Anywhere by Gaki and Kira
Chapter 1
Author's Notes
Kira: Evanescence will kill you and eat your soul. Brought on much listening of the angst music and much discussion of Tsuzuki and Hisoka.
Gaki: I am innocence. Honest. Kira made me do it. Viva la Evanescence!
=================
The cherry trees bloomed only during the spring. Their petals burst with life and color, some pink, some white, some alternating colors of the two. Only a brief time later, the blossoms would die and fall from their branches, and the ground would be covered with pink and white petals. The air was always filled with them. It was beautiful.
In Meifu, the cherry trees were always blooming, and the air was always filled with their petals. Meifu was an eternal state of those brief moments, when the trees were just beginning to lose their blossoms. But unlike the trees that had root in the earth, in Meifu, the branches were always replenished. The blossoms would fall and be replaced.
A Shinigami was the same. A cut would bleed and then heal within seconds. A deeper cut would regenerate over time, replenished like the blossoms of the cherry trees. Physical wounds would always heal. It was those that scratched even deeper, that cut a mark on the heart and soul, that would never go away.
Tsuzuki watched as the petals fell, one after another. The cherry trees in Meifu were eternal, but there was something about those on Chijou -- something pure and untouched. Maybe it was because he knew that those trees, though beautiful now, would not always be. When winter came, they would be stripped bare. But then spring would come again and they would be rejuvenated.
People died and were reborn in Meifu. They were rejuvenated. People feared death, believed that there was no afterlife; that when they died, they would simply be dead. Some feared it so much they tried anything within their power to avoid it. Ridiculous charms and spells were a popular way to avoid death. Some tried to remain in the land of the living when their time had come. Anything to avoid whatever the land of the dead was.
Death was not final. The body died, but the soul, the part that mattered, that would live on. Death was merely an inevitable end to life. But, Tsuzuki thought, sighing inwardly, he could not blame people for their fear. No one knew what was beyond life. No one knew where to place their faith. They did not know whether or not there was a Heaven or a Hell, something waiting for them when everything ceased in being.
If only they would accept and move on. There would have been no need for Shinigami to guide the souls of the lost to the land of the dead. He would not have to do what he did. There would be no need of him, or any of the others. They would have been able to have their eternal rest. Their escape from all the misery of life.
But instead he had become a Shinigami. Sometimes, he wondered why. Those assignments that had turned out badly, when he had seen people die, the times he had been the cause of their deaths, it left him with such an overwhelming feeling of guilt. Sometimes he felt as though he couldn't breathe, that all of it was catching up to him and was pulling him down into some deep, dark depth he couldn't pull himself away from.
Drowning. He was always drowning. In his guilt, his sorrow, his failures. In seventy years, there had been so many. He could not forget a single face or name. He remembered every person that had come into his life and touched him in some way. He carried them with him. His excess baggage, his curse, his punishment. There was no salvation. No way to repent.
He heard someone yell, tearing him from his morose thoughts, but before he had the chance to react, a ball had rebounded off his head. He sat for a moment, dazed, not quite understand what had happened for a moment. Shaking his head, he looked up to see a red ball rolling away from him.
The ball rolled over the paved pathway winding through the park, into the grass, and was stopped when it bumped into a small girl seated beneath a cherry tree. She seemed to have been in as much of a daze as he was. She blinked down at it for a moment, puzzled, before slowly reaching over to pick it up in her small hands. She had just risen to her feet when the children it belonged to had reached her.
The ringleader of the group, a small boy, dirtied up by hours of playing beneath the warm sun, and probably more than a few falls, stepped forward. "Give me that," he demanded, and he snatched the ball away from her.
A girl in the group spoke up quietly, "Maybe she wants to play too?"
"She can't," the ringleader said immediately. "I don't want to play with someone so weird. You know what everybody was saying about her."
The others in the group seemed to agree with his judgment, or were simply too afraid to challenge him. They hurried off to continue their game. The girl that had spoken up glanced back at the smaller girl, looking as though she might stay, or apologize, but when one of the boys called for her, she ran off without a word.
The girl sat back down. Her lip was trembling. She bit down on it, trying to keep the tears from falling. Tsuzuki watched, remembering. He had always tried not to cry. He would bite his lip, squeeze his eyes shut, and tell himself that he couldn't cry, that it was to see him hurt that they wanted. But it never really worked. Tears had a way of coming no matter how you tried to stop them.
