the homecoming bet//a cardcaptor sakura fanfic

ᴛʜᴇ ʜᴏᴍᴇᴄᴏᴍɪɴɢ ʙᴇᴛ

Note: This fic is in the format of an American high school. I don't know enough nor could I possibly do enough or adequate research to do justice to the Japanese education system. All character and school names remain the same as the show.

Monday, September 1st

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"Tomoyo, how do you expect to arrive on time to the first day of school if you keep staring at your drink like that?" Sakura observed Tomoyo's trained gaze on her peach boba, sipping her own mango drink in the process.

"It's just too pretty to destroy!" Imaginary hearts circled Tomoyo's eyes as she picked at the whipped cream topping. Iridescent light glimmered on the morning dew stuck to the glass.

Hurriedly, Sakura clamped her fingers over her backpack straps and Tomoyo's hand. "We have to leave now, T. C'mon!"

"Only 'cause you want to see Syaoran." Tomoyo took one last look at her boba before inhaling it in the next five seconds. Her matter-of-fact tone only offended Sakura more.

"S-Shut up."

"Joking."

Hiding the heated blush on her face, Sakura climbed into her car to pile through the road to school. Her line of vision crowded with mopeds in the streamline of traffic to the high school, where she headed straight to the locker rooms to get changed for the morning cheer meet.

The grass was slick with soft sprinkler water as Sakura dared not slip in her sneakers with her pom-poms. A chemical-like smell arose owing to the fresh paint on the football field from first-day preparations. "Your captain has arrived." Sakura gracefully set a pair of jazz hands toward her team.

"Morning, Kinomoto!"

She began her lecture swiftly, turning with her nimble movements on her axis to address each teammate. "The homecoming game is at the end of the month. Assuming no freshmen have gotten into varsity, we should all remember the routine we practiced over summer."

Rika raised her hand slowly. "Sakura, there's been a change of plans." This caught Sakura off-guard, a beat passing before she shifted her attention to Rika.

"What's up?"

"We're competing with Tomoeda Prep." The team's silence amplified, the early day clouds circling overhead. Sakura could nearly hear, smell, and touch the pleated skirts and "daddy's money"-scented perfume, the haughty scowls and silence of them as they passed. Discarding her emotions, she perpetuated her competitiveness also.

"Then, I guess we'll have to give it our best shot." She smiled briefly before collapsing onto the front side of her gym locker, allowing the locks to scratch her from outside her shirt.

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"Meiling, you're going to have to get your head off my shoulder if you're going to be there on time." Syaoran tensed in an effort to bring her off of him, for her to maybe, just maybe release her grip on his shirt.

"Drive me, please, Syaoran."

"It's Li to you, Meiling." Syaoran took a slice of bread in his mouth before threatening to take off without her. "You coming? Or are you just going to sit there and sniff my shampoo?"

Clumsily, Meiling snatched her purse and a spare pair of sunglasses, and of course, lip gloss. "Coming!"

"You're really damn lucky I let you stay the night, you know?" Syaoran couldn't help but attach his gaze onto her high-riding school skirt, her black Mary Janes shining from fresh polish, her characteristic buns. She'd definitely grown over summer, not that it was striking regarding every night she'd spent lately.

"Get me there before 8:21." Meiling acknowledged not his warning, instead, she pulled on the metallic chains of her bag to propose her urgency.

"Fine." A thick, purple vein began to pop out of Syaoran's head, one that never ceased with her presence. The clatter of an object hacked at his ear for a moment before he took off in his car, daring not to allow Meiling to bring her coffee, inexorable annoyance arriving with her.

------

Enticement.

It was a word that sat, dissolving on her tongue, one that succinctly enamored Sakura's senses when she learned it, one that formed a label for the evergreen of her heart, the garden grown for Syaoran.

Some such as Tomoyo would call drama, overindulgence, but no such ideas worked out in Sakura's mind unless her feelings were true. She glanced a throw of a paper airplane away to look at Syaoran, his still expression studying the wall opposite to the whiteboard. She could read the recklessness that had seemingly entered his mind upon entering senior year.

The bell's ring radiated from ear to ear, signaling the students to sprint away from the classroom long before the teacher could register, and when he did, he couldn't do anything but shrug at the empty desk before returning to his pile of work.

The music in Sakura's headphones gave a special mood to her walk home, ghosts of little blushes appearing when more romantic songs began to appear in her queue, imagining football-toned muscles and glaring auras of mystery and mischief as her mind left her body right on the sidewalk, robotically marching along the suburb's streets.

Sakura was immediately pulled from her dream's play by its metaphorical puppeteer; the other girl that collided in a nanosecond. "Watch where you're going." This girl pulled her back to earth sharply in a sassy tone.

"Sorry about that. I was kind of just lost in my own brain."

"I can tell." 

Sakura was still looking at the ground, which was quite rude in her book, so she bore at the girl's face. "Meiling."

"Kinomoto."

"Er-"

"What were you blushing and hopelessly looking for in that hollow hole you were lost in?" Meiling's red eyes dragged the left side of her lips into a smirk.

"Nothing-" Sakura began to blush harder, her legs begging her to get out of the situation.

"Was it Syaoran?" Meiling's knowing eyes carried no sympathy, instead holding a distinctive look of disapproval and mockery, warning Sakura not to answer. "I see the way you look at him during games."

"Great." 

"Tell you what, Kinomoto, let's make a bet." Sakura's body tensed, her bank of comebacks escaping her chest as if it had grown a dark set of wings. Then, a sudden sense of confidence overtook her, guiding her into an intuitive decision.

"What's the bet? Bring it." Her penciled eyebrows furrowed daringly.

"Whoever can win Syaoran over before the homecoming game gets fair dibs on him." Meiling's smirk remained, her own confidence growing inside, seeping out through her rude expression first, and later her voice. "Not that it's much of a bet, more like a verity for me."

"Deal." Sakura responded firmly, careful not to sound arrogant. "We'll shake on it, like a real bet." Subtly licking her finger, she shook hands with Meiling to solidify her choice.

"Deal."