kurofai | [Team AU] (Festival of Light) Hearth Fires (Reply)

Prompt: Festival of Light
Title: Hearth Fires
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Child abuse, death fic, NSFW

So, basically it's impossible to say how amazing

reikah was while I wibbled endlessly over PRETTY MUCH EVERYTHING OK, but, yeah. <3 Allll the thanks to

mikkeneko for coming up with a title!

Kurogane had met the idiot over a misunderstanding. An attempted misunderstanding. Blue eyes had gleamed wickedly in the dim of the hall, their owner silhouetted by the light escaping the flat. ‘Deception’ was probably a better word.

(It takes more than a pretty face to fool Kurogane.)

Kurogane had met the idiot on a Monday night two months before the wedding. Tomoyo had been at Yuui’s flat, like always on Monday, because Yuui had that night off from the restaurant, and he would meet her after work, would help her turn off computers and video servers and lights; waited while she set the studio’s alarm so they might walk to the station together. They would catch the train to Yuui’s flat, to home – the place that would in time become home, or for that first year, anyway – where Yuui tied back his apron and started pulling things from the fridge, and Tomoyo looked at him with a smile so soft, so…

Well, Kurogane didn’t know the details. Didn’t care to know the details of his younger sister’s intimate affairs, if it came to that.

But on Mondays, every Monday, Kurogane worked the night shift. He worked the night shift on Monday and Tuesday, in fact, having worked days on Saturday and Sunday, and no matter how often his captain clucked her tongue and shook her head and said, ‘I really ought to rotate you off weekends,’ she never did, because no-one wanted to work days on the weekend – no-one besides Kurogane – and having one willing man on permanent roster meant one less permanent complaint in Souma’s ear each week.

Kurogane didn’t particularly enjoy the stretch from Wednesday to Friday when he wasn’t at work – but he didn’t usually start thinking about that until Wednesday arrived.

And so, on Mondays, every Monday, Kurogane woke at five in the afternoon, drank some tea, checked his messages. Went for a run around his neighbourhood – in summer, the heat, if not the stifling humidity, tempered by the waning sun, and in winter, the chill biting at his bared arms for the first half-mile – and then back at his flat, he turned his attention to the assortment of weights kept in a crate on his tiny balcony. He had something to eat – more often than not, something grabbed from the convenience store at the tail end of his run – but that Monday, in fact, he had taken something from one of several plastic containers his sister had deposited in his fridge the day before: Sunday, while Kurogane was most assuredly not home. Tomoyo had let herself in with a key he had no memory of supplying her with. She’d probably been a pickpocket in a former life.

(‘Of course I have a spare key, Kurogane. What if you threw a fit and collapsed one day? Who would ever find you?’

‘Tche. I think they’d notice if I didn’t show up for work, don’t you?’

‘Not on a Thursday.’

And she’d looked at him with something soft and troubled muddying her warm violet gaze. He’d harrumphed, and turned away, told her not to lose the thing.)

That Monday, Kurogane had prised the lid off the Tupperware and peered cautiously at the contents: it wasn’t Japanese, but then, he hadn’t supposed it would be, having already guessed the cook as his sister’s boyfriend. Fiancé. Whatever. The meal looked slightly less appetising than it probably had when fresh, the sauce solid and dark from the chill of the fridge, but he could make out pieces of chicken, and the noodles - pasta - he’d eaten often enough at Yuui’s place.

He’d popped the container into the microwave, eaten it half-gazing out the balcony doors, half-listening to the weather report, and ignoring the part of his brain that thought, idly, of Yuui spooning the food into the containers, of the way Yuui’s hair fell across his face as he worked, of the fact that Yuui had remembered not to include cheese for his lactose-intolerant brother-in-law. Soon-to-be brother-in-law. Whatever.

Kurogane caught a piece of chicken in his chopsticks.

People often remarked, the surprise plain on their faces, how unalike Kurogane and Tomoyo were – one delicate, one massive, one fair, one tanned, one gentle, one… well. Less gentle, anyway. Siblings different in every possible respect, it seemed, and people remarked upon it, of course they did, but Kurogane thought, meeting Yuui for the first time, clear blue eyes and a gentle, gentle smile, that perhaps he and Tomoyo weren’t so different after all.

Naturally he promptly resolved never to think of it again. Yuui was Tomoyo’s boyfriend, who became, in time, her fiancé – his soon-to-be brother-in-law – and that was all. Far more worrying was the prospect of having anything in common with his sister: however much he loved her, that was a disturbing thought all its own.

One of Kurogane’s co-workers liked to joke that Kurogane was married to his job. And that, well, that was probably true, even if said co-worker was a poser bastard with a penchant for chatting up (hostile) nurses. Or true, at least, in the sense that it was as close as Kurogane would ever get to marriage. He worked weekends. He worked, full stop: Kurogane worked and ran and slept, and then he got up and worked some more.

He washed the little Tupperware container at the sink and left it to drain on the dish rack.

On that Monday, still a Monday like any other Monday then, he’d made his way to the tiny bathroom, the one that didn’t quite allow him to turn sideways. He’d folded himself into the equally tiny shower, went about the business of getting ready for work. Blue t-shirt pulled from the line on the balcony, orange coveralls – rescue coveralls – from a hook on the wall. Yesterday’s pair still soaked in the tub, a layer of scum floating upon the surface. They’d had to make Kurogane’s uniform to measure – had never had someone so tall in the fire service in all its illustrious history, but Kurogane was used to hearing stuff like that. He’d heard it all his life.

Finally he stood before the tiny mirror in the bathroom to fix his badge to the coveralls – one star, one stripe – and run a hand through his hair. He went to the entryway, pulled on his boots, flicked off the lights, and then he slammed the door tight behind him.

If Tomoyo wasn’t ready, he was going to be late.

Because on Monday nights, on his way to work the night shift, Kurogane stopped at his soon-to-be brother-in-law’s flat, picked up his soon-to-be married younger sister, and drove her home. He heard how her day had been, avoided any and all probing questions insofar as humanly possible, and then gritted his teeth at his sister’s inevitable commentary on anything from the disappointingly drab fire service uniform to Kurogane’s choice of reading material.

(‘You know, there’s an anime convention next weekend. Why don’t you go as that samurai from the manga you read? I could have a costume made in two days! Who knows, you might meet a nice guy. The pair of you could cosplay together…’)

Yeah, choice of reading material if he was lucky.

Kurogane picked up his younger sister and dropped her off at the house she shared with their older cousin. He didn’t get out of the car, because at one (irritating) point, Tomoyo had somehow introduced their cousin to Kurogane’s fire captain, who had somehow asked her out, and the pair had somehow fallen in love (or something). Souma had been installed at the house before Kurogane could even say ‘U-haul’, and the three of them lived there in an unholy union of female acquaintance: cousin, sister, boss.

Kurogane never got out of the car.

He did at Yuui’s place, though. Once he’d parked his ancient hatchback, knees forced ridiculously high by the dimensions of the thing, he took a moment to smooth his collar, and then, out of the car, to straighten his back, square his shoulders.

He took the stairs two at a time to the third floor, knocked on the door, and waited.

And on that particular Monday evening, the door had swung open, and there… Kurogane had blinked, thrown, momentarily. There in the light spilling from the flat stood Yuui, his hair pulled into a scruffy plait, his skinny frame draped in a jumper Kurogane vaguely recognised, and yet there had been something about the glimmer in his eyes, something about way he leaned against the doorframe that…

‘Ah,’ said Yuui, looking him up and down. Something like a smirk was working its way into his smile: it didn’t belong there. ‘I thought I booked you for the 24th? And I wanted a policeman, although,’ and with that Yuui, not Yuui, had run a hand down Kurogane’s arm, ‘I think I’m willing to compromise for you.’

Kurogane said, ‘What.’

‘For my bachelor party,’ the not-Yuui said. He’d leaned closer, ‘I’m getting married soon, but, well, no harm in looking, hmm?’

And at that, Kurogane had snorted. ‘You’re not Yuui.’

The not-Yuui’s eyes had widened slightly. He’d laughed, sent irritation rippling up Kurogane’s spine, and, ‘Of course I’m Yuui, Fireman-san,’ he said, but then he’d given Kurogane a sly look beneath his lashes. He’d reached to tap a finger against Kurogane’s chin, ‘Or Kuro-chan, rather.’

So. The bastard knew exactly who he was. Well, at least one of them knew something.

‘It’s Kurogane,’ he’d replied tersely, and then, ‘Where’s Tomoyo?’

The imposter pouted at that. ‘How awful of you,’ he said, but he said it carelessly: the game was over and his attentions already turning elsewhere. For there was movement in the hall behind him. The man with Yuui’s face turned, and then Kurogane stared slightly as Yuui, the real Yuui, came into view. He’d smiled warmly at Kurogane, placed a hand on his doppelganger’s shoulder, and said, ‘I don’t think you’ve met Kurogane-san yet, Fai.’

The liar, Fai, beamed, and said, ‘We were just making introductions. Kuro-fireman promised to show me his hose later.’

(Kurogane had not spluttered.)

Yuui had given Fai a look then, something caught between exasperation and amusement, and Fai’s eyes had lingered across the curve of his twin’s mouth, the faint furrow of his brow. Something had passed between them that Kurogane couldn’t quite grasp, something full and fleeting and gone too quickly. But there Yuui had turned back to Kurogane. He’d introduced Fai as his brother – as if Kurogane hadn’t deduced that by himself already – who had flown in from god knows where the day before and was due to fly out again in a matter of days; the last said too brightly, too glib. Yuui’s eyes had crinkled as he spoke – but his twin would be back for the wedding, wouldn’t he?

Fai said he would.

(‘Weddings are a good place to pick up, you know.’)

Yuui had rolled his eyes. Kurogane waited for Tomoyo in the hall.

And so Kurogane had met Yuui’s idiot (twin) brother. He’d made mental note not to meet him again any time soon, and yet, somehow, a week later, when Kurogane pulled on his boots and squared his shoulders and took the stairs two at a time… somehow Kurogane found himself remembering the idiot’s too-wide smile, his messy-loose hair, the oh-so-quick flick of his finger – far too abrupt to be anything like a caress – against the crest of Kurogane’s chin.

Somehow. For no reason at all.

Yuui opened the door, offered his gentle smile, and Kurogane drove his sister home on his way to night shift.

Fai was gone, flown back to god knows where, and Kurogane didn’t think about him – never thought of him at all, in fact, except on Mondays, every Monday, in those scant seconds between knock and reception, when his mind dragged the memory back: fingers and smile and lashes and light.

Somehow. Always.

The bastard managed to be irritating even in absentia.

Still, Fai was certainly gone, and Yuui seemed quieter, then, the time or two Kurogane saw him after that. Not that he was wildly obtrusive at the best of times – he left that to his twin – but Kurogane sensed that this, the wake of Fai’s departure, was not the best of times for him. The scent of baking, sweet and cloying, greeted Kurogane on Monday nights. Tomoyo mentioned an exhibition she’d wangled tickets for: it was, she said, something to cheer Yuui up. Her voice more subdued than it might otherwise be. And yet the man still smiled when he answered the door and said, ‘Good evening, Kurogane-san.’ Still smiled, always smiled.

It wasn’t the same as the idiot’s smile, but it wasn’t honest, all the same.

But that was none of Kurogane’s business. Kurogane kept to his routine – working and running and driving his sister home on Monday nights. He did his best to avoid his cousin, a venture in which he was largely successful, and to avoid his captain, one in which he largely wasn’t. And then one afternoon, a Thursday with only about a week left before the wedding, he answered his phone and found himself plunged into a baffling conversation with his sister about that wedding. About, in particular, who he might be bringing to it.

And, ‘Nobody,’ Kurogane said, teeth gritted. He could feel the muscle at the side of his jaw beginning to jump. He’d circled ‘I will/will not be attending with/without a guest.’ He’d been waiting for the lecture ever since.

But the chiding didn’t come. ‘There – I said so,’ Tomoyo said. She sounded triumphant; it curled something slow and cautious in Kurogane’s gut.

‘So what?’ he said guardedly.

Tomoyo was up to something – he could hear it in her voice – but, ‘No, nothing,’ she replied easily, too easily. He could hear her smile as well. ‘We’re just finalising the seating plan for the reception.’

Huh. Well, Kurogane had every intention of finding a quiet corner at the reception and drinking the night away in peace. Kendappa and Souma and whoever else Tomoyo planned to inflict on him could do what they liked with the spare seat at their table; Kurogane wouldn’t be filling it.

So, ‘Fine,’ he said shortly. He said his goodbyes, ended the call before Tomoyo could quiz him about his planned attire for the occasion as well.

(Later, he would realise he hadn’t been the only one eager to avoid questions during that particular conversation.)

Later came just over a week later. Kurogane found himself staring at his place setting in the reception hall after his sister’s wedding, and to his left, as he might’ve guessed, was indeed Souma, but to his right…

Kurogane’s brow darkened. The idiot looked up, and smiled.

(Tousled blond hair backlit in the glow of the hall lamp, the brush of cold fingers rough against his chin.)

To his right sat the imposter: Fai, Yuui’s idiot twin flown back from god knows where. He met Kurogane’s gaze, raised his glass in something like a greeting, and that smile – lazy and bright, white teeth, pink lips – that smile made Kurogane want to pull his shoulder back and swing.

‘Kuro-tan,’ the idiot said. ‘How charming to see you again. Though I confess I was rather hoping to see you out of uniform today.’

Kurogane looked down at his black dress suit and back up again. Fai watched with quick blue eyes. ‘Still, maybe later, hmm?’ he said. And smirked.

Kurogane turned on his heel and set about locating the bar.

The reprieve was short-lived, of course. Too soon there were calls for all guests to take their seats, and, yes, that included the terribly grumpy puppy moping at the bar. Kurogane managed not to choke on his drink – perhaps because his throat was empty at the time – but he did look up, glared at the bastard wielding the microphone. Fai gazed back, smile blithe; apparently he was unperturbed by the look Fuuma claimed constituted assault under the Workplace Health and Safety Act.

Kurogane huffed and took his drink back to the table.

(Dinner carried on.)

Kurogane had endured three courses of ridiculous nicknames, stupid jokes, and blatantly made-up childhood stories when Fai leaned across, swooped on Kurogane’s poached pear with wild berry compote with a cackle of glee. He stole it away before Kurogane could so much as raise his spoon, and,‘Oi!’ Kurogane objected. He made a grab for the plate.

The (imposter, doppelganger, liar) thief played keep-away.

‘Yuui says Kuro-tan doesn’t like dessert,’ Fai said. His brow creased, and he might actually have looked truly sincere if not for the mirth dancing in his eyes.

Not the point. ‘It’s mine,’ Kurogane growled. Reached (and missed) for the plate a second time. Fai pouted (laughed).

‘But it’d be a waste,’ he countered, and he had the fucking audacity to steal Kurogane’s spoon then: started moving it towards the edge of the pear with long, slender fingers. ‘Besides,’ the spoon broke the pear, ‘don’t you want to show Tomoyo-chan that we can play nice after all?’

