hismelody | (no subject)

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Even now, after more than a year here and the rocky months that preceded his arrival, S still sometimes finds it strange that he barely plays the piano anymore. There is, of course, a whole ton of baggage that comes along with that, too, but every once in a while, he's simply struck by the oddity of it. For such a long time, it was such a huge part of his life, the thing that helped bring him and his boyfriend together, the path he'd chosen for his future, both his schoolwork and his leisure time largely revolving around it. Now he doesn't even play daily, though he works around instruments. At least he has a good environment in which to do so. Playing at home would be out of the question for numerous reasons, not the least of which is that they don't have and can't afford a piano. At work, he can get it out of his system, so to speak, get some practice in so he doesn't lose all his skill. It's not something he has the same drive to pursue anymore. As much as he misses it, he can't force that feeling back. This is enough — a perfect arrangement, really.

He just has to keep telling himself that.

As is fairly usual, it's quiet near the end of the work day, no customers around. With his coworker in the back, the store is momentarily empty, and that feels worth taking advantage of. Sitting down at one of the display pianos — a beautiful grand, far nicer than anything he ever owned or ever really expected to, he remains still for a moment, just breathing in deep, savoring the familiar feeling of it, his hands resting delicately against the keys and eyes closed. When he opens them again, he begins playing Tchaikovsky, the simple, lilting, bittersweet melody coming from him easily. He means to be paying attention to the store still, but with so little time left until they close up anyway, he isn't expecting anyone to show up. He winds up, then, immersed enough in the music that he doesn't notice when the door opens and someone walks into the store.

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At least in part, S does know that. He knows that it isn't why J hasn't been playing much here, and he knows there was a long stretch of time back in Seoul when his playing didn't seem to hold J back at all. If anything, for a long while there, he believed that they motivated each other. It wasn't a competition yet because there was room for them both to succeed; there was only encouragement between them instead. One thing that did strike him about that last awful night was the decade-old story that J told, a resentment that S never knew existed, one of so many little things that made him reconfigure his view of their entire past relationship. So he did know, but he's not sure he still does, not entirely. It didn't seem worth the risk of being wrong, not least when there are other things that J has to contend with that have been holding him back.

And he feels so ridiculous, crying for reasons he can't even entirely pinpoint, that feeling only making him cry more. For a moment, he doesn't say anything, because he doesn't completely trust himself to, needs to try to regain at least a little of the composure he so abruptly lost. "Even then," he confirms when he does, nodding against J's shoulder, achingly guilty even just in saying so, though he still thinks it just makes sense. "I figured it would be there for you, if you ever got back to it. And I didn't want to. Not for a long time. Not really."

It's one thing he still hasn't talked about, not where it concerns that particular detail. For weeks after he got out of the hospital and returned to the apartment that had once been theirs, he couldn't so much as touch their piano. Just looking at it was painful. When he did play again at last, it was for J's sake — the sonata that had been stolen from him, a promise to keep going for both of them. It still wasn't what it used to be. "But I miss it," he admits, voice tiny, almost a whisper. "I miss how it used to feel."

That, at least, J understands. "I know," he murmurs, hand rubbing gently against S's back. "Me too." He misses how it felt when they played together, and how it felt when he was a kid, when he played because he loved it, because he was good at it and it made him happy. Made him satisfied, even if he was unhappy, as he so often was. There was comfort in music, and he misses that, too, those days when it brought him peace instead of anxiety.

He misses being able to talk freely about it, too. He hasn't felt like he could for a long while, because he knows S doesn't, and it feels wrong. When it comes up, he's usually already upset, which makes it difficult to get everything he means across, especially when he's in the process of figuring it out for himself. "I didn't," he says abruptly. Sometimes stumbling through it and blurting it out is the only way for him to make any sense of his own feelings. "I didn't want to either. For a long time. It... it was all wrong. Not wanting it felt wrong. Wanting it felt wrong. There was... it was too complicated. It still is, and it hurts, and it's confusing, and — and I was relieved. For months, not feeling the urge to play, I — I thought it would be okay. And that was horrible."

He's not sure that makes any sense either. It's hard to explain when it seems to him like all his feelings contradict themselves. "I wish I hadn't made it so complicated. It used to just... be right."

Although a part of S immediately wants to protest the way J has phrased it, he's held back by the rest of what J says and how true it feels. For such a long time, it did just feel right. There's no other way to describe it. As with so many things, they may have taken somewhat different routes to the same place, but for S, while he may not have had the same early focus and dedication, something about it just always made sense to him — the notes and how they built upon each other, the movement of fingers over keys. He worked at it, but it also just clicked. The same could be said for when he decided as a teenager to try to pursue it seriously, and to write as well as play. He loved it already in his own right, but he doesn't know that he ever would have reached the same place if it weren't for J, if it hadn't already been theirs.

And then it wasn't anymore, and J was gone, and it hasn't been right in the same way since. That last night, he thought for a moment that it might be, only to be suddenly and painfully proved wrong. He doesn't know if it will ever be like that again. Certainly it won't be what it was for the pair of them, though that may not in itself be a bad thing, given how that all wound up. It would be nice, though, to get a little bit of that rightness back, to let himself have any real relationship again with the instrument he once used to be so passionate about.

