A quick note—to luckystar27—I would actually love to change this story title, because you're right. At one point, long ago, the title was relevant to the story, but it is no longer. Unfortunately, I feel like changing the title mid-story isn't very tactical, so I'm trying to figure that out now. I suppose I could make advance warnings for like, three chapters before I actually make the change? Okay, okay, I'll figure it out later—here's the next chapter! Please enjoy and review!
radio star
ix. an exception
Meiling strolled her way through the penthouse floor of Hiiragizawa Publications, heels clicking smartly against the marble floor. From the outside, it would not have appeared that she was anything but calm; her face appeared cheerful enough, red lips curved into a slight smile and eyebrows raised in a friendly manner.
But she was good at maintaining outward appearances—her job required it, after all. Beneath, she was livid, because she was most certain she'd been lied to.
She walked into the secretary's office with this same cheery expression on her face, and the secretary looked up from her computer, surprised to see Meiling there without an appointment. After a moment, though, a sincere smile crossed the secretary's face. "Miss Meiling, what a pleasure to see you!"
Meiling smiled back at the secretary, who'd always been one of the few genuine people she knew in this business. "Hi, Naoko. I know I don't have an appointment, but does Eriol have time to see me right now? I'm sorry about the inconvenience—I wasn't expecting to make this visit, myself."
"Oh, of course." Naoko pressed a button on an intercom speaker on her desk. "Mr. Hiiragizawa, Miss Meiling Li is here to see you—do you have time?"
There was a pause, and then Eriol's voice came through. "Sure. Send her in."
"Thanks, Naoko," Meiling said, truly grateful, and she headed inside.
The smile on Meiling's face turned into a snarl as she shut Eriol's door and made her way towards him, slamming her hands down on his desk.
Eriol scooted back a bit in his seat, adjusted his glasses, and looked back at Meiling. He knew exactly what this was about, but he thought it much wiser to feign innocence. "Meiling, what a surprise."
"Don't play games with me, Eriol. Where was Syaoran last night?" she growled, eyes aglow.
"What do you mean?" Eriol folded his hands and placed them behind his head so that she wouldn't see him fidgeting.
"You were 'too busy' to meet with us yesterday because you had to speak with the board of directors? I saw you at the time we were supposed to be meeting wining and dining some girl! Board of directors, my ass!"
Eriol sighed. It was true—he'd decided to take the free time that Syaoran had given him and take his somewhat-girlfriend, a Parisian jewelry company heiress named Natalie who was working for the year in the Japanese branch, to dinner. They'd been seeing each other for six months, and while Eriol was quite enamored with her beauty and charm—and his father certainly approved of the match—he'd reluctantly discovered in recent weeks that beneath the bravado of her name and societal reputation, he found her boring and preoccupied with things that mattered little to him. The date had been an attempt to rekindle the intense desire he'd felt for her initially, but it had failed. She had convinced him to stay the night—and in the morning, he felt that he couldn't have left any more quickly. He pinched the bridge of his nose, banishing the memories for the moment while he dealt with Meiling.
"So you've taken to stalking me, have you?"
"I'm serious about this. Syaoran put you up to it, didn't he?" Meiling said, crossing her arms. "God, he's really made a habit of disappearing on me lately."
Eriol shook his head. "Meiling, this is none of my business, and I refuse to take part in it. Have you even bothered to ask Syaoran?"
"That bastard knows I'm onto him. He hasn't answered my phone calls at all today."
"Well, there's nothing I can do about that."
"Eriol."
"Meiling."
"Come on! I know you know."
Eriol sighed. "Why is it so important to you? If I was fine with not having the meeting and he was fine with it and we managed to reschedule it to a reasonable time, what's the problem?"
"Well..." Meiling frowned, her brow furrowed as she stared absently at a painting on the wall of the office. "He hasn't been himself lately. Haven't you noticed?"
"His whole life has been a disaster in the last couple of months, of course he hasn't been himself."
"No, I mean in the last couple of weeks. I can't even describe it, but he just seems so distant. Distracted by something, almost." Meiling scoffed. "I almost want to say he's dating someone behind my back or something, but I guess that'd be impossible."
Eriol raised his eyebrows and forced himself to hide a smile. In the circus of his friend's life, perhaps the strangest thing yet was happening to him—perhaps he felt more for this paparazzo than he even realized.
