Card Captor Sakura Fan Fiction ❯ Cherry Blossoms Bloom Every Spring ❯ Just Another Day ( Chapter 3 )

Cherry Blossoms Bloom Every Spring

By: Sorano

Chapter Three

Disclaimer: CCS does not belong to me. It belongs to CLAMP and Kodansha

"No! No, Meling! Don't do that! C'mon! Be a good girl! Now, give the spoon to mommy." Sakura was worn out and getting slightly pissed off. After being home a few months with her baby, she already was at the end of her rope.

Sakura was wondering if the father was Satoshi, because seemed to have a quite a mishevious streak in her. Right now the little girl was indulging in her favorite activity- flinging her food all over the room. Apparently, Meling didn't take well to even soft foods and it had been hell for Sakura to get her to eat.

"Otousan!" Sakura wailed, sitting in a heap next to her high chair. Fujitaka raced down the stairs and started to giggle when he saw his daughter covered in mashed potatoes and peas. "What's so funny? Otousan, can you please help me?" "I told you, Sakura-chan. Meling is your responsibility. If you wanted to go around scre-"

"Otousan, don't start. You've taken care of two kids and I've had none. You know more about this than I do." "Yes, and I'm done. Now it's my turn to relax and watch a new generation grow." Sakura rolled her eyes. "Meling is a little monster!" The baby cooed and Sakura grinned at her. "Sorry, Meling-chan, I didn't mean that."
"You'll just have to figure it out for yourself, Sakura-chan. Now, if you don't mind, I'm going out." "No!" Sakura cried, but was soon left all alone. "Great. Now what am I going to do?"

She smiled at the little baby. "Well, Meling, I have to clean this place up. Then you could use a bath yourself. And, you know I can't breast feed you forever. You'll have to start eating food sooner or later." The baby gurgled in response.

Sakura sighed and stood up. It seemed all she did was clean and look after Meling these days. Syaoran's birthday was the last party she had been to and she hadn't been to school since before than. She was actually starting to miss school. "It's your fault…" she reminded herself, as if she could ever forget.

She took a wet cloth and began scrubbing the floor, which was where most of Meling's lunch had landed. "Uck, I hope your not this messy when you're older, Meling-chan. And then you'll be cleaning up after yourself." Sakura rinsed the cloth and started on the walls.

The beautiful nadeshiko wallpaper had an orangish tint to it now, from last night's carrots. Sakura has always hated housecleaning, ever since she was a little girl. Now she found she could hate it even more since she was doing so much more of it.

Once she was done, she picked Meling up and carried her into the washroom. "Oh, you're getting heavy, Meling-chan. You're growing up so quickly, even though you don't eat much." It was true; Meling looked at least a whole year old, instead of only a few months.

Sakura gently set her baby in the sink, and turned the water on luke-warm. Meling giggled in delight, she loved baths. Another way in which she was different from most babies. "Maybe I'm paranoid," Sakura mumbled. "After all, what do I know about babies?"

She washed Meling's chubby body, and thing gently combed the guck out of her hair. "There, Meling-chan, don't you look pretty now?" A now familiar odor filled the room and Sakura groaned. Here was the worst part of babies. "Okiee, Meling-chan, time for me to change your diapee."

"It's not fair Syaoran gets out of this. By the time, if, we are married, Meling will already be a lot older. If I have another child, I'm making him change its diaper." She poked around in the cabinet under the sink, getting one arm on Meling at all times. "Here we go," she produced a plastic bundle. "Sesame Street okay for you today, honey?"

Actually, it had to be okay because it was the only one left. Sakura was finding diapers, especially brand names, extremely expensive. "Then why do you buy cartoons and sesame street and all?" Tomoyo had asked one day. "I want my little baby to have the best of everything." "I could make her some cloth ones that you can reuse to a hundredth how much that cost."

"We'll go shopping this afternoon, okay, Meling-chan? You like the mall." And the mall certainly liked Meling. They couldn't walk an inch without someone cooing over the baby.

Meling gave a little yawn and Sakura giggled. "Okay, honey. Time for bed." Sakura carried the little girl up to her bedroom, which used to be Touya's room, and laid her in the crib. "You take a little nap, and we'll go out in a few hours, okay?" She turned on the carousel thing and dimmed the lights.

