Fanficcie time!
Title: Along the Moonlit Bay - Part 2/3
Author: ekas
Fandom: Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle
Pairing: Kurogane/Fai
Rating: R
Word Count: 8,782
May contain: Kurogane/Fai, Fai/Kurogane, past Kurogane/Souma, Tomoyo crushing on Souma and Sakura, Yuuko, xxxHolic characters, random CLAMP character appearances, Yuzuriha crushing on Fai, both Mokona, crack, and Syaoran/Sakura, mentions of drug use
Author's Notes: This was originally supposed to be just one long fic, but when I realized how long it was getting, I decided to split it up into three parts.
This is part of my Horitsuba Gakuen series.
The rest can be found below in chronilogical order even though I refuse to write them in chronological order.
Extra Benefits
Chocolate Bonding Fic art here by lexi_nyanko
Along the Moonlit Bay - Part 1
All other challenge fics can be found here.
Summary: Fai convinces Kurogane to spend a romantic weekend with him, but it's not that easy when they have to share the beach house with some of the students, Yuuko, and Souma. Fai's finding it difficult to spend time with Souma, and Kurogane is having anything but a relaxing break. Will Yuuko and the girls be able to save what relationship they have, or is it doomed to fall apart under the pressure?
Categories: Drama, angst, crack, romance
It's like a soap opera in here.
When he woke up the next morning, the first thing he did was mentally curse all things bright and shining because Fai had left the curtain open, and he was still on the eastern side of the building. The next thing he did was search around for the black fuzzball that had still been curled at his side when he had finally fallen asleep a few hours ago. A glance at the other man showed he was still sleeping soundly, and the white thing that had been with him had also vanished. He double-checked around the room and even leaned off the bed to peer under it just to be sure. Once he was certain they were alone, he pulled the thin man close to him, burying his face on top of the silky, golden locks. It wouldn’t be a bad way to start the morning, especially since the day before had left them so unfulfilled. Even though Fai was still asleep, he didn’t see any reason that he should not be allowed to get a head start on things. He ran his hand along the man’s soft, light blue shirt, then slipped his hands under to caress the silky smooth skin of his side and stomach. He planted a kiss on the man’s mouth before trailing a slow-moving line of kisses across his jaw and down to his neck. Gradually, he felt the man begin to respond to him, loosing a heated sigh when he nibbled gently on the sensitive skin between his neck and jaw and arching up into his touch. “Kuro-sama.” Soon the long, slender arms were around him, one hand tightening in the hair at the base of his skull, pulling him back up to kiss the blonde fully on the mouth. The blonde’s tongue darted out to lick his lower lip, and he growled when he felt the wiry hips rocking against his. This day was certainly getting off to a good start, and he rolled them over so he was once again on top of Fai, not breaking way from the enticing, warm mouth.
“Kurogane-sensei! Fai-sensei!” Sakura’s voice called from the other side of the door. He groaned and buried his face in the crook of Fai’s neck; so much for every one else agreeing to leave them alone for the weekend. Fai chuckled and ran his fingers through his hair. Kurogane sighed and leaned into the touch. “Oh wait. I forgot Tomoyo-chan told me I wasn’t supposed to know the two of you were sharing this room. Fai-sensei! Breakfast is ready, so you can come join us when you’re ready!” She bounded back down the hall, and Kurogane wondered how a girl that light who was so good at athletics could be so heavy on her feet.
“We should go to breakfast, Kuro-tan,” Fai said, but he continued to play with his hair. Kurogane knew he was right, but he could not find the motivation to remove himself from the warm body beneath his.
“Fuck breakfast. Let’s fuck.” He tried pulling on the man’s pants, but the blonde stopped him with a surprising amount of force that almost killed any current sexual interest he had in the other man.
“Kuro-rin, if neither one of us shows up for breakfast, people will start to get suspicious. You wouldn’t want people you don’t want to find out about us, do you?” With a sigh, he rolled off the blonde man to sit on the edge of the bed. He might have had different notions about what a romantic weekend was supposed to entail, but he was fairly sure that most people asked would agree that getting laid was key to a successful romantic weekend, especially in their circumstances. It took him a long time to realize the man had not moved behind him, and his shoulder inexplicably tensed. A glance over his shoulder revealed the blonde was scowling in a most disturbing manner. He had always been secretive about their relationship, so he couldn’t understand why Fai was being so pissy of it now of all times. He just didn’t think it was any of the students’ damn business what went on in his personal life, and they certainly did not need to know who he was fucking. He knew Fai had close relationships with his students in he was actually interested in their lives, but he also knew the blonde knew he had difficulties in forming close relationships with anyone. Especially blonde science teachers who wouldn’t open up about anything his brain added spitefully. He noticed with some apprehension that the blonde continued to scowl at him from the bed while he got dressed for the day. He couldn’t be blamed for this when it was his suggestion that they stop what they were doing and go down to breakfast in the first place. “I’m going down to breakfast,” he announced. He didn’t stop to wait for a response, but he really didn’t think he was going to be getting one he would appreciate anytime soon.
Everybody else seemed to have already gathered. The boy with the glasses was yelling at the other boy in his group who had his fingers in his ears while the girl looked on amused. There was an empty stop between the girl and the chairlady who was flipping through a magazine while she ate her breakfast. He absolutely refused to sit next to her. The only other available option was between Syaoran, who was making eyes at Sakura while she chatted happily with Yuzuriha, and Souma, who seemed to be having a rather nice, decent conversation with Tomoyo who was on her other side. He decided to take his chances and sit between Syaoran and Souma. The kid didn’t even seem to notice.
“Good morning, Kurogane-san.” He grunted his response to her like he did to every sane person who wished him a good morning. “Did you sleep well last night, or did the storm keep you up as well?” He wondered who had trouble sleeping during the storm, but then he remembered there were fourteen year old girls with them on the trip. They had probably kept Souma up by squealing to her about how scared they were. Of course, if he would have had his way and the stupid Mokona hadn’t come barging in on them, they would have gotten very little sleep.
“A little too well for my tastes,” he muttered as he picked up a mug of tea, but Souma seemed to have missed the message as Tomoyo once again commanded her attention.
“Good morning, everyone!” Fai called as he bounded into the room, a bright smile on his face except for the brief moment he glared daggers in Kurogane’s direction.
“Good morning, Fai-sensei!” the girls chirped in perfect unison, and Kurogane shuddered. They were too well trained, too adoring of their teacher. Fai flopped down into the last remaining chair next to Yuuko, and he was fairly certain the brief scowl that followed was intended for everyone in the room though he was the only one that noticed, the rest being too involved with their love interests or breakfast.
“Did you sleep well last night, Souma?” and Kurogane was confronted with the ideology of sugar-coated venom. He really did not want to be in the position of the two on either side of the blonde at the moment. Souma’s sensitivity seemed to have picked up the man’s malicious undertones if not the reasoning, and she nodded cautiously in response.
“Fai-san,” Yuuko said in warning before the blond could hiss out whatever reply he had been planning. He wasn’t exactly sure what was going on at the moment, but he was certainly glad Yuuko did and for once was trying to keep things under control. Fai settled down to eating his breakfast with a painfully fake smile.
“I think we should take a trip to the boardwalk this afternoon,” one of the girls suggested, and there were murmurs of agreement from all around the table. He was under no obligations to keep their names straight when classes where not in session. Fai seemed to be less than enthusiastic about his response, which Kurogane found to be a bit worrisome, and the blonde kept glancing in his direction with a very sullen look. He just didn’t get it; he had been the one to suggest the stupid trip, and then he had to go and be an ass about something without providing any explanation for it.
He turned to look briefly look at Souma because she said something to him, and blue eyes narrowed dangerously. Some romantic weekend this was turning out to be.
They were the last two to linger at the table, everyone else going off earlier in pairs of twos and threes. As soon as everyone else cleared the room, Fai pushed himself silently away from the table and came to stand next to Kurogane’s chair. He waited to see what the man was going to do next without looking at him. “Ne, Kuro-sama?”
He grunted in reply to show the man had his mental if not visual attention. In the next instant, he found himself being hauled roughly up by the collar, he was always amazed at the sheer power those skinny little arms contained, until the blonde was crushing their mouths together. He loosened his grip on Kurogane’s shirt to allow him to fully stand, but even as Kurogane straightened himself up, he could feel the blonde pressing more firmly against him until he was practically straddling one of Kurogane’s thighs. Long fingers clawed urgently at his shirt as he plunged his tongue into the man’s mouth. With a low growl, he shoved Fai against the nearest wall and lifted him until his legs wrapped tightly around his waist.
When his mouth shifted attention to the blonde’s neck, he heard the man attempt to gasp, “We… need to go… back upstairs.” His plea was temporarily forgotten as he was reduced to whimpers as Kurogane thrust against him. “I don’t have…” His voice trailed off into a high-pitched moan.
“You’re usually better prepared than that,” he accused, and he bit down hard enough on Fai’s ear to cause him to yelp.
He half-dragged, half-carried the man back to their room, every so often molesting him against a convenient wall. They eventually managed to stumble into the room, and Kurogane somehow managed to pick up one of those condoms Fai had so graciously brought as they tumbled onto the bed. “Now, let’s fuck,” he growled as he pressed the thin frame beneath him into the mattress.
“I agree. Let’s fuck,” and Kurogane resumed his previous interest in the man’s neck as he settled himself between the slim thighs. “After all, that does seem to be your solution to everything.”
The tone combined with the accusation made him pull away with an angry growl. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing.” But one look into the man’s hurt, angry eyes and Kurogane knew he was to know exactly what Fai was talking about, and in a vague way he supposed he did. When they had this conversation before, Fai hid his hurt and anger quite well even though it was painfully obvious to Kurogane that he was hiding it behind the fake smile, and he never mentioned it to Kurogane again or showed any indication that he was still unhappy about the situation. The blonde had even gone over to his house on Valentine’s Day after asking Souma where his apartment was. Besides, when they had first had the conversation, Fai himself had said it didn’t really matter because the two of them were just coworkers with a few extra benefits. Those had been Fai’s words, not his. He had never even taken the time to think about what their relationship was before that day with Souma. And he could have been a real bastard and kept it hidden from the blonde or even start having sex with whoever he wanted in the intervening time since Fai had told him those things with a flat tone.
