A/N: All right, time to get started in earnest. Most Tsubasa fans should be familiar with the characters appearing in this chapter, but some might need an explanation. Ashura (the elder), Fai's stand-in guardian in Celes, is appearing in a similar style to his RG Veda self who is kind and loving, but prone to going above and beyond the call of duty to prevent bad things from happening. Shashi, his wife in RG Veda, is ambitious, power-hungry, and invested only in herself. For Fai's mother, I had a Chii-like figure in mind since that who he designed her after, but I'm not sure how I feel about Chii and Hideki making a Fai baby, so I didn't elaborate much further. In any case, enjoy the start to a beautiful romance!

Spoilers: If you don't know who Yui is, spoilers (AU style) are ahead

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One: A Meeting with Significance

Kurogane had no memory of meeting Fai. A memory of the body, perhaps, but no memory of the mind. His mother was the one who remembered, though she had merely been a witness to the significant event which had happened to him. He never would have admitted it back when he was younger, but a part of him resented her for the ease with which she drew up the image, painting it with her words so he would be able to see it just as she did. It should have belonged to him and him alone, that particular meeting, but no matter how hard he tried to close his eyes and force the memory up from where it was buried inside him, the only thing he saw was the portrait of his mother's words, the small figure of Fai as he been before Kurogane could hold onto his memories for more than a moment at a time.

"You were only two days old," his mother would say out of the blue during those early years. "We hadn't even chosen your name yet. The Reeds were visiting the capital during that week, and there was no way to register you until they returned, so we thought it best to delay our decision and consider the matter seriously." She smiled down at him, her small lips turning up at the corners. "My first child, so precious, so beautiful. I could not put a name so easily to all the emotions that filled my heart at the sight of you."

Kurogane grumbled and flushed, loving his mother's kindness but reaching the age where he was growing embarrassed by it. He didn't really want her to stop speaking. As much as he disliked her ownership of his memory, he loved the memory itself, even before he could even comprehend the thousands of reasons why.

"I was still recovering in bed when his mother knocked on the door with her hands full of food for our family," she continued. "The twins were two years old then, still fussy and causing trouble faster than you could move a muscle. Or perhaps I should say that Fai alone was the center of any mischief. Yui was quiet and gentle, but was always drawn into Fai's little schemes. Much as he is now." His mother laughed to herself, her eyes returning briefly to this present moment. "As soon as your father opened the door, Fai scampered in and jumped into bed beside us. I was afraid for a moment that he wouldn't understand you were only a baby and would be rough with you, but he was as sweet as an angel when he looked your face. He smoothed your tufts of hair and kissed you on the forehead, then looked right into my eyes and said the word kuro. I think he was referring to the color of your hair, but he said it with such firmness that I knew that he had found the name I was looking for. I'm sure your father felt it, too. When they asked what your name was, he proudly introduced you as Kurogane, his beloved son."

"And that idiot has never remembered that it's Kurogane ever since."

His mother smiled. "There are many ways of showing affection, some more direct than others. Kuro was the name he chose for you, and it is the name that holds power for him. Surely you understand the reason why he continues to call you by a name no else knows you by."

But Kurogane was young, then. He was only just beginning to learn, only just beginning to wonder who he was and why he was a part of the world.

"There is significance," his mother said, brushing her fingers through Kurogane's black hair, "to every meeting we have. And every parting, too. Significance behind every word and every gesture, and in the ways we say hello and goodbye. It may not always be clear what that significance is, but that does not mean these moments are meaningless. You will understand that one day. Sometimes it will hurt just as much to gain something as it will be to lose something. But it is important to remember that these things must happen."

She leaned back in her chair and gazed out the window and into the fields where his father was working in the midday sun. Kurogane shielded his eyes. The rice fields seemed endless in that direction, a tapestry of rippling gray-blue with tufts of green and the bodies of workers rising from it. He turned his gaze to the other window, the one that overlooked the road, the only path that had been built in that part of the country. Two boys bathed in sunlight were waiting for him there, their blue eyes peering into the window to where he was sitting on the floor beside his mother's feet.

Was there significance in even that?

Fai raised his hand and waved, gesturing for him to come outside and join them. Kurogane couldn't remember a time before those eyes, that pale, thin hand were a part of his existence as a human being, and perhaps that was why his body did not let him have that memory of the beginning. It had happened to him in a fleeting moment, but the result of that moment, what really mattered, had lingered and remained for the rest of his life.

