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31_days2005-10-16 10:14 am
still-ciircee.livejournal.com) wrote in 31_days2005-10-16 10:14 am
[16-10-05] [Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles] Contact
Title: Contact
Day/Theme: 16th October 2005/ Milan, Japan
Series: TRC
Character/Pairing: Kurogane, Fai-->mild Fai/Kurogane
Rating: Pg-13? I don't know. Kurogane swears. You know him. Fai swears. Because he feels like he has to.
Previous parts: One, Two, Three. Because part two will take you to my journal, I will let you know that you don't have to read it to understand parts three or four.
Fai,
I thought that breaking up was supposed to make it stop. I sacrificed my best friend for it. Ten years, and it hasn’t stopped yet. We’ve got to fix this, you idiot.
Kurogane crumpled the letter and sighed. Somehow he’d thought starting would be easier. He and Fai had lived in each other’s back pockets for years; talking had never been hard for them. Until…
Fai,
How are you? I’m good except the days when I’m crap. I never forgot you. All the holidays and birthdays, I’ve remembered you. And I know that you can’t have forgotten me. If nothing else, Yukito and Kinomoto connect us. I used to wonder if you begrudged me them. You went East, the three of us went West. Different coasts, Fai. And now, I’m in Japan and I’m not entirely sure where you are. It’s still not far enough.
“This sucks,” Kurogane muttered and shot another wad of paper into the steadily-filling waste paper bin.
“Sir?” A boy of about thirteen was panting in front of him, doubled over and clutching his side. “I’ve done six laps, but I’ve got a cramp…”
“Stretch it out,” he pointed to a corner of the gymnasium. “And then keep going, Sparky. And you…” he pointed to a small group of girls who were walking sedately past. “Pick it up.”
One of the girls stopped and glared. “Girls can’t run for this long without taking it easy every now and again.”
“Wrong guy, kid, both my sisters went to Nationals. Pick up the pace or pick up extra laps.”
He ignored the irritated huffs. He was used to them.
Fai,
I spend my days yelling at back-talking brats. I pass out detentions and smile the whole time. I show no mercy. It’s pretty fun, actually. I like my life a lot most days. Can we just admit that we were stupid and be friends again now? Or at least call this ‘break up’ off? Because it’s not working.
“Um…sir…”
“Put pressure on it, it’ll stop.”
Fai,
I’m in Japan and I see you everywhere. The clothes you make are the most popular brand over here. I see the magic circle of Celes everytime I turn around. I recognized it the first time I saw it. How many times did I see you draw it when we were kids? The funny thing is, I never became a ninja. Phys Ed teacher, yes. Black belt? Yes. Ninja…guess I’m not strong enough on that score. It’s probably your fault. You did cast a lot of spells on me way back then when you were still a wizard.
“Christ.” The latest letter nearly knocked the can over as it went in. The tones signaling the end of the day rang at the same time as his cellular phone did. “Get out,” he waved the kids out of the gym and then put his feet up on the desk. “Yo.”
“Hey,” Touya’s voice greeted him from the other side of the pacific.
“So…”
“Kind of sudden to want his address, isn’t it?”
Kurogane shifted in his seat and idly toyed with the mouse on his computer. “Ten years is sudden?” he asked defensively.
“Yes.”
“Look, Kinomoto…”
“It’s between you two. Pen and paper ready?”
He sat forward. “Yeah.”
“It’s…”
“Touya?” Yukito’s voice drifted over the line. “What are you doing?”
“Giving Kurogane Fai’s address.”
Kurogane winced as the muffled sounds of a struggle ensued. He supposed that, had the situations been reversed, he probably would have told Fai but he would have at least waited until Touya was off the phone.
Fai,
Kinomoto and Yukito are still the same. And you lied about being gay, you know. Fashion designer? Milan? Don’t try and lie about it, either, I see the labels.
“Kurogane?”
“Hi, Yukito. Don’t ask, okay?”
“…do you want his phone number?”
The thought of it made him sit up right, feet thudding to the floor. “No!” He coughed. “It’d be sort of sudden, I mean, so I thought a letter…postcard…thing would…”
“Sudden?” Yukito sounded calmly amused. “How is ten years sudden?”
