Author's Note: Okay, fine. I admit that I am a rather lazy person and I was busy the whole two weeks. I have yet to edit a single chapter of FnH, much less DWHW. Goodness, the latter's chapters are far verbose than the other one I'm afraid it might take forever for me to finish it! As I promised, I present to you a fluffy Toki/Haru chapter! And must I state that this is one of the longest- if not THE- longest chapter of this story. Haha, I feel accomplished! Without any further ado, let's get on with this chapter!

Futari no Himitsu

Chapter 21

Our Secret

"…So," Ichinose Tokiya finally spoke, breaking the awkwardly long silence. "I did not know you can play the piano, much less play it like a professional."

"You do not know much about me," Nanami Haruka said in a rather blunt tone, completely oblivious to the cold words she just replied. But upon seeing the wounded look on Tokiya's face, she laughed awkwardly and added. "Just like how I don't know much about you!"

Surprisingly, or should I say surprisingly not, this only made the bluenet's mood even sourer. She sweat dropped.

The two are inside the music room; both of them are sitting on the piano bench in silence. The other members of STARISH left them alone so Tokiya could explain the situation to her, but it seemed that Tokiya was tongue-tied for no good reason.

Haruka was feeling distressed. This has not happened since the first few months they started dating! It was still awkward during that time and she did not feel any attachment to the man, so she did not feel like talking. While Tokiya, the kind and understanding gentleman he was, also kept quiet in order to not scare the girl.

But now, it felt weird that both of them were silent. Was it because of his lame attempt to make a joke and the rosette harshly shot him down?

She immediately felt a pang of guilt in her chest and decided to apologize.

"Um… I'm sorry if I didn't find your joke as funny." She scratched the back of her neck, timidly looking away. "I know that I might have sounded a bit too cruel with my response… So please, stop acting so dejected."

Tokiya, who was looking down at the floor in sheer embarrassment, finally looked up and had a surprised expression on his face. Haruka blinked; equally startled at the look he was giving her.

After a lengthy staring contest, the usually silent man was roaring in laughter. The rosette looked at him in utter confusion, unable to comprehend what was going on.

"Why would you think of such thing?" Tokiya barely slipped those words out of his mouth for he was still busy laughing. "Do you think that I am such a ridiculously low person that I would feel miserable with such a pathetic reason?"

"B-but I—!" Haruka turned as red as a tomato. Was it from embarrassment or anger, that I do not know. Seeing that the blue-haired president wouldn't stop laughing and looked as if anytime soon he would fall down on the floor in his fit of hilarity, she crossed her arm and pouted.

"Well, I'm sorry for worrying about you!"

Finally he stopped.

To say that she was impressed that he can make a straight face after laughing like an idiot in a split of a second, was an understatement.

"Oh, Nanami-san." He whispered in a genuinely concerned voice. "Are you angry? It was not my intention to make fun of you."

Haruka was taken aback; her arms fell quietly on her sides. "I'm not angry." She confessed.

"You aren't?" He asked, sounding like a guilty child. She couldn't help but laugh at the cuteness.

"I'm not." She smiled and patted him on the head.

Dark blue eyes widened, he placed his hand on his chest and sighed in relief. "I'm glad."

Haruka chuckled, thinking how it was nice to know that only she could see this side of him when a sudden question popped inside her mind.

"Ichinose-san?" Tokiya 'hm?'-ed at her so she took this as her cue to continue. "Why are you so silent today? The atmosphere around us felt somehow… awkward, and this hasn't happened in a long time."

He blinked; there was something in his expression that she couldn't describe.

"Ahaha," Tokiya laughed awkwardly. "I did not think that you would notice."

"Well, you thought of me wrong." She feigned a hurt expression. "I think I know you long enough to know if there was something vexing you!"

After she finished her sentence, he looked glum.

"Is there anything wrong?" Haruka wondered if there was something that she said that made him upset.

After a long pause, he sighed.

"This feels wrong."

She raised an eyebrow.

"What?"