Kurogane decided – quite independently, because he could get his plate back at any time if he wanted – that dessert could go to hell. Even if it had looked less revolting than the concoction of chocolate and cream sitting (for now) untouched on Fai’s own plate.

But Fai was still speaking, sliding berries about the plate with his stolen spoon. ‘She and Yuui went to so much trouble to have us sit next to each other, you know,’ he said casually, and then, meeting Kurogane’s eye, ‘Two single brothers side by side at the same table.’ He grinned massively, waggled his fair eyebrows. ‘It’s like putting two pandas in the same cage at the zoo! Which of us is meant to be the girl panda, do you think?’

Kurogane snarled.

‘Of course, you and Tomoyo-chan could compare notes,’ Fai went on, and he was for all the world oblivious to the thunderous expression on Kurogane’s face. ‘Though I have to tell you, Yuui and I are completely different in bed.’ And somewhere through the haze of what the fucking fuck? paralysing his brain, Kurogane was vaguely aware of the carry of Fai’s voice, of Souma seated beside him… ‘But we do both like it when you lick behind – ’

‘Oi!’ Kurogane glanced about, fighting the heat creeping up his neck. Nobody was looking. Fai smirked again, and how Kurogane was sick of seeing that smirk! ‘How would you even know that, anyway?’ he said sharply.

Fai’s eyes gleamed. ‘How do you think I know, Kuro-tan?’

He might’ve meant it a hundred ways – but he didn’t. The insinuation was perfectly clear. Kurogane didn’t say anything, and Fai watched him for a moment, waiting, waiting – and then he threw his head back and laughed. Idiot! ‘We do talk to each other, you know, Kuro-fluster. Why, were you thinking of something else?’

Kurogane looked at Fai, with his brightly polished humour and barely there smile, and turned away.

(Tomoyo would never let him hear the end of it if he punched his new brother-in-law at her wedding.)

There were speeches then. Kurogane’s cousin stood up and spoke for Tomoyo with her customary coolness, unnecessarily dragging up several anecdotes that involved Kurogane in the process. Kurogane scowled and turned his head, and caught – just at the very corner of his eye – Fai chuckling low in his throat, a softness on his face that he hadn’t seen before.

Kurogane turned back to the speeches.

After that a colleague of Yuui’s stood up to speak for him, and it was about then that Kurogane realised – peering across the heads of the guests – that Fai was, in fact, the only blood relative of Yuui’s in the entire room.

He leaned closer, saw Fai stiffen at the gesture, but, ‘Shouldn’t you be up there speaking for him?’ he said.

Fai shrugged. ‘I’m hardly the right person to talk about love, Kuro-tan,’ he said blithely, and he turned then more properly to the front of the room, feigned total attention before Kurogane could ask anything more.

But after the speeches, after Yuui, blushing slightly, had taken Tomoyo’s hand and led her into a graceful, if brief, waltz around the little dance floor, Kurogane watched as Fai tapped his new sister-in-law on the shoulder, said something that set the three of them laughing. He took his brother’s hand and held him about the waist and the pair of them waltzed then, still laughing, still graceful, across the floor in perfect, identical step. Kurogane saw Fai’s lips move; his gaze turned serious suddenly, and he stayed that way until Yuui nodded back at him, smiled his gentle, gentle smile.

Then they turned and were lost.

Fai knew something about love, at least: fierce, clinging love, uncompromising, unchanging, the love of allies and co-conspirators. Childish, protective love that never wavered, never dulled.

Tomoyo glanced towards him, her face flushed and happy, and, yeah, Kurogane knew something about that as well.

But inevitably the evening wore on – wore on and wound down. Guests began to disappear from the hall: older relatives, first, and those with small children, until eventually there were just the tables and chairs and a handful of figures amongst them. Tomoyo and Yuui – still smiling, but tireder now – were saying their farewells to the guests as they left. They stood at that moment with Fuuma and his (hostile) nurse – and why he’d merited an invitation, Kurogane didn’t know.

‘They look good together,’ Fai commented. Kurogane glanced towards him: he was watching his brother and Tomoyo. His hair was pulled back into a rough little ponytail, his cheeks pink in the warmth of the hall. His jacket was slung over the back of his chair. ‘Being in love suits them.’

Yeah, well. They’d just gotten married. Looking happy about it was part of the deal.

Then, ‘Well,’ said Fai, a little more briskly, ‘now Yuui is all respectably married off, I ought to see about getting you home to your bed,’ and Kurogane growled a warning low in his throat. Fai laughed. He stood up, starting pulling on his rumpled jacket. ‘Though Kuro-panda doesn’t seem to be in a very loving mood.’

They were just empty words. Kurogane knew it – they both knew it. Idle banter to amuse Fai for a moment while he straightened his tie. Something to make Kurogane glare and shout and give Fai his smirk.

Instead, Kurogane said, ‘Tche. I thought you didn’t know anything about love.’

And at that, Fai looked at him – looked for too long, in fact. He smoothed down his sleeves, and then he said, in a neutral sort of voice, ‘Well, you don’t need love for sex, you know, Kuro-tan.’

The words hung between them in the air: not idle any more at all, suddenly. Things too heavy, too raw. But then Kurogane turned back to his drink. He took a mouthful and swallowed it. ‘You’re an idiot,’ he said flatly, and Fai laughed again. The sound carried clear and sharp across the hall.

‘How mean,’ he said. He reached to take one of the heart-shaped chocolates from the table, dug his nail into the foil to unwrap it. ‘I don’t think I like you any more.’

And he popped the thing in his mouth and left.

Kurogane imagined, then, that it would be the last he’d see of Fai. But of course, he had imagined a lot of things, then.

Some things changed after the wedding, and some didn’t.

Tomoyo moved into Yuui’s little flat, the one Kurogane had driven to every Monday night, and he saw less of her after that: his fault, not hers, but there it was. ‘You could still drop by on your way to work,’ she said, her voice angled somewhere between hopefulness and reproach. ‘You could have dinner with us before your shift.’

Kurogane did sometimes, but not often.

(Kurogane worked and ran and slept, and then he got up and worked some more.)

But time marched on anyway, with or without Monday nights to punctuate it. Tomoyo and Yuui moved to another flat, one with a different set of stairs for Kurogane to trudge up less often than he ought. It was a flat with three bedrooms - Kurogane didn’t know how they were affording that - but they needed it, you see. Tomoyo told him with her face soft and light. They needed it because children really deserved to have a place of their own.

It took a minute for what she was saying to sink in. Then it did. Kurogane kind of wished she had waited until he wasn’t slurping spaghetti to break the news – but he swallowed the food anyway, wiped his mouth against his napkin. Didn’t acknowledge the part of his brain trying to remind him just how babies were made.

‘Hn,’ he said, and eyed her warily. Glanced across at Yuui, saw his gentle, gentle smile. It was a good smile for a father, Kurogane supposed. He lowered his gaze back to the (treacherous) spaghetti. ‘Just don’t call it anything stupid.’

Tomoyo chuckled at that. ‘Of course not, Kurogane,’ she said.

(Time marched on indeed.)

As it happened, Tomoyo named her daughter Sakura. Kurogane grunted when he heard it. He supposed it made sense for a child born in the spring.

And Sakura was the sort of baby that everyone adored. Not that there was anyone in her small sphere that wouldn’t have loved her blindly – this, noted by Kurogane as he watched his sister pass the child to Kendappa in the warmth of the flat – but she was a happy baby all the same: bright eyes and eager hands and cheeks that dimpled when she smiled. She smiled plenty too. Smiled, gurgled, laughed. She sat entranced by her own reflection in the mirror, reached out for things unseen. Tomoyo fell in love with her from the first: from what Kurogane understood, that was how it was meant to work.

(In another lifetime, there was another house, with another mother and another father, and two very different children in it.)

But Kurogane found that he visited the flat more often after that, and the little family that lived there. He watched his niece take her first unsteady, determined steps across the tatami; let her stumble and fall and didn’t move to help. Felt a swell of pride when she blinked as her nappy hit the ground, hauled herself upright with nothing less than a smile.

She was strong, he thought. She would figure everything out by herself.

There came autumns, when Kurogane held her against his shoulder in the cool of the evening, let the breeze rustle through their clothing and hair. Winters, with Sakura nestled into his side, pink bunny pyjamas and bubble bath skin. He let her turn the pages of the manga he read to her, the samurai still trying to complete his quest after all these years. His story no closer to completion than it ever had been.

‘He looks sad,’ she said one evening, peering at the page. Kurogane had grunted – how did you explain the weight of destiny to a little kid in fuzzy slippers? But then she’d gazed up at him. She’d leaned closer, and Kurogane felt his heart squeeze painfully tight at the brush of tiny lashes against his cheek. ‘Butterfly kiss,’ she told him, all earnest green eyes. ‘Daddy taught me how.’

(Kurogane worked and ran and slept, and on Monday nights, quite often, he trudged up the stairs to his sister and brother-in-law’s flat to curl pasta around his fork, tousle his niece’s hair.)

And so it seemed that things would last that way forever: butterfly kisses and bunny pyjamas and finger paintings on the fridge. The things in containers that mysteriously appeared in it. Days when he kept away because ‘Uncle Fai’ was coming to visit, and nights he slammed the phone down on another guy who greeted him with, ‘I got your number from your sister.’

(Working, running, sleeping, working.)

Mondays nights. Sticky little hands that tugged at his sleeve, begged a giant of an uncle for a ride atop his shoulders. Reminded Kurogane, driving home in the quiet of Tuesday mornings, of times long forgotten. Long put away.

It seemed that things would last that way forever, but of course, things rarely do.

Kurogane didn’t expect to get a personal call from Souma late on a Thursday night.

In truth, he didn’t expect to get a personal call from her at any time, but there it was: the display on his phone lit up, Souma, and that made him frown. For a second he considered letting it go, stretching out on the sofa to finish watching his movie in peace, but then he reached for the remote. Curiosity got the better of him.

He pressed the answer button on his phone.

Straight away, Souma said, ‘Kurogane-san?’ And that was enough to make Kurogane tense, because her voice sounded strained, tight in her throat: it was the voice she used when there was a major incident at work. Kurogane flicked off the TV and sat up. ‘Kurogane-san, are you there?’ she said.

‘Yeah, I’m here,’ he said. ‘What’s happened?’

He heard her hesitate. Then, in that tight, strained voice, she said, ‘There’s been an accident. Tomoyo-chan’s family – their car was involved. We…’ Souma’s voice drifted in and out. ‘We’re driving to the hospital. You need to come too. Right now. All right? I’m sending Saiga-san to get you.’

Kurogane said, ‘I can drive myself,’ because that was automatic, and then, ‘How bad is it?’

Souma hesitated again. ‘It sounds bad,’ she said. ‘Very bad. Wait for Saiga-san –’

He hung up on her. He didn’t want to hear it. He wasn’t a child, he was a fucking adult, a fireman; he didn’t need someone to drive him to the hospital. Kurogane grabbed his jacket from the rack by the front door, stooped to pull on his boots. He heard Souma’s voice again, looped back in his head: it sounds bad, she’d said. Words that managed to be both vague and horribly unambiguous all at once.

Kurogane flicked off the lights, pulled the door tight behind him, and it was only as he strode across the car park, started planning the fastest route in his head, that he realised he didn’t have the faintest idea where to go.

Shortly after that, Saiga showed up.

They passed the drive more or less in silence. Kurogane didn’t have anything he needed to say, and he was glad Saiga didn’t try to find something. They crossed the city in an everlasting stream of lights – green, amber, red, amber. Watched the asphalt swallowed up in the glare of the headlamps. It felt like forever. Kurogane was starting to suspect Saiga was fucking lost when they pulled into the drive of the place.

They stopped in an emergency parking bay. ‘Let me know if you need a ride back,’ Saiga said. He was still wearing his house slippers, had on a pair of tracksuit pants with an old cardigan thrown over the top. Kurogane hadn’t seen him out of uniform before.

He cleared his throat. ‘Do you know if… whether she’s alive?’

Saiga shook his head. His eyes were hidden by the tint of his glasses. ‘I don’t know,’ he said.

(Kurogane got out of the car.)

Kurogane went to reception in the hospital proper and talked to the woman behind the desk. Waited while she made one, then another call in an attempt to locate his younger sister. Got given directions to the casualty department. He pushed through the glass doors, made his way through a mess of bloodied faces and screaming infants to yet another reception desk, fought to control the surge of fury he felt when the man behind it held up a hand, turned away to the telephone instead. He flexed his palm against the countertop, counted to ten, and then, when, a hand touched his arm, he glanced sharply down. Found his cousin by his side amongst all the glare and the din.

Kurogane looked at Kendappa’s face, saw the tautness in her brow, the set of her jaw, and knew what she was going say.

‘When?’ he heard himself ask.

She said, ‘Before we got here.’ She hadn’t moved her hand from his arm: it felt strange, her palm against his skin. Unfamiliar. ‘It happened at the scene, I think. Straight away. They didn’t tell us until we got here.’

Kurogane didn’t say anything. Stared at Kendappa’s hand, white and oddly fragile. Then she said, ‘Yuui-san,’ and he frowned, looked at her uncomprehendingly, ‘is still in surgery. I gather it’s not good. They told his brother…’

And, ‘He’s here?’ Kurogane asked. He could hear the shock in his own voice, the anger seeping into it.

Kendappa studied him for a moment. She said, ‘Yes,’ but nothing more. If it had been Tomoyo there with him, she would have teased him about that: taken him playfully to task over his disdain for his brother-in-law, over the disapproving tone she would have claimed was absolutely unwarranted, because Fai-san was charming and Sakura loved him and…

Kurogane breathed out, very slowly, and back in again.

He wouldn’t hear Tomoyo say that again. Not ever again. The realisation of it sagged cold and heavy in his stomach.

He said, ‘What about the baby?’

Strictly speaking, Sakura hadn’t been a baby for a while; somehow the name still applied.

‘She’s all right,’ Kendappa replied. Her back was very straight, but there was a faint wash of relief in her voice as she said it. ‘They’re still checking her over, but she’s all right.’

Then she pulled her hand back and moved away.

She made him follow her then to a door at the edge of the waiting room – Relatives Room, the sign said. That was all. Inside they found Souma, red-rimmed and bleak; she was still wearing her uniform. There was no sign of Fai.

Somewhere inside Kurogane, a tiny alarm flared at that.

But there were other things demanding his attention at that moment. Things he needed to hear. And so Souma told him about the call that had been assigned to a fire station four districts over: a car collided with a truck, two adults and a child trapped inside. She told him how emergency despatch had requested a rescue unit equipped with hydraulic shears: a unit, in other words, like Kurogane’s own. She told him that it had taken about 40 minutes to cut through the wreckage. And Kurogane thought of the clank and grind of the hydraulics, of the terrible graunch of metal on metal. He couldn’t begin to guess the number of times he’d attended crash sites like that in his career.

(Tomoyo, lying heavy and wet amongst the debris. Blond hair turned dark and sticky and red.)

