Location: Li Residence
Time frame: Summer vacation
Point of View: Syaoran

"Syaoran. Time to get up: we have breakfast."

Waking from a deep sleep, my eyes snapped open upon hearing the call—the amount of light that greeted them sending surges of pain through my head. Under a momentary spell of dizziness, I elevated my head from my unusually hard pillow in search of the time. Through a slitted view, I looked for my radio clock, but to my surprise, it was neither on my right nor my left.

"If you want to know, it's twenty past nine—"

Meiling. I registered.

Resting back down against the badly supported pillow, I soon realised that this was not my usual sleeping quarters. It was my lounge.

It had been a little under a week since my temporary relocation to the lounge, whilst Meiling and Jinwei shared my bedroom. Despite my best efforts in talking to my mother, Meiling and Jinwei were to stay with me—as opposed to a hotel a kilometre away—whilst they were here visiting for a couple weeks. Her final argument was: it was a waste of travel-time and having them stay 'so far away' defeated the entire purpose of the trip. Obviously, I was not blind to the pretext my mother used to hide her intentions; to debate the matter any longer than I had already tried would have insulted my own intelligence.

"Syaoran—I didn't know you were such a heavy sleeper," she mocked, her voice resonating much too loudly, "we made so much noise heading out before, but the whole time you didn't even react one bit."

Feeling much too tired, I rejected the need to articulate an answer. But in my defence, had Meiling and Jinwei not talked and laughed till early hours of the morning, their departure this morning would not have gone unnoticed. With the thin walls and its poor insulation, their voices travelled easily to my ears—I was left to survive on broken sleep until about four thirty this morning (the time I last recalled seeing on the microwave clock). Fortunately, summer vacation was here and I wasn't scheduled on for work today.

With my arms protecting my eyes from the bright morning light, I attempted to grab several more minutes of sleep. For a few short moments, Meiling's movements were successfully tuned out. But then a mind-shattering clatter of keys followed by an unceasing chopping noise put an end to my efforts. It was then I accepted that my repose was well and truly over.

In my semi-conscious state, I dragged myself off the sofa and made my way across the apartment, towards the bathroom. My eyes glanced briefly over in Meiling's direction: she stood hovering over a pot of steaming-hot water, suspending a good-sized bowl of last night's steamed rice in her hand; on her left was a chopping board of cooked meat and a side of spring onions—apparently we were having congee this morning.

Then suddenly, a thought struck me: Meiling was alone.

"Where's Jinwei?"

But just as I finished the question, Jinwei appeared through the door. In her grasp held bottles of iced-tea: one in her hand, and the other two under the clutch of her left arm; hanging off the other arm was a bag filled with more bottles of drink.

"Sorry it took so long," she came in saying, "there were just so many people out there this morning."

By the look of things it was already beginning to heat up outside. Jinwei's appearance was one of dishevelment: her face was red; hair unkempt and it had pasted over a layer of sweat that had formed on her face. Quickly I offered her a hand, taking the drinks from her:

"You didn't need to purchase these—we could have made some," I said, taking the iced-tea from her first.

"Thanks—I know, but this brand of tea is supposed to be pretty good." She then handed me the bag filled with the bottled beverages. ".and after looking in your fridge last night, I noticed we were running out; I just had to go out and get some more," she said, referring to the ones in the plastic bag. "I don't know how you can survive without cold drinks—especially on days like these."

Placing the drinks on a spare space in the kitchen countertop, I sarcastically offered her a response: "Ice?"

She moved to place her keys and handbag on the lounge table. "Well, always adding that to water or tea makes things very bland."

Apparently, this girl enjoyed her carbonated beverages more than most normal people did. Granted, I enjoyed the occasional soda, but it wasn't something I considered very important to have in the apartment on a daily basis. But since Jinwei's arrival, it appeared to be a necessity: there wasn't one day the fridge wasn't stocked with at least one bottle. To me, it seemed that if there wasn't at least one bottle present, she might cease to function properly.

Moving back to the kitchen area, Jinwei attended to the bottles, taking them out of the bag and immediately began restocking the fridge.

