Disclaimer: All respective characters are property of CLAMP. I'm not crazy enough to come up with them.
"Hey, Kuro-chin, why don't you ever call me by name?" Fai asked one night when the kids were in bed and the two men were still up, drinking tea that Fai had insisted on brewing and Kurogane reluctantly drank, though he would've preferred sake. Kurogane glared (though he always glared) at Fai from the other side of the kitchen table of the small apartment they were renting. He silently cursed the mage and his stupid questions. Did it really matter? Everyone had a different name. Syaoran was 'kid', Sakura was 'Princess', Mokona was 'white meat bun' and Fai was 'mage', or 'idiot mage', or 'stupid mage', or just 'idiot'. If Kurogane had wanted to answer, and had really thought about it, he would've said it was because as soon as he got back to Japan, he'd leave. And if he didn't use their names, he wouldn't get attached and he wouldn't miss them. The problem was, that plan wasn't really working. But he'd never admit it.
Kurogane just grunted and took a swig of the stupid tea that the stupid mage had forced on him.
"That's not an answer, Kuro-rin," Fai told him, resting his elbows on the table and resting his chin in his cupped hands.
"You never answer my questions," Kurogane replied. He could've demanded why the mage kept calling him by those stupid nicknames, but the mage would've just smiled and claimed that they were cute, so it was pointless. And Kurogane was far more interested in how that one sentence had made Fai's eyes just that bit duller, his smile just a fraction lower. It seemed as if the mage would break, and Kurogane knew that there was no point in asking him why, because he would just give him that look and change the subject. And Fai knew. He knew that Kurogane was the only one who had ever noticed that fractional change in his expression. And he hated it. Because Kurogane seemed determined to ask him why, and Fai had no intention of answering. He wouldn't pull the ninja down into his world. He wouldn't.
"Well!" Fai exclaimed. "I seem to be out of tea. Does Kuro-chan want some more?" Kurogane glared at the mage again before pushing his cup towards him. Fai picked it up and headed to the kettle, humming some unfamiliar tune to himself. Kurogane couldn't see it, as his back was to him, but Fai's smile was broken and his eyes were wondering, trying to work out why the ninja cared so much. And Fai couldn't see it, but Kurogane's eyes had stopped glaring and were instead gazing at the mage, trying to figure him out. And both of them knew that they wouldn't get anywhere by simply asking questions.
Author's Note: Hi there. Thanks for reading! It's not a great fic, but yeah. Concrit always welcome. I wanted to write a KuroFai-ish fic, so I wrote this. It's only KuroFai if you look reeeeally hard. But yeah. Enjoy!