Playing Hooky, a yami no matsuei fanfic

Playing Hooky

Disclaimer: I don't own Yami no Matsuei, but I definitely call dibs on 'Dress Down Tatsumi.' Boo-yah.

Rating: PG-13 for language and sensuality

Pairing: Tatsumi/Watari, spotty bits of Tsuzuki/Hisoka

Summary: Well, either Tatsumi's loosened up a bit, or there's some body-snatching pod person walking around Meifu impersonating him. Either way, Watari's shocked and awed.

Notes: Jemisard requested a sequel to "Casual Friday" and I couldn't pass up the chance to give Tatsumi the reverse Queer Eye treatment. Plus fanfiction.net still has very few fics for good old Tats and Tari.

Watari was scowling at the muffins on the break room table. They'd done him no personal wrong, he found no offense in the baked goods, which were just innocuously sitting there on the lopsided table waiting for Tsuzuki to swoop in and abscond them. He was merely glowering at the breakfast treats for the fact that it was Monday. He'd always hated Mondays with a passion, but lately, it seemed that the perpetually young scientist had achieved a new level of loathing for that most dreaded of days.

It was a little over a month since that fated Friday upon which Tatsumi had, while wearing a pair of beat-up old blue jeans and some sneakers that had seen far better days, professed his affection for his blonde coworker. Since then, there had been a Casual Friday every week, and while Tatsumi's level of dress down had gone back to staunchly reserved, the secretary was far more participatory than he'd been in decades past. That, and Watari had spent every weekend for the past month with Tatsumi. For a man who demanded frugality in the workspace, Tatsumi had some damn fine silk sheets on his bed. Watari smiled a little at this thought. When he'd first died, he'd regretted the fact that he'd been a virgin. He wasn't regretting it anymore.

But it seemed, and this was the source of all his general annoyance at the muffins or otherwise, that the moment the alarm went off Monday morning, Tatsumi reverted back to the penny-pinching stick-up-the-ass tightwad that everyone knew and loathed. And the fact of the matter was, this wasn't Tatsumi at all. This was Seiichiro Tatsumi, Secretary, Accountant, Kagetsukai, and all-around asshole. The man Watari had grown to love (and subsequently slept with on multiple occasions) was the complete antithesis of 'Office Tatsumi.' He was warm, engaging, witty, and surprisingly ticklish. And yet sadly, no one, not even Tsuzuki by virtue of being Tatsumi's most recent previous boyfriend…if roughly fifty years could be called recent…knew this about him. Which would be why the loveable young scientist was so pissed off.

"Are you going to continue staring at those, or are you going to eat them before that idiot gets in here and takes them all?" the voice of one Hajime Terazuma cut through Watari's sulking.

"Eh? Oh, sorry Terazuma, I was just thinking about something. Don't mind me."

The Shikigami-possessed and much beleaguered agent shrugged, rooting around in his coat pocket for his carton of cigarettes. First thing in the morning and Terazuma was already having nicotine cravings, go figure.

"I won't even ask what, though I can only assume it's the same thing Kannuki, Torii, and Fukiya have been bitching about for the past month…you and the boss."

Watari slapped on his 'potion brainstorm' grin. "Nope, I might've gotten a brilliant idea for my latest invention!"

It was a complete lie, of course, Watari had been too swamped with casework, research, and being the one and only physician for their department to do anything but make his paperclips come alive and scamper playfully across his desk, startling the ever-living daylights out of his avian companions. But it got Terazuma to back out of the room slowly with a startled look in his crimson eyes, so it was a plus.

"Watari, what did I tell you about frightening off coworkers with threats?"

"Only do it to you and Tsuzuki?" he inquired innocently, smiling at Tatsumi as the secretary made his way to the coffeemakers for his middle of early-morning jolt. It took the brunette at least five cups of coffee to get going, especially on a Monday.

"Docked pay," Tatsumi threatened in return.

Watari stuck out his tongue. "You damn hypocrite. You can't tell me not to threaten my coworkers when you're doing it too."

"I have the authority to make empty threats. You do not. And braid your hair before you get it caught on something and I have to cut it off with a pair of hedge clippers."

Watari rolled his eyes in annoyance, sticking two fingers in his mouth and whistling. 003 fluttered into the break room from the lab and perched on her owner's head.