He stood up. As he slowly walked over, he could hear the girl's stifled sobs. He remember being huddled in the corner of a small room, arms wrapped around himself, trying hard to keep silent. But she would always hear him. She would kneel down beside him and ask why he was crying. Sometimes, he tried to pretend he hadn't been crying at all. But most of the time, he just threw his arms around her and cried.
He dropped down to one knee. "Hello there."
She made a small sound like a gasp and looked up at him. She had green eyes. Not emerald green like Hisoka, but dark green, like the green of a pine tree. Her cheeks were flushed from crying, and embarrassed, she rubbed at her eyes. As though she could really pretend she hadn't been crying at all.
"I'm Asato," Tsuzuki said, "but most people just call me Tsuzuki."
She dropped her hands away from her eyes. "Um. Is your head okay?"
He blinked. "Huh? Oh, right!" He laughed a little and rubbed the fresh bruise on his forehead. "Just a little bump."
She nodded her head, causing the pigtails her caramel-colored hair was done up in to bob. Tsuzuki folded his legs cross-legged style and rested his elbows on his knees.
"Why don't they let you play with them?" he asked gently.
She did not answer immediately. Looking down, thick eyelashes veiling her eyes, she twisted strands of grass in her fingers. A pink petal fell from the tree they sat beneath and touched her knee.
"I'm not like them," she said finally, softly. "I have weird colored eyes and hair, and a weird name, and... I'm not normal."
"What's your name?"
"Cadence."
It was not a Japanese name; no wonder they thought it strange. She must not have been born in the country, Tsuzuki thought. But he did not think it was a strange name. Growing up, people had thought his name was odd. Asato was not a common Japanese name. People had thought he was strange for that, and strange for his eye color, and... everything. Whatever they could find fault in him, they did. He was never good enough.
"I think that's a pretty name," he said.
"But it's not normal," she insisted.
Tsuzuki smiled. "That just makes you special."
She looked up at him. He knew that she did not believe him, but something in her eyes told him that she appreciated his words. But that was all they were. Words. Words would not change that all the other children thought her strange. Words would not change her birthplace. Words could not change her hair and her eyes.
Words never meant anything.
"I know someone with eyes like yours," Tsuzuki continued. "His are sort of brighter, though."
"Brighter?" she asked.
"Brighter, like... emerald." He gestured helplessly. "Or a really bright crayon."
But lifeless. Hisoka had beautiful eyes, a color of green he had never seen before he had met Hisoka. But as bright and beautiful as they were, there was something dull about them. There was something lingering there that made them so... empty.
Speaking of Hisoka... he was late.
"You have pretty eyes."
He looked down at her, surprised. No one had told him he had pretty eyes. Only Muraki. But Muraki... had said that his eye color meant that there was something wrong with him. That eyes like his... meant that he was not human.
"Ah, thanks," he said, with a bit of a sheepish smile. He rubbed at the back of his neck. It was a nervous habit, something he always did when he was uncomfortable.
"But doesn't it make you feel like you don't belong?" Cadence asked.
"What?"
"Because that's such a strange color. Don't you ever feel like you're not normal?"
Tsuzuki looked away. Did he ever feel like he was not normal? Yes. Always. Even before Muraki had told him that he was abnormal, that he had alien blood in his body, that he was not human -- he had questioned his existence. What was he, if not human? If not human, what could he be?
"Muraki said I'm not human. If that's true, then what am I?"
"You are human. I guarantee it. You have always been human."
"Yes," Tsuzuki answered quietly. "Sometimes."
Always.
"But," he said brightly, a smile on his face, "I have friends that don't care about that kind of thing. You must too."
"I had a friend," she said. "But she died."
"Oh... I'm sorry."
She shook her head. "It's okay."
Tsuzuki wanted to say something more comforting than that, but there was little to say. No one ever had the words to express their sorrow for someone that had felt the death of a loved one. 'I'm sorry' was not enough. 'I'm sorry'... seemed to cheapen their deaths.
But... The case that he and Hisoka were investigating was about a little girl that had died. Maybe...
"How did she die?" Tsuzuki asked gently.
"They said she was sick. But she wasn't sick at all. Her mom... smothered her with a pillow."
Mizuki Chiori. That was her name. Murdered in her sleep. She had been listed in the Kiseki two weeks before, but her soul had not been collected in Meifu. She was the one that he and Hisoka were searching for.
