Location: In the hallway, heading to mathematics class
Time frame: 1:30pm, Start of fifth period
Point of view: Sakura

I did wonder if my friends were truly my friends when they wouldn't stop laughing at me as we made our way to our calculus class. It was my display of embarrassment that they had found funny as I revisited the whole embarrassing scene of me landing in Kansuke's arms at lunchtime in my head. Their laughter only helped keep the images floating in my head that much longer. I ask myself: “How had a nice chat during a few games with the rugby ball and hacky sac turn into something so unpleasant?” and the answer to that?—“My friends! They were the reason a fun lunchtime had turned into a catastrophic one!” I told them off:—

“It's not funny, you guys—pushing me into Kansuke like that.”

They only laughed more. I tried once more for their attention and cooperation:

“Why are you still laughing? I'm angry at you guys!”

They didn't listen. I sighed in frustration. My two closest friends: how can they put me in a situation that made me want to crawl under something and hide myself? Friends were supposed to be the ones to make you feel better—look out for you and have your best interest in mind, not make you feel embarrassed. I couldn't understand how someone such as Tomoyo, the usually sweet and thoughtful best friend, could do that to me. She was supposed to look out for me, side with me. She was my best friend! And Chiharu, she was one of my closest and good friends, but she was also supposed to be on my side. Neither Tomoyo nor Chiharu should ever put me in any situation that made me red in the face.

I didn't want to be so out of it in front of him. I have tried to grab his eye since the first couple of years of high school. I had spotted him on the fields before their soccer practice. I was at my cheerleading practice at the time. I remember thinking how good he looked in his sports uniform and how all the other guys around him just couldn't match up to him—skill-wise and appearance-wise. From that day on, I just melted every time I saw him: I love his eyes; the way he styled his hair; his smile—oh I love everything about him!

But I don't think he thought much of me, not after what happened during lunchtime: he probably thought I was a real big geek when I tried to apologise for crashing into his arms and nothing came out of my mouth.

My friends finally calmed down from their hysterical laughter at my expense. Chiharu slapped me across my back as she told me,

“Oh c'mon, Sakura, it wasn't that bad! He didn't push you away—he even looked like he liked you being in his lap.”

I disagreed with her viewpoint—“Yes it was!” I told her; then asked indignantly, “How would you like it if I forced you into the guy that you hadn't told you liked? That was so not nice, guys! It was... it was...” I shut my eyes as I spoke the last words, trying to shut the scene out of my mind: “so embarrassing.”

Instead of sympathy like I wanted from her, I got a snort of a laugh of amusement before Chiharu said, “Yeah, like you didn't enjoy it! You did, didn't you, Sakura?”

I was at a lost for words with her response. Then I frowned.

The happy expression that was on both Chiharu and Tomoyo became unhappy. One hand placed on her hip, Chiharu asked,

“What?—are you saying you didn't want to be in his arms and have him hold you so close like that?”

I processed the question for some moments; then replied, “Yeah, I liked it...” I paused then added—“after the fact.”

The pair's unhappy expression returned to its former state as it lifted; satisfied with my answer. “Well since you enjoyed it heaps there is no problem then!” Chiharu said.

I still found their actions during lunchtime unacceptable. Tomoyo saw this and she used reason to argue their case. She said:

“You know we only did it because we think that you never ever do anything about it. Ashida will never notice you if you always stand or sit there quietly staring at him from a distance. You must let yourself be seen instead of being in the shadows,” Tomoyo explained.

“Tomoyo's right, Sakura,” Chiharu chimed in, “He's a very popular guy; he has lots of girls liking him. You got to at least try to let him know that you exist; make an impression on him.”

“We wanted to give you that extra push, so we pushed you.”

I exhaled a sigh of exasperation. Sometimes they were just too much for me. However, it is not to say that I was unable to understand what they were saying—he was popular and was a guy that I would have never had the guts to get him to be that close to me. If they didn't do what they did this afternoon, I know I would have never been able to experience the feeling of being so close to him as I did this lunchtime. For that small amount of time, I felt his arms around me, his hands on my shoulders, and his chest rise and fall under my head. I was in paradise!

But my friends must not know of this, or they will think that they could do this to me all the time. I definitely do not want to go through what happened lunchtime to happen again. I want to exist in Kansuke's eyes in my own way and in my own time.

