A/N: This story is completely AU. The whole Card Captor’s storyline has yet to happen. This story starts about six years after the start of the actual comic.

Syaoran never came to Japan, never met Sakura or Tomoyo, or anything like that. Syaoran is also next in line to inherit the ‘clan rule’ to take control of his family. That is because, in this story, he is the oldest male in the family.

Sorry about the OOCness of the characters, but I can’t seem to get them to match properly.

So far, only Syaoran knows about magic, and he won’t be using it, out of fear that he will get caught. So for a while, there won’t be any magic involved with the story.

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Ordinary Life

Chapter 1: Sakura and Syaoran

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Sakura sat at her desk at home. It was inside of her small room, tucked away in the corner of the house. It was the place for all of her work.

She had been cleaning up her room for a long time, considering how messy it had been before. There was a new boy coming to their house, he was to be an exchange student for a year. And he would be staying at their house.

Her father, Fujitaka had told her almost nothing about him, other than the fact that he actually was a he. He was arriving today! Hopefully he’d be really cool, and good looking.

Sakura was sixteen, so of course, that would be one of the major factors in whether she liked him. She got up from her desk, putting a few more things away, before falling onto her bed, and closing her eyes. She only needed to rest for a few minutes. Or that’s what she told herself as she fell asleep.

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Syaoran Li sat in the first class seat his family had bought him to send him here. His family had sent him on this vacation because he needed to see how the world operated outside of his family clan. Since he had never left the clan before, he was rather nervous and jittery. He was going to stay with a family friend for a year before coming back and becoming the head of the family.

The pilot came onto the speakers, saying they would be arriving soon. Syaoran had to put his PSP away, seeing as it wasn’t allowed during plane descent. He took off the large headphones he had, and slid them around his neck. They were his favorite set of headphones, because they blocked out all outside sounds. That way he didn’t have to deal with all the annoying noises that come along with riding on a plane and anywhere else.

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After a few more minutes, they arrived at the airport. Syaoran quickly got up, grabbed his little bit of baggage, and ran out of the plane. Looking around, he spotted a man, with a whitish silvery colored hair, and glasses, trying to find someone. Syaoran pulled out the picture of the man he was supposed to meet, and they matched, although the man in the picture was a bit younger.

He walked towards the man and tapped him on the shoulder.

Fujitaka spun around, and saw the young man behind him.

“Are you Kinomoto Fujitaka-san?” the boy asked him.

“Ah, yes, I am. And you are… Li Syaoran?” he asked back, smiling.

“Yeah, that’s me.” And together they started walking.

“I should have recognized you. I’ve met enough of your family to know what they look like.” Kinomoto-san murmured, more to himself than to Syaoran.

“I wouldn’t worry about your memory going bad, I don’t really look much like the rest of them.” Syaoran responded.

Kinomoto-san laughed. “I wasn’t worrying about my memory. That’s my best feature. I can nearly remember any face I see.”

Syaoran laughed too, he liked this man already.

They reached the car and clambered in, before driving away.

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Sakura’s room was still a mess. She laid on her bed, sleeping heavily, music playing in the background. Her guitar was propped up against the wall, as was her keyboard. Her desk had a computer on it, and it was connected to almost everything in the room. It connected to speakers around the room, and the guitar and keyboard. She had a slim scanner near her computer, and a collection of random works of art, in various stages of completeness. Her best friend, Tomoyo Daidouji, had convinced her to try and draw, and it had turned out to be her newest hobby. She had a walk in closet, full of clothes of all sorts.

Her brother had left to go away to college, and she only had her father to keep her company. Her father was a great father though, and he could cook wonderfully.

Sakura was having dreams about some strange stuff.

‘Sakura’

‘Sakura’

‘Sakura’

‘You must find him…’

‘You must find h…’

‘You must fi…’

She turned over and continued to sleep, her dream lost in the mist of sleep.

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Kinomoto-san had explained about their family, the son away at college, and the daughter. He had explained about his wife, and what happened to her. She had died of sickness a long time ago.

Syaoran looked over at the house. It was of average size, not too large, but not too small. It looked well decorated, and had a small garden out in front. There was a large cherry blossom tree overlooking the front yard.

