This is a fic written for a Secret Santa exchange for Livejournal, now kind of... less secret. It was written for Shadow_of_Egypt (Shacha!) who wanted a look at a Kuro/Yuui relationship whether part of K/F or KFY or without. This is the first of three chapters. :3
Rating: Hard R.
Pairing: Kurogane x Yuui, Kurogane x Fai, hints of numerous other pairings.
Notes: Merry Christmas, Shacha! Love, Santa.
Warnings: this fic contains mentions of incest and Seishirou being a disturbing creeper (well, when is he not).
Leave my thoughts behind
Three's my lucky number
And fortune comes in threes
But I wish I knew that number
That even little children seem to see
Oh, I'm missing everything I knew
It's just so hard to be a child
- Massive Attack, 'Three'
The ceiling fan whirs lazily, doing little to lessen the closed-in, musty air of his bedroom. Kurogane stares up at it through half-lowered eyelids, his body loose and sated, and for half a second he contemplates whether or not to get up, out of his rumpled heap of sweat-soaked sheets, and turn the air conditioning unit on. It seems like it would require a lot of effort.
"Kuro-coital-sensei has a dopey look on his face," purrs the bane of his existence, and it takes Kurogane several seconds to work out what he's said and then make an appropriately tetchy noise in response. The idiot just laughs.
For a while they lie there atop the covers of Kurogane's bed, dozing; Kurogane's not too proud to admit his body pretty much shuts down for a while after orgasm. When the damned chemistry teacher starts moving, wriggling sideways out of bed and jolting the mattress, Kurogane rouses enough to growl at him.
"No school tomorrow," he says in a low, tired voice, his eyes closed, and feels the bed stop quivering as Fai stills. "Don't have to go anywhere."
Fai hesitates, and Kurogane cranks open one eye to see the blond sitting with one leg hanging off the edge of the bed, the other folded up across the sheets; his back is curved and the knobs of his spine are just visible against the skin from the change in posture. As if sensing Kurogane's gaze Fai tosses his head and glances back at him over one scrawny shoulder, and his mouth crooks into a wide, mischievous grin.
"Some of us teach a real subject, Kuro-sweaty," he trills. "I have three classes' worth of books to grade, unlike Kuro-gym who spends all of his time lounging around in bed~"
Kurogane pushes himself up on the sheets, scowling, his post-coital lassitude fading from his limbs in favour of the white-hot flicker of annoyance. "Oi," he thunders, as Fai stands up and stretches, his back to Kurogane and unashamedly naked; "I have just as much goddamn work as you -"
Fai bends over to search for something under the dresser, and Kurogane suddenly finds his words cut off by the sight of that lean behind. Fai casts him a smug, knowing look over his shoulder and straightens, his boxers clutched in one hand, and Kurogane scowls at him and folds his arms over his chest. The man is an idiot.
Good in bed, though, some part of him unhelpfully comments, and it's true. He's been at this school for nigh on a whole year, his longest teaching post yet; and he and the blond idiot have been doing this for about eleven months of that year. As irritatingly cheerful and perky as Fai can be outside Kurogane's apartment (and it's always Kurogane's they go to, as if Fai's is some special case, out of bounds for this kind of tawdriness) he's a whole different man between the sheets, less annoying backchat and more serious, sensual eyes and hollowed cheeks.
"Thank you for the evening," Fai says cheerfully as he pulls up his jeans, fastening his belt around his narrow hips to keep them up. "I'll leave Kuro-bachelor to his instant ramen, shall I~? Bye-bye!"
He waves cheerily as he departs, and Kurogane watches him go and says nothing. It's been eleven months of this and he's used to it. Fai never hangs around afterward, and with him gone Kurogane grunts at the air and climbs out of his bed himself, heading over to the tiny kitchenette in his apartment to fill the kettle with water for a cup of green tea.
Back when they started this... this, whatever it was between them - he'd had thoughts about forcing the blond to stop flitting around like he did. He'd thought maybe Fai was afraid of relationships, of letting people in; for all Fai could talk (and talk, and talk, and talk) he was so very close-mouthed about himself, preferring to exercise evasion or misdirection to steer his way out of topics that ventured toward the personal. Kurogane asked him just once where he came from, tipsy and sprawled over the sofa in Fai's apartment with the chemistry teacher pouring them both more alcohol; Fai had shrugged and smiled over his glass of sake and said, "Here. And other places Kuro-kyu-sensei probably doesn't know much about."
And this suits him okay, what they have, for now. He doesn't know if he's the type to do that full-on boyfriend thing ('afraid of commitment,' his mother says when he visits on holidays, looking disappointed; his father just sighs and shakes his head) but he's pretty fucking sure he doesn't have the energy to do it for Fai, who thinks a day when he isn't exploding things in his lab is a day wasted; who talks all the time and has a key to his apartment and raids his cupboards whenever he feels like it, but cooks dinner for both of them most of the time; who lives on a diet of booze and sugar and can't do something as simple as sew his own buttons on without Kurogane's help.
