Cultural Wasteland- Chapter Two

Cultural Wasteland- Chapter 2

19 year old Syaoran checked himself into rehab for drug abuse. He gets caught in a fast lane when he meets 18 year old Sakura a recovering drug abuser who has thrown her life away. Syaoran finds out that life is not all butterflies and daisies when he sees the other side of the world through Sakura`s eyes. Rated: T, mild drug and scene abuse. 1 shot

A/N: Thank you for reading the second chapter! First matter of business: I don't think the T rating is enough so comment if you think it should be M. Thats all really but I hope you enjoy the second chapter!

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Mimi found Syaoran following Sakura and forced them to go to the cafeteria, “If you don’t eat you’ll crave crack and want to shoot up!” she stated with a matter-o-factly sneer which earned her an eye roll from the two teens.

The cafeteria didn’t smell too pleasant. However, it was a big improvement from the ICU. While the ICU smelt of horrible things that could not be described, the cafeteria had the prominent smell of burnt food. The cafeteria service team probably had no motivation from such a low end job, and providing food to savage junkies must have been the last thing on their mind when they were younger. When Syaoran went up to get his food, tray in hand, he saw the wear and tear in their faces. Like Mimi, they could have once been called attractive, but the grey and feeble hair and the sagging wrinkles masked the beauty they once possessed. Was this place a curse? Syaoran seemed to think so.

The workers plopped miserably prepared food onto his plate: Soupy squashed peas, mashed fruit cocktail, grey looking macaroni, and a half pint of juice (sealed luckily). With the beef tips in gravy at the end, Syaoran decided to leave the line early. Sakura followed suite and skipped the beef.

The two sat down together at a table in a darkened corner. From what Syaoran could see on the table, the cafeteria workers made little to no effort to clean and promoted the growth of green looking goo. Living in a luxury mansion all those years now seemed like a dream to Syaoran. As of the cafeteria, how he longed for just a proper rag to clean the table up. Syaoran’s wish wouldn’t be fulfilled but at least he had someone to share his misery with.

Sakura. By the looks of it, she seemed pretty fragile. Her tiny frame made her look like a toothpick; underneath all of her baggy clothes, that is. She picked at her food taking small bites; probably the reason for such skinniness. Her wearied emerald eyes wandered around. They seemed to share no connection to where she was at the moment. Like she was off remembering one of her LSD imposed trips. The extreme blackness and heaviness around her eye made her look like a raccoon. Lolling her head from side to side made her look as if she were sleeping with her eyes open. Her facial features were extremely tiny, cute, and otherwise very much like a woman’s. The downside was her skin filled with tiny blemishes below detection but still an imperfection. Her chapped lips looked desperate for moisture. Red and blotchy, they took the brutal bighting Sakura’s teeth gave out. Overall, Sakura was like a withered flower. She was a beautiful sight once, but expired before her time was up. Just like a flower, she was gone in a second. The beauty she held made Syaoran sadder. Out of all the people who were worn down in that hell hole, why did it have to be such a delicate little girl?

“Poor thing,” He muttered under his breath.

Sakura dropped her utensil, “Tha fuck you say?”

Syaoran rolled his eyes, “Sweetie, do watch your language,”

Sakura sucked in air like she was getting ready for a big retort but stopped and thought a moment, “I have AIDS,”

“Er…” Syaroan was shocked by such a serious but random statement, “Tragic as it is; why does this concern me?”

“-Because you licked my blood,”

Syaoran’s face made an ‘Oh yeah…’ look but shrugged it off, “I probably didn’t get AIDS but even if I did I don’t mind…Just another thing that will eventually end up killing me.”

“So-” Sakura took a sip out of her artificially dyed juice, “You aren’t afraid to die?”

