Hey guys. Here's chapter two. I'm kinda terrible with updating, I know. It hopefully will get better. This chapter is longer, and introduces OC Akio! It's unedited and rough though... so watch out for that. (sorry)

Warnings: This is shounen-ai/yaoi which there isn't a lot of this chapter, but there will be later. And also, this is classical music. Please do not read it if you are offended by either of the above.

Disclaimer: I do not own Sekai ichi Hatsukoi. You're lucky that I don't.

Enjoy!

When he had the time, Yuu usually spent his Saturdays catching up on sleep, or fooling around with Chiaki. Sitting in a mostly empty auditorium with a bunch of strangers was not what he had pictured when Kanta had said, "concert" a few days ago. To his credit, the guy had pointed out that it was a classical music festival… but Yuu must have not registered what that had meant at the time.

Kanta dropped into the seat next to him, passing over a can of coke. "Thanks for coming, man. To be honest, the only reason why I asked you was because no one else could make it, and I honestly don't like these things all that much… it helps when there's someone else there who you can talk to when stuff gets too boring." He reached down and picked up the program he had dropped on the ground earlier. "Oh look, Chizuru-chan's fifth to last. Looks like we'll have to wait a while."

Yuu grunted and went back to staring at the closed curtains. He didn't know Kanta all that well, and after talking to the guy for five minutes, he remembered why. The guy was slow and tactless while talking. Chiaki may have been similar, but on him it looked cute. On this guy… it was just annoying.

The lights dimmed and the surrounding chatter grew hushed. Kanta offered Yuu the program to look at which he took but didn't bother opening. Eventually, a woman's voice echoed throughout the large and mostly empty hall, reminding people to turn off cell phones, flash photography, blah blah blah… Yuu stifled a chuckle when the old man two rows in front of him began to snore. It didn't seem like anyone here was all that excited. Damn it. Yuu leaned back in his seat with his hands behind his head. Might as well get comfortable.

Yuu was bored to tears. The first few contestants were so pitiful he could cry, or more likely laugh. The first guy had been a trumpet player… a trumpet player who couldn't stay in tune. Then there was a violinist who broke a string in the middle of her performance; she ran off the stage in tears. After that came a pianist who forgot a section of her music and played the whole piece over again. Yuu lost track of everyone else after that. Kanta had said this was a classical music competition. It was more of a circus than anything else.

"Number 41, Kabayashi Chizuru, age 21 will be playing Schubert's Ave Maria for violin." A polite applause followed this announcement.

Kanta elbowed him excitedly. "Oi, Yuu! It's my sister. She's really good and since there's no competition she'll probably get first place."

Disgruntled by the elbow to his ribs, Yuu grumbled and repositioned himself away from the offending guy. Kanta didn't notice though—he was too busy clapping and cheering which got him a bunch of annoyed looks, including one from the old man two rows in front.

A petite girl with the same straight, chestnut hair as her brother stepped into the spotlight. She smiled cheerfully at Kanta (who was very easy to find in the audience) and bowed to the handful of people there along with the three judges in front. Then with the confidence acquired only by experience and skill, she tucked the instrument under her chin and held the bow poised over its strings. Yuu raised his eyebrows and leaned forward in his chair. His observant gaze had detected the difference in her movements compared to the rest of the contestants, and he found himself believing what he had thought was only an overconfident brother's praise. Beside him, Kanta practically stood up in his seat in anticipation.

The hand descended, lightly pulling out a single note which hung in the air even as others joined it. It was a warm sound that filled the hall unlike any others before it. Chizuru's hands teased the sweet melody out of her instrument. She was in perfect control over her sound, yet the music was not at all strict; it held the audience captivated, each person holding their breath so not to miss the next note. Yuu smiled when he saw that the old geezer had stayed awake for this piece.

Chizuru's last note floated away over everyone's heads, and there was a momentary silence that was broken by Kanta's incredibly loud and enthusiastic clapping. Everyone else followed suit, and Yuu noted that for the first time, the man two rows in front was applauding.

Chizuru beamed and bowed twice before almost skipping off of the stage. Kanta sat back down and gave Yuu a large grin. "Wasn't that amazing? Isn't she good?" Before there was a chance for his friend to answer, he got up. "Well, she's got first place alright. No need to listen to anyone else—I'm off to the toilets and to take a quick look around. I'll be back after the next performance. You want anything to drink?"

