Fic: Triple Lutz (3)
Title: Triple Lutz
Characters/Pairings: KuroFai, others mentioned
Rating: T
Summary: Fai D. Fluorite is a competitive ice hockey player, very much in love with the world on ice. A tragic accident during one game, however, forces him to drop the sport he loves, and he rapidly sinks into a semi-depression. To try and restore some of his previous passion for skating his brother and the once-champion skater Yuuko tie him up with the figure-skater Kurogane, a serious professional who sends the majority of his partners scurrying in fright, and doesn’t care for Fai’s defeatist attitude. They could be great together…but, before they admit that? Hell will freeze over first. AU
Chapter: 3/9?
A/N: Long time no update. >> *should be working on other stuff - isn’t* I’m so terrible. ^^; I go as the inspiration takes me, or as I get guilted enough to remember, and I have to admit I mostly forgot about this fic for quite a while. waders drew me some pretty art of skater!Fai a while back - here -, and I eeed for forever and a day over it. (Fff, she draws such pretty hands.)
Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 |
*****
Novosibirsk, Russia, August 2009
“Fai-san, would it be alright if I took my break now?”
“Hm?” Fai looked up from the till behind the counter at The Cat’s Eye, where he was busy fetching a customer’s change. Sakura Kinomoto, Japanese, brunette, green-eyed and pretty in her waitress’ outfit looked patiently back, hands clasped in front of her in an innate expression of pleading. Fai’s gaze slid to the café entrance, where a familiar brown-haired boy was anxiously watching the two workers, and Fai smiled. Syaoran Li was as regular as clockwork, showing up as evening began to fall. His brother and twin wasn’t with him that day; maybe Syaoron had decided to give the lovebirds some time alone. “Of course, Sakura-chan. Do you want me to bring you and Syaoran-kun some chocolate cake over?”
Sakura blushed at being seen through so easily - she really was terribly predictable, and it was quite sweet. “I’d like that very much, Fai-san. Thank you.”
Fai waved her off, amused as the seventeen year-old immediately dived for the door, happily taking the hands of the boy who waited there and leading him to one of the empty tables. It was Yuui who had originally hired the girl on part-time, Sakura wanting to save up for her studies, but both twins were glad of her presence in the café. When Sakura smiled the room seemed to light up, and she blushed rather adorably when teased about her quite obvious crush on her good friend, Syaoran Li. (It was clear he liked her back and Fai had dropped numerous hints to both of them to just confess already, but both of the children had only blushed and stammered and looked anywhere and everywhere but at each other.) Shortly after they’d first met, upon discovering she had lived in Japan for a good portion of her life Fai had asked if he could call her ‘Sakura-chan’; Sakura had beamed, turned pink and nodded, and the two had been close ever since.
Fai took the customer - a young man, maybe in his twenties, who nodded agreeably when the waiter wished him a nice day - the change from the dessert they’d bought, before returning to the counter and putting two slices of cake and some hot chocolate (with extra cream and marshmallows) on a tray, taking the lot over to Sakura and her friend and laughing as they stuttered when he said it was on the house.
“Thank you, Mr. Fluorite.” Syaoran was the one to recover first, bowing his head slightly. He could be so serious sometimes, but he was decent, and intelligent, and clearly devoted to Sakura. Fai liked him.
“It’s no trouble at all, Syaoran-kun.” The boy smiled slightly at him - so serious! - and Fai smiled back, retreating first to the counter and then to the kitchen, where Yuui was busy mixing something or other in a bowl. “Syaoran-kun is here~.”
Yuui didn’t look up at him, frowning down at whatever he was doing. “Did you expect him not to be?” It was a well-accepted fact that the world was ending if Syaoran Li didn’t show up to see Sakura. Or something equally as dramatic, anyway. The last time he’d missed his appointment he’d been accompanying Syaoron to the hospital, the older boy having managed to get himself a concussion somehow when playing basketball at school.
“No,” Fai laughed, “but Yuui should come see them; they’re being terribly cute.” Obligingly, Yuui went to the kitchen door with his brother, and looked at the two chattering youths at their table. Fai hung off of his brother’s arm. “See? Aren’t they cute?”
Yuui only smiled at him. “I feel like a spy.”
Fai flapped a hand. “Spies have cooler music.”
“What music?” Yuui let his brother lean against him, used to the weight. “I don’t hear any music.”