Once again, he sighed. Slowly, he rose up from the piano bench and walked away from her. Haruka thought that he was leaving the room when she realized that he only stood up because sitting on the bench for a long time was making him uncomfortable.

At last, he spoke.

"Remember when we were at your apartment?"

Haruka made a gesture, as if saying 'what about it?'

"I promised you that we would get to know each other, but it felt as if nothing happened."

She wanted to protest, 'no, something did happen' but for some reason now that he mentioned it…

It seemed as if they only made little to no progress at all.

"Wait a minute," The rosette furrowed her eyebrows. "Why are you bringing this up out of nowhere?"

With that, he sighed again. He looked away, biting his lips bitterly.

"Was it connected to the reason why you wanted me to compose for STARISH?" Haruka asked worriedly.

"I don't know if it's connected… but it's the reason why I remembered it." There was a short pause before he continued. "After we decided to perform as a group, they suggested that we use an original song. We were having trouble on whose going to compose for us when Jinguuji-san suggested you to do it. I was shocked that he would suggest that out of nowhere. He, who does not know much about you, would recommend us to have you as our group composer.

"And then Masato asked me if you knew how to compose or play and instrument. I realized that I was stupid to think that way when I'm actually no better than them: I barely know anything about you. What made me feel even worse is that it was not I who found you playing the piano; it was no other than Cecil using his muse-dar, as what we would call it. I thought it was ridiculous that my friends, who aren't that close to you, seemed to know you better than I do."

"Maybe he just remembered my name out of nowhere and suggested me?" Haruka guessed, referring to Ren.

Tokiya balled his hands to a fist. "Maybe," He said. "But Cecil knew. He knew it from the start, as he told us before that the 'Muse' was with you, while I did not."

Haruka didn't know anything about Cecil and his Muse-business but decided to question the topic later on. What was more important was to bring the bluenet back to his wits. Seeing the bluenet act this way made her feel annoyed, but what made her even more irritated was that she was the reason why.

"So what are you brooding about?"

He blinked. "That I don't know much about you—"

"So?" The rosette placed her hand on her hips, raising an eyebrow.

Tokiya furrowed his eyebrows, slightly offended at her tone and how she was referring to the topic too lightly.

"What's with that reply? Weren't you the one who said before that you didn't know anything so you couldn't love me?" He said in choler.

"I said that 'before'," She emphasized the last word, but it only aggravated him even more. "Have you forgotten what I told you before," Tokiya opened his mouth to argue but she immediately continued, but in a much softer and gentler voice. "that I love you."

He fell silent, shocked at the words coming out from her mouth. Haruka sighed before standing up and walking towards him. She now stood up in front of him, slowly raising her hand. Tokiya immediately flinched, it was an automatic reaction after all the encounters he had from his father. She frowned, cupping his cheeks. Blue eyes widened in surprise, he opened his mouth but no words seemed to be enough to express his reaction. Haruka smiled sadly.

"I love you," She repeated, making her blush but she still continued. "Even if I don't know much about you. Didn't you tell me, that you want me to slowly fall in love with you as I learn different things about you? Isn't that enough for us to be happy, Ichinose-san? Isn't it enough?"

"But…" He wanted to protest, but his mind was swimming with different thoughts he does not know what to say.

"I don't need to know everything about you, nor do you need to know everything about me." She smiled, closing her eyes. "Don't you think it's better this way? That we're keeping secrets from each other and we're only saying it once we're ready? I don't want to push you to tell me everything, I will wait for you the same way you were patiently waiting for me when I still wouldn't talk to you."

Tokiya stared at her beautiful calm face, completely dumbfounded. He remembered those days, when she was still shy at his presence. He remembered all the silent walks they had as they went to their classroom. Sometimes it felt awkward, how deafening the silence was, but he did not persuade her to talk. If she didn't want to, then be it. He didn't want to force a conversation out of her. It made him feel all tingly thinking about it.

"But doesn't it feel weird" Tokiya asked, still not giving up. "that you're dating someone you barely even know?"

There was a short silence. Then Haruka smiled cheekily at him, she finally let her hands down.

