The Past Unburied
by icediamond
Chapter 2
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Well, here it is! The anxiously-awaited (I'm so sure) chapter 2! Yippee.
Disclaimer: Neither Yami no Matsuei nor Harry Potter belong to me. If they did, I'd be way too rich to bother writing fanfiction. As it is, I'm broke from completing my Christmas shopping, so please don't sue me.
Warnings: Yaoi. Slash. M/m pairings, whatever you want to call them. Het pairing (but it's a cool, screwed up one, I promise!). Generous adjustment of universes to match. Hints of NCS (remembered) later on in the story.
What happened last chapter: Watari, Tatsumi, Hisoka and Tsuzuki were assigned to a new case: to stop Lord Voldemort from expanding into Japan. Watari is getting oddly stressed over the whole thing. He is obviously hiding a major secret. Now, a woman has approached the group, who apparently saw Watari die twenty years ago.
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~~~~~~
Tatsumi
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Tatsumi's eyes widened, and he looked carefully at Watari to gauge his reaction. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Tsuzuki and Hisoka doing the same thing. Under their combined gazes, Watari froze for a moment, before assuming a blank expression. "Sorry?" he said, radiating innocent confusion.
The foreign woman's eyes narrowed. "Do not even think of trying to pull that bullshit on me, Yutaka," she said, each word falling into place like an ice block repeatedly hitting Watari over the head. Tatsumi felt his eyes widen at her usage of Watari's given name. Apparently she did know him. "I have known you for far too long for it to work, and you know how little patience I have with nonsense."
"Really, Narcissa?," Watari responded innocently. "Then why on earth did you ever marry my brother?"
Instead of responding, Narcissa gave him a death glare. "Yutaka."
Watari sighed. "Really, Narcissa. You have no sense of humour."
"I wonder why," she said with full sarcasm.
Watari winced. "Fine fine. But not in the street."
"I know a nice little French cafe nearby." She turned to Tatsumi, as representative of the other three. "Yould the three of you care to join us? I am Malfoy Narcissa, to use your Japanese name order."
Tatsumi's eyes narrowed. He got a very ominous feeling from this woman, and had no desire to leave Watari alone with her. He bowed slightly. "If you don't mind. I am Tatsumi Seiichiro, and this is Kurosaki Hisoka and Tsuzuki Asato."
"Pleased to meet you. Shall we go?"
~~~~~~
Watari
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The five of them reached the cafe. Narcissa spoke with the waiter for a moment in flawless French. Watari was feeling too off-balance to try to sort through his admittedly rusty French to try to figure out just what she was saying. He assumed it had to do with the table, anyways.
He growled at himself mentally. He was thinking about the most inane things, and avoiding the major issue here. What was he going to tell Narcissa? He really didn't want to tell her the full truth, but he knew any lie he told she would catch him in immediately.
At that thought, he looked at Narcissa thoughtfully. How much did he trust Narcissa? Not bloody enough, in his opinion.
Finally, he decided upon a course of action. It was risky, but he figured that the information he could gain from this outweighed the risk. With little more than a mental wince, he burned his few remaining shreads of hope of not having to tell the rest of them about his past. He still intended on dodging the subject until forced not to, of course. He just didn't have any hope of succeeding.
With his resolve stiffened, he waited patiently as they were lead to a private room in the back. Narcissa waited until the waiter returned with a nice red wine, some elegant sandwiches, and cake for Tsuzuki, and then waited until he left before saying, "I'm still awaiting the explanation, you know."
Watari gave her a dazzling smile. "Well, you see, after I died, I became a shinigami." Noting her tiny forwn, he translated the term into English. "God of death." He awaited her nod of acknowledgement before continuing. "A shinigami's job is to investigate odd deaths. At the moment I'm supposed to be preventing Lord Voldemort from building a power base in Japan."
At his last words, Watari noted resignedly that her hand tightened around her wineglass until her knuckles were white. However, she managed to keep it subtle enough that he doubted that anyone else had noticed. "I see..." here she stalled, apparently unable to think of a response to that.
Watari decided to give her an out. "What have you been up to these last twenty years or so, anyways?"
Narcissa seemed to regain some of her equilibrium. "Oh, this and that. Mostly I've been raising my and Lucius' son."
Watari was surprised. "Son?"
"Yes. Draco. He graduated from Hogwarts last year, and is with us on our trip to Japan."
