Title: Fernweh

Rating: M

Warnings: sex, language

Summary: He grew up under a sun that was always changing, restless and shifting, but happy with his lot in life. Happy to hear his mother's stories and work with his father until a meeting in the woods changes everything.

Notes: Written for the 2012 Olympic challenge. Prompt 'Idyllic Countryside'. Be sure to head over to kuroxfai over at dreamwidth and vote!

Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs

About the lilting house and happy as the grass was green,

The night above the dingle starry,

Time let me hail and climb

Golden in the heydays of his eyes,

-Fern Hill, Dylan Thomas

When Kurogane was young he remembered the warmth of the sun, the scent of sweat and fresh cut grass and the way the hay smelled during the height of a rainy day. He remembered how his home looked, and really not much had changed over the years except color schemes and the décor. Most of all he remembered being carried in after a long day on his father's broad shoulders. How he had gotten a pat on the head and praise and how he had beamed and nearly leapt in pride in himself.

Kurogane always loved running his hands along the wood carvings above the door, it was dark and smooth from age as it showed a face etched into the lintel with swirling designs that went on and on and stretched and sometimes made him dizzy. Always before he could ask about it, as no one else's home had a face on it, his mother would welcome them home and pluck him from his father to greet him properly. And really when one was so young such trivial things were easily forgotten, especially where a kiss and warm smile were concerned.

Though as the years progressed and he was all of eight years old Kurogane remembered as his mother tucked him into bed. When he had asked about the pretty picture above their door she smiled and smoothed down his ever unruly hair.

"This house is old, a lot older than you or me or your father. That was there when this house was first built and the town was being born. Above the door is a waldgeist. They protect homes like ours in the country and make sure nothing bad happens. Like in your books." She mused, trying to explain such an old superstition to her son.

He believed her as anything his parents said; at least his mother in any case, was taken as truth. It was kind of neat that their home was so old and it made sense now why it creaked and groaned and felt like part of the land, because in a way it was. With the issue settled she gave him a soft kiss to his brow and left him with his door open just a crack to allow some light in.

Weeks later and Kurogane still thought about his mother's words, fascinated by a real life story that wasn't from some dusty book. When he had scattered feed for the chickens in their pen, collecting eggs as they ate and dropped them off to his mother he had ran off into the woods as he was prone to do when he had time on his hands. Kurogane grabbed a large knotted stick, probably torn down during a storm, letting it sway back and forth by his side as he walked. He thought of the actions movies his parents would sometimes let him watch late at night when he wasn't busy with school. He pretended to be a hero, swinging his sword to vanquish invisible foes all around him as he trekked across the uneven terrain.

Kurogane knew better than to wander too far out of either of his parents sight, that the woods were large and expansive and homes few and far between. But he stayed on the narrow game trail his father had showed him when he was younger. They took it to the small pond where they would sometimes fish early in the morning during the summer, but today he didn't feel like throwing rocks into the murky moss green water.

Birds called overheard as cicadas chirped and the sun peeked in through the trees above him. He came to a small spot, large enough to keep him from hitting a tree if he swung his stick out. However, when he came to the small clearing, within a circle of trees he paused, startled when a bird flew out a nearby tree, his wings fluttering loudly. His heart beat a little faster as his eyes followed after the thing. He scolded himself at being afraid, his father wouldn't be afraid of a bird flying by. Waving his stick around he frowned, glad at least no one had seen him.

An hour later Kurogane was bored, sitting on a cold rock and drawing lines in the dirt as he contemplated heading back home and seeing if he could convince his father to let him ride one of the horses or to come inside and play a game with him. But a flash of rust caught his attention and Kurogane spotted a fox walking by on the opposite side of the clearing. It was deep red, almost brown and bushy tailed. Larger than he expected too, with black legs and yellow eyes as it sniffed the ground, unaware of the boy.

He thought back to once when he had been smaller and his father had brought home a fox in a metal trap. They had lost a few chickens before then and all Kurogane could remember was the way it paced back and forth and how his mother had worried over it. But this one was different, but maybe that was because it wasn't caught in a wire cage and afraid.

While he watched, his stick dropped from his hand, landing on the soft earth at his feet, which alerted the animal to Kurogane. Black ears pinned forward as the fox stood stock still, measuring him up curiously before it swayed its tail and left as soon as it had arrived.

