A/N: What? The second chapter's up so soon? That's not a problem, is it?
"All right. You're going as Matsuki Takashi," Hisoka informed his partner as he read from their files.
"Uh huh?" Tsuzuki stretched, passing through the familiar Kyushu scenery. The pair were traveling across a bridge to their destination, overlooking the quiet waters beneath as they continued along. The water was golden, the light surrounded made so by the sheer petals and leaves sprouted from twisted thicket, burned by the brilliant gold of the sun. The passing breeze made the quiet life dance around them. It was too eerie to be peaceful.
"I'm going as Matsuki Yukio," Hisoka squinted, descending the bridge alongside Tsuzuki. "Apparently I'm your younger brother."
"That can't be too hard! We've done it before!" Tsuzuki beamed.
"Don't remind me," Hisoka murmured as he tucked the folder back in his suitcase and slung the pack over his shoulder. "Anyway, we shouldn't be too far."
The pair walked the cobblestone creek, a sun baked path leading further into the Kyushu countryside. The still beauty surrounding them only faded deeper into calm, the breeze seemed to whisper. The setting was surreal, almost foreboding. The weight seemed heavier here, thick with the airy and vague sensation of dread.
Hisoka shivered.
"Hisoka, come look!" Tsuzuki urged in the direction of a fenced in area. The pair peered over the border, incense smoke curling and drifting into the air which carried it away. There seated the quiet haven of a cemetery, where families had quietly gathered to visit with their deceased relatives in honor of Obon.
"What's the big deal? It's sort of depressing looking at a cemetery when you're all ready dead," Hisoka commented, his vision planted firmly below him.
"I think it's sort of beautiful," replied a wistful Tsuzuki. "When you're alive, you're not sure where your loved ones have gone. You know that someday you'll face the same fate, and the mystery of it terrifies you. It's peaceful to know that there's a life after death."
"Is it?" Hisoka didn't seem the least bit hesitant to start toward the path again.
"Hisoka!" Tsuzuki followed after the dismayed boy, that familiar concerned look abducted any trace of previous celestial expression. "What are you acting so cynical about?"
"Forget it, Tsuzuki," hissed his partner, yanking himself from Tsuzuki's consoling touch. He left a bewildered Tsuzuki behind him, melancholy stare trailing after his partner's feet. He wanted to comfort him. He wanted to reach him, but he was too far away.
He hated being left behind.
XvX
"Make yourselves at home!" chimed a sweet, pink faced girl with bouncing gold ribbons after the Shinigami claimed their stay at the desk. The pair had traveled in silence. Tsuzuki would occasionally voice whatever came to mind, such as how much longer they had to walk, the absence of food in his stomach. He had even stooped so low as to comment on the weather. He only received short answers or grunts from Hisoka's direction.
The brilliant European architecture of the Mansion resembled the classic haunted castle portrayed in Victorian-based films and stories. The Shinigami were rendered breathless at the sight (despite Hisoka's refusal to show it). The stunning entryway showcased marble flooring, the chandelier overhead drenching the setting in warm gold. Paintings of sad, round-faced Botticelli styled angels graced the ceiling. Columns sculpted in graceful cherubim and winged angelic beauties separated the first story rooms. All gold danced in the dim, obscure beauty where light was too weak to shine.
"I heard from the locals that this was once the owner's home," Tsuzuki's attempt at conversation didn't seem fail with the young maid.
"Oh, yes!" the young woman spoke as she lead them through the quiet marble hallways to their room. "It had been a dream of Mr. Tamura's and his wife before she passed on..."
"That's too bad," Tsuzuki replied drearily, scanning the dimly lit walls of paintings.
"So Mr. Tamura opened a Honeymoon Bed and Breakfast in her honor!" Beamed the maid, unaware that she had just voiced their doom.
"... Honeymoon?" Spoke a severely flustered Hisoka. Tsuzuki froze. The girl giggled.
"Of course! Surely your husband's mentioned this Inn is exclusively for couples!" She chuckled, blissfully rambling on about the romantic and sensual services the Inn had to offer the "happy couple". All the while, Tsuzuki was debating crying in exasperation or breaking out in hysterics, but ultimately could not decide between the two and simply stood there in shock. Hisoka was inwardly raging, and the fires within had stained his cheeks with a flush. "We will do everything in our power to ensure that you enjoy your stay, Mister and Mister Matsuki!"
"..." That old man was going to pay.
XvX
"Fine. You can hold my hand, but if you do anything else, I'll have to chop off the offending body part," Hisoka threatened while they unpacked in their suite.
"Hisoka!" Tsuzuki whined. "You act as though I asked for this! I didn't know!"
"Just be quiet. You're giving me a headache," Hisoka mumbled, forcing the last clothing items offered in his trove into the drawer and managing it shut.
The two certainly didn't resemble a newly married couple. They resembled an old married couple.
"Hisoka... What's been on your mind?" Inquired Tsuzuki gently. Those eyes startled Hisoka most about Tsuzuki. They contained so much knowledge, causing Hisoka to question whether or not they knew him thoroughly inside and out all ready. They contained the depth of oceans, steady and beautiful. But in an instant, like a devastating storm that caused black waters to rapidly toss and crash, anger captured that image in his eyes.
"I haven't been sleeping," he lied, almost effortlessly. Tsuzuki knew this wasn't the case, but whether he cared to voice it or inquire further was up to him to decide for himself.
A pause.
"I see," was his reply. Steady and quiet, as if handling the earth's stability. "Maybe you should sleep. I'll bring you up some food."
"Tsuzuki..." But he was all ready gone. A distance defying logic seemed to separate them now, leaving them both hollow at the departure.
