Next chapter's on the 21st of March.
Sometimes Fai sleeps.
He mostly tries to avoid it, waking from dreams of ice cold in his lungs and veins, hunger and blood dripping from his hands, blood on his face, blood in his throat to nails in his palm and promises dead and stuck in his throat with the burning hunger-thirst he's ignoring.
It doesn't help that when he wakes up that man is usually there, on the other side of the room, staring at him with eyes as red as the blood from his dreams and so present to his every sense.
Even if those eyes are closed he still can feel the man's heart beating as if his whole universe was centred around it, around sating himself with it.
He finds his throat drying when he looks at him and leaves every time, standing in the darkness and the rain which passes so frequently and leaning back against the cold stone as he tries to scrub from his brain the curve of the other man's throat, his desire to bite into it which grows every day.
Three long days after they'd first heard of the tournament they have their first battle, turning up dressed in the same clothes they've been wearing the whole time, covered in grime but clearly unlike the things that anyone else here wears.
Fai keeps his head held high just as they all do, carrying Sakura and Mokona to the chair he's told to place her in.
He gently puts her down and meets her eyes as she settles her skirts over her knees, hard as she nods.
Fai stands and joins Syaoran and that man inside the square chalked out on the ground.
The other team come out, covered in black leather and studs.
They are bigger than them and Fai can see the growing smiles on their faces, anticipating an easy fight as they take in the three of them.
Fai watches them dispassionately as they laugh and trash-talk them, situating themselves how they like, picking who they're taking on. He can feel the new ears on his head flicker back and hears one of them laugh at him and say words he doesn't listen to.
He doesn't say anything to Syaoran or him and they say nothing to him either, keeping their silence.
A coldness settles over Fai's mind as the bell rings.
They fight ten fights that day and leave with almost no injuries as a group.
Sakura accepts the prize money with no words.
The four of them get strange looks the whole way through the entrance hall as they leave in silence. Those eyes seem to follow them as they find an apartment to rent for a week until the next fight, go and buy food to fill the fridge and buy new clothes.
Fai feels oddly calm in the curtained dressing room as he pulls on a tight vest and buttons up a shirt over it.
He closes his eyes and breathes in, tucking his tail carefully between his thighs and pulling another pair of underwear over the top. The trousers he wears are loose but he feels a little more like himself when he looks in the mirror and pulls a hat over his head tightly.
He looks almost exactly like he should.
He breathes and steps out, his old clothes in a bag, and walks out, head feeling as settled as it has been for what feels like months.