[fic]Retribution Nineteen
Here it is, as promised, the last chapter with a bonus epilogue in the following post. Double update for once!! Enjoy.
Title: Retribution Nineteen
Rating: PG-13
Warning: angst, OOC (if you agree with FNR), AU (if you agree w/ FNR), but for those who disagree: CWC (Canon? What Canon?)
Characters: Fei Long, Mikhail, Yoh, AxA, Feodora (OC), mentions of Yan Tsui.
Spoiler: Spoiler for NT arc
Disclaimer: All VF characters belong to Yamane Ayano.
Beta: angel0399
Previous Chapters: For new readers, 'Retribution' is the third arc of a Mik x Fei trilogy that I've suffered my readers with since 2007. In order to make sense of it I'm afraid you will need to read 'Cruel Intentions' and its sequel 'Revelation' before you begin 'Retribution.' All the links are organized on the side bar of my lj kajornwan along with the trilogy's one-shot fillers. Russian, Chinese, Polish, Spanish, German, French, and Vietnamese! (thank you everyone!) translations by readers are also found here. To make life even easier, I have put them all in PDF format. Links can be grabbed from this post:http://kajornwan.livejournal.com/33060.html
Where do memories go? What happens to those moments, so full of emotions that fill our hearts to the brim or break it into pieces when they’re gone? How does something so permanently etched into our soul disappear into nothingness by something so physical? In the end, does nothing we do, touch, or feel in our whole lives mean anything at all?
Perhaps these images, too, will soon mean nothing, Fei Long thought as he watched them from a distance, images of Mikhail, awake, alive, and talking, with Feodora by his side; with him standing behind the opened door, out of sight, and away from those who had a place in his heart. He had been cast aside before, locked out on the other side of the door he was forbidden to enter, but he had never been forgotten. He had never been nothing.
Who are you? Mikhail had asked, and he could not find words to answer. Who was he, and how does he say it? That I’m your friend. Your lover. The person whose hand you liked to hold when we’re alone together. Someone you liked to kiss in the morning before handing over the coffee you brewed to perfection. The one you used to treasure, who broke your heart too many times to count.
The reason that your brother had to die.
It wasn't that he couldn’t say these things, only Fei Long couldn’t think of a single reason why he should. His existence had done nothing but put Mikhail through the path of torment and danger he didn’t deserve. If forgetting him meant forgetting all of it, forgetting why Alexei had died, forgetting the guilt, the pain, and the betrayal that came with it, could he be so cruel as to take away Mikhail’s chance to start anew just to bring back those memories? What does it matter how many unforgettable moments they had shared if Mikhail couldn’t remember any of it? No one regrets things they don’t know they’d lost. This was the point where he could walk out the door and never look back, and everything would turn back to normal. He could make it so they would never have to run into each other again. Mikhail would never have to know him. Everything that was never has to happen - everything that meant everything to him.
“Where am I?” Mikhail asked, his brows narrowed the same way they did when he had one of those headaches.
“You’re in a hospital in Hong Kong,” Feodora replied as she held his hand and squeezed it tightly. “There was an incident and you’ve been shot in the head, but you’re all right now. How are you feeling?”
“How am I feeling?” He repeated, kneading his temples irritatingly as he spoke. “My head hurts like hell and I don’t remember shit. More importantly, please tell me the fucker is dead.”
Fei Long smiled to himself at those words. Just like you.
She laughed softly and patted him on the shoulder. “You can see his head when you get out of here, hot shot. Take some rest. I’ll brief you when you feel better.”
“How long have I been out?”
“Two weeks.”
13 days and 8 hours.
“And you want me to sleep some more.”
“I want you to take it easy, or the things you don’t remember may never return.”
“I’m hungry,” he said, tugging her sleeve like a child bugging his mother for treats.
“I’ll bring you something. What do you want?”
He made a soft, purring sound in his throat and swallowed. “Your scones, with a lot of butter.”
“And seeded red currant jam.” She kissed him on the forehead and smiled, her eyes softened in a way she rarely showed anyone else.
“You’re an angel,” he told her before returning a kiss lightly on her cheek and sinking his head back on the pillow.
You’re an angel, Fei Long found himself smiling at those words. It was unmistakably Mikhail, throwing sweet words everywhere like Halloween candies to his loved ones and never once had it sounded cheesy. He was normal. Everything was, except to him.
Fei Long clenched his fists to the hollowness in his stomach, to the feeling of falling from somewhere high, only with nowhere down below to crash into. It should have been him. Bitter, egotistic thoughts kept repeating in his mind relentlessly. It should have been him holding that hand and squeezing it tight. It should have been him kissing that forehead and saying everything would be ok. Mikhail would have liked it. He would have wanted him to. But now there was no place for him where they stood, and nothing he could do would mean a thing.
Seeded red currant jam-- was that Mikhail’s favorite? If it had been he didn’t know. It was the first time Fei Long had seen them together, so used to each other’s company, and without him standing in between. It must have been like this before, with Feodora knowing exactly what he wanted, and Mikhail knowing that he could always rely on her. She’d had almost 30 years of chances to prove her love, to help him up when he fell, to be there for him when he needed someone. He’d had two, where he’d done none of it, and now they were gone. All gone, like sand that slipped through his fingers and was lost in the wind. Was it the price he had to pay for his ignorance, for not holding on to what he had until it was too late?
Feodora left the room soon after and gestured for him to follow. She closed the door behind her and turned to him. He noticed how her smile was completely gone, and how those eyes had regained their usual intensity.
“I must ask you for some time. He’s too exhausted right now to be under stress, if you know what I mean.”
“I don’t need time,” he told her. What would he do with time? Remind Mikhail of every scar and hurt him all over again? “I need you to be there and make sure he’s ok.”
She paused for a moment when she looked at him then, her tone softened as she touched his arm lightly in assurance. “This cannot be permanent.”
Fei Long swallowed the lump in his throat that was getting in the way of what he had to say. The words felt heavy on his tongue, and heavier still against his lips. “Then make it permanent,” he said. “You’re married to him. You’re having his baby. You are his family. I don’t ever have to exist.”
“You’re giving up.” She glared at those words she didn’t expect to hear. “He would have never given up on you. And if you think that I would be content to have him this way, then you are more foolish than I thought. Have you no faith in him at all?” Mikhail had loved him. He had loved Fei Long enough to put everything on the line including his life and the lives of his entire family. She had witnessed it, every pain he’d put himself through for Fei Long, and every time he’d let it crush him to the point of breaking. It couldn’t have all been gone. “He can’t have forgotten you.”
“He has forgotten me.” He stepped up to her; his hand took hold of her upper arm and squeezed it tightly until his voice trembled with his grip. “It will remain so. You will tell him I had been nothing but an acquaintance, that we barely knew each other. When he asks you why and how Alexei had died, you will tell him that it was an accident. That it had nothing to do with him or with me. Do you understand?”
Alexei. Feodora found her breath cut short by those words. It hadn’t occurred to her that along with memories of Fei Long, the awareness of Alexei’s death also could have been gone. There was no way she could have forgotten how it had affected Mikhail, how the guilt had nearly killed him, and how useless she had been to bring him back on his feet. Mikhail would have to relive those nightmares all over again, and if he doesn’t recover fully the feelings he’d had for Fei Long, then there would be no one to bring him back from the hell he would put himself through-- again. “No.”
“I can’t save him, not this time,” he told her. “He won’t survive. Mikhail will die because of me.” Just like Alexei did, like his father, like Mei Ling. Everything he touches burns to the ground, everyone he loves dies because of him. It had to end. Mikhail would not be one of them, even if he had to sacrifice everything to see it through.
She felt his grip on her arm tightened, as though he was about to crush her bone with it. Fei Long was trembling; his breathing was short and heavy, and his chest was heaving as though he was drowning in the very air he breathed. Still, in those eyes she saw nothing but unshakable determination. “It may still come back to him one day. He’d never forgive you. He’d never forgive us.”
Fei Long took a step back and looked at her, the conviction in his eyes was as unwavering as his tone. “That is a consequence I can live with. Can you?”
***
It was 6 A.M. The sky was clear, the air was clean, and the birds were singing; and still everything seemed to piss him off. Perhaps it was the fact that he’d been in the damn hospital for more than two weeks, that all he could get his hands on was instant coffee. Or maybe he just needed a good workout, which was out of the question. He turned to look out the window and cursed at how small it was. There was not enough sunlight in that room, not enough fresh air, not enough space, not enough of something he knew was missing but couldn’t figure it out. It was downright irritating, and it was taking a toll on his patience that was already running thin.
“You can’t smoke in here,” the doctor said as he saw his patient light himself a cigarette.
“Why?”
Feodora held her breath at the murderous look Mikhail threw at the old man and wondered if the guy knew he could be thrown out from the 36th floor for the wrong answer. Mikhail was in one of those moods that even she felt uncomfortable around, which meant that nothing she could say or do would get past that thick skull of his.
“There are smoke detectors in the room.”
Fortunately he does know what to say, Feodora thought. But then again, as a psychiatrist he should be well aware of how to preserve himself when confronting a spoiled rich kid who had been known to shoot at people for interrupting his workouts.
