*****2: Beauty and Blasphemy*****
/Tsuzuki. What a place this is. The chiefs at the bank never let on what a grand assignment they had given me. The carriage came as scheduled, the coachman loading my things in silence before carrying me off into the night. The cold air was pierced by the thrilling call of wolves - seemingly hundreds of them. In fact, when I lit a match to look at my watch, the reflection on the carriage window gave the illusion of countless pairs of red eyes staring from the hillsides around me. I'll admit, it gave me quite a fright, especially knowing that I was on my own, other than the eerily silent coachman. When we reached the castle, I tried in vain to get a better look at the man's face. He lifted all of my belongings with a single hand, and when I mentioned the swiftness of his horses, his only reply was: "The dead travel fast." As for the Count, I find him extremely charming and polite, and he has made me feel much more at ease, although I do find myself shuddering whenever we touch, or if he looks at me directly for too long. He has put me up in the room I write you from now. It is very impressive, and not unlike many places we have back home, except for the complete lack of mirrors. We could learn, I'm sure, from this noble absence of vanity. Your friend, Hisoka./
Back on the other side of the world, young Kannuki Wakaba sits at her dressing table, gently brushing through her long golden hair. She holds her hand-held mirror out in front of her, giving her a complete view of the room behind her calmly smiling face. She is alone - Tsuzuki out exploring the town - and quite at peace. She has yet to make a decision concerning her "problem," but there is grateful solace in having a moment alone.
Or, at least there was.
From within the glass, Wakaba notices a new reflection gazing at her from behind. It is a rather handsome young man that has snuck his way into her bedroom, with dark hair falling over his forehead, and intense eyes that feel as if they may consume her very soul.
"Konnichiwa...Terazuma-sensei." she smiles, startling him in how she has caught him in the act, and lowers the brush and silver-etched mirror back onto the table.
"Please...call me Hajime, won't you? I hate having you refer to me in such a formal way when I...feel for you as I do." he confesses softly. Stiffly. He is often serious and finds expressing himself extremely difficult, especially around this particular woman, one he adores more than any other.
Wakaba nods with a small smile concerning his request, before turning in her chair to face him.
"Gomen nasai...for disturbing you yesterday." he speaks, still sounding somewhat rigid, even with such a delicate tone. "It was impulsive of me."
"Not at all. I was -"
"Feeling ill." Terazuma finishes, gradually coming around to stand beside her chair. "GuShoShin told me. Was it a fever?"
"Hai...a fever." she blushes, knowing her words are a lie.
"And now?" he inquires, never once removing his penetrating gaze from her form. "Are you feeling better now?"
Wakaba grins, rising from the table, and takes a bold step forward, inches away from where Terazuma is standing. "I don't know. Am I?"
His face becoming awash in subdued delight and astonishment, he slowly raises a trembling hand to her forehead. Wakaba instantly closes her eyes at his touch, and smiles as his hand gracefully moves to her neck, still checking for signs of flushed skin, even if *his* would be more appropriate to check for such a thing right now.
"Well?" she prompts, after he had stepped back. She has yet to open her eyes.
"There is but one thing out of the ordinary."
"And what is that?"
Pause. Terazuma swallows hard, wishing to move closer again, but afflicted with far too many butterflies in his stomach to even twitch a single muscle. "You're incomparable beauty." he whispers, barely forming the words.
Smiling even more brilliantly than before, Wakaba opens her eyes at last.
"I'm the ill one." Terazuma continues, turning from her renewed gaze to pace about the room. "It eats away at me day and night, and its only cure rests in the heart that torments me. *Your* heart. I...I love you, Wakaba. I always have. Even back when we were in school, and I treated you like some unworthy friend, instead of the unconquerable woman I always knew you were."
Still in constant motion, Terazuma cannot stand still, afraid to stop and face Wakaba head on. She watches him intently, however, longing for the moment he will once again look into her eyes with his own.
