Piano Girl ~ Fanfics ~ Get Backers ~ Harmony

Harmony

For Selah

If I could only have you near
To breathe a sigh or two

I would be happy just to hold the hands I love
Upon this winter night with you
~Sarah McLachlan

Winter was a time that Ginji never minded, for with electricity constantly running through him, the only time Raitei wasn't too warm was in the middle of a cold spell. Even so, he ordered cocoa the moment he bounced into the Honky Tonk, snowflakes caught in his hair and eyelashes.

"Don't you think your tab is high enough?"

"Master!" Ginji wheedled, cheeks rosy from the cold adding an ever more adorable layer to his sugary protest. "Ban-chan just went to drop off the bracelet! We're going to get paid today!"

A grumble was the only verbal reply Ginji received as he shrugged off his coat, dropping it in a heap on the floor before sliding into a booth. He drummed his fingers on the tabletop as he glanced around the empty café, watching the snowflakes whirl like stardust in the hazy glow of the streetlamp outside.

"Where is Natsumi-chan?"

"I sent her home early," Paul replied as he carried the cocoa over to Ginji. "The storm's supposed to get a lot worse by dinnertime. I'm probably going to close up early myself."

Before Ginji had a chance to reply the door swung open again, a bundled figure leaning against it to shut out the blowing snow. Watching as the man unwrapped a long white scarf and shook out his hair, Ginji's face lit up. "Kazu-chan!"

"Good afternoon, Ginji-san," Kazuki smiled as he hung up his coat and then shook his head to see Ginji's coat in a dripping pile on the floor. "Still need someone to pick up after you?"

Ginji blushed as Kazuki lifted the other coat from the floor, hanging it beside the door with his own. "Eeto... I guess I wasn't thinking about it?

Laughing softly, Kazuki slid into the booth opposite Ginji, rubbing still cold hands together in an attempt to warm them. "A cup of tea, please."

"How is it outside?"

Tiny bells tinkled as the threadspinner shook his head, his expression darkening slightly. "The snow is turning to ice... I saw several car accidents on my way here." The lights flickered once as Kazuki spoke and then winked out altogether, plunging the three of them into darkness.

"The lights!" Ginji yelped as if pained.

"To be expected," Paul murmured, crossing the room carefully in search of a flashlight. Ginji was quicker, lifting one hand to produce a gentle glow that illuminated their faces.

"But why?"

"The ice on the power lines," Kazuki replied with a sigh. "It gets so heavy that they snap... I suppose I won't be getting my cup of tea after all."

Inside a pocket, Ginji's cell phone started to ring and he yanked it out, the light from his hand dimming as he flipped it open anxiously. "Ban-chan? That's good! Oh...oh...but... but you can't! But I- Okay... okay... well, Kazu-chan's here with me... okay. I understand... be careful..." Setting the phone down on the table with a pout, Ginji sighed heavily.

"Is he stuck?" Kazuki asked sympathetically as Paul finally produced a flashlight, flipping it on and aiming it towards the windows of the Honky Tonk as he turned on the radio.

"He says there's accidents and trees and power lines down and he's going to pull off the road for awhile. He doesn't want, he said, some baka crashing into the car and costing us money."

"Why don't you come home with me then?" Kazuki offered, turning towards the sound of the radio. As he'd expected, reports were flooding in telling people to stay off the roads for the night. "I hate to disappoint you, but I doubt Mido-san will be getting here anytime soon. My apartment is only a few blocks from here."

"Yes, I already told Ban-chan that's what I'd do," he admitted sheepishly, sliding out of the booth to snatch his coat off of the hook. The two waved at Paul and exited out onto the sidewalk, which was already slippery with the falling snow and ice. The mid-afternoon provided enough light to see by, but the world was eerily quiet as they walked, occasionally climbing over branches and trees that had also snapped under the weight of the crystal wrapped around them.

It wasn't until they'd reached the apartment that Kazuki turned to Ginji with worried eyes, knowing it wasn't like his friend to be so quiet. "Ginji-san? Daijobu desu ka?"

"I... I think so..." He followed Kazuki inside and laughed softly when his friend absently flipped the light switch and then shook his head in vague annoyance. "It's just that... I feel... strange. In the city, there's always this constant hum in my body, my heart, my mind... and now...it's... it's suddenly silent."

"Mmm..." Kazuki nodded at this statement as he crossed the room, running one hand along a table to find the candles he knew he'd set down there some days ago. "Does it feel like that when you're outside the city?"

"Like at the ocean?" Ginji pondered this thought as he watched Kazuki strike a match to light several candles, placing them around the room. "Kind of the same..."

"Even though you generate your own electricity, having the entire city suddenly go blank around you..." Kazuki shivered as he set the last candle down. "No lights, no TVs, no stoves, no heat..."

Ginji grimaced and flopped down on the couch, chin in hands and elbows on knees. "How did people ever get by before they had electricity? Weren't they cold...and...and...bored?"

"I doubt it..." Kazuki laughed as he sat down beside Ginji, once again rubbing his hands together to try and drag some warmth back into them. "Maybe they sat around a fire and sang songs and told stories, the way we sometimes did on those cold nights in Mugenjou."

"Yeah, maybe..." Ginji closed his eyes, remembering, and without even really thinking about it, he slid his arms around Kazuki, pulling his friend close in the growing shadows of dusk. "I guess people had people, both to talk to and to stay warm... instead of... TV... and created heat..."

Kazuki was vaguely surprised by the sudden embrace, but he would neither deny the warmth nor the closeness of his former emperor, and slowly his own arms drifted around Ginji, hands finding hands and fingers interlacing. "It's... almost sad... that so many have drifted away from those kinds of things. Maybe that's why I still enjoy the quieter pastimes of playing koto and reading books."

Only the wind and the rattling of ice against the window broke the silence until Ginji finally sighed, shifting again until he and Kazuki lay sprawled on the couch in each other's arms, the tiny flames of the candles creating circles of illumination that passed dancing lights over half-lidded eyes. "That's the only thing I miss about those days, and the thing I try to hang onto now that we are all apart... there are too many single voices," Ginji finally said softly, not much more than a whisper.

"Sou desu... too much dissonance..."

Ginji started to hum then, first a snippet of a tune he'd heard off the radio, but before long it had morphed into something of his own creation, the way he liked to make music on long drives in the car or empty moments on the fire escapes when he couldn't sleep. Inside the spaces of his melody, a harmony shaped itself as Kazuki weaved his own tune, the two voices wrapping around each other akin to their intertwined limbs.

And in the absence of the artificial separations of the everyday world, Ginji let his own light and warmth curl around them too, grateful to touch a moment of peace and hold it inside the harmony of their friendship.