A/N: Angst-wreck story. I'm sorry for the different detail with the first drabble. Originally from a prompt in tokisemeharuto. Hope you enjoy the ride? :'D

ハルエル

"Mou… Dad, what are you doing?"

Haruto turned around as soon as he heard that voice, looking at his son who was crossing arms in the doorway now, pout adorned his face. Haruto grinned sheepishly, looking at the mess in the kitchen just for trying to boil some water. Boil water. He didn't even know why he needed that given he had dispenser and coffee maker and all. And then he had been turning on the stove but forgot to put on the pan, and his tie loosely hung against the fire, and it triggered the extinguisher they had in their house.

"I'm sorry, Ouji, I don't seem to be in my right mind lately," he replied, opening his arms complete with the drenched shirts and everything, and just as cued, Ouji stepped to his embrace. Haruto squeezed his child, who was protesting the wet clothes but didn't struggle against him.

His son, who was now snorting at him. Who had grown to become more and more alike with his mother lately. "But are you OK, Dad?" he asked with more concern. Even the layered attention was that of his mother.

"Yup, I'm OK. Sorry to make you worry, Ouji. Go back to your studies, or your mother's gonna get mad," he patted Ouji's head.

"Okay…" Haruto watched as Ouji glanced back from the doorway then disappeared to the corridor. Really, he looked like L-elf so much lately.

But from what his spouse told him last time they were eating out together, it seemed Ouji had been juggling personalities; looking like him when with his mother, and looking like his mother when with him. Or was it just the way married partners tended to see their spouse's features in their child? Haruto chuckled, maybe for him it was, but he doubted it was L-elf's case. He had been in this one-sided love for his wife for the longest time, and despite the motherly (and fatherly) care L-elf showed to Ouji, Haruto always felt like he was tagging along the journey. Sure, Ouji was conceived just from that one night, which was the cause of his marriage proposal to L-elf, and at that time, he was very ecstatic.

Now, the fact that someone he loved didn't love him back was breaking his heart every single day.

Rukino Saki, the celebrity he was handling right now for the Beast High advertisement, was now making bold moves against him, so much that Inuzuka-senpai started making dirty jokes and prompts to cheat on his own family because Rukino-san had clearly made statements that she was OK being a mistress. The bleak comparison with how cold L-elf acted around him when Ouji wasn't around was enough to make his loyalty swaying. Rukino-san was beautiful, proud and amazing, but when she was alone with Haruto, she looked so fragile, on the verge of tears several times, and Haruto had embraced her at those instances. Warm, deep hug which healed himself, because it was good to feel that your actions affected someone dearly.

He sighed, hadn't gone back up even after the hug with his son. This afternoon, before coming home, was the last day of video shooting session of the commercial. Rukino-san had called him to her changing room. Haruto really should have more self-awareness, but he hadn't. He shouldn't be surprised when Rukino-san had waited for him stripped to her underwear. Haruto had gulped then, admiring the mesmerizing beauty in front of him. What sane man wouldn't? It had been years since the last time he had sex.

Christmas five years ago, when he was too drunk to hold back, and L-elf was so adorable, but was so pained and flinched and too aware of Haruto when they did it. And when in the morning Haruto tried to convey how much he loved L-elf, through words and actions and everything his whole being could ask for, L-elf refused to look at him. "I love you," he had said then, but L-elf's body had only gone more rigid. "Do you love me even just for a little?" he had asked in the last desperate attempt to break into his spouse's privacy.

L-elf had said "I don't", then.

And for years, Haruto hadn't been alone with L-elf without Ouji around. Years of feeling like a school boy all over again, of glimpsing, of holding back his desires. Just a smile could set his heart aflutter, but the rejection would replay itself over and over again, and it was getting harder and harder to hide the face of a broken heart before his family. So he chose to work harder, getting home later, or even not going home for days.

But even those still didn't make him unfaithful, it seemed. The collarbone was different, the neckline was different, the scent was different. Rukino-san wasn't L-elf, and even when closing his eyes as he was being kissed, it felt wrong. And even when he kissed her back, it was breaking his heart even more. And Rukino-san knew it, he had told her about the relationship with his "wife". What he hadn't told her in words was how much he loved L-elf, and the fact that L-elf, as unhappy in this marriage as he seemed to be, never once cheated on Haruto. Haruto wouldn't start doing it before L-elf. So he said no to Rukino-san this afternoon, and apologizing repeatedly, and Rukino-san tried to cover her broken heart with an unaffected attitude, but Haruto could see her eyes, which looked too similar to his own eyes in the mirror whenever he came home. He hugged her, covered her body with his coat which was half undressed anyway. Anymore words would hurt them both, so Haruto simply put on a strong face and walked for the door without turning back.

But how silly that as soon as he got out of everyone's sight, he became too dazed to even realize that his tie was on fire.

Haruto huffed, finally took off the tie which was L-elf's last birthday gift five years ago, and grazed his thumb fondly. His head hung down low, and that was why he didn't suspect anything as he walked out of the kitchen.

But L-elf was there, in the corridor, and just like the years when he was a school boy, his heart stopped at that sight, he forgot how to breathe. This was too silly. Despite his youthful look, he wasn't young anymore.

L-elf's violet gaze turned upon the blue-white tie in his grasp, where the burnt edge was really visible. "…the tie," was the word L-elf said, and it surprised Haruto that his spouse even initiated the conversation.

"Yeah," he smiled, and it felt so bittersweet yet suffocating at the same time. "The tie."

L-elf frowned but he turned back and entered his working room again. A soft thud resounded in the room as he closed the door. Closing himself against Haruto, who felt his eyes burned with hot liquid. He couldn't turn away from this family, not with Ouji around, not when just a short word could make his heart leaped boundlessly, even though it crashed to the ground painfully just in the next second.

Maybe the time to end it all had come close.

If, and Haruto cringed just thinking the possibility, if L-elf found someone else to be happy with… At that time, Haruto surely would… He would-

ハルエル

A/N: Don't worry, the abrupt ending was intentional. Please wait a while before I could get to the second part.