"Boss wants a tidy-up job, 003. Just the up-and-outta-the-way, though. No time for fancy stuff right now, can't be counterproductive, right?" he chattered, fishing his usual hair ribbon out of his labcoat pocket and sticking it in his mouth. The little owl bobbed her head and took flight, waiting for Watari to comb out his hair with his fingers and section it off. She picked up a section of hair in her beak and zipped around his hands, expediently and expertly braiding her master's hair and then sitting smugly on his shoulder while he tied it off.

"Is that better, Tatsumi?" Watari asked with an equally smug smirk. "She does french braids too, but that takes a little longer."

Tatsumi glared at him. "You two are a couple of show-offs. Now, if I'm not mistaken, shouldn't you be assisting Tsuzuki and Hisoka in their current case research?"

"I'm going, I'm going. Jeez, what a difference a day makes."

"What do you mean?" Tatsumi queried, his blue eyes seeming a bit hard.

Watari sighed. "You go from being fun, happy, humoring Watari when he says he wants to go out on all of those clichéd dates Tatsumi to your usual I have the personality of a rock Tatsumi."

"I do not have the personality of a rock."

"Okay, maybe several rocks."

The glare intensified, and Watari was pretty sure the tension he felt in the room wasn't sexual.

"Tatsumi…" he sighed, exasperatedly slumping his shoulders. "I hate when you do this. You could show maybe the tiniest bit of affection for me while we're here, it's not going to kill you. Tsuzuki and Bon at least do the whole ambiguous handholding thing, a couple of pecks on the cheek here and there. With you it's either one extreme or the other. That, and you've gone back to being boring again. I liked spontaneous Tatsumi, he was fun."

"Will nothing please you?" the brunette asked wryly.

"No, it's not that."

He sipped at his coffee, scalding hot and black, the way it should be at such a ridiculous hour of morning. "Then what is it?"

"Just muffins? Aw, Wakaba's been really slipping lately. If there's a fruit medley and some toast tomorrow, I might have to quit," Tsuzuki whimpered, staring in horror at the less-than-oozing breakfast offerings on the table.

"Tsuzuki, do you mind?" Tatsumi asked, his gestures suggesting that he was in the middle of a rather important conversation.

Tsuzuki gave him a look. "You have an office with a lock on the door. Have your private discussions there and leave the food out of them."

"If you weren't such a good agent, I'd have you fired."

"Oh, but then you'd miss me!" he whined, tail wagging and ears drooping. Tatsumi cursed Tsuzuki's puppy mode with everything he had.

The secretary shook his head with annoyance. "I have to get back to work. We'll discuss this later, Watari."

"What's there to discuss? You're boring!" Watari cried, making a childish face.

"Trouble in Paradise?" Tsuzuki asked once the threat of being pummeled with shadows had completely dissipated. "I thought you two were happily dating."

"Meh."

The violet-eyed Shinigami raised an eyebrow. "Meh? Jeez, what'd he do to merit that?"

"You know how you're always telling me how great Bon is as a person when he opens up? How he's got the weirdest sense of humor and the cutest little shy smile?" Watari remarked. "But then as soon as you get him in here in the morning he goes back to being Mr. Don't Touch Me I'm the Angsty Empath with a Big Ass Chip on My Shoulder?"

"Yeah."

He sighed. "Well, That's Tatsumi."

"Aha. I don't know what to tell you, Watari, especially considering my advice-giving ability is on par with Hisoka's people skills. But I wouldn't worry. Hisoka's starting to come around, and Tatsumi eventually will too."

"But you and Hisoka have been working at this for seven years now! I've only been with Tatsumi five weeks!"

He shrugged. "Then I really can't help you there, kiddo. Hey, gotta get going, I left Hisoka back at the hotel. I just came to see if you'd made any progress on the research since last I spoke with you."

"Oh, yeah, that. From what I've gathered so far, you two should keep your eyes on that Honda fellow. There's this really huge dark energy splotch concentrating around places he frequents, his apartment, work, that nightclub down in Hatanaka Circle."

"Great, thanks a ton, Watari. And good luck with Fussbudget. Hisoka and I should be wrapped up with this thing in a day or two."

And with that, he was gone again, leaving Watari with the muffins and a worse mood than he had before. Maybe he'd go into the lab and blow something up, just out of spite.

