A/N – SmotherFate again did a lot of the work in this chapter! She is my fanfiction buddy and is helping me a lot with this story since work is being mean and taking away all my free time :c Hope you enjoy and as always PLEASE REVIEW! You have no idea how much it brightens my day.

It was Thursday evening and most of the staff had already left for home leaving Reimi, one of the few remaining, behind. She had finished her work hours before - she was a runner so, with no one to run after, what was she to do but let herself be called over by the grand piano that always beckoned to her at the end of the day.

She used to stay behind like this all the time but ever since Lloyd came into her life, she didn't feel the need, and it was only now she realized how much she'd missed it.

Being with Lloyd was so much fun and getting to go home with him everyday was reason enough for her to rush out the doors when work was finished. Before she'd gladly play the piano for hours on end till she had to leave for the last train home.

And despite having more time to do things the past couple of weeks, when she had decided to try and keep her distance from him, she had felt too distracted to practice.

Thought it had been better since she found Beatrix.

The two of them met up almost every night and they just seemed to click, like long-lost sisters, straightaway. When they were together Reimi didn't think about Lloyd and Amy so much. In fact she had so much fun with Beatrix that there were moments when she could forget their existence completely, and that was exactly what she needed.

Well, almost completely.

Today Amy had planned to pick Lloyd up instead of Reimi so that they could go out together and Amy had made it very clear that Elsa and Reimi were to be too "busy" to join them. Lloyd awkwardly agreed on the outing, causing a lump to form in the pit of Reimi's stomach.

Were they going out? First the lunch date and now this?

Things had been okay between Lloyd and Reimi again recently, though she still stayed out some nights to get away from it all. The nights she didn't she resumed meeting him and now the tension in the house had dulled.

But there were still so many mixed signals. Sometimes she was sure that Amy annoyed Lloyd, but he rarely complained about her and they hung out a lot more often, so that couldn't be. Other times she thought that they were already a couple, they argued and bantered so frequently, and isn't that what indicated that you liked someone? And, there were other times still where she even dared to hope that he liked…

Reimi shook her head and drew her mind back in the present.

It made her nauseous to think about Amy and Lloyd, and she felt awful for it.

Her fingers stopped moving, and just rested on the keys. She let out a breath to calm her thoughts, trying to urge them to go to something else. A flash of Lloyd and Amy appeared again and this time she let out a frustrated groan.

"What's wrong, Reimi?" A voice spoke from behind her making her quickly jump off her stool and swirl round to face its possessor.

"Oh God, Lloyd. You scared me." She breathed a sigh of relief as she gripped her chest in an attempt to quiet the pounding. He had even gotten onto the stage without her noticing.

"Sorry. Are you okay?" He laughed lightly seeing her startled reaction.

"Yeah, haha. Don't do that to me." Lloyd grinned at her as she smiled back, "Lloyd, What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be with Amy?"

"She texted me after work saying she was sorry but couldn't make it because of college work. She made me promise we'd do it some other time." He explained.

Reimi slowly nodded her head in understanding, trying to dull the giddy feeling that was tugging at her lips.

"What were you playing just now? I really liked the sound of it." Lloyd enquired eagerly.

Reimi blushed realising he must have been standing there a lot longer than she'd first thought.

"Oh, um, it doesn't have a name. I just made it up now. I tend to play when I'm thinking and whatever I'm thinking just inspires what I'm playing… err, if that made any sense." Reimi told him sheepishly, looking away. Lloyd eyes lit up up at her words.

"…that's amazing! You can compose your own music on the spot like that?" he asked in astonishment.

"Well, it's not really on the spot…" Reimi mumbled, trailing off in embarrassment.

"So, what inspired that song?" Lloyd asked interestedly.

"H-huh?" Reimi sputtered.

"What were you thinking about?" He tried again.

"Err, well- I mean – it's…Lloyd, how did you know where I work? I always meet you at Starbucks before we head home." Reimi quickly asked him, very unsubtly changing the subject.

"Ah…well, you remember that time I once followed you?" He reminded shamelessly.

Reimi blushed at the memory.

"Right…But how did you get in the building?"

"It's hard?"

"Didn't anyone see you?"

"Yeah, I got in while someone was leaving."

"Really? They didn't even notice that you don't work here?" She reconfirmed in incredulity, receiving a shake of the head from Lloyd.

"…Nevermind. Just give me a minute to get my things and we can go home."

"You don't have to," he quickly reassured, "You can carry on and we'll leave when you're ready."

"Wouldn't that be boring for you?" She asked, lightly furrowing her brow.

"Not at all. I want to hear you play." He assured. Reimi smiled softly to herself.

"Alright but whenever you want to leave or get bored, you have to tell me, okay?" Reimi stressed as she took her place back in front of the piano, her heart going a mile a minute.

"I won't get bored." He said confidently receiving a doubtful glace from Reimi.

Nevertheless Reimi played nervously at first before forgetting her surroundings and finding her stride. She played for nearly an hour and after every song she would tell Lloyd about it; who made it, what it was about etc, and uncertainly including some of her own.