“That’s because Yuui’s not a spy.” Fai grinned, and it seemed, for that short while, so wonderfully carefree. “If you were a spy you’d have a dramatic instrumental going on in the background as you spied your way across the nations. With drums. And violins. And guitars.”
“Wouldn’t that prove rather troubling for my job?” Yuui brushed some of his twin’s fringe out of his eyes, amused. “The music would give away I was a spy every time I entered a room.”
“…It’d be magical music that only you could hear?”
“…I’d think I was going insane.”
“That’s because Yuui is so sensible.” Fai pecked a kiss to his brother’s cheek, pulling away and laughing again when the other raised an eyebrow at him. “My sensible little brother.”
“Do you want me to cook you something for when you get in tonight?” Fai paused, his smile freezing a little.
He looked plastic again. “It’s alright, I’ll make something myself.” The smile was brighter, brighter, nothing like the real laughter of before. “I don’t know what time I’ll be back.”
Yuui pressed on. “Then should I leave something out defrosting?”
“It’s alright; it’s fine,” I’m a liar, “I’ll sort something out when I get in.”
“Very well.” Yuui tried to brush a hand through his brother’s hair again but Fai slid away from him, elusive as smoke through the fingers as he went to the counter, busying himself with nothing. The subject was closed.
#
“This is going to be a complete waste of time.”
“It’ll be mutually beneficial.”
“It’ll be about as ‘mutually beneficial’ as a mosquito.” Kurogane was distinctly unimpressed as he entered through the doors of the ice rink as night fell, Yuuko breezing along at his side - and she was breezing, her tutee grumbled inwardly, because she’d dumped her large, heavy bag in his hands and made him carry it for her. (Wasn’t this supposed to be Watanuki’s job?) “At the end of the day one guy ends up irritated, and the other’s a smear on the window.”
“What a charming metaphor.” Once more Yuuko’s outfit was inappropriate for the ice, her dress long and complicated with a slit up the side to the top part of her thigh. Her heels, impossibly high, clicked on the floor as they strode along, the building mostly deserted apart from them. Private hire after-hours was such a blessing.
Kurogane muttered. “Whatever works.”
Yuuko pointed a red-painted fingernail at him. “You get a partner on-ice to keep you in shape until we find someone who’s more willing to stick with you permanently. He gets to discover another side of ice-skating, one which will hopefully drag him out of the slump he’s in. I’d say this works.”
Kurogane glared. “He has absolutely no training as a figure-skater.”
“And you’re not a psychiatrist,” Yuuko returned rather airily, just as they stepped into the main room, the rink exposed before them. It was empty save for a lone, blond figure circling it, the man out there seemingly lost in his own thoughts. “We’ll make do.”
Kurogane didn’t reply, going to the edge of the ice and leaning on the low wall that circled it, calling out to Fai there - for who else could it be? “Oi, idiot!” The man kept skating, showing no signs he’d heard. “Oi!” Kurogane didn’t like being ignored. He growled under his breath, and dumped Yuuko’s bag down on a nearby seat. “Tch.”
“Mr. Fluorite!” Yuuko raised her voice only slightly but Fai’s head shot up, his attention caught immediately. (Kurogane glared at his tutor. Yuuko ignored him.)
“Miss. Ichihara,” Fai was all smiles as he skated over, slowing to a halt on the other side of the wall and half-bowing, his golden hair falling about his face. “It’s a pleasure to see such a lovely face again.” Kurogane made a noise that was suspiciously close to a snort. “And Mr. Black over there too, of course.”
“It’s Kurogane.”
“It’s so wonderful to actually be around a young man who knows some manners for a change,” Yuuko spoke lightly and Fai smiled charmingly, and Kurogane snorted and folded his arms across his chest. The witch had found a demon; his life was going to be so much fun.
“…Your skates,” Kurogane spoke when Fai stepped off the ice, red eyes immediately narrowing in on the blades on the blond’s feet. “They’re the wrong type.” Fai’s skates were made of leather and moulded plastic, far too inflexible for figure skating’s fancier moves, and totally without the ice pick at the front of the blade that was a requirement to get up into professional toe jumps.
“You’re always so quick to pick fault, Kurogane,” Yuuko complained, taking Fai’s arm as he came closer and leading the man over to a nearby seat, ushering him down into it. “He just doesn’t play well with others.”
Kurogane growled at her. “We’re not here to ‘play.’”