Kurogane shifted. ‘Where’s the brother?’ he said abruptly.

Souma shook her head. ‘I haven’t seen him since earlier,’ she said. Her eyes flicked to Kendappa, but she didn’t elaborate further. Perhaps she didn’t know. Kurogane opened the door.

‘I’ll find him,’ he said, and went.

It took both more and less time than Kurogane expected to find Yuui’s twin. Less, because Fai was an idiot that might’ve been anywhere at all, and more, because where he should’ve been was waiting with the others in that fucking awful room. As it was, Kurogane found him outside: a smoking area of sorts, with grit-blackened ashtrays and a narrow wooden bench. Fai was sitting on it with his head in his hands.

Kurogane went over to him and said, ‘Any news?’

There was no reply. Fai didn’t look up, but he let his hands fall away from his face – they folded awkwardly over his knees, cast strange shadows in the orange glow of the security floodlight. Then he said, thickly, ‘They. They told me that Yuui… They said he died.’

Kurogane stared at the top of Fai’s head. Felt something drain away sharply inside him. Fai still didn’t look up – didn’t move at all, in fact – but after a moment Kurogane became aware of a whining, low and pitiful, and shuddering, stifled breaths. Fai curled into himself, and Kurogane watched until there was hardly a thing left of him: just a creature of shoes and knees and hair.

Fuck. Fuckfuckfuck.

Kurogane sat on the bench, heavily. He could still feel that draining inside him, sharp and thin. He felt hollow. Blown out, like an egg. It was weird. Because he was fairly certain something usually occupied that great gaping space in his chest.

(‘Not on a Thursday.’)

At the other end of the bench, Fai sobbed as though his heart were broken. Kurogane figured it was.

There was nothing he could say – nothing he wanted to say, because Fai didn’t need someone he barely knew telling him everything was going to be OK. It wasn’t going to be OK. Not any time soon, anyway, and Kurogane had no fucking idea when it would be again. Whether it would be again. Life would go on, because that’s what it did; that didn’t mean it would be OK.

Then, ‘It’s my fault,’ said Fai. Kurogane looked across at him. He’d uncurled slightly. His eyes were dark and terrible under the orange light. ‘It’s my fault. They were driving back from dropping me at the hotel. I said I could…’ But there was no point in that. Fai put his shoulders up in a defeated little shrug. ‘If I hadn’t been here,’ he said instead, ‘They would never, never have been out driving at that time of night, if I hadn’t…’

‘Shut up,’ Kurogane said sharply.

And Fai did. Sat blinking in silence, didn’t look at him at all. Kurogane didn’t care. He didn’t have the patience for self-recriminations from a man who was old enough to know better. He said, ‘It’s not your fault. There was a fucking accident. That’s all. Got it? It’s no more your fault they’re dead tonight than it was mine…’ but there he stopped. He hadn’t meant to bring that up – a fire and a boy and guilt that curled through the years. Fai didn’t seem to notice, anyway. Kurogane licked his lips. ‘It’s not your fault, idiot, so just shut up.’

Because Fai had to know better than that, surely.

(Surely.)

They sat without speaking after that. Kurogane leaned back on the bench and tried not to think about his sister’s lips and cheeks and eyes – about all the ways they could be broken. He tried not to think about her hand – so much smaller even then – that had slipped into his once upon a time. That had drawn him back from terrible things. He was supposed to protect her. What the fuck happened to that?

He didn’t wonder what Fai was thinking about, silent and blinking at the other end of the bench.

But at last someone came towards them – a patient from one of the wards. He had a dressing gown over his pyjamas, walked unsteadily with one hand on his drip trolley. He peered curiously at Fai as he drew closer, and Kurogane decided then to slide along the bench, give his place to the man rather than let him sit between. Better Fai bunched next to Kurogane than some stranger who wanted to chitchat – or worse still, stare.

The man gave Kurogane a look, but settled without comment in the vacant space. He produced a pack of cigarettes, and presently there was the click and hiss of the lighter, the coughing and snorting of the man as he took his first drag.

Fai said, bleakly, ‘Sakura-chan is an orphan now.’

That was another thing Kurogane wished he didn’t have to think about. He said, ‘Yeah.’

But, ‘We were orphans too,’ Fai said. So quietly, it was almost lost to the smoking man’s cough, the rattle of his trolley as he manoeuvred it about – but only almost. Kurogane heard it. And it made sense: he’d never heard Yuui or Tomoyo mention any of Yuui’s family – any outside of Fai, anyway, and of him, Kurogane had always heard more than he cared to. But before he could think too much on that, Fai went on. ‘I won’t have Sakura-chan grow up the same way we did,’ he said. He sounded steadier now. When Kurogane looked, there was a firmness about his mouth that hadn’t been there before.

Kurogane didn’t know a thing about the way Fai and Yuui grew up. Wasn’t in the mood for a history lesson just then either.

He said, again, ‘Yeah.’

Fai turned to look at him properly then. He was completely devoid of the kind of bright humour that usually irked Kurogane, and it might’ve been nice if it wasn’t so unsettling. Fai looked, and then he said, very precisely, ‘I’ll find out tomorrow what I need to do to get the custody arranged. The sooner the better, I think. Don’t you?’

Kurogane blinked. ‘The fuck are you talking about?’ he asked.

‘Sakura-chan’s custody.’ The idiot repeated the words as if they’d make better sense the second time around. ‘After the funeral…’ and there he broke off. Turned his face away as if would make any difference. When he looked back, his expression was smooth. ‘After that,’ he began again, ‘I think it would be best for us to leave straight away. As soon as possible.’

Kurogane still didn't know what Fai was talking about, but, ‘You’re not taking her anywhere,' he said bluntly.

And then it was Fai’s turn to blink. He looked at Kurogane, and a frown started to creep across that smooth, white brow. ‘Well, I hate to be difficult,’ he said slowly, ‘but I don’t have residency here. How do you propose I tuck her in at night – via webcam?’

Something like understanding began to claw its way into Kurogane’s brain.

Oh. Fuck, no.

(And now, a brief aside.)

Once upon a time, in a country very cold and very far away, there lived a fisherman and his wife. They had two young sons, with eyes like the summer sky, and hair like the midnight sun of that land, and together the four lived very happily. But one day, the fisherman was lost at sea in a great storm, and his wife, distraught, threw herself from the black cliffs onto the rocks below. And so the two boys went to live with their uncle, an elf king, who loved them dearly and called them his own. ‘Only,’ he said, ‘you must always pay me mind and do just as I say.’

And the boys did this, and they lived very happily after all.

‘That was lame even for you.’

Concussion, the doctor had told them, carried certain risks for small children.

He’d spoken carefully, watching their faces to see whether they understood him. There were certain risks for small children, he said, things like brain swelling or haemorrhage, that were by no means inevitable, but they merited… caution all the same. Long-term damage was not out of the question. And sometimes it was hard to determine, the signs easily missed, because small children couldn’t always tell you quite how things hurt. Especially, and he’d paused to consider his words. Especially a child who’d been through such an ordeal.

Kurogane had narrowed his eyes at that. Caught the tightness that crept into Fai’s shoulders and back.

But concussion, it seemed, Sakura had. Whiplash to her neck, a cut on her forehead, and that combination of vomiting and headache that makes doctors uneasy. It would be best, the doctor said, to admit her and see; keep her quiet and comfortable to assess the full extent of the trauma.

How they were going to do that, Kurogane didn’t know. Sakura had been in the car, Sakura had been there. She had seen her parents dark and unresponsive before her. He wasn’t sure what that would mean for her.

(‘Wait with your sister, Kurogane. Don’t move.’)

But that was something for later. It would have to be something for later, because for now Sakura was lying on the paediatrics ward with Kurogane’s cousin at her side. They had agreed – because it was important that Sakura wasn’t left alone – to take it in shifts to sit with her, and so Kendappa would stay until Souma came to relieve her, who would stay until Kurogane came, who would stay until Fai came…

She wouldn’t be alone. She would never be alone.

But that too was something for later. Now Kurogane sat at the dark, gleaming table in Kendappa’s dining room: one of three people present for this particular meeting. There was an associate of his cousin’s: a solicitor who had been obliged to cancel his morning’s appointments to be there. Newly bereaved colleagues, Kurogane supposed, prompted that sort of consideration. There was Kurogane, with that shapeless, grey hollowness heavy within him. And then directly opposite sat Fai, sewn tight at the seams. He smiled blandly at the solicitor, and there were little shadows in the creases of his brow.

Kurogane wasn’t sure what kind of idiot thought they had to smile on a morning like this.

Because the world had turned and morning had come and the nightmare hadn’t faded with it; they were still standing amongst all the dreadful little pieces and trying to make something of them. Something normal, or familiar, at least.

And yet somehow, sitting there, with the solicitor in his tie and the coffee cooling on the table, it might almost have been possible to pretend the night before hadn’t happened. That Souma hadn’t called and Saiga hadn’t come and there hadn’t been a low, feral noise in the dark. The normality of the setting was astounding. He looked at the solicitor’s pen scratching across the page, at the thin trail of ink left by his fountain pen, and it was so nearly possible pretend that Tomoyo and Yuui were doing whatever they normally did on a Friday morning at ten. They were elsewhere, that was all. Somewhere. They would be along later. Tomorrow. Next week, perhaps.

Nearly. Almost.

Kurogane felt as if his senses had been hammered back, like steel; left him blunt and dull and hard.

He didn’t suppose it mattered much.

But the night before, that night, Kurogane had pulled Kendappa aside in the bright hospital corridor, and told her what Fai had said. He’d expected scorn – because that, from Kendappa, was reassuring in its way - but instead her expression turned grim. It was, she said, complicated. The law had grey spots for children like Sakura: a child in need of protection, as it so neatly called her. No parents, no grandparents. Two citizenships to her name and the passports to match. ‘It’s complicated, Kurogane,’ she’d said.

Kurogane had thought about Sakura, the warm weight of her against his shoulder on Monday nights, and thought it wasn’t complicated at all.

Still, that remained to be seen.

He hadn’t been to Kendappa’s place for ages. But she had told him to be there, and so he’d come. They needed to meet, she said, to discuss Yuui and Tomoyo’s will; the one they had never quite managed to finalise, even with all her pointed and frequent reminders. A draft of it lay on the table in front of Kurogane now. Yuui and Tomoyo hadn’t looked to a future for their daughter that didn’t include them. Well, who the fuck wanted to do something like that?

The solicitor shifted in his seat.

‘Ideally, Sakura-chan’s care would fall to her closest blood relative,’ he was saying. ‘Usually there are grandparents, but as that’s impossible…’

Fai said, ‘Sakura-chan needs to be looked after properly.’ He spoke in that same precise way of the night before. It felt like a long time ago now. ‘I have a suitable place to live. I can cook, I can clean.’ He reached up to tuck a piece of hair back. ‘I have the time to help her with homework when she’s older, help her do the sorts of things she enjoys. Be creative. That’s all important, I think you’ll agree.’

And Kurogane was getting pretty sick of precise. ‘No-one said it wasn’t,’ he snapped.

Fai glanced shortly across at him, curled his lip. He didn’t reply, but his expression said exactly what he thought of hearing that from Kurogane. Massive, tanned, less… gentle. Good enough to fill out a fireman’s uniform – but not so other things.

(Butterfly kisses and bunny pyjamas and finger paintings on the fridge.)

Luckily, Kurogane didn’t give a fuck what Fai thought of him.

‘The suitable place you have to live happens to be in a country she’s never even been to, idiot,’ he growled. Fai’s gaze hardened, and Kurogane still didn’t care. ‘She doesn’t speak the language, she doesn’t know anyone. How the fuck is that the best thing for her?’

‘She can speak some already, actually.’

‘A few words won’t get her very far!’

‘Better that,’ Fai’s voice rose. He stopped and took a breath: when he spoke again, it was coolly. ‘Better that, Kurogane, than living with a person who never has time for her, never opens up to her.’

Kurogane snorted. ‘That’s pretty fucking rich coming from you,’ he said, and at that, Fai went still. Fucking bull’s-eye, Kurogane thought. ‘You think I’m gonna let her grow up with that, you’re wrong.’

There was a silence for a moment, and then, ‘You don’t really want her,’ Fai said. The words came out of him in a rush: oddly, airlessly. ‘Not really. Do you? You just –’

‘What?’

Fai swallowed. ‘Why do you want her?’

‘Same reason you do, idiot!’ Fai just looked, and Kurogane leaned closer, to spell it out for him if he was as stupid as all that. ‘She’s my niece. Why the fuck wouldn’t I want her?’

And Fai didn’t answer right away. He looked down at the table. There was something in his face that Kurogane wasn’t sure of, pinched and fearful. Then he smoothed it away again. He said, very lightly, ‘Being related isn’t always enough.’

Then turned back to the solicitor.

The solicitor’s eyes flicked back and forth between them. He said, carefully, ‘Well, in this case being related is enough. I’m afraid you have no legal privilege over Kurogane-san in that respect. Sakura-chan is a Japanese citizen. She lives here, was raised here. She has family willing to look after her here. A judge would almost certainly…’

‘I’m quite willing to take it to an Icelandic court,’ said Fai, and still he spoke lightly, almost pleasantly. His face was smooth, his gaze clear, but Kurogane could see the stiffness in his shoulders, could see the tension pulling at all the little seams…

The solicitor frowned. Opened his mouth. ‘We really need to consider what’s best for the child –’

‘What would be best for the child,’ Kendappa’s voice cut tartly across them. Kurogane turned towards it – he hadn’t heard her come in. She looked tired. ‘Would be for the pair of you to grow up.’ She eyed them both, unsmiling, and then, ‘This can be settled very simply via a standard familial adoption – the papers could be drawn up this afternoon, for god’s sake. Or you can choose to drag it through foreign courts. Which will take a long time. In the meantime, what will Sakura do?’

Fai didn’t say anything.

Kendappa lifted her hair away from the back of her neck, let it flop down again. The gesture didn’t make her seem any softer. ‘There are two of you,’ she said curtly. ‘Work something out. For Sakura.’

And so that afternoon, Kurogane found himself agreeing to things he could never have pictured a week – a day - before: Sakura and Fai and himself inhabiting the same four walls. The ones his sister and her husband had always made so cheery and warm. Making a family out of circumstance alone. Working something out.

It wasn’t something he was happy about, but it was something he would do, something he chose, because Sakura was important and…

Kurogane was tired of losing people he loved.

He was vaguely aware of Kendappa making arrangements, funeral arrangements: it wasn’t fair of him to leave it to her, but he did.

Funerals are fucking awful.

(Fai stayed home.)

(And now, another aside.)

Once upon a time there were two kids, a boy and a girl, that lived with their mum and dad. They lived in an average house and did average things, but they were happy. Anyway, one day the parents died in a house fire and the kids went to live with their aunt, who helped them grow up right. The girl ended up married to a beautiful prince and the boy… didn’t.

‘That’s it? That’s a dreadful story.’

‘That’s just how it goes.’

‘You should change the ending. Make it happier.’

