Disclaimer: CLAMP owns them all.
A/N: This is a response to the LiveJournal-based 7secrets challenge community, the theme being "Write".
Dear Diary
Fay could not write Japanese.
This was painfully obvious, really, seeing how he couldn't read it, either. Mokona's interpreting skills did, sadly, not extend to the level of written word, and thus he was quite alone with his strange alphabet while the others could make at least some kind of sense of whatever kanji variants they encountered in the different worlds. This was something of a set back, but Fay decided to ignore it the best he could, and the others seemed all too happy to read for him whenever he was in need of understanding something written.
After Yama, the situation had not changed much. He could now speak and understand some basic Japanese – he was a fast learner, and Kurogane was, when he gave up on yelling for a moment, a very good teacher – but there hardly had been any need or time for writing and reading, being in the middle of a battle ground for most of their waking time. So, while he could now indeed communicate with Kurogane at a basic level even without Mokona's presence – something that was indeed quite useful, considering how they always seemed to end up together whenever the group got separated for some reason – he still couldn't understand even the simplest of scribbles the others read fluently.
It didn't mean he was stupid, of course. He spoke several languages – including, to a limit, Japanese – and knew very well that he was about as intelligent as they went without crossing the level of a genius. (Had he asked Kurogane, the ninja would have probably said he was on the insane side of genius, but that was beside the point.) Still, at times, it made him feel slightly inferior to the others when he had to ask the kids to read this magazine or that sign to their ever so loving mummy.
There was a good side to it, though. As he could not read or write Japanese, the others also had no idea how to read his alphabet, either. Even Mokona had admitted defeat before his writing, which meant it couldn't read anything he wrote despite being very well capable of understanding his language.
To somebody like Fay, this was a very, very good thing. It meant he had a privacy of, if not speech, at least writing.
The often-used lie about writing a book wasn't really much of a lie. He had taken up keeping a journal very early on in their journey. Steadily updating it in every world they went to, always depending on the amount of events recorded and the time available, he had created a pretty detailed log of their adventures. It would, he hoped, be of some entertainment to somebody later on – assuming he ever learnt how to turn it into a format understood by the others, of course. He had no intention of returning to Celes, and no world they had visited this far had used his native alphabet, so the chances of running into somebody who could read it were rather slim.
There was another kind of journal, though, not one about their travels and adventures which he would have shown to anybody interested and capable of reading it, but one about his own thoughts, memories, plans, and emotions. It was something he would never show to anyone – and because of this, he counted his own language and alphabet a blessing, as nobody could read it even if they did get their hands on it.
If somebody ever understood it, it would be a disaster. Especially if that somebody happened to be Kurogane.
The ninja already knew more about him than the kids every would if he could help it – damn the man for always being so very observant! He didn't want Kurogane to know any more, not one word of what he had written down on the pages of the pretty notebook, the serious contents so much in disagreement with the sweet covers. If the other man ever got to read it, he would know. He would know everything about Fay, his past, everything he had done, everything that had been done to him…
That simply couldn't happen. Not now. Not ever.
The parts about his past had become more and more sparse lately, though, as most of it had already been written down – the part of it that could be written down, anyway. There were some things that were too painful for him to even acknowledge, safely locked inside his mind in a place they could not escape, neither in writing nor spoken words as long as he could help it. In place of the memories – be it old nightmares written down after waking up with a silent scream or just an interesting little image some object had reminded him of – he was now writing the things he thought, felt, wondered now. Things like why Kurogane hadn't killed him yet for being so annoying, and why he always was so annoying around the ninja. Whether it wouldn't be better for him to simply die and leave the others in peace at last.
Whether the feelings he had for Kurogane were truly love or simply lust and frustration mixed with friendly fondness.
From the very first days of their journey, he had paid special attention to the ninja. The dark man's actions were recorded down in his travel journal even more carefully than his own, as though he had ignored his own life in favour of that of Kurogane. This attention and the feelings causing it – curiosity, at first, and respect for the fiery yet loyal man, and later a genuine fondness – occupied most of his waking thoughts as well as the pages of his secret journal. Kurogane was, quite simply, the centre of his world, not that he would have ever admitted it to anyone.
The truth was there, however, glaring up at him from the pages he had written full, pointing out his interest – no, more like obsession – for the other man. From himself, he could not hide it; rather he recorded every sideways glance, every oh-so-sweet dream, every time he bit his lip to keep the name from spilling from his lips during a stolen moment of 'alone time'. It was there, and he could not deny it, and he knew that if Kurogane found out the ninja would either never look at him again or never leave his side.
Both of the options scared him.
He continued, though, every day dutifully writing down at first the group's shared experiences, then his own private things, never missing a single thing that might matter to him. Every day he feared Kurogane would find and read his thoughts, then was relieved to remember that the ninja couldn't read or understand a word of what he had written. Never mind the fact that, despite his intrusiveness and rather accurate questions, Kurogane hardly would have invaded his privacy in such a way.
Still, every so often, he found himself fighting the urge of throwing his pretty little notebook into the nearest fire and watching it being burned into a tiny black crisp, incapable of ever revealing his secrets to anyone. After all, unlike spoken words, writing stayed.
And if, if at any point of time, Ashura-ou got his hands on that notebook…
Still, he didn't destroy what he had written. He didn't stop writing, either. There was no way he could have done that; he had to write, had to mark down every feeling and thought and glance and tear.
If he didn't get the words out, he would go insane. And if he didn't keep them safe, every single one of them…
If he didn't have those words, then what would he have left after the journey was over?