On the first day of school after he transferred to Shin Makoku High School, Yuuri was accosted by some bullies in the first five minutes. He was saved through the mysterious, yet timely, appearance and subsequent interference of an older boy. His rescuer was tall enough to see through the crowded hall of students, strong enough to pull away Yuuri's attackers, and handsome enough that Yuuri blushed when trying to thank him.

He introduced himself as Conrad, a member of the student association's welcome committee who was assigned to Yuuri. His mission, quotable from the association's handbook was to "assist new students in acclimating to the school environment and foster healthy relationships." The second part sounded shifty to Yuuri; he hoped it was supposed to encourage the new students to meet the friends of the guides. He was thankful for the first part, though, and especially thankful that Conrad's interpretation included fending off thugs.

A student guide was usually set to stay with his charge for two weeks, though he could leave earlier if the new student was confident. Yuuri felt that time limit approaching keenly, and he tried to make the best of it. He learned that he had more connections to Conrad than most people would guess. They both loved watching pro baseball games in person, and they both had mothers with unwholesome interests in embarrassing their sons in public.

Perhaps most importantly, they shared a love of instrumental music. Conrad played trumpet in the school band, and he devoted his free time to practicing and perfecting his art. Yuuri had played trombone in middle school, but he quit after fighting with a teacher who humiliated a player in front of the whole audience. While he did enjoy playing his trombone, Yuuri decided to switch his art class for band more to increase the time he got to see Conrad. Otherwise, he knew the chances of getting the same classes as a student a year ahead of him were almost zero.

Yuuri resigned himself to the coming breakup. He wouldn't be walking the hallways with Conrad, eating lunch with him, or meeting him after school to see how his day had gone. It would feel a little lonely, and he knew he would have to get used to being more independent. Not having the pillar to rest on would be a trial.

But Conrad surprised him. Instead of bidding Yuuri farewell on the dreaded Friday, he said "I'll see you Monday," and walked off with a smile. And he did see him Monday, and the day after that. If anything, Yuuri saw him more often than in the first two weeks after coming to the school. Conrad even drove him home twice when it was raining- "You can't bike home in that." And Yuuri felt himself getting swept away in that comforting, low voice.

After getting to know him, Conrad seemed equally honest and direct when talking to Yuuri about baseball as he was when he threatened to have the guys that tried to take Yuuri's backpack expelled. But his eyes never seemed to be in the same place as the rest of him. They would be out of focus at some times or staring in the wrong direction at others. And while his responses and actions were always appropriate, Yuuri wondered why his eyes didn't match. Maybe his entire outer appearance was a farce, a mask to keep everyone's opinion of him a certain way. Whatever the reason, it made Yuuri uncomfortable.

The level of discomfort increased dramatically whenever he tried to look at the rest of Conrad's face for information. Yuuri had admitted that he thought Conrad was handsome since the first time they'd met, and that attraction only grew with time. So most of the time he tried to concentrate on just the eyes. And that was when he made his most important discovery. When Conrad was playing his trumpet in band class, he wasn't handsome. He was breathtakingly beautiful.

He concentrated just on his music, putting everything he had into playing his instrument to the best of his ability. His endless hours in the practice rooms and his own bedroom led to a unique singularity of movement in his body; he swayed ever so slightly in time with his music, and Yuuri could feel the power rolling off Conrad in waves. Best of all, his eyes matched the intensity of the rest of his body. While Yuuri couldn't make eye contact with him, he could easily see the sharpness with which Conrad concentrated on the page. His eyes swiftly read in the shape of his phrases, the pitch and attack of his notes, and all the hand-written information scribed neatly above the bars. There was no filter between Conrad's thoughts and actions while he was playing.

Yuuri possessed nowhere near Conrad's level of skill, and his ability to concentrate was similarly low. So sometimes he would start staring at Conrad if the trombone section had a couple seconds of rests. He always felt a little bit guilty when that happened because his section leader just happened to be Conrad's older brother, and Yuuri just happened to sit immediately next to him. Gwendal's expectations for his section were high, and he didn't take kindly to Yuuri missing entrances from spacing out. He didn't know the reason for the spacing out, Yuuri fervently hoped.