Whatever, he thinks irritably, stirring the tea leaves with a wooden spoon and glaring at his kitchen furniture like it's the toaster's fault Fai's such a fucking flake. It's deliberate and he knows it; the evidence is in Fai's students' test results (always the highest percentile because the man is good at his job and Kurogane can respect that), or in the fancy academic alphabet soup of letters that follows Fai's name. Fai acts the way he does because he wants to.
When his tea is finished brewing he brings it back to bed with him. Fai's jab had some merit; he's already planned out next week's lessons, and only two sets of his classes did homework for him, the higher sets he does sports theory with. He's already written the end of year test papers for his department, and though he still has the budget to prepare, that's not due in for another month and he needs to get an estimate from that company on the cost of the baseball equipment anyway.
Truth be told this wasn't how he imagined being an adult would be when he was a teenager. He used to see himself as an Olympic athlete like his father, coming home from training to a wife and a kid; and he's done the Olympic athlete part of that dream and is quite happy to be retired, and he finds now that he doesn't care about the wife and the kid. He likes his life the way it is, ordered and regular when that damned idiot isn't around.
Idly he wonders what it would be like to have Fai asleep next to him, how the blond would arrange himself across the mattress. From the few times Fai hasn't gotten out of bed and gone right after sex he thinks Fai would be surprisingly peaceful; he always dozes on the his belly and rarely stirs, and is blessedly free of snoring...
Stop that, Kurogane tells himself sternly. It doesn't matter. Fai is a moron and a flake, and these kinds of maunderings are sentimental and ultimately pointless.
Whatever secrets Fai is hiding, the way he slept isn't one of them.
"Hello," says the stranger with Fai's face, smiling pleasantly as he extends a hand to be shook. "I'm Yuui."
After the party Yuuko threw following the conclusion of her goddamn treasure hunt dies down, Fai offers to show Yuui to his flat; it turns out Yuuko put him in the same complex as the three of them, and had had school porters take Yuui's luggage there. Fai is bubbling with a quiet kind of excitement, different to anything else Kurogane has seen from him; and Yuui smiles at him and agrees. "Kuro-pippi-sensei is coming too," Fai announces, and Yuui nods, and Kurogane sputters and roars that Fai can't just decide people's activities for them, and Fai throws his arms around Yuui's neck and collapses against his brother like a wet noodle, sobbing theatrically.
"There, there," Yuui says, absently petting Fai's hair, and lifts his eyes to meet Kurogane's. He pulls a rueful, fondly exasperated face, and Kurogane finds himself rolling his eyes in sympathy at Fai's amateur dramatics.
It's strange, Kurogane thinks as they make their way across the campus - Fai walking in the middle of them with a tight grip on Yuui's elbow as he points out the buildings and babbles away in a language that isn't Japanese - that he didn't see this coming. Looking back at all the times Fai spoke of his brother there was always a certain reticence there, as though Fai was afraid to commit something to words; and seeing them in the flesh, Kurogane finds himself studying their body language, trying to understand more about his blond by watching him with the other one.
Fai is angled toward Yuui, his face open as he talks, and though he has disengaged one hand to point at their surroundings the other is holding on tight, like he's half-afraid of what will happen if he lets go. Yuui has his head tilted toward Fai but his body turned in the direction they are walking, his head cocked and a studious, serious expression on his face that would be utterly alien to Fai; he is wearing darker colours than Fai's pale wintry white, but his blue eyes are just as brilliant as his twin's. His hair is longer, twisted into a small tail at the nape of his neck, and just as Kurogane notices this Fai reaches over and tugs on it.
"This is new," he says, with a laugh. "What made my shy brother decide to grow his hair out like a biker~? Is he experimenting?"
Yuui squints at him thoughtfully for perhaps half a second, and when he speaks it is in more careful, measured Japanese; his accent is much more noticeable than Fai's. "It's a long story," he says, and smiles at Fai crookedly. "Do you have time?"
"I've always got time for Yuui," Fai announces firmly, and Yuui glances at Kurogane past his twin's face; Fai turns and tosses him a bright grin. "Kuro-curious wants to know too, see!" He reaches out and grabs Kurogane's chin, but Kurogane bats his hand away before he can do anything stupid.
"Oi, don't talk for other people," Kurogane snaps. "And it's Kurogane! Stop giving your brother the wrong idea!"
"Kuro-chan is very touchy," Fai says to Yuui in hushed tones, as if confiding something, and Yuui frowns at him thoughtfully.
"Forgive me," he says, "It's been many years since we lived here. My Japanese is a little bit rusty. I thought the 'chan' honorific is for young women?"
"It makes things cuter," Fai insists, "And Kuro-tan-sensei is so gruff and grumpy he needs all the cute he can get!"
