A/N: Let me shout for a while, FURIHATA KOUKI IS GOING TO APPEAR IN THE NEXT CHAPTER OMGOMGOMG. I waited for months and finally! T^T Haha... Happy Lunar New Year to all of you lol. Remember to keep those money you get and don't waste them xD

I don't own characters in KNB so yeah :D Enjoy and please review, to give me some support XD

I think I must have been asked this once… before I was born, by someone, somewhere.

When he opened his eyes, the first thing he laid eyes on was a white door with a golden door knob.

He looked around, finding himself in a room which was completely white, from the ceiling to the floor. There was nothing in the room except for the door he saw earlier. Looking down, he wasn't at all surprised to find himself totally dressed in white clothing: white shirt, white pants and even his shoes were white.

In his disorientated state, the young man tried to recall what happened earlier, prior to being sent to this room, but nothing came to mind.

Absolutely nothing at all!

He felt panic rising within him. In his current state, he was nothing more than empty shell, with no memories, not even his own name! All of a sudden, he felt a sharp, throbbing pain piercing through his head. He ended up falling to his knees from the pain, clutching his head with his hands. And it seemed like the harder he tried to recall what happened, the more intense the pain he felt – almost like his skull had been split apart and he ceased to think of anything at all. Seconds, minutes or even hours could have passed before the pain started to fade away and when he finally recovered, it was a while before he managed to get back onto his unsteady feet.

Now that he was in a better state of mind and completely free of pain, he was unsure of what to do next. For starters, he didn't even know what he was doing in this room, much less what he could do in here when the room is completely devoid of anything but him and the door.

His intuition however, told him that to open the door in front of him, in order to get the answers he wanted. Who was he, where he was from, and why he was here now, all answers lie behind that door. He could feel it in his gut!

Slowly, he walked towards the door. He paused in front of it, taking a few deep breathes before he turned the golden door knob. The door opened easily with a gentle 'click'. The young man hesitated for a while before opening it wider. On the other side of the door was an identical room. The only difference is that in the middle of the room, there was another man sitting in front of a wooden table.

He had bright red hair, the colour of red spider lilies, and he was wearing a purple ikan sugata which only made him look timeless and elegant. The red-haired man was looking at the shogi board on the table, deep in thought as his placed his index finger and thumb beneath his jaw.

When he stepped into the room, that person immediately looked up from the shogi board, as if he could sense him the moment he went into that room, and their eyes met each other. That was when he realised that the person's eyes were crimson in colour. His eyes held intensity and warmth, but there was sadness and bitterness within them as well. He knew very well that it was rude to stare and yet, he was unable to look away for some reason. It almost felt like he was going to drown in the emotions held within those crimson orbs.

The man gave a small smile when he saw him, which almost took his breath away. Gesturing to the seat opposite him, he spoke with a clear voice, "Please take a seat."

He hesitated a little before nodding his head before he walked towards the seat and sat himself down in front of the other man

"Who are you? Why are we here? Where are we?" He asked, unable to quell the curiosity that has been eating him ever since he regained conciousness.

The person only shrugged and offered him a slightly bigger smile than before. "I'm sorry, but I cannot answer your questions except for the last one. We are in the heaven and you're going to be reincarnated after our meeting here. Everyone has to go through this before they are born… Okay, so shall we start?"

Before he could protest, the red head spoke again.

"Choose one, the past or the future, and I will allow you to see it."

The young man started to panic once more but the more rational side of him convinced him otherwise.

No, don't be afraid.

When he managed to quell his fears, his mind drifted to the question. The past, or the future?

"Which one will it be?" The red head muttered softly to himself, but loud enough for the other to hear.

"I will choose the past," he looked at the person, "So that, rather than just being strong, I could become kind and understand what memories are."

The red headed man gave a nod at his answer. What he didn't realise was one of the pieces of the shogi board on his side moved a step forward. The moment he answered the question, something flashed through his mind, causing him a slight pain. It was a memory from the past and to be accurate, it was HIS memory although he wasn't sure how he knew that.