It was about a month after Yuuri joined the school band that the final concert pieces for the semester were supposed to be announced. The assistant conductor, a student teacher named Gunter, stepped up to the podium and tapped on the stand with his baton twice before waiting for the class to quiet down. Yuuri did a double take looking up at him; his hair was sparkling. Glitter was liberally spread throughout his hair, almost as if he'd lost a fight with a craft store clerk. It didn't seem to be falling onto the ground near him though. Strange.

"I'm going to read the composer's description of the piece now. Hopefully you know enough of the story that it's based on that it won't go over your heads."

Gunter took a deep breath and then started reading in a dramatic voice. "The Lion's Mane attempts to evoke feelings of the ancient play The Lion's Return. The first movement, a fanfare for the trumpet section and percussion, sends the hero off gloriously with expectations of a triumph on the front lines. The second movement features disharmony throughout the band, alternating between loud and soft sections in order to portray the conflicted feelings of both the the hero and the lover as the troops march to battle. The third movement is loud and cacophonous, like the tumult of battle. Far away from the citizens they protect, the soldiers feel no need to hide the true horror of war. It finishes with a single trumpet playing the hero's theme quickly and quietly, as he runs to escape the massacre that left only him alive. The fourth movement is a slow ballad in a minor key. Thinly instrumented, it shows the loneliness of those now left alone. The clarinet, flute, and trombone have interleaved solos reflecting on the lives of soldiers lost. The fifth movement captures the unexpected joy at the hero's homecoming. His theme returns, but this time slow and soaring as he savors the feelings of meeting his lover again after his arduous journey. The trombone's solo from the fourth movement also returns, now in a major key and at an upbeat tempo to mirror the energy that returns to the lover's life. The resulting duet, supported by the full band, reveals the exultation of a life reclaimed."

Yuuri looked around the room after Gunter finished. A couple of girls in the flute section had dreamy expressions on their faces, but most of the class looked simply bored after the long-winded explanation.

Gunter left the podium, and the main director, an old man with dyed yellow hair named Shinou, stepped up.

"We'll be doing this as our competition piece since it has a variety of styles and enough solos to keep the judges' attention. It's also very emotional and shows how good we are at setting and following a mood. Plus, it's straightforward enough that we'll be able to split our time with a more technically impressive piece that I'll be handing out next week."

Wolfram, back in the percussion section, shouted out a question without raising his hand. "Why are we getting the easy piece first?"

Shinou turned his head so that he could stare directly at Wolfram. "First, because I said so." After Wolfram broke his challenging eye contact, he continued. "Also, I want our soloists to have sufficient time to practice. Their parts have a lot more riding on them." Excited whispers washed over the band.

"And yes, the soloists are already decided, based on the performance tests you did last week during lunch. Conrad will be taking the main solo on trumpet," he announced. The brown haired youth nodded but didn't change his expression. But he was so famously modest that Yuuri assumed he was elated. He could always ask after class, though Conrad also had a tendency to avoid expressing his emotions in conversation too.

"We'll have Yozak on the flute solo," Shinou continued. The orange haired youth started fist pumping and smirking at the heartbroken girls seated around him. "Anissina will be taking the clarinet solo."

The pink haired girl smiled confidently and then told the whole class that they could rely on her. She looked directly at Gwendal when she said it. Yuuri saw Gwendal's eye twitch, and he stifled a laugh at the reaction. Gwendal was certainly going to get the trombone solo, so he was going to end up doing a lot of practices with her and Yozak. Yuuri wasn't sure exactly what their relationship was, but he knew his section leader always packed up and left expeditiously after class if Anissina started winding her way over through the chairs.

"And finally, we'll have Yuuri doing the trombone solo." Yuuri gaped, and he noticed several other surprised expressions across the room. He turned to look at Gwendal, but the grey haired boy didn't look disgruntled or even slightly displeased.

Acting as if he hadn't dropped a bomb, Shinou started passing around the sheet music and then had the class start rehearsing the introductory fanfare. Yuuri concentrated on breathing properly and watching the conductor's hand movements, but his worries didn't disappear.