"I work with lunatics." He chokes out, searching for the right way to explain his feelings. "And in that, I have learned from my years of experience that all of us, each and every one, has a secret life. In rare and remarkable ways we sometimes allow one, special person to glimpse our secret selves. What I know of you, Wakaba, is terribly dear to me. What I will never know...is dearer still. Please...accept me, and live the rest of your days more adored than any woman ever has been..." He trails off ever so slightly, and then, taking a deep breath, asks what he came here to ask. "Will you...marry me...?"
This final omission ends with Terazuma standing right in front of the woman he loves, but although she looks at first full of joy, her features quickly twist and change, and she suddenly collapses into desperate tears, slumping back down at her dressing table.
"Don't cry...please...I can't stand the thought of making you cry..." he pleads, filled with panic as he drops to his knees beside her. "Is it so offensive to image building a life with me...?" he asks in a hoarse whisper, uncannily near tears himself.
Wakaba looks up, shaking her head furiously, before returning to the comfort of her hands.
"Is there...someone else then?"
At that simple phrase, her sobs become even fiercer, and Terazuma knows he has hit the mark. Tenderly, he reaches out to lift her chin, and grasps both her hands once he has freed them from being drowned by the tears continuing to pour down her face.
"I thought as much. Kojirou and Kotarou, ne? They've always had their eyes on you."
She nods.
"Both are good men, who could offer you everything you would ever need. Please, don't despair for my sake. The choice is yours. I'll understand. All I ask is that you allow me to be your friend."
For a handful of damp and chaotic moments, Wakaba's tears resume their assault upon her once whitened cheeks. At long last, she squeezes Terazuma's vigilant hands, still holding so tenderly to hers. "Hajime-chan...I can't give you an answer. Not yet. I don't know who I'm going to choose, but I swear I will make my decision soon, and no matter what the outcome, I will gladly take your friendship and keep it close to my heart."
Ever so gently, she leans forward and places the most feather-light kiss upon his waiting lips. Terazuma shivers at the feel of it, so caring and sweet. It is something he has waited to feel for longer than he can remember.
As Wakaba pulls away, he stands, still holding tightly to her hands, and brings them up to his lips, kissing them as softly as she had kissed him. "The touch of your lips, Wakaba-chan, will be something to keep off the darkness."
----------
Less than an hour after leaving Wakaba's home, Terazuma made the decision to bury his injured heart within the folds of work. He is not as heartbroken as he may have been had she told him no, but sometimes not knowing can be far worse than rejection.
"WATARI!!" he bellows, exploding through the doors of a particularly dangerous cell within his asylum.
Watari Yutaka is a truly unique case. Until recently, he had been a successful employee of the Meifu Bank, working alongside coworkers like Tsuzuki Asato and Kurosaki Hisoka. After a certain trip to a certain Count in a certain far-off country, however, he returned completely mad, raving about things no human could possibly understand. Young Kurosaki-kun was never informed that the case he took up had been the one left unfinished after Watari's strange affliction took form, and neither he, nor Tsuzuki, know that Transylvania is the cause of their friend's derangement.
"You've been crying." Watari mentions offhand, cool and collected in his tone.
"Nani?" Terazuma answers, caught off guard as he comes to a short stop in front of his charge.
The caged young man is slender and actually quite lovely, with feminine features, wild blonde curls, and brown eyes deep enough to drown in. He wears curious, little glasses that rest near the tip of his nose, and plain, white robes that gather every spec of dust and dirt. Luckily, a longer chain to the wall attaches the shackles that are locked around both his ankles.
This is more than just an extra precaution. If it weren't for the chain, Watari would be free to roam about. You see, other than the door Terazuma just came through, there is nothing separating him from the lunatic at his feet.
Looking around in disgust, Terazuma recoils at the sight around him. "The spiders have nearly doubled..." he observes with a wrinkled nose.
"I lure them...give them a home...and watch as the world feeds upon the carcass of itself..." Watari rants, crawling among the spiders from one side of his cell to another. Suddenly, he stops, coming to rest just in front of Terazuma, and unexpectedly lunges forward. "Can I smell you?" he begs, reaching out to grasp at Terazuma's clothing.