"It did," he agrees, soft and sad, his fingers curling in J's shirt again. He still feels horribly foolish, but not enough to straighten up or pull away, too comforted by J's warm solidity for that. "I... I was relieved, too. That I didn't want it the way I did. That I could step away. I've had this, and that's enough, but it hurts that it is, too."

J nods a little, understanding what S means. He thinks he does, at least, how it's been enough just to have each other. It still is and will be, he believes that. But that doesn't mean he doesn't ache thinking of what was, or that he isn't still baffled by everything, trying to figure out his place in the world and who he is if he isn't a musician. Photography has helped ease the part of him that desperately wants to make something, to capture some piece of the world, and part of that is the very fact that it's new. But that's why it's not quite enough to quiet those voices, because it doesn't and simply can't fill that history. It's the history that haunts him. He grew up on music. He sat on his mother's lap and tried to play with clumsy toddler hands before he can even really remember. Through desperation and insecurity, he warped the beauty of that, but it's still something woven through his very being. How can he step away from it entirely? How can he return to it? How can he trust himself to do so ever again in any serious way?

Aside from the acknowledgment that nod gives, he's quiet a few moments, stroking S's back, trying to push all these feelings around until they make words. "I thought," he murmurs at last, "that we'd be safer if I didn't play. And all those horrible things I did and said... I thought, ah, I wouldn't want to play in front of me either. I wouldn't be comfortable. But, darling, I... if you want to step away or only play a very little bit, that's okay." He shifts carefully, nudging at S's hair with his nose before he draws back a touch, trying to look at S even if S isn't ready yet to look at him. "But please don't make yourself. I don't want that from you, please. Don't stop for me. It doesn't help me any for you not to play, not if it's what you want, it really doesn't."

In a way, it makes it worse, though that's not true all the time and he doesn't want to give S the wrong impression. It just upset him before to think S had given up just to appease him or had stopped out of some kind of fear. It's a choice S can make for himself, but that's what J wants it to be — something he decides for himself, not something he does for J.

Stupid as he feels for crying over this, S blinks through his tears as he looks up at J. There's no sense in trying to hide it, after all, and it's not like J isn't a mess, too. Still, it's easier to find it understandable in someone else than in himself, easier even now to tell himself that he doesn't need to play more than he already has been. Like he said a moment ago, or at least what he meant to say, though he's not sure this came out right, either, he has this job that gives him a chance to spend some time playing the piano, and that's all he really needs. He was never as ambitious as J was, anyway. Even when he wanted to be great, it was because he wanted them to have that together. Now, it isn't as if he's shut himself off from it entirely. He's just not sure how much he's been getting in his own way, how much his not wanting more is because he hasn't let himself, thinking it would be easier for both of them that way, as if anything involving music would have been easy after all they had to go through.

"I don't know what I want," he admits, turning his head for a moment to try to dry one cheek against his shoulder. "Other than you. As long as I have you... I could never touch a piano again and I'd be alright with that." It shouldn't have to be a choice for either of them, he thinks — it never should have been in the first place — but it's simply no contest for him. He would take J before music always, no matter what. "But I really thought that... it would help if I walked away from it. If you didn't have to deal with hearing me play when you weren't." He huffs out a breath, ducks his head again, cheeks a bit flushed. "If I'd never gotten serious about it in the first place."

Apologetic, he shrugs, giving J's shirt a little tug. His head is still a mess, full of too many things he could say but doesn't quite know how to. What he has said, though, he means. There's been an empty space for him that piano once filled, and he hasn't known how else to fill it, what other calling he might possibly have, but it's an emptiness he can bear. The space that was left behind in J's absence, he couldn't. "I wouldn't know how to let myself want it again. Or how to figure out if I did."

He should be patient and listen, J knows, and he's really tried to get better at that — has, he thinks, actually done really well over the last year — but now he can't help shaking his head, emphatically disagreeing, before S is done talking. "No, no," he says. One hand still steady at S's waist, he brings the other up, lifts it to S's cheek, though they're all tangled up already. "That's not true. It wouldn't have helped, I don't think it would have. And we were happy when we played together. I..." Try as he might, he can't quite keep his voice from shaking, thinking about this. He ruined it. They can't go back. "I don't regret that."

He would have loved S just the same, he knows, even if S had never done more than sit beside him when he played and turned his own interests elsewhere. They would have been happy and in love even so. But they made so many memories, playing together, talking about music, dreaming about their future, conjuring up new melodies. He doesn't want to let that go or let what came after darken it. He's not sure, anymore, if he gets a say in that.

"Darling," he says softly, thumb stroking along S's cheek. "Please." He shakes his head, at a loss for words until they tumble out. "As long as I have you, I could walk away too." He lowers his gaze, shame coloring his cheeks. "I got that wrong before. But I know I was wrong. I made a mistake. It cost us so much. I thought it cost that, too, that — it didn't help, not hearing you. I only missed it and thought about how I fucked that up. I would have said so if I knew that was why." He shouldn't have made stupid assumptions; he should have asked, should have known better than to believe he understood why S made the decisions he did, when J knows full fucking well that his mind jumps to broken conclusions. "I should have anyway. It's just... so hard to talk about."

