Warnings: ......none, really. More angst. But you should expect that by now.
To credit, the line about Francis-chan I *totally* stole, and I would have asked permission except there's no email address on the blog (rubyd.blogspot.com) I got it from. So, um, if you read this and you're mad, let me know and I'll take it out. I think it's hilarious. ^_^
Chapter Three
I think I passed out after I took a few aspirin and flopped into bed. Thank God. My headache has receded by the time I wake up, and there's some noise out in the kitchen. I haul myself out of bed and pad out to the kitchen. I'm pretty sure I crawled into bed without removing shoes or jacket, but now both are gone, which means that Tsuzuki must have taken them off. How cute.
He's out in the kitchen, cooking. Oh goody. I fight back the urge to cringe. He looks up as I wander in. "How are you feeling?" he asks. He's reigned in his usual cheerful tone, which is good, because my headache isn't quite gone.
"I'm all right," I say, and let him usher me into a chair and bring me a hot mug of tea. "Can't say I'm feeling my best, but I've been worse, too."
He pokes at whatever is on the stove, and then sits down. "You were dead to the world when I got home," he says. "I was worried that you might have broken a synapse or something." He's smiling now, the danger over, but I can tell that he was really worried.
"Nah, I'm tougher than that." I smile reassuringly at him. "How's Akimiya?"
Tsuzuki's smile fades. "He's . . . all right," he says after a minute. "He was really worried that he had hurt you."
"I know," I say, and my voice comes out a bit sharper than I really intended it to. "I could feel it pretty well."
Tsuzuki sighs slightly.
"It was my own fault," I admit. "I wanted to know if he was telling the truth, so I let my shields down. It was a totally idiotic thing to do and I paid the price. I'm not angry with him, it's just . . ." I paused, searching for the right way to phrase it. "He's losing control, Tsuzuki . . . and he's losing it quickly. We can't ignore this any longer."
Tsuzuki taps his fingers on the table slowly. "Well, one good thing came of this, at least," he says. "Akimiya was so guilty over what he'd done that he admitted some things to me that I'm not sure we would have gotten out of him otherwise."
"Such as the fact that he's been seeing her in his dreams, and talking to her, and touching her, and it just doesn't matter because 'it's only a dream'?" I asked dryly. "You'd think as a yumemi, he'd know better."
Yumemi . . . yumemi talk to people in dreams, but that isn't the extent of Akimiya's powers. I know there's more to it than that, and my brain wanders aimlessly towards what Akimiya said the other day.
// "Should have realized what he was going to do." //
Yumemi dream the future.
"What's wrong?" Tsuzuki asks, seeing the look on my face, which would probably be quite amusing under other circumstances.
"I know why he's so guilty about it," I say quietly. "I think he saw it coming, but couldn't stop it in time."
Tsuzuki's eyes widen, and now his face is the one with the priceless expression. "He can see the future . . . in his dreams . . ."
I nod. "He doesn't do it very often. He says it happens once every two or three months if he's lucky, and most of the time his visions don't make enough sense for him to get any concrete information from them. Still, it's come in handy once on a mission we were on . . ."
Tsuzuki shudders. "He foresaw his own death?"
"Maybe," I say. "I'd have to ask him. But . . . no . . . if what I'm feeling from him is right, it's more than that. I think he may have gotten himself killed."
"How?" Tsuzuki asks quietly.
"I think . . ." It's all falling into place now, and it feels so right that I've stopped doubting myself. "I think he foresaw what was going to happen between Rika and Saiki . . . when he tried to rape her. And he went to Saiki to stop him from doing that, and that's when . . ."
Tsuzuki just stares at me.
"God." I feel sick. "Akimiya didn't need to die. I suppose . . . that he may have anyway, but . . . to know that he walked into his own death like that, and still didn't manage to stop what he saw happening . . ."
Tsuzuki jumps as the buzzer on the oven goes off, and he hurries over to turn it off. Time and tide stop for no one, I guess. Not even for unnecessary death.
"That's why he ended up a Shinigami," I continue, watching Tsuzuki poke at what's cooking. "His name wouldn't have been in the Kiseki, so they would have investigated, and that's when he volunteered."