Outside of the room, she let out a loud sigh. "I think mommy needs a nap, too. This is really hard." She went up to her room and was about to lay on her bed when she noticed the stack of papers on her drawer. Since she couldn't attend school, Fujitaka had insisted Tomoyo bring Sakura her work so she could do it at home.

"I'll never be able to catch up!" Sakura whined. "I might as well drop out of school." But Fujitaka would hear none of that. He was determined to have Sakura graduate with the rest of her class and go to university or college.

Mumbling under her breath about the injustice of it all, Sakura sat down at her desk and pulled out the first book. "Math. Great, just what I need." She read the assignment silently, trying to make sense of the figures. "Trig…we took this in school. But now I can't remember how to do it."

Unable to concentrate, Sakura found herself longing for the drugs she'd been forced to give up. Just something to perk her up. She used to bring stuff with her into class, to keep from zoning out. Now she didn't touch the stuff, for her baby's sake at least.

She was pretty lucky, in a way. She had heard many stories about how babies had been damaged or deformed because of their mother's addictions. So far Meling appeared to be fine.

"Naoko is very good at math," Sakura mused. "Maybe she can help me. And she's been wanting to see the baby." She reached for her phone and dialed Naoko's number. ""Moshi moshi?" a woman's voice answered. "Um, hi. Can I speak to Naoko please?"

"I'm sorry. Naoko is out with her friends right now." "Do you know when she'll be back?" "Probably not until late. It's some big party thing." "Okay, thanks." Sakura hung up, not bothering to leave a message.

"I'll ask Syaoran-kun when he comes over then. He's okay at math. Now what else do I have here? English, well that's okay. Japanese is okay. Science, yuck." Sakura poured through her books, deciding what she could or could not do.

Suddenly her head popped up. "Where's Kero-chan?" She hadn't noticed he had been missing. Actually she hadn't seen him around in days. His reaction to the baby was quite different. He offered Sakura his congagulations and said the baby was cute. But he had look at it quite strangely and didn't like being around it. Now he was taking off for quite long periods of time. Sakura was a little hurt. She missed Kero and it seemed he didn't spend much time with her any more.

"He probably goes over to Tomoyo's to get away from all the noise and everything," Sakura decided. "I'm sure Clow was never around any children." Sakura left it at that and stretched out on her bed.

She couldn't help but peer around the room. It was filled with how she used to be. So different than how she is now. The walls were still a bright pink; the windows cascaded in lace. Stuffed animals lay strewn all over the place. Awards were plastered to the walls, showing her younger achievements. In the closet hundreds of old battle costumes hung. Old candy wrappers cluttered the floor along with millions of Kero's video games.

A feeling of melancholy washed over Sakura and she closed her eyes. She had just drifted off into blessed sleep when a loud cry rang through the house. Sakura groaned and pulled a pillow over her head. Maybe if I ignore it, it will go away, like some bad nightmare…The crying did not stop and Sakura was forced to get up. This is your baby, she reminded herself. You're responsible for another human being.

So Sakura slowly stood and made her way down the hall to Meling's room. She could see a soft glow of the light under the door. "That's weird," Sakura mumbled. "I turned off the light, didn't I?" Goosebumps prickled her arms and she reached for the handle. She turned it slowly and peaked into the room.

Where's that light? I know there was light in here. The room was pitch black. It couldn't have been sunlight, because the curtains were drawn tight. Meling was awake in her crib, wailing. Sakura crossed the room and picked her baby up. "It's okay, Meling-chan. Mommy's here." God, she felt stupid saying that. "Are you hungry? No, you're never hungry. And you can't be wet again already. Did something scare you?"

The baby made no response, just continued to cry. Sakura peered into it's eyes and what she saw in there frightened her. A depth children do not have. This baby knew something. Creeped out, Sakura brought her daughter out into the hall, where it was bright and sunny.

"Let's go out now, okay?" Sakura spoke to the baby just to hear a voice. "We'll get away from this house for a while." She dressed Meling in a tiny pink dress with little white plastic shoes. "Aww, don't you look cute?" Sakura grinned. She was going to enjoy dressing her daughter when she was older. It was almost like a life size Barbie doll.