"Sometimes I feel like she's still here," Cadence whispered.
"Here?" Tsuzuki repeated.
"With me. Somewhere..." She shook her head. "But that's silly."
Most of the time, when people said they had feelings like someone that had died still lingered, those feelings were true. The living could feel spirits. They did not know what it was, but they knew it was something. Some people thought it comforting. Others were slowly driven mad by it. That was why it was necessary for them to take spirits to Meifu as quickly as possible. It was where they belonged. The dead were not meant to interact with the living.
Unless the dead was a Shinigami.
"I miss her. She was the only one that... made me feel like I belonged..."
"Everyone belongs somewhere."
"That's not true."
"What?"
Cadence ripped up the grass from the ground, twisting it in her hands. "It's not true," she repeated. "Some people -- they don't belong anywhere. Some people aren't normal. They really are weird. They're... they're monsters. People with strange hair, people with strange eyes... Everyone says they're monsters!"
"Your eyes are a beautiful color of amethyst. That is definitely not a human eye color."
I am human. I am human.
"Your body clearly has non-human DNA within it."
If I'm not human, then what am I?
"You can't be normal either. How can you say you belong?"
Cadence stood up.
"Why should you be able to belong when I don't! That's not fair!"
I don't belong. I'm not normal. I'm not human.
"You... you're a monster like me!"
She whirled away and ran from him, pigtails bobbing. Tsuzuki stared after her, unmoving.
That's right... I...
... am a monster.
=================
No one paid much attention to the youth walking down the street. No one noticed the way he walked, keeping as much space between him and the next person as he could. No one noticed the way his shoulders hunched up or the way he flinched whenever someone brushed against him. They didn't notice any of that. What they did notice, though, were the colors of his eyes. Some might call the color of his eyes emerald green, others will argue and say they were the hue of jade. Either way, no one had seen such a deep sorrowful color on such a youthful face before. No one had seen him around before, this strange teenager with the beautiful eyes.
He did not care what they thought, though. Walking swiftly through the crowded streets, Hisoka kept his eyes straight ahead, only flinching out of the way quickly when a person would brush against him. It was painful being around so many people, being in such a big open space with so many minds touching his own. Touching, caressing and bombarding into his thoughts. It made him dizzy. So many minds trying to squeeze into his own, it made him want to scream. Yet he held on, ordering his legs to walk faster, almost running, through the crowd and towards the park he knew Tsuzuki was waiting at.
He collided with another person as he turned the corner, a gasp escaping his mouth as the touch from the other body caused their minds to mesh for just a minute. Large hands gripped his arms, steadying him as a man's disapproving face looked down at him.
"Watch where you're running, boy." Stupid kid. The old man muttered before letting him go and walked off.
He stood there, leaning against the side of an old shop as he fought to catch his breath. Running his hand through his hair, Hisoka closed his eyes as the man's harsh words came back to him.
"Watch where you're running, boy." Stupid kid.
Boy. Kid. He hated those words. Loathed them with a passion. Standing back up and turning around, facing the window of the shop, he saw himself. A youthful face topped off by a mop of golden blonde and two almost too large green eyes were staring back at him. He hated the way he looked. Hated how he would forever look like this. Like a child. Like a boy. He would never grow up. He would forever have to look up at others. He hated that.
Turning away from the offending reflection of his face, he stuffed his hands into his pocket and walked off once again.
People would do anything to be able to stay young forever. People would pay thousands of dollars to buy a stupid product promising an eternally youthful looking face. He didn't understand those people. He didn't understand why anyone would want to live forever. Why long to live forever in a world where there was hardly any joy? Who would want to wake up everyday, look in the mirror, and find that they didn't change a bit? That they will forever look the same, that time will never affect them in anyway?
Why live forever when those around you would eventually die and leave you alone?
He didn't understand it. Didn't understand those who wanted to stay forever young. Living forever didn't mean a person would achieve complete happiness. Being forever young didn't mean you could whatever you wanted.
It worked quite the opposite for him. Staying forever a sixteen year old boy, every one in Meifu treated him as such. A boy. Some treated him like some kind of a child who needed everything be explained to him in the simplest way. Some looked down on him, not wanting to give a child any of their time. Some even expected him to be a trouble maker; he was a child after all.
Stupid kid.
But he showed them all. After Konoe-kachou came for him, after the exams he had to take. He showed them.