"Think of it as this way; imagine that I am the heroine from a story. Of course, you want to know about me and what's going to happen. But don't you think it it ruins the whole point of reading when you just skip at the climax of the story or maybe the last page just to spoil yourself of what happened to me? Don't you think it's thrilling to read every page of the book, devouring it with your eyes word for word as you learn even the most trivial things about me like what my favorite food is or what do I like to do in my spare time?"

"Knowing your favorite food and your hobbies isn't 'trivial' to me." Tokiya pouted.

She chuckled. "But you get my point, right?"

Slowly, he nodded. "As Professor Oak used to tell me, 'there's a time and place for everything, but not now.'"

Haruka looked at him in disbelief.

"Is it me or are you quoting Pokémon?"

Tokiya smirked.

"I did not expect the great Ichinose Tokiya to play such a game." The rosette looked at him, incredibly impressed.

"My, Nanami-san, one does not have any childhood when he or she hasn't played this work of art."

And their conversation suddenly went to how they used to play the classic game and which digital monster they liked the most. A few more minutes of chattering, Tokiya stopped and just stared at her with a smile on his lips.

"… Do I have something on my face?" She asked, wiping an imaginary dirt off her face.

The blunet laughed and shook his head.

"Say it again."

"Say what?" She asked.

"'I love you."

Haruka turned as red as her hair.

"W-w-w-where did that request came from?"

He leaned closer, enough for her to feel his warm breath.

"Please?" He said in such a cute voice Haruka couldn't help but fall for his demand.

Reluctantly, she whispered.

"I love you."

Tokiya inhaled deeply before exhaling, internalizing her words so that it would never disappear from his mind.

"Again."

Golden eyes widened, "W-w-what?"

"Say it again."

Haruka pouted her lips, looking away as she muttered words under her breath. The bluenet smiled, placing his hand under her chin and forcing her to look at him. The rosette squeaked.

"Again." He repeated.

With a sigh, she did so.

"I love you."

"Again."

"I love you."

"Again."

"I love you."

"Again."

"I…"

Tears started falling from her eyes due to severe embarrassment; her face was so red she looked as if she had a fever. She started sobbing; this was too much for her. You might call her pathetic, she didn't care. But don't you think it's harder to say words when you actually mean them and sometimes, it seemed like those words aren't even enough to express how you really feel?

"Please, Nanami-san." Tokiya whispered. "Just one last time."

More tears fell from her eyes. Trying to forget her embarrassment, she closed her eyes and spoke with a much louder voice.

"Ichinose Tokiya! I love you so much to the point that just the mere thought of you makes my heart pound to the point it feels as if it's going to explode. Every time you're not with me, I wonder what you're doing and if you're doing fine. Whenever I see you smile, I can't help but smile back. But whenever I see you smile but it was directed for another girl, I feel this weird feeling in my chest as if I don't want you to do that again. Whenever you're around me, everything seems so much better. I feel so happy when I'm with you! Ichinose-san, I love you so much its hurts that I want to cry! I love you… I love you… I love you-!"

Eyes snapped open when Haruka felt soft lips against hers. Soon, she felt his tongue licking her lips. She immediately melted and felt her eyelids closing. She opened her mouth and the tongue war soon began. It lasted for three minutes when she felt light-headed and felt her knees buckled. Tokiya immediately noticed this so he placed his hand on her arms, pushing her gently until she fell on the piano keys, hand supporting her fall. A loud broken noise echoed across the room, but he couldn't give a damn as he continued.

Alas, this was all too much for her. She pushed him away and started heavily gasping for air.

"Ichinose-san," She coughed, wiping her lips. "I have noticed that even when we move, you still don't stop."

"Of course," He smirked seductively, making the rosette turn away. "Nothing so trivial can stop me from making you feel good. Which also means, when we do it for the first time, I won't stop pleasuring you until you co—"

Haruka shoved her hand on his face. "Okay, too many details. Stop."

Tokiya chuckled, finding it amusing whenever she blushes when he teases her.

"I find it endearing that you can say such a beautiful speech yet you could barely say the world 'I love you' unless I goad you to."

