A/N: Thank you for everyone who has reviewed/read/followed so far. I hope you all continue to enjoy as our story progresses and both Kurogane and Fai grow up a little! There are no spoilers this time, but two new yet familiar characters are showing up: Haruka and Shizuka Doumeki from xxxHolic!

0o0o0o0o0o0o

Two: Pool of Time

After they had met the witch, she'd moved into the Reed family manor and set up a small fortune telling business in the guest room. Whenever anyone passed through to do business with the Reeds, they would stop by and receive her cryptic advice for a small price or an exchange of favors. The whole village welcomed her with open arms. She was an odd woman and spiritually beyond anything they were used to, but there was no denying that her knowledge was valuable and her presence beneficial to the village. Her words gave comfort to nearly everyone. Those looking for love were given the direction they required, and even those who received hard news were glad for the chance to find new ways to make it through their times of trouble.

Kurogane still didn't like her, but his opinion mattered to no one. Yuuko had the support of everyone important in the village from the Reeds to the leaders of the Shinto shrine, including Kurogane's mother and the head priest, Haruka-san. Even Fai loved to visit her whenever they had the chance, although his fascination seemed to be more with her collection of kimono than the woman herself.

"Look at this, Kurorin," Fai said, pulling out a blue kimono decorated with white and red blossoms along the neckline. "How long do you think it would take to make something like this?"

"As if I know anything about women's clothes!" Kurogane lifted one of the sleeves and sniffed it. "It smells like her."

"What's wrong with how Yuuko-san smells?"

"It's like she took a bath in incense, then dried off with an incense scented towel. Does she want everyone around her to start gagging? And what's wrong with just using a little bit of lavender soap?"

"Lavender soap? So at least Kuro-chan thinks I smell good."

Kurogane blinked. Now that Fai mentioned it, he did smell faintly of lavender. Kurogane's mother scented their soap cakes with sandalwood oil, but Fai and Yui carried a different aroma, one that was sweeter and more alluring to Kurogane's sense of scent. He felt a bit sheepish at having admitted this preference to Fai himself, but Fai had shifted his focus back to Yuuko's kimono, running his fingers over the fabric as if reading a secret story woven inside it.

"Do you ever wonder," he said after a long silence between them, "what would have happened if we hadn't been born here?"

Kurogane shrugged. "Not really. And you weren't even born here to begin with."

"I know. But I don't remember my birthplace. I may as well have lived here all my life for all it matters." Fai's forehead creased. "But do you want to be rice farmer? That's the only thing you can be in this place. Unless you can get work at the temple or move to the city, there's nothing here."

"Nothing?" Kurogane lifted an eyebrow. "Really."

Fai flushed. "I mean, there's you. And Yui. But... the rice."

"There's a whole lot of it, huh."

"And it needs to be farmed. Maybe we were born into the world just for that." His voice had suddenly turned cold, his typical effervescence lost in his line of thought.

Kurogane shook his head. For all of Fai's moments of joy, there were moments like these where he seemed to be sucked of all his positive energy. Maybe this was the "price" Yuuko was always eluding to. Maybe Fai could only smile on all of his other days for the price of a day like today, when all he could do was indulge in sadness.

"Could you stop moping?" Kurogane said nonetheless. "My father is a rice farmer, but that doesn't mean that's his whole life. You have to do what you can to put food on the table, and then do what you want with the time that's left."

"Is that what you want though, Kuro-chan? To be a rice farmer?"

"I don't see why not. I can handle physical labor."

"Yes, yes you can." Fai sighed and traced a petal of one of the kimono's flowers with his fingers. "But what about me?"

"Didn't you want to be a bride, or something?"

"But what will I do all day when my Kuro-chi is out working in the fields?"

Kurogane rapped his knuckles against Fai's forehead. "Cut it out with that joke. And whatever you want to do, that's what you should do. You don't have to ask me as if I'm the one with the answer you're looking for."

Fai smiled and placed the kimono back into Yuuko's wardrobe. "It doesn't matter, anyways. We are young. We don't have to decide right now."