"Oi!"
"Uwaaah, Kuro-sama is so frisky~!" Fai singsongs, giggling as he ducks Kurogane's wild swipe and flees for the trees bordering the path to the apartments; Kurogane swears under his breath and chases him, but the annoying bastard is as fast as he is obnoxious and eventually Kurogane gives up, stomping back to the path doing his best to maintain his dignity. Yuui is standing where they left him, his arms folded over his chest and his breath fogging in the night air, obviously watching their antics with a small smile on his face. It's more real somehow than Fai's, and Kurogane straightens his spine and pretends not to have noticed.
"It's good that you have friends," Yuui says, as Fai slinks out of the darkness and grabs his arm again. Fai makes a happy noise of agreement.
"It's fun here," Fai says cheerfully. "Yuui will like it here too, I promise. I'm glad you came."
Yuui smiles at that, and for just a second Kurogane can see what Fai meant when he said that the two of them could still confuse people with their similarities. "It'll be a nice change of pace from managing a restaurant," Yuui agrees.
Kurogane grunts. This has been bothering him. "Why'd you give that up?" he asks, and Fai frowns at him as he always does when he thinks Kurogane's being too rude, but there's a protective edge to it this time. Well, if he was the older twin...
"It's fine, Fai," Yuui says with a laugh, obviously having noticed that expression too. "To be truthful, the restaurant was..." He pauses, groping for the right word, and then concludes, "Failing. There is more to running a restaurant than having good food, and... Well." He shrugs as if it doesn't matter, and Fai makes a sympathetic noise. "It's fine. I don't think I was a good fit for the job anyway; the previous owner left it to me. I'm looking forward to starting here. If Watanuki-kun is a good example, the students here will be quite talented."
Fai leans into him abruptly, forcing Yuui to stagger a few steps, and then rubs his face against Yuui's shoulder like a cat. "I'm happy Yuui is here," he says firmly, and then, with more honesty than Kurogane has ever heard from him before, "I missed you."
"I missed you too," his twin says, smiling, and Kurogane realises Yuui's smile has subtle differences from Fai's. The way the skin at the edges of his eyes crinkles, for instance. The twins slow for a moment underneath a lamppost, the yellow light harsh on their flesh, and the way they look at each other - warm, soft, knowing - makes Kurogane feel awkwardly like an outsider.
He looks away, uncomfortable, which is of course the wrong thing to do because the next thing he knows Fai is freaking tackling him, meowing like a cat as he wraps both arms enthusiastically around Kurogane's arm. "Get off," Kurogane snaps, trying frantically to shake the idiot loose. Fai just meows louder and clamps on like a vice, and Yuui chuckles softly at the sight, and no matter what he does the dumbass won't let go, clinging tight all the way to the staff apartment complex while Kurogane grits his teeth and inadvertently teaches Yuui some new Japanese curses.
"Kuro-sama isn't always this mean," Fai confides to his twin as they ascend the steep staircase, Yuui nervously checking the tag on his new house keys.
"The hell I'm not," Kurogane snaps. "You're always an idiot!"
"But Kuro-samaaaaaaaaaa," Fai pouts, using that whining tone that always sets Kurogane's hackles on edge, "If you were mean you wouldn't be here helping poor Yuui settle in~!"
"It's the staff apartment complex! I live here too, dumbass!"
"You don't have to stay," Yuui interrupts anxiously as they climb the final flight of stairs. He hesitates on the landing, the keys shining silvery in his long fingers. "If you have something else you would rather do, Kurogane-san... thank you for the company."
Kurogane hesitates for just a second and Fai makes a sad sniffly noise and turns the waterworks on, but he's distracted enough for Kurogane to finally wrench his arm free, which he does with a sense of relief. He shrugs as he rolls it in the socket to relieve circulation; Yuui is watching him with his head tilted to one side, his blue eyes as bright as his twin's. It seems strange, to see Fai looking so restful.
"Was he always like this?" he demands abruptly, and Yuui's face (Fai's face) splits into one of those warm, totally different smiles.
"Always," he assures Kurogane. "It's not just you."
"Yuui," Fai complains, and Yuui laughs.
"Alright, some of this is for you," he amends, and Fai beams at him.
"Yuui knows me so well," he says happily, and leeches onto Yuui's arm again. "Come on, I'll show him his apartment. What number did he get?"
"Thirty seven," Yuui says, showing Fai his keys; Fai sighs dramatically.
"You're all the way down the corridor from me and Kuro-helpful," he complains. "That's so unfair."
Yuui lifts his eyebrows. "I was thousands of miles away in Italy, are you really complaining about one corridor?"
"He complains about having to get out of bed to use the espresso machine in the kitchen," Kurogane grouses, and then freezes when Yuui glances over his shoulder at him and lifts his eyebrows. He hadn't meant to mention that yet. He didn't even know if Fai was out to his twin.
