I'm In Love with a Plumber- Chapter Five

I'm In Love with a Plumber

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Rule Number Five:
Life has a very capricious nature.
Expect the unexpected.

oOo

I can't believe this is happening to me.

Why me of all people?

Why me?!

Sakura banged her head into the wall repetitively.

What did I do to deserve this? Why, Kami-sama, why!?

Syaoran sighed and scooted over to sit beside her. "Don't hurt yourself." He put his arms around her.

"Get away!" Sakura screamed and pushed him into the opposite wall. "Nothing good happens with you around!"

"I'm... err... sorry?"

Sakura scorned at him. "Did God send you down here to torture me?"

"He didn't say those words exactly." He smiled sheepishly. "God just told me to come down here to find my angel."

How can he flirt at a time like this!?

How she loathed the man with a strong passion. And where the hell was Yue? They called him for help three hours ago! How long was the stupid movie marathon anyway? Sakura growled in annoyance when Syaoran found his way beside her again—he was getting too close for his own sake.

"Tell me about your family."

"Okay," she rubbed her temples. "Why. The. Hell. Would. I. Do. That?"

"Because you're bored and I'm bored." He made it sound so easy, like it was nothing for her to tell someone she barely knew stuffs about her family.

Sakura decided 'what the hell?'. It couldn't hurt all that much right? And the other guy did have a very good point; they were both bored out of their minds.

"Otou-san is an archaeologist so he's away from home most of the time," Sakura started saying. "Before moving out, I lived with my brother and sister. In a way, things kind of worked out 'cause Nee-chan wants children, but Nii-chan doesn't want to deal with babies crying or pooping. And let's just be honest here, I'm still a baby by nature."

The two laughed. "Sounds like you have a very nice family," Syaoran remarked.

"Hm... yeah. I do," Sakura smiled softly. "What about you?"

"Pop ran off when he found out my mom was pregnant, and mom had her last breath a few years ago."

"I'm sorry..."

He just smiled.

"You've been living by yourself?"

Syaoran nodded. "I have a cousin, but I only see her sometimes. She's trying to make it out on her own like you—a runaway princess."

Sakura made a weird face when he called her that. "I didn't run away! I chose to move out for your information."

He only chuckled. "Okay, you're not a runaway."

"Thank you!" Sakura stuck her tongue out at him.

"I would stop doing that if I were you," he said. "I might just kiss you if you keep doing that."

She punched him in the arm. "You just had to ruin the moment, didn't you? We were starting to bond with each other, but you had to open your perverted mouth!"

"We were bonding?"

"We talked, and that's consider bonding."

"Interesting..."

Sakura rolled her eyes. "Where in the world is Yue!?"

"Sitting in front of his TV probably." Syaoran stretched his arms and yawned loudly. "I'm going to take a nap, wake me up when someone gets here."

He put his hands behind his neck and closed his eyes. Sakura observed the man closely. She had never really looked at his profile before, because she was either too busy avoiding him or trying to keep his hands off of her. But he had a really pretty face—not like girl pretty, but male pretty. His face was pretty for a guy. His skin was flawless.

Maybe I should ask him what kind of cleansing system he uses...

He had long beautiful eyelashes, a tall nose, and a perfectly handsome face. If he wasn't such a stupid pervert all the time, Sakura might say that he was the perfect man of her dreams. And the fact that he was a plumber. Well, there was nothing wrong with him being plumber—he was just a horrible plumber.

Sakura thought that he wasn't half-bad. They had a nice little conversation and that must've counted for something, right? He actually sounded quite nice and normal.

"I can't sleep with you staring," his voice said all of a sudden.

Sakura snapped out of her thoughts. "I wasn't staring!" She denied, quickly turning away.

She took in a deep breath and waited for a perverted comeback from him, but it never came. He just rolled over to his side with his back facing her and snored.

Kami-sama...

Sakura sighed.

Hes definitely something.

She couldn’t believe that she was actually stuck in an elevator with the one man she didn’t want to be close with—not to mention he was her stupid “boss”. That wasn’t normal. She turned to look at the other guy from the corner of her eye and sighed. If she didn’t know better, she would’ve mistaken him for an angel; but he was far from that. He was anything but an angel, and he was definitely not whatever the word he had used. Okay… maybe he was somewhat “you-know-what”.

While looking at him, something reminded her of the note he had written her and she started wondering. She wasn’t sure what she was wondering about—just some random things, she supposed.

“Hey, Syaoran…” she poked him gently. “I need to ask you something.”

He stirred a little, but she wasn’t sure if he was waking up or not.

“Get up!”

He finally turned to look at her with one eye open. “Yeah?”

“That note from last night…” Sakura trailed off saying, feeling somewhat embarrassed about asking him on the subject. It wasn’t like she cared for the note or anything like that. She just wanted to know because she was stuck in an elevator and she was bored out of her mind. She did not think anything out of the note. “What did you mean by it?”

“The poem?” He sat up slightly.

“Yeah.”

“Eriol told me the poem yesterday, meant to be a gift for his girlfriend or something,” he answered. “I just wanted to see your reaction. Why?”

“Oh, n-nothing,” she said. “Go back to sleep.”

Sakura got up and moved to the opposite corner. For some strange reason, she felt a little sad—no, more like disappointed by his answer. Why? Did she expect something from the note?

She didn’t really expect something from it. It was just that no one had given her a love poem before. She supposed the note made her feel a little… special.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

She nodded. “Yeah.”

“Do you want to hear a secret?” He smiled at her all of a sudden.

“What is it?” she asked.

“I might have a crush on you.”

Sakura almost choked on thin air. Her mouth hung wide open, but words couldn’t escape her lips. He looked back at her with an inexplicable expression on his face. She couldn’t make out what his expression meant. The air became very awkward around them.

