Warnings: Mentions of dubious medical exams

Fakes & Fiends

Chapter 15:

"Dreams & Disappointments"

When they finished with me for the evening, I scrubbed the blood from my wounds and crawled into bed. I did not sleep. I waited for the nurses to leave, slipped from beneath the blankets, and opened my desk.

Father allowed me the use of any books I cared to purchase. Though he begrudged me many things, he never begrudged books. Even so, I did not want him knowing of my most recent acquisition. The tome in my desk drawer haled from the Meiou library. I hadn't checked it out. I'd slipped it under my shirt and had absconded with the book when no one was looking. It wore the slipcover of another book, a physics text, innocuous and boring.

Its true title, gilt and gleaming in the light of the full moon streaming in my window, said Spells of Warding and Revelation.

Superstition is not in my nature. Fantasy does not come naturally. However, in light of Kurama (Kurama, Kurama, his name is Kurama!) and Chiyo's discovery of his true nature, I was willing to bend the rules. I was willing to believe in something I previously had not.

Magic, namely.

Funny, how much can change so quickly.

I had prepared the spell tag at school days earlier. Ink made of the ash of a burned flower mixed with blood, used to apply holy symbols to a strip of clean white cloth that had been bathed in the light of a full moon. I lacked merely moonlight at this juncture; the spell required the moonlight bath begin at midnight. The clock on my desk proclaimed it merely 11:45.

Even sitting still, I am never idle. Planning, plotting, scrutinizing every facet of my day came to me more naturally than the supernatural. The night's testing session had been brief, too, affording me a clearer head than usual. Post-testing I normally had energy to do nothing more strenuous than sleep.

Tonight, however, I felt awake. Awake enough to wonder what had transpired between Chiyo and my father. He had smiled during my testing, had magnanimously allowed it to end the moment I expressed discomfort. He had gotten what he wanted tonight elsewhere, and did not linger over me.

The only question was, what had he wanted?

Chiyo was not the type to let others have power over her. Pigheaded and strong, Chiyo made demands. She did not capitulate to them.

Had my father managed to manipulate her somehow?

Her perfect poker face had not cracked when we separated that night. I could not tell if she had been affected by my father in any meaningful way. Regardless, I hoped that when we spoke the next day, she would prove her usual, vivacious self.

I would need her bright energy tomorrow. I would need to draw strength from her, feel her presence at my side if I meant to approach Kurama directly. I craved the warmth of her particular brand of energy, her particular aura that exuded such confidence and light. She was like a sun, Chiyo, self-sufficient and powerful. By contrast, I was a flower drawing life from her assertive heat.

…when had I come to rely on Chiyo so much? I certainly had not thought so highly of her when we first met.

My clock changed from 11:59 to 12:00. I took the tag out of the book, where it had been hidden, and opened my bedroom window. Light slanted across the desk in a wash of pale silver. I placed the tag in the center of the light, folded my hands, spoke the required incantation of nonsense syllables, and went back to bed to wait.

Rather anticlimactic, I suppose. But it would be ready by morning, if the spellbook told all truth.

I shut my eyes and smiled into my pillow.

Soon, Kurama would pay for what he'd done to me—and for what he'd done to Chiyo, too.

Even in sleep, my thoughts lingered on Chiyo.

I dreamed of her that night. I dreamed of her sitting in a dark hotel room, sorting sheets of pink-hued paper into piles, the light of a warm lamp coaxing rosy highlights from her auburn hair. She held a pencil between her teeth, locks corralled into a messy bun, clad in a droopy sweater and tiny shorts that showcased the curve of her supple thigh. Occasionally she pulled the pencil from her mouth and tapped it on the desk. She never actually used it to make notes.

"Ugh," she said, pushing away from her work. Head lolling over the back of her chair, she threaded her fingers through her hair and moaned. "Get out of my head, stupid Kuramino. I can't fucking concentrate!"

As if triggered by her utterance of that hated name, the dream around me shifted. The hotel faded, Chiyo's body fading last of all, replaced by uncertain shadows stretching far into the distance—a hallway, I realized, light of a full moon pouring through a window next to me.

My hand alit on the window sill.

The moonlight passed through my translucent fingers.

My body cast no shadow.

