Disclaimer: (I forgot this in the prologue) Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion belongs to Sunrise and CLAMP. X/1999 belongs to CLAMP, too.

A/N: Those who have story-alerted or favourited this, please review. I'm sure you have a reason to click that 'go' button beside 'Add Story to Favourites/Story Alert'. I admit that I can be a review whore at times. I have a serious lack of focus with regards to stories (check my bio and you'll understand. I have never finished a non-one-shot story). Reviews either motivate me or send me to a guilty trip (both will make me continue writing). I don't mind one-liners like: 'I read this and find it intriguing. Please update soon' or 'I like Lelouch in pink' (Me too, Nusku. Remember a picture of Lelouch and Rolo where Lelouch is wearing a salmon shirt with a tie? Delicious XD). To those who have reviewed, thank you so much, I appreciate every scrap of attention you give to this baby (not because this story is particularly a darling of mine, but because it's so, so young, and in danger of dying).

Chapter 1: Lelouch by any other name is still Lelouch (i.e. the anal over-analyst with OCD)

The young man in the mirror had large almond-shaped amethyst eyes, framed by long lashes the same inky black colour as the strands that fell to the pale, porcelain skin over his fine cheekbones. The rest of his hair cascaded down his back, the curled ends resting on his shoulders and the middle of his spine. His nose and his jaw were defined, yet his features were slightly effeminate…and not at all oriental.

Sakurazuka Kamui touched his reflection and frowned, watching in rapture as creases appeared between the brows of the image, parroting his expression.

It was the first time Kamui had the chance to see himself since he left the – his – tomb. Last night S.S. had asked him to get into the passenger seat of a small dark green car and drove him through several hours' journey. It had been too dark for Kamui to see his reflection on the rear-view and side mirrors. Besides, as soon as Kamui was inside the car, S.S. had handed him a hat, a pair of sunscreen and a sentence: "If you're re-captured you'll be buried alive again."

Kamui had a thousand and one questions to ask: by whom? Why? Do I have enemies? Why do you rescue me? How am I related to you?

Who am I?

All you've told me was a name that reveals none of my past.

But S.S. didn't seem like she would indulge him with an answer, her mismatched eyes fixated on the road (how she could drive in that kimono was beyond Kamui), and before dawn the duo had arrived at a small town by the sea. The car stopped by a little house near the rocky beach with wilting plants coiling the white picket fence. She had shown him into one of the bedrooms, deposited a set of clothing for him to change to and a promise to purchase him more later on.

Kamui went into the bathroom and shed the brown jacket, black sleeveless turtleneck and jeans he wore – they felt slightly moldy and he had to wonder just how long he had been buried before stopping abruptly because he was afraid of the implications of the answer. As he was washing himself, frowning at the dust and grime covering his skin and avoiding the same question again, he noticed a mark on the palm of his right hand, the same crane that was branded on S.S.' neck. It tingled when he traced it with a finger and he repressed a shudder.

After cleaning himself thoroughly, Kamui stepped out from the comfortable spray of hot water, put on the oversized unisex t-shirt and blue cargo pants before wiping the condensation off the cool mirror and scrutinising his appearance.

He couldn't remember how he looked like, but from his name, he'd expected he'd be more Asian, more…Eleven. Was he a half? If so, what was his other nationality?

Was S.S. lying to him?

"Don't be vain," the devil spoke as she passed by, handing him a toothbrush and a tube of toothpaste before brushing her teeth next to the sink he was standing behind. She had discarded her kimono for a monochromic formal assemble, her long hair pinned up to a neat bun.

She raised an eyebrow when he was caught staring at her contemplatively. Kamui blushed and shoved the brush into his mouth as S.S. finished brushing her teeth. "Breakfast's on the dining table," she stated as she exited the bathroom, "the refrigerator is stocked. I'll be off for work. Don't wait up."

"E-eh?" Kamui nearly chocked and he chased her to the porch, toothbrush dangling from his lips notwithstanding. He hadn't asked her anything! "B-but-"

After slipping her feet into her shoes, S.S. turned around to face him, her eyes sombre and steely. "Don't get out of the building, and don't let anyone in."

She left when Kamui was stunned. Only after the click of the lock rang in the air did Kamui start moving again, eyes wide with disbelief.

Breakfast was a carton of high calcium, low fat milk and a packet of cereal. He poured them to an empty porcelain bowl and carried his meal to the living room, switching on the television before plopping onto the sofa.

