Card Captor Sakura Fan Fiction ❯ Slave for a Week ❯ Day 4 (Part 2): When Everything Goes Wrong ( Chapter 6 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

DAY 4(Part2)

When Everything Goes Wrong

Thursday, 1:50 PM

My life is officially over. I don't believe it. Consider this:

Firstly, the last time that I found myself nervously stuttering in pure, speechless defeat in front of someone was twelveyears ago, when Dad found me one afternoon drunkenly passed out on our couch and strongly reeking of alcohol. He went almost berserk when he found out that I stole his parcel of imported chocolates and even finished the entire box—but it was no surprise, really, since, unbeknownst to then-seven-year-old me, the chocolates had brandy in them. Of course, I had to face his very rare wrath, which, I tell you, is really very rare (and, needless to say, very scary)… and of course, it goes without saying that I almost thought that I would never see sunlight ever again.

And secondly, the last time that I ever conjured an unbelievably incomprehensible sentence that might as well be made with a toddler's 200-word vocabulary was two years ago, when I went to a friend's party in high school. Touya would never forget to remind me of that fateful event, just to make me explode with anger. He would wistfully recount—with a stupid grin on his face—how he called me up in my cell phone at about eleven and only got “some very inspirational words” from his “alcohol intolerant little sister” (“Meee? Dwuuunk?? I am NOOOT (hic) dwuuunk, Touya-niiiichan! I can get hwome (hic) by mysweeelf. Oooh, did you know? (hic) Dwinkin loooots of awcohol ish baaad for youuu…”).

And since I couldn't remember a lot—except being scratched just too strongly on the leg by a pesky evil cat—he would never fail to repeatedly supply me all the gruesome details. My pride, he says, was “even taller than Mount Everest” and I was too stubborn to walk home by myself, so I barged in the old woman's house next door instead… at past one in the morning. Oh, he also loves to remind me how I got mistaken as a drunken teenage burglar, angered the old lady's cat that it almost clawed my leg apart, and even threw up all over the old lady's dainty little couch. But the horrors didn't end there. While I at least managed to create a sentence that was seventy percent intelligible by eleven o'clock, it fell to a twenty-five percent Personal Worst record at one-thirty in the morning. You wouldn't even want to know what baby talk-comparable sentences came out of my then-seventeen-year-old mouth.

But all of that happened years ago. So then… Where the hell did this come from??

Me: I don't believe it. The “striking and promising young heir” is cooking.

Li: Yeah, and I'm pretty sure that you haven't even mastered the art of egg-boiling yet.

Me: Are you saying that I can't boil an EGG?

Li (laughing): Can you?

Me: Erm… I did… o-once… and it was—

Li: —inedible.

Me: Of course not! It was just a little messed up…

Li (sarcastically): Yeah, sure. But I suggest you start studying the basics of the art of hotdog-frying as well, or else you'll surely have trouble looking for a husband who will settle for instant noodles for all his unlucky life…

(stomp)

Li: OWWW! That's my foot…!

Me: So what? Your foot needs a little stomping.

Li (grimacing): For what?

Me: For being such a huge, inconsiderate psychopath. It isn't my fault that Dad kept me out of the kitchen for my entire life, you know!

Li: You harass my foot just for that?! There are such things called “jokes”, you know…!

Me: Ha, even striking and promising young heirs need their feet harassed once in a while.

Li: What's with all the “striking and promising young heir” crap anyway?

Me: You don't know that you've got a huge close-up picture of your ugly face in the Financial Times' centerfold?

Li (deadpan): Nope, no one told me that I've got a huge close-up picture of my ugly face in the Financial Times' centerfold.

Me: And no one told me that you own an enormous condo unit.

Li: That's because the only one who knows is me. And that guy who arranged the transactions, of course.

Me: Ha ha ha, very funny.

Li: Why are you being so… menopausal, anyway? What's wrong with me buying an “enormous condo unit”? You think I'd want to stay in that big house forever and torture myself with ceremony-like dinners with half of the whole clan every single day? I'm old enough to live independently, thank you very much.

