I guess you guys haven't really seen a modern AU from me before, save for Ternary. Yes, I do write these things lol. It's just that the sword/shield series is taking up so much of my time. This was greatly inspired by Drops of Jupiter, by Train.

This began as a clampkink fill... that went way, way out of hand. Because Fai. This is also a fic that is near and dear to my heart. It's not everyone's cup of tea, though.

Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles and its characters do not belong to me.

more than a thousand times no

Chapter 1: The Boy

Fai wakes one day to a bunch of noises outside his apartment, yelling and crashes and things that are better not subjected to decent people like him. It's early in the morning; he tries to return to sleep, and can't.

When he drags himself to the kitchen, glasses shoved on his nose, he hears people in the other kitchen. The kitchen faces his own, and he realizes that he can see into it now. There are three people in there, all dark-haired, two men and a woman.

Rather, it's a man, a woman and a kid, who looks so tall and broad that Fai had mistaken him for an adult at first, until he saw his face.

It's a handsome face. Full of promise and strength, and two coppery eyes that home in on him the moment he makes his appearance.

"Got everything moved in an hour," his father says proudly to the side, while his mother (Fai assumes) stands with her hands on her hips, surveying the kitchen. The kid remains watching Fai. He's just about as tall as him. Maybe he'll be taller, once he grows out of puberty, and the thought is amazing. Fai is willowy, taller than the average man. This boy will tower over everyone.

Fai is, also, unused to attention like that. He pivots away at once, but he can feel it on his cheeks and neck and ears—he is blushing. He can feel the boy staring at him, and why he is this flustered, he doesn't need to know.

He crawls back into bed, can't forget those piercing eyes, and ends up taking an icy shower. That, at least, helps.

x
x

Fai is content. He is perfectly fine living by his lonesome self, with his books and CDs and all the outdated things from his childhood keeping him company, like a faded jewel-blue walkman and the little fire engines with all their hoses and ladders in worn, intricate detail.

He's perfectly fine having some friends kept at arm's length, who need to stay at arm's length because he doesn't need more blind date recommendations or advice to get hitched or get a girl or boy or whatever. He's done that kind of thing. He's had enough of it.

He's tossing up some potatoes and onions in the kitchen one day when he turns around, and the boy next door is standing at his window, watching him.

Fai jumps and nearly drops his spatula.

"Will you stop staring," he snaps, out of embarrassment.

The boy looks away. "Sorry."

It only occurs to him then that he doesn't look remotely presentable—his hair is in a loose ponytail and he's wearing a too-big shirt, and he probably has ink stains on his cheeks from the night before. He even has his glasses on. No one's supposed to care. It's Saturday and he can do whatever he wants, but somebody is looking at him.

The boy glances over again. Fai feels like crouching down and cooking from the floor. Except he'll probably just get onions and potatoes all over himself.

He isn't supposed to be this nervous.

He leaves the kitchen, counts to a hundred, and hurries back when he smells the onions burning. The boy is gone. Fai stirs his food up, smothers it with cheese, and flees with it.

x
x

The family next door eats in their kitchen. Fai doesn't know why the architect who designed the apartments had to make it such that the kitchens see into each other. He glimpses the table and the backs of their heads on the off day when his schedule clashes with theirs. He avoids opening the windows, tries to sneak along the back wall so they don't see him through the glass.

When he does finally open the windows for ventilation, he regrets it. The family has lunch and dinner in their kitchen, too, and he can hear every bit of their conversation in his living room.

They are a family. The boy calls his parents Dad and Ma and he's still in high school. He plays on the soccer team and is doing okay with his grades.

Fai sinks to the floor in front of his couch, horrified and lonely and disgusted with himself. He's been thinking about a sixteen-year-old. In his bed. At night.

Fai is a dirty old man and he never knew it before this.

x
x

He can't look the parents in the eye, but he does. He pastes a smile on and says he'll accept their invitation to dinner someday. (Fai is a liar.) They make small talk in the elevator lobby. They wave at him sometimes through the window. He waves back. He hides and wishes his lease was up so he can move out.

