If you want to go back as far as 7 or 8 years, Fai would still have been doing burlesque and would have made a hell of a pretty muse (not that he wouldn't now, but I can see that sort of thing appealing to an artist a lot more than a harried grad student LOL). And that actually works perfectly, since Fai has self-loathing/self-esteem issues and it would have messed with his head to be seen as not much more than a piece of art--he would have got that enough at work, and lumping it on from a boyfriend would be like salt in the wound.

If we do that, we can say they fell out of touch afterward and maybe they can reconnect shortly after Fai gets in the game for maximum awkward? Like Fai would have tried to make the split friendly but... still super awkward. (and fun :D )