Tuesday was no worse than Monday, but it was no better, either. Watari had yet to see Tatsumi so far, but it was still early, and the young scientist hadn't gone home the night before. Too fed up with everything, he'd crashed in one of the infirmary beds. At least, he told himself he didn't go home because he was fed up with everything, with casework and duplicitous boyfriends. It was really because he hadn't yet washed his bedclothes, and all of the sheets smelled of Tatsumi's cologne. Normally, he wouldn't have minded, but in the peevish state he was currently in, Watari wanted no part of the man.

"I'm probably being completely idiotic," he said absently, sipping at a mug of tea. "But I can't keep doing this. Tatsumi's got to stop jerking me around so much, don't you agree?"

007, Watari's emperor penguin, bobbed her head. Meanwhile, Her Royal Highness 003, from atop her lofty throne…otherwise known as Watari's head…delivered a sharp peck to his cranium. He translated this to be something akin to, "You're being an ass."

"No, I think my demands are perfectly reasonable."

The owl argued with him for most of the early morning, at least through the usual punch-in hour, and the span of time where Tsuzuki would invariably come in later than everyone else, which was somewhat ambiguous. Nobody really knew how late the violet-eyed agent was going to be on a particular day. But anyway, 003 fought with Watari, and when neither of them would back down, she decided to quarrel with her sisters instead. 007 and 216, the toucan, were happy to take up the challenge.

"Watari, my office, if you would be so kind," Tatsumi requested, leaning into the lab doors not long after the last time-card had been punched and everyone was out and about doing their various tasks. Watari and the birds all cringed, despite their varying points of view. Somebody was in trouble, and that somebody was the only one in the room with thumbs.

"Close the door."

The blonde did so hesitantly, keeping as far away from Tatsumi and his desk as possible. Lovers or no, the man was still the second most formidable Shinigami in all Meifu. At the mere wave of a hand, he could easily become Watari-Flavored Shadow Snacks.

"Come over here," Tatsumi ordered.

Watari shuffled over slowly, still keeping his distance. "I didn't do it, really. It was all Tsuzuki."

"I highly doubt that." The fact that the secretary's sentences were kept short and clipped, much like his tone, was more unnerving than anything else, except maybe the eerie calm his face portrayed. Watari honestly feared for his life, despite the obvious hindrance of being dead.

"Tatsumi…"

The blue-eyed man shook his head, unbuttoning his suit jacket and carefully folding it up. The vest followed, and the armbands after that. Watari's mouth opened and closed like a landed fish, words completely lost to him. Tatsumi, smirking, loosened his silk tie and removed that, and started to methodically unbutton his dress shirt. Watari's eyes were wide behind his glasses, gaping as the reserved secretary tossed his shirt under the desk, revealing a tight black muscle tank underneath.

"This better not be some kinky office sex bondage fetish thing, Tatsumi," Watari joked weakly, sweating bullets.

The older man said nothing, his fingers going to unfasten the belt at his hips. The blonde looked about ready to pass out or have a violent and gushing nosebleed. The belt was loosened, and Tatsumi kicked off his leather wingtips before working off his neatly pressed slacks. Watari fell against the leather armchair facing the desk for support. Underneath those starchy tan slacks was a pair of leather pants the same piercing blue as Tatsumi's eyes, studded with lots of silver bits and zippers. Very kinky. Very tight. They were the kind of pants that one basically had to grease their entire lower body with Vaseline in order to slide into, conforming to his body second-skin. The room seemed very hot at that moment.

"You aren't going to collapse on me, are you?" Tatsumi asked wryly, removing his glasses and throwing them at the scientist. Watari caught them, marveling at the way his fingers went straight through the lenses.

"There's no glass in these frames," he mused.

The brunette nodded, running his fingers through his hair, scrubbing the impossible neatness out. "They were an old pair with an old prescription in them. I popped the lenses out to keep up appearances. I must admit, contact lenses have gotten more comfortable the more often I try wearing them."

He reached under the desk for one last item, a pair of shoes Watari affectionately knew as 'waffle-stompers.' They were sort of a low-top combat boot, black and scuffed at the toes, the laces frayed, the chunky rubber soles cracked in various places. Tatsumi unceremoniously jammed his feet into them and hitched the laces together.

"You should take your labcoat off, you'll look ridiculous wearing it," he suggested, moving to the window and opening it as wide as it would go.

"What are you talking about?" Watari inquired dazedly, too stunned to comprehend. That, and he was rather focused on how fine Tatsumi's ass looked in those tight leather pants.

"You and I are going to play hooky today, Watari. Starting right now."

The amber-eyed young man's expression changed. "Who are you, and what have you done with Tatsumi?!"