"Congratulations!" Watari said enthusiastically, his wariness momentarily forgotten. "I heard how hard the two of you were trying to have a child."
The five of them chatted idly as they ate. Once she had finished, Narcissa delicately dabbed at her mouth, before replacing the napkin onto the table. "Well, I suppose I had better go now. I have a party to go to in a few hours." She stood up.
"By the way," she added, taking some tickets out of her elegant purse, "you may wish to consider going to the party yourselves. It will advance your case immeasurably."
At this, she gave an enigmatic smile, but before anyone could react to that, she dropped the tickets on the table and walked out the room. Hisoka and Tsuzuki dashed after her, only to return a few minutes later. "She disappeared," Hisoka said, sounding angry at himself for letting her escape.
Tatsumi and Watari had picked up the tickets and were studying them. "The ticket says that the ball's tonight, starting at 6 o'clock," said Tatsumi.
"And she's already worried about getting ready?!" Hisoka asked incredulously. "That's three hours away!"
"Bon, she's a woman. I've met very few women who would be happy taking any less for a formal party, which I'm assuming this is. Narcissa's as bad as any other," Watari explained.
"That reminds me," Tatsumi said. "Do you know anything about what she said concerning the case?"
Watari quickly decided to dodge the truth. "Even after she married my brother, she and I were never really close. Most of what I know about her I heard from other people, and we all know how reliable that is." 'Well, none of that was technically a lie,' he defended himself mentally.
Tsuzuki was unable to restrain his curiosity. "I would have thought you would have gotten to know her after she married your brother. Why not?" he questioned, with a pronounced lack of tact.
Watari gave an odd little smile. "My brother - half-brother, actually - and I never really got along very well. I was always a reminder that his father had cheated on his mother, so..."
And here he trailed off, unwilling to get more specific than that. Fortunately, Hisoka noticed his discomfort, and jumped in. "So, are we going to this ball or not?"
Tatsumi gave Watari a questioning glance. "Is she British?"
Watari instantly realizes where Tatsumi was going with this. "Yeah."
"In that case, yes."
Tsuzuki looked confused. "Huh?"
Hisoka sighed. "Idiot." When Tsuzuki's expression remained blank, he elabourated. "Remember? Lord Voldemort was from England?"
Tsuzuki slammed his fist into his palm, his face alight with realization. "Oh! So you think she has a better chance of knowing something about it!"
Watari thought grumpily, 'I think Tatsumi suspects rather more than that,' but simply said, "Well, it would make sense for someone who came from Britain to know more about someone else from Britain."
"Indeed," said Tatsumi. "Anyways, for now I suggest that we go talk to last two families of the victims. I think we should separate. Tsuzuki and Hisoka, you take the Yaminobes. Watari, you and I will take the Aokis. Let's meet back at the hotel at four to organize information and get ready for the party."
The four of them nodded, but before they could leave, the waiter came into the room. "The check, monsieur," he murmured, politely presenting the check to Tatsumi as the obvious authority figure.
As Tatsumi saw the total amount, a black aura sprung up around him. Everyone started backing away from him. "Watari..." he said, in a tone of utter reasonableness.
"Ah, yes, Tatsumi?" Watari responded, unobtrusively edging towards the door.
"Since it was one of your relatives who caused us to go to this entirely too expensive cafe, far exceeding the budget for this trip, you are going to pay for this, right...?" At the last word, the black shadows surrounding him surged even higher.
Watari considered arguing, but another glance at the shadows around Tatsumi persuaded him not to do so. "Yes, Tatsumi," he said obediently. While he didn't really think that the shadow-master would do anything too bad to him if he didn't agree, it was really best not to argue with Tatsumi in matters of money.
Tatsumi handed him the check, and Watari goggled at the price. 'Of course, Narcissa would have to pick the most expensive restaurant in Kyoto, and then skip out without paying the check. She never did like me,' he moaned mentally. Watari reluctantly dug out enough cash to pay for it, wincing as he realized how little that left him until the next paycheck. 'I wonder if I still have any copies of the pictures of Terazuma kissing Tsuzuki? Nah, I don't think there's anyone left to sell them too... Everyone already has one, dammit. Maybe if I manage to get a picture of Tsuzuki and Bon kissing... It would be fun to see their reactions to that anyways.'