Picking up his stick, Kurogane ran home, not sure why he was so excited about seeing the fox. When he returned his mother laughed at his reddened cheeks and ushered him inside for tea and to tell her all about his adventures.

Years passed and Kurogane grew tall and wide. Near identical to his father he towered over most people in the town he grew up in. So much time working and maintaining a farm with his parents had made him lean and strong and that hadn't changed even after he left for college and returned home again when his father was too tired most days to work quiet as long as he used to.

But things were okay; he got a job and when he wasn't working in town he was working back home. His parents were only just starting to show signs of aging and slowing down and Kurogane hated it, but he helped in any way he could.

After a few months of settling into his new life, Kurogane got up early one morning and grabbed a small rifle, throwing it over his back. It was chilly out, but it was the time of year when deer were out in numbers and they were beginning to get into the fields. It would also hold them over for awhile and while his father usually did so, he would have to be the one to go out on his own to hunt.

He followed the same game trails he had as a child, stopping every now and then to look and listen for any signs of life other than himself as he trudged through the dead leaves layered on top of the hard earth. The forest around town and home was always dense with wildlife, deer, wildcats, foxes, game birds, and everything in between, it made his job a little easier. Eventually he came to a small waterfall; moss grew over the stones that weren't polished smooth by the water battering against them. Kurogane spotted fresh tracks in the mud and followed uphill and upriver for game. He breathed deeply, the cold air burning his lungs as he looked around the bare trees when his eyes caught a glimpse of movement a few hundred yards out.

It was big and hulking as it made its way to the river, rutting its nose around a dead log by the river.

Kurogane froze at the sight of the bear and lifted his gun to take aim just in case it decided he was prey. It had been a warm fall and he should have suspected bears would still be out even now trying to eat as much as they could before hibernating. He swore at himself as its massive head swiveled and looked at him. Kurogane couldn't run; that got people killed and he wasn't stupid. He had to stand his ground, let it see he wasn't worth it.

It's chest rumbled, not sure what to make of Kurogane, just as surprised by the encounter. But instincts and hunger took over the brief hesitation it had before it began coming towards Kurogane.

Cursing his luck, Kurogane shot in the air as a warning which in turned made the bear jump in confusion and stare at him curiously. Seeing no other choice and he had to put some distance between him and the animal, Kurogane turned and ran. The bear could easily outpace him in a short distance and climb trees so he had to find some place high enough and hard enough for it to get up to so he could take aim.

As luck would have it, and he was never particularly lucky to begin with, Kurogane's boot nicked a fist sized rock embedded in the ground, sending him tumbling down the small hill. His gun was thrown a few feet away after the disorienting bout and Kurogane scrambled to grab it just as the brute of an animal came over the slope. It roared, getting up on its hind legs as Kurogane gritted his teeth and wished for a miracle.

When a striking blow didn't come he turned around to look in the small hope the bear had decided he wasn't worth the fight. Instead what he saw left him bewildered. Its head was swiveled, its entire being focused on something Kurogane hadn't noticed yet, but when he did he had to wonder if he was hallucinating.

Tall and willowy a figure crossed the short distance between them. Curtains of sheer fabric hung low on the lanky figure as long blonde hair curled around a sharp face. He looked unkempt in a way, with string of tiny shells and pebbles strung through his hair. Blue eyes were narrowed as with each light step the figure came closer and closer. However, what drew his attention the most were spindly, almost black antlers springing from the blonde mop of hair.

It felt like a dream, like something you would see on the verge of death or fever and he watched as this man, as the clothes left little to the imagination, stretched a long thin arm out and waved the bear off who lumbered off without protest.

It was the strangest thing he had ever seen. With the bear gone, whoever this was, turned to him and knelt down. Kurogane could do nothing but stare.

"It would be wise not to hunt so far from home alone." His voice reminded Kurogane of spring and flowers and streams in the early morning. "Are you unable to talk?"

"…I can…" Pushing himself up to sit, he scanned over the other, taking in his strange looks.

"Usually humans are so…loud." He waved his hand in a sweeping gesture, trying to find the right words.

"Who are you?" Maybe the antlers were some kind of weird headband. He had seen plenty of girls trouncing around campus with cat ears and the like, so maybe this man invading his personal space were just a lunatic wondering the woods.

