Disclaimer: Not mine…

Wow, this was really complicated to write. And to think it all stemmed from the idea that Subaru should play an instrument (as I am of the Band Nerds). I wanted to write something abstract where the writing doesn't go from point A to B. And of course, to write something beautiful (put all that poetry back-up to good use). That said, I don't expect too many reviews for this. I just enjoyed creating for its own sake, and hope some of you will enjoy!

It's summer, at any rate. So more fics by me to come!

-Kyou-chan

Sonata

The wind breathed into the propped windowsill and spread the humid scents of night into the living room. It was only half past eight, but Subaru remained curled up on the couch in a much needed sleep.

A single lamp radiated over the coffee table where a half dozen faxes were strewn over the polished surface. However, when another heavy gust rushed into the apartment, they scattered across the room. As Subaru fidgeted in his slumber, one of the faxes fluttered over his face. Green eyes snapped open as the paper tickled his cheek, and he woke with a start.

The breeze brushed his face as Subaru took in the disarray of his living room, and with a soft curse, he shut his window. He must have fallen asleep while reviewing the newest cases his grandmother sent him. Six faxes in one day—it was practically unheard of, especially after he had performed two more exorcisms just that morning.

In hindsight, he probably should have followed the advice of a certain someone that he should relax more often, but his pride would not let him start now.

Instead, Subaru trudged through the living room to recover the lost cases. As he lifted the first from the carpet, he absently thought of how much he hated faxes. They were merely black and white requests for help; they were words devoid of the anger and sorrow that often lied beneath. Those crisp, faceless sheets of white reduced each agony suffered to just names, locations and of course, the plea for his own sharply printed name, SUMERAGI SUBARU to respond. If it only it could be so simple.

He took the second fax, that of a cursed widower, from the foot of a book shelf. There was a victim of rape and murder under his couch, a bewitched telemarketer behind the coffee table, and a stubborn, deceased lover over the armchair. However, as he spotted the final paper in a dark corner, Subaru hesitated.

The fax was draped over a large object that had been shrouded by a dusty sheet. With surprise, he realized that he could not recall what was under it or even if it had ever been there in the first place. The sheet was strangely shaped over a long, flat top and sloped down over various edges and curves to kiss the floor.

Tired curiosity got the better of him as he snatched the sixth fax, and with his free hand, Subaru pulled down the blanket. A thin layer of dust flew into the air as it glided off the object and wrinkled itself over the floor. But as he gazed through the dust, Subaru was awestruck by the naked object standing before him.

It was a piano. Its sleek, black surface gleamed under the distant lamp's light, undisturbed for years. Beneath its elegant body there was a cushion for the absent musician.

He frowned; how long had there been a piano in his apartment? Its very existence was as confusing as it was magnificent. He stepped around the instrument, studying its every detail until his hands eventually rested on the front panel. The hinge creaked from years of neglect as he lifted it and uncovered a long row of ivory keys.

Subaru tentatively brushed a finger against the innocent white keys that alternated with sharps and flats made of black. They were cold and soft against his fingertips and brought a sense of calm to him. The piano was in perfect condition; someone had once loved it meticulously, and he stroked the keys wondering who that someone might have been.

A moment of daring prompted him to press down on one of them. The silence broke with a single note singing into the air with a rich and beautiful voice. Against his finger, Subaru could feel the note vibrating, and it sent shivers through his body. He held his breath as the note thinned as though he were with it, vanishing into nothing.

Yet when it had dissolved away, the note was replaced by a chord. His eyelashes fluttered apart at the sudden return of sound, and he was taken aback to find himself sitting in front of the piano with his slender fingers pressed expertly over the correct keys. The notes hung in the air, waiting for him to continue, and he hesitantly played chord after chord. The notes vibrated deeper into Subaru, and he realized that he had chosen them all perfectly. The apartment emptied of the music, leaving him pale with the disturbing truth.

The piano belonged to him.

At once he knew that there was a reason the piano was left covered—there was a memory behind it that was meant to be avoided. Subaru should have stopped right then, covered the piano back up, and continued with his work. But his curiosity was too much. What had he buried with the piano?