‘Tche. You can’t just make something up ‘cause the truth isn’t rosy enough.’

‘Of course you can.’

‘..Are you ever fucking honest?’

Sakura cried a lot, those first desolate days. Those first desolate weeks. Not fucking surprising, because she was a kid who’d lost her mother and father. Her mother and father. That wasn’t a small thing. And all at once she was faced with a life that didn’t look the same as the one she’d always known. The one where she’d been happy and warm and safe. It was normal for her to cry. It was natural. Healthy.

Fai didn’t cry.

At first, Kurogane thought he must be doing it in his room. Or in the shower, letting his tears wash away down the drain with everything else. Kurogane had done that. Or did that. Whatever. There was no shame in crying, but that didn’t mean he wanted to share it with the world. And so, yeah, if Fai wanted to shed his tears in private, that was fine with Kurogane. Only… Kurogane stood at Sakura’s bedroom door, watched Fai turning down her quilt with his strong, pale hands. Only, he’d started to realise. That Fai wasn’t. The thought made him uneasy.

‘Kuro-tan should say hurry up and goodnight, instead of glowering from the doorway like a gargoyle.’

And that was another fucking thing.

Because they were back to Kuro-tan, of course. Kuro-tan and Kuro-rin and Kuro-pon. They had been from the minute Fai stepped over the threshold. As if that were enough – all those hollow little words that tripped off Fai’s tongue – to prove to the world that Fai (and everything else) was absolutely fine.

(Fai didn’t cry.)

Kurogane went into the room, tousled his niece’s hair, turned out her lamp, and resisted the urge toss the weird white rabbit thing out of her bed. The idiot had given it to her the day they’d all moved in together. ‘Whenever you’re feeling sad, hug Mokona very tight,’ he’d said. He’d smiled, bright like the sun.

Kurogane hated the weird white rabbit thing.

But he left it there all the same, because Sakura liked it and Kurogane wasn’t going to upset her just because Fai was an idiot. He waited for a moment, satisfying himself that she was settling to sleep, and then he padded back to the door, pulled it quietly to.

Back in the hall, Fai glanced up and smiled brightly. Kurogane didn’t smile back.

Fai said, ‘Well, what exciting plans does Kuro-pon have for the rest of the evening?’ His hair was coming loose from its ponytail – he reached up to tie it back again. He was wearing one of Yuui’s jumpers. ‘Listening to despatch on your scanner, perhaps. Those things are illegal, you know.’

‘I don’t have a scanner,’ Kurogane said flatly, and then, ‘I’m getting a drink. You want one or what?’

Fai stopped. He’d already taken a step or two towards his room – Yuui and Tomoyo’s room – and now he turned to look at Kurogane. Wore that sharp little smile. ‘Thank you for the offer, Kuro-rin,’ he said, smoothly. ‘But I don’t think I will tonight.’

Kurogane regarded him a moment. Thought about it. Then, ‘You just going to live in that room for the rest of your life?’

And Fai laughed, too bright. ‘I hardly think going to bed at a decent hour constitutes living in my room,’ he said.

‘He…’ Kurogane paused a moment. There were things that needed to be said, that he wouldn’t say during the day when Sakura was around, but, ‘He wouldn’t have wanted this for you, you know. Pretending everything’s fine when it’s not. He would’ve fucking hated it.’

Things that needed to be said, all the same.

Fai stiffened. Moved a hand to the sleeve of Yuui’s jumper. ‘You don’t know what he wants,’ he said quietly.

Then he slipped into his room and shut the door.

Kurogane sat on the couch with the sake. Drank two glasses and put the bottle neatly away. And it wasn’t because he couldn’t handle more than that – because he could, easily – but the flat was silent and dark, and he had a feeling that this, his own sour mood and the bottle before him and the thought of Fai shut away tight in Yuui’s room – he had a feeling those things weren’t a good combination.

He went to bed after that. Someone had to be a fucking adult, after all.

Kurogane dreamed of Tomoyo, heavy and limp in her childhood room. Of the flames licking around the door and the hydraulic shears that were suddenly foreign to his hand. He dreamed of Sakura crying out and he dreamed of Fai, wraithlike, wrapped in Yuui’s clothes.

It just didn’t help.

He found the box amongst the other bits and pieces of Tomoyo and Yuui’s life.

It was an afternoon given over to clearing out the wardrobe in the second bedroom, the one that his sister had used as an office and that Kurogane now slept in. He’d come across the stack of neatly labelled boxes, and… he didn’t know what to do with them, because Tomoyo didn’t need them any more, and Fai would be no help. Kurogane knew that without asking. Fai would leave them there forever, given half a chance. But they needed the space, and so Kurogane resigned himself to the job, an afternoon spent sorting through all the things left behind.

In the end, he hefted most of the stuff into the storage space above the wardrobe. Pulled the hatch shut tight on it.

But the last box, he set aside. Because inside it were a row of DVD cases, blank ones, like the hundreds of other DVD cases that had been part and parcel of Tomoyo’s work. These, though, didn’t have a glossy printed insert. Instead, along the spines were written things in a hand that was familiar and strange all at once: strange, because Kurogane couldn’t read whatever language it was, and familiar because it looked like Fai’s.

Neater, though, he thought.

Kurogane didn’t know what Yuui had labelled and stored so painstakingly away. The tissue paper lining the box was thin, musty, but the whole thing smacked of something well cared for. Something precious.

He ran a hand over the lid of the box to remove any lingering dust. Thought about it for a second. Then he hooked the first case from its resting place, popped it open, and pressed the disc into the machine he had set up in the corner of his bedroom.

If Fai didn’t want to deal with it, that was up to him. Somebody had to.

The first film showed a boy with fair hair: obviously one of the twins, though Kurogane couldn’t tell which right away. He was standing in a garden or park of some sort – the ground looked dull and muddy behind him – and he’d been bundled up against the cold in coat and scarf. In his hands, he had a carved wooden figure, a horse, and he was turning it over carefully in his hands. His small, pale face was quite solemn, as if – Kurogane suddenly realised it – as if he hadn’t been aware he was being filmed. And just as he had the thought, a man’s voice, kind and low, came over the speaker, made the boy look up with a smile, soft and glad.

So, Kurogane thought. It was Yuui.

The man continued to talk, and Kurogane didn’t really need to understand the words because it was pretty clear what was going on: the man’s gentle, encouraging voice, Yuui’s quick little wave. He looked past the camera, presumably at whoever was filming, and his face – so bright and warm and pleased - his face was nothing like the one Kurogane saw tucking Sakura in at night.

He wondered where Fai was.

The film ran on, Yuui with his horse and the man calling out to him, but then Kurogane became aware of Yuui looking to the side, of the man’s voice growing softer, more reassuring. It went on this way for a minute, and then the camera dropped, grew jerky. It landed with a thud, made the picture wobble about. It was being attached to a tripod or something, Kurogane guessed. And then into the frame came a man with dark hair leading a boy identical to the first; it had to be Fai, and yet it wasn’t… Kurogane frowned. He wasn’t quite as Kurogane would have expected.

Not quite.

Not that he’d thought about what the idiot might’ve been like as a kid; of all Fai’s locked-tight little secrets, that one was locked the tightest. He had never, since that dreadful night at the hospital, made any reference to his and Yuui’s childhood. Never offered the slightest detail, not even to Sakura, who so often furrowed her brow and tilted her head and asked, ‘What about when you and Daddy were little?’

Fai said nothing, smoothed it away behind smiles and laughter and crinkled blue eyes. Told her that things were different then, when he was a little girl, and of course that had her squealing and laughing along with him; made her forget what it was she had wanted to know.

But Kurogane didn’t forget, and Kurogane wasn’t fooled.

And now he looked at the boy in the film and it was strange, because, yeah, this boy wasn’t what Kurogane had expected at all. This boy was someone else. He hung behind his twin, quiet and reluctant. Colourless, even with the blue of his eyes, the pink that the chill brought into his cheeks. He glanced once at the camera, and then looked away again, quickly, and he might’ve pulled back from the man, who was still talking to him so gently, except that the other boy, Yuui, caught his hand. Pressed the wooden horse into it, and held it there, and smiled.

The boy, Fai, looked at Yuui, and reached out with his other hand, curled his fingers into his twin’s sleeve until they were bloodless and white.

Then the reel ran out.

Kurogane put the DVD back into its case, put it back into the box, and folded the tissue paper carefully over it. Because he didn’t know what it meant, and he wasn’t sure it had anything to do with the man in the next room, chattering meaninglessly while he made Sakura’s afternoon snack.

At night, Kurogane dreamed.

Not that that was anything unusual – everyone dreams, of course, if not always, then sometimes, at least. There were dreams where Kurogane wandered the streets, never quite finding his destination, and then dreams of the fire station, where the alarm clanged in his head, and all about him, Souma and Fuuma and everyone else moved with the urgency of cows grazing a meadow.

And then there were other dreams. Dreams Kurogane thought he’d left behind, dreams that had faded with the passing of youth and optimism and everything else besides. Dreams sparked into being again by days that were too long, too difficult.

At night, Kurogane dreamed.

In the years immediately after his parents’ death, Kurogane had woken often with his chest bursting, with strange, unfamiliar words tumbling over his tongue. He would lay in his bed on those occasions, catching his breath and remembering how his father had woken him in the night, the smoke seeping thick beneath his bedroom door. Remembering how his father told him to take his sister and go into the street, and to wait there until he came out with Mother.

(‘Do you hear me? Wait with your sister, Kurogane. Do not move.’)

And Kurogane had waited, long after flames engulfed the house, long after they were put out again, and the ground was sodden and dark with soot. Kurogane had watched, and waited, and neither his aunt nor Kendappa were able to drag him away that night. It was only when Tomoyo took his hand with her tiny own that he had finally turned away, felt tears stinging down his smooth, pink-scorched cheeks.

(‘I won’t, Dad.’)

Kurogane had thought it was his fault then – too young, too slow, too weak - but he had saved his sister, which was something. It was everything. He had saved Tomoyo then, but now she too was gone, and Kurogane was old enough to know better this time; to resist the voice that whispered weakling in his ear at night.

It was nobody’s fault. Not Kurogane’s. Not Fai’s, for fuck’s sake. Nobody’s.

(At night, Kurogane dreamed.)

Kurogane got out of bed, went for a glass of water from the jug in the fridge, and found Fai wrapped in Yuui’s jumper, watching a horror movie in the dark at 2am.

And Kurogane didn’t know what to do about that.

(He sat and watched the rest of the movie with him.)

(Life goes on, they say.)

On Saturdays, Kurogane woke at five in the morning, drank some tea, checked his messages. Went for a run around his new neighbourhood – in autumn, the dawn clear and red-streaked and chill – and then back at his flat, he turned his attention to the assortment of weights kept in a crate on his less-tiny balcony. He had something to eat – more often than not, something grabbed from the convenience store at the tail end of his run – and on that Saturday, in fact, he had a box of onigiri. There were six of them – the Jumbo Pack – crowded into the clear plastic tray. The label said freshly made with loving care!. On closer inspection, Kurogane kind of doubted that.

Still, onigiri was what he had. And once he’d finished with the weights on the balcony, he pulled the glass door shut against the cool, went soundlessly through to the kitchen to eat them. And there he stopped. For in the kitchen, leaning – half-sprawled – across the counter was Fai, of all people. He glanced up as Kurogane approached, flashed him a grin. Half-stifled a yawn with the back of his hand.

‘Morning, Kuro-tan,’ he said, rather blearily.

He was wearing Yuui’s jumper.

Kurogane grunted. ‘Morning.’

Kurogane went to boil the kettle and rinse his cup for another round of tea. He wondered briefly if Sakura had woken Fai; but if that was the case, he’d obviously settled her back to sleep, because the flat was quiet and still and all the things four-year-olds weren’t. He wasn’t sure if he liked another presence, Fai’s presence, cutting into the solitude of his pre-work ritual, but then, there wasn’t much he could do about it. At least the man was managing to be quiet (for now).

He said, ‘You want tea?’

He heard the rustle of Fai’s clothing against the counter as the man turned. ‘I never thought Kuro-tan would be so domestic in the morning,’ he said, stage-surprise. ‘Next you’ll be bringing me breakfast in bed.’

(Kurogane thought of Fai, sleep-soft and smiling in the pale early morning light.)

‘Forget it,’ he snorted. Took out a second cup.

But suddenly Fai was beside him. ‘I think I will, actually,’ he said. He sounded vaguely horrified, and when Kurogane looked, Fai was peering at the onigiri and making a face. He said, ‘What’s this?’ He prodded the edge of the plastic.

Kurogane batted his hand away.

‘What does it look like? It’s breakfast, idiot.’

‘It looks, Kuro-pon, like day-old rice that’s been mashed together by bears. Elderly bears. With salad servers.’

‘Tche! Don’t poke at it like that!’

Fai laughed and turned away, careless again. But as Kurogane made the tea, he was aware of Fai’s eyes wandering back between him and the onigiri – he was roughly as subtle as a pickaxe about it. And when the tea was done and Kurogane had set the cup onto the counter, Fai stared at it for a moment. Stood there blinking slowly into the steam.

Then he smiled. Didn’t look at Kurogane. He said, ‘Really, what on earth am I going to do with you?’ The sleep had gone from his voice, replaced with something brittle and bright, and it was almost a shame because the bleariness, at least, had been honest. But Fai was moving about purposefully now. He took a pan from one cupboard, and a bowl from another. Half a dozen different things from the fridge in the corner.

Kurogane watched all this and said, ‘What are you doing?’

‘Making you breakfast.’ Fai beamed up at him. Blue eyes crinkled and creased and smudged under with grey. He started cracking eggs into the bowl. ‘Kuro-burly needs a proper start to the day.’

Kurogane huffed and made a move towards the onigiri. They were still sulking where Fai had left them on the counter ‘You don’t need to,’ he said shortly. ‘It’s fine.’

‘No, it’s not,’ Fai said. He turned away to light the gas ring. ‘Apart from anything else, if Sakura-chan sees you eating rubbish like that for breakfast, she’ll want it too.’ And at last he glanced back at Kurogane, calm, pleasant. As if this – all this – were the most normal thing in the world: the pair of them bickering about breakfast on a Saturday morning.

(Fai pushed back the sleeves to Yuui’s jumper.)

‘Better jump in the shower, Kuro-sweaty,’ he said lightly. ‘I’m sure your colleagues will appreciate the gesture.’

And Kurogane went. If only so he didn’t have to see that smirk.

But when he emerged from the bathroom, towel firmly about him, he caught the scent of something warm, good, on the air. And when he’d finished dressing – blue T-shirt and orange coveralls and one star, one stripe – he found Sakura awake and sitting up at the table. She greeted him eagerly, her voice still thin with sleep. There were places set for three.

Kurogane and Fai and Sakura ate breakfast together on Saturday morning as if everything was fine; and somehow, for that half-hour, it was.

