Hyde walked down the stairs with a stretch, wearing the same sweater as yesterday and a pair of Rune’s sweatpants. Rune had told him he could grab anything he wanted from his closet. If they were going to share a room, might as well share a closet too. Hyde didn’t have any clothes for himself here anyway, what else was he supposed to wear?

Hyde entered the living room and saw Night on the couch. “Hi,” he let his presence be known. 

Night flinched and looked behind her as he went towards the kitchen. 

Hyde opened the fridge and was met with cans of blood. Made sense, he supposed. He spotted some normal food, little tubs of yogurt. Those must be for Lullaby. He hummed. He called out “Would Lullaby mind if I grabbed some of her food?” to Night.

“Don’t touch her yogurt,” Night sternly called back.

Hyde tightened his lips and closed the fridge. “Do you have anything else I could eat?”

“Bread and stuff in the cupboards.”

Hyde opened a cupboard and found bread and various things to put on it.

He thought of something; they were alone. Rune was still in bed, but, “Where are Moon and Lullaby?”

“Doing some shopping.”

Hm. In that case, he had wanted to ask her something. He closed the cupboard and leaned on the counter towards Night. “Why are you still mad at Rune?” He could see that upset Rune quite a bit, and Hyde wasn’t a fan. Maybe he should stay out of their family issues, but he was here to help Rune. And asking one question wouldn’t hurt, right? It could be helpful for her to hear an outsider’s perspective.

Night gave him a startled look. “What?”

“Shouldn’t you be happy he’s back home?”

She scoffed. “Not that this is any of your business, but why would I be happy that he randomly appears again after he left me for five years, never said a word to me and let me think he was dead or something?”

Hyde shrugged. “I thought you’d be happy to see someone you missed for so long, again.”

“Yeah, we missed him.” Night fully turned her body towards him and glared. “We missed him a lot! We needed him, and he wasn’t there! And now he thinks he can come home and everything will go back to normal? Hell no!”

“He apologised and explained why he did all that.”

“That doesn’t mean I have to forgive him, he still did it.”

Hyde sighed and bit the inside of his cheek. “You know, when we met, all he wanted was to find a way home without risking all your lives. He would’ve sacrificed anything for that. In fact”—he walked closer to the couch—“he spent three nights in a jail cell for it. And the reason he left in the first place, was to provide for you. Everything he did was always with you in mind.” 

He didn’t raise his voice, he didn’t aggressively gesture at her, he barely even showed an expression on his face, despite the frustration he did feel towards her. He only told her the truth. A truth she needed to hear from someone else, since she wouldn’t believe Rune when he told her the same truth.

Tears welled in her eyes. “Stay out of it!” she snapped at him. She got up and left the room.

Hyde took a deep breath and turned on his heel back to the kitchen to prepare his breakfast.

Rune laid on his stomach, arm tucked under his pillow, sheets wrapped and tangled around his body like a fancy dress, and drooling a little. He snorted himself awake and opened his eyes in a flinch. He lifted his head with a hum. He searched the room, he was alone. His gaze landed on the space next to him, it was empty. He frowned. He pushed himself up on his arms and sat. He couldn’t take his eyes off the empty space. He was disappointed. 

Why disappointed? In what? That Hyde wasn’t here next to him? Would he have felt any better if he was? How would he have felt if he was still here? The opposite of what he felt now, probably. So, happy? Content? Pleased? But why, though?

Wait.

Did he have feelings for him? Was Lullaby right? Surely, he wouldn’t feel this way if the relationship was only platonic. 

Oh no, my friend didn’t wake up at the same time as me or wait for me to wake up, what a shame. Anyway—

That’s how he would’ve expected to feel if it was only platonic. But he was actually a little sad about it. He remembered waking up with Hyde on his chest that one morning. He had liked that. Really liked that. He wanted it to happen more often. Or when Hyde was so persistent to cuddle during the full moon, when he offered to snuggle while they were opening up to each other.

Rune realised how warm his face was. Warm for his body’s standard, anyway. There was no point denying it now, he was falling for him. He’d liked him before, liked being around him and talking to him. And he had been physically attracted to him since day one. But now, he actually had a crush on him. 

Crush.

It felt childish to use that word, like he was in high-school. But it was the simplest word to describe it with. Or was it more than that already? Surely not, they’ve only known each other for a month or so. To be fair, they did spend every minute of that month together, but—

No.

