Yume Nikki is Kikiyama's.

His slender, long fingers raced across the piano keys. Those charming, ethereal piano keys, which made odd, faint noises that flowed into the air and weaved into each other, creating such a soothing melody that even she calmed a bit.

She could tell he was playing a song, not just hitting the keys at random. It was so hauntingly familiar, she could almost predict the next note, but the name, the name, it was on the very, very tip of her tongue, the edge of her mind, and yet as hard as she tried, she could not remember that name.

Eventually, she gave up, merely content to sit and watch his determined form. Every now and again, she would shift her gaze to his hands, those gorgeous, thin hands, and she would observe the intricate dance that they were concocting, and the rapid motions and nearly blurred movements would tire her eyes and she would turn back to him.

After a while, she grew bored of sitting, and stood up.

His reaction was immediate. He flinched sideways from her, inching to his left, beautiful song taking a much lower tone as he did so.

She lifted her arm up and placed her hand on his, going as far to slightly intertwine their fingers.

His fingers were so very long, where hers were not. He was so very pale, where she was not. There were surely hundreds of differences between the two of them, mentally and physically. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she wondered if he was even a he.

He instantly stopped playing, and she instantly missed the sound. He looked down at their hands, then at her. His expression was one of confusion with a mild dash of terror.

It was her own fault. She had come in holding her knife, even as she knew how nervous he was around sharp things. Especially bloodstained sharp things.

"You play wonderfully, sensei," she murmured, tilting her head to the side. He turned his head fully to look at her. At least, she thought he was looking at her. His right eye was fixed on her indeed, but his left was rolling wildly around somewhere in the direction of the window.

She moved her other hand up to the side of his face, and she felt him wince as she touched his cheek.

"I wonder... why I can't play like that," she continued, more to herself than to him. Despite this fact, he loosened his anxious frame somewhat, and a shy, quiet beep emanated from him, and his shoulders twitched upwards in an adorable imitation of a shrug.

Softly, she began to stroke his cheek- porcelain, yes, porcelain, that was it, that was what his skin felt like, stiff and hard and smooth and yet so, so fragile, like it would break if she closed her hand around it- and brushed some of his jet-black hair behind his ear.

They stayed like this for some time, him looking down at her with an expression of childlike curiosity, her looking up at him with pure admiration.

Until finally, she stood on her tiptoes, and she kissed him.

Not on the cheek, but on the place she surmised his lips would be if he had any. She felt him tense again, and she felt hushed, yet panicked bleeps coming from somewhere inside him.

Then she pulled back. The kiss was chaste, quick, and innocent, and that's all she wanted it to be.

"Do you think... you could teach me how to play like that, sensei?" She asked quietly, almost timidly.

There they stood for moments, moments that felt like minutes, minutes that felt like hours, although she knew she was losing her grip of time as she stared into that one controlled eye, that eye which had a whirlpool of unreadable emotions in it.

And then he relaxed, and gave her hand a comforting squeeze, and the corners of his eyes narrowed, like one's would if they were smiling, and he gave her a comforting blip before he moved behind her, placed his arms over hers, and began to patiently teach her the song that he had just played.