Disclaimer: Just own the words, not the folks.
I used to abide – First Stanza
Your WorldYour world is as big as you make it.
I know for I used to abide
In the narrowest nest in the corner,
My wings pressed close to my side.
- Georgia Douglas Johnson c. 1900
Line 1.
Grasping the rolled up paperwork tightly, he heads off to his next assignment.
Another kid! What was this, the fifth one in a row? Why'd they keep giving him children? He never gets to see them past the age of 18 or 19. In fact, the last three, he hadn't made it to 15 before they were passed off! Did they think he liked watching little kids all the time? He's been a guardian for more than 80 years now. Surely he's earned the right to watch his charges through adulthood! Maybe he wanted to know what happened with them once they grew up!
He sighs. Despite his mental rant, he knows very well why he never gets to watch them grow up anymore. It all goes back to his second charge, Tanaka Kimiko. He became her guardian when she turned ten. At 20, she met a man who enjoyed taking his frustrations out on her face. At 22, she married him. At 25, she killed him. At 30, she hung herself in prison. At her judgment, though Tsuzuki spoke up for her and related the extenuating circumstances of excessive cruelty and abuse, which had caused her to murder her husband, she was sentenced to Hell. It broke him. He'd gotten very close to her as her guardian; even revealing himself once to stop her first suicide attempt in prison. Following a severe scolding about the 'misuse of his powers as a guardian', said powers were restricted for a time. Under the restriction, he could only watch as the life drained from her body with her second, successful attempt. After her trial, he'd sequestered himself in his rooms for nearly three months, ignoring summons for him to take another charge.
The whole incident reminded him of his brief stint as a Shinigami, when his job required him to fetch souls for judgment that didn't want to die. Once he'd 'passed on' from Meifu, he never expected to deal with anything close to that trauma again. It took nearly a year for his mind and spirit to heal enough for him to take on the role of guardian after leaving that awful place.
Pulling his mind forcefully from such thoughts, he checks the name of his new charge again. Kurosaki Hisoka, age four; another young one. Truly, he hopes they trust him with adults again soon. He was beginning to feel like a pedophile.
Line 2.
They're all psychotic, archangels or not. Why would they let the boy go through that? Why would they want him to? It's bad enough that his parents treat him like shit because of his gift, forcing him to live in a space barely fit for a dog, let alone their only child. But to allow him to be...to be violated like that...
Tsuzuki shakes his head, stifling fresh tears. There is nothing he can do about it now; it's too late. His superiors had stopped him from intervening, even to lessen the severity. Now the boy has to live with what happened forever; that is if the curse doesn't kill him first.
He's been speaking with the Guardian High Council all day, trying to get a reasonable explanation of why they'd allowed the attack on his charge. They stuck to the same vague response given by his superiors on the scene.
'Damn, Muraki! Maybe I could bribe his guardian to leave him open for just a few minutes,' he glowers, knowing it would never happen. Oriya hated Muraki's actions, but remains fiercely loyal as his guardian. That psycho really doesn't deserve him.
Reaching his room, he flops dejectedly on his bed, reluctantly recalling the events from a week ago.
His charge had once again escaped the basement hellhole serving as his room. As usual, he'd drifted toward the nearby park. Even in the winter, he'd find a way to go there in the middle of the night and sit for at least an hour. Tsuzuki had followed as always, wondering why the boy continued with the almost nightly ritual. Every discovered escape had earned him a beating and withheld food and he'd be discovered at least once a week! Could those excursions possibly have been worth the pain and suffering they brought?
They'd reached the familiar space and Hisoka had paused to take in its ethereal beauty. The sakura were in full bloom and a light breeze wafted through the air, giving the place an uncommon air of serenity. Hisoka had taken a moment to inhale the trees' sweet fragrance before commencing his usually aimless wandering, humming carelessly to himself.
A strangled moan had broken through the warm air. His curiosity getting the best of him and with no thought to the lateness of the hour, the 14 year old had gone to investigate. Reaching a clearing and a lone sakura tree, Hisoka had found the cause of the noise; a man dressed in white stood over the body of a young woman, bloody knife still in his hand. He'd frozen when the man looked up at him and smiled.
Moving to protect Hisoka and get him out of there, Tsuzuki had found himself physically restrained by a higher-ranking guardian.
"What are you doing," Tsuzuki had yelled, glaring at the unknown angel while trying to pull away.
"You can't keep him from this," the other angel had replied, reinforcing his physical restraint with a spell.
