Waking up one day and not knowing who you are is a feeling that no one should ever have to deal with. It's horrible. Something nagging at the back of your thoughts, telling you that a great chunk is missing, with every answer forever right at the tip of your tongue…it's like feeling an oncoming sneeze that never really comes, just tickles the sinuses before passing.

It was that same unsatisfied frustration that filled him every minute of every day.

Supposedly, before it all was washed away, he was a florist. However, for the life of him, he truly couldn't figure out why. Despite the giant blank that was his memory, he was still fairly certain that his current personality was cohesive with whoever he had been before. And, as he was, he didn't in any way find flowers to be all that appealing. Some of them even made his eyes itch and water in allergy.

Honestly, he really couldn't fathom how he had ended up here in the Koneko no Sumu Ie considering this very particular lack of preference. But the other three men, and the uptight redheaded woman with the socks and heals who had brought him here from the hospital…they all unanimously insisted that he did indeed belong at this exact place. And he couldn't imagine what reason they could have to lie. It wasn't as if anyone else had yet come looking for him, or any missing persons' report come up matching him in the least. Without reason to doubt them, he had to assume he was rightly placed.

Rightly placed…in the backroom of a floral shop that served as the bottom floor of a three story home. Rightly placed…alone and fiddling with flowers.

And fiddling was exactly what it was. He was supposed to be…arranging them? or something. He had no idea, and no one around him was being particularly informative about what he was supposed to do either. A few hours ago they had simply set him up in here before leaving him to his own devices…for the umpteenth day in a row.

Things like this must have come to him with practice, because standing as he was in the middle of his own mess, he sure as hell wasn't receiving any kind of natural, intuitive creativity from the "inner depths of his soul". No matter how long he stood there or stared at the many different blooms, he continued to remain confused. And frustrated.

With days of this same feeling beginning to pile upon his shoulders, he couldn't help but to begin to panic slightly. It was just too much to ask, wasn't it? To throw him into this without any information whatsoever…But just as the men had insisted they were friends, friends that knew him well, so the doctors had insisted that not a single one of them was to reveal any intimate details about his life previous to the accident. Well, that is beyond a basic schedule of activities he typically did and at what times he typically did them.

Personally, he thought the doctors were fucking idiots, but he was the minority here. The ignorant, powerless minority.

The argument provided was that giving too much information would be leading. The brain recovering from amnesia, it was explained, was a sensitive thing, quick to patch gaps in data with the surrounding environment, whether or not that data had existed previously or not. To provide too much information would muddle findings, they explained, and if done incorrectly no one would be sure if he was actually recovering or if he was just reconstructing himself based on the opinions and insights of others.

The doctors had proscribed a hard treatment of allowing him to remember on his own, by his own will, at his own pace. The others were to just act naturally, allow him the same opportunities as any other day, and go on as normal.

Because, as they said, he was normal; perfectly fine and healthy.

He just happened to have lost his entire past in a severe case of amnesia caused by a horrible hit and run accident that left him in the hospital for a week. But, bah, that was nothing at all. Nope, nothing at all.

The doctors were assholes. Fuckers, every last one of them.

Just, how in the world did they think such a treatment made any sense? While he had been skeptical at first of their treatment methods, two weeks in he no longer had doubts that these "doctors" could not possibly have actual licenses. And supposing they did, whoever it was that awarded them legality had to have been even more insane or dented in the head. It was the only explanation. Because sane individuals would not have ignored protocols in drug prescriptions and therapy sessions, least of all the most basic standard of allowing his "friends" to tell him any fucking thing he needed to know to function. He barely had a leg to stand on, thrown in headfirst with a blindfold AND his hands tied behind his back.

But, he supposed, that was neither here nor there at the moment. For now, he had few options but to comply.

Sighing, he stared down at the mess he was making on the table and tried to will into being the necessary focus and creativity for the task at hand. Flowers were strewn everywhere haphazardly, whites and blues and yellows and reds scattered over a pealing wooden countertop. There were even some wispy…things…that he assumed were not a mistake, were a flower, and were actually meant to be used since they had been purposefully placed there instead of in the trash.

Come on! Come on! Inner vision, go! Enlightenment power, hit!

And he sneezed.

Honestly, he was increasing beginning to feel like a fool as well as an invalid.

Briefly rubbing his eyes, he sighed again before stretching his hands out on the table, his fingertips brushing against the myriad of pieces, and resisted with all his might the temptation to throw a temper tantrum. Body completely rigid, he slowly inhaled then exhaled, trying his best to relax. Today's repeat performance of a flower debacle was just the latest of a long line of frustrating events, and he was beginning to feel like he was slowly drowning.

It had been two weeks already. Two weeks. And nothing had changed.

Nothing.