"He had a high score on his examination, as well! So he should be very helpful to you."
Gushoushin's words came back to him as he neared the park, making him think about his partner. Tsuzuki had been like them. Tsuzuki had thought him nothing more than an annoying boy, a brat even. Tsuzuki had looked down at him, thinking how disrespectful he was, how rude to his elders. But why should he have respect for people who treated him like he was nothing more than a boy? Why should he care about people when they didn't care about him? Why show concern for anyone but himself? No one cared for him, no one worried for him, and no one taught him anything, so why should he worry himself over them?
Then again, that was the keyword. Tsuzuki had, he was different from all of them. Tsuzuki was warm when everyone who had ever come into his life was cold. Tsuzuki… Tsuzuki reached out for him. It was strange. He couldn't understand how someone can be so… caring and open towards a person they didn't even know. Couldn't understand how a person can so easily offer a stranger a smile. Tsuzuki was different, in so many ways, from the people he had grown up with. When Tsuzuki showed concern, he was really feeling concern. When Tsuzuki reached out to touch him, it didn't hurt him like those other times he was touched.
It frightened him, how Tsuzuki was different. He wasn't used to it. He didn't know how to respond to such tender and caring looks. Many times he would try to shove the older man away. Saying harsh words, yelling, using his eyes to scare him, and yet Tsuzuki would just smile that soft gentle smile and he would forget why he was even trying. It frightened him how someone like Tsuzuki, someone who acted like a child who refused to grow up, could affect him so much. He had built such a strong wall around himself. A wall that no one should be able to get through, yet somehow, that gentle and persistent affection he was getting from Tsuzuki was slowly wearing it down.
It scared him.
He didn't like being scared. He didn't like how every day; his protective wall was slowly being torn down. Yet, a small part of him was glad. A tiny part that still held onto that childish hope, that childish longing of being cared for and loved, was so glad. Here was finally a person who welcomed him. Here was a person who held him gently, a person who smiled fondly at him and did not raise a harsh hand towards him. Here was a person, who would pull him out of his cold shell and wrap arms full of warmth around his cold body, and show him that he was loved. Tsuzuki was the one person who could provide all that for him with a smile.
And that's why it scared him. He was afraid, though he hid it, that one day Tsuzuki might become like those in his early life. He was afraid that one day Tsuzuki would not be there when he looked over his shoulder for him.
The incident in Kyoto haunted him. He was so close, too close, to losing Tsuzuki.
He had felt it, for a brief moment, the pain that Tsuzuki tried so hard to hide. When the girl was being eaten up by Suzaku's flames, he had felt it. The deep and dark place Tsuzuki had put himself in. A place where even light can not reach to. So alone. So cold. So unbearably lost. He was lost within that depression, within that self loathing for only a minute and he couldn't stand it. Yet, Tsuzuki, who was so much older than him in so many ways, had been living within that ever since he was a boy.
The wind blew across his path; causing his hair to caress his face as he slowed down to a stroll. The incident in Kyoto showed him just how unstable Tsuzuki was. Showed him, that with just the right amount of pressure, Tsuzuki would break. Ever since Kyoto, he had been a bit more cautious. Paying slightly more attention to his overly hyper partner. Making sure every day to watch over him quietly. All without letting Tsuzuki know he was doing so of course. If Tsuzuki found out, he would either tease him, saying how he cared, or would just smile and try and convince him that he was fine.
That was one thing that he hated in Tsuzuki. How he could look, smile brightly, into another person's face and lie so easily.
He wanted others to open up, to let people help, yet he pushed people away when they reach out for him.
"You're not fair. Even though you keep butting in on other people's business, why do you hide yours? … You're a coward."
It seemed so long ago that he had said that. It seemed so long ago that Tsuzuki had replied that if he kept people away then no one would fear him. How can anyone fear you? How can anyone fear such a harmless… idiot. You with your stupidly smiling face. Always… smiling.
Always smiling at me.
Lowering his head, hunching his shoulders up a bit, Hisoka played over his words in his mind.
Even if everyone before you goes away. I will stay by your side…
He would. He would follow Tsuzuki. The first and only person who reached out for him. The only person to smile and hug him. The first who cared, who showed any kind of concern for him. He would follow Tsuzuki wherever he went. Not because he was stupid. Not because he had nothing better to do. But because Tsuzuki… was home.