"Why weren't we told?" Tsuzuki wonders, dishing the food onto two plates and carrying it over to the table. Thank God in Heaven, he only cooked a stir fry. Even Tsuzuki can't ruin those. "Kachou must have known."
I shrug. "Yeah, but who is he to go spreading Akimiya's business around? We all have our secrets. And really, dying a mysterious death is hardly an unusual thing around here. I was in the unsolved case files when I got here, you know."
"True." Tsuzuki sips his tea and shoves the food around on his plate. Neither of us are very hungry anymore.
There's a long pause.
"What else did Akimiya say?" I finally ask, forcing myself to start eating the food. I never really got lunch, thanks to my fainting spell. Fortunately, once I manage to get the first few bites down, I realize that I really am hungry.
Tsuzuki is still just poking at his. "He just kept saying that he didn't want to hurt her . . . but he couldn't seem to let her go. No matter how hard he tries, he can't let her go." Tsuzuki's face is closed, pained. "It hurts him so much . . ."
"I don't know what to do," I admit. "When I tried to tell him he needed to stop . . . well, you saw what happened. He was so angry, but he was . . . he was terrified. He knew he was caught, he knew I was going to tell him to stop, and . . . I'm not sure I've ever seen anyone so frightened."
My headache is starting to come back just thinking about it. My shields are still weak and shaky, and even being close to Tsuzuki is wearing on them.
"Are you okay?" he asks, giving me a close look.
"Yeah . . . think I'm gonna go for a walk though . . . being around anyone is hard." I try for a reassuring smile. "It's not you, honestly."
"I know." Tsuzuki manages a smile back.
I push back from the table, abandoning my half-eaten dinner, and go outside. The sun has set, and it's a little chilly, but I don't really mind. It's always spring on this side of things. The flowers are always in bloom. I'm not quite sure why this is, but it's true. There are a lot of things about being a Shinigami that I just don't question. The fact that we need to eat, and sleep, and are basically human in all other ways except our healing capabilities. The fact that we all had powers in our lives, and those get stronger when we become Shinigami. Anyone can learn 'jitsu, it seems, but some are better at it than others.
I've learned that at a certain point it's best to stop questioning, and simply accept.
Without anything else to think about (though my mind is blessedly devoid of other people's thoughts and emotions), I drift to the problem at hand.
But no matter how many times I go over it and over it, I can't find a solution. He can't let her go, and I don't want to press him because it would be hypocritical. And also dangerous to my health and sanity.
The neatest solution (and this is sad indeed) seems to be to kill them both and let them be happy in the afterlife. I don't know, though. I've never been too fond of the idea of being dead, and I doubt Akimiya would appreciate it either.
But there must be something we can do.
There just has to be.
~~~~
Akimiya is already in the office when I get there, and my empathy fizzles out when I walk in. It's the best feeling I've had all week, I swear. I raise my eyebrows at him.
He manages a wan smile. "Didn't take it this morning," he said. "Thought that after yesterday, you might appreciate that."
"Yeah," I reply. "No offense or anything. But my shields are still kind of shaky."
Akimiya stares down at his desk. "I-I . . . I'm sorry, Hisoka."
"There's no permanent damage, so don't worry about it too much," I say. "I understand why you got angry; I just wasn't prepared for it."
"I didn't have the right to get that angry," he says quietly.
I shrug. "You can't control everything you feel. Emotions aren't rational. They're not supposed to be. So cut yourself a little slack."
Akimiya sighs, his shoulders still tense. I can tell that he's not cutting himself slack. Damnit all. Someday I'll knock sense into him like he knocked it into me.
Right, and maybe someday I'll sprout wings and fly.
"I just . . . don't know what to do," he finally says.
I sigh and sit down. "Akimiya, there's nothing I can say that will help, and I know that. So I'm not going to be stupid enough to offer any advice. But . . . I wish you would talk to me. Because if there's one thing you proved to me with that whole mess with me and Tsuzuki, it's that talking really does help."
He says nothing, picking up a pencil and tapping it against the desk. Typical.
"Akimiya, I want to help. You saved my life, had you forgotten that? I owe you more than can ever be repaid. I don't like seeing you hurt like this."
He sighs and runs a hand through his hair. "Well, it's hardly like it's a new thing, you know."
"I know, and believe me, I feel like an idiot for never noticing before. That's one of the downsides about empathy; you live so long able to tell how people are feeling and you never learn how to do things like read body language and facial expression."
