They'd been friends for forever, Fai and her. Since children, through it all. She'd followed him to the Dimension Witch, tried to remain sneaky about it, and failed. He thought it humorous (to say the least). Her price for dimension travel?
Years' and years' worth of scars. Fai didn't understand why she missed them, for they held the bad memories of her childhood.
But he didn't pry; not yet anyway.
She was so quiet at first as well, making Fai wondered if she was okay. Of course she was; shyness had just taken over for a while. Within a few weeks, though, she'd started calling people family like names; Kurogane-niisan, Syaoran-ototo, and Sakura-imoutou. Mokona had become Moko-chan, but he'd just stayed Fai-kun.
That didn't really bother him. Sort of.
She helped out constantly with anything she could; fights – she was as skilled as he was in magic, and quite possibly as skilled as Kurogane in the martial arts -, cooking, and so on. At the Cat's Eye Café, she had often taken Sakura's job along with hers when the princess was tired or recuperating.
Fai could tell that it was quite hard on her, worrying constantly and working around the clock, but he didn't take any action. Not yet.
"Fai-kun, can I go help Kurogane-niisan and Syaoran-ototo go fight the demons?" She asked, leaning against a chair and looking up at him – since he was about a half head taller than her, that is.
"I'd prefer you not."
"I'll come back when you need me, honest. Just tell it to the wind and I'll come."
"I think you should stay. Sakura-chan is getting rather worn out by all the customers we've had, and everyone likes you." Damn. . . He was just encouraging her to work herself to death, wasn't he?
"Oh. . ." She smiled brightly, "Okay. I suppose if Kurogane-niisan and Syaoran-ototo wanted me to come demon hunting, then they would've asked, ne?"
Fai smiled as well, patting her snow white locks of hair; a gesture he often did out of habit. Not the fact that he liked the way her hair was so soft, or anything, nooooo. . . "Mmmhmm." Her blue eyes shut when she laughed, a sound Fai liked to hear. It showed him that his friend wasn't hurting inside like she often had been when they were growing up.
Shop had closed half an hour later, Sakura going to bed exhausted within five minutes of closing time. Only she and Fai were left, cleaning up the dishes and crumpled napkins and crumbs and anything else left by the frequent customers.
"Hey, Ko - " Fai began, snapping around instantly when he heard a loud thunk.
"Ow, damn. . ." She mumbled, rubbing her forehead, "Damn counters. . ."
"Are you okay?" Fai was over in seconds, his hand enclosing her wrist and removing her hand from the now red spot.
"Yeah. I just bumped my head getting up, that's all."
"Do you want any ice for it?"
"No, I don't think so." She sucked on her cheek thoughtfully, "What were you going to ask me, Fai-kun?"
"I noticed that you seemed saddened when Yuuko-san took your scars as payment for traveling worlds with us." Fai admitted, sitting her on the countertop and waiting attentively for a reply of some sort.
"Oh. . ." She turned a slight hue of pink and laughed sheepishly, traces of nervousness and embarrassment tinting the usually happy noise. "I suppose you noticed, eh? I tried to hide it, but you always seem to know everything."
"We've been friends for years, of course I know everything." He smiled still, subconsciously propping himself up with his hands on the counter and additionally putting them beside her legs. "So why were you so down about it?"
"Well. . ." Her words became mumbled after that, gibberish and indecipherable.
"Mind repeating that~?" Fai queried lightly, chuckling.
"I kind of miss them because you'd always. . ." She paused and he had to strain to catch the end of it, ". . . You'd always kiss it better."
Everything was silent for a few seconds.
Don't go thinking they were naughty kids, now; no, not at all. It was simple, both were innocent and happy, and instead of freaking out of one had a 'boo-boo', then they'd put a band-aid on the injury, grin and exclaim, "Gotta kiss it better!" Promptly doing so, of course.
Fai's smile intensified tenfold, and he laughed aloud. She blushed harder, obviously feeling embarrassed about it.
"Oh, no, I'm not laughing at you." He put two fingers under her chin and tipped her face up to look her in the eyes.
"It's a stupid reason, really, but -"
He pressed their lips together, effectively silencing her and cutting off the somewhat forlorn sentence.
"It is not stupid." Fai chided, resting his forehead to hers. His smile hadn't wavered and neither had her rose blush, though the sadness had vanished. "Sadness qualifies as hurt, you know?"
"I suppose." She mumbled, beginning to smile as well.
"Do I really need a reason to kiss you?"
". . . No, I don't think so."
"Good." Fai kissed the red spot on her forehead, "But we can use our old one if people ask, eh Koto-chan?"
Kotokage D. Takemori, AKA Koto-chan. That was her, the snow white haired, stormy blue eyed magician from Celes of the same rank as he. Koto's smile grew, and she nodded.
"Hai, Fai-kun!"
He kissed her again. "Then we'll kiss all the pain away, and make everything better, ne Koto-ai?"
And both of them whispered a soft and long known. . .
"Aishiteru."