She seemed normal enough, though. She enjoyed her clothes and her shopping—so much so that even before the week's end, she and Meiling had done enough shopping to open up their own store; as a person, she seemed down-to-earth: for one she didn't complain about the living situation at the apartment. Although we had never met, I had known that she was from a privileged background before she arrived (my mother and Jinwei's parents are business associates and friends; as such, Jinwei occasionally appeared in our family conversations); because of that, I was anticipating a problem with the lack of space at the apartment. But to my relief, nothing of the sort eventuated . In fact, she hadn't complained much about anything since her arrival.

She was a surprisingly pleasant person to be around.

"Oh, did you want one?" Jinwei suddenly asked.

She was in the process of serving herself a glass of soda. Inwardly, I grinned at the girl, finding the familiar sight in front of me amusing: even before breakfast was served, soda had already been poured.

"No; I'm alright," I replied. "I'm off to take a shower." Then I proceeded towards the bathroom.

"Make it quick, Syaoran—breakfast should be ready soon; and we don't want to miss out on the close car-parks," Meiling called back.

I almost forgot—on today's itinerary: shopping. Dread set in as the idea of such an excursion ran through my sleep-deprived mind.

It was slightly after twelve, and it seemed that this was the time when people truly came out in their packs. Where earlier I was able to stroll through the lanes of the mall in a fairly straight line, I found an increasing need to negotiate my way around people more frequently around this time of the day; the number of patrons to the mall had definitely grown since our arrival an hour ago.

For a suburban shopping mall, this was considered to be quite the shopping complex: it consisted of four floors, hosting countless number of retail stores in an open, rectangular design. We were currently on the second floor. It featured mainly fashion stores, but also a few entertainment ones relating to music and gaming, as well as a couple electronic stores, bookshops, and quite a large sports store—this floor was where many people my age liked to gather.

For me however, there was nothing about the mall that I found particularly interesting or entertaining. To me, the mall was similar to a service station. Apart from the days that I was scheduled on for work, it was a place to visit to refuel diminishing supplies, and then depart once it had served its purpose. It wasn't a place I'd normally choose to spend my free time: had Meiling and Jinwei not visited me this summer, I'd probably be at my boss' workshop working on a car.

So gazing vacantly ahead, I lethargically lingered at the side of the girls. Whilst they scanned the store-windows, deciding their next heading, my eyes laid on the crowd ahead, occasionally looking into the windows Meiling and Jinwei found interesting. As I caught onto a group of about five students that were in my peripheral vision, my eyes flicked towards them. It wasn't that they were jumping on top of each other, walking backwards, and ignoring everyone that was trying to get around them that had caught my attention, but for the reason that I had recognised them to be from my high school. In the time that I'd been here, I had previously spotted many others—apparently the mall was a popular hang out for people from my high school as well.

Kinomoto Sakura. I wonder if she's here too. I suddenly found myself thinking.

Her name was never too far from my mind it seemed. In the months that had passed, she seemed to come into my mind more and more frequently. There was something about her that kept her there. The fact that she was beautiful and confident was undeniable, but there was something besides those things—perhaps it was also her naivety and vulnerability that captured me. Ever since my encounter with the grief-stricken Kinomoto on that drunken night of hers, I've felt a need—a desire to watch over her, to protect her, and do whatever I could to keep her from feeling that kind of distress ever again. Ever since then, she had made a permanent residence in my head.

"Syaoran—let's go," Meiling called to me.

A grey storefront lay in front of my eyes; in the store-window displayed a couple of mannequins dressed in men's clothing; and moving my gaze inside, a shop full of clothes for men—"Why would you want to go in there?"

"Well, we couldn't leave you out, could we?" Meiling replied. "We've already done quite a bit of shopping for ourselves..."

'Quite a bit' was right. In my hands were four bags of clothes, Meiling was holding one, whilst Jinwei held two.

".and since you've been so great about it—"

"It's your turn," Jinwei completed.

"Huh?"

"C'mon—less standing around and more shopping." Meiling then grabbed my right arm and began dragging me into the store. But something off in the distance caught my attention, and I resisted briefly.