He saw a baby boy was born to a poor family with two kids during a thunderstorm night. The baby must have been him, he thought to himself.

The arrival of the newborn baby did bring joy to the family initially, but as his siblings increased, it only made the couple's life tougher as the money they had was never enough to feed every mouth in the family. When the child turned 5, just like his elder siblings before him, he went on to work for one of the wealthy in order to reduce his parents' burden. As he grew older, he became more and more beautiful as the years passed, even surpassing the beauty of some of the girls in their village.

However, at that time, his family fell into hard times when their crops failed to yield enough for them to sell in exchange for money. In their desperate state, his parents had no choice but to sell him to a famous brothel in the red light district of town. Selling their children for money was not an uncommon thing at that time for desperate parents like his' own. They still had 6 children to feed and they knew that the huge amount of money they would get in would last them well into the following year.

Although he knew that he was watching his own past, it all felt so unreal to him. He couldn't even see the people's faces clearly as things passed with a blur. He didn't feel anything when he saw his so-called family bringing him into the brothel, or when he saw what he had gone through in his past life.

Did death take away his emotions too?

After two years being in the brothel, he became the most sought-after courtesan in the entire hanamichi. Nobles and wealthy businessmen would come into the brothel just to catch a glimpseof his breath-taking appearance. Many of them could and would have bought him his freedom if he asked but he wasn't willing to go with them. He knew that he was nothing more than a toy to them. Once they were tired of him, they would just cast him aside. All he ever wanted was someone who was truly in love with him, even though he knew very well it was a fruitless fantasy for someone who made a living from selling his own body.

When he first started to work in the brothel, he hated himself for being filthy. Every touch and kiss from his patrons was degrading and disgusting. He felt like a small part of him would die every time he slept with a different patron. He even tried to run away from the brothel once but he was swiftly the guards and badly beaten as punishment. He wanted to end his life so badlyand he thought that death might free him from this prison of his. He already had enough of this.

However, things changed when a new patron showed up in his chambers one night. This man was gentle and well-mannered, as one would expect from a nobleman. He treated him well and he never forced him to do anything he didn't like unlike most of the patrons he has had in the past. Whenever he came to see him, instead of just having sex, they would talk about mundane things about things outside the hanamichi that he had long forgotten.Sometimes he would play several songs onthe shamisen or on the rare occasions, he'd even dance for him.

As time passed, herealised that he had fallen deeply in love with that gentleman, and without him knowing, the man paid double of the amount of his ransom, and thus redeeming him from the brothel. Only then did he realise that the gentleman he had been so in love with was the headof a well-known family. They got married despite facing various objections from his family, and for a while, everything was perfect for them.

They spent their days in peace and happiness until someone from his husband's family grew too ambitious and chose to rid their family of their current head. They hired some ronin to help them finish the job, knowing that the masterless samurais would do anything for a handsome fee. The ronin infiltrated the household in the middle of the night and they searched the entire house for their target. But of course, the family head was no fool as he had long expected something like this to happen. Pulling out a katana hidden below his futon and he engaged the ronin. His fighting skills were way above average and even the well-trained ronin couldn't as much as touch him.

The fallen ronin lay in puddles of their own blood as the nobleman looked around the room, feeling relief surging through him as he thought of his own lover who escaped from the carnage unharmed. His safety was of utmost importance!

He only let his guard down for a moment and that was his biggest mistake right there. One of the ronin who was badly injured got to his feet, his hands gripping his katana tightly. Without warning, he charged towards the nobleman who was a second too late in noticing him. Just as the blade was about to pierce through the nobleman's chest, his lover ran out from the place he had been hiding the entire time and pushed him away. The blade pierced through his' own body instead.

When the nobleman realised what had happened, in his fit of rage, he picked up the bloodied katana from the floor and severed the head of the ronin in one clean swipe. As he heard the head fall onto the tatami mats with a 'thump', he dropped to his knees at the sight of his fallen lover. Blood was flowing out of his wound at an alarming rate and he knew his lover had only moments left to live. Clasping his' dying lover's hands, he pressed weak kisses on them hoping that by some miracle that it would help revive him.