After that, there were no mornings (or evenings) that Kurogane didn’t emerge from the shower to the scent of something warm, good. Sometimes he sat alone, the food left with a note - (‘Try not to stomp around, Kuro-noisy, I have a headache today’) – and sometimes he sat with Fai, smiling and smooth, and other times the three of them sat all together. Fai leaning to tuck Sakura’s hair back, promising to teach her to make whatever-that-was.

It didn’t make everything OK, but it helped.

He watched the second DVD on a Tuesday morning. He had come home to breakfast and Fai and the smile he wore to keep everything fine. It was nothing like his twin’s had been. The difference was staggering. And Kurogane had always thought of them as separate – Fai careless and bright, Yuui softer, gentler – but here, in this flat… He’d wondered. If seeing Yuui’s twin would be like seeing Yuui at every turn.

It wasn’t, as it turned out. Fai could no more channel his brother now than when he’d tried that first night.

But when Kurogane went to bed on Tuesday morning, he didn’t sleep right away. He felt uneasy, restless. He thought of the box in the cupboard and the strange, sober twin, and… he didn’t know. Fai’s past was his own. Kurogane was happy to leave it to him. What he’d been like as a kid didn’t matter now; it didn’t change anything. Only, somehow, as he stared at the ceiling and still didn’t sleep, Kurogane remembered the night he’d met Fai the first time: the strange, heavy look his twin had given him. Exasperated, sorrowful. Gone too quick. And Kurogane didn’t like sneaking around, because that wasn’t his way, but Yuui was gone, and Fai…

Kurogane exhaled sharply. Fai was an idiot.

He’d been through grief before. Everyone handled theirs differently, and Kurogane was in no position to dole out advice. But he was starting to think that Fai might be stuck. That he wanted to stay stuck – to wrap himself in Yuui’s jumper and calmly wither away.

Which was fine, except they had a kid to raise.

(Kurogane pulled the box from the cupboard.)

In the second film, the boys – older, though not by much – were rolling down dough at a scrubbed pine table. The same man’s voice called kindly to them, and both twins looked towards it this time. Gazed at the camera with identical blue eyes. The one on the right, Yuui, smiled softly, quite naturally for the film; let his hands still on the too-big rolling pin. And then seeing him, the other twin tried the same, pulled his lips taut in ghastly imitation.

(Kurogane packed the case in the box, and put the box in the cupboard, and went to sleep.)

Fai was an idiot.

‘Now, Sakura-chan, what would you like to make today?’

Fai was beaming, bright, like the sun. His hands busy tying back the strings of Sakura’s tiny apron. Tomoyo had made that for her, Kurogane vaguely recalled.

Sakura thought for a minute, and then she said, eagerly, ‘Could we make mochi?’

Fai’s smile slipped a bit.

(He was wearing Yuui’s jumper.)

He said, ‘Mochi?’ and then he frowned. Folded too-skinny arms down over his chest. ‘Well, I’m not sure I know how to do that, Sakura-chan,’ he said. Then he grinned. He cast a sly look at Kurogane through the door of the kitchen; Kurogane, who was minding his own fucking business on the couch. It was Thursday. ‘Pounding rice to a pulp sounds more like Kuro-sama’s area of expertise,’ Fai said, and then, cheerfully, to Kurogane, ‘Shall I fetch an extra apron, or will you go without?’

Kurogane huffed. Addressed his answer to Sakura, because maybe she was four but she wasn’t a child. ‘Sorry, kid,’ he said shortly. ‘I never learned to do that kind of stuff.’

And he reached out to tousle her hair. Ignored the curious slide of Fai’s eyes over his face. Because if Fai wanted to know, he’d have to ask – and Kurogane knew he never would, because that might require sharing something of his own.

(Fai was an idiot.)

Sakura’s face fell slightly. She nodded all the same, though. Smiled when he hefted her to sit on his knee. It was just like old times. Almost. Not at all.

But Kurogane was still aware of Fai watching them, smooth, blithe (curious). And then, ‘It’s more usually for New Year’s, isn’t it?’ Fai asked. He edged further out of the kitchen, stood on the threshold. ‘People don’t generally eat them year round, do they?’

Kurogane shrugged. ‘Sometimes. Mostly New Year’s, I guess.’

And Fai nodded at that. His eyes kept skimming over Sakura leaned back against Kurogane’s shoulder. He looked thoughtful, almost: something Kurogane wasn’t used to seeing from Fai. He figured it happened, even if he didn’t know what Fai thought about in the solitude of Yuui’s room. But here, this was different. He looked contemplative, soft.

Sakura said, ‘Did you and Daddy eat mochi growing up too, Uncle Fai?’

Kurogane’s gaze slid back to Fai. And he expected the man to turn away. Pull on that smile and draw back to the kitchen and say that, oh, it was far too long ago to remember things like that, Sakura-chan.

But instead, Fai leaned against the doorjamb. He moved fluidly, like a cat. ‘Well, we don’t really eat them in Iceland,’ he said. ‘We do other things to celebrate the start of the year.’

Kurogane looked away from him then. Kept his attention on Sakura in his lap, on the cup of tea at his side. He said, very casually, ‘Oh, yeah?’

‘Mmm,’ Fai nodded again. That quiet contemplation turned to something fond. ‘It’s very dark there, in winter, you know. We don’t see the sun much.’ And there Fai smiled at Sakura sitting on Kurogane’s knee; somehow that looked better too. ‘On New Year’s Eve, there are lots and lots of bonfires over the city. It’s very pretty. Yuui and I always…’

Fai stopped. Pulled his smile wide and crinkled his eyes and Kurogane watched the bob of his throat as he swallowed.

Just cry, Kurogane thought suddenly. The frustration rushed over him, hot and thick. Just do it, idiot, because you need to.

But Sakura was still looking at Fai expectantly. When he didn’t go on, she shifted forward on Kurogane’s knee. She said, ‘Can we go see it one day?’

Fai nodded absently. Retreated back into the kitchen. And then, after a moment, ‘I’m sure we will someday, Sakura-chan,’ he said, bright, like the sun.

Sakura squirmed off Kurogane’s lap. She went into the kitchen, and there was chatter then, and laughter; all the sounds of normality as she and Fai whiled away the afternoon.

‘What really happened to the kids?’

‘Hmm?’

‘The ones in that stupid story.’

‘Oh. The elf king turned them to swallows and they flew far away.’

The sound that woke Kurogane at quarter past three was… weird.

He blinked, and sat up, swung his legs out of the futon.

At first, he couldn’t place it. He woke with the echoes of something shrill and pained in his ears, and his first thought - always his first thought – was Sakura. But truthfully, even as he jerked open the door and strode down the hall, he didn’t quite believe it somehow. The noise was too high, too animal, too weird for any human to make.

He checked on her all the same, though, paused outside her door to peer through the darkness. Sakura lay on her side, clutching the weird rabbit thing the idiot had given her: she seemed peaceful enough. And so Kurogane had just decided the noise must’ve been a cat in the street, or some other fucking thing, when it came again, high and thin. Set the hairs on the back of his neck prickling on end.

This time, awake and from his better vantage in the hall, Kurogane realised it had come from Fai’s room.

He pulled Sakura’s door smartly shut and padded across the hall.

Outside Fai’s door he hesitated, only for a second. He’d already decided to knock, but if there was no answer, he was going in, Fai’s fucking privacy complex be damned, because that noise… That noise was weird. People – safe, OK people – didn’t make noises like that.

Kurogane raised his hand, rapped once, twice, three times on the wood, and once a minute had passed with no stirring from within, he slid the door open. He might’ve felt guilty – taking advantage of the rule that left all bedrooms (mostly) unlocked in the event Sakura should need them – but he didn’t. It wasn’t like he wanted to poke his nose into Fai’s business – his secrets, the ones he worked so very hard to keep locked up tight. Worked, even though Kurogane never said a word about them. It might’ve been comical if it wasn’t so fucked up.

Because Kurogane didn’t need to know Fai’s secrets to know Fai. Tonight he just wanted to make sure the idiot wasn’t dead.

But inside the room… Kurogane stopped. Inside, he found himself squinting slightly, only very slightly, but enough that he noticed. It was lighter in Fai’s room than it had been in the hall, and that, well, Kurogane wasn’t quite sure why that was. His first, gut-clenched thought was candle, fucking idiot! but the light was too steady for that. He glanced at the window and found the curtains snugly drawn. The light was coming from a spot low on the wall; he craned his head to get a better look and…

That noise. High, shrill. Weird. Coming from the shape hidden in the bed.

Kurogane crossed swiftly towards it, crouched down, and shook Fai with an even, solid motion.

He expected the man to startle or push him away. At least sit blearily up, rub at his eyes and ask Kuro-prowler what he was doing creeping about. But he didn’t. Fai went stiff and still, and Kurogane wasn’t prepared for the eye that suddenly glittered in the dark cave of the covers – just the one: Fai might’ve been a Cyclops – and blinked at him slowly for a second or two.

Just that. Only that.

Kurogane said, ‘Wake up, idiot. You’re making strange noises.’ And Fai sat up, uncurled himself like a cat (like always). He had two eyes, then, to stare impassively back with.

Kurogane’s calves started to protest the crouch. He said, again, ‘You were making a weird noise. You injured?’

Fai smiled. Made his face full of strange angles in the half-light. ‘I was asleep, Kuro-chan,’ he said: there was that sharp little edge to his voice. ‘So, no, not unless I cut myself on the pillow.’

Kurogane could see the rise and fall of Fai’s chest, see the tiny movements of his throat as he sucked air in. ‘What’s the matter with you?’ he said shortly.

Because something was, and Kurogane was fucking sick of tiptoeing around it.

But, ‘Probably just sleep paralysis.’ Fai stretched, though it seemed forced. ‘I get that if I roll onto my back sometimes. It’s fine.’ And he smiled again. It was colder this time. ‘It’s fine, Kurogane.’

Which was probably his cue to go. But Kurogane found, even as he shifted back on his heels and stood to depart, that he didn’t want to. He wanted to stay there, by Fai’s side in the half-light. Just until the panic faded, and his eyes grew heavy again. And that was stupid, because... Kurogane didn’t know why he wanted to. He just did, somehow: for Fai. Not to say anything, because frankly he didn’t have anything to say at three in the morning, but just to be there, with him.

Kurogane pulled the door shut tightly behind him.

After, neither of them mentioned the little lamp plugged into the socket near Fai’s bed. Kurogane didn’t ask, wouldn’t ask: partly because he didn’t want to hear whatever bullshit story Fai would make up – that it was for Sakura or some other improbable thing – but also, partly, because it wasn’t his business why Fai didn’t sleep in the dark. He was an adult. He could do what he liked.

But the next time Kurogane had cause to go in Fai’s room – mid-afternoon, to retrieve Sakura’s weird rabbit thing – the lamp was nowhere to be seen. It had been hidden firmly, carefully away.

Kurogane found the weird rabbit thing and shut the door behind him.

(Much like everything else pertaining to Fai.)

But it was only a matter of time, after that.

And then, one Wednesday, this happened: Fai tucked back his hair and furrowed his brow and said, ‘Maybe you’ll feel better if I make you some soup.’

He was talking to Sakura, in fact. She’d woken scratchy-throated and pale in the morning, grown progressively miserable as the day ticked along. Fai had kept her in bed with a cooling strip on her forehead. She’d smiled wanly at him and she’d managed some porridge, but she stayed quiet. Unhappy. Fai apparently thought soup was the answer.

Kurogane was pretty sure her mother was the answer – but there was absolutely nothing he could do about that.

He didn’t like feeling helpless. He’d been feeling it too much lately.

But Fai was going to make soup. He’d taken off Yuui’s jumper and stolen Kurogane’s car keys (‘You have to pay for it if you smash it up, idiot.’), and gone from the flat with a strange, twitching purpose. And then Kurogane remembered all the boxes he had stowed safely away. In a hatch above a cupboard in the room where he slept.

He’d pulled out the first box, taken the first DVD cover that came to hand, and saw, in Tomoyo’s delicate handwriting Yuui – piano, with a date after that.

Kurogane figured that would do.

He took the thing into the living room and made up the couch with blankets. They were still in the hamper that Tomoyo had always used. Then he went to find Sakura, exhausted and quiet, and carried her from her bedroom to nestle amongst it.

Once she’d settled back amongst the cushions, she said, ‘What are we watching, Uncle Kurogane?’

Kurogane sat beside her. Flicked a button on the remote, and said, ‘You’ll see.’

And she did. For there on the screen, quite smoothly – Tomoyo’s camera hand had always been ridiculously steady – appeared Yuui. Kurogane blinked, and perhaps he hadn’t quite been prepared for the sight of him – because Yuui looked like Fai, and he saw Fai every day – but he started, slightly. Struck yet again by all the difference in the world.

On the screen, Yuui was seated at the piano, hands moving fluidly. Some gentle, romantic melody that Kurogane didn’t know. And then Yuui glanced over his shoulder, caught sight of the camera, and colour rose softly into his cheeks. He kept playing all the while. Smiled that gentle, gentle smile.

Beside him, on the couch, Sakura moved closer; curled her small fingers tight around Kurogane’s thumb. And Kurogane wondered then if he’d done the right thing – ‘cause this was supposed to help, not make her feel fucking worse – but when he looked there was a brightness in her face that he hadn’t seen for… a while.

Brightness, mixed in with the sorrow and longing and all the other grey things – but those were unavoidable. They were already there, Sakura felt them, and shutting things away just didn’t work. Sakura deserved better than that. That thought caught hold of Kurogane, sent irritation through him. They all deserved better than that. Not living at the edges of Fai’s make-believe fine.

Then the door opened. Fai came in, less graceful than usual. He was struggling with two shopping bags. He looked at Sakura on the couch and blinked in surprise, ‘Sakura-chan, what are you doing up?’ And then Kurogane didn’t know what it was that caught Fai’s attention – the sound of the piano or his twin’s face on the screen - but Fai turned towards it. Blinked. His face all at once bloodless and awful.

He said, in a nothing sort of voice, ‘Sakura-chan ought to be going back to bed now. She’ll get worse, lying out here in a draught.’

Kurogane scowled. ‘Why do you think she’s drowning in blankets, idiot?’

But Fai wouldn't look. ‘Come on, Sakura-chan,’ he said, still in that nothing voice, ‘Let’s get you settled in your room.’

And then Kurogane sighed. Because there was no fucking point.

Or not then, anyway. But once Fai had carried Sakura back to her room and tucked her in, he came looking for Kurogane. Thin lips and stiff jaw and blue flashing eyes.

Yeah, well, Kurogane had been waiting for it.

Fai said, ‘What do you think you were doing, showing her that?’ He nodded sharply towards the television. ‘She’s already sick, and now you’ve upset her.’

Kurogane could still feel the prickle of irritation running up his spine. ‘They were her parents,’ he said. He was trying to keep his voice even: it was difficult. ‘This stuff shouldn’t be hidden away just ‘cause you can’t stand to see his face.’

Fai smiled: razor-edged. ‘I see his face every day, Kurogane,’ he said calmly. ‘In the mirror. Hazard of being a twin, you could say.’

