Note: This story is rated R-18. Fair warning for references to child abuse and character death. Written for the Kurofai Olympics at the Dreamwidth kurofai community: voting for entries is happening over there now.

(And now, a brief aside.)

Once upon a time, in a country very cold and very far away, there lived a fisherman and his wife. They had two young sons, with eyes like the summer sky, and hair like the midnight sun of that land, and together the four lived very happily. But one day, the fisherman was lost at sea in a great storm, and his wife, distraught, threw herself from the black cliffs onto the rocks below. And so the two boys went to live with their uncle, an elf king, who loved them dearly and called them his own. 'Only,' he said, 'you must always pay me mind and do just as I say.'

And the boys did this, and they lived very happily after all.

'That was lame even for you.'

Concussion, the doctor had told them, carried certain risks for small children.

He'd spoken carefully, watching their faces to see whether they understood him. There were certain risks for small children, he said, things like brain swelling or haemorrhage, that were by no means inevitable, but they merited… caution all the same. Long-term damage was not out of the question. And sometimes it was hard to determine, the signs easily missed, because small children couldn't always tell you quite how things hurt. Especially, and he'd paused to consider his words. Especially a child who'd been through such an ordeal.

Kurogane had narrowed his eyes at that. Caught the tightness that crept into Fai's shoulders and back.

But concussion, it seemed, Sakura had. Whiplash to her neck, a cut on her forehead, and that combination of vomiting and headache that makes doctors uneasy. It would be best, the doctor said, to admit her and see; keep her quiet and comfortable to assess the full extent of the trauma.

How they were going to do that, Kurogane didn't know. Sakura had been in the car, Sakura had been there. She had seen her parents dark and unresponsive before her. He wasn't sure what that would mean for her.

('Wait with your sister, Kurogane. Don't move.')

But that was something for later. It would haveto be something for later, because for now Sakura was lying on the paediatrics ward with Kurogane's cousin at her side. They had agreed – because it was important that Sakura wasn't left alone – to take it in shifts to sit with her, and so Kendappa would stay until Souma came to relieve her, who would stay until Kurogane came, who would stay until Fai came…

She wouldn't be alone. She would neverbe alone.

But that too was something for later. Now Kurogane sat at the dark, gleaming table in Kendappa's dining room: one of three people present for this particular meeting. There was an associate of his cousin's: a solicitor who had been obliged to cancel his morning's appointments to be there. Newly bereaved colleagues, Kurogane supposed, prompted that sort of consideration. There was Kurogane, with that shapeless, grey hollowness heavy within him. And then directly opposite sat Fai, sewn tight at the seams. He smiled blandly at the solicitor, and there were little shadows in the creases of his brow.

Kurogane wasn't sure what kind of idiot thought they had to smile on a morning like this.

Because the world had turned and morning had come and the nightmare hadn't faded with it; they were still standing amongst all the dreadful little pieces and trying to make something of them. Something normal, or familiar, at least.

And somehow, sitting there, with the solicitor in his tie and the coffee cooling on the table, it might almost have been possible to pretend the night before hadn't happened. That Souma hadn't called and Saiga hadn't come and there hadn't been a low, feral noise in the dark. The normality of the setting was astounding. He looked at the solicitor's pen scratching across the page, at the thin trail of ink left by his fountain pen, and it was so nearly possible pretend that Tomoyo and Yuui were doing whatever they normally did on a Friday morning at ten. They were elsewhere, that was all. Somewhere.They would be along later. Tomorrow. Next week, perhaps.

Nearly. Almost.

Kurogane felt as if his senses had been hammered back, like steel; left him blunt and dull and hard.

He didn't suppose it mattered much.

But the night before, that night, Kurogane had pulled Kendappa aside in the bright hospital corridor, and told her what Fai had said. He'd expected scorn – because that, from Kendappa, was reassuring in its way - but instead her expression turned grim. It was, she said, complicated. The law had grey spots for children like Sakura: a child in need of protection, as it so neatly called her. No parents, no grandparents. Two citizenships to her name and the passports to match. 'It's complicated, Kurogane,' she'd said.

Kurogane had thought about Sakura, the warm weight of her against his shoulder on Monday nights, and thought it wasn't complicated at all.

Still, that remained to be seen.