He cleared his throat and straightened his expression. "Are you sure you're not just imagining things? He's seemed perfectly normal to me. As normal as he could be, anyway."
Meiling pursed her lips, and then she sighed and threw her hands up in the air. "Who knows, maybe I am going crazy. Everyone said it would happen someday with my high stress levels—well, that or a heart attack—but maybe I've finally cracked." She grinned at Eriol. "No chance you'll tell me why he canceled that meeting, then?"
"Syaoran didn't cancel anything," Eriol lied smoothly. "I did so that I could take my girlfriend on a date. It's been awhile, and I figured out of all of my clients, you guys would be the least likely to throw a fit about a postponement."
Meiling blushed. "Sorry to let you down there."
"It's all right," Eriol chuckled.
"Well, how did the date go?"
"Well enough, I suppose," he said, turning his eyes to his computer and typing away once more as he spoke.
"Uh oh."
"What?" Eriol said, stopping his typing and shutting his eyes. Hardly anything escaped Meiling; he knew this would be no different. He knew Meiling hadn't taken very well to his girlfriend when he'd introduced them, and she'd never been very secretive about her feelings on the matter when the subject arose. As one of Eriol's best friends, Meiling had been trying to convince him that Natalie was purely interested in his money and status for some time—"I'm a woman, Eriol, and I know a gold-digger when I see one!"—and even upon realizing it himself, Eriol had not been quick to admit that Meiling was right.
"'Well enough'? That's all you've got?"
"Look, Natalie is just difficult to reach sometimes, but when you do—"
"It's difficult to reach her, I think, because there's nothing to reach. She's full of hot air," Meiling said, frowning.
Eriol grimaced. "You know, I still don't buy the whole gold-digger thing, but..." He let out a long exhale. "I think you're right in that there's nothing there. Maybe it's time to pull the plug on this one."
"I knew it!"
"I appreciate your condolences."
Meiling smiled sheepishly. "Sorry. I really am—you know I want you to be happy."
Eriol smiled. "I know. Don't worry, this is for the best."
"So, what was the dealbreaker?"
In an atypical gesture, Eriol wrinkled his nose. "She spent the whole of our date last night asking me to judge each individual on the guest list for her store opening in Tokyo. Most boring two hours of my life."
Meiling snorted. "Well, I'll find you someone better."
Eriol laughed. "No, thanks. Knowing you, you'd find someone exactly like you, and I can only imagine how that would go."
Meiling rolled her eyes. "Mature, Eriol." She grinned. "Well, thanks for setting me straight. I've gotta run, but I'll see you next week at the meeting."
Eriol nodded, getting up to see Meiling to the door.
She paused before she stepped out of the room. "And I'm sure you'll find the right girl soon."
"Thanks, Meiling," Eriol said with a wry smile, and he shut the door and collapsed back in his chair.
Sakura sat in her bed, holding her phone in her lap and staring at it intently. Kero, who lay on the bed beside her, occasionally poked his nose over into her lap to see what exactly was so fascinating about the phone. Upon seeing that he was getting no reaction except an occasional, absentminded head-scratch from his owner, he would morosely place his head back on his paws.
It had been a busy day. Sakura had awoken dazed from the events of the previous evening—she'd wondered to herself if it had all simply been a dream—but having no time to sit and truly ponder it, she'd hurried her way to work before she was late. From there, she had turned in a select few photographs to an awed Yamazaki, to whom she explained that she had caught Syaoran Li sneaking his way to the studio while other paparazzi had been diverted by claims that he was to meet with Hiiragizawa Publications at that time. She'd then spent the rest of her workday writing editorials and captions in between dodging Chiharu's questions of how she'd gotten such great photographs. Despite her success and the guarantee of a great paycheck, Sakura felt that five o'clock couldn't have come more quickly. Even as she did it with Syaoran's permission, she'd felt ill at ease about handing in those photos. She'd never liked lying, as she hated the way it made her feel, and as such, she'd never been good at it.
As soon as work ended, she had rushed to meet Tomoyo, who demanded all the details of the previous day, at a nearby café. Tomoyo had screamed and ended up nearly getting them kicked out before proclaiming that Syaoran Li was totally, absolutely, positively falling for Sakura.
"Tomoyo, why do you keep saying that? I mean, I understand it's a joke, but you know jokes are only funny if there's at least a hint of truth to them—"
"I'm not joking, Sakura! I'm totally serious."
