Love – it shouldn't have been so difficult to understand but it was.

There were so few people in Fye's life that it should have been easy to interpret. The truth was that it made his emotions more complex, harder to define.

It could be said that there were two men in Fye's life whom he'd truly loved, however it would be incredibly difficult to ascertain how, to what extent, even why…

He had loved Ashura as his king, as an uncle, as a lover with no physical contact nor sweet and doting words to link them together and bind them in such a way as to define their relationship. He spent those years beside the throne with a gleeful and contented smile gracing his expression, eyes held respectfully, secure in the knowledge that he was closest to the king but unable to ascertain whether he was the pawn, the bishop or the queen – confused as to his role in this man's life. As a child he'd been encouraged by his gentle words, soothed into his adolescence by a separate identity to that which gave him orders, rules, set boundaries. And then came those searching looks, those slight and caring smiles, a delicate sweep of the hand that made him almost certain that the king loved him, that he loved him in return… Ashura was the man who had given him life, had nourished it and given it meaning, taking his hand and raising him to a status where he was less frightened of his own identity as he slowly and steadily shaped a new one, adored and cherished in several undefined and withdrawn ways…

Then there was Kurogane.


I had never seen myself as a man who could break another's heart – I was too reserved for that. Neither was I the type of person to enter into an affair – I had too little interest in others, not enough lust or passion in my veins to procure it and not enough confidence in my bones to secure it. But it happened so easily and naturally that it shocked me.

We met in a café. He sat in the opposite corner from me with an espresso and a keen fascination with his watch, glancing at the passing hours as if he were afraid that time had suddenly forgotten to progress, drifting lazily like the scent of coffee beans clinging softly to my nose. I sat at the other end with a mocha in one hand and a worn book in the other. I'd had it ever since I was a child and the scent of the mouldering paper, slowly dissolving into the air, tanning to a bold and sickly shade of yellow always took me back to days sitting languidly by the slide, the mud beneath my shoes and the sharp tang of rust against my fingers. The words sat naturally within me, nurturing like a mother, something I grew to steadily comprehend as I matured.

And it sounds ridiculous but it was love at first sight.

Our eyes caught each other once or twice, maybe three times, and the second our gazes locked, slotting together, it was as if some force were washing through me, forcing me to take a sudden breath, subliminally aware that the very same thing may have been happening to him. I didn't know how many times his eyes had been drawn to me, neither did he know how many times I'd pulled my eyes away from my book to flick a fleeting glance over my shoulder towards him. I didn't know who he was, I had no idea what impact he could have on my life but at the same time he was no mere man waiting for someone in a café.

Time ticked away.

But as my attention was drawn away from my book, the words so warmly familiar to me registering little, making less and less sense, having less and less meaning or definition as I wasted and drowned each passing minute, I became increasingly certain that time had frozen for me. That this man was in fact waiting for me; that we were fated to meet. So tentatively, so hesitantly that it pained me, I closed my book, tucking it away lovingly and gently, slid carefully from my seat and stepped, each footstep ringing like a divine bell on the tiles and stopped just before him, a welcoming smile on my face. He looked towards me questioningly, not disappointedly, and I told him that he looked as if he wanted to talk. He said to me that he was just wasting time before leaving, just like me, that I was welcome to take the seat opposite and that his name was Kurogane.

That was it.

And yet it was blatantly clear that there was something more, that there was a connection between us, something that had drawn me from the other side of the room and forced me to bleed my own life dry, exhausting every possible conversation topic I could think of. He listened attentively, untroubled or unhindered by time or setting and he coupled every story I had with his very own in his voice, so low it rumbled roughly and distinctly, a deep and rich texture I adored from the first second it wandered into my ears.

We agreed to meet and talk next Wednesday. It seemed that he had plenty of time on his hands as did I. And I didn't want to spend all of my time shut within a dead house, unable to feel any life or depth within my surroundings when silence came to silently smother them. When work was thin on the ground, I threw a book into my bag and walked until I found somewhere peaceful to sit and read, to spend my day in ease and contentment. Instead I met Kurogane that day.

We met and talked like that maybe six times before he asked me out to dinner. By that time we were already kindred spirits. And I remember smiling like a teenager, picking a date thoughtfully in my head. My evenings would be restricted. Even though the evening I'd picked was certainly the safest of them all that month, that night my chest still restricted, my shoulders were still tensed and it was difficult to smile freely without thinking, without assuring and deluding myself into believing that this wasn't a date, that I wasn't falling for this man.