Me: So in the first place, why did you choose to bring me to your family's mansion and stay there for the week, if you didn't like all that torture?

Li (laughing): Would you have liked it better if I brought you here instead?

Me: Weell, I would have honestly preferred the dinner ceremonies.

Li: Believe it or not, I thought so, too. I'm actually a pretty good guy, you know.

Me(snorting): Yeah, right.

Li: So, any more complaints that you might want me to straighten out, my lady?

Me: Now that you mentioned it, I thought we'd agreed that we would do this my way! Why do we have to go to YOUR place then?

Li: You want the fact or the truth?

Me: Pfsshh. What's the difference?

Li: Just choose.

Me: Fine. The fact.

Li: Because we agreed to be equal for the rest of the day, but we didn't exactly agree on where or where not to go.

Me: But your condo unit??

Li: Hey, don't act as if I'm going to rape you. Or would you like me to? But then again, it won't be “rape” anymore…

Me: Oh, shut up, you horny loser. You have a VERY polluted mind.

Li: And you have a VERY cute blush.

Me(blushing even more): Whatever. So what's the truth?

Li (with a serious look): You really want to know?

Me: Are you really deaf?

Li: Promise you won't step on my foot again?

Me: It depends.

Li (grinning): Well, because finally I can have you all to myself.

Me (poutingangrily): ...

Li: Do you know that you look even cuter when you do that?

Me: WHAT, are you flirting with me, Li Syaoran?

Li: Why, I do believe I am, Kinomoto Sakura. So, pasta OK for lunch?

(silence again)

Me (speechless): Uh… y-yeah… s-s-sure…

Li: This will take a while, so just make yourself at home, OK?

Me (still speechless): O-o-o-okay… B-b-but…

Li: Hmmm? What's wrong?

Me: B-believe… I-I… c-can't… p-p-pasta… y-you… c-cooking…

Li(genuinely confused): What? I didn't quite get that…

Me: Y-y-you… c-cooking… p-p-pasta…

Li: What's the matter? You're allergic?

Me: No!

Li(lookinghurt): You… don't like pasta?

Me: NO!!! Uhm… I m-mean… (breathes deeply, tries to calm self) …It's fine… I'm just going to… wait for you at the table, okay? (scurries away)

Oh, good heavens, that was unquestionably the most difficult conversation I've ever encountered in my whole life! Even after twenty more minutes of pondering, I STILL couldn't get that particular scene out of my head!

It makes me seriously wish that I have the sort of short-term memory loss that the girl in 50 First Dates had, so I could wake up everyday and only remember that it's Sunday—and that I haven't met any “striking and promising young heirs” yet.

But now that I have already found myself utterly speechless and stuttering and even managed to create baby talk to boot, yes, my life is really over. Hand me a bazooka so I could blow myself up.

Call me bigheaded, but I just couldn't accept that I've been defeated by The Most Evil One—again. I can't accept the fact that I just showed him my weak side, the part of me which I never show anyone. Why did I break down to pieces IN FRONT OF HIM? I must've acted like a prehistoric gorilla whose vocabulary only consists of three words (or maybe none at all).

Seriously, if I have to endure another dialogue like that, I'd consider finishing a Master's degree in English. Or maybe I can even study more and get a Doctorate, study until I'm 80 and can practically be an old maid forever, and then bore myself to death by studying hundreds of prepositions or some ancient literature for all my godforsaken life…

Oh Lord, what am I even blabbering about??

Deep breaths, Sakura, deep breaths. Think of the reasons why you 1. stuttered like crazy (and even worse than that stupid Professor Quirrell in Harry Potter does), 2. messed up the order of your words (no surprise that he wasn't able to understand what “believe—I—can't—pasta—you—cooking̶ 1; means), and 3. blushed like an overripe tomato (most unacceptable of all).