He hadn't been to Kendappa's place for ages. But she had told him to be there, and so he'd come. They needed to meet, she said, to discuss Yuui and Tomoyo's will; the one they had never quite managed to finalise, even with all her pointed and frequent reminders. A draft of it lay on the table in front of Kurogane now. Yuui and Tomoyo hadn't looked to a future for their daughter that didn't include them. Well, who the fuck wanted to do something like that?

The solicitor shifted in his seat.

'Ideally, Sakura-chan's care would fall to her closest blood relative,' he was saying. 'Usually there are grandparents, but as that's impossible…'

Fai said, 'Sakura-chan needs to be looked after properly.' He spoke in that same precise way of the night before. It felt like a long time ago now. 'I have a suitable place to live. I can cook, I can clean.' He reached up to tuck a piece of hair back. 'I have the time to help her with homework when she's older, help her do the sorts of things she enjoys. Be creative. That's all important, I think you'll agree.'

And Kurogane was getting pretty sick of precise. 'No-one said it wasn't,' he snapped.

Fai glanced shortly across at him, curled his lip. He didn't reply, but his expression said exactly what he thought of hearing that from Kurogane. Massive, tanned, less… gentle. Good enough to fill out a fireman's uniform – but not so other things.

(Butterfly kisses and bunny pyjamas and finger paintings on the fridge.)

Luckily, Kurogane didn't give a fuck what Fai thought of him.

'The suitable place you have to live happens to be in a country she's never even been to, idiot,' he growled. Fai's gaze hardened, and Kurogane still didn't care. 'She doesn't speak the language, she doesn't know anyone. How the fuck is that the best thing for her?'

'She canspeak some already, actually.'

'A few words won't get her very far!'

'Better that,' Fai's voice rose. He stopped and took a breath: when he spoke again, it was coolly. 'Better that, Kurogane, than living with a person who never has time for her, never opens up to her.'

Kurogane snorted. 'That's pretty fucking rich coming from you,' he said, and at that, Fai went still. Fucking bull's-eye, Kurogane thought. 'You think I'm gonna let her grow up with that, you're wrong.'

There was a silence for a moment, and then, 'You don't really want her,' Fai said. The words came out of him in a rush: oddly, airlessly. 'Not really. Do you? You just –'

'What?'

Fai swallowed. 'Why do you want her?'

'Same reason you do, idiot!' Fai just looked, and Kurogane leaned closer, to spell it out for him if he was as stupid as all that. 'She's my niece. Why the fuck wouldn't I want her?'

And Fai didn't answer right away. He looked down at the table. There was something in his face that Kurogane wasn't sure of, pinched and fearful. Then he smoothed it away again. He said, very lightly, 'Being related isn't always enough.'

Then turned back to the solicitor.

The solicitor's eyes flicked back and forth between them. He said, carefully, 'Well, in this case being related isenough. I'm afraid you have no legal privilege over Kurogane-san in that respect. Sakura-chan is a Japanese citizen. She lives here, was raised here. She has family willing to look after her here. A judge would almost certainly…'

'I'm quite willing to take it to an Icelandic court,' said Fai, and still he spoke lightly, almost pleasantly. His face was smooth, his gaze clear, but Kurogane could see the stiffness in his shoulders, could see the tension pulling at all the little seams…

The solicitor frowned. Opened his mouth. 'We really need to consider what's best for the child –'

'What would be best for the child,' Kendappa's voice cut tartly across them. Kurogane turned towards it – he hadn't heard her come in. She looked tired. 'Would be for the pair of you to grow up.' She eyed them both, unsmiling, and then, 'This can be settled very simply via a standard familial adoption – the papers could be drawn up this afternoon, for god's sake. Or you can choose to drag it through foreign courts. Which will take a long time. In the meantime, what will Sakura do?'

Fai didn't say anything.

Kendappa lifted her hair away from the back of her neck, let it flop down again. The gesture didn't make her seem any softer. 'There are two of you,' she said curtly. 'Work something out. For Sakura.'

And so that afternoon, Kurogane found himself agreeing to things he could never have pictured a week – a day- before: Sakura and Fai and himself inhabiting the same four walls. The ones his sister and her husband had always made so cheery and warm. Made a family out of circumstance alone. Worked something out.

It wasn't something he was happy about, but it was something he would do, something he chose, because Sakura was important and…

Kurogane was tired of losing people he loved.