Tears began to flow freely down the nobleman's face in his grief. The pain that he felt in his heart was unimaginable as he could only helplessly watch the person he loved the most die in his arms. He opened his mouth to say something to the dying man but the words were lost and he couldn't hear what they were. The warm tears that started dripping onto his face was his last sensation before everything faded into darkness.

The young man was jerked back to reality once more.

He looked around in his disorientated state and found that he was still seated in the white room and the red headed man was still sitting at the table in front of him. Everything he just saw earlier was just like a dream, or maybe even a nightmare. He knew what he saw was real - it was his past, he had no more doubts about it now. But somehow, he had a nagging feeling that the man in front of him was connected to his past, and maybe even on a more intimate level.

The red head seemed unaware of the fact that the other man was watching his every move. His fingers were busy fiddling with the shogi pieces and his eyes were full of sadness and something that looked very much like regret to him.

Why do you look so sad, he wanted to ask him, but a part of his mind stopped him from asking. He had the feeling that this question would only hurt the other man.

The person cleared his throat before he started.

"I'll give you arms, legs, mouths, ears and eyes. The same goes to the hearts, chests and nostrils, I'll give you two for each one."

Looking at the other's surprised face, the red head chuckled softly, "Isn't that great?"

The young man tilted his head as he thought for a while before he decided to make a request.

"Thank you for your offer, but... But I will be fine with just one mouth," He smiled as his as his index and middle fingers slightly touched his slight curved lips, "So I wouldn't argue with myself, so I could only kiss a person, the person that I love and willing to spend the rest of my life with."

The red head was stunned when he heard such an answer from him. He lowered his head while he chuckled. However, the young man didn't miss the emotions that appeared in the other's eyes. Although he was smiling, he could see that it didn't quite reach his eyes. For some reason, seeing the other person's sadness made him chest ache a little, almost like getting stabbed in the heart continuously with a knife.

He looked slightly disappointed, was it because he refused his offer?

Looking at him, he had the urge to hug him and comfort him; he couldn't stand it when the person in front of him showed him such a sad look. As he thought more about the stranger sitting right in front of him, the strange feeling that he felt before became stronger. He wanted to stop feeling that way, but the feeling just kept on getting stronger and stronger, and it was beyond his control.

I want to forget, but somehow I can't. What do you call this kind of feeling?

The young man was jerked back to reality when the red head spoke again.

"I will accept your request, if that is what you wish for." Although he was smiling, he could still see the disappointment in his eyes, "Hearts are most important thing to human beings aren't they? I'll put one behind each of your chest, isn't that great?"

He opened his mouth slightly, as if he were trying to say something, before closing it again. The red head's eyes which were full with expectation, which made him hesitate. If his eyes could talk, they would be telling him that they hoped he would accept his offer. Those eyes were also filled with love, wishing the best for him. He was perplexed, those eyes were looking at him, or were they trying to find the traces of someone else through him?

Taking a deep breath, he chose to speak up instead of staying silent like he originally intended to.

"I appreciate for your offer, Mister," He said to the man, who listened to him patiently, "But once more, I had a request to make. I'm awfully sorry, but to be honest, I really don't need a heart on the right side. Sorry to keep troubling you like this."

"Why?" The person questioned him, "If you have two hearts at each side, no one will be able to kill you. You might be able to live longer compared to others. Why would you reject my offer? I don't understand."

Why indeed?

He was not sure about that himself.

When he saw the fragments of his past, he remembered the feeling of hugged by someone. The embrace was so warm that he wished that the warmth would never leave him. As their bodies were pressed against each other, he could feel the strong heartbeats coming from both their hearts.

Ba-dump, ba-dump, ba-dump… Beating rhythmically in time, forming a song unlike any other.

When he realised that he had found his answer, he gave the other man a warm smile of his own.