And he thought, too, that S didn't want to talk about it. He was lovely all this time, gently encouraging, understanding, but actually discussing music in any real way felt so utterly off-limits. It was a boundary J was content to live within, because the topic itself still unnerves him. It's too complicated and painful now.

This, too, is difficult for S to articulate, all the more so because he's still so emotional. He doesn't regret it either, he wants to say, at least not when he thinks about the time they spent so happy together, the piano a part of their falling in love. He's just pretty sure he fucked up, latching onto the same thing that J was already so dedicated to, J's first composition inspiring him to try to write his own. Maybe everything wouldn't have fallen apart so disastrously otherwise. There would have been no stupid sense of competition between them, no pieces for the professor to blackmail him for. As much as he knows, like they've said before, that there's no real way to predict what else might have changed and how, if at all, it could have been different, he's not sure he'll ever fully shake off that sense of self-blame for the damage his playing and composing did. J wasn't fair to him, lashing out the way he so often did back then; S can admit that, and he knows J wouldn't want him to pretend otherwise. But he was there too, and he could have done things differently, realized the harm he was doing instead of stubbornly pushing forward the way he so often does.

"It is," he agrees, and at that, he cracks the tiniest of smiles, wrinkling his nose as he does. "I'm still not sure I'm managing it very well." At least they seem to be understanding each other now, though. Despite the state they're both in, this still seems vastly better than those first few minutes after J walked in and he stopped playing, both just slightly misunderstanding each other. It stings a little, actually, to consider what J thought he felt, but S knows better than to take it personally. It's not like he can't understand why J might make an assumption like that, even if S thinks he's been as clear as he can about not holding that last, worst night against him. He's too focused on trying to work through the rest of this to get hung up on that now, anyway.

Gentle and instinctive, he leans into J's hand at his cheek. No matter how ridiculous he feels, it still helps, having J close and comforting like this, in no small part because this subject has done so much damage before. They may not be getting it all right this time, but they're working through it far better than they used to, and that has to count for something. "Even when you gave me that music on Christmas, I... I didn't really think you would want to hear me play. Or that you would have missed it."

Slowly, gently, J strokes S's cheek, ducking his head forward to kiss S's temple. "Of course I do," he says softly. It's not that simple, he knows. S had every reason to think that of him, no matter how J tried to encourage him this last year, too anxious to do more than make small comments and give him the sheet music. He would have assumed the same, probably, were their roles reversed. It's not like he was at all supportive before he left their studio. That was a different time, and he was different then, but he knows how thoroughly it still haunts him. He can't expect S not to feel the same in some ways.

But as awful as he was then, it doesn't erase how he felt before and how he feels now. In a way, it was never any different; he just showed it in different ways. Some of the anger and resentment he felt came from feeling as if important things were slipping away from him. This was part of that, pushing away the things that mattered and watching helplessly as he lost them, as if he couldn't stop himself.

It's hard to explain that. He's tried on multiple occasions and he thinks, to some extent, S understands. Right now, he just doesn't have the energy to try again, drained from being so upset, more focused now on taking care of S. He tries a different tactic. "You remember how happy we were then," he murmurs, "and how right it was. Why wouldn't I miss that? Even if we're happy now, that was important to me. Sihyun-ah... all those days we came home and I was tired and angry... you played for me and made me forget for a while." His school days were difficult, but no matter how rough it was at times, music was the cure. Whether he played for them or they played together, it felt good to lose himself in that. And when he was too frustrated or tired to play, there was S, soothing and coaxing. "You were so beautiful at the piano. The music, your hands, your profile... I always felt better — lucky, just to get to listen and to watch you. It's... it's been hard, knowing I wouldn't get to again."

He never dared to say so, though. Even now, saying this, he can feel his eyes filling with tears again, and he has to look away for a moment, blinking them back. It's his fault, after all, that things are like this, or so he thought, and he didn't want to say anything and put S in an awkward position or make him feel he had to play for J.

Although he knows it's not J's intention, S can't help how horribly guilty he feels hearing that. He never had any idea that J felt that way, and he knows, on some level, that he had a very good reason to assume the opposite was true, that J wouldn't want to hear him at all. Still, it's hard to think about J carrying that for all these months, both of them not wanting to broach the subject, worried about how the other might feel. Had they discussed it — actually talked it through — they could have realized all of this so much sooner, but it's an understatement to say that it's difficult to talk about. Even now, they're clearly both a mess for trying to do so, and that's with this actually seeming to be a positive development. S doesn't know what it means yet or where they go from here, but it does feel like something isn't quite as broken as he believed it to be. Maybe it will never be what it was for them, and maybe that's actually a good thing, but that doesn't mean they can't get back a little of what they lost.

He does, after all, remember how happy they were, and for such a long time. He just remembers what came after, too, all the bitterness and resentment, all the arguments. It felt like any time he simply played the piano, it was somehow a direct threat to J, or something for J to compare himself unfavorably to, although S never wanted them to be pitted against each other like that. Even compliments felt sharp-edged, intended to wound. The end of that night is a blur, but he remembers J calling him genius with his hands around his throat. And S would be the first one to say that he doesn't want that night to define their relationship now. It was only one night, after all, and they had so many more good times than bad. The bad times were still there, though, and when S still doesn't fully understand what changed or why, he hasn't wanted to risk his playing doing any damage again. If it could only be one of theirs, it should be J's.

