Kate was outside with the flowers again. It's nice to see their faces after being away in the hospital for so long, she said. Yuki didn't mind. He couldn't express how relieved and grateful he was to have her back. When she was away, it was like a big chunk of him was missing - he couldn't function, and that drowning feeling was stronger and lasted longer than ever. It was like he was stuck in an infinite loop. It was horrible.

With Kate back he and Haru had less housework to do, since Kate had insisted she cleaned the house and made dinner, despite Yuki's protests. So here he was, sitting on the sofa watching TV with Haru. Haru was snuggling up to him even though it was the middle of summer so there was no way he was doing it for warmth. At some point Yuki thought Haru had his face in his hair. It used to feel awkward when Haru did stuff like this but Yuki'd grown used to it and decided not to fight the situation. Or Haru might have ended up straight up tackling him. He was extraordinarily strong for his size, after all, as Yuki had to find out the hard way. As long as no one from school sees this, it'll be fine.

Still fascinated by the TV, Haru was flicking through all the channels so quickly that Yuki couldn't focus on any particular program. Well, what did he expect, with this hyperactive alien around. It was nice just relaxing on the sofa after dinner for once, so he couldn't complain. But Haru finally stopped surfing and zoned in on an English channel.

"It sounds weird. What're they saying?"

"That's English. Grandma has some foreign channels on this TV."

"English? What's that?"

What? He didn't know what English was? Why would an alien be able to speak elementary level Japanese but not know about English? It didn't make any sense.

Before Yuki could explain, the TV distracted Haru again and he was back with another question.

"What are they doing? It looks interesting! They're spinning around and around!"

Yuki explained it in the best words he could find. An explanation tailored to Haru's limited vocabulary.

"So, like the Enoshima one?"

"Yeah, something like that. It's from another country, though."

Yuki couldn't remember which country it originated in, and hoped Haru wouldn't insist on knowing. But what Haru did was worse.

"Cool! Let's do it too!"

"WHAT!? NO!"

Don't be ridiculous. With Haru? You've got to be kidding me!

Haru wouldn't let this one go.

"Lets do it. It looks fun!"

Yuki didn't want to look at him but he couldn't help it - and not to his surprise Haru' s eyes were on full puppy mode, with his cheeks all puffed up, pouting.

Haru had stopped using his water gun for a long time, but he didn't need to use it on Yuki anyway. For some reason Yuki growed weak when he saw that face. His body turned into jelly and bubbles floated up around him, brushing past his skin. He had to do it.

"Alright, alright! Jeez. We'll do it. But just for a little while, okay?"

"YAYYYY!"

Yuki turned off the TV and they got up and walked to the middle of the living room where there was plenty of space.

"So you put your left hand on my shoulder, like this, and…we hold our hands together on this side."

This was so awkward. It was a little known fact that Yuki could do proper waltz - Kate had taught him European dances since he was a child and waltz was one of the first he learnt. It was fun dancing with Kate, even though they didn't do it that much any more now that Yuki was in highschool. Yuki was giving Haru the follower role without thinking twice - there was no way he was going to dance as a girl.

"What about your other hand, Yuki? It doesn't look like the one we saw on TV just now."

Goddammit. Haru was more observant than Yuki had assumed. Of course, Yuki was avoiding the most awkward part of waltz - to him, anyway - putting his hand on the other person's waist.

"Right, yeah. I have to do this…"

Haru squirmed a little, surprised at the touch, but quickly reverted back to his excited self.

"Yes! Now it's the same as the one we saw!"

The fabric of Yuki's old T-shirt that Haru had on was soft and not half unpleasant. Haru's waist was so small and delicate it felt like a girl's. Not that Yuki'd even touched a girl's waist before, it's nothing like that at all, but it was how he imagined a girl's waist would feel like. Oh, god. What was he thinking? Why did he even agree to do this in the first place? Those damn puppy eyes! He was sure he was bright red in the face by now.

But this was just the beginning. Yuki had to teach Haru all the steps so they could spin around and around, just like the couples in the ballroom did on TV. Haru was not that coordinated when it came to using his feet -after all, he didn't have feet back on his own planet - and stepped right onto Yuki's for several times. Yuki was just about to suggest calling it a day when suddenly he heard Kate's voice from behind him.

"Oh!" She gasped. But it sounded somewhat delightful.

Yuki froze. He still had his arm around Haru. It was happening again. The water! In front of grandma! What if he started making that face in front of her? It would ruin everything - he'd successfully hidden it from her all this time so she probably never knew how much he tripped up over little things. Haru didn't even seem to see what the matter was. He kept trying to get Yuki to do his steps.

"Come on, Yuki, that was so fun!"

"It…its not like that! It's not what it looks like, grandma!" Yuki sputtered underwater. His stammers were mere bubbles, dispersing in the huge body of water.

Kate just looked at the two of them calmly, and smiled.

"Sure looks like a lot a fun, Haru," she agreed. "Yuki, it's okay. I know what you're doing. It's fine. I know Haru is someone special to you."

"GRANDMA!" Yuki was so close to making the face, it was almost impossible to talk.

Kate was heading out of the living room again, as if to say she'd leave the two of them to it. No! Yuki didn't know what exactly Grandma was thinking, but it wasn't that! Really! Yuki was still frozen underwater so he didn't do anything to stop her. And then she was out of sight.

Yuki hung his head in despair. He wasn't sure if he should bring this up with Kate again, however much he wanted to clear up the potential misunderstanding. It was too embarrassing. He'd had his arm around Haru's waist and Haru was holding so tightly onto his shoulder. Their faces were so close…it was almost as if…No! He didn't dare go there. Part of him naively felt that somehow, if he didn't have any weird ideas about what it might have looked like, Kate wouldn't, either. He sighed. It could have been worse. It could have been in front of the whole class, after Haru's used that damn water gun of his. But he promised not to use it anymore, right? So that wouldn't happen. Yeah, he was overthinking everything again. They were just dancing, after all. And what if Kate never had anything weird in mind after all? Him trying to clear a misunderstanding that simply wasn't there would have sounded more suspicious than if he just let it go, right? He sighed again.

Yuki let go of Haru and urged him to do the same. Haru opened his mouth to argue, but after seeing Yuki' s serious expression he decided otherwise. Yuki sighed again. He was starting to sound like an exhausted steam engine.

Haru mimicked him, and slumped down on the sofa beside him just like he did. "What's this?" asked Haru, sighing again to demonstrate.

"It's nothing," Yuki caught himself just in time or he would've sighed again and subjected himself to further interrogation. "Let's just watch TV."

So they resumed their lazy after dinner routine, with Haru surfing through the channels like he did with the textbooks at school, all while resting his head on Yuki' s shoulder. And Yuki just couldn't complain. Grandma was back, and even though he's still living with an alien, everything was as good as it could be. For now.