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The cargo hold of an airship isn’t the most comfortable place to be. Its bare bones of cold metal seem to close above his head like the ribcage of a beast long dead, the pavement hums underneath him with the constant vibrations of the engine, and the crates full of the passengers’ belongings don’t make for great conversationalists. Still, Fai doesn’t dare venture outside any more than necessary, not when his face is plastered all over the news.
It’s not like he’s completely alone, anyway.
“Hi, Fai!” Mokona cheers, jarring him out of his precarious sleep. The white bunny burrows into his chest and Fai’s hands come cradle her out of reflex as he sits up against one of the crates.
“Hello to you too, dear,” he says, still groggy. “And hello to the little miss hiding behind that container, of course.”
A head pokes from behind said container, followed shortly by the rest of Sakura’s body. She’s pouting, but the expression mellows in the face of how sleepy Fai must still look. Her familiar, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to share any of her qualms at disrupting a poor stowaway’s naptime.
“Sakura was sure you wouldn’t be able to spot her today!” declares Mokona, nudging his hand for cuddles.
Fai smiles amiably. He doesn’t mention he’d have to be out cold not to notice the way Sakura’s overflowing aura wafts off of her in waves, but he accepts the onigiri she’s handing him with a nod. His rations have run out a little over a week into the voyage and every trip to the cafeteria is a gamble between his magic and his bad luck. Needless to say, Fai doesn’t like his odds in that.
“So,” he says after the first bite. “Do you have a new guess for me?”
When Sakura and Mokona had come prancing into the cargo hold for the first time, Fai’s blood had run cold. From the very moment he sensed her, he’d known fooling Sakura with magic was out of the question. Trying to hide had proven to be impossible as well, considering Mokona’s nose had sniffed him out embarrassingly quickly, but what Fai had thought was going to be a dangerous confrontation ended up as a bizarre yet welcome companionship instead.
“Let’s see…” Sakura makes a show of tapping her finger on her lips, swaying a little as she ponders. She’s been trying to guess how Fai managed to sneak inside the airship since day one, coming up with ideas that range from hiding inside someone’s luggage to knocking out a security guard to steal their uniform.
For a moment, something like hesitation passes over her face. Fai’s suddenly aware of how still Mokona has gone in his lap, but his blood only runs cold when Sakura says, “Could it be magic?”
It’s fine, Fai tells himself. This is fine; she hasn’t recognized him so far, so there’s no way she would now. Maybe.
He’s trying to muster a smile convincing enough to lie to her, but Sakura latches onto the silence with a grip far stronger than her mild demeanor could ever suggest. “Ah, I knew it! I got it right this time!”
“He hesitated!” Mokona gleefully adds fuel to the fire. “Mokona saw it!”
Accepting there’s no lying his way out this time, Fai holds his hands up. “Charm magic, to be precise,” he says. When Sakura gasps, he winks at her. “You’ll get to see it again when we disembark, sweetheart.”
It’s really nothing fancy, just enough glamour to convince the poor chap by the exit that what Fai’s waving in their face is most definitely a ticket rather than the first scrap of paper he found lying around. The harder part will be to convince them they haven’t been ordered to apprehend a dangerous individual who looks exactly like him, but he hopes the combined effort of his magic, the godawful red dye he had the good sense of bringing with him and Sakura’s presence by his side will smooth that over.
He takes another bite of his onigiri, letting the food chase away the cold pooling in his stomach. It’s no Celesian sausage and cheese sandwich, but he doesn’t have the luxury of being homesick anyway, not right now.
As the lull in their conversation stretches on, Sakura starts smoothing imaginary wrinkles on her dress. She steals the occasional glance at Fai, looking like she’s got something on her mind, but a strange silence hangs between them. Were Fai even half of the daredevil the papers are painting him as, he would ask her to just spit it out already. He’s not, though, so he simply smiles at her.
When he steers the conversation towards their usual topics (other passengers, the possible contents of all the crates around them, Mokona’s latest exploits) she perks up again, but the shadow of something he’d rather ignore keeps passing through her eyes.
★
The day the airship is scheduled to dock in Clow comes without any security barging in the cargo hold, guns a-blazing, so Fai assumes whatever’s eating at Sakura isn’t enough to rat him out. He’s thankful, but he still puts a little extra effort into his disguise.