"It's so that when I found that one special person of mine, and hold her close to me for the first time, only then I will finally be able to feel two hearts beating, one on each side."

Suddenly, he remembered something else, something embedded deep within his memories. Someone, at some place, told him something in a singing tone. Maybe it was a little girl with twin tails threaded with pink ribbons on each side, or even a man who always by his side and cared very much for him, he wasn't sure. The only thing he remembered was this:

"The left will be mine, the right will be yours;

The right will be mine, the left will be yours"

"So that whenever I am alone, I'll always feel that I lack something. So that I won't be able to just go on living along."

He looked at the person straight into his endless crimson eyes. He stared at him calmly, but his eyes were overwhelmed with those unspoken feelings. As he watched the other man closely, he found that he looked quite handsome. His features looked as if they were sculpted by the hands of an artist and those bright red locks of his only served to further accentuate his looks.

As he kept looking at him, the young man could feel warmth making it's way across his cheeks and that strange feeling he had before came back and this time, he didn't resist them. He still had no idea what kind of feeling was that, but he knew that the one who made him feel that way was the person right in front of him. His heart started pounding in his chest; he has never felt his heart beat this fast before. He slowly placed his hand over his left chest, feeling the steady beating of his heart which seemed to increase even now.

Unable to stand it any longer, he closed his eyes in order to restore his composure

I want to forget but somehow, I can't. My chest is pounding, and yet somehow it seems familiar.

What do you call this kind of feeling?

He was curious. Why did he feel this way, especially when he looked at him? What is this, what does this kind of feeling means? He knew he had lost the ability to feel the moment he died. He shouldn't be able to feel his heart beat in the first place! Then, just what is this?

Who are you, why can I control my own feeling whenever I am with you?

Nehh, can you answer my question?

Who are you?

When he finally opened his eyes, he found him staring at him the whole time. The time around them seemed to stop, as if someone just cast a magic spell, separating the both of them from the rest of the world and letting them drown in each other's presence.

Then without any warning, the red head averted his eyes, breaking the eye contact between them.

"Ah, which reminds me…There's one last thing. Would you like to add in tears as well?" He asked him, with his usual smile on his face, "You'd have no problems without them, but some people found them annoying, so they opted out. What would you like?"

What would you like?

He didn't have to think much before answering him. He asked him to add them in, before telling him why with a smile. "So that, rather be just strong, I could become a person who is kind-hearted. I would understand what it means to hold something dear."

He wanted to be able to feel happiness when something good happened to people around him, and sadness when they were suffering. He wanted to be able to cry in joy when the person whom he wanted to spend the rest of his life with appeared in front of him, smiling at him, holding his hand as they continued their journey together. Although he had forgotten how it felt like holding hands with the person you loved the most, but he bet it would be a kind of indescribable happiness.

He then glanced at the other man sitting in front of him.

Did he know what it felt like when holding his loved one's hand?

After receiving an answer, the red head nodded, "Okay. While we're at it, the tears will a flavour, so I'd like you to choose which one you'd prefer. We have sour, salty, spicy and sweet, you can choose whichever you like. So, which will you have?"

"I would like to have several favours of tears. I wish that I can taste different flavour of the tears when I cry over different things." The young man answered confidently.

When I cry in joy, my tears will be sweet;

When I cry because of sadness, my tears will be taste like how I feel, bitter.

The person smiled genuinely at him before getting up from his seat. The red head walked towards him and placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder. "Everything will be over after this, don't worry."

He didn't understand. Why would his fears disappear immediately after listening to what he said?

When he looked down onto the shogi board on the desk, his eyes widened. The pieces that were once neatly arranged on the board had become messy, with pieces lying in disarray over the board and some were swept onto the table.

But what surprised him the most was that there was only a king left in the board, which was the king from his side.

What happened to the shogi board? He was very sure that none of them even touched the board, but it looked as if someone had just played an intense game of shogi.

Someone had just won the game, and that 'someone' was him.

