[Beta version posted 5/13/01]
As the school bells chimed, floods of students started exiting the buildings of Seijyo High School. Their excited chattering indicated it had to be a Friday, for why else would their spirits be so high?
Kinomoto Sakura was no exception as she followed the crowds of students to the lockers. She was in the process of strapping on her rollerblades when her best friend tapped her on the shoulder.
"Tomoyo-chan!" she said in surprise. "I thought you had a club meeting today!"
Daidouji Tomoyo shook her head. "It got cancelled because one of the lead singers is out with a cold. I hope she gets well soon, though. Anyways, let's walk home together!"
The sparkles in those wide eyes were enough to make Sakura sweatdrop. "You know, it's not like we're in elementary school anymore..."
"Sakura... now that we have different homerooms and classes I hardly even see you anymore! I feel so left behind..."
"..."
"Sakura-chaaaaan..." complained Tomoyo as she dashed off towards the gate. "Are you going to stare at me all day or are you going to put on your other skate?"
"Hoeeeee!" She struggled to put on the other skate, grabbed her backpack, and sped after her friend.
It was a lovely spring day by anyone's standards - so lovely it was cliché. The sun was shining brightly in a field of bright blue that was lightly speckled with fluffy white clouds. The lightest hint of a breeze was just enough to send flower petals scattering along the street.
Two friends made their way down the streets of Tomoeda. As they passed under a tree heavily laden with sakura blossoms, a slightly more substantial breeze whisked through the branches and sent the delicate pink petals drifting down like a calm snowstorm.
"How pretty!" chirped Sakura as she spun around in a circle, artfully missing the railing to come to a stop by Tomoyo's side. She clapped her hands in the air suddenly, then opened them to reveal a soft petal she had caught.
"You haven't changed a bit."
"Hoe?" Sakura blinked as the petal caught the wind and floated off into the sky.
Tomoyo giggled. "Since we first met in elementary school. You're still the same."
"Tomoyo-chan, you haven't changed all that much either. Except for the whole video-taping and costume-making part."
They laughed together as they made their leisurely way along the sidewalk. "But weren't those the best years? Sakura, the invincible Card Captor, using your magic to make sure the world wasn't going to collapse on itself, or something like that. With Li-kun at your side!"
The other girl stopped suddenly and Tomoyo realized she'd spoken too rashly. As she stared across the street and watched the red 'don't walk' sign flash at them, she quickly changed the subject. "How long has it been since you've used magic, anyways?"
The white 'walk' sign flashed at them and Sakura moved forwards again. "Well... there was that incident during the school festival in our freshman year. But since then it's been nice and quiet."
"Has it really been that long?"
"Yeah..."
Tomoyo glanced back at her friend. "It feels like forever since you inherited Clow's magic. And now... the next step! College!"
"Gaah! That evil, evil word!"
"No, really! I got my acceptance letter to Clamp Campus yesterday. Mom was so happy! It's a really prestigious school, you know. I think that even if I do get into Toudai I'd rather go there. I heard a lot of good things about that school!"
"Well..." Sakura tapped her fingertips together. "I haven't gotten any letters back yet. I don't know if my grades are good enough..."
"Sakura-chan! You have plenty of extra-curricular activities to more than make up for it."
"Well, I didn't list ALL of those activities..."
Tomoyo laughed. "You mean you don't think being a Card Captor is a good enough reason to be accepted to Clamp Campus?"
"I don't think they'd believe me in the first place..." smiled Sakura as she reached up to feel the key on the necklace she always wore. She was Kinomoto Sakura, an outgoing, athletic high school student at Seijyo high school, an ordinary teenager. But not so long ago she was also Kinomoto Sakura the Card Captor, not very ordinary at all. She used her magical abilities to catch and seal the dangerous Clow Cards her predecessor had created, and then later converted them all into her own Sakura Cards. She'd used them on many occasions but as time went by, the occasions became less and less, until she stopped using them altogether. This didn't stop her from always wearing the key that turned into her wand and bringing along the Sakura Cards with her everywhere she went, but it was such a long time since she'd felt the magic filling her soul, the power swirling around her and giving her the strength to fight on in situations she would normally have shied away from, to...
