Twicelight

Chapter - 13

Third person's pov:

Tzuyu could drive well, when he kept the speed reasonable, Sana had to admit. Like so many things, it seemed to be effortless to him. He barely looked at the road, yet the tires never deviated so much as a centimeter from the center of the lane. He drove one-handed, holding her hand on the seat. Sometimes he gazed into the setting sun, sometimes he glanced at Sana - her face, her hair blowing out the open window, their hands twined together. He had turned the radio to an oldies station, and he sang along with a song she'd never heard. He knew every line.

"You like fifties music?" Sana asked.

"Music in the fifties was good. Much better than the sixties, or the seventies, ugh!" Tzuyu shuddered. "The eighties were bearable."

"Are you ever going to tell me how old you are?" Sana asked, tentative, not wanting to upset his buoyant humor.

"Does it matter much?" Tzuyu smile reveling his dimples, to her relief, remained unclouded.

"No, but I still wonder..." Sana grimaced. "There's nothing like an unsolved mystery to keep you up at night."

"I wonder if it will upset you," Tzuyu reflected to himself. He gazed into the sun; the minutes passed.

"Try me," Sana finally said.

Tzuyu sighed, and then looked into her eyes, seeming to forget the road completely for a time. Whatever he saw there must have encouraged him. He looked into the sun - the light of the setting orb glittered off his skin in ruby-tinged sparkles - and spoke.

"I was born in Taiwan in 1901." Tzuyu paused and glanced at her from the corner of his eyes. Sana's face was carefully unsurprised, patient for the rest. He smiled a tiny smile and continued. "Jeongyeon found me in a hospital in the summer of 1918. I was seventeen, and dying of the Spanish influenza."

Tzuyu heard her intake of breath, though it was barely audible to her own ears. He looked down into her eyes again.

"I don't remember it well - it was a very long time ago, and human memories fade." Tzuyu was lost in his thoughts for a short time before he went on. "I do remember how it felt, when Jeongyeon saved me. It's not an easy thing, not something you could forget."

"Your parents?"

"They had already died from the disease. I was alone. That was why he chose me. In all the chaos of the epidemic, no one would ever realize I was gone."

"How did he... save you?"

A few seconds passed before he answered. He seemed to choose his words carefully.

"It was difficult. Not many of us have the restraint necessary to accomplish it. But Jeongyeon has always been the most humane, the most compassionate of us... I don't think you could find his equal throughout all of history." Tzuyu paused. "For me, it was merely very, very painful." Sana could tell from the set of his lips, he would say no more on this subject. She suppressed her curiosity, though it was far from idle. There were many things she needed to think through on this particular issue, things that were only beginning to occur to her. No doubt his quick mind had already comprehended every aspect that eluded her.

Tzuyu's soft voice interrupted her thoughts. "He acted from loneliness. That's usually the reason behind the choice. I was the first in Jeongyeon's family, though he found Nayeon soon after. She fell from a cliff. They brought her straight to the hospital morgue, though, somehow, her heart was still beating."

"So you must be dying, then, to become..." They never said the word, and Sana couldn't frame it now.

"No, that's just Jeongyeon. He would never do that to someone who had another choice." The respect in his voice was profound whenever he spoke of his father figure. "It is easier he says, though," he continued, "if the blood is weak." He looked at the now-dark road, and she could feel the subject closing again.