"Who am I? I've never been asked that before. The trees and animals know me and even some of the humans still remember me, but no one has ever cared to ask my name." Blue eyes held a spark of what Kurogane could only call something keen to curiosity. "It's been a long time since I've had use of a name, but you can call me Fai."

Kurogane got up then, dusting himself off, he had to be having some kind of hallucination and if not well he didn't want to stay around long enough to find out. "Thanks, for helping me."

"You meant no harm, but you should go home." A small smile was offered to him and Kurogane couldn't help but focus in on pale lips. He cleared his throat and looked around the grass for his gun.

"I intend to." Finding it, he shouldered the weapon and went to leave, not even saying goodbye to the man who had somehow saved him.

Fernweh:

Fern-weh, noun, origin, German.

A crave for travel; being homesick of a place you've never been

When he came home he fell into his bed and slept and slept until when he next woke up it was morning and the cock was crowing to the rising sun. Kurogane filed the encounter away as some strange dream and neither of his parents mentioned his outing so he assumed it had been a product of his mind.

Life went on. He took care of chores and worked and labored and sweated until he couldn't stand on his feet anymore and fell into a dreamless sleep night after night, day after day. It was routine and boring, but he was being a good son and doing what was expected of him and Kurogane loved his parents to no end so he did it all without complaint.

After a few weeks of working diligently, his mother had shooed him away from his work and forced him, and pushing a plate of food into his hands, to go into his room and rest. She worried and Kurogane knew that and so did as she asked of him as always. It felt strange having nothing to really do except sit and just unwind. So Kurogane ate and turned on his old laptop he'd had since high school, but soon realized why he hadn't opened the thing in so long when it failed to stave off boredom.

Sighing loudly, he closed the dusty thing, setting it on his desk before climbing into bed. If there was anything he needed, it was sleep and a lot of it. It seemed no sooner than he had closed his eyes that he felt a shift on the bed of someone sitting down and he frowned in mild annoyance before cracking an eye open.

"So this is a human's house…it's been ages since I've seen one up close and never inside." Fai had his head craned back; staring up at the ceiling and the small stickers and things Kurogane had put up there in his youth. He ignored the startled jump Kurogane made before he bolted upright.

"I'm dreaming…you're not real." He reasoned and blue eyes finally turned to him.

"Many don't believe in me anymore, but I'm very real. I breathe and speak and think so why am I not real to you? And this is certainly not a dream. You don't have a gift for that."

"Because people don't just send bears off and they don't have antlers…" He looked over the blonde, dressed in the same light clothes and trinkets, but his eyes fell lower on a tail to match the antlers sprouting atop the man's head. "Or tails."

"Is my form not pleasing?" Fai twisted to look down at his tail, the shells and things in his hair clinking like chimes in the wind as he moved. Kurogane didn't remember hearing anything the first time they had met. "I suppose I don't look human enough. Would you like me to change it?"

"That's not the point. The point is I'm obviously delusional and imagining guys with antlers and tails sneaking into my room at night." He hissed, not wanting to wake his parents.

"I came in through the window. I don't have to have an invitation for this place." Fai looked at him as if he were the one with animal features. "And you are not mad. A little temperamental, but not mad." The blonde got up suddenly then, wanting to inspect Kurogane's room. He poked and prodded at everything he could get his hands on all while Kurogane watched and tried not to yell. Though when Fai flipped on his television and jumped at the noise from a commercial that assaulted him, Kurogane had to admit it was amusing.

"You never answered me before…just what are you?"

"I believe you asked who I was." Fai mumbled as he picked up a cell phone and lifted it to his nose to smell of the odd contraption. "For what I am, you should know. You live here."

"Stop talking in damn circles." Swiping his phone he tucked it away. "You're not human, at least I don't think so since the tail looks pretty attached and I don't see a band for the antlers."

"You really have no sense of humor. I'm a spirit." He shrugged, thinking it obvious as he leaned back on his hands and crossed his legs. "You grabbed my interest and I was watching you."

So he had a supernatural stalker? That was definitely new. "Go bother someone else."

"I was interested in /you/ human."

"My name is Kurogane." He gave the other a flat look, his head beginning to throb from the utter nonsense of the situation.

"Kurogane." Fai let it roll off his tongue, testing the way it sounded. "I think simply Kuro would be more suitable."

"What the fuck did you just call me?" He growled, catching himself in time to not be too loud.