Sakura gaped at her friend from across the table, nearly choking on her coffee in the process. Tomoyo looked as solemn as she sounded.
"I don't—I don't understand," Sakura murmured.
"It all kind of adds up, don't you think? Sakura, he took you to a skyscraper rooftop at sunset to watch the city lights go on!" She sighed dreamily. "That's one of the most romantic things I've ever heard. Things like that never happen in real life—that sounds like it's straight out of a movie! What kind of guy would do that for you if he didn't like you, at least?"
"Okay, well, obviously, he's got to be fond of me if we're friends, but—"
"Without a doubt, he wants to be more than your friend."
"Tomoyo, stop."
"I mean it. I know I haven't seen it in action, but it's the only logical explanation."
"There's another logical explanation you're forgetting," Sakura said exasperatedly. "He's a nice person. He does nice things. And we're friends, I guess. Friends do nice things for each other."
Tomoyo shook her head. "You might not believe me now," she said, a smile on her face, "and he might not even see it yet. But just you wait."
Sakura had walked home from the café in a stupor even more potent than the one that had carried her to work that morning, and after eating dinner, showering, and reading all in that same hazy state, she found herself sitting on her bed, contemplating whether she should call Syaoran. She had no particular reason to call him, but she wanted to thank him for giving her the opportunity to take all those pictures. He had really saved her financially in these last few weeks—he deserved her gratitude. But the excuse wasn't enough, if she was being truly honest with herself. She'd practically suffocated him with all her gratitude in the time that they'd seen each other. For the first time since she'd met him, Sakura felt a true desire to call Syaoran just to hear his voice.
She saw his expression on the rooftop, saw the intriguing, strangely beautiful ache in his eyes—eyes that had remained steadily on her—and she shivered.
For all of her denial, Sakura truly couldn't help but wonder. What if Tomoyo was right? Her heart leapt at the thought of it. She shook her head. "There's no way," she muttered to herself. "I don't need to call him."
Kero whined and looked up at her.
"Isn't that right, Kero?" Sakura took the retriever's face in her hands and rubbed behind his ears affectionately. "I'm being silly. I don't need to call him."
But even after she put her phone back on her nightstand and lay back in bed with a book open in front of her, she found her mind wandering to him. She glanced at Kero, who met her eyes and lifted his head. "Don't judge me," she said to him, and then she set down her book, exhaled, and picked up her phone.
Ignoring the nervous gnawing in her stomach—why was she nervous?—she scrolled to "Strange Man" in her list of contacts and, before she could convince herself not to, she hit the "call" button.
"So, I think we're going to start you off with an autograph-signing at that new record store that just opened in Shibuya—that's three weeks and four days from now. From there, I've booked you onto a few variety shows," Meiling said, pointing the tip of her pen at a table of scheduled events printed on a sheet of paper which she and Syaoran were intently studying. They sat at the desk in the study of Meiling's apartment, going over Syaoran's activities for the next few months in brief.
Syaoran shuddered at the memory of the crazed atmosphere of the variety shows he'd had to frequent as a rookie in the music industry. Most participants were delighted to take part in the ridiculous activities and antics that made the shows what they were, but Syaoran's quieter nature had made him reluctant at best. As he'd gotten more and more popular and experienced, he was able to take off without going on those shows anymore; his schedule got busier, and he was able to pursue more desirable activities for promotion. However, since he'd had a break from the industry and a scandal had occurred, he understood the necessity of reaching back out to that audience again.
Meiling leaned her elbows on the desk and caught the look of repressed disgust on Syaoran's face. She sighed. "I know you hate doing those shows, but try to bear with me. It'll only be a couple of weeks, and then we can get you into the talk show circuit where you can retain more of your dignity," she said with a smirk.
Syaoran snorted.
"It's going to be a busy couple of months for you soon," Meiling said, her brow furrowed as she looked at the schedule over and over. "It's more promo than you've had to do since you first started out. Are you up for it?"
Syaoran nodded. "It won't be a problem."
Meiling grinned. "That's what I like to hear! Now, about these shows—"
Syaroan's phone rang just then, cutting Meiling off, and she looked peevishly at him. "I thought I told you to turn that off during these meetings," she snapped.
"Sorry, totally forgot," he muttered, but as he glanced down at the phone to turn it off, he lifted a brow when he saw the name that appeared on the screen: Sakura Kinomoto.
Well, that's interesting.
