Chocolate was best hot; then the steam and aroma would fill the room, and not just her mouth. Haruka enjoyed guilty indulgences like this, she even left her laptop off, but not far. She may not have been working at the moment, but she liked to keep it close, just in case she stopped being a hedonist.

She was alone, like she was used to, and she was almost beginning to enjoy it. Of couse, considering that he was around, her solitude had been tainted. Haruka's memory was like marble; ever fixed solid and smooth and free of imperfections, save for the swirls that gave it character.

She didn't hear him creep up, but then he'd always been that kind of graceful.

"I should take a picture of this. No one would believe me if I told them you were sitting here like this."

Itsuki kept things very professional most of the time, with the fondness that old friends have only sneaking in his voice when it wouldn't embarrass her. Considering that she was already embarrassed enough to have been caught in such an unguarded moment, he couldn't do much worse.

"Well, at least there's no proof." And she paused. "Exactly what are you doing here?"

He brushed aside that bit of hair that wouldn't stay in his neat ponytail and smiled. "I was taking a little break myself."

Usually he spent his breaks distantly fussing over Quon, but maybe there was something about today that she had missed. She glanced over at the nearest calendar and remembered. Oh.

"Has it really been five years?"

Impeccable, impossibly not anything she'd thought she'd wanted. Itsuki was a gracious man, even if he'd gotten distant. "Time always keeps moving, you know. Five years can happen as easily as say, twelve."

So they'd done the wounding for now.

"Would you like to sit with me?" It was time to move past that for the moment. Haruka had liked parts of him that weren't memories, after all.

"If the lady wishes." Graceful again. She wondered briefly if he'd ever danced to the music he loved so much more than the rest of the world.

"Tell me about something beautiful." Haruka wasn't sure why he of all people would make her feel a little less odd about herself right now. He was the blurring of art and science, so he knew what beautiful was.

"But I'll say something that will embarrass you."

"Say it anyway?"

"The modest Rose puts forth a thorn:
The humble Sheep, a threatning horn:
While the Lilly white, shall in Love delight
Nor a thorn nor a threat stain her beauty."

She smiled at him. Poetry and chocolate. There were no icy glares here.

"Always unnecessarily flattering, you know that?"

"Blame Blake. Or turn to the mirror and blame yourself."

But they weren't blaming right now. Even if they sat so far apart from one another in the grand scheme of things. But the distance was comfortable and the air only smelled of good things.

"But you know better. There are thorns. There are always thorns."

He leaned in, as if there were a secret to be had. "Only if you see them that way."