"Fuck? What word is that?" Fai ignored him, rather on purpose or not it didn't matter to Kurogane because it pissed him off all the same. "Maybe Kuro-hunt is better?"

Groaning he covered his face. This couldn't be happening. "Never mind. Just…what are you planning on doing? Just looking through my room and then leaving?"

"Is it just you or do all humans not listen?" Fai asked sincerely before he snatched up a book to flip through its pages. "When I grow weary of you I'll leave, but it's been so long since I've really wanted to watch a human, so who knows when that will be."

Great, that was exactly what he wanted to hear. "I can't have you following me all the time or ever really."

"It wasn't my intention to. I do not need to watch you every second of every day. I have other things that need tending. But are you saying you don't mind it now?" Kurogane got the feeling he wasn't really getting a choice in the matter.

"…If you're going to come here you should at least try and look human. Someone could see you." He couldn't believe what he was saying. He really had gone off the deep end.

Fai reached up, running his fingertips across his antlers and giving a thoughtful look. "Then tomorrow I'll come looking more like a man." The light from the television flickered across the blonde's skin, making him look almost ethereal. It was strange and captivating and Kurogane hated to admit how hard it was to look away.

Without another word, Fai was up and smiling. "I'll leave you for tonight Kuro-human. Try not to come across anymore bears." Before Kurogane could say something Fai had given him a kiss on his forehead, feather soft and cold to the touch and out the window in a swirl of fabric and long limbs.

Falling back onto the mattress with a dull thump, Kurogane stared up at his ceiling. His head was spinning like a top as he tried to come to terms with just what he had gotten himself into.

Dreaming or awake, we perceive only events that have meaning to us.
-Jane Roberts

Kurogane wandered again if he had died that fateful day in the woods and this was some strange purgatory. Or perhaps he'd gone insane. Really it was a tossup, as he headed out towards a shallow river, fishing rod resting on one shoulder and tackle box in his other hand, with Fai trailing behind him and eyes watching the line sway like some cat.

His parents didn't suspect, but who really would think he was going out into the woods to meet some spirit or whatever the blonde was. He had decided to go fishing early in the morning after having fed the chickens and not having work to get ready for. Ever since the first night Fai had yet to return to his home and he wondered why that was, but really he should think it good the other didn't crawl through his window in the middle of the night.

"You haven't travelled here in some time have you?" Fai inquired, the shells strung through his hair tinkling like bells as he skipped, eyes wide in an almost childlike curiosity as he looked between Kurogane's tackle box and fishing pole.

"No." He had given up on trying to figure out how Fai knew these things weeks ago. "I came back home a few months ago." It had nearly been half a year and the though made him tired. Had he really been here that long? With day after day of the same thing? He loved his parents, but he had dreamt of bigger things and a life of this hadn't been what he had wanted no matter how content and stable it was.

Glancing over to Fai, he supposed at least their encounter had broken the monotony. "It called you back you know, though I guess you don't do you?"

"What are you babbling on about now?"

"This place, the trees, the rocks, and the animals you take care of. They called you home." Kurogane rolled his eyes at Fai's nonsense. The man always spoke in half truths and riddles that had once confused him for days on end when he tried to decipher them. "You are as much a part of them as they are of you. I can hear it in the way you walk, see it with how you carry yourself."

But sometimes and /only/ sometimes did Fai make him pause and truly think.

When they arrived at the river, which was broad and slow moving and shallow, Kurogane set his tackle box and rod down by a small group of rocks. "Are you going to just sit around and watch me?" He asked before his eyes fell on the blonde.

"Not if you don't want me to." Fai remarked off handedly as he walked into the water. The sight had him pause as on occasion he forgot just what Fai was. Some kind of creature he couldn't possibly understand. He seemed to glow as the sunlight radiating off him. His clothes drifted along with the current as he stood shin deep. The strings of things in his hair glimmered as he stared down at the waters.

It took him a moment before he found his voice again. "Don't get in the water. You'll scare the fish."

"If anything I'll make you catch more." And when Kurogane took a closer look, seeing small shadows of fish hovering and inspecting the blonde, he didn't want to admit the other was right.

He couldn't stand it any longer. Kurogane needed to know, needed to know just what Fai was and if there was any answer he vowed to find it. The blonde was an idiot and danced around an answer when Kurogane even tried to ask what he was. All he knew was that Fai was some type of ghost or spirit or figment of his imagination and he was at his rope's end.

