A/N: I just realized, a lot of the things I'll be putting in this story could have gone in Reflections or probably would have been in Reflections if I had taken the plot in a slightly different direction...this chapter being the first of those chapters...

Also, I don't know when the next post in this story will be. I have several chapters for this started, but when I sit down to type in them I don't like what I see. Luckily these are oneshots so you're not left at a pure evil cliffhanger.

Read, review, enjoy.

"He hates me, doesn't he?" Fai asked, his single sapphire eye looking up to the ceiling. The blond was in a large, windowless room filled with plants that apparently didn't need light to live. In one corner there seemed to be the shadow of a figure laying on a couch a pad of paper and a pen in his hands. "He really hates me." Fai swirled the half-empty glass of scotch in his hand and then brought it to his lips, drinking the substance as if it were lemonade rather than the potent stuff it was.

"What? Who hates you?" The voice was familiar, soft, almost like Kamui's or Subaru's, but it held a note that rung in your ears much like Fai's voice had when he had been the smiling idiot he had once been.

"Kurogane." Fai sighed, bringing the glass down from his lips once more. "He hates me so much. So much he makes me live." Fai wasn't drunk. Fai didn't get drunk. Outo be damned, in the real world Fai couldn't get drunk if he drank all the liquor in a liquor store. "May I have more of this?"

But that didn't mean he wouldn't try.

"Go ahead." As the vampire got up and poured more of the amber substance into his glass the person in the corner continued to speak. "Fai-san. You've been coming here for a couple weeks now, but you barely talk about anything. Why? Don't you want me to help you?"

Fai shook his head as he sat down again. "No. No one can help me. Kurogane makes me come here... 'If you won't talk to me, maybe you'll talk to him. He's like you.' I won't talk to anyone about the things Kurogane wants me to talk about." Fai continued to drink, Kurogane didn't understand, Fai couldn't talk about the things that the ninja wanted him to. No one would understand, and besides that, if he said anything, he'd lose control of the very carefully calculated emotions he had.

"Now there's that name again, out of all the times you've been here, only one of them hasn't been about him, and that time that you didn't mention that name, it was about a girl named Sakura."

Fai nodded to the shadowed man's words as he sipped from the cup. "I know. I can talk about them. I can talk about Kurogane and his hate for me and I can talk about Sakura-chan and her current confusion."

"But you can't talk about yourself?"

"No."

"Why?" The question held a musical note behind it, but sounded truly concerned and the figure in the corner leaned forward in its seat.

There was a long silence as Fai re-emptied his glass of scotch, and mulled over his answer. By now the man had learned, Fai Flourite was a troubled person, perhaps even insane, but not dumb, Fai was anything but dumb. Because of his lack of stupidity Fai wouldn't say anything that would give an ounce of information that he could understand. So he waited for that carefully calculated answer. "Because it doesn't involve me." Fai said at last. "Hitsuzen. Fate, I'm not needed."

The blue eyes closed and the crystal glass was put down in Fai's lap before fingers intertwined and Fai sat there, as if asleep.

"So you're saying you're unimportant to the people you talk about? That they don't care?"

"I didn't say that. I said I'm not needed. Figure it out for yourself."

The man couldn't. Fai was an expert at withholding information, or if he divulged information it could always be taken several different ways. One could say Fai's words meant that he was literally unneeded, that if he just died in that spot right now, it wouldn't make a difference. One could also infer that he was thinking of the supposed hate that these people held for him. People often misinterpreted hate as not wanting or not needed to go on. Or even a third option Fai might mean that he thought he was invisible, and thus didn't affect the people around him.

In the end the man sighed, shook his head, and gave in. "All right Fai-san. What story do you want to tell me today?"

Fai shook his head, once more getting up for more of the scotch. He'd been there for almost an hour already and Fai had gone through his only bottle of vodka and was almost done with his first bottle of scotch. The man in the corner had to wonder about the blond. He looked no older than twenty-five at the very most and already he had such a resistance to alcohol that he could drink through his entire supply and not get drunk. Of course, Kurogane had told the man that Fai was like him, a vampire who had been turned on the brink of death. "Do you not want to talk about anything? I'm willing to listen to you, I won't laugh."