Fujitaka had been generous enough to buy her a new stroller because their old one was broken and ugly. It hadn't been used in fifteen years and Sakura didn't trust it to hold her daughter. Now Sakura placed Meling in it, deciding they should walk to the mall because it was such a nice day out.

It should've only taken ten minutes to walk there, but it took nearly half an hour with all the neighbors stopping to look at Meling. Most people exclaimed over how cute Meling was, but others gave Sakura odd looks and treated her coldly. Some people were outright rude with their opinions on a teenager having a child.

When Meling had first been born, Sakura used to tell some people it wasn't hers. That she was babysitting or it was her cousin. After a few weeks though, she decided that was totally wrong and unfair to her baby. No longer would she deny it was hers. She was proud, in a way, of Meling. She just wasn't proud of herself.

Shielding her eyes from the sun, Sakura glanced up. Rows of cherry blossoms formed an umbrella over them along the street. She grinned. Somehow cherry blossoms always reminded her of her childhood. "Aren't they beautiful?" she asked her daughter. Somehow the baby's smile managed to be bigger than her mother's. "You like flowers, too, don't you, Meling-chan? You're a violet. An adorable little violet."

It was a very humid day and Sakura was glad to get inside the air-conditioned mall. She didn't want Meling getting a sunburn- or herself for that matter. Like usual when she had Meling with her, she felt slightly self-conscious walking around the mall. She felt like everyone was staring at her and the baby.

"It's not that unusual," she reminded herself. "It's not like I'm the first teenager to have a baby." She pushed the stroller into Wal-Mart, ignoring everybody's open stares. "Okay, diaper aisle." Meling went through the expensive diapers a lot so Sakura knew exactly where they were.

"What kind this time, Meling-chan?" I'm going to have to get a job to afford all this. I'd have to put Meling in daycare or work nights. She sighed. Her future was looking pretty bleak. "Okay! We have Barney," she made a face. "And Pokémon. Your call, kid." Meling ignored her mother and gurgled cutely.

"Fine, I'll choose. Big scary purple dinosaur or annoying yellow mice. Hey, honey, doesn't this stuff give you nightmares?" The baby just smiled at her. "Okay, Barney is slightly cheaper so we'll go with that." She put the plastic box in the bottom of the stroller. "I'd give it to you to hold onto, Meling-chan, but we know what happens then. I'm not getting up to the cash register and discovering my purchases missing again."

Sakura loved talking to her daughter. She doubted the child could understand what she said, and certainly couldn't talk back, but she was very comfortable company. "You know, Meling-chan, when I was little I was terrified of Barney. It's all your uncle Touya's fault of course. He used to tell me all these stories of…"

Sakura babbled on as she made her way to the other end of the store until a high-pitched voice said," Are you sure you should talk that way to a baby?" She looked up and saw several teenager girls in front of her. They were very pretty; they didn't look like junkies at all.

"Miyuko, hi." Sakura plastered on a bright smile. She and these girls hadn't gotten along very well since she had quite their gang months ago. "Who's the kid?" Admie asked, stopping down on her knees. "Hi, there. Aren't you cute."

Sakura fumbled for words. Did she really want to tell these people who Meling was. "You stuck babysitting, Sakura-chan?" Sakia asked as she blew a bubble. "No, her name is Meling and she's mine." "Really? Who's the father?" "I don't know." They giggled. "And you kept her? You really are pathetic. I always knew you were a goody-goody Sakura and you went back to your little 'friends'. Now you're stuck playing mommy."

Sakura shrugged. "I've got to go." She pushed the stroller away from them but Miyuko stuck her foot out in front of the stroller and Sakura watched in horror as he tipped over. "You bitch!" she screamed and picked up her baby from the floor.

Sakura checked Meling all over and was relieved to see she appeared to be fine. "You're a stuff little thing," Sakura whispered to it. "I was sure that would've cracked your skull open." A girl overheard her and said, "be sure we don't crack your skull open, Sakura."

"Fuck off!" she yelled at them. Admie rammed the stroller into Sakura and the girls left cackling. "Adorable baby, Sakura!" they yelled over their shoulders. "I wonder if she'll be anything like you? Make sure she doesn't also turn out to be a sluty whore!"

