AN: Arghness, some three years ago I swore to never ever never everrr write two fics at the same time because I either forget about the other one or I just completely stress out and melt. Yes. I melt. But anyways, I couldn't help but start this fic because I was scared I would forget everything again and ladedededa...summer holidays are almost over for me, sadly, and I still have lots of homework to finish (yes I get homework from school during summer, doesn't that suck?). So updates may be slow, but I'll keep it up (of course...with the help of reviews right? *sweat drop*). Well, before you read this fic, please read the warning after this note. Do not say I have not warned you =P
Warning: This fic contains an abusive relationship (not very graphical though, but you'll know it's an abusive relationship), insanity, and mild language. If you don't want to be reading about stuff like this, then I suggest you leave :P Also, there is no magic (as in Clow Cards/Sakura Cards) in this fic. I shall repeat, there is no magic.
Disclaimer: CCS doesn't belong to me, it belongs to CLAMP...disclaimers are getting really tedious -_-
Chapter One: Dream
-Meiling's Point of View-
When I mention the name Tomoyo Daidouji, Sakura will try to hurt herself while muttering 'murderer'. When I mention Li Syaoran, she starts hyperventilating and asking him to save her. Why? Because insanity welcomes her, and reality does not.
It's a pain and a knife slicing your heart when you watch a girl once filled with indescribable happiness be filled with the torment of her own thoughts. It's a pain and another knife slicing at your heart when you see those around her slowly wilting along with her. It's also a pain for me, Li Meiling, to watch one of her bestest friends in the world sit there looking like the dead and muttering crazily as if she were insane.
But then again, she is.
After all this, I sit and think about my life. How I cried my heart out and my eyes dry for my childhood love when he was taken away from me. I was only seven then. I was playing 'house' with my beloved cousin Li Syaoran. Of course, I had forced him into playing with me. So, I was the mommy and he was the daddy. My stuffed duck was our kid and we named it Ducky. We were playing at Penguin Park; having just moved to Japan we found it rather exciting there. But no, a big bad boy at the age of nine had to come and steal Ducky, threatening to bury him in the sandbox.
So, naturally I cried.
But, Syaoran was such a hero and stood up to the big, bad nine year old and even beat the living daylights out of the other boy. And so, I got Ducky back and eversince then, I fell in love with my Xiao Lang.
Yet, after a week in Japan we were starting second grade at the local elementary school. That was when Syaoran met her. I hated her with the deepest passion possible. Everytime Syaoran would smile at something she said, I would jump up and yank him away. Funny, I thought holding him back would do the trick. But even though he was in my arms, I had still lost him. It was obvious.
Day and night, he talked about her. It was always her.
So, naturally I cried.
But now, a decade or so later, I scold myself for wasting so many tears on such stupid things. My tears of stubbornness and immatureness seem so utterly wasted as I lay my eyes upon her, Sakura. I shiver as I stare at the white walls and the equally ghost-like bed sheets of the hospital. She is now part of the room's decor. Blending in perfectly with the white, her pale skin as white as virgin snow, her eyes a dull and dead grass green.
I suck in a shaky breath, knowing the tears are threatening to spill once more from my already puffy red eyes. I blink in rapid motion as I glanced sadly at the figure sitting next to the nearly lifeless girl we once knew. There sat my seven-year-old crush, his face buried in his hands, his hair a ruffled mess.
The sight is too much for me, watching him slowly wilt away day by day by her side. I turn away from the scene, swallowing hard as I walked away from Room 175. My steps are slow and soft, not wanting to destroy the eerie silence of the hospital. As I walk, I feel something beneath my worn runners. I frown in agitation, knowing it was probably gum.
Yet as I lifted my heel from the tiled floor, a flattened paper star met my tired eyes. A ghost of a smile met my lips as I bent down to pick it up, but stopped when I heard a soft, strained voice call out.
"You just have to pinch the corners," the voice said.
I turned around, meeting the lifeless eyes of my once good friend. I smile at her, wanting her to show some kind of recognition of who I was. But no, she was simply focused on the paper star at my feet. I picked it up, holding it carefully in my palm. Who knew Li Meiling could be so gentle?
"When you pinch the corners of it, it'll puff up again," her voice said in an unchanging tone. "Paper...paper, paper, paper..."
I felt my lip tremble as she continued to repeat the word. I felt one tear fall as I watched Syaoran dig into his pockets and pull out a package of special paper designed to make paper stars. He gave me a reassuring look, telling me not to worry and that I should go back to the apartment and rest for the night. Syaoran is such a nice boy. Responsible and a warrior. Yes, he is a warrior.
As he hands the package of paper to Sakura, I know that he is not giving up on her yet. He will continue to fight, until he gets his Ying Fa back.
-Touya's Point of View-
As I proceed down the empty hall, with seemingly never-ending doors, I close my fatigue-filled eyes. Running a hand through my hair, I stop walking, just listening to my own heart beat and the silence around me. Strange, everytime I do close my eyes, I can imagine the little kaijuu all lively and genki (cheerful). I open my eyes, looking at my feet idly. They hadn't been stomped on in a long time.
I had visited her today. The gaki was there like usual. I have to say I'm impressed. The gaki seems to really...care. And that chinese girl, she simply stands outside the room looking at my sister and the gaki with teary eyes.
Oh, you really are a kaijuu Sakura. Causing all of us to be in so much pain.
But no, we can't blame you...in fact, I have a strange suspicion that we should be thanking you. All of us. I will not know why though, if only you would wake up and tell us the whole story. I'd be willing to listen. I'd never give too much time in my day to listen to you. But I regret. You can stomp on my feet all you want. In fact, I'll be ridiculously happy if you will.
