet he was offended."

"Well, he was wearing those glasses!" Sakura protested. "And he was not offended! Otherwise he wouldn't have let me take pictures of him."

"Sakura, a word of advice: glasses are probably the flimsiest of all the celebrity disguises you'll come across in your career."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever."

"But I can't believe he let you take pictures! And he remembered your name! Oh, my God, that's so romantic," Tomoyo said, gazing out towards some indeterminate space, lost in her own world. "You two would be so pretty together..."

Sakura glanced up from her food and looked at Tomoyo with one eyebrow raised. "Let's be reasonable. I looked like a tourist going to Disney World with that camera around my neck. And I'm sure Syaoran Li, Asia's biggest celebrity, won't even remember my face."


Green eyes.

Syaoran frowned as he scratched out another line of lyrics in his notebook. He shook his head and began to rewrite the line, trying to match the words better to the melody in his head. It was awfully difficult, though, when his present thoughts had nothing to do with the words he was attempting to write down.

Not the average green. Darker, but vibrant, still. Lit up. What color would that be?

He drummed his fingers against his desk, telling himself to focus.

You called Mizuki's eyes jade eyes.

He sighed in frustration, tearing the page out altogether and crumpling it in a ball before tossing it in the waste bin under his desk. He leaned back in his chair, closing his own eyes. It was hopeless.

But that girl's eyes were different. They weren't quite jade... What color?

It had been a week since he'd had that odd run-in with the paparazzo. He initially hadn't thought much of it, other than that it was one of his funnier experiences with the media, but in one of those stray, unbound thoughts that drifted around in his head as he'd been falling asleep that night, it had occurred to him that the girl's eyes had been remarkably similar to Mizuki's. His own eyes had flown open immediately, and he had tossed and turned in bed for hours, trying to shut the thought out of his mind, until he'd finally fallen asleep. Since then, the thought had plagued him for whatever reason, popping up at the most inconvenient times in the forefront of his train of thought. And oddly, he was fixated—obsessed, really—on identifying her particular eye color.

It frustrated him that they were so similar to Mizuki's and yet something set them apart to make them distinctly different, to the point where he couldn't call them jade, the way he used to describe Mizuki's eyes. It would have been easier, he felt, if they were just the same. He found himself struggling to remember her name, which only frustrated him further.

Just why did it mean so much to him, anyway, that her eyes were like Mizuki's? Was he really that heartbroken? Syaoran wanted to laugh at himself. He had not heard from Mizuki in the two months since she'd ended things with him; she was obviously off living her life. Perhaps she was unaffected by it all. He, on the other hand, was obsessing over the eyes of a random paparazzo because they reminded him of his ex-girlfriend's. He felt truly pathetic.

He'd have to forget about it. It would become easier with time, he knew. So the girl had green eyes. Plenty of people in the world had green eyes, he reasoned. Besides, what was the likelihood that he'd ever even speak to that paparazzo again?


"So, since word's gotten out that Syaoran Li is on the promotional circuit again, he's been more of a hot topic than ever. You're going to have a hell of a time chasing him down nowadays."

"Wasn't last time enough?" Sakura groaned, leaning back in her office chair. "Chiharu, it's so much effort trying to follow him around. Not to mention, I'm losing all my dignity here."

She had walked into the office that morning and sat cheerfully at her cubicle, expecting a good few weeks of peace and little to no celebrity-chasing since her last set of photos had been so successful, but her friend and co-worker Chiharu Mihara had put a hole through those ideas as soon as she opened her mouth to say hello. Sakura was expected, she said, to follow Syaoran Li to the recording studio later today, but she'd probably have to fight for a good picture against the crowd of paparazzi bound to be there.

Chiharu laughed Sakura's naiveté. "Sakura, he's one of the biggest stars on the continent. If we want credibility, we need pictures of him."

Sakura snorted at "credibility," but Chiharu merely ignored her.

"And, with the great pictures you got of him last time," Chiharu continued, "Takashi probably thinks you're the best candidate for the job, even above our other photographers. Consider it an honor!"

Sakura sighed. "I don't know... It'll be difficult to get them the way I did last time," she said, which wasn't a lie.

Chiharu shrugged, turning her head to focus on her computer as she began to clack away at her keyboard. "You don't get pictures like that without some kind of skill. Or a connection, but obviously that's not the case here."