Caught off guard, Terazuma pulls back, but not before Watari gets a long enough hold on him to deeply breathe him in.
"Salt. Salt, I think, and...perfume." The madman declares, darting back to the corning of his cell where a weathered journal lies amongst the spider webs. "You, too, have been in the presence of life." Smashing one of the spiders on the ground, Watari picks it up and crams it into his mouth. "And life tastes good, ne, Hajime-chan?"
"Urg. That's revolting." Terazuma sneers, stepping closer, near the other corner, where a birdcage sits against the wall. "You've trained the owl, I see." he comments, bending down beside it.
Watari looks up from writing furiously in his journal, and smiles devilishly. "Hai, a good bird. I call him 003."
"003?"
"Double zero's for nothing to lose, and three for...for...for how many times it takes before she's his."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
Watari takes a moment to think about it, but when he answers, it comes out a question instead. "Why won't she marry you?"
Terazuma freezes in place, still crouched near the birdcage. Watari is looking at him intensely, hunched over his journal, and has a look in his eye of genuine curiosity. "Wh...What are you talking about?"
"I would brood if I were you." Watari suggests. "I would brood and think of sporadic killings! Yes! That would ease your aching heart, ne? You just have to take someone else's." Madly, he dives back into his journal, scribbling at the pages. "...yes, yes...very good...yes..."
Slowly, Terazuma stands back up and advances on Watari, always with an eye on the madman himself, and another on the spiders clamoring over the floor. "But why, Watari-san? Why do you eat the spiders? Why the flies and the worms when they slip inside this room?"
"I have a great love for animals." He smirks, not quite looking up from his writing.
"No evasions today. I'm not in the mood."
"They are life...and they give life to me...blood running into blood..."
"And the notebook?"
"Eh? Nevermind it."
"But you must have a plan of some kind." Terazuma presses, slipping closer and closer to Watari with every word.
"No." the blonde grumbles, buried in his pages.
"First the spiders and flies, and now training the owl -"
"No!!"
"Yes, I say! Yes! I am going to solve you, Watari-san. I must. If I can find and hold the key to just one lunatic, I might advance my studies to an esteem higher than anything the world has ever seen!"
"And Wakaba-san would give her hand?"
"Shut up!"
"May I have a kitten?" Watari asks suddenly, crawling away from his journal over to Terazuma, who is now only a few feet away.
"Nani?!" the brunette barks back, stumbling away as Watari clutches at his pant leg.
"A kitten." Watari repeats, clinging tightly even as Terazuma pushes him away. "Please, please. A nice little kitten I can play with...and teach...and feed. Yes...feed! And feed and feed and FEED!" he cries, releasing Terazuma to reach hungrily at the ceiling. Then, just as suddenly, he clamps back on to the cuff of Terazuma's pants, completely calm. "No one would refuse me a kitten, would they?"
Sternly, Terazuma glares down at him, more and more furious by the minute. "How do you know her name?" he demands.
Watari instantly retreats, releasing him and going to huddle near his journal again. "...blood...spider blood...fly blood...owl blood -"
"Tell me!" Terazuma cries, dashing after him and grasping Watari's shoulder. The blonde whirls around, teeth bared, eyes flashing, and Terazuma backs down in fear, inching away. "Tell me." he says again, much softer - almost afraid. "Wakaba-san. How do you know her name?"
Sinking back down to the ground, Watari continues staring up at Terazuma with an odd glint in his chocolate-colored eyes. "My master." he whispers.
"Na...nani?"
"My master told me!!" Watari squeals, and as if on cue, a crash of thunder sounds outside, sending Terazuma running for the door, while the madman left behind howls joyously at the rising moon.
The storm. The sea. The madness. They have all only just begun to tell their tale.
*****A/N*****
Chapter 2, minna! What do you think? Now you've met both Terazuma as Doctor Seward and Watari as psycho Renfield. Good? I hope so, but tell me so I can keep going. Thanks for reviews so far, and please keep it up. PLEASE REVIEW!!!