“Look…it’s complicated. It’s not the sort of thing where I quit my job and show up at his place, you know?”
“Kurogane…” Yukito sighed.
Fai,
I can’t breathe some days. I can’t stand it. I hate looking around and not seeing you and knowing that I’m not going to see you. I can’t think of anything I wouldn’t do to have you back. And when I think that, I wonder if that’s how you felt before you told me that… you liked me. Ten years ago I had to think about it. Well, you know what? I fucking love you. I might be done thinking now.
“Have you got a pen and paper ready?”
“Yeah,” he snagged the envelope that was sitting beside his notepad, “shoot.”
***
Fai twisted the phone cord around his fingers, counting rings, pacing. Two…three…click. “Yuki?”
“No.” There was a pause which, with Touya, was not uncommon. He spoke again, which was. “I figured you’d call earlier.”
He had a feeling that Touya was not referencing their respective time zones. “You could have warned me, you know.”
“I thought ten years was warning enough,” Touya said placidly, “especially over something as stupid as you making a pass at Souma.”
The thought of it, any of it, all of it, still made him cringe. He reached into his refrigerator and grabbed a bottle of water. “Well, you know him,” he said, raising the bottle to his lips.
“I guess. Never thought he’d kick your ass to the curb for something like that. If you’d made a pass at him…”
Fai choked. “Um…” he spluttered.
There was a brief moment of silence and then, voice slightly muffled, “Yuki? Guess what.” He could clearly picture his brother-in-law, phone lowered, speaking over the handset without even bothering to cover the mouthpiece.
“Touya, hey, no…” he tried desperately.
“We were right about them the first time.”
Fai tuned out the gasp, the choke, and the ‘what’. He rested his back against the fridge and slid down until he was in a comfortable crouch, water bottle dangling between his knees in a loose hold.
“Fai?”
“Hi, Yuki. I didn’t make a pass at him; I told him that I was…you know…interested. And after a week or so, when he finally figured it out, he...”
“Excuse me, weeks?”
“Kurogane, Yuki. Things got weird and just got worse and worse until we…I…until it stopped. And now, this letter, I don’t know.”
Yukito made a humming noise. “So…and?”
The glorious thing of being not just brothers, but twins, was a complete understanding of conversational leaps. “I don’t have it handy,” he hedged. It wasn’t a lie, the letter that had come to him over a month before was out of reach in his bedroom. The fact that it was only three lines, that he’d memorized,
Fai,
This sucks. And it has to stop.
wasn’t important.
“Well?”
“I need his phone number.”
Yukito made a noise, a verbal wince. “Fai…it’s too late.”
Japan, Fai thought. He hadn’t known before. He still didn’t know why. “Milan has got a different time difference than California, Yukito.”
“No, I mean…” Yukito took an audible breath. “Kurogane travels a lot. Moves a lot. He doesn’t really have a permanent number. And no, we don’t have a cell number. He gets them for a day or two as a trial just so he can make calls.”
If his heart hadn’t leapt into his throat, Fai would have laughed. It was just the sort of scam that Kurogane would pull. “Yuki, I need to call him. It’s important.”
“Fai, I don’t have it. I don’t even have a current address for him—remind me to get that from you, by the way—and even his sisters don’t have numbers for him.”
“Shit.”
“What?”
Fai capped his water and tossed it across the room. “I sent him a letter.”
“Just now?”
“I had to think about it, okay? The thing is, the one I sent wasn’t the right one.”
Yukito was silent for a moment. “The right one?”
The right one was on the floor of the laundry room. A simple ‘So, what’s your big plan?’. “I was a little drunk, all right?” And too hung-over to notice it there until after he’d come home from the studio.
“You know, you shouldn’t drink. You’re such a light weight. And emotional. Oh. Oh! Just a little, huh? So…”
“No, Yukito.”
“What could you have said that would be that bad?”