Moving like a feather on the air, I drifted down the hallway on bare, silent feet. Framed photos reflected light into my eyes, obscuring the faces of the people pictured within. I didn't stop for a closer look. My eyes caught on the door at the end of the hall, pulled there like a sliver of iron drawn close by a greedy magnet.

The door swung open beneath my hand.

On the other side lay Minamino.

A bed sat beneath a window, blue comforter stained silver in the moonlight and amidst the dark. Hair the color of blood fanned across the pillows, draping over the column of his white throat as though someone had slashed his neck with a razor blade. Sooty lashes stained his cheeks; breath sighed from between his full, parted lips. He looked like a prince from a fairy tale, cast into sleep by a witch who envied beauty.

He was so, so beautiful.

I hated him so, so much.

As hot, biting hatred filled my belly, movement stirred his lids. Even in the darkness the verdant color of his eyes flashed with ancient leaves and living forests. The comforter fell from his bare chest as he sat up, revealing taut muscles carved from living irony.

His eyes seemed to pierce right through me, even as they looked beyond me, searching vainly through the dark for a person he could not see.

"Who's there?" Minamino said.

I never got the chance to name myself—to tell him a creature of nightmare had come to disturb his slumber, to eat him alive, to finish the work the witch had started and steal his beautiful, lovely life away.

My alarm went off, and I woke up.

Chiyo took one look at me when I reached the school gate and said, "Girl, you look like hell warmed over."

"Good morning to you, too," I said. My hand brushed my schoolbag, gesture meaningful. Chiyo's eyes lit up with understanding. "It's ready."

"OK," she said. Her honeyed eyes roved across my face. "But are you sure you up for this? You look terrible—like you haven't slept in weeks." Her hands shot up when my eyes narrowed. "Simmer down, girl-face, I'm not being mean. I'm actually just concerned." She reached for me, fingers tangling in my sleeve. The flower of her upturned face, cheeks rosy against porcelain skin, conveyed true disquiet. "We can wait a day. It won't harm anything."

Despite the comfort her touch brought me, my heart hardened at the suggestion. Grasping her wrist, I pried off her fingers and stepped away.

"Touching though your concern may be, the answer is no," I replied. Chiyo pouted; I remained unmoved. "We do it today."

She rolled her eyes. "I mean. Whatever? If that's what you want?" Turning from me, she headed for the school. "So when do you wanna get him?"

"Now."

Her head whipped back over her shoulder, eyes wide, made to look even wider with a generous coating of mascara. "Like, now-now?"

"Yes." Shouldering my bag a little higher, I followed in her wake across the schoolyard. "He arrives early most days."

Most days. But not today.

He was not in my classroom when we reached it.

We waited for him in the hall, but when the bell rang, he had still not shown himself.

"OK," Chiyo said, edging out the door. "He's just late, that's all. We'll do it at lunch. Meet you here?"

I didn't reply. I merely took my seat and stared at Minamino's desk, two rows ahead of mine, and waited.

But Minamino never showed.

"Girl, I'm so sorry."

Chiyo watched me from the doorway of the study room. Despite her condolences, she did not come near me. Perhaps she was wise to remain at arm's length. I sat at the worktable with hands clenched in my lap, tension vibrating in my muscles like the rattle of a striking snake.

"It is not your fault," I grated out.

Chiyo snorted. "No shit, it's not. But I can still be sorry." Her joking tone evaporated, conciliatory once more. "Are you OK?"

Chiyo wasn't an idiot, but I nearly snapped and called her one for asking such an obvious question. I had prepared myself to expose Kurama for what he truly was, meditated and prepared and slaved and rallied despite the stress surrounding me—and he hadn't even come to school. If he had bested my efforts through tactics or magics, I would have considered the defeat a lesson learned, a clue into how to best my adversary next time—but to win against me merely by not showing up for battle? That was a slight to my pride, to my composure, to my sanity that I would not soon see remedied.

How dare he not show up today?

How dare he make all my efforts a waste?

How dare that disgusting, pathetic, fucking waste—

"No," I told Chiyo, face utterly, purposefully impassive. "I…needed a win."

"You deserve a win," she said. When I didn't react, she added, "Where do you think he went?"

"No idea." Admitting as much aloud sent a spike of raw pain into my gut, but I did not allow myself to wince. "But he can't skip school forever."

Chiyo nodded. "I guess we just have to wait till he gets over his cold, or whatever's keeping him away from here." She tried to smile. "Maybe he'll be back on Monday?"