The rosette blushed, crossing her arms.

"It can't be helped." Was her only answer, finding it too embarrassing to explain. This only seemed to entertain the man even further.

She shook her head, trying to think of a way to change the topic. Suddenly, she remembered.

"Oh, wait a minute."

"Yes?" Tokiya asked, trying to wipe the smirk off his face.

Ignoring his expression, Haruka rolled her eyes and continued. "Please do tell me how you came to a decision on performing on the Cultural Festival as an idol group. Last time I remembered, you were ridiculing Cecil for suggesting such idea."

Tokiya looked blank for a moment, completely forgetting the reason why he went here on the first place.

"Hm… We have awfully gone out of topic." He dryly noted. "I blame it on you, Nanami-san, for answering my question in such a crude manner."

Golden eyes widened. "So it's my fault now?!"

The bluenet laughed.

"I'm just joking; you don't need to look so offended. Now, where shall I start…?"

.

.

"Um, wait a minute." Haruka made him stop his story-telling, utterly confuse about it. "So are you telling me that the student council president of Raging Academy challenged you to have a concert on the cultural festival and whoever gets the most ticket sales win?"

Tokiya nodded in confirmation.

"And your prize for winning this contest is that they won't reveal to the public that the so-called Mischief duo of Shining Academy trespassed inside their school while in the influence of alcohol and attacked a number of students and also some school personnel?"

He nodded again.

"And the members of that duo are Ichinose Hayato, your mistakenly assumed 'twin' brother, while other one is Shinomiya Satsuki."

The bluenet nodded for the third time.

"I know who Hayato is," Haruka scratched the back of her head, still troubled. "But please do tell me who is this 'Shinomiya Satsuki'. Is he Shinomiya's, and I mean Shinomiya Natsuki, twin brother? Or don't tell me," She laughed sarcastically. "He's Shinomiya's other self, just like you and Hayato-kun?"

Tokiya nodded for the fourth time.

"Please do tell me you only nodded because I asked you three straight questions that had the answer yes and so you automatically nodded on the fourth."

Now he shook his head.

Golden eyes widened, she immediately stood up, finally getting off from the poor piano keys, in shock.

"You have got to be joking."

Tokiya sighed, rubbing his temples.

"I wish I were, Nanami-san."

"B-b-but," She furrowed her eyebrows. "What the in the name of all things that makes sense? How is that possible? How can there be two people in this school with a dual-personality and the two of them are part of the student council and the two of them share the same circle of friends?"

"I wish I can answer you, Nanami-san. I didn't know about this not until a few hours ago."

"Wait," She paused. "You didn't know about Shinomiya's other self?"

Blue eyes widened, he chuckled.

"That is a very hilarious question, Nanami-san. Of course I know about him, we actually found out about Satsuki-san a few days after I told them I had my own. At first, everyone in ARISH had the same reaction as yours. But seeing that we can't change the fact that they were friends with two mentally insane people, they just let it go and life went on. By what I meant by I didn't know about it was my so-called 'twin brother' was apparently infamous around the different schools in Tokyo."

Tokiya's explanation sounded as if he was just talking about the weather. This was too bizarre.

Seeing Haruka's reaction, the bluenet sighed in exhaustion.

"Nanami-san, please don't think my explanation is too ordinary. Please just think of it as having an extra 'Ichinose Tokiya/Hayato' around, except the other one is blond and their names are 'Shinomiya Natsuki/Satsuki'."

The rosette still thought it was rather enchanting to have such coincidence, but with Tokiya's reasoning, she dismissed the subject just as he suggested.

"Um… okay." She nodded, finally giving up. "STARISH is a rather peculiar group."

The bluenet laughed. It wasn't a gentle chuckle nor his sexy but aggravating smirk, it was a real laugh.

"If you only knew, I have yet to tell you more." Before Haruka could ask what Tokiya meant by that, he started speaking. "Three of us, which are Jinguuji, Hijirikawa, and I are heirs of the companies that make Japan's economy going. Kurusu suffered a severe cardiovascular disease on his childhood days. Otoya is the son of the principal of Shining Academy and he only found out when we transferred here, and lastly Aijima is an Arabian prince banished from his home country Agnapolis for being half-Japanese."

