Chapter Twelve
The startled look she gave him said more than any book could have. He saw apprehension, displeasure, rejection, and apathy, all mingling together on her face for one awful second before she returned her attention to the frying pan.
"Good morning," he said, trying to ignore the splinters of ice her glance had jammed into his heart. Sakura gave no reply, but he could see the line of tension in her back, the mechanical motions of her arm as she flipped the doughy circles over in the pan.
He winced as his foot came down across the carpet, then decided to find a closer destination than the table. Sitting down on the arm of the couch, he spoke again. "Do you want me to set the table?"
Still no answer.
The others slept in their room, undisturbed by the loud crashing of pots and pans. Syaoran decided it wouldn't do any harm to keep talking to Sakura, even if he received no response. "So, I think I'll be able to go back to the arena within the next couple days. I didn't think I'd be out of it this long, but . . . Anyway, how did things go without me?"
Her shoulders stiffened, but nothing else.
"Probably better, right?" he went on, trying to cover up the sadness he felt at the thought. You have no right to feel sad over her, he reminded himself. She's not yours. "With an apartment this size, it must be a relief to clear out even one person. Plus, the dinner table wouldn't be so crowded with just three people."
Her hands slammed down on the counter, startling him out of his ramblings. "Stop that," she said, in a tone he'd never heard her use before. It left him speechless long enough for her to plow through her next words. "You'll never be him, so stop trying. I can't stand it."
His heart sunk down to his stomach, and his eyes drifted down to the floor. Before the words could sink in any more than that, one of the bedroom doors swung open, and Kurogane wandered out, rubbing his forehead as if he couldn't fathom why anyone would be up at this hour. When the ninja saw him perched on the couch, he did a double-take.
"Morning," Syaoran said, trying to keep his voice cheerful even as the rest of him spiraled deeper into despair.
"You changed clothes," Kurogane noted, too stunned to say anything else. "You were walking around with those injuries?"
He shrugged. "More or less."
The ninja blinked, then turned towards Sakura. From the way he stared, he was evidently surprised to see her up and cooking at this hour.
Syaoran eased back to his feet, noticing their breakfast was almost done. He limped over to the table, taking his usual seat. Part of him wanted to set the table, as a favor to the others. His legs protested at the thought of any unnecessary movement, though, so he stayed put.
"Mage," Kurogane called, facing the bedroom. "It's time for breakfast."
Fai peeked his head out from the doorway. When he saw Syaoran already at the table, he reacted exactly as Kurogane had, doing a double-take.
Weird morning, Syaoran thought, watching the magician from the corner of his eye.
After everyone had taken a spot at the table, Syaoran contemplated a way to introduce the topic of Seishirou without disrupting the easy flow of the morning.
"I bought fudge while I was out," he announced, pulling the little box from his pocket and setting it on the table. Everyone stared at him like he'd just grown a third eye. "And also, I ran into Seishirou before I got back," he went on, in an equally casual tone.
The past week had been filled with awkward silences and wary glances, but there had always been the scraping of forks against the plates and the sound of teeth tearing up pieces of food. All that ceased after his statement. The silence pressed down on his eardrums like lead weights.
Syaoran lifted his fork and stabbed one of the pancakes on his plate. The sound of the metal fork breaking through the dough and hitting the plate underneath seemed to jolt the others out of their speechlessness.
"Why are we just finding out about this now?" Kurogane demanded.
"I wasn't going to wake you up to tell you that. I'm not suicidal."
The ninja lifted a hand, as if to hit him. Syaoran shut his eyes, every muscle in his body going rigid as he prepared for the blow. It never came. Instead, Kurogane brought his hand down on the table with a loud crash. "Tell us what happened."
Syaoran fidgeted under their collective stare, his eyes focusing instead on a smudge of syrup on the edge of his plate. For a long moment, he said nothing, not sure which parts of the story they would react to, and which parts were unimportant. Syaoran decided to skip over the part where Seishirou had threatened to kill him. "He was just standing there, in the city park. I thought I recognized him, so I went closer . . ."
"And then?"
He bit his lip, organizing the story in his mind. "He knew I was there without even looking at me. After that, he asked if I was still looking for the feathers. Seishirou-san still has the one he had in Outo, and I was hoping to get that back, but . . ."
The others waited for him to finish with varying expressions. Sakura stared at the table, her face the same muddled mix of emotions it had been when she'd seen him this morning. Fai looked as if he'd just been punched in the gut. Kurogane was tense, staring at him with unmoving crimson eyes.
"Seishirou-san wasn't willing to give the feather up. I know the device in his eye will only allow him to cross a certain number of dimensions. It's possible he's trying to increase that number with the power of the feather, or using it to magnify his other abilities."
"Where is he now?"
"I don't know." He lifted a piece of pancake to his lips and swallowed quickly, buying himself a second to think. "I told him the vampire twins are probably in some new dimension now. If he hasn't left already, he will soon."
"You told him that?" Fai demanded. Hearing the magician raise his voice sounded so odd to his ears that he actually lost his train of thought for a moment.
"That's all I told him. I left out what actually happened in Tokyo. So, anyway, if we're going to try and track him down, we have to go soon." We'll probably die, but since when has that ever stopped us?
"You can't be walking around with your feet bound up like that," Kurogane said.
"I can walk well enough."
"You can hardly stand."
"We have to get the feathers back, no matter the cost. Since Seishirou-san was my teacher, I should be the one to deal with it."
"Thought you said you weren't suicidal," Kurogane grumbled.
He stabbed at his second pancake, eyebrows coming together in a single line. "I'm not."
"You're staying here," the ninja said with finality. "Watch over the princess."
Sakura bristled, but said nothing as Syaoran nodded.
"Anything else you want to tell us?"
"That fudge is going to go stale if you just let it sit there."
The ninja rolled his eyes. "This isn't the time to be joking."
No, heaven forbid anyone ever laughs at anything. "Sorry."He ate the last bite of his pancake and limped over to the sink to wash his plate. Feeling unaccountably exhausted even after the solid hours of sleep, Syaoran walked over to his room.
He sat down immediately after walking inside, his feet protesting every time they so much as brushed the floor. Syaoran sank into the sheets, closing his eyes.
It's better, he reasoned. At least they're all speaking to me now. Maybe I can win them back.
Never. I will never love you. The words intruded on his moment of optimism, like ice water running down the nape of his neck. He wrapped his arms around his torso, trying to drive the frigid sensation out. It lingered there, polluting every cell of his body, turning his blood to ice.
Never.
"I know that," he whispered to himself. "Of course I know that." I am not hers, and she is not mine.
Driving the point home, a flash of Sakura's smiling face flickered through his mind. The logical part of him knew he'd never actually seen her smile, but the emotional part of him knew he wanted to. Only the Other had seen it, and it was only by virtue of the Other's memories that Syaoran knew how beautiful Sakura was when she smiled.
I could never make her smile like that. Never.
Never.