Disclaimer:Tsubasa Resevoir Chronicles is the intellecual property of CLAMP
Author's Notes: For Christmas, my sister painted me a picture of Kuro and Fai in Nihon. It makes me so happy. This fic...it's just something I wrote in one shot when inspiration hit. Don't bother rationalizing it.
Happily Ever After
"Once upon a time…"
"That's a stupid way to start a story."
A young boy, just six years old, wrinkled his nose in distaste. Small, bright red eyes narrowed in defiance beneath an errant tuft of short, spiky black hair.
"Only little girls listen to stories that start "Once upon a time"."
"Now, Youou."
A woman with long silken black hair and patience beyond her years fixed her only child with a gently chiding look.
The boy huffed and crossed his little arms, mumbling.
"Whatever."
The mother smiled knowingly. "Shall I leave you to rest then?"
Instantly, red eyes shot wide and small arms uncrossed as the boy turned to face the woman once again. "No, I'm sorry. Please go on."
The woman nodded understandingly and the boy laid back and the story began again.
"Far far away from this place, in a land full of flowers and warmth there lived a little boy. His hair was as light as the sun and his eyes were as blue as the sky above."
Youou looked to his mother with amazement and awe. "Are there really people like that in the world?" Then his eyes narrowed in suspicion. "Or did you make it up?"
The woman laughed, covering her amusement daintily with one long sleeve. "There are." she affirmed. "Only they don't live here." Then she paused a moment. "Would you like it better if his hair were green instead?"
Youou wrinkled his nose again. "That's made up."
The woman continued to smile. "Yes. His hair was yellow." Her smiled faded. "And he was very sad."
And here she paused for a moment. Youou waited patiently.
"Aren't you going to ask why he was sad?"
"Aren't you going to tell me?"
And for another moment they merely stared at each other until finally the woman relented and continued the story.
"He was sad because nobody loved him."
"That's ridiculous. His parents loved him. This isn't going to turn into some kinda love story, is it?"
"Of course his mother loved him." the woman agreed, choosing to ignore her son's suspicion of the story's genre. "But, you see, this little boy had great power inside of him, so his father was afraid of him instead and when his mother died, everybody else decided to send him away forever. They locked him away in a dark, cold place void of life and he stayed there all alone for a long, long time."
"What is…void?" The child asked, reminding his mother just how young he truly was.
"It means there wasn't any."
Crimson eyes widened in understanding. "That isn't how the story ends, is it?" Youou asked, worriedly. "He gets out of the tower, right? You said he had great power. So he just busts out, right?"
"It was a magic tower." the woman answered him seriously. "And the boy was very young, like you, and he hadn't been taught to use his power yet. So he couldn't get out until one day, an evil man discovered the boy and offered him freedom, in exchange for favors later on."
"He agreed, didn't he?"
The woman nodded. "Yes."
"I wouldn't have." Youou declared with resolve. "If I knew the man was bad. I would have trained and trained until I could get myself out of the tower."
"Ok, once upon a time there was a little boy with short, messy black hair and shining red eyes." The woman reached out a hand and rubbed her son's head affectionately.
"Mom!" he complained. "Finish the other story."
"I am." the woman declared. "This is chapter two. The dark haired boy was a mighty warrior, actually, lets make him a grow-up instead."
"Mom, finish the first story. I wanna know what happened to the foreign boy."
"You will, I told you, this is chapter two. It's still the same story."
"But this one doesn't have anything to do with that one."
"Well how do you know that if you won't listen?"
The woman let the boy's frown and silence be her cue to continue and went on.
"The dark haired man trained and trained and was the greatest warrior in all the land. Nobody could challenge him and he was bored so one day he went on a journey to find somebody stronger to defeat."
"Oh, I get it, the dark haired man meets up with the evil man who freed the foreign boy and has to kill him, but first he has to fight the foreign boy because he owes the evil guy a debt and when he dies he finally understands he shouldn't have done that, right?"