/Tsuzuki. What a place this is. The chiefs at the bank never let on what a grand assignment they had given me. The carriage came as scheduled, the coachman loading my things in silence before carrying me off into the night. The cold air was pierced by the thrilling call of wolves - seemingly hundreds of them. In fact, when I lit a match to look at my watch, the reflection on the carriage window gave the illusion of countless pairs of red eyes staring from the hillsides around me. I'll admit, it gave me quite a fright, especially knowing that I was on my own, other than the eerily silent coachman. When we reached the castle, I tried in vain to get a better look at the man's face. He lifted all of my belongings with a single hand, and when I mentioned the swiftness of his horses, his only reply was: "The dead travel fast." As for the Count, I find him extremely charming and polite, and he has made me feel much more at ease, although I do find myself shuddering whenever we touch, or if he looks at me directly for too long. He has put me up in the room I write you from now. It is very impressive, and not unlike many places we have back home, except for the complete lack of mirrors. We could learn, I'm sure, from this noble absence of vanity. Your friend, Hisoka./
Back on the other side of the world, young Kannuki Wakaba sits at her dressing table, gently brushing through her long golden hair. She holds her hand-held mirror out in front of her, giving her a complete view of the room behind her calmly smiling face. She is alone - Tsuzuki out exploring the town - and quite at peace. She has yet to make a decision concerning her "problem," but there is grateful solace in having a moment alone.
Or, at least there was.
From within the glass, Wakaba notices a new reflection gazing at her from behind. It is a rather handsome young man that has snuck his way into her bedroom, with dark hair falling over his forehead, and intense eyes that feel as if they may consume her very soul.
"Konnichiwa...Terazuma-sensei." she smiles, startling him in how she has caught him in the act, and lowers the brush and silver-etched mirror back onto the table.
"Please...call me Hajime, won't you? I hate having you refer to me in such a formal way when I...feel for you as I do." he confesses softly. Stiffly. He is often serious and finds expressing himself extremely difficult, especially around this particular woman, one he adores more than any other.
Wakaba nods with a small smile concerning his request, before turning in her chair to face him.
"Gomen nasai...for disturbing you yesterday." he speaks, still sounding somewhat rigid, even with such a delicate tone. "It was impulsive of me."
"Not at all. I was -"
"Feeling ill." Terazuma finishes, gradually coming around to stand beside her chair. "GuShoShin told me. Was it a fever?"
"Hai...a fever." she blushes, knowing her words are a lie.
"And now?" he inquires, never once removing his penetrating gaze from her form. "Are you feeling better now?"
Wakaba grins, rising from the table, and takes a bold step forward, inches away from where Terazuma is standing. "I don't know. Am I?"
His face becoming awash in subdued delight and astonishment, he slowly raises a trembling hand to her forehead. Wakaba instantly closes her eyes at his touch, and smiles as his hand gracefully moves to her neck, still checking for signs of flushed skin, even if *his* would be more appropriate to check for such a thing right now.
"Well?" she prompts, after he had stepped back. She has yet to open her eyes.
"There is but one thing out of the ordinary."
"And what is that?"
Pause. Terazuma swallows hard, wishing to move closer again, but afflicted with far too many butterflies in his stomach to even twitch a single muscle. "You're incomparable beauty." he whispers, barely forming the words.
Smiling even more brilliantly than before, Wakaba opens her eyes at last.
"I'm the ill one." Terazuma continues, turning from her renewed gaze to pace about the room. "It eats away at me day and night, and its only cure rests in the heart that torments me. *Your* heart. I...I love you, Wakaba. I always have. Even back when we were in school, and I treated you like some unworthy friend, instead of the unconquerable woman I always knew you were."
Still in constant motion, Terazuma cannot stand still, afraid to stop and face Wakaba head on. She watches him intently, however, longing for the moment he will once again look into her eyes with his own.