He was vaguely aware of Kendappa making arrangements, funeral arrangements: it wasn't fair of him to leave it to her, but he did.

Funerals are fucking awful.

(Fai stayed home.)

(And now, another aside.)

Once upon a time there were two kids, a boy and a girl, that lived with their mum and dad. They lived in an average house and did average things, but they were happy. Anyway, one day the parents died in a house fire and the kids went to live with their aunt, who helped them grow up right. The girl ended up married to a beautiful prince and the boy… didn't.

'That's it? That's a dreadful story.'

'That's just how it goes.'

'You should change the ending. Make it happier.'

'Tche. You can't just make something up 'cause the truth isn't rosy enough.'

'Of course you can.'

'..Are you ever fucking honest?'

Sakura cried a lot, those first desolate days. Those first desolate weeks. Not fucking surprising, because she was a kid who'd lost her mother and father. Her mother and father. That wasn't a small thing. And all at once she was faced with a life that didn't look the same as the one she'd always known. The one where she'd been happy and warm and safe. It was normal for her to cry. It was natural. Healthy.

Fai didn't cry.

At first, Kurogane thought he must be doing it in his room. Or in the shower, letting his tears wash away down the drain with everything else. Kurogane had done that. Or did that. Whatever. There was no shame in crying, but that didn't mean he wanted to share it with the world. And so, yeah, if Fai wanted to shed his tears in private, that was fine with Kurogane. Only… Kurogane stood at Sakura's bedroom door, watched Fai turning down her quilt with his strong, pale hands. Only, he'd started to realise. That Fai wasn't.The thought made him uneasy.

'Kuro-tan should say hurry up and goodnight, instead of glowering from the doorway like a gargoyle.'

And that was another fucking thing.

Because they were back to Kuro-tan, of course. Kuro-tan and Kuro-rin and Kuro-pon. They had been from the minute Fai stepped over the threshold. As if that were enough – all those hollow little words that tripped off Fai's tongue – to prove to the world that Fai (and everything else) was absolutely fine.

(Fai didn't cry.)

Kurogane went into the room, tousled his niece's hair, turned out her lamp, and resisted the urge toss the weird white rabbit thingout of her bed. The idiot had given it to her the day they'd all moved in together. 'Whenever you're feeling sad, hug Mokona very tight,' he'd said. He'd smiled, bright like the sun.

Kurogane hatedthe weird white rabbit thing.

But he left it there all the same, because Sakura liked it and Kurogane wasn't going to upset her just because Fai was an idiot. He waited for a moment, satisfying himself that she was settling to sleep, and then he padded back to the door, pulled it quietly to.

Back in the hall, Fai glanced up and smiled brightly. Kurogane didn't smile back.

Fai said, 'Well, what exciting plans does Kuro-pon have for the rest of the evening?' His hair was coming loose from its ponytail – he reached up to tie it back again. He was wearing one of Yuui's jumpers. 'Listening to despatch on your scanner, perhaps. Those things are illegal, you know.'

'I don't have a scanner,' Kurogane said flatly, and then, 'I'm getting a drink. You want one or what?'

Fai stopped. He'd already taken a step or two towards his room – Yuui and Tomoyo's room – and now he turned to look at Kurogane. Wore that sharp little smile. 'Thank you for the offer, Kuro-rin,' he said, smoothly. 'But I don't think I will tonight.'

Kurogane regarded him a moment. Thought about it. Then, 'You just going to live in that room for the rest of your life?'

And Fai laughed, too bright. 'I hardly think going to bed at a decent hour constitutes living in my room,' he said.

'He…' Kurogane paused a moment. There were things that needed to be said, that he wouldn't say during the day when Sakura was around, but, 'He wouldn't have wanted this for you, you know. Pretending everything's fine when it's not. He would've fucking hated it.'

Things that needed to be said, all the same.

Fai stiffened. Moved a hand to the sleeve of Yuui's jumper. 'You don't know what he wants,' he said quietly.

Then he slipped into his room and shut the door.

Kurogane sat on the couch with the sake. Drank two glasses and put the bottle neatly away. And it wasn't because he couldn't handle more than that – because he could, easily – but the flat was silent and dark, and he had a feeling that this, his own sour mood and the bottle before him and the thought of Fai shut away tight in Yuui's room – he had a feeling those things weren't a good combination.

He went to bed after that. Someone had to be a fucking adult, after all.