A ring tone of a cell phone interrupted my thoughts. I looked to my cell phone I held in my hand, but realised that it wasn't my phone that had rang: I saw no name or numbers displayed on the screen.

It came from behind. It stopped ringing as the person answered it. “Meiling,” the owner of the cell phone said.

I turned to see Li Syaoran—or rather the ‘Loner' as I would normally call him—standing in a corner between the lockers and hallway walls answering his phone. It was that Loner's phone which had gone off. I turned back towards the front as I told myself to remember to change my ring tone so that it didn't have the same ring tone as his one.

“It never stops ringing. It's actually really annoying how it rings so often,” Chiharu said.

“He's quite popular,” Tomoyo suggested.

“Popular? I don't think so. Why do you think some people call him “Loner”? I don't even know why Takashi is friends with him. He's odd. He doesn't talk much, and he likes doing a lot of things by himself. I mean, have any of you seen him around in lunchtimes? It's like he just disappears after classes,” Chiharu said.

I had no reply to that; it wasn't as if I cared to search for him. As Chiharu said, he was odd and was a loner—who cares about a loner?

We entered the calculus classroom then took our seats at the back of the classroom as we waited for our calculus teacher to arrive.

“Actually, I'm kinda thirsty,” Chiharu said just as she had taken a seat, “I think I'm going to get some water. I'll be back guys.”

“Okay,” both Tomoyo and I said more or less as Chiharu exited the room again.

I looked around the classroom; there were many empty seats. The seat that was usually occupied by Kansuke was empty too: I wonder where he went; he left the fields before us too. Maybe he decided not to come to this last class and decided to skip it. I felt myself feeling disappointed to that thought.

But then suddenly, I saw him and his friends enter the classroom. My spirits lifted as I saw him wink at me before taking the seat at his desk; I smiled widely: he saw me and winked at me!

“Hey, Sakura,” Tomoyo said, calling for me from across the row from her desk, “Remember that time when we had the soccer team from Hong Kong come to our school to compete with our soccer team?”

“Yeah, the exchange program, right?—what about it?”

“Well, I thought it was strange how Kansuke got really angry—so much so that towards the end of their conversation, he shoved Li hard. They had just won the game too, so I don't get why Ashida was so angry at Li.”

I didn't know why she had brought that up all of a sudden. The exchange program happened during the winter of last year.

“Yeah, I suppose, but why are you remembering it for?”

“Well, I find it funny that Ashida shoved Li like that,” she replied simply.

As I saw Tomoyo continue to dwell on that thought, I, myself, was dwelling on my own thoughts: I couldn't understand why such small details as those mattered. Nevertheless, I provided an answer to her thought: “He could have done something to annoy him.”

Her eyes and mouth suddenly widened: it looked like I had come up with something that allowed a light bulb to turn on as she said, “A girl!”

“A girl?”

“I bet you it was over a girl. Ashida must have shoved Li because of that.”

Unconvinced, I waved it off, “I don't think so—Kansuke's not threatened by that Loner. Besides, the girls that Kansuke attracts are in a whole different league from those that the Loner attracts. There's no way that Kansuke could like a girl that liked that Loner also.”

“It's not impossible, Sakura. Li is a cool person; don't underestimate him. I know there are quite a lot of intelligent and beautiful girls going after him.”

The word Tomoyo had used to describe the Loner was something I disagreed with. Plus, the Loner was a loner; I've never seen anyone “go after him” in the year or so he had attended this high school. He always seem to be by himself; always alone—and that includes being girlfriend-less.

“I still think Kansuke would never be interested in his girls, if in fact he had any.”

Tomoyo continued adamantly as she pressed on, “I don't know if you saw it, Sakura, but I remember that after the game was over, Li and Ashida had a confrontation on the sidelines on the other side from where we were. Ashida had walked up to Li and this girl who had been standing beside him; I specifically remember seeing Ashida looking at the girl; a few exchange of words and then, suddenly, I saw Ashida yelling at Li about something before shoving him hard. I wasn't too sure what it was over, but remembering the scene and their body languages, I believed it was over that girl who had been standing with Li.”