At the top of my vision were two girls: an auburn head next to a raven one, resembling the ones of Kinomoto and Daidouji (respectively). I twisted and craned my head as far as I could; attempting to confirm my sighting through an unsteady view. Swaying it left and right, I tried to see past the crowd that was obstructing it. But by the time it had cleared, they were nowhere to be seen and I surrendered to Meiling's pull, entering the store.

It was a good forty minutes before we finally got out of that store. It felt like I was never going to get out of there: they made me their mannequin and seemed to enjoy every minute of playing dress-up on me. Outfit after outfit they made me get on—trying on pants, shirts, polos, jackets, even shorts!—and the distressing part was we came out with probably half the store. Added to my already full hands were another two bags—all of which Jinwei insisted on paying for—and in Meiling's hands, another one—the one she bought for her boyfriend (a track runner at her school who she has been going out for two years). I was certain that, had it not been for the growing complaints from our stomachs, we might have still been in there: the pain of that experience—a forty-tonne truck repeatedly running over me would have been a more pleasant experience than what I had just endured.

At the moment, we were amongst a crowd of hungry shoppers on the lowest floor, moving through the mall's food court. To please our complaining stomachs, we had opted for a Japanese place not too far from where we situated. But with the many bags we were holding, our approach was slow and tiresome. Taking a glance in the girls' direction, they appeared to be losing energy fast.

Finding an empty table in the food court's dining area, I gestured the girls towards it, "Why don't you two get these bags to that table and I'll order," I suggested.

"I'll come and help carry the meals later," Jinwei offered.

"Uh," I acknowledged.

Without the bags of clothes protruding off of my sides, the walk to the food-court restaurant was less cumbersome. Upon my arrival, the line was not what one would consider long, but feeling uncharacteristically impatient, the wait to be served appeared the opposite. Since then, ten minutes had passed and I was standing listlessly off to the side, waiting for the food to be served; Meiling was still waiting at the table that situated just within visual range; and Jinwei, temporarily absent from my side to go to the washroom.

Just as I began to fall into a blank daze, I immediately pulled myself out of it upon seeing the two people I thought I had sighted earlier. Watching after them, I soon determined that it was, in fact, Kinomoto and Daidouji, both of whom were scanning the restaurant-menu boards a short distance from me.

"Kinomoto, Daidouji," I called to them.

Daidouji was the first to respond. "Hello, Li." She then took a brief glance at the restaurant I had ordered from before returning her gaze in my direction, "Getting some lunch?"

"Yeah. You too?"

"Hm," she affirmed. "But there are so many choices here: Sakura and I are having trouble deciding on what to have at the moment."

I smiled, understanding the small dilemma she was facing. To make a rough estimation, there were probably over twenty different food-vendors in the mall, and that didn't take into account the ones that were scattered around on other floors—a rather large number to choose from compared to standard suburban malls.

"How's your summer vacation been?" My question was directed to both of them, but my gaze had settled more on Kinomoto than Daidouji, hoping it'd encourage the former to respond. It had—

"It's." Kinomoto began, before pausing momentarily.

As her eyes moved off to the right, seemingly allocating a bit of thought to her answer, I began to think that maybe she was finally going to provide me an answer that was longer than the curt responses I'd been used to in previous occasions—giving me an indication that she was finally warming up to me.

".been good," she completed, showing no signs of elaborating.

Although her tone was friendly, her responses continued to be short and reserved. This Kinomoto Sakura was truly a tough cookie to break; her resistance to me was unbelievably stubborn. In the times that I've had the opportunity to observe the interaction between Ashida—someone who barely acknowledged her—and herself, she has had more to say to him in one meeting than she has ever had to say to me: was her heart set so strong on this Ashida that she saw no other guy as worth talking to?

Still, even as I stood in front of her questioning my chances, looking into those captivating green eyes of hers, I couldn't help but to be drawn to her. I may not be worth her time, but she was still worth mine. With that, I smiled in defeat, replying:

"I'm glad."

"Sir, your order is ready," the counterperson alerted all of a sudden.

"Thank you," immediately I acknowledged.

"You're welcome. Enjoy your meals."