Before he could think further, he felt a pair of palms covering his eyes, the warmth from them seeping into his body. He liked the warmth; it had a familiar feel to it and in reminded him of the feeling of being encompassed in an embrace.

He wasn't sure how much time had passed before he felt the other man's palms leaving his eyes slowly. He stayed there for a while before opening his eyes, as slowly as possible. When he finally opened his eyes, he saw the red headed man right in front of him, smiling warmly at him.

Once again, the strange feeling surged within him. His heart was pumping faster than before. He could feel a stinging sensation in his eyes as some liquid just rolled down his cheeks and dropped onto the back of his hand. He blinked blankly before moving his hand slowly to wipe the tears away.

What was this? Why was he crying?

And then, he felt a pair of hands gently cupping his face, tilting him up to meet the piercing crimson orbs that have been watching him this whole time.

"Everything was put together just as you requested." He looked at him as if he was looking at his' precious love, his incredibly expressive eyes were full of unspoken love, "Don't cry, let me see your face. I want to have a clear look at your face. Come, show it to me with pride."

He fought back the tears that threatened to overflow again, sniffing before looking up at the person. He could see the bitterness and sorrow have been replaced by happiness and satisfaction, and for some reason, it made him very happy to see that.

And without warning, the red head pressed a soft kiss on the other's forehead.

The moment he felt those soft lips was pressed against his forehead, he felt his blood heating his cheeks and his heartbeat accelerating. The strange feeling he ad felt so many times before this now threatened to overwhelm him once and for all.

"I love you, Kouki. Wait for me." The red head smiled softly at him.

Wait, who is Kouki?

He had the feeling that this was going to be the end of their meeting, but he didn't want things to end. He still had a million questions to ask and things that he was dying to know. The young man held on tight to the other man's hand, hoping he would at least catch him if he tried to leave but before he even knew it, he was gone, leaving an empty feeling within him and strange words that seemed to echo within his mind.

"Kouki...please. Open your eyes, look at me. I beg you. Kouki, you promised me that you'll be a good boy, so open your eyes..."

When the last words slowly disappeared from his thoughts, somehow he knew. He knew that soon, he would be reborn into a new life in this world, with new identity and his memories of the past and what had happened in the time space here would be lost forever.

Thank you so much for everything; sorry for causing you so much trouble.

Could I just ask you one last thing?

Have we met somewhere before?

Furihata Kouki bolted upright from his bed, breathing heavily and his body was covered in a light sheen of sweat as if he just ran 2 laps around the basketball court. He blinked several times as he let his eyes adjust to the darkened bedroom before looking around. He was still in his bedroom, and sitting on his king-sized bed in his pyjamas. His sleeping lover beside him started to stir from his sleep and when he felt Kouki sitting up, he sat up from his sleeping position.

"Kouki...What's wrong?" Akashi asked sleepily. He sounded like he wasn't completely conscious but the concern was evident as stared at Kouki through his half-opened eyes.

"Nothing, I think it was just a nightmare," Furihata scratched his head in apologetically. "Sorry for waking you up, Sei."

"Never mind." Akashi answered before patting on his side bed, signalling Furihata to lie back down which he willingly obliged. As he lay on the bed, Akashi tugged the duvet over their bodies and wrapped his arms around his lover.

"Sleep now." Akashi whispered as he tightened his embrace, "There was just few more hours before the sun rises, so I'd like to enjoy my sleep now."

Before Furihata could answer, he continued.

"I'm always at your side Kouki, those nightmares wouldn't be able to bother you anymore."

Furihata gave a small chuckle before buried his head in Akashi's embrace and fell back into peaceful slumbers as the night went on as usual, beautiful and mysterious at the same time.

I think everyone, including myself, has been asked this once, before we were born, by someone… Someone who cares for us, and is willing to give the best to us.

-owari-

Notes:

Hanamichi refers to a red light district and literally translates into 'flower town' with courtesans being the 'flowers'.

Shamisen is a three-stringed traditional Japanese musical instrument that looks like a guitar.

Katana is a long sword that is usually used by the samurais in ancient Japan.