Warnings: Sap, fluff, and in my opinion, a total lack of
plot. And I suppose I’ll have to put up a warning for Tsuzuki’s POV as well,
because I’m lousy at writing Tsuzuki.
Chapter Four
Warm rays of sunlight filtered through the opaque curtains of the hotel room, casting its soft presence on the room’s occupants.
Hisoka’s eyebrows furrowed as the golden rays fell onto his eyelids, but he merely turned away, seeking the comfort of sleep while snuggling deeper into the warmth that encompassed him. Strong arms tightened around him protectively.
//…arms?
//
Hisoka’s eyes snapped open immediately. Jade-green eyes stared into deep violet in shock.
Tsuzuki was already wide-awake.
“Baka! Let go of me!” Hisoka struggled violently, trying his best to pry Tsuzuki’s arms off him.
Tsuzuki held firm, and he was much stronger physically.
Finally, Hisoka quieted down, letting his body fall back onto the bed in defeat.
He would have continued the fight, but he was suffering from a splitting headache, and his muscles didn’t seem to want to cooperate.
He had never felt more exhausted before in his life or afterlife.
Tsuzuki pressed a hand against his forehead in concern. “Hisoka? Are you all right?”
Hisoka didn’t answer. He didn’t have any strength left for that.
He felt totally wrung out. He racked his mind for a reason to his present condition, and couldn’t find any.
Even his brain cells seemed dead. Well, at least deader than they had been in the first place, anyway.
“Hisoka?” Tsuzuki was all anxiety and worry now. The emotions he was giving off only served to intensify Hisoka’s headache.
“Don’t…feelings…head hurts,” Hisoka mumbled, burrowing his face in his pillow. Actually, it was Tsuzuki’s, but he was just too tired to get embarrassed about waking up in Tsuzuki’s bed.
His words made no sense at all, but Tsuzuki obviously understood, as mental shields snapped up in place, cutting off the flow of emotions.
Tsuzuki let go of him and got off the bed. Hisoka found himself being oddly upset by the lost of the warmth around him.
Then something cool and damp pressed against his forehead.
It did help a little.
Tsuzuki handed him a glass of water and coaxed him to drink it, refusing to stop pestering Hisoka till he finished every drop.
Hisoka sank back onto the bed again, totally ignoring the elder Shinigami, until the pair of arms wrapped themselves around him again.
Hisoka stiffened immediately at the contact. Waking up in Tsuzuki’s arms was one thing, but having the elder Shinigami openly hug him like this…
But he felt so nice…so warm and secure.
Since when was the last time he experienced such sensations? Maybe it was the time when he was still allowed to hold his mother’s hand, when he was still her ‘little boy’ instead of a monster. Maybe it was the time when his mother tucked him in and sang him a song. It was so long ago, he wondered if those times were real or merely figments of a child’s mind, the mind of a child who craved for the love of the people around him.
Tsuzuki had hugged him. Tsuzuki gave him a shoulder to cry on. Tsuzuki was the one who held out a hand when he was afraid of the dark…
But
Hisoka…of course I care for you, I like you!
Tsuzuki told him that he liked him.
Nobody had ever said that before.
He didn’t know that there would actually be somebody who liked him.
Closing his eyes, Hisoka let
himself relish the comfort and safety that Tsuzuki offered.
Just for this once…
Did Tsuzuki think of him as a child? A child that could never grow up?
The way Tsuzuki looked at him…it was the fond gaze of an elder brother towards a vulnerable younger brother that couldn’t defend himself.
Sometimes, it was even the paternal look of a father.
Hisoka wanted desperately to reach out and take everything that Tsuzuki offered…
…but if he did, Tsuzuki would always think of him as a child, a kid that was forever in need of protection.
He didn’t want to depend on Tsuzuki, but he needed Tsuzuki.
There were times like this…when he wanted to be held, to be cared for…
Just for this once…
Hisoka’s last thoughts before he drifted off were of how warm Tsuzuki’s arms were.
***
Hisoka had fallen asleep again almost immediately, seemingly completely drained of his energy.