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Kurogane's first memory of Fai was from when he was two years old. It was hazy at best, and there was a chance that he had embellished it in his mind over the years. He could remember the twins, four years old and twice his size, helping him build a castle out of blocks on the floor of their mudbrick house. Their mother was sitting on a nearby chair, gazing down at them with eyes that did not seem to see them. She had been sick, his father explained when Kurogane was older. Her husband had died not long after the birth of the twins, and she had suffered from it quietly every year since. A parting with significance, his mother would say. As much as she tried to be strong for Fai and Yui, something in her had broken when the man she loved had died. It was only a year later that she followed him in death, leaving the twins orphans in that lonely village.

After they had used up all their blocks on the castle, Fai crawled underneath his mother's white lacy skirts and poked his head out from the hem, wrapping the fabric around his hair like a veil. His family was from the north and wore a foreign style which appeared odd even to Kurogane's inexperienced eyes. On Fai, the layers upon layers of ruffles looked even more silly as they overwhelmed his small body, shrouding his blonde hair in a waterfall of white.

"Look at me," Fai said.

Kurogane could not remember if he had added anything else or whether or not the words had been directed at him or at Yui or both. The one thing that was perfectly clear about the memory was the pale blue eyes he had gazed into, wide and framed by long lashes that would only grow longer with time. Look at me.

He had looked, just as he had been asked. The problem was that from then on he had never been able to stop.

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He hadn't even liked Fai back then. That was what he told himself, at least. When he was two years old, Fai and Yui were familiar faces that sometimes played with him, sometimes kindly, sometimes too rough for someone his age. A year later, when their mother died, they were quieter and more distant. They cried a lot, which made Kurogane feel sick to his stomach. Their beautiful eyes and skin turned puffy and red, and they looked so lost and small even though they were older than him. He didn't understand death, but could witness their grief over the words she can't come back and comprehend that these were sad words for them. But he didn't see them too often that year. The house they had once lived in was sold, and the twins were moved to the home of an older cousin, Ashura. Though the house was closer to Kurogane's than their old one had been, Ashura's solemn aura only seemed to heighten the twins' misery, and Kurogane didn't feel comfortable being at the center of all their negative emotions.

By the time the twins recovered and started visiting him again, he was old enough to that decide for himself that he didn't like Fai. It was opinion he had every right to, he felt. He hadn't been born with his mother's endless patience or his father's relaxed demeanor, and there was only so much of the slight blonde trailing after him chanting Kuro-chan, Kuro-chan that he could take. At least when Yui followed Fai following him around, he was quiet about it.

"Nee, Yui," Fai said the first time Ashura had brought them around to see Kurogane's family. "Looks like Kuro-chan's grown taller than us. Let's ask if he can carry us around on his back!"

"It's Kurogane. And don't get any stupid ideas."

Fai giggled and rested his head on Kurogane's shoulder. Since Kurogane had seen him last, his blonde hair had grown longer and was beginning to curl at the ends. Though he was shorter than Kurogane, his body was lanky, his legs and arms long and thin and oddly flexible in their movements.

"Did you miss us Kuro-chan?" Fai asked, his hot breath burning Kurogane's cheek. "We didn't mean to be gone for so long. It was just that Ashura-oniisan had to get married, and we needed to be around to help."

"Married?" Kurogane hadn't heard anything about it. Usually the entire village was invited to attend ceremonies, or at the very least his mother was present to prepare the shrine and see that the rituals were completed properly.

"Shashi-oneesan is from another village," Yui explained. "Her family wanted the ceremony to take place in their own shrine before she moved to be with Ashura-oniisan."

"Shashi-oneesan is an absolute beast," Fai whispered. "No one likes her. Not even Ashura-oniisan. It was an arranged marriage."

"Why?" Kurogane asked. "No one here has any money."

"Shashi-oneesan is a miko, like your mother. Everyone thought it was a good match." Fai gave Kurogane a poke on the cheek and sprawled out on the floor. "I wouldn't marry someone like her for all the honor in the world. I'm going to marry you, Kurorin."

"You better be joking."