I have no idea how long I would have been able to continue lying to myself that way. Knowing me probably too long, but I'll never know for certain because that night he kissed me. I'd told him that I could make my own way home and he'd nodded bluntly, taken my shoulder tenderly and pulled me towards him, merging our lips softly and slowly, slightly wet, his warmth and his touch lying loosely against my clothes, exciting the skin beneath. It dragged me somewhere that I couldn't protest against, so elated in that one moment everything else was soon forgotten. And as he pulled apart from me I knew that I was in love. Desperately romantic perhaps but true. In that first second after I'd realised, I wasn't upset and I wasn't disappointed or annoyed or frustrated or angry with myself. I simply smiled towards him delightedly, taken away in a simple and wonderful rush, the admission that I was in a civil partnership lying heavily against my tongue. It was left there, sitting like poisonous lead in my mouth as he left me with the promise of meeting again.

I went home, undressed and clambered into bed alongside Ashura, feeling an aching guilt burning slowly into my nerves, feeling Kurogane's lips against my own as I settled into the sheets and pillows next to the man I'd sworn my life to. He was asleep already, slumbering unknowingly, lying deep within his own dreams so he had no words to say to me, no small or significant gifts of love to share with me that night, but still this warm and half-lit atmosphere eroded me, pushing against my consciousness as I stared towards him, unable to sleep. It hovered so kindly and gently over me, encompassing me and spilling close moments into my skin, that it made me feel like crying as I lay there.

Against any sort of sensibility we had been brought together in a psychiatrist's office of all places, in his office in fact… There were only a couple of years separating us, something that registered with surprising prominence in my mind as he allowed me to spill my soul out to him, recounting everything that made me worthless, everything I'd buried beneath my own skin, skeletons and all, things that sporadically pushed against me, driving me right to the very edge. Noting a common bond, we soon embarked on our own personal relationship. We were engaged by the end of the year. He took care of me. He embraced me where nothing else could. He found pieces of me, broken shards I'd lost a long time ago and carefully set them in place, making me whole once more, kissing me softly. He gave me new meaning and life and I would be eternally grateful to him for that. I loved Ashura.

And yet I still met Kurogane several days a week, allowing him to take me in his arms and burn away every precious moment I'd previously held with my beloved partner. It was something I couldn't understand about myself. Even so, every moment my fingers brushed over his skin, each breath of his against my cheek, every deep and probing kiss held a beautiful importance within me, as if this love could coexist almost like a comparison to the other. Sometimes they moulded and joined, a slow and smouldering kiss goodbye flowing seamlessly into an unquestioning bout of love making, strong and deep. I loved both Ashura and Kurogane.

That fact lingered resentfully in my mind, drilling into my consciousness and sounding flatly, building strength like an impending disaster about to collide with my life as I washed the dishes, wiping the bubbles away from my skin and putting them away, each plate making its own distinctive clink as I lay it upon the others. Ashura came through, closing the door behind him after letting the cat out. He rested a hand against my arm, planted a sweet kiss against my cheek and the guilt overflowing in my chest nearly broke me again.

Eventually there came a day when I admitted to Kurogane that I was in a civil partnership – a dull and legislative way of saying that I was married, that I had someone I lived with whom I loved dearly, who I'd planned on spending my life with. I told him almost in tears, a guilty throb playing on my heart, feeling like I was betraying Kurogane somehow. That was the single emotion that made me feel sick. But he wrapped his arms around me, gently burying my head into his shoulder, his fingers brushing thoughtfully through my hair, assuring me silently that he understood. He realised that those tears lurking in the corners in my eyes were an embodiment of fear, terrified of that thought slithering sickeningly through my mind that I might lose him. But as we stood there, wrapped together under an old oak in the park, whiling away the hours on a forgotten Thursday afternoon in autumn, the wind blowing against our faces in disgust, it was somehow apparent that he had no intentions of leaving. It felt clear that he loved me, that rather than letting me go, he would place his trust in me to make the right decision. I couldn't understand that. I couldn't trust myself.

Strangely, that admission brought us closer, as if we both understood what we had sacrificed simply to be together, to waste away in this fleeting romance, spending hours withdrawn from our own lives, concealing our spontaneous and withdrawn love, every moment drawing nearer to one another. We worked so well together that we made an ill-fated and half-hearted attempt to draw boundaries and prevent our relationship from progressing as it should, containing impulse and desire and allowing me time to choose between the two men. It failed, our efforts crumbling weakly beneath our fingers, falling to pieces, enamoured with one another.