The heat from Hisoka’s body was very soothing. Hisoka himself looked so vulnerable, so easy to break. Tsuzuki could almost feel the all too familiar anger rising, directed at the monster who took everything that Hisoka had to offer and marked the boy so that he could never forget his past. He quelled that anger ruthlessly, fearful that his emotions might wake Hisoka up.
Tsuzuki shifted slightly, careful to not disturb the sleeping boy in his arms. It almost seemed like the first day they met, when Hisoka passed out from too much alcohol.
So alike, and yet so different.
They’ve come so far…both of them.
Back then, Hisoka would never allow himself to fall asleep in somebody else’s arms.
Tsuzuki smiled slightly when he remembered teasing about kissing Hisoka while he was asleep.
It all seemed like it had happened only yesterday.
He could still picture the irritable, aloof boy that pointed a gun at him on the very first day of their partnership.
They actually got into a fight over a dumpling at dinner.
Hisoka even said that he would never work with an idiot for a partner.
Tsuzuki absently ran his fingers through Hisoka’s hair, brushing back the stray strands that always insisted on falling over the boy’s eyes.
Tsuzuki remembered lamenting over having to work with a boy who wanted to quit on the very first day.
All in all, it had seemed a partnership doomed to disaster from the very beginning.
Strangely so, it lasted this long. Somehow, Tsuzuki couldn’t help but feel oddly protective of the ill-tempered, unapproachable boy that called him an idiot so much that it almost became a second name. The boy with a painful past, a past that no one so young should have to endure. He remembered being angry over Hisoka having to die at such a tender age, at how Hisoka never experienced love, even from his own parents.
He wanted to pull the Hisoka into arms when the young Shinigami woke from a nightmare, to comfort and reassure him.
But Hisoka would never have allowed it.
Because
you’re my partner…
Even back then, he had already felt a connection towards the sixteen-year-old.
And Hisoka stayed.
Unlike the long list of partners he had had over the years, Hisoka didn’t leave.
Ironically, he was the one who had wanted to leave. It was Hisoka who begged him not to.
Hisoka, who made sure not to display any of his emotions in front of people, who tried so hard to protect himself from getting hurt by pushing away anybody who cared for him…
Hisoka actually cried and told him that he needed him.
Tsuzuki smiled softly. Hisoka frequently yelled at him for thinking of him as a child.
Hisoka didn’t know, that ever since then…ever since he pulled Tsuzuki back from the Touda’s flames…
Tsuzuki had never thought of him as a child.
Someone to be protected and cared for, yes. But never as a child.
Tsuzuki allowed himself to settle back and watch the steady rise and fall of his partner’s chest.
His mind returned to the joke he made so long ago…
Onii-san’s
going to kiss you now.
He idly wondered what it would be like, but laughed wryly at the thought. Hisoka would probably strangle him alive.
//I
wonder…what it would be like, to actually see you show some of the feelings you’re
hiding, the way you did for that one single time…
…for
me.//
***
Tsuzuki sat at the edge of the bed while watching his partner try valiantly to erase every trace of his cover yesterday. Somehow, the dye just refused to come off, and Hisoka was right on the verge of exploding over it.
“Tsuzuki…” Hisoka’s voice sounded muffled as his face was buried in locks of greenish-gold hair.
“Yes?”
“How did I…um…”
Tsuzuki blinked, utterly confused.
“Why did I pass out yesterday?”
Tsuzuki grinned. He was still a little peeved over the incident yesterday, but in retrospect, it seemed rather funny.
Hisoka turned around before Tsuzuki managed to wipe the grin off his face. Verdant green eyes narrowed dangerously.
“What?” he asked menacingly.
“Didn’t your elders tell you that it’s most unhealthy to take drugs?” Tsuzuki asked innocently.
Hisoka glared. “What does that have to do with…”
His eyes widened in mortification and horror as the events of the day before finally returned to him.
“Why did you do something like without telling me?” Tsuzuki sounded offended.
Hisoka rolled his eyes. “What would it matter anyway?”
Tsuzuki looked crushed. “Of course it matters! I would never have allowed it!”
“What did you expect me to do? Blow my cover?” Hisoka glowered at him. “And since when did I need your permission to do anything?”
