Grim Trigger Complex
Author's Notes – Well, this chapter was supposed to begin finally getting slashy, but in the end, it didn't quite flow right and I broke it up into two separate parts instead. I've uploaded them together since not much happens in this part. I wish this fic would stop taking over my mind- it's now looking to be a good four chapters longer than I had originally planned.
Now would be a good time to add a warning- there will be upcoming sex between a person in authority and student. It won't be graphic (boohiss for MA and its 'Possible Strong But Non-Explicit Adult Themes'), but if anyone is understandably squicked by it, you've been warned now. And as a second warning, there's a bit of musing about men who are convicted for similar offences. Please ignore the bad Tatsumi when he doesn't immediately write them off as being to blame. None of this is my own opinion and he's just unconsciously trying to justify himself a little. He knows better really.
Disclaimer- I don't own any of the recognisable characters or concepts. No profit is being made and no copyright infringement is intended.
After Tsuzuki's appointment was over, Tatsumi brought him back to his own place for the night. He'd read that sometimes suicide rates increased immediately after medical intervention, that ironically, lifting someone's mood that little bit could raise them from their stupor just enough to care whether they lived or died. Tatsumi couldn't understand a world where the first sign of light at the end of the tunnel was that last way out, the hope that everything could be finished. But then, he had never really understood suicide altogether, no matter how many useful facts he had picked up. Tatsumi was not the sort of person wired for self-destruction.
Tsuzuki was silent most of the car ride home. A medication prescription and a handful of glossy leaflets lay unread on his lap. Living With Depression, in cheerful oranges and red, a photograph of a female model with eyes shut and fingers pressed into her temples, apparently to represent anguish. Men and Depression, masculine blues and whites, a scribbly cartoon cover that Tatsumi supposed was meant to be light-hearted. About Suicide, neutral forest greens on white, a silhouette of two hands reaching out to clasp. Muraki had given those to Tatsumi when they came back to the waiting room and he'd promptly handed them over to Tsuzuki, not wanting him to feel as though he had no control over his own treatment. A sense of helplessness towards their own lives was common in the depressed. Tatsumi had read this too, but he didn't need any expert to tell him that. He knew very well just how important control was.
Tsuzuki occasionally shuffled through the leaflets slowly without looking at them. His head rested against the misted-over windows, black tendrils of dampening hair falling over half-closed eyes. He looked exhausted more than anything, and Tatsumi didn't think he was consciously sulking. It took a lot for Tsuzuki to hold a grudge, and he wasn't the sort to make someone feel guilty if they had tried to help and failed anyway.
"Lots to think about." Tsuzuki said with a weak, apologetic smile, as he noticed Tatsumi surreptitiously glancing over at him too many times.
Tatsumi almost felt a need to apologise, despite knowing that there was no logical reason why he should. He was giving up a lot of his own time and money to make this work, and Tsuzuki might not like it now, but it would work out for the best in the end. Therapy was always difficult, and it couldn't heal old wounds in one session. He had been well prepared for the possibility that Tsuzuki might get worse before he got better. Tatsumi was not a particularly empathic person, but it was easy to tell there were all sorts of demons to confront in Tsuzuki's past when the ghosts of them still showed in a sudden darkening of bruise-coloured eyes, in a visible flinch at a distant raised voice.
He waited until later that night before asking how it went. By then, Tsuzuki was almost back to normal. He'd eaten half a banoffee pie (the most revoltingly sweet dessert that Tatsumi could think of), stolen the unread newspaper for the entertainment section, then liberated the cat from the garden and brought her in, squirming and protesting loudly in his arms. Tsuzuki didn't volunteer much information when Tatsumi finally raised the question. He shrugged, eyes on the cat as he answered. Muraki was OK. Yes, it might be helpful. No, he didn't mind trying medication. Tsuzuki might not be very enthusiastic about it, but the next appointment was already booked, and Tatsumi noticed in the following days that Tsuzuki seemed a lot calmer, if occasionally a little more subdued than he liked.
