Fujikama Yukihito.
The name was circling around and around in his head, the picture... especially the picture.
It couldn't be him! he screamed at himself. He's dead. It's someone who looks like him, could be his twin, and has the same name, and... and who're you deceiving, Yutaka? Fujikama Yukihito should have died over thirty years ago, just like the namesake Watari had known, and he had evaded capture by any guardian all over the globe for the last two decades.
But... why? How...?
"Here we are," Tatsumi announced and drew him out of his thoughts. Sharp eyes behind thin glasses looked at his partner. "You okay?"
"Yes, fine," Watari answered automatically as he looked up the skyscraper.
So this was the place.
Glass and steel and reeking of money. The Fujikama Corporation headquarters.
"What's the plan?" he asked.
"All we know about the man is that he evaded us and everyone else who could recognize his undead state, that he kept himself hidden and didn't return to our jurisdiction until now. It suggests he knows what he is," Tatsumi explained. "I want to know more about him, check him out, see if we can find any signs of devil or demon intervention. He might have sold his soul to darkness. If that's so, we need to free it and take it with us."
Watari nodded slowly. "Won't be easy. He's a corporate head."
Tatsumi smiled wryly. "I didn't expect it to be."
########
No, he hadn't expected it to be easy, but he also hadn't expected it to be this hard. Not the case, which was getting more and more interesting by the hour, but his partner. Tatsumi had watched Watari ever since the other shinigami had started to behave so unlike his normal, cheerful self. There was hardly anything that got Watari Yutaka down, and a case had never been the reason for the blond to look like he was about to throw up or worse. Watari had few complicated cases, but he handled everything with a professional attitude.
It was when he didn't find him in the hotel room they shared that Tatsumi truly began to worry. Especially since 003 was there, looking forlorn and lost. She landed on his shoulder, hooting softly and Tatsumi stretched out a finger and scratched the little bird.
"Your master left you here all by your lonely self, hm?" he said and 003 hooted in agreement.
That was definitely not like the scientist, forgetting about his little companion like that.
"Let's go find him, 003."
Watari was a hard man to chase when he didn't want to be found, and though Tatsumi followed every hint, he didn't catch up with him. 003, usually able to find her master wherever he went, was no great help. Either Watari knew a way to really ditch his little companion, or 003 thought he needed the head start for now. The receptionist had told him that his lover had left about two hours ago, asking for a few drinking establishment. That had gotten Tatsumi's alarms ringing. Knowing his colleague and lover he knew that Watari usually didn't drink, and with him being a shinigami it was almost impossible to get drunk in the first place.
Hours later, after having visited pub after pub, he finally was back at the hotel, tired, angry, worried and strangely lost as to what was going on. 003 had remained with him all evening, silent, looking as worried as an owl could.
Tatsumi walked into the hotel room again and there he was. Watari Yutaka. Reclining on one of the beds, dressed in only a pair of sweat pants and a t-shirt, hair open, the TV running. On the night stand were two bottles of alcohol, a third in his hand. One was empty, the one in his hand on its way to emptiness.
"Taka?" Tatsumi asked.
The golden eyes behind the glasses looked far from glassy and dazed from alcohol, but there was an expression in there that had Tatsumi wince.
"What happened?" the Shadow Master asked.
"Nothing." Watari's eyes were back on the flickering images on the TV.
Tatsumi closed the door and locked it, then walked over to the bed and wordlessly grabbed the bottle Watari was still holding.
Golden eyes glared at him.
"I'm asking again: what happened? You don't drink, Yutaka."
"So I do now. Give that back. I paid for it!"
"No."
The blond glared more. Tatsumi calmly held that furious look. When nothing else came forth from the Shadow Master, Watari slid off the bed, a lot steadier than one might think with one and a half bottles of alcohol in his system shinigami could drink a lot.
"Yutaka!"
He stopped, back to Tatsumi, looking stiff and tense.
"Ever since the briefing you've been... not yourself. What's going on? Talk to me!"
"I can't."
"If you can't talk to me... then to who?"
Watari was silent once more, then his shoulders slumped. "The man... whose soul we're supposed to bring back... I know him. Fujikama Yukihito... I knew him once."