Fai just smiles lazily, and Yuui turns faintly pink before diverting his gaze steadfastly to the doors lining the corridor. The silence stretches out for several seconds longer than Kurogane likes it, and desperately he reaches for something to fill it. "So, apartment thirty seven?"
"Yes," Yuui replies, still not looking at him. The tips of his ears are pink, and somehow that honesty of emotion is more intriguing than Fai's sultriest bedroom eyes. Kurogane's not entirely sure Fai knows how to blush.
"Your neighbours don't suck," Kurogane offers awkwardly, and that startles a heh from him even as they draw level with the door. It takes him a little bit of time to fiddle with the lock, and then they have it open and step into an apartment that could be a mirror image of Kurogane's, but with even less personality.
Kurogane isn't really into interior design or anything like that. He'd kept his decorations to a minimum; his framed gold medals, a couple of practise kendo sticks on the walls, a few photographs of him with other people - his parents, the Japanese Olympics teams, his former coach - and otherwise he'd kept it as it was given to him.
Fai, on the other hand, has barely an inch left of his apartment underneath a ridiculous amount of posters. Posters for films, bands, theatre, concerts; posters of Hello Kitty's face next to some dumb American blockbuster next to a J-pop boy band, all riotous colours and clashing, poorly designed graphics. It hadn't taken Kurogane long to see that the posters were chosen to be as striking as possible rather than because of any personal attachment, because Fai's apartment was void of anything that meant anything; no photographs, no mementos. Just the posters.
Yuui's flat is a base, a canvas waiting to be filled in. His luggage - two large suitcases, still wearing airport security tags - sits in the very middle of the apartment, near the couch; he goes to check on them while Fai lets him go and begins exploring, wandering in and out of the other rooms in the apartment even though he already knows where everything was, the layout identical to his own.
"Hyuu~! Yuui, you don't have any blankets," he calls back from the bedroom, sounding faintly concerned. "Did you bring some with you?"
Yuui shakes his head, unzipping one of the suitcases, and then pauses, obviously realising Fai isn't present to see it. "No," he calls back. "I didn't think to. Is there anything still open?"
"No need," Fai says absently, emerging from the door and leaving it open behind him. "I have some spare you can borrow. Kuro-sama-sensei should help you unpack!"
"Don't tell me what to do," Kurogane snaps, although he's already on his way to help Yuui with the big suitcases. Yuui flashes him a quick, warm smile, which he ignores with as much dignity as he can. Fai laughing at him as he slips out of the apartment doesn't help.
"Thank you," Yuui says quietly once his twin is gone, laying out heaps of clothing on the couch. He jerks his chin at the other suitcase. "There's some cookware in that, if you could...?"
"Sure," Kurogane says, shortly. Yuui looks tired; it's late at night and it must have been a long flight from Italy to Japan. He tips the other suitcase over carefully and unzips it. It's full of neatly packed equipment, nothing he recognises. He begins pulling the items out, pausing uncertainly over a few particularly odd ones.
"Kurogane-san," Yuui says softly, and he glances over sharply. Yuui is fastidiously refolding some corner of a white uniform. "I... I just wanted to say thank you. Without Fai around, that is."
"For what?" Kurogane asks suspiciously, and Yuui smiles again, his eyes warm.
"For taking care of Fai," he says. "He can be difficult, I know that, but he's happy here. He wasn't when he first moved. So, thank you."
Kurogane huffs and glances away, pulling out a few more esoteric items, including a handheld blowtorch that momentarily has him crook an eyebrow. "I didn't do anything," he says gruffly, straightening with his arms full of Yuui's belongings, and the new arrival doesn't look up at him.
"I don't think you had to," he says softly. "You were enough just by being you."
Kurogane hesitates, still standing there with Yuui's weird (and sharp, ow) cooking junk in his arms, and then blurts, "Look, about him and me -"
"Fai likes men, Kurogane-san," Yuui interrupts gently. "I already knew that. And he already told me he was..." he pauses, groping for the right word, and Kurogane watches that colour course through the shells of his ears again. Compared to Fai's shamelessness Yuui's sensitivity feels more suitable to the Japanese culture Kurogane grew up in. "He already told me he was with you," Yuui settles on.
"Does that bother you?" Kurogane asks quietly. He wants to know if he'd going to have to deal with a jealous brother or an unhappy family member, and to his relief Yuui cuts him an amused glance and shakes his head. "Okay. Good."
He's turning to go shove Yuui's gear in the kitchen when the man himself pipes up, abruptly, "Kurogane-san?"
It's weird hearing his full name in that voice. "Yeah?"
If Yuui was flushed before, now his face is positively on fire. He seems to be having trouble meeting Kurogane's gaze. "If... if it's alright with you," he says, very slowly and carefully, "I'd. I'd like to get to know you a bit more. Since Fai likes you so much."
Kurogane stares. This is not quite what he expected.
