Author: J.J.
Warning: It's an AU and it's BASED ON THE MANGA... it contains not too descriptive rape, some OOC, some use of Japanese words (the Dictionary is at the bottom), a bit of sappiness, some spoilers...
Notes: This work is based on the manga. It makes perfect sense if you haven't read it but you will find things going differently from the anime... oh well since this is an AU and things will go differently from the manga too it shouldn't be a problem.
About the characters... Tsuzuki's character is based on the first volume of the YnM Manga and that's why he's more serious. If you get the 1st volume of the manga you'll see a more adult looking Tsuzuki than in the rest of the series. As for Hisoka... He's purposely partially different from the original.
Inspiration came from the YnM manga and a lovely pic from Akane available at her 'Cursed Moons' Web (The pic is the one called 'TsuHi-raburabu')
Warning over notes: This fic is filled with notes. You will find them at the bottom. Each time you see a number between brackets it means there's a note connected to the word/sentence that preceded it. Many of them explain references to other series, to YnM manga only or YnM anime only facts for who didn't get to read the manga or see the anime, explain apparently illogical things or warn you there's an explanation for illogical facts but that you'll get it later. However I suggest you to read the notes AFTER you finished the fic unless the word/sentence connected to the note is really troublesome for you to understand. Anyway the fic should be still understandable without the notes. Notes are merely extra explanations for who wants to know more or search for spoilers.
Disclaimer:
"Yami no Matsuei" belong to Matsushita Yoko. I'm merely using her characters because I love them... especially Touda, Tsuzuki and Hisoka...
Ehy, do I own something here? Oh yes, I own the plot and a sensible heart which would surely break if you give me harsh reviews... so please be honest but nice ok?
Thanks: To Lothlorien for betaing this! Thank you a lot!
Summary: Alternate version of the 'Nagasaki Arc' Manga version. What if Muraki managed to break Hisoka and Enma planned Tsuzuki & Hisoka's partnership?
"Tomodachi ni tegami wo kaku toki mitai ni
Surasura to kotoba ga dete kureba ii no ni
Mou sukoshi o-tagai wo shiriau ni wa jikan ga hoshii
Uragiranai no wa kazoku dake nante
Sabishisugiru yo Love is asking to be loved
Shinjiru koto wo yamete shimaeba raku ni natte wakaru kedo
Don't you see! Negatte mo inotte mo kiseki omoide
Sukoshi wa ki ni kakete
Don't you see! Chotto sameta furi wo suru kuse wa
Kizutsuku no ga kowai kara"
("In spite that it would be nice if words flow out to me
Like when one writes a letter to a friend
I want some time to know each other a little more
That the only one who won't betray you is your family
Is too lonely a thing Love is asking to be loved
I know I'll be happy if I stop believing but
Don't you see! Even if I ask and pray for miracles and memories
I worry a little
Don't you see! Even if I have a habit of pretending to be cold
I'm afraid to be hurt")
(Zard - "Don't you see!")(1)
He woke up slowly, sensing a progressive lack of warmth. Moaning, he curled up under the covers, hiding from the light entering from the open window. He heard soft noises, lingering emotions that merely brushed his senses without forcing themselves on him. He felt strangely lonely as his mind unconsciously searched for a presence, a presence he longed to be close to and... and he squeezed his eyes shut with a whimper as his headache intensified.
"Hisoka-san?" someone called. He refused to listen, refused to awake fully, curling tightly in on himself. Apart from his pounding headache he was feeling fairly well compared to his usual standards. He didn't want everything to change once he opened his eyes. He didn't want to wake up and discover that he was still in HIS grasp and...
He started trembling as someone partially uncovered him, curling in a tight ball. No, please, keep HIM away from him... please... please...
"Bouya?" a tired male voice called. He didn't recognize it at first, and curled up tighter in fear. "Hisoka? Are you well?" the same voice asked in a kinder tone as a gentle hand rested on his shoulder. It didn't sound like HIS voice at all and yet he still didn't dare to answer or to open his eyes. "Hisoka!" The voice called again, this time laced with worry. The voice wasn't HIS, he realized and yet it sounded familiar. Hesitantly, Hisoka forced his eyes to open a bit just to check who was calling him. Could it be...?