What indeed. “I…”
Kurogane,
I love my life. I can live anywhere, but I live here in Italy because Yuki can’t badger me much from so far away. He’s sneaky about insinuating that I miss you so badly that I’m useless some days. I don’t talk about you. I have dozens of pictures, all folded up around you so I won’t have to see you and think of you. But you’re like a ragged seem on part of me and I keep unraveling and having to fix it, again and again and again. I told you that I liked you because I didn’t think I could stand to be without you. And I was wrong because I can but I hate it. Every day since I told you, every day since that day in your living room, Kurogane… I didn’t know how much I loved you until everything went to hell. I love you, Kurogane. I love you as the best friend I’ve ever had. The part of me that loves you one way isn’t anything compared to everything else. I shouldn’t have let you think about things. Quit thinking about thinking and just be. Just be with me. I can’t breathe without you anymore.
…can’t remember.”
“I…” Yukito paused for an exaggerated amount of time “…don’t believe that at all.”
Fai laughed. “You shouldn’t. It was like puking my heart onto the page, Yuki. I’ve got to talk to him before he gets that letter.”
“Charming. You know, Fai, even if you called and told him that the letter contains your drunken ramblings—and anthrax—he’d probably read it anyway.”
Maybe he would have once. “No, he wouldn’t. It’s the emotional equivalent of the Ebola virus and if he knows it, he won’t dare. He needs to know this, Yukito. Give me what you’ve got and I’ll have somebody track him down.”
“All right. If you think it’ll work.” Distantly, Fai heard the doorbell ring.
“Yuki?” Touya called out in the background. “Door.”
“He’s so eloquent, Yuki, I don’t know how you stand it.”
“Shut up. Give me a minute, Fai. Pizza’s here.”
“How can you think about food now?” he asked. Rhetorically, since Yukito ate more than anybody else he’d ever known.
On the other end, his brother laughed. “Food is good for your sou…”
There was a clattering crash and Fai held the phone away from his ear. He looked at it a moment before bringing it back. “Yukito?”
“If you dropped the phone then it’s probably him,” he heard somebody say. Kurogane. Fai fumbled his own phone, wishing he could stand in order to hang it up. “Hey. Fai?”
He was going to choke. “Hey,” he managed, “yeah.” He took a careful breath. “Kurogane.”
“Great. Look, I just spent twenty-three hours on a plane. I’m going to crash here and then catch a flight out. I really don’t want to fly to Italy. I can but I’ rather not. Think you can meet me halfway?”
“Sure.” He let his breath out in a whoosh. “Sure.”
Day/Theme: 16th October 2005/ Milan, Japan
Series: TRC
Character/Pairing: Kurogane, Fai-->mild Fai/Kurogane
Rating: Pg-13? I don't know. Kurogane swears. You know him. Fai swears. Because he feels like he has to.
Previous parts: One, Two, Three. Because part two will take you to my journal, I will let you know that you don't have to read it to understand parts three or four.
Fai,
I thought that breaking up was supposed to make it stop. I sacrificed my best friend for it. Ten years, and it hasn’t stopped yet. We’ve got to fix this, you idiot.
Kurogane crumpled the letter and sighed. Somehow he’d thought starting would be easier. He and Fai had lived in each other’s back pockets for years; talking had never been hard for them. Until…
Fai,
How are you? I’m good except the days when I’m crap. I never forgot you. All the holidays and birthdays, I’ve remembered you. And I know that you can’t have forgotten me. If nothing else, Yukito and Kinomoto connect us. I used to wonder if you begrudged me them. You went East, the three of us went West. Different coasts, Fai. And now, I’m in Japan and I’m not entirely sure where you are. It’s still not far enough.
“This sucks,” Kurogane muttered and shot another wad of paper into the steadily-filling waste paper bin.
“Sir?” A boy of about thirteen was panting in front of him, doubled over and clutching his side. “I’ve done six laps, but I’ve got a cramp…”
“Stretch it out,” he pointed to a corner of the gymnasium. “And then keep going, Sparky. And you…” he pointed to a small group of girls who were walking sedately past. “Pick it up.”
One of the girls stopped and glared. “Girls can’t run for this long without taking it easy every now and again.”
“Wrong guy, kid, both my sisters went to Nationals. Pick up the pace or pick up extra laps.”
He ignored the irritated huffs. He was used to them.
Fai,
I spend my days yelling at back-talking brats. I pass out detentions and smile the whole time. I show no mercy. It’s pretty fun, actually. I like my life a lot most days. Can we just admit that we were stupid and be friends again now? Or at least call this ‘break up’ off? Because it’s not working.