The alternative — that it could be both of theirs again, if not in the way it once was — just never seemed possible. Hearing what J says now, though, and the part that he remembers most, brings on a fresh burst of tears, his jaw trembling in a failed attempt to stave them off. "I had no idea," he says, an apology and an explanation both. "I really didn't. I thought it would be help, for you not to have to see or hear me play."

J sniffles, shaking his head, gaze still lowered. He can hear the change in S's voice, the shift in his face where it presses against J's palm, and he can't bear to see it quite yet. "I should have told you sooner," he whispers, his own voice thick and rough. He lets out a small, trembling laugh. "I thought it would help not to. I didn't want you to... to feel pressured, like you have to play in front of me. Even if I didn't say a word, I thought — I thought you'd have to sit and play expecting me to yell at you or start a fight. So it was better not to say it."

He groans quietly, leaning forward to rest his head against S's shoulder for just a moment. "We don't learn," he says, quietly wry. It's funny and horrible all at once. He's not sure how to fix that, though. After all, S did what he did to try and spare J pain, and he did so at a time when J was very often not capable of making reasonable decisions for himself or anyone else. Coming to Darrow and finding S again was what he needed to start healing, but it was and is a process. He's still working on regaining his confidence and the mental wherewithal to make bigger decisions. It's been best to leave a lot in S's hands, even if he's always had to be pretty explicit about that being what he was doing — also understandable, for the same reasons that J didn't want S to feel obligated to play for him. He doesn't know how they're supposed to determine when it's right to do these things for each other and when they should ask; there's too much room for error, but it wouldn't have helped either of them if J had been right all this time and he'd still pushed S about it. If the sound of S playing truly hurt him and S had asked, he very well might have denied it, not wanting to get in S's way. He can't ask S to stop trying to protect him when sometimes he needs protecting; they both do.

S doesn't say what first comes into his mind then — that he wouldn't have felt pressured, he would have felt permitted. It isn't as if he believes he needs J's approval to play at all, or anything like that. Even had J not encouraged him to do so, S still would have taken some time with the pianos here as he's been doing, even just for a few minutes at a time. He just would never have done so in front of J without knowing that J would be alright with it, and he couldn't have assumed that J would be. Still, at least he knows now. He may not be able to determine what this means or even how he feels about music, but it feels like something has shifted even so, and very, very tentatively like it might be a good thing. If they've both been holding back at least in part for the other's sake, then perhaps having it out in the open now will leave them both a little freer to try it if they want to and not have to leave it this huge, unspoken thing between them.

"That's not true," he murmurs, one hand coming up to J's hair when J tips his head forward. Again, he nearly smiles, wry this time, self-deprecating. "We're very stupid, but we do learn." At least they've said all of this now instead of bottling it up even longer and misunderstanding each other even more. "We've come a long way from how things were before, haven't we?" He lets go of J for only a moment so he can attempt to dry his cheeks, still more than a little self-conscious, though it helps to be doing the reassuring again. "You were worried about me and I was worried about you, but... you wouldn't have started a fight, and I didn't think you would, and I wasn't just plowing ahead, waiting for things to go back to normal."

It's a lot to say, especially when his voice is a little wobbly with tears, and he shrugs. It might not even make sense. He really does think, though, that they have learned, even if they haven't always taken away exactly the right lessons. "And now we know."

J makes a soft sound into S's shoulder, tipping his head slightly to the side so he can press up against S's hand without pulling away. It feels good to have S comforting him, to be reminded of these things. They should have talked about this, he knows it, much, much sooner, but S is right. They're absolutely idiots, but they have learned.

It's soothing, too, to hear S say with such certainty that J wouldn't have started a fight. He hopes that's true. He'd like to think it is. But he's so fucking aware of how horribly he behaved, unable to escape the fact of it no matter how much time passes, and it's so easy for him to worry. Getting it into his head that S might worry about that, he was unable to shake his own anxiety about the possibility. It's terrifying much of the time, not being sure, not trusting himself, not being able to tell himself for a fact that he's seeing things correctly or that he'll behave the right way. S trusts him when he can't, though. Even if he has trouble making himself remember that, he can hear it now and try to take it to heart.

With a quiet hum of agreement, he tugs gently at S's shirt, giving himself a moment to find his voice. He hasn't started crying in earnest again yet, but he doesn't want to risk it, even if it's likely also inevitable. "We have," he whispers when he can. "We know. I..." He makes himself breathe in deeply, exhale slowly. He should have known better. Turning away from talking about it just because it would hurt to do so was a foolish, cowardly move, and one he makes again and again. "I should have told you. I should know that now. I just get stuck thinking how it's my fault, and I —" He shakes his head, more words caught in his mind that he's not sure he dares blurt out here where they might yet be seen. As haunted as he remains by the crimes he committed, he feels nearly as guilty for the way he treated S, if not equally so. That probably says something awful about him, but he doesn't think there's really anything good that can be said about him based on all that anyway. "It gets so big that I forget how... twisted things get in my mind. I just think it's all true."