Kurogane dreamed of Tomoyo, heavy and limp in her childhood room. Of the flames licking around the door and the hydraulic shears that were suddenly foreign to his hand. He dreamed of Sakura crying out and he dreamed of Fai, wraithlike, wrapped in Yuui's clothes.

It just didn't help.

He found the box amongst the other bits and pieces of Tomoyo and Yuui's life.

It was an afternoon given over to clearing out the wardrobe in the second bedroom, the one that his sister had used as an office and that Kurogane now slept in. He'd come across the stack of neatly labelled boxes, and… he didn't know what to do with them, because Tomoyo didn't need them any more, and Fai would be no help. Kurogane knew thatwithout asking. Fai would leave them there forever, given half a chance. But they needed the space, and so Kurogane resigned himself to the job, an afternoon spent sorting through all the things left behind.

In the end, he hefted most of the stuff into the storage space above the wardrobe. Pulled the hatch shut tight on it.

But the last box, he set aside. Because inside it were a row of DVD cases, blank ones, like the hundreds of other DVD cases that had been part and parcel of Tomoyo's work. These, though, didn't have a glossy printed insert. Instead, along the spines were written things in a hand that was familiar and strange all at once: strange, because Kurogane couldn't read whatever language it was, and familiar because it looked like Fai's.

Neater, though, he thought.

Kurogane didn't know what Yuui had labelled and stored so painstakingly away. The tissue paper lining the box was thin, musty, but the whole thing smacked of something well cared for. Something precious.

He ran a hand over the lid of the box to remove any lingering dust. Thought about it for a second. Then he hooked the first case from its resting place, popped it open, and pressed the disc into the machine he had set up in the corner of his bedroom.

If Fai didn't want to deal with it, that was up to him. Somebody had to.

The first film showed a boy with fair hair: obviously one of the twins, though Kurogane couldn't tell which right away. He was standing in a garden or park of some sort – the ground looked dull and muddy behind him – and he'd been bundled up against the cold in coat and scarf. In his hands, he had a carved wooden figure, a horse, and he was turning it over carefully in his hands. His small, pale face was quite solemn, as if – Kurogane suddenly realised it – as if he hadn't been aware he was being filmed. And just as he had the thought, a man's voice, kind and low, came over the speaker, made the boy look up with a smile, soft and glad.

So, Kurogane thought. It was Yuui.

The man continued to talk, and Kurogane didn't really need to understand the words because it was pretty clear what was going on: the man's gentle, encouraging voice, Yuui's quick little wave. He looked past the camera, presumably at whoever was filming, and his face – so bright and warm and pleased - his face was nothing like the one Kurogane saw tucking Sakura in at night.

He wondered where Fai was.

The film ran on, Yuui with his horse and the man calling out to him, but then Kurogane became aware of Yuui looking to the side, of the man's voice growing softer, more reassuring. It went on this way for a minute, and then the camera dropped, grew jerky. It landed with a thud, made the picture wobble about. It was being attached to a tripod or something, Kurogane guessed. And then into the frame came a man with dark hair leading a boy identical to the first; it had to be Fai, and yet it wasn't… Kurogane frowned. He wasn't quite as Kurogane would have expected.

Not quite.

Not that he'd thought about what the idiot might've been like as a kid; of all Fai's locked-tight little secrets, that one was locked the tightest. He had never, since that dreadful night at the hospital, made any reference to his and Yuui's childhood. Never offered the slightest detail, not even to Sakura, who so often furrowed her brow and tilted her head and asked, 'What about when you and Daddy were little?'

Fai said nothing, smoothed it away behind smiles and laughter and crinkled blue eyes. Told her that things were different then, when hewas a little girl, and of course that had her squealing and laughing along with him; made her forget what it was she had wanted to know.

But Kurogane didn't forget, and Kurogane wasn't fooled.

And now he looked at the boy in the film and it was strange, because, yeah, this boy wasn't what Kurogane had expected at all. This boy was someone else. He hung behind his twin, quiet and reluctant. Colourless, even with the blue of his eyes, the pink that the chill brought into his cheeks. He glanced once at the camera, and then looked away again, quickly, and he might've pulled away from the man, who was still talking to him so gently, except that the other boy, Yuui, caught his hand. Pressed the wooden horse into it, and held it there, and smiled.

The boy, Fai, looked at Yuui, and reached out with his other hand, curled his fingers into his twin's sleeve until they were bloodless and white.

