Next chapter's on the 25th of April.
Fai spends most of the week inside, avoiding the solitary window in the cramped flat and cooking for the group though he no longer needs to eat.
He tries to eat some bread on the third day, though the smell is un-food-like now. A shock of grief holds him close, claws dug into his heart as he ends up crouched over the cracked and yellowed toilet bowl for several hours.
He is thankful at the very least that the princess is asleep and everyone else is outside, looking for a doctor for Sakura if he remembers right. It means that they don't have to listen to the sounds he makes.
By the time Sakura wakes up he's scrubbed his face clean and helps her take her medicine, smiling like he used to.
She looks at him and he feels somehow like she sees right through him.
By the time everyone else is home dinner is in the oven and ready for them.
Fai makes his excuses and leaves, hat pulled over his ears and tail tucked between his thighs.
He manages to steal some little boxes which have the same pattern of squiggles on that the ones Syaoran has already taken for Sakura do. It's remarkably easy even in a place like this, to secret things into his pockets and sleeves, into the front of his shirt.
He manages to liberate a bottle of alcohol from a store while chatting to a clerk. He smiles at her as he leaves with some suggestions for a dinner party he's organising, an important sale for her to make even in a world like this, and waves.
As the sky bruises like a peach he heads to one of the abandoned buildings which they've stopped even trying to renovate anymore and climbs as high as he dares, to where the ceilings start to creak when he walks on them and there are chasms which show floor after broken floor where others have lost their footing before him.
There are a few people who live here permanently, safe from the heavy law enforcement of this world, ignored, and he says nothing, nodding in greeting where it seems appropriate as he climbs higher and higher.
Eventually he reaches an old balcony and sits at the edge.
The alcohol tastes bad, saccharine, as he watches the sky darken and stars begin to pierce the smog.
He smiles and pretends he is happy.
Moments later the contents of the bottle leave his stomach, spattering on the floor far below.
He is glad, at least, that up here he doesn't disturb anyone.
He comes home late that night, listens until the house is silent and he's sure everyone must be asleep.