You can shout and stomp and run around when you're late for school. I would even be proud of you for being late.
Kaijuu...Sakura, wake up and tell us why this has happened to you. We know the source of it, but what was it that caused you to hide it from us. You would always tell one us if you had trouble, a problem...what was it that caused you to not turn to the people that love and care about you?
Damn it Sakura. When you come back to us, which I know you will, you will tell us everything and we'll all be able to carry your pain with you.
You won't be alone.
-Syaoran's Point of View-
The package of paper contains many colours. I watch her carefully as she slowly turns it over and over, looking at the package at all angles. I wonder what she is thinking right now. I want to know. I want to help her.
Isn't it all my fault that she is like this?
Yes, I think it is. But I can't let guilt and regret swallow me now, not when I know I can save Sakura. I will. That is my promise to her. I will make her get well, no matter how long I have to stay in this eerie cold room. But it is not cold, not when Sakura is in this room. She brings warmth, even if she is in the state she is in now. I wonder if I should try speaking to her. The doctor said it would be a good idea. To try to bring her back to reality.
But sometimes, when I speak to her, she'll grab my arm and turn to me so quickly that I would end up dreaming of those wide green eyes for a whole week. She'll start muttering and crying, her fragile body shaking. "You have to run away, fast," she'll say. "He'll come soon. Then he'll think bad. And then you'll die too. Then I'll be a murderer again. Go, go, go...fly..."
And then I can only nod and reassure her that I will fly away as far as possible and she'll nod, satisfied, and go back to her usual state of silence. Sometimes, when I don't say that I am Li Syaoran, she'll stare at me blankly and offer me a strip of star paper. She'll even gave me a faint smile, though her eyes seem faraway. "Make stars. Okaa-san (mother) taught me how."
Then I would nod and take the paper from her and fold a perfect little star. She doesn't know though, for she is once again lost in her own little world and is once again content with staring at the tiny cracks in the walls of the room. I sigh, but not in defeat. Today was a failure, but there was always tomorrow.
Today, it is just like any other day. She sits and is content with making another jar of paper stars. She has made dozens, and dozens of them. They fill the room, the drawers, adding colour to the blank room. But still, it is blank to me. When her eyes can spark with life again, that will be the day I see colour once again.
So you may wonder, why I'm even wasting time on something that may never happen. But this is my dream, to be with Sakura for life. In whatever shape, size, form, situation- Sakura is still my Sakura. One may just think she is an insane teenager, walking by her and mumbling, "It sucks to be you." But, Sakura is still the Sakura I met in second grade. The girl who became my bestest friend, stood by me even if I was a total idiot.
She'll be my one and only for this lifetime.
If only I hadn't left, if only I had realized sooner.
I could have helped her. But I was too stupid. Too late. I was blind. And I feel the guilt bite away at me with every paper star she folds. But like I said before, I will not let guilt swallow me. Not when Sakura still needs me to pull her out of insanity's mouth. She still has me. She still has her family and friends. We'll help her through this, we'll let her see how beautiful reality is.
Yet, one thing will always bug me. It'll always nag at me whenever I lay awake in bed, or in the chair by Sakura's bedside. I realize that I'll never know Sakura's story. Her whole story. What she really felt, and what was going on. What lead her to this world away from all the people that loved her? But I'll never get to know it all, unless she wakes up.
How many days will that be? How many years will it take? But I don't care, I'll spend every day, every year, as if it were a second. As long as I can help my cherry blossom bloom again.
I turn to look at her beautiful smooth fingers expertly finish another paper star. It was made from shiny green paper. She stared at it for a moment before turning to me, tilting her head slightly and offering the star to me. I reach for the star, wrapping my fingers around its tiny shape. And then she grasped my fingers. I jumped in shock. She had never done that before. And when I say that, I mean before she fell into this state.
I take this sign of movement as a good thing. I smile broadly. "Sakura?"
She's still clutching onto my hand. I see that she doesn't care that we're crushing the paper star in our grasp. She looks up at me, examining me to see if I was a friend or foe. Finally, she drops her gaze and I know that she knows I'm not going to hurt her. Sakura let go of my hand, taking the crushed paper star with her.
She holds it in her palm calmly and looks up at me again. She opens her mouth, and I wonder what she will start saying again. Will she keep on asking for paper? Will she keep on muttering 'murderer' for who knows what reason? I can hear it already, the only phrases and words she has spoken eversince she has entered the hospital. But then, she clears her throat, and I immediately look at her in surprise.
She hadn't done that before.
I continue to watch her every movement, until she turned away and looked out the window. I felt a sinking feeling in my stomach. What had I been expecting? Her to begin some weird speech and tell me that the past few weeks had just been a dream? Of course not...what was I thinking?
"Okaa-san was the one who taught me how to make paper stars," I hear her voice say.
That phrase she has spoken before. I feel my hope sink lower.
"But I don't remember her teaching me. She must've taught me when I was three, before she passed away. I've remembered how eversince, and I'll make them when I'm feeling lonely."
I swallow hard. Sakura had spoken. A new phrase. A sentence. A meaningful sentence. I walk closer to her, but she looks over her shoulder and stares at me with a sad face. I wonder why she is looking so sad, for I am feeling insanely happy that she had spoken something out of the ordinary.
"It was spring then, the cherry blossoms were blooming once more and the air fresh and new," she spoke softly. "And I was turning sixteen."
AN: Oooh is Sakura actually talking and not speaking nonsense? Anyways, Chapter One= extremely short and brief. It's just to let you have a taste of what's going on. And now, Chapter Two will go back before Sakura ended up where she is now. It will be written in Sakura's point of view =) R+R because it'll...make me happy...and that is a good thing...ehehehehe.