Then the reel ran out.

Kurogane put the DVD back into its case, put it back into the box, and folded the tissue paper carefully over it. Because he didn't know what it meant, and he wasn't sure it had anything to do with the man in the next room, chattering meaninglessly while he made Sakura's afternoon snack.

At night, Kurogane dreamed.

Not that that was anything usual – everyone dreams, of course, if not always, then sometimes, at least. There were dreams where Kurogane wandered the streets, never quite finding his destination, and then dreams of the fire station, where the alarm clanged in his head, and all about him, Souma and Fuuma and everyone else moved with the urgency of cows grazing a meadow.

And then there were other dreams. Dreams Kurogane thought he'd left behind, dreams that had faded with the passing of youth and optimism and everything else besides. Dreams sparked into being again by days that were too long, too difficult.

At night, Kurogane dreamed.

In the years immediately after his parents' death, Kurogane had woken often with his chest bursting, with strange, unfamiliar words tumbling over his tongue. He would lay in his bed on those occasions, catching his breath and remembering how his father had woken him in the night, the smoke seeping thick beneath his bedroom door. Remembering how his father told him to take his sister and go into the street, and to wait there until he came out with Mother.

('Do you hear me? Wait with your sister, Kurogane.Do not move.')

And Kurogane had waited, long after flames engulfed the house, long after they were put out again, and the ground was sodden and dark with soot. Kurogane had watched, and waited, and neither his aunt nor Kendappa were able to drag him away that night. It was only when Tomoyo took his hand with her tiny own that he had finally turned away, felt tears stinging down his smooth, pink-scorched cheeks.

('I won't, Dad.')

Kurogane had thought it was his fault then – too young, too slow, too weak - but he had saved his sister, which was something. It was everything. He had saved Tomoyo then, but now she too was gone, and Kurogane was old enough to know better this time; to resist the voice that whispered weaklingin his ear at night.

It was nobody's fault. Not Kurogane's. Not Fai's, for fuck's sake. Nobody's.

(At night, Kurogane dreamed.)

Kurogane got out of bed, went for a glass of water from the jug in the fridge, and found Fai wrapped in Yuui's jumper, watching a horror movie in the dark at 2am.

And Kurogane didn't know what to do about that.

(He sat and watched the rest of the movie with him.)

(Life goes on, they say.)

On Saturdays, Kurogane woke at five in the morning, drank some tea, checked his messages. Went for a run around his new neighbourhood – in autumn, the dawn clear and red-streaked and chill – and then back at his flat, he turned his attention to the assortment of weights kept in a crate on his less-tiny balcony. He had something to eat – more often than not, something grabbed from the convenience store at the tail end of his run – and on that Saturday, in fact, he had a box of onigiri. There were six of them – the Jumbo Pack – crowded into the clear plastic tray. The label said freshly made with loving care!. On closer inspection, Kurogane kind of doubted that.

Still, onigiri was what he had. And once he'd finished with the weights on the balcony, he pulled the glass door shut against the cool, went soundlessly through to the kitchen to eat them. And there he stopped. For in the kitchen, leaning – half-sprawled – across the counter was Fai, of all people. He glanced up as Kurogane approached, flashed him a grin. Half-stifled a yawn with the back of his hand.

'Morning, Kuro-tan,' he said, rather blearily.

He was wearing Yuui's jumper.

Kurogane grunted. 'Morning.'

Kurogane went to boil the kettle and rinse his cup for another round of tea. He wondered briefly if Sakura had woken Fai; but if that was the case, he'd obviously settled her back to sleep, because the flat was quiet and still and all the things four-year-olds weren't. He wasn't sure if he liked another presence, Fai'spresence, cutting into the solitude of his pre-work ritual, but then, there wasn't much he could do about it. At least the man was managing to be quiet (for now).

He said, 'You want tea?'

He heard the rustle of Fai's clothing against the counter as the man turned. 'I never thought Kuro-tan would be so domestic in the morning,' he said, stage-surprise. 'Next you'll be bringing me breakfast in bed.'

(Kurogane thought of Fai, sleep-soft and smiling in the pale early morning light.)

'Forget it,' he snorted. Took out a second cup.

But suddenly Fai was beside him. 'I think I will, actually,' he said. He sounded vaguely horrified, and when Kurogane looked, Fai was peering at the onigiri and making a face. He said, 'What's this?' He prodded the edge of the plastic.

