Dan, true to his word, stopped being friends with Phil.

It was all so sudden that Phil couldn't help but think that it hadn't happened. That it was all a dream, and now he'd woken up in the previous week, where he didn't know Dan at all.

Admittedly, they did still spend time together. Dan couldn't go back on his promise to carry on teaching Phil piano, but the lessons, rather than being enjoyable, were the time of day they both dreaded most.

Phil knew he wasn't wrong about Dan. He was a Master at analysing people's feelings, and he could tell that Dan was falling in love with him, but he didn't know how to say.

Dan, on the other hand, had no idea. He wasn't aware of his feelings for Phil. He was pretending his nervousness and strange warm fuzziness around Phil were just because he was proud of his skills at teaching, and didn't want anything to go wrong. He refused to admit to himself that there might be something more.

They'd had six piano lessons together, all in school, and Phil wasn't sure how much longer he could cope with much more lessons like this.

"Ready?" Dan asked, looking deliberately at the floor.

Phil nodded and then, realising that Dan wasn't looking at him, said, "Sure."

Dan breathed out, and then turned reluctantly to Phil. "What are we doing today then?"

He made it sound like an accusation.

"We... Uh..." Phil fumbled over his words.

Dan raised an eyebrow and sighed. "You're meant to be good at this, you twat."

"I- we're carrying on with I Giorni."

"If you want."

Dan turned to the piano and then, noticing Phil hadn't copied him, turned impatiently. "Hurry up, why don't you?"

Phil, blushing scarlet, shuffled closer to the piano.

"Let's hear you play it, then," Dan snapped.

Phil winced at Dan's tone, but obediently started to play the piece.

When he'd finished, Phil noticed that Dan's scowling face had softened slightly, but as soon as Dan saw Phil looking at him, he rearranged his features into the angry glare that he'd been wearing before.

"That was alright. You need to fix the end bit, but we can move on next lesson. Play it again."

Phil, undeterred by Dan's unexplainable anger, continued to practice.

When the sound of the bell interrupted Phil's fifth rendition of the piece, Dan practically sprinted out of the room to his next lesson.

Phil sighed, and followed suit, but was stopped by Michael, who blocked his way, wearing a friendly smile to cover his confusion.

"Hey, Phil, what's up with Dan?"

Phil was about to snap an irritated response and leave, but something made him slow down, and fall into step beside Michael. "I don't know."

"You do."

Phil sighed. You could never lie to Masters if they were concentrating hard enough. They'd always see straight through you. "Well... Something happened a while ago, and he went all weird. I apologised to him for it, but the next day he said we couldn't be friends any more."

"What happened?"

Phil didn't know if he wanted to tell Michael. Yes, they'd known each other for a while - three years, to be exact (they'd always had drama classes together) - but he still felt like what had happened between him and Dan was private.

"Nothing much."

"Look, if you don't want to tell me, then that's fine, but my advice is, if what you did was intentionally cruel, let him do whatever he wants, and what you did was accidentally cruel, apologise."

Phil smiled slightly. "Thanks for trying, Michael, but it doesn't fit into either of those categories."

"Then what was it?" Michael pleaded. "Tell me! I might be able to help!"

Phil sighed resignedly. "I kissed him."

"You did WHAT?"

"He's gay," Phil hastened to explain, "and so am I, and something told me that he liked me, so I..."

Michael grinned widely. "Well, you're not going to be wrong in thinking he likes you, so I say go for it." He winked, and then turned. "Well, this is my room. See you."

Phil stood, confused, but then smiled. Michael was right.

okay so this was a bit shit sorry about that