“And he’s a spoilsport,” Yuuko added, going to rifle through her bag. “But, no matter, I’ve solved today’s dilemma,” She pulled out another bag, much smaller than the other, and placed it on Fai’s lap. “I took the liberty of getting the measurements from your brother; these should fit you almost perfectly.”
Fai didn’t say anything to that - Kurogane watched, mildly intrigued by the way the blond idiot bowed his head for a few seconds, his eyes hidden, before sitting up straight again, carefully unzipping the bag Yuuko had given him and pulling out the pair of figure skates within.
There was a pause.
“Hyuu~,” Fai made some…noise with his mouth - the closest thing Kurogane could think to compare it to was a queer mix of an ‘oooh’ and a whistle, mangled halfway into a monstrosity that made him twitch -, “aren’t these lovely? Miss. Ichihara, you have impeccable taste.”
Yuuko preened as Kurogane examined the boots from his spot leaning on the nearest wall: - they were synthetic white leather, pliable, with a shine on the material and the sharp steel blade beneath that spoke of their newness. They’d be high standard if Yuuko had handled them - the woman was a pain, but she’d yet to give Kurogane anything that would let him break his ankle out on the ice. (Any other broken bones were apparently his own responsibility.) Tomoyo had always lauded her as well - Yuuko always seemed to draw the best out of the manufacturers, and she always got boots that were just so perfect for each individual skater.
Fai was handling them like he didn’t know what to do with them.
Kurogane stomped over to him - ‘so ungraceful,’ Yuuko sighed, and Kurogane magnanimously decided to ignore her -, crouching down, undoing one of the hockey skates Fai was wearing before the idiot realised what he was doing and all but yanking it off.
“Ow!” Fai jerked back his other foot on instinct and swivelled away from Kurogane in his seat - if he hadn’t still been wearing a skate he probably would’ve kicked out with his feet, but honed instinct linked to the weight pulling around his ankles stopped him from doing that; skaters quickly learned to be careful of what were basically knives on their boots.
“Kurogane,” Yuuko chided, coming up behind her tutee and smacking him in the back of the head with a magazine she’d apparently pulled out of her bag - was that his mangayan?! He was buying a set of locks and a retina scan to secure his room, he swore - “don’t be a brute.”
Kurogane growled again, somehow resisting the urge to rub the abused part of his skull and instead hefting Fai’s liberated, abandoned boot in his hands. It was much heavier than the skates he was acquainted with, its blade rounded on both ends - for better manoeuvrability? He poked it, curious despite himself, seeing the layer upon layer of padded reinforcement. “Has this got a metal mesh in it?”
“To stop other blades cutting into it.” Fai took back his stolen boot rather defensively, his smile having returned by then - but so much more brittle than before. His eyes were cold. “Hockey is a contact - collision - sport.”
“Hn,” Kurogane sat back and waited while Fai carefully removed his other boot, carefully placing the two together on the floor before moving to pull on the pair Yuuko had given him.
“…These are higher than I’m used to for skating,” Fai confessed softly after he’d tied them, still seated, running his hands over the point where the leather met his trousers, over his ankles.
“They’re designed for jumps, mostly,” Kurogane explained shortly, tapping Fai’s ankle that was closest to him. “The boots cover the ankles to give better support for them, and the foot as a whole.” Fai moved his leg again - for someone who’d played a contact sport at a professional level, he seemed to be having a bit of a problem with contact. Wonderful. “Boots used t’be made higher, but they cut back on a skater’s flexibility.”
“Do they fit comfortably?” Yuuko examined Fai’s legs and posture with a critical eye as the man slowly stood upon his new skates for the first time - or maybe she was checking him out, who the hell knew? “I was going to pull you in for measurements a while back, but when Yuui mentioned you were the same size I got to use him instead.” And evidently ended up on a first-name basis with him while she’d been at it, too. “They should be stiff, since you haven’t broken them in yet, but snug.” Fai nodded, apparently agreeing that that was how it was, and she half-clapped her hands, squishing the mangayan she was still holding in the process. (If there was a crease in any of the pages Kurogane was pouring all the alcohol in their shared abode down the sink as soon as they got back, and making the witch watch.) “Good! We can discuss the payment for them later. Now,” she collared Kurogane, who had risen up into a standing position as well, and hauled him over to his bag so he could put on his own skates. “Hurry up, and we can begin.”
