Author's Note: This story has been scheduled for an overhaul. I realized it's been six years or so since I last updated this story, so I've decided to rewrite it in my (hopefully) improved writing style. I'm not sure if how much will change, though. I'm hoping to fix a few plot holes and some writing embarrassments you can only gain from reading your old write-ups. I've also decided to reset this story so they're in university.

Disclaimer: Any resemblance to canon characters, locations, and/or events from Card Captor Sakura is fully intended (thus, the fact that this is fan fiction)

Updated: December 4, 2015

REBOOT

Chapter 1: Forced

Her hair was a mess.

Sakura Kinomoto sat in front of dresser, glaring at the unruly strands of auburn that refused to yield to even the most expensive comb her father could buy. It seemed neither titanium nor mother-of-pearl had the magical ability to allow her to wear her hair down properly without looking like she had just lost a wrestling match with a wildcat.

Fortunately, she had Beatrice, the thirty-year old housekeeper from Europe who had the uncanny superpower of allowing Sakura to look less like a tumbleweed and more like an actual person, all with a cheap plastic comb and a bottle of hair polish.

In the middle of the long, arduous, miraculous process, Beatrice, as she always did every morning, decided to fill the silence with one of her wonderful observations. "If you're trying to look so much like a nerd," she began, pulling tightly on a clump of hair that she was forcing into a decent fishtail. "Why don't you just stick with the bushy, chipmunk hair? You can say you're cosplaying Hermione Granger, or something,"

Sakura raised a brow at the housekeeper's reflection in the mirror. "Are you suggesting I go as an eleven-year old witch from Harry Potter?"

"Well, you can always go as a shaved Chewbacca," Beatrice shrugged. "It doesn't matter if they think you're a Wookie or a Granger or a cat's hairball in human form."

Sakura dragged a hand across her face in exasperation. She was definitely regretting watching her favorite fangirl obsessions with the older woman, but unless she had suddenly decided that seeing Beatrice's twin brother, Peter, fanboy over the latest episode of Doctor Who was something she could survive, she was stuck.

"Don't give me that look, Sakura-chan," Beatrice finished off the complicated braid with a black ribbon. "If you'd agreed to our original conditions, we wouldn't have to deal with this every morning,"

Sakura looked at her reflection again. "It's bad enough that I have a butler to drive me to school in a Mercedes. If I go to school with my hair all straight and shiny, how will they ever keep thinking of me as a plain old scholarship student?" She said with a playful smile.

Beatrice chuckled as she admired her handiwork. Satisfied, she glanced at the small clock that sat on the dresser. "It's almost seven. You better catch up with Peter before he drives off without you, again."

"Hey, stop bullying your brother," Sakura stood up and crossed her arms, trying her best to act motherly to a woman who was old enough to have seen her in diapers. "He only did that once,"

"Once, sure," Beatrice rolled her eyes. "Once every week, maybe,"

Suddenly, the door burst open, revealing Beatrice's brother, Peter, panting in his dark chauffeur's uniform. His eyes were filled with panic. "Bea! I lost Sakura again!"

Sakura, who was most definitely not lost, stared at him with a half-crazed smile.

Beatrice merely sighed. "And it seems that this week, that day's today,"

"How was I supposed to know you weren't in the car yet?" Peter asked Sakura on the way to Tomoeda University. He was now calm, in his element as he maneuvered through the mostly-empty streets of the quaint, little town.

Sakura raised her brows at the rearview mirror. "You could have checked first before you left?" she suggested. "Just an idea,"

Peter scowled at the road. He had his driver duties, too, after all. "Sometimes, you're just as bad as Bea,"

"I HEARD THAT!"

"Did you forget to turn off your speakerphone again?" Sakura asked. Strangely, the voice had come from somewhere other than Peter's shirt pocket, where he was obligated to keep his phone. It was coming from below the car seat.

At the mention of the speakerphone, Peter stopped the car and scrambled, apparently looking for his mobile. After a few minutes of displaying a certain range of flexibility, Peter retrieved the offending device from the bottom of the passenger's seat.

"I ASSUME HE'S LOST HIS PHONE AGAIN?" Beatrice's voice practically boomed from the phone before Peter managed to gain control of his own phone. Carefully, he placed it next to his ear.

"Hi, Bea," he greeted, with a slight cringe. "Yeah…we're almost there; actually…you want me to do what?" The incredulous, crazed look on his face was almost laughable, and knowing Beatrice, she had probably just dared him to streak through the town naked, or some dastardly humiliating consequence for "losing" Sakura for the third time this month.