None of that changed the fact that Fai was currently pinned to a mattress, staring accusingly up at him while panting heavily and biting his lower lip.
With a frustrated growl, he pulled himself away from the warm body pressed harshly against his and stomped out of the room. He heard Fai give a bitter laugh and out of the corner of his eye saw him throw his head back against the pillow. He wasn’t exactly sure where he was going though he found himself being drawn to the other rooms; he just knew he needed to get himself out of that situation with the scientist being so intentionally cruel and degrading to him for no good reason. It wasn’t as if he knew everything about what happened that evening; there were some things that should not be told. He already felt guilty enough without the man finally deciding to be strange about it.
“What the hell is wrong with him?” he demanded as he stomped into her room. His foot hurt from all the pressure he was putting on it. He could barely see her, sitting at a small, circular table near the window, through the smoke.
“Don’t speak to me in that tone, Kurogane-san,” and he made the effort to unclench his fists and release some of the tension in his neck by counting to ten since she was the only person he knew that might have answers. “And I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Him,” he said, vaguely gesturing to his room while she continued to stare at him. “Why has he been acting like this?” and he realized she would have no idea what he was rambling about, and he did not particularly care to go into details of his sex life with her.
“He has a name. I have every reason to believe it is Fai D. Flowright.” The significance of her remark was not lost on him. “I also believe the question should be ‘What are you doing to make him act the way he is?’” Why did she always have to bring everything back to him and make it his fault? The blonde was the one acting crazy, not him. “Perhaps it is Souma’s presence that has put him on edge.”
“He’s talked to Souma before.” He vividly recalled the man telling him he had gotten his address from Souma.
“Kurogane-san, think about the situation logically for a moment,” and he instantly resented her for implying that he ever did anything without thinking about it logically first. Fai was an exception, simply because Fai defied all logic. “Fai does not know Souma. He had no way of contacting her. But he does know someone that would happily act as a go-between for him and Souma.”
Kendeppa’s younger sister. She would have been in close contact with Souma at that point. “I understand.”
“There’s something else you should know,” she warned him as she snuffed her cigarette in the ashtray. He never liked it when she was looking at him as if she knew she was about to say something he was not going to like. “I’m afraid at the moment your position with us is very tentative, and if the situation does not improve, we will have to let you go. You’re a good teacher, and we will gladly get you a new position at any institute of your choice.”
Had the woman never heard of the general tact that she was not supposed to discuss work while they were on vacation? Still, he had to admit, he liked working there. The job had benefits he would not be able to get anywhere else. “Why?”
“To be honest, while you are an excellent teacher, you are not performing as well as we would have hoped in other areas that we hired you for.” This was certainly news to him; he had been certain he had only been hired for one job and that was to be the school’s gym teacher, specializing in kendo and martial arts, perhaps. “The sanity of our employees is an utmost priority for us. We need our instructors to be mentally stable in order to form the relationships we encourage with the students.” Somehow he got the impression she was not talking about his sanity, but if the weekend progressed the way it had been, he was the one she would have to look out for. She sighed, “I thought you would be different. I thought you might be able to help. But you only seem to be making things worse.”
“I was hired because you thought I might be able to mentally stabilize that idiot?” There was that damn twitch again.
“No. You were hired for your skills. The worst scenario we imagined was him ignoring you and going on with business as usual. But now it seems bringing the two of you together in this world was our mistake.”
“What exactly am I supposed to do?” He had a feeling suggesting they fire the other man instead was not an option, and not just because he had been there longer.
“Make things as they were before if at all possible. If not, provide me with a list of institutions you would like to work at.
He did not like this plan at all. Mending the mind of a deranged lunatic who did not open up to anyone was not what he had in mind when he thought about his dream job, and he was sure it must seem a daunting task to anyone. And, he realized as he limped his way back down the hall to their room, he would try even if his job wasn’t on the line.
Fai was still on the bed when he returned only he had rolled over on his side so that his back was to the door. Kurogane made his way quietly, well, as quietly as he could with an injured foot, across the room and sat down on the bed. The waif made no move to acknowledge his presence, but he had figured he could still be upset with him and unwilling to look at him. He lied on his back, picked the thin man up and pulled him in a tight embrace against his chest. The man’s bangs were falling gently over his eyes. “Does Kuro-tan still want to fuck?” he heard the man mumble, one hand clutching at his shirt, expression unreadable behind his hair.
“No,” and he let one hand bury itself in the blonde locks as the man snuggled closer against him. While Yuuko seemed to worry about Fai, he wondered perhaps if he was the one she should worry about. If there was not a way to save Fai, there was nothing to be done, but there was no law that said he had to go down with him. As he watched the seagulls, Kurogane wondered if he would be able to get himself out in time should things go too far.
Fai seemed to have settled into his embrace for the moment, but Kurogane could tell from the way he occasionally felt him sigh that the man was far from happy. With any luck, at the very least, Kurogane was hoping he would forget about Souma for a few hours. He thought he had a way to settle the situation for good, or at least to the point that Fai would be satisfied and realize it was all in the past, but it would require a time when the children were not around, and he certainly could not do it while Fai was clinging to him like a lifeline.
“Kuro-sama,” a small voice piped from his chest, right above his heart.
“Hm?”
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. Kurogane’s only response was to wrap his arms tighter.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
A few hours later, he was glad he attempted to spend time with the man when he did because at the boardwalk the girls decided they were going to monopolize Fai’s time. Tomoyo had been torn between staying with Souma or exploring with Sakura with Fai and the other girls, the boys having disappeared when the girls first started fawning over Fai, and Kurogane was not looking forward to another day with the witch if he could avoid it. Of course, his other option was to go with the blonde and the girls which wasn’t exactly his idea of a good time either. In the long run, it really was his only option seeing as how Fai might start acting weird again if he showed the slightest inclination of going with Souma. Which of course, Yuuko would be sure to notice and be more inclined of moving him to another school. Tomoyo looked over her shoulder as they left Souma with Yuuko, and Kurogane stepped in place behind Fai who currently had Himawari attached to one arm and Yuzuriha attached to the other. Sakura was talking amiably to Tomoyo trying to keep her friend occupied. Fai was currently involved in conversation with the two girls attached to him which left Kurogane with absolutely no one to talk to so he remained resolutely silent. He started to think perhaps he would have been better off it he had gone with the chairlady and Souma.
He quickly learned shopping with girls was not the most enjoyable thing in the world. They stopped to gawk and point at the most frivolous things, and they would stand in one stall for a good fifteen minutes as they squealed over the same object that none of them had any intention of buying. To make things worse for him, people kept asking if they were all his including the blonde one which he found fairly insulting since Fai was older than him.
Of course, Fai indulged the girls, inputting his own useless comment on every item they gawked at, and even managed to buy each of them a small present. It took Kurogane a full two hours to realize the man was seeing a different girl from the one that he was standing next to. He could tell in the way the man’s blue eyes suddenly got very sad whenever he gave them their gift because he had to confront the reality that the girl standing next to him was not the one he wanted it to be. It only made him wonder more what was behind the blonde’s strange attachment to the girls.
He followed them around as the girls laughed and chatted, taking turns to hang off the arm Yuzuriha was not attached to. Tomoyo fell behind to walk next to his side for a while. He looked down at her curiously to see what she was doing, but did nothing else to acknowledge her presence, and she was still filming Sakura anyway. He thought perhaps she had gone back there to get a better perspective of her prey.
“So, Kurogane-sensei, have you been enjoying you romantic weekend with Fai-sensei?”
He looked down to see her pointing the camera towards him with a grin. “Don’t point that thing at me,” and he quickly looked away. He didn’t need her to be recording him doing anything, especially if she was working for the witch.
“What have the two of you been doing whenever you get time away from the rest of us?” He knew from her laugh she couldn’t possibly be that innocent, though if the question had come from her friend who was currently delivering it to Fai, it would have been a completely different story.
“We haven’t exactly had any time alone,” he told her, folding his arms across his chest. Up ahead he noticed Fai throw him an enigmatic smile over his shoulder.
A moment later and a rumbling noise from Sakura’s stomach made them all stop. She blushed and covered her stomach with her hands. “Go-gomennesai. I must be getting hungry.”
“Kuro-tan!” The blonde bounded over to him, and he got the impression he was not going to like what was about to follow. He could always tell from his face because it got the same mischievous grin. “Why don’t you give money to the girls so they can treat themselves to some food,” and he winked suggestively at him.
Unfortunately, the wink had been lost on Kurogane. “Why the hell should I have to pay for them?”
“This is the perfect opportunity for you to show what a good and caring teacher you are,” he told him, pressing himself against Kurogane’s arm which was annoying because of the way he sun was beating down on him made him hot and sweaty enough as it was without an added leech.
If only to get the man off his arm, he reached into his pocket and handed some money to the one with the curly hair because she looked the oldest and theoretically the most responsible of the group. “We’ll be waiting for you girls right here,” Fai told them. The four of them went off in search of food, Tomoyo’s camera happily trailing Sakura.
As soon as they had disappeared, Kurogane found himself being roughly pulled to an opening between two of the stalls. “What do you think you’re doing?” The space was dark, filled with garbage, smelled like rotten fish, and there was barely enough room for the two of them to be there. Something squished under his sandaled foot.
“This should work well enough,” Fai said as he surveyed the cramped space he had squeezed them into, and Kurogane wondered if they were looking at the same location. “Now, we should make this quick.” Kurogane found himself suddenly pushed back against the wall, or maybe Fai was pressing himself against the other wall, and the blonde was making a valiant effort to hoist himself around Kurogane’s waist.
“This isn’t going to work,” he mumbled against the man’s mouth. He tried to shift his weight, and his foot came in full contact with whatever had gone squish earlier. Fai, however, did not seem to care and was currently fully engaged in removing the barrier, namely Kurogane’s pants, between him and what he wanted. “Now what do you plan on doing?” he asked as he hoped Fai realized the flaw in his plans. His hands and mouth had stopped, and for once, the man seemed to be at a loss. “Look, if you want to fuck, we’ll sneak away as soon as we get back to the house and push the dresser in front of the door.”