He glanced at the news as he ate. He couldn't read most of the characters flashed at the bottom of the screen, but he could understand the words spoken by the caster fairly well. That language…was Eleven's. But S.S. had not been speaking to him in that language. It was another language he was well-versed in. Britannian, the word popped into his head, like 'Eleven' had.

The date, 18th August 2021 a.t.b., was showed at the top right corner of the television. Kamui listened absentmindedly as the caster talked of the launching of new Knightmare Frames that are hoped to bring improvements to the agricultural sector, mulling over his lost identity.

Judging from his looks, he should be in his late teenage years. His father was probably an Eleven and his mother a Britannian, if the one information S.S. bestowed him – his name – was to be trusted. Where were his parents now? Were they dead? Did he have any siblings? Probably not, if S.S. was the only one to wait upon him at the graveyard…Who was S.S., anyway? She didn't seem like a relative or a friend…

Then, of course…Kamui flipped his right hand and stared at the symbol. Why did he have that? What was the significance of that mark? How did it connect him to S.S.?

A possibility appeared in Kamui's mind. May be, he had been a mafia, an associate of a secret organisation, or the like. Mafias do that, don't they? Tattooing the members with an emblem? May be that was why he had been buried alive. He got himself into skirmishes, made enemies…may be the only way he could get himself off the hook was to pretend he was dead. Only a mishap happened and he lost his memories in the charade.

There was another thing that bugged him. Kamui was written by the character 'God' in Eleven's language. Was that fact supposed to mean something?

Kamui sighed and leaned back onto the padding of the sofa. His mind was running in circles. He wouldn't be able to progress if any of the conditions weren't cleared, anyways, so he told himself to stop killing his brain cells over inadequate information.

Or he could hunt for a computer and researched recent events.

Kamui rose to his feet in one single determined swoop. The weight of his hair felt strange to his head, like he wasn't used to having such a feminine length, though he honestly couldn't remember how he wore his hair in the past. Besides, the heat of summer was getting to him. Kamui twisted the raven locks and put it to one side before starting his venture.

The amethyst-eyed youth discovered an assortment of household technology: an automatic centralised heating system, washing and drying machine, electric stove, oven, refrigerator, coffee-maker…but no communication devices, no telephone, no fax – the television was Kamui's only connection to the world outside.

And, Kamui observed as he swiped the surface of a tabletop with his fingertip, there was a layer of dust over the place. S.S. hadn't been living here for a long time. Was that house purposely rented for him? There were only two bedrooms, after all…

The youth stopped before his baseless speculations spiralled out of hand.

But he was bored! There was nothing to do…

Or so Kamui thought, before the dust particles he displaced made him sneeze for the umpteenth time.

That settled it. He was going to purge this place.

Pinning his hair up with a pencil he found in the study, Kamui retrieved the vacuum cleaner and rags from the kitchen and set out on removing the tiniest speck of dust from this cottage, letting the television drone on in the background as he listened with half an ear, storing significant news in his brain (hopefully S.S. wouldn't chew him out for wasting electricity?). The cleaning provided a good distraction. And somehow, the mindless activity soothed him.

Kamui avoided the door to S.S.' room till there was no other location to cleanse. He stared at the piece of wood for a couple of minutes, a hand hovering above the handle hesitantly before he sighed. 'Just get on with it!' he peeked in slightly, ready to slam the door back if he saw, say, a man bleeding to death on her mattress.

Instead, he found a shipwreck after a week of storm. There were trinkets strewn all over the four corners: dirty clothes, discarded books, crumpled pieces of papers, chocolate wrappers and empty boxes of…burgers? In short, S.S.' chamber looked like a rat's nest instead of a lady's room.

The switch in Kamui's brain was ticked and before the boy knew it he was already throwing the empty (and moulding) food packaging and other trashes to a garbage bag, hauling the mass of dirty clothes to the laundry – he had the mind to stuff the whole thing down the washing machine, colours be damned, but he didn't do things like that so he got himself a pair of rubber gloves and separated the garments, praying he wouldn't encounter any bras and panties – and arranging the books on the in-built shelf in the room. Most of the books were written in complicated unrecognisable characters different from Eleven's, containing various complicated arrays and diagrams with symbols. Kamui couldn't understand the writings but he recognised the Dao (A/N: Yin-yang circle) splashed on a page and suspected the reading materials had something to do with the spiritual world. Why was S.S. reading these books? Were they related to her work?