"And what if I'm not?" He laughed and fluttered his eyelashes. "What about you, Yui?"

"I won't fall in love here." Yui smiled down at his hands, seeming to dwell over some private knowledge that he did not feel compelled to share.

"Somewhere else, then? Maybe you'll go back to our hometown in the north and meet someone there."

"Yes. Somewhere else."

Kurogane tilted his head. He was well aware of how he felt about Fai- or how he claimed he felt- but he never knew what to make Yui. Kurogane wasn't bothered by him, but he seemed to occupy a different space than Fai. They looked so similar, but while Fai was grounded in the moment, bursting with energy and demanding to be heard, Yui appeared to be focused on some other time no matter where he was, lost in either the future or past or another existence altogether. Whatever thoughts occupied his mind he kept to himself, unless he confided them privately to Fai outside of Kurogane's knowing.

"Well, Kurorin is enough for me." Fai rolled on the floor and latched onto Kurogane's ankle. "I'd make a beautiful bride, wouldn't I?"

"You're a boy," Kurogane reminded him, though he'd remembered the image of Fai wrapped his mother's skirts, draped in white.

"Anyone can be a bride if they have someone they love that they want to look lovely for."

"Except you aren't lovely."

"Yes, I am."

"No, you're not. You smile too much."

"Kuro-chan makes me happy!"

"Liar."

"It is never wise deny the future, especially when the future is still uncertain," a voice came from the doorframe. A tall, dark haired woman in a long red kimono was standing there, a thin pipe dangling from her fingers. "Where is your mother, little one?"

"Who are you?"

"What will you do with my name, when you have it? I am a teller of fortunes, child. Perhaps that is all you need to know." She took a drag of her pipe and sighed a slow stream of sweet smelling smoke. "Your landlord hired me to help your mother at the shrine. I hear she is gifted in religious ritual, but does not choose to engage in divination."

"She has enough to do without adding to it."

"And that, of course, is why I'm here." She knelt down and pressed her hands against Kurogane's jaws. "You are lacking your mother's gentility, but perhaps there is some hope for you. Your soul has the potential of strength, if you learn to look for it in the right places. Continue to resist, on the other hand, and you may realize what you are looking for too late."

"What is Kurorin looking for?" Fai asked, leaning closer.

The woman's eyes fell on Fai and seemed to darken for a moment, although it could have been just the effect of shadows passing the room. "It is not your place to ask, child. You will influence his actions, but if his actions do not come from his own wants, they will be meaningless. You need only worry about what you are looking for." She pressed closer to him, studying his eyes as if written in them was the story of Fai's past, present, and future. "But what trouble does one who believes he is happy have in finding happiness? Those who foster light in their hearts must always be wary of having it put out. Abandon your true desire, and there is every chance that it will abandon you. Everything has a price. Even grief. Even happiness."

Kurogane tried to push her away from Fai, and the witch rose to her feet with a laugh. She took Yui's small hands in hers and squeezed them gently. "Where is the priestess, child? Do you know?"

"V-visiting the neighbors," Yui said, his eyes widening. "They're having a baby."

The woman smiled. "Do not fear to speak, my child. A quiet voice is still beautiful." She paused for a moment and pursed her lips. "But a baby, you say? A boy. Yes, I see. When Clow inherits the Reed family manor, he will need someone to pick up after him. This one will have to do."

"What are you talking about, Witch-san?" Fai had crept up against the woman's leg, admiring the butterflies on her kimono.

"Witch-san. I see that perhaps giving a name would be of use to me. You may call me Yuuko, little Fai. And I am only speaking of the future."

With one last puff of her pipe, she nodded to Kurogane and left just as quietly as she had arrived.

"The future," Fai murmured. "It's not yet certain."

"Sounded fishy to me," Kurogane huffed.

"Is Kuro-chan grumpy because Yuuko-san knew secret things about him?"

"Oh, hush." He crossed his arms and scowled. "By the way, how did she know your name?"

"She did? Maybe she knows Ashura-oniisan. Or maybe it's magic!"

"Magic," Kurogane scoffed, but he could not help but wonder what the witch's knowing expression and cryptic words meant. Abandon your true desire, and there is every chance that it will abandon you. What was going to happen to Fai? And why was she, a dark stranger who hadn't even wanted to give her name, the only one who knew?

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