S shakes his head, though it's not so much outright disagreement as not wanting J to lay all the blame for this on himself. It was both of them; it took both of them to get here. The same has been true from the start, really. Maybe J shouldn't have been snappish and competitive, but S shouldn't have kept holding on to something already slipping away, trying to get things back to the way they used to be. There's no going backwards. He knows now that that's a good thing. Painful sometimes, yes, but in a way that lets them heal and figure out what to do next. Now is a prime example of that. They're both a goddamn mess, S still in tears, even if they come more quietly, but they're putting right something they've both been getting wrong. While he doesn't want to get his hopes up, doesn't even know what he would be hoping for, it still feels like there's the tiniest seed of something positive here, coaxed to life through this months-long misunderstanding.

"I should have told you, too," he murmurs, tilting his head to try to meet J's eyes again, even if his vision is blurry. "I should have asked you how you felt. You hate when I decide things for you, anyway." The last, he means to be as much of a joke as he can muster right now, something to lighten the mood for J just a tiny bit. Of course, that has historically backfired just as often as his deciding things for J has, but right now, it feels worth it. They're okay. S could never touch a piano again and they would still be okay, but it might not have to come to that after all. He doesn't know what it means for himself, but there's possibility there where that wasn't before, and that goes a long way all on its own.

Gentler this time, he shakes his head again, fingers still idly running through J's hair. "It's not all true," he adds. "And it's not your fault." He didn't really play when J was gone, either, he wants to say, something that J couldn't have had any bearing on one way or the other, but S suspects it wouldn't be received the way he meant it. Better to focus on what they can do here and now. "I was just as wrong as you were. And I'm glad I was wrong, too."

J stifles a choked out laugh against S's neck, fingers curling tighter in his shirt. It's true, and he's been trying to think how to say something to that effect without negating all he's done in trying to get S to feel okay make decisions when it's needed. Even if he doesn't think the blame here lies as evenly between them as S does, it still helps to hear. They both had a role in this, and as hard as it is to make himself hold onto that fact, it won't do either of them any good to pretend otherwise. S was right, too, that they were both just worrying about each other. J wouldn't have worried in the same way, he's sure, if it weren't for how he behaved in the past, so the fault is still mostly his, but they both have things to learn.

"It's partly my fault," he counters, leaning his head against S's shoulder to meet his eyes — as best as he can, anyway, when his vision is all fuzzy. He blinks again, quick and fluttering, trying to will his eyes to focus. "Mostly. But you were wrong, yes. I... I don't hate it as much anymore, you know. You deciding things. Sometimes I need you to. But... those are different things." Making a grocery list or deciding where to go on the weekend is something entirely separate from deciding how J might feel about a thing, after all — something he needs to take care to remember, too. Sometimes J is too worn out and unfocused to realize he needs to go to bed or eat a meal or take a shower, and he needs, at those times, for S to prompt him gently to take care of himself or to decide what they should eat. "It's different," he adds, having settled on how to put it, "deciding what we should do, not how I feel. It's what a partner does. I shouldn't have assumed for you either."

For his part, he was scared that bringing it up would be worse than not doing so, but he's sure S had the same concern. They thought they were mitigating damage, not causing it. Maybe, in the future, he thinks, they just have to brave the fallout of discussing the things he doesn't want to say. It's just so fucking hard to talk about the past, even when he doesn't go a day without thinking about it.

S isn't sure about the mostly, either, inclined to say it's fairly even on each of their parts. They were both trying to protect each other, and they both managed to assume the opposite of the truth. That would be laughable, too, if it weren't so fucking sad. For months, since he first got the job here, he's tried to avoid talking about piano whenever possible, offering to let J try it here and encouraging him to do so at Kagura but not playing so much as a note himself. Just a few minutes ago, he felt guilty and almost ashamed, like he'd been caught doing something he shouldn't have been. With what J has said since, it seems stupid now, although he can't see how he could have done otherwise. Of course he stopped; of course he thought it would hurt to hear him. The alternative isn't something he ever even considered. Even as he knows, though, that it makes sense for him to have felt the way he did, he still should have said something, at least told J what was going through his head instead of assuming that they were on the same page. No matter how close they are, no matter how well they know each other, they've done a lot of this sort of thing, after all.

"Neither of us should have," he agrees with a slight nod. For that matter, it hurts a little that J assumed he would expect yelling or fights after all this time, but he knows, too, that that has more to do with J than it does with him. It's really the same in his case, probably. His own guilt, and the belief, however misguided, that he should have given up piano long ago led him to believe that J wouldn't want to hear him play. He's still not sure what to make of the alternative — not that he was wrong, but what the truth is instead. The idea of J wanting that, missing that, makes him feel strangely sad about how distant he's grown from the instrument, but also makes him feel like there might be a chance for more than that. It will never be what it was for either of them, or what it was for both of them together, but that doesn't have to be a bad thing. It definitely doesn't mean it can't be anything.

