Chapter Twenty Four
Saying "I love you" is not the words I want to hear from you
It's not that I want you not to say but if you only knew
How easy it would be to show me how you feel
More than words is all you have to do to make it real
Then you wouldn't have to say that you love me
Because I'd already know…
He remembered that song rather vividly, for no apparent reason but for the fact that it was Rukawa who had sang it to him, the first night they had been together, singing softly so that he fell asleep with the words haunting him. That was a long time ago. Smiling to himself, he stopped the nostalgic thoughts, just as another dark figure emerged from the kitchen armed with cooking gloves and balancing three dishes of food almost too easily. Looking at him, Sendoh remembered.
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They sat around the table, the older host leaning back slightly in his chair and mulling over something while the younger stared at something over his shoulder. Hanamichi himself studied the both of them under his lashes, and hoped they wouldn't notice.
Somehow, in his lifetime, nobody, nothing, had seemed to be so perfect. It could be his imagination. But he didn't think it was.
Even the first time I saw him…he let go now of his reservations with a soft exhalation as the thoughts he had been trying to deny finally made their existence known. I think I fell in love. Not the love that people talk about, the love that makes people know one another so well, no, not that kind of love.
He turned his head slightly to the left, taking in the other man's face in the warm glow of the steady candles. And him. Malcolm. Sendoh Akira. He makes me feel the same. No two people…no two –men– have ever made me feel like this.
This is the kind of love I think makes people crazy. This love makes me go weak at the knees, and I can't get enough. This love makes me think of nothing but them…such is their power, their charm, that they make me forget everything else…
He vaguely noticed Rukawa nodding at something Sendoh was saying even as the older man smiled at him and he began to tuck in, distractedly noting that the food was delicious and making a mental note to compliment the chef later.
I wish…
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Hanamichi was chatting with Sendoh about the architecture of the house. Rukawa wasn't paying much attention. All he knew was there here, now, in this one room, three of them were together, him, Sendoh, and the redhead.
It's not possible to feel like this. He stabbed at a piece of fish almost viciously, then put it into his mouth and chewed, quirking a half-smile as Hanamichi burst out laughing at another of Sendoh's stories. How can I want them both like this? What am I, some maniacal pervert?
"Kaede?"
He snapped to attention, cursing inwardly for letting himself get lost in his wondering. "I'm sorry. What did you say?"
His lover gave him a sideways, almost-sly look. "I asked if you would like to dance."
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He stood, almost like he were in a trance, and walked towards the two men in the middle of the room, one who smiled and held a hand out to him, the other who was turned half-away, and slowly moving to face him. As he walked closer, the taller man stepped to his side, too quickly for him to move away or react even as the whisper seared his ears and the words a drug that sent his heart pounding.
"If he wants both you and me, and I want both him and you…don't pretend you don't want him and me."
Shock coursed through his veins. They know. They know.
And then the scene seemed to flashback, to the night of their meeting, when the music began to play, smooth, drawing their souls closer, soft, drawn-out trills that framed a painted imagery of the wide oceans in throbbing drumbeats and complex sequences of notes.
Dance with me.