Sakura laughed nervously. She'd decided it was best to keep her lips sealed about how exactly she had gotten those pictures in the first place.

"You know," Chiharu said, apparently not noticing, "Before you started working here, Takashi used to send me to the press conferences and events involving Syaoran Li. They've said some interesting things about him—juicy stuff that we're just not supposed to write about."

"'They'?"

"The journalists, I mean. They come from all kinds of publications. Some work the entertainment beat for their news station, and others work for entertainment magazines like Hito."

"What could they have to say about him that you haven't heard? We work for the gossip industry," Sakura said, displeased with the bad taste the last sentence left in her mouth. It was more an admittance than anything else.

"Well," Chiharu said, chewing her pen and looking up at the ceiling, trying to remember. "They've said that he's awfully different after the scandal with that fan."

"I'd imagine so," Sakura replied with a frown. "I feel like something that traumatizing could change a person's life."

"No, no, not like that. It's just that they think Mizuki Akizawa had made him more personable to the media, and once he lost that, he kind of lost some of his luster. Like, it's easier to see how closed-off he can be, which isn't the greatest quality when you're one of the country's biggest stars, you know? He comes off kind of...into himself, I guess, because he won't talk to much of the media."

Sakura frowned. He had certainly seemed like a nice person when she'd met him, but then again, it had been a mere few minutes. Still, the thought of him being an unpleasant character bothered her—disappointed her, almost.

"Don't get me wrong," Chiharu said quickly, "they all think he's a nice guy. There's not necessarily anything wrong with him, and he's never been publicly rude. He's just not, you know, every reporter's best friend, which is frustrating when everyone wants to know so much about him. They say it could be the downfall to his comeback and his career. And I've heard reports that he's unbearably grumpy now that he doesn't have a girlfriend, which doesn't help," she giggled.

Sakura smiled and returned to her computer screen, but her brow was still furrowed. She felt more reassured about his character now, but she balked at the idea of having to brave the end of a relationship in such an intense spotlight. She had hardly been able to handle her own breakup last year, and she didn't have to talk about it with thousands of reporters wanting to know her story. She couldn't imagine the difficulty.

Sakura's cell phone went off loudly then, blaring in her pocket. One look at the screen told her it was Yamazaki, and she knew what to expect before she even opened the phone.

"Hello?" she sighed.

"Sakura, I've just gotten word that Syaoran Li is headed to the recording studio."

Sakura pursed her lips and glanced at Chiharu. It's not like I have to try to get pictures like that again. They'll understand how difficult it is with all of those other paparazzi around.

"Sakura?"

"Oh, right. Yeah, I'm on it!"


This is insane, Sakura thought to herself, struggling through masses of people and trying not to get bumped around too much. Just how important was it to get a picture of Syaoran Li entering his recording studio, anyway? Wasn't that going to be a daily affair for a while? Would it produce this kind of frenzy every day?

Sakura groaned at the thought of having to come back to this on a daily basis. She was so clearly not cut out for this job, but how could she leave it when the pay was so good? She sighed. Right. Squaring her shoulders, she took the camera off from around her neck just in time to see a black car roll up several yards away.

Immediately, the crowd of paparazzi went wild, and the chaos was a direct assault to almost all of her senses: while she was being pushed and thrown around in every direction by the people around her, the flashes going off nearly blinded her and the voices calling out Syaoran's name and asking him questions created a jumbled roar in her ears.

Trying to get a hold of herself, she stood up on her tiptoes to get a glimpse, holding her camera high above her head and clicking blindly. She saw him for a split second—Syaoran Li, hair mussed in every direction, face expressionless and eyes shielded by designer sunglasses. He was followed by an entourage of several people, and security guards were pushing back some of the paparazzi in the front of the crowd.

All this madness for a single person who, quite rightfully, Sakura thought, wouldn't give the photographers the time of day—it was unfathomable. She forgot to get more shots of him as she watched the group of people retreat into the recording studio, lost in thought.

What is it like to be so adored that it steals any semblance of sanity from your life?


"So, what do we do now?" Sakura asked timidly to a paparazzo standing beside her.

It had been about five minutes since Syaoran had disappeared into the building; Sakura had expected everyone to leave, but they had lingered behind, standing around and chatting idly, their cameras still out.

"He's bound to come out sometime," the paparazzo said gruffly, and he turned away.