Hmm, maybe I was just too overacting and too overexcited that I'm going to have my favorite food in the entire universe for lunch—again. And that I can eat something other than granola bars or instant noodles or some fast-food takeout. That's all that there is to it, I promise…

…Oh, fine. So we all know that honesty is the best policy, so I better let it all out. I have always known that my strongest weakness would simply be any cute guy making my most favorite pasta—although I've always thought and believed that a cute pasta-cooking guy doesn't truly exist in this whole wide world. But still, any nice-looking guy in the same age group as mine who's standing in front of the stove, holding a spatula, and wearing an apron that actually suits him great looks really… sexy.

And although he's not wearing an apron, Li Syaoran is GENUINELY making us PASTA for lunch! How strange is that? And what's more, he's totally not just a Doable… he's pure Hottie. By the way, Tomoyo and I have this some kind of code for boys. For example, the Li family cook (who, by the way, once cooked carbonara for dinner at the Li mansion) is TOTALLY UNdoable. Hiiragizawa Eriol—TOTALLY Doable (but cannot be Hottie for me because Tomoyo would probably kill me). As for Li Syaoran … well, Undoable Hottie. Something like that.

God, his shirt is really nice. When did he change clothes? I LOVE that shirt… the way it looks so soft… and comfortable. I've never paid attention to navy blue, but it looks cute on him. He looks really hot in that——Scratch that! What's this? I think I'm having a fatal attack of memory lapse. How can I forget that he's none other than my mortal enemy himself?

Oh, and that reminds me, I'm completely alone with my mortal enemy in his condo unit. No one besides us. I mean, no moms and dads and kids from the park or just anyone at all. Ugh… Why did I ever fall for that “Let's go to some place where decent food isn't going to cost more than 700 yen” line of his in the first place? Of course he knows where to find free but absolutely decent food.

1)He has his own condominium unit that's roughly twice the size of my apartment room (or maybe even bigger). And it looks like it actually occupies the whole fifth floor of this building. Plus, the interior just looks like something that came straight out of a magazine. It looks so much like a hotel room—even the furnishings look like they're 3-D cutouts from the magazines. This small glass dining table looks like it costs more than my electricity bills.

But I still can't believe I've become so gullible. He said he knows where to find cheap-but-decent food. I actually thought he's going to accept the fact that he's not living in a world where only cost and elegance matters… But I was wrong. SO wrong! I mean, he took me to this huge hotel-like building that says “The Mansions - Azabu Towers” and I didn't even say anything like “Hey, this doesn't look like a restaurant (or anything inexpensive, for that matter)!”

2) He can actually cook. He's a living legend compared to me, who can't even cook a stupid egg properly. Sorry, but I'm going to try, I promise. Dad HAS to teach me. He never let me near any stove since I was eight, when I almost burned our whole kitchen down—and I was only trying to make myself a nice pancake for a snack! I'm convinced: Pancakes are lethal. Good thing Tomoyo always has her kitchen open for me.

But I guess looks can really be deceiving. Who knew he could cook! He doesn't have to. After all, he's the professional young entrepreneur who will own a corporation and has cooks and maids all over his mansion. At first glance, you'd never imagine him near the stove. He looks like spreadsheets. And multilogistics. And operational managements. And networking. Anyway, you get the idea: his face clearly spells B-U-S-I-N-E-S-S. At second look, probably when you've already been hanging around with him for some time, you'd conclude he's not very business-y at all. I'll bet he honestly doesn't care a bit about business. He's just the unserious, flirtatious, easy-going playboy. So really, it's not my fault that I didn't know his `other side', the `I-can-cook-and-you-can't' ego of his. He's plain mysterious. Poker-faced sometimes. Unreadable.

Hey, if he hadn't really been my enemy from the start, I could live here. His fridge looks like it will NEVER be empty at all. Look at that unopened bottle of scotch. Oh, I could live off his fridge! Or I can bug him to cook some pasta for me everyday…

Hey. Wait a minute. Oh my God, what's that? I can smell… oh nooo… spaghetti sauce…! Smells… sooo… damn… good… how… can… he… cook… like… that… mmmmm… Thirty minutes of waiting is really WORTH IT!

“I hope this isn't a very late lunch…” he said as he slowly placed the huge platter of newly-made spaghetti down on the small glass table, just perfectly in front of me. It was just there, right in front of my eyes, complete with the little clouds of steam that are soon giving away to reveal the most perfectly-created masterpiece I've ever seen.