"What? What are you talking about?! Let me go and do my job!" Tsuzuki had pulled desperately against both forms of restraint.
"No, you must stay here. It's necessary."
"What? You're talking nonsense! Let me go!!"
He'd struggled more, turning to find his charge still frozen and the man advancing. He'd then fought harder to be free. He couldn't just stand there and let the boy die! To his mind, the idiot restraining him must have lost his mind.
The murderer had reached Hisoka. As the man lightly stroked the trembling boy's cheek, it had become obvious that killing him wasn't the man's intention. Tsuzuki had frozen in fear. The guardian behind him had released his physical hold on him, but not the spell. The man had leaned over to Hisoka and whispered something in his ear, causing the boy to drop into his arms. Tsuzuki had watched with horror as the man he'd later come to know as Muraki Kazutaka slipped off Hisoka's light yukata and placed him nude among the roots of the sakura tree, close to the dead woman's body. A smirk had crossed the evil one's face before he'd began removing his own clothes.
Snarling, Tsuzuki had thrown his whole spiritual being into breaking the spell. It snapped off under the onslaught and he'd tumbled forward out of it's grasp before the other angel could grab him. Ignoring the bruising of one wing, he'd risen swiftly, determined to get to Hisoka. He'd managed three steps before being restrained again, this time by the spells of two more higher ranking guardians that he didn't know. Had they all gone mad?
"No," Tsuzuki had cried out, pleading with his eyes. "Let me go! I have to help him! Don't let this happen to him!"
"He must endure this for his spirit to develop as it should," the first guardian had replied. The other two had looked away from him.
"Please…" he'd implored.
At that moment, Hisoka's screams had ripped through the air and Tsuzuki had fallen to his knees, covering his ears to block out the sound of Hisoka's suffering. He'd wished he could block out the emotions crushing him as well and wondered if the other guardians could feel it too or if only he had the "privilege" being the boy's personal guardian. Glancing up for a moment, after curling into a ball around his knees, he'd noted that the others had at least had the decency to turn their backs on the event and not watch Hisoka's suffering.
Tsuzuki doesn't know how long the attack continued, he'd successfully erected a shield around his mind to keep himself from falling into the depths of Hisoka's emotional waves, but he still found himself sobbing as hard as Hisoka at it's end.
"I'm sorry, but it was necessary," one of the other angels had soothed as the restraints were lifted.
"Get away from me," he'd spit.
He'd stumbled to Hisoka's side, his wing throbbing, wishing he knew what to do to help his traumatized charge. Reaching into his reserves of strength, he'd attempted to wrap Hisoka in a spell of soothing, but found he could't; the other guardians had blocked him.
"Why?" He'd sobbed. "Why won't you let me help him?"
They hadn't responded.
After a time, the boy had risen from the blood covered ground, the scars from the curse not the only thing throbbing in pain. He'd pulled on the discarded yukata and slowly made his way home. Tsuzuki had followed dejectedly.
It was their last visit to the park.
Line 3.
Six months have passed and Hisoka hasn't told anyone about that night. Physically, he has healed, though the curse scars still occasionally pulse lightly. Mentally and emotionally...
Not for the first time does Tsuzuki wonder how the child still functions. Every night, Hisoka lay down to sleep managing maybe two hours before he wakes screaming. Then he cries himself to sleep and the cycle repeats itself until morning. With his powers still blocked Tsuzuki's urge to hold and soothe the suffering boy arises frequently.
Several times he's approached the High Council to beg for a spell or something to lessen the boy's pain.
"If you could at least let him have a few nights without nightmares..." he'd plead.
"We're sorry Tsuzuki," they'd always reply. "Kurosaki has to endure this trial in order for his spirit to grow as it should."
He hates that vague, placating answer and wishes they'd say something else at least once. Today, he's determined to get a better explanation.
After begging again for them to at least let the boy have one night without nightmares, the Chair of the High Council gets ready to drop that same placating answer, but Tsuzuki won't have it.
"We're sorry, Tsuzuki, but…"
"NO!" He yells, startling everyone in the room. Several of the guardians milling about and those waiting to speak with the Council all gasp and then begin murmuring to each other.
"No," he repeats quieter, head lowered, fists clenched at his side. "Please don't tell me that again. Don't give me that same vague useless answer that you always do."
He looks back up to the Chair, anger blazing in his eyes.
"Why does his spirit need to grow? How could enduring this-this mental and emotional anguish possibly be a good thing? Why can't he have just one fucking night without nightmares?!"
His voice had ridden steadily until he is yelling again. The Chair's face hardens and she leans back.