But didn't you want some normalcy with Fai? whispers the voice at the back of his mind. It sounds faintly mocking. Something more than sex? What's more normal than meeting the family?
"Uh," he says intelligently, at which point Fai shoves the door open, buried under a huge heap of blankets. Yuui stares at him, aghast, and he totters over and dumps them on the couch on top of Yuui's freshly folded clothes.
"There," he says, with some satisfaction.
"Fai - it's not..." Yuui pokes at the mountain of sheets and covers, looking faintly concerned. "It's not going to be cold enough that I'll need all these, surely?"
"You never know," Fai replies judiciously. "I didn't want Yuui's first night in Japan to be spent all cold. You could catch a fever!"
Yuui raises an eyebrow. "That doesn't actually happen," he points out dryly.
"I'm a scientist. Trust me, I know what I'm talking about," Fai says airily, which makes Kurogane snort in indignation; Fai spins on his heels and gives Kurogane a sparkling megawatt smile.
"Right," Yuui says with amusement carried in his voice. He sighs and stands up, awkwardly and hissing at stiff knees; Fai is immediately hovering by his side. Yuui ignores him, scooping up the blankets, and then pauses, looking surprised, and tentatively sniffs them. "Is this...?"
"Yes," Fai replies immediately. He grins. "It's the detergent from home. Ashura sends me supplies, I don't like the stuff you can buy here."
"Oh, Fai." Yuui adjusts the heap of bedding and reaches over, cupping the back of his brother's neck in one hand, and tugs him down so that they stand for a moment, noses and foreheads pressed against each other. Fai's pale eyelashes sweep across his cheeks as he lowers his gaze, and from this angle they look even more identical than Kurogane had thought. It's weird, but oddly pleasant to look at.
No, he thinks of himself, aghast. Identical twins aren't interchangeable and it's not right for him to think that about the new arrival Yuui. He should know better than that. He turns away rather quickly, risking one last look over this shoulder at the twins standing there, perfectly still and silent, seemingly lost in each other's company; then he heads into the kitchen as quietly as he can.
Yuui isn't the only one flushed, he discovers as he crouches down to shove things into the cupboards.
He's in his office three days later when he hears a scrabbling at the window, and with a disgusted sigh he throws his pen down across the stack of essays gathering on the edge of his desk and leans back in his chair, folding his arms across his chest as he watches his guest slide the panes up and then eel neatly over the frame.
"Kurogane-sensei~!" she purrs, perched there on the windowsill with her short skirt somehow managing to cover everything necessary. "I see you're not busy, perfect!"
He twitches despite himself. "I was doing my job," he growls, but she dismisses this with an airy hand wave. "The hell do you want, witch?"
Yuuko claps her hands together happily, and the light in her eyes makes him suddenly nervous. He's a trained martial artist, an expert in five disciplines and a former world champion (and would be reigning, if he hadn't retired) in kendo, and the sight of that smug curve to her mouth still makes his stomach clench in terror.
"What is it," Kurogane asks again, only this time he sounds much less confident than he'd like. From Yuuko's shark-like grin, that's been noted.
"It's Yuui-sensei," she says sweetly, and he tenses despite himself; she's already corrupted one twin (not that she needed to make him that way, Fai always was plenty willing to indulge in her stupid at her side). "As you no doubt know, all staff are required to undergo a health assessment by the school nurse!"
"Yeah?" he replies cagily, drawing the word out. He doesn't see what that has to do with him.
"Seishirou-san says he's free to do the assessment during fifth period, and I know Yuui-sensei has a free lesson then, buuuut..." She leans forward, her breasts pushing at the astonishingly low-cut sweater she's wearing out of some misplaced deference to the cold, and smiles at him sharply. "Yuui-sensei is so new to this school," she says. "It'd be a terrible shame if he got lost. I'm sure a more... senior teacher who just so happens to have fifth period off as well could show him the way. I'd hate for him to miss out on his... mandatory... assessment. It'd be terrible to expose the students to any infectious European illnesses."
"Infectious - what."
Yuuko's eyes light up. "But of course! The Spanish 'flu... the Black Death... Europe is just a hive of pestilence! As Yuui's new, devoted employer I'd be remiss not to have him seen to by a specialist -"
"You mean the pervert with the stethoscope," Kurogane interjects, and she dismisses him with another hand wave.
"I mean Holitsuba's own devoted medical professional whose care and concern for the students' wellbeing is second, I'm sure, to none. Besides," she shrugged. "Food hygiene."
Kurogane scowls. "You said 'devoted' twice."
"Really, Kurogane," Yuuko pouts. "You choose the strangest things to fixate on. Now get going! You've got ten minutes to make it to Yuui's classroom before the bells go."