SELF-CONTROL, SAKURA! Must. Not. Drool.

I couldn't help but gulp nervously. “N-no problem…”

“That's good to hear.” He smiled at me in reply. “I think there's some wine in the fridge. I'm just going to get the glasses, so wait there for me, OK?”

I nodded absentmindedly and watched him walk away towards the kitchen. My mind processed everything he said, and everything in my head went buzzing when I remembered that he just asked me to wait. But I don't have to obey him, right? I'm on leave from slave-work. Cut me some slack!

I could even hear my dear stomach telling me to wait no further, so I scooped down half of the pasta from the big platter onto my own plate and started wolfing down my share, not very much conscious of myself that I've become so poise-deprived that I probably looked like a hungry monkey unable to stop itself from eating its precious bananas. Who cares? I'm hungry, and the food's right there in front of me! Well, this is called the modern survival of the fittest.

I didn't a bit notice that he had already come back with two wineglasses and is now sitting at the seat across mine, until he said in a very amused voice, “I thought you'd like it.”

I instantly stopped eating and blushed with embarrassment.

He just stared at me in this half-amused, half-surprised way, with this crooked smile on his lips. I almost found it hard to contradict what he says. He looked cute just that way. For a dirty, cheating monkey, that is.

“W-w-what makes you think I like it? The sauce is t-t-too… erm… thick! And the p-pasta's too…”

He placed his hand under his chin and studied me very interestedly while I continued to babble away, his eyes seemingly infiltrating my mind through my own. After a few more moments of silence, he laughed and said pointedly, “Liar. Your nostrils are flaring.”

What WHAT WHAT?

I blushed like crazy, and my hand instinctively flew over to my face to cover up my nose.

How did he know my nostrils flare when I lie? And since when did he pay close attention to my NOSE? I mean, what made him realize that my nostrils widen like mad when I lie? Oh gosh, that's so unwomanly…! Strike two. I was humiliated in front of him AGAIN.

“…I d-don't know what you're t-talking ab-b-bout.”

Did I just stutter? Again?? Couldn't be…!

He laughed at me again, and I made another pout. What's he laughing at me for, huh? That I wasn't as poised as the size two models he had previously dated were like?

“Aww, there's that pout again! You look even cuter when you're mad, do you know that?”

I really have already heard that line in some TV drama. Oh gods, this is getting too corny. Please spare me the cliché.

“You seriously think that you can get me with all this flirting, don't you? Well, now you know that you can't just—what do you think you're doing?!”

Because the Greek god himself was just lifting the bottom of his shirt up in front of me.

Screeeaaam.

“Hey, what's wrong?” He looked genuinely surprised. “You got sauce on your mouth. I was just trying to get it off—”

—WITH THE BOTTOM OF HIS SHIRT? I leaned towards him and pointed an accusing finger. “You think I'm going to fall for that??”

But he only swiftly leaned against the table and reached on to me. Before I knew it, his mouth was against my lips as he lazily licked off the sauce from the lower side of my bottom lip.

“Wh-wha—” I felt the color rush to my face, and I did nothing but stare at him, wide-eyed.

“Mmm… sweet…”

My heart throbbed faster.

“You're really a bad liar,” was all that he said in his husky voice. And all I could do was to stare at him, open-mouthed. “Tell the truth. Was it delicious?” he asked me amusedly as he settled back onto his seat.

I tried so hard not to stutter again, but all my efforts failed when I hear myself blabbering out with a squeaky voice, “A-are you kidding?? H-how can a kiss from you be `delicious'??”

He simply smiled amusedly. “Your nostrils are flaring again.” Major blush. “And by the way, I was talking about the spaghetti sauce.”

Strike three.

Gotta finish this pasta and run away.

“Sa-ku-ra-chi! Come out, come out, wherever you are…”

Syaoran had called out to her with his best teasing singsong voice a few hundred times already, but no, little Sakura still wouldn't show herself or even anything.

What, so now we're playing hide-and-seek?