Turning back towards Kinomoto and Daidouji, I prepared to announce my departure and let them get back to their own lunch, but just as I was about to do so, Jinwei came running in:

"Sorry!" she apologised in her native Cantonese tongue. She had come in slightly out of breath.

"Is everything alright?" I thought to ask, switching the language back to Japanese.

"Oh, I just got a bit lost—but it looks like I got back just in time though; I'm so hungry I could eat a horse," she emphatically professed.

Instantly, my eyebrows rose: I hadn't expected such vulgar speech to come from such a feminine girl. But then, as I heard her chuckle to herself, I found myself laughing with her a little—she seemed so comfortable in her own skin.

Kinomoto and Daidouji, however, weren't laughing; they simply had their attention directed towards her—most likely wondering who it was that had just compared their hunger to the consumption of a horse.

"This is Wang Jinwei," I introduced, "She's here visiting for a short while from Hong Kong ."

"It's nice to meet you—I'm Daidouji Tomoyo; and this is my friend, Kinomoto Sakura."

"Nice to meet you," Kinomoto returned with a customarily bow of the head.

"It's nice to meet you both too. Are you all friends of Syaoran's?"

"We go to the same high school," Kinomoto responded, neither confirming nor denying the question.

Finding it a good time to make our exit, I moved to do so, "We should be getting the meals to the table," I began, "Enjoy your lunch."

"Thanks; same to you," Daidouji responded.

Then I moved towards the counter to pick up the meals, but not before acknowledging Kinomoto one last time, giving her a smile before I left.

Wearing an indeterminable expression, she obliged with: "See ya."

Location: Community Library
Time frame: Summer vacation
Point of View: Sakura

Sitting at a set of tables in our local community library, my brows vexed at the answers before me, confused by the difference between the ones written in my maths book and the ones at the back of the calculus textbook:

Where had I gone wrong?

Double checking, I flipped back through the textbook to the pages with the example questions on conics, briefly comparing their steps to mine: Differentiate; then find the gradient of the tangent; then the gradient of the normal; and finally, substitute the values into the equations for each—

"That's what I did," I thought aloud—frustrated—before expressing a dejected sigh: So why do they look so different?

Feeling discouraged, I dropped my pencil and watched it roll across my workings, and into the centre crease of my maths book. It was obvious to me now that I was never meant to pass this subject. I could sit here in the library—sacrifice a part of my summer vacation, read up on it, do the exercises, and still not pass; there was way too much to know and way too little time for me to learn it in.

Calculus and I just don't mix.

Leveraging my head on my left arm, I sighed again as my gaze moved to stare blankly at the library's entrance—or from my point of view—the library's exit. It wasn't exactly in my direct line of vision, it was off at a slight angle actually, but I suppose it was a hint from my subconscious—a message which was advising me to just call it a day and pack up and leave. But, as much as I would've loved to listen to it, my guilt over my disappointing results in my last calculus test last term (failing it by a few marks) held me back from taking such action. I'd probably have to stay for at least an hour or two to relieve even just a tinge of that guilt: three quarters of an hour—it seemed—wasn't enough.

Continuing to stare ahead, I allowed myself to indulge a few more moments of idleness. But these moments were cut short when Li appeared through the library's security barriers. As he appeared to be heading my way, I instinctively diverted my gaze.

Returning to my books, I anticipated his approach. Moments continued to pass; the swishing sound of his strides growing louder and louder as I half-heartedly read my calculus textbook. As the sound came closer, I had expected him to acknowledge my presence at any moment. Then, just when I had expected it, it didn't come. Instead, he walked right past me. I'd admit I was a little surprised, as well as, confused. Unlike all the other times when he and I were in the same vicinity where he would make some sort of move to acknowledge me, this time he completely ignored my presence.

For the next minute or two, I watched him from the corner of my eyes, feeling hesitant: maybe I should say something to him.

The books came out; then his pencil case; his pen; and after a bit of rearranging, he finally settled down to read.

"Li. Hi."

He took himself away from his books to look up at me. "Kinomoto," he said—his voice soft and barely audible. "Hey." A weak smile then spread across an apparent tired appearance.