The boy—his name is Youou—continues to watch him. Fai doesn't get over his crush. He can't. He sees Youou topless in the kitchen one day, and he stares.

The boy has a fantastic physique, all muscles where Fai has none. Fai has a job. That's about all he's got.

Youou senses his attention, turns around. Fai is torn between running and staring, because damn, but the boy is a sight for sore eyes.

"Why do you keep running?" the boy says, standing by his kitchen window.

Fai opens and closes his mouth. "I'm not," he answers quickly.

Youou snorts. "You're avoiding us."

"I'm not."

"My Ma says you want to visit for dinner, but you don't. You sneak in and out of your kitchen like some kind of burglar."

"I don't," he protests.

"You're a liar."

And that hurts, being told by your sixteen-year-old crush that you're honestly not worth very much at all. Maybe that's the first step to ending this. Fai just wants to hide in his closet where people will stop judging him.

He pulls on a smile and says, "maybe I am," and turns away.

Maybe Youou says something. If he ignores it, maybe the boy will go away.

x
x

Fai is a person with the crappiest luck, ever. He bumps into Youou in the elevator. Or rather, he's in the elevator minding his own business, when the closing doors rumble open and Youou steps in, sweaty and tall in his soccer outfit.

Fai takes a subconscious step backwards, into the elevator wall. He should get out now while he can.

The boy slants a suspicious look at him, hits the "door close" button, and doesn't wait for the doors to close before he asks, "what's with you?"

All Fai can manage is a papery laugh. There's a last flash of bright lobby, and the elevator is surging up, taking them with it.

"What do you have against my parents?" the boy demands.

Fai laughs again, for the irony. "Nothing."

Youou considers his words. "Me?"

"Of course not." Breezily, no eye contact.

"You're lying."

"And you should mind your own business." Fai fixes his eyes on the floor number, wondering why it takes this long to reach safety.

"Not when you keep looking like you want to say something."

"I have nothing to say to you." (Or maybe he wants to say incriminating things, things like you look good and I want you in my bed and please do anything you want to me.)

The door opens—the sound is liberating and blessed and Fai jerks at hearing it, so keen is he on fleeing.

Youou lets him out. The boy waits until he's halfway across the lobby before he closes a large hand around Fai's elbow. Fai gasps and startles, and his eyes go up and up until he meets that steady gaze.

"Let me go," he pleads.

"You're afraid of me," the boy says. "What did I do?"

"Nothing!" Fai's laugh is a little hysterical, now. "Please. Let me go."

"You wouldn't be shaking if you aren't."

He looks away, tries to force his body still. Every minute he spends with Youou is just going to make the boy hate him more, and Fai is terrified of what that might mean. He doesn't want to go to prison. He doesn't want to be thrown out and homeless. "Please," he whispers, looking away. "Just drop the subject. Nothing to look at here."

He just wants to be buried in a hole in the ground, be struck dead, anything but this.

"Why?" Youou's stare is sharp. It cuts into Fai like a razor when he nicks bloody lines across his neck. "You're not nothing."

"And you're not one to tell me who I'm not," Fai retorts, more bitter than he means to be.

The boy lets go of his arm. His hand leaves an imprint of warmth, one Fai has wanted more of, but not like this. Youou would never touch him the way he craves. "Who are you, then?"

He's a thirty-two-year-old with a stupid crush on a handsome boy, is who he is.

Fai laughs, and it's without mirth. "It's not something you need to know. Go away."

The last thing he wants is for this boy to go away, but he can't risk himself. He doesn't have very much left. All he has is an empty apartment and a broken walkman and some faded toy cats. There's so much he wants and cannot have. Or maybe he can throw himself away on this. Strip down whatever dignity he has left. Have a fling. Move out. Never show his face here again.

"You're kind of pretty," Youou blurts behind him.

For a long while, Fai stills. His entire face heats up, like he's boiling from the inside, and he can feel it all over—his ears, his neck, his chest. This isn't happening. Maybe he misheard.

"I'm— I'm going home," he stutters. He's just going to hide and pretend that Youou actually likes him. That would work.