He finds her among the crowd of people waiting to disembark and takes his place by her side in the queue with practiced ease. For a moment she blinks up at him as if trying to focus on a blurry image, then she breaks through the added layer of charm magic, just like he thought she would.
“Uncle!” she exclaims, looping her arm around his with a cospiratory wink. “Here you are, I thought you’d gotten lost.”
“Sorry to keep you waiting, my dear,” Fai says. He finds that a part of him means it, no matter how scared he might feel. There’s just something about Sakura that draws him in, less like a moth to a flame and more like the warmth of a hot spring in the middle of winter.
He waves his “ticket” in front of her and she giggles along with Mokona, only to put herself back together in a ramrod straight fashion once it’s their turn at the security check.
“I should warn you,” she whispers in his ear as the guard examines their credentials. Fai has a barely sufficient hold on the terror eating at his insides to listen to her. “Someone’s going to be waiting for me out there. They’re cool, though, you don’t need to worry.”
“That’s swell,” he manages to whisper back. The guard hands him back the enchanted scrap of paper without so much as a glance and Fai breathes.
He’s starting to think things might have gone a little too smoothly when a gust of hot hair hits him. Outside the airship, the seaside town of Tsubasa sprawls itself over the gentle slope of a hill, all the way to the coast. There’s a small crowd gathered by the dock and Sakura tugs him down the rickety, iron stairs towards it.
“Tomoyo! Kurogane!” she calls out, echoed by the enthusiastic cries of her familiar.
Suddenly, a young girl being allowed to roam freely in the cargo hold of a Piffle airship makes a lot more sense to Fai, but the belated realization doesn’t stop him from staring dumbfounded as Tomoyo Daidouji herself takes off running towards Sakura with a giddy grin plastered on her lips.
Behind her, making his way towards them at a much slower pace, is the man Fai guesses must be Kurogane. Unlike Tomoyo, his eyes are fixed on Fai with the calculating sort of calm worn by someone hard to fool with just a dash of glamour. It makes Fai wish Sakura were still hanging from his arm, instead of hugging a worldwide famous engineer, but he resists the urge to coat himself in more magic.
“Hey, princess,” Kurogane says once he’s in front of them. Fai could swear the word is a dagger pointed at him, disguised as a term of endearment the same way he’s disguised as an unassuming nobody.
“Hey yourself!” Mokona says, the only warning Kurogane gets before she decides to leap right at his face. In a show of impressive reflexes, he catches her midair.
Fai’s trying to gauge his chances at getting away unnoticed, but Sakura’s hand grabs his elbow, freezing him in place with just one touch. “This is Fai,” is all she says. “He needs a place to stay.”
Before he can object to that, Tomoyo turns to him as if she’s only just now noticed him. Something tells him that’s far from being the case, despite how good of an actress she seems to be while she’s not busy revolutionizing transportation systems.
“Why, he’s free to stay over at the inn then,” she says, matter-of-factly. Kurogane shoots her a not so subtle look at that, but she ignores him. Fai doesn’t know how to feel about any of his current predicament, especially about this strangely perceptive man having his eyes on him, peeling away the layers of Fai’s magic like birchbark.
He’s starting to feel other people’s stares lingering on him longer as well, though, so he puts on his best smile. If he’s got to cut his losses, it’s better to be discovered by someone Sakura trusts rather than by complete strangers.
“An inn sounds just about perfect.”
★
Sakura’s tried to tell him he doesn’t have to pay for his room at Cat’s Eye, but the idea of relying on her kindness to such an extent makes Fai sick to the stomach. Instead, he asks around for the closest thing to a pawn shop the town might have and scribbles down the directions to Yuuko Ichihara’s shop of wishes.
On one hand, dealing with a witch isn’t how he’d prefer to get some money. On the other, the sooner he gets rid of anything that could link him back to Celes the better.
“These are quite the trinkets you’ve got here.” Yuuko’s face is impassive as she examines the jewelry Fai managed to snatch during his escape. It’s all stuff from the royal palace, dangerously showy, but his choices back then had been pretty limited.