The woman blinked at her son. "No."
"Then what's the point!" the boy shouted, throwing his arms up exaggeratedly.
"Don't you think it would be nice if the foreign boy didn't have to die?"
"He's working for an evil guy mom, this is the real world. That makes him evil too. … Don't these guys have names?"
"No. They don't. And just because the light haired boy has to do a few bad things that doesn't mean he's a bad person. Youou, you should never think that of people. Sometimes good people find themselves in a bad situation. Sometimes even strong people need someone else's help."
"They don't have names?"
"…"
"Can't you just make something up?"
"I think you're missing the point."
"What's the point?"
The long haired woman heaved a sigh and started her story again, before she forgot where she'd left off.
"You see, the fair haired boy had grown up and decided to go on a journey too. And that takes us back to once upon a time."
"Again?"
The woman nodded. "Yup."
"Mom, no offense. Don't write this down."
The woman laughed again, shaking her head. "This time there's a princess and her faithful knight. The princess was very sick so her knight had to take her on a journey to find the cure and that's when all four of these people meet."
"This is a very long story, isn't it?"
"I'm afraid so."
"Can we just skip ahead a bit?"
"I suppose. They all traveled together and became friends. They fought together and lived together for a long time. The princess got better but the light haired boy got more sad. He was sad because he really loved these people and they all really loved him too, but he still had to do the things that the evil man made him do."
"Did he have to kill them?"
"I'm afraid so. He had to kill the princess to whom he had become like a loyal knight but the princess was so kind and good that she forgave him and wanted everyone else to forgive him too because it would just be too painful for them to fight against someone they loved, who loved them too."
"Why didn't the warrior stop him?"
"There wasn't time. Youou, no one can protect the ones they love from everything all the time."
"Oh."
"The light haired man still had one more curse on him from the evil man. Youou, what do you think should happen next?"
The young child's eyes steeled. "I think the warrior should quit slacking off and do something. He should find a way to break the curse so nobody else gets hurt and kill the evil man."
"You don't think the warrior should just kill the light haired man?"
"He's not really the problem, right? That's the moral of the story? To get to the root of the problem?"
"Maybe. I think that's a good way to end the story. The dark haired man saved the day. And you know what? The light haired man wasn't sad anymore because he'd been saved. Someone loved him enough to save him so the light haired man and the dark haired man fell in love and lived happily ever after."
"Hey, wait!" The boy protested, shooting up in his bed. "That's not what I meant! I meant he should teach the guy how to save himself and be strong."
"He did."
"Yea, but, mom…the dark haired guy's a warrior. He doesn't want to be in love with some weird foreign guy! He wants to save everybody, not just the foreign guy!"
"Well how do you know?"
The boy sputtered indignantly.
"Why can't you ever tell me normal stories like the other kid's moms; about ninjas and monsters and kidnapped priestesses?!"
"But those stories are just like every day and the dark haired man wanted adventures that nobody else had ever had. So it seems like he got everything anybody could ever want."
"Who'd ever want to be in love?"
"Your father liked it pretty well." the woman said with a laugh as her son pouted.
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"Once upon a time…"
"That's a stupid way to start a story."
A young boy, just six years old, wrinkled his nose in distaste. Small, bright blue eyes narrowed in defiance beneath wispy strands of short blonde hair.
"That's how all the fairy tales start. When mama tells it it's lots better."
"Look, do you wanna hear it, or not?"
A man with dark spikes of black hair narrowed crimson eyes threateningly at his oldest child.
The boy huffed and crossed his little arms, mumbling.
"Whatever."
His father rolled his eyes then grinned as a thought occurred to him. "Ok, maybe I'll just go then. You're old enough to sleep without a story anyway."
Instantly, blue eyes shot wide and small arms uncrossed as the boy turned to face the man once again. "No! Don't go! I'll listen. I want to hear it."