Interrupting Watari's musings on how to make up for this loss, Tatsumi cleared his throat loudly. "Well? Shall we get working?"
The three of them made various vague assents, and left the cafe. Inside, Watari was extremely relieved that none of his friends had thought to ask the obvious question.
None of them had asked him whether or not Narcissa was a witch.
~~~~~~
Tatsumi
~~~~~~
Tatsumi looked with concern at his coworker. Talking to the victim's family had been as unpleasant as it ever was, but Watari had been oddly silent even before that, ever since the meeting at the cafe. He knew that the blonde was hiding something from the rest of them, and he was worried. He desperately searched for a topic to bring up to kill this increasingly awkward silence.
Finally Tatsumi gave up on finding a subtle way of talking to Watari. "Are you feeling okay?"
He paused, awaiting an answer. Hearing none, he repeated himself, slightly louder.
Watari remained lost in thought, not even noticing the questions.
"Watari!" said the secretary sharply, his voice cracking over the other's consciousness like a whip.
Watari jumped. "Huh? What?"
"You were completely lost in thought," said Tatsumi sternly. "I had to repeat myself twice to get you to hear me. Softening his voice slightly, he continued, "Are you okay? You've been acting weird ever since the meeting yeaterday."
Watari nodded. "Yeah, I guess. Just... old memories, I suppose." He paused for a second, his eyes gazing on memories long past. "Caught me by surprise."
Tatsumi nodded. "Memories tend to do that, I've noticed." He paused, conflicted. He knew that he needed to know more about what was happening with the subdued scientist, but he also felt a strong reluctance to bring more pain into those now-shadowed eyes. It hurt him, far past the level it should, to see the normally cheerful scientist this gloomy. Eventually, though, need to know won over the desire to avoid painful topics, and he asked, "Anything you're willing to tell us?"
Pain flared in Watari's amber eyes. "Not yet..." he said, almost too quietly for Tatsumi to hear. "After the party, I promise. By then, I'll know what information's necessary for the case."
Tatsumi paused. "Thank you for that. But, I'm not just concerned about the case. I'm more worried about you." Steadfastly ignoring his dignity, who was jumping up and down screaming at him in the back of his mind, he drew the younger man into a firm hug.
They stayed like that for several moments. Tatsumi could feel Watari shaking slightly in his embrace, but the scientist seemed mostly content to just stay like that.
Finally, Watari reluctantly pulled away. "Thank you."
"You're welcome," Tatsumi smiled. Looking at the scientist, he could tell that Watari had calmed somewhat from his state five minutes ago, which Tatsumi counted as a Good Thing.
The two of them jumped as a church bell rang in the quiet air. Tatsumi checked his watch. "The party starts in half an hour. We'd better get going back to the hotel."
Watari nodded. "Yeah. I wonder how Tsuzuki and Hisoka did?"
The two men disappeared, leaving behind only a deserted street.
Back in the hotel room he and Watari shared, Tatsumi told Watari curtly, "I'm going to go see if Tsuzuki and Hisoka are back yet," ducking out of the room before the scientist had a chance to respond.
"Good," he said upon seeing the two in their room, talking about Watari's strange behavior. "You've noticed it, too."
"Of course," said Hisoka.
"I'm not going to push him yet, but could the two of you keep an eye on him during the party? Especially you, Kurosaki-kun, with your empathy. This entire thing worries me."
"I will," responded Hisoka.
"Thank you. We're going to have a meeting in Watari's and my room over what progress we've made now."
When the three of them reached the room, they saw Watari sitting quietly on the bed, lost in thought. Hisoka and Tsuzuki were obviously surprised, but a death-glare from Tatsumi prevented them from saying anything. "So, what have we discovered so far?" Tatsumi asked, starting the meeting.
"Well, all the victims have had two things in common. All of them are important in some way, and all have died without a mark on them," responded Hisoka. "There was Yaminobe Katsuna, who was a government official, Kanasawa Nokoru, a powerful onmyouji, Seta Anji, a Shinto monk, Ikeda Shinobu, head of a corporation that produces weaponry for the army, Takamori Ran, a prominent politician, Aoki Kazuya, a Buddhist monk, and Hasukawa Shuuichi, a prominent scientist."