He turned his head to look at her, the phone still pressed to the side of his face. "Bea says, take care. Make sure…hey, I'm not saying that! Why? You're a crazy old troll, that's why!" he scowled at the air as he listened to Beatrice's reaction. Apparently, there was some blackmail involved because he suddenly straightened and spouted off words in an almost mechanical, robotic voice. "Bea says; don't keep your panties in a twist. Find a life. Buy me a pair of pink socks. Make sure your bra matches your -"

"Okay, I think I'll just walk from here," Sakura announced, promptly pressing the button to open the car door. She looked at the road ahead. They had stopped only half a mile away from the school gates, right at the comfortable patch of grass that Sakura had claimed for her own for the last year or so.

After making sure she was a safe distance from the car, she promptly took a seat on the grass, Indian-style so she could read her old, battered copy of Grimm's Fairy Tales in peace. She heard the car start up again. Apparently, Peter had decided that she was better left alone.

:"DAMN IT, BEA! I LOST HER AGAIN!"

Maybe not.

Tuna sandwiches were God's gift to man.

That was what Syaoran Li had decided as he took a bite out of a particularly delicious combination of fish, bread, and mayonnaise. He was sure there was some seasoning and spices involved, of course – maybe some exotic ingredient from the depths of Africa, nothing less for the Li heir. He looked out of the car window, wondering whether he could smuggle some more tuna sandwiches from the kitchens when he got home from class later. Their chef always did make the tastiest tuna sandwiches he'd ever had, though the one he was currently in the middle of devouring seemed particular delicious, too.

He was also sure, however, that nothing made this particular sandwich more delicious than the fact that it allowed him to tune out his mother's latest rant about her lack of grandchildren.

"I can barely remember the last time you brought a girl home, which is such a shame," Yelan Li was saying. "After all, you're not exactly getting any younger,"

That last bit made Syaoran swallow the last of his delicious tuna sandwich. He sent a look at his mother that would have rivaled the confused expression of a chemist in clown school. "I'm twenty," he reminded his mother. Maybe she was being delusional. Had her recent vacation to England involved time travel, perhaps? He certainly wasn't getting too old for whatever romantic life his mother seemed to think he was lacking.

"So?" Yelan shrugged. "At that age, I had already met your father,"

Syaoran resisted the urge to remind her that she had met his father in a marriage interview. A marriage interview, for goodness's sake. Who had marriage interviews anymore? Surely, the 21st century had more liberal views on marriage interviews than whatever century his parents had met. Maybe he could convince his mother that he was currently engaging in a modern version of a marriage interview – speed dating, perhaps.

As the car slowed to a stop near the main gate, he spotted a streak of auburn. "What's Sakura doing here so early?" he thought.

"Sakura?" his mother said. As the name left her lips, Yelan followed her son's eyes to the young woman who sat on the grass, peacefully reading a book so early in the morning. Damn, had he said that aloud? "Sakura's a girl's name, isn't it?"

One moment, Sakura was merely trying to keep herself from cringing at the brutal torture of Snow White's stepmother. The next, she was sitting in front of a polished, middle-aged woman, trying to figure out what the hell that crazed young man in the background was attempting to tell her through an impromptu and uncalled-for game of Charades.

"So, you're Sakura," the woman said. Strange, Sakura knew she'd met this woman before – if only she could figure out the woman's name. "I'm Yelan Li,"

Well, that was convenient.

It took a second for the name to sink in. if that woman was the Yelan Li, then that meant…that meant that the strange young man who seemed to be auditioning to be a mime was actually –

"You must be Syaoran's mother," she said, standing up to shake the woman's hand. She'd had enough etiquette lessons to know it was never good to keep a matriarch waiting. Of course, she'd told herself years ago that she wouldn't need those damned archaic lessons again, so she hoped the crazed rolling motion Syaoran Li was gesturing in the distance was supposed to guide her.

Just go with it, he mouthed, making a circular motion with his index finger. He gave her a thumbs-up in a way that made her feel like she was on the wrong end of this somewhat unusual game of Charades.

Yelan Li, the sophisticated woman she was, shook Sakura's hand in one smooth motion before smiling at her with the most mysterious of smirks. It reminded Sakura eerily of the Cheshire cat in the Alice in Wonderland books; though, that would make her Alice and Syaoran the…Mad Hatter? He was certainly mad, of that she was sure, judging from the unintelligible and exaggerated hand gestures he was currently making at her.

