damalurbackup (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
damalurbackup) wrote2008-02-03 01:18 am
damalurbackup) wrote2008-02-03 01:18 am
Entry tags:
[fic] tsubasa, "twenty facts about collegeverse fai"
TITLE: Twenty Facts about Collegeverse Fai
CHARACTERS: Kurogane/Fai
NOTES: AU. Takes place in the Collegeverse, with nods to Tokyo Babylon and Little Miss Sunshine. Never shall I reveal how much of Fai's high school experience is based on my own. (...A lot. The answer is a lot.)
SUMMARY: Fai's backstory.
TWENTY FACTS ABOUT COLLEGEVERSE FAI
01;
Fai was born fourteen and a half minutes before his twin brother, but their mother never told them who was born first. Yuui insisted, though, that he had to be the elder, if only because he was more responsible than Fai. Fai didn’t really care, so he let Yuui believe it.
02;
They were close as small children in the way that only twins could be, but as they grew older they grew apart. Yuui was serious and scholarly and athletic, while Fai was more interested in memorizing the parrot sketch from Monty Python. At the time it only seemed natural that they would go their separate ways, but looking back now Fai regrets it more than almost anything.
03;
When Yuui died, Fai’s family simply fell apart. His father moved into a glamorous apartment in downtown Chicago and his mother went to Africa with the Peace Corps. Before she left, she knelt down to Fai’s eye level and said, “It’s not your fault, sweetie. It’s just that sometimes families need time to work things out on their own.” She was crying, but Fai wasn’t, even though she didn’t tell him that she loved him.
04;
He was thirteen when he moved in with his Uncle Ashura. Uncle Ashura was a bit…well, eccentric. He went through sudden mood swings and was obsessed with Hinduism, even though he’d been brought up Lutheran like the rest of Fai’s family. Accordingly, Fai came to appreciate yoga, and even got rather good at it. Still, he could never pick up his uncle’s knack for vegetarianism.
05;
For the most part, Fai seemed perfectly well-adjusted, but every few years he would sink into a black fit that lasted months on end. The fits coincided with the advent of anything new and large in Fai’s life – starting high school, or getting his driver’s license.
06;
He’s always enjoyed reading, and at the age of ten he saved up to buy a DVD player and the first season of Star Trek: Next Generation. It wasn’t until he started high school that he learned there were not only labels for people like him (nerd, dork, geek, fan) but that there were actually enough people like him that they garnered a label.
07;
Once Fai discovered the nerd subculture, however, he embraced it wholeheartedly. Friday night was D&D night all through high school; Fai’s main character was a half-elf sorcerer, and when he finally picked a prestige class, he took himself out for pizza and a movie to celebrate.
08;
Fai likes going to movies alone – not always, but sometimes. Before he met Kurogane, he occasionally wondered if he was defective in some way because he didn’t mind doing things on his own. The first time Kurogane called him up as he was on his way out to the theater, Fai explained haltingly that he was going to see Sweeney Todd by himself. Kurogane didn’t even hesitate, just said, “Fine. Busy tomorrow?”
09;
He knows that he likes musicals entirely too much for a man to not be aberrant in some way. That his aberrance manifests itself as a liking for other men has never bothered him. It’s not like he doesn’t like women, either – the first time he had sex was with a woman. He thinks sexuality is fluid, and sees no reason why he shouldn’t play both sides of the field.
10;
He’s only seen his parents a handful of times in the past eight years. He and his father meet every year on his birthday for dinner, usually at someplace posh that serves snails and has entirely too many forks at the place setting. They talk about Fai’s education and current events and how versatile an actor Johnny Depp is. On his sixteenth birthday, Fai realized with surprise that he anticipated the dinners rather than dreading them.
11;
His meetings with his mother are more stilted. One summer she paid for him to fly to Zimbabwe, where she was working at a run-down clinic three hours worth of dirt roads from the nearest city. The next Christmas she flew in to see him. Somehow conversation was more difficult when they where trapped in a small room without a flock of healing women around. They talked in bland tones about the weather and Ashura, until Fai’s mother said in a low voice, “You were older. Born first, I mean.” Fai left the room and refused to speak to her for an entire year.
12;
He thinks that he must collect Japanese people, because his second best friend in high school was from Japan. Subaru’s still the only person Fai has met who is more fucked up than Fai himself. The other boy had moved to the U.S. halfway through Fai’s junior year, and Fai found out by accident that Subaru had a dead twin, too. (Well, the eavesdropping was accidental, at any rate.) There were rumors that Subaru had had an illicit relationship with one of his teachers in Japan, but Fai didn’t put any stock in rumor - until he noticed that Subaru flinched whenever an older man touched him.
