Nihon: Apples
Title: Apples
Characters/Pairings: KuroFai, SaSy mentioned
Rating: T - warnings for a little bit of language, but mostly just dorky fluff. Post-series, so spoilers throughout
Summary: On a certain world’s festival the group tries using apples to divine who they’ll eventually marry.
A/N: Another instalment in the Nihon series, chronologically set before all the others written so far. Written before they reach Piffle for the second time on their journey - so Kurogane’s still one arm down. Assumes Kurogane and Fai are already in a relationship of sorts.
Written when I should be working on the kuroxfai_pop challenge instead. OTL
Happy Halloween, everyone!!!
*****
“Peel, peel, peel, Mokona’s peeling peel, peel~~♥”
It was a nonsense song that greeted Kurogane when he returned home from the latest world’s market, the ninja opening the front door of the group’s current home to hear Mokona’s burbling drifting down the hallway from the kitchen. It was cool inside out of the late afternoon sunshine and Kurogane gladly shucked off his coat, setting down the bag he was carrying with his one hand to do so before heading off to where the caterwauling came from. (Where one pest was, the other was very likely nearby, and the boy there as supervisor.)
“Kuro-daddy’s back!”
A blob of white bounced for Kurogane’s face the moment the man set foot over the kitchen threshold - neatly caught before impact and helped on its way by being flung over Kurogane’s shoulder, Mokona sailing through the air with a drawn-out ‘ahhhhhhh~!’ Kurogane shut the door behind him as well, so she couldn’t get back in.
Syaoran, sitting at the kitchen table and apparently peeling apples, if the large - very, very, very large - pile of red fruit sitting beside him was any indication, looked like he didn’t know whether to applaud his mentor and friend’s skill, or attempt to remonstrate Kurogane for Mokona-abuse. (An abandoned knife beside the apple pile suggested just what Mokona might have been doing before she’d flown for Kurogane’s face.)
Fai had no such difficulty, absently dunking apples into what smelled like melted chocolate over by the stove, holding them by sticks driven through their cores. “Saa, Kuro-tan, that was mean.” He hadn’t even bothered to look up from what he was doing (Kurogane wondered whether he was, really, getting that predictable, or just whether Fai was latently psychic - both were terrifying prospects), twirling one stick in the air so as to make sure the apple he was holding was evenly coated in creamy brown.
Kurogane ignored the comment, grabbing one of the apples from the table. “What’s with all the fruit?” Fai, Syaoran and Mokona all worked in the orchards of a nearby farm on this world - Syaoran in the orchards themselves, picking the fruit, and Fai and Mokona helping to bake the gathered supplies into treats for customers to buy. Still, it didn’t mean any of them had to bring their work home with them.
“There’s a festival tonight, in this world,” Syaoran answered, going back to carefully peeling one apple, seemingly intent on his task. The peel stretched from the fruit to the table in one long, unbroken line, red skin slowly giving way to the white inside. (He didn’t seem to have been so neat beforehand - there were little shorter bits of peel already dotting the floor around his feet.) “The farmer said we could take as much of the leftover fruit that we could carry from today’s selection, as a token of goodwill.”
Fai nodded, rolling the apple he was holding in multi-coloured sprinkles before setting it on a tray alongside rows of others, taking the whole lot over to their cool-box-fridge-thing. (As usual when Kurogane was in the kitchen and in plain sight of him, Fai took great pleasure in putting the treats on the bottom shelf, his pose probably three times as suggestive as was required.) “Mokona may have cheated a little, though.”
“A little?” Kurogane queried, making sure his disbelief was evident as he took in Syaoran’s apple-pile. There were apples in the fridge too - he’d seen them when Fai had opened the door -, as well as over by the stove, and there was another pile under the table. Unless they were planning on staying in this world for a few years they’d never get through them all - the look on the farmer’s face when a meatbun swallowed most of his wares must’ve been priceless.
“Mokona was very helpful!” A petulant, sulking voice spoke from over by the window, Mokona sneaking in over the sill - either Fai or Syaoran must’ve opened the window to let in air when they’d returned from work.
Kurogane debated chucking the fruit he was holding at her, weighing up the satisfaction of impact versus the inevitable whining and scolding(s) he’d have to put up with as a result. “I tossed you out for a reason, manjuu.”
