Chapter 1
Rating: PG-13/ T whatever
Some boys are filling, some boys are filling the hole
Some boys are sleeping, some boys are sleeping alone
- Death Cab for Cutie, "Some Boys"
"Penis, penis, penis," Fai muttered as he strode through the halls of Heaton High. "It could be interesting." He waved absently at the chorus of "hey mate"s and "what's up"s that trailed him. He was oblivious to the sideways glances and blushes he elicited.
A pretty girl lay on a cot with a thermometer in her mouth in the nurse's office. She noticed him as he walked past. Her brown eyes grew wide, she hesitated, and forced herself to her feet. She ran after him and tugged on his sleeve as he was about to walk into his theology class.
"Fai, um." She had long, fair hair and bangs cut straight across her forehead. She blushed like a baby pink-eared turtle. "You probably don't know me. I'm a ninth year. My name's Chelsea, but everyone calls me Chii."
Fai was in year twelve. He did not know her. "Pleasure to meet you, Chii." His voice took on a velvet purr.
"Thank you—" She squirmed under his gaze."I, um, I've had a crush on you for the longest time." She drew a deep breath. "Will you please go out with me?"
Fai took her hand and brought it to his lips. She swayed a little on her feet. "It would be my pleasure." He flipped her hand over and wrote his number across her palm, in the light blue Sharpie he always kept in his pocket.
"Oh, I already have it," she said without thinking. "I mean—"
At this point, who didn't? "I've got to go to class, love," he said, as if he hadn't heard. "Call me when you're free, okay? You're very cute." He gave her a peck on the cheek.
"Y-yes Fai," she said. She seized him in a quick hug before she ran away, her hands over her mouth. Fai wasn't sure if she was excited or genuinely ill.
He watched her go in concern, then shrugged. "Penis hmmm."
Today, Ms. Cook's color was yellow. She flipped her sheer yellow scarf over her shoulder and said, "Just as Moses sent Joshua to Canaan, so God has sent your new classmate to our land of milk and honey. Say hello to Kurogane. Come up here, Kurogane."
When Kurogane stood, Fai was surprised he hadn't noticed him right away. Over six feet tall and chiseled, he wore a form-fitting white t-shirt. Fai could see the bumps and indentations of hard muscle: pectoralis major, rectus abdominis.
"Where are you from, Kurogane?" asked Ms. Cook.
"England," he said. His voice, Fai noted, was low and rumbly. The kind of voice, if you heard it with the lights out, would confirm: here is a man. A big, hulking, manly man.
As Kurogane walked back down the aisle to take his seat, Fai reached out and tapped his arm.
"Tag," he said. "You're it."
During lunch, they sat in the apple tree at the far end of the field behind the school. Fai had bought a popsicle from the canteen. It was painting his lips, tongue and teeth a deep purple. He took his time with it. Kurogane was finishing his third onigiri.
"Isn't it ironic you got sent here for being a troublemaker?" Fai said.
"I thought you'd go away after I climbed the tree," Kurogane replied. "I can't believe you actually climbed the tree."
Under the tree, a crowd of twenty or so girls: "Come eat with us, Fai!" "We have cookies!"
"I mean, England has been sending its troublemakers here since 1788. Do you see the irony?"
Kurogane took a deep swig of green tea and closed his eyes. He looked like he had a headache, but Fai understood this to be his default expression, so he continued unperturbed.
"It's okay though, I like bad boys."
Fai rested his head briefly on Kurogane's shoulder before Kurogane bopped it with his fist. Not hard enough to bruise, but hard enough to smart. "Owww."
"Don't you find it ironic," Kurogane said, "that you have half the girls in the grade begging to be your girlfriend and you're up here, pestering me?"
Fai shrugged. "They've all been my girlfriend, some time or other."
"You've slept with all the girls in the grade?"
"Half," Fai corrected, "of the girls in the school. And two teachers."
