Hey ya'll. Sorry for the delay. I've been... nah, I haven't been busy. Just lazy.

Been thinking about doing a oneshot for Junjou Romantica. The idea came to me and I got super excited. I haven't started yet though, which isn't a good sign. I'll go do that, and work on this one too ;)

Here's chapter four. Enjoy and Review!

Chapter 4:

Yuu sighed as he dropped his keys on the kitchen counter. He and the Kabayashi siblings had gone out to dinner after the recital, and though Chizuru-chan had been good company and all, he found himself unable to keep up. It wasn't her fault—he just couldn't get the image of Tamura-san's tearstained face out of his head. Another sigh.

He turned around and slowly slid down to the floor, his sweatshirt riding up as it caught against the cabinet handles. Yuu ran a hand through his thick rust-colored hair—he had hoped to escape his gloomy thoughts about unrequited love…

Just as he closed his eyes and tilted his head back against the cabinet, a muffled beeping noise began and his pocked vibrated. Yuu grabbed the annoying chunk of plastic and hurled it at the opposite wall. If it was urgent, they could wait at least until he finished his pity party. As if to spite him, the phone, after keeping quiet for a few seconds, began its beeping and buzzing again from its place on the floor.

Groaning, Yuu slowly crawled over and checked the number. Chiaki. He set the phone down again. Normally, he would have jumped at the chance to hear his beloved idiot's happy chirping over the phone, but now was not the time. Definitely not the time.

The little red light stopped flashing, and the screen went dark. Dark, silent, dull, depressing… Goddammit even his fucking phone was mocking him. With a groan, he stuffed it back into his pocket, only to nearly give himself a paper cut on the stiff edges of the recital program. The world was out to get him.

Yanking the packet out, Yuu squinted at the tiny print in the dim light at the list of names and pieces. Tamura… Tamura… Ta-mu-ra… Tamura Akio. Bingo. A tingle ran down his spine as he recalled Tamura-san's performance. Chopin's "La Tristesse." He would have to look it up later.

As for now… he dragged himself up of the ground, what he needed was a drink and a good night's sleep.

And a good night's sleep it was. Yuu huffed in frustration as his blanket slipped off the side of the bed for the umpteenth time. He would close his eyes and start counting backwards from one hundred, but somewhere along the seventy-threes and fours, he started recalling indigo eyes—one pair sleepy and innocent, the other bright with tears.

"ARGH!" Slamming his pillow over his face, Yuu shook his head furiously to chase away his wayward thoughts. He had counted backwards, counted forwards, counted in English, counted to seven in French (he had forgotten what came after "sept"), counted sheep, counted cows, hell… he even started counting bowls of rice, but he got hungry and still wasn't any closer to getting to sleep than he was before.

Fuck this. Yuu threw his pillow off to some remote corner of his room and sat before his laptop. It wasn't like he was doing anything more productive anyways. Within seconds, he brought up millions of hits for "La Tristesse Chopin," many of which were links to random artists he didn't know. What was he looking for anyways?

Clearing the search box, Yuu randomly typed "La Tristesse Chopin Tamura Akio." To his utter amazement, in less than half a second, results flooded the page—"Akio Tamura Steinway Young Artist Competition" and "The Chinese International Piano Competition Tamura Akio." As he clicked through each of the links, he noted that Tamura-san always placed in the top ten. Yuu was no judge of classical music, but these competitions looked pretty prestigious, and just listening to people's comments informed him that Tamura-san was of a different level entirely. Now even more than before, he wondered, "What the hell made the guy join the competition today?"

And as he continued to click away, he saw again and again the phrases "impeccable technique" and "elegant interpretation." This guy was big. Really big. Yet no one seemed to know of him in the audience… only that old man who slept through most of the program. A voice in the back of his mind quietly asked him whether or not this was slightly creepy and stalker-like. Yuu dismissed that thought with an impatient wave of his hand. Google made money for a reason, and if there were so many results for the guy, then there must be tons of others like himself.

It was somewhere between two and three in the morning that found Yuu asleep on the keyboard, the pale blue light of his laptop screen casting an unearthly cast onto his face, emphasizing the dark circles under his eyes. And it was the beginning of an unread paragraph that answered, at least indirectly, Yuu's question. "Tamura Akio, for certain personal reasons, has limited his performances to venues within Japan. He has chosen to pursue his musical education at TokyoUniversity of the Arts."

Then with a flicker, the screen dimmed, and everything was dark.

With a bang, Akio slammed the door shut behind him and leaned against it, catching his breath and composing himself. A few seconds later, he opened one eye and then the other, slowly registering that he was, finally, in his own home, his own space. Without even looking, he tossed a crumpled sheet of paper into the recycling and headed for the shower.

He didn't make it. The shrill ring of the phone pierced through the silence of the apartment and pulled Akio to a stop. Damn it. Now that he heard it ring, he knew he would regret it for days if he didn't pick it up. With shaking hands, he slowly answered.

"… H-Hello?"

The warmth of the voice on the other end brought the young man to his knees. "Akio! How are you? I haven't heard from you in ages. You almost never call."

Akio grimaced. And there was a reason why. "Dai-er Yoshiura-san. I'm sorry, but you know that I've been busy with school."

"School. We both know that's not true. You've been playing onstage way before most of those people learned to read music. And how many times do I have to tell you? It's Daisuke. Yoshiura-san makes me sound like an old man, and we've been friends for years now."

Another grimace. "…S-sorry Daisuke-san."

There was a long pause. Akio desperately swallowed back his bitterness. This was why he couldn't call. Just hearing the man's voice brought back unwanted blame and memories of Akio's awkward pursuit of his best friend and roommate.

Daisuke's sigh could be heard from the other end. "Akio, I'm really sorry I couldn't make it today. I… something came up at work and I had to go to the office for the afternoon. How…how did it go? Did you place?"

Once he heard the flimsy excuse, Akio desperately grabbed at the remains of his self control as his patience crumbled. He drew in a ragged breath and quickly disguised it as a cough. "It went… alright."

"You placed first didn't you...? I knew you would. Well, I'm sorry I couldn't come. Maybe next time. Uh, when are you performing again?" Daisuke swallowed audibly after the last question. Akio knew by now that the question was for appearance's sake. The businessman would write it down somewhere obscure, stick it somewhere obscure and then blame his absence on the obscure location of the reminder. Akio also knew that answering was also for appearance's sake.

"Saturday the fifteenth at the concert hall near where… where we used to live." He fumbled around his pockets for a tissue.

"I'll see if I can make it. Listen, it's been great talking to you. I, uh, gotta go. Catch up soon alright? Maybe coffee sometime when we're both not too busy?" And here was the even flimsier excuse to end the obligatory phone call.

Akio nodded even though he knew Daisuke couldn't see him. "Yea sure."

"Alright then. Bye bye!" Click.

"…bye" he whispered to the beeping on the other end.

Half an hour later, Akio pulled himself off the ground and into the bathroom. He bent to wash his face in the sink, only to find that his cheeks were already wet.

Just one room away, a crumpled certificate marking lay amongst discarded receipts and sheet music.

Tokyo Young Musicians' Competition. Senior Division. First Place.

Tamura Akio.

Darn, this chapter looked way longer on Word. Sorry, I have a hard time writing longer chapters. I do have almost all of the chapters planned out (content wise) though, so there's some method to my madness... I hate that phrase, my middle school art teacher used it all the time and she was completely crazy.

Anyways,

Please review! I tried to do some stuff here and paid extra attention to how I compared the two characters. Tell me if you noticed it!

Lots of love,

D. Angeling