Kurogane grumbled but did as he was bid; sitting down to remove his shoes and put his skates on. Fai stepped out onto the ice while he was waiting, doing a slow, lazy circle, looking down all the while. He stopped by colliding with the half-wall that bordered the entrance, Kurogane grimacing at the display better suited to a beginner but - for once - not saying a word.
“Mr. Black’s not the quickest at getting ready, is he?”
“It’s Kurogane, idiot.” Kurogane stood and stomped his way over to the blond, ignoring the disapproving looks he was getting from his tutor. “Say it right, or don’t say it at all.”
“Kuro…” Fai rolled the ‘r’ of the name thoughtfully, leaning his arms on the half-wall and propping his chin up with his hands. “Kurogane.”
The emphasis was wrong, but that was essentially it. Kurogane nodded curtly, and stood.
“Kurogane,” Fai said - and then sighed, glancing over at Yuuko. “How terribly un-cute. Does he get ‘Kuro’ for short?”
“No.” Kurogane cut in before the woman could even think about answering.
“Mm,” Fai slanted his gaze back at the figure skater, flicking it up the length of the other’s form in an easy, far-too-casual motion. His fringe wisped into his eyes, and his smile curled. Kurogane hated the look on sight. “I suppose there’s nothing ‘short’ about our dear Kurogane at all, is there?”
Red seemed to rise straight up Kurogane’s neck and head for his ears, spreading in a glorious rush of colour across his cheeks. It was actually rather fascinating to watch, a curious mixture of embarrassment, frustration and rage visible in the hue staining his face, in the tense locking of his muscles, and the clench of his fists. There wasn’t a safe reply to Fai’s baiting - and so Kurogane ‘tch’d, stalking out onto the ice and - yet again - ignoring Yuuko’s speculative raised eyebrow.
Fai turned around to face him, leaning against the wall still, boneless and laughing. “Cat got your tongue, Kurogane? Or maybe,” he pushed himself lazily upright, skating a little closer to the taller man, looping him in a small circle before halting in front of Kurogane with a grin, “maybe it’s just part of your manly charm. Do they peg you as the silent type?”
“I don’t make a point of standing around waiting to be pegged,” Kurogane said rather scathingly, and willed himself not to track the other’s movements. “I’ve got better things to do with my time.”
“I’m sure you do,” Fai replied demurely enough, but his smile was still that curling one that made Kurogane want to throttle him - it hung oddly around the blond’s face, and was laced with an innuendo that didn’t transmit across his body as a whole.
“Boys,” said Yuuko, breaking in-between the thick air gathering between the two men, and the gazes they’d somehow locked during their little conversation. Both glanced her way, apparently having temporarily forgotten she existed. “We have things to do today, you realise.”
Fai smiled again -
“I want you to hold hands.”
The smile dropped off, and Kurogane eyed his tutor. “What?”
“That’s it,” Yuuko clarified, seeing the disbelief on the faces of the two men before her.
“For an hour?” They’d hired the place out for two and a half, but with all their talking beforehand and the inevitable time they’d take leaving again, it really only did equate to about an hour actually on the ice.
“For an hour,” Yuuko agreed, and primly took a seat at the edge of the rink, crossing her legs and looking at her student - well, they were both technically now her students, weren’t they? - expectantly. “Go on.” She might as well have added in the near-audible ‘shoo’. “It’d probably be helpful if you two skated around a bit while you did so, to help Mr. Fluorite break in his new skates.”
“Witch…”
“Ah,” Fai lamented, and leeched onto Kurogane’s side, pulling a face at Yuuko of great distress and woe, “he’s making a grumpy face again.”
Kurogane immediately tried shaking him off of his arm. “Get. Off.” He didn’t know what the idiot was playing as, especially since he’d moved so obviously away from all contact before, but Kurogane wanted no part of it.
“But I’m doing what I’m supposed to do~!” Fai chirped back. “Sort of.”
“Get off of me, or I’ll-”
“Kurogane,” Yuuko said, rather imperiously from her seat. He glared at her again. “We’ve discussed this.” Or, rather - Yuuko had talked, Kurogane had listened and tried to argue, and Yuuko had overrode him. Again. He would’ve gotten rid of her a long time ago after Tomoyo had left, but Tomoyo had this horrible habit of using video-conferencing, and her disappointed face still struck a small chord of ‘oh crap’ in Kurogane that he’d never quite been able to explain away.
“…Fine,” Kurogane forced out through gritted teeth - and then switched his glower down at Fai, who’d been slowly slithering his hand south down Kurogane’s spine to an area that would result in instant homicide for the idiot. “Try it and die.”