I'd been to his house several times before. We'd shared a few words before the TV, growing accustomed to each other's voices in a calm and humbled setting, curious as to our tastes and opinions, conflicted yet overlapping somehow, sitting comfortably against each other. That day we sat in his kitchen drinking coffee, silent and hushed, and then we had sex seemingly beyond our control. Or at the very least it felt that way, that this was some unpreventable destiny, that it was merely something that needed to happen – right then and right there. It was nearly 3 in the afternoon. Ashura would have been at work, at his desk, tapping his pen intermittently against his tapered fingers like he'd always done when I'd first spoken to him, listening attentively, speaking in a softly probing voice, and I was upstairs in some bedroom on the same side of town losing myself to another man, enjoying every achingly passionate moment. I could faintly hear a radio on in the background, through the walls, singing jubilantly and victoriously but I'll be damned if I can remember the song. The pillow was soft, accepting my head with beautiful grace, the sheets so thin, earthly and human, woven fabrics brushing against my fingers as I clung on to them before lifting my hands, running them disbelievingly down the muscles of his arms, coated with a thin film of sweat. It was one of the most beautiful moments in my life, I'm certain. I could smell and taste every emotion lying naked on his skin, entering my consciousness warmly and settling there as I lay suspended in disbelief, my breath jarring. And when all was quiet again, I held him, pressing myself into his shoulder, kissing his strong and thick neck as he brought his own arms around me, hesitantly, almost as if he weren't sure how we'd arrived at his point, spell-bound nonetheless, a hand laid on my bare thigh. I kissed him on the lips, softly and slowly, and he'd gently lifted my lips away, caressing the back of my head, his fingers dissolved in layers of fine blonde locks, shifting carefully as he embraced me, speaking in a strong yet broken voice in my ear. He told me that I needed to choose soon, that it shouldn't carry on like this, that I shouldn't carry on like this.

For the first time I was incensed with him. Was I the one to blame? Was I the one who'd made the first move? Did I tell him that this was right? Had it been me who'd opened his bedroom door and forced all of this to come to pass?

So I told him the truth, through an unwilling throat and gritted teeth, the words sitting dangerously in my mouth – that love was a complex thing to judge.

And when I came home that day, the second I shut the door, for the first time in years I fell apart. I started shaking and then broke into pieces, torn and worthless, sobbing uncontrollably against the door with no clear reason or purpose. This mindless little affair was unravelling everything I had become, everything I had built with Ashura and his controlling hand, his words spilling softly into my life and giving it structure. That day it all came crashing down about me resentfully, leaving me vainly and selfishly hoping to myself that I might blink my eyes and Kurogane would be gone, out of my heart and my mind, forcing me to lose my second life… I was wrong – I'd taken this affair in my own hands and held it there, clung on to it desperately, searching for something I sorely lacked in my life although what that may have been, I'm not sure. I really don't know. All I can say is that I have it now.

Sometimes I question whether I had ever been truly loved, adored for the person I am within and not the empty shell, a pretty face without substance. That was how I made my living and eventually I grew sick of it. As I spent my days in cafes and bars, in parks and down small and silent streets with Kurogane, I told him of how I should really have called looking for work, that I should be shipping shampoo or providing a backdrop in some worn-down soap somewhere, selling my face for pennies. Ashura had always told me, an arm round me on the sofa or in bed, my head nestled in assurance just below his lips, that I should be dazzling the cinema screens and lighting the titles with my smile. Kurogane seemed to agree with me wordlessly that an actor can't lie to himself as well as his audience.

Either way I'd come slipping back down a painfully familiar path, forgoing my work for thought, but this time there was no one to catch me as I fell. Ashura would simply sit at the other side of his desk, coffee cups and pens that were never empty, while I was circling in secrecy, throwing what little of our partnership had survived the harsher years to a selfish romance I couldn't fully understand. He used to adore me but at the time I'd felt increasingly distant from him, watching as he lost interest in our love, horrified that it had developed into a cycle of trivialities – desks, dishes, cleaning products and payments, the car, the mortgage, the brief and sweet moments we kissed, trying to consolidate for something lost. Nevertheless I loved him. So I couldn't understand why that evening when he arrived home, reading my smile better than I myself knew, when he asked what was wrong and what was happening to me, I began to hate him. Both Ashura and Kurogane – I hated them. I loathed them. I despised them to depths that lacked sense or sanity, simply for what I'd become.