“Kuro-pon,” Fai said reprovingly, laying a hand on the ninja’s left side. “Mokona was very helpful today - now we’ve got plenty of treats we can put out for the children.”
“Lots and lots and lots!” Mokona’s mood swung immediately upwards at the mention of food, bouncing over to take a precarious perch on the top of the apple-pile on the table, the blue earring on her ear jingling with her every movement. “Fai’s been making them ever since we all got home!”
“…‘Children,’” Kurogane said, part-question, part-accusation, looking down at the blond beside him. Fai had a nasty habit of throwing parties Kurogane knew absolutely nothing about until he was abruptly shoved into the thick of them.
“Syaoran-kun did say there was a festival tonight,” Fai reminded him, leaning against Kurogane and so easily filling the place where a limb used to be. “The younger people all gather at a bonfire in the town square in costumes, before heading around to see if the people in nearby houses will give them treats. Didn’t you notice a lot of the houses had decorations or displays up in their gardens when you went to the market?”
Kurogane made a face. “The orange vegetables that’re everywhere?” And the stupid ribbons and spiders and crap dangling from every tree at the perfect height to whack innocent taller people walking beneath and minding their own business in the head. Bloody festivals.
“That’s right,” another pat from Fai and the mage wandered back over to the stove, going to make sure his precious chocolate hadn’t burned or hardened or something’d that would mean the end of the sugar-and-fluff-filled world he lived in inside his head.
“U~waa~,” Mokona suddenly piped up, drawing everyone’s attention. “Look, look - Syaoran managed to peel an apple in one go!”
Fai whistled, apparently impressed, and Mokona kept bouncing - Kurogane just grunted, not seeing what was so fascinating about the feat.
“Syaoran, toss it over your shoulder!”
“Manjuu, why the hell would he - kid.” Kurogane looked at Syaoran when the youth actually went ahead and tossed the peel. (Now he knew why the floor was such a mess.)
Syaoran smiled at him slightly, apologetically. “It’s a tradition in this world, Kurogane-san.”
“Yeah, Kuro-puu!” Mokona chimed in. “Syaoran’s been trying to get an unbroken peel for ages -” the little creature seemed oblivious to the blush her words were causing to rise on Syaoran’s cheeks, “and now we can see who he’s gonna marry!”
Kurogane just looked at her. “…What.”
“It’s a form of divination - some of the people at the orchard were talking about it today, and Fai suggested we give it a try.” Kurogane looked at Fai’s back - accusingly once more - when Syaoran explained, but the idiot’s spine remained stubbornly obtuse - they had to do something with all of the apples, after all.
“…And it divines marriage.”
“Uh-huh!” Mokona just wouldn’t stop bouncing. Stupidity excited her. “When you toss an unbroken peel it forms the first letter of the name of the person you’ll marry~!”
Kurogane spotted the problem with that from a mile off. “…Our names aren’t written using this world’s letters.” He couldn’t see any apple peel ever being able to fall into the correct kanji/furigana mix to start off his name, and he strongly doubted whether some mouldy skin could mimic the points and curls of either of Fai’s native languages either. The kid and Mokona - he didn’t know.
“Syaoran-kun transliterated our names into this country’s language,” Fai again, idly raising one hand from his task to point lazily at the fridge. (It really was handy having a scholar in the group.)
Kurogane turned, seeing a piece of paper with lines of squiggles written on it pinned to the fridge door. Writing. Unpinning it he took it to the table, and Mokona took it upon herself to read out everyone’s names, pointing out the uppercase and lowercase styles. Yuuko was on the top
(“Why?”
“Because Mokona got a ‘y’ on her first go!”
“Your first go?”
“And then Mokona got a ‘m’ and another ‘y’ and a -”
“How many people are you proposing you marry, manjuu?”
“Lots and lots! Mokona has many admirers.”)
and then Sakura, Syaoran, Mokona, Kurogane and Fai.