Sighing quietly, he leans into J a little, wanting to be closer, wishing they were home. They shouldn't have done this here, though he's not sure it would have come out anywhere else, under any other circumstances. "I'm sorry I did," he adds. Even if J tells him not to be, S feels all the same that the apology is not only warranted but necessary. The rest, he hesitates before he adds, nervous and a little unsure of himself, but thinking that this, too, needs to be said outright. "If you ever do... want that, want me to play for you... you can say so."

There's a strange sort of relief that always comes when S admits that J got something wrong. It's a ridiculous thing, he knows, when they're both deeply aware of how much he's fucked up in the past. Somehow, though, the fact that S can acknowledge the smaller errors makes J feel a little better about being forgiven the bigger ones. In any case, he'd rather have been wrong trying to look out for S than having deliberately hurt him.

He wants to tell S that it's okay, that he doesn't need to apologize. All that matters right now is that they understand each other, that they've made themselves clear. S knows what he means now, why he worried, that not wanting this kind of decision made for him isn't the same thing as him not wanting S to make choices ever. It bothered him when he was younger because, as always, he was caught up in his own perception of things, projecting his fears onto S's behavior. He understands better now. Even if part of him still fears now that he'll become somehow too much, in his heart, he knows S won't let it come to that, not ever.

He wants to tell him that, to say it's alright and he understands, but there's a pause in the air, the sense of something more to come, and he waits. And in spite of this whole debacle, the way S was playing when he walked in and the mess he's made of it all and the things he's managed to say in words either blurted out or broken off, he doesn't quite expect it. He's spent more than a year now conditioning himself to believe this wasn't possible, after all. S has spent just as much time thinking the same in some way, which J thinks explains why he sounds less than certain; he knows, he knows, S wouldn't offer him something like this half-hearted, that he'd do it to make J feel better, knowing it would make him feel worse if it hurt S in any way. These things rattle around in his head, fluffing their feathers, not settling long enough to become still or whole, as his throat goes tight, tears welling up inexorably.

"Are you sure?" he asks anyway, quiet only because it's hard to get his words out at all with his throat and heart aching. He feels like he's shaking. He wants it too much. Maybe that's stupid, some part of him trying desperately to recapture parts of a past he's done his best to let go of, but he can't help himself. Those parts, at least, were worth recapturing. If nothing else, he was so, so certain that he couldn't have that because he'd fucked up in a way that was impossible to fix. Even if S only played for him again once, maybe it would put that terrible voice to rest, or at least this particular line of its rhetorical weaponry. He just wants to know it's real and okay. "I do want that."

With all they've just discussed, even in the face of his own nervousness saying so, S isn't expecting such a strong reaction on J's part. It makes him feel, of all things, a little guilty all over again. Had he not so stupidly assumed he knew how J would feel about it, maybe it wouldn't have to be such a big deal. God knows it was once utterly inconsequential, something they both just did daily, a cornerstone of their relationship from the time they were first becoming friends. It hurts to see J so shaken, so moved, by S's mere offer of playing. He never wanted it to be like this, for the thing they both loved so much to do so much damage to both of them in so many different ways. Music used to be the easiest thing in the world for him — not that he didn't sometimes struggle to play a piece or try to write one, but all of it just made sense to him, as natural and instinctive as loving J. It was order and logic in a world often lacking both. He'd look at black marks on paper and understand how they related to each other, set his fingers on the corresponding keys and know how to move his hands to make them come out right.

He's felt guilty for that sometimes, too. Had it not come to him quite so naturally, maybe J wouldn't have begun to feel like he came up short in comparison. It's not as if S didn't still work for it, and of the two of them, he's always believed J to be the more talented of them, anyway. He's decent, of course, he knows he is, albeit not as much so as he used to be. The thought of that makes him a little nervous now, too, ashamed of how distant he's grown from what he used to love so much. And that's probably stupid, he knows, when he wouldn't have judged J for a second for being out of practice that day at Kagura, but he can't help it if he's insecure now in ways he wasn't before. Besides, when he had no idea it would mean this much to J, S doesn't want to disappoint him now.

"You said before... that you didn't want me to feel pressured," he murmurs, ducking his head, expression thoughtful. "But hearing you say it is... it lets me feel like I can." Saying it out loud like that feels unbelievably stupid, but it's true all the same. He lifts one shoulder, a corner of his mouth twitching up the slightest bit along with it. "I would never mind playing. I'd just want to know that you'd want to hear it."

J turns his head, hiding his face against S's shoulder for a few moments. It feels foolish to be overwhelmed by this, to want it this much. It's not really about what S plays, in the end, just that he plays, that he wants to, that he can. It's about how J has to fight his way to feeling bit by bit like he hasn't ruined everything. Things are different now, but parts of the past are worth preserving.

He wants to explain that. He wants to tell S what it means to him, except he doesn't yet know how to put it into words himself. There's a whole part of their life, their story, that he thought he'd cut himself off from forever, and here S is, giving it back, opening it up to him again. "I do," he says again, a little petulant, a little more embarrassed. He sniffles, head turning slowly again so he can glance up at S, hair just slightly in the way. "I... I miss it. And sitting together and music and..." He sighs. It isn't, precisely, the past itself he longs for or even those particular moments. It's the comfort and ease they once felt over this shared pastime, something that brought them so close together. It's how their love story began, how the next chapter unfolded when he accidentally let his secrets spill out of him.