Besides, he had other things to worry about. For one, Tatsumi had became exquisitely aware of Hisoka's presence, and it troubled him. It wasn't just in the classroom any more. His own head would lift slightly as he moved between rooms, without thought, as though he had heard some signal falling outside the normal ranges of human perception. There would be nothing else there but a watercolour jumble of pastel walls and blonde wooden trophy cabinets and pale adolescent faces, and then a few seconds later, Hisoka would come drifting down corridors in his odd, disconnected way. He found himself turning in the corridor as a crowd of students spilled out of a classoom, the background rush and roar of voices suddenly turning oceanic in his ears as he anticipated Hisoka's limpid eyes raising to meet his own for a second, everything still for that one, strange moment.
It concerned him, and it made no sense in his mind. Hisoka was a problem student. He was surrounded by teens with far brighter futures. The school was full of fresh-faced young men who spoke three languages and would go on to become businessmen and travel the world, and pretty girls with shining ponytails who were as at home wielding a bunsen burner as they were at a party. It wasn't about appearances. He taught the sons and daughters of beautiful actresses and famous mistresses, blessed with both the blueprints for photo-perfect looks, and the money for private gyms and weekly salon sessions to keep them. It couldn't even be about personality. In every single one of his classes, the faces might change, but there were always three or four girls who openly giggled and passed notes about their new teacher. There were quiet, eager students who came to his office outside of lessons and hung on his every word.
For some reason, this made Hisoka all the more interesting. Tatsumi didn't mind that Hisoka was never tanned from exotic holidays abroad, or that there was always a new dappled purple bruise or a fresh graze still raw underneath tacky blood. He didn't mind the way he gazed distantly out the window as though drugged, one sharp shoulder prominent under the expensive school uniform as though it was the first thing he'd found on his bedroom floor. He could even ignore the critical tone Hisoka spoke to him in, his words carefully polite, his eyes daring Tatsumi to say something about it.
It frightened him. He was a respected 29 year old maths teacher in an excellent school. Tatsumi knew very well what happened to men like him, and that there were never happy endings. He saw them photographed leaving courts, looking slightly bewildered as though they had been enchanted and weren't sure at all how they had got there. Dangerous predators they might be, but in those photos they always looked as though they had suddenly aged another ten years overnight with shock. They looked like everyone's down-on-their-luck uncle, with receding hair and a shabby suit, their expression bemused as though they were still in love with their teenage bride, wondering at the fickle heart of a fifteen year old girl.
The extra lessons made it worse. The others had quit, one by one. Tsubaki's illness made it difficult for her to keep up, and in the end her father had forcibly withdrawn her despite her protests. Mamoru suddenly transferred school, after a short and ugly divorce between his parents that no one had known about, the father unwilling to pay for private school if it didn't come with the privilege of a perfect wife and family to show for it. Ayame had came to Tatsumi one day, said she had to quit and promptly burst into tears. It had taken a few minutes before she'd calmed down enough to speak, while he waited uncomfortably, reminding her that she didn't need extra classes to keep her grades well above average, and wondering if he should call Watari for a suspected panic attack. She had sounded near-hysterical as she stood to leave, choking out a few incoherent words about work loads and stress as she backed out of his office.
He was surprised that Hisoka had continued to attend, but he hadn't missed a lesson yet. He might come grudgingly, ignore Tatsumi throughout most of it and look as if he'd rather be somewhere else entirely, but he still came and that was the only important thing. Furthermore, he was so close to being a model student that it was almost maddening. He couldn't simply be written off with the other problem students, not when he worked above and beyond university level, and in discussions raised the same points that a younger Tatsumi would have done. There was something there that made the single wrong note all the more frustrating. Tatsumi could instantly find the unbalanced sum in a column of credits and debits, or the surplus variable in an algebraic equation, and write out the mistake with a slash of red pen, but he couldn't solve this.
