This is a series of one-shots depicting Kurogane in CLAMP School. The chapters should be able to stand alone, but it is always helpful to read the first chapter where everything begins and the characters are introduced.

Disclaimers: CLAMP school, the CLAMP school elementary student council, Fai, and Kurogane are all properties of CLAMP.

Because my handwriting sucks...

CLAMP School Kurogane

Suwano Kurogane

A first grade student and a Suwa ninja. He was sent by his family to CLAMP school because of a prediction of their resident dream seer Tomoyo that he would find his "one" there. Kurogane is a very talented fighter and athlete despite his age, but is somewhat short-tempered. He believes he is a strong warrior and hates it when he is looked down upon and treated like a child (or a puppy ).

Fai D. Flowright

A fifth grade student. He is a foreigner and is reasons for being transferred to the school are not clear. All that is known about his family life is that he was raised by a person named Ashura and Ashura's bodyguard and friend Yasha. Fai is shown to be brilliant in almost all arts from painting to culinary. He is well mannered and appears to be from a well-to-do family.

Girls and Handwritings

Girls are stupid.

Kurogane had to spend only four hours in CLAMP school to make that conclusion and make it with finality. Girls were stupid, loud, noisy, and weird. Especially fan girls. Fan girls were especially stupid, loud, noisy, and weird. And he had, by some divine idiots' conspiracy, acquired his share even if he had been aloof and visibly incensed the entire day.

It was this conclusion that forced Kurogane to roam around campus during his lunch break in search of a hideaway that would allow him peace and quiet away from girls. And this was how the little Suwa ninja found the garden filled with wisteria flowers by the archery hall. It was quiet, but not silent. There was a meditative feel to the place.

It was perfect.

He was about to settle down and relax when he realized the fatal flaw of the place. The fatal flaw was a certain blue-eyed blond sitting amongst the flowers, reading a book. He was about to leave when, despite his ninja-stealth movements, he was noticed.

"Kuro-tan!" Fai called out, his face brightening upon seeing someone familiar.

Kurogane was about to leave, but the pull of the meditative peace of the garden—yes, that's exactly what pulled him back—made him turn and stomp back towards the blond. He needed the meditative peace to soothe the insult to his name. "My name is Kurogane!" he cried out indignantly before demanding, "What are you doing here?" His voice made the sentence sound more like 'go away'.

Either undaunted by the ninja's anger or not noticing it, Fai calmly held up a book that Kurogane recognized to be the book on the Japanese language issued to first graders. "I needed to review a bit," he replied. There was also an open book filled with foreign characters, sitting by the fifth grader's side.

The younger boy glanced at the foreign book. There were notes in a strange but curiously beautiful script in its margins. Upon closer inspection, he noticed that two different hands with very different pen strokes made the notes. "This is your handwriting?" Kurogane pointed to the daintier, and in his opinion, more beautiful of the two scripts.

Fai nodded, then closed the book he was reading. He placed a hand on top of the book Kurogane was looking at, as if wanting to hide its contents.

"Who wrote those other things?" the ninja asked, undeterred by the other's body language.

The blond stiffened slightly at the question, then smiled a bit uneasily, "My teacher did." As he closed the book with a dull thud and set it aside, he deftly changed the topic. "And what about you? What are you doing here in this deserted place?"

Reminded of that day's frustrations, Kurogane pouted miserably, "Nothing."

This made Fai chuckle. "You're just too cute," he commented, but opted not to glomp.

"I am not cute! You sound just like those girls!" Kurogane yelled indignantly.

"Girls?" Fai was curious. "Is that why you're here? You've acquired yourself a bunch of adoring fan girls?" He sounded sympathetic. Then, he produced a couple of sandwiches from his bag. "Have you eaten lunch, yet?"

Slightly mollified by the fact that his senior seemed to understand the situation, Kurogane shook his head. "I'm not hungry." Truth was, he was hungry, but didn't want to face the mob of girls that he had seen waiting for him by the store. He was also too proud to accept help from Fai. He took a moment to make a mental note to ask his teachers at home if there was a secret technique for handling fan girls.

"Oh," Fai looked disappointed. He had known, at the back of his mind, that Kurogane would refuse, but there was no harm in trying. He tried a second approach. "I was hoping you'd join me. I can't stand eating alone," he wasn't really lying, but he was using the truth to his own advantage. He held out one of the sandwiches.

Kurogane considered things for a moment. He was really hungry, and Fai seemed normal at that moment. Also, he was just being kind to someone in need of company; there was no problem with that. "Fine," he took the sandwich offered to him and sat beside a secretly triumphant Fai. As he bit into the sandwich, which was chicken, by the way, the ninja felt the need to say something nice.

"Your handwriting's nice."

"Oh?" Fai blinked, surprised by the completely unexpected compliment. When he realized that it was the younger boy's way of thanking him, he couldn't help but smile. "Thank you for saying so." And then, he couldn't help but ask. "How did you know which one, which handwriting, was mine?"

The other boy paused, mid-bite. "I don't know," Kurogane replied. "It seemed like yours. It's elegant and pretty." Yeah, everything about Fai was elegant and pretty, so why should his handwriting be different?

Fai was touched, and maybe he blushed a little at the honest praise. "Thank you," he managed with even more sincerity. Kurogane had already finished his sandwich, but Fai was barely halfway through his, so to keep the brunet busy, Fai decided to get Kurogane talking.

"You were saying something about girls earlier..."

Kurogane pouted again. Apparently, he hadn't perfected the art of scowling. Yet. "They're everywhere," he complained. "The girls here are different."

Fai's brow arched curiously. "Different?" Bite.

Kurogane nodded sagely. "Yes. The girls at home are a lot quieter."

Swallow. "So you like the girls at home, but not the girls here?"

"No, I don't like girls at all," Kurogane grumped. Fai paused from his sandwich, trying hard not to choke on his own stifled chuckles at the innocently made claim that could be interpreted in so many not-so-innocent ways.

"Oh?"

"Yeah," Kurogane met Fai's gaze as he explained, studying the older boy's face, searching for comprehension. "Girls get mad for no reason and cry for almost any reason. Girls are annoying and stupid."

"Your mom's a girl, don't you like her?"

Caught off guard, the ninja stopped short. He had never thought of his mother as a girl. "I like my mom. My mom's nice and isn't loud. She doesn't cry a lot and I've never seen her mad. She's also elegant and pretty." Kurogane, having exhausted his relatively short list of adjectives, unwittingly repeated his description of Fai's handwriting.

"Elegant and pretty like my handwriting?" Fai inquired, his lips quirking to an even larger smile that looked a wee bit sinister.

Kurogane's red eyes widened. He could tell the blond was up to something, but he wasn't sure what. Still, he honestly answered the question.

"Yeah."

The Suwano boy wondered what the crazy foreigner would do to him or say to him. He counted to ten, but Fai only smiled while he studied his junior's face, which was getting warmer with each second. Kurogane, however, did not feel the heat rise to his cheeks until the older boy leaned back saying and doing nothing other than grin like the cat that had caught the canary.

They sat there the rest of lunch period, in meditative peace.

As Kurogane walked back to class near the end of lunch break, he decided that he liked the garden by the archery hall and decided to have lunch there everyday.

-

A/N: Please don't get mad at me for making Kurogane hate fan girls. He's, what? Seven? It's understandable that he's still afraid of the opposite sex. My apologies if the two boys are OOC. Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed this.