"Hey," the boy says, when Fai drops his keys twice fumbling with them at his door. He needs his shaking fingers to cooperate. They won't. "Can I come over sometime?"

Fai blinks stupidly at his keys. "What?"

"Tch."

When he finally turns, Youou is at his own door, fishing for his own keys. There's a lingering redness about his face.

"You— You said something?" Fai asks.

Youou isn't looking at him, now. "I asked if I can come over sometime," he mutters, as though he's afraid of his parents overhearing. "But it's no matter."

"What?" Fai gasps. "You're nuts."

"Probably."

The boy disappears into his apartment.

x
x

Fai mulls over the entire incident until he's pretty certain that all the important words have been written over by what-ifs. He's certain he screwed up somewhere. The boy probably told his parents about the nutcase next door.

To be safe, Fai puts up blinds in his kitchen window. He leaves them half-closed, so the breeze carries their voices in.

On the weekends, he listens to them talk during their mealtimes. It's like listening to a family drama on the radio, but without drama. The boy's father goes on business trips. His mother doesn't have very good health. Youou doesn't have a girlfriend. Or a boyfriend.

Fai desperately wants to see Youou's face again. Sometimes he leans over the sink and presses down on the blinds, peeking through. Sometimes he sees the backs of heads. Sometimes he sees the boy, sharp-jawed and handsome, and his heart threatens to leap through his chest. Sometimes it's just his parents, and Fai slinks away to make his own dinner.

He listens in on their conversations, feeding off them. It's like having a family, but not quite. Fai gets to know their temperaments, the father's jokes, the mother's fondness for wine. Youou doesn't talk very much, but he has a sense of humor that has Fai biting on his lip and snickering.

At night, when he's certain they're all asleep, Fai raises the blinds so he sees the dark of their kitchen window. It feels like a secret, baking his cookies when they're all in bed. It feels like the old days again, back when he was alone looking into an empty kitchen.

Sometimes he makes cheesecakes. Other times, he rolls out apple strudels. He likes sticking his fingers into the batter bowl and licking it off, and hush about Salmonella because no one cares enough whether he lives or dies, anyway.

When he's done, he lowers the blinds carefully like nothing happened, and turns the lights off.

x
x

At work, Fai taps on his computer and chirps and is the resident gay guy. No one minds his colorful clothes and gossip and ponytail, but no one chats him up, either.

He has a sketch of Youou on his desk. That's all he has of the boy. If they were to move out tomorrow, Fai would swear at himself for not having taken a photo of him.

A friendly colleague stops by to ask about the sketch. Fai flaps his hand, tells her it's a crush. She giggles and leaves him be.

Of course, no one actually finds out that the boy is sixteen, and his neighbor.

x
x

It turns into a routine, all that hiding. Fai figures out when the boy's parents get home, when the boy himself gets home, and he makes sure to jam his finger on the elevator buttons so he doesn't meet any of his neighbors on the way up.

For a while, it works.

Then he comes home one day to find Youou leaning on his front door, waiting for him to show up.

Fai punches the "door close" button, his heart in his throat and him with nowhere to run.

The boy lopes over, presses on the elevator button, and the damn doors betray Fai. They slide aside, leaving him wide open to attack.

Youou pauses by the elevator entrance, not stepping in. His red eyes are fixed on him. "I want to talk. Either your place, or elsewhere. Your choice."

Fai's throat is dry. He coughs a laugh, asks, "are you sure you trust me?"

"Why not?"

There are so many things that can happen, Fai wants to say, but doesn't. No one trusts a dirty old man. You shouldn't. "You just shouldn't," he says. "You don't even know me."

"I want to know you."

Fai gapes at him. "Why."

"Because." Youou shrugs. "You laugh at my jokes."

He stares, and then he realizes that the boy has heard him, somehow, through his blinds. Fai's face flushes hot. "I'm a lunatic," he says. "I just laugh all the time."

The elevator begins to buzz horribly, like it's going to contract a stomach cramp and eat somebody. Fai leaps out, horrified that they've kept the thing open for so long. People on the other floors are probably swearing their mouths off at him.