So instead of going into the forest to find Fai and walk with him, Kurogane went straight to his room after finishing his chores and got out his old laptop. Not knowing where to begin he just began looking up whatever popped into his head.

Hours passed before he left his room again, he walked slouched and tired, eyes sore from reading so much. His mother gave him a worried glance and offered him something warm to revitalize him. His father too showed his concern, even going so far as to tell him to not worry about helping bringing the horses in from the pastures.

He wanted to ask for their help, but knew they would ask why and he didn't have the heart to lie. To clear his head he left into town for a few things they needed anyways and when he returned and heard the twittering of a bird a head on the roof of the house, as they liked building nests in the beams of that stuck out from the house, Kurogane looked up and nearly dropped his bags.

The face was weatherworn and rubbed smooth, but when he reached up to the lintel of the door and traced his fingers over familiar lines he remembered. Remembered the stories his mother had told him when she was trying to put him to bed and he was just too energized to really listen. He remembered bits and pieces of long talks he shared with Fai, how the man had seemed interested in his home. Was that it? Had it really been that simple all this time and he just hadn't noticed?

Later that evening after he had had dinner and washed and dried the dishes, he waited and wondered if Fai would come to him again. When Fai did come to him Kurogane watched as he slipped in through his window.

"You're a waldgeist."

"Hmm…yes that's one name I've been called." He smiled and Kurogane glared at his discovery un-phasing Fai.

"There's a carving of one above the door to the house."

"I know, I told you before didn't I? I am welcomed into this home and have been since its foundation was laid." He put a hand on one of his hips, blue eyes boring into Kurogane.

"Did you know my family before?"

"No, they gave me offerings and asked for my protection. I did not see them like I do you." Kurogane wanted to ask more but he had a feeling Fai wouldn't answer him. "But I helped; I made their lives a little easier."

"You do not recognize me in this form, but I've known you." A hand cupped his face as Fai's eyes narrowed and a faint smile curled his lips. "I've known you for such a short time, but I saw you and I was surprised. It…it was exhilarating to be seen." They're together, sitting in his room. Fai had already grown tired of watching him and had just started talking.

"We've met before? I think I would have remembered someone like you." Kurogane was skeptical, but he really shouldn't have under the circumstances.

"You were much younger then, only a little thing running through the forest with a stick in your hand." Fai put a hand to his cheek as he remembered. "I came across you when you had finally settled down. You weren't noisy like other children I had seen. You were unique."

Kurogane couldn't remember. He was always out swimming or climbing trees in his childhood and he didn't remember a blonde in any of his memories. Fai only smiled, amused at watching Kurogane try and figure it out.

"I wasn't in this form if it helps." Fai leaves him when he looks away for a moment, his laughter on the air.

It takes Kurogane two days to figure out when they had first met and he didn't stop thinking about it until Fai came to him again.

Fai comes to him one night when he's busy trying not to do anything. It's his day off and his parents are out on a date, which really he doesn't want to think too much on. He isn't surprised anymore when one minute he glances over to his clock and when he looks back Fai is perched on his window sill. It's dark out and the blonde is cast in shadows as the light from the television dances across his skin. He doesn't speak and Kurogane thinks something must have happened. Bad or good he isn't sure. What he does know is that he's stunned to see Fai looking /human/. He was still wearing the white garment he always came to him in, but the antlers and tail were gone, the trinkets had been removed as well.

"What is it?" He asked and got no reply as Fai moved onto the bed to face him.

"I've thought it over and decided I want to try something different with you." It was unusual for Fai to come to him looking normal, but it still raised an alarm.

"Try what?"

"You've been looking at me like you're hungry."

"I haven't." He had stared at Fai when the man was quite and not pestering him about every little thing he could think of. Kurogane had even had a couple of dreams involving the blonde, but he was not ogling. He wasn't.

"So you don't want to have sex?" Fai sat back confused.

"…" He didn't think Fai even knew what sex was. Spirits didn't do that sort of thing or at least he never remembered hearing stories about weird antlered men having sex.

"You have sex?"

"I have before with other spirits. How do you think things are born?" Fai asked him like he was humoring a child. "The world is a never ending cycle and without creating there is no cycle."

"I know how regular things are born, but you're not regular." Fai laughed then and Kurogane slapped a hand over his mouth in fear of his parents hearing and wanting to investigate.