“See,” Mokona said, and jabbed one paw at the floor Syaoran was studiously avoiding looking at, all but commanding everyone to look at the shape the apple peel had fallen into and compare it to the letters on the paper, “Syaoran got a ‘S’ shape!” The dull red colour stuck on Syaoran’s cheeks wasn’t going away, even as he bent to hastily pick up the apple skin from the floor and dump it in the bin. “‘S’ is for Sakura~♥”
“And you,” Kurogane asked of Fai, cutting over the talking meatbun to give the kid some relief from embarrassment. “What letter did you get?”
Fai ducked his head, curiously silent - and Mokona leapt in again. For the love of - “Fai wouldn’t do it!”
After the mage had suggested the idiotic game? Kurogane looked over at him, but Fai was still stirring his chocolate, the motions smooth and repetitive.
“Mokona thinks Fai should try,” Mokona chattered on, totally ignoring the shushing motions Syaoran was making her way, “even if it is almost impossible to make a ‘k’ shape.”
Over his own sudden flare of discomfiture at Mokona’s implication Kurogane was aware of the kid wilting in the background - but far more engaging was the tenseness back in Fai’s frame, the soft pink flush that could just be made out on the idiot’s cheeks from under wisps of blond hair. Anything - anything - that could make the sneaky bastard blush was to be borne and encouraged, a small dose of revenge for the tortures he frequently inflicted on the rest of them (most particularly, Kurogane).
“I’m afraid I don’t have the time, Mokona-chan.” Fai turned around again only when he had his blush under control, tellingly looking at everyone and everything other than Kurogane. “I have to finish making treats, and decorate the garden before this evening. You want it be extra scary, right?”
They all knew it was an excuse. Still, they let Fai escape, the mage disappearing into his room to ponder how best to decorate the garden out front while Syaoran checked on the food in the oven and fridge. (Kurogane got to ‘Mokona-sit’ to make sure the creature didn’t eat all the food while Fai was too busy to guard it.)
About an hour and a half later a swirl of blinding blue light suddenly swept down over the windows, and Kurogane released Mokona so the bouncing bun could go and inspect what it was that Fai’s magic had done, all but dragging Syaoran out of the door into the garden with her.
Kurogane watched them from the door, seeing the complicated maze flitting with bats and shadowy ghouls Fai had called up from nothing, all leering pumpkins, cackles, capes and flickering candles. To a ninja such as himself it was a novelty, but to a little kid out for some sweets… “…Interesting,” he grunted, knowing rather than seeing Fai emerge from his room to come stand beside him.
Fai laughed, resting on the lintel as he took in his own handiwork, pale skin against dark wood. The evening was falling, dusk creeping down out of the sky. “Kuro-rin is a man of endlessly eloquent compliments.”
Mokona bounded back over to them. “Fai made the garden look really scary! Mokona bets Fai’s garden will be the scariest in the whooooooole town!”
Kurogane swatted at her when she tried to sit on his head. “Just as long as teeny traipsing twerps are too distracted by it to come knocking on our door.”
Mokona pouted, and leapt over to a safe perch on Fai. “Mokona thinks we should’ve just stuck grumpy Kuro-puppy out in the garden; that would’ve been the scariest decoration ever.”
“Ah,” Fai reminded her, “but we wanted decorations, Mokona-chan - not a guard-dog.”
Kurogane growled at them both - and they both ran, laughing, when he swiped at them, their shrieks drawing Syaoran in from outside to make sure Kurogane didn’t actually seriously maim either one of them.
(It was hard being the only real adult of the group.)
#
Silence was, surprisingly, golden and blue. Normally the association wouldn’t stand, but Fai had seen fit to wrap the house in a silencing charm along with the maze in the garden, so all shrieks, wails and screams coming from his magic-made maze couldn’t be heard inside the house. Kurogane inwardly blessed the blond for his rare display of sense - when he’d went to draw the curtains the garden had been swarming with costumed brats making their way through the illusion, hell-bent on getting to the tastiest treats that were found at the deepest and darkest parts of the garden.
Somewhere out there in the town Syaoran and Mokona were wandering with friends they’d made whilst working at the orchard, both dressed as stereotypical demons, with the extra-large bag Fai had pressed upon them with a pout asking for them to bring back so extra goodies for him. (Kurogane didn’t really see that happening despite all Syaoran’s best intentions; Mokona would guzzle most of anything the two of them got within about three seconds of it ending up in the bag - if it even made it into the bag to begin with, of course.)