Fai batted blameless lashes at him, and swiftly slipped his hand from where it had been resting dangerously close to Kurogane’s ass, around the skater’s hip, and down to take hold of the other man’s hand. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He interlocked their fingers and held their joined hands up in the air for inspection, as if such a thing proved his total and complete innocence.
Kurogane snorted, yanking on their joined hands and pulling his companion off-balance for an instant, Fai sliding towards him until Kurogane deliberately stepped out the way, the two of them side-by-side, with Kurogane already moving again, dragging Fai along with him.
Fai slithered for a few seconds before regaining his centre of balance, and for an instant his face flashed with quite obvious irritation. “You don’t make friends very easily, do you?”
Kurogane didn’t answer him, still inwardly fuming about having to baby-sit the infantile man beside him. An hour of doing nothing but skating around aimlessly holding hands… It was a trust exercise, a ‘getting-to-know-you’ exercise with a new partner to learn how the other person flowed - but it was a basic exercise, usually took about ten minutes, and wasn’t usually with someone so annoying.
“Kuu-roh-gah-naaaay,” Fai sounded out, and deliberately pulled at the arm attached to the hand Kurogane was hauling along. He probably would’ve tried to execute a stop but Kurogane would’ve only continued dragging him along again, and Fai had no desire to stumble and land face-first on the hard ice. He’d forgotten his gloves that day, the ice was undoubtedly cold, and Kurogane’s blades looked horribly sharp. Fai was going nowhere any closer to those things.
Kurogane continued to mostly ignore him, only tightening his grip a little and continuing on. (Yuuko wanted hand-holding for an hour, so the bitch was getting it.) Fai’s hands were larger than Tomoyo’s had been but were still smaller than his own, pale, with long, seemingly delicate fingers. There was a strength behind them though; they’d held a hockey stick tight for god knows how many years, pushed the man they belonged to through some actually quite impressive moves on the mat in the gym. It was a pity they were attached to someone with the mind of an idiot.
“Kurogane,” Fai said again, displeased at being ignored.
“What?” The other skater snapped, just as displeased at having his thinking interrupted.
Fai stared at him for a long few seconds, before blinking, the smile Kurogane was going to properly hate spreading across his lips once more. “You really are so terribly grumpy, aren’t you, puppy-chan?”
“’Puppy-chan’?!” Kurogane stopped dead, but Fai kept going on a little more, hastily coming to a stop so he didn’t drag his partner over.
Not that Fai knew why he was bothering being so considerate - Kurogane was squeezing his hand to the point where it was actually beginning to hurt a little. “You’re Japanese-born, right?” He tried to pull his hand away, pleased when Kurogane dropped it as if the touch scalded him, and held it close to his side. “As is Yuuko-san. You were in the news quite a bit; they brought that up a lot.”
“‘Chan’ is a female honorific.” Kurogane was fuming - but not about the honorific; no, not really that. That could easily be passed off as ignorance. No, what was bothering him was the first part of Fai’s address. “And the ‘puppy’?” He said the word as if it disgusted him - Fai made a mental note to make sure Kurogane steered clear of any of the little creatures for the foreseeable future.
“Puppy,” Fai repeated cheerfully, fascinated by the way it made Kurogane twitch. The man really did have so many buttons to be played with, didn’t he? “Because you bark so much all the time, just like a little puppy-dog. You growl too, though it really does remain to be seen whether we can train you to play fetch -” Kurogane swiped for his head, and Fai ducked, laughing again. “Puppy~,” he crooned, and took off when Kurogane lunged forwards for him.
They spent the rest of the hour skating at high speeds about the rink, Kurogane attempting to murder Fai, and Fai keeping just out of range. When Kurogane finally corned Fai against one of the rink’s walls with a snarl Fai only ducked under the taller man’s arm, pointing at Yuuko waving for them lazily in the distance and skating merrily - once more - out of harm’s way, and over to the waiting woman, stepping off of the ice and giving her a brief, bright bow.
“Saved by the belle~.”
“You skate well,” Yuuko smiled at the compliment and shooed Fai down into a nearby seat, waiting while the blond removed his new skates and put them into their bag, packing up his hockey skates as well and pulling on his everyday shoes - tall black boots, that went all the way up to his thigh. “We’ve got plenty to work with.”