Fai bit down gently on the spot directly under his ear and started rocking his hips against his again. “But both of us have been denied for so long.” Soft lips brushed against his and whispered, “Just to tide us over until we get to the real thing.” Fai took Kurogane’s hand and wrapped it around both their arousals. “Please?”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
“Souma-san, look at the hairpin Fai-sensei bought me.” In their own effort to find a light snack, they had found the girls as well and within thirty seconds, Tomoyo had reattached herself to Souma.
Yuuko did a quick headcount while Souma commented on Tomoyo’s ornament, and the other girls munched happily on their snacks: Tomoyo, Yuzuriha, Sakura, Himawari, Mokona. Her eyebrow twitched. “Girls, where are your teachers?” she asked. They were extremely lucky all girls were present and healthy; girls were sacred and delicate.
“Fai-sensei and Kurogane-sensei said they would be waiting for us over there,” Himawari informed her, pointing in the proper direction. Kurogane looked quite sullen, and Fai looked highly pleased with himself.
“Fai-sensei!” Yuzuriha called, bounding over to them with a large smile plastered on her face. “Eh, Kurogane-sensei! What happened to your foot?”
Yuuko, ever the opportunist, wandered over to investigate, the rest of he group trailing behind her. Whatever it was, it smelled. “Kurogane-san, you really should not play with things that will leave you a mess. You should go back to the house and clean yourself off.”
“I’ll go with him!” Fai volunteered, and he practically dragged Kurogane away by the arm,
“Now, the rest of us should enjoy our lunches with sake!” and she pulled out her trusty bottle before going off in search of a table they could sit at.
“Yuuko, some of the girls can’t drink,” Mokona said as it bounded along after her.
“I won’t tell if they take a sip.” Twenty minutes later they were all sitting at a picnic table, eating snacks and drinking sake. How Yuuko had actually managed to find an empty table, none of them dared ask. They were afraid of the answer, she could sense it.
“Ah, it’s a shame Yukito-san and ni-san had to work this weekend and couldn’t come with us. They would have enjoyed having a break like this.” Her cheeks were flushed, and Yuuko thought perhaps she had had just a little too much to drink.
“Sakura-chan, do you know why your brother has not transferred to our school?” she asked casually.
“He says the school isn’t really what he’s looking for.” She was slurring her words, and Tomoyo reached over to take the remainder of her drink away from her. “He wants me to transfer out though. Some rumors about some of the teachers he doesn’t like.”
“Rumors?” She was unaware of any recent rumors circulating outside the school. She liked to know what people were thinking about the school at all times, and there was always bizarre rumors running around on school property.
“Oh, the usual. Sex scandals, drug dealings, one teacher who dabbled in the occult and killed a bunch of people, another who has a murder record. He doesn’t think I’m safe there, but I have Syaoran-kun to protect me!” and she giggled.
“Souma-san.”
“Hai.”
“I need you to do me a favor.”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Kurogane sat on the edge of the bathtub with his foot soaking in the scented water. “I think I’m supposed to find some deep meaning as to why these things keep happening to my feet.”
Fai giggled as he came back into the bathroom with a bottle of oil in his hand. “Maybe it means Kuro-sama isn’t grounded.” He pushed Kurogane away from the wall with an insistent prodding on his back and sat down behind him.
“Don’t say stupid things,” he growled as Fai ruthlessly pulled his shirt over his head and tossed it in the corner. “And what the hell are you doing?”
“I thought I would give Kuro-tan a massage since he’s been having such a rough weekend,” the blonde told him as he poured some of the oil into the palm of his hand. Kurogane could not argue with that logic, and he had to admit it felt rather nice when the man’s long fingers started rubbing his back.
“Mmm, magic fingers,” he mumbled, closing his eyes and lowering his head in contentment.
“What was that?”
“Nothing.”
“Hyuu~! Kuro-pyon said I have magic fingers!” and he was glomped from behind. Which might not have been so bad if the science teacher had then not insisted on biting his ear and nibbling his neck.
“Get off me!” because he much preferred the massaging to the glomping. A brief struggle ensued in which Fai’s hands were places that they should not be when Kurogane was in the mood he was in, and almost resulted in the two of them falling into the bathtub were it not for Kurogane’s heroic rescue at the last second which landed them on the tiled floor instead. Of course, nothing deterred Fai when he was determined, and he continued to attempt to molest Kurogane on the cold floor.
A knock on the door made them both stop with Fai sprawled over Kurogane to look at the bedroom door in puzzlement. Kurogane was sure Fai was thinking the same thing he was, something along the lines of who the hell was actually knocking. He took Fai’s momentary distraction to push the blonde off of him and to put his still covered foot back into the water. The person knocked again
“Who is it?” Fai called cheerfully, propping himself up on his elbows.
“It’s Souma,” and he thought he saw a dangerously dark look cross Fai’s blue eyes as he crawled to sit on the floor next to Kurogane’s leg. “Can I come in?”
At least she had the decency to ask, unlike the stupid manjuu with their silly claims that they were afraid of the storm. “Hai hai.” Fai had plastered once of those goofy grins on, and Kurogane suddenly felt sick in the pit of his stomach. He just knew this was not going to bode well for one of them.
“Kurogane-san, how is your foot doing?” she asked, and he felt the warm pressure of Fai’s head against his leg.
“Which one?” He lifted his foot from the water and studied the grey substance that had caked to it in the sun on the way back to the house. He was going to have to try taking the metal scrubby to it soon if all else failed.
“I’m not interrupting anything, am I?” He felt a warm hand join the hair.
He was about to tell her no, but unfortunately, Fai opened his mouth first. “Oh no, we were just about to start fucking like animals, that’s all.” He sometimes wondered if the man had been born with any decency at all.
“Is that so?” Souma looked as if she no longer wanted to be in the same room as the blonde. Kurogane understood that feeling perfectly. He was unsure if he wanted to be there.
“Just kidding~!” Fai bounced to his feet “Kuro-rin and I haven’t eaten yet, so I’ll just go make us some lunch,” and he hummed some minor tune as he marched out the room Kurogane wondered if he should trust anything the man might bring him. He probably should warn Souma not to eat his cooking. He wondered, though, why she watched him leave with a concerned look on her face.
“Kurogane-san, are you going to be staying here, at least until Fai-san returns?”
He looked down at his foot in the water and thought he was going to be there a lot longer than that. “Yup.” When he looked up, she had already gone.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Fai rummaged around for suitable ingredients for a good while, torn between making a meal Kurogane would actually appreciate, or one that was loaded with sweets that accented his talent for cooking sweet things which he knew Kurogane secretly liked but just didn’t want to admit to it. When Souma stepped into the kitchen a few minutes later, the answer was quite clear. He donned his apron and quickly scooped out his supplies. “Fai-san, would you like help with anything?” as if he did not know how to cook a proper meal for Kurogane.
He decided if he just pretended like she was not there, she would eventually leave. No such luck. Ten minutes later she was still standing in the kitchen doorway watching him. He decided to take his aggression out on the carrot he was chopping, but she didn’t even blink. Well, if he was not going to be able to get rid of her, he might be able to get some information out of her. Maybe she hadn’t wanted what had happened with Kurogane, and he was being unfairly judgmental of her. “Souma-san, what is your relationship with Kuro-chi?” He laid the knife down on the counter.
“I was his advisor at university. He must have told you that.” Yes, he had heard that story once, but somehow he got the impression he had known Souma before that when he told the story.
“Is that all?” He absolutely refused to look at her, and he heard her reaffirm, yes, he was simply her student. He wanted to believe her, she seemed like she was nice, but what Kurogane told him and her story did not add up. He resumed chopping his carrot. Either they had different perspectives on the situation, or one of them was lying about it. And he could not understand why Kurogane would lie to him about something like that.
He gasped and brought his thumb to his mouth, tasting the salty blood dripping into his throat. He really should have been paying more attention to what he was doing and was slightly annoyed by the fact that Souma had to witness the first time he had cut himself cooking in years. Souma took his wrist gently and placed the cut under running water. It stung, and he tried to pull away, but she held his hand firmly until the cut was clean, dry, and properly bandaged. He looked at his other hand the entire time she was treating him.
“You are exactly as he described you, Fai-san,” she said as she let go of his hand. He did not feel the need to ask her who the “he” was and went silently back to preparing the food. “He talks about you all the time. I think you may be the first person who has ever gotten under his skin.”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
“What happened to your thumb?” Kurogane asked as he stepped out of the bathroom just as Souma and Fai were setting down trays of food on the table by the window. He had managed to get most of the stuff off his foot, and he vowed never to follow Fai into cramped spaces again.
“It was my fault,” Souma volunteered. He noticed Fai’s startled reaction and decided not to comment on it. “I was talking to him while he was making lunch.”
“I invited Souma to join us,” Fai said as Souma sat down at the table. “I hope Kuro-chan doesn’t mind.”
“Don’t call me that.” He fell into the chair across from where Souma was sitting and eyed the food the two of them had brought up. No wonder he had invited Souma, he had made way too much for just the two of them again. Fai picked up his chair and set it down right next to Kurogane’s. He plopped himself into it; the idiot was practically sitting in his lap. Which wouldn’t have been so bad if it didn’t feel like he was actually trying to get into his lap. He wondered if the man’s virtually non-existent sense of decency would extend far enough to keep him from jumping him until after Souma was not sitting in the room eating her lunch.
“Ne, Kuro-sama?”
“Na-umf…” He really should have seen that coming; the blonde had taken the opportunity to shove something chocolaty in his mouth. It was the same potency of chocolate the man had given him on Valentine’s Day, and he found himself wishing Souma wasn’t there.
“Fai-san, this is delicious!”
“You really think so?” She nodded and went back to her lunch. Kurogane really hoped for her sake that all the food was the same.
Fai giggled in his ear. “Now Kuro-chan needs to eat up,” shoving something else into his mouth. It seemed to be some type of vegetable… smothered in brown sugar.