The ring Chii slid onto his finger is still sitting there, glinting in the sunlight as if Fai hadn’t had to scrub it clean of Ashura’s blood not even a full month ago. It’s the one thing he’s not willing to sell.
“What can I say… I have good taste.” He smiles at Yuuko, aware of how her assistant, a boy who seems to be around Sakura’s age, has been staring at him as if Fai’s got a second head. Maybe he should skip town tonight, after all.
Yuuko snorts, putting down a sapphire studded carcanet. “If you did,” she says, “you would’ve picked a different dye color. That red makes you look like a stereotypical street magician.”
There are alarm bells going off in his brain, screaming at him to just leave the jewelry behind and bolt. If he can get on a train before this woman calls the cops on him, he’ll have no shortage of occasions to make enough money to get by. Too many people in Tsubasa seem to have figured out who he is anyway.
“I—” he starts, but the weight of Yuuko’s stare cuts him off.
“Let me make one thing clear to you, Prince,” she says. “No one here means you any harm. You could keep running and brave the military that’s been crawling all over the train station for the past couple of weeks, or you could choose to cash in on your good luck early.”
Without waiting for his response, she produces a purple pouch out of the sleeve of her yukata, sliding it towards him across the wooden table.
“Payment for the jewels,” she explains, a lazy smile on her lips. “It’s a bit of a large sum, so I’ve taken the liberty to enchant the purse. On the house, of course.”
Fai doubts anything ever really comes “on the house” inside of Yuuko’s shop. “I take it you already knew I was coming,” he says in what he hopes sounds like casual curiosity. “Didn’t peg you as a fortune teller.”
This time Yuuko’s grin widens. “I know a few.”
Weighing the pouch in his hands, Fai wonders if Sakura is one of them. He wonders if the woman in front of him is being sincere, or if he should keep gambling. One train ride and he could cross over to Oto, where there’s no extradition.
That was the original plan, but if what Yuuko said about the added security in town is true Fai can’t just traipse his way through.
“I’ll be taking my leave now,” he says, making it a point of keeping his own relaxed expression intact even as his legs threaten to buckle. He’ll let himself lay low for a few days as he works on a viable course of action, then he’ll take that train.
★
The Cat’s Eye buffet area is pretty much deserted in the middle of the afternoon. Most of the guests are either taking a nap in their rooms or going for a swim at the beach, so Fai’s only company consists of the boy at the counter — a sweet kid named Syaoran — and Kurogane.
He still feels on edge around the guy given how, between that insistent gaze and Yuuko’s words, he has reason to believe Kurogane knows his true identity by now. The buffet area is the only place with a working radio, though, which means it’s also a precious avenue for Fai to get any sort of information on how things are going in Celes. He would still rather steer clear of newspapers and their pictures.
“The revolutionaries’ occupation of the royal palace continues,” drones on the speaker, “supported by a growing number of uprisings among the population. People seem to be rallying around the figure of the runaway Prince Yuui, killer of the ‘Mad King’.”
Happiness sparks inside of Fai, only to be quashed by the same guilt and uncertainty that have been eating at him ever since he fled the palace. His fingers drum on the glass of iced tea he’s been nursing for a time far too long to retain any shred of credibility; the ring clinks in time to his nerves.
“Homesick?” Kurogane asks, a few seats away from him. His eyes are softer, but they still feel like they’re stripping Fai of all pretenses. “Y’know, you don’t have to do this to yourself.”
A quick glance at Syaoran is enough to confirm that the kid’s trying really hard to look as if he’s too engrossed in polishing the counter to hear a single word of the conversation between the only other two people present. It’s cute and kind of terrifying at the same time, since it confirms once again that everyone around Fai has figured out who he is despite his best efforts.
Kurogane’s remark hangs heavy in the air. The wise thing to do would be to feign ignorance, get up and leave Cat’s Eye behind before he gets burned. Fai’s never been good at wise, though, so he takes a sip of his tea instead.
It must be the comfortable, calm atmosphere of the place, at odds with the biting chill he’s known all his life, that makes Fai say, “That wouldn’t do, big guy. They’re still my people.”
Even though I left them to deal with the aftermath all by themselves, whispers the part of him that’s been waking up in a cold sweat each day. He’s careful not to let that slip, but Kurogane still huffs in a sort of begrudging way.
