7. Melody.

T: Aha we have, at last, reached the point of the title!! Yeh, please excuse the silly mood!! Warnings remain the same and I still own nothing other than Arai.

Chitose: I'm so sorry I missed you last chapter…you see this is what I get for updating so early in the morning! What a strange coincidence…though it means I'll have to be extra careful with how I deal with Tat's asthma! Hope you like today's chapter!

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There is a long moment of silence and then Ryu, with a hesitance that seems odd for one full of such natural confidence, says,

"I was only sixteen when I formed Nittle Grasper and the intoxication of the celebratory world proved as the headiest of drugs for my young mind. I became caught into the glamour, trapped without escape and then I met she who would become as my port amid that chaotic storm, who would release me from the cage of that life and allow me to see what really mattered in the world.

"Her name was Hikari and I'd met her a year previous on an amateur dramatics course. I'd believed it something akin to fate when I saw her again, an illusion she'd swiftly dissolved when she informed me 'I'd heard that you'd gotten your band together and, wishing to see you at least one more time, I came to offer my dancing skills.'

"I had liked her very much the last she had been part of my life and, using the force of my influence, I had her brought in as a backing dancer for the band. The proximity that such a position placed us into, along with the kindness of her nature, began to confuse my heart and our relationship.

"One night I asked her back to mine to discuss the next video shoot and one thing lead to another. We begun a relationship after that and when she told me that she was pregnant I was, despite the weight of such a responsibility, the happiest man in the world.

"The day that my little melody was born was also the day that I told Toma and Noriko the truth of my age and that day that everything began to change. For holding my daughter in my hands I finally completely understood what Hikari had been telling me for so very long, that there was more to life than impersonal meals in high class restaurants or boozy nights in snooty hotels.

"For a month afterwards I lived my life with that enlightened perspective, treasuring the every moment that I had with Melody and learning a little more each day of Hikari. Then, all of a sudden, Grasper's popularity sky rocketed and my every moment was taken up with video shoots and impersonal interviews.

"I phoned Hikari every night in order to assure myself that Melody was well, those calls become briefer and briefer as distance placed a strain on our relationship. I blamed myself wholly for this drifting, mired myself in drink in the desperate hope of simply washing the issue away. Eventually the band begun to suffer and, seeing it as the only solution, Toma cancelled the final leg of that year's tour.

"Hikari and I talked for hours once I got home, discussing my irrational need to undertake all the blame for this situation, her disgust for having made me feel guilty for doing that which I loved best and, most importantly, what our future was to be.

"It was clear to us both, by that point, that there was no love left in the relationship and, for Melody's sake, we decided to call it a day. Since then I've shut myself away from everything other than the music and my daughter, have made her happiness as my up most concern. I told myself that as long as she was happy I was happy, as long as she could live a life full of content I would have no regrets, and then you wondered into my life." The singer pauses and, leaning just a little towards him, he says, "Earlier in the restaurant Hikari wrung me to say that Melody had been hurt and, concerned for the welfare of my daughter, I was a little abrupt. I apologise for that, apologise for hurting you unnecessarily and I wish you to know that I want you in my life, Tatsuha…wish to explore the heat that exists between us." A breath and then the singer is kissing him with a force and an intensity that he responds to without question.

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T: One more chapter to go and the main story is done! I shall be writing a side story for this and I'll give you more details on that next chapter! Expect the last chapter tomorrow/Monday. Review?