Without another word, Mikhail turned back to the window and forced it open before returning to his cigarette. Why the fuck does everyone have to make things more complicated than they are?
The doctor glanced at her, and she nodded quietly. You don’t want to know, she would have said had Mikhail not been in the same room. What really bothered her was how cranky he’d been since he’d woken up the second time. Mikhail had been pacing back and forth as though he was constantly looking for something. The way he kept fidgeting looked like he was on some kind of drug withdrawal, only it wasn’t drugs he seemed to have needed. She could only hope it was just the lack of decent coffee, or that he just needed a good workout after having been immobile for so long.
“Mr. Arbatov, I need to ask you a few questions to see if your injuries have affected your memory. Everything else checked out fine.”
“Ask and be done with it.” He needed to get out of there. There was somewhere else he had to go, something he had to do-- he just couldn’t remember where and what. Maybe it was just home. It was probably home.
“May I have your name?”
“Mikhail Vladimirovich Arbatov.”
“How old are you?”
“32, the last time I checked.”
The doctor looked at her, and she acknowledged it with a nod. He seemed to have lost two years of memories, precisely when Fei Long had entered his life.
“Where and when were you born?”
Mikhail took a long draw on the smoke and exhaled in complete boredom. “I remember my past just fine, right down to the license plates of every car I own. Move on, old man.”
“Your siblings?”
He sighed again. What was it about remembering his past did the man not understand? “Alexei is my brother,” he said before gesturing at Feodora, “and she’s adopted.”
Is. Feodora clenched her fists at what it implied. Fei Long was right-- the memory of Alexei’s death was apparently gone.
“Can you name some of your friends?”
“I don’t have friends,” he told the doctor casually. “I have enemies, leeches who want to steal my money, and victims.”
“And doctors,” he added with a friendly smile.
Mikhail glanced over his shoulder and smiled back. “They belong to one of those categories, eventually.”
The old man swallowed and adjusted himself before he moved on. “Girlfriends?”
He snickered. “I don’t keep girlfriends. I fuck.”
“Boys?”
“Occasionally. Would you like me to elaborate how I fuck them too?” Perhaps that was what he needed - a good fuck. He could probably get some when he gets home, then this thing that had been nagging him would be gone, wouldn’t it?
From the look on the doctor’s face, Feodora had to wonder if he’d actually been scribbling the answers down or listing reasons why he should find a new patient.
“Are you married?”
It was a question that had him pause for moment, as though he was unsure of the answer. He turned to her and his gaze lingered on her face skeptically. “I’m engaged… to her.”
“What was the last thing you remember doing?”
“I was attending a meeting in Macau… no, a wedding in Hong Kong.” It was all he could remember. What happened at and after the wedding he couldn’t recall. But something did happen, that much he knew.
“Do you remember the scars on your back and how you got them?”
Feodora braced herself as she cursed the doctor in her mind. Was it really necessary to bring it up on the first session? It was something that Mikhail had refused to speak about for decades and was trying his best to forget.
To her surprise, he turned to look at her and then at the doctor; the expression on his face revealed nothing but curiosity. “I have scars on my back?”
She drew a sharp breath and exhaled as the weight in her heart was lifted. They say there is a blessing in every curse. Perhaps it was true in this case. Without those memories, Mikhail can start out again like a blank slate. The nightmares would be gone, along with the risk of relapsing back into the drug abuse that was a result of that incident.
“Car accident,” she told him abruptly. “I think we should call it a day,” she told the doctor and made sure he understood her gesture. She would need to talk to the psychiatrist-- in private-- about his condition and figure out how to make it permanent before more questions brought back unwanted memories.
The doctor nodded and closed his file. “We’ll do this again some other time. I suppose I can work with what I have for now.”
She approached him quietly when the doctor had left, and wrapped her arms around him from behind. “I’ll bring you some decent coffee. That’ll lighten your mood?”
He didn’t sink into her embrace as usual, and his body was stiff to the touch. There was a distance between them that felt like a room away, even though she had him right there in her arms. “What’s bothering you?”
She could feel his chest moving up and down heavily, and knew in an instant that the irritation she’d noticed was accumulating in intensity every passing minute.
“You’re keeping something from me,” he said. There was an edge to his tone that made her uncomfortable.
“I’m not trying to,” she replied.
“I can tell when you’re lying.” He turned to face her, his breaths felt sharp and heavy against her cheek that was just inches away from him. “Wife.”
The last word was spoken more like an accusation than a form of affection, and she felt like a child who’d just been caught lying. She swallowed as he wrapped his fingers around her throat, as though he could and would squeeze it should he find adequate reason. The hair on the back of her head stood at his touch. There were times when he’d shown violence against her, but never when he was sober and self-aware. It was as though he suddenly saw her as someone who was standing between him and something he wanted, and Mikhail had never had patience for those who stood in his way.
“Tell me,” he said in almost a whisper, but one that felt like a razor blade against her skin. “Why and when did we get married? Because I don’t remember giving you that ring. And while you’re at it, I want to know how and why my brother is dead, because I know he is, but I don’t remember any of it.”
He knows. Despite the fear that was creeping up her spine-- both from the way he’d reacted and the outcome that would surely follow-- she lifted her chin and faced him. Now was not the time for her weakness, that much she realized. “It was an accident. He was in the wrong place, at the wrong time.” It wasn't a lie. She just hadn’t told him all the details. “As for when and why we were married, you can ask your father when you get back home. And take your hand off me. In case you’ve forgotten that too, I am carrying your child.”
Taken aback by the news he’d not anticipated, Mikhail took a step back and released his grip. “My child?”
“Your son,” she told him. It may not have been born out of love, but her son was unmistakably Mikhail’s blood. It was her one request when he’d asked her to let him go - to have his child, to have something that was a part of him. All she had been given was access to his sperm bank, for the reason that he would not cheat on Fei Long at any cost while they were still together. The devotion at which Mikhail had given the man was beyond insane. It was probably why he could still feel it under his skin what his mind had chosen to forget.
Mikhail stilled for a moment as he tried to let it sink in. His son. He’d remembered nothing of it, but somehow, at that moment, he knew it wan’t a lie. Whatever had happened along the way, she had become the mother of his child, and he had nearly hurt her over something he knew she wasn’t responsible for.
“I’m sorry.” He closed his eyes and kneaded them forcefully with his fingers. From what he’d learned so far, everything should have been normal. He was going to be a father. The grief over Alexei’s death was still lingering somewhere in his heart, but he could feel it had been something he had come to terms with. The enemy that shot him had been killed. But what was it that continued to irritate him to no end? “There’s something I want to remember,” he said, burying his face in the palm of his hand, “something I need, desperately, and I don’t know what.”
It was a craving, like there wasn’t enough air for him to breathe; the kind of hunger he couldn’t fulfill no matter what he did. His body was aching over something he needed to touch, to feel, or to hold in his hands. It wasn’t coffee, a cigarette, or an object he could see in front of him, but something else. Something that wasn’t there-- something he couldn’t live without.
It’s not that easy, Feodora wanted to tell Fei Long then. He can’t forget you, even if his mind has, even if you want him to. His feelings for Fei Long had become so much a part of him, that to remove it would leave a void no one else can fill.
Gently, she cupped his face in her hands in assurance. “Give it time,” she told him. “Let’s take you home so you can get some rest. Maybe it’ll come back to you or maybe it will go away. I’ll get the doctor to sign your release tomorrow and have you picked up.” Perhaps time will mend that void, or he’ll soon learn to live with it. “I’ll go get your coffee.” She leaned over and kissed him lightly on the cheek.
“Feodora,” he called her before she left the room.
“Yes?”
“Who was that man I saw when I woke up?” He asked her after a moment of pause. “The one with long hair?”
She smiled. “He’s the one who saved you.” It was the best explanation she could think of that wasn’t a lie, nor would it require her to elaborate any further.
“Do I know him?” There was more to it. He saw the way those eyes looked at him. It was the piece of puzzle that didn’t fit anywhere and somehow it was bugging him in ways he couldn’t explain.
“I don’t know. You don’t exactly tell me about everyone you meet.”
“What’s his name?”
She hesitated for a moment, and realized her curiosity was getting the better of her. “Liu Fei Long.”
“Of Baishe?” He raised a brow.
“So you know him?”
“By reputation.”
It’s completely gone, she thought to herself, much like the scars he didn’t know had existed. Mikhail couldn’t even put his face to a name he already knew.
“I need to see him again.”
She scowled. This can’t be serious. “You still have stitches in your goddamn head and you’re thinking about fucking the first beauty that you saw when you woke up? Besides, that’s Liu Fei Long of Baishe. You’ll get another bullet in your head before you get into his pants.” She wasn’t lying. It wasn’t going to be easy for him to get even close, especially when Fei Long was so determined to not let that happen.
“Oh but you know me.” For the first time that day, a mischievous smile appeared on her husband’s face. “I’ll gladly take another bullet in the head just to get into his pants.”
She rolled her eyes and sighed. “If only it was your cock that had been shot." If there’s such a thing as soul mates, can't it be someone else? ”You’ll probably run into him again. You have a sizable share in his casino in Macau.” That is if Fei Long hadn’t done anything drastic to completely prevent it from happening, like selling out all of his shares, but Mikhail didn’t need to know that.