"Lord Voldemort seems to be going for people who could prove a danger, whether technologically, politically, or magically, at the moment," mused Tatsumi. "According to my report, this is his standard first method of attack, followed by highly-publicized terrorist attacks on his next strongest opponents."
"Do we know how these people are being killed at the moment?" asked Tsuzuki.
Here Watari interjected, "When I was studying the British magic Lord Voldemort uses, I came across a spell, seemingly very famous, called the Killing Curse. It kills the victims instantaneously, without a mark, and is most probably the spell being used here."
"Is Lord Voldemort the only one who can use it?" asked Tatsumi.
"I don't think so. I'm pretty sure that any wizard, trained properly, could use it."
"So it is still most likely to be one of Lord Voldemort's followers," said Tsuzuki hopefully.
"Yeah," responded Watari. Tatsumi saw him begin to drift again, and wondered.
"At the moment, our only lead seems to be this party that Narcissa spoke of," Tatsumi announced. "I would ordinarily prefer to have two of you working as staff, but it seems that it's too late too arrange that."
He was interrupted by Tsuzuki's cheer.
A quelling scowl on his face, he continued, "Therefore, we will all attend as guests. I hope you all have something appropriate to wear." Here his eyes wandered to Watari, wondering how the scientist would look dressed up for once.
Watari, misinterpreting his gaze, said cheerfully, "Don't worry, I have some dress clothes somewhere... I think."
"I see. Well, why don't we finish this meeting so that everyone can get ready for the party? Watari, I don't want you coming in a lab coat," he said sternly.
"Okay, okay. I'll go search my closet," said Watari resignedly, and disappeared.
"Well, we'd better go get ready too," said Hisoka, heading towards the door, Tsuzuki in tow.
After the three of them had left, Tatsumi was left alone. "I have a very bad feeling about this..."
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Notes: That hug was PLATONIC, people. At least in their minds. *coughdenialcough* The serious Tats/Wat stuff won't be getting going til chapter 4. And there is going to be no graphic sex in this. Unless I change my mind. But, at the moment, Tatsumi's seriously worried because the one person he thought was actually genuinely cheerful is seriously upset right now, so he's basically trying to prevent Watari from becoming another Tsuzuki, since the last time something like this happened, it was Tsuzuki. And we all know how screwed up Tsuzuki is. At the moment, though, Tatsumi's doing this on a purely subconsious basis. But this is a brief explanation *coughrationalizationcough* for the characterization in the hugging scene, which is otherwise way too WAFFy. Ick.
I really feel like the characterization's been loose, for lack of a better term, this entire chapter. With Tsuzuki and Hisoka especially, since most of what I've read on them has been internal perspectives, instead of external, so trying to write them from Watari's viewpoint is difficult. *sigh* I'm currently trying to figure out a sideplot for the two of them. Any votes on whether or not I should include Muraki? At the moment, I'm wavering. I have an idea of how I could use him, but I'm not certain how well it would work.
By the way, I'll probably be posting up a timeline after the fourth chapter. I've been working extremely hard on coordinating the timelines, so I want to post it up after I did all that work on it. I can't post it up before then, though, because there's spoilers in it.
Response to Reviews:
Kimitha - Not telling yet. Sorry. Wait til next chapter.
Morien Alexander - Thank you!
free4ever - I'm not going to get around to doing the sidestory for a while, but I hopefully will. If I can get a handle on Terazuma's character.
ShiTiger - Thanks.
Anime Angel - Agreed. Way way way too few. And I can only think of a very few multi-chapter one. *Sigh* That's why it's the duty of all good Tatsumi/Watari fans to write a fic on them. :) On the other hand, the lack of multi-chapter fics inspired me to write this, so I'm not arguing. Okay, actually I am but... eh, nevermind.
Draconsis - Thank you, but I can't tell you quite yet. I planned on revealing it this chapter, but things came up.
Asidian - One of my more favorite YnM authors likes my fic! *dances happily* And I actually did put more Hisoka in this chapter... He and Tsuzuki are cute together. And, as I wrote this, I got new ideas for the sidestory which are frankly scaring me, so I'm not sure. I occasionally have to abandon fics because I weird myself out. Sad, but true.
DD - Thanks. And, as far as I can tell, I am the only one who's written a HP/YnM fic so far. I'm not sure whether to be horrified or pleased.