"Actually, Meiling, don't kill me, but I think I need to take this one," he said, and before she could protest, he walked out of the study and into the hallway, shutting the door quietly behind him.
He touched "answer" on the screen and held the phone to his ear. He was tremendously curious to see why she had called, but he tried not to let it show. "Hello?" he said, in his most casual voice.
"Hi," he heard, and for no reason at all, he was suddenly amused.
"Hey," he said back, and he waited patiently for her to come up with something to say on her end. Had she called just to talk, he wondered?
"I, uh... Well... Are you busy?"
"Not really," he said, eyeing the door to the study, wherein Meiling was probably seething waiting for him. He grinned slightly and leaned against the hallway wall opposite the door. He didn't know what had driven him to lie, but he felt himself relax just at the thought of conversing with her, and almost like a reflex reaction, he embraced the feeling wholeheartedly. It was as though he'd subconsciously sought out to prolong it.
He heard her exhale into the phone. "Thank you for yesterday. I showed my boss some of the photographs and he looked like he was in heaven. He told me I saved the magazine singlehandedly." She giggled.
Syaoran felt his amusement grow a bit. "And did you?"
"Did I what?"
"Save the magazine singlehandedly."
"Oh! Oh, no," she said, and he could hear the smile in her voice. "He's such a joker, my boss. He exaggerates everything! You'd think he would run a tighter ship, but everyone loves him regardless, so I guess there's that."
"Well, I'm glad I could help you out."
"You really did," she breathed, relief apparent in her voice. "And—I didn't tell you yesterday, but I'd never seen a sunset before, especially not like that. And the lights! Everything, really. I know I thanked you a million times yesterday, but really—thank you."
"Yeah, it's really no problem. I enjoyed it, too," Syaoran said with sincerity. It was, in retrospect, the most he'd enjoyed himself in at least a month. He hesitated, but he spoke again. "Did it help you forget about your troubles?"
"My troubles?"
"I guess it did," he said, and he chuckled.
"Oh! My—right. Yeah, it definitely did. I didn't even think about him for the rest of the night," she said.
"Good."
There was a long pause, and Syaoran suddenly felt awkward. He knew he had no reason to feel that way, as he hadn't been the one to call, but...
"So," Sakura said suddenly, her tone suddenly rushed, "Uh... The reason I'm calling is... Well, you've landed me in a bit of hot water. My boss and everyone in my office thinks I'm some great celebrity photographer now."
Syaoran could see where this was going already. He wondered if he should feel offended or used, but he didn't, for some reason. After all, wasn't he using her, too, in a way? He repressed a smile at the obvious nerves in her voice. "And?"
"And so I... I think I might need some more photographs of you soon?" she said in a small voice.
"Have you ever thought about maybe taking the old-fashioned approach and just stalking me like a normal paparazzo?" he teased, wondering if she'd take the bait.
"Oh! Well—well, I—I mean, it's..."
He grinned as he listened to her struggle for words. "I'm kidding," he said. "I know what happens when you try to act like a normal paparazzo. You just end up with a bloody nose. We don't want that again, do we?"
He heard her gasp. "Oh, you are such a jerk!"
"Ouch," he said, but he was full-on smiling now. "Come on, you know I don't mean it."
"I wouldn't be so sure," she huffed, but he could hear no real anger in her voice. "But... I know it's a lot to ask of you," she said quietly, somber again. "I understand if you don't want to do it."
Syaoran tilted his head and stared at the door to the study. He would, as Meiling said, grow very busy soon. He knew that even as soon as he got off the phone and stepped back into the room to get back to business, he would feel the weight of his stardom press down on him again.
From a young age, Syaoran had learned from his mother to seize what opportunities he saw before him. He had always drawn encouragement from that motto. As a child, he believed that he could simply see opportunities in front of him more so than other people could—the same way some claimed to see ghosts, even when others couldn't—and, true or not, it had given him the confidence to go after everything he desired. He had always thought this motto a key factor in his success.
Whatever Sakura did worked wonders for him. It was worth the ridiculous photography sessions, he thought. In fact, in a way, he didn't even mind those so much, as he was a willing participant. In the future, when his life became hectic and much busier again, there was no guarantee he'd be able to stay in contact with her. He realized how quickly he'd become accustomed to her presence and how desperately he clung to it, and although he felt strange and even a little ashamed that he was now relying on a stranger—a paparazzo, for heaven's sake—to give him a sense of normalcy and peace in his life, he wasn't going to banish it. Life was giving him an opportunity at sanity with open hands. He was going to take it.