"Wow." That's all she could say.

Tokiya nodded in agreement. "Wow, indeed."

.

.

The two headed home. As usual, the bluenet walked his girlfriend on the way home.

"Since when did you learn how to play the piano?" Tokiya asked, holding her hand.

Haruka, even though they have kissed for the second time, found the concept of 'holding hands' as awkward.

"As I can still remember," She tilted her head to the side, doing the thinking gesture. "I learned how to play it before I could even see."

Tokiya was about to say that she was exaggerating, there was no possible way that she could learn how to play when she was still an infant. But then he realized that Haruka meant that she learned how to play the piano before she had her eye surgery at age 7. Good thing the rosette didn't seem to notice his reaction, for he thought he was such a jerk for almost saying something that might have hurt her.

"As you know," Haruka continued. "When a person has one of his senses taken away from him, his other senses are sharpened compared to normal people with five senses. On my case, my sense of hearing and touch are highly sensitive so I quickly learned by just feeling the keys with my fingers and memorizing the sounds it created when I played it. By the time I was 6, I could proudly say that I was better at playing the piano than the normal children the same age as I. A two years after that, after I had my surgery and managed to get used to my new found sense of sight but my sense of hearing and sense of touch wasn't as good as before, I could play as good as the people five times my age."

"That's amazing." He let go of her hand and started clapping, truly impressed.

Haruka blushed and looked away. The bluenet smiled and took hold of her hand once more.

"That song you sang," Tokiya started swaying their hands like little children, she didn't know whether to get annoyed or be amused. Knowing how adorable and how this does not happen every so often, especially if the man doing it was Ichinose Tokiya, must I emphasize, the latter won. "It was very beautiful. And your voice, it was so… wow. What's the title of the song?"

"Flattery will get you nowhere, Ichinose-san." By now, the rosette looked like the deepest shade of red he has ever seen. "I named it 'Maigo no Kokoro'." But she answered his question anyway.

"Maigo no Kokoro," The bluenet repeated the title, saying each syllable as if it was a foreign word even though it was their local language. Haruka was about to ask what's wrong when he started. "But I'm serious!" He protested, tightening his grip on her hands for emphasis. "As Aijima-san said a while ago, that song was so 'you'! No one could have sung that song better than you do!"

"Ichinose-san," Haruka looked as if she was once again going to cry in embarrassment.

Even though seeing her look like this made him want to tease her even more, he promised himself not to make the rosette shed another tear because of him, even if it was for his own amusement (he admitted that he was a sadist). In order to prevent this, Tokiya changed the topic.

Somehow.

"Nanami-san, can you compose a song right now?"

The rosette blinked, before giving him a very hard stare. He wondered if this offended her, to ask such thing out of nowhere. He was about to give up, scared at the severely distressing look she was giving when suddenly, she nodded.

Blue eyes widened. "Really, you're going to do it?" Tokiya asked, tone dripping in disbelief.

Haruka nodded once more, without even any warning she started humming a tone. Tokiya was really amazed with her ability, so he started sputtering out random words as that served as 'lyrics'. The rosette found his attempt as cute but was surprised at how sensible the lyrics were, with that she continued.

oboete imasu ka? Princess? (Do you remember, my princess?)

nanairo no KONPASU wa (That rainbow-colored compass)

suishou no youni hora mata mirai ni kagayaku(See, it still shines like a crystal in the future)

maigo no KOKORO nakanai de (Don't cry, lost heart)

itsu datte kimi no soba ni iru (I will always be by your side)

sasageru toki no Dream tomo ni kizamou yo (The dream I give to you, we'll carve it out together)

Feel It, Crystal Time

Finally they stopped. And by stop I meant singing and walking. They looked at one another, impressed with the song they created.

"I am amused that you made a reference to my song." Haruka smiled, no longer feeling jittery as she did a while ago. Somehow, even in this universe, music was one of the main elements that made-up the girl named Nanami Haruka.

