Disclaimer: This poem is mine regardless of who it's about. Fai Flowright inspired it and he belongs entirely to the lovely ladies of CLAMP and Bee Train but this poem is still mine so -sticks tongue out maturely- there!

Yeah, I know it's nothing to be proud of. Do I care? Hell no.

Author's Note: Just a little something. If you haven't read the Outo arc then this will both contain spoilers and make absolutely no sense whatsoever. See end notes for requests and roughly when my other stories are due to be updated. Each chapter of this fic will probably take place in a different arc. Peace out.

~ Outo Country - Inside the Cat's Eye. ~

Kurogane sighed, allowing his tired body to sink deeper into the chair with a soft sound. It'd been a long day... 'Hell,' he mused 'It's been a long month.' And so it had been though he couldn't rightly say why. Sure, he and the kid had been training pretty hard, and sure, he'd been running a lot of errands for the princess and the cafe which was for the sake of the feather even if only by proxy but neither were more strenuous than he was used to. Putting up with Tomoyo and Souma had been a lot more tiring than this and he'd been training a full rank of ninjas at the time- not to mentioned whatever other various tasks were involved in the protection of Nihon.

So, why was he so damn tired?

It was quiet. He could sit here all day and relax while the others were out and still his nerves were wound tighter than a cord. He couldn't figure it out as he tapped his fingers restlessly on the armrest but maybe... just maybe, that was the lie in it all. Maybe it was too quiet.

The idiot had been unnaturally distant lately, even the kids had noticed. Odd, yes, but then why was he getting so worked up about it? Well, because he knew exactly why the blond had been so off. The other night at the bar... after the bar... after fighting the demon... It all meshed together if he thought about it long enough but he still knew what he'd said to the other to make him so upset- even if the other wouldn't admit it behind his false smile.

He told him he hated people like him. People who weren't willing to fight for their lives.

He'd meant every word of it.

It wasn't like it was unusual. He'd pushed the mage before, telling him how disgusted he was with him, constantly making small remarks about his lies. Everything, but this time the other didn't bounce back like he should have and maybe, just maybe he was starting to think his words were too harsh even for the dense blond.

He sighed, trying once more to push the thoughts aside and relax. After all it wasn't like he could do anything about it this moment and he was sure the idiot would be back to running around like a hyperactive moron and calling him stupid names before the week was out. 'Just great.'

That's when he noticed something just out the corner of his vision. A paper lying on the carpet.

Curious, since the kid and the princess never left anything lying around if they could help it, he picked it up and proceeded to read the delicate but extremely shaky handwriting.

Behind these eyes I see the snow.

The blood,
The tears,
And magic aglow.

A past of a past,
And my soul carved in half.

My twin,
My brother,
The child of my mother.

-Dead.-

My master,
My teacher,
My father and friend.

-Dead.-

My heart,
My hope,
My passion and life.

-Dead.-

My name,
My self,
My love and my light.

-Dead.-

Driven to madness.
A road with no end.

~Yuui

"Yuui?" He reread the poem, caught in the flow of it, and frowned. "Who the hell is Yuui?" Perhaps one of the customers dropped it when they had that lunchtime rush earlier but somehow he doubted it. At the first mention of snow he'd immediately thought of the mage but the signature... and besides the blond couldn't write, that's how they'd all ended up with such stupid names like 'Big Doggie' and the like.

Right?

Touch of Ice: I have the first draft of this chapter done but it's gonna be another few days before I have it up to standard and then I'll have to have my two betas take a look at it before I'm willing to upload it. Sorry.

Revenge of the Kurotan: New chapter soon to be out. Would have posted it earlier but I want to go over it again while I'm in a good mood and considering my main email was either hacked or 'accidentally' deleted by Yahoo... that's not right now.

Catching Butterflies: I'm not sure when the next chapter of this will be out- preferably it will be out 'after' the next chapter of ToI just because that story is my priority and it actually has a full plot. Lol.

Request makers: Yes, I'm still taking requests people but I have to add one tiny rule for the moment. Please only ask me to write drabbles/bits and one-shots for right now. Pretty please? I love doing requests but I already have a lot of other chapter stories I'm working on (most of which aren't yet ready to be uploaded) right now and I don't want to abandon them. :) See my profile for details on what kinds of fics I'll take requests for.

Visit my homepage for more in depth updates, chapter hints, fan art by my sister, polls, and much more related to my fanfiction. I'll update it an hour or so after this chapter is up.