Sakura nearly jumped in joy when the elevator started moving again. Finally, after hours and hours of being locked in the darn thing, she could get out of there—get away from him.

She felt uncomfortable standing beside him after what he had just said. But he, on the other hand, didn’t seem bothered him at all. How could it not bother him? He just half confessed that he liked her!

The elevator stopped on the ground floor, and Sakura quickly scurried her little feet along, hoping to get away from him as fast as possible. He called after her. Sakura told herself to walk—no... run faster. Unfortunately, she collided into someone else.

"Watch where you're going!" the girl sneered coldly when her groceries fell everywhere.

Sakura rubbed her bottom painfully. "Hooeee..."

"Sakura!" Guess who came running to her side. Yup—boy, wasn't she lucky? "Are you hurt?"

"Not really..." she answered.

"Next time watch where you're running, baka." He hit her on the head lightly. "Didn't you hear me calling for you? You left your purse in the elevator."

Sakura smiled nervously. Okay, so maybe she overreacted thinking that he was trying to stalk her because he semi-liked her. Nothing was wrong with that right? Every woman have the right to overreact at least five times a day.

"Syaoran?"

They stopped talking to each other and turned to look at the girl Sakura practically ran over. Sakura thought the other girl looked familiar. How did she know Syaoran? They weren't dating, were they?

"What are you doing here?" Syaoran asked.

"I bought groceries for you," the black haired girl answered, glaring dangerously at Sakura.

Where have I seen her before...?

"YOU!" Sakura finally recognized the girl's face. "You're that rude cashier from the café!"

“Rude?” the other girl’s eyebrow twitched slightly. She looked at Syaoran and said, “I usually don’t care who you sleep around with, but I have to question your taste on this one.” Sakura didn’t like the way the other girl was looking up and down at her. “Her body isn’t all that good either. What do you see in this girl?”

“Excuse me!” Sakura was infuriated by the insults. “Who do you think you are!?”

The black head smiled. “I’m only trying to show you how rude I am.”

Syaoran suddenly took a step forward and stood between the girls. “Meiling, this is Sakura. Kinomoto Sakura.” Then he turned to look at Sakura. “Meiling is my cousin,” he explained.

Sakura just blinked. Meiling had a shock expression on her face.

“I’ll explain later.” Syaoran rubbed his temples. “Let’s not talk in the lobby.”

He picked up the groceries and led the black haired girl away. He stopped and looked at Sakura. “Aren’t you coming?” he asked.

“I have to go see my Otou-san,” Sakura answered. “I might not come home tonight.”

“Oh, okay.” He just shrugged his shoulders and walked away without another word.

Sakura stood there and watched the other two left, laughing and talking. Meiling suddenly locked her arms around Syaoran’s after he had said something that was very funny, apparently. Sakura didn’t understand the slight disappointment inside of her. Why did she even care?

She quickly brushed the thoughts away, deciding that she had better things to do than wonder about that stupid flirty—she stopped and took in a deep breath.

zZz

“Otou-san!” Sakura embraced her father as soon as she ran into the room. “I missed you so much!”

“I missed you too, dear,” her father said softly. “Were you busy this afternoon?”

“I had… erm… a problem.” Sakura decided that it wouldn’t be such a good idea to tell her father about a certain temporary roommate of hers. He would flip out of his mind and put her under house arrest, considering that she was somewhat living with another man when she was to be wed soon. Just thinking about the whole betrothal thing gave her a headache.

“How are you coping with living on your own?” he asked.

Sakura smiled. “It’s an interesting experiment. I found myself a job!”

“Really? What kind of job?”

“I work as a secretary for a plumb—“ Sakura caught herself. “My boss is a… erm…” She tried to find the word that Syaoran had used. Darn. Maybe it didn't hurt to attention to the man when he was explaining his occupation to her.

Sakura screamed in her mind. Her father would flip if he found out that his daughter was working for a plumber. Sakura searched in her mind for a different word for ‘plumber’. Where was a thesaurus when she needed one?

“Sakura?” her father looked at her with concern. “Are you feeling okay? You seem awfully nervous.”

Sakura smiled. “Yes, erm…I..er...”

“I’d like to meet your boss in the future,” said her father. “We’ll discuss this topic later. Sakura, I want to talk to you about the betrothal.”

Sakura exhaled. “Great,” she muttered softly under her breath.

“I know you’re not happy about this at all…” he trailed off saying.

Of course, Im not happy!

How could she be happy marrying someone she had never met, not mention she didn’t love the guy!

Marriage without love is like a piece of Swiss cheeseit stinks!

Sakura got so absorbed in her own thoughts that she tuned out her father completely. “…he wants to have lunch with you tomorrow.”

She felt as though a thunderbolt hit her.

“W-What?”

“Sakura..." Her father looked at her gently, begging her to listen to him. "Please show up."

"Hai, Otou-san..." she agreed quietly. "I'll show up."

Fujitaka gave his daughter a warm hug, and kissed her on the forehead lightly. "I'll go make you something to eat."

Sakura sighed exasperatedly after her father left the room. She leaned back in her seat and arched her head back slightly as she stared blankly at the ceiling. In less than twenty-four hours, she was going to be able to see her fiancé's face. Sakura knew that she should be excited. After all, she was finally going to meet the man she had to spend the rest of her life with.

For some strange reason, Sakura felt very void inside, like there wasn't any kind of emotions going through her. She couldn't think of a word to describe how she felt, but it was something strange.

She lay down on the sofa, thinking that she could take a little nap until the food was ready.

As she slowly closed her eyes, he crossed her mind all of sudden, and she could hear his words echoing in her mind.

'I might have a crush on you.'