Disclaimer: Yeah, CLAMP owns.
1.
I came to Kurogane first in Yama country. I was lonely. You'd think loneliness wouldn't bother someone like me, but I suppose I had gotten used to companionship during our travels, and being unable to speak with anyone was a kind of isolation I hadn't felt in a long time.
I came to him in the deep night, long after the moon had reached its zenith, when most of Yasha's soldiers were already in bed. Kurogane was sitting cross-legged on his bedroll, perfectly still, and didn't change position when I came in. He just looked at me, analyzing my posture and my quietness the way he does. He doesn't look like he's watching, but he really is.
He made a little sound and motioned for me to sit beside him.
Afterwards, I didn't stay. I went back to my room, jut as silently as I had come in.
2.
The first time we kissed, Kurogane bit down hard on my lip. I was glad he did; it reinforced the unspoken agreement that this was a purely physical undertaking, a business transaction with no impact on the way we felt or lived our lives. That kiss didn't come the first time we had sex, either – it was an afterthought at the very end of the third or fourth time, actually, and we did it because by then it seemed necessary.
It wasn't really about us. It was about satisfying a mutual need. We were just two lonely, lonely souls, and we could alleviate the loneliness for a little while by doing what we did. That's the way we wanted it, I think – impersonal. Practical.
Those first few times it was quiet, really, but otherwise inelegant. Neither of us had been with anyone in a long while, and we were as awkward as teenagers, all elbows and knees and involuntary motion. He was rough, but I expected nothing less from a man like him. I liked it.
We didn't say anything. That's why it was quiet. Sure, we made sounds, but they were hushed and incomplete, and never really words – although we wouldn't have been able to tell even if they were. I took care to avoid saying his name, and he didn't say mine.
I always left for my own room when we were done.
3.
Eventually we stopped having sex and started making love. He became softer, if not gentler, and he got into the habit of wrapping his arms around me as soon as my clothes were off. He'd bury his head between my shoulder blades and time his breathing to match mine, and I liked it that way, too. He was slightly more beautiful in the mornings after we did that, although I still never stayed the night.
We didn't get any closer to each other until many, many months later, because after the night he said my name, I never visited him again.