"'We are young'," Yuuko's voice echoed from somewhere outside. Kurogane and Fai turned to look at the window. The witch was half-outside, with one leg on the ground and the other poking through the window, her robes slitting open to expose her bare flesh. "So often I have heard that from mouths like yours, and still the endless pool of time you think you have dries up. Time spent waiting is still time, and you will not get it back."

"Don't just come in through the window!" Kurogane yelled, instinctively shielding Fai's eyes from the sight of a disheveled Yuuko. "It's rude."

"Rude? Rude to who? This house is not yours, and the Reeds aren't bothered by how I choose to use my chambers." She slid the rest of the way into the room and readjusted her robes. "Do you enjoy my kimono, Fai-kun?"

Fai ducked underneath the hand Kurogane was still holding over his eyes. "They're well made and very beautiful."

"Yes, and their making was a long and arduous process with its own share of challenges. Much like farming rice, one would say." She paused, fishing around for one of her pipes. "Your brother was looking for the both of you."

"Is he still outside?"

"He's at the shrine. If you wish to leave and see him, go through the window. The creep has guests in the main hall."

"No way," Kurogane grumbled, but Fai snatched up his hand and yanked him through in any case. Yuuko watched them go, as impassive as ever, but as with every time they saw her, Kurogane had the feeling that she had imparted something to them which they would have to pay for later.

It was a summer afternoon, and the air was humid and suffocating as he breathed it into his lungs. His skin was already dampening with the heat, and Fai's hands felt suddenly slippery in his. It was too warm to be touching like this, but he didn't want to let go just then. Fai would comment if he made a fuss about their holding hands, and Kurogane didn't want to talk about it or defend himself when it was inevitable that Fai would win wherever he could twist words to his advantage.

"How can that witch go around calling people creeps when she's the biggest creep in the entire village?" Kurogane said instead. He'd only interacted with Clow Reed a handful of times, and hadn't found anything particularly offensive about him other than his tendency to be just as abstruse as Yuuko.

"It takes one know one, doesn't it?"

Fai mood seemed to lighten now that they were outside and on the path, where all directions were certain. He was smiling at Kurogane, and the lightness of it seemed to reach his eyes, which tended to show more accurately what he was feeling. "Nee, Kuro-chan?" he said, wiggling the fingers laced together with Kurogane's. "Can I keep holding onto your hand?"

"No."

"I'm going to, anyways." He raised his face to the overbearing sun, his fair cheeks flushing red in the heat. "Do you know what I worry about?"

"Other than what work you will do in the future?"

"I worry about Yui."

Kurogane said nothing, waiting for Fai to elaborate. Fai's voice was not as cold as it had been during their earlier conversation, but wherever Yui was concerned, he was always more serious than he appeared.

"This is the first time he's been out in so long. Shashi-oneesan needs someone to keep her company when Ashura-oniisan is in the fields, and Yui will always volunteer, even when it's my turn. He won't do anything for himself anymore."

"He is better at dealing with her than you are."

"But he deserves a life, too. Maybe even more than me. He's a good person."

"And you aren't?"

"Do you think I am, Kuro-chan?"

"You're just you, and nothing else."

"Hmm." Fai squeezed Kurogane's hand, but not to the point where the other boy would be mad enough to let go. "But I think Yui is more than just being Yui. He is good. No matter what, he will always do the best thing for everyone before he will do the best thing for just him."

Kurogane didn't think that sounded good at all, at least not for Yui, but Fai already worried about Yui enough without Kurogane's muddying the waters further.

Yui was waiting for them on the steps of the shrine with Haruka-san when they arrived. Haruka's grandson, Shizuka, was sleeping with his head resting in Yui's lap, his heavy-lidded eyes briefly opening as they drew closer, but closing once again as sleep lulled him back to stillness. He was growing bigger, even though Kurogane could still vaguely remember the day he was born. Perhaps Yuuko was right; the pool of time they thought they had was drying up. They were all still children, but it was not going to last much longer.