"Tsuzuki?" he asked, almost pleaded, in a quiet whimper.
"That's my name, bouya," the man replied, smiling down at him as he sat on the bed, one of his strong hands gently brushing the boy's cheek, and Hisoka wasn't sure if the overwhelming relief he was feeling was his own or Tsuzuki's. Hisoka just stared at him, keeping perfectly still, unsure about what he should do. Why had Tsuzuki... Why had Tsuzuki-san been worried about him? Why did Tsuzuki-san feel relief when he answered him? Why was Tsuzuki-san being kind to him? Why, instead of being scared or at least wary, he simply blushed when the man caressed his cheek as if he trusted him? Why had he called him merely 'Tsuzuki'? Why did he want him to stay close to him? Why? A tiny whimper escaped from his lips as his headache increased again.
"How do you feel?" Tsuzuki... Tsuzuki-san immediately asked, frowning as he seemed to realize his distress and worrying about it, his hand immediately moving to his forehead as if to check if he had a temperature.
"Fine," he lied. His head hurt and the light hurt his eyes, not to mention how his stomach felt, but it was better than usual anyway. Besides, a Kurosaki didn't go around telling how bad he felt. He had learned long ago what the consequences of revealing a weakness could be. HE had taught him that. And anyway, it wasn't like Tsuzuki-san could really care. He blinked when he noticed Tsuzuki-san was frowning at him, his look now so different from the childish, cheerful one he had back in Enma-Cho, or the gentle, caring one he'd had a few seconds before. It was the serious look of an adult who'd caught a child lying to him and wasn't pleased by it. He was tempted to shrink back, but he couldn't feel anger from the man - only worry tinged with disappointment, and this couldn't be possible because no reasonable person would worry over something - not 'someone', but 'something' - as useless and cursed as him, and yet the feeling was there, he could feel it clearly, amplified by the contact of the man's hand now resting on his shoulder.
"Never lie to me about how you are. It'll only get us both in trouble. Even better, never lie to me at all," Tsuzuki-san warned him. Hisoka's instinct wanted to rebel at that, he refused to submit to someone else's will, he refused to submit to another being ever again, but his words of rebellion died in his throat. He didn't dare to voice them. He knew what had happened when he rebelled before. First his parents closed him in the basement and then NUSHI-SAMA... He turned his gaze away, stubbornly refusing to cry.
Tsuzuki frowned even more as he guessed what was going on inside Hisoka's mind. He wanted to comfort the youth, to hug him and tell him everything would be better, but he knew it wouldn't work. It was too early for Hisoka to trust him. All he could do was to help the boy to not indulge in those dark thoughts. So he did what he knew best. He forced back a sigh, his worry and his sadness, and smiled cheerfully at Hisoka as if he had completely forgotten their discussion.
"So, how are you?" he asked again.
"My head throbs slightly," Hisoka reluctantly admitted, eyeing him warily. He hated his weakness, the fear he felt at the thought of challenging him. Yet he couldn't see anything dangerous in the smiling man sitting right next to him, and this puzzled him. His instinct was clearly telling him that despite his childish antics, his jokes and his apparently caring attitude the older Shinigami was dangerous - very, very dangerous, almost lethal, like a beast ready to leap at the throat of its prey - and yet it also insisted that he was safe around Tsuzuki, like a puppy around its mother, and he didn't understand this as he didn't understand how the man could jump from an emotion to another, from one behaviour to the other effortlessly.
"Can't hold your alcohol yet, eh bouya?" Tsuzuki was saying, still smiling at him as he would have done with a younger friend he cared for. "Only juice for you from now on,"(2) the man added jokingly. Hisoka lowered his gaze, ashamed, blushing. Now that he thought about it, the whole night had been a very embarrassing episode. Next time he wanted to impress Tsuzuki he would avoid trying to show him he could handle alcohol. Now that he thought about it, he still couldn't figure out why he wanted to impress Tsuzuki in the first place. It wasn't like the man cared about what he did. He was so lost in those thoughts he almost jumped when he felt Tsuzuki's hand stroking his hair. "You'll get better soon, don't worry," the man reassured him. He blinked as he felt no trace of the joking emotions present only seconds before, but merely a feeling of overwhelming care that made him wish he could drown in it.
