Authors' Notes: Sooorrrry for the wait between updates! We were in the midst of moving in together. We're hoping this means quicker updates as I now have a much shorter commute to work and school. ^_^

Anyways! So this isn't a chapter chapter. We've been talking a lot about the happenings of Seimei and Soubi when Ritsuka isn't there to bear witness. We do NOT want to shift this story to different POVs, but want to stay consistent and keep it with Ritsuka throughout. However, there were so many ideas we were coming up with that we decided it would be really fun to add "Extras" in between chapters. You know, like "Goodnight Baby" in the manga.

Now... if you wish to only have Ritsuka's POV, you may skip these extras. They will be clearly labeled as such, so there should be no mistaking them for a chapter. We will have extras from Soubi and from Seimei, and it will give you more insight on whats happening with them.

Also, thank you thank you thank you SO VERY MUCH for all the reviews to the last chapter! Its really encouraging and it caused a massive mudslide of ideas for us. We have so many notes, its crazy!

So, onward with the first extra of the fic!

Extra: Soubi - The Scarf

There were three hundred transactions last month, twenty of which were new customers. Soubi was pleased. A vast majority of his clientele were regulars-which served Soubi's purposes just fine. Regulars were dependable, safe, and discreet. Those who made a habit of frequenting a place like Soubi's House laid great plans to hide their actions. But gaining new customers was good in its own way: it allowed Soubi's business to grow. That was his primary goal.

Some regulars, though...some regulars were trouble. Which is why Ritsuka was on probation. Soubi had no shortage of ideas about how to keep him occupied during his hiatus from the streets. There was a new boy that Soubi was scouting for the House...perhaps Ritsuka would be an acceptable mentor for him. And even if he weren't, there were always other tasks to be done. Soubi's House hadn't released a video for quite some time, after all...

He closed the transaction document and opened the file containing profiles. Ritsuka's wasn't very full, but he had a lovely collections of photographs started. The mouse hovered over the slideshow button- he shouldn't do this to himself again. But, nevertheless...

He clicked it quickly, before he wasted his whole evening internally debating about it. Ritsuka was a beautiful child. He so resembled Seimei, it almost painful just to look at him. And yet he found himself unintentionally staring, far more often than he cared to admit. And when Ritsuka smiled... It was nothing short of torture when he smiled.

But he didn't smile often. He possessed none of Seimei's alluring honey-sweet charm. Ritsuka was cautious and reserved and far too gullible for his own good. He carried warmth in his heart but ice like a protective armor. Seimei carried warmth in his voice but ice in his heart.

Ritsuka did possess something of Seimei's, though. Something very odd.

Aoyagi.

It was Ritsuka's last name, and God knew it was Seimei's too. Soubi had been shocked at first, to learn of the similarity. Ritsuka's mother was very conspicuously placing flyers all over town...it wasn't difficult for Soubi to research her, as well as her family. She had no sons but Ritsuka. No daughters either, for that matter. It was an impossibility that Seimei and Ritsuka were brothers, despite their physical resemblance to each other. The rest of the family seemed to be shrouded in a bit of mystery- information was fragmented and inconclusive. But there seemed to be no connection to Seimei, or of anyone of Seimei's age. Ritsuka obviously hadn't known him before his first night on the job, and hadn't seemed at all aware of their similarities.

Photo after photo flashed past Soubi's eyes. Ritsuka sullen, Ritsuka angry, Ritsuka unaware of a camera in his vicinity, Ritsuka withdrawn into himself...there was emotion in his eyes that Seimei never showed. Never. No matter how much Soubi wished for even the barest hint of it...even if it were negative...

Seimei's heart was neither ice nor fire. It was dirt. Soubi once thought that love could grow there...that he could be the one to sow that seed. But Soubi knew now that Seimei's heart was barren soil. Nothing would flourish there. Nothing would bloom.

There was a pure heart-one that beat for Soubi, and Soubi alone. Soubi suspected that love had already grown there, and that it would grow stronger if Soubi could only...

Kio slid his hands into Soubi's hair, looking up at him with sad, concerned eyes. "Let me take care of you...please. Let me in."

"You don't need someone like me. You don't deserve this."

"But I do...I really do." Such certainty in Kio's voice. Such longing. He leaned up and kissed Soubi's lips softly.

An image of black, curly hair. Honeyed words and a smooth smile.

"You deserve someone whole."

Kio brushed a lock of Soubi's hair behind his ear. "You could be whole again."

Soubi wanted to believe. But even that much felt like a miracle. And that's how Soubi knew that Kio was wrong. He wasn't going to be whole. Not ever again.

Kio was, he had to admit, the person who had kept him going, after everything. There was a time when Soubi felt no longer human, as if Seimei had literally plucked out his heart and taken it away with him. Soubi had been left still physically able to function, but with all his humanity snuffed out-like an automaton.

There were times when Kio could make his dead heart flutter, even pound. But it was always fleeting and, in the end, always stuttered and fell still- a butterfly struggling to keep flight, only to drift inevitably downward, until it fell upon the snow; cold and quiet and hopeless.

Soubi pulled his cell phone from his pocket, which had begun to buzz softly. Kio, it read, with a sunny picture of him in the corner. Despite himself, Soubi felt his mouth soften into something that might be considered the beginnings of a smile, but he did not answer. Instead, he closed it into the top drawer of his desk and turned back to the bouquet of Ritsuka photographs.

"Beautiful child," he said to the empty study.

He had considered keeping Ritsuka for his own in the beginning. In all honesty, it kept crossing his mind, even now, when Ritsuka had already begun to work the streets and Kio had dolled him up to sinfully tempting perfection.

He was a second chance, Seimei in miniature; a sweet, cute package that had at first been unwrapped by no one but Soubi.

He kept resisting, though. Ritsuka was a miraculous imprint of Seimei, a lifelike doll of the real thing. But he was NOT the real thing, and for all of Ritsuka's passion he didn't have that drive that Seimei did. He had fire inside of him, but not the iced fire Seimei wielded that made Soubi feel like the perfect victim. He wanted to be claimed, branded, controlled; and Seimei was the only one who could give that to him exactly as he needed it.

Only Seimei.

Hands shaking, Soubi opened the very bottom drawer of his desk. He took from it a scarf in Chrystal Fog Grey. It was soft and worn from so many times of handling it, but it was still in beautiful condition, exactly as it had been the day he had received it.

He pressed it to his face and inhaled; the scent was nearly gone. Something inside him seemed to darken another shade. One day it would fade completely, and Soubi was afraid he would forget altogether what it had been like.

With a resigned sigh-something he would NEVER do around his House Boys-he tucked away the scarf and turned back to the computer. Ritsuka's smile was still heart-stopping adorable, but he clicked it off.

It was too late for him. Ritsuka, no matter how Seimei-like, would never do. And Kio, for all the desire he was able to ignite, wouldn't do either. Soubi had been spoiled for the touch and control of only one. One whose love he still craved.

Seimei.

Thank you again for reading! Please review!

- Magic Mind and BC3