For a split second, I had thought to ask about his fatigue, but thought better of it. Struggling to come up with more dialogue under the less intense, but just as penetrating, gaze, I felt an urgency to come up with something further to say. Brief moments had passed before I decided to ask about the obvious:

"Are you here to do some studying?"

"Uh—just a little. What about you?"

"Yeah." He smiled and nodded before he appeared to be dropping his attention back towards his books. I had taken the action as an end to our conversation, but just as I thought he was returning to his studies, he added:

"What are you studying?" his eyes gesturing towards the direction of my books.

"Calculus."

"How are you going with that?"

A slight feeling of discomfort rose in me : revealing that I was struggling seemed too embarrassing. In particular, t elling someone like Li—a person who I knew was extremely able in the subject— that I didn't get it wasn't something I really wanted to admit to.

"I'm. doing okay," I decided to say, spinning a positive tone on my reply.

Admittedly, I probably sounded a little more positive than I should've, but it wasn't as if I was having problems with all the questions I had attempted—I'd been able to figure out the majority of the ones I've tried; I've just hit a problem on the third of the thirteen questions in the exercise. I hadn't even given the others a go yet.

Internally, I sighed at my feigned optimism: who was I kidding? I hadn't even gotten to the middle of the exercise and I was already having trouble. It was going horribly.

"That's good to hear," I heard him say—oblivious to the internal conversation I was having with myself. Nodding, I began to return to my books, thinking that he was probably about to do the same. But once again, he decided to add a little more: "If you need me." Then he paused briefly. There was something about the way he paused that caught my attention, but I wasn't too sure what it was. "I'm here," he completed, his voice softer, followed by a smile.

Instead of turning away, I found myself holding his gaze. Not only did I find it uncanny how he seemed to have answered my internal thoughts, as if he could read my mind, but his presence—there was something different about him today. By that, I wasn't referring to his physical appearance—although I had noticed that there was something different about that too: he was only in a plain polo-shirt and some dress cargos, but that combination seemed to compliment him somehow; and extending off of his fingers—something I hadn't noticed until now—were a pair of some really nice-looking shades too.—but, what I was referring to was that, somehow, he felt different to me; something about him changed.

With the feeling lingering briefly, I offered a small smile: "Thanks," before finally returning to my studies.

In the next thirty or forty minutes, there was little worth noting. Li sat at his table reading his books, while I sat at mine continuing my studies. Having decided to leave the couple of questions I had struggled with till later, I thought to give the others a go—hoping that maybe I'd encounter a light-bulb moment that would, not only help me to figure out those that I had moved onto, but also the earlier ones. Nothing like that happened though. As I went further and further down, the questions only got harder. I went from having a fair idea of what I needed to do to answer the questions to having next to no idea what I needed to do.

Flicking my pencil back and forth, my mind entered another daze as I began to lose interest in doing the questions. I had given everything into figuring out these questions, and still, I wasn't much further than when I started.

An audible sigh escaped me. I give up.

Suddenly curious, I wondered what Li was doing. Inconspicuously, I glanced over at him—the concern that I had over him catching me looking quickly diminishing when I discovered that he wasn't even awake to notice me stealing the glance. Oddly, yet strangely intriguing, he laid with his eyes closed, leveraged by the back of a few of his fingers and thumb. Without needing to worry about the return of his gaze, my glance turned into a stare: the locks of his dark hair that so gingerly fell over his peaceful, sleeping cast, catching my attention.

Then, catching me off guard, the lids covering those eyes that seemed to know and see all suddenly began to lift. Fretting, I flicked my eyes elsewhere—immediately moving them away from his direct gaze. Finally positioning my attention back in front of me, I began waiting out a short period, hoping that he hadn't sensed my previous actions.

"How are things going with calculus?"

Only a few seconds had passed before I heard him pose the question. With that, I cursed internally. He must have noticed. Turning back to face him, I composed myself, replying honestly:

"Not so great."

Then without warning, he pushed himself away from his table and began walking towards me, leaving me to wonder what he was doing. "Let me have a look."

I stiffened: he was coming over to help me. Confused as to whether to stop him or not, I watched his approach, struggling to speak. "Umm."

