Be warned, this is an old project and I'm only putting it up because a friend requested it.

Sakura woke up slowly; enjoying the last remaining threads of her dream as she sleepily opened her eyes. Sitting up, she yawned in a self-satisfied way that said she had slept well. She rubbed her eyes and got out of bed at a leisurely pace whilst casting a glance at her clock. She walked a few paces then took a double take.

She picked up her clock, suddenly feeling very awake, and then looked at her watch which was lying on the bedside table just to make sure it wasn't wrong. Sakura screamed and started rushing around like a madwoman, trying to get dressed whilst getting her school laptop and electro-books together.

Meanwhile, downstairs her elder brother slowly consumed his breakfast, smiling to himself. Sakura was going to be late again. She was meant to be starting anew but, once again, her fresh start was turning out poorly. He watched as she rushed downstairs, grabbing the breakfast that he had made for her as she did her best to brush her hair.

“You're going to be late,” Cam said calmly.

“As usual,” Sakura agreed with much less serenity than her brother, “So much for my new start.”

“Just don't give into the bullies and you'll be fine,” Cam assured his baby sister.

“Ha!” she snorted in disgust. “As if that makes a difference.”

Sakura cast a quick glance at Cam, feeling the usual grudging love. He had gone to Sakura's school before her but he was twenty-one now and had just finished the higher education course that the Universal Education System (UES) had chosen for him. He was five years older than Sakura and that had always set them apart, it was only after both their parents had died that they had been anywhere near close.

Unlike Sakura, he took after their father; he had reddish brown hair and blue eyes. He was also tall and very handsome causing people to remark how like his father he was. Sakura found that she was always compared to her mother, something that made her both happy and sorrowful.

“Go on,” Cam urged her, “If you don't go, you'll be late for this year's first day.”

Sakura groaned in acknowledgement of the comment and slipped her shoes on before rushing away.

“Good luck!” Cam shouted after her.

Sakura only just heard him but was more than thankful for the comment. She could use all the luck she could get. Being in the fifth year of secondary school made her fifteen at the youngest or sixteen at the eldest by the standard UES. Sakura was still only fifteen but she was virtually the oldest in her year. Her birthday was just under two weeks away giving her something to look forward to in the near future.

She stopped momentarily outside her garage where her bike was waiting, her gaze falling on the torturous device. Sakura hated using her beaten-up old bike but she was late already so she grabbed it and cycled on her way. Like all bikes, it was custom-made for Sakura but it hadn't been made very well and it was at least three years out of date because money wasn't something that grew on trees for Sakura's family.

She peddled as fast as she could, speeding past the other bikes on the road and eventually making it to school with enough time to spare. She rushed into the locker-room to put some stuff away, dodging past people as she muttered apologies when she miscalculated how quickly she could stop and bumped into someone. Sakura was knocked to the floor, landing straight on her behind which would no doubt leave a bruise.

“Look where you're going, loser,” the girl Sakura had bumped into sneered.

Sakura grimaced at the sound of the familiar voice but she got up and smiled as best she could at the girl.

“Sorry, Ursula,” Sakura apologised. “I didn't see you there.”

“It's Opal,” Ursula reminded her, “And try to stay out of my way, witch.”

Sakura walked away from her, deciding to ignore the nickname. It had haunted her since the beginning of secondary school when she'd first met Ursula but by now it barely came with a sting. Still, no matter how small, there was a sting and Sakura cast a glance over her shoulder to see the much more popular girl laughing with her friends. Her real name was Ursula but she'd used the alias Opal since the beginning of the second year. It seemed to be her personal mission to make Sakura's life living hell so – just occasionally – Sakura pretended to forget to call her Opal as a bit of minor payback.

Opal was one of the most popular girls in school and had everything that seemed to go with that title and more. She was naturally pretty, found making friends easy and yet she also held the third highest academic marks in the year. Her family was also blessed with money, good health and as far as anyone could tell, they were very loving and supportive of Opal. The teachers wouldn’t hear a bad word against her so Sakura had earned a bad reputation as trouble-making liar when she was younger.

Opal had almost white-blonde hair, a rarity considered dying your hair had become unfashionable last century. There was no doubt in anyone’s mind that it was natural, after all, Opal would never be caught dead doing something unfashionable. She was just the right height with long legs and a virtually no stomach to speak of. She had beautiful purple eyes inherited from a time when the human race had tried to change people's DNA. She didn't need to wear make-up because of her natural good looks and she had a laugh that seemed to charm anyone.

