A/N: 'Everyone stares at Konnie-chan suspiciously' I know I said I'd take a break from YNM, but 'technically', I said I'd give you the occasional one-shot.Forgive me for this absolutely depressing fic, but- as some of you might know- Hisoka and I share birthdays, and I'm not particularly happy during mine.

Yami No Matsuei is not mine.

Enjoy!!

PARODY OF LIFE

Hisoka had dreaded that day for weeks now. He dreaded it every year, but it always came. It would always come, and he'd never be able to ignore it, as much as he wanted to.

If there had ever been a day when he'd seriously considered calling in sick, that was the day. Hisoka sighed, sitting on his bed, unable to find the strength to get up and get moving. He was in no mood to deal with Tsuzuki's cheerful congratulations and warm welcome. He didn't want to have to thank Watari for a cake he wouldn't have dared to eat, anyway, or have to nod back to Tatsumi's silent, but effective, acknowledgements. Those things would have secretly comforted him any other day. Not that day; never that day. All he wanted was to stay in bed, covered up to his neck, and forget that day was even in the calendar.

What was there to celebrate, anyway? That his mother had spit him up, cursing and screaming, just to regret it later? Certainly nothing of what had come after that was worth celebrating. That day was a joke; a lie. He would celebrate the anniversary of his death more readily. But 24 was not a small number, was it? Almost a quarter of a century. He wasn't old, but he sure wasn't young either, even if it didn't seem like it. He looked quite young for his age- for a dead guy- didn't he? His shoulders had never broadened, his voice had never deepened. His wounds would never heal. But, hey, he didn't have to worry about wrinkles!!

Not for the first time, he wondered where he'd be if he hadn't died. Would he have been a handsome, successful young man? Hisoka imagined then, graduating from college, perhaps even at the top of his class. He'd have done that already, right? And maybe he would be now working on his PhD thesis. He'd wanted to be a writer before dying; surely that wouldn't have changed. But he would have needed another job to make a little money until he had his first hit. Something related to books, surely. A librarian, perhaps? He wouldn't have minded being poor if he was doing something he loved. Yes, it would have been a struggle, but he'd have managed.

What about love? Maybe his... tendencies indicated to the contrary, but he would have liked to form a family. He would have had many love affairs first, of course, even gotten his heart broken a few times. Until he found the one. A girl, maybe like Tsubaki-Hime, smart and beautiful; someone he could never get tired of talking to. Or a guy, maybe, that also wanted to settle down and really loved him. In any case, they would have both have their lives; no one would have absorbed the other and, by the end of the day, they would have shared their experiences and leaned on each other when they had problems. He would have been a good partner; they would have been a good team.

And he'd been a good father, too; not like his own. He'd have two or three kids running around the house like crazy and calling him 'Tousan with smiles on their faces. He would have put them to bed and read them a story. He would have walked them to school. He'd have put money under their pillows when they started loosing their teeth, kissed them when they got hurt, given them the talk, argued with them about curfews. And they would have grown up, and he would have seen them start their own lives.

He would have woken up one morning and realise his hair was all grey and he still had an entire life ahead of him. One day, he or his lover would have had a moment of doubt, looked at someone else; but they would have talked it over, worked it out. He saw himself, cooking his significant other a romantic meal after eighteen or so years of not having a moment to themselves. And they would have made love that night; start over.

He'd have died, of course, eventually; old and wrinkled, arthritic and incontinent, and probably senile. But he wouldn't have been a shinigami then; he wouldn't have had any unfinished business. He'd have lived a happy, fulfilling life.

Hisoka sighed again, pushing the covers away from himself, as a tear rolled down his cheek. October the eighteenth, the day of "could-have-been's". What was there to celebrate?

It would be a long day, for sure.

It always was.

OWARI