Next chapter: The party scene. Watari encounters his brother, Lucius, for the first time in 20 years. More is revealed about his mysterious past.
by icediamond
Chapter 2
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Well, here it is! The anxiously-awaited (I'm so sure) chapter 2! Yippee.
Disclaimer: Neither Yami no Matsuei nor Harry Potter belong to me. If they did, I'd be way too rich to bother writing fanfiction. As it is, I'm broke from completing my Christmas shopping, so please don't sue me.
Warnings: Yaoi. Slash. M/m pairings, whatever you want to call them. Het pairing (but it's a cool, screwed up one, I promise!). Generous adjustment of universes to match. Hints of NCS (remembered) later on in the story.
What happened last chapter: Watari, Tatsumi, Hisoka and Tsuzuki were assigned to a new case: to stop Lord Voldemort from expanding into Japan. Watari is getting oddly stressed over the whole thing. He is obviously hiding a major secret. Now, a woman has approached the group, who apparently saw Watari die twenty years ago.
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Tatsumi
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Tatsumi's eyes widened, and he looked carefully at Watari to gauge his reaction. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Tsuzuki and Hisoka doing the same thing. Under their combined gazes, Watari froze for a moment, before assuming a blank expression. "Sorry?" he said, radiating innocent confusion.
The foreign woman's eyes narrowed. "Do not even think of trying to pull that bullshit on me, Yutaka," she said, each word falling into place like an ice block repeatedly hitting Watari over the head. Tatsumi felt his eyes widen at her usage of Watari's given name. Apparently she did know him. "I have known you for far too long for it to work, and you know how little patience I have with nonsense."
"Really, Narcissa?," Watari responded innocently. "Then why on earth did you ever marry my brother?"
Instead of responding, Narcissa gave him a death glare. "Yutaka."
Watari sighed. "Really, Narcissa. You have no sense of humour."
"I wonder why," she said with full sarcasm.
Watari winced. "Fine fine. But not in the street."
"I know a nice little French cafe nearby." She turned to Tatsumi, as representative of the other three. "Yould the three of you care to join us? I am Malfoy Narcissa, to use your Japanese name order."
Tatsumi's eyes narrowed. He got a very ominous feeling from this woman, and had no desire to leave Watari alone with her. He bowed slightly. "If you don't mind. I am Tatsumi Seiichiro, and this is Kurosaki Hisoka and Tsuzuki Asato."
"Pleased to meet you. Shall we go?"
~~~~~~
Watari
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The five of them reached the cafe. Narcissa spoke with the waiter for a moment in flawless French. Watari was feeling too off-balance to try to sort through his admittedly rusty French to try to figure out just what she was saying. He assumed it had to do with the table, anyways.
He growled at himself mentally. He was thinking about the most inane things, and avoiding the major issue here. What was he going to tell Narcissa? He really didn't want to tell her the full truth, but he knew any lie he told she would catch him in immediately.
At that thought, he looked at Narcissa thoughtfully. How much did he trust Narcissa? Not bloody enough, in his opinion.
Finally, he decided upon a course of action. It was risky, but he figured that the information he could gain from this outweighed the risk. With little more than a mental wince, he burned his few remaining shreads of hope of not having to tell the rest of them about his past. He still intended on dodging the subject until forced not to, of course. He just didn't have any hope of succeeding.
With his resolve stiffened, he waited patiently as they were lead to a private room in the back. Narcissa waited until the waiter returned with a nice red wine, some elegant sandwiches, and cake for Tsuzuki, and then waited until he left before saying, "I'm still awaiting the explanation, you know."
Watari gave her a dazzling smile. "Well, you see, after I died, I became a shinigami." Noting her tiny forwn, he translated the term into English. "God of death." He awaited her nod of acknowledgement before continuing. "A shinigami's job is to investigate odd deaths. At the moment I'm supposed to be preventing Lord Voldemort from building a power base in Japan."
At his last words, Watari noted resignedly that her hand tightened around her wineglass until her knuckles were white. However, she managed to keep it subtle enough that he doubted that anyone else had noticed. "I see..." here she stalled, apparently unable to think of a response to that.
Watari decided to give her an out. "What have you been up to these last twenty years or so, anyways?"
Narcissa seemed to regain some of her equilibrium. "Oh, this and that. Mostly I've been raising my and Lucius' son."
Watari was surprised. "Son?"
"Yes. Draco. He graduated from Hogwarts last year, and is with us on our trip to Japan."
