Everything You Want- Chapter One

Everything you want

Witch-Mistress-Animaru

A/N: First chapter. Meet our heroine in this short and concise story.

Are happy endings really of essence? I mean, it is only worth reading not precisely because it’s a happy ending, not because you wonder how it came to end that way? Sometimes stories make sense only when they end in tragedy. No sense trying to fit a fairy tale ending to a realist drama. Don’t get any ideas, though—this is a happy ending for SS. Was there any doubt about that?

Sequels are possible; just let me find the appropriate songs for Eriol and Tomoyo and Touya and Meiling.

1: Everything he wants

“Cause I still believe in destiny

That you and I are meant to be...

...Cause I still believe, believe in love.”

- I Still Believe, Hayden Panettiere

"You can’t run away from who you really are, Cinderella. You want the ballroom and romance.”

“I want it in real life, Derek. I want romance and moonlight and passion, not scripted lines. I want my dearest wish to come true."

– Excerpts from Cinderella’s Rebellion, Blair Valentine

“Top of the bestseller list again,” Li Syaoran, head of Aishou Publishing, commented the moment Kinomoto Sakura entered the threshold of his office. His amber eyes held her emerald ones briefly in a congratulatory gaze before he gestured towards the seat before him. “I must say, you have really outdone yourself this time, my dear.”

Sakura frowned at the use of the endearment. She was not certain how to react. Yes, granted she had known Li Syaoran for a good four years now, ever since she worked as a clerk for Aishou , her writing prowess still unbeknownst to even herself, but he was only her enigmatic boss from the start. He wouldn’t have paid any attention to her if not for some fluff she drabbled on a piece of scratch paper which he’d seen.

Still, in the almost three years since she met Li Syaoran personally, their encounters have always bordered on professional. Somehow, she never thought much of him outside work—despite the fact that he’s probably the handsomest man she had ever seen. Perhaps his reputation as a lady’s man was partly to blame for her silent disdain for the man.

It was unfair, she knew; she didn’t even know the man on a personal level. Besides, on the later years of her career, after she’d shot up so suddenly in the world of romantic fiction, they rarely met. There was a middle man handling their affairs for them. After he’d congratulated her on her debut novel, the only times they met had been in passing—and she wasn’t entirely sure he really noticed her then. A couple of times he was with clients, a couple of times with some woman, and yet another time he was shouting himself hoarse over the phone, his brows burrowed so tightly she thought they’d never pry apart again.

So this call had been a surprise, really. She wondered what was so special about today. And she had not the slightest idea.

---

Syaoran didn’t know what came over him when he picked up the phone and dialed Kinomoto Sakura’s number. There wasn’t anything new this month, he thought, and he could see his own puzzlement reflected in her eyes.

“This...well, this is your...uh,” damn, if he wasn’t stuttering! He was at a loss of words for the first time in his adult life!

But was it his fault that her eyes seemed greener and her hair sleek and shiny? Was it his fault for getting so tongue-tied?

“...I meant to say, this is your 30th book, I believe. “

“So it is,” she blinked, taken aback by the fact that he knew. “I...didn’t realize it.”

“And the twelfth time you made it to the top of the Tokyo Bestseller list, I believe. This calls for a celebration, if you will agree.” The words were out before he can think better of it. Was he asking his subordinate to go out with him on a date? That’s stupid!

“What?” She blurted out, feeling more confused by the second.

“Er...if you don’t have anything to do later, we can have dinner,” he rushed on, feeling he might lose his bravado if he didn’t do so.

“Oh,” was all she could say as his words sunk in. “Much as I’d like to accept your offer, Mr. Li, I happen to have a date tonight,” she said matter-of-factly.

“Oh.” He hated the disappointment in his voice. “How about lunch, then?” He went on, feeling the need to further their discussion.

“Uh...it is okay, I guess.” She said, gazing at him questioningly, as if she was marveling on the fact that he invited her. Then she brightened. “And as you said, it’s my 30th book, after all.”

And Li Syaoran was mesmerized.

---

They chose to dine at a rather grandiose restaurant at a nearby hotel. Even after she’s earned hard bucks, Sakura couldn’t still fathom why people spent so much on so little—come on, who ever saw dining places of such caliber with heaping servings?

Her discomfort must have shown on her face, for he turned to her and asked, “Are you alright? I mean, is this place okay with you? I never did ask you.”

“Oh, its okay enough, I guess,” she said with a strained smile. “It’s just that...this isn’t really my kind of place. I think the pressure to dine with decorum might cause indigestion on my part,” she kidded as she smiled reassuringly at him.

Syaoran, however, was far from reassured. He didn’t want to cause her discomfort in their first night out.

