Chapter Text
A color snapshot of a young man, maybe twenty-five years old. He's not paying attention to the camera, instead looking intently at the book in his hand, brow furrowed just slightly in concentration. His hair is blond and short, curling over the tops of his ears and the back of his neck. His bangs are a bit longer, and would fall into his eyes if not pinned out of the way by a pair of Hello Kitty hair clips. He's sitting in a corner booth at a coffee shop, wearing a plain t-shirt.
The caption scribbled on the back is in Japanese, blocky katakana made fluid by the hurried writing. The date scrawled underneath in the same hand reads '23/05/10'.
It starts just like every other day.
The morning is a blur of businessmen in crisp suits talking on their cell phones, teenage girls in their skirts and blazers on their way to school, cappuccino and American-style scones. The air is filled with chatter, the hum of the espresso machine and the smell of coffee and baked goods.
Kurogane is busy restocking the glass display cases when the foreigner comes in (he's not allowed on cash much anymore, not since he caught a kid trying to shoplift and vaulted the counter to tackle him outside on the sidewalk. The boss, while pleased he stopped the theft, said it wasn't good for the company's image). So he doesn't see him until he grabs a cloth and goes to start wiping down tables.
He's sitting in a corner on his own, just pulling a book out of his bag and obviously intending to settle in and read a little. Despite that it looks like he's trying to be discreet, he sticks out like a sore thumb. You don't get many foreigners this far from Tokyo, this isn't a tourist-y town.
Kurogane's fingers twitch, and he clenches them around his cleaning rag. He wishes he had one of his cameras with him so he can record this, the stranger so out of place in a Japanese coffee shop.
His skin is pale, pink and white like the pads of a cat's paw, lacking the golden hue to his skin that the Japanese have. But more than that, his hair is what sets him apart. It looks so fine and soft, bright gold, like the way sunshine is in a child's drawing. It seems to glow with an inner light. Kurogane has to firmly tell himself that he is a grown man and will not wander over to pet a stranger's hair.
Instead, he drifts that way, working his way around the shop wiping down tables until he's right beside the foreigner. Too curious to stand it, he glances sideways to see what he's reading.
He'd expected something in English, but to his surprise the book is in Japanese. It's a manga, and when Kurogane cranes his neck to get a better look, he can't help but snort at the fact that the foreigner is puzzling his way through Pokemon Special.
At his snort, the stranger looks up, revealing eyes the color of the sky in high summer, when the sky is free of smog and clouds and seems like you could reach up and touch it. He gives a hesitant sort of smile, closing his manga and running his fingers nervously along the edge. "K-konnichiwa...?"
Kurogane abruptly turns away, well aware that he'd been terribly rude by staring, let alone spying on what he was reading. He starts to bend over the next table that needs cleaning when he feels the tug on his apron.
He turns to see the foreigner smiling at him, absently chewing on his lower lip. "Boku wa Yuui Flourite desu." His voice is soft, but Kurogane thinks that probably has more to do with an unfamiliar language than it does any hesitancy of personality. "Nihon ni... atarashii desu."
Kurogane keeps his expression perfectly steady through the ease of long practice. Dredging his memories for his junior high English, he bows slightly. "My name... is Kurogane."
When he looks up again, he realizes that he was mistaken before. He'd thought Yuui's hair was as gold as sunlight, but it turns out to pale in comparison to his smile.