“Who knows what the side effects could be?” Tsuzuki had on his most pathetic look now. He looked as if he were going to sprout the infamous puppy-dog ears and tail any minute. “Hisoka, what if you fall sick or something? What if those effects were permanent?”
Hisoka rubbed his temples wearily. “I’m dead. Drugs don’t affect dead people.”
“You fainted yesterday, and you were complaining about a headache,” Tsuzuki pointed out.
Hisoka turned bright red at the reminder of that. Turning away to cover his embarrassment, he said, “So? It can hardly kill me for a second time.”
“Hisoka, I’m only worried about you.”
“I’m fine!!!”
“Does your head still hurt?”
“I told you…”
“But…”
Tsuzuki shut up when Hisoka gave him one of his most treacherous death glares. Saying any more would only result in a very irritated Hisoka and another session of being told not to treat the other as a kid.
Hisoka wasn’t all right. Tsuzuki noticed that Hisoka was frequently massaging his temples, and this time he knew he wasn’t the cause. There were other less noticeable things as well, a slight tilt to eyebrows, a small tightening of the eye muscles, the way Hisoka’s eyes weren’t as bright as usual…
There were a hundred little signs that told him that Hisoka wasn’t all right.
But Hisoka would never want him to know that.
And as always, Tsuzuki didn’t say anything to show that he knew.
Inwardly, though, he resolved to get his partner some aspirin.
Sometimes, actions said more than words. And unlike words, actions conveyed a deeper meaning, an underlying truth, a reality that could not be denied, and yet was possible to ignore if so wished.
Hisoka hadn’t said anything when he woke up for the second time in Tsuzuki’s arms. There wasn’t even the expected red blush to his cheeks. He merely got up and left.
In fact, that one moment of mutual understanding that they shared might as well have not happened at all. It was one of the few times that Hisoka actually allowed himself to breach that distance, to openly accept what was given…
And he chose to dismiss it.
It puzzled him, but Tsuzuki had felt a strange pang in his chest when Hisoka left his arms. It hurt even more when Hisoka wouldn’t acknowledge him. To Tsuzuki, it seemed to signify more than the simple gesture of Hisoka getting up, it felt as if Hisoka were leaving him.
He didn’t know why, but the thought of Hisoka leaving him made him feel…lost.
Did he really need Hisoka that much?
He already knew the answer to that question. But…
Did Hisoka really know that he cared?
// Yes…Hisoka
knows. He must know. But does he…
…would he accept it? //
***
Hisoka finally gave up on washing off the dye. The damn stuff probably wouldn’t come off if he bleached his hair.
Saya and Yuma were going to pay for this.
After all that effort, he didn’t get anything out of it except a migraine and a head that felt as if it were stuffed full with cotton wool.
It was more than enough to get on the most even-tempered person’s nerves.
And Hisoka was far from being mild-mannered.
Currently, he was at a total lost at what their next step should be.
“Tsuzuki, what do we do after this?”
Hisoka knew that he should be embarrassed at having to ask, even in these matters. He felt that he should be embarrassed.
But he wasn’t. Not with Tsuzuki.
He knew…without Tsuzuki…
…he had no one else.
“Maybe we should go to the scenes of crime. Although there is probably nothing to find, there just might be something that both the police and the agents of Juohcho have missed. The possibility is probably very slim…but we might be lucky…Hisoka?”
Hisoka almost jumped at the mention of his name. He had managed to lose himself in his thoughts again.
Tsuzuki merely smiled and repeated what he had just said.
“Hisoka?” Hisoka blinked when a pair of deep violet eyes looked up at him at a very near distance.
// He’s
so near… //
Unconsciously, Hisoka took a few steps back. Tsuzuki didn’t make a move to follow. He merely remained sitting on the bed, unfathomable purple depths staring into Hisoka’s with an intensity that burned with an unknown yet profound emotion.
Hisoka’s failure to understand the other’s feelings was only starting to scare him.
Tsuzuki’s sudden smile and laugh broke the tense atmosphere in the air, and as Hisoka looked into the now twinkling purple eyes, he found himself even more confused than before.
“You’re thinking too much, Hisoka. It isn’t healthy.”