The Australian sky was pale blue, as if sun-bleached. Another might say it was the blue of a vodka flame. In the distance, a row of kookaburras sat on a telephone wire, chuckling madly. Beyond the school sprawled trim and monotonous suburbia: brick one-family houses, picket fences, riots of roses and occasionally, tomatoes.
Fai wondered if Newcastle was much different from England. If it was, Kurogane didn't show it. He always slouched when he sat, at ease.
"Trees," Fai said, with a dramatic wave of his hand, "always makes me think of kissing. As Shakespeare once said—"
"What about love? Do you really love those girls?"
Fai's smile disappeared. The change was startling. He suddenly no longer looked like himself.
"Love-" Fai's lip curled with disgust. "Is a bad racket. I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy."
"What happened to you?"
"Nothing."
"Right."
"I've just seen girls fall in love with me and then there's all this crying and carrying on. It's terrible. I never want to be like that." He picked a red apple from a nearby branch and took a bite. "You don't have to love me, Kurogane," he said with his mouth full. "I just want to get to know you...in the sex way." A wink and the smile was back again.
Kurogane said nothing. Faintly, the ringing of the bell over the loudspeaker. The girls under the tree packed up their lunches, dusted off their plaid skirts, and started walking back to school.
Fai threw the half-eaten apple as far as he could. It vanished in a patch of cattails and buttercups. "I'm good at sex. Everyone knows guys give the best blow jobs. And I'm pretty too. Aren't I pretty?"
Kurogane slipped out of the tree and landed smoothly on his feet. Fai scrambled to follow. "What do you say?"
"No."
"No?" Fai feigned hurt. It wasn't very difficult.
"Ninja don't indulge in pleasure. It makes you weak."
"Wait." Fai forgot to walk for a second. "So you're saying you want to be a ninja? And ninjas don't have sex. So you're going to live a life without sex?"
Kurogane grunted.
"Unbelievable. Ninjas are real? Are you even allowed to masturbate?"
Kurogane started to walk faster.
"You know, if I wasn't allowed to have sex or masturbate, I'd just cut off my dick!"
Kurogane was running and Fai ran after him. Kurogane's eyes widened when he realized Fai was keeping pace, a huge, obnoxious grin on his face.
"Did you know—" Fai panted, "you can commit suicide—by cutting off your own dick?—If I were locked up in ninja prison and—forced to be a ninja—I'd—well, you know—"
Kurogane put his head down and full-on sprinted.
"KUROGANE!" Fai yelled. "CAN YOU SUCK YOUR OWN DICK?"
Kurogane was breathing heavily, slumped against the main entrance of the school. Students in tidy yellow and maroon uniforms filed past. He hammered at the stitch in his side.
A few seconds later, Fai stumbled up the steps, wrapped his arms around Kurogane's neck, and collapsed on him. "It would be a—great skill—in a hostage—situation—" Sweat stuck their skin together. "How many calories—is a penis—" He could feel Fai's hot breath on his jaw.
"What the fuck are you talking about. What the fuck. What the fuck. Arghhh!" Kurogane seized Fai by the shoulders and shook him.
"You're just so stoic." Fai pinched Kurogane's cheeks. "Hey." He peered into his eyes. "Did I make you feel something?"
They stared at each other for a beat too long. Kurogane caught a flicker of razor hard interest in Fai's expression, the kind he imagined on scientists as they cut the subject open. A serious, cold look, despite Fai's silliness, Fai's smile.
He pushed Fai into the wall and walked inside. He pulled his class schedule from his pocket and examined it.
"We have gym together! When we play soccer, I'll pick you for my team, okay?"
"I feel like I want to kill you."
"It's a circle!" Fai said, to Kurogane's back. "No, a spiral. A loop-de-loop."
AN: Sorry Australians! I actually haven't lived there for a while so let me know if anything is horrifically wrong.
If you are confused about the last line, this story was supposed to be a one-shot for my Kurofai one-shot collection, Albatross.