Tsubasa Chronicle Fan Fiction ❯ Reciprocity, Part II ❯ Chapter 4

 

Disclaimer: I don't own Tsubasa.

 

Another fitful night found Kurogane waking rather reluctantly. As he floated back to consciousness, he realized something was moving on his bed. He groaned, sure that whatever was waking him up was somehow part of a new method of torture the Queen had devised to get back at him for treating his `gift' so poorly the day before.

 

Sure enough, he opened his eyes to an horribly cheerful, bouncy Fai.

 

“The Queen said you have to give me a tour of the grounds today!” he chirped.

 

Kurogane turned over and grunted.

 

“Kuro-wan!” Fai whined, pushing at him. “I'm up and I want to go- now! Besides” he added in a sly tone, “her Majesty told me if you're not nicer to me that she'll ship /you/ off to Ashura!”

 

To angry to sleep now, the samurai threw off his covers and growled, “Fine! Can you give me two seconds to get up and get dressed?”

 

The blonde complied without a word and stood up next to the bed.

 

Kuro climbed out of bed and rifled through his kimonos until he found one that suited his mood that day- grumbling all the while. Despite his complaints, he highly respected his Queen and this `tour' wasn't really a hassle. It would give him an opportunity to get to know the inscrutable blonde a little better, which is what Tomoyo had suggested to him the night before. She had come to his chambers, a rarity, and talked with him about his attitude toward the slender, foreign man. To the swordman's surprise, she hadn't lectured him or been cross with his behavior. Instead, she had been quiet and serious and had made Kurogane feel he'd been premature in his harsh judgment of the other man.

 

“Neither of us really knows what happened between him and the King,” she had told him in a sober tone.

 

“I know, it's just-“ Kurogane fished for the right words and came up lacking.

 

“I understand,” Tomoyo said softly, placing her small hand lightly on his arm. “I've felt it too, his power, but I also feel his sadness, his loneliness, both of which seem much more pressing and immediate to me.”

 

Kurogane simply nodded. He couldn't admit aloud that he had felt this too, and that Fai's vulnerability, coupled with his own unnerving desire for the man, was a combination that did not settle well with him. If once he gave free reign to his passions, they would be impossible to hold back, and Kurogane was sure it would overwhelm the other man. Moreover, it troubled him that he could be so attracted to a person he wasn't even sure he respected. All his lovers, male or female, had fulfilled his requirement.

 

Unable to find a resolution, he had lapsed into anger. And that had certainly not helped the situation.

 

So he gave ear to the Queen's reasonable appeal and hoped that today, as he walked Fai around the palace grounds, that he would find some answers to the persistent questions of his mind.

 

Lost in these thoughts, he failed to notice that Fai was still standing silently in the room as he began to disrobe. After slipping on the new garment, he tied his yukata in place and turned around to find the blonde man staring at him.

 

“Damn it! Why didn't you tell me you were still there!” he howled, knowing that the statement sounded lame as soon as it left his lips.

 

The man shrugged and smiled, but Kuro noticed a faint blush to his cheeks and his heart pounded a little faster. Maybe today would be harder than he thought…

 

“What's this called? And this?” Fai asked for the hundredth time. Walking him through the halls and gardens was something akin to leading around an inquisitive 5-year-old. He wanted to know everything about everything. At first Kurogane thought he was doing it just to tease or irritate him, but the man seemed genuinely interested and he absorbed all the information rapidly. It gave the swordsman the impression that Fai had rarely been allowed outside the palace walls of Celes and his intelligent mind at obviously grown overeager for stimulation.

 

“Where did you grow up, Fai-san?” Kuro found himself asking.

 

“Hmm?” Fai looked up from a cluster of wild daisies on the outskirts of the imperial gardens. “Oh, just a little town a few days from Celes' capital.” The noon sun was shining and the light bounced off his flaxen locks, igniting them into a golden halo. Kuro walked quickly to keep up with him; the man had unlimited energy.

 

“And how did you come to the palace?” Kuro asked, hoping to take advantage of the man's good mood and learn something of his background.

 

“Ashura heard of a village mage with very remarkable skills and came looking for me,” Fai explained, his face still smiling. The tall, dark-haired man beside him detected a strain in his voice, however, and wondered if he should press further.

 

“You don't have to talk about it, if you'd rather not,” he told him.

 

Fai laughed. “Kurogane, I can't figure you out! Yesterday you sounded as if you detested me, now you're trying to be so considerate!” As he spoke he stepped ahead of the other man. Then, suddenly, he stopped. “Is it all for the Queen's sake?” his voice lowered, “I know she wanted you to be kinder to me.”

 

Kurogane felt his temper spike, the conversation taking a turn he did not expect. “So now I'm just some royal lap dog, is that it?” he spat, unable to calm himself. Things had been going so well up until this point and now he wasn't sure what upset him more: Fai skirting the issue and assuming his concern was not genuine, or his own stupidity at bringing up issues the blonde obviously didn't wish to discuss.

 

“No, that's not what I think,” came Fai's suddenly quiet reply.

 

Kurogane stepped up close behind him and although their bodies didn't touch, each could feel the overpowering presence of the other.

 

“What /do/ you think of me?” the tall man asked, leaning down to say the words next to the blonde's ear.

 

A visible tremor shook the slender body and Fai whispered in a shaken voice, “I don't know yet…”

 

“Fai,” Kurogane whispered in return, “I'm sorry I loose my temper with you so often.” His eyes inadvertently gazed down across the snowy expanse of the man's pale chest, exposed as his yukata fell open at the neck. Almost unbeknownst to his conscious mind, Kurogane's fingers followed the same path, his breath catching as he felt the racing pulse of the other man's jugular.

 

“I know you're not ready now… but I want you Fai,” Kuro confessed before he could stop himself.

 

Unexpectedly, the blonde turned to him, looking up into his eyes, “If you want me, then I'm yours.” Kuro's heart leapt, then came crashing down when Fai added, “After all, you are my master.”

 

The warrior scowled.

 

“No, Fai, I don't care what Ashura had in mind, you're a human being, you belong to no one but yourself.”

 

But the shorter man merely nodded absentmindedly at this, as if he had heard all this before and no longer could believe it.

 

As Kurogane tried to find something else to say, his eyes fell on a small, oval jewel hanging about the blonde's neck. It caught in the light and glittered the same unfathomable blue as the man's eyes. Kuro wondered why he had never noticed it before.

 

“Kuro-san, I'm tired, I'd like to go back to my room now.”

 

Not wanting to let him leave, but unable to think of anything to say to stop him, the warrior nodded and watched the slender form disappear through the sea of flowers.

 

 

*** I really wanted some more citrus in here, but it just didn't work out! I think the next chapter will definitely be juicier, though!

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