“Good,” he said with a smile. “Then let’s go home.”
***
The room smells different, Fei Long thought as he ran his hand along the new Egyptian cotton sheets. Feodora had asked him to help clean out the villa of his belongings to remove all the traces of him ever occupying the space before Mikhail returns. Everything had been replaced, down to the bed sheets and the draperies. Soon it would all be gone, everything and everywhere in Mikhail’s life in which his existence had left a mark.
“How are you feeling?” She asked as she watched him go through the last room in the villa - Mikhail’s bedroom.
“I feel nothing,” he told her with a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes.
“Nothing,” she repeated, “not even while sitting on the same bed he used to share with you?” She had meant for it to be a joke, but the way he took it made her wish she could have been subtler. If anyone had suffered the most for Mikhail’s loss of memory, it was Fei Long.
“It was rarely on this bed.” He didn’t know why or how he could tell her with such indifference the things they used to share or do with each other. But by that time, there was nothing but numbness when he spoke of them. “It was usually in that penthouse, and it’s gone.”
“Still it must be hard to see,” she said, sweeping her gaze around the room, “little things that remind you of him."
There was a pause from him, and a breath held for a moment too long. ”I can't allow myself to feel anything about the little things. If I do, I will have to feel everything." And everything was more than he had strength to endure.
In a way, she understood it. There were times when she had to go through the same situation, when he'd left her for another, and not just for Fei Long. Mikhail had had countless of women, and all her life she had been there to witness it; the sweet words and flattery that didn't belong to her, the lust and desire in those eyes that never looked her way, his heart that was broken by someone else. But at the end of the day she had been the one that he came home to, and he had always come to her to mend his broken heart. She had survived everything knowing this- that she had never really lost him, not so completely. With Fei Long, right now, it was a different story.
“Is it really that easy to shut out your heart?” Fei Long had been too calm, too quiet, and too content for her to be convinced that everything was all right. Mikhail had been there too, replacing his every pain with a playful smile, laughing when he needed to cry, and keeping his indifferent mask so firmly on his face when he was so broken inside.
“Is it really that easy for you?” He asked her in return. “Knowing you can't have the one thing you want the most? Seeing him with someone else when it should have been you?" It would come to that. Sooner or later Mikhail would find someone, and he would have to see it, and to live with it just as she had for decades.
She smiled and looked away into the distance. “It gets easier, when you remind yourself of what really matters.”
“And what really matters?”
“That he’s alive,” she said, looking straight into his eyes to remind him again of that fact. She had been through those moments when she thought she’d lost him forever; when his heart had stopped beating, and hers with it, before it was once again brought back to life. "I remind myself everyday, that no pain was greater than watching him flatline that day, and nothing had ever given me more joy to see him survive. When you've been through something like that, nothing else matters anymore but the fact that he’s alive.” She could survive and withstand any pain, but not of losing him.
Fei Long took a deep breath and exhaled heavily, his fingers suddenly turned cold at the moment certain memory had come back to him. "I saw it," he said in almost a whisper, "the gun that shot him. I heard the shot and I saw him fall. You're right, nothing else matters anymore.” Mikhail was alive and awake. What more could he ask for?
For a while, they sat next to each other on the bed in silence. The oddest company we are, Fei Long thought to himself. He'd never thought it would turn out this way- her getting Mikhail back, and him sitting there in her place, learning the hard way how she'd felt all along. He told himself that if there was such a thing as karma, then it would only be the beginning of what he had to pay. It was only just.
"How is he?” It was the question that lingered on his mind, one he needed answered before he could make himself walk away and never look back.
"He's ok. Everything checked out fine. Only parts of his memories are gone. Other than those, he claims to remember everything, right down to the license plates of his cars."
Fei Long laughed quietly at her reply. He could easily imagine that face as the man said those words. Mikhail Arbatov rarely takes anything seriously, and when he does, no one could beat him at his commitment.
”And the memories he’s lost?” It wasn’t a question that came easily to him, but he could not rest easy until he knew how much Mikhail had forgotten. Or rather, if there had been anything at all that he could remember about them.
She paused for a second as something entered her mind. ”Did you meet him at a wedding?"
"I believe so. Why?”
"Everything from that moment on, he doesn't remember," she said reluctantly.
Everything about me. No matter how many times he’d reminded himself of that fact, it still stung like salt on an open wound. "Two years," Fei Long murmured. To him, those were the most precious years of his life. To Mikhail, they were probably full of nightmares. “Has he asked about Alexei?"
She nodded. ”Strangely, he knows Alexei is gone, only he can't remember how and why. But he's taking it very well.”
"He won't take it so well when he remembers," Fei Long said with a melancholic tone.
“He probably won’t.” She didn’t want to say it, but perhaps Fei Long had been right. It was the guilt over how and why Alexei had to die that had driven Mikhail back to drugs, not his death itself. Forgetting all those events had made it easier for him to let go, especially when he could feel that loss had already been something in the past.
"Anything else?”
"His scars," she told him with a heavy heart, knowing how it would make him feel. "He didn't even know they were there. That’s another memory he'd lost completely."
To her surprise, Fei Long laughed softly at those words. "The two most tormenting memories of his life. I should have known.” The fact that Mikhail could remember everyone else but him was clear enough. He was a scar Mikhail would be better off without.
“Tormenting wasn’t the word he used,” she said. “The doctor, I meant.”
Fei Long smiled. “Dreadful, perhaps.”
“The most life-altering experiences,” she told him. “The truth is Mikhail had lost the memories of how he’d gotten those scars before, though not to the point where he was completely unaware of their existence. We were told that he might have pushed them back into his subconscious in order to survive. The problem is, those memories had never been gone. Certain events or objects often trigger them, and he would react to them as though they were a part of instincts he had been born with.
I could understand that his mind may have chosen to forget what had happened that night so completely this time, and it would be a blessing,” she continued. “But the only explanation they had for memories involving you, is that they may have been stored in the same place as those scars.”
“Don’t you see?” She placed a hand on his and squeezed it gently. “You reside in the deepest, most influential part of him that is most difficult to reach into and erase.” It was painful for her to say, but it was the truth. Where Fei Long was in Mikhail’s heart she could not touch nor enter. She wanted to tell him that. Mikhail would have wanted him to know.
But he has erased me, completely. He took her hand and returned the same gesture. “I know,” he said. “I’ve always known.” It wouldn’t have hurt so much if he hadn’t. He would rather have been ignorant of Mikhail’s love, than having known it so well in his heart and still did the things he’d done.
“I saw the marks on his body when I walked into that suite. He was half naked, and Toh had a leather belt in his hand,” he told her as he recalled the state Mikhail was in on that day. “I realized he was only barely conscious, that his mind had been somewhere else. That by then, he’d already been dragged into those nightmares he’d suffered so many times in the middle of the night.” He knew she’d seen them too, perhaps ten times more than he had. “I thought then, that I would do anything and sacrifice anything, so that he wouldn’t have to wake up in it. And now it’s all gone-all of it. Just as I had hoped it would be.” It was for the best. It had to be.
“If only it’s that simple,” she sighed heavily.
“What do you mean?”
“He remembers you. Somehow, somewhere, he knows something is missing,” she told him. “He’s been pacing around all day, as if he’s misplaced something important. Everything seems to irritate him, like there’s something he needs that he can’t get. It’s almost as if he’s forgotten you, but not the feelings he had for you, and it’s downright agonizing to watch.”
“He’ll soon get over it- eventually.” Everyone does.
“Will you, Fei Long?” She asked. For someone who’d seen the lengths they had gone for each other, and the bond they’d shared, she doubted it with all her heart. “Will he?”
***
Fei Long paused momentarily in front of the door to the meeting room; his fingers firmly gripped the folder of documents he was holding. In this room, he would have to let it go- his father’s last possession that he had been trying to keep safe since he’d passed away. But it wasn’t the only thing he would have to part with, and not the most difficult. Behind these doors he would have to face reality - one that would demand from him something he wasn’t prepared to leave behind.
He pushed the door opened and entered. At the long table sat nine board members. They were all waiting for him to take a seat at the far end of the room.
“Good morning,” he said as he headed towards his chair. He placed the folder down neatly in front of him and took a seat. “I’d like to thank you all for being here on such short notice. There are a few important things I need to announce today.”
Keeping his gaze between the folder and those seated near him, Fei Long braced himself knowing at the far end of the table was where Mikhail was, as the one holding the second largest number of shares to the casino. Still, Fei Long could see him from the corner of his eyes, and it was enough to put butterflies in his stomach. A few minutes ago he thought he could do it. He was certain he could face the man for one last time, to say his goodbyes and walk away with his dignity and his strength intact. At that very moment, with him in the same room, Fei Long was certain that he didn’t have what it would take to accomplish all that he’d set out to do that day.
Sooner or later you will have to, he told himself as he forced his eyes to look across the table.