Sakura sighed. Not only was this job invasive, but her colleagues also weren't the kindest. She nearly laughed to herself at how naïve that observation sounded, even to herself.

Everyone's head suddenly turned as the doors to the recording studio opened, and Syaoran Li appeared once more, his head bowed down and hair covering his eyes as several assistants ushered him quickly towards the car. The frenzy began again as the paparazzi attempted to get pictures, to reach him, struggling against security and asking him why he was leaving so soon.

Sakura was jostled among the crowd more than ever as the paparazzi shouted and scrambled to figure out where he was going and chase after him, and just as she managed to adjust her camera securely around her neck, another photographer in the crowd accidentally thrust the camera upward into her face in his hurry to leave. She felt her nose explode with pain, and she would have fallen backwards were she not cushioned by the people around her. Instead, she found herself being moved among the crowd, and struggling to regain her balance while clutching her nose, she managed to stagger her way to the outer edges and try to regain some composure. To her horror, blood was dripping everywhere, and it seemed that no one in the crowd was paying attention enough to realize she needed help.

Would it be too dramatic, she wondered wryly as she helplessly watched the paparazzi disperse to speed off after Syaoran, to leave a few drips of blood on her letter of resignation?


Syaoran glanced out the window of the upper level of the recording studio to see if the paparazzi had followed the decoy that his team had sent out, sighing in relief when he saw that they were in the process of stampeding towards the designated location. Now he would be able to record in peace for a while, and with luck, he'd also be able to leave in peace. Looking directly back below the window for a moment, however, he spotted one paparazzo who hadn't left yet. She was leaning forward on her knees, fumbling with her camera.

Wondering with suspicion what she was doing, he looked more carefully, and he widened his eyes in alarm when he saw that blood was dripping all over the sidewalk below her. She was bleeding! How had that happened?

She probably got her camera shoved in her face trying to take a picture of me, he thought, and suddenly feeling a rush of bitterness, and he began to close the curtain. However, upon one more glance, he saw that it seemed like no one was around to help her; everyone had run off after the decoy.

He clenched his jaw. To go out and bring her in would ruin the efforts that he and his team had gone through to get the paparazzi away from him, and it would blow his cover—she would likely end up telling other members of the press that he'd used a decoy in the first place, and the ruse would never work again. It was incredibly unwise to make any move to help her.

But as he watched her looking around and clutching her nose—which, judging by the blood running through her fingers, still seemed to be bleeding quite profusely—and he felt a wave of pity for her.

"Fuck," he groaned in frustration, and he ran out of the room and down the stairs.

Upon reaching the back door, he made his way out of the alleyway and towards the sidewalk carefully, making sure that no one else was around before he went out to help her. However, when he reached out and touched her arm, she let out a shriek, and he jumped back.

"Look, lady, I'm just trying to help you out here—" Syaoran stopped as she turned around and he finally caught a good glimpse of the paparazzo's face—or, rather, the top half of her face, as the lower half was covered by her hands to stop the blood flow.

It was her.

Emerald eyes, he thought dazedly in his shock. They're emerald.

Those very eyes widened at the sight of him, and she began to back away.

"Whoa, whoa, hey," he said, grabbing her arm and pulling her back before she fell into the street. "Look, I just saw you from upstairs. It looked like you needed some help. You're bleeding everywhere."

Her eyes narrowed a bit as she glanced at him and then to the right, where the rest of the paparazzi had run, and he immediately knew that she was accusing him of using a decoy.

He shrugged. "When you guys are chasing me down like that, do you honestly expect me to put up with it all the time? What can I do? Now, do you want my help or not?"

The girl seemed reluctant, much to Syaoran's surprise, as he figured a paparazzo would jump at this chance, but she let him pull her back into the building and up the stairs.


Sakura tried blindly to keep the blood from spilling over onto the floor of the building as Syaoran dragged her in and up a stairwell. It was absolutely everywhere—she was stupidly surprised that so much could come out of just a nose—and she mentally groaned to herself as she realized that her shirt was probably ruined beyond repair. She was trying very hard not to vomit; she had no real fear of blood, but in excess, it made her nauseous, even to the point where she forgot about the original pain of her nose.

Suddenly, the stairs ended and she stumbled into a sunlit office. Syaoran guided her over to a sofa and sat her down. She turned her face upward to look at him bewilderedly.