Before I knew it, he was sitting next to me.

"What were you having trouble with?"

Taken aback by the proximity his face was from mine, I felt myself jerk back before I slid my maths book across to show him. "I've just been working on the conics section—I can't seem to get my answers to match the ones at the back of the (calculus text-) book. I must've gone wrong somewhere."

He nodded in acknowledgement then began going over my workings after examining the question from the textbook. Shortly after, he flipped to a spare page in my maths book: he must have found my mistakes and was now beginning to work through the question himself. Speedily, he whipped through the first question like it was second nature to him. Less than a couple of minutes he was almost done.

"You're pretty good at this, aren't you?"

Still working away, he stated simply, "It's just a lot of studying and practise." Then he took a brief break to look up at me, expressing yet another one of his smiles. "You can do it too," then he went back to finishing the question.

"I think it'll take a lot more than that for me to get calculus."

As I saw the corners of his lips curl upwards in acknowledgement of my response, I found it interesting how he seemed to acknowledge every response of mine—it didn't matter that he was busy concentrating and working through the question as he was now; doing his own thing; or even too tired to stay awake to do his own studies; he always seemed to be making sure that I was taken care of.

"Here (he pointed to my tangent equation, comparing his work with mine), you needed to multiply both sides by four first before subtracting three—I think you knew that," he said, looking at me. "For the other question, you just forgot to include the translations into the equation."

I leaned in to study his workings. "Wow." I said—more to myself than to him. "They were really simple mistakes."

"You're not as bad in calculus as you think."

"Thanks. Li." I had hesitated on his name, having not gotten used to saying it aloud yet. "I really appreciate it."

He nodded with a smile. "Any others?"

Li was offering to help me with more questions. As much as I was in need of help, it didn't feel right to further take advantage of his gesture. "Oh—yeah. But I don't want to take up your time."

"What's the next question?" he simply asked, bypassing my concern over the imposition.

Accepting further help, I began pointing him towards the next question; but then a buzzing noise halted me in my tracks. It was coming from under the table; from Li's pocket.

"Excuse me." He then slid open his cell phone—a phone that looked very different from the one I remembered seeing at the start of the year; it looked pretty new.

I couldn't tell what the nature of the call was, but it didn't sound very important. Li didn't speak much, and I presumed little was said on the other end as well since the call ended soon after it was received.

"Sorry about this, I didn't know it was getting so late. It looks like dinner's almost ready at the apartment. My cousin's hurrying me home," he informed. "Will you be here tomorrow?"

Knowing exactly what he was thinking of doing, I moved to decline his offer: "I'll be fine working on it by myself; you don't need to—"

"So you are going to be here tomorrow?" he interrupted, dismissing the rest of what I had to say.

"Yeah—but I don't want to trouble you."

"Then, if you want, we can continue this tomorrow."

Upon his insistence, I graciously accepted his offer. "Sure, that'd be great. Thank you, Li."

With Li rostered on at work early in the morning, we had agreed to meet again the next day in the afternoon. Sitting at the same table as the day previous, we worked through the other questions on the conics section for a good couple or so hours. As there was so much I didn't understand, what was supposed to be one teaching session, it turned into another two. Despite working early shifts on both of these days, Li had kindly offered the following afternoons so that he could go through a few other sections that I didn't get.

Having Li step me through the questions and explaining them made learning calculus a lot easier. There were still problems understanding and remembering all the formulas and how to use them, but after Li's explanations, he had helped clear up a lot of things; I definitely felt more confident about calculus than before it. With another calculus test to come first week back, thank God he was here too.

Grateful, I had offered that we go out for a couple of drinks, on me, after we finished up at the library—my way of thanking him for helping me so much. It was around four in the afternoon and it was yet another sunny afternoon with blue skies, a little cloud, and a gentle breeze. With the weather being so lovely, I had suggested that we'd sit at a table outside of a small café to have our drinks—that was my first reason. My second reason was for strategic purposes. Although I had become a little more comfortable with Li over the last few days, I'd figured it'd still be a wise idea to sit outside, as the scenery could act as entertainment were any awkward silent moments to arise.

