Prologue: When exactly…?

Disclaimer: I'm not Clamp.

Author's note: please review. Brutally, if necessary. If it reads like a textbook, tell me. If it is so wonderfully written, that it changed your life, tell me if it is mediocre, tell me. Thank you.

Fai was busily leaning over the stove, spatula in hand, cooking breakfast. He had been appalled, upon moving in with his boyfriend, to learn the sort of things the man ate. His staple diet was: things that came out of the microwave. Fai had thus insisted that his Kurorin was to have "one meal home cooked with love" per day. And since Fai's job at the bar was nights, and Kurogane's security work was days, that meal was often breakfast.

He flipped the omelet he was making for Kurotan, and then turned to the bacon in the pan adjacent to it. Fai began to hum a Russian folk song in his head, silently mouthing the words in his native language. It was one from his childhood.

There was a sudden bang, as the bedroom door was slammed open, pulling Fai from his quiet memory. He turned and a grin graced his angelic features at the sight he met. There was Kurogane, clothed only in a towel, red faced in anger, and brandishing what seemed to be a bar of soap in a threatening manner.

Kurogane growled, feral and low.

"What the hell did you do to the soap, you moron?"

Fai very nearly giggled at that, and at how absolutely unthreatening his puppy was.

"I'm sorry" he said, confused.

"The soap, the soap!" Kurogane insisted.

"Is there something wrong with the soap, Kurochan?"

Kurogane looked exasperated.

"My soap isn't purple, and it dose not smell like this! It's white, and doesn't smell like anything!"

"Oh!" Fai exclaimed, "You mean that vile, mushy bar of soap that used to be I the shower? I threw that away. Kuropon, it was a germ trap."

"You threw away my soap?" Kurogane said, in disbelief.

"Yes, it was disgusting."

"This soap is disgusting! It smells horrible!"

"Kurowanko, it smells like lavender. Lavender is a nice smell." He said this as if he were teaching a particularly young child.

"I cannot go to work, smelling like this. I'm a security guard at Piffle Designs Inc; I need to be respectable, scary. I can't go in smelling like a goddamned flower."

Fai gave him a look of mock concern.

"Is someone going to be close enough to Kuromyu to smell him? Oh, Kurorun, I can't believe you would do that to me!" he gave a false sniffle. "Here I thought that my Puppy loved me, and he's cheating on me!"

"STOP, being a moron, idiot. And do not change the subject this is about soap! My soap, and why it has suddenly been replaced with your soap."

Fai sighed.

"Breakfast is done, whenever you feel like dressing for it. If the soap is that important, I'll buy some more at the market, today. Unscented."

Kurogane had the vague idea that Fai was testing him by giving in so soon. Some times he got so sick of this. Fai, ever insecure that the man who had put up with him a year would suddenly run away.

One year, Kurogane thought as he reentered the room, when the hell had that happened? How had that happened? When he had met Fai, he had been looking far a good time, not a serious relationship. Not a year, with no end in sight.

He mused upon this as he pulled clothes from the dresser. Fai had simply been a new bartender at his favorite bar, near work. A very sexy new bartender, who had always made it a point to flirt with him. Thus when he had offered his number, with the suggestion that they catch a movie sometime, Kurogane had accepted.

But it had been the first date from hell. He should have ended it then. But that fist date from hell was followed, swiftly, by a second, a third, and a fifteenth. For some inscrutable reason, the thought of ending things with Fai was appalling to his very nature. He was drawn to him, the man who hid himself so well, the man who had no past, the man with the false smiles. Fai was a mystery, one he couldn't help but want to solve.

So he had continued to let the wild whirlwind that was dating Fai D. Fluorite sweep him along. Until one day he had woken up to boxes in his living room, frilly lace curtains, and foreign pillows in his couch. He then recalled that, somehow or other, he had invited Fai to live with him, and these were his things. And all of Kurogane's things were sorted, and critiqued, and rearranged. Hell, his life was rearranged, rearranged so that it could accommodate Fai.

And then this morning he had woken up to the soap. The guy was seriously threatening his masculinity with that floral soap.

When the hell had a whole year passed? He'd been cheated! Kurogane wanted it back! Wanted to know how this had gone on for a year. And wanted to know why he was fine with the fact it had.

Because he was, still, fine with all of it really. Fine with rearranging his life to fit Fai in it. Fine with the pillows and the soap (well, maybe not he soap). Because, he figured in the end, he had it pretty good. He had Fai.

Kurogane went back out into the kitchen. Fai was picking at his food, and had a place neatly set for Kurogane.

"OI" he said, pulling out the chair roughly.

Fai looked up at him, face flawlessly false, eyes dark.

That idiot was brooding, and Kurogane would not take it.

"Do you actually think, that I'd put up with you a year, if I didn't want to? Imbecile. If I wanted to leave, I would have left sometime after we spent our fist date at kids' movie. I'm not going anywhere. So quit it with the stupid tests." He said gruffly.

"What tests, Kuropi?" Fai said sweetly.

" The one you just gave me." It was a sort of unspoken deal, that Fai's past was a taboo subject. But Kurogane had to wonder, what had done this to Fai? Made him distrust everyone so acutely. He'd find out, someday. But, for now, it wasn't appropriate breakfast conversation. So he took a bite of food and frowned, slightly. It was good, not sweet, like all Fai's other crap.

"'S good." He muttered.

Fai brightened.

"Well, I made it special for Kurokoi."

"Che" was the only response.

Kurogane really wasn't sure when he'd missed the memo he was involved in a serious relationship. He was left wonder, 'when did this happen?' not that he really minded.