"Here, keep your head tilted forward," he said, and with surprisingly gentle fingers, he touched the base of her neck to get her to do so. "You're going to have to squeeze that middle part of your nose"—Syaoran pointed to the area on his own nose—"for a little while."

He steered her over to a sofa and sat her down, examining her carefully for a moment or two, seemingly assessing the damage. Sakura felt like a circus freak, but she knew he was only trying to help. She occupied herself with squeezing her nose and trying not to get blood on the sofa.

"Stay like that for a moment, would you?" he said, and he disappeared from Sakura's vision.

Now that she was finally sitting down, the thoughts in her head began to settle a bit more, and she wondered where she was. She didn't risk looking around for fear that more blood would come out, so she closed her eyes and leaned her back against the sofa. Did celebrities use decoys often, she wondered? She figured it wasn't a regular occurrence, or the crowd of paparazzi would have figured it out by now.

Yamazaki never told me that this was such a dangerous job, she thought, and although it sounded silly enough in her head, it really was dangerous. She'd never even been punched in the face before, let alone smacked in the nose with a five-pound camera.

Sakura felt someone sit down beside her on the sofa and opened her eyes, nearly jumping back when she saw Syaoran's amber ones staring into her own with what looked like concern.

"Are you okay?" he said, his mouth set in a frown. "Christ, you've lost a lot of blood."

He set a basin in her lap and reached up to pry her hands away from her face, but she resisted, shaking her head to indicate that more blood would come out.

"Hey, look, I can't help you if you're going to mask your entire face with your hands. Sitting there covering your face will take a lot longer than letting me help you, and you're just going to bleed all over my floor at this rate. I can't have that."

Sakura narrowed her eyes at him, but she slowly lowered her hands. She suddenly felt very conscious of the way her face probably looked—the entire bottom half of her face must have been stained red.

Syaoran, however, seemed to take no notice as he took a wet cloth and began to wipe the blood away. She watched him curiously, wondering what had prompted him to do this. He must have seen her from a window, she deduced, but why would he risk getting caught by the rest of the paparazzi to help her—especially when she was one herself?

It occurred to her only then how good an opportunity this was. But watching him, she knew she wouldn't be able to bring herself to take any pictures or even ask him any questions; how rude it would be, she thought, when he'd rushed out to help her.

He touched her very gingerly, and Sakura felt minimal pain as he began to clean up the area around her nose. He didn't seem nearly as bad as the journalists Chiharu told her about had said; perhaps they were just bitter because they were so unsuccessful in getting interviews with their number-one target very often, Sakura thought.

Maybe he really is just a nice guy who wants some privacy. I would want that, if I had to live his life.

Just then, Syaoran's eyes met hers, and Sakura inexplicably found her cheeks growing warm. Syaoran averted his eyes quickly as well.

"Don't forget to keep your head tilted forward," he murmured.

Sakura bowed her head forward, and Syaoran cleaned up the last of the blood.

Reaching down, he reached into what sounded like a bucket of ice and, a moment later, placed a pack of ice over the bridge of her nose. He grabbed one of her hands, and Sakura raised her eyebrows in surprise, but he simply placed that hand on the ice pack and stood up.

"That should do it," he said, nodding. "Hold onto that for about five minutes. It should keep down the swelling and quell the blood a little. Can you talk now?"

Sakura cleared her throat. "Yes. Thank you," she said, and she glanced up at him through her eyelashes to try to convey that she meant it.

"It's nothing," Syaoran responded, and he sat down on the sofa across the coffee table from her, studying her. She couldn't see him, as her head was still (somewhat comically, he thought) tilted forward, her eyes downcast.

So far, she had made no move to reach for the camera dangling around her neck, much to his relief. He didn't want to let his guard down, though; perhaps her injury was distracting her, but sooner or later, she'd want a picture of him.

Based on his first encounter with her, he had no idea what to make of her; she definitely didn't seem like the other paparazzi who followed him around. They were all of a certain breed, it seemed—every one of them were aggressive, persistent, sometimes annoyingly so and sometimes dangerously so. Some of them were also incredibly vicious in their methods. This girl seemed to be none of those things. Perhaps it was the doe eyes, he thought, but she looked absolutely harmless. Plus, she was tiny—and young. She looked to be around his age. What was she doing playing paparazzo, anyway? Most of them were in their thirties and forties, usually bigger and stronger men who could put on a good chase and often ram their competitors out of the way.