Yuuri was still a bit dazed at the end of class, so he didn't notice Wolfram come up and approach his section leader. He was close enough to catch the conversation, even if he might have preferred not to.

The blond's voice was soft, but it was still piercing. Addressing his older brother, it was more subdued than usual, but not by much. "Brother! You'd make a much better soloist than that wimp of a second chair you have. You should go complain to Shinou and get him to fix such a foolish mistake."

"Wolfram, I asked him at the beginning of the semester not to give me any solos. I'm going to be doing a solo recital later, and I don't need any extra distractions. Besides, do you remember what happened the last time someone questioned Shinou's choice?"

The blond shuddered. "You mean Dakaskos, the alto sax that everyone thought was going to have a professional recording deal?"

Gwendal nodded. "He simply asked Shinou if someone else could do the solo because he was going to be on a family vacation on the day of the concert. He showed up the next class bald and was playing bassoon."

"BASSOON?" Yuuri interjected.

Gwendal closed his eyes for a moment and made small motions with his fingers. He addressed Yuuri coolly. "I don't know what he sees in you, myself. Just try not to humiliate us."

"Some way to bolster your underclassman's withering self-confidence," Yuuri muttered under his breath.

He broke away to go ask Conrad what his opinion was. Conrad was unexpectedly glowing (in his subtle, unassuming way), and Yuuri was surprised, if pleasantly, by the response. "I'm looking forward to playing with you."

Wolfram was brave enough to try to argue his case despite Gwendal's warning. Shinou, however, brushed him aside with an airy confidence.

"Yuuri will be just fine. And even if the rumors I've been hearing lately are false, I still believe he is more suited to play opposite Conrad than your other brother. The piece is... sensual."

The boy agreed, if somewhat reluctantly, that he didn't really want to see that guy playing a "sensual" piece with his respectable older brother.

The slow and mournful solo in the fourth movement was supposed to be the hard one for Yuuri. Everyone (even Gwendal) was impressed at how emotionally he was able to perform it from the very beginning. Murata had teased him earlier, telling him to imagine how he would feel if he knew that he wouldn't see Conrad again. And embarrassingly enough, the idea worked. The days before Yuuri thought Conrad would leave him behind were some of the most agonizing he could remember, and it translated itself perfectly in his music.

The fast and jubilant solo in the fifth movement was supposed to be easy. It was supposed to be technically challenging, but only enough for a lead player to get an ego boost showing off. Yuuri didn't have the skill of a lead player- heck, he'd spent most of the previous year not even touching his instrument- so it was much more problematic.

Practicing all the time was the only way to get better before the concert, but Yuuri found that it came naturally. When he had one goal to focus on, it was easy to spend all his energy reaching it. He spent at least an hour every day after school in the practice rooms, and the time seemed to fly by. Often he got kicked out by the janitors working their rounds at ten o'clock. His older brother was concerned at how much time Yuuri was spending at school, but his parents were happy that he was putting his energy into something other than baseball.

After a couple weeks of intense practice, he finally felt confident enough to ask Conrad to start practicing together. The finale of the fifth movement relied entirely on how well they could work together, and it was going to be obvious even to an untrained audience. Shinou had the pair of them standing up near the front of the stage, far enough forward that he would actually be watching them for the tempo instead of the other way around. This was supposed to give them the most freedom to play together, but Yuuri just thought it just gave them the most stress. So the two of them had to be used to paying close attention to each other; they had to watch each other for the tempo, listen to adapt to changes in volume, and generally "feel each others' auras," as Gunter put it.

Yuuri already considered himself skilled at watching Conrad. But seeing Conrad watching him was simply unnerving. The same eyes that previously ran across his sheet music now only glanced over to it once in a while, spending most of their time running over Yuuri's body instead. The rest of his face looked as full of concentration on the music as always, which was a small relief. But Yuuri knew Conrad wasn't stupid. With the older boy already seeing him several times a day between classes, there was no way he could be missing every time Yuuri blushed under his gaze. He never said anything, though, and Yuuri could only guess why.

He thought the class rehearsals were going well, so he was surprised when Shinou pulled him and Conrad aside after class a couple weeks before the concert.