‘Yeah? Well, you’re not him and he’s not here,’ and Kurogane breathed, trying to hold back all the anger threatening to spill out. ‘He’s not here, and you are, so you need to deal with it.’

Now he’d said that too.

Fai looked away, cleared his throat. Then, ‘Well, I’m afraid not all of us are so quick to cast aside the ones we…’ He moved a hand to his hair. ‘The ones we love... My apologies if that’s an inconvenience for you – ’

‘It’s not an inconvenience, idiot, it’s a fucking pain! You think this is love?’ Kurogane’s voice was getting louder, but he just couldn’t help it. ‘You think it’s this – making you and me and her live in some fucking vacuum? That’s not love. He wouldn’t have wanted that!’

And Fai went very still. He said, low, ‘What would you know about what he wants?’

He’d said something like that before. Kurogane wasn’t letting it go this time. ‘Wanted,’ he said bluntly. Watched Fai’s face as he spoke. He wanted to make sure Fai got the fucking message, because none of them – Fai included –were living right now. Just existing amongst all the chatter and bright smiles and names that couldn’t be mentioned. Tomoyo was his sister. Kurogane was sick of it. ‘What he wanted. He’s dead.’

Fai stared back at him. Stood sucking in great lungfuls of air.

Kurogane said, roughly, ‘So, stop being so fucking selfish! He’s gone. They’re both gone. She needs you now. You said you want to be here, so you deal with it.’ And he could hear his voice growing loud again. Fai looked frozen and white and smooth, and Kurogane was so fucking sick of that too. He snarled, ‘Find a way, idiot, ‘cause you’re no use to her like this!’

Then nothing. They stayed that way for a minute, Fai glaring and sewn-tight and angry at Kurogane. Then his smile pulled tighter. ‘Kuro-tantrum should keep his voice down,’ he said, icily. His blue eyes were narrowed and dark. ‘There’s nothing worse than a big, shouty uncle, you know.’

Kurogane just looked, and after another few seconds Fai gathered up his groceries, went stiffly to the kitchen and began putting them away. As if nothing had happened. As if everything were fine.

(It wasn’t fine. It wasn’t even close to it.)

But later, after he’d cooled down, after Sakura was asleep in her bed and the flat had grown still and quiet, Kurogane pushed open the door to his room, padded down the hall in search of Fai. He wasn’t sorry for what he’d said – because it needed to be said - but he was sorry, maybe, for how he’d said it. Which meant he had to apologise sooner or later. Kurogane’s preference was for sooner. Whether the idiot did the same was his own affair, but Kurogane didn’t like to be served breakfast by someone he couldn’t even look in the eye.

He stopped briefly outside Sakura’s door, peering through the murk to see her curled beneath the covers. She looked so small just then, and Kurogane was reminded, suddenly, of Tomoyo as a child; of the sight of his sister in her childhood bed, surrounded by soft toys. Of her face, so wonderfully serene even in sleep.

Something caught at his throat, mixed up in the heavy, unhappy air of the evening. The flat was dark, save for the fluorescent ring in the kitchen, and the gloom seemed to press close against him, make him long for soft smiles and gentle voices in a way he hadn’t before.

But there was nothing to be done about that. It was just as he’d said: Tomoyo was gone, and Yuui, if it came to that. The only people left were him and Fai, sharp and bitter and angry at each other.

Kurogane sighed, and moved away down the hall.

He was about to knock at Fai’s door when a faint noise made him stop, look in the direction of the darkened living room instead. Music, perhaps, or the radio. Some sign of life. So he went cautiously towards it, rounded the corner away from the kitchen, and there he found Fai, hunched in front of the television, the remote in his hands and his brother’s face on the screen.

Kurogane sighed again.

Yuui smiled at the camera – at the camerawoman, Kurogane thought distantly – his hands never faltering in their movement on the piano. It was the same bit of video Kurogane had watched with Sakura that afternoon; he recognised the dip and rise of the melody, the way Yuui’s hair fell forward as he reached forward to turn the sheet music. Earlier, he’d thought the tune too romantic, too sweeping, but now, in the dim and the quiet, it felt bittersweet, mournful, almost.

In the glow of the television, Kurogane could make out the movement of Fai’s throat as he swallowed.

There was nothing Kurogane could say to make this right. Yuui was gone, Tomoyo was gone, and Fai and Kurogane were just the ones left behind. Sakura had been left behind; their daughter, the baby that Kurogane had picked up oh, so, gently at the hospital a day after she’d been born. She’d been so small her entire torso almost fit in his palm.

Sakura needed them now. That was all Kurogane could do.

He said, ‘I came to apologise.’

Fai jumped, and fumbled the remote, turning to look at Kurogane through the gloom. His hair was turned a funny shade by the light of the screen, and it made him look strange, all gold and white and blue in the darkness. After a minute, he said, ‘How like Kuro-pin to make amends before bed.’

And turned back to the screen.

Kurogane took a breath and tried not to let the little flash of anger at Fai’s words flare into the rage of earlier. ‘Don’t you have something to say to me too?’

Fai shrugged. ‘Do I?’

There didn’t seem to be much to say to that. Fai’s apologies were his own affair, much like his secrets. But this – the space between them, jagged and cold – Kurogane didn’t want this. Not just for himself or Sakura. For Fai as well. Because Fai was… he was important. Kurogane remembered the flicker-fast touch of fingers across his chin, remembered devious blue eyes that met his own in the hall light, and… he didn’t want this for Fai. Not sitting alone and untouched in the dark like this.

He wanted to do something for him. Just be there, at least. Allowed to be there.

Looking at Fai, hunched on the couch now, it seemed almost impossible.

Kurogane cleared his throat. ‘I am sorry,’ he said.

Fai shook his head, a small sad movement, his eyes never leaving his twin on the screen, and Kurogane supposed that was all that needed to be said for one night.

From there four days passed – awkward, fumbling days, where Kurogane woke to one hot meal and came home to another, hardly a word passed between them save for Sakura’s benefit. Difficult days. And things couldn’t carry on that way, that much was fucking obvious, but for four days Kurogane waited. Worked and ran and slept and waited.

On the fifth day, he did something else.

Because on the fifth day, Wednesday, once Sakura had gone to pre-school and silence descended over the flat once more, Kurogane went to the cupboard in his bedroom, the room that Tomoyo always used as a study, and began sorting through the boxes stored in the top of it. It didn’t take him long to find what he was looking for.

He went out into the living room and set the laptop down on the table beside Fai’s own.

‘Here,’ he said, ignoring the look of irritation that flitted across the other man’s features. ‘I want your help with something.’

Irritation gave way to surprise, gave way to smooth-faced cordiality. ‘Kuro-ru can have my help any time he wants it,’ Fai said. He ran a finger over the touchpad of his laptop, moved the machine aside. ‘All he has to do is ask nicely.’

Yeah, well, that was the idea. Kurogane pressed the biggest button in sight on the laptop he’d brought from the cupboard – hopefully that would turn the fucking thing on – and said, ‘I need you to help me find a good picture of Yuui. And Tomoyo, I guess. I’m no good at stuff like that.’

Fai stared at him. He stayed that way for a minute, smooth and unmoving, but it wasn’t, Kurogane was relieved to note, the same white-faced blankness of that other afternoon. That, at least, was something.

Then, ‘Why does Kuro-tan want something like that?’

‘For a shrine,’ Kurogane said. He waved vaguely, taking in the room. ‘There should be one in here.’

Another silence. ‘What for?’

Kurogane studied Fai’s face for a moment, still so perfectly smooth. ‘Respect. Some people pray to them, I guess, but I’m not really...’ He glanced down briefly at another chime from the machine. ‘Mostly,’ he said, ‘it’s just about remembering.’

Fai would react one of two ways, he figured – good or bad.

And then Fai said, very quietly, ‘It would be good for Sakura-chan, wouldn’t it?’

Kurogane looked back towards him, saw something soft in the other man’s face. Fai hesitated, just for a second, and then he shifted, angled his body towards the little white machine.

Kurogane shoved it closer. ‘Be good for all of us, idiot,’ he said shortly, and Fai laughed at that.

Kurogane didn’t know what it was that Fai and Yuui had run away from, but he could guess at parts of it: fit little pieces together into something dark and ugly. It wasn’t hard. Kurogane didn’t need all the details to see the bigger picture.

(‘It’s fine,’ Fai said. Blinking, breathing in the dark. Wore a smile like glass, cut himself to shreds with it. ‘It’s fine, Kurogane.’)

Although details, it seemed, were the things Kurogane had most of. Things Fai imagined made no sense, all the finer points of damage reduced to blessed obscurity: bad dreams and scar tissue and the shameful little nightlight that lived its days in Fai’s bedside drawer. ‘There’s nothing worse than a big, shouty uncle,’ he’d said. Kurogane could only suppose he knew something about it.

(‘I won’t let Sakura-chan grow up the way we did.’)

Something dreadful, something papered over with smiles and sunshine and pretend, pretend, pretend. Drab little horrors borne out in childhood homes, things desperately forgotten, until they weren’t, over and over again.

(It wasn’t fine.)

As a child, before the fire, and sometimes after, Kurogane dreamed of monsters – great multi-headed creatures that screeched death across the sky; but the monster in Fai’s dreams, he suspected, had had a driver’s licence and everything.

And Kurogane wasn’t sure when this had become home - Fai raising his eyes over the frame of his glasses, distracted, momentarily, by the thud of boots hitting the lino. He was wearing Yuui’s jumper. But when Kurogane nodded towards him, Fai smiled – and it wasn’t happy and it wasn’t bright and it wasn’t particularly fun to look at. It was, Kurogane suspected, something close to honesty.

Fai looked down at Sakura, curled into his side.

‘She tried to wait up for you,’ he said quietly. ‘She wanted to wish you happy birthday.’

Kurogane didn’t blink. Just stood there, taking in Fai and Sakura and the warm shape they made together. It was probably as well that she was asleep. He didn’t know what he would’ve said to her. He didn’t know… He didn’t know what to do about the feeling filling up his chest, rising up into his throat. Fai gazed back at him, bittersweet and tired and that small, soft smile. The red marks on his nose where his glasses pinched too tight: Kurogane had told him countless times to get them fixed. And Fai hadn’t. Idiot. Looked up at Kurogane every evening (morning), sometimes washed out, sometimes cheerful, and other times still brittle and sharp, but always… Kurogane snorted. Always with those stupid fucking marks on his nose.

On his next day off, he would drag the idiot to the glasses place if necessary.

But not now. Now he stepped forward, shifted his weight lower towards the couch. Waited as Fai set his book aside and drew the blankets back. He picked Sakura up, carried her against his shoulder, and he didn’t falter when he saw the pink-ribboned present – so carefully wrapped – waiting atop her drawing table when he stepped into her room.

Fai said, from behind him, ‘You’ll have to pretend you didn’t see that.’ Said it with a smile, his tone amused now. He’d leaned close to speak against Kurogane’s ear.

And Kurogane huffed. On principle.

But he set Sakura on her bed and pulled the blankets up. Just like every night, or the ones he was home, at least. Most nights. And afterwards… afterwards Fai didn’t go off to Yuui’s room straight away. Because this was something else they’d started to do: Fai and Kurogane and the nightcap they shared. Fai reached to pour Kurogane’s drink, his fingers curling around the bottle, and Kurogane wasn’t sure when this became something else too. Something warm, good. Not always easy, not always clear, but something. He thought, maybe, it was something. He wasn’t good at this stuff, and he didn’t know what Fai wanted, but maybe. It could be something.

That night, Fai poured the drinks and handed a glass to Kurogane and said, ‘Happy birthday, Kuro-sama.’ Said it with a smile. Too bright, but old habits died hard. Kurogane knew something about that from experience.

He said, ‘Yeah,’ and they both drank in time.

And that night, Fai lay back on the couch, his toes pushed into the padding of the armrest. ‘I remember,’ he said, chuckling, and Kurogane glanced across. Fai was studying the bottle. ‘I got disgustingly drunk on something like this when I was 12, and Yuui,’ he paused briefly, ‘Yuui tried to cover for me, but Ashura found out, anyway. He made me drink four tall glasses of water and sent me to sleep it off. Apparently I broke a figurine – by accident, of course, but that gave me away.’

Kurogane grunted, ‘Idiot,’ and then said, ‘Ashura your dad?’

Well, it was worth a shot. He wasn’t sure if Fai would answer – that was anyone’s guess. But Fai put down the bottle. He started to shake his head, and then the motion slowed. ‘We weren’t related to him – biologically, I mean,’ he said, carefully, ‘We didn’t call him ‘dad’ or ‘father’, but he acted like it.’ There was another smile now, small and wistful and soft. ‘In a good way, I mean, you know?’

Kurogane thought of the kind voice calling out to the silent, solemn twin, and nodded. Yeah, he knew.

’10-3 to Despatch, do you copy, over?’

‘Copy, 10-3. This is Despatch. Go ahead, over.’

‘Fire personnel injured in partial building collapse. Require ambulance, over.’

‘Copy that, 10-3. What is your location, over?’

The scrape of the curtain along the rail brought Kurogane back to awareness. Not that he’d been dozing. He’d waited long enough as it was in the cramped cubicle, arm braced high against his chest, the knot of the sling itchy against his neck. He wasn’t going to miss his exam because some half-arsed doctor thought he was fucking asleep. And so Kurogane looked up when he heard the sound, preparing to growl at whoever had come to see him that he was fine and could go home. He found Fai instead. The man was half-turned, pulling the edges of the curtain together.

Which didn’t make a whole lot of sense. Kurogane was pretty sure he hadn’t called Fai at any point that evening.

‘What are you doing here?’ he said warily.

Fai turned towards him. His face was quite smooth, and Kurogane figured, then, with a tired slump of frustration, that it was one of those nights. He wondered why Fai had come. ‘Souma-san rang me,’ Fai said. ‘She wanted to let me know that Kendappa-san could watch Sakura-chan while I was here. Very thoughtful of them.’

Kurogane scowled. ‘Tche! They already said I’m fine, I just…’ He struggled to sit up.

And before he even quite knew what was happening, Fai’s hand was on his chest, shoving him back down. ‘Stay put, Kuro-sama,’ he said firmly.

Then he smiled.

Kurogane blinked. Because it wasn’t like the smiles Kurogane hated, the ones that were brittle and bright and lies, lies, lies. It wasn’t sharp or angry. And it wasn’t like the other ones, strange and small and sad. That were more honest, yeah, but hurt to see all the same.

Fai smiled, his whole face glad, warm, and for the first time Kurogane could ever recall, he looked just… Yeah. Different. Better, maybe.

Somehow Kurogane could feel his own lips quirking at that.

Fai ignored the plastic chair in favour of sitting on the edge of the bed. It wasn’t a difficult task – he was certainly tall enough – but as he went about making himself comfortable, his leg scraped Kurogane’s thigh. Just the barest scrape, more the meeting of jeans and cotton than anything else – but for that second Kurogane could imagine Fai hot against him, could feel the press of firm muscle as he shifted about.

