Fai's lighthearted giggle could be heard over the buzz of people and Kurogane gave a groan of pure and unadulterated annoyance. "Fai...I'm going to kill you...if you don't kill yourself first!" Kurogane was quite worried about Fai, in the last two chess matches Fai had overexerted himself and had reopened what remained of his wound, thus why Kurogane yelled at the mage.
As Kurogane continued forward again he was forced to a stop when he came face to face with the blond. "Kurogane, I don't think you realize how easily you really could kill me. All you would have to do is not feed me for about a week." The ninja stared at the magician the anger melting away as he waited for what he knew what would come next. Sure enough, Fai tilted his head and smiled brightly, "But you wouldn't do that." he reached out and wrapped his arms around Kurogane's neck, "You want to 'help' me too much." Fai poked Kurogane's nose once before letting go of the man and running off again. "And don't worry! I'm fine!"
"I'm starting to think 'I'm fine' are the only words you know..." Kurogane mumbled to himself as he followed Fai again.
Fai was smiling, laughing, running, and acting all around happy, this should mean one of two things: Either Fai was really asleep and this was Yuui, or that Kurogane had really helped Fai a lot in the past few days. Kurogane is quite displeased to inform you that you are all wrong if you picked either one of these options. He knew what Fai was doing, he'd been doing it for the last few days.
The ninja had come to call it 'personality hopping.' All this meant was that Fai set out a certain length of time and acted a certain way during this time. He could be happy, sad, angry, girlish, anything. Why did Fai do this? Kurogane had trouble coming up with the answer until it seemed to hit him on the nose. Fai was going through every emotion and personality he could possibly muster to try and get Kurogane to leave him alone. He had come out with an average of ten personalities a day that ranged from extremely happy to utterly depressed.
Even with all the variety Kurogane hated practically very personalities that Fai threw at him, there was only one Kurogane liked, and it was the personality he believed to be Fai's true personality...
Kurogane was brought out of his thoughts as he heard Fai's quick footsteps run up a set of stairs and a bell ring as Fai entered the tailors shoppe. Fai had received a message saying that his jacket had been fixed so of course Fai had immediately gone out the door to get it. As usual Kurogane had to be the voice of reason in Fai's actions and had walked out in the middle of the breakfast he'd been eating.
Kurogane walked up the stairs, and opened the door, causing the small bell to ring as he came inside. Fai was speaking with the shoppe owner. "Hyuu!Hyuu!, this is great. Thank you."
"Stop with the 'hyuu' already." It was just part of the act after all.
Fai looked back at Kurogane, giving him a pout, but obeying the command as he handed the owner the money owed and turned back to Kurogane holding the jacket up for him to see. "Isn't it nice Kurogane? You can't even tell it was damaged."
"But you can still tell you were damaged, come on Mage, home now." The black haired man jabbed his thumb back at the doorway as Fai pulled the jacket on over his other clothes.
"All right, all right. Kurogane is so mean." Kurogane could already see the transition of personalities taking place, Fai no longer could see a use for the happy one, so he'd now try some other one...
As Fai walked past Kurogane he gave an actual whistle instead of a 'hyuu' as he went to the door. "Come on Kurogane. Let's walk home." There was a short smile as he opened the door and bowed dramatically waiting for Kurogane to pass.
If Kurogane had to guess Fai would be pulling his 'girlish' side out of his proverbial hat next. Kurogane didn't really find Fai acting this way to be girlish...more like happy Fai on low dozes of sleeping medication.
Fai's arms wrapped around Kurogane's arm and hugged to it tightly as he rested his head against his shoulder. "I'm sorry..." The mage whispered softly.
Kurogane had been wrong, it wasn't the girlish personality. This was Kurogane's favorite personality by far, the ninja thought it to be Fai's true face, the way he actually felt underneath everything. It you had to put it into a category it would be called clingy. Very clingy.
"You don't have to be sorry, you have to learn."
"I don't understand Kurogane-san, you keep talking about helping me and learning, but I don't understand...no matter how much you try to tell me it never makes any more sense than it did before." Fai almost flinched when Kurogane put his free hand on top of his head and ruffled his hair, his usual sign of affection.
"Keep listening, it'll come." Fai's head relaxed against Kurogane's shoulder as they walked, one of his hands going down to Kurogane's and holding onto it tightly.
"I hope so...I want to be worth it."
"You're already worth it. You just have to stop hopping personalities."
Fai smiled, and even chuckled a bit as he nuzzled to Kurogane's shoulder, sighing softly. "Not going to happen." Fai's voice indicated a small amount of teasing, but truly, it was serious.
"Can you at least tell me how long you plan to keep it up? Really Mage, there are better things to focusing your energy on."
"Like what?" Fai's hands let go of Kurogane's arm for a split second as he opened the door to the house they currently lived in.