“Kurogane-san, you’re so lucky to have such an excellent chef as Fai-san cooking for you every day.” He was just grateful she could not see under the table as Fai had hooked one of his slender legs over Kurogane’s thigh, and his spare hand had occupied itself with tracing patterns on his inner thigh. He could have at least waited until Souma left the room. “Kurogane-san, you really shouldn’t complain about him feeding you all the time. He could make a professional look bad.” There were other professionals Fai could put to shame as well, but Souma did not need to know about those things.
“Kuro-tan, you don’t like my cooking?” His stomach realized it was in danger of losing a regular source of decent food. Fai seemed to be pouting and his hand had left his thigh.
“I never said that. I said I don’t like being fed by you.” Souma had the tact to return to her food and ignore them.
“Well, then.” Fai picked his chair up, moved it a good three feet away from Kurogane’s and finally fixed himself a plate of food. “That’s not what you seemed to think on Valentine’s Day.”
Kurogane blushed and stuttered for a few moments. “That’s… not… That was… You’re being ridiculous!”
“Oh, look, a distraction.”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
The three boys hovered over the black Mokona when it just stopped walking and pouted in the middle of the sand. “Mokona, are you alright?” Syaoran asked, reaching his hand towards the black thing.
“Mokona and Yuuko are drinking without me.”
“Ah…”
“You can tell that?” Syaoran asked, and Mokona nodded. Syaoran sighed and squatted down in the sand next to it. “We barely get to do anything in these fics. It’s like we don’t exist or we aren’t main characters or something.”
“Ah.”
“Now I know how Fai-sensei feels in Bee-Train’s representation of the Tsubasa anime,” he said as he slumped his shoulders.
“You watch an anime involving yourself, your teachers, and your crush?” Syaoran remained silent. “You haven’t written any fanfics, have you?”
“What are you two talking about?!”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Fai had learned to tolerate Souma’s presence when she was sitting at the other side of the table from Kurogane and maintaining a civilized conversation with both of them, but she was wearing out her welcome. The sun was starting to go down, and she was still there when all he really wanted to do was spend some alone time with his favorite brood phys ed teacher. He had long ago given up on trying to coax him to play; Kurogane was stubbornly unresponsive when an audience was involved. He still kept his hand resting lightly on Kurogane’s thigh under the table as Souma inquired about his job at the academy. “How long have you been working there?”
“Hmm, a few years I suppose. The first couple years are a bit of a blur, so I feel like I only started working there when Kuro-rin did,” and his hand unconsciously tightened on the man’s thigh.
“Oh, but you have actually been there a few years longer than he has, correct?” And he could tell she was curious about those first few years, most people were, but if he hadn’t told Kurogane he certainly was not going to tell Souma.
“Technically, yes. I acted as advisor to quite a few excellent students.” So maybe that was a lie and in the early years he had only one advisee that had actually gone on to do something with her life. He should stop by her shop sometime, to see how she was getting along, and if his graduation present to her was still assisting her. Maybe sometime during the break he would visit them at some point. He had been so lost in thoughts of those two, he hadn’t realized Kurogane had grabbed his hand under the table.
“So, Souma, you taught Kurogane right? That makes you, what, at least forty? Forty-five?” He smiled; he thought he saw her eyebrow twitch. At least he hoped she was older than he was. He thought he noticed Kurogane give him a signal to stop, but he ignored him and patiently waited for Souma’s response.
“I’ll tell you how old I am if you tell Kurogane-san how old you are,” she calmly responded. Touché. He leaned back in his chair to look out the window, deciding he was too desperate to get some quality alone time with his Kuro-tan to play these games at the moment. “Never ask a woman about her age,” she said as she calmly took a sip of her tea.
“How old are you?” Kurogane asked, and he froze.
“Ah, you see, Kuro-sama, about that…” he turned around to face the man with a nervous giggle, placing a hand behind his head. He wasn’t sure how he was going to respond to that. He had always allowed Kurogane to assume he was only a year or two older than him.
“Fai-sensei, Kurogane-sensei, Souma-san.” It was Syaoran this time, and Fai was pleasantly surprised to hear his voice. He had been starting to forget that there were, in fact, other males with them. “Yuuko-sensei wants the three off you to know that all of us have returned, and we were planning to go to the beach to play some games and have some snacks for a few hours. She also said all three of you have to come, and if Fai-sensei has any complaints about it he can talk to her later.”
“Damn witch is bossing us around even on vacation.”
“We’ll be right there, Syaoran-kun~!” and Souma helped them clean up the room before they left.
Somehow he had gotten separated from Kurogane over the course of the next few hours, and because of a distraction from Yuzuriha and some of the girls he ended up going back to the house after Kurogane had. He was hoping he would find the man waiting for him in the room, preferably naked, and he wanted nothing more than to tumble into bed with him. But when he stepped into the dark room, the larger man was no where to be found. Confused, because he really did not know where else the man might be, he stepped back into the hall. Tomoyo was just leaving her room. “Tomoyo-chan,” and she smiled at him as he walked towards her, “have you seen Kuro-rin-sensei?”
“I think I saw him go into Souma’s room earlier.” He thanked her, and she went to wherever it was she had intended on going.
He went to Souma’s door and raised his fist as if to knock, but he hesitated. He could hear low voices inside, too low to hear the words, but he recognized Kurogane’s deep rumble. He let his hand fall back to his side, not really wanting to know what was going on in there. He wandered around the beachhouse, not paying attention to where he was going until he distinctively smelled smoke and he followed his nose to the source. He found Yuuko smoking in one of the living rooms. “Fai-san, would you like to join me?” She indicated the couch across from her, and with a weary smile he sat down. “You look horrible. Do you want one?” She offered him one of her cigarettes.
He waved the offer away. “No, thanks. You know I’ve never...” She took it back and put the cartoon back in her dress.
“You do look terrible.” He shrugged, figuring he had probably looked worse at many points in his lifetime, and he had every right to look haggard at the moment. Kurogane was alone in a room with a woman he had an unknown history with and who he had slept with on at least one occasion since he had been doing things with Fai. He was fairly sure he could be forgiven for looking a bit frazzled at the moment. “Given your history, you can understand why I find this situation to be a bit troublesome. We cannot afford you to have another relapse, not when there are rumors that I am harboring a murderer circulating now.
“Scary,” and she could tell the laughter was nervous as well as forced. “I hope it’s not anyone I know.” She looked at him for a few moments, the tired eyes, the fallen face, and decided not to tell him. “Any other rumors I should know about?”
“Just the usual.” He collapsed against the back of the couch. “Drug deals, unorthodox relationships, a professor dabbling in the occult.”
“I told Zagato-san that was a bad idea, but he wouldn’t listen to me.” His voice cracked, and she knew it was time to bring the focus back to his current problem.
“Fai-san, if Kurogane-san is making you feel this way again, you have to leave him.” And if Fai would not voluntarily distance himself from the other man, she would make sure Kurogane’s next job was on the other side of the island.
“No, it’s not Kurogane’s fault.” She was momentarily taken aback by the man’s firm conviction she had never heard before combined with his defiant stare and sudden use of the man’s full name. He slumped back down and his blonde hair covered his eyes. “If anything he makes me want to stay clean.”
“That’s rather endearing, and I do hope for your sake he continues to make you feel that way.” He smiled wearily at her. “But you can never let him know that sentiment because that would require telling him everything about your past.” She paused, remembering all the things she knew about him and tried to think how Kurogane would respond to them. Probably not favorably in terms of how he regarded Fai. “And you’ll not do that because you’re too afraid of how he’ll respond.”
“He deserves better than that.”
“Maybe not.” It was not as if he had a perfect track record. “The only thing I can say he deserves better is when he told the truth about Souma when you continue to hide things from him. Have you seen Ashura-san recently?” He lifted his face to look at her, and she didn’t like what she saw. “Never mind. You don’t have to answer that.”
“What should I do now?” His voice was barely above a whisper. “I have no real claim on him, but I don’t want to lose him, yet with Souma here it feels like I already have because the only thing I know about the two of them is that one night.”
“I think there are a lot of things Kurogane has not told you about that night for Souma’s protection.” She sighed; it really was not her job to settle relationship disputes between teachers, but she had the feeling she was the only one on the board who cared enough to try to change their destiny. “As for what you do now, you are going to go upstairs and snuggle with that man til morning.”
“What if I’m scared I’ve already gotten in too deep again?”
“That is your decision. You cannot be that scared yet, or else you would not be sitting here rationalizing here with me.” She really did disapprove of what they did sometimes, but this made her want to slap him. She just knew things were only going to get a lot worse before they got better. Why couldn’t they ever intervene sooner? “Now go upstairs and snuggle.”
He really didn’t expect Kurogane to be in the room when he retuned, in fact, he had no hopes of seeing the darker man again until the next morning at breakfast. He did have an important decision to make, and he wasn’t exactly sure what he was going to do. He didn’t want to get hurt again, and he certainly did not want Kurogane to get hurt, but he was starting to feel it was too late for either of those. Love was never supposed to have factored into this equation.
He was surprised to find Kurogane asleep in the bed. In the dark, he changed into his pajamas and slip up against the larger man’s body. Kurogane mumbled something Fai didn’t quite catch and wrapped an arm around him, pulling him closer and nuzzling against his hair. He was grateful Kurogane was just holding him and not trying for anything more. Fai wouldn’t let him if he had just been with Souma. He buried his face against Kurogane’s bare chest; he didn’t smell like sex or Souma.
Kurogane’s hand was moving in idle circles along his back. “I like these pajamas,” he heard Kurogane mumble above his ear. “They’re soft. If I can’t sleep with you naked, I want you in these.”
Fai made sure to store that away for future reference out of habit; maybe the next time he had a sleepover at Kurogane’s, he would bring them instead of borrowing clothes. He planted a kiss on Kurogane’s collarbone. “You can still get me naked if you want to.” He was answered by a low snore. He had known Kurogane wouldn’t be awake long enough to respond, but he figured he could at least give the ninja what he hoped were good dreams when he knew his were going to be so troubled.
