cutiepie-tro:

What really kills me is Fai didn’t even have the slightest idea of just how much Kurogane was in love with him through a good half of the series.

When they meet, Fai doesn’t know anything about Kurogane and the reader’s pretty much in the same boat, HOWEVER, Fai is afraid to get close to him so he doesn’t bother learning to understand him and what he does. This is when we can really notice, where Fai is painfully oblivious.

Everyone loves bringing up that despite Kurogane’s rebellious and disobedient nature, he still does whatever Fai asks of him. What we don’t think about is Fai has literally no idea he’s getting special treatment. He most likely assumes that Kurogane is always grumbling and grouching but still does what’s asked of him.

Can you really picture pre series Kurogane putting up with half the amount of teasing Fai does, if it had been anyone else? I can’t. And the way Kurogane gruffly tries to get him to change. Telling him that people so willing to throw away their lives are the people he hated the most. We know he didn’t mean it as “I hate you,” but that’s how Fai took it, because Fai doesn’t know about how Kurogane expresses himself.

And that’s another killer: the last thing he’d expect from Kurogane is love. The thought must’ve never crossed his mind, even when Kurogane was being more straightforward, because Fai thought he hated him! Fai was under the impression, definitely weighed down by his own self hate, that Kurogane thought of him as absolute scum. In the bar when he opens up about himself and says “but I guess you must just hate me more now.” Kurogane was trying to help him because he cares, but Fai thought-blinded by how little he knew his partner and his own self loathing-he was just making it clear that he didn’t like people like Fai.

And Fai doesn’t want Kurogane to hate him, it’s just what makes sense to him. It’s all he knows. He sees the way Kurogane acts and thinks to himself, ‘it would’ve been nice if we could’ve been friends instead,’ not realizing that Kurogane would already die for him.

And even when Kurogane does sacrifice for him, he still just doesn’t get it. He thinks he’s manipulated this poor man into his servitude. He thinks his bad luck has spread even to those who despised him. He thinks every negative thought he can and never once does he even consider that Kurogane did it because he wanted to. Because he loved him.

Fai just had no idea how completely enamored Kurogane was with him and it breaks my heart so much

reshki:

realk talk tho i know it’s done the rounds a bunch of times but ‘awwww, babe, you had a crush on me? that’s embarrassing’ ‘WE’RE MARRIED’ still warms the cockles of my gnarled old heart when applied to kurofai bc the image of kurogane just straight-up having something as innocent and lovely as a crush on fai is so pure, so freeing, my spirit feels lighter already just thinking about it. enormous thunder-faced man with arms like tree roots and the temperament of your average hippopotamus*, could rip phone books in half if this were the 2000s and phone books still existed, tall as a mountain and twice as rugged, also his hands get heavy and clumsy and shake almost painfully when fai touches him on the wrist, they’ve only ever taken one selfie together and kurogane hasn’t looked at it since bc it stops him breathing but he keeps it on his phone all the same, he plays it cool but sometimes when he stands behind fai he can smell fai’s????? soap???????? or shampoo??????????????? and one time fai left a cardigan at kurogane’s place and kurogane aggressively dumped it straight into the washing machine so that the temptation to smell it like some kind of creep wouldn’t even be present, fai wore a flowercrown and short-shorts to sakura’s birthday picnic one time and made friends with the ducks on the river and slung his arm around kurogane’s shoulders and whooped with excitement and kurogane could not get the image of fai covered in flowers and cackling uproariously out of his head for weeks, i wouldn’t say he pines or anything so melodramatically maudlin but it’s just there and it’s trivial but it’s vast as well and it’s like his heart is full of bright water that keeps brimming over, anyway fifteen years later fai finds out just how embarrassingly kurogane crushed on him before finally asking him out and is Delighted and i dont really have an ending for this because i understand that unpacking a throwaway meme is superfluous & possibly puts too much strain on the inherent fragility of the medium but it happened anyway??????? i need to lie down

*don’t make me tell my first day of school in africa story again, hippopotamuses will fuck you up