"You idiot, I am Tatsumi."

Watari's expression stayed somewhat combative but at the same time rather bemused. "You can't be. Tatsumi would never dress that slutty."

Tatsumi shook his head, taking the five steps that put him nose-to-nose with the stunned scientist. One arm hooked around the small of his back, the other hand sliding against his milk-pale jaw as the azure-eyed secretary crushed his lips against his lover's. His grip tightened around him as Watari's knees started to buckle, the younger man hitching his arms around Tatsumi's neck. He licked along his lower lip, the blonde groaning softly as his lips parted submissively, pressing his whole body into the kiss as Tatsumi plunged his tongue into Watari's mouth. Several heartbeats or several eternities later, neither was sure which, Tatsumi broke the kiss. Watari's grip never faltered, for fear of collapsing to the floor with noodly legs.

"You cheated," he gasped, still clinging to those broad shoulders.

"Oh? How so?"

Watari pouted. "You know damn well you're the only man who can make a paraplegic out of me with a single kiss."

Tatsumi shrugged, trying to haul himself and Watari's dead weight over to the window. "Come on, let's go."

"Where? Out the window? Have you lost it?!"

"We can't very well go out the front door, can we? We'd be caught. However, this window doesn't face anything but sakura trees, therefore we can easily jump and make an escape."

The young scientist found his feet, but leaned against the wall next to the window frame just in case. "You know, when I said 'be more spontaneous,' I was thinking of something less…potentially punitive."

Tatsumi grew very serious. "Listen, we'll discuss all of this later, I promise. But I'd rather not do it here and now. For once in your life, just humor me and go along with this. Should we be punished, I'll take the fall, I swear it. I'll tell them I forced you to go against your will."

Watari sighed, throwing off his labcoat and stowing it in the hollow under Tatsumi's desk where his office clothes and wingtips were stored.

"Age before beauty," he said, gesturing to the open window.

The brunette grinned rakishly, climbing up onto the sill and leaping out. Watari shook his head, leaning out the window to make sure that Tatsumi wasn't lying on the ground with his arms and legs bending at unnatural angles. Sure enough, the laws of gravity and physics still didn't apply to Shinigami, even when jumping from third-story windows.

"I want to know at what point he became the reckless one and I became the one with the stick up the ass," he muttered, jumping out as well. Though it was a touch unnecessary, Tatsumi did catch him.

"Let's go."

Tsuzuki opened the door to Tatsumi's office with a handful of papers clenched in his fist. He and Hisoka had finished up the case faster than expected and were shipped right back to the office before the brunette could overenthusiastically spend any more of the department's money.

"Hey Tatsumi, Konoe needs your signature on these forms, something about…Tatsumi?" he cut himself off, noticing that the secretary was not in his office. Papers that were usually carefully stacked in the plastic inbox on his desk were blowing about the room, which led the Shinigami's violet eyes to the wide-open window.

"Hisoka!" he hollered, tearing down the hallway and barreling over a few hapless office workers who got in his way. The older man skidded into the office he shared, panting and waving his arms frantically.

"Tatsumi's jumped out his window and committed suicide!"

The teenager shot him a withering look. "Tsuzuki, name me one thing we, being dead, can do that mortals cannot?"

"Summon gods?"

"Not that."

Tsuzuki wracked his brain. "Heal despite having gaping holes ripped into us?"

"Not that."

Hisoka was almost certain he could see smoke coming from his partner's ears. "Um…"

"Fly, you idiot. We can fly. Therefore, if Tatsumi was to jump out of a third-story window, he would not be killed, as he, like the rest of us, can fly."

Tsuzuki let out a little 'ohhh,' scratching his head, still somewhat puzzled.

"Okay, but then why would Tatsumi jump out his window in the first place?"

The green-eyed boy now understood why people refused to partner with Tsuzuki, and it wasn't just because of his personal demons. The man could be absolutely insufferable when he wanted.

"My guess would be he's trying to sneak out of work without any of us knowing…and judging from that completely out-of-character concept, he's taken Watari with him because Tatsumi is trying to prove himself."

The brunette opened his mouth to ask 'why' again, but Hisoka held up a hand to silence him.

"I believe we had this conversation yesterday, Tsuzuki, in between your complaints regarding muffins. How Watari feels robbed during the workweek because Tatsumi hardly shows any emotion towards him other than his usual annoyance. I would assume that this spontaneous and abrupt shift in personality on our superior's part is an attempt to please Watari."