And there he was, sitting comfortably with one leg thrown over the other, in the manner that looked like he owned the place, as always. In a room full of men in neat, tailored suits, Mikhail was in a black silk shirt, his sleeves neatly folded halfway to reveal his lower arms, and the top three button had been left undone. He was slick, radiant, daring, carefree, and inappropriately confident. Even with bandages around his head, Mikhail was as much his old self as he could ever be; like the first time they’d met, when there was nothing whatsoever between them. It occurred to him then, that he had almost forgotten what Mikhail looked like when he was happy, when Alexei was still alive, when those eyes didn’t look so troubled.
“Mr. Arbatov,” Fei Long nodded as he addressed him formally. Under normal circumstances Mikhail would have made him pay for calling him that one way or another. But that day, as it should be, the man had been indifferent. "I hope you’re feeling better.”
Bright, blue eyes met Fei Long's as he smiled. "I'm not dying anytime soon, don’t worry."
"I hope not," Fei Long replied, wondering to himself if the man could hear his heartbeat from across the table. He averted his eyes to the rest of the board members and cleared his throat. “You may have heard the rumors that I was selling my shares to this casino, and I understand that it must have raised a lot of questions. I’m here to tell you that all the rumors you’ve heard are true. I am moving temporarily to Shanghai for a new business opportunity, which will require my undivided attention. As one of the most powerful families in Macau, and one who has been most persistent in their offer to acquire my shares in the casino, I have decided that this part of my father’s legacy would be safest in the hands of the Arbatovs.”
A small commotion erupted at the table, and Fei Long had expected as much. None of them had ever liked working with the Russians, and most of them didn’t care to hide their dissatisfaction over the news, even while Mikhail was in the room. The man himself, however, was still leaning unaffected in his chair. If anything, their disapproval had added to his amusement.
“It has been done,” Fei Long announced firmly to quiet down the crowd. “I’ve signed the papers yesterday. With 65% of all its shares, Mr. Arbatov now has control over the casino and all its subsidiary businesses. Should you feel uncomfortable with this arrangement, please feel free to sell your shares to Mr. Arbatov and find your way out.”
The oldest of the board members, his father’s old acquaintance, was the first to walk out of the room with a series of not so subtle insults aimed at Fei Long for having sold his father’s business to a foreigner. The rest followed one by one with similar opinions. At that point it no longer matter to him. Without a successor of his own, there wasn’t anyone else he trusted more than Mikhail to run the casino. The Arbatovs owned three other casinos in Macau- among countless other businesses- and to say most of them were a success would be an understatement.
Soon after Fei Long found himself being left in the room with just Mikhail and a few guards to finish handing over the casino deed. The silence that fell upon the room then brought back into his mind images of the time he’d spent in prison, alone in his cell with nothing but memories he had wanted to forget and time he would do anything to turn back. It was somewhat different then, with Mikhail in the same room, he was imprisoned with painful memories he wanted to keep, and someone he could touch and take back but mustn’t. It was like seeing water in the desert when he was bound, hand and feet. After all, Mikhail had become what he needed to survive, and now he had to learn to survive without him.
Dismissing the guards in order to give them some privacy, Mikhail rose to his feet and walked towards him. Fei Long took a deep breath as he willed his heart to stop pounding so heavily against his ribcage. Every step that took the man closer felt like a time bomb counting down to zero. Soon enough Mikhail would be here, standing close enough for him to reach out and touch, and Fei Long could still find no strength to hold himself back, not with certainty. He looked down at the papers on the table and occupied himself with rearranging them, as if it would give him time to gain what he needed to confront the situation.
The footsteps ceased close to where Fei Long stood, and he gathered his control and looked up. At an arm’s reach away, Mikhail stood and looked at him with undivided interest, filling the room with the kind of silence that would make anyone uncomfortable in their own skin, as if the rules of society didn’t apply to him. It was one of Mikhail’s bad habits that Fei Long had never found out if he’d done it consciously to manipulate people or if he was just being himself - an entitled prick who thinks everything and everyone exists for the sake of his enjoyment.
Oh, but you love me this way, he used to say whenever Fei Long reproached him about the issue. Mikhail was right. He’d loved every bit of it, from his unashamed honesty when he’d revealed his dishonest-- sometimes unthinkable- actions to the pure arrogance on his face as he said those words.
“Looks like there’s going to be a tough time ahead of you.” Fei Long broke the silence that felt as heavy as the weight in his heart. The distance between them felt like a world away, when there used to be none. Mikhail had never stood that far from him. He was always indecently close, and his hands had always found themselves on him, intentionally or by accident. Why are you standing so far away? There was a voice within him that constantly asked, despite his efforts to chase it away. Why are you not touching me right now?
“It’s nothing I can’t handle,” Mikhail replied, his eyes never moved from the man before him. “Shanghai, huh? Feodora didn’t tell me you were moving.” As the one who handled the transfer of ownership, per Baishe’s request, she had only told him that after their numerous efforts to get a hold of the deed, Fei Long had finally agreed to sell them his shares. The woman had refused to tell him anything else, under the pretense that she lacked the insight to their business in China. He wondered if she’d realized that he’d lost his memory, not his intelligence.
“I’m bored with Hong Kong,” Fei Long forced himself to smile. Stop me. Tell me to stay.
“Shanghai is a beautiful city, plus it’s a gold mine right now,” Mikhail said casually. “It’s a good choice. Good luck.”
Good luck. Fei Long found himself gripping the documents in his hand harder as he felt the ground underneath him disappear at those words. It was the reality he had to face. This is the world that he has to live in now - the one where Mikhail looks at him as a stranger, the one where Mikhail had no problems letting him go.
It was what he wanted, wasn’t it? For Mikhail to set himself free, to see the man start over without him in his life. Everything was going as he’d planned, and yet Fei Long felt like he was drowning in a pool of mud. Pull yourself together, he told himself. He picked up the deed and offered it to the man who would soon walk out of his life, and it felt like taking a knife to carve out his heart with his own hand. “Yours, I believe.”
“Give it to me some other time,” Mikhail said, keeping his hands tucked away in his pockets. “You look like you could hold on to it a little longer.”
It’s not the deed I want to hold on to a little longer. “I don’t trust anyone else to do this for me.”
“Give it to me yourself, but some other time.”
“Why?”
Mikhail smiled. “So I get to see you again.”
Fei Long clenched his teeth at the way those words crushed something within him. There were times when he’d frown at those flirtatious remarks and did what he could to avoid them. To hear it again was like driving a stake through his heart. It was being reminded that everything truly had been lost - everything that once belonged to them. Don’t flirt with me, Fei Long felt like throwing it in his face. Don’t look at me like I’m a complete stranger. But he was a complete stranger. To Mikhail, he had become just that - an interesting face in the crowd.
You used to hold me, and tell me you’d never let me go.
“You really don’t remember a thing, do you?”
“No.” Mikhail shook his head before giving him a slightly embarrassed smile. “I’ve said that line to you before, haven’t I?”
Too many times. Dozens of pickup lines, hundreds more of flattery, thousands of words that tugged at his heart relentlessly, all gone like it had been a dream. And now he had to wake up to the world without them. “What makes you think you have?” He didn’t want to lie, but there was no way he could’ve answered that question without risking its consequences.
“Because I’ve lost two years of my memory, but I haven’t forgotten who I am,” he replied in a matter-of-fact kind of tone. “There is no possible way that I could’ve stopped myself from flirting with you at every single opportunity.”
Fei Long didn’t know if he wanted to laugh or cry at that statement. Mikhail had never had the slightest ability to control himself when it came to flirting with him, from the very first day they’d met to the last time they were still together. It was Fei Long’s main reason for selling his shares and moving to Shanghai. As long as he remained in Hong Kong or Macau, the chance of them running into each other like this would be too likely for him to prevent. It would be good for him too, to keep his head clear and the bond between them cleanly severed, if that was in any way possible on his part.
“You never could,” Fei Long said. “But then you’d never quite succeeded either.” It wasn’t all a lie- at least to Mikhail. Right up to the moment before he’d lost his memory, the man had never been convinced that he had.
“Hadn’t I?” Mikhail’s eyes focused on Fei Long’s face, his expression suddenly turned serious. “Why do I find that hard to believe?”
Because it’s not true. Fei Long bit his lip as he remembered what Feodora had told him. A part of Mikhail still remembered, and just now he could see the distress in the way Mikhail looked at him. It was time to walk away and close that book Mikhail was about to open, now and for good.
“Because you presume too much, you always have.” Thrusting the deed upon the other man’s chest, he forced it to be taken. “Goodbye, Mr. Arbatov,” he said before heading towards the door. The longer he stayed, the harder it would be for him to leave.
“Mikhail,” the man said from behind without moving from his spot, without trying to stop him. “Call me Mikhail.”
Fei Long stiffened at the way he said those words and what it implied. Mikhail wanted to know how it sounded from his lips, to hear how well it rolled off his tongue. It wan’t going to happen. “What does it matter how I call you? It’s not likely that we’ll see each other again.”
The door felt heavy when he closed it behind him. Leaning his back against the polished wood, Fei Long allowed himself to remember the presence of the man standing on the other side of the door one last time. From now on he had to learn to live without this, to live without him. Deep down he knew it wasn’t possible. He had grown too accustomed to it, and like Mikhail, a part of him would always remember.