“Leaving was the right choice,” he says. His gaze weighs even heavier with the truth in the air between them, though it feels more grounding than invasive. “You want Celes to become a republic, right? Doing that with the crown prince prancing around would be kind of a mess.”
On a rational level, Fai knows this. He’s known since he got involved with the revolutionaries; him leaving after the assassination was always part of the plan. Still, he can’t help but wonder how everyone is doing.
“I think I might write to them,” he muses, sending a placating smile Kurogane’s way. He’s got enough money to ensure the letter reaches Chii’s hands untouched and their shared cipher will keep them both safe even in the eventuality that it gets intercepted. “Got any cute stationery I could use?”
Kurogane frowns at him, then he gets up with an air of finality. “Go buy some yourself,” is all Fai gets before he walks out of the door.
That night, though, sitting in front of his room is a package wrapped in sea shell-printed paper with a note sitting on top of it. It reads “You look better with blond hair, by the way” and it makes Fai bubble up with laughter and embarrassment alike.
He kind of hates how he’s starting to see Yuuko’s point more and more, but he still washes the red dye out of his hair with something stirring inside him. It’s not like it’s done him any favors so far, anyway.
★
Growing up in Celes, Fai hasn’t been to the beach much. The ocean in his country is dark and freezing, with slabs of ice floating in the distance even during the less cold months. It doesn’t make for a great holiday destination, at least not like the warmer sea in Clow.
The water here laps gently at his ankles as he lets his legs dangle off of the pier and the sun casts dappled shadows on the fabric of his pants when it passes through the straw hat that Sakura insisted on putting on his head earlier in the morning.
Fai suspects a part of her might be worried about him now that the bright shock of the red dye is gone. He can sense threads of protection magic woven into the straw, keeping the locals’ eyes from lingering on him.
“Ugh,” a familiar voice grouses from behind him, “you’re even harder to look at now.”
Twisting backwards enough to face Kurogane, Fai grins. “Is that how you flirt, handsome?”
Kurogane’s glare doesn’t dim, even as his cheeks grow a shade pinker. He might be simply squinting at the layers of magic coating Fai, though. “It’s how I let you know your disguise is giving me a headache,” he says. “Also, I have a name.”
“Never said you didn’t,” Fai drawls, putting a sing-song lilt in the words. He expects that to be the end of the conversation, but Kurogane sits down next to him instead. His wooden sandals make a sharp noise against the surface of the pier when he lays them neatly by his side and his expression eases up by a fraction when his feet slide into the cool water.
“The water here in the port area used to be real dirty before Tomoyo figured out how to fuel ships with magic,” Kurogane says. He sounds a little bit like he’s holding back a contented sigh, which makes Fai feel a misguided sort of fondness for the guy.
Thanking him for the stationery feels too sentimental, too sticky on his tongue, so Fai steers the conversation towards something a little more neutral. “Are you that good at hiding your own magic, or are you just a really observant guy?”
Truth be told, he’s been wondering how Kurogane recognized him so fast on their first meeting by the airship. There really doesn’t seem to be a smidge of aura coming from him, yet he keeps shrugging off the effects of Fai’s spells as if they’re nothing but a trivial inconvenience.
Kurogane grimaces. “Yuuko and Tomoyo made sure I would know how to handle this sort of stuff,” he says in a morose tone that makes Fai snort under his breath. “Rune mnemonics still haunt my every waking hour.”
“The seagull eats the sweet round orange,” Fai intones. When Kurogane looks at him like he’s just summoned a demon he allows himself to laugh a little louder.
He thinks he can hear Kurogane mutter something along the lines of how much he hates this, but when he looks up at him he catches his eyes, staring at Fai with a softness that makes him feel as if the tide just rose up to swallow him whole.
“You don’t have a very princely laughter,” Kurogane says, as if he’s paying him a compliment. Maybe, Fai thinks as he curls and uncurls his hands around the edge of the pier, he is.
★
Trains to Oto keep departing each day and each day Fai’s feet feel glued to the floor whenever he tries to walk to the station to scope out the situation. In the end, he resorts to keeping himself busy, if only to have some sort of excuse he can tell himself without having to confront how comfortable he feels at Cat’s Eye.
