"What shall we talk about then?"
His reply was as smooth as ever.
"We shall discuss the meaning of life if you want Daidouji-san."
She frowned at him.
Of course in the event that a person frowns one does not necessarily notice how beautiful said person's lips are.
But he was noticing.
- - -
Blind Date
Copyright Jess-chan
Disclaimer: I wish I did, but I don't own Eriol and Tomoyo… and the rest of Card Captor Sakura for that matter. In the event that I did own them I can assure the reader there would be more moments between the two. I also do not own, nor am I affiliated with the authors mentioned in the story and their respective books.
Author's Notes: For Sky… this is for not updating my other ET story. For Sheo-niichan… this is for reading everything we write. For Aine… this is for being Aine. For Eina… this is for working on that site. Beware of OCC-ness. And it is quite AU-ish. And if anyone wants to know Eriol and Tomoyo are somewhere between the ages fourteen to sixteen.
- - -
I. Reader, meet The Psycho
Sakura had done it again.
But this time she had really done it.
Really, really done it.
She could take preps, computer geeks, punks, snobs, guys half her age (it only happened once), and maybe even gigolos… but a psycho like Hiiragizawa Eriol was too much.
Simply too much…
Sakura, while in a particularly rare moment of insight and irregularity (for she could always predict her best friend), told her that the reason she did not like The Psycho (also known as Hiiragizawa Eriol) was because of her (quote-unquote) fear of being unable to read and understand him. She did not even want to know what she meant… although she did have a pretty good idea.
The Psycho.
She did not know whether to laugh or to frown at this.
She was usually above childish name-calling.
But for her, Hiiragizawa Eriol deserved it.
Why he deserved such unfriendliness from her however was a completely different story.
Truth to be told she did not know herself.
Moving along let us go back to Tomoyo's current source of misery.
So here she was.
But wait… she hardly used the word misery come to think of it. She was, after all, a person with a usually sunny disposition.
Misery was a word that she reserved for the words: blind date.
With the above statement we can conclude that said blind dates usually ended… let us say… rather disastrously.
Today, she was not sitting in the usual classy restaurant, nor was she resting under the shade of a tree with a beautifully prepared picnic. He did not bring her to a park or a carnival or even the zoo (1).
Instead she was walking (or rather vainly trying to catch up) after The Psycho (or Hiiragizawa Eriol as the authoress would like to remind you all) as he practically skipped through the Supermarket.
The Supermarket, as any fool could tell, was (and is) not an appropriate venue for a date for the obvious lack of romantic atmosphere.
But then what would one expect from someone like The Psycho?
The unexpected of course, mused Tomoyo.
She watched in slight bemusement as he offhandedly grabbed a bottle of what Tomoyo recognized as green tea. On closer inspection she noticed that it was flavored lemon.
With that done he wasted no time and promptly headed for the counter.
Grateful that the usual line of people was absent, she followed him with her sandals and its tasteful three-inch heels clicking rather noisily against the floor.
(1) It is on that very unfortunate event that the Card Mistress convinced Tomoyo to go on a friendly date with a first grader who was said to be quite smitten with her. It was all going well. In fact Tomoyo was starting to enjoy the company until what's-his-name tried to kiss her. Up to this day the Card Mistress could not mention the event without bursting into laughter.
- - -
II. The Fine Line
Smiling boyishly at the girl behind the counter (who, not surprisingly, blushed) he paid for the bottle of green tea, and without looking back, walked to the door purposely.
The clicking behind him was a dead give-away.
He smiled a smile that Tomoyo would've described as psychotic (not of course that he would know of this but even if he did he would only smile more) but to the rest of female population it was a heart-melting, knee-weakening kind of smile and so he went on his merry, little way.
Eriol was trying his best not to skip.
He was going to spend the afternoon with the love of his life with every intention of having her to fall in love with him.
Or rather… of having her to realize she was in love with him.
It is no wonder that Li Syaoran would call our hero arrogant.
On the contrary (as our hero loves to contradict everyone else for the sole purpose of annoying them), he would merely call himself self-confident.
Aah, how he loved being evil (not necessarily evil, but something a little closer to conniving) sometimes. He resisted the urge to steeple his fingers together and laugh a maniacal laugh (if he did give in to the urge this would've only prove Tomoyo's hypothesis on him being psychotic true).
It was no secret to him that Daidouji-san did not like him.
In fact he would go as far as saying that she hated him.
This was not so unusual really.
He was not exactly Mr. Congeniality.
Daidouji-san hating him did not bother him one bit.
There was, after all, a fine line between love and its opposite.
And hate is still the closest thing to love itself.
- - -
III. Touch
Walking.
All they had been doing was walking.
Even during her faithful date in the zoo (in the future she would conveniently forget that she ever dated someone half her age, though she would not be surprised if Sakura did the remembering for her) they had taken rather frequent breaks as her date oohed and aahed over the animals.
She silently berated herself for wearing heels.
Just when she thought they were going to walk the whole of Tomoeda, The Psycho stopped in front of a humble bookshop situated between a rather popular sidewalk café and a dress shop.
To her surprise The Psycho actually turned and looked at her for the first time since they started their date.