"Jeez, it's a little extreme, though, don't you think?"

"You're one to talk, Asato 'Let Me Jump in Front of Anything Bigger than a Mosquito in order to Protect Hisoka at Any and All Costs' Tsuzuki."

He grinned sheepishly. "Oh, right."

"Idiot."

They were in a park somewhere, somewhere in the mortal world Watari had never seen before. But then again, there were a lot of places Watari had never seen before, being cooped up in his lab more often than not. Natural sunlight was something of a mystery to the pale young man. But there they were, the secretary in his tight leather pants, the scientist in his usual turtleneck and slacks. He wished he'd had the opportunity to change, he felt dumpy compared to the man beside him. Tatsumi hadn't spoken since they left Meifu, merely sitting in the sunlight, content to be anywhere but the office. He was peering up through the shifting leaves of the tree overhead, the light dappling his fine face.

"I should have planned this better. We could've gone clubbing."

Watari arched an eyebrow. "Tatsumi, you hate loud music and large crowds. We wouldn't have lasted ten minutes in any nightclub. Not to mention how many sleazy doped-up guys would be groping you in some dark corner."

"Yeah, but it's too early to do much of anything. Nothing's open," he pointed out, watching as morning joggers paraded by in sweat-stained shirts.

The blonde smiled. "I'm with you, we don't have to do anything."

"That was lame."

"Yeah? Kind of like your attempts to win my heart?" he retorted.

Tatsumi frowned. "What do you mean by that?"

"Oh, come on! I tell you that you're boring and you should be spontaneous, and all I mean is that maybe it wouldn't kill you to wear something other than that same blah brown suit every day of the week…even Friday. And by spontaneous, a little under-the-table hand holding during morning meetings or perhaps leaving that cave you call an office and having lunch outside with me sometimes would suffice just nicely. I didn't mean for you to go to these lengths…although I gotta say, those leather pants look absolutely sinful on you, love."

Tatsumi said nothing, playing with one of the many zippers that crisscrossed his thigh.

"I…" he said helplessly, unable to find the words he wanted to say.

Watari smiled, resting his head on that broad shoulder, his hair unbound today, the wild tangles cascading over both men. "I'm going to love you no matter what, just so you know."

"I just want to make you happy."

Though it was a sincere statement, it honestly sounded ridiculous. Making Watari, the most perpetually cheerful being in Meifu, happy seemed like overkill to the extreme. Both men realized this and laughed.

"So what now?" Watari asked, glancing up into warm cobalt eyes.

"I say we go back to bed, grab some supper when we finally stagger out, and maybe I'll let you take me clubbing and I won't complain."

Watari smirked. "You're really insistent on this clubbing thing, aren't you?"

"I let myself get tricked into making a bet with Tsuzuki."

"What?! You? In a bet with Tsuzuki? Enma-Daioh, what stakes did that flaming fool put on you? Do I even want to know?"

Tatsumi sighed. "He bet that I wouldn't 'have the balls' to take you clubbing, that I'd look more like your father than your date. If he won the bet, I had to come to work in 'bondage gear' and let you lead me around on a leash all day. However, if I was the victor, which I will be, he has to do two weeks' worth of cases with Terazuma as his partner."

"Oh…well then, count me in. That Tsuzuki…and I thought I had a gambling problem."

"He probably picked it up from you," Tatsumi pointed out.

Watari shrugged. "Wouldn't hold it past him."

They ended up going back to Watari's apartment, for the sheer fact that it was closer, Tatsumi enveloping the bedroom in shadows before the two of them tumbled into bed. They didn't even bother taking their clothes off, though as Watari pointed out, Tatsumi probably couldn't have gotten those pants off if he'd wanted to. Sleep was more than welcomed. Both men had been overworked and overstressed lately, sleep being the last thing either of them had worried about.

The phone rang a couple of times, probably coworkers frantically trying to get a hold of them, but Tatsumi efficiently and brutally slaughtered the device, silencing it without even having to get up. They'd woken in the early afternoon, but after struggling to get Tatsumi's pants off for some much overdue sex, they'd ended up collapsing before any progress was really made. It wasn't until after dark before either one finally rose, and it was Watari who woke first by virtue of needing to shower before he went out.