Kurogane, also off of the rink by that point in time, was actually distracted enough by them to forget his temper for a while, one skate off, one skate still on - he hadn’t known men actually wore boots that high. “…I thought you said you weren’t used to shoes that high?”
“I said I wasn’t used to wearing shoes that high for skating,” Fai replied, pulling on his coat. It was dark, like his boots and trousers, and made his skin and hair stand out all the more for the contrast. “Why - do you like them?”
Kurogane only looked at Yuuko. “Where do you find these people?”
#
The house was wonderfully warm when Fai entered it, shaking his hair free of the light rain that had been misting down around him on his walk home from the skating rink. He could’ve quite easily have called a cab or pulled the hood of his coat up - but neither option had appealed to him very much, Fai preferring to let the rain patter off of his skin as he’d ambled along, face tilted up to the heavy clouds above. There were stars up there, somewhere out of sight, satellites, the sun and moon and other planets.
The television chattered away softly to itself in the main room, muted light spilling out from the ajar door into the unlit hallway. Yuui didn’t turn on many lights when he was home alone - it was Fai who left a string of burning bulbs behind him, a bright path for anyone to follow and find him. Yuui had teased him once or twice about still being afraid of the dark, but Fai had only laughed and brushed the comments off, and brought up all the times he’d pulled their brother out into the dark garden to look up at the night sky, back when they’d been small. It had always been Yuui who’d shrieked at the slightest rustle of the bushes then, a small bird taking flight, the wind moving the leaves, and one or both of their parents had always come running, bursting out of the back door to see what was wrong -
We’re fine, Fai had always said, holding his brother’s hand, letting Yuui cuddle into him. Not their father, not their mother - they’d always cuddled each other. See? We’re fine.
We’re fine, Yuui had echoed him, years later, to their unsmiling auntie, and her seeing, knowing eyes. Auntie, we’re fine.
“Yuui?” Fai called out quietly, entering the main room. The light came from the television and the reading lamp beside the sofa, a cheerful, golden glow. If Yuui had left it on he’d been using it - and so Fai was unsurprised when, going to the back of the sofa and looking down and over it at the cushions on the front, he saw his brother sprawled out there on his back, fast asleep. One finger kept place in the book tucked into the curve of one of Yuui’s arms, a mystery novel, written in French. Fai eased it from his brother’s grasp, careful to keep the page Yuui had marked, and slid the forgotten bookmark on the side-table in instead. He set the book down and reached to turn off the reading light as well, only to catch a sleepy blue gaze looking up at him from the sofa, patiently waiting to be noticed. “Ah,” Fai smiled ruefully - apologetically. “Sorry, did I wake you?”
“…I wasn’t expecting to fall asleep.” Yuui raised one hand to rub at his eyes, and Fai sank down to sit on the floor by the sofa’s side, grinning at his twin.
“Maybe you just have a crappy choice in literature.”
“First you wake me up, and now you insult me?” Yuui’s glare was half-hearted at best, his brother laughing and putting his arms on the cushions beside him, pillowing his head on them.
“It’s my duty as the elder sibling.” Yuui raised an eyebrow at him. “Nobody gets to pick on Yuui but me.”
“How kind of you.” Yuui’s tone was dry as he pushed himself up into a sitting position, cross-legged on the couch and looking down at his brother - and realising, for the first time, that Fai was wet. “You better not be dripping on the carpet.”
“And I love you too,” Fai teased, before wriggling around in his seating position until he could lift one of his legs up into the air, displaying his patterned socks for viewing. They were covered in silver snowflakes. “I left my boots at the door, see? It’s only a little bit of rain out there, anyway.” He dropped his foot again. “Talking of boots…Yuuko gave me the new figure skates today. The ones she used you to measure for.”
“Did they fit?”
“Like a glove.”
“Why would you wear gloves on your f-?”
“Yuui,” Fai said, cutting across the rhetorical question and meeting his brother’s gaze. “Please…” he trailed off a little when his twin looked back unwaveringly, but forced himself to go on. “Please, Yuui, don’t make any more deals like that with Yuuko again. Not about me.”
“…Alright.” Yuui sighed, but gave his agreement, seeing the serious expression on Fai’s face. “I promise.” And Fai smiled at that - as if his brother might’ve denied him -, and laid his head back down on his arms, letting the rain drip from his hair as it hung around his eyes. The television continued to murmur in the background, some nonsensical advert with too-bright colours and beaming faces, a reality far, far removed from the one the brothers resided in.