“Um…sir…”
“Put pressure on it, it’ll stop.”
Fai,
I’m in Japan and I see you everywhere. The clothes you make are the most popular brand over here. I see the magic circle of Celes everytime I turn around. I recognized it the first time I saw it. How many times did I see you draw it when we were kids? The funny thing is, I never became a ninja. Phys Ed teacher, yes. Black belt? Yes. Ninja…guess I’m not strong enough on that score. It’s probably your fault. You did cast a lot of spells on me way back then when you were still a wizard.
“Christ.” The latest letter nearly knocked the can over as it went in. The tones signaling the end of the day rang at the same time as his cellular phone did. “Get out,” he waved the kids out of the gym and then put his feet up on the desk. “Yo.”
“Hey,” Touya’s voice greeted him from the other side of the pacific.
“So…”
“Kind of sudden to want his address, isn’t it?”
Kurogane shifted in his seat and idly toyed with the mouse on his computer. “Ten years is sudden?” he asked defensively.
“Yes.”
“Look, Kinomoto…”
“It’s between you two. Pen and paper ready?”
He sat forward. “Yeah.”
“It’s…”
“Touya?” Yukito’s voice drifted over the line. “What are you doing?”
“Giving Kurogane Fai’s address.”
Kurogane winced as the muffled sounds of a struggle ensued. He supposed that, had the situations been reversed, he probably would have told Fai but he would have at least waited until Touya was off the phone.
Fai,
Kinomoto and Yukito are still the same. And you lied about being gay, you know. Fashion designer? Milan? Don’t try and lie about it, either, I see the labels.
“Kurogane?”
“Hi, Yukito. Don’t ask, okay?”
“…do you want his phone number?”
The thought of it made him sit up right, feet thudding to the floor. “No!” He coughed. “It’d be sort of sudden, I mean, so I thought a letter…postcard…thing would…”
“Sudden?” Yukito sounded calmly amused. “How is ten years sudden?”
“Look…it’s complicated. It’s not the sort of thing where I quit my job and show up at his place, you know?”
“Kurogane…” Yukito sighed.
Fai,
I can’t breathe some days. I can’t stand it. I hate looking around and not seeing you and knowing that I’m not going to see you. I can’t think of anything I wouldn’t do to have you back. And when I think that, I wonder if that’s how you felt before you told me that… you liked me. Ten years ago I had to think about it. Well, you know what? I fucking love you. I might be done thinking now.
“Have you got a pen and paper ready?”
“Yeah,” he snagged the envelope that was sitting beside his notepad, “shoot.”
***
Fai twisted the phone cord around his fingers, counting rings, pacing. Two…three…click. “Yuki?”
“No.” There was a pause which, with Touya, was not uncommon. He spoke again, which was. “I figured you’d call earlier.”
He had a feeling that Touya was not referencing their respective time zones. “You could have warned me, you know.”
“I thought ten years was warning enough,” Touya said placidly, “especially over something as stupid as you making a pass at Souma.”
The thought of it, any of it, all of it, still made him cringe. He reached into his refrigerator and grabbed a bottle of water. “Well, you know him,” he said, raising the bottle to his lips.
“I guess. Never thought he’d kick your ass to the curb for something like that. If you’d made a pass at him…”
Fai choked. “Um…” he spluttered.
There was a brief moment of silence and then, voice slightly muffled, “Yuki? Guess what.” He could clearly picture his brother-in-law, phone lowered, speaking over the handset without even bothering to cover the mouthpiece.
“Touya, hey, no…” he tried desperately.
“We were right about them the first time.”
Fai tuned out the gasp, the choke, and the ‘what’. He rested his back against the fridge and slid down until he was in a comfortable crouch, water bottle dangling between his knees in a loose hold.
“Fai?”
“Hi, Yuki. I didn’t make a pass at him; I told him that I was…you know…interested. And after a week or so, when he finally figured it out, he...”
“Excuse me, weeks?”
“Kurogane, Yuki. Things got weird and just got worse and worse until we…I…until it stopped. And now, this letter, I don’t know.”
Yukito made a humming noise. “So…and?”
