Chapter One-Hundred-Sixty

Sakura arrived within ten minutes.

Syaoran tensed as she swept the privacy curtain aside. Reflexively, he glanced at Kurogane, who patted his forearm awkwardly. "You want me to stay or go?"

His eyes flickered to Sakura's face. Her eyes had gone wide, as if she couldn't fathom why the ninja would feel compelled to stay. She has no idea what's going on between us, Syaoran thought, briefly closing his eyes. Of course she'd wonder. "Go," he said to Kurogane. "I'll tell her."

"Tell me what?" Sakura asked, voice rising with worry. Kurogane slipped out of the room. "Is everything all right?"

He hesitated, waiting until he could be confident that Kurogane was out of earshot. Then, carefully, he swung his legs over the edge of the bed and got to his feet. Sakura darted over, taking his hand as if to steady him, but he quickly withdrew it. "I'm all right."

"You've been in a coma for six days," she whispered.

Six days? he thought, stunned. Kurogane didn't mention that. "I . . . I see," he said after a moment, bracing a hand against the table next to his bed. He supposed he was a bit lightheaded. Perhaps it was because he hadn't eaten or moved in nearly a week.

"Syaoran . . ." Sakura's voice shaped his name into something precious, and it made his heart ache to hear the affection in her voice. At the same time, he felt a twinge of guilt. It seemed wrong, somehow, that she would say his name with no honorifics, as if they were lovers. More wrong still because he did love her, even now, knowing what he was about to do to her.

This, he thought, is going to hurt. "Would you mind walking with me?" he asked. "I think it's time I made a trip to the hospital cafeteria."

"I can have something brought to you," she said, straying toward the edge of the room, then hesitating, as if she didn't really want to leave.

"I think it would be better if we went somewhere else to talk. You see, there's something I have to tell you . . ."

Some emotion sparked in her eyes, disappearing too fast for him to process. "Oh. Then . . . Then let's go together." She half-extended her hand, but when he didn't take it, she let it drop, hurt and uncertainty touching her expression.

They headed down to the first floor together, where visitors and patients well enough to walk could get something to eat. When the kitchen staff saw the princess enter, they quickly set up a private table in the corner and assured them that they could have whatever they wanted. Sakura, in turn, assured them that they could just bring two plates of whatever they had available.

"It's wonderful to be home," she said as the cooks scurried back to the kitchen. "Fai-san and I spoke at length to my brother once we'd recovered, so he knows . . ." She cleared her throat. "He knows all that you've done for me. For both myself and the one who shares my image. I know you and my brother haven't always gotten along, but I want you to know that . . . that he's very appreciative for all you've done. As am I." She met his eyes then, and he saw in them a terrible fear. A fear he recognized: that of being rejected.

She knows, he thought, lips parting slightly. She already knows. "Princess, I—"

At that moment, one of the cooks hurried back to their table, setting two heaping plates of roasted pig and stir-fried vegetables in front of them. The precious distraction lasted only a moment, and despite the pangs of hunger gradually making themselves known in his stomach, Syaoran hardly managed to swallow a single bite before guilt pinched the back of his throat. "I'm leaving this world soon," he said bluntly, looking down at his plate. "I don't know when or if I'll be back—I still don't know how many different worlds are out there, so I don't know the chances of returning here again anytime soon. Traveling like that will be dangerous. I . . . I don't want you to come with me."

"I know," she whispered, lowering her fork and staring morosely at her plate. "I saw in a dream that if I chose to continue traveling with you, it would only cause you pain. I saw you telling me that this was the price you'd chosen to pay to . . . to avoid further distorting the worlds."

He nodded. This truth, at least, was less painful than the others. "As I understand it, in absorbing my father's memories, I created a paradox in which he was removed from his own time-line—a paradox which leaves me without a father." And without a mother, he thought, but didn't say. He didn't want to upset Sakura any more than he had to by telling her that, by carrying the soul and memories of her image, she had also removed Syaoran's mother from her time-line. "There are other paradoxes," he went on. "The fact that my father is a copy of myself—that we should not be able to exist without one another. Some of that may be mitigated by the fact that time flows differently in different worlds, but the fact is that my own connection to those worlds and the people in them has been . . . severed." This had become clear to him in his days of dreaming. In creating this paradox, he had cut himself off from time. By all rights, he ought to have ceased to exist after the events in the reservoir. Yet he lived, belonging in no place, in no time, and so his existence would bend the pattern of any world he remained in too long.

"And so you chose to keep moving," Sakura said, "knowing that it would mean we'd be separated again."

"It was the only way." He paused, absently taking a few bites of his meal. "There's something else I have to tell you."

Her eyes went wide, her hand still as she lifted her fork to her mouth. Slowly, she lowered her arm. "Something else?" she repeated.