“Thanks for coming with me today,” Sakura says. She’s ditched her usual pleated skirt and blouse attire in favor of a yukata with a navy blue seigaiha pattern and there’s excitement sparkling in her every step as they approach the fishing dock.
“It means a lot,” she continues, regarding Fai with an almost too-warm smile. Perched on her shoulder like some sort of fluffy bird, Mokona nods vigorously.
The side of Fai that never quite grew out of being a shy kid hiding behind Ashura’s legs wants nothing more than to duck his head away from the brightness, but the years have made him good at pushing past the vestiges of his childhood.
“It’s the least I could do, after how kind you’ve been to little old me,” he says. Besides, when Sakura asked him if he wanted to help her bless the ships for the upcoming season Fai had felt a spark of excitement himself.
Back in Celes, handling most blessings had been his duty as the crown prince and one of his favorite things to do. He’d met Chii at a harvest celebration in the southern plains, after all.
Here in Tsubasa the townspeople gathered around for the occasion have no idea of who he is, but they still extend an echo of their love for Sakura towards him. No one spares him a second glance, but they still smile and thank him when he performs the ritual blessing of their boats.
It’s almost enough not to feel homesick.
“Sooo…” Sakura comes bouncing back at his side after she’s done taking care of an older woman’s seiner. “Kurogane, huh?”
Fai has the good sense not to meet her eyes when he shrugs and says, “What about him?”
“It’s cute how you think we don’t know you’re whipped!” Mokona proclaims, loud enough to make a few heads turn. She doesn’t look particularly chastised when Sakura shushes her.
Unsure of what to say to that, Fai opts for staring out into the sea. Even the awkward pause that follows feels better than wrestling with the implications of Mokona’s words. He can sense Sakura’s genuine upset radiating off of her, though, so after a while he makes himself turn back to her.
“He’s quite nice, isn’t he?” he asks, tasting the tang of salt water on his tongue.
The full truth is that something about Kurogane simultaneously puts Fai at ease and makes him feel taut as a violin string, but that’s not a concept he’s ready to speak into existence yet.
Sakura, either blessedly unaware of his inner turmoil or considerate enough not to dig into it, nods vigorously. “He’s great! He always helps everyone around him, then he gets all gruff if they try to pay him back.”
Thinking about stationery and possibilities, Fai hums.
★
There had been a strange twinkle in Tomoyo’s eyes when she asked Fai to accompany Kurogane on his grocery run earlier. “I can trust him with stuff like flour or milk,” she’d said, cradling her cheek in an almost regretful manner, “but we need to restock on potion ingredients as well, you understand. Having a mage with him would bring me peace of mind.”
In retrospect, Fai should’ve known something was up. He should’ve realized the request had come on the exact morning he was going to finally check out the situation over at the train station, but he didn’t.
Which is why he lets himself get distracted, dizzy from the sun and from Kurogane’s vicinity. He spends the grocery run chattering about whatever crosses his mind, teasing Kurogane in front of the shop clerks, delighting in the flush of pink that spreads across his neck when Fai leans into his side to examine the dried chamomile they need to get.
When he feels the ice creeping down his spine, he almost thinks it’s the win
d; for one, fleeting moment, he can’t quite pull himself out of his daydreaming. Then, he sees the colors of a military uniform.
Blood freezes in his veins. The soldier’s looking straight at him, squinting in confusion as if he can tell something’s off. Belatedly, Fai realizes Kurogane might not be the only person with magic training in town, but he doesn’t have the time to curse himself for getting too comfortable before a hand grabs him by the arm.
“Follow my lead,” Kurogane mutters as he guides a staggering Fai through the crowd of the main street and into an alley that reeks of salt from the remains of the earlier fish market. He presses Fai against the wall of an old house, angling his body to shield him from view.
There’s a rivulet of melted ice and fish blood at Fai’s feet. It sticks to the soles of his shoes like the fear sticking to his throat, yet when his breath catches in his lungs it’s because of Kurogane’s nose brushing against his own.
“Relax.” Kurogane’s voice is close to inaudible in the shell of his ear, too tender, too close. Fai would laugh if his brain weren’t flushed with adrenaline at the moment.
