Chapter Sixty-Four
Instinct goaded his legs forward, but panic crippled his coordination. Syaoran tripped twice before reaching to the crosswalk, and by then, Fai was right behind him. He darted across the street, not even looking for traffic. He'd yet to see a single car in this country, though the people seemed fond of bikes and oversized tricycles. Given the late hour, it would've surprised him if anyone was on the road at all.
"Wait!" Fai called, only a few feet behind. Syaoran felt the magician's fingertips brush against the back of his shirt and pushed his numb legs forward, breathing hard. By the time he reached the next intersection, the magician was far behind him. He darted across the street, surprised when a forty-year-old almost ran him over on a bike, and continued down the sidewalk, running until it felt like his lungs were going to implode. Dizziness swamped his thoughts, pushing them away so the only thing he could think or feel was the raw panic. Still suffering from the drowsiness leftover from Adele's tea, he couldn't even stand straight.
I should've stayed in bed, he thought, leaning against the smooth wall of an ice cream shop to catch his breath. His legs gave out. What was in that tea? he wondered, glancing over his shoulder. Through the grey smudges in his vision, it took him a moment to realize he was still being pursued. "Damn . . ." he muttered, rising up and staggering a few more feet. He turned into an alleyway, hoping the confined space would offer some small degree of protection. As he tripped over a garbage can and into a chain-link fence, he realized that had been a mistake.
"Syaoran-kun?"
He leaned against the side of the building, head between his knees, trying to breathe. Black spots danced in front of his eyes as the dizziness dragged him down. "Get away from me," he hissed. You're the last person I want to talk to.
You shouldn't be so mean, part of his mind criticized. You were friends once.
"Are you all right?" Fai's voice was quiet, subdued.
"Go."
The magician didn't respond. After a few seconds, Syaoran heard approaching footsteps. He retreated, eyes flashing gold. The wizard held a hand out, in a gesture one might use to approach a wounded child to show they weren't dangerous. Knowing better, Syaoran slid back until he hit the fence. "No closer."
"All right. All right." Fai sat down, cross-legged, at the end of the alley. Syaoran watched, body tensed for the moment the mage would attack. When he didn't move for several minutes, Syaoran began to wonder what the wizard was trying to do. Does he think he can make me drop my guard after he's tried to kill me twice?
Instead of asking those questions, Syaoran asked, "What are you doing up at this hour?"
"You saw the person I was with in the train station?"
"Yeah? You have a brother you never told us about?"
Fai winced. Some small part of Syaoran's heart twisted with guilt. But the magician answered. "I had to meet him. I just . . . had to."
Some of the darkness in his field of vision was starting to clear up. He took another deep breath. "Yeah. I get that," he finally said, imagining what he'd do if he ran into an alternate version of Sakura. "But why did you follow me?"
Fai frowned, his gaze drifting to the ground. Minutes passed before he answered. "We miss you."
He glanced up sharply, then winced at the flash of pain in his head. "You don't miss me," he said coldly.
"We all miss you," Fai said, a little more insistently. "Mokona and Sakura-chan, of course. Kurogane misses having you as his student and . . . I miss you, too."
"You wanted me dead a few weeks ago." You said so.
"I was wrong."
"Do you have any idea how close you came to killing me?"
Fai's response was automatic, almost mechanical. "Your heart stopped beating. If you'd been in a dimension where that was the final criteria for death, it would've been impossible to revive you. Luckily, Infinity requires extended cardiac arrest or massive, irreversible brain damage before they consider a patient dead. Seishirou revived you by turning you into a vampire, and you've been traveling with him ever since. Is that about right?"
"It's not that simple." You didn't feel the betrayal I felt. You didn't kill someone trying to drain them dry. You don't have to live knowing everyone you care about hates you.
Fai looked at him for a long moment, his expression shifting from careful neutrality to concern. "Syaoran-kun . . . When was the last time you fed?"
He tried to piece together how long it had been since he'd killed Souma in the jungle world. We spent a day there, then a little over a week in Avantine. Then a few days in the snowy country . . . How long is that? He frowned, the hollow yearn in his stomach growing more pronounced the more he thought about it. "I don't know. A couple weeks."
The magician threw him a look of disbelief. "You need to feed more often than that."
"It doesn't bother me."