Hisoka had even chosen a project without prompting, on applications of game theory. Tatsumi still subscribed to a few maths journals he had followed since his university days, and he made a note to tell Hisoka about an advertisement he had seen for an exhibition in the city museum, on the applications of maths in science, society and art. He had already discussed the possibility of a small educational visit with the head of the school.
Somehow, the days slipped away and Tatsumi was entering his sixth week as a teacher. It started with yard duty, not a favourite part of the day. May was still cool and damp enough to make surveying the short recess unpleasant. There wasn't much to monitor anyway. The grounds were too big to watch out for all signs of bullying and only the very youngest still played games. He strolled around the grounds in widening circles, spotting some of his students every so often and raising a hand to acknowledge their greeting. Tsubaki was looking painfully thin and cold even in layers of expensive cashmere, but she separated herself from her group of friends to trot over to him with a question about the upcoming museum visit.
Tatsumi rarely saw Hisoka during the school's recesses. He'd kept an eye out for him the first few times, wondering if he'd get any insight into the boy. A sign of bullying, perhaps, discovering what sort of crowds he ran with, or seeing Hisoka let his guard down amongst his own friends. Hisoka gave nothing away. Tatsumi had noticed that he was often found near the same few students, but none of them seemed to be friends. They congregated silently behind sheds and outbuildings, some there to smoke and some there just to be away from the crowds. They cupped cigarettes in a palm, or leaned against an outbuilding staring into the sky while the time slipped away and a distant bell rang for the next lesson. Occasionally, there might be some remark, a short laugh, and then back into the moody silence, standing alone in whatever little islands of pain separated them from the rest. Perhaps it was the closest to acquaintances that they could ever have.
Hisoka was behind one of the storage buildings today, sat on a bench with one sharp knee propped up and a book unread in front of him. His head was tilted back to rest against the wall, blonde hair flaming weakly against rust and iron. His eyes opened slowly as Tatsumi passed by, skimming across him without enthusiasm.
There were two older students nearby, grey plumes of smoke still rising on the cool green air and the cigarettes lost somewhere in the wet grass as soon as he arrived. He'd seen the three of them together a few times. The other boy glanced up at him slowly with smoulderingly dark eyes the colour of dying ashes, and then turned his attention back to the dull skies. The girl's skirt was six inches shorter than regulation, too-high heels sunk ruthlessly into the wet ground. She gave him a disinterested look, too preoccupied by whatever could trouble seventeen year old rich girls born with every possible privilege. He passed by, slightly irritated that two of them had obviously been smoking, but with nothing to prove it.
As he was walking back towards the main school buildings, he saw the crowd beginning to form, and began to run. There were few fights in the school, but when they happened, it was rarely playground scrapping. They were usually sudden, bloody fights arising over some secret feud or other, often ending with an ambulance at the school gates.
As he got closer, he slowed down cautiously. It was much too quiet for a school fight. There was no cheering or raised voices, and the crowd didn't jump up and down for a better view, or scream and rush backwards as they got too close. The students were standing still around the side of one of the main school buildings in a half circle, in an almost respectful silence so absolute that they turned at the sound of his footsteps. The crowd moved aside silently to let Tatsumi through, their expressions unreadable.
The clouds had parted for the first time in days, and everything was much too clear and much too quiet. The distant sounds of a lawnmower droned alone in the silence, the blood spattering a plaid skirt too bright against school greys and creams. He glanced up to the edge of the building where she must have stood, staring down at shining Mary-Janes and the distant, black shapes that had been her classmates in another lifetime. He hoped that someone had seen her thin silhouette etched black against the skies as she stood alone on the edge of the building, before she had stepped out into the bitterly cold morning air.