13;
His first best friend in high school was a girl named Olive who used to live in California. Olive’s family was collectively almost as odd as Uncle Ashura. She went through strange phases that almost always culminated in her dragging Fai into some ludicrous project. For the opening of Star Wars: Episode III, they handmade matching Sith robes, and when they went to see Spamalot they carved coconut shells ($1.99 at the grocery store, plus three hours of labor to hollow them out). Olive is the one who introduced Fai to musicals, Lindt chocolate, and sex.
14;
He stays in contact with both Olive and Subaru. Olive has set her sights on becoming the first female president. Subaru isn’t doing as well; he’s taken up smoking, and comes home wan and exhausted after long visits to Japan. Fai has to worry about him, because it seems like nobody else does.
15;
When he turns twenty-one, Fai wants to deal blackjack at a casino. He carries a deck of cards around with him and practices manipulating them (spread, wash, riffle shuffle, waterfall flourish). Even if he never becomes a dealer, he likes having at least one skill that he can show off at parties.
16;
After meeting Kurogane for the first time, he immediately went home and washed his hair three times. Then he vacuumed his room, threw out all the old candy wrappers, and contacted his professors to apologize for missing so many days of class. Sometimes Fai just knows things, and he knew that Kurogane was the sort of person for whom it was worth washing his hair and going to class.
17;
Fai’s favorite poem is “Dirge without Music” by Edna St. Vincent Millay. He likes it because it represents a refusal to accept things as they are that he’d like to have himself. He’s not a fighter, but he wants to be.
18;
Maybe that’s why he’s such a good match for Kurogane. Fai is subtle, circuitous, secretive, but Kurogane is perfectly honest: what you see is what you get, nothing to hide and hiding nothing. Fai thinks that Kurogane would be a Gryffindor, if Hogwarts were real. In true Gryffindor fashion, too, there are things that Kurogane doesn’t talk about, like the scars on Fai’s wrists or his own missing arm. He doesn’t avoid the topics, really, just treats them as beneath his notice.
19;
The second time they kissed, they were so cold that their lips nearly stuck together. Fai stepped on Kurogane’s foot and Kurogane caught Fai’s tongue with his teeth and their noses bumped and one of them was the wrong height. It was the most perfect moment Fai has ever experienced.
20;
Kurogane doesn’t care that Fai shuffles cards when he’s nervous or has a weird uncle or stays up late watching Star Trek when he has nightmares. He goes outside in the rain with Fai and suffers through musicals and has an equal appreciation for the finer points of comic books and lets Fai call him funny pet names; and when Fai can goad him into admitting it, he agrees that their first kiss was perfect. That’s how Fai knows it’s love.
CHARACTERS: Kurogane/Fai
NOTES: AU. Takes place in the Collegeverse, with nods to Tokyo Babylon and Little Miss Sunshine. Never shall I reveal how much of Fai's high school experience is based on my own. (...A lot. The answer is a lot.)
SUMMARY: Fai's backstory.
TWENTY FACTS ABOUT COLLEGEVERSE FAI
01;
Fai was born fourteen and a half minutes before his twin brother, but their mother never told them who was born first. Yuui insisted, though, that he had to be the elder, if only because he was more responsible than Fai. Fai didn’t really care, so he let Yuui believe it.
02;
They were close as small children in the way that only twins could be, but as they grew older they grew apart. Yuui was serious and scholarly and athletic, while Fai was more interested in memorizing the parrot sketch from Monty Python. At the time it only seemed natural that they would go their separate ways, but looking back now Fai regrets it more than almost anything.
03;
When Yuui died, Fai’s family simply fell apart. His father moved into a glamorous apartment in downtown Chicago and his mother went to Africa with the Peace Corps. Before she left, she knelt down to Fai’s eye level and said, “It’s not your fault, sweetie. It’s just that sometimes families need time to work things out on their own.” She was crying, but Fai wasn’t, even though she didn’t tell him that she loved him.
04;
He was thirteen when he moved in with his Uncle Ashura. Uncle Ashura was a bit…well, eccentric. He went through sudden mood swings and was obsessed with Hinduism, even though he’d been brought up Lutheran like the rest of Fai’s family. Accordingly, Fai came to appreciate yoga, and even got rather good at it. Still, he could never pick up his uncle’s knack for vegetarianism.
05;
For the most part, Fai seemed perfectly well-adjusted, but every few years he would sink into a black fit that lasted months on end. The fits coincided with the advent of anything new and large in Fai’s life – starting high school, or getting his driver’s license.
06;
He’s always enjoyed reading, and at the age of ten he saved up to buy a DVD player and the first season of Star Trek: Next Generation. It wasn’t until he started high school that he learned there were not only labels for people like him (nerd, dork, geek, fan) but that there were actually enough people like him that they garnered a label.