A tiny smile twitches at his lips. "Just one more way you're socially impaired."
"Yeah, thanks." I give him a mock glare. Then, before I lose my nerve, ask quietly, "Did you see it coming?"
He jerks and gives me a startled look. He's so spooked that I know I'm right before he answers, and when he does, his voice is trembling. "How do you . . ."
"I don't know," I reassure him quickly. "I just guessed, that's all." I lean forward a little. "What did you see, Akimiya?"
A shudder runs through his entire body. "I saw . . . what he did to her," he says in a low voice, confirming my suspicions. "I thought I could stop it . . . I went to try to scare him off, but he . . . he just . . ."
I'm beginning to feel slightly sick again, like there's something twisting up my stomach. The picture is forming a little too clearly in my mind. Akimiya, distraught over what he saw happening to the woman he loved, went to confront Saiki . . . and ended up getting himself killed. But why would Saiki have had a gun if he hadn't been planning on killing Akimiya anyway?
I suddenly get it. "You were going to kill him?"
"No!" Akimiya's voice comes out sharply, and then he turns red. But the blush is from shame, not embarrassment. "No, I wasn't going to kill him, I just thought . . . I'm not the most physically intimidating person on earth and I didn't think it would do any good if I confronted him without something to back me up, so I brought a gun."
"And he killed you with it." Harsh, but it needs to be said.
Akimiya nods, rubbing his eyes. "God, I can't believe what an idiot I was," he says quietly. "But when I saw him doing that to Rika-chan, I just . . . he may not have been able to get that far in real life, but in the dream I had, he did. He was crazy, Hisoka. He would have raped her and then killed her and himself. I traded my life for hers, and I don't regret it."
His voice suddenly gets very soft, very tired. "I just wish . . . that there had been some other way."
I sit for a long moment in silence, in shock, trying to absorb everything he told me. I can understand that, at least; I would be willing to trade my life for Tsuzuki's and I know he would do the same for me. "Does it help?" I finally asked. "To know you did the right thing?"
"In a way." Akimiya breathes in harshly. "But as much of a horrible person as this makes me . . . I wish I had just killed him."
I sigh slightly. "It wouldn't have helped," I remind him. "What would Rika have said, knowing that you killed her childhood friend?"
Akimiya looks up, his eyes desperate. "She would have understood! If I told her about the dream! She would have . . ." His voice dissolves underneath him and his words trail off.
"If there's one thing I've learned," I tell him quietly, "it's that lying to yourself only makes things worse."
Akimiya closes his eyes for a long second, and I can tell he's fighting against tears. When he finally opens them again, he looks more composed. "I'll try to stop," he says. "But it won't be easy. I honestly am drawn into her dreams . . . and I don't know how to help that."
"I don't either," I say with a slight shrug. "But that's what we've got Watari for."
~~~~
"Yeah, I think it could be done," Watari says, after pacing around his office for a few minutes. "Not quite sure how I would go about it, but I'll work on it. It'll probably be a few days."
"That's okay," I reply. Akimiya is standing next to me. His fists are clenched so tightly that his knuckles are white. I can only imagine how hard it must be for him to do this, to give her up willingly like this. I want to say something, but I know that there's really nothing I can say. I only wish there was something I could distract him with.
Tsuzuki walks in, and looks slightly startled to see us here. "Ohayo," he greets us. His voice isn't cheerful as usual. "Staff meeting in ten; something's come up." He gives me a sideways glance. This explains why he doesn't sound cheerful. "No one else is around, so I'm guessing it's you two that are going to be sent out."
Much as I'm loathe to leave Tsuzuki after just having been gone for so long, I'm glad to get Akimiya out doing something. He might think about it less while we're out there, and by the time we're back, Watari might have a solution of sorts.
The meeting is brief. It's a new case, so there isn't much information yet. I hope it won't take too long.
Tatsumi takes me aside as we're getting ready to leave. "I need to speak to you for a minute."
I motion for Akimiya to wait a minute and follow Tatsumi into his office. "Yeah?"
"There's one more thing you need to know," he says, "and I didn't say it during the meeting because I don't want Tsuzuki to."
I look at him blankly.