After about the seventh song, Lloyd stood from his seat and walked over to Reimi.

"…Could I try?"

"Playing the piano?"

"Yeah, it's so cool! I want to be able to make music like that too." He babbled on animatedly.

Reimi couldn't help but smile at how excited he was about the piano. Playing the piano meant so much to her, she was so happy that he thought it was 'cool' and wanted to learn it too. She tried not to think of Amy, after all she and Lloyd were just hanging out as friends. She wasn't doing anything wrong and, as she had already found out, ignoring him just caused trouble at home.

"Okay, yeah!" Reimi agreed happily, getting up from the piano stool.

"What are you doing?" Lloyd laughed making Reimi give him a questioning look. "Sit back down, it's big enough for us both." He pulled her back onto the chair.

Reimi breath hitched when he held her wrist and she briefly turned away to hide her face as she was sure it went bright red. Just friends, just friends…

"Al-alright, let's start then." Reimi stuttered.

Reimi began teaching Lloyd the basics the best she could, while trying not to flinch every time their fingers met, and for the first twenty minutes he was patient and listened to her instructions carefully. However, afterwards Lloyd grew frustrated and drummed the keys dully, resembling a bored child.

"Urrrr, I think I'll just go back to listening," he exasperated, getting up and wandering over to the other chair, holding himself as if he'd just ran a marathon.

"What? But you said you wanted to learn…" Reimi questioned in disbelief of his reaction.

"It's too hard and I got bored."

"Bored?" Reimi repeated, raising her voice slightly.

"Yeah, I don't know how you do it."

"But you said you wanted to make music." Reimi protested, rising from her seat. She felt so disappointed after getting so excited that he wanted to do something with her, something that she cared so much about and now, after only twenty minutes, he called it boring.

"I did but not if it's not fun."

"You only tried a little. Maybe it was just the way I was teaching you." Reimi suggested.

"It wasn't that, it was just boring."

"Please try again. A little longer?" she begged.

Reimi watched him contemplate for a moment before making a face. "...Can't I just listen to you play instead?"

She stood there for a bit just staring at him before suddenly collecting her bags, which were lying next to the piano, and walking towards the exit.

"Let's go home instead."

She felt like she was being childish but she couldn't help it. She was upset and she no longer felt like playing anyway.

"Come on, Reimi, it's not that big of a deal." Lloyd said hurrying along behind her trying to lighten the mood, only to make things worse as Reimi walked further ahead.

"Fine." Lloyd grumbled, trudging along behind.

The two stayed in silence the whole way home, even on the train, and once they returned, Reimi went straight to her room without looking at him.

She felt awful; she didn't want to be mad over something so trivial as Lloyd not wanting to learn the piano but she felt so happy that he wanted to play that she felt like her hopes were raised then dashed, and for him to say that what she loves is 'boring' was a little painful.

And now, she felt stuck in a silly argument that she wasn't ready to fix.

Also… what if he hated her now?

Her stomach did a sickening flip at the thought and she wanted to crawl into a hole. Instead she did the next best thing and bundled herself in her bed and tried to sleep.

However, with the stress, she couldn't and so she just laid in the dark for a couple of hours, going over the day in her head.

Suddenly, there was a light knock at the door.

Reimi glanced at her nightstand to see her digital clock read 1:24am. She wondered if Elsa had got back late before deciding not to respond. She didn't feel like talking to anyone.

Then the door started to creak open and Reimi immediately shut her eyes as a defence mechanism.

"Reimi?" Lloyd's voice called out quietly in the dark followed by the sound of his feet padding over and crouching down beside her bed.

"Reimi… I'm sorry about earlier. I know music is important to you and that I can be difficult and easily distracted. To be honest, I found it so hard that I just got frustrated with myself. I think you're incredible for being able to play such beautiful music." Lloyd paused to think about his next words carefully, "And, I might get bored of things but I never get bored of my friends and I'll never get bored of listening to your piano."

There was a long silent moment where neither one moved or spoke. Reimi was flushed and speechless to say the least. Then she felt Lloyd stand.

"Okay… that's it. Sorry to do this so late but I couldn't sleep with us fighting." Reimi heard how disheartened he was and her heart hurt from it.

As he turned to walk away, she quickly gripped his hand to keep him in place.

"Thank you, Lloyd. And I'm sorry too."

Even in the dark Reimi could see him beam at her, relief painted over his face. He squeezed her hand.

"Let's do something fun tomorrow." He smiled.

"Yeah." Reimi replied softly.

She let go of his hand reluctantly and they said their goodnights before Lloyd headed back to his own room.

He was just a friend… her and Lloyd were just friends, she repeated to herself in the dark.

I'm working on a Lloyd Dating Sim at the moment where you play as Reimi, I should be releasing it just after Chronicles comes out, so if you want updates on that, follow my tumblr lloydart . tumblr . com (without the spaces!). Also REVIEW PLEASE! Big thanks to SmotherFate again!