The man gave a satisfied nod and got himself comfortable once more against the head board, the child curling up with his head in his lap. A large hand settled itself in the blonde locks as he begin the story again.
"Let's see… In a far away land there lived a little boy with blonde hair and blue eyes. No. I changed my mind. Let's skip all that."
"Mama never restarts a story."
The man sent a sharp glare down at the child in his lap. "And I'm this close to going to get him." He held up his fingers very close together and the child shut up.
"In a freezing world of ice there lived an idiot who thought no one could ever love him because he'd made a deal with the devil. And in another world there was a different idiot who thought he was so strong that nothing could ever hurt him again. On a third world there was a vast dessert where a princess had lost all of her memories so the boy who loved her took her on a journey to find them again. The man from the ice world went on a journey too, so did the warrior. And they all met each other and traveled together."
"Can I be the boy who loved the princess?"
"No."
"Is this a love story?"
"No."
"Can you make it one?"
"… Your mother is never telling you stories again."
"Don't be mean." the boy whined, balling one tiny fist and bopping the man's leg with it.
The man sighed and relented. "Maybe it is…just a little. You know, in my day, boys didn't care about love stories. They worked hard on their training and played in the mud and climbed trees."
"But you said I'm doing good on my training." the boy whined pitifully, leaning up so that the man could see the fake crocodile tears welling in his eyes.
The sad thing was, his mama had taught him well.
"Alright, alright, fine! Do you want me to finish the story or not?"
The boy nodded and curled up again as the man shook his head in disbelief.
"So the princess found her lost memories and…maybe I shouldn't have skipped the beginning…"
"Mama!" the boy cried.
They both looked up at the laughter coming from the doorway where a slender blonde haired man stood, making no attempt to stifle his amusement.
"Is daddy having trouble?"
"Mama!" the boy cried, running to the end of the bed where he jumped into the man's arms and was carried back to bed.
"Don't tell me she's asleep already?"
The blonde man nodded, smiling. "She likes the sound of the Celesian lullabies."
The blonde crawled into bed and they all repositioned against each other in the small bed.
"He complains too much." the dark haired man complained and the blonde laughed.
"That's you in him." to which he received a fierce glare.
"Let's see if we can get this story back on track, shall we? The princess found her memories, right?" he asked the child and received an enthusiastic nod. "And that made our princess very happy. Our great warrior saw how happy the princess and her love were and decided that he wanted to make everyone's favorite blonde magician happy too. So he searched the land for just the right present to use to confess his love!"
"What!" the dark haired man shouted indignantly. "Are these the lies you're telling him?!"
"First he brought a monster!" the blonde continued. "To show the magician how strong and brave he was."
"You're twisting it! That thing wasn't for…"
"But the magician said "Yuck!". So the warrior tried again. This time he saved the wizard from an exploding death trap! But he forgot to say 'I didn't want you to get hurt because I love you.' so the wizard didn't know."
"Exploding… what the hell!"
"Then finally, the warrior got it right. He brought flowers and a homemade stuffed kitty and said 'So lets rest here a while ok. And you can have a house and kids and whatever you want.'"
The blonde sighed dramatically and closed his eyes in pure bliss and the dark haired man blushed in embarrassment.
"You remembered it word-for-word?" he muttered in question.
"Of course, Kuro-pii. I remember every time you've said that you love me."
"That's stupid."
"Hmm…maybe. … You still do, don't you?"
"What kinda stupid thing is that to say?"
The blonde chuckled. "Well I might forget that one, ok?"
"I'll give you something easier to remember." Kurogane mumbled, leaning over their sleeping son to kiss Fai deeply.
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"And you know what? The light haired man wasn't sad anymore because he'd been saved. Someone loved him enough to save him so the light haired man and the dark haired man fell in love and lived happily ever after."
Post whatevers: Am currently working on my major Tsubasa fic and won't post it till it's done so that's where most of my thoughts are right now and this was just a little creative blip that had to get out. If you liked, please review. Ja!