"You're probably not surprised that by this point, we keep tabs as best we can on Muraki at all times," he says, which I suppose is meant to be reassuring. It's not. "He's been seen in this area. We don't believe he's connected with this in any way, but still . . . be on your guard. And if you need anything, I'll be ready to back you up."
That, on the other hand, is reassuring. Tatsumi can kick ass with the best of them, and as much as I have faith in Tsuzuki, I'm still not sure how he would react if he were confronted directly with the man. Not even after all this time.
So we go armed and ready down to Chijou. I tell Akimiya what Tatsumi told me; no point in hiding it from him. He promises to keep an eye out, and to keep faithfully taking his potion so I'll know if Muraki comes near me.
But that makes me think of something.
"You know," I say thoughtfully, "I think I may know a temporary fix for your problem, until Watari comes up with something better."
"Oh?" He doesn't look terribly enthusiastic, but I suppose I can't really blame him for that.
"Well, you said you're drawn to Rika because of residual emotion . . . and that's what I specialize in. If I stretch my shields to cover you, you probably wouldn't be pulled into her dreams."
Akimiya gives me a long look. "Isn't that really dangerous for you?"
"Not terribly. All it means is that I'm not shielded from you." Which, after yesterday, isn't something I'm looking forward to, but it can be done. I lived for sixteen years without any shields, after all. "And it's not even that big a deal, 'cause I'll only do it at night, while you're asleep. You probably won't experience any emotional outbursts then, so it should be relatively safe."
"I still don't like it," he says uneasily.
"Well, I'm not leaping for joy either," I say. "But this has to be fixed, and this is all I can come up with for now."
Akimiya nods, once, very slowly. Then he looks up at me with something unrecognizable in his eyes. When he tries to talk, his voice cracks. "Please -- I know I shouldn't ask this, but . . . one last time . . . please?" Despair. That's what's in his eyes, and I can feel it even without my empathy. I just look at him for a long minute.
I should say no. I know I should.
And yet . . .
I can't deny him this. He loves her, and she loves him, and they at least deserve a chance to say goodbye.
I have to swallow hard before I can speak. "Yeah, okay." It comes out as a whisper. "Just tonight."
"Thanks." He rubs his eyes. "Now come on. We have work to do."
~~~~
Akimiya and I both work ourselves to the bone that day, trying to absorb ourselves and wear ourselves out so when we finally get to sleep, we won't have trouble. It works for him; he drops off within twenty minutes. I have my shields up, but I can still tell. It's a quietness that sort of takes over the room.
I can't sleep.
I have a sudden absurd wish that telephone lines could stretch into the afterlife. I would give a lot to hear Tsuzuki's voice right now. If I tried hard enough, I might be able to touch him with my empathy; only briefly, but long enough to get reassurance that he's still there, still loves me. But I can't, because it might alert Muraki to our presence, and that's just about the last thing on earth that I want right now.
I lie on my side and watch the clock. It's the kind with huge, glowing red letters. I watch them tick by, one after another after another. I've had this kind of night before. I know going in that I won't get any sleep. Damnitall, it's not a good time for this. I'm going to need to be rested tomorrow.
Akimiya is dreaming. I can't say precisely how I know, but I do. The quietness is gone. Not replaced by the kind of noise that occurs when someone is awake, but not as defeaning in its silence. Sort of like the gentle hum of machines, or of an air conditioner.
I strengthen my shields. They say silence can drive people crazy, you know. I guess I can see how. Silence lends itself to thought, and thought is the leading cause of insanity, in my opinion.
The numbers continue to tick upwards. It was quarter past midnight when Akimiya went to bed. Twelve thirty-three when he fell asleep. Twelve thirty-six when I crawled under the blankets myself. One. One thirty. Two.
It's two forty-five. Akimiya is awake. My shields are up so strongly that I can't feel it. It's still quiet inside my head. But I know he's awake.
I know because I can hear him crying.
I'm not an indecisive person by nature, but now is one of those times that I just lie there, not knowing what to do. There's no comfort I can offer; at least, there's none that will help. If it were Tsuzuki, I would walk over and pull him into a hug and try to rock him back to sleep. But Akimiya isn't Tsuzuki.