"Sakura-chan? Hello, Sakura-chan? This IS your house, isn't?"
"Hoe?!"
"Tadaima!" chorused the two girls as they paused in the entryway to take off their shoes.
"Okaeri nasai!" came the happy reply as Kero-chan glided down the stairs. "Tomoyo-chan! Long time no see! Any new costumes for Sakura-chan to wear?"
"Kero-chan!"
"Just kidding, just kidding!" Kero-chan chuckled in his Osaka accent.
"Did the mail come yet?"
He nodded his head. "It came early today. By the way, you didn't happen to buy any cake while you were out there, did you?"
"KERO-CHAN!"
"It's just a joke, silly!"
Sakura quickly spun around to run out and grab the mail.
"Was it something I said?"
"She's just anxious about those college acceptance letters, I think," explained Tomoyo to a suddenly worried Kero-chan.
Her heart was beating quickly as she grabbed the pile of letters that were neatly stacked in the mailbox. She shuffled through each one quickly. It was mostly junk mail with a few bills and... two letters addressed to her. One was airmailed from Hong Kong, and Sakura swallowed around the sudden lump in her throat, quickly pushing it aside to look at the other one. It was in a very light pink envelope with the outline of a stylized rose in slightly darker red on top. In elegant writing was the name, "Ohtori Academy."
Ohtori Academy?
"Sakura-chan, what are you still doing out there?"
"Oh! Er, coming!" said the flustered girl as she dashed back inside. "I got a letter! But it's not from Clamp Campus or Toudai or even Waseda! It's from Ohtori Academy!"
"Well hurry and open it!"
Tomoyo and Kero-chan clustered around Sakura as much as two people (or rather one person and one stuffed animal) can possibly crowd around someone. She dropped the other letters on the table, glancing quickly to make sure the others didn't notice the special stamps on one of them, then slowly turned around the pink envelope. On the back was a matching rose seal, and this she carefully broke, preserving the original wax shape. The scent of roses wafted into the room as she pulled out the cream-colored paper.
"To Kinomoto Sakura: Congratulations on your acceptance to Ohtori Academy."
"You did it!" Tomoyo gave Sakura a giant hug while Kero-chan bounced around happily. (Sakura went "Urk.") "I knew you'd get in! See? No contest!"
"I was hoping to get a letter from one of the other universities. But, Tomoyo..."
Tomoyo's cell phone had the bad manners to ring at that moment.
"Hello, this is Daidouji. What? Yes. Yes. No. I'll... no. Say that again? Yes. No! No, I... okay. No. I see. Very well. Right. Yes. Okay, goodbye." She stuck the phone back in her purse and patted Sakura lightly. "Sorry Sakura-chan. Gotta run! I'll talk to you later!" And she dashed out, Kero-chan waving to her rapidly diminishing figure.
"See you later Tomoyo!" Kero-chan called.
"..." blinked Sakura.
"Anyways, I'm going back upstairs to finish that video game. I'm almost to the last boss!" And with that, Kero-chan floated back up the stairs, leaving Sakura alone in the kitchen, still in shock.
She blinked twice more before looking back down at the letter.
"Congratulations on your acceptance to Ohtori Academy."
Ohtori Academy.
Since when had she applied to Ohtori Academy?
The house was quiet, save for the soft snoring of Kero-chan from his little nest on the pillow by her bed. Sakura stared out of her window at the darkened street, watching the pleasant glow of the streetlamps offer just enough illumination to make out the shapes of everyone's homes. The neighborhood was silent as well.