"Congratulations!" Watari said enthusiastically, his wariness momentarily forgotten. "I heard how hard the two of you were trying to have a child."
The five of them chatted idly as they ate. Once she had finished, Narcissa delicately dabbed at her mouth, before replacing the napkin onto the table. "Well, I suppose I had better go now. I have a party to go to in a few hours." She stood up.
"By the way," she added, taking some tickets out of her elegant purse, "you may wish to consider going to the party yourselves. It will advance your case immeasurably."
At this, she gave an enigmatic smile, but before anyone could react to that, she dropped the tickets on the table and walked out the room. Hisoka and Tsuzuki dashed after her, only to return a few minutes later. "She disappeared," Hisoka said, sounding angry at himself for letting her escape.
Tatsumi and Watari had picked up the tickets and were studying them. "The ticket says that the ball's tonight, starting at 6 o'clock," said Tatsumi.
"And she's already worried about getting ready?!" Hisoka asked incredulously. "That's three hours away!"
"Bon, she's a woman. I've met very few women who would be happy taking any less for a formal party, which I'm assuming this is. Narcissa's as bad as any other," Watari explained.
"That reminds me," Tatsumi said. "Do you know anything about what she said concerning the case?"
Watari quickly decided to dodge the truth. "Even after she married my brother, she and I were never really close. Most of what I know about her I heard from other people, and we all know how reliable that is." 'Well, none of that was technically a lie,' he defended himself mentally.
Tsuzuki was unable to restrain his curiosity. "I would have thought you would have gotten to know her after she married your brother. Why not?" he questioned, with a pronounced lack of tact.
Watari gave an odd little smile. "My brother - half-brother, actually - and I never really got along very well. I was always a reminder that his father had cheated on his mother, so..."
And here he trailed off, unwilling to get more specific than that. Fortunately, Hisoka noticed his discomfort, and jumped in. "So, are we going to this ball or not?"
Tatsumi gave Watari a questioning glance. "Is she British?"
Watari instantly realizes where Tatsumi was going with this. "Yeah."
"In that case, yes."
Tsuzuki looked confused. "Huh?"
Hisoka sighed. "Idiot." When Tsuzuki's expression remained blank, he elabourated. "Remember? Lord Voldemort was from England?"
Tsuzuki slammed his fist into his palm, his face alight with realization. "Oh! So you think she has a better chance of knowing something about it!"
Watari thought grumpily, 'I think Tatsumi suspects rather more than that,' but simply said, "Well, it would make sense for someone who came from Britain to know more about someone else from Britain."
"Indeed," said Tatsumi. "Anyways, for now I suggest that we go talk to last two families of the victims. I think we should separate. Tsuzuki and Hisoka, you take the Yaminobes. Watari, you and I will take the Aokis. Let's meet back at the hotel at four to organize information and get ready for the party."
The four of them nodded, but before they could leave, the waiter came into the room. "The check, monsieur," he murmured, politely presenting the check to Tatsumi as the obvious authority figure.
As Tatsumi saw the total amount, a black aura sprung up around him. Everyone started backing away from him. "Watari..." he said, in a tone of utter reasonableness.
"Ah, yes, Tatsumi?" Watari responded, unobtrusively edging towards the door.
"Since it was one of your relatives who caused us to go to this entirely too expensive cafe, far exceeding the budget for this trip, you are going to pay for this, right...?" At the last word, the black shadows surrounding him surged even higher.
Watari considered arguing, but another glance at the shadows around Tatsumi persuaded him not to do so. "Yes, Tatsumi," he said obediently. While he didn't really think that the shadow-master would do anything too bad to him if he didn't agree, it was really best not to argue with Tatsumi in matters of money.
Tatsumi handed him the check, and Watari goggled at the price. 'Of course, Narcissa would have to pick the most expensive restaurant in Kyoto, and then skip out without paying the check. She never did like me,' he moaned mentally. Watari reluctantly dug out enough cash to pay for it, wincing as he realized how little that left him until the next paycheck. 'I wonder if I still have any copies of the pictures of Terazuma kissing Tsuzuki? Nah, I don't think there's anyone left to sell them too... Everyone already has one, dammit. Maybe if I manage to get a picture of Tsuzuki and Bon kissing... It would be fun to see their reactions to that anyways.'
