Chapter Two
"So, that girl you were with," Ryuuo says, laying a pair of Diamonds on the floor between them. They've forgone a proper table, opting instead to play on the plush carpet, marking down their wins and losses in a little notebook Ryuuo keeps with him. "Are the two of you . . . you know?"
It takes Syaoran a moment to parse the vague question, and when he does understand, he jerks back. "No," he says forcefully. When Ryuuo's eyebrows wing upward, he modulates his tone. "No, Sakura is . . ." A friend, he almost says, but he can't claim even that much of her heart. Yet he cannot tell the truth, not all of it. This world has whispers of magic, but nothing that could explain their current situation, even were he willing to risk it. "We—that is, myself and the others I'm traveling with—are her bodyguards."
"All three of you?" Ryuuo asks, incredulous. "I mean, the big scary guy, sure, but . . ."
"We have other functions, of course," Syaoran adds before Ryuuo can think too deeply on the plausibility of his explanation. "There's a great deal more to security than physical strength, and we each have our respective roles aside from that. I know a number of foreign languages, for instance, and Fai-san is very personable." Or he had been, before Tokyo. His cards grow heavy in his hands as he lays them on the floor.
Ryuuo winces. "Ouch. I don't think I could have come up with a worse hand if you'd given me a full deck and twenty minutes to think about it."
His answering smile is brittle. "As I said, Sakura is the lucky one."
"I guess."
He gathers up his cards and passes them back to Ryuuo, who slips them into his deck and shuffles, fingers moving deftly. The cards blur between his hands, their rapid flickering almost hypnotic, like watching the scenery pass by on a train. Ryuuo halves the deck, shuffles again, then fans the cards out in front of him.
"Pick a card, any card," Ryuuo says, one corner of his mouth quirking up in a smile. Syaoran meets his eyes, startled by the glimmer of excitement in them, though perhaps he shouldn't be. After all, every other version of Ryuuo his clone encountered has been unwavering in their enthusiasm. It's one of the things he's always admired about them—they're driven not by responsibility but by passion, by a desire to be the best.
And so, curious and a little amused, he selects a card from the spread and peers at it—a Gold Dagger.
"Great," Ryuuo says. "Remember your card and stick it back into the deck. Good, just like that." Ryuuo smiles, sweeping the cards once again and shuffling them with mesmerizing speed before passing the deck back to Syaoran. "Give it a good shuffle. Go on—any technique you want."
Bemused, Syaoran shuffles the deck a few times, then passes it back to Ryuuo. He's fairly certain he knows where this trick is going, but perhaps he'll be able to catch the sleight of hand if he watches closely enough.
"Nothing up my sleeves," Ryuuo says, rolling back his sleeves with a flourish. "And nothing in my pockets." He turns his pockets inside out, coming up with a set of keys. He stares at them for a moment, his showman's expression faltering slightly. "Here, can you hold these for a second?" he says, dumping the keys into Syaoran's hand before sloughing off his jacket and shaking it out. Nothing falls out except for a few tufts of lint and a coin purse. "Um. Hold on."
Syaoran watches as Ryuuo goes through his jacket, checking each of the pockets—including a number of discreet inner pockets visible only as thin slits in the soft lining—before setting the garment aside entirely and checking his pants pockets, nose wrinkling as they, too, turn out to be empty. Seemingly at a loss, he checks one pant-sleeve, then the other, before exhaling sharply. "Spades, I might have actually lost the card this time. I swear this trick usually works. Oh, wait!" His eyes light up. "Check your sleeve."
Startled, Syaoran glances down and finds a card peeking out of his right cuff. With his free hand, he plucks the card out of his sleeve and turns it over. It's the Gold Dagger. He looks up at Ryuuo to see that his apparent confusion melting into a look of immense pride. When did he . . . ?
"You slipped me the card when you handed me your keys," Syaoran realizes. "That's how you did it."
Ryuuo beams. "You're quick. Usually I have to repeat the trick at least once before the person figures it out."
The words spark something in his chest, something he hasn't felt in a long, long time, and a laugh bubbles up his throat before he can stop it. He claps his hand over his mouth, instinctively stifling the sound, but then Ryuuo bursts into laughter, bright and warm and wonderful.
It'll be hours before he notices the change in himself and days before he can put it to words, but for just a little while, he's happy.
Fai glides into the lounge a few minutes later, his gold eye sweeping the room twice before landing on Syaoran. At once, the hollow inside him yawns wide, his smile dissolving like ruins beneath a veil of acid rain.
"Time to go, huh?" Ryuuo says, gathering up his cards.
"The princess will be expecting me."
Ryuuo's eyebrows inch upward. "Princess? Like, as in actual royalty, or . . ."
"It's complicated," he says. "But yes, she's royalty."
"Interesting company you keep." Ryuuo's eyes flit toward Fai, then back to Syaoran. He looks distinctly uneasy. "Well, see you around, I guess."