Bemused, Yuu shook his head and watched the guy bounce off. Due to the emptiness of the hall, he could catch snippets of other conversations all commenting on Chizuru's performance. The couple next to the old man noted that whoever was to follow her was a very unlucky person.

"I wouldn't be so sure." It took Yuu a second before he realized it was the old guy who had spoken. The couple had turned to ask him why, but by then he had fallen asleep again.

As the judges spoke amongst themselves, Yuu opened the program. After Chizuru, there was some guy on the piano playing Chopin. From what he had seen, despite being rather rude and falling asleep during most of the performances, the old guy seemed to know quite a bit about classical music. This next guy probably would be good too. He smirked to himself. Kanta chose the wrong time to go to the bathroom.

A hush fell over the audience as the lights dimmed again. The white head two rows in front stirred and straightened. He probably knew the contestant, Yuu noted.

"Next up, Number 26 Tamura Akio age 23 will be playing Chopin's Etude Op. 10, No. 3 or Tristesse for piano."

A slight figure in a black tux walked onto the stage. There wasn't anything special about the way he moved. If anything, his aura was a far cry from the confidence and experience that Chizuru emitted. There was no sign that he would be different from any of the other performers they had heard earlier. Yuu leaned back in his seat.

Akio seated himself on the piano bench and raised his hands. It was that moment that caught Yuu's attention. His hands were slender with long, slightly pointed fingers. "Like Chiaki's hands" Yuu found himself noting. And as he thought of Chiaki, he noted that the other man's hair fell over his forehead in the same unruly fashion as Yuu's beloved mangaka's. A painful twinge tightened Yuu's chest. He couldn't see the other man's face, but as he looked harder and harder, the resemblance became clearer and clearer. The height, the build, the hands, the hair, even the way the man had walked on stage reminded him of Chiaki. Yuu's grip on the chair handles turned his knuckles white.

The hands descended onto the white and black keys. The song known as Tristesse or "Melancholy" was in every way melancholy. Chopin's piano compositions were known to be sad, and interpretations of it centered on this heart-wrenching emotion. But the second Akio's fingers pressed on the keys, there was none of that.

His playing was simple. He did not sway or contort his face into horribly exaggerated expressions of pain, he simply played. What flowed out of the sleek black Yamaha was not from the stage of the small hall in Tokyo. It was not the sound of music desperately practiced for a competition or music expressed with overwhelming feeling. It was the sound of loneliness that enveloped the audience, not an unrequited love or endless pain. Chizuru's music had captivated everyone with its warmth and grace. Akio's Tristesse chilled each person and pulled them out of their seats into his world. It was almost unbearable. One found themselves longing for some sort of emotion, some disturbance to release the tension those plainly placed notes held. The music swelled, growing large in volume and in complexity of notes, but instead of increasing excitement, it only increased the size of the gap that each person felt inside of them. Then Akio brought them slowly back down from the clouds. His grip loosened and he landed lightly, his last few notes echoing even as his hands lifted from the keys.

There was absolute silence. It's funny how silence can sound so different at different times. There is the classic awkward silence, the peaceful silence, the tense silence. After Chizuru's performance, there was the anticipating quiet lingering as if the audience was waiting for more. Here, it was the silence of a handful of people blinking their eyes as they realized they were back in Tokyo, Japan. There was slow clapping that gradually grew into a low roar as fifty or so audience members remembered where they were. Several even stood up. The old man didn't, but he clapped with more enthusiasm than ever before. Everyone there was clapping, and it was an awed rather than delighted murmur that rippled through the rows. Everyone was clapping. Everyone except Yuu.

Yuu sat there, unable to move. This was not Chiaki. This was himself, and that loneliness was none other than his own. He had come here in hopes of forgetting all that had happened to him, but now he was hurting even more so than before. It didn't actually hurt though. Akio's playing hadn't hurt him; it had only numbed Yuu with the chill and realization of just how lonely he was.

One thought made it through his still mind, one that stirred him and made him chuckle dryly. That thought was that he was probably the only person in the entire audience who understood the extent of that performer's emotions, and it amazed him that Akio had been able to move his fingers so skillfully over the keyboard as that numbness enveloped him. And Yuu chuckled at how lucky Kanta was that he hadn't heard this man play, for the poor guy wouldn't be able to understand why in the world it wasn't Chizuru who got first place.

How was it? Reviews please! This is kinda rough, sorry about that, but it's also not very satisfactory in my eyes. I have some comments for my own writing, but I need other opinions too. This is a far cry from some of the more amazing stories from my favorite authors :) Therefore, please do review with criticism.