Footsteps echo from the entrance of the alley and Fai stops thinking, wrapping his arms around Kurogane’s neck. Kurogane holds him closer with the arm that’s not resting against the wall, still as a statue until they can hear a faint awkward noise, followed by footsteps moving away.
Fai catches the end of a military cape disappearing back into the crowd as he slumps against the cool plaster. His hands rest on Kurogane’s shoulders, his heart beats furiously, twisting in his chest when Kurogane steps back as well.
Sakura’s words ring in his ears louder than a blaring siren when he says, “Guess I owe you one now, big guy.”
Kurogane glares at him, but Fai thinks he can see his chest rising fast, too.
★
He spends the next few days pushing his own restlessness away and researching what Kurogane might like as a present, trying to sound as casual about it as possible despite the pretense of simple curiosity being so paper-thin even Syaoran can’t help but give him a knowing smile.
By the end of his investigation, Fai’s managed to narrow his possibilities down to two: a good novel or a bottle of strong liquor. He regards this as a success, even though feelings he doesn’t quite know how to name coil in his gut whenever he thinks of letting himself stay, anchored by Kurogane’s arms around him.
It still doesn’t take much deliberation to walk out of Yuuko’s shop with both items, though his sense of accomplishment in the face of his own lingering terror is marred by how humbling it was to be at the receiving end of Yuuko’s amusement for the entire time he was in there.
He spends the walk back to Cat’s Eye debating whether or not he should just leave the bag outside of Kurogane’s room and leave, but the part of him that can’t bring himself to run from this little seaside town like he should aches to stay and ask Kurogane to share the liquor instead. For better or for worse, he’s saved from having to make that decision when the door suddenly swings open as he’s standing in front of it.
Kurogane blinks down at him in surprise, taking in the befuddled look on Fai’s face and the bag in his hands.
“... Going somewhere?” Fai tries to sound breezy, which doesn’t seem to work, given the raised-eyebrow stare Kurogane levels his way.
“Just a walk,” Kurogane says, then he steps aside as if to invite Fai inside. “But that can wait, I guess.”
To Fai’s credit, he manages to waltz into the room like he belongs there. He thrusts the bag into Kurogane’s arms with a little flourish, winking at him for good measure. “Got you a little something, as thanks for snapping me out of that terrible red dye nonsense. Plus, uh, all the rest.”
Kurogane peers into the bag and Fai would giggle at the surprise in his eyes if he weren’t feeling so tense. He was half expecting some retort about how he shouldn’t have done this, that it’s unnecessary and silly, but Kurogane simply says, “Wanna help me with this?”
He dangles the bottle in front of Fai and the tension that grips his shoulders begins to slowly thaw. Maybe Kurogane feels the same, because a soothing quiet settles between them as they sit down at the coffee table. Kurogane, sliding a small glass Fai’s way, says, “I like that author, they’re good.”
Satisfaction blooms inside Fai, warm like the whisky burning down his throat after the first sip. “That’s a relief,” he says. “They’re pretty popular in Celes, too.”
Following Kurogane’s gaze, he realizes he’s been fiddling with his ring. That’s not something he wants to talk about right now, though, so he takes another swig. Kurogane must read between the lines, because he doesn’t press; instead, he tells Fai not to drink too fast and gets up to grab something to eat with the alcohol.
When he comes back, he sits much closer. Not enough to feel invasive, but enough that Fai could prop his hands on Kurogane’s thighs, if he were bolder, and kiss the aftertaste of the whisky from his mouth.
He doesn’t do any of that, but he does still murmur, “I’ll tell you all about it one day.”
If the admission that Fai’s not going to run away rattles Kurogane, he’s careful not to show it. He’s far too considerate, far too gentle, and for some reason he’s looking at Fai like he’s hung the moon in the sky.
Kurogane’s brave as well, or at least braver than Fai, because he’s the one to lean in first. His hands on Fai’s skin feel like an extension of the fire in his stomach, hot enough that Fai feels something melt when Kurogane’s lips meet his.
They don’t finish their drinks, but that’s okay. After all, they have the rest of the bottle and plenty of time ahead.