Interrupting Watari's musings on how to make up for this loss, Tatsumi cleared his throat loudly. "Well? Shall we get working?"
The three of them made various vague assents, and left the cafe. Inside, Watari was extremely relieved that none of his friends had thought to ask the obvious question.
None of them had asked him whether or not Narcissa was a witch.
~~~~~~
Tatsumi
~~~~~~
Tatsumi looked with concern at his coworker. Talking to the victim's family had been as unpleasant as it ever was, but Watari had been oddly silent even before that, ever since the meeting at the cafe. He knew that the blonde was hiding something from the rest of them, and he was worried. He desperately searched for a topic to bring up to kill this increasingly awkward silence.
Finally Tatsumi gave up on finding a subtle way of talking to Watari. "Are you feeling okay?"
He paused, awaiting an answer. Hearing none, he repeated himself, slightly louder.
Watari remained lost in thought, not even noticing the questions.
"Watari!" said the secretary sharply, his voice cracking over the other's consciousness like a whip.
Watari jumped. "Huh? What?"
"You were completely lost in thought," said Tatsumi sternly. "I had to repeat myself twice to get you to hear me. Softening his voice slightly, he continued, "Are you okay? You've been acting weird ever since the meeting yeaterday."
Watari nodded. "Yeah, I guess. Just... old memories, I suppose." He paused for a second, his eyes gazing on memories long past. "Caught me by surprise."
Tatsumi nodded. "Memories tend to do that, I've noticed." He paused, conflicted. He knew that he needed to know more about what was happening with the subdued scientist, but he also felt a strong reluctance to bring more pain into those now-shadowed eyes. It hurt him, far past the level it should, to see the normally cheerful scientist this gloomy. Eventually, though, need to know won over the desire to avoid painful topics, and he asked, "Anything you're willing to tell us?"
Pain flared in Watari's amber eyes. "Not yet..." he said, almost too quietly for Tatsumi to hear. "After the party, I promise. By then, I'll know what information's necessary for the case."
Tatsumi paused. "Thank you for that. But, I'm not just concerned about the case. I'm more worried about you." Steadfastly ignoring his dignity, who was jumping up and down screaming at him in the back of his mind, he drew the younger man into a firm hug.
They stayed like that for several moments. Tatsumi could feel Watari shaking slightly in his embrace, but the scientist seemed mostly content to just stay like that.
Finally, Watari reluctantly pulled away. "Thank you."
"You're welcome," Tatsumi smiled. Looking at the scientist, he could tell that Watari had calmed somewhat from his state five minutes ago, which Tatsumi counted as a Good Thing.
The two of them jumped as a church bell rang in the quiet air. Tatsumi checked his watch. "The party starts in half an hour. We'd better get going back to the hotel."
Watari nodded. "Yeah. I wonder how Tsuzuki and Hisoka did?"
The two men disappeared, leaving behind only a deserted street.
Back in the hotel room he and Watari shared, Tatsumi told Watari curtly, "I'm going to go see if Tsuzuki and Hisoka are back yet," ducking out of the room before the scientist had a chance to respond.
"Good," he said upon seeing the two in their room, talking about Watari's strange behavior. "You've noticed it, too."
"Of course," said Hisoka.
"I'm not going to push him yet, but could the two of you keep an eye on him during the party? Especially you, Kurosaki-kun, with your empathy. This entire thing worries me."
"I will," responded Hisoka.
"Thank you. We're going to have a meeting in Watari's and my room over what progress we've made now."
When the three of them reached the room, they saw Watari sitting quietly on the bed, lost in thought. Hisoka and Tsuzuki were obviously surprised, but a death-glare from Tatsumi prevented them from saying anything. "So, what have we discovered so far?" Tatsumi asked, starting the meeting.
"Well, all the victims have had two things in common. All of them are important in some way, and all have died without a mark on them," responded Hisoka. "There was Yaminobe Katsuna, who was a government official, Kanasawa Nokoru, a powerful onmyouji, Seta Anji, a Shinto monk, Ikeda Shinobu, head of a corporation that produces weaponry for the army, Takamori Ran, a prominent politician, Aoki Kazuya, a Buddhist monk, and Hasukawa Shuuichi, a prominent scientist."
"Lord Voldemort seems to be going for people who could prove a danger, whether technologically, politically, or magically, at the moment," mused Tatsumi. "According to my report, this is his standard first method of attack, followed by highly-publicized terrorist attacks on his next strongest opponents."
