A/N: I do NOT own Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles. Sue me if I do. This fic starts during the part where Fai hit Kurogane the first time after he woke up in Nihon.

He always thought the mage's smile was some stupid mask, a façade to hide away his pain. And he hated it, from the moment he realized it from the beginning of the journey.

He didn't know it at first, for he had absolutely no intention of talking to any of the others, left alone knowing them. But eventually- partly thanks to his respect towards Syaoran and Mokona's damn stealing-all-his-food abilities- he managed to find himself starting to get attached to the group.

And that was where Fai came in.

And that was when, when Fai talked about little parts of his past, when he started having this both fascination and obsession towards the mage's behavior, did he come to the conclusion that the mage was smiling merely to hide all his pain away, or to hide things behind.

He got the hiding things part right. He did smile in order to divert attention away from his true personality and past.

But after seeing parts of the mage's past, did he come to realized that he had been wrong about Fai's smile. It was not of the intention to hide his pain.

Merely a simple, innocent wish to be able to heal others on the inside.

"Try smiling," that man, Ashura, had said.

"What?" was the reply of a teenage Fai, or Yuui.

"Smile."

And he did, a bright smile, though fake. But Kurogane knew better, he had been practicing.

"You were able to use it. The healing magic."

"Eh?"

"With your smile, Fai, my heart was healed. This is also magic."

And that was the reason he had been smiling. Even though it were all fake, but he smiled because he believed it would help to heal others' hearts, no matter how painful he himself is, and that proved just how desperate he is to help people, and how much he trusted Ashura, that king of his.

From the beginning, the smile was to hide the secrets of his past, a warning to people who dared interfere. But at times, there's something different about his smile, Kurogane realized, during the times he glanced at Syaoran and Sakura, though it's something he himself could not quite place. Even after the Tokyo with the acid rain, after all that has happened to all of them, he still smiled. Kurogane thought it was to hide his pain, but now that he thought more about it, it was to heal them. To help them gain what was lost. To mend their hearts.

"Kuro-pi?"

His train of thoughts was smashed and shattered into pieces at that moment.

"What?" he asked irritably at the intruder of his thoughts.

"Did I hit you too hard? You seemed dazed…" Fai looked over at him, worried.

"Tch. Like I would suffer from dizziness by a sissy punch." He rolled his eyes, sarcasm painting his voice.

An awkward silence settled down between them, but not for long. For one of the first times, kurogane broke it.

"You know what?"

"Hmm?" Fai replied, looking at the ninja.

"Your king was right about one thing. You really do heal others if you continue smiling in that real smile of yours you gave me just now." It was true. Kurogane felt relief and warmth in his heart to finally see him smiling like that.

Shock painted Fai's widened eye for an instance, before a small, grateful smile came to replace his calm features.

Suddenly, before Kurogane could even fully register the look on his face, Fai launched himself at him, wrapping his arms around the ninja's neck, almost knocking Kurogane down. He would had yelled at the mage at the time, but he held back when he felt a drop of tear fall on his shoulder.

"Thank you," Fai whispered.

Kurogane returned the embrace. Besides, it was all he could offer to heal Fai in return.

Argh! Me no happy with the outcome! Dunno why… but I thought about this when I was reading the Celes arc again. Me no happy! Me no happy!