Inside…inside, Fai had taken up residence in the living room, sitting, legs tucked beneath him, on the couch in a comfortable silence, writing in a little book on his lap. The glow of the lamp on the small table beside him caught the gleam of his gold hair, the half-lowered lashes over his eyes, and the amber light of the drink he’d poured and left sitting beside him in a clear glass.
Kurogane walked in with an apple in his hand and took a seat in the room’s only armchair, absently tossing the fruit up a little way and catching it, watching his companion. Fai seemed lost in his own little world, only setting down his pen from time to time to take a drink, picking it up again when he was done and smoothly continuing to write in his swirling script.
“Oi. You.”
“Hm?” Fai glanced up from whatever he was scribbling in his little journal-thing, directing all his attention to Kurogane. “What is it?”
“Come here.”
Fai blinked at him. “…Now?”
“No,” Kurogane retorted, “next week. Idiot, of course now!”
“Kuro-chan,” Fai chided, slowly uncurling from his seat and rising, setting his book down and making his way over to the ninja, “that’s no way to ask a favour.”
“It’s not a favour.”
“No?” Fai stopped before the other man, knees bumping against Kurogane’s bent legs, his expression flickering with amusement. “Then what is it?”
“It is what it is,” Kurogane told him noncommittally, and ignored Fai’s fondly exasperated sigh in response. “Now sit.”
“I was sitting, and quite comfortably too -”
“Sit here.” Kurogane motioned in the general vicinity of his lap, and steadily willed down the red he could feel trying to inch up the back of his neck.
Fai raised an eyebrow at him. “…Kuro-ti usually complains if I sit there.” Kurogane looked at him, refusing to say anything - so Fai just shrugged, a fluid motion, and carefully deposited himself on the ninja’s lap, his back towards the other’s chest. “If Kuro-piko wanted to snuggle, he should’ve just said.”
“I don’t want to snuggle,” Kurogane said more than a little grouchily, but wrapped his arm around Fai’s waist and pulled the mage further back onto him - before handing the idiot the apple. “I can’t peel this by myself.” It was nearly impossible with only one hand.
Fai stiffened a little, holding the fruit in his cupped palms. “Kuro-chan…” he sighed again. “I didn’t think you were so keen on superstitions.”
“Who says I’m trying to do that stupid superstition?” Fai looked at Kurogane out of the corner of one eye - Kurogane staunchly looked away, and began rummaging around in his pockets for the pen-knife he’d taken to carrying on worlds where he couldn’t keep his sword out and about at his waist.
“Kuro-chan…”
“Just hold the apple.”
Fai sighed for a third time, but obediently held the apple as Kurogane carefully sliced into it - but they only got a little of the skin off before the peel snapped in two. “…I think we need to practice.”
Kurogane ‘hn’ed under his breath - about as much agreement as Fai would ever get -, so Fai slid off the ninja’s lap and padded through to the kitchen, returning with a bag full of about a dozen apples.
Kurogane looked at it. “…Optimistic of you.”
Fai smirked, and petted him on the cheek as he retook his seat. “Realistic, Kuro-chuu. Realistic.”
They worked together again, Fai picking up another apple and carefully turning it as Kurogane held the knife, peeling it between them. They broke the peel again on that apple, as well as the one after that, but Fai only spoke when they picked up the fourth.
“So is this lap-invitation a onetime-only thing, or should I consider it an anytime offer?”
Kurogane grumbled at him, resting his chin on the idiot’s shoulder. “Like you don’t plonk your skinny ass down wherever you like, anyway.”
Fai laughed quietly, leaning back so he could rest his head on Kurogane’s shoulder behind him, in the crook of the ninja’s neck. “Perhaps.”
Like that, it took them three more attempts before they managed one unbroken peel - neither of them were particularly bothered though; they were warm and comfortable, and it wasn’t as though they didn’t have the apples to spare.
“So,” Fai said, as he loosely held the sought-after peel in one hand, weighing it before both of their gazes, “if we throw this, who does it count for?”
“Damned if I know.” Kurogane would’ve shrugged, but Fai was still leaning on him. “We peeled it together, so it should give us an answer for us both.”