'Soon', apparently, didn't mean half an hour later, when Hisoka had managed to find the strength to rise from the bed - because the world around him had spun so much he hadn't been able to keep his balance and he had thrown up. What, Hisoka had no idea... in the last twenty four hours, all he'd had was the tea Tsuzuki had forced him to drink the night before.
Right now he was sitting in the armchair, a wet cloth on his forehead and Tsuzuki's coat wrapped around him, trying to ignore all the emotions that came from the people in and out of the hotel that were only increasing his sense of nausea.
He felt and looked positively miserable, and had he possessed the strength to do so, he would have died again of embarrassment. He was such a burden... He had always been a burden... His parents had been right to close him in the basement, hiding their shame from the rest of the world...
Tsuzuki, however, wasn't complaining. He had dismissed GuShoShin, sending him back to Meifu, explaining they would handle the rest of the investigation by themselves (how, Hisoka had no idea), had given Hisoka some medicine to make him feel better and was now waiting patiently for him to be in shape to at least walk. He wondered if the man was so patient because he was being kind to him or because he didn't want to work. Probably the latter. Unless he had something else planned on his agenda...
"Tsuzuki-san... how exactly will we handle the investigation by ourselves?" he asked suspiciously, a cold feeling settling inside him as the medicine started to take effect.
"Well... for a start, we'll visit the TV Studio," Tsuzuki-san told him enthusiastically, as if they were in Nagasaki for sightseeing and not for work.
"This has something to do with the investigation?" Hisoka asked, doubtfully.
"Sure! Don't you trust your partner?" Tsuzuki-san asked in an almost pouting tone, apparently acting childishly again.
"I trust no one,"(3) Hisoka stated, his voice empty. Tsuzuki-san blinked, then dragged a chair in front of him and sat down on it, observing him curiously. "What?" he snapped, trying to sound irritated, but it came out more like a whine than anything else.
"You're trying to be mean to me again. Why?" Tsuzuki-san asked in a definitely pouting manner. Hisoka frowned. He didn't like it when Tsuzuki-san behaved like a kid. It made him feel like he was the adult of the pair of them, and even if he desperately wanted to be an independent adult, he knew he wasn't ready for that responsibility yet.
"And you're messing with my head again," Hisoka accused, ignoring Tsuzuki-san's question. "First you're one way, then you're the other, then you change again and then you expect me to sort this all up. What exactly do you want from me, Tsuzuki-san?" Now he was whining and he hated himself for it.
"Where did you get the idea that I want something from you?" Tsuzuki-san asked, switching back effortlessly to serious mode again.
"Everyone always wanted something from me. Why should you be any different?" Hisoka replied, slipping into his 'empty mode'. Why should he try to figure this man out? He was unlikely to be any different from the others he'd met before. It was better to set things straight right from the beginning, so at least, he wouldn't delude himself. "Is it my body that you want? Is that why you're playing nice and you sent away GuShoShin? Then take it and then let's finish the case. I want to go back to Meifu." He closed his eyes in exhaustion. He was tired, he felt sick and he was dead scared that he might meet HIM. He wasn't looking forward to being raped by Tsuzuki-san, but nothing the man could do would be worse than what HE would do to him, should he fall again into HIS grasp. He merely wanted to... not be, and he wasn't allowed even that.
He felt Tsuzuki-san taking his hands into his. His hands were small and cold but somehow they... fit well in Tsuzuki-san's warm and bigger ones. As if they had been made just to stay there. In Tsuzuki-san's grasp.