So far, things were going alright. As we sat casually sipping our drinks, we talked about common topics, topics such as the one on our plans after graduation.

"I'm hoping to take my studies to the UK next year," Li had said in response to my inquiries on his own plans next year.

"The UK ?"

"Uh. There are two universities over there I'm interested in at the moment—they seem to offer a great program in the discipline I want to pursue."

"What's that?"

"Mechanical engineering."

"As in. cars?" I didn't know exactly what mechanical engineering consisted of, but I had always presumed it to have something to do with automobiles (and of the like).

He smiled, probably at my ignorance. "That's one part of it." Then he moved to question me about my plans. "What about you?"

"I was thinking of going to university too, study something in law or something—I haven't decided yet. Maybe I won't even go to university," I thought aloud, recalling Tomoyo's comment about always being her fashion model.

"Where would you go then?"

"I could work for a year and see if I could make it as a—"

Suddenly, I paused, thinking it to be embarrassing to reveal. It wasn't that being a fashion model was embarrassing, but the industry wasn't exactly an easy one to get into. Not only was it a long climb up to the top, but it would also mean my admitting to thinking that I had the extreme beauty required to make it. Were I to voice it, it might sound a little arrogant.

"Could make it as—what?" He was looking at me now, urging me to carry on, seemingly curious as to what I was about to say.

Biting my bottom lip, my eyes wondering a couple of times, I thought about revealing my aspirations. "Umm." He continued to wait, holding his curious gaze on me. "Maybe I could make it as a fashion model," I said finally.

"I can see why you might think to head that way. You're very attractive."

Skipping a beat, I froze. What did he mean by that?

Out of nowhere, he just said it, without any warning; there was no hesitation, no stutter; it was just said with ease, his voice soft, like a statement. Even as I sat here looking at him: his eyes gazing back at me, his lips only barely curled upwards, there was little I could go on into finding out what he had meant by it.

All of a sudden, the situation had taken a turn: from a rather casual and comfortable situation a moment ago, it had turned to an immensely awkward one. Feeling myself losing composure, I quickly looked away. Deciding to bury the awkwardness into a few sips of my drink before diverting my attention out at the scenery, avoiding Li.

"Hello." He said suddenly.

Wondering what he was doing, I turned back to the table, to see Li talking into his phone—it must have been on vibrate mode again. Then returning to my drink, I sipped more of my drink as he talked on his phone.

"I'm just having some drinks with a friend. No, I'll head to the grocers; I'll get them.

To my relief, it seemed we were parting ways soon.

"At the café not too far from Kobayashi's." he continued, before a couple of "hm. hm." in acknowledgement followed then he finally ended the conversation, "Okay, bye." He then moved his attention to me. "Sorry, that was my cousin."

"Do you need to be somewhere?" That was me hopeful.

"No, I've got time—it's just to the grocers to get a few things for dinner."

"We can get moving; I've finished." Then I stood up. "I'll get these drinks paid for, I'll be right back."

"Ah—sure. Thanks." As I made my way into the café, I could see in my peripheral that Li was surprised by my abruptness, but even if we had stayed, I wouldn't have known what else we could've talk about. So it was probably for the better.

A short moment later I returned. Strangely enough though, Li had disappeared. Standing near the table we previously occupied, I scanned my surroundings for him, but he was nowhere to be found. Then suddenly, I felt a hand on my shoulder.

"Kinomoto." Turning around, I met up with Li who was staring back at me through his shades. I felt my eyes widen, taken aback by his proximity and imposing stature. "Shall we get going?"

"Umm. I can walk back home from here. It's not too far," I managed to say.

"I know. But I can still drive you back home."

I took a subtle step back. "It's okay. You've already helped me a lot today."— what did he mean by 'I know'?

Then suddenly catching my attention, it switched to the two girls not too far in front me. They were fashionably dressed and it seemed they had their sights on Li. But with his back to them, he hadn't the slightest of clues.

"It's no trouble. I'll take—"

"Hey, Syaoran!" One of the girls had jumped on top of him, hanging off of him by the neck.

