[18 July 2013] Edited, because I notice people are still reading this old, old story, and I'm horrified at the grammar of my old self. -_- Also taken the opportunity to straighten out warnings in Author Notes.

Author Notes:

Thanks so much for each of your encouragement notes, they mean a lot to me… =) I'm sorry that this one takes so long. Well, this comes with a sidestory, which I hope can make up for the delay. ^^;

Also thanks to klyukaizer for reviewing "Nights Like This". (Hope you're reading this…) Um, I didn't plan a sequel to that one – which is why I insert my reply here instead – but I'm open to suggestions. Just email me. =)

I've decided to have my own way with Tsuzuki's past, power, and physical condition. I'm someone who's a bit too concerned with the canon despite this being an AU, but I've violated a number of facts in the canon in favor of the plot, and it's likely I'll violate more... so please forgive all the discrepancies. -_-

Italics are thoughts and flashbacks.

A Wing Short of Flying

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Someday all you'll have to light the way will be a single ray of hope— and that will be enough.

- Kobi Yamada

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Chapter Two: The Name

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The opportunity presented itself several days later.

Muraki was on the microscope, examining a cell, occasionally asking his assistant to get him one of the lab equipments from the table.

"Interesting," he muttered to himself without taking his eyes off the lens. The boy was standing close to him, holding a tray of colorful liquids in small dishes. So Tsuzuki reached quietly towards the table.

It was the boy who saw it first.

"Tsuzuki-san!" He yelped, almost flipping the tray he was holding.

Muraki turned instantly, snatched the container from Tsuzuki's hands. Almost half of the liquid originally there had downed Tsuzuki's throat.

"Tsuzuki-san! This is acid, for goodness' sake! Water, boy, give him water! Quick!"

They spent the next few minutes forcing him to drink lots and lots of water. Tsuzuki resisted as much as he could, but there was little he could do with his stiff muscles.

At length they settled down, Muraki wearing a disapproving scowl, the boy pale from all the frenzy but with his eyes guarding Tsuzuki so vehemently he would've thought they never had to blink.

Let us see how that affects my cell activity, Tsuzuki thought wryly. His mouth and throat were burning, his stomach felt awful, and a legion of ants was crawling all over his insides. Will the damage be enough?

"Tsuzuki-san, please don't do such things again," Muraki said. Tsuzuki could hear controlled anger in his voice. "You must know that this is a very important research that can help us unravel the mystery of life and death…"

Death, Tsuzuki agreed, and ignored the rest of the statement.

The boy was looking at him sadly.

You're wasting your sympathy, Tsuzuki wanted to tell him. He really was sympathizing too much. His unassuming concern grated on Tsuzuki's apathy, and he realized well enough that he'd resorted to sarcasm to keep his resolution – to die – from wavering.

Muraki had stopped lecturing him, and started to examine the extent of the damage the acid had caused. Peeking through a lens into Tsuzuki's mouth, he paused in awe.

"Amazing," he breathed. "Already the cells are recovering. – From hydrofluoric acid, no less! – Burnt, spoilt, but functioning. You can see the fibers start to… You see, Tsuzuki-san? You are a very valuable subject."

Valuable? What do you know of what I am, Doctor?

With an impulse, the boy reached towards Tsuzuki, as if wanting to touch the damaged tissue that the doctor mentioned. He pulled back hastily as his master glanced at him with a raised eyebrow.

Tsuzuki read pain in his green eyes, part of them his own. He probably feels these physical aches as well. What a curious ability…

"Master… shouldn't we give him a neutralizer or something?"

It was spoken with that typical apprehensive tone of his. But Tsuzuki had been under the impression that the boy wouldn't venture a word to the doctor unless asked, and thus couldn't but admire the amount of bravery put into that sentence.

Muraki frowned, regarded his assistant with a measuring gaze.

There were undoubtedly some thoughts passing between those two, because the boy just cringed away before any more word was spoken. He quickly busied himself rearranging the equipments that were toppled over during their frantic rescue earlier.

"No," Muraki said slowly, his answer directed to Tsuzuki instead. "As upsetting as this incident is, it's an excellent opportunity to see the cells work their miracles."

Tsuzuki was sick of the cells' miracles.

He let his tongue be scraped for more cell samples, his mouth explored with a spatula. He answered all the doctor's questions, complied when asked to move a hand or bend a knee, and was generally being an obedient subject for the rest of the day.

Only the promise he refused to give, that he wouldn't try to kill himself again.

.

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"Don't you ever sleep?"

He gave in to curiosity at last, and asked that question.

The pair of green eyes was clearly showing every sign of fatigue. "I can't risk that, Tsuzuki-san," he answered simply.

"I've said I won't try to kill myself when the doctor is not around."

