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Yukio rarely used the fireplace in the living room of his condo; it wasn't one of those artificial gas or electric inserts that a lot of places had, but a real fireplace that burned real wood. Keeping it clean and free from soot was such a pain in the a**, as he'd found out the first winter he'd lived here. But some nights just screamed for a nice, cozy fire burning in the fireplace. This was one of those nights.

He sat on the floor of his living room on a pillow, his back against the couch and a blanket over his outstretched legs. Next to him on one side was a bottle of sparkling wine with which he was filling the glass he held in his hand. On the other side, snuggled up against him, was Holland. Yukio had pushed his kotatsu off to one side, out of the way, so they could enjoy the light and warmth coming from the fireplace. The main lights were off, the only illumination in the room coming from the fire and the strands of fairy lights strung along the edge of the ceiling. Outside on the balcony, Destiny City shone like a scene in a snowglobe that had just been shaken, snow lightly falling from the sky. It was like a scene from a holiday movie. And Yukio was just about as happy as he had ever been in his life.

Sipping the fizzy wine, he looked down at Holland, a faint contented smile on his face. Who would have imagined that this year would turn out the way it had? He sure couldn't have. Not only did he find the love of his life in the small young man curled up next to him, he had found in him the love of an entire lifetime ago. Those memories still drifted through Yukio's mind, ethereal and faint as an old movie, almost like a dream. But the love that they evoked was real as anything.

With a contented sigh he kissed the top of Holland's head. "You still awake, Hol?" he murmured gently.

With a soft snort of a laugh, Yukio gently patted Holland's shoulder and set his wine glass down. "Don't get too comfortable, I have to put another log on the fire." Carefully squirming out from underneath Hol, he packed the blanket under his boyfriend's head as support until he returned. "I'll be right back," he said, pulling his long legs beneath him and standing. He crossed the smallish living room to the pile of logs next to the fireplace, the logs mostly left over from the last time he'd used it. There were some recently-purchased logs on top, though, and it was one of these that he picked up and tossed on top of the slowly diminishing fire. The flames flared around the fresh log, licking at the wood and crackling cheerily as embers sparked off of it.

Yukio knew it would be a couple of minutes before the fire returned to his full glory, so he padded back to where he'd been sitting and scooted under the blanket again and onto the pillow, trying to avoid disturbing Holland too much. Once he was settled in, he retrieved his wine and took a drink, resting his free arm on the smaller man's shoulder. This was the life; warm, cozy with his love, safe (for the time being – there was always danger lurking when one was a Knight). He was completely happy and content as he rested his head back against the couch, and he would have likely nodded off if he hadn't noticed the interesting smell filling the room. It wasn't a bad smell, it was actually quite pleasant. Just… interesting.

Maybe it was just that he wasn't used to the fireplace being used. He'd left the flue open to allow the smoke to escape, so it couldn't be that. Raising an eyebrow, he peered at the fire. Blinked, then peered again.

The fire in the fireplace was burning merrily, casting light and warmth throughout the room. But the flames… Yukio had never seen a fire burn in all the colors of the rainbow before. Had he somehow picked up some kind of weird treated wood on accident? He didn't think he did – he got the logs from the local supermarket. Nothing unusual about them at all, or so he thought. The rainbow flames were actually quite pretty, if the whole thing was a bit odd.

"Hol." He gently nudged his boyfriend. "Hol. Wake up. You have to see this."

Yukio shook his head, still mesmerized by the multicolored fire. "No, I just got regular wood at the store. At least I thought I did. It wasn't tagged as special or anything. Just firewood." Surely the store would have labeled the wood as specially treated to burn in rainbow flames, right? And if they had, it would have probably been sold out, because who wouldn't want a rainbow fire for the winter holidays? He just didn't understand it.

Watching the colorful show in the fireplace, the pleasant scent wafting gently through the condo, Yukio's thoughts turned back to reflecting on the year that was ending. He couldn't help thinking that this was really the perfect end cap to a pretty amazing period in his life. Meanwhile his boyfriend, curled up next to him on the floor, was taking pictures with his phone of this remarkable spectacle, and the DJ softly snorted a laugh at that. Of course Holland was taking pictures. Preserved for posterity!

As the wood burned, something else strange happened to it. Cracks began appearing in the logs, as happens when the fire gets deep into the wood – but these cracks glowed with an almost opalescent light, casting a rainbow glow flickering around the condo. Yukio raised an eyebrow at this. Interesting! And pretty!

He nudged Holland again, trying not to interfere with his picture taking. "Are you seeing this? The opal cracks in the wood?"