Fai sighs, keeping his carefully apathetic demeanor. He is alone with Kurogane, waiting as Sakura and Pseudo-Syao search for yet another feather on yet another world. Fai had begged off on nausea and general lingering feelings of nausea and illness, while Kurogane simply told the kid to take good care of Sakura before returning to his book.
Of course Fai isn't really sick, and Kurogane could care less about his book. Of course neither would admit it.
Kurogane began to think of trying to start sort things out between himself and Fai while they had some time alone for once, but he would have no idea where to begin. Fai was being no help either. It seems like they would spend hours in silence like this, neither willing to leave or to speak.
"Would you…?" Fai begins suddenly, softly, in a lilting mockery of a cheerful tone.
"What are you mumbling about now, idiot?" Kurogane asks gruffly. Fai turns his iciest smile on him.
"Would you take it back? My eye? Rip it from the living flesh of your pupil and watch as I devour it?" Fai asks, for all the world looking as though he were talking about nothing more than some particularly pleasant weather. Kurogane gives a start and an involuntary shudder before turning away from Fai. "Ah, but perhaps you never thought about it? What getting my eye back would entail?"
"Why do you care?" Kurogane responds, hoping to shut Fai up.
"Nya, touchy are we? Should I not have brought up Syaoran? But aren't you proud of your student? He does what he had vowed to do and kills anyone who gets in his way, just like you, ne?" Fai asks lightly, with a bitter smile and a pseudo-friendly tone.
"Can't you talk in anything but questions?" Kurogane answers.
"Naughty Kurogane, dodging questions is my area of expertise. Aren't you going to give me a straight answer? Or is this 'ninja honor' you talk about just another fib?" Fai creeps closer by infinitesimal amounts, giving the facsimile of familiarity and sincerity. His smile is mocking, saying 'Are you watching this? I'm enjoying hurting you.'
"Shut up. Sadistic bastard." Kurogane mutters darkly. Fai continues on as though Kurogane were actually holding a conversation with him.
"Oh, I was just wondering because I have no doubt that our new Syaoran wouldn't hesitate a moment to take my eye back, and am equally certain the Sakura could never stand to do such harm to her most precious person. That just leaves you." Fai says.
"Idiot. You left yourself out of that calculation." Kurogane still tries to continue to feign interest in his book, despite the pointlessness.
"But I asked you first." Fai whispers childishly playfully in Kurogane's ear.
"I never asked you anything. I only stated a fact." Kurogane growls, getting up and moving to a chair on the other side of the room.
"Aren't you the least bit curious?" Fai says mischievously, drifting inexorably after Kurogane.
Silence.
Kurogane tries to force his mind away from the topics Fai has brought up, but he can't help but wonder when it became not alright to kill anyone in his way, at what moment his thinking had changed so radically. Which stop along the wayside had been the death of the old him, and the birth of some new person with the same name and voice.
Fai stops a few feet away from him. Let him play his stupid, cruel, sadistic little games.
Fai had been the vent for Kurogane's anger long enough, it was only… human that Kurogane receive the sharp end of Fai's temper now. Even if it did tend itself more towards mental and emotional wounds than the physical ones Kurogane threatened. Of course, even with all of his posturing, this was still only the threat of real damage, not the damage itself.
"Oh, you wound me my dear bait. Does your apathy know no bounds?" Fai says dramatically, smirking superiorly in Kurogane's general direction, not deigning to actually look down at him, as though he knew his superiority were so absolute that he didn't even need to assert it like that.
"Meh." Kurogane grunts. Let him carry on his stupid conversation with himself. It was already guaranteed that Kurogane would not sleep quite as soundly tonight, maybe even lie awake an extra moment wondering.
Given the chance, would he or wouldn't he?
It bothers him that he has no answer to that right now, because that means his nice little world in which everything is black or white is slipping away. If it hasn't already been demolished by the twisted workings of fate.
Fai senses his victory in this game, and practically floats away, without so much as a parting shot or even a smirk. The game is won, perfectly, so there is no more interest in this thing, this game, this object, this bait at the moment.
As Kurogane lies awake that extra moment that night, he spares a thought to wonder how hard the mage is trying to ignore him, even this very moment. But then he falls asleep, decision still unmade.
Fai lies awake for awhile more, just thinking in general. Or perhaps trying not to think. Sleep comes, but less easily this night than most, and he chalks it up to resting all day when he is used to the vigorous exercise their travels usually forces upon them.
Whose victory was it again?