The same chords played over again in a way that felt nostalgic for Subaru. He played them quicker and experimented with the notes backwards, all the while letting his thoughts wander with his fingers across the piano keys. He closed his eyes, and old images drifted back to him.

This same piano had been given to him when he was a child. He had no talent or time for music, but that all changed two weeks before when his small hands were cursed and had to be hidden with clumsy gloves. It had been his grandmother's idea to give him the piano and with it, seven years of lessons on top of his other training.

After that day in Ueno Park, his hands did not work as she expected. The gloves made him fumble with delicate objects during training, and more than once, the fresh markings would hurt so badly that he could not bear to use his hands for the day. The piano, she reasoned, would help him adjust to his new predicament, and with the continuing weeks, he became more agile and graceful. To Subaru, the piano was another expectation of his grandmother's rigorous training, and he knew better than to refuse. When he received the piano, he did not react. Hokuto, on the other hand…

The songs he played were performed a hundred times over. Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata with its tranquil waves of music that went back and forth, pieces of Mozart's concertos with their twisting complexity—Subaru played it all with trained perfection. The piano's songs waxed and waned into his ears, and the memories within each key flowed into him.

Hokuto had made a fuss when he was given the piano and not her. She adored music, and moreover insisted in doing everything that her twin brother did. Eventually, she found a way to be included; whenever his training gave him spare time, she would drag him to the piano and have him play. She would exuberantly sing and dance along with any tune he could remember, even the ones without words. Subaru had never been fond of the piano, but the way her face would light up as he played and the strange dances she invented made it worthwhile. They were Subaru and Hokuto, performing together as always, and he never once took that time they had for granted.

But the faint memory captured only glints of the stolen past. Simply recalling those times reminded Subaru of how much of Hokuto was left in darkness. He could not remember what she looked like as she danced or her voice as she sang. He could not even remember the music itself. Subaru furiously played song after song without wasting thought on how he knew them, but nothing he played could help him recall. As the last song rang into nothingness, Subaru knew that their music had been lost.

How could he? He was not forgetting the piano, but Hokuto, the other half of his heart. By losing her memory, he was killing all that remained of her. He stared at the piano with disgust at himself, and rose when the guilt stung at his eyes.

When he stood, two hands immediately caught his waist and pressed him against a warm body. "You never told me you could play," remarked an intrigued whisper in his ear.

He did not want Seishirou here. His pain had crept back to the surface, and the Sakurazukamori's touch was more than Subaru could bear. "I don't have to tell you anything."

Seishirou ignored the venom in his prey's tone. "You were good," he remarked while nuzzling Subaru's neck. A low laugh hummed out of him when the onmyouji shuddered. "Quite good."

Subaru shoved him back. "I don't care what you think!" He felt a knot in his throat as he shouted and was unable to look at Seishirou or the piano that rested in the other direction. He wrapped his arms around himself, trying to drive out the chills that Seishirou sent through him.

"I was only complimenting you, Subaru-kun," Seishirou replied with mild amusement at his reaction. He took several steps toward him and stopped short of touching his shoulders.

Subaru said nothing and picked up the black sheet to cover the piano.

"You're not going to stop, are you?"

For the first time, Subaru turned around and looked him in the eye. At once, Seishirou recognized the agony those green eyes held from nine years ago. "If I could," whispered Subaru. "I would burn it to ashes…I should never have found it."

But Seishirou seized his hand before he could drape the sheet over the piano. Subaru glared, demanding an answer.

"Why not play a little longer?"

"No. No, I won't," he sternly refused. He did not want to realize all that he had destroyed of Hokuto or be near the man responsible for his agony, the same man he loved so recklessly in the same breath. Why couldn't Seishirou just leave him to his pain?

The assassin, however, remained stubbornly oblivious toward him, as always. "Play one more song, Subaru-kun." The purr in his voice made it obvious that Seishirou was teasing him more than begging for that wonderful music to sound again. "Surely you would for Hokuto-chan," he added intuitively.

Subaru's eyes flashed with anger, but in seconds, his expression turned blank. He could almost hear a voice calling from his memories.