The students were still too calm, and perhaps they had seen worse than this in a hundred horror films. Perhaps they were used to seeing computer-generated limbs bent in angles that looked almost obscene, or the raw red-and-white of a joint that had burst open like organic fireworks. Half of her once-pretty face was undamaged and turned aside in a pool of blood that slowly crept over the dull yard concrete, her visible eye half closed as though in concentration, her lips slightly parted. It was an expression he was familiar with, the dreamy look she wore when a question had suddenly occurred to her. A few minutes before, this ruin had been one of his students. It had been Ayame, who had never been in trouble in her life, and came to him in tears when she couldn't keep all her classes, and could never be thin enough.
He began uselessly ushering students away as other teachers filtered out to assist him, murmuring the same things over and over in the church-like hush. "Come on now.. there's nothing can be done.. back into the school.". Saya was there, gently guiding pupils alongside him, her pretty face gone as pale as the dead girl would once pallor mortis set in. One or two of the girls were silently weeping on each others' shoulders, but the atmosphere overall was frighteningly composed. The students let themselves be moved back, slowly trickling towards the school hall in response to some announcement sputtering over the intercom. An ambulance wailed somewhere in the distance, and it would have been too late if it had been summoned before she hit the ground.
Tatsumi began to walk away, guiding the last few back towards the school. Watari had came out and was uselessly checking her pulse, nothing to do but confirm that signs of life had been looked for before the ambulance arrived to take her away. His sunny blonde hair was scraped ruthlessly back and his expression suddenly austere as he gently felt for the carotid artery with gloved hands.
Hisoka was one of the last to leave. Tatsumi hadn't noticed him there, standing alone some distance from the crowds. His arms were crossed, his head tilted and expression pensive rather than troubled. He didn't drop his gaze as the students parted and walked away, revealing what had once been a classmate of his, now looking strangely flat and doll-like in a pool of spreading blood. As Tatsumi watched, Hisoka flinched slightly, touching the area just above his eye almost reflexively.
"Hisoka?"
He walked over. Hisoka looked up, slowly moving his fingers away from that spot beside his temple, just above the frontal lobes. There was a faint mark there as though from a rough kiss, a red smudge slowly fading back to near-translucent white in the cold air. There was nothing disorientated about his eyes this time, glittering cool and clear in the brittle morning light.
"Does it hurt?" Tatsumi asked. He glanced over to check Watari was still nearby.
Hisoka gave him a strange, unreadable smile. "No. It's just stopped."
"Come on," Tatsumi said, slightly uneasy. Hisoka didn't move, but when Tatsumi touched his shoulder, he shrugged and turned away. Tatsumi continued walking alongside him, out towards the grounds.
"Hisoka needs some air," he called back to Saya, who was directing the last few students into the school. She nodded, her expression distracted, and he felt sorry for her. She had been a teacher some months longer than he had, but she was still only a girl a year out of university and already she had lost a student on the job. Unlike himself, he suspected that she would turn over her memories for months, looking for some point when she might have made a difference with a single gentle enquiry, a phone call to the parents. Watari looked up from where he was still kneeling by Ayame, to see if he was needed. Tatsumi made a small, dismissive gesture, and he went back to his work.
"I'm fine," Hisoka said, less irritably than usual. He didn't stop walking though. Tatsumi glanced at his student again, and believed him. Tatsumi was one of those personality types prone towards migraines and he was familiar with them all- the dull, trapped thud that threatened to burst open skulls like a rotten puffball mushroom, the lopsided, raw jags of pain that felt like a temple was studded with nails and broken glass. This was nothing like the last attack he'd seen. If anything, Hisoka looked as though a headache had just lifted.
"You don't want to go see Watari?"
Hisoka gave him a slightly scornful look, and carried on walking, unclipped wet grass whickering softly underfoot. A fine drizzle had started, so light the rain seemed suspended in the clear air. Tiny beads of water sparkled like the points of light from distant stars, trapped in Hisoka's dusky blonde hair and dark eyelashes.