Kurogane hesitates for just a moment, torn between furiously rejecting this order - the latest in a long line of busywork - or accepting. He does have to deal with these essays before tomorrow, because he promised his top set that he'd have their papers back to them by tomorrow's afternoon class, and he doesn't want to be working on them at home if he can help it... but neither can he reasonably abandon Yuui to the 'care' of Seishirou. "Fine," he growls, pushing his chair back from his desk and grabbing his jacket from its peg. Yuuko beams at him and waves goodbye, waggling her fingers, and he snarls and points at her. "Don't steal my tea while I'm gone!"
"Kurogane is so suspicious," she says, giving a heaving sigh, and he glares at her before reluctantly departing.
The home economics classrooms are located in a block in a building near the gym. By the time Kurogane gets there, Yuui's class is washing up; aprons are being hung on hooks, book bags collected from underneath chairs and tables, sweet substances are being carefully stored into tupperware and brought up to Yuui's desk at the front of the room. Yuui himself is in spotless white, a high-collared chef's uniform buttoned up along the side, and his hair is carefully swept away from his face and pinned back. He's wearing round glasses that make him look younger than he really is.
"Kurogane-sensei," he says in surprise when Kurogane shoulders his way in through all the (suddenly curious) students, and don't they have anything better to do anyway? He glares at a couple of them, who abruptly find something fascinating in the ceiling and floor tiles. Except for the Li twin with all the attitude, Syaoron; he's too busy making unsubtle calf-eyes at Yuui to notice.
"Chairman wants you to go for a medical examination next lesson," he grunts. "She asked me to show you the way."
"Oh." Yuui pauses, and then flashes him a flicker-fast smile. "Well, if she insists. Watanuki-kun, you need to write your name on this, please."
Watanuki takes his tupperware back and bends over it, spelling out his name in even, neat kanji. "Here you go sensei," he says, and hesitates, glancing up and Kurogane and then back to Yuui, who is making a note of the results in his register. "Um, sensei?"
"Yes?" Yuui says without looking up.
"The school nurse can be a bit..."
Now Yuui does lift his head, making eye contact with Watanuki and looking somewhat surprised. "A bit what, Watanuki-kun?"
The kid freezes, obviously torn between his wish to warn Yuui of the terrors of the nurse's office and a cultural desire not to be so crass as to come out and actually say what's wrong with Seishirou, so Kurogane snorts and says, "He's weird. Don't worry about it, you'll be fine."
Because I'm not leaving you alone with him, he doesn't add, but Watanuki nods gratefully and vanishes back to his seat. Doumeki, Kurogane's best archer, says something to him that makes him freak out with rage, and Yuui frowns at them faintly.
Before he can say anything the bells sound through the announcement system, and he waits for them to finish before clapping his hands together loudly. His kids quieten down, watching him from their sprawl across the desk, and he smiles at them with genuine pride. "Alright everyone," he says. "Really good work today. Come see me after school to get your ice cream back once it's set, okay? Now shoo, don't be late for your next class! I'll see you all after school."
He's met with a chorus of 'bye, sensei's as the kids file out of the room, and Kurogane leans on his desk and watches as Yuui brings the ice cream to the freezer unit in his office, carefully balancing the containers on top of each other. "Ice cream, huh?" he says. "I thought you were an Italian chef."
"I specialise in Italian food, yes," Yuui replies, closing the freezer door. "I started out making desserts for Fai and I back home."
Kurogane frowns, watching as Yuui unfastens his chef outfit to reveal a perfectly ordinary dress shirt beneath it; he grabs a suit jacket from the back of his office door. "Home being where?"
"Fai didn't tell you?" Yuui looks startled and when Kurogane nods, bites his lower lip. "Honestly, sometimes I wonder... we're Icelandic, Kurogane-san."
Kurogane keeps his face blank, and Yuui sighs and wraps one arm around his torso. "Fai doesn't talk about a lot of things."
"I know," Yuui says. "I'd hoped..."
He pauses with one hand on the doorknob and then huffs out a long breath and shakes his head. "It doesn't matter," he says quietly, although obviously it does, and closes the door softly behind him. "Shall we go?"
Seishirou's office is near the student information centre, tucked around the bottom floor of the science block. It isn't far to go - around the gym and through the humanities wing - but it feels longer with Yuui walking quietly at his side, arms wrapped around his chest and blond hair shining in the pale wintry sunlight. Maybe it's because Kurogane associates that face and body with Fai, and his instincts are yelling at him to watch out for a surprise tackle-hug.
"Must be weird," he says awkwardly as they head through the Japanese literature classrooms; bored students watch them idly through the glass windows that make up the inner wall. There's something strange about walking a school corridor while the students are in class, something hushed and secret, reverence for education. Yuui glances at him with a curious look on his face. "Going from running a restaurant to teaching, I mean."
"Not really," Yuui says. "I had to train a couple of new chefs. This is like that, but on a greater scale."