07;
Once Fai discovered the nerd subculture, however, he embraced it wholeheartedly. Friday night was D&D night all through high school; Fai’s main character was a half-elf sorcerer, and when he finally picked a prestige class, he took himself out for pizza and a movie to celebrate.
08;
Fai likes going to movies alone – not always, but sometimes. Before he met Kurogane, he occasionally wondered if he was defective in some way because he didn’t mind doing things on his own. The first time Kurogane called him up as he was on his way out to the theater, Fai explained haltingly that he was going to see Sweeney Todd by himself. Kurogane didn’t even hesitate, just said, “Fine. Busy tomorrow?”
09;
He knows that he likes musicals entirely too much for a man to not be aberrant in some way. That his aberrance manifests itself as a liking for other men has never bothered him. It’s not like he doesn’t like women, either – the first time he had sex was with a woman. He thinks sexuality is fluid, and sees no reason why he shouldn’t play both sides of the field.
10;
He’s only seen his parents a handful of times in the past eight years. He and his father meet every year on his birthday for dinner, usually at someplace posh that serves snails and has entirely too many forks at the place setting. They talk about Fai’s education and current events and how versatile an actor Johnny Depp is. On his sixteenth birthday, Fai realized with surprise that he anticipated the dinners rather than dreading them.
11;
His meetings with his mother are more stilted. One summer she paid for him to fly to Zimbabwe, where she was working at a run-down clinic three hours worth of dirt roads from the nearest city. The next Christmas she flew in to see him. Somehow conversation was more difficult when they where trapped in a small room without a flock of healing women around. They talked in bland tones about the weather and Ashura, until Fai’s mother said in a low voice, “You were older. Born first, I mean.” Fai left the room and refused to speak to her for an entire year.
12;
He thinks that he must collect Japanese people, because his second best friend in high school was from Japan. Subaru’s still the only person Fai has met who is more fucked up than Fai himself. The other boy had moved to the U.S. halfway through Fai’s junior year, and Fai found out by accident that Subaru had a dead twin, too. (Well, the eavesdropping was accidental, at any rate.) There were rumors that Subaru had had an illicit relationship with one of his teachers in Japan, but Fai didn’t put any stock in rumor - until he noticed that Subaru flinched whenever an older man touched him.
13;
His first best friend in high school was a girl named Olive who used to live in California. Olive’s family was collectively almost as odd as Uncle Ashura. She went through strange phases that almost always culminated in her dragging Fai into some ludicrous project. For the opening of Star Wars: Episode III, they handmade matching Sith robes, and when they went to see Spamalot they carved coconut shells ($1.99 at the grocery store, plus three hours of labor to hollow them out). Olive is the one who introduced Fai to musicals, Lindt chocolate, and sex.
14;
He stays in contact with both Olive and Subaru. Olive has set her sights on becoming the first female president. Subaru isn’t doing as well; he’s taken up smoking, and comes home wan and exhausted after long visits to Japan. Fai has to worry about him, because it seems like nobody else does.
15;
When he turns twenty-one, Fai wants to deal blackjack at a casino. He carries a deck of cards around with him and practices manipulating them (spread, wash, riffle shuffle, waterfall flourish). Even if he never becomes a dealer, he likes having at least one skill that he can show off at parties.
16;
After meeting Kurogane for the first time, he immediately went home and washed his hair three times. Then he vacuumed his room, threw out all the old candy wrappers, and contacted his professors to apologize for missing so many days of class. Sometimes Fai just knows things, and he knew that Kurogane was the sort of person for whom it was worth washing his hair and going to class.
17;
Fai’s favorite poem is “Dirge without Music” by Edna St. Vincent Millay. He likes it because it represents a refusal to accept things as they are that he’d like to have himself. He’s not a fighter, but he wants to be.
18;
Maybe that’s why he’s such a good match for Kurogane. Fai is subtle, circuitous, secretive, but Kurogane is perfectly honest: what you see is what you get, nothing to hide and hiding nothing. Fai thinks that Kurogane would be a Gryffindor, if Hogwarts were real. In true Gryffindor fashion, too, there are things that Kurogane doesn’t talk about, like the scars on Fai’s wrists or his own missing arm. He doesn’t avoid the topics, really, just treats them as beneath his notice.
19;
The second time they kissed, they were so cold that their lips nearly stuck together. Fai stepped on Kurogane’s foot and Kurogane caught Fai’s tongue with his teeth and their noses bumped and one of them was the wrong height. It was the most perfect moment Fai has ever experienced.
20;
Kurogane doesn’t care that Fai shuffles cards when he’s nervous or has a weird uncle or stays up late watching Star Trek when he has nightmares. He goes outside in the rain with Fai and suffers through musicals and has an equal appreciation for the finer points of comic books and lets Fai call him funny pet names; and when Fai can goad him into admitting it, he agrees that their first kiss was perfect. That’s how Fai knows it’s love.