Idols I have Loved so Long

By Eva_kokaze_black (RhblackY@netscape.net )

Disclaimer: YnM belongs to Yoko Matsushita, not to me. Otherwise, I'd put myself in the canon...

All comments, etc., are welcome. Notify before archiving. Slight T/H, T/T. Takes place sometime after Kyoto Arc but before Gensou Kai Chapter. Excuse any Japanese errors; I read YnM in Chinese. ~_~

Idols I have Loved so Long-A Yami no Matsuei Fanfiction

CHAPTER THREE

*

Indeed the Idols I have loved so long

Have done my Credit in Men's Eye much wrong;

Have drown'd my Honour in a shallow Cup,

And sold my Reputation for a Song.

-The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, LXIX

***

A few minutes after midnight, Tatsumi Seiichiro was walking slowly and laboriously home. The streets were quiet and dark but he could see little sparks of werelight in the shadows. Pausing, he put his arms against someone's fence and leaned on it, panting a little. The coldness of it stabbing throught the sleeves of his sleeves brought him from his dizzyness and he shivered and began walking again.

Stupid, he said to himself, it's January. His fingers fumbled a little with the key (colder than the fence) and dropped it with a frigid clank on the ground. He stooped to pick it up and almost hit his head on the doorknob when a tiny rustling step sounded behind him. The key fell again, but he ignored it and instead spun around wildly and tried to look intimidating (a very difficult task when one is drunk). "Who...?" Ever since that night with Shun and the child he'd stolen away and left on someone's front step, Tatsumi had been bordering on paranoia; this was the first time he had walked out after ten o'clock in nine years, for fear of Shun's demented gleaming eyes in a doorway ready to leap at him and quietly dispose of him. "Who?" At least he couldn't see any flitter of light bounced off of eyeglasses, and at least no one had jumped him yet. And at least the damned headache he'd gotten with that sake had started to dissipate with the surge of adrenaline.

No answer.

"Who?" His voice was a little louder, and he wasn't sure if it was the sake or returning courage. "Who is it?"

A little muffled whimper, and then a sideways motion accompanied by a soughing of cloth. It was a child, about ten, with a torn robe and bruises, cringing away from the man. Tatsumi, entirely relieved now, sighed and picked up his key and started to jam it into the lock, turning his back to the boy. One of those poor wretches with a drunkard father or something.This town's getting worse every year. Murders and suicides. However, he made the mistake of turning, and in turning he saw the child, only now there was no sound and he had crumpled sideways onto the road. Tatsumi made an impatient noise and went to pick the boy up and into his house. And kidnapping too. He closed the door behind him and dryly chuckled.

*

Tsuzuki saw his shadow on the wall of the infirmary and neatly brought his legs under and around to land solidly on the window ledge. Sometimes the flying was just so convenient. He peered in and groaned. The window was locked. He considered, still catching his breath. Byakko wouldn't be much help, nor would Suzaku or Touda. And just beyond the block of moonlight on the floor, where he could sense it, was Hisoka. Hisoka lying half-dead, probably. He wanted to curse or cry. God, no! In his head the screams still rang. And then in a tumult of glass he was on the floor of the infirmary, next to the white hump of the bed, frozen with astonishment.

It was amazing how calm Hisoka looked while the sobbing pleads for help still went on echoing in Tsuzuki's mind. Bending down, he put his hand on the cold cheek and wished fiercely for something to happen. Maybe Hisoka could sense him even in sleep. Please. Let him not be afraid anymore. Hisoka. I'm here.

*

The child was still and unmoving in sleep. Tatsumi had put him on the tatami and had left him there, pretending not to notice how very smoothly flawless the skin was or how the half-forgotten fear and the memory of hating that artificial child of a decade ago had jumped in him when he had picked up the boy. Coincidence, said Tatsumi silently, to the ceiling of his bedroom. That boy is dead. Like anything perfect, like any idol. He is dead.

*

He was sleeping; he knew this because he could not open his eyes. He was not in his bed in Ruka's house, though. His brain, under the closed lids, worked at why he was not in his bed, and a trickle of images came to him. As he walked home the adults whispering like they always did, covert but behind their obviously raised hands. He didn't care about them very much, having been whispered at for as long as he could remember. They were not important to him. But then there were the children, the vicious children that he knew only by their clawing fingers and balled fists and feet that mercilessly came at his back and stomach and stamped on his fingers and, most of all, at his eyes. "Purple-eyes, purple-eyes," they would chant at him and all the while hands and legs and feet and even open biting mouths fell on his body. If he tried to protect himself, tried to curl up like a newborn, they simply laughed (half-nervous and half-mocking) and kicked harder. And then he gave up, and then he was here, in this place that was not Ruka's house. The bruises on his face and the black eye that was forming steadily did not concern him. He was frightened because he could not open his eyes, and Ruka wasn't there to soothe him. Help. He called for someone far away, who answered, I'm here.

Amazed, he tried calling, louder. Help me. He did not know who the other was, but could feel no malice. In fact, there was a reassuring familiarity in the other voice, close to the feel of Ruka's presence when she sat by him and pressed a hot towel to his hurt face (not necessary because it would always be healed by the next morning). But this voice was male. And it somehow made some part of him quaver. Hisoka, said the other voice from faint and far away. He recoiled. The other voice had not been for him, after all. But still he couldn't push his mind from hearing that voice, so eagerly did the part of him that had quavered want to hear it. Hisoka!

*

In the block of moonlight Tsuzuki was weeping. "Hisoka!"

*

Tatsumi Seiichiro thought he would be sick when he saw the eyes of the boy who sat on his floor. Gripping a fold of his Western clothing(for work), he stared and stared and thought he would be sick, and only moved when he'd convinced himself that it was the hangover. Whoever had brought the sake and had added god-knows-what in his was going to pay. Literally. He felt a bit better and sat, ignoring the boy and his unholy purple eyes as best he could. His stomach complained, and he went to bring out the pickled radish and some leftover rice. The boy watched him eat his breakfast, solemn, and he looked up once from his bowl to note with a large lump in his throat that the black eye and cuts and purple-black bruises he'd seen even in darkness last night had wholly disappeared. And he hadn't been imagining the injuries, for the child's kimono looked as though it'd been dragged through the teeth of a shark. Oh God. There was now no doubt at all. This was the child. What a horrible mistake that he should meet it so much later. A hysterical giggle wanted to push into his mouth, and he suppressed it with great effort. And he'd wanted to think it was dead.

"What's your name?" What a grossly inappropriate question. But there wasn't much to say.

"Asato."

Tatsumi breathed in, deeply. Talking to something he'd seen created from invisible cells was more than vaguely disturbing, and his stomach threatened to revolt again. "Were you lost?"

"No." Asato sat with his purple eyes still unswerving from Tatsumi, the unnerving habit of children. "I got in trouble. Thank you for taking me here." He got up with a mature grace and bowed. Any other child would have been lovable and cute, but this one was just so unsettlingly correct in everything. And then the boy looked at Tatsumi with his eyes that were agelessly knowing, and went out.

Note: My my my, Tatsumi and Tsuzuki in another life! Or is it Tatsumi and Hisoka-in-Tsuzuki's body? 0_o Either way, it's still just as crazy as ever. If anyone deigns to comment, I will respond immediately and will also love you forever. ;_; And if you're still entirely confused, I shall clarify as well. Thank you for reading. Hopefully there'll be only 1 more chapter to go! -e.k.b.-