Title: The Wrist
Author: Zazlx
Rating: T
Spoilers: No real spoilers apart from the cause of Tsuzuki's death.
Set: Post-Kyoto
Summary: Hisoka tries to buy Tsuzuki a watch.
When Muraki saw the watch on Tsuzuki's right wrist, he asked the obvious question: "Is that because you're left handed?" and the unobvious question: "Or is there a scar you're trying to hide?" What he didn't think to do was link the two. Why would a right-handed man use his left-hand to slit that right wrist?
Disclaimer: 'Yami no Matsuei' belongs to the wonderful Yoko Matsushita. This is but a brief offering to show my adoration and appreciation. No harm is meant, no profits incurred and no claim asserted so please forgive and don't sue (or, better yet, read and review).
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Most people don't think much about their watch. It's just there. Something you barely glance at even when you need the time. It might not even be all that accurate. People have funny habits when it comes to their watches. Some like to keep them fast, others run them slow.
Tsuzuki Asato's watch wasn't just slow, it was stopped. He was a busy man however, and it wasn't something he'd have actually noticed except that the watch strap broke, the watch falling to the ground with a light patter. It was Hisoka who actually bent to pick it up after giving his partner's frozen stance a long, sceptical look.
The young man held it up to his ear and rolled his eyes before handing it back to Tsuzuki. "Don't bother fixing the strap, the fall broke it."
Tsuzuki just shrugged, his jacket bunching at the neck as he lifted his shoulders before settling back in place perfectly as he relaxed. The watch went into the right pocket, the one nearest to his wrist as if it could still offer protection through the layers of cloth. "It's probably just the battery." He tugged at the cuff of his shirt, but the cotton already covered half of his hand.
Hisoka watched the unconscious twitch expressionlessly. "It's stopped, Tsuzuki. You just dropped it and now it's stopped. What makes you think it's the battery?"
His partner just shrugged again and turned to look about them. "Do you think there's anywhere around here that'll replace the strap?"
"It's broken. Just get a new one. There's a department store over there. I'm sure it will sell some." Hands in his pockets, Hisoka gamely followed as Tsuzuki walked firmly in the opposite direction, but not before dangling one last carrot. "I'm certain Tatsumi will let you put it on expenses." Especially if it made Tsuzuki actually turn up to something on time, he thought.
Tsuzuki wasn't interested.
-----
The elder shinigami had been distracted all through lunch, even to the extent of playing with his apple pie before eating it. It was almost enough to worry Hisoka. Almost. It was the way that Tsuzuki kept playing with his sleeve and shielding his thoughts that did bother him though. His partner hadn't been this tensed up since Kyoto.
Finally exasperated with the continued faffing Hisoka got the bill, quizzed the landlord and dragged a slightly startled Tsuzuki out into the early afternoon sunlight. "Where are we going, Soka? Did you sense something? Do you have some ideas about the daemon?" His questions were only cut short when they arrived at their destination. A jewellers.
"Go in. Get that damn thing fixed. Put it back on and let's get on with the case!" With that Hisoka firmly pushed this friend ahead of him and into the shop.
-----
The watch-strap took a while to replace. Not that there was anything intrinsically difficult about it, just that the jeweller went into raptures as he reverently took it from Tsuzuki's hands. Out came the little tools and a polishing cloth and Hisoka almost shuddered to remember the Doctor's knives and clamps.
His face fell though, when he turned the watch over, and he handed it back with little of the interest he'd shown earlier. In fact, he rather looked at them as though they'd murdered his first-born. And his emotions were even more damning.
Tsuzuki had his back to them and was tightening the sturdy new leather strap when the interesting moment occurred.
Hisoka tapped the taller shinigami on his shoulder. "Hey, I thought you said it needed a battery."
The old man snorted from behind his counter. "Don't kids today know anything? That thing's wind-up. 'Sides, it's insides are mashed and corroded."
-----
Dusk was gathering before Hisoka brought the subject up again. He half felt foolish for making a scene now that Tsuzuki was behaving normally again, and didn't want to ruin the good mood, but the entire issue was just too odd.
"You need to get a new watch, Tsuzuki. One that works."
Tsuzuki just looked at him, surprised. "Why?" His violet eyes were wide in the twilight and contrasted nicely with the pale peach of the sky. He looked beautiful and Hisoka blushed. Then he scowled, annoyed.
"Don't tell me it has so much sentimental value that you'd risk Tatsumi's wrath by being late?" Maybe if he'd been less annoyed he'd have realised how foolish the question was.
