Falling in love with Haruki wasn't about owning him before anyone else did.

It was about loving him, and loving him only.

We walked through the night, hand in hand, me holding my violin case in my free hand, both of us quiet. It was close to midnight, yet the world was timeless, like an hourglass that was laying on its side because you were just so desperate to stop time. I sneaked a glance at him walking by my side. His eyes were on something ahead, but I got the feeling he was looking at something else entirely, in his mind's eye. He had a smile playing on his lips, a warmth in his eyes, as if a fire was burning behind them, warming everything that was lucky enough to get his gaze upon them.

I loved him.

I loved him so much.

It had taken me hearing Mafuyu's new song to realise that what me and Ugetsu had wasn't beautiful. I had believed what me and Ugetsu had was fate. That we were meant to be together, that we would one day wake up and it would just work. I thought that our fights were about our desire to belong to one another, that they were something positive in our life. I realised now that I had only been desperate. That our relationship had been a toxic one, and that we were co-dependent on each other. I needed him, and he needed me, and that had been the best feeling in the world because I believed it couldn't get any better.

That was until I started coming home to Haruki.

What struck me was the absence of fights. Haruki got angry with me, but he never picked a fight the way Ugetsu did, never tried to provoke me the way Ugetsu did, never manipulated me the way Ugetsu did. If Haruki became upset with me, he simply walked away for a while, did something else, and then he came and talked to me about it. It was all so... normal.

And I had started to wonder what a relationship with him would be like.

I came back to the now, to our walk. His smile while walking next to me, holding my hand, was contagious, even thought it was so soft, so soft. I wanted to touch his face. It took me a while to realise I actually could.

"Haru..."

At the nickname, he turned to me, and I sneaked my hand on his cheek and kissed him under a streetlight. He stiffened up in surprise, but then, I felt his entire existence relax into mine. He put his arms around me and he kissed me back. God, he was a good kisser. His lips massaged my bottom one expertly, and suddenly I longed to put my piercings on to see how he would play with them.

I took his hand and continued our walk. Every streetlight, we stopped and kissed, so synchronised we couldn't really discern who it was that stopped the other. I would grab his wrist and pull him closer. He would grab my short hair and drag me in. For every street light, our bodies came closer and closer, our torsos pressing tighter and tighter together.

"Where do you live now?" Haruki breathed into my mouth. I shivered, a wave of affection washing over me. I was surprised I wasn't drenched by that wave.

"South of yours", I said darkly.

"Mine is closer", he whispered back.

The implication of that was astronomical.

We kept walking, now with an essence of hurry spicing up our steps as we walked through the wind humming its spring song. We wanted to reach our destination badly. It felt like it took forever before we reached the porch to his familiar apartment that I had called home for a while, and I was so surprised I just stopped dead.

"What?" Haruki turned around and asked.

"I... I feel like I've come home. After all this time, after all that happened..."

Haruki smiled warmly, and I recognised that face. It was the same face he got when he played the bass when he was in a good mood. That I could evoke the same response in him that his bass could... I don't need to compete for his attention. With this man, I don't need to compete with anyone or anything. He belongs to me wholly, and I to him.

He grabbed my wrist, pulled me in and closed the door behind him, starting to kiss me furiously. I pushed him up against the wall, desperate for closer. I was just going to pull my suit jacket off when he put a hand on my shoulder to stop me.

"Please..." He was blushing. I had to bite down on my lips to not crush him then and there, I felt so much affection. "Please, keep it. I want you to play." He dared to look up at me, his face set and stern all of a sudden. "I want you to play your violin for me. Just for me."

I stared at him, mouth slightly parted, lost for words. "You... Want me to play for you?"

He nodded. "Please."

"You... Want me to play for you?" I repeated dumbly. He nodded again. "Why?"

"Sometimes..." He looked away, searching for the right words. I believe he realised there weren't any right or wrong words, that there were just words and we could just speak them to one another. "Sometimes, I find it hard to sleep. Then, I try to imagine you playing the violin. But I can't, because I've never heard you play."

"But you attended the concert?"

"I had to leave. I had to leave early on because I wasn't feeling well."

"Why?" I asked, worried suddenly.

He looked up at me then. "Love hurts. Unrequited love hurts."

"Haru..." I grabbed his chin, tilted his face up to mine. "It's not unrequited."

"I know that now", he whispered in between my lips. 

The force I had to use to tear myself away from him to grant his wish surprised me. But I managed, opened my violin case, asked him to sit down. When he had, I stood right before him. It was difficult, very difficult; my entire being screamed to stand a little to the side and turn around so I was facing him sideways. But I forced myself to face him heads-on, legs parted, strong. I put the instrument to my chin, lifted the bow.

I looked straight at him as I started playing.

I chose a melancholic song with long, slow tones intermingled with more difficult wrist-flicks that took a great deal of skill to master. My body never swayed when I played, as opposed to all other players I'd seen, but I stood dead still, still facing him, still looking him straight into his soul, his eyes being the window into his soul I had so gladly opened. He was looking at me, a surprised expression on his face, his mouth a little parted, his knees pulled up so he could hug himself. I let the bow dance for me and felt powerful above this man, but it was a different kind of power than what I was used to. I was used to physical power, the sort you feel when you're on top, in total control. This power was soft, willing, tender and I would do anything, anything in the world to keep it, to grab him and hold him close and whisper in his ear that nobody, nobody could make me feel the way he could.

I had never played so well in my life.

I played for twenty-five minutes, according to the digital clock on his microwave. I maintained eye contact with him the entire time. After fifteen minutes, when I got to a particularly beautiful part, Haruki started crying. It was so hard to stay put, to keep playing, face-front, eyes on him, to not go to him and comfort him. But I was determined. When I was finished, I even waited for a while before lowering my instrument.

"Kaji..."

I took two steps to him on the couch. He pulled me down on top of me and kissed me.

For hour after hour, we lay in the couch, kissing, touching, talking, laughing, looking at each other in awe. I brought his hand to my mouth and kissed each and every one of his fingertips on that hand, then the other. He pulled my suit jacket off. I pulled my fingers through his hair. He bit at my piercing holes. I told him I loved him. He told me he loved me and had done for a long time. He said he'd never kissed anyone with a tongue piercing before. I smirked, and for the first time asking for entry by licking his lower lip. He opened his mouth with a moan. That sound sipped into my skin, travelled through my blood and straight into my soul. I dove my tongue in, twirled it around playfully, letting my tongue piercing, that I hadn't deemed necessary to remove before the concert, play with his tongue.

He loved it.

He absolutely loved it, licking and sucking at the metal. God... No-one had ever played with it the way he had before.

"Haru..."

We didn't sleep with each other that night. Or any of the coming nights either. We fell asleep on that couch, my arms around him, him snuggling into my embrace. I silently gave my heart to him then and prayed he would keep it safe, prayed he would offer me his for me to keep safe.

I had never trusted anyone with my heart as much as I trusted Haruki with it in that moment.