“We can go to another place.”

“No, no, it’s fine. We are celebrating, after all,” she said as a maître d’ ushered them to a table.

She let him order for both of them as she tried not to give in to the pressure she felt.

Heavens, she never felt so out of her element before.

“No need to look so nervous, Sakura—I may call you Sakura, right?”

“Er, Mr. Li, is it advisable to do so?” She asked queasily. She never really felt at home with this guy much, she realized.

“Oh, nonsense. Call me Syaoran. We’ve known each other for three years. Four, if you’d count that first year,” he said casually. The maître d’ poured wine on their glasses; Syaoran gestured at the wine glass. Sakura obliged and took a sip; she could feel her taut nerves loosening up.

“If you insist, Syaoran it is, then,” she said, surprising even herself at how easy she spoke his name.

“Tell me,” he whispered, so softly that she had to come closer, oblivious to how intimate their actions seemed to everyone else. “Where do you get such novel ideas for your stories? That last one—it was beyond wonderful, if you ask me.”

She laughed. She never thought anyone would ask her that. “Oh, I date various kinds of men,” she said. “Not for ideas, but usually they end up being exactly that. I take their good qualities and discard the rest. So my heroes are always a weird bunch of mix-ups. One time I dated a surgeon and a rock star-wannabe consecutively, I ended up creating Carmichael, the coolest neurosurgeon I ever saw.”

“Isn’t it unfair, though, that your heroes are near-perfect and your heroines are klutzes?”

“Oh, not really. She’s smarter than she’s letting on usually. It’s just the way my mind goes, I guess. Besides, it’s the way of society, isn’t it? We need to be damsels in distress to catch ourselves a dragon—sorry, I meant a prince. Or a knight. Though I can’t really tell the difference. Oh, dear, I’m blabbing, aren’t I?”

“I don’t mind,” he said quickly, smiling at her. She felt relieved. She thought he might fire her on the spot, as she regarded him uptight and strict.

“You see, somehow, I think those stories are part of me—some weird dream, or wish, whichever you want to call it. If each date ended differently, that story would have been mine. Or if he had been a bit more considerate to me or something to that effect, the evening won’t have been such a disappointment.”

“Maybe you’re being too hard on the man?” He asked gently.

“No, I wasn’t. Or maybe I was. I don’t really care, but I find it somehow works for me, this constant dating thingy, because it’s where I get my ideas. And it keeps me well-fed and sheltered, so I shouldn’t really be so imposing on Fate.”

“You speak as if fate is an entity.”

“But it is,” she said. “I believe so. Like now,” she added, and Syaoran caught his breath. Did she feel it, too? That wonderful pull of something drawing me to her? “I believe Fate has something to do with you dining with me. It might manifest that you’d give me a raise in my pay,” she went on and laughed. Syaoran felt his shoulders sloop in disappointment. Trust her so-called fate to play tricks on me.

Oh, what a joke. Fate must be laughing to her heart’s content.

Her? God, he was thinking like Fate the Entity did exist!

Yet it didn’t change the fact that he’s attracted to this particular female.

---

The conversation drifted on, from her novels to her failed dates to the weather. Sakura lost all previous anxieties she felt—she absolutely felt at ease with him, like she could tell him anything, anything at all and he won’t mind one bit.

He won’t get turned off or disgusted. Not that she felt romantically inclined towards him—his caliber with women still amounts to something, she decided.

By the time they’d returned to the office, they were laughing off like a pair of crazy idiots.

It was decided, therefore: Li Syaoran became Sakura’s newest best friend, apart from Tomoyo.

And she felt she could be herself with him, her supposed boss.

---

Truth be told, Sakura felt wistful every time she opened her own books and read the words aloud.

She sometimes wished she could trade her wonderful imagination and wit for a real relationship. Then she comes to resent the idea that she’s so desperate to have one. Case in point: for the past three years, she has dated more than a hundred men. Just these past three months, she has dated no less than 30 men, whose names she could barely remember.

How pathetic could you get? She wondered.

Somehow, her dates always kept coming short of her standards, of her ideal man.

And that’s the trouble—she can’t get herself to settle for second best. She always thought she’d find Mr. Right eventually, if she looked for him hard enough.

And tonight, another man will add to the ranks of her failed ‘relationships,’ the never-were’s.

He was, apparently, some weird computer wiz Tomoyo set-up with her. And she came to dread the moment she had to face him.

She went down her condominium unit at seven, wincing as she thought of the dull discussions that will transpire that night. So, okay, she liked computers—she couldn’t live without her sounds, games and e-books, could she? And of course, her word processor, the very lifeblood of her work, relied on some good hardware and software. But she can’t talk all her life about such impersonal, cold and unfeeling stuff!