"Kurogane-kun and Fai-kun," Haruka-san said, reaching out to ruffle their hair. "Still together, I see."

"It's not because I want to!" Kurogane said immediately, but Haruka-san merely laughed, his eyes straying to their linked hands. Kurogane finally disentangled himself, ignoring Fai's pointed smirk. He would hear about this later.

"How are you, Kurogane-kun?" Yui asked. He'd never picked up Fai's habit of calling him by pet names, which Kurogane was thankful for. Already, Fai was tiring of his standard "Kuro-chan," and was beginning to invent new obnoxious ways of calling him.

"I've spent the whole day with your idiotic brother staring at the witch's kimono," Kurogane answered. "How do you think I'm doing?"

"You must be doing very well, then." Yui managed to say this with such a sincere smile that Kurogane was forced to believe he wasn't joking. "Please continue to look after Fai."

"You know, you could come if you wanted. I'm sure you'd get more out of it than I do."

"But who would look after Shashi-oneesan?"

"You don't even like Shashi-oneesan," Fai reminded him.

"I feel sorry for her. She is a person who wants something she doesn't have."

"A baby," Fai whispered for Kurogane's benefit. "Ashura-oniisan doesn't like doing the baby-making thing with Shashi-oneesan."

"Now, now," Haruka-san said, giving Fai a gentle flick on the forehead. "Kurogane-kun's a little young to hear gossip about that. And you shouldn't be gossiping in the first place. Shashi-san made a substantial transition coming to this village, and is probably still feeling homesick. You should show the understanding that your brother does."

"See?" Fai said, poking Kurogane in the ribs. "Even Haruka-san knows Yui's a better person than me."

Kurogane still wasn't convinced by this tidy explanation of one being better than the other. It was true that very few things made Yui visibly unhappy, and he was rarely seen without his smile of contentment, which, unlike his twin's, always reached both his lips and his eyes. But Kurogane had often wondered if Yui would really be so happy if he was pulled out of whatever world he belonged to in his head and was forced to dwell upon the true reality of his life. He was alive, healthy, and taken care of, but seemed to be living with a purpose that had nothing to do with himself or the individual life he wanted. Perhaps the world needed its store of entirely selfless people, but as an advocate for selfishness, Kurogane worried that Yui's self-sacrifice would only end up hurting Fai.

They spent the rest of the afternoon playing on the shrine's grounds, watched over by Haruka-san and then Kurogane's mother when she emerged from her duties. When it reached late afternoon, Yui left to bring Ashura in from the fields, and Kurogane headed home with his mother to prepare dinner for his father. Fai tailed after him as he always seemed to do those days, and Kurogane's mother went ahead to give them some space as they talked.

"Can I hold your hand again, Kuro-tan?" Fai asked once they were out of earshot. He laughed as he asked, and Kurogane knew this was the teasing he had earned for allowing Fai to touch him in the first place.

"No."

"Really? You seemed okay with holding it an awfully long time earlier."

"You would have made a big deal out of it no matter how long I held it."

"I see. So you decided to enjoy holding it for longer since you were going to be teased no matter what." Instead of taking Kurogane's hand, Fai grabbed Kurogane's arm and wrapped himself around it. "I like holding Kuro-tan, too."

"This joke..."

Fai was quiet for a moment, and he ducked his face into Kurogane's arm so his expression wasn't visible. "I may be young now," he whispered. "But I won't always be. And I won't always let you call it a joke."

"You'll have changed your mind by then."

Fai shook his head. "You'll see. When the time comes, you won't want me to change my mind."

He stood on the tips of his toes and pressed his lips against Kurogane's cheek. Before Kurogane could push him away, Fai had already darted away with a laugh, heading towards his own house.

Kurogane pressed his hand against the spot Fai's lips had touched and sighed. Once again, he knew that he would be hearing about this later. Maybe tomorrow, maybe a few years down the road. But whatever it was, a joke or not, it was far from over.

0o0o0o0o0o0o