The glorious thing of being not just brothers, but twins, was a complete understanding of conversational leaps. “I don’t have it handy,” he hedged. It wasn’t a lie, the letter that had come to him over a month before was out of reach in his bedroom. The fact that it was only three lines, that he’d memorized,
Fai,
This sucks. And it has to stop.
wasn’t important.
“Well?”
“I need his phone number.”
Yukito made a noise, a verbal wince. “Fai…it’s too late.”
Japan, Fai thought. He hadn’t known before. He still didn’t know why. “Milan has got a different time difference than California, Yukito.”
“No, I mean…” Yukito took an audible breath. “Kurogane travels a lot. Moves a lot. He doesn’t really have a permanent number. And no, we don’t have a cell number. He gets them for a day or two as a trial just so he can make calls.”
If his heart hadn’t leapt into his throat, Fai would have laughed. It was just the sort of scam that Kurogane would pull. “Yuki, I need to call him. It’s important.”
“Fai, I don’t have it. I don’t even have a current address for him—remind me to get that from you, by the way—and even his sisters don’t have numbers for him.”
“Shit.”
“What?”
Fai capped his water and tossed it across the room. “I sent him a letter.”
“Just now?”
“I had to think about it, okay? The thing is, the one I sent wasn’t the right one.”
Yukito was silent for a moment. “The right one?”
The right one was on the floor of the laundry room. A simple ‘So, what’s your big plan?’. “I was a little drunk, all right?” And too hung-over to notice it there until after he’d come home from the studio.
“You know, you shouldn’t drink. You’re such a light weight. And emotional. Oh. Oh! Just a little, huh? So…”
“No, Yukito.”
“What could you have said that would be that bad?”
What indeed. “I…”
Kurogane,
I love my life. I can live anywhere, but I live here in Italy because Yuki can’t badger me much from so far away. He’s sneaky about insinuating that I miss you so badly that I’m useless some days. I don’t talk about you. I have dozens of pictures, all folded up around you so I won’t have to see you and think of you. But you’re like a ragged seem on part of me and I keep unraveling and having to fix it, again and again and again. I told you that I liked you because I didn’t think I could stand to be without you. And I was wrong because I can but I hate it. Every day since I told you, every day since that day in your living room, Kurogane… I didn’t know how much I loved you until everything went to hell. I love you, Kurogane. I love you as the best friend I’ve ever had. The part of me that loves you one way isn’t anything compared to everything else. I shouldn’t have let you think about things. Quit thinking about thinking and just be. Just be with me. I can’t breathe without you anymore.
…can’t remember.”
“I…” Yukito paused for an exaggerated amount of time “…don’t believe that at all.”
Fai laughed. “You shouldn’t. It was like puking my heart onto the page, Yuki. I’ve got to talk to him before he gets that letter.”
“Charming. You know, Fai, even if you called and told him that the letter contains your drunken ramblings—and anthrax—he’d probably read it anyway.”
Maybe he would have once. “No, he wouldn’t. It’s the emotional equivalent of the Ebola virus and if he knows it, he won’t dare. He needs to know this, Yukito. Give me what you’ve got and I’ll have somebody track him down.”
“All right. If you think it’ll work.” Distantly, Fai heard the doorbell ring.
“Yuki?” Touya called out in the background. “Door.”
“He’s so eloquent, Yuki, I don’t know how you stand it.”
“Shut up. Give me a minute, Fai. Pizza’s here.”
“How can you think about food now?” he asked. Rhetorically, since Yukito ate more than anybody else he’d ever known.
On the other end, his brother laughed. “Food is good for your sou…”
There was a clattering crash and Fai held the phone away from his ear. He looked at it a moment before bringing it back. “Yukito?”
“If you dropped the phone then it’s probably him,” he heard somebody say. Kurogane. Fai fumbled his own phone, wishing he could stand in order to hang it up. “Hey. Fai?”
He was going to choke. “Hey,” he managed, “yeah.” He took a careful breath. “Kurogane.”
“Great. Look, I just spent twenty-three hours on a plane. I’m going to crash here and then catch a flight out. I really don’t want to fly to Italy. I can but I’ rather not. Think you can meet me halfway?”
“Sure.” He let his breath out in a whoosh. “Sure.”