Syaoran thought about it quite a bit. Dying; a natural thing. No matter the cause, it is still natural. He didn’t see the need to ponder further about it. Dying was dying and he would face it one day too. The purpose of humans, Syaoran thought, was nothing. Humans had no purpose and each human had no significance. The significance only comes with the intertwining of other humans called socializing. However, socializing almost always leads to bad things. That is how Syaoran became unloved, that is how he got into drugs, and that is how he finally ended up in rehab. There was not a day that didn’t go by that Syaoran thought of taking his own life because of his bad social interactions. In fact, his multiple attempts at suicide were only stopped by his current girlfriends at the times of his attempts. They were whores who wanted the self satisfaction of saving a life; So, Syaoran granted them that, at least. Then he would leave them and continue the cycle again.

Syaoran chuckled. There was so much he could say about death; how he wanted it to come over him so badly or how he’d like to eventually kill himself but he decided a simple answer would suffice, “No,” he replied with a smirk.

Sakura frowned, “Hum, well that’s no fun then.”

Syaoran looked her in the eyes as she stared back, blankly, “So then, what about you?”

“Terrified,” Sakura stated.

He didn’t expect such an answer, “W-Why-” He began.

Sakura picked up her tray, threw out most of the food and put the tray on top of the trashcan, “Lets leave it at that for today.”

Syaoran watched Sakura leave the cafeteria.

She was interesting and tragic. Syaoran couldn’t help but be interested. The fact that she was terrified of dying made him curious as to why she lead a life of danger and drugs. He would have to further inquire to her and make her open up.

A rush of excitement made his chest pound full of a self-perpetuated high. He ran out of the cafeteria and into his nearby room, belly flopping down on his bed, “Lovely, truly lovely,”

The decision that he made to run to his room was not a wise one. After about ten minutes of laying on his bed Syaoran began to have a feeling of sickness. His head became dizzying and soon he blacked out.

When Syaoran came to the first thing he heard was an annoying click of the tongue, “What a mess,” the annoyance seethed into Syaoran’s skull.

He felt wet and chunky. It was like he was surrounded by a mass of sickening liquid that burned his nostrils. His eyes were still closed but he had wished he had kept them shut.

His eyes opened to a spectacular nightmare; beige liquid all over his bed. There was a mixture of things that Syaoran remembered swallowing just hours ago: peas, fruit chunks, and macaroni. The rest was a pile of chunky vomit.

Mimi was standing in the doorway assessing the vomit covered Syaoran and his messy situation. She held her nose, like any sane person in that place would. Anger could be a less than adequate word to use for Mimi’s expression.

Her forehead was all wrinkled up as she looked like a killer out for revenge. She looked like one crazy bitch, Syaoran could tell you that much.

“If you were going to have a withdrawal you could have gone into the bathroom to relieve yourself!”

Syaoran tried to get up but felt like there was a huge hole down in his lower abs, “Would anybody in their right mind submit themselves to this type of embarrassment?” He seethed with a moan of pain.

Mimi rolled her eyes, “I don’t know, are you of sound mind?”

Syaoran laughed at the comment. Of course she wouldn’t take him seriously, he was addicted to a numerous amount of drugs. The thought never occurred to him but being surrounded in his bed by a pool of his own vomit really put it into perspective for him. The embarrassment of a drug addict, it had yet blown upon the young Syaoran Li with full force.

"Well..." Mimi gagged at the smell and turned her head out of the room without seeming rude, "Lets...clean you up. I'll get some cleaning people in here to wipe your room down."

Syaoran didn't want to slip on his own vomit so he maneuvered over the sickening mass while keeping the vomit on him to a minimum, "Mimi, this is kind of disgusting...how could I throw up so much?"

Mimi rolled her eyes at the small talk Syaoran was obviously creating, "Well, the drug dependence you developed was probably really deep. With the sheer amount of crap you threw up I wouldn't be surprised that this is just the beginning it," She looked Syaoran up and down, "Take off your outer clothing and just throw it back in your room."

Syaoran did as Mimi said and was left with his clean boxers on. Mimi pointed to the clothes on top of his dresser and quickly went back into his room and grabbed them, "Good thinking..." Syaoran muttered.