"The help I'm trying to give you, or just me in general."
"As wonderful as that sounds Kurogane, I'm already doing both of those things, even when I'm using other personalities."
Kurogane sighed, reaching out and closing the door as they were now inside. He turned to Fai, giving him a light glare before leaning forward and giving Fai a light kiss on the lips, "I wish you would stop fighting me."
Fai looked toward the ground, he held out his arms childishly, like a five year old did when they wanted their mother to carry them. When Kurogane came close enough the outstretched arms wrapped around Kurogane tightly, hugging him close. "I wish I would stop fighting too..." he whispered softly, burying his head in the nape of the man's neck.
"He's asleep, isn't he?"
"I wouldn't be here if he was awake now would I?" The childish voice of Fai's inner child rung throughout the room as Yuui sat up and stretched his arms. "I can tell, you're back to square one. What do you need exactly?"
"It's not square one." Kurogane shook his head slightly, "More like square one, version two."
"So...it's an upgrade from where you were?" Yuui tilted his head slightly a goofy grin on his face.
"In some ways...yes. That aside, I want to know why he hops from personality to personality. I have my guess, but I want to know for sure." The ninja folded his arms not moving from his spot against the door.
"To keep you away of course. To find the personality that will either make you pleased enough to leave him alone, or to annoy you enough to leave you alone. Fai-chan is really a complex person. He'll try everything before he backs down, don't worry though, your mage has not had the time to pick up his broken pieces and put himself back together, you still have a good chance to get at his gooey insides before you have to break him open again." Yuui played with one of the buttons on the shirt Fai was wearing as he said all this.
"Gooey?" Kurogane shook that word from his head, decided to leave that bit alone and ask his next question. "Which personality is his real one?"
"Which do you think it is?"
"The clingy one."
Yuui made a face, obviously not understanding the answer, "Fai-chan doesn't have a clingy personality."
"Yes he does. It's the one he was using before he fell asleep, he's used that one a lot the last couple of days."
Yuui shook his head, "That's not clingy, it's scared. That's what Fai-chan is when he's scared of something. I guess you can call it clingy...'cause it causes him to cling to the first thing he feels comfortable touching...but it's not's totally clingy." There was a short pause as Yuui looked up from the button to Kurogane's face, the smile inevitably coming back to his face. "But that's not his real personality. It's just the one he thinks you like the best, and the one that work the best for what he wants."
"Then what is his real face?"
Yuui put a finger to his lips in thought, moving his head from side to side as he seemed to be thinking. "I can't answer that properly..."
"Then do the best you can."
"Well..." the blond bit his lip, "I guess if I had to put it into words I'd have two options...one is that none of them are real, which isn't really true...the other would have to be that they are all his true face, which isn't really true either..." Yuui sighed actually looking strained, "I guess it's more that they're all sides of who he is, or some of them are things Fai-chan wants to be."
Kurogane nodded, both getting it and not getting it, it was confusing, and sometimes he found Yuui's information to be more and more confusing the longer the boy rambled on about a single topic. Thus Kurogane decided to leave that question be for now, before he got any more confused. "And he's doing this why?"
Yuui smiled, "He's trying to please you. This isn't the first time he's done it...it's like a milestone in Fai's life...he finds someone he cares about, and once they figure out who he really is he tries on a whole bunch of masks or he waits until he finds out what that person likes from him and then he does that until the next time it happens. That was one of the reasons he was happy before, the last person he tried to pleased liked his smile." Yuui put his fingers to his cheeks and smiled making him look ridiculous.
"You sure about that?"
Yuui smiled and nodded, "Yup! One-hundred percent sure!"
"How do I get him to stop? It's messing with my helping him."
Fai's inner child laughed, "I thought that would've been obvious. State out what you like and dislike. He'll put it all together in some jumbled kind of personality and then he'll stop."
"You sure?" Yuui nodded vigorously, his head looking like it was hitting against something. Kurogane couldn't help but wonder if that would cause Fai brain damage later on... "All right then, thanks."
"Oh, one more thing, be careful next chess match." The swordsman took this to mean that Fai would either reopen his wound again, or get a brand new one, he nodded, but raised an eyebrow.
"You're making predictions now?"
Yuui smiled, "Only when it will affect the wish and Fai-chan." The ninja sighed, nodding again, whatever it took to get the help he needed...
Yuui then beckoned Kurogane over to the bed and as usual the boy slung his arms over Kurogane's shoulders and then fell asleep again, leaving Kurogane to wait until the mage woke up. Kurogane hoped Fai didn't get hurt again. He didn't know what would happen if he let Fai be hurt again...
A//N: You know the drill...Read and Review...please review. I like reading what you people think. As usual, feel free to point out grammatical errors. I did read it out-loud, like Nema ((you know who you are...)) suggested, but that does NOT mean I got everything.