"I guess it'd be rude not to introduce myself," he said suddenly, although he felt awkward introducing himself again, especially to a paparazzo. "I'm Syaoran Li. I'd shake your hand, if you had any free ones."

Sakura laughed, but stopped quickly when it seemed to add pressure to her throbbing nose. "I remember. I'm Sakura Kinomoto, in case you don't remember, though. I'm sure you don't. I'd shake your hand as well—and I'd look at you, if I could."

Sakura Kinomoto. He hadn't remembered, but now he knew that it would be as easy to forget her name as it would be her eyes.

"So, Sakura," Syaoran said, grabbing his bottled water from the table and taking a swig, "mind telling me how that happened?"

"I don't really know," she responded nasally, and she glanced up at him again before readjusting the ice pack. "I think when the rest of the paparazzi were rushing off to follow your...your stunt double, or whatever he was, my camera got smashed into my face. I guess someone must have elbowed it upward or something."

Syaoran winced. "Ouch. Sure you don't need to go to the hospital?"

Sakura shook her head. "I don't think so... Did it look broken to you?"

"It's a little swollen right now. After it settles, you should check and see if your nose is crooked. Or if you're bleeding after a few more minutes, a hospital visit might be ideal."

Sakura sighed. "Great."

Syaoran eyed her, pursing his lips. He didn't want to feel bad for her—if she was indeed a paparazzo, he'd vowed to try not to have anything to do with her kind long ago. "Well, it kind of serves you right," he muttered. "If that's what you call a job, you shouldn't expect life to be easy or painless."

Sakura felt her defenses rise up. It wasn't like she wanted this job! Still, she conceded in her mind, she was the one who had taken it. No one had forced her. That said, she wasn't going to just let some guy make presumptuous statements about her, celebrity or not. "You can't make those kinds of judgments when you don't even know me, don't you think?"

"Sure, I know you," Syaoran scoffed. "What's there to really know about you? You're all the same. You have a camera around your neck, and I'm willing to bet anything you have a tape recorder in your pocket. You may very well have hit'record' right when we set foot into this room—or even right when I grabbed you on the street."

Sakura felt her stomach forming into knots. He was right about the tape recorder being in her pocket, but she'd made a conscious decision not to pull anything like that on him from the moment she'd realized she had that kind of opportunity—how dare he?

His voice grew colder, and Sakura found herself shocked and confused at the sudden change in his mood.

"You're willing to do anything for money, even if it means ruining people's lives. You've got no shame, and I wouldn't be surprised if you actually took a little pleasure in stalking people the way you do—"

"Stop," Sakura said, but her voice was too soft. He continued.

"And you know what the greatest thing about your job is? Nobody is ever going to take you seriously after this, except more people of your kind. How impressive is it that you follow people around like a lost puppy all day, snapping photographs of them and making hell for them with your godforsaken questions? On what resumé would that look impressive?"

Sakura's eyes widened. How he had known to bring up such a thing, she had no idea; but he'd certainly hit her weak spot.

Syaoran sneered. "I hate people like you," he said, and the venom in his voice surprised Sakura. "You guys are pathetic, really, a complete mockery of journalists—of human beings, even—"

"Stop it!" Sakura shouted, and she winced as the shout increased the pressure on her the ice pack down, she stood up."What right do you have to talk about me like that? You think you know everything, don't you? You know, I thought you were a nice guy. I thought the journalists I've heard about were wrong about you—"

"Journalists?" Syaoran laughed mirthlessly. "A little delusional there, are we? Did you get brain damage when you got hit in the nose, too?"

"Journalists," Sakura spat, feeling more anger than she could fathom. "Not paparazzi. Journalists who kiss your ass in their articles, but when they put the pen down or shut their laptops, you know what they say? They say that you're self-centered, anti-social, and egotistical, and that if you're going to be anywhere near the level of success you had before, you'd better get your act together."

Syaoran stared at her in shock, suddenly out of things to say, and Sakura registered that she'd hit a sore subject. She'd exaggerated Chiharu's words a bit, but she felt far too angry to care. She grabbed her camera and the tape recorder from her pocket and flung them at the sofa, causing Syaoran to jump back a little.

