I’m so proud of how this cosplay turned out! Hes made entirely of silk that i hand painted with gold gutta resist and then dyed using the rit dye, so many new techniques I learned and was able to use. I srsly adore Fai and Tsubasa Chronicles both TRC and TWC… was so nice to finally cosplay him again and in a new version…only thing better now is to have my sexy Kuro-puu by my side *winks @ @malabava* ^///^
Photo by @ace5262 ty! ♡
Chii leans against her fridge, tired, watching Fai wash his face in her kitchen sink. His attire has been replaced with pajamas—a set she bought only a few weeks before her father died, a set in a shade of purple she thought Fai would like (and also a shade she didn’t find visually offensive). His dirty clothes lie on the floor in her bathroom, and the cleaner will come to put them where they belong—but for now, Chii’s London apartment is alive with evidence of Fai’s life on the run, a life that has come to a stuttering and stilted halt.
Kurogane Suwa is missing. It might be more accurate, however, to say that Fai has simply lost him. There is some part to the story that doesn’t make sense, and Chii knows that, but she doesn’t press for answers. Fai wipes water off his face with a towel at looks up at the kitchen window, seeing his reflection, a blurry and dark image of a man who has lost the fullness in his face. Chii sees her reflection behind it, leaning on the refrigerator with her head tilted back. A moment of quiet. An alien moment where neither is sure who has become the surrogate parent, and who has become the surrogate child.
It was meant to be this way, but better. That had always been the plan. She had not planned for a four-year delay, but a four-year delay happened, anyway. But he’s here, now. He was always meant to return.
“So,” she starts.
Fai stares at himself in the dark window’s reflection.
“You want help,” she continues.
“I do not want charity,” Fai says quietly. “I will return the favor in any way possible.”
“Oh, shut up.”
“I cannot accept—”
“I wanted you to stay, Fai,” Chii snaps. “That was all I wanted from you.”
Fai swallows audibly.
“I am not a good man, Chii,” Fai sighs. “You do not want me to be your role model.”
“This again?”
“You asked me how I killed someone,” Fai reflects. “My brother was an addict. I killed him. I didn’t tell you. I couldn’t. I poisoned my own brother. And it did not work, Chii, because he lived, and I am not sure what parts of me survived that.”
Chii turns around, opens her fridge, and sees the usual suspects—alcohol, and, maybe, some yogurt her housekeeper has bought in the interest of feigning normality in the apartment. Chii takes a yogurt out and grabs a spoon. When she glances over her shoulder, Fai hunches over the sink, holding the edges of the counter in white fists. Brown-haired, foreign, tall, charming, speaking with such a slight accent that most cannot even hear it, but she does, because it seems to come out around her more than it does for others. For Kurogane, she knows that Fai’s accent was nearly trained out of existence, domesticated for a man.
Domesticated.
Trained.
Practiced.
Faked.
Chii has reached the point in her life where she refuses any further domestication. Her entire life has been a battle of control, and she can no longer take the losing stance. She thinks that Fai must be similar, must be afraid to lose affection for his inability to obey. She has faced that fate, and she knows it is survivable.
“You’d never be my role model,” she tells him. “You’re my friend.”
Fai looks down into the sink. One hand releases the counter and touches his chest, pressing against it with his palm.
“C’mon, bud,” Chii encourages him. “We can feel sorry about it later. For now, you should eat.”
“I don’t know how I have survived this,” Fai confesses. “I am afraid I have not survived at all.”
“’fraid you did, Fai, because I did, too.”
He continues peering into the sink. Chii walks to the side of him and yanks his palm off his chest, cramming the yogurt container into it. Fai looks at her, tired and confused, until she also hands him a spoon. He sighs, turning away from the sink, and sags to the floor against the counter, sitting on the linoleum. Chii grabs a beer from the fridge and takes a seat beside him.
“I missed you,” she says, and that’s as much vulnerability as Chii Ashura knows how to safely surrender aloud, now. Fai returns it with a wobbly smile. Chii props her head on his shoulder. Fai props his head on the top of hers. It says more than either of them knows how to say, at this point.
Both of them, pale legs splayed out, lit yellow by artificial lighting. Things reversed, things moving backwards, broken pieces glued back into place.