"Guardian, Tsuzuki," she bellows, "if our rulings on this matter don't sit well with you, we can have you reassigned."
Tsuzuki balks.
"N-No, thank you, ma'am," he stutters.
"Then if that is all, you are dismissed."
He leaves the Great Hall fuming.
Line 4.
Two years. Two years and he still hasn't told anyone. Not that Tsuzuki blames him. After all, who would he have told? The father who beat and cursed him regularly? The mother who'd avoided being anywhere near him for almost four years? The uncles, aunts and cousins who despised him? Maybe he could tell one of the maids who were so afraid of his 'demonic powers' that they wouldn't even walk by his room?
Those people disgust Tsuzuki.
He sighs. At least Hisoka sleeps through the night now. Well, most of the time. Every two weeks or so he wakes up gasping and sweating, his eyes darting about in fear. Every few months the curse scars pulse and burn, waking him in the middle of the night. He'd quietly ride out the pain, his breath coming raggedly through his teeth.
Tsuzuki can't help but being impressed by Hisoka's strength of will. Maybe the council was right.
He frowns to himself at that thought. No, they were wrong. No one deserves to suffer like that. There had to have been another way to strengthen his spirit.
Hisoka's stretch as he wakes distracts him from his thoughts.
Now 16, Hisoka no longer sleeps in a basement. His father placed him in a room on the first floor last year. Of course it's in the poorly maintained wing of the hose which tends to be colder in the winter and warmer in the summer than the rest of the houst, but it still constitutes a step up. He acquired other amenities with his move. The shower in the adjoining bathroom doesn't have rust-encrusted fixtures, the toilet never backs-up or overflows, he now has a tub to soak in, and instead of a cold concrete floor, he has several plush rugs lying on the floor of the larger space. The room came with a medium-sized dresser, a small closet, a four-tiered shelf for books, and a double futon frame, none of which he had before.
In the basement, his clothes were usually folded in a corner on the floor, making it necessary for him to shake them out some mornings to make sure no bugs had crawled into them during the night. His books, mostly for his tutoring classes, had stayed stacked on a cinder block in the corner farthest away from the bathroom. He'd slept on the floor on a thin, ratty futon mattress.
Now he has a plush new mattress to lie in his frame. Well, new to him.
The mattress had originally belonged to a serving maid who claimed to see spirits. Actually, she startled Tsuzuki once when she spoke to him in the hall as he and Hisoka were headed to one of his tutoring sessions.
"Good morning, sirs," she'd smiled brightly.
Hisoka had nodded a greeting at her and smiled back. Tsuzuki, of course, said nothing until he realized she'd said 'sirs' and not 'sir'. Deciding Hisoka would be okay for a few moments, he'd followed her. Seeming to sense him behind her, she'd turned and smiled that smile again.
"Is there something I can assist you with, sir," she'd inquired sincerely.
"You can see me," he'd questioned incredulously.
"Of course, sir. I can see all of the spirits who live here."
Tsuzuki had merely accepted that fact and nodded to himself.
"Well then, I apologize for not speaking earlier," he'd bowed.
"Oh that's perfectly fine sir. Truthfully, you're the only spirit who's ever responded to me, though I've made it a point to speak to all of them here at least once. Well, I'd love to chat more, but I have duties."
"Of course," he'd replied as she toddled off.
"By the way, nice wings," she'd called over her shoulder.
"Thank you," Tsuzuki had replied before rushing back to Hisoka.
About three months later, one of the personal maids to Hisoka's father had discovered the maid's "gift" when she witnessed the girl, Yamamoto Airi, conversing with one of the Kurosaki ancestors and asked why she was talking to the wall. Airi had replied that she wasn't talking to the wall, but to Hisoka's great-grandmother. The maid had reported the incident to Hisoka's father and Airi was promptly thrown out.
No one had wanted to touch any of her things for fear that they'd been contaminated by her evil, so they'd made the resident 'demon-child' take them. For his trouble, Hisoka acquired a thick, pink futon mattress with five sets of sheets, two comforters, fluffy pale pink, yellow, pastel green and lilac towel sets, a thick, pink throw rug for the bathroom and two pairs of warm white house slippers. He also got all of Airi's personal belongings and clothes as Hisoka's father wouldn't allow her back on the property to retrieve them. Hisoka didn't mind the colors of the items since they were definitely more luxurious than what he'd had before.
As for Airi's personal belongings and clothes, Hisoka had vowed to return them to her as soon as he was able.