A//N: This is the first of the Mirror chatpers. Both chapters will come in two parts like this one and although I really feel like I could/should have expanded on this chapter I'm glad I'm leaving it where it is...it lets you imagine what else they're doing and so on and so forth.

I think I did pretty well on this chapter considering it was giving me major problems when I was writing it.

Anyway, read, review, enjoy.

Clow part one:
A hand shook Fai's shoulder and Fai groaned slightly his eyes closing even tighter even though he couldn't see anything against the pillow anyway as he stretched his body out. The palms of his hands hit against the wall and pushed him farther down his bed. These actions forced a yawn out the blond and this yawn was sadly interrupted by someone ever so gently sliding a finger up the side of Fai's stomach. "Mneeek!" The blond's eyes...yes eyes...snapped open and then turned to the side of his bed as chuckling was heard.

"That is probably the cutest sound I've ever heard you make...including your cute sobs." Kurogane looked at Fai critically as if the mage were a piece of art to be judged and hung on a wall.

Fai turned his head back to the pillow. "Mention my 'cute' sobs again and I will harm you...ack!" Fai curled into a small ball as Kurogane repeated the action of sliding his finger up his side.

"No falling asleep again."

"Kuro-sama...what time is it?"

"About noon."

"Eh, I can sleep for another hour or so..." Fai's tone was joking as the blond pulled the blankets that covered his body off of him and stood to his feet. "Do you remember our agreement?"

Kurogane nodded slightly, "Yeah. You go buy food and I will go buy us clothes that don't stick out so much. It shouldn't be hard."

Fai sighed slightly, "No...Not in the country of Clow."

Kurogane raised an eyebrow at this attitude, and the ninja crossed his arms. "Is Fai still sore?"

Fai's yellow and blue eyes both stared at Kurogane as if he were insane for asking such a question. "I am not sore. I just think it's a little ridiculous..." Fai looked down toward the ground as he pulled on one of his two boots.

Kurogane raised his other eyebrow and pulled Fai's face up so that it looked at his. "Not about the people of Clow. I know your opinion about that. You like how nice they are...no...I'm asking if you're still sore."

"Sore about wha--"

"Fai! Didn't we agree to not hide things?"

Fai smiled sadly. "Right...sorry..." He closed his eyes. "Yes...I didn't want it..." He placed his hand over the eye that was blue and opened the yellow one looking toward the ground even though his face was being held in such a fashion that he couldn't look down to the ground properly.

"Yes you did...You wanted that eye back so much...I know." Kurogane placed his hand over Fai's own. "You wanted to be free of vampirism, you wanted to be free of feeding off me, but you didn't want the kid to give it up when it could kill him...but he's okay. It's all okay."

"But it might not have been..."

"Yuui..." Fai looked up to Kurogane now knowing that when the man called him by his real name that he was serious. "Don't think about might have been...only think of what is and what might be. Everything's okay."

Fai shook his head slightly. "Not quite."

Kurogane raised an eyebrow yet again. "What's not right in this world? It's so peaceful and quiet. You love that."

"It may be right for me...but you want to get back to your home in Nihon." Fai smiled. He knew that Kurogane ultimately wanted to go back and be a ninja for Tomoyo. It was the life he loved and wanted. The mage knew this so well that shock obviously came to his face when he heard the words that came next.

"You're wrong."

"What?"

"I said; you're wrong."

"How am I wrong? Do you not want to go back to Nihon?! Have I been fooled by you this entire time? Are you not the person I thought you were?"

Kurogane shhed Fai and put his hand over his lips to silence him in case he wasn't listening. "No. I do want to go back to Nihon. You only had one word wrong in that entire statement." He checked Fai's eyes for acknowledgment before he leaned down. "The word you said wrong was 'your.'"

"I don't understand." Fai said against his fingers.

"It's not just my home I want to go to...I want us to return to our home in Nihon."

Kurogane could feel Fai's body relax and yet tense in confusion. "O-o-our home?"

Kurogane leaned back away from Fai. "Do you not like the sound of that? Our home in Nihon? Would you rather not be with me?"

"N-no! J-just...I don't see how it's my home as well..."

Kurogane sighed and gently brushed his lips against Fai's to try and calm him. "It's your home because I want it to be, and because you seemed to like it there. The point is that I want you to be with me...or else it's not my home. You're essential to my home being my home. Do you understand?" He placed his hand on top of Fai's head, ruffling the blond tussles of hair in a childlike manner.

Fai smiled and nodded softly. He chuckled. "Pretty words."

"Perhaps, but you liked them."

"Yes...I did."

Kurogane stood to his full height and pulled Fai to his feet as well, one hand remained gripping to Fai's arm while the other, a gloved hand reached out and took a long beige cloak from the bedpost of Fai's bed. "You take off that overcoat and put this on before you go out now; it's still hot out there." Kurogane let go of Fai at last and went over to his own bed taking a black cloak with a blue pattern around the edges and pulled it on over his own clothes.