They reached the house quickly and got out. Syaoran grabbed his bag from the back seat of the car, and followed Kinomoto-san to the front door. Kinomoto-san pulled out a key and quickly unlocked the door.

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Sakura woke up at the sound of the door opening. “Hoe!” she cried out. “I haven’t finished cleaning my room!” She jumped up, and dashed about, throwing things into her closet, which she would sort out later. After a few seconds, she had cleared out a large area of her room.

She opened the door to her room, and dashed downstairs. She reached the kitchen quickly, and saw her father there, with a very good looking boy.

“Dad!” she cried out, dashing at him. She grabbed him in a large hug, and he spun her around. Then he set her down and turned towards the boy.

“Sakura, this is Li Syaoran. Syaoran-kun, this is Sakura. She’s my daughter.”

Li held out his hand. Sakura shook it, and they smiled at each other.

“Hello Syaoran-kun. It’s nice to meet you,” Sakura happily spoke.

“Hello Sakura-chan. The pleasure is all mine,” Syaoran responded.

“Sakura, why don’t you show Syaoran around the house and where he’s staying?” Kinomoto-san asked.

“Sure,” she said, before grabbing onto Syaoran’s arm and pulling him around the house.

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From the entrance of the house, there were two directions to go. One led down a hallway to the stairs up, and to the master bedroom, where Kinomoto-san stayed. Upstairs was two bedrooms, one for Sakura, and one for Touya. The other direction from the kitchen led to the stairs downwards, and a bathroom. The basement held yet another bedroom, and had almost all of the entertainment, in a sort of living room style. There was a large television, and a large stereo down there. Syaoran was staying down in the basement guest bedroom.

Inside of Syaoran’s room was bare. The Kinomoto’s had cleaned out the room except for the essentials: a bed, a dresser, and a desk. There was a smaller closet built into the wall in the room as well. Other than that, the whole room was empty. They had decided to let him decorate it how he wanted.

Syaoran set his bag down in one corner of the room and sat down on the bed. It was a very comfortable queen size bed, with heavy green sheets. He laid down, and quickly fell asleep.

---

Sakura sat and watched him while he slept for a moment, before turning around and going back to her room. She laid back down and went to sleep as well.

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“SAKURA, SYAORAN, DINNER!” came a shout from the kitchen. Both of them woke up with a cry. Sakura jumped up, and ran downstairs, and Syaoran trudged up, slowly and very languidly. Sakura sat in her seat, waiting for her father’s delicious cooking. She was practically bouncing up and down.

Once Syaoran reached the seat, and sat in it, Fujitaka brought over the food. Syaoran watched, seeing some good looking food, and dug in. It was delicious! He was almost moaning with pleasure about how good it was.

“This is wonderful!” Sakura and Syaoran cried out, at the same moment. They turned to look at each other, giggled or laughed respectively, and went back to eating.

“I’m glad you like it.” Kinomoto-san said. “That’s one of Sakura’s favorites, so I thought I would see if you liked it as well.” He directed at Syaoran.

“Of course, this is amazing.” He replied to the unasked question.

“That’s good. I was hoping that you would like it, Sakura would be deeply upset if she didn’t get to have her favorite meal for a whole year.”

“Hoe, that would be horrible. Just thinking about it is depressing.” Sakura whispered.

Kinomoto-san laughed, and Syaoran smirked. “You’re so mean! It’s almost like Touya is back here!” Sakura said to them, angrily.

“Touya is coming back here this weekend, just so you know.”

“Oh, Touya is coming? Hoe, two boys in this house will be maddening!”

Kinomoto-san and Syaoran laughed again. “Sakura, you know I’m a boy too?” asked Kinomoto-san in a teasing voice.

“Yeah, but you don’t count. You’re just dad.”

“Oh well, I guess I’ll have to settle for ‘just dad,’ won’t I?”

“Of course, you’re not one of the boys!” Sakura pouted.

“But I am; you just don’t want to admit it.” Kinomoto-san continued teasing her.

“Stop it! You’re mean!” Sakura shouted.

“Just wait until Touya gets back.”

“AAAHHHH!”

The banter continued on throughout dinner, until they all went their own ways.