Fai rose from his crouch. Syaoran shrunk back, his unbroken hand clutching the fence and pulling him into a weak standing position. Is he right? Is that why I feel so weak? "Stay away."
The vampire crossed the distance between them. Syaoran felt his claws elongate. "You have to feed. Tonight. Now."
If it had been someone else giving the order—Kurogane, or Sakura, or Seishirou—he might have given in. As it was, he shrunk back, raising a clawed hand to defend himself. "I can handle it."
"It's only going to control you if you try to ignore it."
"How would you know?" he demanded, feeling the first real flash of anger he'd felt all night. "You'll never understand the position I'm in."
"I do understand."
"You think so?" He felt the sharp shift from anger to exasperation. "Will you ever go hungry, if you land in a world where the only humans are the people you've been traveling with? Will you ever have to worry about how to disable a perfect stranger and rip open an artery without killing them or getting caught? Will you ever even have to feel the discomfort brought on by hunger—real hunger, not just an empty stomach? No. Because you have someone you'll always be able to rely on to take care of you. What I am . . . What I've become . . . You will never understand me." Fighting the dizziness, he pushed his way past the magician and staggered over toward the street. A hand wrapped around his arm, pulling him back. It took everything he had not to retaliate.
"Let me go," he said quietly. Control. I must remain in control of myself.
"Why hasn't Seishirou made you feed yet?" Fai asked. "He's the one who turned you. He should be teaching you how to deal with this."
"I am dealing with it."
"You're irritable. You can't stand up straight. Even now, you're finding it hard to focus. All signs that you've let your hunger gnaw away at you. If you don't feed soon, you won't be able to control yourself."
"I'm in control," he whispered.
The hand released him, but he didn't move. He stared at his feet for a few seconds, taking deep breaths.
"Sakura-chan wouldn't want you to punish yourself like this," Fai said, as if he had personal experience. "If not for yourself, do it for her."
Drink blood for Sakura? Tear someone's throat out for her? "I can't."
"Kurogane argues with me because I don't take care of myself. But Sakura-chan would do the same for you. Don't you want to come back at all?"
He tried to meet the magician's eye, but he couldn't tear his gaze away from his feet. "Come back?" he echoed softly.
Fai rested a hand on his shoulder. "We would let you come back."
"I can't."
"Why not?"
His sharpened teeth buried themselves into his lower lip, piercing the delicate skin. "There's something I need to do."
Fai was quiet for a moment. Syaoran supposed he could've used the moment to flee, but his legs felt like overcooked noodles beneath him, and it took all he had to stay standing. He's right, Syaoran realized. I've ignored the hunger too long. It's starting to affect me.
"We don't have to tell anyone about this," the magician finally said.
"Tell them about what? They aren't stupid—they must've realized what I've turned into. They'll know what it means."
"I mean about our meeting tonight," Fai clarified. After a moment, he asked, "What did Seishirou ask of you?"
He glanced away. Part of him argued against spilling his mentor's secrets so casually, but another part of him wanted to justify leaving in Infinity. "Do you remember Fuuma-san? From Tokyo?"
Fai nodded. "I saw him in Infinity, too, before . . ." He trailed off.
"He's grown very ill since we last saw him. Seishirou thinks there's some way to save him, but he needs my help to do it."
"What does he need you to do?"
"I don't know."
"And you trust him?"
Syaoran bristled. "I trusted you," he growled, facing the magician again. A look of hurt flickered across the Fai's face, and twin pangs of petty pride and guilt twisted through him. He opened his mouth to apologize, but Fai cut him off.
"I never meant to hurt you. I was cursed, from a very young age, to kill the first person I met with greater magical power than my own. With my magic reduced as it was, and yours amplified by the feather you were carrying . . . There was no way to stop. Everything else in the world ceased to matter. I—" He broke off, losing his composure. Syaoran stared at him, his anger dissolving when he saw the look of desolation in the magician's eyes.
"I'm sorry," Syaoran whispered. Fai's eye flashed up to him, still the same sapphire color the Other had known.
"You're . . . No. You shouldn't be sorry. It was my fault—"
"If we're going to hunt," Syaoran interrupted. "we should go before Seishirou realizes I'm gone."
Fai looked at him a moment more, then nodded. "Okay. Let's hunt."