Kurogane swallowed and looked away.

‘So, what did the doctor say?’ asked Fai enquiringly.

Kurogane looked back. Fai was peering at the sling now, nose wrinkled in blatant disapproval, but there was... Kurogane narrowed his eyes. Yeah. He thought so. The faintest of pink rising into his cheeks. Somehow it was…

Then Fai dug his thumb into the joint of Kurogane’s shoulder.

Kurogane roared. ‘Ow! Fucking get off!’

Fai did, but, ‘Well, Kuro-sling didn’t say anything,’ he said, not at all chastened. He spoke easily enough, but his cheeks were still pink. ‘I thought I’d better make sure you weren’t going into a waking coma.’

‘I think you would know…’

‘Kuro-stubborn,’ Fai spoke over him, and Kurogane glared. ‘Kuro-stubborn does a lot of things without me knowing. Reckless things at work, like having a ceiling fall on him and breaking his arm. Kuro-sama doesn’t tell me any of the important things.’

Look who’s fucking talking, Kurogane wanted to say. But he didn’t, because that didn’t change anything. He hadn’t called Fai. Hadn’t, even though he’d thought about it on the way to the hospital. He could make up a million reasons why, but lying was Fai’s specialty, not his.

Kurogane shifted his arm against his chest. Looked down at his fingers, purpled and rough.

He hadn’t called, because he just didn’t know. How Fai would cope. Fai cooked him meals and called him names and through it all smiled a hundred different smiles. And Kurogane could put up with that, because Fai was important. As important as Sakura, but different from Sakura, very different – and Kurogane would wait, because he thought… He hoped… He didn’t know if it would be OK.

‘Kuro-sama is an idiot,’ Fai said, softly, from very near.

Kurogane raised his head. He was going to say something or other, but as his chin came up, Fai’s face was next to his, angling close – so close, in fact, that Kurogane forgot whatever it was. It didn’t matter. He could feel Fai’s breath warm against his lips, and there was that agonising half-second before their mouths finally met.

Kurogane closed his eyes – because - and then there was just the press of Fai’s lips, the slow, warm slide of Fai’s tongue as he coaxed Kurogane’s mouth wider, slipped gently inside him.

If Kurogane had thought about it, this – tender, warm movement, Fai’s tongue smooth over his – wasn’t what he’d have expected from kissing Fai. Because it was so much fucking better that Kurogane didn’t know where to begin.

Not that he needed to just then. What he needed was two working arms so he could pull Fai close, slide one hand about his waist, tangle the other into his hair. He made do with reaching out and holding whatever came to hand first – Fai’s shoulder, as it turned out – and letting himself go into the sweetness of that kiss.

It was kind of annoying when they needed to breathe.

‘What the fuck, idiot?’ Kurogane said softly. It probably wasn’t the most romantic thing he could’ve said, but then, he figured Fai knew that about him already. Massive, tanned, less… gentle. He’d kissed him anyway, right?

Fai shifted off the bed. Stood so his forehead rested down lightly against Kurogane’s. It felt weird, but… nice.

‘I was worried about you,’ Fai said. He sounded strange: quiet and soft and fierce all at once. ‘When Souma-san called, I just thought…’

Kurogane sighed. Yeah. ‘I was trying not to worry you, idiot, OK? That’s what you do when you… I don’t know, care about someone,’ he said uncomfortably, and Fai’s eyes widened even as he pulled back. Then he smiled again. The sight of it stirred something quick in Kurogane’s chest.

‘I think,’ Fai said slowly, moving back away from Kurogane, ‘that I need to get you home to your bed.’

He moved his hand to the curtain, pulled it back with a jerk.

And Kurogane smirked. Well, he had no problem with that.

This too was not what Kurogane had expected. Would have expected. Of this. Whatever. Fai crammed beside him in the back of the cab, Kurogane’s fire jacket spilled over their knees. It had proved too awkward to wear with the sling, and so Fai had gathered it up in the cubicle and tossed it over his arm. It was covered in ash and grime and the usual things. There were dark streaks on Fai’s jeans. He didn’t seem to care.

And this – side by side in the back of the cab – not kissing, but just close (for now). This was different. Good. Better than good, probably, if Kurogane cared to think too much about it. But he didn’t, because Fai’s leg had shifted against Kurogane’s own, Fai’s hand had slipped beneath the shape of the jacket, and his fingers were moving light over Kurogane’s knee. Along the line of his thigh. Into the crease of Kurogane’s groin. Light, so light. A barely there touch that made Kurogane want.

That look on Fai’s face didn’t help much either.

Because there was still a sharpness in his face, but, oh, very different now. Not smooth and shut-away and sending ice between them. Fai gazed out the window as they sped towards home, his face lit by the flicker of the neon upon the glass – but his hand kept that movement, light, barely there; slipping higher along the seam of Kurogane’s pants – and when he finally dipped into the space between – still so fluid, so light – he glanced up at Kurogane with a look sly and bright. His eyes were impossibly blue in the dark of the cab.

Kurogane shifted away.

Fai chuckled, brought his hand back to rest on the curve of Kurogane’s knee. He stayed that way, just there, just like that, for the rest of the ride. And that alone – the heat of Fai’s hand, slim and strong, through the fabric, the firm, solid weight of that palm on his knee. That was different too. That was I’m here and I want you and you’re mine all at once.

And it was funny, Kurogane thought, that none of that seemed as bad as it once had.

(Working, sleeping, running, working.)

They trudged up the steps to the flat – one at a time, because Fai was leading the way and Kurogane needed to breathe. Or something. He could feel the anticipation tight in his belly, and he didn’t know what they were going to do, exactly, but… he wanted this. He wanted Fai. All the other stuff just didn’t matter any more. Because, yeah, they’d been angry. They’d been angry and hurting and everything else at each other; somehow they were both still there.

Kurogane was pretty sure that that was what counted.

Fai locked the door, dropped the jacket – still scattering soot and ash – over a peg on the rack, and said, ‘Bed.’ Firmly. ‘Now.’

Kurogane fought against the heat rising along his neck. He said, ‘Idiot,’ and then, shifting, ‘Let me get my fucking boots off first. They’re filthy.’

Fai looked down in surprise. Wrinkled his brow. Then, ‘How awful,’ he said. There was something soft and amused edging his voice. ‘Tossed aside in favour of taking off boots.’

‘Just give me a second, OK?’ Kurogane grumbled. He began pulling at the laces with his free hand. Ignored the eyes he was pretty sure looked far too bright just then. How had the fucking things gotten so knotted?

And after a second, Fai’s fingers slipped into his hair from behind. Just softly. Just enough to send a shivery prickle of want down his spine.

He shoved the boots off. They didn’t make it to the bed.

(The couch seemed like a good place to stop at the time.)

The couch seemed like a good place, period. Because Fai was on top of him, over him; a warm, solid weight shifting against him. His thighs squeezing tight about Kurogane’s hips. Fai’s mouth pressed hot against Kurogane’s own, and it wasn’t that slow, gentle movement from the hospital cubicle; no, these kisses were faster, more forceful, more urgent than that.

Kurogane opened his mouth and pulled Fai close and did his best to keep up. He figured Fai would tell him if he was doing something wrong. And that was always possible, because different people liked different things and… he hadn’t kissed like this for a while. A long while. Fai’s tongue slid over his own, hot and wet and quick, and… yeah. Kurogane hadn’t kissed like this… ever, maybe. Not with heat in his belly and bursting in his lungs and the knowledge that maybe, if he drowned like this, it would be totally worth it.

He hadn’t done this with someone who would never let him drown. Not like this. Not ever.

But Fai was trembling, Kurogane suddenly realised. His bad arm was still bound up in the space between them, and that was irritating, because really he just wanted them pressed close all the way down. Just moving against one another, hands, mouths and hips. The details didn’t matter. And maybe Fai had the same idea, because he shifted forward then. Forward and back, again, and again; rocking forward, grinding himself into the heat of Kurogane’s abdomen. It felt good. Felt like the right thing to do. He found he was moving too, upwards, matching Fai’s pace. He could feel Fai’s cock through his jeans with each motion forward, and Kurogane was already hard – his skin taut and hot – but with each roll of Fai’s hips, he grew harder still.

They were both wearing too many fucking clothes.

Fai broke the kiss first. Breathed heavily against Kurogane’s mouth. ‘Kuro-sama,’ he said. His hips kept moving. His fingers curled tight into Kurogane’s shoulders and neck. ‘Kuro-sama.’

Kurogane kept moving too. ‘What?’ he said. He ran his hand down Fai’s back, nudging into the waistband of his jeans. Felt a flicker of satisfaction as Fai shuddered against him.

There were definitely wearing too many clothes.

He took a deep breath and tried to clear his head long enough just to think. Which wasn’t easy with Fai hot and needy in his lap. Clothes. Right. There needed to be less of them. He curled his hand back around Fai’s jeans to grip at his belt loops, and then he pulled firmly backwards. The man jolted in surprise.

‘Off,’ Kurogane growled.

Fai stared. ‘What?’

‘Off.’ Kurogane said it again. He lifted his knees to emphasise the point. Fai rolled away awkwardly onto the couch beside him. He still looked stunned. Kurogane exhaled sharply and tried to focus. ‘Clothes, idiot. We can’t do anything like this.’

There was a silence. Fai gazed back at him with round blue eyes, blinking, blinking – and then he began to laugh. Softly, helplessly.

Kurogane glared. ‘What?’ he snapped. Didn’t acknowledge the sudden rush of heat to his cheeks. Working with one arm was enough of a pain, without dealing with Fai’s stupid tight jeans.

Fai rolled away onto his side, still laughing. His legs swung round, bare feet kicking into Kurogane’s pant legs, and they came away smeared with dust. Kurogane stared at the grey of it over the pink. Shit, maybe he should shower first. Wasn’t that what people did?

Then Fai sat up. He propped himself on his elbow, wiped his eyes. His cheeks were pinker now, his hair coming loose from whatever had been tying it, and he lay there, rumpled and lithe and so fucking hot. He was still hard.

‘Kuro-sama is lazy,’ Fai said. He grinned, wicked and sweet. ‘He expects me to take my own clothes off.’

Kurogane decided he couldn’t give a fuck what people did.

He debated briefly reaching down and undoing Fai’s jeans right then. Popping the button with his thumb, running the zip open and just shoving his hand into the front of Fai’s pants. Feeling the heat and heft of Fai’s cock against his palm. The thought made him shift, his throat suddenly dry

Yeah, that wouldn’t work.

Because the jeans would still be on and he’d be trapped between Fai’s legs then – stuck and not able to get rid of the fucking things, and all the while Fai would moving like he had before…

‘Kuro-sama is very lazy,’ came that voice again. When he looked, Fai was sliding his T-shirt over his head. Blue eyes glimmering before they disappeared behind the cloth.

Kurogane made up his mind quickly.

He slid off the couch. Landed on his knees and swivelled back towards it. Fai gazed back at him, daring, urging, and it didn’t matter if Kurogane only had one arm because that was all he’d need. He reached out, ran his fingers down the line of Fai’s chest – lightly, just like Fai had before in the cab – and watched the trail of gooseflesh they left in their wake.

Fai shivered. Made a small noise in the back of his throat; moved his hips restlessly.

(Kurogane smirked.)

He lingered for a moment over the skin of Fai’s belly. It was so white and taut and flat and he couldn’t help wanting to just… Kurogane bent forward, swiped his tongue over that creamy, smooth skin. Shifted on his knees, and kissed a line, slow and hot, towards the waistband of Fai’s jeans. Fai writhed.

‘Fuck,’ he murmured. It was almost to himself, except, ‘Fuck, Kuro-sama. Just…’

Kurogane popped the buttons of Fai’s jeans with his thumb. He ran the zip open, dug his fingers into the cloth, and then he sunk his teeth into the near edge of Fai’s waistband, pulled jeans and pants down in one easy move.

That worked.

He kneeled up again to admire his handiwork, lips quirking now. Used his hand to peel the bunched jeans away from Fai’s ankles. Who the fuck said you needed two hands?

And Fai lay bare on the couch, legs splayed just as Kurogane had left them. He was breathing heavily now, hips quivering and shifting in small, shallow motions. He was hard.

‘Kuro-sama,’ he said again. Kurogane still wasn’t sure whether he was talking to himself. ‘Kuro-sama. Kuro-sama.’ Quietly, just like that.

He ran his hand up the inside of Fai’s thigh, felt the smooth line of muscle grow softer, more pliant. Fai twitched, and Kurogane felt a small flicker of pride because Fai was murmuring and quivering and hard because of him, and he hadn’t… He tried to shove that thought back. He hadn’t done this before. Not this. He’d kissed a couple of guys, when he was younger, still learning, and it had been more about the kissing than who he was doing it with. It had never felt right. Never made him feel like he could… do this. And so even with the hormones and every other fucking thing, he’d always stopped. Pulled away, made his excuses, gone home.

(Working, running, sleeping, working.)

But now he was here with Fai, and this… this felt right. It felt fucking incredible – all the stuff people went on about. He could feel his own erection tight between his legs; he felt hot and alert and alive all over, and he just wanted to touch and taste everything that was Fai.

It didn’t matter that he hadn’t done this before. He’d learn.

He shifted lower, slid his hand beneath Fai’s arse to drag him closer, and then ran his tongue carefully up the underside of Fai’s cock.

Fai made a small, startled sound. Jerked his hips upwards. Kurogane took that as a good sign. He licked along the length of Fai’s cock again, and at the top he paused, swiped across the head evenly with the flat of his tongue.

Fai said again, ‘Fuck, Kuro-sama.’

He guessed that was another good sign. But now he shifted about again on his knees. He brought his hand to Fai’s hip to support himself, because what he really wanted now was Fai’s cock in his mouth, to feel Fai quiver and strain underneath him – though he’d have to be careful with that, because, yeah, he had teeth.

Kurogane open his mouth wide – wider than necessary, probably, but who cared – and lowered it over Fai’s erection. Closed his lips in a careful ring around Fai’s flesh, and felt the heat and the hardness of him pressed against his tongue.

Fai moaned. Kurogane began to move.

And it was weird, because he didn’t really know how to do this. Nobody had ever done it to him, or god, shown him. He jerked off, and he knew how he liked that – but that wasn’t this, and Fai wasn’t him. He figured as long as he kept his teeth clear, it would feel OK, at least. But as he bobbed his head, he tried shifting the angle of his tongue – which wasn’t fucking easy – and hollowing his cheeks. Fai was still mumbling under his breath; bits of his words floated down to Kurogane, things like oh god and just… yes, right there and Kuro-sama, fuck.

He would probably have smirked if his mouth wasn’t busy. Not that he had any regrets about that.

He kept up the pace, though. Tried taking in as much of Fai’s cock as he could without choking – which admittedly wasn’t as much as he’d have liked. He’d heard about deep-throating, and he wasn’t sure if that was actually possible or just one of those stupid lifted-from-porn things Fuuma mouthed off about, but either way, he was pretty sure he wasn’t up to it tonight.