"We were at the piano," he murmurs, "when I told you. When we first kissed. We shared that. I thought I'd made it so we never could again." He doesn't know if they'll ever play together like they did before. He wouldn't want to try yet, when it's a big enough gift to hear S play at all. But it would be enough just to sit there and watch him and listen, to take back one more thing he thought he wrecked. "So... so yes. I do want to hear."

S doesn't know how to say — doesn't want to say — that he thought the same thing, except for the part about J making it that way. It happened. There were so many different factors at play, and he still doesn't understand all of it. He knows he wasn't blameless, though, just like he knows that some of it was purely circumstantial, and that part, too, was that piece that J has called the voice, coming from him but not really him, not entirely. The way it fell apart could never have been just one person's doing, largely because of what J has just said. They shared it for so long. When they were still together, S never stopped trying to share it, but he thinks that did a fair amount of damage in itself, considering how fraught things had become. Had he not continued pushing, had he stepped away, maybe it wouldn't have been quite so bad. There are a dozen different what ifs, and he knows he can't get hung up on them, that it's impossible to determine what could actually have changed, but he's sure even so that it isn't solely on J.

"You say that like I could ever have forgotten," he says quietly, just barely teasing, turning his head to press a soft kiss to J's damp cheek. Of course he couldn't. Everything about that night is permanently etched into his memory — the Christmas season making the loss of his parents that much harder again, J playing the song he wrote for him to try to cheer him up, coaxing him over to the piano and then admitting how he felt, S's heart racing because he thought it was just him. That first careful kiss, learning that he was allowed something he was sure would be out of reach. The piano was always there, always a part of it. This past year, it's been nice to have proof of how strong their relationship can be without it, but that hasn't stopped him from missing when they shared it.

He huffs out a breath, almost a laugh, his nose scrunching as he tries again to dry his face a little, eyes tired from crying. "Ah, I'm a mess," he mumbles. "How'd I wind up crying so much?"

There's so much affection and warmth in S's voice and that gentle kiss that it threatens to overwhelm J again. It's nothing new, all that tenderness, but that's perhaps precisely why. They've shared half their lives now and more; they'll share the rest of it, too, and that love doesn't dim, no matter what they throw at it. If anything, it shines brighter now for all they've put it through.

He tries to laugh at S's question, and it comes out small and broken, almost a whimper, which is so ridiculous that it does make him laugh a little. Clinging to S still, he shakes his head. He should try to dry his own eyes, he knows, but he doesn't want to let go even that much or that briefly, not yet. "I started it," he says, not so much a self-accusation as an explanation. "You always cry if I do." He huffs out another laugh, wrinkling up his nose at himself. "And I always cry if you do." It's absurd, really, but he can't help it and neither can S. They're too closely intertwined.

Resolving to do better isn't enough. He's done it countless times now, after all, and they still end up in messes like this. It's a start, though, and how they also get out of these messes, so he does so again. One of these days, he thinks, it might actually stick. He's made so much progress this last year, even if he frequently feels like he's sliding backwards, and he knows that it's due to S. Of course, J knows, he's the one who had to push and work and put in the effort, and he's the one who'll have to keep doing so. The truth is, though, he doesn't know if he could have done it solely for his own good. He'd thought himself too much of a lost cause. But for S, he could do anything.

Still sniffling, still clinging to S one-handed, he lifts the other at last to swipe away the lingering tears. "I love you. Anyway, we're both messes."

S smiles at that, weak but indescribably fond, still holding onto J in turn. As much as he hates seeing J so upset, and he really does, there's something sweet about J like this, all soft and clingy. Despite how long they've been here now, and on so much steadier ground than before, there's always some relief, too, in being able to talk through something like this without it coming to a fight. They misunderstood each other at first, but they said what they needed to and they've wound up better off for it, or he thinks they have, hopes they have. Somewhere in the back of his head is the possibility that this could still go wrong — reopen old wounds, rekindle the sense of competition that came between them before — but he hopes it won't. That has to be enough. Like J said a few moments ago, they were happy together for much longer than they weren't, and music was part of that. It used to be something they shared. Even if neither of them ever feels about it the way they once did, even if they don't play together like they did when they were younger, there's no sense in letting the time when it went wrong negate the time that it was right.

"I love you," he echoes. "So much." It's a love big enough that he'd have been more than willing never to touch a piano again if it would do them any good, though he sees no need to point out that hypothetical now. While he thought until not very long ago at all that it might come to that, or should have, he knows now that he was reading everything all wrong. The last thing they need is to go back to talking themselves in circles over it. "Even when we're both messes."

As true as it is that he tends to start crying when J does, in this case, it wasn't even what set him off. Being told that J missed hearing him play is what did that, the very fact of it still leaving S slightly stunned, so at odds with what he's spent all these months believing. "Will you sit with me for a minute?"

In spite of his offer, he's not sure he could play quite yet, all sniffly and bleary-eyed. He does want to get off his feet, though, and regain his bearings, as long as he can stay close to J while he does so.