"And what the hell do you know about me? Sure, I might have a camera and a tape recorder, but I want you to know that I would never take advantage of someone who had stuck out his neck to help me, because contrary to your belief, I'm a good person!" she shouted. "Who the hell do you think you are, assuming like that? Seems like you don't know me very well after all, do you?"

She was breathing hard now, and as her shoulders heaved up and down with her breaths, she vaguely realized that there was a thin stream of blood coming out of her nose. Sighing, she wiped at it with her wrist, glaring at Syaoran all the while.

Syaoran swallowed, not knowing what to say. He hadn't expected her to lash out like that, but he also hadn't realized how carried away he'd been getting with his words. He looked at the tape recorder, which wasn't even on; and it was true that she had not taken a single picture since she'd set foot in the room. He couldn't believe he felt guilty, but...well, he did.

And now, she was bleeding again, and he knew that wasn't a good sign.

"Hey," he said, standing up and walking over towards her.

"Stay the hell away from me," she said, backing up.

Syaoran put his hands up, trying to show that he was done. "Look, I'm sorry. I didn't... I didn't mean what I said. It's just—my life has been ruined countless times by the media, so I'm a little sensitive about it. But it's clear that you're not going to disrespect my privacy, and I thank you for that. Now," he said, tentatively taking another step towards her, "please let me get you to the hospital. It's been twenty minutes at the very least since you got hit, and you're still bleeding. That's not good."

Sakura's glare softened into a frown, and she sniffled, realizing that she really was still bleeding—after she'd wiped it away the first time, the stream had reappeared, still thin but quite steady. Had it been that long since she'd been hit? Her nose suddenly hurt very much.

"Ow," she whimpered.

In spite of himself, Syaoran let out a chuckle. "Yeah."

Sakura glared at him again. "Are you laughing at me now?"

Syaoran quickly recomposed his expression. "No! No, not at all."

Sakura let out a frustrated sigh. "Look, I appreciate the help and all, but I can just catch a bus to the hospital—"

"Not only would that take too long, but you look like you just came back from the dead with all that blood on your shirt. I'd advise you to come with me," he said, raising an eyebrow.

Sakura glanced down at her bloodstained white button-down and moaned. She glanced back at him, and she clenched her fist at his "I-told-you-so" expression. "Fine," she grumbled, and she grabbed her camera and tape recorder off the sofa. "Let's go."

"I'll help you down the stairs."

"No, I don't need your help, thank you," Sakura said, snatching her hand away as he tried to take it.

Syaoran shrugged. "Suit yourself."

Sakura followed him out of the room and into the stairwell, her thumb and forefinger still pinching the bridge of her nose and her feet clanking on the metal staircase. This was so ridiculous, she thought. How did she manage to land herself in a situation like this? It would certainly be a story to tell Tomoyo whenever she got out of it—

"Whoa!" she yelped, her voice echoing in the stairwell as she slipped backward down a stair, and she winced as she fell, expecting a burst of pain as she readied herself for the crack of her head colliding with metal—but instead, she landed into softness as a pair of arms shot out to support her. She opened her eyes, only to find that Syaoran's were watching her with an intensity that made her stomach churn.

"Careful," he murmured, and Sakura could feel his breath on her face, he was so close.

Standing her back up, he continued on. Sakura watched after him a moment, wondering what had just passed between them, but she shook her head and brushed it off as mere imagination.

Wandering to the back of the building, Syaoran dug out his keys and pressed a button, causing one of the few cars in the parking lot to beep open.

Sakura followed him out to the sleek black Audi, and she frowned. "Is this your car? You didn't drive here, I thought..."

Syaoran shrugged, opening her door for her before going back around the car to get into his own seat. "The decoy took my ride. This is a spare car. I drove it here a few days ago and left it when I rode back with my agent."

Sakura's eyes went wide as she registered that this was his spare. She could hardly imagine being able to afford even just one car like this in a lifetime.

As she buckled herself in and Syaoran started the engine, she looked out the window to avoid making eye contact with him. It was strange, but she didn't feel like she was in the presence of a celebrity at all, minus the extravagant car.

Oh, yeah. This is definitely going to be a story for Tomoyo.


And so begins the love-hate relationship, haha. More interaction between these two in the next chapter, and perhaps even the beginning of a real friendship between them. And we learn more about Sakura's background, as promised! I really hope you guys liked it. I appreciate any feedback, so please review, review, review!

Love,

boreum dal