He almost crashes into Youou, who snorts and releases the button. Big hands come up to catch Fai by his arm, though, and the elevator shuts its doors, still blaring its complaints.

"You're jumpy," Youou says. His voice is low and rumbling and it sinks into Fai's chest like a warm blanket.

Fai doesn't want to move. He thinks maybe he can die in peace now, but he'd rather have his fling first.

"Hey," Youou says. "Your place, then?"

It sounds so much like a come-on that Fai blushes again, and tries valiantly to get his mind out of the gutter. "Sure," he says weakly. "If your parents don't mind."

"I told them I was visiting."

They're the same height, right now, and Fai can't help but look at the boy's shoulders. They're wide, far wider than his own, and Youou's arms are strong, his hands big. He looks like someone safe to hide in.

Fai licks his dry lips. "Okay. Okay. I'll... get the door open."

Fai is absolute crap at getting the front door open when someone is watching him from a foot away, heat radiating ever so slightly into his arm.

Eventually, Youou sighs and shoves his hand forward. "Give me the keys."

Fai gives him the keys.

Under scrutiny, his apartment looks awful. There're scattered pages everywhere and some paintings on the wall, and some empty mugs and newspapers from three months ago. Fai is sure that Youou's place is just as tidy as his kitchen is, and this must be a horror to step in.

"Um, welcome?" He pulls the door shut behind them, feeling every bit like he shouldn't be doing this. "Would you like something to drink? I promise I won't drug you and all that."

And that makes red eyes narrow at him. "What?"

"Something to drink?" Fai asks again, wishing he were watching himself do this, instead of being present and making all the stupidest mistakes he can ever make. Like even letting the boy into his place.

Youou thinks for a bit. "Soda."

Fai brightens at that. He bustles to the fridge and pulls a can out, and grabs some wine for himself. He really needs to calm down. Maybe he needs stronger booze, instead. Alcohol is good.

The boy accepts the can with a mutter of thanks, seats himself down on the couch. Fai apologizes over the state of the apartment, and the table, and he can't stop talking because he doesn't want to know how the boy will judge him for all of this.

"Sit down," Youou says. Fai sits. "And shut up for a moment."

Fai clutches his tumbler of wine on his lap and darts a quick look at the boy. Youou is seated calmly, legs apart, forearms on knees. Fai tries not to take up any space on the couch at all. The less of him the boy sees, the better.

The silence drags on, when Youou doesn't talk, and Fai doesn't know whether he should break it. He'll probably say more stupid things and get in more trouble, and Youou will keep to his side of the building for ever after.

Which will probably be for the best.

"Have I shut up for long enough?" he asks, at the same time the boy says, "thanks for the soda."

Fai just blinks at him. "You're welcome?" Of course, he'd rather let the boy realize that it's really not a drugged drink before accepting the thanks, but. "Why are you even here? Not that I want you out or anything, I mean—"

"We don't know you," Youou says, sharp eyes pinning Fai to his seat. "You haven't done anything wrong, but you just seem so..."

"Suspicious?" Fai laughs dryly, rubbing fingers into the condensation on his glass. "Is that why you want to talk?"

The boy watches him. When he doesn't say anything, Fai bites his lip, smile falling away.

"What do you want, really?" he asks. "There's nothing to see here."

"There's you."

Fai catches his breath. "Exhibit A?" he suggests.

"Tch. Not like that." Youou sips from his can. His throat bobs. "I asked my Dad and Ma. You talk okay to them."

"I talk okay to you. No?" Fai tries for another smile.

Youou narrows his eyes. "You act like you're scared of me. I haven't even said much to you before this."

"You're a big, growly soccer player. Of course I'd be scared." Fai smiles thinly, gulps more wine. It's starting to calm him, like taking stones from his heart and sinking them down to his feet.

"Not to the point where you're shaking."

"I'm not shaking."

"Right now, you aren't." Youou watches him, and it feels as though nothing escapes those eyes. "But you couldn't even open your door right."

"Well, I was feeling a little weak."