Come on, Subaru! Hokuto would beg when his younger self rose from the piano. Please, just one more song! And after hesitating, he would sit back down. He would play just for her for hours on end.

The trance broke when he discovered himself sitting again before the piano playing a melody he did not recognize. He shivered as Seishirou's hands slid down his chest, but his fingers did not tremble as they played. His heartbeat, nevertheless, raced against Seishirou's caresses, and the music breathed a faster tempo accordingly. His hands danced across the keyboard, faster and faster until he could barely distinct a border between himself and the ivory.

It was such music! Wonderful, terrible and entrancing in every measure of song, it dissolved Subaru from reality, until himself, the piano, and even Seishirou's attempts to distract him all bled together and carried him away on a swift current. Here the music flowed backward to the past and beyond this moment to the future.

Subaru no longer felt himself in front of the piano, but on his bed in what would be minutes later. He was in a peculiar place between crying and moaning. He was drowning in wet passion, clawing only to Seishirou to stay afloat. Mouth against mouth, skin against skin, Subaru was beside himself in remorseful ecstasy. In the thick of it all, the piano music submerged them both in its strange, blood-tingling song. At every sweep of dynamic change, adept fingers brushed at his exposed body igniting a new cry from his lips.

His voice melted into the mysterious sonata. The music crept inside his lungs and into his blood so that he and the music were one. The desperation of sex drove his heart faster yet, and Subaru vaguely sensed his fingertips burning as he propelled the melody of the present onward.

The space between each note grew shorter and more ragged with his breathing, yet in each, fragments of a lost memory burned into his head. Hokuto's laugh. How her hair was tousled after hours of dancing like a toy ballerina to the piano. And with those memories of the past, there was Seishirou holding him in that bedroom, feeling him, playing with him, playing him. Time's borders were meaningless with his sister, her killer, his lover haunting him to the brink of madness.

He could not stand it a second longer. His future moans turned to tortured cries. The music became harsh and forced, but Subaru hammered harder against the keys, trying to strangle the piano into eternal silence. He wanted to destroy that piano—destroy his pain, his sister, and himself. He hoped to snap the underlying piano strings at their root and splinter himself apart.

The music was deafening, and his visions were unbearably vibrant. Air rushed up in his lungs, building in him like a time bomb. He and Seishirou were violently crushing together as one. Hokuto was spinning with her skirt flying in midair. Tears burned at the corners of his eyes, and Subaru plunged the music over the edge until everything broke.

He screamed against Seishirou as he came in tears.

Hokuto's spinning froze in one instant, and she smiled at him. She opened her mouth as if to speak to him. Subaru! Subaru, look at me! She then was crumpled against the feet of the piano as lifelessly as he now knew her.

His scream transcended the bedroom into that scene of death, but Hokuto would not stir. He screamed back into the present, but his tormented voice merely took the form of the final note that echoed through the living room. He was mute as it vibrated past the apartment and into the night.

And then there was no music.

Subaru opened his eyes and found his tears beading the piano keys. He miserably slumped forward, and had Seishirou not been holding him, he might have crashed against the instrument. Seishirou remained unusually silent as he turned his chin so he could study the anguish in his prey's expression.

He briefly caressed Subaru's wet cheek with a vacant smile, but his eye was transfixed by the onmyouji. "Beautiful," he commented at last. "So very beautiful." And he closed his mouth against Subaru's lips.

Subaru managed a whimper against the kiss, but Seishirou lifted him from the cushion and carried him to the bedroom. As he was pressed against the mattress, he knew that he was to again drown in that place of moaning and crying for it was now the present, and the sonata would rain over them both as they made love.

By morning Subaru would wake alone. When he opened his eyes, he would tacitly decide that the spirits and bewitched solicitors would have to wait.

He would get rid of the piano. He would reduce all the memories to colorless images and try once more to leave Hokuto in her grave. The price for acting otherwise was too great for Subaru to pay.

But it had already been too late, and on quiet nights, Subaru knew it to be true. He would stare into nothing as he reviewed cases, drift away from the coffee table, and lie awake for hours. He would think of black and white faxes, black and white piano keys, and his black and white memories—all of which were anything but.

And he wept as distant piano music rolled through the dead air.

Owari