"How about this?" he said, drumming his finger against the wall. He wasn't sure how she'd take it, but he couldn't see her passing up such an opportunity, either. "Let's make this a regular thing."
"A... A what? A regular thing? As in, we meet and you fake candids for me on a regular basis?"
"Exactly."
"Are you crazy?"
"I might be."
"But... But why? No celebrity in his right mind—"
"I know," he said, and he wondered for a moment if he should tell her exactly why he was pursuing this.
I want to put my privacy, the thing I value most, in serious jeopardy by continuing to pose for these fake candids for you, solely because you make me feel like a normal human being.
He nearly snorted at how creepy and pathetic that sounded. Best to lie, he thought. "I trust you enough not to muck up my reputation with your photos. It gives me a degree of control over my publicity," he reasoned out loud. That sounded plausible enough, didn't it?
"Oh, well... All right, if you say so," Sakura responded, although her voice still sounded surprised and slightly skeptical. "You're doing me a really big favor here, I feel like I should repay you somehow—"
The study door opened, and Meiling stuck her head out. She took one moment to look over him, lifted an eyebrow, and whispered menacingly, "If you don't get your ass back in here in one minute, I'm going to pour my coffee all over your laptop."
Syaoran rolled his eyes. "Calm down, I'll be in in a second," he muttered, covering the mouth of the phone.
Meiling narrowed her eyes at him, but she shut the door.
Syaoran turned his attention back to Sakura, who was still going on about trying to repay him, and he sighed and cut her off.
"No need," he said. You're repaying me enough as it is.
"Are you sure? There's gotta be something I can do..."
"If there is, we'll work it out later," Syaoran said, rushed now. Meiling rarely bluffed, and he had a lot of music and photos on that laptop... "Would you want to meet up next Monday, maybe? If you can afford to get out of your work somehow, I'll be leaving Hiiragizawa Publications around three that afternoon. My schedule's clear for a couple of hours after that, so you can get your pictures and then meet me around that same back entrance I showed you yesterday. I should be driving there alone, so I can drop you off wherever you need to go."
"Yeah, but what about the other paparazzi?"
"We're sending a decoy out an hour early."
"I can't believe people fall for that nonsense," Sakura muttered.
"Whatever, you almost fell for it, too," Syaoran teased, and then he glanced anxiously at the study door. "Okay, I have to go, but I'll see you next week. Text me when you're certain you can meet me then."
"Oh—all right," she said, her voice sounding surprised at the abrupt hurriedness of it all. "Well... Thank you," she said, suddenly earnest.
"Yeah, it's no problem. And," he said before he could stop himself, "thanks for calling me."
He hung up instantly, before she could form any kind of response, and he immediately started berating himself. "'Thanks for calling me'? What the hell, she probably thinks I'm a psycho," he muttered to himself before opening the door to the study and walking back in. He looked at his laptop and breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that it was dry and intact.
"So who exactly was so important that they kept you out there for—" Meiling paused to look at her watch. "—fifteen minutes?"
"An old friend from school," Syaoran said, surprised at how quickly the lie came out. He didn't like lying to Meiling, but he couldn't imagine how angry she'd be if she found out about this. "We hadn't spoken in a long time, and we agreed to meet for lunch.
"Hm," Meiling responded simply, watching him for a moment, and then she shrugged and turned back to the schedule as Syaoran sat down beside her. "Okay, so, like I was saying before, these two particular shows are the ones where you need to be particularly interactive with the other guests..."
For the second time that evening, Sakura found herself staring at her phone in her lap. This time, it was more out of shock than contemplation. Kero watched her once more, and she looked at him.
"I know I probably look crazy, Kero," she said to him in a solemn voice, "but I'm pretty sure the man I just spoke to on the phone is crazier."
Kero wagged his tail once.
"I'm going to assume that means that you agree with me," she said.
With a sigh, she put the phone back on her nightstand. Several things about that conversation had completely thrown her off, some of them more obvious than others.
For one, their conversation had flown so naturally that Sakura wasn't sure if she could continue to act like Syaoran was merely a familiar stranger. Sakura had been careful to maintain a certain distance, undoubtedly even more so because he was a celebrity and thereby almost a different entity to her, but now, she couldn't deny that some sort of pleasant, natural chemistry existed between them.