The lies come easier now, when he has warmth in his belly and he's home, and he has a little more control over this situation. Later, he'll pick apart the feeling of having Youou in his apartment, when he's hiding behind the safety of these walls. Fai just has to get through this without spontaneously combusting.

"Right," Youou says.

Briefly, Fai wonders if it's going to take a catastrophe for him and Youou to collapse into each other's arms and kiss. He isn't going to initiate anything, so it certainly seems that way.

"What do you do for a living?"

Fai blinks at him, surprised. He lives and breathes the information, but he's kind of forgotten what he's told the boy's parents. "Programming. Making sure keyboards and mice run fine. You know. The back-end stuff."

Youou's brows furrow. "Didn't know you need to program those. I thought you set them up and they run until they die."

It almost sounds like a funny horror movie, or Fai's life, except it isn't. "Well, they're gaming keyboards," he says. "They're programmable, and occasionally they run into issues. Stuff like that."

The boy looks around his apartment, at the bits of paper and drawings around, and furrows his brow. "You don't seem the type."

He doesn't seem like a dirty old man, either, but he is. Fai shrugs. "I don't seem a lot of things." And on an impulse, "what do I seem like to you?"

It inevitably draws Youou's eyes to him, and that red gaze sweeps over him in a way that has Fai holding his breath. Maybe it's the wrong question to ask. Maybe Youou's answer will flay him alive and he'll die and that'll be all there is to Fai Flourite.

"You seem okay," is Youou's measured answer. "Scared of me for some reason."

"I'm not scared," he says.

"I don't think you sit that way when I'm not around," the boy says, and Fai has to wonder what else Youou has gleaned of him, that he doesn't know.

"Well." He clears his throat, drinks more. "Maybe I'm just stiff."

Youou rolls his eyes.

"What about you," Fai says, to take the attention off himself. "What do you do?"

"Soccer. I'm in high school."

Of course, Fai already knows that, but he pretends not to. "You train a lot," he says. Allows himself a little look at Youou's legs. The boy has beautiful legs. "It must be tiring."

Youou shrugs. "It's not that bad."

"What's bad, then?"

"The essays. Tell me why we have to discuss whether a third recycling plant is necessary. Or why we even need to argue about fossil fuels. Why a third world war is bad. Fuck."

Fai snickers. He can't help it. It starts off as a quick breath, and he's biting his lip and turning away so Youou doesn't look.

Of course, the boy does. "What's so funny?" he protests, all indignant.

"You are." He's so tickled that there's a flush creeping up his cheeks, and Fai wishes he has a hoodie on so he can hide his face. "Oh, the way you talk."

"Huh." Youou watches him, and Fai tries his level best to straighten his expression. It doesn't work very well until he realizes that the boy is actually grinning, a twitch of his lips.

Fai's stomach swoops down into the couch. He blushes. Because that's the very thing he wants to do in front of his crush. "Um. It's the wine. Really."

Surprisingly enough, Youou isn't put off. He continues to smile that half-smile. Fai doesn't know what to do with himself. He sits stunned in his couch, cradling his wine and wishing he were good enough to say something worthy.

They try a few awkward forays into conversation. It doesn't really go well—Fai is reluctant to reveal too much about himself, and Youou isn't familiar enough with the IT industry to ask about very much at all. He does inquire about the education needed to pursue programming, though. Fai tells him it's a long road of learning many languages, except he'd be talking to computers instead of people.

"I wouldn't mind," Youou says, drawing another surprised laugh from Fai. "People get tiring."

"Like me?" Fai blurts. He can't help it. He doesn't want things to hurt... and so hurts himself pre-emptively.

"Why do you think so little of yourself?" Youou asks. That stare is back on Fai, calculating, and Fai looks away. He shrugs. "It's why you've been so scared, isn't it. You keep trying to hide."

Fai's smile stretches brittle. He turns away from the boy, mutters, "maybe you should go."

Youou looks at him for a long time. "I'll go if you want me to. But that doesn't solve anything."

"There's nothing to solve." Fai drains the last of his wine, feels it sit warm in his belly. "I doubt a sixteen-year-old can solve any of my problems."