Kurogane digests this, and nods. Yuui would be the judge of that. "Why Japan?" he blurts instead, and hesitates. His mother would have so many things to say about his lack of manners; Yuui is looking at him with his head tilted and a quirk to the line of his mouth that speaks of amusement. "I mean... why did you and your idiot brother pick Japan? It's a long way away from Iceland, right?"
Yuui looks away as they pass an English classroom, Syaoron standing up before the interactive white board gesticulating in the midst of some presentation. Kurogane's pretty sure the weird, spidery English words on the board behind him spell out Hello, my name is. "We were born in Japan," he says. "We moved back to Iceland when we were eight. We still remembered some of the language, though."
That would explain their decent Japanese, Kurogane decides. Normally blonds like these two can't manage more than farewell or, even more insultingly, ni hao.
Seishirou is sitting at his chair filling in forms when Kurogane rather abruptly shoves his door open; he spins around and adjusts his glasses, and smiles at them coolly. "Kurogane-sensei, how can I help you?"
Kurogane stands aside to let Yuui squeeze past. "Chairman wanted a health assessment for this one."
"Oh, of course." Seishirou climbs to his feet and crosses the office to a desk, sliding open a drawer and pulling out a blood pressure cuff and a number of instruments wrapped in plastic; Yuui quietly shifts an inch or two closer to Kurogane, seemingly without being aware of it.
"I've already had all my vaccines, Seishirou-san," he says nervously, and Seishirou shoots him a perfectly calm, perfectly friendly smile that manages to put Kurogane's hackles up.
"I'm sure you have," Seishirou says. "Could you climb up on the bed and fill in this survey, please?" He hands Yuui a piece of paper on a clipboard, and Yuui unclips the pen, frowns at the questions, and then climbs awkwardly up on the nurse's station gurney. He's a tall man, like his twin, but it's been raised high enough his feet are a few inches off the ground. Kurogane folds his arms and leans against the wall near the door; Seishirou frowns at him and says, in a faintly patronising tone, "Don't you have some classes to be getting on with, Kurogane-sensei?"
"No he doesn't," Yuui says, and glances up over the clipboard to flash Kurogane a wink. The sounds of the pen against the paper as he ticked off whatever answers were on it seems oddly loud in the small confines of the office. "There."
"Excellent," Seishirou replies politely, taking the clipboard and turning to put it back on the desk, "Now please strip your shirt off for me."
"Um," Yuui says uncertainly. Kurogane scowls, but Seishirou turns back with the blood pressure cuff in one hand and the stethoscope in the other, and after exchanging mutually concerned gazes again, Yuui shrugs off the suit jacket and begins to unbutton his shirt.
Kurogane's not sure what to expect; identical he assumes, and pale. He's mostly right - with his shirt off there are a lot of similarities there, the shockingly fish-belly whiteness of skin rarely exposed to sunlight, the flat stomach, the trim hips. The little line of dusty blond hair headed south from Yuui's belly button, even the stark lines of his collarbones and the pinkness of his nipples; these things are the same.
The huge sweeping black tattoo across his back is definitely unique.
Kurogane's aware he grunts in surprise as the last of the shirt's fabric rasps across his skin, to be bundled up and held in Yuui's lap; it's just he's used to Fai, who treats his body like a temple (if said temple was dedicated to a god or goddess of consuming your weight in sugar daily). The strong thick lines of the tattoo are very brazen, sharply contrasted against the paleness of the rest of him; its edges wind their lazy way along his ribs and over his shoulder, and he had never suspected Yuui to be the type to get such a marking -
"I was drunk," Yuui says, calmly, and he suddenly becomes aware the blond is watching him with a small smile on his face. "We both were, actually. Drunk and young. Fai dared me to have this done and the tattoo artist turned me down because I was drunk, but I liked the idea and came back when I was less drunk."
"What's it of?" Kurogane asks, unable to look away from those (blue, blue) eyes, and Yuui twists to glance back over his shoulder and shrugs.
"I don't know. A phoenix, I think. He found in a big book of designs he had,"
"It's not bad," Kurogane admits, and a smile plays around Yuui's mouth as he holds his arm out for Seishirou to fasten the cuff around.
"Thank you. That's very kind of you," he says, and Kurogane has the sense that he's being gently made fun of; not the overt mocking he could expect from Fai but something more low-key. More subtle. He flushes and cuts his gaze away, embarrassed by the look in those eyes.
They don't talk as Seishirou measures and notes down Yuui's blood pressure, but they keep glancing at each other, Kurogane with that faint sense of embarrassment, Yuui with that absent amusement. Seishirou stows away the cuff and hums absently to himself as he reaches inside a drawer; when he pulls out a pair of rubber gloves Yuui shifts nervously and raises his bundled-up shirt to cover his belly.
"I'm just going to listen to your heartbeat," he says cheerfully, sticking the stethoscope in his ears, and Yuui swallows and nods as the nurse comes closer, setting one white-gloved hand on Yuui's shoulder and pressing the stethoscope's cup to Yuui's chest, angling his wrist so he can see his watch.