"I don't really feel like it, but you get paid by listening to me speak so I'll talk."

The man sighed, "Just not about what I want you to talk about."

"Yeah." Fai's simple reply was accompanied by a shrug as he drained the glass quickly this time.

"Why don't you just take the bottle with you?"

"Where's the fun in that?" Fai chuckled and leaned forward in his seat. "I guess I'll talk about Kurogane again today." The blond vampire sighed.

The shadowed vampire sighed as well. "On the topic of his supposed hate for you?"

"Yes." The blue eye drifted to the ceiling again. "It's been on my mind lately. From the very second I met him I meant for him to hate me. I teased, laughed, joked. I did everything in my power to make him hate me. I thought that was what I wanted. After all, if he hated me, he wouldn't get hurt. I wouldn't get hurt. We'd be close, but worlds apart. Our bodies would be physically close together, because that was how it had to be, but our souls worlds apart because that was also how it had to be."

As Fai spoke he set the glass down on one knee and used his hands to get the extremity of his words across. The gestures no longer the exaggerated, ridiculous motions they'd once been, but fluid movements that gave a new light to his words, showing off the emotion behind them.

The man made a note on his page. They said the more a person used their hands when they spoke, the more intelligent they were. Fai almost constantly used his hands to speak, thus even if Fai was insane, his mind was fresh and good. "I realized almost a year ago now that not only was my body close to him, but my mind and soul as well. I thought I was okay with that, that as long as I knew we could never be mutually close. But..." The magician's voice faltered for a second before picking up again. "When I lost my eye and he went out of his way to keep me alive, even though I didn't want it. The magnitude of his hate hit me and it hurt. Far more than I thought it would hurt."

"I don't want him to hate me, but he does..." Fai ran his fingers through the golden locks of his hair and sighed. "I don't have much more to say than that..."

The man in the corner made a few notes on his paper and nodded. "Have you ever thought that it's not hate that made him keep you alive? Perhaps it's out of his caring?"

"If I thought that it would just be a foolish and selfish dream. It's spite. Hate. I can see it in his eyes."

"And nothing I say will change your mind?"

"Nothing."

The man sighed. "I see...well. Take the bottle and go. I'll see you next week Mr. Flourite."

As Fai stood to his feet, the man was sure that he saw a smile on Fai's face. "Thank you for listening to my pointless ramblings. Even if you are paid to do it." Fai picked up the bottle of scotch, swirling its contents around. "I'll send the next person in."

"Don't bother. You were the last."

"All right." Fai's black clad figure walked to the door, opened it, allowing a flood of light to enter the room as he left.

For almost an hour the man sat in that corner until at last the door opened and another person came in. "He got home safely?"

"I wouldn't call it safe." Kurogane said as he came over and handed the man his payment. "But he got home, bitched at me, drank a lot, and fell asleep. He'll probably wake up in an hour or so, and get ready for tonight's 'outing.'" Kurogane meant the chess match\but didn't say that out-loud. After all, it was a frowned upon event.

"He drank more alcohol? That can't be good for Fai."

"No." The ninja absentmindedly rubbed his wrist. "He didn't drink alcohol when he got home. He drank something completely different."

"Ahhh." The man's eyes flashed yellow, showing off the first color on him for a split second, as he looked at Kurogane's wrist. "Well, that's good. He sure does drink a lot though, whether it be alcohol or...other things." The doctor ripped the page of notes from his clipboard and handed it to Kurogane. "Today's session was mostly silent, but at the end he spoke of how much you hate him."

"I see." Kurogane took the page. "So he thinks I hate him..."

"I tried to say you didn't, but he wouldn't take that. He talks about you a lot. He must really like you."

Kurogane shrugged, folding the paper into fourths and placing it in his pocket. "Maybe. I just wish he'd crack, or talk, or cry. He keeps so much inside, I no longer know what to do with him. I'll see you next week." Just like Fai had done earlier, Kurogane walked to the door and walked out.

The room was silent.