I stared at him, trying to find my answer. And burst out laughing for no reason other than irony and perhaps distraction, smiling so wide, my cheeks pulled awkwardly. He let me be, graciously allowing time for me to answer, sitting down next to me several hours later, clasping my face in his hand, stroking it cautiously and lovingly, asking softly what had made me change.

I asked him why it was that he had changed.

And he'd simply smiled, given a short and abrupt laugh, pulling me closer, bringing my head to his shoulder, toying with my hair and admitted to me that he had been slowly losing himself ever since I'd come into his life. That he had never fallen in love before, that he'd never expected the consequences. He said that he'd do anything for me and hoped that I would do that same in return.

At that moment my breath froze, his lips pushing tenderly into the skin just below my ear, sitting there adoringly, creating something that might have been an allusion or a revelation, lingering uncertainly in my mind as he moved on, fingers tracing my hips, mouth sweeping longingly down my neck. I couldn't act. For one minute of my life, I couldn't act. That space of skin had been captivated, adored and cherished not so long ago, Kurogane's touch still lying there, beloved and saturated, and my breath was captured widely and then seized. My skin tensed, my veins pulsed morbidly, wishing desperately to disappear, to become dissolved into air, floating without care, not a trace of love or fear in the world.

He could read me like a book, like the patient that I'd always been and carefully, without a single embittered or disappointed note within his voice, asked me if there was someone else.

I could only stare at him in shock and sorrow, horrified, acting the mute, lying my head pitifully against his arm and sealing myself up tight for the rest of the night, receiving a single burning look before he allowed it to wash over, to lie there against him until the next day. Maybe he'd expected me to crack and spill my guts out. Instead, just after he'd left to go to bed, just after he'd pressed a single kiss good night against my cheek, hanging there like cunning and devious blackmail, I stood up. I went outside and started the car. I let the engine run for a second while I took a breath, closing my eyes. And then I smiled, laughing to myself freely and possibly manically before I set the car into reverse, leaving my house keys sitting like a farewell note on the window sill beside the front door – where I'd always left them, curled up in the sun in some form of cluttered personal habit.

It was only obvious when it was too late, when Kurogane was another world from the other three, while he bitterly quenched for his blood, damning himself – he loved that man either as a truly special friend or as the one who had the potential to complete him. He loved him in such a way that he'd barely be able to stand it if he lost him, that he was sick of himself for that very reason, that he felt hope stir silently within him as he looked towards him.

There was a shadow waiting behind the tied-back curtains, worn red velvet, musty and worn, containing sorrowfully treasured memories. The figure hovered ominously and patiently backstage and if I'd left my mask on then perhaps I could simply have walked away once more, fleeing from myself and inevitability. But I didn't. As I stared, as my mouth dropped open slowly, disbelievingly, my heart silenced, inhaling this moment carefully and preciously, I reached for the mask, fingers tentatively clasping the edge, smooth and defined. And I moved towards him, lifting the stage mask from my eyes, a loose t-shirt billowing strangely and cautiously against my skin as my pace increased, as my lips tweaked awkwardly into a blissful smile, as my throat caught, eyes beginning to cloud over, as the mask slipped from my fingers and I embraced him, throwing my arms around him gratefully. His arms slowly wrapped themselves around me, sealing me adoringly and thankfully against his chest. And weakly, hoarsely, I apologised into his shoulder, breathing in his heavy and endearing scent, beloved and cherished in my mind, his own breath falling softly against my ear, gently shifting loose locks of hair, brushing against both our faces intimately. I smirked nostalgically.

He pulled me away carefully, as if expecting me to shatter like china, like the mask lying chipped against the floor, lying pitifully soon to be replaced by one of tens of others. He lifted his fingers to my face, resting them there disbelievingly, slowly coming to cup my face in a motion so loving it broke my heart. A cracked smile playing on my unmasked face, I apologised once more, deep and heartfelt, and he brought me close, held me tightly against him, breathing deeply in relief and calling me an idiot.

I grinned stupidly, shyly kissing the base of his neck, the only space I could reach without breaking our embrace, deep and appreciated, each second glistening like gold within our eyes.