~Part 3 should be fun. Hopefully.
Author: ekas
Fandom: Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle
Pairing: Kurogane/Fai
Rating: R
Word Count: 8,782
May contain: Kurogane/Fai, Fai/Kurogane, past Kurogane/Souma, Tomoyo crushing on Souma and Sakura, Yuuko, xxxHolic characters, random CLAMP character appearances, Yuzuriha crushing on Fai, both Mokona, crack, and Syaoran/Sakura, mentions of drug use
Author's Notes: This was originally supposed to be just one long fic, but when I realized how long it was getting, I decided to split it up into three parts.
This is part of my Horitsuba Gakuen series.
The rest can be found below in chronilogical order even though I refuse to write them in chronological order.
Extra Benefits
Chocolate Bonding Fic art here by lexi_nyanko
Along the Moonlit Bay - Part 1
All other challenge fics can be found here.
Summary: Fai convinces Kurogane to spend a romantic weekend with him, but it's not that easy when they have to share the beach house with some of the students, Yuuko, and Souma. Fai's finding it difficult to spend time with Souma, and Kurogane is having anything but a relaxing break. Will Yuuko and the girls be able to save what relationship they have, or is it doomed to fall apart under the pressure?
Categories: Drama, angst, crack, romance
It's like a soap opera in here.
When he woke up the next morning, the first thing he did was mentally curse all things bright and shining because Fai had left the curtain open, and he was still on the eastern side of the building. The next thing he did was search around for the black fuzzball that had still been curled at his side when he had finally fallen asleep a few hours ago. A glance at the other man showed he was still sleeping soundly, and the white thing that had been with him had also vanished. He double-checked around the room and even leaned off the bed to peer under it just to be sure. Once he was certain they were alone, he pulled the thin man close to him, burying his face on top of the silky, golden locks. It wouldn’t be a bad way to start the morning, especially since the day before had left them so unfulfilled. Even though Fai was still asleep, he didn’t see any reason that he should not be allowed to get a head start on things. He ran his hand along the man’s soft, light blue shirt, then slipped his hands under to caress the silky smooth skin of his side and stomach. He planted a kiss on the man’s mouth before trailing a slow-moving line of kisses across his jaw and down to his neck. Gradually, he felt the man begin to respond to him, loosing a heated sigh when he nibbled gently on the sensitive skin between his neck and jaw and arching up into his touch. “Kuro-sama.” Soon the long, slender arms were around him, one hand tightening in the hair at the base of his skull, pulling him back up to kiss the blonde fully on the mouth. The blonde’s tongue darted out to lick his lower lip, and he growled when he felt the wiry hips rocking against his. This day was certainly getting off to a good start, and he rolled them over so he was once again on top of Fai, not breaking way from the enticing, warm mouth.
“Kurogane-sensei! Fai-sensei!” Sakura’s voice called from the other side of the door. He groaned and buried his face in the crook of Fai’s neck; so much for every one else agreeing to leave them alone for the weekend. Fai chuckled and ran his fingers through his hair. Kurogane sighed and leaned into the touch. “Oh wait. I forgot Tomoyo-chan told me I wasn’t supposed to know the two of you were sharing this room. Fai-sensei! Breakfast is ready, so you can come join us when you’re ready!” She bounded back down the hall, and Kurogane wondered how a girl that light who was so good at athletics could be so heavy on her feet.
“We should go to breakfast, Kuro-tan,” Fai said, but he continued to play with his hair. Kurogane knew he was right, but he could not find the motivation to remove himself from the warm body beneath his.
“Fuck breakfast. Let’s fuck.” He tried pulling on the man’s pants, but the blonde stopped him with a surprising amount of force that almost killed any current sexual interest he had in the other man.
“Kuro-rin, if neither one of us shows up for breakfast, people will start to get suspicious. You wouldn’t want people you don’t want to find out about us, do you?” With a sigh, he rolled off the blonde man to sit on the edge of the bed. He might have had different notions about what a romantic weekend was supposed to entail, but he was fairly sure that most people asked would agree that getting laid was key to a successful romantic weekend, especially in their circumstances. It took him a long time to realize the man had not moved behind him, and his shoulder inexplicably tensed. A glance over his shoulder revealed the blonde was scowling in a most disturbing manner. He had always been secretive about their relationship, so he couldn’t understand why Fai was being so pissy of it now of all times. He just didn’t think it was any of the students’ damn business what went on in his personal life, and they certainly did not need to know who he was fucking. He knew Fai had close relationships with his students in he was actually interested in their lives, but he also knew the blonde knew he had difficulties in forming close relationships with anyone. Especially blonde science teachers who wouldn’t open up about anything his brain added spitefully. He noticed with some apprehension that the blonde continued to scowl at him from the bed while he got dressed for the day. He couldn’t be blamed for this when it was his suggestion that they stop what they were doing and go down to breakfast in the first place. “I’m going down to breakfast,” he announced. He didn’t stop to wait for a response, but he really didn’t think he was going to be getting one he would appreciate anytime soon.
Everybody else seemed to have already gathered. The boy with the glasses was yelling at the other boy in his group who had his fingers in his ears while the girl looked on amused. There was an empty stop between the girl and the chairlady who was flipping through a magazine while she ate her breakfast. He absolutely refused to sit next to her. The only other available option was between Syaoran, who was making eyes at Sakura while she chatted happily with Yuzuriha, and Souma, who seemed to be having a rather nice, decent conversation with Tomoyo who was on her other side. He decided to take his chances and sit between Syaoran and Souma. The kid didn’t even seem to notice.
“Good morning, Kurogane-san.” He grunted his response to her like he did to every sane person who wished him a good morning. “Did you sleep well last night, or did the storm keep you up as well?” He wondered who had trouble sleeping during the storm, but then he remembered there were fourteen year old girls with them on the trip. They had probably kept Souma up by squealing to her about how scared they were. Of course, if he would have had his way and the stupid Mokona hadn’t come barging in on them, they would have gotten very little sleep.
“A little too well for my tastes,” he muttered as he picked up a mug of tea, but Souma seemed to have missed the message as Tomoyo once again commanded her attention.
“Good morning, everyone!” Fai called as he bounded into the room, a bright smile on his face except for the brief moment he glared daggers in Kurogane’s direction.
“Good morning, Fai-sensei!” the girls chirped in perfect unison, and Kurogane shuddered. They were too well trained, too adoring of their teacher. Fai flopped down into the last remaining chair next to Yuuko, and he was fairly certain the brief scowl that followed was intended for everyone in the room though he was the only one that noticed, the rest being too involved with their love interests or breakfast.
“Did you sleep well last night, Souma?” and Kurogane was confronted with the ideology of sugar-coated venom. He really did not want to be in the position of the two on either side of the blonde at the moment. Souma’s sensitivity seemed to have picked up the man’s malicious undertones if not the reasoning, and she nodded cautiously in response.
“Fai-san,” Yuuko said in warning before the blond could hiss out whatever reply he had been planning. He wasn’t exactly sure what was going on at the moment, but he was certainly glad Yuuko did and for once was trying to keep things under control. Fai settled down to eating his breakfast with a painfully fake smile.
“I think we should take a trip to the boardwalk this afternoon,” one of the girls suggested, and there were murmurs of agreement from all around the table. He was under no obligations to keep their names straight when classes where not in session. Fai seemed to be less than enthusiastic about his response, which Kurogane found to be a bit worrisome, and the blonde kept glancing in his direction with a very sullen look. He just didn’t get it; he had been the one to suggest the stupid trip, and then he had to go and be an ass about something without providing any explanation for it.
He turned to look briefly look at Souma because she said something to him, and blue eyes narrowed dangerously. Some romantic weekend this was turning out to be.
They were the last two to linger at the table, everyone else going off earlier in pairs of twos and threes. As soon as everyone else cleared the room, Fai pushed himself silently away from the table and came to stand next to Kurogane’s chair. He waited to see what the man was going to do next without looking at him. “Ne, Kuro-sama?”
He grunted in reply to show the man had his mental if not visual attention. In the next instant, he found himself being hauled roughly up by the collar, he was always amazed at the sheer power those skinny little arms contained, until the blonde was crushing their mouths together. He loosened his grip on Kurogane’s shirt to allow him to fully stand, but even as Kurogane straightened himself up, he could feel the blonde pressing more firmly against him until he was practically straddling one of Kurogane’s thighs. Long fingers clawed urgently at his shirt as he plunged his tongue into the man’s mouth. With a low growl, he shoved Fai against the nearest wall and lifted him until his legs wrapped tightly around his waist.
When his mouth shifted attention to the blonde’s neck, he heard the man attempt to gasp, “We… need to go… back upstairs.” His plea was temporarily forgotten as he was reduced to whimpers as Kurogane thrust against him. “I don’t have…” His voice trailed off into a high-pitched moan.
“You’re usually better prepared than that,” he accused, and he bit down hard enough on Fai’s ear to cause him to yelp.
He half-dragged, half-carried the man back to their room, every so often molesting him against a convenient wall. They eventually managed to stumble into the room, and Kurogane somehow managed to pick up one of those condoms Fai had so graciously brought as they tumbled onto the bed. “Now, let’s fuck,” he growled as he pressed the thin frame beneath him into the mattress.
“I agree. Let’s fuck,” and Kurogane resumed his previous interest in the man’s neck as he settled himself between the slim thighs. “After all, that does seem to be your solution to everything.”
The tone combined with the accusation made him pull away with an angry growl. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing.” But one look into the man’s hurt, angry eyes and Kurogane knew he was to know exactly what Fai was talking about, and in a vague way he supposed he did. When they had this conversation before, Fai hid his hurt and anger quite well even though it was painfully obvious to Kurogane that he was hiding it behind the fake smile, and he never mentioned it to Kurogane again or showed any indication that he was still unhappy about the situation. The blonde had even gone over to his house on Valentine’s Day after asking Souma where his apartment was. Besides, when they had first had the conversation, Fai himself had said it didn’t really matter because the two of them were just coworkers with a few extra benefits. Those had been Fai’s words, not his. He had never even taken the time to think about what their relationship was before that day with Souma. And he could have been a real bastard and kept it hidden from the blonde or even start having sex with whoever he wanted in the intervening time since Fai had told him those things with a flat tone.
