Title: The Foreigner and the Fox
Pairings: Fai/Kurogane, incidental Syaoran/Sakura
Summary: AU. Fai Fluorite is a self-ostracized and angry teen struggling to adapt in a new country, as well as come to terms with the murder of his twin brother, which he believes is his fault. Only after meeting an equally angry and mysterious teen at the local shrine does Fai finally begin to understand what it means to be different and how these differences can help him to accept himself, his new society, and the terrors of his past.
Chapter 1
Fai skips clubs and bikes to the shrine after school because he has no friends.
Well. He hasn't actually tried to make any friends, not yet anyway. For one, he can hardly hold a conversation about the weather in Japanese, let alone speak it well enough to get to know someone; and it makes him sick and tired everyday listening to the other boys chattering about some reality TV show and then they say something he doesn't understand and everyone laughs because it's a joke and he doesn't laugh because he doesn't understand. You can't ask people to explain jokes to you, it's embarrassing.
The girls are no better, and there is a distinct dividing line in the classroom at lunch between the girl's side and the boy's side; he doesn't understand it. That must be because he's a foreigner. Everything must be because he is a foreigner. The girls don't want to talk to him about the novel they're reading in Japanese, or what clubs they're starting this year, or what they did yesterday, they don't want to talk at all - they just want to touch his blonde hair and giggle incessantly and pester him with questions about California, like the place he came from is the fucking moon. It might as well have been the moon, for what they think of him; he's an alien, his skin's bright green. He's a freak. A foreigner.
It didn't bother him so much when he first moved here. It was nice, really, being popular for the first time, being popular instantly, just because he looked different and spoke different and didn't know anything. And because he was new, and this country was new, and because every girl in the hall came and talked to him, he didn't mind it. It was only after about six or seven months of living in Japan did he finally realize, I'll never stop being different. Even if he becomes fluent in Japanese, even if he knows the trains and the stores and the popular shows, even if he dyes his hair black, he'll never stop being an outsider. That's just the way it is, his father says, and it hurts Fai to have that anonymosity he's come to rely on his entire life stripped away. He can't just blend into the background anymore, he can't be normal. He's always left wide out in the open, naked and painted, and there is no place for him to disappear to or hide.
Toyokawa Inari is the biggest shrine in the city, and Fai thinks it must be sort of famous. He isn't sure, but then again, he isn't sure of anything. He's been here plenty times before: with his father, who studies culture and religion, and with one of the older neighbors in their apartment complex, who invited him along to one of the festivals out of pure pity because he hadn't been invited by anyone at school. That was before he realized he could go anywhere he damn pleased without a Japanese chaperone, it was his country too, after all.
The cramped alley of shops and the train station across the street from the shrine are crowded, but inside the grounds it's pleasantly empty. No one but shrine workers and old people are here on a frigid Tuesday afternoon. Fai walks towards the main building but veers right before he reaches it, sneaking off down the shaded slate path to the very back shrine, the slightly creepy one: a dark and wooded, stone-walled garden full of hundreds of little fox statues, staring with blank eyes, bright red bibs tight around their throats. He stands in the opening of the wall, sucking in the cold air, and thanks the little gods in these statues that it's empty and silent. He thinks the spirits must live in the statues (this is his own entirely objectionable conclusion) and he knows that you wake them up by clapping your hands twice and dropping a ten yen in the granite box at the heart of the maze. He'd learned to do that from watching other people, and he'd felt stupid the first time he did it himself, like a fraud. But now it was almost habit. A ritual he completed whenever he came here, to thank these nameless creatures for keeping away fierce glares and staring and whispering for just a little while.
He drops his coin in the box and closes his eyes for a moment, not praying really, just wanting. Wanting relief, wanting easiness of breath and painless thoughts. He pushes his want out into the musty earth stillness and tries not to think at all. And then there's a noise behind him, a branch breaking, and Fai whips around.
There's a guy, outside the gap in the wall, dressed like a shrine worker in wide navy pants and a white paneled shirt. It's freezing, but he isn't wearing anything else. The first thing that crosses Fai's mind is that he looks like a samurai, the typical TV drama stereotype, and not because of his clothing; just, the way he holds himself, the set of his jaw. His eyes are covered in shadows and his posture is as rigid as it is relaxed, like he has every right to be standing exactly where he is. Fai blushes and ducks his head. It's an automatic deference, every time he makes eye contact with a stranger - like an apology he has to make for intruding, I'm sorry, I know I don't belong here. The guy clears his throat and Fai looks up. He nods sharply and circles his head, pulling at the muscle, looking off into the trees like he's watching closely for some hidden movement.
Fai is caught for a second - this isn't a usual reaction. Usually, they'll either walk away hurriedly or come up and ask him if he speaks English. He wants to leave. He wants to push pass the guy and run to his bike and pedal furiously home where he can hide in his room and never come out again; but this guy is blocking the entire entrance and he's just staring. Fai clenches his fists in his jacket pockets and clears his throat. "Hello," he scratches out in Japanese. He can do this. He knows he can remember the words he's learned. "It's cold," he goes on lamely. Shit. Why can't he think of anything else to say?