Though J isn't much inclined to pull away right now, sitting down sounds really nice. He was walking around for a while before he came here, and now he's a little wobbly from all the emotion and adrenaline, too. It might help, really, to sit for a bit as his nerves recover. At this point, he's cried so much that he's careful even to avoid nodding, not wanting to make himself dizzy.

Even so, he hesitates a moment. There is, as far as he's aware, nowhere to sit here except at the piano. It's precisely where S means, probably, if only for that reason, but it still feels like a big step. They've only sat together like that a very small handful of times in the last half a year, and not at all for a long time before that, so long that J doesn't actually recall what the last time was. When he played again at Kagura, he was so caught on the fact of what he was doing that that bit, while noteworthy, wasn't quite as striking as it is now.

Still, they need to sit and there's really nowhere else and it's not like J doesn't want to; he's just aware. Lifting his head, he tugs at S's shirt, drawing him close enough to kiss. "Of course," he murmurs when he draws back, pulling slowly away, reaching for S's hands. Fingers intertwined, he leads S along with him toward the piano, his heart leaping wildly. "Over here." He sits slowly, carefully, knowing he's off balance enough he could tip over if he doesn't, and he doesn't want to make this more of a mess than it is. Even so, he doesn't let go of S's hands, letting out a quiet sigh at the relief of sitting. "Better?"

Even now, S can't help wishing a little that there were somewhere else more convenient for them to sit, though he knows there's no reason for there to be. People come here to look at and buy instruments and music, not to sit on a couch. It would be better, though, just to curl up for a while rather than having to go over to a piano right now. Whether or not he plays today, putting them both there when emotions are already running so high might be a step too far, too fast. It's all that makes sense, though, and it'll be good for them both to get off their feet for a few minutes, catch their breath, settle down. They're alright. Over and over, S keeps telling himself that, awed and relieved. Stunned, too, though less because of that — given what they've survived so far, he really does have to believe that they could get through anything — than because of what J has told him. It's a lot to take in, still so unexpected.

Maybe it's actually a good thing, then, to be where they are, his hands in J's as he takes a seat close beside him on the piano bench like he's done so many countless times before, leaning his head on J's shoulder as soon as he's done so. Being here, in this close proximity to a piano, might help this development seem more real. If nothing else, he has the small but distinct sense that he wants it to be, one more thing he wouldn't have let himself feel before now. It's something he's still wary of, not wanting to fuck this up, but it feels even so like a door that he thought was closed and locked for good has been opened a crack, and that makes all the difference in the world.

"Better," he agrees, his voice soft, as he lifts one of J's hands to his mouth, pressing a kiss to his knuckles. He almost leaves it at that, but after a quiet moment, just a bit wistful, he adds, "We spent so much time sitting like this, didn't we?"

J turns his head, brushing a kiss against S's hair, a soft laugh muffled there. "So much time," he says, hushed. There may not be anyone else here, but that's never mattered. Some things are meant so utterly just for the two of them, there's no need to speak any louder. When S kisses his hand like that, when there's a beautiful instrument in front of them, he doesn't want to break the moment.

"Nearly every day," he adds. It may not actually have been every single day — he knows that, for much of his life, he played every day, if only a very tiny bit, but there were plenty of times they just didn't have a chance to sit together like this, bogged down in work and studies. It was near enough, though, just a simple, ordinary part of their lives. It was home. He really doesn't want to go backwards. As happy as they were, they weren't equipped to handle how he changed. They're better prepared now.

He smiles a bit brighter, though it'd be hard to tell, his face hidden against S's hair like this. "Though this is a little bit nicer than the one we had. On the surface, anyway." On the surface, it's a hell of a lot nicer, a much better quality and type of piano than the one they owned. He never cared, though. It worked and they knew the instrument well, knew how to coax beauty out of it. He used to dream of playing something like this. He's not sure he really wants to today, but maybe he'll come back again sometime and try it after all.

Although he may not be able to see much of J like this, S can hear the shift in his voice that suggests he's smiling, that alone an unspeakable relief. For such a long time, thinking about that part of their past did nothing but leave him miserable and lonely. Here, it hasn't been nearly as bad as that, but there's still been something bittersweet about dwelling on something long gone and out of reach, a time they could never get back. That last part is still true. He wouldn't want to go back to it, no matter how much he misses that time in their lives. It fell apart back then, after all. Only here have they been able to rebuild. He'd thought that, in doing so, it would be better, safer, not to have this. It's nice to consider that maybe he was wrong, that, if nothing else, they can still sit at a piano together, pleasantly reminiscing about the good parts of their earlier life together.

"Ah, much nicer on the surface," he agrees, smiling in turn. "I used to imagine that we'd have a piano like this one day. And the space for it. It's practically the size of our whole studio." It's an exaggeration, of course, but it isn't one at all to say that even if they'd had the money, they wouldn't have been able to house a piano of this size in their small little apartment. There'd have been no room for other furniture or for the two of them to move around.

He never minded that. He was always happy with what they had; still, even all this time later, he thinks he would take the upright piano that they had in their studio over one as fine as this. That was the one he grew up playing, after all, that he brought from his childhood home when they moved in together. "Playing this one still feels strange sometimes. Like I'm getting away with something."