Welcome to chapter six! Thank you to all who made it this far!

I apologize if Muraki comes off flighty in any of this story. If you would like a reason for Muraki's strange behavior, go to click Search for AMVs, choose Super Search, in the anime field type Descendants of Darkness, in the artist field type Smile.DK, and in the song field type Boys. It's a local download so you'll need an account. It's free and only takes a minute to make and it is well worth it. Yami fans must see this video! It's a classic. And if you haven't already, go download all of Croik's videos! Visit or type Croik as the member name in the Super Search. Her Yami no Matsuei video "To Thee I Pray" is beautiful and she makes the best Gravitation videos around. Sadly, it is sometimes hard to get the videos off her site. A CD request works wonders.

I put Hisoka through so much this chapter... Poor boy… After writing the bulk of this chapter, I thought that I should delay Muraki until chapter seven. However, in the end I put him in anyways because I figured it to be one of those "it can't get any worse than this…. No wait it can" chapters for Hisoka anyways. A little more angst never hurt, right?

This chapter is really about Hisoka. Hisoka is trying to distance himself from Tsuzuki a bit. He doesn't know why, but he feels that if he gets to close to people, eventually they'll leave him. He fell so fast for Tsuzuki that he didn't really have a chance to second think. I've known people who mistook Hisoka for a girl a lot. Poor boy… I imagine wearing a female uniform at work just adds to the humiliation for him. I'm going to draw him in his uniform. When Saiki said it was basically the male uniform except with a bow tie, she wasn't adding the fact it has a ruffled shirt, tight pants, and an overcoat cut to fit a chest. At least it's not a dress. :)

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Chapter Six: A Never Ending Nightmare, of Sorts

Hisoka shook his head. The dizziness was already setting in. The V.I.P. room only had twenty people in it at a time, but the instant he walked in he could almost smell the disgusting emotions they radiated. The room had two windowed walls with long red curtains and a black door without a lock. Saiki had told him to always keep the curtains open unless a celebrity party was seated there. The enclosed space just made him more nauseous. He looked around the room at the customers and could already tell what each of them was thinking. A man dining with his co-workers and family: his wife on one side and mistress on the other. A woman who used "favors" to climb up the political ladder was seducing her boss in the table for two by the fireplace. They all disgusted him. He was ready to ask Saiki for a transfer to the main room until he saw a familiar face. Seated in the far corner was a young girl with an older man in a suit. The hostess had just seated them. The girl had her back to the wall and was gazing over the menu. He reluctantly walked over to the table.

"Welcome. My name is Kurosaki and I'll be serving you this evening." The girl's eyes darted off the menu to Hisoka.

"Kurosaki-kun?" Mitsuki Aki looked over him and turned red. Hisoka seemed to suit the uniform more than the female employees. Even the red bow tie seemed to suit him.

"Aki, is this a friend of yours?" The man let his glasses slide down his nose as he looked at the boy.

"Kurosaki Hisoka-kun is in my class." Mitsuki was holding the menu to her face.

"Ah, well, it's nice to see my daughter is making friends so well." The man smiled. "And such a hard working young lady as well."

Mistuki and Hisoka both pulled back and looked at him. "Uhhh, Kurosaki-kun is a boy."

The man raised an eyebrow and looked Hisoka over again. He pushed his glasses back towards his eyes and laughed. "Well, so he is. My apologies. I don't know if I can ever live that one down." He laughed a bit louder, causing the other V.I.P. customers to turn their direction.

"Er… So… what can I get for you?" Hisoka's face was red. That was the second time in the same place he was mistaken for a girl. The uniform sure wasn't helping.

"Oh, well, I don't know… Not used to anything other than Japanese food. Even when I go abroad I eat Japanese." Mitsuki's father folded the menu and handed it to Hisoka. "Just ask your chef to bring us both his favorite dish."

"Yes, sir." Hisoka turned.