Fai chuckled as he obeyed. "You know...I'm starting to feel like a child, being treated as if I don't even know what the weather outside will be..."

"If you don't like it, I'll stop."

"I never said I disliked it...I just said I felt like a child." Fai opened a drawer and pulled out a pouch. He took a few coins from the pouch, counted them out and handed the pouch to Kurogane. "There. You'll obviously be needed more money than me for clothes."

"Right." Kurogane took the pouch, it and his hand disappeared under the folds of his cloak.

"So, I'll meet you in the center of the market place in an hour?" Fai's grin was greatly contrasted by Kurogane's frown.

"Not yet."

"Why not yet?"

Kurogane took an apple from a bowl and dropped it into Fai's hands. "You're not a vampire anymore. You need to eat regularly, not just when it's appropriate for the situation or when you're trying to see how long you can last."

Fai chuckled his eyes closed and he grinned. "Right, sorry Kuro-sama." The mage brought the apple to his lips and bit down into it his eyes opened ever so slightly so that he could watch Kurogane's expression all the while he ate the piece of fruit.

When he was finished he carefully discarded the core, he had to look around the room outside for he wasn't quite sure where everything was yet. He tugged on Kurogane's arm bringing him to the door. "So...middle of the market place in an hour?"

"Yes. I'll meet you there." Kurogane leaned down and took Fai's lips for a moment before heading out the door. "And lick your lips! I can taste the apple!"

"I don't think other people are going to notice that..." Fai commented in a tone that Kurogane wouldn't be able to hear as he closed the door himself placing a hand in front of his mouth as he obeyed his light's order anyway.

Fai wandered around the market place pausing often to look at the various products that were for sale. It took almost the entire hour but he finally began to get frustrated by Clow's kindness. The people saw his cloak or the clothes he wore underneath and tried to just give him things because well...he was special or he was just getting started in this world and obviously needed help.

It wasn't that Fai didn't appreciate being helped or something like that, it was that...well...he had the money to pay and these people needed to eat too. The mage didn't like the idea that he was getting something for free while these people needed the money to eat and buy things themselves.

"Please?"

"No, take the money..."

"Please?"

"No..."

"Are you sure?"

"No, wait I mean, ye--ack!" A bag was shoved into Fai's arms and no matter how much Fai begged the woman wouldn't take any money. Fai glared at the pears he had just been given despite his attempts to give the woman behind the stand money.

He mumbled something to himself and looked up at the sun. He estimated that it was just about time for him to head off to the center of the market place to meet up with Kurogane. He picked up the bags of the things he had 'bought' and went quickly off to that place they had agreed on.

He only had to wait a couple minutes before a hand firmly gripped to his shoulder and a pleasantly familiar voice spoke. "You seem bothered by something."

Fai shook his head and turned to look at the man. "It's nothing really...just I've been having a hard time getting people to accept money for their produce..."

"You know Fai...aren't people supposed to haggle for a lower price, not a higher price?"

Fai sighed. "Usually yes, but this is the one occasion that this is not the case. I don't want to get everything for free. How did clothes shopping go?"

"I got clothes, but they insisted in giving them to me for free."

Fai's eyes went wide. "What?! That's ridiculous! Clothes are way more expensive than food! You can't be serious--" Fai's voice faltered as he looked at Kurogane's face. "You're teasing me aren't you?"

Kurogane smirked and nodded his head ever so slightly, "A little."

Fai frowned. "I'm serious...it's just a little bit ridiculous that they're still doing this...we've been here for over a week."

Kurogane shook his head, wrapped his arm around Fai's shoulder and started to walk back toward their house. "As we saw when he first came here in the time loop, these people are extremely kind. They're selfless because the kingdom is so peaceful. They just want us to be happy and well...you're thinking way too much into the topic Mage. I'm sure it'll stop once news gets around that one or both of us has a job."

Fai seemed to think on this before he sighed in defeat and leaned against Kurogane as they walked. "You're probably right...and then I can pay the people back for their food I got today."

Kurogane laughed, "Maybe, if they'll accept it."

Clow part Two:

"Here." A young blond man offered a ball to a young girl as he picked it up from the ground. "You dropped this."

"Thank you!" The girl smiled brightly at the blond but seemed to shrink away when she noticed a larger black haired man behind him.

"Hm?" The blond turned and laughed. "Oh. Him. Don't worry about him, he looks big and threatening, but he's really just a big, cuddly puppy."

"Yuui..." The larger man growled this out in a dangerous tone, but the blond seemed to completely ignore him.

"Really, he won't harm you." The girl didn't seem convinced as she still shrunk away from the man and mumbled another thank you before running off to continue her game with her friends. There was a moment of silence before one of them spoke. "Kuro-sama always scares the children off with his mean stare." Fai sighed out in his teasing tone as he stood up to his full height and pulling a messenger bag up over his shoulder. "He should really learn to show his softer under side to other people."