"Looking a bit tense there, Ayan. Flowers insult your integrity or something?" Startled, his head shot straight up and his muscles flexed in preparation to defend himself. He felt his fists ball and the tendons in his arms contract all the way up into his shoulders. His racing heart began to still, however, and his stance relaxed when he caught hold of a pair of green eyes looking playfully at him over dark sunglasses.

The blonde man was smiling, as always, his posture flippant and at ease leaned as he was against the entry way that lead into the backroom. For some reason, though, he got the impression that despite the pose, the guy wasn't really happy. He wasn't sure why he felt that way, but the persona didn't feel…right.

Puzzled as he was by the sudden apparition, it took a moment for what had been said to sink in. But when the words did catch up to him, he froze again, but this time not to fight.

"What?" He felt a slight chill down his spine.

"I asked if you and the flowers are having a tiff-"

"No," He cut in bluntly, "You called me something. Something that wasn't my name." Something…something was tugging at him, wiggling against some barrier, trying to slip through the cracks…

At once, the man before him pushed his sunglasses up over his eyes and stood up a little straighter, his head tipped slightly to the side as if puzzled. "Hm? Since when isn't your name Ran?" Crossing his arms over his chest, the blonde smiled smugly, "That's what was written on your records, born and bred. Seems you may have been meant for this business huh, little 'orchid'."

Irritated, Ran felt his eyes narrow and his lips pull in against his will. The man could not have been cockier. "No. You didn't call me 'Ran'."

His statement received only a quirked eyebrow and an even more satisfied smirk.

Che.

Usually this guy…Yohji Kudou…wasn't so bad. He could be a right pain in the ass, lazy too from what he had observed, but nothing unreasonable or unmanageable. Right now, though, it seemed he was purposefully egging Ran, who was already at an edge, on ever so slightly. Ran needed something, something that was right there, RIGHT there! On the tip of his tongue… the sneeze was coming, and it was something important…and for some reason it felt like this Kudou knew…knew and refused to cooperate.

"What else would I call you?" The smile still hadn't left Kudou's mouth. It seemed frozen in place; unnatural.

And at that, Ran knew he was stuck. The blonde had him there. Without so much as a clue as to what had caught his attention so thoroughly, it's not like he could continue to pry or press. Maybe he had just imagined it…

Probably taking his silence to mean he conceded the point, Kudou smoothly righted himself and sauntered away from the wall toward him.

"So," Kudou peeked over the lenses perched on his nose to look down at the table, "Quite the van Gogh you seem to be, orchid, with all the beauty of a severed ear displayed here."

Ran glared for all he was worth. He was not up to a battle of the words at the moment, his ego already bruised enough for the day without added insult.

Sensing his glare, Kudou turned his head to grace Ran with a smile, one so genuine that his green eyes seemed to shine, and Ran had to take a breath. It felt like something sucker punched him straight in the gut and an electric fire ran straight down his spine. All he could do was goggle at the sensation.

What in the?

Taking a moment to blink, the glare dropping, Ran refocused on Kudou, all the while trying to understand the vague dizziness that had come over him. But all he saw before him was the same man who had been lurking around the shop the last two weeks, smiling as he always did while glancing at Ran over his sunglasses. Ran felt like the scene wasn't quite the same, though… he couldn't quite explain it….like something had changed imperceptibly.

Suddenly feeling uncomfortable, Ran once more began to glare. His mouth pulled down into a scowl and he prepared for a scathing retort, to snap at Kudou to go the hell away and save him the smartass remarks.

But before he could even form the words, the blonde surprised him.

"Want some help?" And without further prompting, Kudou walked behind him over to his right side. The man paused slightly there as if to allow Ran to catch up to the situation, and then took off his sunglasses and set them on the table before beginning to speak. "Ok, first you think of a th-"

"I thought you weren't supposed to tell me anything Kudou." The words fell from him before he stopped to think, heavy with suspicion. Ran eyed the man with narrow eyes from where he stood, but he couldn't catch the expression on the blonde's face; medium-length locks hung free about it, making a curtain that hid his features from Ran's probing eyes.

"Ah, this is true. But I'm just giving you some tips on flower arranging is all. This doesn't count," and although Ran couldn't see his expression to know if it matched, the man's voice was light and airy.

Maybe Kudou believed what he said. Maybe he honestly thought this wasn't "leading." Or maybe he was just full of shit. Who knew? And honestly, who cared? Ran would take what he could get; whatever segue he could make into figuring out something about his life he would seize.

Before he could screw this chance up anymore by probing too much further, Ran clamped down on his doubts about his current company's intentions.

"Hn. Fine," nodding his consent, he bid Kudou continue his earlier line of thought.

