Chapter Fifty-Eight

"You have to tell Sakura."

The words rang in Syaoran's ears like a church bell in an empty town. All the color seeped from his face, leaving his lips paper-white and darkening the rings around his eyes. If he'd been standing, his knees would've folded like broken lawn chairs. Tell Sakura? How could he? He'd endured this conversation with Fai out of necessity, but even the thought of mentioning it to the Sakura in the next room sent ripples of horror through his mind. And trying to explain the same to his Sakura was unthinkable. As soon as the thought crossed his mind, he rejected it. Couldn't even consider it because his relationship with Kurogane and his love for Sakura didn't coexist in his head. How could they, when the existence of either relationship threatened the other? No, he thought. I would never be able to tell her. But if I don't, I lose what little I have now.

"Or you could end it here," Fai said. "Those are your options."

Syaoran looked up, trying to refocus despite the vast chasm opening up in his chest. As the vampire stood, the ultimatum sunk in, digging its claws into his heart. "You can't," he whispered.

"I can. You tell her, or you break it off with Kurogane. But I won't watch you lie to us."

He flinched from the accusation, his eyes following Fai as he started for the door. As his pale fingers brushed against the doorknob, Fai paused. "I'll offer the same to him. But it has to be one or the other."

The door opened, closed. Syaoran sank into the couch cushions, feeling as if he'd been punched in the gut. The clock on the wall ticked, keeping its insistent rhythm even as time became meaningless again.

Outside, a pigeon shrieked.

Fai paused at the elevator doors, taking deep breaths as he waited for the metal box to descend. His toes curled, tapping against the inside of his shoe. A witch's cauldron simmered in his stomach, boiling up into his throat, but he steeled himself for this next confrontation.

As the elevator arrived, he stepped inside and ordered it to ascend to the roof. The buttons on the wall glowed orange when he pressed them, some of the numbers smudged with dirt, ink, and other substances he couldn't identify. As the elevator rose, the cauldron in his stomach seemed to boil over.

He was nervous. He could admit that. Nervous because acting like an adult would only put him on level footing with Kurogane, and because he couldn't guilt the red-eyed man with an ultimatum without looking like a hypocrite. And you are one, whispered that self-destructive corner of his mind. You always have been. Ordering Syaoran to tell the truth when all you do is lie. How can you justify that?

The elevator lurched to a halt. His hand snaked out to grab the supports on the side of the elevator to stabilize himself. As the doors parted again, a frigid wind bit at his face, clinging to his skin like mist.

Fai straightened, stepped out of the elevator, and walked to where Kurogane stood, staring out across the city as if waiting for an attack. Wind battered against antennae on the rooftop, and the massive heaters wheezed, forcing warm air down the building. Yet all the noise couldn't penetrate the deafening silence hanging between them.

"Syaoran-kun told me everything."

"Yeah. Figured he would." Kurogane craned his neck, red eyes appraising. The wind carried the scent of the ninja's blood to his nostrils, the metallic smell emanating from the half-inch deep slices Fai had left in the man's side less than half an hour ago.

Focus, he told himself. You still have an obligation to get this right. "Why'd you do it?"

"The kid needed me."

"You shouldn't have let this happen."

Kurogane stiffened. "Yeah? Should I have let him starve himself to death in his room?"

"There's a difference between taking care of someone and taking advantage of them."

"No shit." The ninja started pacing across the edge of the rooftop. Fai noted the sword hanging from his belt, then calculated his chances of surviving if this came to a confrontation. With magic, he'd have an edge, but he'd seen the ninja at his fiercest, and he didn't want to get caught in the aftermath. Not yet.

Not until he absolutely had to.

"I never took advantage of him. Never. I gave him every opportunity to call it off, whenever he wanted, so if you think you can pin all the blame on me, you're even stupider than I thought."

Fai let the insult glide over him. "I understand how Syaoran might've come to the conclusion that this was feasible, but I never thought you'd have such poor judgment."

Kurogane's hand rested on Souhi's hilt. "You want to repeat that?"

He stepped forward. Focus. Control. He could control himself. He'd been doing it for years; he could do it now. "We have two options. One, you and Syaoran-kun could stop this."

"And the other option?"

"One of you has to tell Sakura-chan. I'd prefer Syaoran tell her, but you two can't keep sneaking around like you have been. If you're going to do this, it's going to be out in the open."

"Fuck you."

Well, this is going as well as expected. He took another deep breath. "That's the same ultimatum I gave Syaoran-kun. Whatever you choose, I'll accept it. But something has to give, and it's not going to be me." Not this time. He started to turn toward the elevator, not daring to push the red-eyed man any further when his sword was so close at hand.

Just as Fai hit the button to summon the elevator, Kurogane spoke. "What the hell's wrong with it? Why does it bother you who I fuck?"

Fai flinched, the bluntness of the last statement striking him like a whip. Syaoran had alluded to something more than a few kisses, but to have it confirmed right now tipped the cauldron in his stomach. His throat burned, distress digging its claws into his back. Ignore it. You endured much worse before Ashura found you. He took a deep breath, saying nothing.

"Well?" Kurogane demanded. "He's mentally twenty-one, so age shouldn't be an issue. Or is it something else?"

"What are you implying?"

"Don't play that game. You know what I'm implying."

Fai smiled bitterly. "So, what? You think I'd find it repulsive because you both have cocks?"

There was a beat of silence. He turned to see the stunned expression etched into the ninja's face, as if the man hadn't believed him capable of such blunt terminology.

Fai sighed. "Don't be ridiculous. Such relationships are commonplace in my world." He'd had a variety of lovers back in Ceres, both male and female, though he'd never been able to form strong attachments to any of them. No, his reasoning was much less bigoted. "You want to know why it bothers me? You really want to know?"

"Yes! What the hell is so wrong with it?"

"He's in love with Sakura!" He didn't bother to differentiate between the image waiting downstairs and the original from which she'd been created—the original this Syaoran had almost certainly fallen in love with. He doubted Kurogane knew, for one, and it wasn't really relevant. "If things carry on like this, it's going to break him. And you should know that."

The ninja's eyes darted to his feet, and just for a moment, Fai saw the layers of emotion there. Guilt. Desperation. Confusion. And perhaps a flicker of vulnerability, though that was buried so deep beneath the others that he couldn't be sure if it had ever been there.

"The ultimatum still stands," Fai said, relieved when the elevators parted for him. "Either this relationship is out in the open, or it stops. I won't accept anything less."

"You're a selfish bastard, you know that?"

Fai thought of the lies he'd told them, of the coolness with which he'd favored nearly everyone since Tokyo, of the betrayals he'd have to make sometime in the future. Selfish, all of it. But that had never stopped him before.

He stepped into the elevator, hit the button for the lobby, and let the doors close behind him.

Author's Notes:

For the record, I do consider KuroFai to be canon. The reason I'm mentioning this is because Fai gets up on his soapbox a little bit in this chapter, at least internally, and it may have something to do with his repressed attraction to Kurogane. But KuroFai doesn't really fit in this story, so, just as CLAMP did in the manga, I'm leaving it as subtext. And, answering a question I'm sure some of you have been pondering for a while now, the reason I don't write KuroFai is because, while I enjoy reading it, I'm not good at writing Fai's POV, and other writers have done much better than I ever could in the KuroFai department. Also, there are a lot of KuroFai fics, especially compared to other pairings, and I enjoy diversifying the archives. So, if anyone's been wondering, I don't have any issues with KuroFai, but I'm content to leave that to others.