“You say that because you don’t think at all,” Hisoka retorted. Tsuzuki looked insulted, but Hisoka’s empathy told him that the other didn’t take offense.
Because Tsuzuki probably knew by now that he didn’t really mean what he said.
“What were you thinking about?” Tsuzuki asked curiously. Within one second, his attitude changed entirely and he practically bounced on the bed.
“Were you thinking about me?” he asked eagerly, turning on the full charm of his puppy-dog eyes.
Hisoka scowled. “Baka!! I have much better things to do with my time!”
“Aww…Hisoka, you’re so harsh! Don’t you think about me?”
“No!” His cheeks were burning; he knew it.
// Yes…but I don’t know why I do. //
Tsuzuki settled back on the bed and began to sulk.
// He’s
just like a small child, an idiot, a slacker…
And a lot more than that. //
// Why do
I think about him? //
Suddenly Tsuzuki brightened again, his sulks all vanished without a trace.
“It’s all right, Hisoka! Because I think about you all the time!”
If Hisoka was blushing a moment ago, he was about ready to die from high blood pressure right now.
Tsuzuki always had a knack for saying the most outrageous things.
His headache chose this very moment to play up.
Hisoka turned his back on his partner, choosing to ignore everything around him--Tsuzuki, embarrassment, headache and all.
Maybe if he didn’t think about them, they would all just go away.
Focus. Right, he needed to focus.
To return to serious matters, he should get rid of the earrings. They itched.
And that was discounting the fact that they were in the form of Celtic crosses.
As he reached up a hand to pull off the earrings, he actually saw Tsuzuki pout.
“Hisoka…”
“What?” he asked irritably.
“Are you going to take those off?”
Hisoka gave him a withering look. “Baka…” he muttered before continuing with his task, ignoring the other man completely.
“But Hisoka…they look soooo cute on you!” Tsuzuki protested, looking hurt.
Hisoka felt the heat rising in his cheeks.
“Urasai! One more word and I’m flinging you out of the room!”
“I really mean it…”
“SHUT UP!”
***
Sakano Eiji slouched lazily against a wall, occasionally taking a long drag from the cigarette between his fingers.
The person he was supposed to meet was late.
Eiji didn’t like people who didn’t meet their appointments on time. Of course, he himself normally arrived at a meeting place thirty minutes late, as was his wont.
But other people did not have the right to make him wait.
Especially when it was one of the few times when he was actually punctual.
It couldn’t be helped. The offer was too attractive, and he couldn’t risk losing the money just because some guy was too impatient to wait for an extra half hour.
“Sakano Eiji, I presume?”
Eiji spun around, barely stifling a curse. He wasn’t used to being taken by surprise. In his world, people who were easily taken by surprise usually ended up robbed and beaten in some dark alley…or worse.
He squinted to get a better view of the man…and couldn’t. The guy had skillfully remained shrouded within the shadows, without as much as a wisp of hair visible. Moving closer to get a look didn’t seem like a good idea, the man might just want to rob him.
“Do you have the information that I want?”
“Yeah.” That said, Eiji proceeded to tell the mysterious man everything that was asked of him. The man seemed to harbour great fascination in a dark haired man with striking violet eyes and a young teenager by his side. Eiji remembered those two very well. How could he not? Both were exceedingly pretty, and the fact that the elder one throttled him for doing nothing but hit on the younger still left Eiji seething. He didn’t know what this man wanted with those two, and he personally didn’t care. If this man wanted to get back at them for something, he was welcome to it, as far as Sakano Eiji was concerned.
When he finished, he waited for the other to give his answer. When the other didn’t respond, he asked, “What about the payment you promised me?”
He could almost feel the man smiling in the darkness.
“Ahh…your payment. Of course.”
The dark sky above the slums of Japan and the stench of what had been his home for five years were the last things that he ever remembered.
***
It was a total waste of time. They had spent two hours combing through the entire place for the faintest hint of a lead, or even something remotely suspicious, and managed to draw a blank at every turn.
Absently, Hisoka tugged at his itching earlobes. Which reminded him--why was he still wearing those stupid earrings?
