Kurogane had always been a man of actions. He had never been very eloquent with words, but he determined he could use his body to much better effect of relaying messages than he ever could with speech. If assassins were coming after Princess Tomoyo, he would kill them and forgo asking questions. That stunt had frequently caused conflict with Souma and Tomoyo who insisted if they took prisoners they could find out who was sending them and stop the assassination attempts at their source. While Souma would scold him with the occasional sad input from Tomoyo-hime, he would roll his shoulders and walk away from them, his signal that he did not care about their concerns because he was confident he could easily kill the next batch that were sent.
When palace guard trainees got into petty squabbles, all he had to do was flex a little bit and the instantly reached a compromise. A well timed glance could silence any protest against any of Tomoyo-hime's decisions. For him, actions were so much easier than words, and he always made sure to act quickly so no one could be confused about what was on his mind.
His emotions, however, he found much more difficult to show because he had had very little practice with them ever since he had started serving Tomoyo-hime. He was a man of passion, certainly, but that passion had generally been attached to a thing or ideal, never another person.
So when he had felt the first stirrings of what may have been called passion towards the thin, blonde wizard traveling with him, he didn't know how to respond to it. For the first time in his life, he had been unsure of how to act. So he didn't, and he realized his indecision must have made him seem cold at times. Without knowing how to act, he simply watched, both the person who caused his indecision and his own feelings as they fluctuated with time and the world they were currently residing in.
And now, he had been silent for too long. Fai, thinking the ninja hated him, just had to go off and do something stupid in an attempt to prove his worth to Kurogane. Saying things had not gone so well for all of them as result was an understatement."
"Idiot, you knew something like this was going to happen, didn't you?" he accused once the man regained consciousness. He turned his face so the left side was hidden, wearing a guilty expression that was all the answer Kurogane needed. "So why did you have to do it this way?"
He clenched his fist, waiting for the accusation he knew he deserved, knew it was all because of what he said. That was exactly why he always acted instead of spending a lot of time figuring out what to say.
"Because he might have killed Kuro-sama." That was not the answer he had been expecting, and he stared questioningly at the man. "It may be rather selfish of me, but I don't want you to die." He shrugged. "The odds of my survival weren't much better, but I thought I could be happy knowing that Kuro-chan was still alive and managed to return to his princess someday. I thought it might be easier this way."
Kurogane grabbed the mage's face and turned it so he could see all of it, enjoying the look of shock that crossed the pale face. "Idiot, did you really think I would enjoy seeing you die?" He leaned forward and crushed the mage's lips beneath his own, vowing never to be so indecisive again.