He closed his eyes. Just say it. "That's right. You see, I'm in love with Kurogane-san."

Sakura's body jerked. "You . . . You're what?"

Her shock struck him like a blow. So she hadn't known, in spite of her dreamwalking. When she'd shown no surprise at his decision to continue traveling without her, a small part of him had hoped she would already know the truth about Kurogane, that she would have had time to process and accept it before he had to tell her. But it seemed that she'd had no inkling of it.

"It started in a few months ago, in a place called Infinity," he began, forcing the words out. He explained the isolation he'd felt, the emptiness, the impulsive kiss that had sparked it all. He talked about how he and Kurogane had become friends, how their friendship had become something deeper. He spared her the intimate details—he didn't think either of them could handle that, not when she already looked so close to weeping—but he also made no attempt to obscure the truth: that he and Kurogane had become so much more than friends.

After a while, the words came easier, as if he were talking to himself rather than confessing a painful, traitorous truth. He told her of how he'd been kidnapped and tortured in Infinity, of how Kurogane had rescued him. He told her of the weeks of bitter solitude he'd endured between returning from the hospital and falling back into Kurogane's arms. "You have to understand," he said at one point, "I'd been trapped and alone for so long that the thought of being isolated again almost destroyed what little happiness I'd managed to build for myself. I'm not sure if, after being so close to someone, I'd have been able to keep going without that support. What we did . . . In some ways, my choice to pursue the one relationship that made me happy was more destructive than remaining isolated would have been. If I had remained apart from him, that separation might not have been so difficult."

"No," Sakura whispered, interrupting for the first time since his explanation had begun. He refocused on her face, feeling a pang of guilt. "I'd rather you be with someone else and happy than be alone and miserable."

His heart gave a peculiar little thump. He looked away, his throat suddenly tight.

"I kept you waiting a long time," Sakura went on, "and all of it with no guarantee that we would find each other again. You had every reason to seek out someone else."

"I . . ." For a moment, he struggled to speak through the lump in his throat. "It's not that I was tired of waiting. I was selfish. I wanted more than I had any right to ask for. I wanted . . ."

"You wanted not to be alone," she whispered. "I understand."

He looked away, ashamed. "I should have been stronger. But even though I knew that, even though I dreamed every day of finding you again, I fell in love with him. I fooled myself into thinking I'd never have to choose between you and him, and then the day came when I did have to choose, and . . ."

"And you chose him."

"I'm sorry."

Sakura wiped her eyes, sniffling delicately. "I understand."

"But I still . . . I don't want you to think that it was an easy choice. I still . . . love you. But it would be unfair to ask you to stay here, knowing I would be traveling with Kurogane-san, knowing it could be years before you'd see me again. I don't want you to feel like you have to wait for me. I don't want you to go through the same struggle I went through. All I want is for you to be happy."

"Without you."

"Yes."

She took a deep breath, still dabbing at her eyes. "I see." She stood, her tray still overflowing. She'd taken only a handful of bites. "If you would excuse me for a moment."

"Of course," he said. Sakura hurried away, one hand pressed to her face. Syaoran watched her go, only realizing after she was gone that the people sitting nearby were glaring at him. Sakura had always been well-loved by her subjects; it didn't surprise him that, upon seeing her walk away in tears, they would feel some animosity toward him for causing it.

No longer hungry, he stood and brought both plates back to the kitchen to be washed. The cooks looked at him oddly but made no comments. Immersed in their work, they probably had no idea he'd just sent their princess off crying.

Not knowing where else to go, he went upstairs, intending to return to his cot. Though he seemed to have no major injuries, every step ached, and his physical body, at least, craved the escape of sleep. When he saw Kurogane lingering in the hallway, however, he slowed.

The ninja hadn't noticed him yet, which made Syaoran think he was preoccupied. Indeed, when Syaoran looked at his face, he seemed pensive. A rare expression for him. He'd tucked his hands in his pockets and his face was angled toward the ground, his eyes a world away.

Syaoran took a deep breath and continued down the hallway, only stopping when he reached Kurogane. For the first time, the ninja turned his head to look at him, animation coming back to his face. "Hey."

"Hey." Syaoran rose to his tiptoes, gently pressing his lips to Kurogane's. It said much about the ninja's state of mind, Syaoran thought, that he didn't comment on the fact that they were standing in the middle of a hallway in a public building, in full view of anyone who happened to stroll by.

"How did it go?" Kurogane asked.

He hesitated, then shook his head, ignoring the question. "Do you want to take a walk with me?" he asked.

Kurogane opened his mouth, as if to ask where, then paused, regarding him. He wrapped his fingers around Syaoran's palm, linking their hands. "With you, I could go anywhere."

With effort, Syaoran managed a smile. "Okay. Follow me."