I will always remember you.
***
Title: Retribution Nineteen
Rating: PG-13
Warning: angst, OOC (if you agree with FNR), AU (if you agree w/ FNR), but for those who disagree: CWC (Canon? What Canon?)
Characters: Fei Long, Mikhail, Yoh, AxA, Feodora (OC), mentions of Yan Tsui.
Spoiler: Spoiler for NT arc
Disclaimer: All VF characters belong to Yamane Ayano.
Beta: angel0399
Previous Chapters: For new readers, 'Retribution' is the third arc of a Mik x Fei trilogy that I've suffered my readers with since 2007. In order to make sense of it I'm afraid you will need to read 'Cruel Intentions' and its sequel 'Revelation' before you begin 'Retribution.' All the links are organized on the side bar of my lj kajornwan along with the trilogy's one-shot fillers. Russian, Chinese, Polish, Spanish, German, French, and Vietnamese! (thank you everyone!) translations by readers are also found here. To make life even easier, I have put them all in PDF format. Links can be grabbed from this post:http://kajornwan.livejournal.com/33060.html
Where do memories go? What happens to those moments, so full of emotions that fill our hearts to the brim or break it into pieces when they’re gone? How does something so permanently etched into our soul disappear into nothingness by something so physical? In the end, does nothing we do, touch, or feel in our whole lives mean anything at all?
Perhaps these images, too, will soon mean nothing, Fei Long thought as he watched them from a distance, images of Mikhail, awake, alive, and talking, with Feodora by his side; with him standing behind the opened door, out of sight, and away from those who had a place in his heart. He had been cast aside before, locked out on the other side of the door he was forbidden to enter, but he had never been forgotten. He had never been nothing.
Who are you? Mikhail had asked, and he could not find words to answer. Who was he, and how does he say it? That I’m your friend. Your lover. The person whose hand you liked to hold when we’re alone together. Someone you liked to kiss in the morning before handing over the coffee you brewed to perfection. The one you used to treasure, who broke your heart too many times to count.
The reason that your brother had to die.
It wasn't that he couldn’t say these things, only Fei Long couldn’t think of a single reason why he should. His existence had done nothing but put Mikhail through the path of torment and danger he didn’t deserve. If forgetting him meant forgetting all of it, forgetting why Alexei had died, forgetting the guilt, the pain, and the betrayal that came with it, could he be so cruel as to take away Mikhail’s chance to start anew just to bring back those memories? What does it matter how many unforgettable moments they had shared if Mikhail couldn’t remember any of it? No one regrets things they don’t know they’d lost. This was the point where he could walk out the door and never look back, and everything would turn back to normal. He could make it so they would never have to run into each other again. Mikhail would never have to know him. Everything that was never has to happen - everything that meant everything to him.
“Where am I?” Mikhail asked, his brows narrowed the same way they did when he had one of those headaches.
“You’re in a hospital in Hong Kong,” Feodora replied as she held his hand and squeezed it tightly. “There was an incident and you’ve been shot in the head, but you’re all right now. How are you feeling?”
“How am I feeling?” He repeated, kneading his temples irritatingly as he spoke. “My head hurts like hell and I don’t remember shit. More importantly, please tell me the fucker is dead.”
Fei Long smiled to himself at those words. Just like you.
She laughed softly and patted him on the shoulder. “You can see his head when you get out of here, hot shot. Take some rest. I’ll brief you when you feel better.”
“How long have I been out?”
“Two weeks.”
13 days and 8 hours.
“And you want me to sleep some more.”
“I want you to take it easy, or the things you don’t remember may never return.”
“I’m hungry,” he said, tugging her sleeve like a child bugging his mother for treats.
“I’ll bring you something. What do you want?”
He made a soft, purring sound in his throat and swallowed. “Your scones, with a lot of butter.”
“And seeded red currant jam.” She kissed him on the forehead and smiled, her eyes softened in a way she rarely showed anyone else.
“You’re an angel,” he told her before returning a kiss lightly on her cheek and sinking his head back on the pillow.
You’re an angel, Fei Long found himself smiling at those words. It was unmistakably Mikhail, throwing sweet words everywhere like Halloween candies to his loved ones and never once had it sounded cheesy. He was normal. Everything was, except to him.
Fei Long clenched his fists to the hollowness in his stomach, to the feeling of falling from somewhere high, only with nowhere down below to crash into. It should have been him. Bitter, egotistic thoughts kept repeating in his mind relentlessly. It should have been him holding that hand and squeezing it tight. It should have been him kissing that forehead and saying everything would be ok. Mikhail would have liked it. He would have wanted him to. But now there was no place for him where they stood, and nothing he could do would mean a thing.
Seeded red currant jam-- was that Mikhail’s favorite? If it had been he didn’t know. It was the first time Fei Long had seen them together, so used to each other’s company, and without him standing in between. It must have been like this before, with Feodora knowing exactly what he wanted, and Mikhail knowing that he could always rely on her. She’d had almost 30 years of chances to prove her love, to help him up when he fell, to be there for him when he needed someone. He’d had two, where he’d done none of it, and now they were gone. All gone, like sand that slipped through his fingers and was lost in the wind. Was it the price he had to pay for his ignorance, for not holding on to what he had until it was too late?
Feodora left the room soon after and gestured for him to follow. She closed the door behind her and turned to him. He noticed how her smile was completely gone, and how those eyes had regained their usual intensity.
“I must ask you for some time. He’s too exhausted right now to be under stress, if you know what I mean.”
“I don’t need time,” he told her. What would he do with time? Remind Mikhail of every scar and hurt him all over again? “I need you to be there and make sure he’s ok.”
She paused for a moment when she looked at him then, her tone softened as she touched his arm lightly in assurance. “This cannot be permanent.”
Fei Long swallowed the lump in his throat that was getting in the way of what he had to say. The words felt heavy on his tongue, and heavier still against his lips. “Then make it permanent,” he said. “You’re married to him. You’re having his baby. You are his family. I don’t ever have to exist.”
“You’re giving up.” She glared at those words she didn’t expect to hear. “He would have never given up on you. And if you think that I would be content to have him this way, then you are more foolish than I thought. Have you no faith in him at all?” Mikhail had loved him. He had loved Fei Long enough to put everything on the line including his life and the lives of his entire family. She had witnessed it, every pain he’d put himself through for Fei Long, and every time he’d let it crush him to the point of breaking. It couldn’t have all been gone. “He can’t have forgotten you.”
“He has forgotten me.” He stepped up to her; his hand took hold of her upper arm and squeezed it tightly until his voice trembled with his grip. “It will remain so. You will tell him I had been nothing but an acquaintance, that we barely knew each other. When he asks you why and how Alexei had died, you will tell him that it was an accident. That it had nothing to do with him or with me. Do you understand?”
Alexei. Feodora found her breath cut short by those words. It hadn’t occurred to her that along with memories of Fei Long, the awareness of Alexei’s death also could have been gone. There was no way she could have forgotten how it had affected Mikhail, how the guilt had nearly killed him, and how useless she had been to bring him back on his feet. Mikhail would have to relive those nightmares all over again, and if he doesn’t recover fully the feelings he’d had for Fei Long, then there would be no one to bring him back from the hell he would put himself through-- again. “No.”
“I can’t save him, not this time,” he told her. “He won’t survive. Mikhail will die because of me.” Just like Alexei did, like his father, like Mei Ling. Everything he touches burns to the ground, everyone he loves dies because of him. It had to end. Mikhail would not be one of them, even if he had to sacrifice everything to see it through.
She felt his grip on her arm tightened, as though he was about to crush her bone with it. Fei Long was trembling; his breathing was short and heavy, and his chest was heaving as though he was drowning in the very air he breathed. Still, in those eyes she saw nothing but unshakable determination. “It may still come back to him one day. He’d never forgive you. He’d never forgive us.”
Fei Long took a step back and looked at her, the conviction in his eyes was as unwavering as his tone. “That is a consequence I can live with. Can you?”
***
It was 6 A.M. The sky was clear, the air was clean, and the birds were singing; and still everything seemed to piss him off. Perhaps it was the fact that he’d been in the damn hospital for more than two weeks, that all he could get his hands on was instant coffee. Or maybe he just needed a good workout, which was out of the question. He turned to look out the window and cursed at how small it was. There was not enough sunlight in that room, not enough fresh air, not enough space, not enough of something he knew was missing but couldn’t figure it out. It was downright irritating, and it was taking a toll on his patience that was already running thin.
“You can’t smoke in here,” the doctor said as he saw his patient light himself a cigarette.
“Why?”
Feodora held her breath at the murderous look Mikhail threw at the old man and wondered if the guy knew he could be thrown out from the 36th floor for the wrong answer. Mikhail was in one of those moods that even she felt uncomfortable around, which meant that nothing she could say or do would get past that thick skull of his.
“There are smoke detectors in the room.”
Fortunately he does know what to say, Feodora thought. But then again, as a psychiatrist he should be well aware of how to preserve himself when confronting a spoiled rich kid who had been known to shoot at people for interrupting his workouts.