Tsuzuki was frowning into the air. Obviously, the other was just about as stumped as Hisoka was.
Hisoka sighed. At this rate, they might have to go back to the club, after all that happened yesterday…
Life was never easy for him, but death seemed ten times worse sometimes.
But he would choose his death over his life anytime.
Tsuzuki was sifting through the file that held the teenagers’ data for what seemed the umpteenth time.
Bored out of his mind, Hisoka was about to turn away when a name on one of the teenagers’ details sparked something in his mind.
Sugiyama Koichi.
Frowning, Hisoka shook his head—and immediately regretted the action when his headache protested by becoming ten times worse.
Why did that name seem so familiar?
He must had heard about it somewhere…
Yesterday…at the club, somebody mentioned something about Koichi. Who was it?
“Tsuzuki, I think I’ve heard something about this boy before,” he said, pointing to Sugiyama Koichi’s profile.
That drew Tsuzuki’s attention immediately. “At the club?”
Hisoka nodded. Clutching his head in his hands, he tried to come up with something more than a vague impression.
“But…but I can’t remember who it was that talked about him.”
Tsuzuki’s face softened. “It’s all right, it’ll come back with time.”
Smiling, he handed Hisoka a cold drink. “As always, where aspirin fails, this might help.”
Hisoka accepted the drink numbly. Was he being that obvious with his headache?
“Maybe we should start with the boys you were talking with yesterday.” At that, Tsuzuki frowned. Those boys didn’t stand very high in his opinion.
“They’re probably hanging around somewhere near the club, it shouldn’t be hard to find them.”
Hisoka nodded. As long as he didn’t have to go back to that hell of a club, anything was fine with him.
***
Surprisingly, they stumbled over one of the boys sitting by himself at an old table by the club.
Hisoka searched for a name to put to the boy.
He didn’t need to, as the boy turned to faced them as they approached, his eyes narrowing suspiciously.
“What do you two want?”
“You mentioned that you knew a certain Sugiyama Koichi,” Tsuzuki said pleasantly.
The boy’s eyes narrowed. “It depends.”
“Tell us what you know about him.”
“Why should I?” The sneer on the teenager’s face was evident.
Tsuzuki shrugged. “So that yesterday night won’t happen again.”
The boy seemed undaunted. Smiling brazenly, he got up and beckoned to them. “Come, perhaps I night be able to show you something interesting.”
He started walking down the alley, not even bothering to turn round to make sure that they followed.
Hisoka watched the boy disappear into the shadows, his eyes narrowed in suspicion. “I don’t trust him.”
Tsuzuki turned to look at him. “Did you sense something?”
Hisoka shook his head. “No…the feel of this place…the despair and greed…all those negative emotions, they interfere with my empathy.”
Tsuzuki immediately looked concerned. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” Hisoka said impatiently. “What now?”
Tsuzuki looked down the dark alley reluctantly. “He’s probably making a fool out of us, but I don’t think we have much choice.”
“Not much,” Hisoka agreed.
He wondered what they were in for.
***
“Well, here we are.” The boy stopped in front of a dilapidated old restaurant.
“What does this have to do with Sugiyama Koichi’s death?” Tsuzuki demanded.
The teenager shrugged. “They say that this is the real scene of crime.”
Tsuzuki and Hisoka stared at him in simultaneous shock.
Grinning, the boy said, “Don’t know, but it’s been a rumour down here. You said you wanted to know anything.”
Hisoka frowned. This was getting more than a little suspicious. How could anything be that convenient?
But they couldn’t say that it
was a lie without even looking, however far-fetched it was.
Tsuzuki started making his way through the debris and rubble to the entrance of the restaurant. When Hisoka made a move to follow, the boy caught him by an arm.
“Are you people going to leave me alone out here? After all, if those rumours are true, this is a murder scene, you know. Every one of those suckers might have very well died here, and who knows when the killer might decide it’s play-time again.”
Hisoka pulled his hand out of the teen’s grasp with a fierce glare. Tsuzuki stopped in mid-tracks and turned about.
The boy was probably lying about everything and was having a good laugh right now. But just in case he wasn’t lying and the murders really happened here…
Innocents weren’t supposed to be involved in this. However disgusting the teen was, he counted as one.