"Maybe," I said. But the thought of waiting for him until Friday—

My nails bit into my palms, stinging stars exploding in my clammy skin.

Even though my facial expression remained impassive, Chiyo intuited my feelings. The girl was too observant for her own good, or for mine. Tutting like a hen chiding a chick, she looked me up and down and said, "You're gonna beat yourself up over this all weekend, aren't you?"

That drew from me a wry laugh. "How can I not?"

"You can get distracted, that's how." Her jaw dropped, eyes rolling heavenward as something occurred. "Oh my god. I'm brilliant!"

"This bodes," I muttered.

"Oh, shush." Practically skipping, she crossed the room, pulled out a chair, spun it around and straddled it. Eyes glimmering like stars at midnight, she said, "Hear me out: Let's have a girl's weekend!"

My nose wrinkled. "A what?"

"A girl's weekend." When I did not react, she swatted my arm and laughed. "Oh, you know. Manicures, massages, facials, romance movies and ice cream?" At that she looked almost wistful. "We can go back to the hotel and order room service and take advantage of that spa I keep hearing about. We can take bubble baths and eat cake and drink a bottle of champagne." A sigh escaped her rosy lips, full of longing and nostalgia. "Wouldn't that be friggin' fantastic?"

I pinned her with the flattest stare I could muster. "How, precisely, could a weekend of petty frivolity possibly help this situation?"

Chiyo clearly had ideas, pink mouth jutting in a plush pout. "Oh come on, Saiyuri. It would totally help!" If she'd been standing, I'm sure she would've cocked a hip like a strutting peafowl. "And besides. What's the point of putting me up in that fancy hotel if we don't take advantage of the amenities?"

"The point is to keep you from Kurama, and from any vindictive loan sharks I neglected to pay off."

"Yeah, but…amenities." Eyes watering (damn her ability to cry on command!) she grasped my hand, fingers warm and soft and pleading around my own. "Please, Saiyuri? Please? Just one trip to the sauna?" I'm absolutely certain she had practiced that look of petulant begging in a mirror. "I promise not to try to shove makeup on you for at least, like, another week if you do this with me!"

Her large, liquid eyes bored into mine like warm copper. I began to rebuke her. Such superficial impulses grated against my instincts, flying in the face of the gargantuan task before us, completely at odds with the absolute magnitude of discerning Minamino's true nature. We should spend the weekend planning, not watching frivolous films. Was Chiyo not concerned that she had been roped into business with an animal like him—with an animal like my father? The sooner we exposed Kurama, the sooner we could end this, the sooner she could distance herself from—

My father.

The rebuke died on my tongue.

If I went with Chiyo this weekend, I would not have to go home to that echoing, cavernous house…nor to the man who haunted it.

"Fine." The words slipped free almost of its own accord. Looking away from her, I relented, "We can have a…a girl's night."

If Chiyo noticed my hesitation, my disdain (and she was not the type to miss it) she didn't indicate as such. She merely squeezed my hand, shot to her feet, and spun in a tight, giddy pirouette. "Glorious. Glorious!" she said. Hand on hip, eye closing in a sassy wink, she pointed a finger at me and grinned. "I dunno about you, girlfriend, but a massage sounds absolutely ambrosial right now. And a facial?" She patted her cheeks and spun once more. "Girl, this much tension cannot be good for our skin!"

Chiyo was, perhaps, even more of an accomplished faker than even myself—but she could not hide the anxious tone undercutting her chipper speech, nor the tense set of her slim shoulders.

Chiyo was, I realized, overplaying her sense of humor for my benefit. And perhaps even for her own, as well.

Something told me her impulse to have a girl's weekend wasn't entirely frivolous, after all.

NOTES:

I'm still not coming back to FFnet. Not entirely, anyway, past this single post.

I posted this chapter in order to spread the word: I've moved to Archive of Our Own. I'll be updating there from now on and aim to start updating this story monthly. I will post chapters here only once a story is completed on AO3. After this update, it's back to radio silence on this site. Thank you for your support in the meantime. I've been getting PMs asking about my whereabouts and I thought this was the best way to reach the most people at once.

I am best reached on Tumblr these days (user name is still Graphospasm) or on my Facebook page.

Thanks so much to all of you for your patience.