Yes, I know being bored is no excuse to post fanfiction, but here I go anyways. If people tell me it sucks I'll take it down and apologize. I have NO idea where this thing came from. My preferred reading material is funny fluffy stuff. This is not funny, it is not happy, there is no fluff. Tsuzuki is depressed, which I hate, not that I know WHY I get so upset when he's sad since Hisoka is my favorite, but there you go. I'm rambling again, aren't I?

Post-Kyoto (gee, as if there weren't enough), angst, depression, oddness

Disclaimer: I don't own Yami no Matsuei. Yoko Matsushita does.

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He loved green. It was such a pretty color. Green was a living color, which was why plants were so green.

He loved plants, too. He had a garden behind his house--his pride and joy once--and it hadn't just been filled with flowers, either. He had grown clinging vines that trailed tendrils of emerald over the shorter plants. He had planted vegetables and spices that provided him with food for when he was short on cash, and gave the air a pleasant scent. He had tended bushes and small trees, too, and even the weeds were allowed to flourish, although he had tried to keep them from harming his other plants.

There were flowers in the garden too, of course, adding dashes of color here and there. Lilac wisteria mingled with ivy as marigolds protected his tomatoes from harmful bugs.

The tulips were his favorite. The little cups of yellow seemed like solidified cheer, and the pale pink blossoms blushed against the darker plants.

He loved his garden. It was alive.

Coincidentally, his favorite seasons were spring and summer when everything was green and growing or throwing forth painted blooms. He liked those seasons where he could work in his garden and help his plants to live and grow. His plants had never lacked for care.

All of it mocked him.

The tiny garden, despite the joy it used to bring him, could not make up for the lives he took. Guarding the life of a plant was nothing compared to guarding the life of a human. He used to take solace from the fact that his garden was alive, that he could care for something and not destroy it.

Now the garden is overrun with weeds, and drying up to die for lack of water. Neglect has taken its toll. The garden is dead, a fate given to anything he interferes with.

He hates being a shinigami.

He hates killing people, he always has, but over the decades other conflicts have arisen to pick at his unraveling sanity. Tiny, insignificant things that drive him crazy because they are always happening, always there. He hates the smiling mask he wears to hide what he really feels. He hates the taste of the pies and cinnamon buns that he forces himself to eat because it has become normal for him. He hates the weariness that comes from hiding a soul too troubled by all it has experienced.

He hates himself and all that he represents.

The door to the infirmary opens and shuts, admitting a single person. He turns to look at his visitor, twisting his expression into a tired excuse for the mask...which will do no good against this visitor.

His guest has brought tulips, a bouquet of the hopeful ones that almost seem to wither simply by the gaze he turns on them. He moves his eyes away from the bouquet, to the face of his partner. A blush rises in those cheeks, the same color as the pink tulips. He finds himself fascinated by that, and by the leaf green eyes set into that face that study the room as they avoid focusing on him.

The tulip-blush and ivy-eyes are dead. Green is a living color, but they had come to him dead. What else could he do to them? How could he kill something already dead? How could he blame himself for the death?

The dead color of life in those eyes raises too many questions for his tired mind to deal with. They had pulled him from his chance at nothingness. They hold no hate, no fear, no condescension. They are grateful. Those twin pieces of life grown cold are grateful.

He loves green.

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My sincerest apologies to anyone who was following it, but Dragon Child appears to be on hiatus. I need to rewrite the omake because it sucks. Royally sucks. Plus, I haven't finished the story itself. Blah.