Resigning to her fate, she stepped out of the elevator.

---

Sakura was right again, of course. Akira Fujiyama had been a complete bore from the start. He ate absently, kept on droning on and on about some software he’s developing and how he hopes to sell its IPR to IBM or Intel. Talk about a geek so full of his self.

“...and it’s a real cool P2P type of software that could put Limewire out of business, if you know what I mean? It’s sure to zest up the market for such shareware. It’s the future of everything, I tell you.”

She nodded absently, his words merely passing through her already strained brain.

“And aside from that I’m trying to make yet another antivirus and a new anti-spyware to boot. Isn’t that nice? Less chances of falling prey to hacking and those destructive viruses which circulate on the net. It’s difficult to make, but with brains like mine, it was all a breeze. Isn’t it cool to have the ability to create software at your disposal? Well, I guess it’s just the genes on me, see? My mom, she’s a straitlaced professor at Tokyo U and father’s a doctor. It’s hardly a surprise that I succeeded as well.”

Blech. She squirmed on her seat, trying to find a way to escape Mr.-I’m-So-Smart-I’m-Going-To-Earn-Millions.

Then she saw Li Syaoran enter the threshold. She was saved.

“Uh, excuse me, Fujiyama-san, but I see my...” would friend suffice or boss will do better? She decided on the latter. “...boss coming. Much as I enjoy your delightful company, I really need to see him now.”

Akira Fujiyama nodded absently and she dashed off.

“Syaoran,” she called out. He turned to her with a frown. His frown turned to a smile when he saw her.

“Sakura,” he returned, pausing. “On that date, I suppose?”

“Oh, yeah, I was. But I’m not sure I want to still be on a date.”

“What do you mean?”

“He’s such a geek,” the last word came out in a frustrated sigh. “And he’s full of himself.”

“Color me surprised,” he said dryly.

“Are you dining with anyone?”

“Supposedly, with my cousin.”

“Well, can’t you cancel it out, act like we need to discuss something badly? Please, I beg you.”

“You do realize this is a favor I’m doing you.”

“I realize that, and I’m grateful for it. Now, please?” Syaoran sighed before dialing.

“Hello? Meiling. Something came up. I know you still aren’t at the restaurant. Don’t come here anymore. Some other time, I promise. Business, yes. Okay. I’m sorry. Goodbye.”

The things I’m willing to do for this girl... he thought bemusedly. And to think I noticed her only earlier...

Yet Sakura didn’t seem to appreciate it too much.

Now, if only he can get her to realize he’s the knight in shining armor she’s longing for...

---

“...I’m a complete failure when it comes to dating, if you know what I mean,” the evening found Sakura and Syaoran seated in a park bench. Sakura was munching on her takoyaki as she spoke, uncaring if she was being improper. “God, I’m never going to dine in such a resto again! They really starve you, you know?”

Syaoran merely smiled, casting his gaze at her as she went on talking.

“I do thank you for whisking me away from that pompous geek. How was I supposed to know he was the most boring creature I have ever met? Tomoyo did say he was less than okay, but...oh, wait. I did say, however, that she let me be the judge. Next time I’ll let her be the judge before she sets me up with anyone.”

“That seems sensible,” he said as he took a bite on his own takoyaki.

“I thought last night it couldn’t get any worse...but I guess I was wrong. I mean, that stupid jerk last night was all brawn, no brains at all, and I thought, ‘what can be worse than a cork-brained jerk who knows nothing but fight with his fists?’ Apparently this computer wiz makes Mr.-No-Brain look much better. Pfft.” She started counting with her fingers. “...two, three...four...oh, yeah, I had four dates this week, what could you say about that? Not to mention one I cancelled because of some convention...”

Her voice drifted off and they ate in silence for a minute. Then, she turned to him and said, “I never knew our boss could be so much fun.”

“Is that an insult or a compliment?”

“Oh, definitely a compliment. You see, I used to think of you as—” she gestured wildly with her arms and continued in a deep voice, “—the ogre. And it’s a wonder, really, how nice you turned out to be, being my friend and all so suddenly. No offense meant.”

“None taken, as you just said complimented me, right?”

“Right,” she said with a snort. “Tell me, where do you spend your evenings? Apart from saving klutzes like me from horrendous dates?”

“At home, usually, looking at some figures. I also date sometimes.”

“Really? And are your dates affable? I mean, I don’t need to rescue you from them, do I?”

“Oh, they’re generally pleasant.” He said with a laugh.

“They should be. You don’t deserve anything less, if you know what I mean. You’re a good man, sir,” she added jokingly in a mock salute.

He smiled wanly. If she only knew she was the only one he wanted.