It's been a strange journey, figuring out where he stands in regards to music, and he has a lot more to learn and determined. It still feels wrong to J that it's like this, but he knows it's something where he really can't just rush back in. That hurts, too, not just because he devoted so much of his life — too much of it — to music, but because it's tinged so many of the happiest memories of his life with uncertainty. It used to be where he felt safest and most confident, and now it's entirely the opposite. When he does play, he feels a little of that again — not the confidence, necessarily, but the sense of it being right that he missed for a long, long time. Even so, it's too complicated for him to dive back in and start playing again or writing all at once.

This, though, this is simple, all of the complexity nudged aside in the face of what S says. He nods, small, leaning his face against S's shoulder. "Me too," he murmurs. S's patience with him and his quiet support are the main reasons, he's fairly sure, that he's able to sit here at all, at peace enough not to be frightened of the very fact of sitting in front of a piano. Tilting his head up, he leans forward, pressing a soft kiss to S's jaw. "Next time," he adds, just as hushed, "let's play together."

He wants that, he thinks, very badly. And maybe that's why he spent all this time afraid that S didn't want him here, that he'd only think of that last time they played together — because he wanted it. Because he wished he could go back and do everything differently, that he hadn't slammed the keys or walked away. Right now, though, despite how well this has ultimately turned out, his emotions are too wild, his nerves shot, and he doesn't think he could handle playing at all, never mind taking such a big step. Still, it feels good to talk about the future in any form, and to think that they could have that.