Syaoran frowns slightly, unable to identify the emotion behind the words and, consequently, unsure how to respond. "Sure," he says at last, oddly disappointed. "See you."
They exchange one final nod, then part ways, Ryuuo slipping his deck back into its box as Syaoran walks over to Fai. "Sorry. I should have been watching the time."
Fai regards him for a moment, his expression unreadable. Syaoran bows his head. Without the levity of Ryuuo's company, guilt settles over him like a funeral shroud. It might be tolerable if he knew for certain whether the others blamed him for Tokyo, but with the exception of Mokona, they've been too distant, too wrapped up in their own thoughts to pay much attention to him. Still, they must blame him, at least a little. It's only right.
"Sakura-chan has another table lined up," Fai says at last. Syaoran nods, feeling another stab of guilt at his inattentiveness, and they head out into the main room. The crowd around the arena has dispersed, congregating around card tables and slot machines or sipping drinks from the bar. He spots Kurogane hovering near one of the tables on the far side of the room, his height exceptional even amongst the relatively tall people of this world. Sakura stands at his side, hands folded in front of her body, expression neutral, just as it was at the start of the Spectacle. Syaoran represses a shudder as he follows Fai across the room, but he cannot help but look into the arena as they pass. A crew of men and women in black outfits pour water over the sand, washing away the blood before raking unsoiled sand over top of it to smooth out the pit's floor. The Spectacle couldn't have ended more than ten minutes ago, yet all but a few traces of the violence it hosted have already been swept away.
He swallows hard and keeps walking, nodding shallowly to the princess as he reaches her. Her only response is to ease into one of the chairs and place a handful of gambling chips on the table.
They win seven hands out of ten, moving on before the dealer can pick up on Sakura's unnaturally good fortune.
"Based on the numbers I've compiled, we're winning seventy-three percent of the time," Syaoran tells Fai the next day, between games. He's been tracking their wins and losses in a notebook, trying to determine the precise degree to which Sakura's luck influences their record. He's not sure how useful those numbers will be, but it keeps him from focusing too much on his guilt, and that's reason enough to compile them. "That said, the percentage is somewhat inconsistent depending on which game we're playing."
Fai glances up at him. "Inconsistent how?"
"From what I can tell, the more dependent on luck the game is, the more noticeable her talent for it," he says, pretending to study his notes so he doesn't have to meet Fai's eye. "For example, if she were to play each of the slot machines in this building, she'd win approximately nine out of ten rounds. But in a game of Crowns, which is by nature more dependent on strategy, she might win six out of ten games. The interesting thing is that even presuming she plays each hand to its fullest potential, the chance of victory varies by only a few percentage points from the experimental data."
"Meaning that the more strategic nature of the game actually alters the extent to which her luck functions," Fai says.
"Exactly."
"And yet the tournament consists of games which are arguably as dependent on strategy as on luck."
Syaoran nods, his excitement over his data faltering. "So long as there's some luck involved, she'll still have an advantage, but it's . . . precarious. And there are certain other drawbacks, particularly in partner-based games, as it appears her good fortune doesn't spread to her gambling partner. I don't have concrete data on this yet, but I suspect if we were to analyze the respective value of each hand, we'd find that, overall, everyone else at the table does slightly worse than average when she's playing, because her luck by nature reduces the chances of other players receiving the most valuable cards."
Fai peers into his glass, his gaze faraway, and Syaoran knows he's heard what has not been said: that winning six out of ten games means that they are losing four out of ten, and while those would be fine odds if they were merely playing for money, that's a dangerously high chance of failure for a tournament in which Sakura's memories are the prize.
"There are other factors to consider," Syaoran continues when Fai says nothing. "Skill, for one. Most of the people here have been playing for years, even decades. They can see opportunities where we wouldn't, and while we might be able to pick up a few tricks before the tournament, the simple fact is that if not for Sakura's luck, we'd have lost most of the games we've played."
Fai twirls his glass by its stem, watching the liquor inside form a whirlpool. Syaoran closes his notebook and peers up through his hair, awaiting a response. For a long time, none comes, until eventually Fai sets his glass on the counter. "For now let's just focus on getting into the tournament," he says. "The rest can wait."
Syaoran throat tightens as he recognizes the dismissal in Fai's voice. He stands, nodding, and turns away before anyone can see his expression. The friendships he mourns were not his to begin with; he has no right to grieve for them.
As he walks away, the lights dim, and people begin moving toward the arena. Syaoran looks out across the sea of card tables, all of them shut down in anticipation of the night's Spectacle, and sees Sakura leaning against the railing, Kurogane looming over her with his arms crossed. A moment later, Fai rises from his stool and goes to join them, knifing through the crowd with predatory grace.
After a long moment, Syaoran forces himself to follow.