"You sure are a natural redhead, you know," Kudou chuckled quietly, "what with how quickly your temper changes." And with that he reached over to grab some red flowers in the middle of the table. Ran didn't even deign to acknowledge the jibe. "Anyway, the first thing to do is to think of a theme, any theme, to base your arrangement around," the blonde spoke as he moved, in a pleasant tone that seemed almost distant. One after the other, he reached out and grabbed some blue flowers, followed by purple, and a myriad of other colors and hues, carefully adding them to a vase in front of him as he began to shuffled them about.

"Once the theme is established, think of like a shape and or certain colors that you associate with it. Like red for love, you know, or pink for joy, blue for peace, you get it." Despite the fact that Ran was staring at every one of Kudou's movements fit to bore holes into them, the man under scrutiny never once looked back at Ran. Focused as he was on the work in front of him, it seemed that he was almost absentmindedly adding dialogue in adornment to the flutter of his hands. "Once you have the basics in mind, just let the image come to life, yeah? Don't try too hard, or it shows, and badly. Just relax and let it do as it will, become what it will become, ya know? Can't force it to be…it just will."

With his last words, the blonde picked up the finished piece in his hands and turned to face the redhead at his side. Kudou held the vase out to him. Genuinely intrigued, Ran gingerly reached out his hands to carefully to grasp the porcelain in order to examine it. The arrangement was surprisingly tasteful; colorful and simple, not too busy or obnoxiously nonsensical.

So this was ikebana?

"One of my bests, huh baby?"

Ran almost dropped the vase in surprise. "Excuse me?" Eyebrows crumpling in as his forehead creased in weary indignity, Ran snapped his gaze up from the flowers to narrow at the blonde. Indignantly, he drew away from his `workmate', leaning his upper body back to gain some space.

`Baby'?

"Huh?" And then Kudou himself flinched back, a sheepish aura falling over him as he seemed to notice his slip. "Oh, sorry," those green eyes that refused to meet Ran's flickered to a far corner of the room as he laughed a bit, a hand reaching up to scratch nervously at the back of a blonde head. "Just, force of habit. Forgot myself for a moment is all."

Ran couldn't make heads or tails of this man, confident one moment and nervous the next. Regardless, he hadn't appreciated the flippancy of the petname. Something about the way it was said…bothered him.

Flustered, Ran forgot to think before he responded, harsh words spilling from his mouth before he knew what he was saying. "Hn. Be that as it may, if you ever forget yourself like that in public, I'll gut you Yohji. It's a promise."

And before he could blink, shocked and widened green eyes were suddenly locked on and staring intently into Ran's own violet irises. Ran froze, feeling goosebumps rise along his skin. It was like that focused gaze was suddenly looking into his soul, and he felt something like fear rise as if bile in his throat. After a moment that seemed far too long, Kudou finally nodded, never breaking eye contact.

"Yeah, and Fujimiyas always keep their promises," and just as he had come in, the blonde left, sweeping past Ran like a shadow too quick to follow, without so much as a word.

Blinking his eyes, Ran took a few breaths to process what had just happened, calming himself from outside in by untensing his muscles before slowing the torrent of feelings assailing him.

Kudou had done that a lot these past two weeks, running hot and cold. Suddenly the tall, lanky man would be intensely interested in Ran, and then just as suddenly not. To say it perplexed him was putting it lightly. The other two were quite the mother-hens, and always so infuriatingly cheerful. But Kudou…he was different. The blonde sometimes looked at him in the oddest way, and encounters always left Ran thoroughly confused. He was never sure if the man hated him or liked him…or…

Slowly gaining control, Ran realized that this time things had been much stranger than their other encounters. Had Ran actually just threatened to `gut' another person? And more so, what was with the blonde's parting statement? Something about promises. Had his family been especially virtuous or something? What had made the blonde suddenly so serious?

Setting down the vase of flowers he still held for fear of ruining the work in his unease, Ran looked to the right and noticed that Kudou had forgotten his sunglasses. His incredibly expensive sunglasses with specialized lenses. The man had worn them so often these past two weeks, outside and inside, wearing them even when Ran had met him at the hospital, that the redhead had almost forgotten they weren't an actual part of Kudou himself. He had come to know their contour and tint so well…

Reaching out his hand, Ran lightly ran his fingers over the frames before picking them up and staring at them. The best thing to do would be to go return them immediately. They were obviously important and surely Kudou wouldn't miss their absence for long. He'd come searching for them. At the very least, he should put them somewhere where the man would find them more easily, like the kitchen…

But with all of these strange thoughts running through his head, questions that never seemed to find any answers, Ran somehow found the metal and the glass of the lenses soothing. They were nice. Oddly, for one not really interested in material things, he actually found he liked them. Careful to not think about it too much, lest the strange haven they provided be disturbed, Ran carefully placed the glasses in his pocket.

Sighing, the amnesiac turned his attention on the flower arrangement once more and decided he'd better put it in a cooler to keep before going to his third floor apartment for some `reading'. Or at least, "reading," was what his schedule said he should be doing right about now.