Youou shuts up. He sets his empty can on the coffee table, eyes narrowed.

There's a sharp thing twisting in Fai's gut. He tells himself, I hope you're happy now. To Youou, he says, "well, was that what you came here for?"

"Maybe." Youou stands. He takes himself to the door, and Fai trails reluctantly behind. "My parents want you to come over for dinner sometime. Like next weekend if you're free."

Fai's gaze slips away; he doesn't want to see Youou, if he can. Nothing good will come of this. "I'm busy."

The boy leaves.

x
x

When the door is shut and locked, Fai takes the flimsy can and hurls it into the kitchen bin, teeth clenched, angry with himself.

He can't do anything right.

x
x

Two days later, he finds a little plastic bag on his doorknob.

There's a pen for drawing in there, one he already has, and his heart leaps.

With the slow seep of wine out of his system, he had regretted—not being nicer, not agreeing to dinner.

He takes the pen to work with him, doodles a boy kicking a ball around, playing with his dog. He brings the sketch home with him and leaves it in the plastic bag hanging on his door.

x
x

By the next morning, the drawing is gone.

Fai thinks he knows where it went. He doesn't want to think too hard on it, though, so he convinces himself that the cleaner took it away. If it makes somebody happy, he's fine with it.

He leaves another drawing (a ninja) before he goes to work, and one (a puffing train) when he gets back. The ninja sketch is still there, so Fai doesn't bother doing another sketch for when he heads out the next morning. By then, both sketches are gone.

He kind of feels bad then. He digs around in his pockets, finds a piece of candy. He drops that into the plastic bag, hopes for the best, and leaves.

When he returns late from the grocery store, hands full of market bags, he finds a note in the bag next to the untouched candy.

Don't like sweets.

He flushes hot and cold, embarrassed. The boy—and there is no doubt that it's Youou—had asked for soda. Is candy that much different?

He bites his lip, fishes both note and candy out, and drops a bar of semi-sweet chocolate into the plastic bag, one he had intended for baking. To be safe, Fai adds the little bottle of aftershave he's got for himself. Everything else he's bought from the store either can't keep in the open (ice cream), doesn't seem appropriate (a bag of carrots) or is just weird (toilet paper).

He is a mess of rustling bags when he fumbles his way into the apartment, but his heart is calm.

x
x

When he opens the door the next morning, the aftershave is gone, but the bar of chocolate is still there. There's a torn note and an alcohol-based marker in the bag.

I'm lactose intolerant. Didn't know which colors you have already.

Fai grabs the plastic bag and brings it in with him, blushing ten different shades of red. At the back of his mind, he's imagining what Youou smells like when he's cleaned up, because Fai really, really likes that brand of aftershave.

For now, he clutches the new marker to his chest, smiling stupidly. "You didn't have to get me a marker, you silly boy," he murmurs to himself. "These things are expensive."

He draws a quick sketch (a monkey on a boat) with a pen and the marker, and adds a line: Quit spending money on me.

With that, he shuts the door behind him and leaves for work.

x
x

He gets home late to find a note, accompanied by nothing else.

Fine.

Fai is surprised that they're even talking, considering how he'd all but chased the boy out. Youou has bold, strong writing, pressing lines through the torn notebook paper. He delights in tracing them, wondering if that grip is just as firm (because yes, yes, he still desires the boy, and the thought of aftershave does not help at all).

I'm sorry you can't enjoy sweet desserts and cakes, he writes. I would have loved to bake you some treats.

It's a lot easier communicating through the written word. He doesn't have to deal with Youou watching him, and he can giggle and smile to himself without being watched. It's kind of nice.

Fai looks up lactose-free recipes on the internet and sets to trying his hand at them. The last thing he wants to do is poison the boy.

A/N: ... yeah, it's one of those tropes lol. FWIW, the husband and I actually have an age gap far greater than this. But yes, Youou is still a minor. I know that. And the Fai here is really more of Yuui, but let's just run with their names as is.

This was written in 1 month. 51k words, 10 chapters. Because Fai is Fai, and they are both idiots. LOL

Thoughts? Comments? Love it? Hate it?