J'ai Deux Amours
By SMYGO4EVA

Love was a very fickle and very confusing aspect in the world that they were a part of, and the worlds that they have ventured to were different., so with every new world, the subject of affection gets more confusing. Someone who outwardly says to that person that they loved them, someone wouldn't even know the affection holder even existed, sometimes the love would be returned; sometimes it would never be acknowledged. Whether it may male or female, affection would always be a part of life, something that was vied for, something that was given on a silver platter, something one was used to for most or none of their life. What is new for someone may be old and worn out for someone else.

The warrior of black steel, Kurogane, could care less about romance or the love-dovey crap that was carried along with it. If anything, he was disillusioned with the whole concept, seeing as another way people could get obsessed about someone only to have themselves get hurt in the end, promises being broken and whispering sweet nothings being hollow and with no meaning. They wouldn't take their eyes off the object of their love to realize what was in front of them the whole time; of course that wasn't the case. Love was an endless spiral of conflicted feelings and making one feel even worse than they already were; that was the most pathetic.

The mage of blue, Fai, didn't have much to say about romance and its little intricacies. It wasn't that he was pessimistic about it; as a matter of fact he was very open to romance. It was just that he didn't have much experience in romantic matters. Fai didn't really have a chance to venture out into the world of courting someone and creating a relationship with them when he was a little younger, a little more naïve about how people acted when they were supposedly swooning over someone. To Fai, romance was a waking dream – it had little to do with what you were supposed to do when you were in a relationship and more about the idea of what it would feel like to be truly, deeply, univocally in love with someone, what you would do for and to them.

Now that he thought about it, Kurogane never thought he would be in love with someone, let alone someone would actually love him, as he had no interest in affection and its red strings. But as time went by for the warrior, he could have felt something that was akin to love, but not actually love. Ever since the fateful days he became a warrior, he held a deep sense of loyalty for princess Tomoyo, as she took him in and made him who he was today and he owed that to the princess, to guard Nihon and to protect her, no matter how much blood he had to spill.

Then he was chased away from his kingdom and he traveled across dimensions to find the scattered feathers of princess Sakura from Clow Country, with the princess, the determined Syaoran, the furball Mokona and the magician in tow. As time and fate took their courses, the warrior found himself growing closer to the magician that he distanced himself from at the very start. What was this that he was experiencing, what he was feeling about a certain mage? Could it have been just pure friendship, or was it something beyond that? Was it, dare he said it, love?

The warrior was unsure about the very notion of all of this affection and adoration he held for both the princess and the magician. Tomoyo was sweet, almost too sweet, and she spoke to him in a way that two long time friends would speak to each other, but more refined and restrained in a way. The magician Fai would speak casually to him and give him sickeningly sweet nicknames and share his knowledge of magic and the worlds around them. The differences between them were exponential, but they were similar in terms of their desire to change the worlds around them from within, to experience all that they could, in a very subtle but tactical way. It was all very bittersweet, in its own way.

The brutal and powerful warrior Kurogane was in love with two people. The princess and the magician. What would come out of it? Would he have to choice between one and the other, or could he, in some weird and probably existential way, love them both? So far, no path has led him directly towards either one in particular, at least not yet anyway, but time would tell soon enough. As long as it was soon. He was getting impatient with the mushy nonsense. Otherwise he'd find himself alone again.

(A/N: This is an early Valentine's Day fic, so Happy early Valentine's Day!)