"Wait!" Mitsuki had jumped up. Hisoka turned back and looked at her. "Um…" She was still red. "Yui-chan said that you were at the waffle house with Tsuzuki-sensei…"

Hisoka sighed. As he feared, Yui did tell her. He didn't know why it bothered him so much, but it did. "He took me in when my parents left." He turned and quickly walked out of the room before she could respond.

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Tsuzuki mumbled. He was so used to Hisoka being around that the silence of the apartment was deafening. He set his book down and went to the fridge. "Oh, no! No cake! Hmm… I'm in the mood for one of those cakes at the bakery next to Saiki's…" He smirked, feeling he had a cunning alibi and grabbed his keys.

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Hisoka tugged at the bow tie. He had barely talked to Mitsuki after the incident. Even though he came across coldly, her father left him a tip larger than their bill. The tip was weighing down his pants. Saiki had explained to him that she preferred customers to "get in the western spirit" and leave tips on the table. He sighed. One more table and he'd be done. He'd survived the overwhelming emotions for one day, and Saiki said it was their busiest day. He looked at the men seated at his last table and groaned. He knew their type. Perverted old men who would jump anything that moves if it looked defenseless. Saiki had warned him that they had a habit of getting too close to her waitresses and that, if they hadn't owned a large section of land in the area, she would have banned them already. He picked up his order pad and walked to the table.

"Welcome. My name is Kurosaki and I—"

"Mmm… Kurosaki, eh? What's your first name?" One of the men with the least amount of hair smirked.

"That isn't your business, sir." Hisoka snapped.

"Heeeeey, this one's just your type, Tooya! A real bitch." The plumpest man laughed. He was looking over at the one man that looked semi-normal.

"Say, Kurosaki, are you a chick or a fella?" The man closest to Hisoka with an obvious wig patted Hisoka's rear. Hisoka jumped to the side causing all the men to laugh.

"I'm thinking it's a he." The man referred to as Tooya was rocking his chair back and forth. "That's alright, though. I'm up for something new."

"I'll come back when you're ready to order…" Hisoka mumbled. He turned, but the man with a wig wrapped an arm around his waist and pulled him back.

"You ain't goin' no-where, boy. We need atmosphere to order." He smiled a mouth of five teeth. He kept his arm around Hisoka's waist. Hisoka bit his lip trying to refrain from seeing the memories that were pouring into his head. They were all terrible, violent, crime-ridden memories, and all the men around the table were in them.

"Say, boy, it's Tooya's birthday today and we wanna get him somethin' special." The fat man smirked. "How's about 150,000 yen and he gets a romp with you?"

"Not interested." Hisoka snapped flatly. He pulled the man's arm off him.

"That wasn't an offer you can turn down, kid." The man with the wig and the man with some hair stood up and grabbed Hisoka's arms. The fat man gazed around quickly. The door to the V.I.P. room was closed and none of the waitresses were near the windows. He dashed over awkwardly and covered Hisoka's mouth. Tooya stood and drew the curtains to the room.

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"Heeeeey, Saiki-chan!" Tsuzuki burst in the door to the restaurant with a bag of cakes.

"Asato-kun!" Saiki dashed to him from behind the bar. "You walk into a restaurant with food from someplace else?" She huffed.

"When you make the special dessert in To Go form, I'll buy all my cakes here." Tsuzuki smiled. "Where's Hisoka?"

"He's in the V.I.P. room. He should be done soon." She turned towards the V.I.P. room and her eyes grew wide. "Oh my god…"

"Hmm? What?" Tsuzuki looked to the back of the restaurant. There was a windowed room with red curtains. Saiki began running towards the room. Tsuzuki followed, still confused. "What's wrong?"

"Hisoka-kun is serving a shady group of men, so I told him to keep the door open. They always harass my employees." She grabbed the door handle and pulled it open. Two of the men were holding Hisoka down on a table while the third kept his mouth covered. The fourth man was undoing his belt.