"Well, you are obviously going to take a shower now; I will show you where it is. The first time you get your own soap and shampoo. After you run out ask the bathroom attendant for new soap. Fifteen minutes for each shower. The towels are found in a cubby right at the entrance....and...this is a community shower so...don't drop the soap." Mimi taunted and showed Syaoran the tiled room that smelt a bit of mildew.

Mimi left Syaoran to gawk at the most un-private room he would ever take a shower in, "This is crazy," He opened the blue shower curtain -designated for men- that opened into a room of about twenty shower heads with drains placed after every few showers, "So...unhealty!" Syaoran saw that there was no blockage where there should be and was glad he was the only one taking a shower at the time.

There was a little place to put the soap and shampoo that was indented into the wall. Syaoran put his items there and turned on the cold water.

The little things he never paid attention to were now greatly appreciated in his mind. The warm bath he wanted at that moment was nonexistent. He would have to do with the cold water to scrub all of his dinner off of his skin.

There was a small noise from the other side of the wall. The noise got louder until Syaoran realized that someone was singing.

Syaoran realized the song being sung. He took in the lyrics like he knew the meaning behind them. He was enjoying his cold shower a bit more than when he first started it. The voice giving Syaoran his enjoyment -he figured- belonged to a woman on the other side of the wall. Her voice sounded ruff and broken but it was soulful and quite beautiful to Syaoran.

After listening for a while he decided to join in on the song taking a turn with his voice grand but delicate. The woman’s voice wavered for a second contemplating whether to continue or not but resumed singing after a moment’s time. Syaoran chuckled at the woman’s timid embarrassment and continued singing as well.

Syaoran took a shot in the dark and guessed who he was singing with, “Sakura?”

Syaoran heard a small and echoing, “Oh damn,” before she replied in a deep voice, “Nononono, you got the wrong person sorry.”

Syaoran gave a hearty laugh throwing his head back, “Oh yes, so sorry!” He heard the water shut off on the other side. Syaoran quickly followed suit and collected his things dripping wet with goose bumps.

He exited from the blue curtain and found that a skinny figure had exited from the pink curtain. Her long brown hair was down and dripping beads of water. They ran down her small frame and into a pink towel wrapped around her. She looked absolutely sexy in a rough, edgy sort of way. From the way Sakura scowled, she did not seem pleased about getting assessed.

“-The hell you looking at?” She greeted with an unkind sneer.

Syaoran smiled and retorted, “Such a dirty mouth for such a lovely body,”

She glared at Syaoran but left it and that and walked away from him into her room. Syaoran went into the changing room instead and waited for his room to get clean.

All in all, the following week was crap. Syaoran had to detoxify his body and flush out all of the drugs in his system. This called for major amounts of vomiting and shaking uncontrollably. With Mimi being a hard ass like usual Syaoran had to take awful medication to control his pain and throw up in the toilet like a good boy. The rehab experience was a tough one but it also taught Syaoran one and one thing only: Listen to Mimi, always. She lessened the pain and boredom that week and provided fun for him and Sakura. As soon as the week ended Syaoran and Sakura were doing odd jobs for Mimi to fill up their schedule.

Syaoran was sitting on a chair backwards leaning on the table in front of him. Sakura was just opposite of him doing the same. The afternoon was so far boring for the two as they just sat there observing all of the twitching heroin, cocaine, and other random drug users.

They all looked dead. The liveliest ones were Syaoran and Sakura and that was not saying much. They all sat around watching the light from the television flutter and flit over the dark, dank room with only one flickering light on. Once in a while someone would go crazy and shout random shit like they needed more crack or they knew that aliens were coming or something around those lines. They were put to rest by a secret needle that one of the nurses injected into them; it calmed them right down.

Syaoran wondered why his parents didn’t send him to a nice rehab; like in the shows where a doctor talks about feelings and people’s history of drug abuse. He just wanted a decent place to spend his recuperating time. It didn’t have to have warm showers, just better workers and food. The place in which Syaoran desired to be grew less demanding more and more each day.

Syaoran sighed and flicked Sakura on the head.

“WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT FOR?!” Sakura shot up and glared, “I THOUGHT WE WERE ON GOOD TERMS NOW?!”