She let out a sigh and looked back at her desk with the two letters. Slowly, she sat down and reached out to pick up the second letter, the one she hadn't opened yet. The handwriting was so familiar. How many times had she read the characters he so neatly wrote? Her heart beat faster as she quickly opened the envelope and extracted the folded pages from inside. For a while she didn't even read them, merely felt the smooth paper against her fingertips, looked at the precise spacing between each character, each punctuation mark, felt a familiar pang rising in her heart. Finally, she started to read Shaoran's letter.
"Dear Sakura-chan. How are you today? I hope you're feeling well and that the weather in Japan is nice and spring-like. Everything is fine here in Hong Kong.
"It's been a while since we've exchanged letters like this, hasn't it? It's always a quick email here, a short phone call there, a chat on IRC if the time is right... Sometimes I miss these written letters.
"Anyways, I wrote to inform you of what is happening here. I'm still sorry I had to leave Japan so suddenly, but you know how family obligations are. I'm afraid I have some bad news. I will not be able to return to Japan for college. There are just too many factors to have to deal with. I also know that Mother is trying to arrange a marriage for me. I don't want that to happen, but I'm the only son for the Li family and I must pass on the name. Sakura, if you came to school here in Hong Kong, it would solve a lot of problems. I don't want to sound like I'm forcing you, definitely not! But if Mother could just meet you and see what a wonderful person you are, I'm sure she'd stop pressuring me to find someone. And then we could be together. I miss you so much. I want to see your face again. I want to see your smile. I want to hold you in my arms and never let go. But the ocean between us has got to be bridged somehow for that to happen. Please, Sakura. At least consider this.
"Love, Li Shaoran."
Sakura held the letter close to her body, trying to stop the shaking. Her vision grew blurry as she felt the tears starting to gather. She forced herself to take deep breaths, to slowly fold the letter and put it back in the envelope, to not start crying like she was ten years old again.
She managed to do all three by sheer force of will. She stared at the wooden pattern of the desk as she remembered what had happened a year ago.
"You're going back to Hong Kong again?" Sakura asked Shaoran. It was spring and the trees were laden with white petals.
"Yes. Mother asked me to return."
She realized there was something he was holding back. And she was afraid to ask. She looked up into his face expectantly, waiting for him to continue.
"She wants me to return to Hong Kong."
A pause.
"And she doesn't want me to come back here."
The wind blew a flurry of petals between them.
"Are you sure?"
"Yes."
"Not even to visit?"
"They would be very short visits, and there probably wouldn't be very many of them. At least not right now."
She stared at a petal that had found its way onto her hand.
"It's family obligation. I'm the only son to carry on the Li name. And there are a lot of things I still need to learn about the family. There isn't any other way."
"No other way..."
"Sakura, you know I don't want to do this. But I don't have a choice."
"No choice..."
"Sakura! Wait!"
She ran off, her tears mingling with the delicate petals that had fallen off of the trees.
She sat there a few minutes longer, shuffling through both letters, wiping the tears from her eyes every now and then. These two letters were changing the life she knew. Both offered her a chance to go somewhere else, to see the world.
Then why did one fell like a ticket to the past, while the other fell like a ticket to the future?
And which one did she want to believe in more?
"I can't go to school in Hong Kong. I've never been there before. I don't speak the language - I've never even studied it. I... I want to see you again. But I... I can't do what you ask of me. Even though there isn't any other answer... I can't do this. I don't even know why. Even when my heart cries out to be healed somehow... I'm sorry, Shaoran. I'm sorry. But I can't do what you ask of me."
With hands that were remarkably steady, she took out a sheet of paper from her desk and started to write.
"Dearest Shaoran... Thank you very much for the letter. I read it many times. But I'm afraid I've already made up my mind."
Would he be angry? Would he be sad? Would he forget her?
"I've decided to attend college at Ohtori Academy."
...to be continued...
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Card Captor Sakura was created by CLAMP and is (c) their respective companies. Shoujo Kakumei Utena was created by Chiho Saitou/Be-Papas and is (c) their respective companies. Please address all inquiries to me at ming_ling@hotmail.com. Please do not repost this fanfic without my prior written permission.