And maybe this is selfish of me, but I'm scared. For the last six months, Akimiya has been the proverbial emotional rock. He's always been strong and steady and there, and it never even occurred to me that he might be deteriorating right in front of my eyes. I trust him, and in a way I need him. He's my friend, the person I lean on and talk to when I have troubles, the same way that Tsuzuki leans on Tatsumi.
I don't want to lose him to this, but I don't know what I can do.
We all have our troubles. We're Shinigami; that pretty much guarantees that we all died unnatural deaths of some sort. People don't come back from the grave for an eternity of thankless work for no reason. Even if I don't know everyone's reason -- don't know anyone's reason besides my own and Akimiya's, not even Tsuzuki's -- I know that we all have our reasons.
And I'm so scared that all I can do is lie there, listening to him cry. He probably thinks I'm asleep; he wouldn't be letting go otherwise.
I force my frozen limbs into action. Sit up. Reach over, turn on the light. It's two fifty-one. Akimiya looks up, startled. He's curled up on the bed, around the pillow. His face was pressed into it until I turned the light own. His eyes are red and swollen and there are tear tracks down his cheeks.
"I thought you were asleep," he says, and his voice cracks.
"I know." I look at him for a long minute, then get up. Walk over and sit on the edge of the bed. "But you don't have to hide it from me."
He simply looks at me.
Two fifty-three. The silence is deafening.
"I'm sorry." I think I'm going to start crying. "God, I'm so sorry."
He folds into my arms and starts to cry again. And I can't help wondering what the hell happened. He was always so calm and so . . . so okay. There's no better word for it. He was the one of us that I never had to worry about doing something weird. I mean, sure, Watari's great, but his potions could theoretically turn into a flesh-eating virus and he'd just name it Francis-chan or something. And Tatsumi's great too but you piss him off and he'll eat you alive. Akimiya is the only one of us who's okay, and it's so scary to see him break down like this that I actually feel nauseous. And I am crying now. Not as hard as he is. All I can do is just hold him.
How hard must it have been for him, to say goodbye?
Four minutes past three.
In a lot of ways, Akimiya is stronger than I could ever hope to be. I know, because I could never do what he just did.
There's nothing I can say, so I say nothing.
Three seventeen.
His sobs finally fade into silent tears, the tears into numbness. I can practically feel him freezing over. But that's all right. That may be what he needs for a while. God knows that I've gone numb before, for less reason than this.
"Better?" It's my word for Tsuzuki. And his word for me. The word that doesn't imply being all right, but merely asks whether or not he's more all right than he was a half hour ago.
"Better." His voice is hoarse. He reaches up with one hand and wipes his tears away. He's still leaning on my shoulder. "Sorry."
"There's nothing to apologize for." God forbid he start thinking that. "I've been a shoulder to cry on before, and God knows I've used Tsuzuki's often enough."
He nods, slightly, but says nothing. Three twenty-two.
"You should get some sleep." It sounds lame, and I know it, but though sleep isn't a cure by any means, it provides oblivion. I may not recommend escapism, but it certainly can't hurt for a few hours.
"You'd better shield me," he says, his voice still scratching in his throat. "I don't trust myself."
"It's all right. I don't trust you either."
He lets out a small chuckle, and I let him go. This is going to be hard enough; the intensity that transmits with touch is not something I need right now. I let him lie down and even tuck him in. He closes his eyes and lets out a tiny sigh. Cautiously, I stretch my shields out to include him.
Before I died, I knew nothing about my empathy and couldn't control it in the slightest, which really made every day living a torture that can't be put into words. It was only after I became a Shinigami that I learned how to control it, and more importantly, how to protect myself from it. As for tricks like this, I only started learning these about a year ago. And my control still comes and goes, depending on what sort of mood I'm in.
He's inside them now, which means I'm no longer shielded from him. And God, it hurts like hell, but I can take it. I can deal with this, and I have to. Just for a few nights, I have to. Saying goodbye once must have been hard enough; I can't make him do it twice.
Three thirty.
His breathing is slow and labored, but it comes a little easier after a while, and the pain fades. He's asleep, thank God. Three forty-seven.
I crawl under the blankets and lay facing the clock, watching the unforgiving minutes tick by.
It's five thirty-six when I finally fall asleep.
~~~~
Right, okay, that was massively depressing. Fits my mood pretty well. Feedback please?