"Are you two familiar with The Lion's Return?" The older man asked them, his arms crossed against his chest.

Conrad nodded, but Yuuri shook his head. "I know Gunter talked about it a little bit before handing out the music written about it, but that's it."

"Perhaps it would behoove you to ask your partner about it, then." Shinou waved the two of them off.

"I'll tell you about it next time we're practicing together, Yuuri," Conrad said softly as they left.

"So how much do you know about the story, Yuuri?"

"Uh... there's a hero, and he goes off to fight in a glorious war. Everyone thinks he died, including his girlfriend. Then he comes back and everyone's happy. Right?"

"Not really. First, he doesn't go off for the glory. He goes off to find a place to die. He feels unwanted at home, and thinks that it would be easier if somebody killed him. That's why the first two parts of the play are ironic. The nation hails the warriors embarking on the campaign as glorious heroes, but the main character just wants to die. And the slow march to the battlefield is supposed to be filled with dread, but the hero anticipates release instead."

"That's just messed up."

"So he goes out to battle, and he rushes in, but he doesn't give up while fighting. Every time he's about to receive a fatal blow, a face appears in his head, telling him not to die just yet. Then he dodges or blocks the attack, and the face disappears. And when the captain orders the group to fight to the last man, the face appears and tells him to run away. He does, and no one else lives to call him a deserter."

"And that face is his girlfriend?"

"Well, have you thought about the fact that the hero's lover is voiced by a trombone?"

"I thought it was kinda weird. I think of high woodwinds when I think of something that's supposed to represent a girl. I guess it's just because the two brass instruments sound good together."

"The flute and clarinet solos do represent women. The trombone solo represents a man." Yuuri felt his face start to blush so bright it felt like he was on fire, but Conrad kept going. "The two were just friends, and they had a fight, and that's what causes the hero to go on his quest for death. After their separation they realize how important their relationship is, and that leads to both the fourth movement solo you play as well as the whole fifth movement. The reconciliation has three parts. First, joy at the hero's return. Second, comfort as they apologize for their contributions to the rift between them. Third, the sort of 'riding off into the sunset' feeling they get after they both admit they want a deeper relationship than they had before."

Conrad paused there, and Yuuri brought his eyes up to meet Conrad's. He knew his blush was still marring his face, but to his surprise, Conrad's cheeks were a bit pink too. Making eye contact triggered something in the older boy, and he started moving toward Yuuri.

"Maybe it was something they missed doing while separated. 'I miss running my hands through his hair.'" Conrad reached over and mussed up Yuuri's hair a bit. "Maybe it was missing the feeling of somebody caring about you. 'He always knew what to say at a time like this.'" He moved back a bit, regaining eye contact with Yuuri. He stood there for long enough for Yuuri to get uncomfortable at the silence, but he moved down close to Yuuri's face as he started talking again. "Maybe they both realized they'd missed a chance to try something... different.

He bent down and his face was mere centimeter's from Yuuri's. He brought his hand up and held onto Yuuri's chin as he bent in a bit further. Conrad's lips brushed up against Yuuri's, not lightly yet not harshly either. The kiss was over almost before it began, and Conrad straightened up.

"Was that serious?" Yuuri whispered.

"I'm always serious with you, Yuuri."

The last two weeks before the concert flew by. Yuuri wasn't brave enough to try anything public with his newfound sort-of boyfriend, but he could barely wait for the school days to end so they could head to the private practice rooms. Even in the safety of a locked room with thick walls padded to prevent sound from escaping, Yuuri wasn't comfortable moving beyond simple kisses. But the time the two spent practicing together felt like a dream.

Yuuri honestly didn't remember most of the concert, so he was grateful (for once) that his mother took a video of the entire thing. He could have done without her comments though. Apparently she was quite familiar with the play the song was based on, and she added some narration "for flavor."

Based on what the video showed and how his classmates talked about it, he performed pretty well. He didn't play technically as well as he could have, and he lamented that. The strength of his emotions properly reached everyone, both in the fourth and fifth movements. And people in the front rows could see that Yuuri and Conrad had played the piece so often that instead of looking at their music, they were staring into each others' eyes the whole time.