Notes: This chapter should be a bit longer... More into the plot I hope^^ *bows* Enjoy!

Pairings: Ran x ???

Warnings: AU, yaoi, fluff

Disclaimer: Not mine. Why not? Too crazy! Like me! ^_______^

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A Painting Of Orchids

Chapter 1 : Watching

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Scarlet hair was blown back as he walked sedately along the sidewalk. He took no notice to the other people crowding around him, oblivious to everyone as he was. Only a single face loomed in his mind, a painting. Orchids crowned a face that he could not yet imagine. He was trapped within the prison of the unfinished portrait of a face he could not find.

For once in his life, Ran was truly blocked. Cut off from his paintings, unable to continue. He felt tired, old...incomplete.

"Where are you?" he murmured to no one but himself, sitting on the stoop of the library. He lay his face in his hands, frustrated and angry. "Why is this so hard?" People jostled past him, bumping him in their rush to complete mundane tasks. Busy about their everyday monotonous lives that never ceased to cycle. Oblivious to the growing anguish within their midst.

Finally, Ran straight once again and began to walk back home. There was nothing for him here as there was nothing for him near the painting. The half finished canvas leering at him with cruel amusement. The red haired man stared ahead, gaze unfocused as his thoughts plodded along tediously. 'I can't find it...'

His thought was cut off as his shoulder impacted with the body of a person. Grocery bags fell to the sidewalk, split and spilled. Several surprised gasps sounded at once, as though from a single entity gazing down upon them. But Ran could only stare. A chocolate gaze that had met his the brief instant before the bags had fallen and reality had slammed its ugly doors into the place. Those eyes...

"Forgive me..." Ran told him, helping to pick up the fallen foods. A low chuckle emitted from the stranger as he rushed to get out of the way of the impatient pedestrians.

"Don't worry about." He kept his face down, unable to look up at Ran for some unknown reason. "I wasn't watching where I was going."

"There's is no need for you to take unnecessary fault. May I help you with these?" For the truth to be told, Ran would not have normally offered such assistance but this stranger was an exception. The red head felt an insatiable urge to glimpse those eyes again, drink in it's chocolate gaze. If only he would lift his face...

"Don't worry about it." There! He looked up at Ran, flashing a brilliant smile with a handsomely carved mouth. His gaze was bright, beautiful and melted within its amethyst counterpart. Ran's own eyes widened, taken aback at such beauty. But then the smile faded and it's occupant shrugged.

"I insist." Ran informed him, taking a bag from his arms. Another shrug lifted broad shoulders of the stranger and the two walked down the sidewalk in silence to where he lived. At his door, the chocolate gazed one turned to face Ran.

"You don't have to carry that bag anymore. Thank you very much." Ran settled his bag carefully on the cement step.

"What's your name?" the red head inquired, desperate to be near this handsome angel for only a brief moment longer.

"Hidaka Ken."

It was only a few hours after Ran had reentered his own home and fell carelessly upon his bed that he realized, he had found his query. 'Ken...'