"I guess I have to wait a while.
I'm going to play this game--
Call me up when you know how to dial."
--No Doubt, "Waiting Room"
Half an hour he'd been waiting, and still there was no sign of the secretary or the tax forms he'd promised to deliver. The corridor was filled with the quiet, echoing hush of rain--the morning and afternoon had been unrelentingly grey, winter putting in a rare appearance in the afterlife. Rain always made him feel jittery, overstimulated: he liked background noise, but the constant dripping whisper tended to get on his nerves, and the way clouds muted light into a thin monotone glow was downright depressing. He liked brilliance, clear definitions and bright colours. Rain was only grey and silver.
A clock ticked somewhere, pointing out the existence of time so quietly as to sound almost polite.
He liked brilliance, and that love wormed its way into every aspect of his life. It was easy, with science, to create things that were in some way vivid--he'd painted glass, set off fireworks, taken apart the guts of machines and seen their wires and cogs gleaming like the insides of flowers. But it was also increasingly easy to find vivid things away from the lab: in the break room, and the meeting room, and on the front steps.
Tatsumi was rain when he was speaking about cases; he was dull and washed-out when he had nothing of his own to say. But when he was irritated, angry, exasperated, he was the blue of flame and the flare of an electrical fire. When he was speaking in that clipped, utterly polite accent, using words as sparingly as if they were coins, his emotions showed through in sparks and flashes of colour--paint spatters on a charcoal outline.
Watari liked that, and knew that every time he baited Tatsumi with a pointed comment or a potion slipped into the coffee pot at "inappropriate" times he was playing with matches dangerously close to a pool of kerosene. Fire, though, had never frightened him; explosions made his heart pound. Getting a disaster under control was a powerful rush in and of itself--a challenge that was as intense as it was finite. Attempting to untangle a puzzle was every bit as exciting as eventually stumbling on its solution: Tatsumi was an especially frustrating puzzle, one whose secrets would only yield themselves under pressure.
There was one type of pressure he hadn't tried yet, though.
He'd had enough of waiting for those tax forms, anyway.
With a sharp, decisive nod, he pushed away from the wall and opened the door of Tatsumi's office, leaning inside in a flurry of motion.
"Yo--"
Tatsumi was asleep.
From the looks of it, he'd put his head down on his crossed wrists for a moment's quiet thought and had simply nodded off where he sat. Pieces of the puzzle slid into place: tax season, dark circles under Tatsumi's eyes when they'd met in the break room earlier, swift-approaching deadlines.
Oh.
He stirred slightly, not waking; dark hair spilled down over one of his temples and curved against his cheek, like the shadow of a lover's hand. His glasses gleamed on the desk just past the range of his fingers.
There was a strange sadness to his expression, something not quite blank but not quite worried or stern.
Watari watched him for a very long moment, ignoring the rain. Then he closed the door and leaned back against it, and let out a breath.
His pulse roared in his ears, in his throat and along his palms.
He felt almost blinded.
I'm going to play this game--
Call me up when you know how to dial."
--No Doubt, "Waiting Room"
Half an hour he'd been waiting, and still there was no sign of the secretary or the tax forms he'd promised to deliver. The corridor was filled with the quiet, echoing hush of rain--the morning and afternoon had been unrelentingly grey, winter putting in a rare appearance in the afterlife. Rain always made him feel jittery, overstimulated: he liked background noise, but the constant dripping whisper tended to get on his nerves, and the way clouds muted light into a thin monotone glow was downright depressing. He liked brilliance, clear definitions and bright colours. Rain was only grey and silver.
A clock ticked somewhere, pointing out the existence of time so quietly as to sound almost polite.
He liked brilliance, and that love wormed its way into every aspect of his life. It was easy, with science, to create things that were in some way vivid--he'd painted glass, set off fireworks, taken apart the guts of machines and seen their wires and cogs gleaming like the insides of flowers. But it was also increasingly easy to find vivid things away from the lab: in the break room, and the meeting room, and on the front steps.
Tatsumi was rain when he was speaking about cases; he was dull and washed-out when he had nothing of his own to say. But when he was irritated, angry, exasperated, he was the blue of flame and the flare of an electrical fire. When he was speaking in that clipped, utterly polite accent, using words as sparingly as if they were coins, his emotions showed through in sparks and flashes of colour--paint spatters on a charcoal outline.
Watari liked that, and knew that every time he baited Tatsumi with a pointed comment or a potion slipped into the coffee pot at "inappropriate" times he was playing with matches dangerously close to a pool of kerosene. Fire, though, had never frightened him; explosions made his heart pound. Getting a disaster under control was a powerful rush in and of itself--a challenge that was as intense as it was finite. Attempting to untangle a puzzle was every bit as exciting as eventually stumbling on its solution: Tatsumi was an especially frustrating puzzle, one whose secrets would only yield themselves under pressure.
There was one type of pressure he hadn't tried yet, though.
He'd had enough of waiting for those tax forms, anyway.
With a sharp, decisive nod, he pushed away from the wall and opened the door of Tatsumi's office, leaning inside in a flurry of motion.
"Yo--"
Tatsumi was asleep.
From the looks of it, he'd put his head down on his crossed wrists for a moment's quiet thought and had simply nodded off where he sat. Pieces of the puzzle slid into place: tax season, dark circles under Tatsumi's eyes when they'd met in the break room earlier, swift-approaching deadlines.
Oh.
He stirred slightly, not waking; dark hair spilled down over one of his temples and curved against his cheek, like the shadow of a lover's hand. His glasses gleamed on the desk just past the range of his fingers.
There was a strange sadness to his expression, something not quite blank but not quite worried or stern.
Watari watched him for a very long moment, ignoring the rain. Then he closed the door and leaned back against it, and let out a breath.
His pulse roared in his ears, in his throat and along his palms.
He felt almost blinded.