Tsuzuki pushed Saiki aside and ran forward. He pulled back his arm and punched the standing man. "Get the hell away from him!" He yelled as the man fell back onto the floor. Tsuzuki grabbed the men one by one and threw them onto the floor.

Saiki steadied herself and looked back at the main dining room. Some of the customers were trying to peak into the room. She quickly stepped in and closed the door. She ran over and knelt beside Hisoka. "Are you okay?"

Hisoka was didn't acknowledge her, he simply stared at Tsuzuki. "S… Stop…" He whispered.

Tsuzuki was standing over Tooya. The man was staring up at him, his face twisted in terror. "I know who you are… You think that just because you own some Tokyo land, you have the right to do whatever the hell you want? You think that makes you some big man?" He crouched down over Tooya and grabbed the man's shirt collar. "You know what your problem is? You wake up every morning asking what the world is going to do for you. You wonder who is going to bend over and kiss your ass just to stay on your good side. Well, today is when it ends. You messed with the wrong waiter." Tsuzuki pulled his arm back for another punch.

"STOP!" Hisoka leapt over to Tsuzuki and wrapped his arms around him. "Tsuzuki, don't sink to his level… I'm fine, see?"

Tsuzuki turned and looked at Hisoka. He had tears in his eyes, but he was smiling. He dropped his hand from a fist and wrapped his arms around the boy. Tooya took the opportunity to slide away from Tsuzuki. The other men regained themselves as well and stumbled to their feet. They gathered together and stumbled towards the door.

"Nuh, uh!" Saiki walked in front of the door and winked. "If you men don't want this little incident to leak out, you better make it worth our while."

"You can't prove we did anything." The fat man laughed nervously. He was keeping an eye on Tsuzuki.

"Oh, can't I?" She pointed to the ceiling in the corner of the room. "How stupid would I be to have an enclosed room without a security camera?"

"What do you want?" Tooya growled.

"Well, first off, you can't set foot in my restaurant again. Secondly, I want the rest of this building's mortgage paid off. Oh, and if I come up with anything else, and when Asato-kun decides on what he wants, I want full authority to contact you whenever I please." Saiki smirked.

"Fine." Tooya pulled his business card from his suit pocket and handed it to her. She moved from the door and the men quickly opened it and walked out.

Saiki looked back at Tsuzuki and Hisoka. They were still hugging on the floor. She walked over to them and placed a hand on Hisoka's back. "I'm so very sorry… I should have known they'd go after somebody as pretty as you. Is there anything I can do to make up for it?"

Hisoka shook his head. "It's not your fault." He stood up, pulling Tsuzuki up with him. "I'll come in on Tuesday, as scheduled."

"Are… you sure?" Saiki walked to the door and picked up the cake bag Tsuzuki had dropped.

"I'm making progress here… Slowly, but surely, I am getting better at interacting with people." Hisoka laid his head against Tsuzuki's chest and closed his eyes. Saiki tilted her head to the side and blinked.

"Sorry, Saiki-chan. I'm taking Hisoka home now." Tsuzuki took the bag from her, but kept an arm on Hisoka. Together they slowly walked out of the apartment and to Tsuzuki's car.

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The ride back to the apartment was a quiet one. As they parked the car in the apartment lot and walked towards the elevator, Tsuzuki sighed. "Instead of getting a job, why don't you just work around the apartment. That's enough for me."

Hisoka shook off Tsuzuki's arm that was around his waist. "This is something I want to do. I made progress in controlling the flow of emotions and I even was able to place a block on the flow of memories. I'm not letting anybody screw up my chance to progress more, not even you."

Tsuzuki just stared at Hisoka as he opened the door to the stairs and proceeded up them, instead of the elevator. "That didn't go as I had planned…" He sighed and walked into the elevator.