Oh, puh-lease. He's very much sure she was somewhere inside his room, if that CD rack of his smashing down the floor earlier when he was washing the remaining dishes wasn't just his imagination. Good thing that the room's carpeted, or he seriously needs to find that tantrum-throwing girl and…

Kiss her.

He would be a liar if he said that he's not attracted to her. And not just plain attracted in a physical way or something like that—what he's feeling for her is entirely different. She's definitely something else. She's different from all the girls he'd been with, he's very much sure of that, too.

Well, to start with, she's so in love with pasta that she quietly finished her plate of spaghetti, till the very last drop of the luscious spaghetti sauce, and then proceeded to wash them on the sink, so careful that she probably adored every bit of remaining sauce she was soaping away. And after that, she was gone into hiding.

That's something he liked about her. She's too unpredictable, which really makes him more curious and more interested in knowing her each passing day. She can be feisty at one point in time and she could also be a sweet innocent girl at another. And she was the only girl who actually ATE in front of him.

But he liked her because she's her. Nobody ever showed their real personality in front of him, but she was different. She could glare at him, make fun of him, or even kick his ass. She didn't try to mask the real Sakura to get people to like her. A man would be an idiot if he doesn't fall in love with her.

Hey, wait. Did he just say the L-word? No. No. No, he didn't. He can't fall in love in just four days… can he?

Bringing all those thoughts to the back of his mind, he dried his hands with the towel hung at the wall near the sink, and got two wineglasses from the cabinet and the bottle of scotch from the fridge. Maybe some more wine and a real, serious talk can settle things.

“Sakura…?”

Still no answer.

Slowly, he made his way to his bedroom, careful not to make any noise. He quietly twisted the doorknob of his room open. And there she was, lying near the edge of his bed. A music box he didn't even know he had been keeping all along sat open just next to her hand while playing the gentlest tune he'd ever heard.

She's been sleeping. So that's why.

All of a sudden, he found himself absentmindedly staring at her, unblinking. He noticed how her lips are slightly parted, curved into a little smile that made her look so serene and peaceful. He noted how long those eyelashes are, and how her hair naturally spreads out into a neat halo on the pillow…

He then realized that he's been looking at the most beautiful angel he's ever seen. And the angel was sleeping on his bed. Not that he has seen a lot of angels, but as he took in more of her sleeping form, he well concluded that she would probably look just like one. And in this case, it definitely wasn't just a dream.

His gaze trailed down and traced her perfect curves, and saw that the bottom hem of her shirt was a little pulled up, revealing a portion of her smooth, white stomach… It was as if everything else of her body that was covered by her clothing were intentionally left to his imagination.

Almost immediately, his cheeks grew warm, as if all of his blood suddenly flowed towards his face, and his heart thudded loudly inside his chest.

He shouldn't be thinking of things like that.

But his body never obeyed his thoughts. He found himself quietly walking towards his bed. He placed the music box and the wine on the side table, and then sat down on the bed beside her, leaning towards her until his forehead rested against hers. He closed his eyes.

Gods, Sakura. What are you doing to me?

He suddenly felt a pair of hands looping around his neck. His eyes opened in subtle shock. Heavy-lidded emerald green eyes stared back at him. He found himself speechless, drowning in her eyes. She looked at him with a hint of confusion, but with an expression he couldn't fully figure out.

“Syaoran…?”

It was the first time she ever called him by his first name. Her voice was tainted with heaviness, but it was enough. Hearing his name coming from her mouth was more than enough for him.

“Syaoraaan…” The way she moaned out his name made him shiver. “I hate you… Why do you always… stare at me like that…? Why—”

But he didn't let her continue. He dipped his head and claimed her mouth with his.

Just one more kiss, he told himself, to last for a lifetime in case he would never see her again… once the time that he couldn't anymore control himself comes.

Her lips were soft and innocent, yet she kissed him back so deeply that he wondered how she learned how to do it. When his tongue pressed between her lips, he didn't have to coax her lips apart—her lips, on her own will, parted beneath his in unhesitant response. And when she flattened herself against him, threading her fingers through his hair to pull him closer to her, and he could feel the warm roundness of her breasts through her shirt, he barely managed to muffle a groan.