He had never made a single promise in his life and he would make one right now, as he strolled down the sideway towards the park. He would make his promise, his vow.
I will follow you anywhere, Tsuzuki.
Stopping at the entrance of the park, Hisoka looked around for his partner. It was a clear sunny day and the trees were providing a wonderful haven for those who wished to stay out of the harsh rays. Eyes moving from head to head, he walked into the park as children ran by. He ignored the happy laughter, pushing the slight bitter feeling he felt down as he walked on. Sometimes, he envied them. Those lucky children who grew up within a normal household. He used to fantasize about that. Growing up normal. Being like them. Being allowed to play without having to worry about what they thought about him.
Being allowed to be a child.
He envied that in the little children that ran about the park. They whose eyes shone so wonderfully, so brightly, never knew of the horror he faced when he was their age. They were what he had wanted to be. Innocent, carefree and happy. But most of all, they were loved by their parents. They were cared for, adored and pampered. He was pushed aside and locked away. He envied them and their innocence.
Shaking his head slightly to be rid of the depressing thoughts, he was startled slightly when a little girl with pigtails bumped into him.
The small girl looked up, and for a moment he thought he saw his own eyes looking back at him. She blinked, and the color he saw weren't his own. A fuller green that held an inner light. Not like his. Nothing like his. He blinked as she smiled an apology and ran off. He stood there, watching as she ran out of the park. Frowning a bit, he wondered why he felt an uneasy aura around her. Shaking his head, dismissing the feeling as he turned around once again, he was surprised when he found Tsuzuki sitting not too far away.
Brushing his hair from his face as he headed towards Tsuzuki, noticing the slight look of… complete shock on the older man's face as he stood before him.
He frowned once again, lifting a hand and waving it in front of Tsuzuki's face.
"Hey."
Tsuzuki remained unmoving for a moment before slowly blinking and focusing on the hand passing before his eyes. Hisoka. He had not heard him approaching, not even heard his voice. All he could think about was the little girl and her words.
"Hisoka. I... sorry."
His frown deepened as Tsuzuki's soft mutter reached his ears. Lowering his hand and placing it back into the warmth of his pant pockets, Hisoka sat himself down beside Tsuzuki.
"There's an ice cream man to your right and a bakery just outside the park. Your hands are empty." Looking over at Tsuzuki from the corner of his eyes, Hisoka went on. "... What is it?"
He could smell the scent of warming cookies and cakes from where they sat. He could hear the voices of children asking the vendor for their favorite flavors. The group of children that had excluded Cadence reached his ears as well, laughing and joking, playing without a care in the world, not knowing what they had done to the girl. Carefree. Unconcerned. Uncaring.
He looked down at Hisoka and, mechanically, gave him a smile. Smile when he was upset. Smile when he was sad. It was all a mask to hide what he really felt. What he really was.
"It's nothing," he said. "I had a snack earlier."
Smiling again. Those purple orbs, how many people had he entranced with them? How many people had looked into his eyes and believed his words? Always smiling. How many people did he show his smiles to and how many of them saw behind it? Stop smiling like that at me. None of them did because they didn't know. How could they when Tsuzuki would do what he just did? It was like a play. A smile, shake of the head and a reply.
He glared. Even now... you won't tell me anything. His hands fisted themselves as he looked away from Tsuzuki's smiling face. Didn't Tsuzuki know how much pain he caused him by pretending like that? How I can help... when you won't let me? "... Earlier? You'd usually have another one by now." His hands tightened on his lap. What are you trying to hide from me?
"Mm." Tsuzuki slowly looked down the path the girl had gone. She was no where to be seen. Did she even realize what she had done to him? She went on without a thought of it, but he had to live with her words.
"You're right," he said. The smile fell back into place. "Then let's go get something! A chocolate cupcake sounds good..."
Turning back and giving Tsuzuki a glance, Hisoka gazed into his eyes. There was nothing there. Whatever that was bothering him, he had already hid it. Tsuzuki had already brought up the many windows within his eyes and was hiding it from him. Looking away, he stood up. "Whatever."
Smile. Smile through the hard times, smile through the good times. Smile; because it kept others believing everything was all right. Smile, because it kept them believing... he was like them. He was human.
"Okay then, let's go." Smile to make others not worry. Smile to make them smile in return. "We'll get you something too."
Smile because it made him feel human, even for only a moment.
But really... all I am...
... is a monster.