Without another word, Mikhail turned back to the window and forced it open before returning to his cigarette. Why the fuck does everyone have to make things more complicated than they are?
The doctor glanced at her, and she nodded quietly. You don’t want to know, she would have said had Mikhail not been in the same room. What really bothered her was how cranky he’d been since he’d woken up the second time. Mikhail had been pacing back and forth as though he was constantly looking for something. The way he kept fidgeting looked like he was on some kind of drug withdrawal, only it wasn’t drugs he seemed to have needed. She could only hope it was just the lack of decent coffee, or that he just needed a good workout after having been immobile for so long.
“Mr. Arbatov, I need to ask you a few questions to see if your injuries have affected your memory. Everything else checked out fine.”
“Ask and be done with it.” He needed to get out of there. There was somewhere else he had to go, something he had to do-- he just couldn’t remember where and what. Maybe it was just home. It was probably home.
“May I have your name?”
“Mikhail Vladimirovich Arbatov.”
“How old are you?”
“32, the last time I checked.”
The doctor looked at her, and she acknowledged it with a nod. He seemed to have lost two years of memories, precisely when Fei Long had entered his life.
“Where and when were you born?”
Mikhail took a long draw on the smoke and exhaled in complete boredom. “I remember my past just fine, right down to the license plates of every car I own. Move on, old man.”
“Your siblings?”
He sighed again. What was it about remembering his past did the man not understand? “Alexei is my brother,” he said before gesturing at Feodora, “and she’s adopted.”
Is. Feodora clenched her fists at what it implied. Fei Long was right-- the memory of Alexei’s death was apparently gone.
“Can you name some of your friends?”
“I don’t have friends,” he told the doctor casually. “I have enemies, leeches who want to steal my money, and victims.”
“And doctors,” he added with a friendly smile.
Mikhail glanced over his shoulder and smiled back. “They belong to one of those categories, eventually.”
The old man swallowed and adjusted himself before he moved on. “Girlfriends?”
He snickered. “I don’t keep girlfriends. I fuck.”
“Boys?”
“Occasionally. Would you like me to elaborate how I fuck them too?” Perhaps that was what he needed - a good fuck. He could probably get some when he gets home, then this thing that had been nagging him would be gone, wouldn’t it?
From the look on the doctor’s face, Feodora had to wonder if he’d actually been scribbling the answers down or listing reasons why he should find a new patient.
“Are you married?”
It was a question that had him pause for moment, as though he was unsure of the answer. He turned to her and his gaze lingered on her face skeptically. “I’m engaged… to her.”
“What was the last thing you remember doing?”
“I was attending a meeting in Macau… no, a wedding in Hong Kong.” It was all he could remember. What happened at and after the wedding he couldn’t recall. But something did happen, that much he knew.
“Do you remember the scars on your back and how you got them?”
Feodora braced herself as she cursed the doctor in her mind. Was it really necessary to bring it up on the first session? It was something that Mikhail had refused to speak about for decades and was trying his best to forget.
To her surprise, he turned to look at her and then at the doctor; the expression on his face revealed nothing but curiosity. “I have scars on my back?”
She drew a sharp breath and exhaled as the weight in her heart was lifted. They say there is a blessing in every curse. Perhaps it was true in this case. Without those memories, Mikhail can start out again like a blank slate. The nightmares would be gone, along with the risk of relapsing back into the drug abuse that was a result of that incident.
“Car accident,” she told him abruptly. “I think we should call it a day,” she told the doctor and made sure he understood her gesture. She would need to talk to the psychiatrist-- in private-- about his condition and figure out how to make it permanent before more questions brought back unwanted memories.
The doctor nodded and closed his file. “We’ll do this again some other time. I suppose I can work with what I have for now.”
She approached him quietly when the doctor had left, and wrapped her arms around him from behind. “I’ll bring you some decent coffee. That’ll lighten your mood?”
He didn’t sink into her embrace as usual, and his body was stiff to the touch. There was a distance between them that felt like a room away, even though she had him right there in her arms. “What’s bothering you?”
She could feel his chest moving up and down heavily, and knew in an instant that the irritation she’d noticed was accumulating in intensity every passing minute.
“You’re keeping something from me,” he said. There was an edge to his tone that made her uncomfortable.
“I’m not trying to,” she replied.
“I can tell when you’re lying.” He turned to face her, his breaths felt sharp and heavy against her cheek that was just inches away from him. “Wife.”
The last word was spoken more like an accusation than a form of affection, and she felt like a child who’d just been caught lying. She swallowed as he wrapped his fingers around her throat, as though he could and would squeeze it should he find adequate reason. The hair on the back of her head stood at his touch. There were times when he’d shown violence against her, but never when he was sober and self-aware. It was as though he suddenly saw her as someone who was standing between him and something he wanted, and Mikhail had never had patience for those who stood in his way.
“Tell me,” he said in almost a whisper, but one that felt like a razor blade against her skin. “Why and when did we get married? Because I don’t remember giving you that ring. And while you’re at it, I want to know how and why my brother is dead, because I know he is, but I don’t remember any of it.”
He knows. Despite the fear that was creeping up her spine-- both from the way he’d reacted and the outcome that would surely follow-- she lifted her chin and faced him. Now was not the time for her weakness, that much she realized. “It was an accident. He was in the wrong place, at the wrong time.” It wasn't a lie. She just hadn’t told him all the details. “As for when and why we were married, you can ask your father when you get back home. And take your hand off me. In case you’ve forgotten that too, I am carrying your child.”
Taken aback by the news he’d not anticipated, Mikhail took a step back and released his grip. “My child?”
“Your son,” she told him. It may not have been born out of love, but her son was unmistakably Mikhail’s blood. It was her one request when he’d asked her to let him go - to have his child, to have something that was a part of him. All she had been given was access to his sperm bank, for the reason that he would not cheat on Fei Long at any cost while they were still together. The devotion at which Mikhail had given the man was beyond insane. It was probably why he could still feel it under his skin what his mind had chosen to forget.
Mikhail stilled for a moment as he tried to let it sink in. His son. He’d remembered nothing of it, but somehow, at that moment, he knew it wan’t a lie. Whatever had happened along the way, she had become the mother of his child, and he had nearly hurt her over something he knew she wasn’t responsible for.
“I’m sorry.” He closed his eyes and kneaded them forcefully with his fingers. From what he’d learned so far, everything should have been normal. He was going to be a father. The grief over Alexei’s death was still lingering somewhere in his heart, but he could feel it had been something he had come to terms with. The enemy that shot him had been killed. But what was it that continued to irritate him to no end? “There’s something I want to remember,” he said, burying his face in the palm of his hand, “something I need, desperately, and I don’t know what.”
It was a craving, like there wasn’t enough air for him to breathe; the kind of hunger he couldn’t fulfill no matter what he did. His body was aching over something he needed to touch, to feel, or to hold in his hands. It wasn’t coffee, a cigarette, or an object he could see in front of him, but something else. Something that wasn’t there-- something he couldn’t live without.
It’s not that easy, Feodora wanted to tell Fei Long then. He can’t forget you, even if his mind has, even if you want him to. His feelings for Fei Long had become so much a part of him, that to remove it would leave a void no one else can fill.
Gently, she cupped his face in her hands in assurance. “Give it time,” she told him. “Let’s take you home so you can get some rest. Maybe it’ll come back to you or maybe it will go away. I’ll get the doctor to sign your release tomorrow and have you picked up.” Perhaps time will mend that void, or he’ll soon learn to live with it. “I’ll go get your coffee.” She leaned over and kissed him lightly on the cheek.
“Feodora,” he called her before she left the room.
“Yes?”
“Who was that man I saw when I woke up?” He asked her after a moment of pause. “The one with long hair?”
She smiled. “He’s the one who saved you.” It was the best explanation she could think of that wasn’t a lie, nor would it require her to elaborate any further.
“Do I know him?” There was more to it. He saw the way those eyes looked at him. It was the piece of puzzle that didn’t fit anywhere and somehow it was bugging him in ways he couldn’t explain.
“I don’t know. You don’t exactly tell me about everyone you meet.”
“What’s his name?”
She hesitated for a moment, and realized her curiosity was getting the better of her. “Liu Fei Long.”
“Of Baishe?” He raised a brow.
“So you know him?”
“By reputation.”
It’s completely gone, she thought to herself, much like the scars he didn’t know had existed. Mikhail couldn’t even put his face to a name he already knew.
“I need to see him again.”
She scowled. This can’t be serious. “You still have stitches in your goddamn head and you’re thinking about fucking the first beauty that you saw when you woke up? Besides, that’s Liu Fei Long of Baishe. You’ll get another bullet in your head before you get into his pants.” She wasn’t lying. It wasn’t going to be easy for him to get even close, especially when Fei Long was so determined to not let that happen.
“Oh but you know me.” For the first time that day, a mischievous smile appeared on her husband’s face. “I’ll gladly take another bullet in the head just to get into his pants.”
She rolled her eyes and sighed. “If only it was your cock that had been shot." If there’s such a thing as soul mates, can't it be someone else? ”You’ll probably run into him again. You have a sizable share in his casino in Macau.” That is if Fei Long hadn’t done anything drastic to completely prevent it from happening, like selling out all of his shares, but Mikhail didn’t need to know that.
