Summary: Post-series. Miki fenced. Miki played piano. People praised him and called him a genius for these things. Miki sought to be perfect and live up to those expectations. An accident undoes all that, makes it impossible. He doesn't know how to piece himself back together, when an old friend comes back and shows him that hands can do more, have always done more. JurixMiki

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"Miki." Miki looked up from his lap, up at the door and the person who stood in the doorway. The clock next to the door showed the time, 9:07 P.M., but Miki wasn't looking at the clock.

"Juri?" She was panting, breathing hard, her hair looked disheveled; nothing at all how she'd looked when she'd graduated from Ohtori Academy, nothing at all how she'd looked in all the pictures he'd seen of her since then. "What are you doing here?"

"Your hand." Miki shrunk in, he hid his hand behind his back. "Let me see it." Miki shook his head; if she saw it, if she saw what he'd become...he thought it was real to him, but he knew better now, her seeing it would make it real and final, ireversible. The Sunlit Garden would truly be forever out of his reach. "Please Miki." She'd walked up to him, she was so close to him, he saw the rings under her eyes. "Please." Miki brought his hand out, showed it to her. She took it in her hands, traced her fingers across the bandages. He imagined he could feel them, the calluses that only he and a few other fencers knew about. "I'd heard, I'd hoped I'd heard wrong."

"You heard? From who?" She was in Paris, that's what she'd told him on the phone the other night, that she was going to be in Paris all week long, and that she'd be calling again the night after next, today, just like usual.

"You're famous in the circles I walk in. There were many people who looked forward to having you be able to perform for them." Juri kept running her thumb over the back of his hand, kept circling around the injury itself. "Who was it?"

"Tsuwabuki." Miki's eyes stayed on his hand, her hands. "It was an accident, I heard his gasp before I even felt his blade." Miki closed his eyes, saw Tsuwabuki's face, saw him screaming and yelling for help, heard himself telling him it was his own fault, everything was his own fault, he'd always ruined everything with his own hands, now even his own hand.

"I see." Miki opened his eyes again, at some point Juri had stopped moving her thumb, he couldn't say when. "What did the doctor's say?"

"They said that so long as I'm careful, I'll regain almost all the feeling." Miki wanted to scowl, he wanted to snarl, he wanted to show just how much those supposed doctors with their supposed educations didn't know anything at all, didn't grasp anything at all. "Kozue, Kozue was there right away, she told me it wasn't so bad, that it was better when people didn't expect the world of you, you could do what you wanted and people wouldn't make a big deal about it." Miki's lip trembled. "I know, I know she was trying, I really do...she wasn't ever like me, was she? She wasn't ever that talented, was she?" He looked up at Juri's face, saw the lines etching themselves around her eyes. She nodded. "She doesn't understand." He looked back down at his hand in hers.

"People who are too close can have that problem." Juri tightened her grip on Miki's hand, he could tell from the way her hands looked on his. He'd tried, he'd tried reaching out to Kozue again, but all the weight of all the years of his resentment of her, it was hard to turn against himself even though he knew he had to.

"Nanami doesn't understand either; she came after Kozue, told me that she'd excoriated Tsuwabuki, punished him to tune ten thousand pianos, and then said that as far as she was concerned my music would still sound the same to her." The corner of his mouth pulled up. "Nanami's still a child, just like Tsuwabuki; there's only like and dislike in her mind, the difference between good and perfect don't exist for her, not really."

"Perfect doesn't exist." Juri said, Miki felt his head pulled up, he was looking into Juri's eyes. "It's one thing to aim for it, to know that you can always improve, but you can't let that blind you to what you already have and how much that's worth." She looked down at his hand. "It will take time, but your music was never from your hands."

"...Juri, what are you doing here?" She looked back to his eyes. "You're always here, aren't you? I remember, you would always be checking on me, going all over campus to track me down, just to ask me how I was doing, if anything was happening to me. You'd give me some advice about this or that, and then you'd be gone." And always, always, always, on every occasion she'd had her hands on him, usually his shoulders but always there was at least a little physical contact from her to him. "Now, now you've crossed halfway around the world, you had people waiting for you, people counting on you."

"They weren't important." He was? Why? "You shouldn't dwell on this, don't become bitter when the miracle doesn't happen Miki; you're too good for that, too pure, you always have been Miki." She sat down next to him, on his bed, he felt the weight of her body leaning against his. "I've always tried to protect that about you, that you that, that always seemed so close to that, as close as anyone or anything could get to that. I just wanted you to know..." Miki felt with his shoulder, he felt her face there, he felt her hair draping over his chest and back, felt it brushing against his cheek. Her eyes were closed, her breath soft and quiet, and warm. He felt his face heat up. He brought his hand befire face, he looked at it, he brought it around and put it on Juri's shoulder. He wanted to feel that warmth in his hand, and when he saw the smile on Juri's face, he swore that he could.