Kamui wondered if it was just in his nature to ask copious questions.

As the washing and drying machines did their work, Kamui vacuumed S.S.' room and aired the mattress and pillows. He changed the sheets before arranging the cleaned clothes in her closet according to colours – not as tedious as it sounded, really, because Kamui realised most of S.S.' clothes were black or white, formal western blouses, blazers and skirts. Clothes like the green kimono she wore last night – bright-coloured and eastern – were extremely sporadic.

In his task, Kamui discovered one neat pile of clothes, folded and ironed (weren't his doing at all), consisting mostly of monochromic shirts, pants and trench coats. Strange, considering the previous chaos he came across. The amethyst-eyed youth picked one short-sleeved black turtleneck from the top of the stack, a buckle adorning the collar, and put the attire against his torso. From the seam and the cutting, it was clearly a man's apparel; a little big for Kamui, but S.S. could lend him these garbs instead of buying him new ones. He sniffed the fabric. There was an undertone of cologne, musky and spicy beneath the scent of a peculiar detergent, a sweet and cloying floral fragrance. Unlike other garments, this pile had been well maintained.

Kamui smelled his own shirt and grimaced. It reeked of sweat, the material drenched in perspiration from the heat and the chores. The discomfort he was distracted from weighed on him full force that instance, and he took off the shirt and used it to wipe his sweat before grabbing the turtleneck and putting it on.

As Kamui put the rest back to the drawer, a framed photograph slipped out and cluttered to the wooden floor. The picture was faded and crumbling at the corners, the colours turned brownish from the oxidation of the inks, but it was clearly as treasured as the clothes.

A man was inside the photo, young and beautiful, strands of silky pitch black hair framing smooth, porcelain face with such fine bone structure, his complexion enhanced by the black shirt, white coat and blood red scarf he wore. He looked…sad, though, wore grief like a second skin, bone-deep weariness and resignation emanating from the line of his lips, his smile shattered pieces of forgotten happiness put together wrongly. His eyes – round, delicate, long-lashed features – were mismatched, one dulled, dead green and the other strangely aggressive, mocking amber. (1)

'Is he…S.S' brother?' Kamui traced the glass over the man's face with his finger. The two looked nothing alike, her face oval instead of heart-shaped like the man's, her hair brown, her facial features rounded, but they shared the same mismatched eyes. 'Half brother, then?'

"Kamui?" a high-pitched effeminate voice echoed through the house, nearly making him jump a foot in the air in shock. "Kamui? Where are you? I'm back from work!"

"H-here!" Kamui put the frame on top of the clothes and closed the drawer haphazardly. He rose to his feet, glancing at the sky over the window as he proceeded to get out of S.S.' room and was surprised that it was filled by an orchestra of swirling gold, vermilion and amethyst. The cleaning had been too good a distraction.

S.S. was washing her hands in the kitchen sink when he met her. There were several shopping bags on the floor, cluttered near her feet, but Kamui's eyes were glued to the rivulets of water dripping down her fingers. Was it Kamui's imagination or did the water really have a reddish tinge? "I've bought you the clothes I promi-"

Her dual-coloured eyes widened to the size of saucers when she looked up at him. Before Kamui could even blink, he found himself backed against a wall, S.S.' hand clenched tightly around a patch of fabric below his larynx. For a girl almost half a foot shorter than him she was strong, her grip iron vices, oozing with a sharp coppery scent and the similar floral fragrance he discovered from the turtleneck. "Take it off!" she snarled to his face, her eyes vicious.

Amethyst eyes widened in response. "S.S., w-what-" he gasped.

"Take the shirt off!" she nearly screamed, a frantic edge clear in her voice, a hysterical gleam in her eyes, the look often found in cornered animals who are resolved to fighting tooth and nails to survive. "You have no right-!" she choked, her knuckles whitening.

"Yes, I will take it off. I will," Kamui replied obediently and raised his hands in an offer of peace. He appeared strangely calm, though his heart was pulsing more rapidly. "Please let go of me first."

She inhaled deeply before letting go, her hand trembling, and Kamui was quick to open the buckle around his neck and stripped out of the shirt, handing it over to her slowly, as though afraid he was going to be amputated if his limb got too close to her.

She snatched it and buried her face into the fabric, tense shoulders relaxing like a taut string that had been cut abruptly after breathing in the scent, her eyes closing.