A pause. "I don't know if I can trust that. Unless Master gives you a sedative as he did last night, I'm told to watch you all the time."

They were gradually settling into a routine. Every morning, Tsuzuki woke up to find the boy reading beside him. He was always reading. He would put down his book and help Tsuzuki to wash up. If Muraki didn't have a working shift, there would be experiments, with the boy present. The experiments would last until sunset. Then Muraki would watch over Tsuzuki while the boy disappeared for around one hour, to prepare dinner. Sometimes Tsuzuki would eat, sometimes he wouldn't. Then he would sleep if he felt like it. At occasions the doctor would give him a sedative. They were the only times that, Tsuzuki imagined, the boy went to sleep.

During Muraki's working days, that young boy never left the lab until the doctor was back from work and took his place for that one hour he needed to cook. He spent his time cleaning the place, maintaining the apparatus, and reading. He kept some food inside the room so he wouldn't have to leave for lunch. Even the washroom was conveniently adjoined to this room.

They never talked much, not since their last upsetting conversation. Tsuzuki was growing accustomed to his silent presence around him. His companion, on his part, had shed much of his nervousness.

Presently, Tsuzuki watched him as he went back to his reading. It was a book he'd just started on this morning.

"What are you reading?"

The boy looked up.

"'The Workings of the Mind'," he answered, and showed Tsuzuki the cover of the book. "This is one of the references Master used when he was researching on my empathic ability."

"Oh."

"I want to learn more for myself," he added, almost shyly. "You know… things like, why I have this kind of power, what makes the difference…"

Tsuzuki nodded. After a few weeks without another opportunity to destroy himself, even he was getting mildly curious as to what the experiment would reveal— what made the difference.

"Also, it was encouraging to know that there are other people with similar abilities… and that some of them can live almost like normal people."

Tsuzuki looked at him for a long time as the words sank in. Live like normal people…

"Then… do you find a way… to live like those others, in those books?"

"They said… to start, I need to recognize the nature of this ability. Then I can work on controlling it. Once I succeed, I can suppress it whenever I want, and… well, live normally."

"Sounds easy, huh," Tsuzuki commented. What is it that keeps the sparks of hope alive in those eyes? Or is it me who have given up too easily?

"It takes practice," the boy said with less conviction, no doubt catching Tsuzuki's disbelief. "And the techniques may differ from one person to another."

"That's what they said?"

He nodded. "I… haven't found out how to control my empathy yet. I don't know if that really works."

They were silent again as the topic was dropped.

"I… I've been thinking about what you said last time," the boy started after some time.

Tsuzuki turned to him and saw the troubled expression on his face.

"You and I are not the same," Tsuzuki said. "I've burnt my chances. You, at least, are still willing to try."

"… You can't control your power at all?"

Tsuzuki let out a bitter laugh. "It controls me."

The young boy looked thoughtful. "Perhaps… you shouldn't resist it."

He then sputtered as Tsuzuki looked at him strangely, seemingly embarrassed to have tried to advice someone almost twice his age.

"W-what I mean is… this empathy… I still can't control it, but I've managed to live with it for years now. Whatever emotions it tells me, I just let it be. It really hurts less… and gives me less trouble."

"You're saying… I should just let it all out?" Tsuzuki found the idea almost irrational. "I restrained it with all my strength and still I—"

He stopped himself in time. The boy waited, but Tsuzuki was not about to talk any more.

They watched a bird as it landed on the window sill, poked the glass with its beak, then flew away. The quietness of the moment, however, was far from peaceful.

"…It was the people, wasn't it?" the boy said softly.

Tsuzuki drew a deep breath. Memories raced across his mind, a howling storm he couldn't tame.

"…Yes," he replied slowly. "It was the people. What could we do when they wouldn't accept us?"

"Nothing," a sad voice answered. He was seeing the same memories.

"…Nothing," Tsuzuki echoed. He suddenly felt very tired. Why have I expected him to say otherwise?

"But living and being accepted are two different things," the boy said slowly. "We don't need anyone's permission to live."

It sounded like a vengeance.

"What is the point in living when everybody wants me dead?"

"But Tsuzuki-san, I…I want you to live."

Tsuzuki stared. "Why would you?"

He played with his fingers, embarrassed. "You're someone like me."

"No, I'm not. Haven't you seen my dreams? This power can destroy lives."

"But you won't do that."

"I certainly cannot prevent it from doing that."

"Work on it, then."

"It's easy for you to say. You, with your hypothetical books!"

"It's not easy, but I'm trying!"

"Trying? You're no different than me. You're hiding from the rest of the world."

The boy seemed shocked at this, and Tsuzuki was surprised to realize that their conversation had become so heated. And this was the same boy who rarely talked at all when his master was present. This matter must be a very sensitive issue to him.