Hisoka sighed, lowering his head so his cheek met his pillow. He hated lying to Tsuzuki. He knew that more than making him feel inadequate and almost worthless as a partner, it made him feel hopeless. Hopeless, not for himself, but that Hisoka was suffering far from the stretch of his efforts.
That someone could be so selfless was something this boy had never known before. Anyone who had the will - or patience - to discover what qualities the man possessed beyond the outer mask of simplicity that dominated him, would almost feel unworthy to know him.
He... Didn't deserve him.
These were the thoughts that sent Hisoka fading into a deep sleep.
XvX
"I mean, why can't he tell me? Me! After everything we've been through!" Tsuzuki, meanwhile, had taken to dumping his overload of troubles on the poor, unsuspecting Inn occupants during dinner. "I think I deserve to know what's bothering my own partner!"
"Well, relationships take time, Mr. Matsuki!" Consoled a rather wealthy looking man, friendly enough to have pretended to seem interested.
"No one has ever stayed with me long enough! What if it's me? What do I do wrong?" The Newlywed incognito wept into the countertop, shoulders trembling as he poured himself out in the open for all to see.
"I'm sure it's not you," the man rubbed Tsuzuki's back while he moaned miserably through his tears, catching the salt in his mouth and shuddering pathetically.
"I know I'm a little lazy, but I perform well!" Tsuzuki croaked through tears, chugging down every last drop of red wine his glass offered. "My intentions are always good!"
"Well I... I suppose that wouldn't be for me to say," muttered the man uncomfortably, clearing his throat before sinking into the barstool at Tsuzuki's side.
Tsuzuki sniffed.
"What's your name again?"
"Ah, I'm sorry. Tamura Yutaka," the kind-looking older man responded, extending a hand.
"So you're-"
"The owner, yes."
The men shook hands, and Tsuzuki immediately gathered himself, seeming to have recovered from his mild buzz. His eyes lit with interest, which fortunately seemed to quench the thirst of the owner's ego, rather than spark suspicion.
"It gets lonely here," he admitted after the two had conversed rather aimlessly for a long while. The two men now spoke on the outer balcony that overlooked the nighttime sea. The two watched while the black tides nearly engulfed the rock at the coastline, before crawling back with the rhythmic flow of the quiet ocean. "I realize it sounds crazy, but I'll occasionally hear the voice of my daughter, as though she's still here with me. It's the happiest sound in the world, yet it leaves me so hollow."
Tsuzuki watched and listened attentively while the old man spoke. How it must feel to be left in a world alone with nothing to hold onto. The old man had such sad eyes, rivaled only to Tsuzuki's knowledge by one other...
"This was ultimately the last push toward the dream shared by my wife. I want to hear voices around me, but I want them to be genuine. I want something near enough to reach and feel."
Tsuzuki smiled. A sad smile. "I think I understand."
XvX
There was glass everywhere. Spinning, reflecting, blinding. Turning corners only to meet mirrors. Mirrors reflecting mirrors, making tunnels. Reaching for free air, stopped by cold solid. Illusions. Never ending. Confusion, a whirlwind.
Insanity.
And the girl in white, with thick black hair to contrast, watches you with her face pale as she smiles. Because you're playing her game. But just as quickly as she appears, you lose her again.
You lose yourself...
"No!" Hisoka's voice broke the still of the evening, and he fully came to his senses after he had jerked himself up, sheets drenched in sweat. "Tsuzuki..."
But Tsuzuki still hadn't returned. He found that beneath him, his sheets had writhed along with his frantic movements. Had he absorbed the dismal mood and dread of this house while he slept? He could scarcely remember a time in which his terror ran so deep, and Tsuzuki wasn't here. Hisoka had pulled his sheets around himself, chanting his partner's name little above a whisper, as if that might beckon him back again.
"Are you lonely?"
The voice was startling, but Hisoka was rendered still. His eyes were shut tightly, while his hand was gripping the sheets, making the white of his knuckles visible. "Go away!"
"Only if you promise to come find me..."
The voice belonged to a child. It was quiet and taunting, much like the haughty child on a playground, teasing another of being a too afraid to meet their challenge. Despite himself, Hisoka could feel her attempt at manipulation was not ill wasted.
Fearful green eyes soon confronted the sight, which he had not expected to be standing at the very edge of his bedside. Hisoka felt his breath drain from his chest as he viewed the ghost girl fully. Her flaxen skin seemed to glow, contrasting the strands of black that limited the view of her face. Hisoka shuddered violently, his senses seemed to wrap around the girl's movements like a string. Her pale body was stiff like death, and her arm was slowly reaching toward him. Her eyes were coveted by the mass of black hair, yet he could feel her eyes burning him with their intensity. Her hand felt his cheek. He retracted at the glacier touch of her, his body was crushed beneath the weight of terror.
And that's when he caught a glance of the mirror. The illusion captured within the glass inflicted Hisoka with a deep sense of relief.
"Tsuzuki!" Hisoka called out to the image of his partner, violet eyes pleading with him. No... The dream of mirrors, could it have meant that Tsuzuki was trapped? Is this how the guests had been disappearing? He didn't care about the consequences, he was boundless now. He only cared about the image displayed to him on the mirror... Tsuzuki...
Hisoka rushed to the mirror, heart pounding viciously in his chest as Tsuzuki turned. "Wait!" he called, his voice strained by the intense crushing he felt in his heart. Where was he going without him?
Tsuzuki descended into the surrounding midst until the reflection had cleared again. Hisoka was now faced with his own terrified expression staring back at him.
"Tsuzuki... I'm coming." With the slightest push, the mirror acted as a doorway. Hisoka proceeded through, embraced by the darkness that engulfed him now, and the haunting chill of a familiar childlike voice.
"You're it."
TBC.
... unless you don't review!