Kamui watched her warily, one hand rubbing the base of his neck to soothe the skin. It was probably going to bruise. The pencil that kept his hair up had fallen in the commotion, and his hair was tickling his back, but he didn't dare to pick the pencil up.

"I'm sorry…" S.S. sounded way, way saner after she extracted her face from the cloth and folded it reverently. Her eyes were lucid when she stared at him.

"I'm sorry," Kamui retorted, his eyes holding her gaze. Whatever moment that transpired between them had passed, he knew. "I shouldn't have gone around wearing other people's things without asking for permiss-"

The growl from Kamui's stomach interrupted his apology. There was an instance of flawless silence before the ends of S.S.' lips curled upwards. Kamui blushed profusely as she chuckled.

"You probably forgot to eat while you were cleaning the place," S.S. moved her hand in a swooping gesture. "Thank you for that, by the way…"

"Ah…" Kamui bent his head, flushing abashedly. "It's nothing much…"

"I really appreciate it," S.S. said before she squatted and rummaged through the shopping bags, adding absentmindedly, "I never could bring myself to wipe away the dust…was too lazy."

She retrieved a set of clothing from the bags, yanked the labels off and passed it to the amethyst-eyed boy. "Here, you can take a shower and change into these as I prepare dinner."

Kamui rationalised his discoveries once again as he ducked his head under the spray of hot water. The treasured clothes…most likely belong to that man in the photograph, whoever he was. He must be precious to S.S. to tick her off like that…she struck Kamui an unemotional woman, not easily shaken by adversities (unless they involved that man, perhaps).

And…was she washing blood off her hands just now?

Just who the heck was S.S.?

'Someone with a decent fashion sense, definitely' his mind supplied as he admired the ensemble on the mirror when he combed his hair. The girl herself gave him a look over when Kamui entered the kitchen and smiled; a part-inch quirk of the lips Kamui had noticed was a rarity. "Not many males can pull wearing soft pink off, but the colour suits you."

Kamui was decked in a slightly snug short-sleeved v-necked soft salmon shirt and knee-length white pants, both of which enhanced his complexion and flattered his lithe form without making him appear anorexic. Cheeks blushing darker than his shirt, he was about to deny the compliment when his eyeballs budged out of their sockets. "What are you doing to the onion?"

S.S. blinked at him, the hand curled around the handle of a knife frozen midair, another hand holding the shredded bulb on the chopping board; a picture of domestic bliss, with a frilly apron over her formal shirt.

"You're butchering it!" Kamui spoke in distress and reached out to grab the utensil from her. As she handed it perplexedly, he managed a look at the pot and cried out again. "Why did you boil the leafy vegetables first?"

In the end, S.S. could only sit and stare as Kamui moved about deftly, the apron over his front, cutting, peeling, stirring and adding ingredients reflexively. In less than half an hour, two plates of steaming white rice and beef stew were placed on the dining table.

For the first time after taking charge of the meal preparation, Kamui looked surprised and worried at his decision to abide by his instincts, wondering if it was a good one. "I'm not sure if it'll taste good…" he filled the silence. S.S.' gaze had turned pensive.

Nevertheless, she clasped her hands together. "Itadakimasu," (2) she murmured and scooped one spoonful to her mouth, chewing slowly. Eternity seemed to pass before she swallowed and smiled. "It's delicious."

The boy heaved a sigh of relief. "Thank goodness," he took his fork and spoon. "I can't remember cooking something before…I don't know what came over me…" he confessed.

Her mismatched eyes grew distant, again. "Karada wa oboeru yo," she whispered, her voice sombre, "Kokoro ga wasureru koto." (3)

'The body remembers what the mind forgets,' Kamui understood. That statement revealed two more facts to life. S.S. was well-versed in Eleven's…and S.S. knew about his past. He opened his mouth to fire more questions, but S.S. had that look again, that look that said she had filled her quota of the day and would clam up for the rest of the night.

'That's fine,' Kamui told himself when quietness cloaked them again, neither stifling nor comfortable. He would find the truth, he vowed, in time.

TBC

(1) A cookie for those who can guess who the man in the photograph is =D

(2) Itadakimasu literally means 'I will receive.' It is sort of a short expression of gratitude Japanese say before eating their meals.

(3) Now, now, my Japanese grammar sucks. I'm sure I shouldn't have written 'ga' after 'kokoro' but I don't know what else to write. Please feel free to correct me. (In fact, my English grammar can be quite shaky at times, too. Anyone who is willing to be my beta-reader, please inform me.)