He had the usual smile plastered without a fail on his face.
With that he grabbed her hand and pulled her inside.
She barely registered the blast of cold from the air-conditioning unit nor did she notice the elderly lady behind the counter greeting them cheerfully.
The grip on her wrist was all she could think of.
Eriol—ahem, The Psycho pulled her in between rather impressive mahogany shelves.
The bookshop looked a lot bigger from the inside.
- - -
IV. Hair Secrets
They stopped in the very back of the shop.
In front of them was a shelf containing Classical Literature.
Eriol could only think of how the carpeting had muffled their steps.
He did not wish to focus on the smoothness of Daidouji's (in the privacy of his mind Eriol is not that polite) hand nor did he want to dwell on the soft gasp he elicited from her.
He turned to her again.
Plastered on a smile.
And sat down, crossed-leg, on the carpeted floor, back resting against the wall right next to the shelf.
Twisting the cap off the bottle, he started:
"What shall we talk about then?"
His reply was as smooth as ever.
"We shall discuss the meaning of life if you want Daidouji-san."
She frowned at him.
Of course in the event that a person frowns one does not necessarily notice how beautiful said person's lips are.
But he was noticing.
Not only did he notice her lips he noticed her hair.
Today she had opted to tie it in a high ponytail kept in place by an elastic band.
He honestly preferred it down. But he was not going to tell her that anytime soon.
Daidouji was now browsing through the shelf.
From the corner of his eyes he saw her fingering the spine of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice.
Eriol started questioning his sanity.
How could anyone find fingers beautiful?
He drank his tea.
His gaze lingered on her fingers, to her hand, to her wrist where he noticed a simple link of silver adorning her right.
"So what about the meaning of life?"
Eriol did not like being startled.
He almost choked on his tea, for one.
That was why when he met Daidouji's gaze he was not smiling but pouting.
And he was pouting a rather childish pout.
"I don't want to talk about the meaning of life anymore."
She arched an eyebrow expectantly.
"We can talk about your shampoo for one."
This time both eyebrows shot up.
"You have very beautiful hair."
He smiled when she colored slightly.
He chuckled when she glared at him.
- - -
V. Violent Tendencies
She watched in silent contempt as he drank his green tea.
She did not want to accept to herself that she was caught off guard.
Turning away from his gaze she concentrated on the shelf in front of her.
From had moved to Louisa May Alcott's Little Men and was scrutinizing the paper back a little too closely to be considered normal.
…
She wanted nothing more than to beat the living daylights out of him.
She clenched her fists.
Stupid psycho.
She did not think it was possible that someone could actually awaken violence from within her usually reserved nature.
The Psycho was not helping either.
"You're cute when you're mad."
She did not know whether to walk away from him, swallow her pride, and keep her sanity, or to stay put, keep a semblance of control, and be slowly driven to madness with his… his…
…
… She could not even pinpoint what it was that she hated about him?
Was it Hiiragizawa Eriol in general?
Or was it his stupid smile specifically?
His nose?
His smell?
His mouth?
His smile?
His hair?
Tomoyo was so lost in her thoughts.
So lost that she did not get to choose whether to stay or walk out.
So lost that she did not notice him get up.
So lost that she did not notice him walk towards her.
So lost that she did not notice him behind her.
It was too late.
She had already taken that damnable step backwards and fell in his embrace.
- - -
VI. If I May?
This was probably the closest thing he would get from her to be considered as a hug.
Both arms by her side, and his chest slightly pressed against her back.
In his right hand he had a half-empty (or half-full, if you will) bottle of green tea.
He did not want to acknowledge the fact that he was panicking.
He said the first thing that came to mind:
"I would recommend Gaston Leroux's Phantom of the Opera."
He noticed her blink rapidly and she looked up at him in surprise.
He couldn't stop himself from smiling.
She looked too cute with that wide-eyed look.
Too cute in fact that he could stop himself from pinching her right cheek.
There was still no response from her.
As expected her cheeks were smooth and soft.
He grinned.
And he continued:
"Syaoran actually cried at the end of that."
He suddenly got an idea.
It was quite an evil one… a good kind of evil though.
And it was rather risky.
Moving away from her she grabbed a hold of her right hand and secured it around the neck of the bottle.
"Finish that for me."
He leaned down for a kiss on her cheek but she abruptly turned.
It landed of the corner of her mouth.
"Goodbye."
- - -
VII. End
She watched him take a step away from her.
One.
Two.
Three.
—Stop.
He turned back at her.
Later she would think of how he was always turning back to look at her. And this annoyed her for some great reason.
"Let's do this some other time."
He smiled that psycho smile of his.
"Oh, and yes. Before I forget. I'm not a psycho, dear."
She was too baffled to take offense of his use of the endearment.
Stupid psycho.
Hours after that bizarre encounter with him she would realize she said those two words aloud.
And suddenly she could not bring herself to call him The Psycho anymore.
Tomoyo conveniently ignored to notice that all she had been thinking of was…
…
She did not even know how to address him anymore.
Psycho was out of the question.
She did not like to call him… him.
Hiiragizawa was too long.
Hesitantly she settled with Eriol.
--Owari
Stupid ending. I know. But review away, children.