“Waaa….I’m booooorred…” Syaoran said with a monotone voice ignoring Sakura’s expected outburst, “Mimi has a cold todaaay!”

Sakura smirked, “Then shall we explore even more of this hell?”

Syaoran’s face grimaced with a bit of surprise, “There is more to this place?!

“Come on,” Sakura took his hand and led him out of the recreational room and far back into the building, “There is an oasis in hell,” Sakura smiled for the first time and started running towards a old door covered with anything and everything imaginable.

Sakura carefully opened the door to reveal something amazing: a garden. Not a big garden, but a small one. It was covered in moss everywhere with a big tree in the middle with a swing attached. There were stepping stones to a sitting area and a small fountain and that looked like a flower blooming and spouting water. Around them, red flowers bloomed everywhere. It was outside but red bricks covered by the moss held the two teenagers in the rehab center still.

“This….is…” Syaoran started.

“It’s like the Secret Garden, right?” Sakura questioned with a smirk.

“Y-yeah…” He was amazed and the simplicity of the beautiful garden. The green and red contrasted and yet made perfect sense together.

He went and sat down on one of the benches and motioned for Sakura to follow. She reluctantly did even though she would have gone over there anyway.

They sat a while taking in the beauty, not wanting to go back inside.

Sakura was the first one to speak up in the silent garden, “So what’s your story; your spiral down? What made you do drugs?”

Syaoran looked at Sakura with an almost pathetic look on his face, “its nothing really….I guess the reason was that my parents didn’t look after me like they should have and I got in trouble. I think I wanted their attention mostly. At first it was just a couple of happy pills but then my so called friends introduced me to other things…I don’t have a grand story to tell. Its not like I was abandoned or anything, forced to live life by myself, on the streets. I was just spoiled, and I had the money to do whatever I wanted to do. And so I turned to drugs; that’s all.”

“I used to have a pet lion,” Sakura said. She received a raised eyebrow from Syaoran, “My godfather Yue gave Kero-chan to me. Kero-chan liked to eat a lot…his favorite thing in the whole wide world was pudding.”

Syaoran looked confused; he didn’t understand why she was talking about her pet, “So is this relevant to your story?”

Sakura whipped her head to face Syaoran, “Just. LISTEN.” She hissed, “Ahem…Yue was a great godfather to me. He explained to me that everyone had a moon and a sun. The moon was calm and collected while the sun was filled with fire and excitement. I realized that my moon was Yue and my sun was Kero-chan. I lived a happy life with my brother and father -my mother passed away- but we were happy together as a small family. My brother had a small secret though. He was gay. It may not seem like such a big deal but my brother was caught in a predicament. Yue and this other man named Yukito were both my brother’s lovers. Yue and Yukito could have been called the same people really; they were twin brothers. My brother Touya, loved them both. He couldn’t decide between the two. Yue found out one day and so Touya had to choose. Touya ended up choosing the sickly Yukito instead of the dashing Yue. Yue was enraged and got into a fight with the other two. My father tried to intervene but everyone ended up being killed by Yue. I don’t know why or how Yue could do such a think but he did…” Sakura paused. Her eyes were not moved, they were solid and void, “I knew he wouldn’t do such a thing…He was too nice. But that all changed when I realized that his jealously ran deep. Yue ended up raping me-”

“WHAT?” Syaoran interjected, “That’s horrible!”

“It doesn’t matter now, its over with…so anyway, I ended up on the streets and had to sell drugs to get by. You know, what you said you didn’t do. Well…I did.”

Syaoran sat speechless. How could he respond?

“Forget it…” Sakura said.

Syaoran tried to break the silence, “Um…well, at least we understand each other a bit more, right? We both had it hard.”

“You aren’t really suffering...” Sakura muttered, “You just feel no love. You can feel pain but you’re just an empty shell.” Sakura paused, “How can you say you had it hard? Piss off!!!” She pushed Syaoran into the fountain and ran straight for the door, fed up.

“Her eyes remained blank through the whole process.” Syaoran muttered shaking the water out of his hair.