None of that changed the fact that Fai was currently pinned to a mattress, staring accusingly up at him while panting heavily and biting his lower lip.
With a frustrated growl, he pulled himself away from the warm body pressed harshly against his and stomped out of the room. He heard Fai give a bitter laugh and out of the corner of his eye saw him throw his head back against the pillow. He wasn’t exactly sure where he was going though he found himself being drawn to the other rooms; he just knew he needed to get himself out of that situation with the scientist being so intentionally cruel and degrading to him for no good reason. It wasn’t as if he knew everything about what happened that evening; there were some things that should not be told. He already felt guilty enough without the man finally deciding to be strange about it.
“What the hell is wrong with him?” he demanded as he stomped into her room. His foot hurt from all the pressure he was putting on it. He could barely see her, sitting at a small, circular table near the window, through the smoke.
“Don’t speak to me in that tone, Kurogane-san,” and he made the effort to unclench his fists and release some of the tension in his neck by counting to ten since she was the only person he knew that might have answers. “And I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Him,” he said, vaguely gesturing to his room while she continued to stare at him. “Why has he been acting like this?” and he realized she would have no idea what he was rambling about, and he did not particularly care to go into details of his sex life with her.
“He has a name. I have every reason to believe it is Fai D. Flowright.” The significance of her remark was not lost on him. “I also believe the question should be ‘What are you doing to make him act the way he is?’” Why did she always have to bring everything back to him and make it his fault? The blonde was the one acting crazy, not him. “Perhaps it is Souma’s presence that has put him on edge.”
“He’s talked to Souma before.” He vividly recalled the man telling him he had gotten his address from Souma.
“Kurogane-san, think about the situation logically for a moment,” and he instantly resented her for implying that he ever did anything without thinking about it logically first. Fai was an exception, simply because Fai defied all logic. “Fai does not know Souma. He had no way of contacting her. But he does know someone that would happily act as a go-between for him and Souma.”
Kendeppa’s younger sister. She would have been in close contact with Souma at that point. “I understand.”
“There’s something else you should know,” she warned him as she snuffed her cigarette in the ashtray. He never liked it when she was looking at him as if she knew she was about to say something he was not going to like. “I’m afraid at the moment your position with us is very tentative, and if the situation does not improve, we will have to let you go. You’re a good teacher, and we will gladly get you a new position at any institute of your choice.”
Had the woman never heard of the general tact that she was not supposed to discuss work while they were on vacation? Still, he had to admit, he liked working there. The job had benefits he would not be able to get anywhere else. “Why?”
“To be honest, while you are an excellent teacher, you are not performing as well as we would have hoped in other areas that we hired you for.” This was certainly news to him; he had been certain he had only been hired for one job and that was to be the school’s gym teacher, specializing in kendo and martial arts, perhaps. “The sanity of our employees is an utmost priority for us. We need our instructors to be mentally stable in order to form the relationships we encourage with the students.” Somehow he got the impression she was not talking about his sanity, but if the weekend progressed the way it had been, he was the one she would have to look out for. She sighed, “I thought you would be different. I thought you might be able to help. But you only seem to be making things worse.”
“I was hired because you thought I might be able to mentally stabilize that idiot?” There was that damn twitch again.
“No. You were hired for your skills. The worst scenario we imagined was him ignoring you and going on with business as usual. But now it seems bringing the two of you together in this world was our mistake.”
“What exactly am I supposed to do?” He had a feeling suggesting they fire the other man instead was not an option, and not just because he had been there longer.
“Make things as they were before if at all possible. If not, provide me with a list of institutions you would like to work at.
He did not like this plan at all. Mending the mind of a deranged lunatic who did not open up to anyone was not what he had in mind when he thought about his dream job, and he was sure it must seem a daunting task to anyone. And, he realized as he limped his way back down the hall to their room, he would try even if his job wasn’t on the line.
Fai was still on the bed when he returned only he had rolled over on his side so that his back was to the door. Kurogane made his way quietly, well, as quietly as he could with an injured foot, across the room and sat down on the bed. The waif made no move to acknowledge his presence, but he had figured he could still be upset with him and unwilling to look at him. He lied on his back, picked the thin man up and pulled him in a tight embrace against his chest. The man’s bangs were falling gently over his eyes. “Does Kuro-tan still want to fuck?” he heard the man mumble, one hand clutching at his shirt, expression unreadable behind his hair.
“No,” and he let one hand bury itself in the blonde locks as the man snuggled closer against him. While Yuuko seemed to worry about Fai, he wondered perhaps if he was the one she should worry about. If there was not a way to save Fai, there was nothing to be done, but there was no law that said he had to go down with him. As he watched the seagulls, Kurogane wondered if he would be able to get himself out in time should things go too far.
Fai seemed to have settled into his embrace for the moment, but Kurogane could tell from the way he occasionally felt him sigh that the man was far from happy. With any luck, at the very least, Kurogane was hoping he would forget about Souma for a few hours. He thought he had a way to settle the situation for good, or at least to the point that Fai would be satisfied and realize it was all in the past, but it would require a time when the children were not around, and he certainly could not do it while Fai was clinging to him like a lifeline.
“Kuro-sama,” a small voice piped from his chest, right above his heart.
“Hm?”
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. Kurogane’s only response was to wrap his arms tighter.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
A few hours later, he was glad he attempted to spend time with the man when he did because at the boardwalk the girls decided they were going to monopolize Fai’s time. Tomoyo had been torn between staying with Souma or exploring with Sakura with Fai and the other girls, the boys having disappeared when the girls first started fawning over Fai, and Kurogane was not looking forward to another day with the witch if he could avoid it. Of course, his other option was to go with the blonde and the girls which wasn’t exactly his idea of a good time either. In the long run, it really was his only option seeing as how Fai might start acting weird again if he showed the slightest inclination of going with Souma. Which of course, Yuuko would be sure to notice and be more inclined of moving him to another school. Tomoyo looked over her shoulder as they left Souma with Yuuko, and Kurogane stepped in place behind Fai who currently had Himawari attached to one arm and Yuzuriha attached to the other. Sakura was talking amiably to Tomoyo trying to keep her friend occupied. Fai was currently involved in conversation with the two girls attached to him which left Kurogane with absolutely no one to talk to so he remained resolutely silent. He started to think perhaps he would have been better off it he had gone with the chairlady and Souma.
He quickly learned shopping with girls was not the most enjoyable thing in the world. They stopped to gawk and point at the most frivolous things, and they would stand in one stall for a good fifteen minutes as they squealed over the same object that none of them had any intention of buying. To make things worse for him, people kept asking if they were all his including the blonde one which he found fairly insulting since Fai was older than him.
Of course, Fai indulged the girls, inputting his own useless comment on every item they gawked at, and even managed to buy each of them a small present. It took Kurogane a full two hours to realize the man was seeing a different girl from the one that he was standing next to. He could tell in the way the man’s blue eyes suddenly got very sad whenever he gave them their gift because he had to confront the reality that the girl standing next to him was not the one he wanted it to be. It only made him wonder more what was behind the blonde’s strange attachment to the girls.
He followed them around as the girls laughed and chatted, taking turns to hang off the arm Yuzuriha was not attached to. Tomoyo fell behind to walk next to his side for a while. He looked down at her curiously to see what she was doing, but did nothing else to acknowledge her presence, and she was still filming Sakura anyway. He thought perhaps she had gone back there to get a better perspective of her prey.
“So, Kurogane-sensei, have you been enjoying you romantic weekend with Fai-sensei?”
He looked down to see her pointing the camera towards him with a grin. “Don’t point that thing at me,” and he quickly looked away. He didn’t need her to be recording him doing anything, especially if she was working for the witch.
“What have the two of you been doing whenever you get time away from the rest of us?” He knew from her laugh she couldn’t possibly be that innocent, though if the question had come from her friend who was currently delivering it to Fai, it would have been a completely different story.
“We haven’t exactly had any time alone,” he told her, folding his arms across his chest. Up ahead he noticed Fai throw him an enigmatic smile over his shoulder.
A moment later and a rumbling noise from Sakura’s stomach made them all stop. She blushed and covered her stomach with her hands. “Go-gomennesai. I must be getting hungry.”
“Kuro-tan!” The blonde bounded over to him, and he got the impression he was not going to like what was about to follow. He could always tell from his face because it got the same mischievous grin. “Why don’t you give money to the girls so they can treat themselves to some food,” and he winked suggestively at him.
Unfortunately, the wink had been lost on Kurogane. “Why the hell should I have to pay for them?”
“This is the perfect opportunity for you to show what a good and caring teacher you are,” he told him, pressing himself against Kurogane’s arm which was annoying because of the way he sun was beating down on him made him hot and sweaty enough as it was without an added leech.
If only to get the man off his arm, he reached into his pocket and handed some money to the one with the curly hair because she looked the oldest and theoretically the most responsible of the group. “We’ll be waiting for you girls right here,” Fai told them. The four of them went off in search of food, Tomoyo’s camera happily trailing Sakura.
As soon as they had disappeared, Kurogane found himself being roughly pulled to an opening between two of the stalls. “What do you think you’re doing?” The space was dark, filled with garbage, smelled like rotten fish, and there was barely enough room for the two of them to be there. Something squished under his sandaled foot.
“This should work well enough,” Fai said as he surveyed the cramped space he had squeezed them into, and Kurogane wondered if they were looking at the same location. “Now, we should make this quick.” Kurogane found himself suddenly pushed back against the wall, or maybe Fai was pressing himself against the other wall, and the blonde was making a valiant effort to hoist himself around Kurogane’s waist.
“This isn’t going to work,” he mumbled against the man’s mouth. He tried to shift his weight, and his foot came in full contact with whatever had gone squish earlier. Fai, however, did not seem to care and was currently fully engaged in removing the barrier, namely Kurogane’s pants, between him and what he wanted. “Now what do you plan on doing?” he asked as he hoped Fai realized the flaw in his plans. His hands and mouth had stopped, and for once, the man seemed to be at a loss. “Look, if you want to fuck, we’ll sneak away as soon as we get back to the house and push the dresser in front of the door.”