But Tsuzuki didn't tease him for the slip. Instead he answered seriously. "Hisoka, I'm always late."
-----
Dinner that night was another melancholy affair. The solemness of the day seemed to have permeated Tsuzuki and he picked through his meal with a surprisingly refined use of cutlery. His sleeve occasionally slipped up past his right wrist, but he made no move to stop this now.
Tsuzuki's wrists really were quite beautiful, Hisoka thought. Pale and flawless. He wondered briefly how the suicide scars had been contained so neatly that they fell perfectly under the watch strap. Especially when Muraki had always said that Tsuzuki suffered an ending full of madness and chaos.
The wrist jerked as Tsuzuki moved and Hisoka felt his heart pound again for a moment until he realised that he hadn't been caught gazing. Besides, he argued to himself, I was just looking at the watch. It's caused this much trouble, is it a surprise that I'm interested?
As the jeweller had said it was a clock-work watch. The dial for winding it up lay awkwardly on the side of the face away from both hand and wrist, facing Tsuzuki's body; the inaccessibility of the dial emphasising that it was being worn on the wrong wrist. On the right wrist, not the left.
This time Tsuzuki did catch him looking. He covered the watch protectively with his left hand, but his eyes met Hisoka's boldly.
All Hisoka said was "looks old."
Tsuzuki nodded. "Konoe gave it me. Must have been over seventy years ago."
It was Hisoka's turn to nod.
-----
They were outside the door to their room when the question occurred to Hisoka. Tsuzuki was unlocking the door and the key was in his hand. In his right hand. In the hand who's wrist he wore the watch on.
"Why'd you do it with your left hand?" He hadn't meant to ask the question and for a moment he thought he might go unheard, or at least, unacknowledged. But Tsuzuki hesitated for a moment too long before pushing open the door and stepping through into the unlit room. Hisoka knew he'd heard.
The door clicked shut behind them. Tsuzuki stood silhouetted before the window; a pitch shadow against a midnight sky. Automatically Hisoka's fingers found the light switch, but he hesitated, something about the tension in his partner's mind telling him to wait.
"They didn't leave knives around me." Hisoka's prediction proved true as Tsuzuki started to speak. "But I had a piece of glass from the vase I'd broken the night before. Of course, I'd cut my hand that time. Maybe even worse than my wrist. I remember holding it so tightly. When I woke up... my right hand hadn't healed. I couldn't hold the shard in it. They hadn't expected me to wake again so quickly..." His voice trailed off. That they hadn't expected him to die so quickly either hung in the air between them for an instant.
Then Hisoka snapped the lights on. "Time to sleep." He contradicted his action.
-----
They split up the next morning and Tsuzuki was late meeting up for lunch. Frustrated Hisoka glared at the other man as he strode over to the café table, coat flapping in the breeze. "Can't you even try to be on time?" He scowled deeper when Tsuzuki smiled and ruffled his hair.
Clearly they needed to go back to the jewellers and get a watch that worked. Preferably one that was shock-proof. He told Tsuzuki so in no uncertain terms.
Tsuzuki rolled his eyes. "I told you that it only needs a battery, Soka."
"Idiot! It's wind-up and it's broken. The jeweller said so." Tsuzuki looked surprised.
-----
They had been in the store for nearly an hour and Hisoka was growing increasingly impatient at his partner's lack of interest. After finally luring him in with the promise of sweets, Hisoka had got Tsuzuki to the watch counter. Forcing him to make a decision was another matter all together.
Finally, in desperation, Hisoka chose one and allowed himself to be steered in the direction of an ice cream parlour.
-----
The next morning Tsuzuki put on his old watch by mistake. Hisoka rolled his eyes and waited for him to notice.
They made it down to breakfast and out of the hotel with no problem, but it was more impressive when Tsuzuki arrived only five minutes late to their mid-day rendezvous. Even more so was his navigation of the trains on the circle line which included a coffee break wherein he both caught their intended train and never so much as glanced at his watch. Then there was the argument with a shop keeper about their early closing. Of course, it was just possible that Tsuzuki would have moaned and sulked about an early closing whatever time the clocks showed, but Hisoka was beginning to feel slightly unsure.
The final straw was when, as Hisoka sat on the opposite twin bed, he took it off that night without so much as glancing at it.
-----
After the case, Hisoka ended up giving the new watch to Watari who would undoubtedly need the parts in one of his ongoing experiments.
As he wondered back to the office he shared with Tsuzuki, he wondered if the other would ever forgive himself his suicide.
--fin--