"Have you done any more work on your project?" Tatsumi asked, not out of any particular need to break a silence that wasn't awkward at all. He supposed it might be an insensitive question to ask in the wake of a suicide, but Hisoka genuinely didn't seem disturbed by it at all.
"Some reading."
"Are you going to the museum visit? You've probably covered most of it in your reading, but I believe Dr Yamazaki will be around to answer questions- he's one of the leading researchers at the main city university, and he's been consulted throughout the creation of the entire exhibit. It's not supposed to be too watered down for the general public either."
Hisoka pulled a crumpled yellow permission slip out of his pocket and handed it over without answering.
"Tsuzuki will probably supervise it if Watari can't. You seemed to get on with him when you met."
"He's an idiot," Hisoka said, without any real enthusiasm behind it.
"Don't," Tatsumi said, a little sharply. Hisoka shrugged, and began turning back towards the school, following a running track shaved into the grass. They had walked out past the yard, further than Tatsumi had thought. Few teachers came this way outside gym lessons, and it showed. There was someone's initials cut into a tree so recently it still dripped glassy, amber beads, a condom wrapper caught in a bush, a joint crushed to a damp white comma in the long grass.
They arrived at the school some minutes later, and stopped by the door to the main halls. The ambulance had arrived behind them, driving straight into the yard. The lights were still flashing neon as they heard the distant beepings and clatterings as the paramedics carried on going through with the usual procedure, even when Ayame lay there with her blood cooling against the concrete.
"There's an emergency assembly in the hall," Tatsumi said. "I already told Saya you needed some air, so you're excused if you like."
Hisoka nodded. He looked up at Tatsumi, paused for a second as though about to say something, and then turned and walked back into the school in silence.
The rest of the day's lessons continued, perhaps a little quieter than usual. The school office had managed to find a couple of counsellors to discuss the deaths in the hall for students who thought they needed it, or simply wanted an excuse to miss a lesson or two. Those remaining were rather more subdued than usual. By the time Tatsumi had finished clearing the board after his final lesson, he wasn't surprised to see that the other staff had left as quickly as possible, and only Watari was still in the teacher's lounge. Tatsumi noticed that for once Watari wasn't wearing his usual white coat. He had a feeling that the explanation involved bloodstains.
"I heard she was one of your students," Watari said, without needing to look up as Tatsumi entered. "Sorry."
Tatsumi sat down heavily, dropping his files onto a nearby chair without his usual care. "Yes. She used to take extra lessons with me until she quit," he paused, wondering whether it was anything significant. "She seemed to be under a lot of stress."
Watari shrugged. "There wasn't anything you can do. Her grades were all above average, but anorectics are like that. They can never be good enough."
They were silent for a moment. Watari was filling out something that Tatsumi suspected was related to the earlier death. He began reading his newspaper, not in any real rush to leave. He rarely was. There wasn't anything in his small, bachelor home that he particularly looked forward to. It had always been work that he lived for.
"Sorted out that museum trip yet?" Watari asked, finishing off the form with his elaborate, looping signature. A few phrases here and there were visible even from where Tatsumi sat, Watari's untidy handwriting incongruous with the medical terminology. "In my professional opinion.." blunt force trauma" "immediately suffered extensive craniocerebral injuries". His expression was still grave, but not particularly saddened. Watari was both a doctor and a scientist, and well-acquainted with death. He could detach himself from the usual, emotional human responses upon seeing a corpse, and see only the reality of an organic machine that had broken down.
"Mostly," Tatsumi said, clipping Hisoka's permission slip to the others he had acquired so far. There were just two- Tsubaki, which didn't surprise him much, and Hijiri, a rather quiet student who was better known for his music than his maths.
"Put me down to supervise," Watari said, as Tatsumi stood to leave.
"Thank you," he said gratefully and left the staff room. As he passed the yard, there was nothing there but the soft slosh of water as the groundskeeper continued playing a hose over the concrete, until the blood was so diluted there was nothing to see.
