The marketplace was bustling in this new place called Rajeh. Musicians played on many street corners, odd instruments that I hadn't seen before. In Nihon, I had never listened to music much, but this was foreign even by my standards. Of course, after the land of the talking rabbits, not much seemed that strange, but this place was just a little to like my homeland. Fai walked beside me, already dressed in some of the native clothing. He had been thrilled to find something so close to his world's fashions, and had worn it out of the shop. It consisted of tight black pants and a loose, white long-sleeved shirt, patterned with stylized black butterfly wings. Where I come from, they were a symbol of new life, entirely a piece with Fai's happy-go-lucky grin. He had already tried to talk me into the local version of a kimono, until I had threatened to feed him his new clothes. He had shut up about the outfit, and moved on to shopping for jewelry for himself. Right now he was admiring a necklace that matched his new shirt, a silver filigree butterfly. His smile was oddly small and bittersweet.
"You know, Kuro-pi," he said, and I bristled at the name, "What a butterfly means where I come from?"
"Why should I care?" I growled. Fai only smiled.
"Violent change and death." Then to the shopkeeper, "how much?" Before long, he had gotten a good deal on it, too. There was something dark and fey about his mood today, and I didn't like it.
"In Nihon, a butterfly is for new life." I commented, steering the conversation towards the pendant.
"So either way, I'm good!" Fai grinned, tying the pendant around his neck with a piece of black ribbon he'd begged from the shopkeeper. I gave up. Fai in this mood was impossible to talk to. We returned to the tiny inn about two hours later, laden down with clothes and weapons for ourselves and the other two members of our party. Sakura had been sleeping, so Syaoran had stayed to watch her. Now she was awake, and sitting in the windowsill, watching the clouds. I followed Fai. There was something in his smile I didn't like, a bitterness that didn't fit with his usually nauseous good cheer. I found him sitting in the courtyard, staring into the pond. It was winter here, and the garden that normally filled this courtyard was dead, the pond a stark black hole in the ground. The only color was in Fai's odd blue eyes. It was odd how they could be so warm a color, and still be cold. I sat down next to him.
"You said the pendant you bought was a symbol of death, so why are you wearing it?" I didn't bother with preamble. Fai wore a very slight smile, but didn't answer me. "The butterfly on your shirt is the same thing, isn't it?" I pressed, and that slight, edged smile remained.
"Back in my homeland, there were people who called themselves the Kami." I just listen, do not ask what this has to do with anything. Fai will get to the point in his own sweet time. "They claim to search for the unseen truth. And every one of them, when they join, puts on a black blindfold and never takes it off. Do you want to know why?" I nod slightly, urging him to continue, not really seeing the point. "They do it so that their sight does not distract them from the invisible truth in all things. That's what I'm doing too, in a way. But I didn't put on the blindfold. I didn't have the courage to close my eyes." Despite the words, he lowered his lids, watching the water from behind blond lashes. His next words were quiet, almost too soft to hear. "I often wonder how things would have been different if I hadn't been afraid." We both sat watching the water for a moment, until I spoke.
"It doesn't matter now. What's done is done. Pick up the pieces and move on, because regret only wastes the present." Fai looked up, startled, as though only now realizing he had been speaking aloud. Then he smiled, a small, bright expression as different from his normal grin as a diamond from cut glass.
"Then perhaps I will try to live in the present. You give good advice, Kurogane." With that, he rose and was gone, before I even had time to realize he had used my real name. I looked back at the lake, and where Fai had been sitting. On the ground before him, pressed into the dirt where it had fallen, was a silver filigree butterfly strung on a bit of black ribbon, knotted and then broken, as if yanked from someone's neck.
AN: I recently read all eight volumes of the English manga from the beginning, and Fai just intrigues me. Hence this one-shot. Thanks for reading, and pretty-please-with-a-cherry-on-top; REVIEW!