Fai bit down gently on the spot directly under his ear and started rocking his hips against his again. “But both of us have been denied for so long.” Soft lips brushed against his and whispered, “Just to tide us over until we get to the real thing.” Fai took Kurogane’s hand and wrapped it around both their arousals. “Please?”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
“Souma-san, look at the hairpin Fai-sensei bought me.” In their own effort to find a light snack, they had found the girls as well and within thirty seconds, Tomoyo had reattached herself to Souma.
Yuuko did a quick headcount while Souma commented on Tomoyo’s ornament, and the other girls munched happily on their snacks: Tomoyo, Yuzuriha, Sakura, Himawari, Mokona. Her eyebrow twitched. “Girls, where are your teachers?” she asked. They were extremely lucky all girls were present and healthy; girls were sacred and delicate.
“Fai-sensei and Kurogane-sensei said they would be waiting for us over there,” Himawari informed her, pointing in the proper direction. Kurogane looked quite sullen, and Fai looked highly pleased with himself.
“Fai-sensei!” Yuzuriha called, bounding over to them with a large smile plastered on her face. “Eh, Kurogane-sensei! What happened to your foot?”
Yuuko, ever the opportunist, wandered over to investigate, the rest of he group trailing behind her. Whatever it was, it smelled. “Kurogane-san, you really should not play with things that will leave you a mess. You should go back to the house and clean yourself off.”
“I’ll go with him!” Fai volunteered, and he practically dragged Kurogane away by the arm,
“Now, the rest of us should enjoy our lunches with sake!” and she pulled out her trusty bottle before going off in search of a table they could sit at.
“Yuuko, some of the girls can’t drink,” Mokona said as it bounded along after her.
“I won’t tell if they take a sip.” Twenty minutes later they were all sitting at a picnic table, eating snacks and drinking sake. How Yuuko had actually managed to find an empty table, none of them dared ask. They were afraid of the answer, she could sense it.
“Ah, it’s a shame Yukito-san and ni-san had to work this weekend and couldn’t come with us. They would have enjoyed having a break like this.” Her cheeks were flushed, and Yuuko thought perhaps she had had just a little too much to drink.
“Sakura-chan, do you know why your brother has not transferred to our school?” she asked casually.
“He says the school isn’t really what he’s looking for.” She was slurring her words, and Tomoyo reached over to take the remainder of her drink away from her. “He wants me to transfer out though. Some rumors about some of the teachers he doesn’t like.”
“Rumors?” She was unaware of any recent rumors circulating outside the school. She liked to know what people were thinking about the school at all times, and there was always bizarre rumors running around on school property.
“Oh, the usual. Sex scandals, drug dealings, one teacher who dabbled in the occult and killed a bunch of people, another who has a murder record. He doesn’t think I’m safe there, but I have Syaoran-kun to protect me!” and she giggled.
“Souma-san.”
“Hai.”
“I need you to do me a favor.”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Kurogane sat on the edge of the bathtub with his foot soaking in the scented water. “I think I’m supposed to find some deep meaning as to why these things keep happening to my feet.”
Fai giggled as he came back into the bathroom with a bottle of oil in his hand. “Maybe it means Kuro-sama isn’t grounded.” He pushed Kurogane away from the wall with an insistent prodding on his back and sat down behind him.
“Don’t say stupid things,” he growled as Fai ruthlessly pulled his shirt over his head and tossed it in the corner. “And what the hell are you doing?”
“I thought I would give Kuro-tan a massage since he’s been having such a rough weekend,” the blonde told him as he poured some of the oil into the palm of his hand. Kurogane could not argue with that logic, and he had to admit it felt rather nice when the man’s long fingers started rubbing his back.
“Mmm, magic fingers,” he mumbled, closing his eyes and lowering his head in contentment.
“What was that?”
“Nothing.”
“Hyuu~! Kuro-pyon said I have magic fingers!” and he was glomped from behind. Which might not have been so bad if the science teacher had then not insisted on biting his ear and nibbling his neck.
“Get off me!” because he much preferred the massaging to the glomping. A brief struggle ensued in which Fai’s hands were places that they should not be when Kurogane was in the mood he was in, and almost resulted in the two of them falling into the bathtub were it not for Kurogane’s heroic rescue at the last second which landed them on the tiled floor instead. Of course, nothing deterred Fai when he was determined, and he continued to attempt to molest Kurogane on the cold floor.
A knock on the door made them both stop with Fai sprawled over Kurogane to look at the bedroom door in puzzlement. Kurogane was sure Fai was thinking the same thing he was, something along the lines of who the hell was actually knocking. He took Fai’s momentary distraction to push the blonde off of him and to put his still covered foot back into the water. The person knocked again
“Who is it?” Fai called cheerfully, propping himself up on his elbows.
“It’s Souma,” and he thought he saw a dangerously dark look cross Fai’s blue eyes as he crawled to sit on the floor next to Kurogane’s leg. “Can I come in?”
At least she had the decency to ask, unlike the stupid manjuu with their silly claims that they were afraid of the storm. “Hai hai.” Fai had plastered once of those goofy grins on, and Kurogane suddenly felt sick in the pit of his stomach. He just knew this was not going to bode well for one of them.
“Kurogane-san, how is your foot doing?” she asked, and he felt the warm pressure of Fai’s head against his leg.
“Which one?” He lifted his foot from the water and studied the grey substance that had caked to it in the sun on the way back to the house. He was going to have to try taking the metal scrubby to it soon if all else failed.
“I’m not interrupting anything, am I?” He felt a warm hand join the hair.
He was about to tell her no, but unfortunately, Fai opened his mouth first. “Oh no, we were just about to start fucking like animals, that’s all.” He sometimes wondered if the man had been born with any decency at all.
“Is that so?” Souma looked as if she no longer wanted to be in the same room as the blonde. Kurogane understood that feeling perfectly. He was unsure if he wanted to be there.
“Just kidding~!” Fai bounced to his feet “Kuro-rin and I haven’t eaten yet, so I’ll just go make us some lunch,” and he hummed some minor tune as he marched out the room Kurogane wondered if he should trust anything the man might bring him. He probably should warn Souma not to eat his cooking. He wondered, though, why she watched him leave with a concerned look on her face.
“Kurogane-san, are you going to be staying here, at least until Fai-san returns?”
He looked down at his foot in the water and thought he was going to be there a lot longer than that. “Yup.” When he looked up, she had already gone.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Fai rummaged around for suitable ingredients for a good while, torn between making a meal Kurogane would actually appreciate, or one that was loaded with sweets that accented his talent for cooking sweet things which he knew Kurogane secretly liked but just didn’t want to admit to it. When Souma stepped into the kitchen a few minutes later, the answer was quite clear. He donned his apron and quickly scooped out his supplies. “Fai-san, would you like help with anything?” as if he did not know how to cook a proper meal for Kurogane.
He decided if he just pretended like she was not there, she would eventually leave. No such luck. Ten minutes later she was still standing in the kitchen doorway watching him. He decided to take his aggression out on the carrot he was chopping, but she didn’t even blink. Well, if he was not going to be able to get rid of her, he might be able to get some information out of her. Maybe she hadn’t wanted what had happened with Kurogane, and he was being unfairly judgmental of her. “Souma-san, what is your relationship with Kuro-chi?” He laid the knife down on the counter.
“I was his advisor at university. He must have told you that.” Yes, he had heard that story once, but somehow he got the impression he had known Souma before that when he told the story.
“Is that all?” He absolutely refused to look at her, and he heard her reaffirm, yes, he was simply her student. He wanted to believe her, she seemed like she was nice, but what Kurogane told him and her story did not add up. He resumed chopping his carrot. Either they had different perspectives on the situation, or one of them was lying about it. And he could not understand why Kurogane would lie to him about something like that.
He gasped and brought his thumb to his mouth, tasting the salty blood dripping into his throat. He really should have been paying more attention to what he was doing and was slightly annoyed by the fact that Souma had to witness the first time he had cut himself cooking in years. Souma took his wrist gently and placed the cut under running water. It stung, and he tried to pull away, but she held his hand firmly until the cut was clean, dry, and properly bandaged. He looked at his other hand the entire time she was treating him.
“You are exactly as he described you, Fai-san,” she said as she let go of his hand. He did not feel the need to ask her who the “he” was and went silently back to preparing the food. “He talks about you all the time. I think you may be the first person who has ever gotten under his skin.”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
“What happened to your thumb?” Kurogane asked as he stepped out of the bathroom just as Souma and Fai were setting down trays of food on the table by the window. He had managed to get most of the stuff off his foot, and he vowed never to follow Fai into cramped spaces again.
“It was my fault,” Souma volunteered. He noticed Fai’s startled reaction and decided not to comment on it. “I was talking to him while he was making lunch.”
“I invited Souma to join us,” Fai said as Souma sat down at the table. “I hope Kuro-chan doesn’t mind.”
“Don’t call me that.” He fell into the chair across from where Souma was sitting and eyed the food the two of them had brought up. No wonder he had invited Souma, he had made way too much for just the two of them again. Fai picked up his chair and set it down right next to Kurogane’s. He plopped himself into it; the idiot was practically sitting in his lap. Which wouldn’t have been so bad if it didn’t feel like he was actually trying to get into his lap. He wondered if the man’s virtually non-existent sense of decency would extend far enough to keep him from jumping him until after Souma was not sitting in the room eating her lunch.
“Ne, Kuro-sama?”
“Na-umf…” He really should have seen that coming; the blonde had taken the opportunity to shove something chocolaty in his mouth. It was the same potency of chocolate the man had given him on Valentine’s Day, and he found himself wishing Souma wasn’t there.
“Fai-san, this is delicious!”
“You really think so?” She nodded and went back to her lunch. Kurogane really hoped for her sake that all the food was the same.
Fai giggled in his ear. “Now Kuro-chan needs to eat up,” shoving something else into his mouth. It seemed to be some type of vegetable… smothered in brown sugar.