"I work with lunatics." He chokes out, searching for the right way to explain his feelings. "And in that, I have learned from my years of experience that all of us, each and every one, has a secret life. In rare and remarkable ways we sometimes allow one, special person to glimpse our secret selves. What I know of you, Wakaba, is terribly dear to me. What I will never know...is dearer still. Please...accept me, and live the rest of your days more adored than any woman ever has been..." He trails off ever so slightly, and then, taking a deep breath, asks what he came here to ask. "Will you...marry me...?"
This final omission ends with Terazuma standing right in front of the woman he loves, but although she looks at first full of joy, her features quickly twist and change, and she suddenly collapses into desperate tears, slumping back down at her dressing table.
"Don't cry...please...I can't stand the thought of making you cry..." he pleads, filled with panic as he drops to his knees beside her. "Is it so offensive to image building a life with me...?" he asks in a hoarse whisper, uncannily near tears himself.
Wakaba looks up, shaking her head furiously, before returning to the comfort of her hands.
"Is there...someone else then?"
At that simple phrase, her sobs become even fiercer, and Terazuma knows he has hit the mark. Tenderly, he reaches out to lift her chin, and grasps both her hands once he has freed them from being drowned by the tears continuing to pour down her face.
"I thought as much. Kojirou and Kotarou, ne? They've always had their eyes on you."
She nods.
"Both are good men, who could offer you everything you would ever need. Please, don't despair for my sake. The choice is yours. I'll understand. All I ask is that you allow me to be your friend."
For a handful of damp and chaotic moments, Wakaba's tears resume their assault upon her once whitened cheeks. At long last, she squeezes Terazuma's vigilant hands, still holding so tenderly to hers. "Hajime-chan...I can't give you an answer. Not yet. I don't know who I'm going to choose, but I swear I will make my decision soon, and no matter what the outcome, I will gladly take your friendship and keep it close to my heart."
Ever so gently, she leans forward and places the most feather-light kiss upon his waiting lips. Terazuma shivers at the feel of it, so caring and sweet. It is something he has waited to feel for longer than he can remember.
As Wakaba pulls away, he stands, still holding tightly to her hands, and brings them up to his lips, kissing them as softly as she had kissed him. "The touch of your lips, Wakaba-chan, will be something to keep off the darkness."
----------
Less than an hour after leaving Wakaba's home, Terazuma made the decision to bury his injured heart within the folds of work. He is not as heartbroken as he may have been had she told him no, but sometimes not knowing can be far worse than rejection.
"WATARI!!" he bellows, exploding through the doors of a particularly dangerous cell within his asylum.
Watari Yutaka is a truly unique case. Until recently, he had been a successful employee of the Meifu Bank, working alongside coworkers like Tsuzuki Asato and Kurosaki Hisoka. After a certain trip to a certain Count in a certain far-off country, however, he returned completely mad, raving about things no human could possibly understand. Young Kurosaki-kun was never informed that the case he took up had been the one left unfinished after Watari's strange affliction took form, and neither he, nor Tsuzuki, know that Transylvania is the cause of their friend's derangement.
"You've been crying." Watari mentions offhand, cool and collected in his tone.
"Nani?" Terazuma answers, caught off guard as he comes to a short stop in front of his charge.
The caged young man is slender and actually quite lovely, with feminine features, wild blonde curls, and brown eyes deep enough to drown in. He wears curious, little glasses that rest near the tip of his nose, and plain, white robes that gather every spec of dust and dirt. Luckily, a longer chain to the wall attaches the shackles that are locked around both his ankles.
This is more than just an extra precaution. If it weren't for the chain, Watari would be free to roam about. You see, other than the door Terazuma just came through, there is nothing separating him from the lunatic at his feet.
Looking around in disgust, Terazuma recoils at the sight around him. "The spiders have nearly doubled..." he observes with a wrinkled nose.
"I lure them...give them a home...and watch as the world feeds upon the carcass of itself..." Watari rants, crawling among the spiders from one side of his cell to another. Suddenly, he stops, coming to rest just in front of Terazuma, and unexpectedly lunges forward. "Can I smell you?" he begs, reaching out to grasp at Terazuma's clothing.