For another, she was absolutely baffled at his request to make their meetings regular. She had not seen that coming at all. While Syaoran seemed to enjoy the time he spent with her, she had believed that she was forcing herself upon him and acting more as a burden to him than anything else. Still, his reasoning was fairly sound—now more than ever, he needed to control his image. So perhaps this was a mutually beneficial relationship after all.
Oh, who am I kidding?
Clearly, Sakura was getting much more out of this than he was—and he refused any kind of compensation for it, saying vaguely that they would discuss it later, if they ever even got around to it. What was he up to?
And even if it did become a regular thing, she had no idea how it would work. She could only get candids of him at his studio or Hiiragizawa Publications or even the park beside the Royal Roast Café so many times while avoiding other paparazzi. Eventually, their plans would have to become more and more elaborate. The thought of it made her head spin.
And finally, she thought, the strangest thing, the thing that lingered most in her mind—"Thanks for calling me."
Sakura closed her eyes and saw his watching her on that rooftop once more. What was happening here? It frustrated her that she had no answers.
She sighed and looked at Kero. "You wouldn't know, would you?"
Kero looked up at her without lifting his head.
She smiled at him. "Good night, Kero," she said, and she scratched his head once more before turning out the light and lying back in her pillows.
Meiling sat at her desk, responding to various emails on her laptop and sipping occasionally at her mug of coffee. She glanced at the clock, groaning when she saw that it was already midnight. It would be a long night; she needed to send these messages before the morning.
She leaned back in her chair and rested her eyes for a moment. Syaoran had left half an hour earlier, and she could not focus.
Ever since that phone call, he had seemed extremely distracted. He was frustratingly distant in his responses, not arguing when Meiling expected him to, merely nodding along and mumbling a "yeah, that's fine" every so often. She wished she could go through his phone and see who he'd been speaking to—she highly doubted that it was some mere friend from school. Despite all the craziness in his life, Syaoran had always been a very focused person, almost to the point where it was a talent. No mere friend could cause that kind of distraction in him. And, when she had peeked out of the door to threaten him into getting off the phone, it had taken all her will not to gape at him; he'd been positively beaming, a grin stretched from one side of his face to the other. Whomever he had been speaking to on the phone had made him smile more than he had since he and Mizuki had ended their relationship.
Between his off behavior in the last few weeks, the postponed meeting with Hiiragizawa Publications, and what had occurred tonight, Meiling was rapidly becoming suspicious that something was going on behind her back. Syaoran didn't have to tell her everything that went on in his personal life, of course, but this distant, far-off behavior had the potential to interfere with his professional life. This would be the worst possible time for that to happen. And, aside from that, as much as she hated to admit it—even to herself—her feelings were a bit hurt. She wasn't just his agent, but also his cousin and a close friend. Why did he feel the need to keep a secret from her? Even Eriol seemed to be in on it, as his behavior earlier in the day had been far too evasive.
Meiling sighed. If this kept up, she decided, she would have to figure out what was going on. And she had no doubt that she could; when she set her mind to something, Meiling rarely failed.
Syaoran turned over onto his stomach as he lay in bed, opening one eye to look at the clock. It was already three in the morning, and he still could not sleep.
He was intrigued at what the establishment of regular meetings between himself and Sakura would bring. He was pathetically excited at the thought of feeling normal again, not just occasionally but on a regular basis. That feeling—like he could control where his life was going, like the whole world wasn't watching him anymore, like he didn't have to watch his back with every breath he took, or perhaps that, even if none of that were true, that it didn't even matter—was priceless and so incredibly difficult to obtain. It was as though he'd struck gold by establishing this relationship.
But that wasn't what bothered him. He didn't mind how he felt, no matter how pathetic it seemed. It was only human, he reasoned.
No, what bothered him—what truly kept him up all these hours, even as he lay with his eyes shut, was the inexplicable, gnawing excitement he felt at the thought of seeing Sakura Kinomoto on Monday afternoon.
Well, what do you think? And so begins the (arduously slow) process of falling on other side, muahaha. Next chapter, Sakura and Syaoran meet, Meiling finds out something very surprising, someone makes the first step towards coming back into one of our main character's lives, and lots of other things! Be sure to tune in then. I posted/wrote the last bit in a bit of a rush, so let me know if you find any errors, minor or glaring! Pleeeaaase leave a review on your way out, I'd love you forever! :) Happy holidays!
Love,
boreum dal