"No, I suppose you have a point." Fai pushed against Kurogane's chest making the man hit the bed before he straddled him. "I can smell it on you. The way you want me now. You can have this part of me if you'd like." Fai has never taken a human lover, never seen the need and has never really been all that interested in sex. He had his forests and animals and he was content. But Kurogane drew something out of him that was inquisitive.

Kurogane had been speechless as he held himself up on his elbows. He was no virgin, but the prospect of sex with Fai was a double edged sword.

"…You're positive about this? It's not just some strange spirit thing is it?"

"Humans are always so curious and must know everything before they act. Just feel and do Kuro-leaf." Fai smiled, thinking he was too uptight about all of this as he ran his hands down a shirt covered chest. He might have been a bit rusty and never before had done something quiet like this, but Fai soon had Kurogane naked, his clothes strewn about the room and the man panting and red faced on his bed.

Chills ran down his spine as cool hands traced the lines of his stomach. Kurogane had just sat back and let Fai have his way with him. He didn't know what else to do, Fai wasn't just some person, he was /Fai/ and that changed things. Made this different than any other time.

Fai is straight to the point, knowing what he wants and getting it done. It amazed him to see the other man flush and actually sweat as they rocked together. Little gasps and sighs make him shudder as he grabs the blonde's cock and his own in one hand and strokes them both to completion. It's good and makes him dizzy and warm especially as Fai rested draped over top of him.

He covered them both with a heavy blanket and they drift off to sleep sated and together.

He wonders what will happen now. Fai was asleep in his bed, sharp shoulders blades facing him and he remembered how he ran his fingertips over every knob of the blonde's spine. The light hits him just right and Kurogane's fingers itched for a camera to capture the moment. He knew there were stories of this type of thing happening, but this wasn't a fairytale or a legend. This was real, they were real.

Kurogane stays awake, forgoing chores and ponders and mulls over what this means. They've had sex and he doesn't regret. He never regrets. But things are different now and it's new and confusing and he has no idea where to begin or what to say when Fai does wake up.

He doesn't have to worry about it. When Fai finally wakes, he stretches and arches like a cat on the bed and when he looked over to Kurogane he smiled. "Good morning. That's the proper phrase isn't it?"

"Yeah."

"You know I never thought sex with a human could be so much fun. We should do it again sometime." Fai's so nonchalant about all of this it makes him want to laugh. Kurogane forgot himself again. Fai isn't normal; he's not a regular man.

"You don't think it's wrong? You're not human."

"Of course not. We're both apart of nature aren't we? You humans may have forgotten, but you are. You're made from the stars and earth and fire and water courses through your veins just as air fills your bodies."

"I get it." He waved off any further explanation. "But you don't understand."

"Is it because I'm male? Or that I'm a spirit."

"I don't think there's anything wrong. This has all been weird, the spirit part the most, but not unwanted. I don't regret it." And he didn't. Fai had in a way saved him from monotony. He kept him from going crazy in this too tiny home and doing the same thing day in and day out.

"Regret…that word sounds strange on my tongue." Fai mused before he sprang up from the bed stark naked and searching for his clothes. It gave Kurogane time to admire him. It also reminds him that Fai isn't human, that he doesn't feel the same things a person would and it all just confused him even more.

It's a month later and a few more visits from Fai that Kurogane finds himself sitting at the breakfast table and his parents exchanging looks before his father speaks. His father admits to hearing Kurogane talking in his room to himself.

He paused not sure how to explain, they know it isn't the television. His mother looked concerned and asked him what's happened. They had suspected something wrong, that he was depressed or regretted moving back.

She told Kurogane that he had been distant, spending his time locked away in his room or wandering the hillsides. They blame themselves, thinking it was their fault that he didn't want to be here helping them. While it was partly true Kurogane loved his parents and denied their reasoning. With a heavy sigh he told them he had met someone and sometimes he talked to them on his cell phone.

A wave of relief went over them and he could see it in the way his father's shoulders visibly relaxed. It was awkward and it wasn't as if he was lying completely, he just left out the part about him spending his days with a waldgeist.

It makes him think about the relationship, if it can be called that. They aren't romantic, they might be friends, but he isn't sure if Fai knows what that means. It keeps him up later after he excused himself and kissed his mother's cheek.