He watched Fai’s hands jumping about as he worked – running over his own face, digging into his own sides. They left little lines of red on his skin. And still his hands moved, searching for something to grasp. Then, as Kurogane moved upwards, his tongue pressed to Fai’s cock, the hands twitched towards him suddenly. Hovered, and stopped.

Kurogane pulled back. Tilted his head to see Fai gazing down at him: sweating and flushed and something strange in his eyes. He was uncertain and hesitant and needy all at once. Fai’s hands twitched again, and Kurogane tched.

‘If I don’t want you to do something, I’ll let you know,’ he said gruffly.

And dipped lower then to nudge at the soft skin of Fai’s balls. He grinned inwardly at the happy, breathless sound Fai made when Kurogane slipped his tongue slowly behind them – because that was worth remembering – and then his whole body went taut as Fai’s hands twisted into his hair, coaxing him back towards his hard, flushed dick.

And at that, Kurogane smirked. His jaw was aching and his lips felt swollen and he Did Not Give A Fuck at all.

He took Fai into his mouth again, and this time, he wanted to make him come.

Though he wasn’t sure if he was going to be able to do that, if he was honest – wasn’t like he’d ever made someone else come before. But Fai was trembling and shifting underneath him, Fai’s hands were carding through his hair, prickling sensation down the length his spine. His own cock felt painfully tight in his pants: the only friction to be had was the frustrating cling of the cloth, and that wasn’t even close to enough.

Even so, the only thing he could think was that he wanted to see Fai come. To feel that pale body stiffen, watch the clench of his limbs. See the face that Fai made as he let himself go.

Just that. Only that.

Kurogane bobbed up and down. It was sloppier this time, because he was going faster, and his muscles were tired, and all his efforts were on teeth and tongue and wet. He couldn’t summon whatever little technique he’d learnt. But that was OK, because Fai’s hands were clutching his head now – not forcing him down, but helping him, leading him, and the taste of Fai’s pre-cum was growing stronger in his mouth. Kurogane was just wondering if he was meant to swallow or what when…

‘Fuck, Kuro-sama, I’m going to…’

And Fai pulled Kurogane’s head abruptly off him. By the hair, which fucking hurt, only Kurogane didn’t care because Fai was arching and crying out, his brow furrowed, blue eyes closed. Kurogane didn’t care about anything. He wrapped his hand around Fai’s cock, stroked his thumb deftly across its saliva-slicked head, and felt a wave of pure fucking satisfaction as Fai came over his fingers.

Fuck, yes.

After, Fai lay there, still trembling, but smiling now too. His face was light and open and happy, and he grinned at Kurogane, made him forget everything else in the world.

Kurogane found himself grinning back.

Fai pulled himself upright. He shifted his legs so Kurogane was kneeling between them, and kissed him, hot and slow and good. Kurogane wondered if that was weird, tasting yourself in another person’s mouth. He supposed he’d find out, sooner or later.

Fai’s hand pressed against bulge of Kurogane’s cock. Blue eyes gleamed intently, made Kurogane’s breath catch in his throat.

And Fai leaned closer, spoke low in Kurogane’s ear. ‘Bed, Kuro-sama.’ Firmly. ‘Now.’

Some things changed after that, and others didn’t.

Kurogane still woke early on Saturdays and late on Mondays and went for a run around his neighbourhood in whatever weather it was. He came back to the flat, turned his attention to the weights on the balcony, and there were no mornings (evenings) that he didn’t emerge from his shower to the scent of something warm, good. On some mornings he sat alone, glaring at the doodles Fai scrawled onto his notes, and some they sat together all three, Sakura and Fai and Kurogane eating breakfast side by side.

And then some mornings, other mornings… other mornings Kurogane woke to the press of Fai’s nose at his throat, to sleep-heavy limbs loose over his chest. Fai still slept face down. And on the nights before those other mornings, Kurogane settled to sleep with the bedside lamp turned low. Left it to Fai to make his own mind up about that.

On most mornings, he woke to find it switched off, but not always. By no means always.

And that was fine. Kurogane would take it one morning at a time.

‘Oh!’ cried Sakura, ‘Puppies!’

(Kurogane flinched.)

Fai didn’t comment, just followed Sakura’s line of vision as he held tight to her hand, the one that wasn’t pointing wildly across the ice. For there were indeed puppies, dogs, up ahead: bulky shapes of white and grey moving about on the frozen lake, paying little heed to their harnesses or sleds or people.

‘They’re so cute,’ Sakura went on. Her eyes were fixed on the dogs’ play.

Fai smiled, soft and warm. He said, ‘They’re snow dogs, Sakura-chan.’ He bent down a bit to talk to her better. ‘They pull sleds and do all sorts of fun things with their families in the snow.’

Sakura made a small noise of wonder. Her cheeks were very pink, even in the dim light, her breath misting in short, quick bursts before her, and Kurogane had a bad feeling, suddenly, because…

‘Uncle Fai,’ she said. She turned her head to look at him, made the hood of her coat fall back slightly. Fai reached to tug it gently forward again. ‘Uncle Fai, Uncle Kurogane, can we get a dog like that?’

Yeah. Because of that

Fai blinked, surprised, apparently, but then he laughed. He turned to catch Kurogane’s eye. ‘I don’t know, Sakura-chan,’ he said. There was something contented in his face, and Kurogane took a second to savour it, to drink in the sight of Fai, his red nose and pink cheeks and shining blue eyes. Then, ‘Our grumpy puppy might not like another dog.’

Kurogane scowled.

‘I’d help look after it,’ said Sakura. She cast another longing look at the dogs frolicking (running amok) on the ice.

‘We’ll have to see,’ Fai said. He took her hand a little more firmly, and they started back towards the edge of the lake. ‘Now, shall we have a snack before everything starts?’

Kurogane took her other hand. Felt her tiny fingers in their mitten curl eager against his. ‘No puffin,’ he said evenly.

Fai tossed his head. ‘Anyone would think Kuro-sama had been fed nothing but puffin since we’ve been here,’ he said, ‘rather than had it pointed out once on a menu.’ He looked at Kurogane over Sakura’s head, ‘Anyway, I thought you’d love the food here.’

‘Raw fish, yeah. Raw puffin heart, no.’

Fai made a face, shuddering, and Kurogane smirked because, yeah, that’s what he thought.

They picked their way across the ice, Sakura snug between them. Up ahead, at the edge of the lake, the city twinkled like a Christmas tree – just like that, even though Christmas was well over and done; passed by in a wash of jetlag and presents and light.

Kurogane glanced at Fai. He was chattering to Sakura about something or other.

Who would have thought a city shrouded in winter could be so bright?

For there was light everywhere here. Light, from the moment they’d first stepped off the airport shuttle, travel-weary and sore. Too many long limbs confined for too many hours. Fai had held Sakura asleep against his shoulder, Kurogane fighting with suitcases and carry-on bags, and then…

Light.

Kurogane had seen the flames even then: tiny flickering ones that danced in the windows, winked brightly from strategically placed wooden frames. Advent lights, Fai called them. They were everywhere, rows of light shining from a window in each house, and Kurogane had tched then, and taken Sakura from Fai’s arms – because it was cold and the idiot needed to unlock the door – but inside, once they had shaken the snow from their boots and coaxed the heating system to life and were huddled, the three of them, by the radiator in the sitting room… Inside, Kurogane had looked at the empty front window and said, ‘You got one of those things to put up?’

Fai had stared at him. ‘There’s one here somewhere,’ he’d said, glancing about. His throat had worked a moment. ‘Yuui bought it. I remember.’

‘It can wait till tomorrow,’ Kurogane had said. ‘Too cold and late now.’ And he’d stood to scoop the sleeping girl from the space between them, carried her through the bed Fai had made up.

Light.

They’d found it the next day, stowed away in tissue paper in a box with glass birds and embroidered angels. They’d set the thing in the window – Fai running to the corner shop for tea lights and matches – and then Kurogane had watched as Fai touched a flame to each wick, made bright flickering light to ward off the dark.

It didn’t make things better, but it helped.

Then they’d dusted off the birds and the angels – or Fai had, at least. Kurogane had gotten roped into going back to the corner shop, to pick up the Christmas tree Fai had apparently had put aside. (The idiot gave Kurogane a note to hand to the shopkeeper, and Kurogane couldn’t read what it said, but he was pretty fucking sure there was no need for a dog sketch.)

He’d put the Christmas tree up anyway, scrawny as it was. Watched Fai help Sakura thread the baubles onto the branches, their faces so bright and warm and alive.

(And Kurogane remembered another house, with a sewn-tight man and a sad little girl and a giant who wasn’t gentle at all.)

Once they’d finished the tree, Sakura had looked about the room, curious. She’d said, ‘Is this where you and Daddy grew up, Uncle Fai?’

Fai had stopped. His hands were caught in the tissue, clearing it away. ‘Well,’ he’d said carefully, after a moment, ‘I suppose you could say it’s the place we came to grow up.’

He’d smiled at her, softly. She hadn’t understood what he meant, but Kurogane did. Kurogane knew.

Because he’d recognised the place as soon as they’d arrived. Had seen it in half a dozen scenes in Yuui’s box of precious things. Those had been wrapped in tissue too, he remembered. And there on the mantelpiece, in that same house, was a photo of two little boys and a dark-haired man between. Kurogane wondered what had happened to the man. Who he was exactly. He supposed he’d find out one day, or not. It was up to Fai. There was a difference between secret and private, after all.

Sakura’s gaze had grown hopeful. ‘Are there any toys?’ she said.

And Fai had laughed at that. ‘Somewhere, I think.’

He’d taken her hand. Led her off to another part of the house. Left Kurogane with all the fucking angels and birds.

Light.

But that was days ago. They’d been in Fai’s city for just over a week, and now they were here, trudging steadily towards the edge of the ice. Leaving sleds and birds and puppies behind.

Kurogane held Sakura’s hand tight as she stepped up the bank. ‘So, when does this thing start?’ he said.

Fai frowned. ‘Soon, I think.’ He tried to pull back his sleeve to check his watch. It was difficult with mittens and fluffy white sleeves. Served him right, Kurogane thought, for wearing it. ‘Shortly after you see droves of students wandering about, usually.’

Kurogane looked at him. Fai had given up fussing with his sleeve; he caught Kurogane’s questioning gaze, and chuckled. ‘It’s tradition,’ he said. Easily, warmly. ‘All the students bring their old notes and burn them on the bonfire. Yuui and I…’ and there he just hesitated, ‘used to bring ours down, toss them on the pile together.’

Kurogane said, ‘I’m surprised you had any notes.’

And Fai smiled lazily at that. ‘No, but I borrowed plenty of other people’s, and those things pile up. It was very cathartic, you know, watching it burn.’

Yeah. Kurogane figured.

They went to a café and had something to eat – not puffin heart, as Fai took great pains to point out. Why anybody even bothered with that, Kurogane didn’t know. Puffins were small birds. How big could their organs even be?

But by the time they’d finished the meal, there were indeed drifts of people – not just students, but families, other families, in the street, all heading, rugged up, in the one general direction.

Fai took Sakura’s hand again. ‘Looks like it’s still in the same place, then,’ he said. He was watching the crowds go, his blue eyes thoughtful and clear.

Kurogane took her other hand. ‘We going then?’

Fai nodded. ‘Let’s go!’

And they went.

Eventually the crowd slowed, thickened out across clear ground. A park maybe, or an empty lot. It was hard to tell under the snow. Kurogane peered across the heads – and it wasn’t as easy as at home: Fai and Yuui’s height not the exception – and saw at the centre of it all a huge pyre of sorts. Piled high with wood and rubbish and paper.

All the things nobody needed any more. Gathered together to burn on the last day of the year. Before the first day of the new one. Kurogane supposed there was something to that.

Next to him Fai was pointing at something for Sakura. Dipping his head low so she could hear him above the din. Kurogane watched them for a moment – just watched them together in the ice and the dark. Caught the curve of Fai’s mouth, the bright of Sakura’s eye.

(Life goes on.)

Kurogane still didn’t know when things would be OK again. Because it hadn’t been a year yet, and life was still… hard. Strange. Full of too many things that could never be reclaimed, never be the same. They were still standing amongst the pieces, trying to make them fit. Long difficult days, and nights restless with dreams. It wasn’t OK. Not yet, anyway.

It wasn’t OK, but maybe, yeah, it was getting better, at least.

A ripple of noise went through the crowd. Kurogane looked, and there was activity near the pyre – people in safety vests moving about. Fai was still crouched with Sakura, talking cheerfully with her. Kurogane was pretty sure she wouldn’t see anything from down there.

He reached down, met her eye, said, ‘Ready?’ and then he hefted her high to rest against his shoulder. Felt her arm curl behind his neck, gentle and small.

Fai glanced up at them. He was standing again now, hood up against the chill. He smiled up at Kurogane, pink lips and white teeth, and his eyes said I’m glad and I love you and I’m yours.

And Kurogane held his gaze for a minute. Just to. Yeah. Let Fai know that stuff too.

Then he turned back towards the pyre. The crowd noise was picking up now, shouting and cheering. Words Kurogane didn’t know, but he understood what they meant anyway.

It was time.

He didn’t see how they lit the thing exactly – they were on the wrong side for that – but the fire spread slowly at first, crackling along the edges. Consuming the papers and the rubbish and all the other worthless things. And then inevitably, just as Kurogane knew they would, the flames gathered speed. Leapt from the tinder to the wood piled at its core.

The bonfire went up with a whoom. Made the night orange and vivid and bright.

Sakura’s arm clung tighter about his neck.

‘They say,’ Fai said after a bit, ‘that you should spend the strike of New Year’s where you want to spend the rest of your year.’

Kurogane turned to look at him. Fai was watching the blaze, his head angled up to where the flames licked the sky; the smoke rising steadily into the dark.

Kurogane grunted. Shifted Sakura against his shoulder. ‘I’m not staying in Iceland all year.’

Fai laughed at that. He didn’t turn back from the flame, and Kurogane could see the shape of it moving across his eyes. And this, Kurogane thought, this was still Fai who had sobbed in the orange glow of the floodlights, Fai, who’d smiled in the eerie half-light of his room, Fai, made a strange creature by the glare of the television late at night. This Fai was still that Fai, and yet he was different now too. Alive and warm in the flicker-glow of bonfire at night.

He was strong, Kurogane thought. He wouldn’t try to figure it all out on his own.

(Kurogane turned back towards the blaze.)

And Kurogane had seen plenty of fire in his life. Too much, really. Seen the way it consumed and destroyed, ate away at the heart of things until only a shell remained. Kurogane… had never had much fucking time for fire. He’d lost too much to it, and there was no changing that.

But now, with the chill and the dark at his back, the roar and crackle of the blaze breaking through the night… Yeah, he could appreciate this. Fai was a warm and solid presence at his side, Sakura settled firm against his shoulder, and the three of them stood there, together like that, watching all the old, worthless things burn away.

~the end.

Thank you for reading! How did I do?
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[Team AU] (Festival of Light) Hearth Fires

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