You shall be free by Penguin

Disclaimer: I do not own YnM.

Summary: When Tatsumi and Tsuzuki's love for each other can no longer be denied, Hisoka takes it upon himself to make a painful decision. (Tatsumi/Tsuzuki, Tsuzuki/Hisoka)

Warning/s: Slash, of course. Some OOC-ness here and there, too.

Pairings: Tsuzuki/Hisoka, Tatsumi/Tsuzuki, and implied Watari/Tatsumi.

A/N: The story title was taken from one of my favorite poems. 'You shall be free' (the poem) was writen by Trinidad L. Tarrosa-Subido and her poem appears in two anthologies.

This is my first time writing a YnM fic that's not Tsu/His. It's still the same pairing, but in a way, it's also... not. This is also my first time writing a fic in WordPad, because MS Office is down — meaning no Spell and Grammer Check, so please mention errors that I might've overlooked. Okay, I'm blabbing too much now, so here goes.

———

He knows that this time it's over.

'If you truly love him... set him free, Hisoka.'

Watari's words echo in his ears, and even then, it is very faint.

He knows that he should be grateful, that their ending had taken a slightly longer time than he had expected in coming, but still, he feels so sad. He can't help it.

He knows beforehand it was going to happen. He knows from the very start that he can't give back the love that Tsuzuki's giving him. He feels guilty — very guilty, but he lets it go on. He wants Tsuzuki's love so bad that he doesn't think about how Tsuzuki might want to receive affection back.

Things might have gone differently had he acted upon it sooner, but not now. It is simply too late.

It is too late to overlook Tatsumi's adoring gazes at his partner, or the gentle touches of affection and waves of passion coming from the secretary.

And so, with tears threatening to form in his poison ivy eyes and sobs trying to claw their way out of his throat, he comes upon a decision.

'I can't.' he sobs, 'I can't. I love him too much. I —'

Watari places a finger upon his lips. 'I know how hard it is. That's how I felt with Tatsumi... and Tsuzuki...'

He sobs again. 'It's so hard...'

Watari is the voice of reason, and he hates him for it. 'They love each other. If you truly love Tsuzuki... you should set him free.'

It was so hard to accept, for a time. He had tried to overlook Tatsumi's obvious fondness for his partner. He tried to be happy with Tsuzuki.

And yet... the more he tried to keep their love alive, the more it became smothered until it was clearly time for him to let go, however much it hurt him.

But he will be strong. He had decided that he won't let his pain show. When he tells Tsuzuki his decision, he will not touch him. He will not try to take his partner's hand and feel for emotion, like he had always done before. He will not cry, not even at night, at least not while Tsuzuki is around.

He will not give him a reason to come back.

'You shall be free,' he will whisper to Tsuzuki's ear one last time and look meaningfully in Tatsumi's direction. Tsuzuki will be hurt, upset, but his partner knows that he only means the best. Tsuzuki will get over it, in time, and Tatsumi will be there to help him do so.

Oh, God... he thinks, it's getting hard to do it now.

But he still carries on. For Tsuzuki. He knows that he might not love anyone as he had loved Tsuzuki again, but he loves Tsuzuki so much as to give him this chance to be happy. It will be his final gift, before he sinks back to the darkness of his own black heart and the emptiness of a cold bed.

But Tsuzuki? He shall be free and he shall be happy — and it is what matters to him, isn't it?

He will not speak of days sweet to remember. He will not point out the good times they had together nor the bad times they overcame as partners. He does it for Tsuzuki's sake and his own.

He firmly resolves not to mention a word of it to his partner, although he knows he will never be so happy as when he had first woken up beside Tsuzuki on their shared bed finding a smile upon his partner's lips. He will not speak of the joys of kissing him, the sweet taste that was Tsuzuki's mouth, the way that it tasted like a dangerous combination of cinammon and peppermint.

He will not remind Tsuzuki of the time they spent in the hotel room, with nothing for company but painful recollections and each other. With each other they had managed to chase away their bad memories, if only for a night. Yet he knows that it mattered. It mattered to both of them, but he will not speak of it lest Tsuzuki takes pity on him and stays.

But he will never allow that. He wants Tsuzuki to be happy even if it means losing his soul to the darkness and living an eternity alone.

And so he stands, facing Tsuzuki, mouth open to say something. Tsuzuki is looking at him with a smile plastered on his face, never knowing what was to come next. Not knowing the pain that his young partner would bring to both of them or the sadness his young partner was damning himself into.

'Tsuzuki, I have something to tell you...'

The words come out before either knows it. He wants to stop, to somehow make everything all right again, but he has begun and cannot turn back now.

Half an hour later, Tsuzuki looks broken and it pains his heart to see his first and only love like this. He kneels beside his partner's slumped form and whispers his goodbye, as Tatsumi watches on in the distance.

'You shall be free...'

———

Last Notes: Ahh! So weird! I think I made 1935828398 grammatical and typographical errors. 98 of them are in the verb tenses... I had no time to correct them. I blame it on bad editing habits.

Review and make me happy, please?