Chapter Four
Ryuuo is well into his second cocktail by the time his hands stop trembling. Syaoran can see the strain in his shoulders, the way he twitches whenever someone brushes past his chair. Ryon's accusation might have been false, but that does not erase the fear it created.
So they drink and talk. Or rather, Ryuuo talks, and Syaoran listens, nodding and making noises of agreement. Practicing, in a way. It's been years since he's had a real friend, and his social skills have suffered for it.
Ryuuo doesn't seem to mind, if he notices at all, and as he talks, the tension seeps out of his body. By the time Syaoran finishes his drink, their conversation has adopted a comfortable rhythm, which is why Ryuuo's question catches him off-guard.
"So, the people you're traveling with . . . they don't, you know, hit you or anything, do they?"
Syaoran blinks. The idea is absurd—whatever resentment his companions might hold, they've never resorted to physical harm. The closest any of them have come was in Tokyo, when Kurogane saw the bat sigil on his shirt and assumed he was an agent of Fei-Wang Reed, but who can blame him for reacting with fury, given what was done to him? "No, of course not. What made you think they would?"
Ryuuo squirms in his chair. "It's just that you sort of cringe whenever they come near you. I mean, I just thought that if you needed someplace to go, you could stay with me. If you wanted."
The offer surprises him almost as much as the question. He traces his index finger along the polished edge of the bar, that cold, aching void in his heart stretching wider. "They weren't the ones who hurt me," he says slowly, remembering the press of glass against his fingertips, the darkness of his prison as he struggled to hold onto consciousness while his clone slept. "I was . . . kidnapped." That's not precisely how it happened, but it's close enough that the distinction hardly matters. "I managed to escape eventually, but before that I was held captive for a while."
"How long is a while?" Ryuuo asks, voice hushed, as if he's afraid to hear the answer.
Too long. He doesn't let the words get past his lips. He has so many secrets and so few people he can trust with them.
Ryuuo regards him for a long moment, then plucks a napkin from the stack in front of them and scrawls several lines "You don't have to tell me if you don't want to," he says, passing the napkin over to Syaoran. "But if you ever decide to take some time away from it all, let me know."
Syaoran takes the napkin. "What's this?"
"The address for my apartment. I'm going to make myself scarce for a few days, until Ryon finds someone else to push around, but if you need someone to talk to, I'll be there."
"That's very kind of you." Syaoran folds the napkin into quarters and tucks it into his coat pocket.
"Friends look out for each other, right?" A pained smile touches Ryuuo's lips.
"Right."
Syaoran spends the next evening at the card tables, analyzing Sakura's luck in greater detail in stolen moments between games. He has enough data points now to calculate their odds of victory within one percent, and with little else to do aside from refining the numbers, he finds himself looking out across the room, searching for a familiar redheaded figure. He hadn't realized it until tonight, but he's become accustomed to catching glimpses of Ryuuo while he's playing cards, and his absence leaves him feeling oddly . . . bereft.
Kurogane is the first to notice his distraction. "What's wrong?"
He tenses, hurriedly turning his attention back to his notes. "It's nothing."
The ninja regards him, arms crossed. Syaoran holds his breath, anxiety knotting in his stomach. It's fine if the others find out about Ryuuo—they already know Syaoran leaves during the nightly performances—but he doesn't want them to think he's devoting any less than his complete attention to acquiring the feather. They already have enough reason to resent him.
After a moment, Kurogane closes his eyes. "Whatever it is, don't let it interfere with our goal here."
He nods solemnly, and Kurogane walks away.
The Spectacle that night involves a giant mesh cage, a man with a dagger, and a nest of furious, eight-inch-long hornets.
Syaoran forces himself to stay despite the continuous chant of wrong, wrong, wrong in his head. Sakura always stays, though she never bets on the performances. Before he can stop himself, he asks why she watches.
"When we refuse to acknowledge suffering, we give power to those who inflict it," she tells him, fingers tightening around the rail as one of the hornets leaves a toothpick-sized barb in the man's forearm. The man howls and yanks the stinger out, his dagger flailing wildly as the house attendants release two more hornets into his cage. "I may not be able to change this world, but I will not blind myself to its cruelty."
Syaoran swallows. Sakura doesn't say it, but that's exactly what he's been doing by retreating to the lounge during Spectacles. "I see."
"It's all right if you want to leave," Sakura says, an echo of her old gentleness wending through her voice. "You've already suffered so much for us—you don't have to watch."
"I . . ." He doesn't know how to reply. He assumed the others resented him, blamed him for what happened in Tokyo. And while it's true that he's endured a great deal for the chance to set things right, he must remember that it was his choice which enabled Fei-Wang Reed to set his plot in motion.