The stranger looks back to him. "It is," he replies. His voice is deep and rough and slightly sweet and Fai turns red again; he can't handle conversations that go past one reply. He doesn't know enough words. Fai bobs his head noncommittally and starts to walk out of the fox maze, out to the path, but the guy doesn't move and he's forced to stop right in front of him.
Fai gives a forced, fake smile, "Excuse me." He tries to move forward again, but the guy looks straight into his eyes and speaks, sudden and heavy, and Fai has no idea what he's saying. Fai keeps grinning, what am I supposed do? What should I say? I want to leave. The guy remains silent as he sweeps his eyes across the other face, plastered with confusion, and then he asks the question Fai absolutely hates the most.
"Do you speak English?" he asks in English, flawlessly, with not a trace of an accent.
"I speak Japanese," Fai snaps back quickly. It's the only sentence he ever gets right and it throws people off. It's his own cruel consolation to see them floundering over a white foreign face that speaks their own language. Of course, then they always say something else and he can never understand it and then everything just goes down the drain.
The guy grins at him, his mouth is slanted and mischievous, "Ok then," he says, still in English, "What did you pray for?" This must have been what he asked before.
"Nothing," Fai replies in Japanese, he's not going to give an inch.
The guy keeps smiling but gives in. He speaks slower this time (that pisses Fai off) and rounds his words out with an American accent, "What's your name?"
"Fluorite."
"Suwa Kurogane," he crosses his arms, "Kurogane is fine though."
"Alright Kuro-chan," Fai sneers meanly. He's so done, to hell with pleasantries. This guy is standing here mocking him, and he's so done.
The suffix satisfyingly ticks Kurogane off. "It's Kurogane."
"Kuro-kun."
"Kurogane."
Fai goes with one more he heard on a TV show, "Kuro-pon."
Kurogane's fist flies out so fast Fai doesn't see it. It collides with his ear, not especially hard, but he staggers back, "What the fuck?!" He doesn't care that he can't curse in Japanese, they all know what fuck means anyway. And this whiz kid can apparently speak perfect English anyway, so he's sure the message will get across just fine.
Kurogane's still standing rock solid, glaring, "My name is Kurogane," he growls in English, "What's wrong with you?"
"What's wrong with me? What's wrong with you?! You just socked me!"
"You were being disrespectful."
"Disrespectful. What are you, an old man? It was just a joke." Fai is actually enjoying this, bantering back and forth in English; he has his full vocabulary back. I can say whatever I want again.
"You want respect too, don't you?"
Fai freezes, "What?"
"That's what you prayed for, isn't it? You want people to respect you. To stop treating you differently just because you're a foreigner."
"How the fuck do you know what I prayed for?"
Kurogane narrows his eyes. They're out of shadow now, and Fai notices uncomfortably that they're bright red, the same red of the cloth tied around the statues. That's not a normal Japanese eye color. He swallows.
Kurogane steps forward and closes the remaining space between them. He's tall, taller than Fai, which is surprising - Fai is taller than every other boy in his class, every boy in his school, he's taller than all of their teachers. But this guy looms over him, "Do you want to know?" he asks forcefully.
He's too close, Fai feels his breath hitch.
"I wonder if I'm mentioned in any of your foreign fairy tales," he goes on. He puts a hand under Fai's chin and tilts it up, hovering his mouth over Fai's own.
Fuck, Fai thinks, this guy's insane. He knows there are surplus of perverts in Japan, and that they especially go for foreign girls (and boys); sometimes going so far as learning English in order to seduce them more easily. Fai is suddenly frightened. This guy's insane, he's talking nonsense, he might hurt me. He might kill me.
He might kill me like they killed him.
He tries to calm down, to think, and then there is a voice speaking to him in the back of his head, his own, but no, not quite. Yuui. His brother, the face he is constantly repressing, the one he is seeing now, the one he can't bear to think about, the one he sees in the mirror every morning. Both Yuui and Fai had dealt with their fair share of perverts in L.A. Especially when they were together. Twin fantasy.
Throw him off, Yuui shouts, hurt him. Do it Fai! Hurt him and run!
Fai jerks his knee up as hard as he can. Kurogane doubles over wheezing and lets go of his face. Fai is breathing hard, "Leave me the fuck alone," he says.
Then he runs. There's a shrine worker by the front gate sweeping with a large branch broom; Fai flies past him. He unlocks his bike in seconds and is already swinging around the corner. He never knew how to ride a bike before he came here, but now he can ride as fast and as dangerous as anyone.
It's only when he nears his apartment complex that he starts crying, tears leaking down his face and freezing sharply on his skin. He hasn't thought of Yuui since they moved. He thought he was finally forgetting. Yuui. There's a sharp awful knot in his stomach.
Yuui.