An idea popped out from her mind, she had the sudden urge to shake uncontrollable for she was so excited.

"Hey, Ichinose-san? How about I make you a song, so that you can have your own solo number on the cultural festival?" She asked, but for some reason her tone told Tokiya that it was more of a demand.

"Eh?" He sweat dropped, taken by surprise by the sudden change of mood and the sudden proposal. "Don't you think it would be unfair for me to have a solo?"

The rosette shook her head. "You are the president. You should have something special up your sleeves that would surprise the crowd."

Tokiya looked down, pondering over the idea. "Yes, I think it would make the crowd happy. But what would STARISH think about it?"

"I think they would love idea!" She smiled, eyes glittering in excitement as she was already thinking of composing the song.

He smiled gently. "Then I think would be fine. Let's do this."

Haruka literally jumped in sheer happiness.

"Should we use the song we just created just now?" He asked, "It wouldn't be such a waste if we didn't finish it."

Thin red eyebrows furrowed, thinking about it. After a few seconds, she shook her head.

"No." She replied in a rather blunt voice. "But we are still going to finish it."

Tokiya raised an eyebrow. "Why's that?"

Haruka blushed, looking down on the cold cemented floor.

"Don't you think that it was special?" She whispered. "That song we just created. Only the two of us knows about it, it makes me feel as if it has a special place in our heart. I mean, even the lyrics of the song seemed to connect us together!"

The bluenet immediately understood what she was meaning to say.

"So you want this song to be a secret between the two of us? You want it to be our secret?" He smiled teasingly.

Haruka looked up and nodded. "Yes," She grinned. "Our secret. Futari no Himitsu!"

Author's Note: I realized, even though the title of the story is Japanese, no one ever questioned me what did the title mean. Well, in this chapter it is revealed! Hurrah! Mystery solve. Well, in Japanese it is written as 二人の秘密. Literally, it can be translated as 'Two Person's Secret.' But it sounds weird in English so allow me revise the grammar for a little bit, it can either be 'A secret between the two of us' but if you translate it in Japanese, I do not think it would be exactly Futari no Himitsu, so let me give you a less complicated and shorter one: 'Our secret'. But really, can you dare say that the song is their secret? Certainly one of them, but I do not say it is the main one! Well, for starters, you can include Tokiya's dual-personality as a secret, but a number of people already knew about this so I do not think we can still call it one, don't you think? Another one is Haruka's childhood eye problem, which is more of a secret than the previously mentioned. But actually, that's not the real secret. It isn't the reason why I named this fic as 'Our Secret'. What is it, we will find out later on!

Hm, is it me my Author's Note looked rather... formal? Recently, I have been reading Anne Frank: Diary of A Young Girl. And I say, it is rather fantastic book. I think it might be the translator's fault, but I found it written awfully polite! And now I tend to talk differently, though of course when I speak using my mother-tongue I still do sound the same but English... Oh, Anne! My Darling, Anne! What have you done to me?

Haha, if you prefer this style of writing and author's note, please do suggest some lovely books for me to read (and buy). My style of writing is easily influence, I do not know whether to be distressed or not.

Oh, another side note! Yesterday, we held the 'Araw ng Wika' in our school. It can be translated at 'Day of Language' if you're curious. We had a Dulaang Radyo, I think it is 'radio drama' in English? I am not very confident. Either way, in otaku term's, we can consider it as a drama CD. Yes, you heard me right, we were voice acting! I felt pathetically awesome for doing such thing! I played as the villain! I admit that laughing maniacally like how Light would and screaming in agony as my character turn into a puddle of goo made my throat rather hoarse. It was fun anyway. Better news, we won for the best script and best play! Congratulate me, everyone!

Yes, call me weird for saying this but I just couldn't help myself! The feeling of victory has yet to wear of from my nerves as I still recollect that moment when we literally jumped in joy when we found out we won!

Wow, I just realized that this Author's Notes seemed longer than usual. I'm sorry, I know only a few people are reading this and I might as well be wasting your time. But I haven't updated for a while and I really missed you. Until I update again!