So he makes himself watch as the remaining hornets swarm the man in the arena. They continue to sting him long after he falls, convulsing, to the floor.
Another day slips by, then a week. Between games, when no one is watching, Syaoran takes the napkin from his jacket pocket and unfolds it, reading Ryuuo's clumsy handwriting until the words seem to glow in his mind, like an afterimage that grows brighter over time.
Each night, when The Red Band's patrons gather around the arena, Syaoran stands by Sakura's side. The Spectacle doesn't always include blood-games—Syaoran suspects that with the strict policy on debts here, patrons are careful not to let themselves fall into the red. Only the compulsive gamblers and the truly desperate dare play beyond their means. Most of them end up dying on a bed of sand, torn apart by some exotic predator or mangled while traversing a field of traps. Of the four people forced to participate in the Spectacle that week, only one survives.
It doesn't take long for the horrors of The Red Band to creep into his nightmares. In one dream, twisted creatures with teeth and claws shred his body like rice paper. In another, he's running from a swarm of hornets when his legs suddenly stop working. In other dreams, it's not him in the arena, but one of his companions, and he is too slow, too weak to save them. Those dreams are . . . difficult. Primal fears he can rationalize, but the nightmares where he survives while the people he cares about are slaughtered follow him into wakefulness.
There is one nightmare, though, that has nothing to do with the horrors he witnesses in the arena. In that dream, he slams his fists against the inside of a curving tube as its walls draw inward. In that dream, he is a prisoner, bound by magic like a butterfly pinned to a board as Fei-Wang peers through the dark glass, his features etched in shadow.
He wakes from the nightmare damp with sweat, his lungs seizing up with fear, suffocating. He flails in the cocoon of sheets, cotton clinging to his skin like so many threads of magic, and tumbles out of bed, hitting the hardwood floor with bruising force. Adrenaline pounding in his veins, he writhes until the sheets loosen enough for him to escape, and then he's outside, dragging great, heaving breaths through his lips, and it's not enough; the vast ceilings of the Undercity are still too close, pressing down, down, down with the weight of an entire world and he can't breathe.
He doesn't know how long the panic attack lasts, but when he emerges from it, his cheeks are sticky with dried tears and his teeth ache from clenching his jaw. Minutes slip by: five, ten, twenty. Slowly, he unfurls, taking stock. The Undercity has no true night or day, but it does have lights that fluctuate in color. Syaoran has already designated pale gold as mid-morning, but given that they stayed out until dawn, he's only slept for a few hours.
Fragments of his nightmare flicker through his mind, like broken glass, too sharp to handle. He goes back inside and writes a note to the others, telling them he'll meet them at The Red Band when it opens, then leaves the inn behind to wander the Undercity.
The streets are quiet. The factory workers and laborers who make up most of the adult population have already started work for the day, and the more affluent citizens are still recovering from their nightly revels, nursing hangovers or drowsing in bed. Syaoran traverses the countless metal walkways that make up so much of the Undercity's upper levels, ignoring the occasional bursts of sultry air puffing up from the vents below. The scholarly part of him muses over the intricate workings of this underground city and its clockwork machinery. This world appears to be in the midst of its first major industrial revolution, yet the massive cavern that makes up the Undercity shows evidence of having been inhabited for decades. He speculates that this was originally a natural cavern, later hewn into a more functional form as the technology to do so became available.
He wonders how many of these people have ever seen the sun.
For a while, he wanders, passing through neighborhoods and marketplaces. Rust clings to many of the buildings, peeking out through flaking paint, and even the few shops in good repair show signs of age. While the patrons of The Red Band spend ludicrous amounts of money betting on the fates of the less fortunate, the rest of the Undercity dies a slower death, its people trapped in an endless cycle of labor and low pay as their buildings rust and crumble around them.
There's nothing we can do to fix this place. He shoves the thought aside, reaching for the napkin in his pocket before he remembers that he left his jacket at the inn.
It doesn't matter; he has the address memorized, and for all its flaws, the Undercity is scrupulously organized. It takes him less than half an hour to reach Ryuuo's apartment complex. A metal mesh fence surrounds the building, frayed in some places where animals have chewed through the wires, and a collection of poorly-rendered graffiti paints the side of the building.
The complex has little in the way of security. Syaoran makes his way up to the third floor without anyone sparing him a glance, then halts outside Ryuuo's apartment. It only occurs to him then that if Ryuuo has kept his usual habits, he's unlikely to be awake for hours still. I should go back to the inn, Syaoran thinks. It's early still. He can dispose of his note, start breakfast, and pretend everything is fine.
Instead, he sits in the hall outside Ryuuo's door and settles in to wait.