"Well, Sakura – can I call you Sakura? You certainly have caught my son's eye a bit." She gave Sakura a knowledgeable wink that would have normally sent Sakura running for the hills if she hadn't been frozen to the spot in pure shock. "You seem like a nice, young lady. I wonder why he hasn't spoken about you before,"

In a desperate move to hide her inner panic, she looked over the woman's shoulder, to see Syaoran in a flurry of hand gestures and body movements that, she figured, were supposed to be her script notes of some kind.

Syaoran pointed to himself. "He…was just…" Sakura began. Syaoran put his hands around himself, and looked around anxiously. "Nervous? He was just nervous, I guess," Syaoran pointed at her, then to himself. "We…we just started…" He then swung his right arm beside himself in a swaying motion. "We had just started…swinging?" He shook his head furiously. "Not swinging, then?" He went back to his hand swaying and coupled it with – of all things – an insane skipping motion. "No? Skipping? We've just started…that's not it either?"

"Dear, are you alright?" Yelan looked at her as though she'd gone crazy. Considering she was going along with whatever this was that Syaoran Li was making go along with, she might as well be. "What were you saying about Syaoran?"

"We've just started…uh…" Behind Yelan, Syaoran made an exaggerated motion of hugging himself and making kissing faces. "Dating? We've just started dating? Seriously?"

"Well, don't worry. Since my dear son has failed to introduce us himself, I'm sure he can do so at the party we're having this weekend. It's the least he could do to apologize for whatever crazy dance he's doing behind my back right now,"

Sakura barely heard what the older woman was saying. She was still pretty hung up on the fact that Syaoran Li, the great, prideful Syaoran Li, had just willingly made kissy faces in a desperate move to keep his mother from finding out…whatever it was she was trying to find out.

Before she knew it, Sakura was standing in the grass with a personal invitation from Yelan Li to attend a party in the Li estate she had no intention of entering. Yelan Li was gone, and her son was standing on the sidewalk with an unmistakable oh-shit expression on his face.

"Okay, Li, 'fess up. What the hell did I just agree to?"

"Mom? I thought we were supposed to talk next week," her daughter's voice answered on the other end of the line – well, one of her daughters anyway. There was a short pause from Fuutie's end. "Did somebody try to kidnap Xiao Lang again?"

Yelan chuckled. "No, Fuutie. I'm happy to say that there's been no attempt at kidnapping, hostage-taking, or hijacking to report today,"

"That's a shame. I haven't had any interesting cases in months. I could have used the rush," Fuutie sighed, in mock disappointment.

"Well, there is something I would want you to work on," Yelan said. "A girl named Sakura. She goes to your brother's school,"

"Sakura, eh?" Yelan swore she could hear the gears turning in her daughter's mind. "Who is she? A stalker? A fangirl? A bitter ex, perhaps?"

"Well, that's certainly the question you'll have to answer then, isn't it?" Yelan smiled, a mischievous glint shining in her eyes.

"Can you see who he is?" Beatrice's voice broke through the silence of the car. Peter frowned. He was parked around a bend in the road, just near enough to see the young man and his ward talking, but not near enough to hear them. He could barely even see the young man's face.

"Give me a minute," he said, putting the call on speakerphone again. Despite what Sakura and Beatrice thought about his gadget skills, he did know how to operate his own phone, thank you very much. This time, however, his gadget skills were the farthest thing from his and his sister's mind.

The young man had a mess of brown hair. Although, unlike Sakura's, his hair actually looked like the stylish kind of messy. They were having a heated discussion about something, probably had to do with the mentally unsafe gestures he had seen the man doing a few minutes ago.

"I can't see his face. I'd have to get closer – can't risk it," Peter said aloud. He squinted his eyes a bit and tried to focus.

"Just tell me what you know, then,"

Peter closed his eyes, scanning his memory for details, small facts that could maybe help him figure out the whole thing. "Male. In his early twenties, exactly twenty, maybe. Brown hair, not sure about the eyes. Trained posture. From the looks of that car he stepped out of, you'd probably recognize him - he'd fit right in with your society pages. His mother just left. High profile. Probably Chinese."

"So, it's not him then,"

"No, it's not him,"

He heard Beatrice sigh in relief. For the moment, Sakura Kinomoto was safe. For now, at least.

Author's Note: If you've read the first version of this chapter, I'm sure you've noticed that I've changed some of the characters', well, characters a bit. So was it better? Worse? The same? Tell me what you think using that convenient Review button at the bottom.

Revised Chapter 2 to be posted soon.