Kurogane batted his hand away.

'What does it look like? It's breakfast, idiot.'

'It looks, Kuro-pon, like day-old rice that's been mashed together by bears. Elderly bears. With salad servers.'

'Tche! Don't poke at it like that!'

Fai laughed and turned away, careless again. But as Kurogane made the tea, he was aware of Fai's eyes wandering back between him and the onigiri – he was roughly as subtle as a pickaxe about it. And when the tea was done and Kurogane had set the cup onto the counter, Fai stared at it for a moment. Stood there blinking slowly into the steam.

Then he smiled. Didn't look at Kurogane. He said, 'Really, what on earth am I going to do with you?' The sleep had gone from his voice, replaced with something brittle and bright, and it was almost a shame because the bleariness, at least, had been honest. But Fai was moving about purposefully now. He took a pan from one cupboard, and a bowl from another. Half a dozen different things from the fridge in the corner.

Kurogane watched all this and said, 'What are you doing?'

'Making you breakfast.' Fai beamed up at him. Blue eyes crinkled and creased and smudged under with grey. He started cracking eggs into the bowl. 'Kuro-burly needs a proper start to the day.'

Kurogane huffed and made a move towards the onigiri. They were still sulking where Fai had left them on the counter 'You don't need to,' he said shortly. 'It's fine.'

'No, it's not,' Fai said. He turned away to light the gas ring. 'Apart from anything else, if Sakura-chan sees you eating rubbish like that for breakfast, she'll want it too.' And at last he glanced back at Kurogane, calm, pleasant. As if this – all this – were the most normal thing in the world: the pair of them bickering about breakfast on a Saturday morning.

(Fai pushed back the sleeves to Yuui's jumper.)

'Better jump in the shower, Kuro-sweaty,' he said lightly. 'I'm sure your colleagues will appreciate the gesture.'

And Kurogane went. If only so he didn't have to see that smirk.

But when he emerged the bathroom, towel firmly about him, he caught the scent of something warm, good, on the air. And when he'd finished dressing – blue T-shirt and orange coveralls and one star, one stripe – he found Sakura awake and sitting up at the table. She greeted him eagerly, her voice still thin with sleep. There were places set for three.

Kurogane and Fai and Sakura ate breakfast together on Saturday morning as if everything was fine; and somehow, for that half-hour, it was.

After that, there were no mornings (or evenings) that Kurogane didn't emerge from the shower to the scent of something warm, good. Sometimes he sat alone, the food left with a note - ('Try not to stomp around, Kuro-noisy, I have a headache today')– and sometimes he sat with Fai, smiling and smooth, and other times the three of them sat all together. Fai leaning to tuck Sakura's hair back, promising to teach her to make whatever-that-was.

It didn't make everything OK, but it helped.

He watched the second DVD on a Tuesday morning. He had come home to breakfast and Fai and the smile he wore to keep everything fine. It was nothing like his twin's had been. The difference was staggering. And Kurogane had always thought of them as separate – Fai careless and bright, Yuui softer, gentler – but here, in this flat… He'd wondered. If seeing Yuui's twin would be like seeing Yuui at every turn.

It wasn't, as it turned out. Fai could no more channel his brother now than when he'd tried that first night.

But when Kurogane went to bed on Tuesday morning, he didn't sleep right away. He felt uneasy, restless. He thought of the box in the cupboard and the strange, sober twin, and… he didn't know. Fai's past was his own. Kurogane was happy to leave it to him. What he'd been like as a kid didn't matter now; it didn't change anything. Only, somehow, as he lay at the ceiling and still didn't sleep, Kurogane remembered the night he'd met Fai the first time: the strange, heavy look his twin had given him. Exasperated, sorrowful. Gone too quick. And Kurogane didn't like sneaking around, because that wasn't his way, but Yuui was gone, and Fai…

Kurogane exhaled sharply. Fai was an idiot.

He'd been through grief before. Everyone handled theirs differently, and Kurogane was in no position to dole out advice. But he was starting to think that Fai might be stuck. That he wanted to stay stuck – to wrap himself in Yuui's jumper and calmly wither away.

Which was fine, except they had a kid to raise.

(Kurogane pulled the box from the cupboard.)