As we made our way to his car, through the darkness, under the tired and listless stars, I asked him why he'd searched for me. I'd asked gratefully, curiously, with slight fear, wondering if I would hear an answer I'd longed for, whether he was truly the person I had desired after leaving so abruptly and selfishly months before, attempting to forget everything in one swift motion and finding its impression only making a heavier and increasingly painful indent. I can remember how his eyes had shifted to me, glinting in hesitance and veiled emotion, eventually speaking, his voice escaping from his throat and rolling off his tongue slowly and unwillingly. There were others before me. But they'd been different.

I took in a breath, something beautiful lying within my grasp. I thanked him, a smile upon my lips shining in gratitude and fragility, my fingers coming to lie against his arm. And he told me roughly, almost ashamed but with a strange sense of happiness, that he thought that he might love me. At the same time, his eyes came towards mine, shining in assurance, firmly and solidly, leaving a message lying softly beside my ear, whispering to me soothingly that he would be there for me, as long as he could, that we could start anew, that together we could smooth everything over, all these cracks and holes within my mind and my conscience. He'd wait patiently and lovingly by me until each and every one was a thing of the past, forgotten and erased, thrown to the wind.

"Now who's the stupid one," I responded, a smirk tweaking at my lips, unwanted tears filling my eyes, pushed away by his laugh, abrupt and deep, grinning beyond his own control.

I admitted to him in the car that I still loved Ashura. I'd betrayed him and then ran from the consequences, cowardly but also uncertainly, doubting our relationship. Every day I remembered him both fondly and furiously, guilt piercing and sitting painfully inside of me, a conscious reminder of my actions. He hadn't deserved me. I closed my eyes as Kurogane stared towards me critically, told me philosophically and comfortingly, that it had never been my duty to love him, to obey every whim or lust through gratitude. Only then it clicked within me… My eyes spun over to Kurogane glowing in realisation. And then I smiled, distinguishing the difference between our love and my dedication to Ashura after so long, this question I'd been running from, desperately trying to escape, eventually catching me and handing me the answer, whole and wonderful, fitting perfectly.

I loved Ashura.

I was in love with Kurogane.

Our hands shifted over themselves, lying longingly and adoringly on top of the gear stick, sitting, waiting patiently perhaps for some sort of epiphany within the stationary vehicle.

It had become increasingly certain since he'd first arrived in Nihon, the realisation grew in strength and became compounded as a fact the first time their lips were brought together, held smoothly and perfectly against one another for one blissful moment.

He had loved Ashura for his kindness in granting him the chance to start a new life, to become more than an unfortunate twin. He was in love with Kurogane for sacrificing so much to free him, cutting easily through any weight that had threatened to kill him or drive him insane.

Kurogane could sympathise only too well – a strong sense of duty and gratitude mixing closely with love, its true image only to be revealed when he fell for someone, when he held that damned bastard in his arms at last, a strong and wonderful individual, beautiful in every sense of the word, the way he'd glance towards him sometimes, glacial eyes sparkling, lying loosely shut, smiling…


As I lay against him, my head nestled warmly and comfortably in the corner of his shoulder, crossing the gap between the driver and passenger's seat and my fingers clutching at his arm as if seeking strength, I smiled loosely and contentedly. Several times I glanced towards him, raising my head, lifting my eyes for a small and treasured moment, and saw that he was the same – smiling gently and preciously, thankful for our reunion.

But suddenly his expression dimmed and sank, slipping back into reality, telling me roughly that he'd been to visit Ashura while he'd been searching for me.

I asked what he had said.

Kurogane lifted me off his shoulder for a small moment, reaching to the back seat and bringing over a brown paper envelope, crinkling threateningly in our confined and intimate space. He dropped it in my hands, waiting for me to judge the contents myself, staring towards it with a dark edge, almost mistrustfully, wondering if this single item could take me away from him again, undo all of his work searching for me, seemingly in vain.

I stared into his eyes, a stern gaze. After all, it had been him who'd come for me and not Ashura… But still, I gripped the envelope with an endearing note lying flatly within my chest, opening it carefully and deliberately, removing a wad of paper, a pen lying awkwardly at the bottom, disturbing the symmetry of the forms, the paper-clip and the note pressed tightly and intentionally underneath it, stating in his scrawled and sharp writing, chiming softly in my memory sadly, abandoned and alone:

"Do what makes you happiest."

a/n: Not the multi-chapter I'm working on but that's coming very soon. This was a bit of a by-product. Thanks to L (no idea what she's using as her pen name on here nowadays) for the idea no matter how unintentional it was and I'd love to hear your opinions =)