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Tsuzuki unlocked the door and sighed. Hisoka was still in the stairway. He opened the door, took off his shoes, placed the cakes on the counter, and plopped down on the couch. He stared at the open door and frowned. "Maybe I should go after him…" He scratched his head and yawned. "Hmm…. I feel like I'm forgetting something about school…" He looked around the room. Hisoka's bag was sitting against the wall and his briefcase was next to it. Both had been unopened the entire weekend. He jumped up. "I have those tests to grade! Kyaaa… Being a teacher is so hard." He pouted and grabbed his briefcase.

"Tsuzuki?" Hisoka peaked into the apartment. He saw Tsuzuki seated at his desk so he slowly walked in, pulled off his shoes, and closed the door.

"Did you have a nice walk?" Tsuzuki always seemed alien to Hisoka when he had his glasses on.

Hisoka bowed. "I'm sorry about earlier, but I'm not quitting. I made enough tonight to buy food for the rest of the month."

Tsuzuki sighed. "I guess so long as those men don't come in again, you'll be safe. Have you finished your homework?"

Hisoka narrowed his eyes. No matter what happened between them, Tsuzuki is his teacher before anything else. "I don't have anything."

"You have that global history report, I know that." Tsuzuki turned back to his tests. "I'll help you after I'm done."

"No." Hisoka pulled the money out of his pocket and dropped it on the table.

"Just because we're together, doesn't mean I won't give you a failing grade, you know." Tsuzuki turned and crossed his arms.

"I'll do it myself. I've lived for sixteen years without your coddling. I don't need anything from you now." Hisoka grabbed his bag and walked into the bedroom. He slammed the door shut.

"I'm just not saying anything right today, am I?" Tsuzuki blinked. "Teenagers are so temperamental these days."

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Tsuzuki had spent the night locked out of the bedroom. Luckily for him, he kept his suit in a closet in the den, not in the bedroom. He had never slept on the couch before, and now he knew why. His neck felt like it had been run over and his back felt bent out of shape. He rubbed his back and picked up his suitcase. Grading at taken him past one in the morning. "Hisoka, I'm leaving a little early today, do you want to come?" There was no response. Tsuzuki cracked his neck and sighed. He decided he would walk today incase Hisoka wanted to catch up. "See you at class, then." He slipped on his shoes and walked out the door.

When he heard the door close, Hisoka opened he bedroom door. He peered out to make sure Tsuzuki was really gone then, gathered his things. He had fallen asleep right after he got in the bedroom and hadn't done the report. The last thing he needed was a lecture from Tsuzuki in front of the class. "What's the matter with me? Tsuzuki just wants to help, but I throw it in his face. I can't stand anybody's affections." He tugged at his hair and stared at the door. History wasn't until the end of the day, so he could spend any free time writing it. He had one thing to do before going to class, though. He pulled one of the cakes from the bag. Tsuzuki hadn't eaten his sweets this morning, so he would be in a foul mood. Hisoka put on his shoes and walked out the door.

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Tsuzuki stared at the clock. Most of the students had arrived, but Hisoka still wasn't there. He knew he shouldn't have left him alone. What if the men jumped him and kidnapped him? What if they were going to kill him to keep him from talking? He jumped out of his seat in a panic. As he began to dash towards the door, he ran into an incoming student. "Sorry! Sorry!" Tsuzuki bowed in apology. The girls giggled. Tsuzuki looked down at the student he had run into. Hisoka was dazed, staring up at him, holding a cake. Tsuzuki smiled and glomped the boy, sending him to the floor. "I'm so glad you're okay! I thought for sure you'd be dead by now!"

"Dead?" Hisoka cringed. He looked over Tsuzuki's shoulder at the other students in the class. Some were staring at them confused; the girls were just giggling. "Sensei, isn't it time to start class?"

Tsuzuki let go of Hisoka and turned to the class. He laughed nervously and stood up. He backed over to his desk and sat down. "I… uh… graded your tests today and…"

Hisoka plopped the cake on Tsuzuki's desk and proceeded to his own seat next to Mitsuki.