In the second film, the boys – older, though not by much – were rolling down dough at a scrubbed pine table. The same man's voice called kindly to them, and both twins looked towards it this time. Gazed at the camera with identical blue eyes. The one on the right, Yuui, smiled softly, quite naturally for the film; let his hands still on the too-big rolling pin. And then seeing him, the other twin tried the same, pulled his lips taut in ghastly imitation.

(Kurogane packed the case in the box, and put the box in the cupboard, and went to sleep.)

Fai was an idiot.

'Now, Sakura-chan, what would you like to make today?'

Fai was beaming, bright, like the sun. His hands busy tying back the strings of Sakura's tiny apron. Tomoyo had made that for her, Kurogane vaguely recalled.

Sakura thought for a minute, and then she said, eagerly, 'Could we make mochi?'

Fai's smile slipped a bit.

(He was wearing Yuui's jumper.)

He said, 'Mochi?' and then he frowned. Folded too-skinny arms down over his chest. 'Well, I'm not sure I know how to do that, Sakura-chan,' he said. Then he grinned. He cast a sly look at Kurogane through the door of the kitchen; Kurogane, who was minding his own fucking business on the couch. It was Thursday. 'Pounding rice to a pulp sounds more like Kuro-sama's area of expertise,' Fai said, and then, cheerfully, to Kurogane, 'Shall I fetch an extra apron, or will you go without?'

Kurogane huffed. Addressed his answer to Sakura, because maybe she was four but she wasn't a child. 'Sorry, kid,' he said shortly. 'I never learned to do that kind of stuff.'

And he reached out to tousle her hair. Ignored the curious slide of Fai's eyes over his face. Because if Fai wanted to know, he'd have to ask – and Kurogane knew he never would, because that might require sharing something of his own.

(Fai was an idiot.)

Sakura's face fell slightly. She nodded all the same, though. Smiled when he hefted her to sit on his knee. It was just like old times. Almost. Not at all.

But Kurogane was still aware of Fai watching them, smooth, blithe (curious). And then, 'It's more usually for New Year's, isn't it?' Fai asked. He edged further out of the kitchen, stood on the threshold. 'People don't generally eat them year round, do they?'

Kurogane shrugged. 'Sometimes. Mostly New Year's, I guess.'

And Fai nodded at that. His eyes kept skimming over Sakura leaned back against Kurogane's shoulder. He looked thoughtful, almost: something Kurogane wasn't used to seeingfrom Fai. He figured it happened, even if he didn't know what Fai thought about in the solitude of Yuui's room. But here, this was different. He looked contemplative, soft.

Sakura said, 'Did you and Daddy eat mochi growing up too, Uncle Fai?'

Kurogane's gaze slid back to Fai. And he expected the man to turn away. Pull on that smile and draw back to the kitchen and say that, oh, it was far too long ago to remember things like that, Sakura-chan.

But instead, Fai leaned against the doorjamb. He moved fluidly, like a cat. 'Well, we don't really eat them in Iceland,' he said. 'We do other things to celebrate the start of the year.'

Kurogane looked away from him then. Kept his attention on Sakura in his lap, on the cup of tea at his side. He said, very casually, 'Oh, yeah?'

'Mmm,' Fai nodded again. That quiet contemplation turned to something fond. 'It's very dark there, in winter, you know. We don't see the sun much.' And there Fai smiled at Sakura sitting on Kurogane's knee; somehow that looked better too. 'On New Year's Eve, there are lots and lots of bonfires over the city. It's very pretty. Yuui and I always…'

Fai stopped. Pulled his smile wide and crinkled his eyes and Kurogane watched the bob of his throat as he swallowed.

Just cry, Kurogane thought suddenly. The frustration rushed over him, hot and thick. Just do it, idiot, because you need to.

But Sakura was still looking at Fai expectantly. When he didn't go on, she shifted forward on Kurogane's knee. She said, 'Can we go see it one day?'

Fai nodded absently. Retreated back into the kitchen. And then, after a moment, 'I'm sure we will someday, Sakura-chan,' he said, bright, like the sun.

Sakura squirmed off Kurogane's lap. She went into the kitchen, and there was chatter then, and laughter; all the sounds of normality as she and Fai whiled away the afternoon.

'What really happened to the kids?'

'Hmm?'

'The ones in that stupid story.'

'Oh. The elf king turned them to swallows and they flew far away.'

-tbc