“Kurogane-san, you’re so lucky to have such an excellent chef as Fai-san cooking for you every day.” He was just grateful she could not see under the table as Fai had hooked one of his slender legs over Kurogane’s thigh, and his spare hand had occupied itself with tracing patterns on his inner thigh. He could have at least waited until Souma left the room. “Kurogane-san, you really shouldn’t complain about him feeding you all the time. He could make a professional look bad.” There were other professionals Fai could put to shame as well, but Souma did not need to know about those things.
“Kuro-tan, you don’t like my cooking?” His stomach realized it was in danger of losing a regular source of decent food. Fai seemed to be pouting and his hand had left his thigh.
“I never said that. I said I don’t like being fed by you.” Souma had the tact to return to her food and ignore them.
“Well, then.” Fai picked his chair up, moved it a good three feet away from Kurogane’s and finally fixed himself a plate of food. “That’s not what you seemed to think on Valentine’s Day.”
Kurogane blushed and stuttered for a few moments. “That’s… not… That was… You’re being ridiculous!”
“Oh, look, a distraction.”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
The three boys hovered over the black Mokona when it just stopped walking and pouted in the middle of the sand. “Mokona, are you alright?” Syaoran asked, reaching his hand towards the black thing.
“Mokona and Yuuko are drinking without me.”
“Ah…”
“You can tell that?” Syaoran asked, and Mokona nodded. Syaoran sighed and squatted down in the sand next to it. “We barely get to do anything in these fics. It’s like we don’t exist or we aren’t main characters or something.”
“Ah.”
“Now I know how Fai-sensei feels in Bee-Train’s representation of the Tsubasa anime,” he said as he slumped his shoulders.
“You watch an anime involving yourself, your teachers, and your crush?” Syaoran remained silent. “You haven’t written any fanfics, have you?”
“What are you two talking about?!”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Fai had learned to tolerate Souma’s presence when she was sitting at the other side of the table from Kurogane and maintaining a civilized conversation with both of them, but she was wearing out her welcome. The sun was starting to go down, and she was still there when all he really wanted to do was spend some alone time with his favorite brood phys ed teacher. He had long ago given up on trying to coax him to play; Kurogane was stubbornly unresponsive when an audience was involved. He still kept his hand resting lightly on Kurogane’s thigh under the table as Souma inquired about his job at the academy. “How long have you been working there?”
“Hmm, a few years I suppose. The first couple years are a bit of a blur, so I feel like I only started working there when Kuro-rin did,” and his hand unconsciously tightened on the man’s thigh.
“Oh, but you have actually been there a few years longer than he has, correct?” And he could tell she was curious about those first few years, most people were, but if he hadn’t told Kurogane he certainly was not going to tell Souma.
“Technically, yes. I acted as advisor to quite a few excellent students.” So maybe that was a lie and in the early years he had only one advisee that had actually gone on to do something with her life. He should stop by her shop sometime, to see how she was getting along, and if his graduation present to her was still assisting her. Maybe sometime during the break he would visit them at some point. He had been so lost in thoughts of those two, he hadn’t realized Kurogane had grabbed his hand under the table.
“So, Souma, you taught Kurogane right? That makes you, what, at least forty? Forty-five?” He smiled; he thought he saw her eyebrow twitch. At least he hoped she was older than he was. He thought he noticed Kurogane give him a signal to stop, but he ignored him and patiently waited for Souma’s response.
“I’ll tell you how old I am if you tell Kurogane-san how old you are,” she calmly responded. Touché. He leaned back in his chair to look out the window, deciding he was too desperate to get some quality alone time with his Kuro-tan to play these games at the moment. “Never ask a woman about her age,” she said as she calmly took a sip of her tea.
“How old are you?” Kurogane asked, and he froze.
“Ah, you see, Kuro-sama, about that…” he turned around to face the man with a nervous giggle, placing a hand behind his head. He wasn’t sure how he was going to respond to that. He had always allowed Kurogane to assume he was only a year or two older than him.
“Fai-sensei, Kurogane-sensei, Souma-san.” It was Syaoran this time, and Fai was pleasantly surprised to hear his voice. He had been starting to forget that there were, in fact, other males with them. “Yuuko-sensei wants the three off you to know that all of us have returned, and we were planning to go to the beach to play some games and have some snacks for a few hours. She also said all three of you have to come, and if Fai-sensei has any complaints about it he can talk to her later.”
“Damn witch is bossing us around even on vacation.”
“We’ll be right there, Syaoran-kun~!” and Souma helped them clean up the room before they left.
Somehow he had gotten separated from Kurogane over the course of the next few hours, and because of a distraction from Yuzuriha and some of the girls he ended up going back to the house after Kurogane had. He was hoping he would find the man waiting for him in the room, preferably naked, and he wanted nothing more than to tumble into bed with him. But when he stepped into the dark room, the larger man was no where to be found. Confused, because he really did not know where else the man might be, he stepped back into the hall. Tomoyo was just leaving her room. “Tomoyo-chan,” and she smiled at him as he walked towards her, “have you seen Kuro-rin-sensei?”
“I think I saw him go into Souma’s room earlier.” He thanked her, and she went to wherever it was she had intended on going.
He went to Souma’s door and raised his fist as if to knock, but he hesitated. He could hear low voices inside, too low to hear the words, but he recognized Kurogane’s deep rumble. He let his hand fall back to his side, not really wanting to know what was going on in there. He wandered around the beachhouse, not paying attention to where he was going until he distinctively smelled smoke and he followed his nose to the source. He found Yuuko smoking in one of the living rooms. “Fai-san, would you like to join me?” She indicated the couch across from her, and with a weary smile he sat down. “You look horrible. Do you want one?” She offered him one of her cigarettes.
He waved the offer away. “No, thanks. You know I’ve never...” She took it back and put the cartoon back in her dress.
“You do look terrible.” He shrugged, figuring he had probably looked worse at many points in his lifetime, and he had every right to look haggard at the moment. Kurogane was alone in a room with a woman he had an unknown history with and who he had slept with on at least one occasion since he had been doing things with Fai. He was fairly sure he could be forgiven for looking a bit frazzled at the moment. “Given your history, you can understand why I find this situation to be a bit troublesome. We cannot afford you to have another relapse, not when there are rumors that I am harboring a murderer circulating now.
“Scary,” and she could tell the laughter was nervous as well as forced. “I hope it’s not anyone I know.” She looked at him for a few moments, the tired eyes, the fallen face, and decided not to tell him. “Any other rumors I should know about?”
“Just the usual.” He collapsed against the back of the couch. “Drug deals, unorthodox relationships, a professor dabbling in the occult.”
“I told Zagato-san that was a bad idea, but he wouldn’t listen to me.” His voice cracked, and she knew it was time to bring the focus back to his current problem.
“Fai-san, if Kurogane-san is making you feel this way again, you have to leave him.” And if Fai would not voluntarily distance himself from the other man, she would make sure Kurogane’s next job was on the other side of the island.
“No, it’s not Kurogane’s fault.” She was momentarily taken aback by the man’s firm conviction she had never heard before combined with his defiant stare and sudden use of the man’s full name. He slumped back down and his blonde hair covered his eyes. “If anything he makes me want to stay clean.”
“That’s rather endearing, and I do hope for your sake he continues to make you feel that way.” He smiled wearily at her. “But you can never let him know that sentiment because that would require telling him everything about your past.” She paused, remembering all the things she knew about him and tried to think how Kurogane would respond to them. Probably not favorably in terms of how he regarded Fai. “And you’ll not do that because you’re too afraid of how he’ll respond.”
“He deserves better than that.”
“Maybe not.” It was not as if he had a perfect track record. “The only thing I can say he deserves better is when he told the truth about Souma when you continue to hide things from him. Have you seen Ashura-san recently?” He lifted his face to look at her, and she didn’t like what she saw. “Never mind. You don’t have to answer that.”
“What should I do now?” His voice was barely above a whisper. “I have no real claim on him, but I don’t want to lose him, yet with Souma here it feels like I already have because the only thing I know about the two of them is that one night.”
“I think there are a lot of things Kurogane has not told you about that night for Souma’s protection.” She sighed; it really was not her job to settle relationship disputes between teachers, but she had the feeling she was the only one on the board who cared enough to try to change their destiny. “As for what you do now, you are going to go upstairs and snuggle with that man til morning.”
“What if I’m scared I’ve already gotten in too deep again?”
“That is your decision. You cannot be that scared yet, or else you would not be sitting here rationalizing here with me.” She really did disapprove of what they did sometimes, but this made her want to slap him. She just knew things were only going to get a lot worse before they got better. Why couldn’t they ever intervene sooner? “Now go upstairs and snuggle.”
He really didn’t expect Kurogane to be in the room when he retuned, in fact, he had no hopes of seeing the darker man again until the next morning at breakfast. He did have an important decision to make, and he wasn’t exactly sure what he was going to do. He didn’t want to get hurt again, and he certainly did not want Kurogane to get hurt, but he was starting to feel it was too late for either of those. Love was never supposed to have factored into this equation.
He was surprised to find Kurogane asleep in the bed. In the dark, he changed into his pajamas and slip up against the larger man’s body. Kurogane mumbled something Fai didn’t quite catch and wrapped an arm around him, pulling him closer and nuzzling against his hair. He was grateful Kurogane was just holding him and not trying for anything more. Fai wouldn’t let him if he had just been with Souma. He buried his face against Kurogane’s bare chest; he didn’t smell like sex or Souma.
Kurogane’s hand was moving in idle circles along his back. “I like these pajamas,” he heard Kurogane mumble above his ear. “They’re soft. If I can’t sleep with you naked, I want you in these.”
Fai made sure to store that away for future reference out of habit; maybe the next time he had a sleepover at Kurogane’s, he would bring them instead of borrowing clothes. He planted a kiss on Kurogane’s collarbone. “You can still get me naked if you want to.” He was answered by a low snore. He had known Kurogane wouldn’t be awake long enough to respond, but he figured he could at least give the ninja what he hoped were good dreams when he knew his were going to be so troubled.
~Part 3 should be fun. Hopefully.