Caught off guard, Terazuma pulls back, but not before Watari gets a long enough hold on him to deeply breathe him in.
"Salt. Salt, I think, and...perfume." The madman declares, darting back to the corning of his cell where a weathered journal lies amongst the spider webs. "You, too, have been in the presence of life." Smashing one of the spiders on the ground, Watari picks it up and crams it into his mouth. "And life tastes good, ne, Hajime-chan?"
"Urg. That's revolting." Terazuma sneers, stepping closer, near the other corner, where a birdcage sits against the wall. "You've trained the owl, I see." he comments, bending down beside it.
Watari looks up from writing furiously in his journal, and smiles devilishly. "Hai, a good bird. I call him 003."
"003?"
"Double zero's for nothing to lose, and three for...for...for how many times it takes before she's his."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
Watari takes a moment to think about it, but when he answers, it comes out a question instead. "Why won't she marry you?"
Terazuma freezes in place, still crouched near the birdcage. Watari is looking at him intensely, hunched over his journal, and has a look in his eye of genuine curiosity. "Wh...What are you talking about?"
"I would brood if I were you." Watari suggests. "I would brood and think of sporadic killings! Yes! That would ease your aching heart, ne? You just have to take someone else's." Madly, he dives back into his journal, scribbling at the pages. "...yes, yes...very good...yes..."
Slowly, Terazuma stands back up and advances on Watari, always with an eye on the madman himself, and another on the spiders clamoring over the floor. "But why, Watari-san? Why do you eat the spiders? Why the flies and the worms when they slip inside this room?"
"I have a great love for animals." He smirks, not quite looking up from his writing.
"No evasions today. I'm not in the mood."
"They are life...and they give life to me...blood running into blood..."
"And the notebook?"
"Eh? Nevermind it."
"But you must have a plan of some kind." Terazuma presses, slipping closer and closer to Watari with every word.
"No." the blonde grumbles, buried in his pages.
"First the spiders and flies, and now training the owl -"
"No!!"
"Yes, I say! Yes! I am going to solve you, Watari-san. I must. If I can find and hold the key to just one lunatic, I might advance my studies to an esteem higher than anything the world has ever seen!"
"And Wakaba-san would give her hand?"
"Shut up!"
"May I have a kitten?" Watari asks suddenly, crawling away from his journal over to Terazuma, who is now only a few feet away.
"Nani?!" the brunette barks back, stumbling away as Watari clutches at his pant leg.
"A kitten." Watari repeats, clinging tightly even as Terazuma pushes him away. "Please, please. A nice little kitten I can play with...and teach...and feed. Yes...feed! And feed and feed and FEED!" he cries, releasing Terazuma to reach hungrily at the ceiling. Then, just as suddenly, he clamps back on to the cuff of Terazuma's pants, completely calm. "No one would refuse me a kitten, would they?"
Sternly, Terazuma glares down at him, more and more furious by the minute. "How do you know her name?" he demands.
Watari instantly retreats, releasing him and going to huddle near his journal again. "...blood...spider blood...fly blood...owl blood -"
"Tell me!" Terazuma cries, dashing after him and grasping Watari's shoulder. The blonde whirls around, teeth bared, eyes flashing, and Terazuma backs down in fear, inching away. "Tell me." he says again, much softer - almost afraid. "Wakaba-san. How do you know her name?"
Sinking back down to the ground, Watari continues staring up at Terazuma with an odd glint in his chocolate-colored eyes. "My master." he whispers.
"Na...nani?"
"My master told me!!" Watari squeals, and as if on cue, a crash of thunder sounds outside, sending Terazuma running for the door, while the madman left behind howls joyously at the rising moon.
The storm. The sea. The madness. They have all only just begun to tell their tale.
*****A/N*****
Chapter 2, minna! What do you think? Now you've met both Terazuma as Doctor Seward and Watari as psycho Renfield. Good? I hope so, but tell me so I can keep going. Thanks for reviews so far, and please keep it up. PLEASE REVIEW!!!