"Do we know how these people are being killed at the moment?" asked Tsuzuki.
Here Watari interjected, "When I was studying the British magic Lord Voldemort uses, I came across a spell, seemingly very famous, called the Killing Curse. It kills the victims instantaneously, without a mark, and is most probably the spell being used here."
"Is Lord Voldemort the only one who can use it?" asked Tatsumi.
"I don't think so. I'm pretty sure that any wizard, trained properly, could use it."
"So it is still most likely to be one of Lord Voldemort's followers," said Tsuzuki hopefully.
"Yeah," responded Watari. Tatsumi saw him begin to drift again, and wondered.
"At the moment, our only lead seems to be this party that Narcissa spoke of," Tatsumi announced. "I would ordinarily prefer to have two of you working as staff, but it seems that it's too late too arrange that."
He was interrupted by Tsuzuki's cheer.
A quelling scowl on his face, he continued, "Therefore, we will all attend as guests. I hope you all have something appropriate to wear." Here his eyes wandered to Watari, wondering how the scientist would look dressed up for once.
Watari, misinterpreting his gaze, said cheerfully, "Don't worry, I have some dress clothes somewhere... I think."
"I see. Well, why don't we finish this meeting so that everyone can get ready for the party? Watari, I don't want you coming in a lab coat," he said sternly.
"Okay, okay. I'll go search my closet," said Watari resignedly, and disappeared.
"Well, we'd better go get ready too," said Hisoka, heading towards the door, Tsuzuki in tow.
After the three of them had left, Tatsumi was left alone. "I have a very bad feeling about this..."
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Notes: That hug was PLATONIC, people. At least in their minds. *coughdenialcough* The serious Tats/Wat stuff won't be getting going til chapter 4. And there is going to be no graphic sex in this. Unless I change my mind. But, at the moment, Tatsumi's seriously worried because the one person he thought was actually genuinely cheerful is seriously upset right now, so he's basically trying to prevent Watari from becoming another Tsuzuki, since the last time something like this happened, it was Tsuzuki. And we all know how screwed up Tsuzuki is. At the moment, though, Tatsumi's doing this on a purely subconsious basis. But this is a brief explanation *coughrationalizationcough* for the characterization in the hugging scene, which is otherwise way too WAFFy. Ick.
I really feel like the characterization's been loose, for lack of a better term, this entire chapter. With Tsuzuki and Hisoka especially, since most of what I've read on them has been internal perspectives, instead of external, so trying to write them from Watari's viewpoint is difficult. *sigh* I'm currently trying to figure out a sideplot for the two of them. Any votes on whether or not I should include Muraki? At the moment, I'm wavering. I have an idea of how I could use him, but I'm not certain how well it would work.
By the way, I'll probably be posting up a timeline after the fourth chapter. I've been working extremely hard on coordinating the timelines, so I want to post it up after I did all that work on it. I can't post it up before then, though, because there's spoilers in it.
Response to Reviews:
Kimitha - Not telling yet. Sorry. Wait til next chapter.
Morien Alexander - Thank you!
free4ever - I'm not going to get around to doing the sidestory for a while, but I hopefully will. If I can get a handle on Terazuma's character.
ShiTiger - Thanks.
Anime Angel - Agreed. Way way way too few. And I can only think of a very few multi-chapter one. *Sigh* That's why it's the duty of all good Tatsumi/Watari fans to write a fic on them. :) On the other hand, the lack of multi-chapter fics inspired me to write this, so I'm not arguing. Okay, actually I am but... eh, nevermind.
Draconsis - Thank you, but I can't tell you quite yet. I planned on revealing it this chapter, but things came up.
Asidian - One of my more favorite YnM authors likes my fic! *dances happily* And I actually did put more Hisoka in this chapter... He and Tsuzuki are cute together. And, as I wrote this, I got new ideas for the sidestory which are frankly scaring me, so I'm not sure. I occasionally have to abandon fics because I weird myself out. Sad, but true.
DD - Thanks. And, as far as I can tell, I am the only one who's written a HP/YnM fic so far. I'm not sure whether to be horrified or pleased.
Next chapter: The party scene. Watari encounters his brother, Lucius, for the first time in 20 years. More is revealed about his mysterious past.