Kurogane counts several minutes off, torn between glaring at Seishirou and the clock on the wall, before he clears his throat deliberately and the nurse leans back. "Are you done?" he demands.
"Oh, almost. Turn around, please."
"Um," Yuui says. "How long is this supposed to take?"
"A while longer." Seishirou's smile has sharp teeth. "I must compliment you, Fluorite-sensei; you must have a wonderful skincare routine." He drags one gloved finger delicately around Yuui's pectorals, his eyebrow raising; Yuui jerks away from him instinctively. "Why, you could almost give Subaru-kun a run for his money..."
"I - I - I need to be... somewhere," Yuui says weakly. "Somewhere... else. Can we finish up? Now, please?"
Seishirou frowns at him and inches closer, sliding the cup of the stethoscope along Yuui's ribs and around his chest to his back. "But of course," he says mildly. "Just one more thing after this and we'll be quite finished. Inhale, please."
Kurogane keeps a closer eye on the clock this time, although he can't help but notice the way Seishirou moves his thumb on Yuui's collarbone, stroking along the harsh line of the tattoo; he growls warningly under his breath and the school nurse stops. After a minute he stops and sits back, smiling his charming (disturbing) smile. "Well, everything there appears to be functioning perfectly," he says. "Just that one more thing..."
He slides his chair back toward his desk, and Yuui lets out a visible breath and casts Kurogane a rather pleading glance. Kurogane shrugs mutely in response; Yes, he's always like this. Bear with it.
"Here," Seishirou announces, straightening up from his desk drawer with a paper cup in his hand. "I'll need a urine sample too," and Kurogane has had enough.
"Go to hell," he says curtly, and steps forward. "Put your shirt back on."
Yuui doesn't need to be told twice; Seishirou sighs heavily and leans back in his chair, putting the end of his ballpoint pen between his teeth and biting down as he eyes Kurogane. "I hadn't even gotten to the blood samples yet," he complains. "I question your commitment to safeguarding student health, Kurogane-sensei."
"You're a creep," Kurogane growls. "Stay where the hell you are."
Seishirou shrugs calmly as Yuui grabs his suit jacket and throws it on before making a dash toward the door, and Kurogane makes sure to keep up his death glare as he wrenches it open and follows the new teacher. Yuui has come to a stop a few feet down the corridor, watching Kurogane worriedly.
"Where did the Chairwoman find him?" he hisses when Kurogane draws level with him. "In a prison?"
Kurogane shrugs. "I don't know," he says, shortly. "Uh. Your tie is crooked."
"It is?" Yuui glances along the corridor, no doubt searching for a convenient bathroom; when that fails he stalks his way over to a framed example of student art and tries to use his reflection in the glass to straighten his tie. Kurogane reluctantly follows him. The collar of the suit jacket is off, too, and although it's not enough to see the tattoo he can't stop thinking about it.
Yuui struggles with his tie for a few more seconds before growling in defeat and letting it drop; Kurogane sighs and reaches out before he can stop himself, wrapping his hands around the strips of silk. "Hold still," he growls, and stoops his head down as his hands work, knotting it quietly. That done he fixes Yuui's collar and suit jacket only to realise Yuui is staring at him incredulously, and lets his hands fall away, fighting down an instinctive blush in his cheeks and ears.
"Kurogane-sensei...?"
"Your brother. Um. Never dresses right," he says vaguely.
Yuui laughs at this, and Kurogane pauses, watching as the faint lines around his mouth and eyes - that Seishirou must have put there, and how hadn't he noticed them forming? - fade away. "I'm not surprised," Yuui says, and Kurogane gives him a small grin, barely more than the corner of his mouth edging up. "Thank you."
"It's fine," Kurogane says quickly. He can feel that stupid flush building up again, so he half-turns away. "Listen, I have essays I need to get back to grading..."
"Oh!" Yuui shakes his head quickly and glances away. "I... of course. Thank you. Um... if you like..."
"What?" Kurogane asks curiously when Yuui trails off, and the blond sighs heavily.
"I made some ice cream earlier to show the kids how it's done. If you like I could bring some over..."
"I don't like sweet things," Kurogane says, and then feels oddly guilty when Yuui's face falls. "But... if you make something non-sweet some other time... I wouldn't say no."
Yuui flashes him a quick, mischievous grin that has an awful lot in common with Fai. "Okay," he says, his grin widening. "Okay. I'll keep that in mind. I'll just... I'll be seeing you, then."
"Yeah."
"..."
"..."
"... I don't know how to get back to my classroom."
"Oh. Right. I'll uh, show you."
He takes Yuui back to his classroom the long way, rather than the way they took to get here in the first place, and this time he can't stop looking at the pristine collar of Yuui's jacket and shirt and thinking of the tattoo.
And he wonders in what other ways Yuui differs from Fai.
-tbc