Fai stares across the room at the other man, reclined in a pile of pillows, bottle in his right hand, held by its thin neck and dangling, loose, base rolling slightly on the floor. His eyes are on his, as red as the wine they've been drinking, but he is silent, watching Fai just as he is being watched.
The curtains billow softly behind him, caught in the breeze from the opened windows which let the humid air of this world circulate.
The room itself is round, small crescent balconies arranged outside of each window as if the petals on a flower, carved stone railings holding them back from walking straight off of the edge and four stories down. Those carvings are echoed inside on the structural supports of the ceiling, just about visible behind the sheer drapes which are affixed in the centre of the ceiling. They swag once to loops in the ceiling wrought in metal, similarly engraved to the beams of the ceiling, to the balcony railings, and then once again to a slit in the ceiling front of each of the twelve windows, spread through this thin gap so that they can catch in the wind just so, just as they are doing now.
It is opulent, elegant and private, just as befits some of the fastest rising warriors in the army they've found themselves in.
There is a set of stairs spiralling down from this room, beneath a trap door in the center of the room. They've shut it for now, Kurogane saying something to the other men which Fai understands by now to be something about not being disturbed.
When they'd been granted a private room Kurogane had used it at first to stop people from coming in as he tried to teach Fai words in his language, the language of the people here, scratching them into the dirt floor and point to various things, naming them.
Fai had pretended not to understand of course, thinking that it would be fun to learn by himself, to shock Kurogane at some point by saying something bad in his language at an inappropriate moment, get them both into a little trouble for the excitement.
And then, one day, Kurogane had finally sighed instead of growled something that Fai couldn't really understand yet, muttered something which sounded resigned and sat down, leaning back against the wall.
Fai hadn't known what to do, had blinked at the man for a few moments, clearly at the end of his patience and also his anger.
He had wanted then to say something, something that would mean anything to Kurogane.
"Sorry I can't take things seriously." He had said in lieu.
Kurogane had looked up at him then, tired, said something which Fai didn't understand at all because Kurogane only ever said it to him, well, yelled usually.
Fai almost wished for a moment that they could be on that moon, understanding each other for the brief hours it gave them. Instead he pulled a bottle from his robes, swiped from one of the other soldiers when they were distracted, and offered it to the man in front of him.
Kurogane looked exasperated and said some more words which Fai didn't know, scratching his head, but ultimately leaned forwards, grabbed the bottle, pulled the cork with his teeth in a way which made a strange longing flicker inside of Fai before dying out again.
Then Kurogane said a word he knew well, a word he referred to Fai by, not his name he thinks, unless it sounded different through his language, without Mokona, and patted the ground beside him, eyebrows raised.
So Fai sat, as he thought Kurogane had wanted, far enough away that they didn't have to touch, and they had passed the bottle between them.
Since then Kurogane had never tried to teach him again but he had used the words to be left alone repeatedly so that they could recreate that night in different rooms, with more wine, better wine than that first bitter bottle they'd shared.
They hadn't touched in that time, Fai knowing more than ever that he doesn't want that, not between them, and that it would complicate things so much more.
Somehow, despite the physical distance between them growing as they've had the room for it and despite his inability to learn enough of Kurogane's language to talk or understand much, Fai feels closer to the other man now.
They speak little even on the moon now and Fai trusts, as much as he can trust anyone, that Kurogane has his best interests at heart.
He knows that just as he has seen Kurogane's body that Kurogane has seen the scars on his body too, ones usually hidden in his normal clothes, scars from so many different things he can't tell him; skirmishes, attempts at healing magic, rituals, assassination attempts, cooking, mistaken identity of wild food, hunting, his early childhood and ones which he avoids thinking about, lost among the rest, so fine he can barely see them if he looks.
He does not find them ugly, or really truly mind the other man seeing so much, but he knows that they are evidence that he is older than his looks, younger than Kurogane's own. Fai worries sometimes that on that moon, a second before the fighting begins, one day Kurogane will ask him how old he is and Fai will eventually have to tell him that he doesn't know anymore.
But for now they drink in quiet and Fai takes comfort in the fact that he can tell Kurogane that he is glad that he is with him rather than alone and the other man can't understand.
Fai can likewise pretend that he hasn't noticed or understood the softening of the way Kurogane refers to him, the word still unknown to Fai, or the way those red eyes are less sharp, less accusatory when they land on him with every passing week.