"This is the only place where I can stay," the teen said stiffly. "He accepts me. So, I live."

"Being beaten at the slightest mistake is not what I'll call acceptance."

Tsuzuki wondered at his own motive to have said that. Not liking the way this boy was dissuading him from killing himself was one thing, but reminding his companion of his pathetic life was inexcusably cruel.

"I'm just not strong enough to leave this place." The boy turned away, resenting having to acknowledge that.

"If you're strong enough to bear his hurting you, how is it that you're not strong enough to live on your own?"

The young boy stared at the wall, not answering. Silence stretched in the air already heavy with bitterness.

Then, unexpectedly, he said, "I tried to escape once."

Tsuzuki turned to him with surprise.

"It was the first month after I came to live with Master. I was only seven years old at that time."

"How did you meet him?" Tsuzuki asked.

He hesitated for a while. "My parents called him in to cure my abnormality. He told them it was actually an empathic ability, and he would like to research on it. Since my parents… disliked my ability, they agreed to let him take me."

They sold him, Tsuzuki realized with a pang of sympathy.

The boy fidgeted, trying to ignore Tsuzuki's thought. "I missed my parents terribly after a month, and Master was very strict with me. One day when he was at work, I ran away from here and went back home."

His eyes absently followed the leaves swirling in the wind outside the window.

"My mother was surprised, but she was glad. I lied that Master had managed to cure my abnormality. I pretended quite well, too." He swallowed, apparently getting to the difficult part of the story. "But then my father came out, and he was a very skeptical man. Finally he found out that I had lied, and… chased me away."

Tsuzuki thought back to the nights he spent wishing that his parents were with him, comforting him when others had been cruel to him. Perhaps it had been for the better that he'd lost them as a child. At least that way he'd never had to face his own parents' rejection.

"Then…?" he prompted, as the boy seemed lost in his thoughts.

"I went to a nearby shop, wanting to stay there for the night. But the owner knew who I was. The word had spread that I was cursed with demon powers. He barked at me to go away, and others started to gather around us, supporting him. Now that I think about it, maybe they were all afraid of me, but it was me who was scared at that time."

Exactly, Tsuzuki thought. He shuddered at the momentary oneness, the strange feeling that he was sharing the experience the boy was telling.

"Then Master came. I don't know how he found me. At that time the crowd was much more frightening to me, and their emotions almost drove me out of my mind. So I… I let him take me back. And I never wanted to escape again since then."

He had skipped a great deal of details, Tsuzuki knew.

"If it is so painful to live…" Tsuzuki didn't finish the sentence. Though he himself wanted to die, far be it from him to suggest it to another person.

The youth pursed his lips. "Because there still remains a way to… stay alive." He then frowned at that extremely linear reasoning. "But sometimes I wonder if I'm just being stubborn."

Tsuzuki suddenly felt ashamed at his own lack of will.

"You know… you're wrong."

"Huh?" The boy looked at him questioningly.

"You are strong."

The green eyes widened slightly, and Tsuzuki noticed that unlike his violet ones, they had not lost their brightness.

"…Not yet, I think. But I…I'm glad you think so."

Now that the subject of living and acceptance had passed, he was back to his usual self, timid and reserved. But Tsuzuki suspected that the determined character he'd just displayed was the real self.

Then Tsuzuki realized that for all the time they had spent together in this room, he had never known the boy's name.

"What's your name?" he asked.

The boy looked genuinely surprised. "M-my name?"

"Yeah. I've never heard the doctor call your name."

He stared at Tsuzuki, his eyes unreadable.

"What's the matter? You… know your name, right? Your parents…"

"… Hi…soka."

Tsuzuki saw the ripple of emotions across his face, and suddenly understood. No one had bothered to ask this boy before.

"Kurosaki… Hisoka."

Something as simple as a name, an acknowledgement of his place in this world.

"Hisoka," Tsuzuki repeated. The boy nodded shyly. It had probably been years since he heard somebody else say his name.

Tsuzuki contemplated the ceiling. "It was… a sad name."

Secret.

But even as he said it there was a twinkle in his eyes, the violet orbs that hadn't shone for years.

The world doesn't know what it is missing here.

The boy read perfectly what he meant.

"I suppose so," he said, and for the first time since they met, Tsuzuki saw him smile.

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Author Notes:

Well… perhaps I'm being too dramatic over 'something as simple as a name'? I endured three chapters referring to him only as 'the boy' for the sake of this scene. ^_^0 Anyway, it's because ideas for a fic usually occur to me in the form of *detailed* fragments, and they are the ones that contain the messages I want to put across. This scene is one of them.

The book Hisoka read in this chapter is fictitious. If any book happens to have the same title, it is most definitely not the same book. =P