Fai smiled, vaguely wistful. “I’m not so sure it’s supposed to work that way, Kuro-sama.”
“Then go with whatever makes the most sense for you, idiot.” Kurogane took his hand, directing it so that Fai would toss the peel over both of their shoulders, over the armchair’s back. “Like I care.”
Fai just eyed him, mildly amused at the grumping, before wriggling around so he was straddling the ninja, his folded arms resting on Kurogane’s head as he peered over the back of the couch. “…Oh.”
“Oh what?” Kurogane asked, somewhat muffled and definitely put-out at being used as an armrest, face all but crammed into Fai’s chest in their new position. “What -”
Fai kissed him, catching Kurogane’s face between two hands and smiling against his mouth, brief and sweet. “Look,” he urged, when Kurogane blinked at him, shifting off of the ninja’s lap so Kurogane could rise (like hell was he wriggling around in his seat like some demented bug) to look at the way the peel had fallen.
“…Oh.”
“Oh,” Fai agreed happily, before tugging Kurogane by the collar away from the sight and into another kiss, wrapping his arms securely around the ninja’s neck. Kurogane, notably, didn’t complain.
#
Syaoran and Mokona came home much later, a bag full of treats bulging at their side. The house was dark when they let themselves in, having carefully bypassed the maze in the garden, all the lights off and their companions no doubt already in bed.
“Mokona thinks Syaoran should put the treats in the fridge,” Mokona tried to pitch her voice in a whisper, pulling gently on Syaoran’s hair. The snacks were of the utmost importance. “So they’ll be extra-tasty for ages and ages.”
“Don’t eat them all before Fai-san gets up tomorrow, alright?” Syaoran consented to be nudged towards the kitchen, but made sure to leave a reminder for his smallest travelling companion. “We promised to bring him some, and he did make us lots of other things to eat.”
Mokona pouted in his ear. “Mokona wouldn’t!”
“I know,” Syaoran tried to soothe her. “But still - I had to say.”
“Mokona knows.” Mokona yawned, more than a little sleepy. “Syaoran, put them near the bottom, the very, very bottom, else mean Kuro-daddy might see them and hide them.”
“Mokona, I don’t think -”
“He would; he would!” Mokona’s voice rose in volume in her indignation. “And then Mokona would have to use Mokona’s 108super special secret techniques to track them down and -”
Syaoran covered her mouth. “Indoor voice, Mokona.”
“Sorry.” A whisper again.
“It’s fine,” Syaoran let his hand trail to tickle behind one of Mokona’s ears, the little creature giving what could only really be called a purr. “Just remember - Kurogane-san and Fai-san are probably asleep.”
“And Kuro-puppy is awfully grumpy if he gets woken up…”
Syaoran smothered a laugh of his own as they left the kitchen, switching the light off behind them and taking the door that led through to the living room so he could lose the more fiddly bits of his costume there.
“Watch out!” Mokona yanked on a strand of Syaoran’s hair again, stopping the boy mid-step. Syaoran looked at her with some confusion - before Mokona pointed down at the floor, at the spot where Syaoran had been about to put his foot.
An apple peel.
Syaoran looked at it, confused. “Kurogane-san probably wouldn’t - did Fai-san…?” Mokona giggled, hopping off Syaoran’s shoulder and onto the back of the nearby armchair. “What?”
“Look, look~!” Syaoran frowned, but obediently went to go stand beside Mokona and look at the peel from her angle. “Syaoran sees it, right?”
“…It’s a ‘y.’” Syaoran saw it, but he certainly didn’t get it. Why would Mokona giggle at-?
Oh.
Mokona giggled again, all but seeing the proverbial light-bulb flash over Syaoran’s head. “Syaoran sees it, right? Right?!” she repeated, sparkling, loud once more. “Because both Fai-mommy and Kuro-daddy’s real names-”
Syaoran covered up her mouth again, but even he was smiling. “Indoor voice.”
“Sorry,” Mokona whispered again, but didn’t look terribly chastised, gleefully rocking about on her perch.
Syaoran shook his head at her, but went back to losing the bulky parts of his costume, dropping them on the room’s couch before gathering Mokona in his arms and heading to bed.
That night, everyone had good dreams.