And it amused him terribly how normal it all seemed. That they slept away an entire Tuesday that should've been spent dumping oddly colored concoctions into coffeepots and hounding Tsuzuki for the case files from his last assignment. That Tatsumi had, once again, crashed in his apartment, the pillowcases would probably never smell like anything but his cologne again. And now they were going out for dinner and dancing. And he thought the end of the world was when Casual Fridays were reinstated.

"You shouldn't have punched that young man, Watari."

The blonde pouted, his glossy lips sparkling in the dim light. "I don't care. Nobody cops a feel on my boyfriend and gets away with it."

"But you broke his jaw."

"He groped my boyfriend. He's lucky that's the only thing that got broken."

Tatsumi frowned. "Still…"

"Oh, but you can't say you wanted to send a couple of shadows after that group of girls dragged me off."

The blue-eyed man shook his head. "No, I can't, because those were lesbians and they thought you were a girl, Watari. I told you not to pin your hair up like that."

"But it's pretty."

They were sitting at the bar, having a couple of drinks and engaging in their usual witty conversation. The dance floor was just too crowded with sweaty bodies reeking of sex and cheap perfume for comfortable dancing, and though Watari was not adverse to it, Tatsumi could not bring himself to writhe among a throng of complete strangers with his body pressed so tightly to his partner's that their leather pants stuck together from the heat. No thank you.

Just then a broad hand clamped down on either man's neck. They exchanged glances from the corners of their eyes, not happy ones, and slowly turned around on the bar stools. Chief Konoe was glaring dourly at both of them with the Face of Doom. Watari cringed.

"So this is where the hell you two fucks have been all day!" he bellowed. "We've had practically every agent out in the field looking for you! By the gods, we thought Muraki was back in business."

Watari laughed nervously, holding up a hand in greeting. "Evening, Boss."

"Shut up, Watari. I never would've found either of you if I didn't have the Gushoshin track you down and tail you from Watari's apartment. Really, Tatsumi, I thought better of you. To think that you'd be dragged along on one of this idiot's escapades."

Tatsumi's hand went to his face in an attempt to nudge his glasses authoritatively, forgetting that they were sitting on his bureau at home.

"Actually, Sir, this was all my idea. I was the one doing the dragging, not Watari. Now if you don't mind…" his cerulean eyes flashed dangerously in the low light. "We're in the middle of a date. Reprimanding us can wait until tomorrow, I believe."

And with that, just to emphasize the fact, Tatsumi leaned over and kissed Watari, thrusting his tongue into the younger man's mouth with a flippant smile. Watari, realizing the ploy his lover was using to ditch the easily disgusted chief, moaned, his hand sliding under Tatsumi's shirt. Konoe bolted.

"We're so dead come tomorrow morning," Watari groaned after the coast was clear.

"Yes, but you forget," Tatsumi replied, "we're already dead as it is."

In the end, both Watari and Tatsumi were put on three days' suspension without pay. Honestly, it was the stupidest punishment ever assigned in the history of Enma-cho. With no Watari, there was no doctor on hand for anyone who came back from the field injured or got food poisoning from foolishly trying to eat the cafeteria's 'mystery meat…' namely Tsuzuki. With no Tatsumi, nothing got accomplished. There were probably man-eating demons wandering around Japan and nobody took care of them because Tatsumi wasn't around to assign the mission and holler until somebody got off of their ass and complete it. Basically, Watari and Tatsumi were given three days' vacation, plus the satisfaction of knowing that Tsuzuki was stuck working with Terazuma for two whole weeks.

And Watari did finally get what he wanted, which was why all of this nonsense went on in the first place. Tatsumi was more open about their relationship during the workday, and didn't wear his stupid brown suit every single day of the week. So everybody won out in the end, except for maybe Konoe, who got screwed over, and Hisoka, because working with Wakaba for two weeks meant she was going to try and shove as many goodies down his throat as possible, and Terazuma, who had to suffer being stuck with Tsuzuki…oh, and Saya and Yuma, who didn't even show up. They were all angry. But Watari and Tatsumi, who were the only ones that really mattered anyways, didn't live happily ever after…because they were dead.

fin

Notes: It got soupy towards the end, and Tatsumi turned out more out of character than I'd planned. Meh. But by the time I got this finished, it was late at night, I was in a silly mood, and I'd discovered just how sleep deprived I really am. Double meh. Writing this fic made me realize just how hard it is to write Tatsumi when he doesn't have the personality of several rocks. Curse you, Seiichiro, for being so complex, and yet so ambiguous at the same time.