"Hisoka. Hisoka, look at me." There was urgency in Tsuzuki-san's voice and in his feelings, as well as worry. He opened tired green eyes and stared at serious, purple ones. He'd never figured out how Tsuzuki could have purple eyes, but the fact didn't particularly matter to him. Nothing particularly mattered to him. He was tired. Couldn't Tsuzuki-san take what he wanted from him and then let him be? Apparently not. He felt the man's thumbs rub his hands gently. It felt oddly nice.
"Hisoka," Tsuzuki-san said again, trying to catch his attention. "Hisoka, I'm not trying to take advantage of you, I swear it. I help you because you're my partner, nothing else. All I expect from you is that you'll tell me how you are, that you'll do your work and that you'll be a bit more polite. Nothing more."
"Is it because I'm not your type, Tsuzuki-san?" Hisoka asked, and for the afterlife of him, he couldn't figure out why he'd asked that.
"It's because I'm not into forcing people to have sex with me. And just Tsuzuki is fine," Tsuzuki-san... Tsuzuki said. He sounded honest. He felt honest. It was too good to be true, so it probably wasn't true but for now... it would do. Hisoka shrugged, trying to hide that Tsuzuki's words had meant everything to him. Tsuzuki sighed, then continued the previous discussion as if that little 'interlude' had never taken place.
"Do you remember yesterday's girl?" Hisoka nodded. Tsuzuki picked up a paper from the table and showed it to Hisoka. On it, there was printed the picture of a pretty Chinese girl. "Do you know this girl?" Hisoka looked at her.
"She seems familiar but..." He shook his head. He couldn't really remember where he saw her before.
"She's Maria Won. She's a quite famous singer." Hisoka frowned, then remembered.
"Oh yes. In the Shinkou-Cho there were a lot of her fans.(4) One had even had her calendar or something. Her last success is based on a poem by Emily Dickinson, isn't it?" Hisoka liked reading English poems and he'd recognized that particular one as soon as he'd heard the song.(5) Tsuzuki blinked, confused.
"Well... I've no idea if it's based on a poem or not since it's in English and so I can't really understand much,"(6) Tsuzuki admitted. "Anyway, she's here in Nagasaki for the Uta Matsuri."
"Please tell me we aren't going there because you want her autograph. I had to deal with enough insane idol fans at the Shinkou-Cho. I think I've had enough." In truth, Hisoka's problem had been that the fans' emotions at Shinkou-Cho had been too strong for him to ignore, causing him headaches at best, especially since many of Maria's fans had had not exactly pure thoughts about her. The feelings of lust they gave out while looking at her pictures always awoke painful memories in Hisoka...
"Not really, even if it wouldn't be a bad idea..." Hisoka glared. Tsuzuki ignored his glare and showed him another picture saying, "Here, watch the magic of computers." This picture showed another girl with no make up, empty eyes and long hair falling freely on her shoulders.
"This one looks like yesterday's girl..." Hisoka admitted.
"This one is Maria Won too," Tsuzuki said, showing him the previous picture again. "I had GuShoShin working on this a little with the computer and that's the result. It's amazing how make-up can make a woman look like a different person, isn't it?"(7) Hisoka compared the two pictures. Yes, now that he looked carefully he could see they were the same person.
"But that's ridiculous. Why would she do something like that?" Hisoka asked, frowning.
"That's what we're here to investigate. I checked - well, GuShoShin checked for me - and the vampire-murders and Maria's arrival in Japan happened at around the same time." Hisoka looked back again at the two pictures. It seemed possible.
"And when did you two research all of this?" he asked, feeling left out and not understanding that feeling at all.
"While you were sleeping in my arms last night," Tsuzuki said, ruffling his hair before getting up. "You were really cute, by the way," he added, as Hisoka blushed profusely. He should have been worried at Tsuzuki's innuendo and yet, as the man had touched him, he had sensed it was merely another joke, nothing to be scared about. Something he would say to someone he felt affection for. Hisoka looked up at Tsuzuki, blinking. No one had ever felt interest for him that way. It caused him to have so many mixed feelings he didn't know how to deal with them all. Tsuzuki offered him his hand. "Do you feel well enough to go now, Hisoka?" the man asked. Hisoka stared at Tsuzuki's hand, then, hesitantly, took it and got up. At first his head spun a bit, but then he managed to steady himself. He was okay - well, as okay as he could be.