Tatsumi frowned. "You do? How?"
"It's been a while." Watari started to pace. "Too long. I had forgotten about it, or so I wished. I wanted to forget it because it was part of a life that ceased decades ago. I was young, idealistic..." He gave a short bark of laughter.
Tatsumi watched his agitated lover pace across the room, totally ignoring even the little owl. 003 hooted in frustration and landed on his shoulder, clicking her beak softly.
"All I ever did was make a fool out of myself. I believed that my life before death was just history... over. I've been dead for over thirty years and I never missed it. I never wanted to go back... because I thought he had died there, too. He was there, Tatsumi."
The Shadow Master frowned, not yet clear about what Watari was going on about.
"Taka, would you stop for a second, please?"
Watari stopped, huge golden eyes regarding his lover. Tatsumi held them, expression empathetic and soft, but also firm enough to let the younger man know he wanted more than just a few rambled words.
"You know Fujikama?" he questioned.
A nod. Watari ran a hand through his unruly hair. "He was supposed to die thirty years ago."
"That's already known. I've read the file, too."
"No, you don't understand! He was supposed to die with me!"
Tatsumi blinked, his mind already working overtime.
With him? With Watari?
"With you?"
"Yes! In the same explosion! He was there! He was right there with me, Seii! How can he be alive today?!"
Before Watari could continue his pacing Tatsumi grabbed his lover's arm and pulled him down onto the bed with him. He felt the tremors running through the slender form, felt the harsh pants, and Watari was too pale for his liking. It had nothing to do with the alcohol; this was more.
"Explain."
Watari inhaled. "Fujikama and I were... friends. We were on the same university, studying together and... we worked in the same company, even on the same project. We were heading for a major breakthrough when something went horribly wrong. I don't know what it was, but there had to be some miscalculation. One moment we were joking, then... there was just fire. It was hell. Yuki... he was there, too. I saw him through the flames. I saw his silhouette. It was the last I can remember before dying. I know he was there. He died! But... Tatsumi, he looks the same as back then. He hasn't aged a single day. "
Tatsumi felt the body beside him shiver and he wrapped his arms around Watari in a protective gesture. His mind had already come to a conclusion he wasn't sure he liked. Yet he had to ask.
"You were more than friends?" he asked quietly, still caressing the slender back in a calming way.
Watari tensed and he pressed a little kiss on the tousled hair.
"Taka?" he whispered, prompting him.
"I loved him." Watari looked at him, eyes still haunted. "He was the first man I loved... Tatsumi, why is he still alive? That explosion... the fire... it was everywhere... he was right beside me that day and I was trapped in the flames. Why is he still alive? Why hasn't he aged? What happened back then?"
Tatsumi pulled his younger lover close, stroking over the blond mane reassuringly.
"That's what we're here for to find out, Taka."
And they would. Holding the other shinigami, listening to his harsh breathing, just being there for him until he finally quieted down, Tatsumi wondered what could have really happened back then, thirty years ago. He knew Watari's file inside out, just like he knew everyone else's. He knew how his lover had died, that the building had been completely destroyed. No one could have survived.
No one.
But someone had, someone by the name of Fujikama Yukihito.
Who happened to be his lover's lover.
Tatsumi could think of a few explanations as to what could be the reason, and he knew none of them would be preferable to the other. For now though he had someone to take care of. Tomorrow was another day and they could start unraveling the mystery.
########
Tatsumi woke to the absence of his lover. The bed was empty, the spot where Watari had fallen asleep in his arms, drained of emotions, was cold. The Shadow Master listened for running water from the bathroom and heard none. There was no noise from any corner of the room, which meant Watari wasn't here.
He slowly got out of bed and made sure that he wasn't mistaken, and he wasn't. Watari had left the hotel room.
A frown creased his smooth forehead and he slowly got dressed after a brief shower. There was no note, nothing, as to where his lover might have gone.
He called the front desk to see if there had been any messages, but he got a negative on that, too.
Oh, Taka, he thought with a sigh. Please don't tell me you did something foolish!
Knowing Watari he just might have; to prove something to himself
or to Tatsumi.