Whatever word he’d use to describe it, he guessed he did want to pursue it, like Lullaby said. But how? Flirting, he supposed. He had teasingly flirted with him before, but that wasn’t serious. If he started flirting with him again, how would he get Hyde to take it seriously this time? A different flirting technique? A different tone? He wasn’t used to that, though.

Did Hyde even like men? He had said he’d questioned before, but he never confirmed anything. Had Hyde ever given any hints he liked him already? He never paid much attention to it. Rune didn’t know what Hyde was like with other friends—real friends—so how could he tell the difference between his platonic and romantic feelings?

He snapped out of his thoughts when he heard someone walking up the stairs. A door opened and closed, then the shower began to run. Was that Hyde? The footsteps sounded a lot heavier than his sisters’. How would Rune feel facing him again after this revelation? One way to find out.

Rune entered the living room. He only saw Moon there sitting at the dining table. He glanced at the piano and frowned a little. He hadn’t played in ages, he wasn’t sure if he still could. Not as well as he used to, at least. He walked into the kitchen and opened the fridge. He was delighted to see the variety. “So many flavours!” 

Moon glanced up from her magazine. “Is that special?”

“The further away from the north you go, the less flavours you’ll find, since there are less vampires. I could barely find more than one flavour in the far south, if any at all.”

“Were you that far?”

“Yeah, Hyde’s from there.” He grabbed a can of his favourite flavour he hadn’t tasted in forever. He went to the dining table and sat on it in front of Moon. 

She glanced up from her magazine again. “Manners.”

“Manners can kiss my bollocks, I’m the adult in the house.” Rune opened his can and took a sip.

“Lullaby lives here, too.”

“I’m older.”

“Like a month.”

“Where is she, anyway?”

“Upstairs, I think?”

Rune hummed. He glanced at the piano again. “Has she been using it often?”

“Hm?” Moon turned around to it. “Oh. Yeah, she has.”

Rune sighed. “At least someone has.” He turned back to Moon. “Have you and Night tried to play?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

She shrugged. “It’s hard.” 

Rune squinted disapprovingly.

“What? You’re already furthering the family tradition, we don’t have to.”

“But you can want to.”

Moon sighed. “Music isn’t my thing, okay? It’s more of a you thing.” 

Rune hummed and frowned. “I suppose you didn’t grow up with it as much as I did.” He took a sip as Moon turned the page. 

“You know,” Rune began again, Moon looked up and hummed. “Even though I own it, it’ll always be Dad’s piano to me.” 

Moon smiled sadly. “Yeah.” She turned to the piano again and thought of something. “Did Grandpa—or Dad, even—ever tell you the story of why he got it?” 

Rune raised his eyebrow and shrugged. “He wanted a piano and bought one?”

“There’s more to it than that.”

“Oh, well do tell me more.”

“Grandpa told us a couple years ago that getting a piano was at the top of Dad’s to-do list after he and Mum moved out. He had taught himself to play on Grandma’s piano they had there at the time, when she still lived with Grandpa. But then she took it with her when she left and all they could afford was one of those tiny, crappy, school pianos.”

“Oh, god.”

“So, ever since then, he wanted to get a nice, fancy piano for himself. But, he was stuck with the tiny one for ten years or so, until he could finally afford to buy one after saving up for forever. And then he got a bigger, fancier one than Grandma’s out of spite.”

Rune laughed. “Yeah, that does sound like him.”

“Why haven’t you played, yet?”

“Eh, I haven’t in a long time, I’m out of practice.”

“All the more reason to get back into practice.”

He playfully glared at her. 

She shrugged with a grin. “Right?” 

Rune groaned and stood up from the table. “Fine, you’re right.” 

She snickered as he walked towards the piano. 

He pulled the fallboard up and stared at the keys. He switched his can of blood from his right hand to his left. He brushed his fingers over the keys, then gently pushed some down, producing a fitting, gentle tone. He took a deep breath as he placed his can on the closed lid of the piano and pulled the bench out from underneath it. He sat down and thought of what to play. 

“Uh, any requests?” he asked Moon.

“Anything you can play right now.”

“Not helpful.”

He hummed in thought. He placed one hand on the keys and began to play a simple melody, the first one he’d ever learned. The only one his dad had time to teach him. He repeated it several times to warm up. Then, he let his left hand join to play the more complicated version of the melody Lullaby had later taught him. He couldn’t describe how he felt. Bitter-sweet? Playing this melody had always made him feel closer to his father, while also reminding him of his absence.