Tsubasa: ADVENTchronicles

Coming of LOVE

A Fai/Kuro collection of drabbles

2. Exchange

A/N: This drabble was inspired by chapter 169. If you haven't read up to there, it's best you don't read this. There are spoilers for Celes/Nihon in here. Thanks, and please review!

Fai hardly considered his life as something of value, before he met his new friends. Very few of the memories he kept were pleasant ones. Before the king, Ashura, had come to take him away, it had been one misfortune after another, and he had welcomed death. After all… even his birth was bad luck. So if he could have given up his life for something of any value to Ashura-ou or the others who cared for him after he left his prison, he would have gladly did it for them.

After all… anything of worth was greater than his life…

However, on his journey, he wasn't allowed to show that feeling. Even though his feelings never changed, he met people who saw things differently, and who hated his views. So he played the actor and hid those feelings behind a convincing smile. He never thought someone could have seen through his disguise like Kurogane did though…

It was Kurogane who told him that he was the kind of person he hated most…

And it was Kurogane, who made that feeling start to disappear.

Kurogane told him only to smile when he was truly happy… and it was Kurogane who gave away his arm, something of significant value, to take Fai with him, out of that cursed "Closed World". If Kurogane did this for him, maybe it was okay for him to see his life as something with a worth.

And isn't the price always equal to the wish? So maybe his life was worth the same as that real arm…

If that was so… something close but not equal to his life was enough for a fake replica of that same arm. He wouldn't have to give his life, and he was glad for that, if only for the reason that he could stay with his friends a little longer. He would pay the price for Kurogane's arm to be replaced.

But he wouldn't throw his life away carelessly anymore, having learned from someone of great value to him, that he wasn't worthless…