"I know how, I just don't. Why should I? I highly doubt that I'll ever see that girl again, or if I do I most certainly won't be talking to her."

Fai gave a sound that was between a sigh and a chuckle as the pair continued on forward. "But Kuro-sama doesn't even let his guard down around most of the people he does speak to on a regular basis. I'm sure a lot of the people you talk to would love to see your soft underbelly."

"Keep it up Mage...I'm going to start showing it even less if you keep talking."

Fai completely turned around with a very childish and probably idiotic look on his face, "Kuro-sama is making it sound like he doesn't like it when I talk about the side he shows only to me when we're--" Fai's words abruptly stopped when Kurogane grabbed a bucket of water from the booth they were passing by and turned it over above Fai's head causing the blond to get very soaked very quickly. "Alone..." Fai shook his head back and forth causing droplets of water to splish splash everywhere.

"Sorry." Kurogane placed the bucket back on the booth where the woman was staring at them both in a fashion that might suggest that the pair were insane. "Sun stroke, he needed to be cooled off." The ninja reached into the folds of his cloak and a few seconds later offered the woman a couple of small coins. The woman gingerly took them and went to refill the bucket with water as Kurogane looked back to Fai. "You were saying?"

"Sun stroke...Kuro-sama is so mean..." Fai pretended to pout as he wrung out the edges of his cloak and the clothes underneath. "Although it did feel very refreshing..." He now chuckled. "Come on Kuro-sama, we have to hurry now or you won't get to your job on time!"

"And whose fault would that be?"

Fai placed his hand to his chest in an almost royal way as he turned around on his heel, "You're not trying to blame this on me, are you? If Kuro-sama would just admit that he has a nice underbelly that likes to be rubbed every once in a while..."

"Yuui!" Fai made a squeaking noise and bolted down the center of the marketplace while Kurogane ran after him. Kurogane knew that Fai was acting very much like a child today, and he knew that he was acting very much like he was under the mask today, but he wasn't really. By now he knew that Fai knew that Kurogane would just slap the mask off if he tried to wear it. No...Fai just wanted to play. He wanted to be a child, and this was the only way he knew how. So Kurogane would play along. Besides, this would get him to his job quickly. "Get back here!"

"Kuro-sama has to catch me first!"

The pair weaved in and out of the small crowd that was slowly gathering in the market place, and as usual people turned to stare at them. Despite the fact that they had been there for a little over a year and the fact that they wore the proper clothes for that world the mage and ninja stuck out among them. Fai's hair was too light for most people here, and his different colored eyes attracted gazes. Kurogane's hair was too dark for most of the people, and his single gloved hand would attract attention when he held both hands out in the open.

Also behavior like this did not help them to blend in...

"Mage!"

"Puppy!"

They went on like this for about five minutes until Fai abruptly stopped and Kurogane crashed into him causing them both to fall onto the ground. "Ouch. Kuro-sama's heavy..."

"Shut up, you're just too light." Kurogane pushed himself up to his feet and the pulled Fai up by the back of his collar as if the blond were a kitten. "You okay?"

Fai nodded as his hands patted down his clothes, brushing off all the dust that had gotten on them from the fall. "I'm okay! You?"

"I'm peachy."

Fai smiled one of his very real smiles and chuckled deep in his throat, "Good. Glad to hear it." The mage reached up and wrapped his arms around the ninja's neck before kissing the other's lips very gently and once he felt the return kiss he pulled away. "Have a good day at work."

"You too."

"I will. Now, don't get hurt, especially not by nailing your thumb to a piece of wood and don't fall off the roof."

"Do you take me for some kind of idiot?"

Fai's smile turned to a grin. "And remember that you need to come home early today. Sakura-chan wants to see us."

"Right."

"Now, like I said be, careful and have fun!"

Kurogane raised an eyebrow, "It's not preschool...I'm not here to have fun."

Fai ignored this comment completely, "I'll see you later today." The blond briskly walked past the other and almost instantly disappeared among the other people in the market place. While Kurogane worked on fixing homes and building other things for people, Fai ran a small booth in the market, he sold trinkets and charms, magic potions and very rarely he would sell food of various sorts. It didn't bring in a whole lot of money but Kurogane let him do it, because Fai seemed to truly enjoy doing those things.

The man opened the door to the house that he was currently working on and closed it behind him as he went off to work on fixing the things that needed to be fixed in this house.

Kurogane liked to think that they were happy here. He loved to watch Fai smile and joke, and mean those smiles and jokes. He loved it all, and even though he still wanted for them to return to Nihon and live the rest of their lives there, for a bit longer he was content to stay in Clow and watch Fai truly heal like he had wished for in the first place.