In the past, Opal seemed to have had everything, but Sakura was determined to change that.

Over the summer, Sakura had “blossomed” according to her brother. The year before, Sakura had sported legs which were too long for the rest of her body, contrasted by being slightly over weight and a serious acne problem. Sakura considered herself was fairly smart, but athletic or musical she was not. The thing she prided herself on was art which easily put Opal to shame but given that the girl didn’t seem to care, it was a hollow victory.

It didn’t seem to matter anymore that Sakura's family could trace themselves back for over five millennia, back to when countries had been ruled by different Kings, Queens, Presidents, Prime Ministers and Emperors. Their family had been part of the ancient civilisation of the Japanese and Sakura still resembled her family's heritage.

Over the summer, Sakura's silk-like, jet black hair had grown at an extraordinary rate so that it had gone from shoulder-length down to the base of her back in less than a month. She had learnt to use make-up so that she didn't look like some painted doll; instead, she actually looked comparatively pretty, in her own opinion. The rest of her body had grown to match her legs so she was now tall and graceful. She had lost all excess weight and, because fifth-years were allowed to wear their own clothes, Sakura could wear garments that flattered her rather than the horrific school uniform they were provided with.

Sakura sighed, finishing with her locker and turned around. She gave a start when she found someone standing right next to her and began to apologise for almost bumping into them. However, her throat tightened and her mouth went dry at the sight of the neighbouring locker’s owner.

Not a metre from Sakura stood Gareth, the eldest person in the year, beating Sakura by over a week. He was, in Sakura’s humble opinion, the most gorgeous guy in the school, blessed with crimson hair and cool green eyes. He turned towards Sakura but didn't really seem to see her, instead he kept turning until he caught sight of one of his friends.

As he walked away, Sakura started to breathe again, realising for the first time that she'd stopped. She was only slightly ashamed to admit that she had harboured a crush on Gareth since the first day of secondary school but that had been approximately the third time she'd spoken to him in five years. Once again, she'd been ignored.

Sakura sighed from a mixture of regret and relief as she walked to her new classroom, taking her time due not being sure where it was. Every year, each class was assigned a new room but this time it was in a part of the school which Sakura had never had cause to go in before. It took her a while to find the room but eventually she opened the door to find half the class already there. No one had seemed to have claimed their seats yet, they simply milled about, talking to one another as they waited for someone to take the plunge and sit down first.

Sakura raised an eyebrow as she looked around the room. It was in the newly built part of the school, full of the ‘newest’ technology that the school could afford. One side of the room was entirely glass, looking out onto suburbs of the city and the sea beyond to the west. It was quite a beautiful view so Sakura walked over to the window, ignoring her classmates. They watched her with careful eyes, taking note of where she was going so they could avoid it at all costs. Sakura placed her bag on a seat next to the window, right at the back, allowing her classmates to have most of the room and still be able to steer clear of her.

Sakura glanced out of the window, trying to focus on the beautiful scenery rather than the growing sense of loneliness building up in her. Sakura was not disliked, her classmates didn’t know her well enough for that… the reason she was so unpopular was because had become the popular girls’ favourite victim and they didn’t want to be subjected to that as well. There had only been on person who’d never cared about that sort of thing but Sakura’s dearest and only friend had moved away during the summer, leaving Sakura to fend for herself.

The melancholy girl lifted her head and scanned the room again, taking in where people where situating themselves. As expected, the more popular girls had arranged themselves in the far corner but oddly, there were still some people who sat quite close to her. Suspiciously close. On further inspection, Sakura noticed they were mostly boys who considered themselves Middlings – those who were not popular but not unpopular either.

Strange… perhaps Cam hadn’t been joking when he’d mentioned I blossomed, Sakura thought.

Still, the loneliness persisted but Sakura pretended not to notice. Instead, she stared out of the window beyond the city and into the sea, watching it move back and forth in its hypnotic way even from such a distance. It was a magnificent blue, as though it were summer somewhere near the equator. Although it was still fairly hot for the time of year, they were nearer to the Arctic Circle and Sakura knew the water would be freezing.