“Good,” he said with a smile. “Then let’s go home.”
***
The room smells different, Fei Long thought as he ran his hand along the new Egyptian cotton sheets. Feodora had asked him to help clean out the villa of his belongings to remove all the traces of him ever occupying the space before Mikhail returns. Everything had been replaced, down to the bed sheets and the draperies. Soon it would all be gone, everything and everywhere in Mikhail’s life in which his existence had left a mark.
“How are you feeling?” She asked as she watched him go through the last room in the villa - Mikhail’s bedroom.
“I feel nothing,” he told her with a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes.
“Nothing,” she repeated, “not even while sitting on the same bed he used to share with you?” She had meant for it to be a joke, but the way he took it made her wish she could have been subtler. If anyone had suffered the most for Mikhail’s loss of memory, it was Fei Long.
“It was rarely on this bed.” He didn’t know why or how he could tell her with such indifference the things they used to share or do with each other. But by that time, there was nothing but numbness when he spoke of them. “It was usually in that penthouse, and it’s gone.”
“Still it must be hard to see,” she said, sweeping her gaze around the room, “little things that remind you of him."
There was a pause from him, and a breath held for a moment too long. ”I can't allow myself to feel anything about the little things. If I do, I will have to feel everything." And everything was more than he had strength to endure.
In a way, she understood it. There were times when she had to go through the same situation, when he'd left her for another, and not just for Fei Long. Mikhail had had countless of women, and all her life she had been there to witness it; the sweet words and flattery that didn't belong to her, the lust and desire in those eyes that never looked her way, his heart that was broken by someone else. But at the end of the day she had been the one that he came home to, and he had always come to her to mend his broken heart. She had survived everything knowing this- that she had never really lost him, not so completely. With Fei Long, right now, it was a different story.
“Is it really that easy to shut out your heart?” Fei Long had been too calm, too quiet, and too content for her to be convinced that everything was all right. Mikhail had been there too, replacing his every pain with a playful smile, laughing when he needed to cry, and keeping his indifferent mask so firmly on his face when he was so broken inside.
“Is it really that easy for you?” He asked her in return. “Knowing you can't have the one thing you want the most? Seeing him with someone else when it should have been you?" It would come to that. Sooner or later Mikhail would find someone, and he would have to see it, and to live with it just as she had for decades.
She smiled and looked away into the distance. “It gets easier, when you remind yourself of what really matters.”
“And what really matters?”
“That he’s alive,” she said, looking straight into his eyes to remind him again of that fact. She had been through those moments when she thought she’d lost him forever; when his heart had stopped beating, and hers with it, before it was once again brought back to life. "I remind myself everyday, that no pain was greater than watching him flatline that day, and nothing had ever given me more joy to see him survive. When you've been through something like that, nothing else matters anymore but the fact that he’s alive.” She could survive and withstand any pain, but not of losing him.
Fei Long took a deep breath and exhaled heavily, his fingers suddenly turned cold at the moment certain memory had come back to him. "I saw it," he said in almost a whisper, "the gun that shot him. I heard the shot and I saw him fall. You're right, nothing else matters anymore.” Mikhail was alive and awake. What more could he ask for?
For a while, they sat next to each other on the bed in silence. The oddest company we are, Fei Long thought to himself. He'd never thought it would turn out this way- her getting Mikhail back, and him sitting there in her place, learning the hard way how she'd felt all along. He told himself that if there was such a thing as karma, then it would only be the beginning of what he had to pay. It was only just.
"How is he?” It was the question that lingered on his mind, one he needed answered before he could make himself walk away and never look back.
"He's ok. Everything checked out fine. Only parts of his memories are gone. Other than those, he claims to remember everything, right down to the license plates of his cars."
Fei Long laughed quietly at her reply. He could easily imagine that face as the man said those words. Mikhail Arbatov rarely takes anything seriously, and when he does, no one could beat him at his commitment.
”And the memories he’s lost?” It wasn’t a question that came easily to him, but he could not rest easy until he knew how much Mikhail had forgotten. Or rather, if there had been anything at all that he could remember about them.
She paused for a second as something entered her mind. ”Did you meet him at a wedding?"
"I believe so. Why?”
"Everything from that moment on, he doesn't remember," she said reluctantly.
Everything about me. No matter how many times he’d reminded himself of that fact, it still stung like salt on an open wound. "Two years," Fei Long murmured. To him, those were the most precious years of his life. To Mikhail, they were probably full of nightmares. “Has he asked about Alexei?"
She nodded. ”Strangely, he knows Alexei is gone, only he can't remember how and why. But he's taking it very well.”
"He won't take it so well when he remembers," Fei Long said with a melancholic tone.
“He probably won’t.” She didn’t want to say it, but perhaps Fei Long had been right. It was the guilt over how and why Alexei had to die that had driven Mikhail back to drugs, not his death itself. Forgetting all those events had made it easier for him to let go, especially when he could feel that loss had already been something in the past.
"Anything else?”
"His scars," she told him with a heavy heart, knowing how it would make him feel. "He didn't even know they were there. That’s another memory he'd lost completely."
To her surprise, Fei Long laughed softly at those words. "The two most tormenting memories of his life. I should have known.” The fact that Mikhail could remember everyone else but him was clear enough. He was a scar Mikhail would be better off without.
“Tormenting wasn’t the word he used,” she said. “The doctor, I meant.”
Fei Long smiled. “Dreadful, perhaps.”
“The most life-altering experiences,” she told him. “The truth is Mikhail had lost the memories of how he’d gotten those scars before, though not to the point where he was completely unaware of their existence. We were told that he might have pushed them back into his subconscious in order to survive. The problem is, those memories had never been gone. Certain events or objects often trigger them, and he would react to them as though they were a part of instincts he had been born with.
I could understand that his mind may have chosen to forget what had happened that night so completely this time, and it would be a blessing,” she continued. “But the only explanation they had for memories involving you, is that they may have been stored in the same place as those scars.”
“Don’t you see?” She placed a hand on his and squeezed it gently. “You reside in the deepest, most influential part of him that is most difficult to reach into and erase.” It was painful for her to say, but it was the truth. Where Fei Long was in Mikhail’s heart she could not touch nor enter. She wanted to tell him that. Mikhail would have wanted him to know.
But he has erased me, completely. He took her hand and returned the same gesture. “I know,” he said. “I’ve always known.” It wouldn’t have hurt so much if he hadn’t. He would rather have been ignorant of Mikhail’s love, than having known it so well in his heart and still did the things he’d done.
“I saw the marks on his body when I walked into that suite. He was half naked, and Toh had a leather belt in his hand,” he told her as he recalled the state Mikhail was in on that day. “I realized he was only barely conscious, that his mind had been somewhere else. That by then, he’d already been dragged into those nightmares he’d suffered so many times in the middle of the night.” He knew she’d seen them too, perhaps ten times more than he had. “I thought then, that I would do anything and sacrifice anything, so that he wouldn’t have to wake up in it. And now it’s all gone-all of it. Just as I had hoped it would be.” It was for the best. It had to be.
“If only it’s that simple,” she sighed heavily.
“What do you mean?”
“He remembers you. Somehow, somewhere, he knows something is missing,” she told him. “He’s been pacing around all day, as if he’s misplaced something important. Everything seems to irritate him, like there’s something he needs that he can’t get. It’s almost as if he’s forgotten you, but not the feelings he had for you, and it’s downright agonizing to watch.”
“He’ll soon get over it- eventually.” Everyone does.
“Will you, Fei Long?” She asked. For someone who’d seen the lengths they had gone for each other, and the bond they’d shared, she doubted it with all her heart. “Will he?”
***
Fei Long paused momentarily in front of the door to the meeting room; his fingers firmly gripped the folder of documents he was holding. In this room, he would have to let it go- his father’s last possession that he had been trying to keep safe since he’d passed away. But it wasn’t the only thing he would have to part with, and not the most difficult. Behind these doors he would have to face reality - one that would demand from him something he wasn’t prepared to leave behind.
He pushed the door opened and entered. At the long table sat nine board members. They were all waiting for him to take a seat at the far end of the room.
“Good morning,” he said as he headed towards his chair. He placed the folder down neatly in front of him and took a seat. “I’d like to thank you all for being here on such short notice. There are a few important things I need to announce today.”
Keeping his gaze between the folder and those seated near him, Fei Long braced himself knowing at the far end of the table was where Mikhail was, as the one holding the second largest number of shares to the casino. Still, Fei Long could see him from the corner of his eyes, and it was enough to put butterflies in his stomach. A few minutes ago he thought he could do it. He was certain he could face the man for one last time, to say his goodbyes and walk away with his dignity and his strength intact. At that very moment, with him in the same room, Fei Long was certain that he didn’t have what it would take to accomplish all that he’d set out to do that day.
Sooner or later you will have to, he told himself as he forced his eyes to look across the table.