When his father dies it is so sudden that Kurogane doesn't even have the time to think. It happens one afternoon while he's at work, busy doing what he can to provide for the three of them. He gets a call from the police and rushes home to find his mother in tears, clutching a handkerchief and watching as the ambulance carts his father away.

It's bright and almost too hot when he led his mother to the cemetery. She was heartbroken and mourning and it's all he can do not to join her. They stand dressed in black as distant family and old friends gather round while he watched with narrowed eyes as the casket was lowered. He knew he would have to work harder now, his mother needed him and he's terrified of her slipping through his fingers. He doesn't want to be alone. They find out weeks later it was a heart attack. A life of hard labor mixed with old age did him no favors.

Kurogane doesn't see Fai the entire time.

It makes him wonder if it had been all some delusion. Kurogane contemplated the notion again and he remembers the way Fai smelled, the way the blonde looked when they were together, how he smiled and danced and sang. But now he had better things to do then wonder if he had been imagining the whole ordeal.

His mother follows months later, having caught a cold that wouldn't go away and still there's no sign of Fai. It drives him mad and when he gets back from the hospital he's in a rage. When he was done, there's stuffing from the pillows still floating in the air and a chair is probably broken.

He didn't know what to believe anymore. He was utterly alone, his parents gone, leaving him to his own devices. Sure he had his home, but that hadn't been the life he had wanted for some time. A small part of him had wanted to leave to be happy with a man he wasn't sure existed now.

Kurogane had packed away his parents things and sold most of the livestock in the following month. He didn't want to think of how empty it felt now as he sat in the living room, letting the silence stretch out around him.

He was bitter. Bitter about having his parents suddenly taken from him, bitter for having the only other person in his life just up and vanish. Kurogane was bitter about a lot of things. When he finally crashed and fell onto his bed in a heap, not even bothering to change clothes, Kurogane went almost immediately into a dreamless sleep.

When he awoke his brow furrowed and he cracked an eye open at the feeling on someone stroking his hair. It was Fai smiling softly when their eyes met.

"…What are you doing here? I've not seen you in months."

"I'm had other duties, but now I'm back and your heartsick." He looked around the room, blue eyes glazing over for a moment. "This house is cold and I can smell death lingering. Why?"

"My parents died that's why." The words left a sour taste in his mouth.

"And you're upset. I told you before that this is all an endless cycle didn't I?" Kurogane sat up, brushing the hand away from him.

"And?"

"Nothing is ever really gone. Old things become new ones. I don't want you to feel sad. They lived didn't they?" Kurogane could tell Fai was trying to comfort him and it must have been awkward for the spirit to even try.

"It doesn't lessen the hurt."

Fai nodded. "But in time you won't remember but an echo of this."

"An echo huh? Is that how it is for you? When I'm dead you won't remember me, not really anyways."

"Just because I'm old to you doesn't mean my memories are faulty. I'll remember you. You're mine. I watched you and I've laid with you. I'll remember you for as long as I wander this land even when the trees are gone and the sky turns black." Fai leaned in and he closed the remainder of distance between them, sharing a kiss.

"I missed you. I thought I had gone crazy." He could admit at least that to him.

"You're still on about that?" Fai shook his head, all white teeth and milk colored skin and poked Kurogane's forehead. "Kuro-stump is rather silly."

"Are you going to leave again?"

"Sometimes. It's in my nature. I can't stay in one place for too long, but I must remain in this land." Fai sat beside him, thinking and Kurogane was just glad for the company. "Would you like to come with me? It would be like our walks, but longer."

"You mean leave here or just travel with you when you can't be here?" He asked, ever confused by Fai and his whims.

"A little of both I suppose, but in the long run it will be the former." The blonde tilted his head this way and that, thinking and contemplating and formulating. "Who knows, being around me long enough might bind us."

Kurogane stared as if he had suddenly grown a second head. "You're asking me to become a spirit like you?"

"I don't know if it would work, but I want to spend time with you and time is something humans don't have a lot of."

What did he have to lose? He had already lost everything; he had nothing to truly aspire to. He was just the same boy who grown up in these woods. They were a part of him and no matter where he went or what he did it would always be so. "I'll travel with you for as long as I can."

"Good." Fai smiled all too pleasantly and leaned into Kurogane. He wondered what would become of him, of this house and he thought of the old image carved into the door frame and of the man he quiet probably loved. Kurogane didn't know, but he wanted to find out.