Sakura picked herself up and put the crying baby back into the crib. She felt like crying herself. She thought that was all behind her now. That chapter in her life was over. So why had they come back? Hadn't she suffered enough in her life? Did they have to hurt her baby too?

Somberly she made her way to the checkout line and paid for her foods. The cashier, a young blond girl, smiled at her. "What a sweet baby. Is she your sister?" "No, she's mine," Sakura mumbled. The cashier looked a little shocked, but didn't say anything on it. Sakura grabbed her bag, tied it to the stroller handle, and left.

Right outside the exit was a small, old-fashioned ice cream parlor. "Just what we need, right honey?" Meling grinned, though Sakura wasn't even sure she knew what ice cream was.

One of the worst things about childbirth had to be how fat it makes you. "Men get it so easy," Sakura often complained. She had been trying to get back in shape ever since Meling was born, but it wasn't easy. She had to watch Meling almost all the time so she couldn't work out. She had always been a thin girl, so it wasn't a huge deal. Her previous years of dieting were now forgotten.

Deciding she deserved some ice cream after how hard she worked now, Sakura ordered a large chocolate sundae. She sat down at a small round both and put Meling in her lap. "I can't wait until you can hold yourself up," she told her daughter. She was always afraid she was going to drop Meling.

The sundae was delicious. Sakura enjoyed every bit of it, savoring the chocolate fudge as it slid down her throat. When was the last time she had something this good? "Do you want to try some, Meling-chan?" Sakura had asked a pediatrician about things like this who told her a little ice cream and soft things like that were okay.

"You didn't eat your lunch so you must be hungry." Sakura put a little bit in the spoon and slid it in her daughter's mouth. Meling looked surprised than smiled, reaching her chubby arms up at Sakura as if saying 'more'. Sakura fed her little bit more of the sundae, but not too much. "You're going to develop a sweet tooth like me and Kero-chan. I don't want you to ruin your dinner though." Sakura never would agree with this. That is was better to eat vegetables than candy, but she wanted to raise her daughter right.

A tall, pale man approached them. He had black hair and coal black eyes that seemed to pierce into your soul. "What a charming baby," he said. Sakura noticed that people noticed her less and less now, and only talked to or about Meling.

"What's her name?" The man asked. "Meling Murasaki Li," Sakura scowled. Something about this guy gave her the creeps. He leaned over to Sakura. "You are aware of how beautiful she is, aren't you?" "Yes," Sakura snapped, drawing away. He withdrew a card from his coat and placed it on the table.

"Mortic Infant Modeling Agency," Sakura read aloud. "You've got to be kidding me." "It pays good. And your daughter could be a star." "No, thanks," Sakura retorted. Anger flashed across his calm features for a moment, but then he smiled. "She will be ours, you know that don't you? And you know who she is?"

"Leave me alone," Sakura muttered angrily, " or I'll have them throw you out for harassment." The man bowed, strangely elegant and majestic. "As you wish, milady." As he seemed the evil villain, Sakura expected him to vanish or disappear in a puff of smoke, but he didn't. He just turned on his heel and walked out the door.

He tripped on an ice cream cone by the door and fell on his butt. "Damn cone! Reed better pay me good money for this!"

Sakura giggled and looked down at her baby. Meling was so good-tempered; she had fallen asleep in Sakura's arms. Most babies her age would be screaming if some strange man approached them. "That was weird," she stated. "But no biggie. There's lots of weirdos out there."

She tossed her empty container and the card in the garbage, put Meling back in her stroller and left. She had enough of the mall for one day and what that man said still bothered her. On the walk home, the cherry blossoms looked strangely eerie and frightening, and a cool wind had picked up. Sakura couldn't help but feel something was wrong.

Ta da! A plot! I hope everyone likes the story so far. Someone pointed out to me in a review a few things I screwed up with the timing. I'm really sorry about that. I totally forgot when Syaoran's b-day was. Another thing, I said Sakura was SIXTEEN, not SEVENTEEN. I'm not going to change the first chapter around, so just forget about it. Please keep reading and please review. Thanx so much minna for your reviews! -Sorano