And there he was, sitting comfortably with one leg thrown over the other, in the manner that looked like he owned the place, as always. In a room full of men in neat, tailored suits, Mikhail was in a black silk shirt, his sleeves neatly folded halfway to reveal his lower arms, and the top three button had been left undone. He was slick, radiant, daring, carefree, and inappropriately confident. Even with bandages around his head, Mikhail was as much his old self as he could ever be; like the first time they’d met, when there was nothing whatsoever between them. It occurred to him then, that he had almost forgotten what Mikhail looked like when he was happy, when Alexei was still alive, when those eyes didn’t look so troubled.
“Mr. Arbatov,” Fei Long nodded as he addressed him formally. Under normal circumstances Mikhail would have made him pay for calling him that one way or another. But that day, as it should be, the man had been indifferent. "I hope you’re feeling better.”
Bright, blue eyes met Fei Long's as he smiled. "I'm not dying anytime soon, don’t worry."
"I hope not," Fei Long replied, wondering to himself if the man could hear his heartbeat from across the table. He averted his eyes to the rest of the board members and cleared his throat. “You may have heard the rumors that I was selling my shares to this casino, and I understand that it must have raised a lot of questions. I’m here to tell you that all the rumors you’ve heard are true. I am moving temporarily to Shanghai for a new business opportunity, which will require my undivided attention. As one of the most powerful families in Macau, and one who has been most persistent in their offer to acquire my shares in the casino, I have decided that this part of my father’s legacy would be safest in the hands of the Arbatovs.”
A small commotion erupted at the table, and Fei Long had expected as much. None of them had ever liked working with the Russians, and most of them didn’t care to hide their dissatisfaction over the news, even while Mikhail was in the room. The man himself, however, was still leaning unaffected in his chair. If anything, their disapproval had added to his amusement.
“It has been done,” Fei Long announced firmly to quiet down the crowd. “I’ve signed the papers yesterday. With 65% of all its shares, Mr. Arbatov now has control over the casino and all its subsidiary businesses. Should you feel uncomfortable with this arrangement, please feel free to sell your shares to Mr. Arbatov and find your way out.”
The oldest of the board members, his father’s old acquaintance, was the first to walk out of the room with a series of not so subtle insults aimed at Fei Long for having sold his father’s business to a foreigner. The rest followed one by one with similar opinions. At that point it no longer matter to him. Without a successor of his own, there wasn’t anyone else he trusted more than Mikhail to run the casino. The Arbatovs owned three other casinos in Macau- among countless other businesses- and to say most of them were a success would be an understatement.
Soon after Fei Long found himself being left in the room with just Mikhail and a few guards to finish handing over the casino deed. The silence that fell upon the room then brought back into his mind images of the time he’d spent in prison, alone in his cell with nothing but memories he had wanted to forget and time he would do anything to turn back. It was somewhat different then, with Mikhail in the same room, he was imprisoned with painful memories he wanted to keep, and someone he could touch and take back but mustn’t. It was like seeing water in the desert when he was bound, hand and feet. After all, Mikhail had become what he needed to survive, and now he had to learn to survive without him.
Dismissing the guards in order to give them some privacy, Mikhail rose to his feet and walked towards him. Fei Long took a deep breath as he willed his heart to stop pounding so heavily against his ribcage. Every step that took the man closer felt like a time bomb counting down to zero. Soon enough Mikhail would be here, standing close enough for him to reach out and touch, and Fei Long could still find no strength to hold himself back, not with certainty. He looked down at the papers on the table and occupied himself with rearranging them, as if it would give him time to gain what he needed to confront the situation.
The footsteps ceased close to where Fei Long stood, and he gathered his control and looked up. At an arm’s reach away, Mikhail stood and looked at him with undivided interest, filling the room with the kind of silence that would make anyone uncomfortable in their own skin, as if the rules of society didn’t apply to him. It was one of Mikhail’s bad habits that Fei Long had never found out if he’d done it consciously to manipulate people or if he was just being himself - an entitled prick who thinks everything and everyone exists for the sake of his enjoyment.
Oh, but you love me this way, he used to say whenever Fei Long reproached him about the issue. Mikhail was right. He’d loved every bit of it, from his unashamed honesty when he’d revealed his dishonest-- sometimes unthinkable- actions to the pure arrogance on his face as he said those words.
“Looks like there’s going to be a tough time ahead of you.” Fei Long broke the silence that felt as heavy as the weight in his heart. The distance between them felt like a world away, when there used to be none. Mikhail had never stood that far from him. He was always indecently close, and his hands had always found themselves on him, intentionally or by accident. Why are you standing so far away? There was a voice within him that constantly asked, despite his efforts to chase it away. Why are you not touching me right now?
“It’s nothing I can’t handle,” Mikhail replied, his eyes never moved from the man before him. “Shanghai, huh? Feodora didn’t tell me you were moving.” As the one who handled the transfer of ownership, per Baishe’s request, she had only told him that after their numerous efforts to get a hold of the deed, Fei Long had finally agreed to sell them his shares. The woman had refused to tell him anything else, under the pretense that she lacked the insight to their business in China. He wondered if she’d realized that he’d lost his memory, not his intelligence.
“I’m bored with Hong Kong,” Fei Long forced himself to smile. Stop me. Tell me to stay.
“Shanghai is a beautiful city, plus it’s a gold mine right now,” Mikhail said casually. “It’s a good choice. Good luck.”
Good luck. Fei Long found himself gripping the documents in his hand harder as he felt the ground underneath him disappear at those words. It was the reality he had to face. This is the world that he has to live in now - the one where Mikhail looks at him as a stranger, the one where Mikhail had no problems letting him go.
It was what he wanted, wasn’t it? For Mikhail to set himself free, to see the man start over without him in his life. Everything was going as he’d planned, and yet Fei Long felt like he was drowning in a pool of mud. Pull yourself together, he told himself. He picked up the deed and offered it to the man who would soon walk out of his life, and it felt like taking a knife to carve out his heart with his own hand. “Yours, I believe.”
“Give it to me some other time,” Mikhail said, keeping his hands tucked away in his pockets. “You look like you could hold on to it a little longer.”
It’s not the deed I want to hold on to a little longer. “I don’t trust anyone else to do this for me.”
“Give it to me yourself, but some other time.”
“Why?”
Mikhail smiled. “So I get to see you again.”
Fei Long clenched his teeth at the way those words crushed something within him. There were times when he’d frown at those flirtatious remarks and did what he could to avoid them. To hear it again was like driving a stake through his heart. It was being reminded that everything truly had been lost - everything that once belonged to them. Don’t flirt with me, Fei Long felt like throwing it in his face. Don’t look at me like I’m a complete stranger. But he was a complete stranger. To Mikhail, he had become just that - an interesting face in the crowd.
You used to hold me, and tell me you’d never let me go.
“You really don’t remember a thing, do you?”
“No.” Mikhail shook his head before giving him a slightly embarrassed smile. “I’ve said that line to you before, haven’t I?”
Too many times. Dozens of pickup lines, hundreds more of flattery, thousands of words that tugged at his heart relentlessly, all gone like it had been a dream. And now he had to wake up to the world without them. “What makes you think you have?” He didn’t want to lie, but there was no way he could’ve answered that question without risking its consequences.
“Because I’ve lost two years of my memory, but I haven’t forgotten who I am,” he replied in a matter-of-fact kind of tone. “There is no possible way that I could’ve stopped myself from flirting with you at every single opportunity.”
Fei Long didn’t know if he wanted to laugh or cry at that statement. Mikhail had never had the slightest ability to control himself when it came to flirting with him, from the very first day they’d met to the last time they were still together. It was Fei Long’s main reason for selling his shares and moving to Shanghai. As long as he remained in Hong Kong or Macau, the chance of them running into each other like this would be too likely for him to prevent. It would be good for him too, to keep his head clear and the bond between them cleanly severed, if that was in any way possible on his part.
“You never could,” Fei Long said. “But then you’d never quite succeeded either.” It wasn’t all a lie- at least to Mikhail. Right up to the moment before he’d lost his memory, the man had never been convinced that he had.
“Hadn’t I?” Mikhail’s eyes focused on Fei Long’s face, his expression suddenly turned serious. “Why do I find that hard to believe?”
Because it’s not true. Fei Long bit his lip as he remembered what Feodora had told him. A part of Mikhail still remembered, and just now he could see the distress in the way Mikhail looked at him. It was time to walk away and close that book Mikhail was about to open, now and for good.
“Because you presume too much, you always have.” Thrusting the deed upon the other man’s chest, he forced it to be taken. “Goodbye, Mr. Arbatov,” he said before heading towards the door. The longer he stayed, the harder it would be for him to leave.
“Mikhail,” the man said from behind without moving from his spot, without trying to stop him. “Call me Mikhail.”
Fei Long stiffened at the way he said those words and what it implied. Mikhail wanted to know how it sounded from his lips, to hear how well it rolled off his tongue. It wan’t going to happen. “What does it matter how I call you? It’s not likely that we’ll see each other again.”
The door felt heavy when he closed it behind him. Leaning his back against the polished wood, Fei Long allowed himself to remember the presence of the man standing on the other side of the door one last time. From now on he had to learn to live without this, to live without him. Deep down he knew it wasn’t possible. He had grown too accustomed to it, and like Mikhail, a part of him would always remember.
I will always remember you.
***