As she watched the sea, her imagination came alive and brought her right to the pebble beach that was the final frontier before the water and where the wind howled in answer to the repetitive question of the sea. She could virtually taste the salt in the air and hear the pebbles protest at being stepped on as she walked over them.

She came right to where the sea reached up over the pebbles and left a sandy coat every time it stroked the beach. The water shimmered as it came and went, towards her and then away again, alive with the magic to which only it could claim. Slowly, Sakura looked deep into the water, beyond the colour and all the properties that science stated made it the sea. She looked at its very essence that science denied existed and that the world had chosen to ignore for many millennia.

To Sakura, the essence looked like a pattern, a circular symbol that was indescribable; a natural part of the world and yet some how distinctly different from anything else. For others who could see the essence of something, it would undoubtedly look different. To some people it was a colour that no other human could see or an animal that had no name, to a rare few it was a taste in their mouth that was like nothing else in the world or a scent that no one else could smell and they couldn't describe. Admittedly, it was usually a mixture of all the aforementioned things, but one of the senses came out the strongest; which sense and how strongly varied from person to person.

The essence was a hard thing to describe and yet, it was also very easy. It was a substance's magic, for everything and everyone had a different essence. If you were in tune enough, you could even differentiate between the essence of two clouds or even two roses.

Suddenly, Sakura was brought back to the present day as her teacher walked in, slamming the door behind him. Sakura turned and grimaced, seeing it was one of the teachers she disliked the most. Mr. Hammon was one of the worst teachers in the school with a voice and face that seemed unable to express emotion. His voice droned on and barely anyone was mentally capable of paying attention to, those who managed that usually fell asleep anyway.

“Good morning, class,” he said in his monotone voice. “Before we begin, we have a new student in the school.”

The door opened and the new student seem to float in. At that moment no one spoke, no one moved, no one even breathed. They just stared. The person who had just entered could easily have been a ghost, or an angel, or a mixture of the two.

“Hi,” he said casually, “I'm Damien Demon.”

Despite everything, he seemed to be completely unconcerned at the way everyone was staring at him. However, Sakura supposed, he must be used to it from the way he simply smiled naturally. Sakura had never seen anyone so good looking, not even Gareth could compare; his face was perfection itself. He had white-blonde hair, which was more white than blonde, that draped slightly over his face. This failed completely to hide his piercing eyes that scanned the room; they were such a pale blue that they were almost could have been white. He was incredibly pale, but that seemed to come as an afterthought to Sakura because in spite of that, he still look perfectly healthy.

His smile lit up his face and revealed a set of perfect white teeth, sending a few of the girls into giggling fits. He was very tall, taller than most fully-grown males Sakura had met in her life and it was easy to see that under his clothes he was all muscle.

Sakura wasn't the only one who thought highly of Damien, the other girls in Sakura's class were now chattering excitedly among themselves. It was fairly obvious to Sakura that they were discussing who would have the first chance to charm Damien. It was also quite obvious that it would be Opal. Although Opal wasn't the most popular girl in the year, she was the most popular girl in the class and such close contact to Damien gave her better rights than anyone else in the year.

“Sit down next to Sakura, Damien,” Mr. Hammon told him, pointing to Sakura “And we'll begin.”

Sakura grit her teeth at Mr. Hammon’s mispronunciation of her name. As usual, he had put stress on the ‘kur’ of ‘sakura’, which was a typical mistake. Her name was pronounced with stress on the ‘sa’ and her heart plummeted as she realised Damien would forever be saying her name wrong.

She didn’t have any more time to think about it because Damien sat down beside her and Sakura suddenly found it was rather hard to breathe. He turned his angelic smile on to Sakura as he slid his bag under the table.

“Hi,” he said, “It’s nice to meet you.”

Sakura could only nod and smile back. After half an hour or so, Sakura found it much easier to breathe and actually managed to speak to Damien. Although he was obvious material for the spot as the most popular guy in school, he seemed genuinely nice which surprised Sakura. In her experience, even new kids could tell she wasn’t good for their reputation and ignored her right form the start.

When Damien asked Sakura to give him a tour, she gladly accepted. She lead him around, purposely picking out which rooms Damien would be having classes in and finding to her delight that she shared a great deal of her classes with him. Sakura also, for virtually the first time, held up a half-decent conversation with someone her own age. The fact that it was a guy who made her slightly weak in the legs only seemed to raise Sakura’s hopes.