“Hisoka? Why don’t you stay here with him while I go inside?” Tsuzuki suggested.
Hisoka nodded grudgingly.
Now he was stuck with an impudent loafer for company.
The boy merely gave him another one of those insolent grins and settled back against a wall to smoke.
Hisoka closed his eyes and started to get himself adjusted to his surroundings.
He always thought of his empathic powers as a curse, but not being able to use them to sense a danger was rather unsettling.
Finally able to mute the general feel of the place to a sullen buzz at the back of his head, Hisoka started to methodically probe at the boy’s mind…
And found nothing.
It was like the time when he had tried to sense Maria Won. There was absolutely nothing to be felt, like an empty space within the sea of emotions that made up the world of humans.
“Are you
people going to leave me alone out here? After all, if those rumours are true,
this is a murder scene, you know. Every one of those suckers might have very
well died here, and who knows when the killer might decide it’s play-time
again.”
Why…did the other say that? He and Tsuzuki were complete strangers to the boy, if the boy had taken them to be people of this area, like they were pretending to be, he wouldn’t have asked one of them to stay. In this place, nobody cared for another’s welfare. If they were what they seemed, they would have just left him alone.
How did the boy know?
“You…” Why couldn’t he sense anything from the other?
Suddenly, the boy lunged for him. As unconscious reflexes due to his martial art training kicked in, Hisoka deftly leapt aside and delivered a blow to the other.
Hisoka’s eyes widened further when the teen pulled a slip of ofuda from his pocket.
Was the other from a family that practiced illegal magic?
Before the boy could cast the spell, Hisoka knocked himself into the other, sending both of them tumbling to the ground.
Pinning the struggling teen effectively, he tried to reach for an ofuda of his own.
// I
feel nothing at all…he doesn’t even seem alive.
Like Maria Won, but somehow still
different. //
// Who
is he? What is he? //
Hisoka wasn’t in time to come up with an answer to his questions, as both of them were flung against the nearest wall by a powerful blast.
To Hisoka’s horror, the boy in his grasp dissolved into dust--particles of sand that filtered though Hisoka’s fingers.
//
What…what… //
//
Doesn’t seem alive… //
The blast that hit them, who…?
// Like
Maria Won, but somehow still different. //
// Like
Maria Won…//
Hisoka immediately spun around. Tsuzuki. He must call for Tsuzuki.
Emerald eyes widened in terror when they beheld the figure before them.
“So…we meet again.”
Tsuzuki…He opened his mouth to scream for his partner, only to be stopped by the excruciating pain that seemed to sear through his very soul.
Hisoka fought desperately for a way to escape—something, anything. He mustn’t give in, he mustn’t…he mustn’t…
“Bouya.”
***
-- A very big thank you to everyone who reviewed. You
can’t tell how much help it was when I’m staring blankly at the computer
screen. (laughs) More feedback, please? (even though I feel this chapter is
terrible, sorry…)
-- I’m
using the term ‘ofuda’ here, and likewise ‘omnyoujitsu’ (if it ever appears),
since I’m not too sure what they call it YnM, and they’re just the same thing
anyway. ^^
-- For
someone who claims that she’s going by the anime, I sure use a lot of manga
scenes. But the manga is just soooo sweet! And yes, in the manga, there was
really the sentence “Onii-san’s going to kiss you now”. It definitely wasn’t
serious ^^, and I still can’t decide if it was Tsuzuki’s thoughts or
Matsushita-sensei’s joke. That’s one thing about the manga, the author
sprinkles her own jokes all around the page. Anyway, this was followed by a
small inscription at the bottom of the column--“Hey! Watch yourself! This is a
shoujo manga!” As if there weren’t enough shonen-ai in it already. Um…well, I’m
ranting again. Oops.
-- If
there is any kind soul out there who happens to read Japanese and somehow got hold of the Hana to Yume issue with the 74th
chapter of YnM, can you tell me what happened between Hisoka and Kurikara? I’m
dying of curiosity.
-- (smiles sweetly) This will have to last till at least the 21st or 22nd of March, because I’m going to be studying for my exams.