He could be kissing her like this forever… her lips so sweet, tasting like wine…

SS—SS—SS—SS—SS—SS—SS&# 8212;SS

Syaoran pulled back enough to gaze at her eyes. “Sakura, you're drunk…” he managed to say between breaths.

Yes, she is. Sakura had known that she should have slowed down on the scotch. That even just a little bit of wine can already get her drunk. And yes, her brain was a little fuzzy, but she knew quite well what she was doing. She was kissing Li Syaoran—her master and mortal enemy—deeply. Maybe she shouldn't have motivated him to kiss her in the first place… Maybe—

He brushed a couple of strands of her hair away from her eyes. “Maybe you should—”

“Why do you care?” she just has to ask. “Why do you care about me?”

“Because you matter to me, Sakura.”

He would have to be lying. He would have to be.

“But we've only known each other for four days!”

He stared at her. “Yes, I know.” There wasn't any hint of doubt in his voice.

“But you don't know anything about me at all—”

“I do,” he countered. “You're Kinomoto Sakura. You're nineteen. You grew up in Tomoeda, your older brother has just married and your father is a famous archeologist, you work part-time in a café called Paradise Kiss, and you're the smartest person I know, since you attend the Tokyo Daigaku no less—”

“Who told you that?” she cut in quickly. “Tomoyo?”

But Syaoran only continued, “You would kill for pasta, your nostrils flare when you attempt to lie, you like eating ice cream while sitting on a swing, you were head-over-heels infatuated with the soccer team captain when you were in high school—”

“Ah, I get it now. So Tomoyo did tell you all of those.”

He took a deep breath and looked directly at her eyes, “—and I also happen to know that you hate me.”

There was a long silence before Sakura could bring herself to talk. All she could hear was the loud rain outside the windows, rapping through the glass. When she finally managed to open her mouth, she could hear her voice sounding so weak and drunken—so much that she feared that Syaoran wouldn't take her seriously.

“Admit it. You barely know me. Did you know that Touya always liked to tease me every morning and I miss the way he does that? Or that I now rarely see my Dad, or that my Mom died when I was three? Did you know that I feel out of place at Tokyo University? Did you know that I also love pizza? And that I feel so silly for liking that soccer captain jerk? I guess not. And apparently,” she shrugged, “you don't even know that I'm scared to fall in love with you, because I'm afraid of getting hurt. Again.”

Slowly, mustering all of her strength, she pushed him away and struggled to get up.

SS—SS—SS—SS—SS—SS—SS&# 8212;SS

Oh, no, did she really say all of that?

Sakura furiously blushed, jabbing the elevator button that says “G” with more force than she normally would.

Everything that came out of her mouth today was embarrassingly crazy. Unbelievably crazy. Those words were never meant to come out of her stupid, stupid mouth in the first place. Who would've thought that a simple dish of pasta would make her realize her feelings towards him?

What feelings? But are those feelings even… real? What if she was only imagining those them?

Before she even realized it, she found herself outside the building, standing silently, unmoving. The rain was falling down hard. Sudden coldness enveloped her, and the heavy rainwater soaked her clothes and made her hair stick messily on the sides of her face. Suddenly, she felt the heaviness starting to overcome her body. Her temples began to throb, as if a million hammers were pounding on her head all at the same time. A sudden dizziness that made her sway a little and almost stumble washed over her.

Was it the scotch? She had always, always known that alcohol would be her worst enemy. Just a little amount and she would almost immediately either say stupid words she didn't want to say or do stupid things that she doesn't normally do. Or was it the rain? She was feeling a bit hot, too. Was she getting a fever?

Or…

She looked behind her, but she could only see the endless drops of the heavy rain. And some people's faces fast fading from her vision. But no one was coming towards her. Maybe Syaoran wasn't planning on going after her. Maybe he doesn't care…

And when she finally collapsed down the concrete, she thought she heard someone calling out to her… But it might as well be only her imagination.