“You'd think, by now,” Sakura said at one point during the obligatory tour around school, “That the UES would have found a practical way to school us at home.”

“Yeah, but then we'd never have to leave our homes as children and that would be boring,” Damien pointed out. “We'd never learn how to make friends because we wouldn't meet other children our age and we'd be impairing our children's learning of how to be social.”

“So we'd still be like children when it came to meeting people later in life,” Sakura concluded, catching onto Damien’s idea. “I never thought of it like that.”

Damien shrugged modestly.

As the day continued, Sakura marvelled at Damien. It wasn't just the fact that he was gorgeous and still a decent person, he was smart and thoughtful as well. He was perfect but Sakura knew it was only a matter of time before someone enlightened Damien about her social status. After he learnt just how unpopular she was, he'd probably never speak to her again. Sakura tried to shake a hopeful idea out of her head but it wouldn't go away, it was just too fairy-tale sounding for someone like Damien to want to be her friend even though she wasn't popular.

“I can't believe we can see the sea from here,” he said in awe during the last lesson of the day.

“Yeah, it's a twenty-minute bike ride to the beach,” Sakura told him “Forty minutes to get to the river in the South and only fifteen to get to the lake in the North. We're surrounded by water in this city.”

Damien laughed at this and Sakura felt her heart flutter in her chest. She did her best to stamp down on the feeling but as Damien stared beyond her and out the window, it revived. Sakura was forced to turn her attention to the teacher for fear she'd start blushing even though he wasn't looking at her.

At the end of the day, Sakura wheeled her bike out of its slot in the bike rack, thankful that no one had recognised it as hers and trashed it. She rolled it as far as the school gates before climbing on, getting ready to make her way home. She had only just managed to mount the bike when someone rode by and pushed her off, causing her to crash half into the ground and half into someone else. Sakura groaned in pain and embarrassment as the unfortunate person helped her up. Without even turning to see who it was, Sakura began to apologise for falling on them.

“It's okay,” the person laughed. “It wasn't your fault.”

Sakura blushed bright scarlet when she realised she had fallen on Damien. Although he didn't seem to care, Sakura couldn't get past the fact he probably thought she was a klutz.

“I am so sorry,” Sakura said for the millionth time. “I didn't hurt you, did I?”

“For goodness sake, stop apologising, you didn't do it on purpose,” Damien laughed. “Anyway, do you know the quickest route to Crescent Gardens? I'm sure the way I came in this morning was the long-cut rather than the short-cut.”

“Sure,” Sakura answered, a little stunned, “If you follow me, I can show you.”

“You don't have to show me,” he assured Sakura, looking a little nervous, “I'm good with directions.”

“Well, you just have to follow me for about ten minutes,” Sakura told him. “Then you keep going and take the second right.”

“Oh, well in that case,” he said, smiling broadly at her, “I might as well ride with you.”

Crescent Gardens, Sakura thought as they rode along, He must be rich beyond belief.

Crescent Gardens was also where Opal lived. Her father was a politician for their area and earned a ridiculous amount of creds every year for doing not a lot. Crescent Gardens was the most expensive area in the city and the houses there were virtually mansions. Sakura took a quick glance at Damien's bike; it was perfectly made for him, the only thing that looked odd about it was that the frame was entirely silver and there didn't appear to be a make on it. She didn't have the guts to ask where he’d got it so she kept quiet.

Eventually Sakura ground to a halt outside her house. Damien stopped also, not understanding that she'd come as far as needed to go, so she explained.

“So how do I get home from here again?” he asked one she’d finished.

“Keep going and it's the second right,” Sakura told him “You might not recognise the route though ‘cause it opens out into the back of Crescent Gardens.”

“Okay, thanks a lot,” Damien called as he cycled away “I'll see you tomorrow.”

Sakura watched him cycle off into the distance with the surreal feeling of having just found the perfect guy. She shook her head vigorously as though she could literally shake the idea and feeling from her body. It was ridiculous to have fallen so head-over-heels for a guy in such a short time but it had happened. Sakura put her bike in the garage and she walked inside.

She was alone and her brother Cam worked late on Firstday so he wouldn't be home from work for another hour. She thought about phoning Illana, the girl who'd moved away to another city at Summer, but she'd probably still be making her way home. Instead, Sakura went to her room and started on her homework, considering she had nothing better to do.