It's so predictable that it's almost funny, or it would be if he weren't so fucking sad. S tries to apologize, only for J to tell him that he's the one who's sorry instead; J says that he's so stupid, but S is sure that must be true of him, not of J. All things considered, it would probably make more sense if J's reasoning was also his. Instead, S isn't sure what it says about him that he never really thought about it that way. The first time J played again, months ago at Kagura, S was reminded of that last evening, but he was never scared or uncomfortable. He was just sad, remembering how, for a moment, things almost felt alright, then came crashing to a halt when J slammed his hands on the keyboard. The rest of it — what he thinks J means, anyway, the thing they talk about even less than anything else — has never entered the equation.
It was one moment, after all, a few awful, fleeting seconds. They've been back together for over a year now, and S has never once felt unsafe. All those years they were friends and then boyfriends, they spent countless hours playing together and for each other. Here, something has felt irrevocably different, but to him, only as it pertains to their respective relationships with the instrument that once helped bring them together and ultimately helped drive them apart. If he was afraid of anything, it was only the damage that it might do again.
"I never thought about it like that," he promises, tipping his head back just enough to try to catch J's gaze, if only for a moment. He needs to be clear about how utterly he means this, guilty and heartbroken at the thought of J spending all this time thinking that the distance between them on this subject was because of fear and that last night. Leaning back in again, he sniffles against J's shoulder, feeling small and pathetic and overwhelmed, but somewhere under that, the tiniest bit hopeful. Or maybe not hopeful, exactly, but with the sense that something maybe is healing, put out into the open when he hadn't even known it needed to be. "And I meant what I said before," he continues. "I don't love it the way I used to. But I think... maybe I wasn't letting myself?"
His voice wavers at that, the prospect a terrible one. If putting his thoughts into words was difficult a few minutes ago, it's infinitely more so now, when he's emotional and struggling to process everything that's happening, but he has to try, and that much, he can't hold back. "I got so convinced," he adds, pausing to take as deep a breath as he can, "that it would be better just to let it be yours, that it always should have been, and... of course I couldn't feel it anymore."
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It was one moment, after all, a few awful, fleeting seconds. They've been back together for over a year now, and S has never once felt unsafe. All those years they were friends and then boyfriends, they spent countless hours playing together and for each other. Here, something has felt irrevocably different, but to him, only as it pertains to their respective relationships with the instrument that once helped bring them together and ultimately helped drive them apart. If he was afraid of anything, it was only the damage that it might do again.
"I never thought about it like that," he promises, tipping his head back just enough to try to catch J's gaze, if only for a moment. He needs to be clear about how utterly he means this, guilty and heartbroken at the thought of J spending all this time thinking that the distance between them on this subject was because of fear and that last night. Leaning back in again, he sniffles against J's shoulder, feeling small and pathetic and overwhelmed, but somewhere under that, the tiniest bit hopeful. Or maybe not hopeful, exactly, but with the sense that something maybe is healing, put out into the open when he hadn't even known it needed to be. "And I meant what I said before," he continues. "I don't love it the way I used to. But I think... maybe I wasn't letting myself?"
His voice wavers at that, the prospect a terrible one. If putting his thoughts into words was difficult a few minutes ago, it's infinitely more so now, when he's emotional and struggling to process everything that's happening, but he has to try, and that much, he can't hold back. "I got so convinced," he adds, pausing to take as deep a breath as he can, "that it would be better just to let it be yours, that it always should have been, and... of course I couldn't feel it anymore."