He turned around, obviously distressed by the stranglehold the girl had on him. "Meiling, get off me! You're strangling me!" She jumped off, pouting. "What are you both doing here, anyway?" he asked the two girls—one of which I recall meeting a few days ago, whose name I had forgotten.

"We were in the area and we thought we'd come and surprise you," the one named Meiling replied. "Who's your friend?"

"This is Kinomoto Sakura. She's the one I was helping."

She extended a hand towards me; I took it. "Li Meiling, Syaoran's cousin."

" Miss. Kinomoto," the one I had previously met suddenly called. "We met at the mall."

It seemed her memory was sharper than mine. Feeling slightly embarrassed for not returning the gesture, I proceeded to ask for her name again. "Hi—I'm sorry, but I seem to have forgotten your name."

"Wang Jinwei, but you can call me Jinwei."

"Oh, Jinwei, it's nice to see you again. How are you finding Japan ?" customarily, I asked.

"It's been a lot of fun; I feel almost sad that I have to leave in a few days."

"Oh, well, you'll have to come back another time then," I thought to say.

She nodded then she turned to Li and began discussing about dinner and evening plans. As I watched her talk to Li, I began to notice how pretty she was—but I suppose not in the traditional sense. She wasn't like the girls seen in magazines—she was more subtle and natural in her looks: her skin was smooth and milky; it didn't look like she was wearing any make-up: apart from a bit of mascara, the barely noticeable shade of eye-shadow, and a bit of lip-gloss, I couldn't see very much on her at all; her hair was long and sleek, secured neatly into a high pony-tail; and even though she appeared to be the same height as me, her slim physique made her look quite tall.

.I wonder who she is to him.

Hearing Li use my name, I exited from my thoughts:

"I was just about to drop Kinomoto off at her place."

"No, it's okay. I'll walk home from here," I moved to say again.

"Well, since we're all here together, if you don't have dinner plans already, you can always join us, Miss. Kinomoto. You'll have to do a bit of grocery shopping before then, but after that we can all go back to Syaoran's apartment and have dinner together, then we'd be able to save going back and forth."

She seemed nice enough, but I had to decline since dinner was probably waiting for me at home in an hours time anyway. "Thank you for the invitation, but my brother's home and I think he'll be waiting for me."

"Are you sure?" she asked; I nodded. Turning her attention back to Li, she continued, "Then we'll do the grocery shopping whilst we wait for you to return then."

Before I had a chance to interject again, Li had already acknowledged her and we were on our way to his car.

The drive to my house was quiet. Our only interaction came in the form of my directions to my house. Still, it seemed Li didn't really need them. Even before I had given them, he seemed already prepared to make the turns. One time, I had completely forgotten to direct him and by the time I remembered, he had already made his way into the correct street.

Seeing my house in sight, I informed him of our approach, "It's just ahead; the yellow one."

He nodded. Seconds later, he pulled up by the curb. I unbuckled myself from the passenger's seat and grabbed my bag from my feet.

"Have a good evening," he greeted.

"Thank you for today."

"If you have any more problems, you can reach me at my number (Li had given me his mobile number during our second session at the library)."

"Thanks," I expressed before I made my way out of the car and closed the door behind me.

Lowering his head to speak through the unwound window, he said for a final time: "Good luck with the test." Then he drove off in the opposite direction.

Making my way up the driveway, I met up with my brother, Touya. His trousers were covered with dirt and so were his hands. It looked like he'd decided to do a little afternoon gardening.

"Hey, Touya. Where've you been? Looking for food in the scrap bin again?" I jested.

Touya didn't reply, instead he threatened to put those dirty paws of his in my hair. Luckily, he didn't, returning them to his hips as he stood akimbo.

"Was that Kansuke I saw?"

Out of habit, my head spun around, searching for him. "Where?"

"The guy that dropped you off."

"No—that's Li. He's the one I was at the library with today."

"Well, he's the same one that took you home."

"What are you talking about?"

"Well, this is the one you called Kansuke that night"—that night I came home drunk from Eriol's party was what he was referring to.

Turning back towards the curb, I stared at the spot where his car once parked, in thought. It was Li?

"Well, how are things with Calculus; learn anything?" I heard Touya call in the background.

That's. how he knew.