"I'm fine," he said, looking up at Tsuzuki. Tsuzuki smiled down at him, and let his hand go. Somehow, Hisoka found himself missing the contact.
"Very well then, lets go." Tsuzuki handed Hisoka his jacket as the boy gave him back his coat, then the pair walked out of the hotel room.
JJ's Notes:
1. 'Don't you see!' was 'Dragonball GT' second ending.
2. This was, more or less, what Tsuzuki told Hisoka in the manga and in the anime.
3. I couldn't resist referring to the 'X files' motto... It sounds so fitting for Hisoka...
4. Honestly, I couldn't figure out how Hisoka knew about Maria Won in the regular series... It's weird picturing that he'd heard about her while he was in Kamakura, and apparently while he was in the hospital he should have been in terrible pain, so I doubt he would have had time to look at Chinese singers. It makes sense that he heard about her after he died. In this fic it makes even more sense since I doubt Muraki would have allowed him to listen to music.
5. Every time we see Hisoka with a book it is a foreign one. I figured it would have been natural for him reading one by Emily Dickinson.
6. In 'King of Swords' we see Tsuzuki can't speak English.
7. Another thing I wondered is how Tsuzuki got a picture of Maria Won in 'Vampire mode' in the manga. That's my guess.
JJ's Extra Notes:
Astute readers may have noticed how Hisoka keeps switching from 'Tsuzuki-san' to 'Tsuzuki'
and vice versa. Sharp readers may also remember how in the manga/anime Hisoka ALWAYS simply
called his partner just 'Tsuzuki'. So... Hisoka here calls him 'Tsuzuki-san' because with
the most polite honorific he tries to keep distance. Unconsciously he switches to Tsuzuki
when he wants him to be close. Actually Tsuzuki had asked him to call him just Tsuzuki.
However Hisoka will switch again to 'Tsuzuki-san' when he doesn't trust him. I hope this
makes things clear.
Dictionary:
-sama: "Lord" or "Lady"
-san: "Mr." or "Mrs."
Bouya: Boy
Enma: "Demon of Darkness". Ruler of the Land of Dead
Enma-Cho: "Office Enma". In the 5th district of JuOhCho. It's ruled by Enma himself
and controls only Tokyo's territory. It hosts the Shokan-ka
GuShoShin: "Twin Living Gods" or "Twin Gods of Life". Enma-Cho's chicken-like
librarians
JuOhCho: "Ten Kings Office". Meifu's bureaucratic organization ruled by Enma. It's in
charge of judging the deceased in Japan
Meifu: Land of the Dead
Nushi: "Master" or "Owner" or "Lover"
Shinigami: "God of death", "Death God". Nickname for the Shokan-ka workers
ShinKou-Cho: "Office ShinKou". In the 1st district of JuOhCho. It controls Okinawa's
territory
Shokan-Ka: "Summoning Division". Division in Enma-Cho that deals with summoning the
dead to appear at court. It enters in action only when the souls of the dead don't go
spontaneously to Meifu
Uta Matsuri: Song Festival
Replies to reviews:
To Everyone who reviewed: Thank you! You're a great encouragement for me!
To Alanna Evelyn: LOL! Everything for Tsuzuki! The man is just worth to die for!
To Tenshiamanda: Well... beside the physical resemblance Hijiri and Hisoka have nothing in common. If it can help there was a suggestion in a previous chap... I'm happy to hear you like the chap!
To DarkSapphireDragon: No, it's not Masaki and it isn't an original character either even if the resemblance lies in how I see this other character... Glad you like this chap!
To Zanzou Youko: And it's all thanks to Lothlorien's help! Really, I own her a lot!
In the Next Chapter:
Partnership troubles, annoying Enma, missing Hisoka and Muraki-san coming to say hi! Really, afterlife isn't easy for Tsuzuki...
Send me your comments!