"An early Valentine's Day gift from Kurosaki-kun to sensei?" Yui gasped.

"Kurosaki-kun! How could you!" One of the other girls sobbed.

"Okay, okay, class, settle down! Isn't it normal for one's love muffin to give him gifts?" Tsuzuki smirked.

Hisoka dropped his head to his desk and sighed. Mitsuki looked over at him and smiled.

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The day had progressed somewhat smoothly. Hisoka was frantically scribbling down his report whenever Tsuzuki's back was turned. He hadn't had formal schooling before this, so most of what Tsuzuki had taught was new to him. He had noticed, however, that for the entire day Mitsuki had been watching him with one of those strange looks that only a girl can give. It was finally lunch break and his report was only half done.

"I can help you with that. History is my best subject." Mitsuki smiled.

"That's alright. It would be wrong to have help on something I neglected to do this weekend." Hisoka closed the book and stretched his arms.

"I insist. My father gave you so much trouble at the restaurant, it's the least I can do." She blushed and moved her desk closer to his.

Tsuzuki was chowing down on the cake even before he called break. He stopped filling his face to watch the event going on with Mitsuki and Hisoka. He sighed and looked around the room. Only Yui and her group of friends were left in the room besides Hisoka and Mitsuki. He picked up his cake and walked towards the door. "I'm going to run to the teacher's lounge for a drink. I'm putting Yui-chan in charge." He walked out the door without waiting for a response. Hisoka watched him leave then, turned his eyes back to the paper.

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"Okay, turn your books to page 137, please." Tsuzuki looked down at his desk. The reports were turned in, Hisoka's finished paper on top. A light, "ow" made him look up. Hisoka had his finger in his mouth. "Is something wrong?"

"It's just a paper cut, sensei." Hisoka sighed. He didn't clot well.

"Paper cuts can be serious!" One of the girls jumped up.

"You can die from massive blood loss and paper poisoning!" Yui chimed in. "Kurosaki-kun should go to the nurse! Aki-chan must escort him. He could pass out at any minute!"

"Hisoka-kun, go to the nurse's office, but you don't need an escort. Get a bandage and come back." Tsuzuki turned to the white board.

"Yes, sensei…" Hisoka sighed and walked out the door.

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The walk from the third floor to the first wasn't bad, just annoying. Hisoka hated going through the quiet halls. Although he liked being alone, this type of alone didn't suit him. He opened the door to the infirmary and walked in, closing the door behind him. "I have a paper cut and need a bandage, please." He mumbled.

"Hello, Kurosaki Hisoka-kun." A male voice made Hisoka spin around. He was sure the nurse was a woman. In front of him sat a man dressed in white from head to toe. He had a head full of silvery blond hair that was grown long over one eye. The uncovered eye was almost the same shade of silver as his hair.

"I must have startled you. I am here while the regular nurse is on maternity leave. I am Doctor Muraki Kazutaka." The man stood and walked to the medicine cabinet on the wall behind him. "So, a bandage?" He pulled one out of the box and pulled the paper off of it. He walked over to Hisoka and grabbed his wrist.

Hisoka prepared for a flood of memories to enter his mind, but nothing happened. He stared up at the man and felt an unease in his stomach. The man seemed familiar, yet he didn't remember seeing him before. Muraki pulled Hisoka's hand to his lips. He closed his eyes and licked the cut. "Wh… What are you doing?" Hisoka tried to pull his hand away, but failed.

"I never imagined to see you again." Muraki wrapped the bandage around Hisoka's finger. "But I suppose you don't remember me. How could you since I sealed away your memories?"

"What… What are you talking about?" Hisoka began to feel his torso burn as Muraki pulled him closer. Muraki pushed Hisoka's sleeve up to reveal red markings making themselves brighter on his arm.

"My mark is still there. You still belong to me, my little poppet." Muraki smiled as Hisoka's body went limp in his arms. "Relive that night again and again, my precious poppet…"