I had to admit, I couldn't remember the whole situation too well. That day had been quite chaotic as winning against the soccer team from Hong Kong made everyone go into a crazy celebration. That I remember, because I was also crazily celebrating when our team won.

“Well, maybe. You are more observant than I am. But still, I don't get why this is important, Tomoyo.”

Tomoyo seemed to not have heard me as she said, “That's very interesting...” as she moved her attention towards the door to the classroom.

Puzzled by it, I followed her gaze: nothing unusual was happening out in the hallway.

“What's interesting, Tomoyo?”

Again, she appeared to not have heard me as she headed onto another topic: “I know what would be fun, Sakura.”

I cocked my head to one side: fun? Her thoughts had become a little too random for me to understand now.

“How would you like to see a giant tomato?”

“Giant tomato?”

Tomoyo leaned over to my table; the tone in her voice seemed to have been laced with mischievousness. “Yeah, a giant tomato.”

“A giant tomato, Tomoyo? What about the red thing?” Chiharu asked as she came back into the room, pulling a chair over to seat herself between us.

“Well, Li's always by himself, and like you said, people don't notice him too much because Li is Li, right?”

“Yeah—so...?” I asked, still not understanding what a giant tomato had anything to do with this.

“It's been a while since anyone has noticed him, so when a pretty girl such as Kinomoto Sakura notices him, he will be extremely happy! And then, once you notice him, you notice him some more...”

I furrowed my brow: she continues to baffle me; I shook my head in need of an elaboration—or—was it that I didn't want to understand as I could almost sense the heading of the conversation.

“You know...” she gave; then winked.

“Yeah, you know...?” I turned to Chiharu whose eyes gleamed. Apparently, she had understood something I hadn't. She demonstrated with her hand slowly sliding on her thigh as her lips formed a devilish smile. Her hand sliding on her thigh represented the action I was to take on the Loner's thigh.

I shook my head hard in disagreement. “No way am I—“

“Hold on, wait Sakura. Hear us out, hear us out.” Chiharu interrupted me, “There's something in this for you, too, if you would just let us finish.” My lips were pursed as I waited impatiently and unimpressed. “When he comes in and sits down, make him believe that you're totally into him...”

“When he takes his seat,” Tomoyo said, continuing from Chiharu's sentence, “Sakura will walk up to him and sit on his lap.”

“But—“

I was cut off. Chiharu's eyes became dangerously menacing as she interrupted me and completed Tomoyo's sentence:

“Then run your hand up his leg to his cro—”

“No way am I going to—“

I stopped myself in mid-sentence; I caught onto the volume of my voice and the over-excitement that had overcome me at this moment: I had erupted into a shout. I saw everyone in the classroom staring at me—wide-eyed; I let a smile show through—an apology for my loudness. A few more seconds of stunned faces staring at me before everyone returned back to what they had been doing prior to my outburst.

I lowered my voice, leaning in towards the two as I finished what I had been about to say, whispering, “No way am I going to go near anyone's thing—that is so embarrassing! Also, of all people, I am definitely not going near his thing! Besides, I don't think Kansuke would care that I was—” I paused as I tried to control the disgusted feeling I was feeling towards what I was about to say, “feeling up the Loner.”

“Oh, so you think! Guys care,” Chiharu said, offering her view.

Tomoyo was next in convincing me to go with the plan—she brought up what we had discussed earlier again:

“Kansuke may appear to have forgotten about it all, but I bet you he's still got an old grudge against Li. You are someone he likes. When he sees that Li has gotten the attention of another one of his girls, he will get jealous. I think he would definitely fight for you!”

One of his girls... That didn't sound too comforting—to be one of his girls... He does seem to have a lot of girls around him... and I was only one of many.

I took some time to think about it as I looked in Kansuke's direction: I suppose he does kinda like me since he winked at me just before; and he was nice to me during lunchtime... Maybe I could be his only girl...

“You get a jealous Kansuke, and we get to see a bit of entertainment—you'll do it for a date with Kansuke, and provide us entertainment-deprived girls with some entertainment?” Tomoyo further added.

They seem to be taking advantage of my indecision as they further convinced me to agree with carrying out their plans; and it was working.

“A jealous Kansuke and an embarrassed Li, huh?”

They both nodded then pleaded with their eyes.

“Fine, I'll do it then.”