Title: Chapters
Series: Yami no Matsuei
Pairing: Hinted Tsuzuki/Hisoka
Rating: PG
Warnings: Duck-molesting yellow hats.
Written for: Kohakutenshi, who wanted Hisoka. A rainy Sunday afternoon. A nice book. And a sudden, surprise visit from Tsuzuki (who brings donuts and coffee!).
Notes: I so totally don't own Yami no Matsuei. The entire series angsts about as much as Edward Elric with no Alphonse, and that's saying something. (They need more naked! They do, they do!)

we live on front porches
and swing life away
we get by just fine here on minimum wage
if love is a labor
i'll slave to the end
i won't cross these streets until you hold my hand

----

Sometimes, Hisoka thought he could get used to being the undead.

Not all the time. Never that. He still longed for too many different things to feel truly comfortable in Meifu. It made him feel jittery, his empathy always shifting and his sleep never settled. He supposed it was probably due to his empathy -- feeling, shifting, swirling, needing, never stopping for the least amount of time -- or perhaps his own emotions; the deep seeded rage at Muraki was never far from the surface.

It all combined to form Hisoka, still standing but never standing still, even when to everyone else it looked like he was perfectly composed.

Most days, it was like that.

Today wasn't so much different as it was better, Hisoka supposed, opening his newest library book with a faint smile on his face. He was about a third of the way through the book, paused mid-chapter from when it had gotten too late a couple nights ago. Work had gotten in the way of reading more, though Hisoka thought that perhaps killing people was more important.

Killing people. Hn. He spent too much time with Tsuzuki.

Rain pattered gently on the window as Hisoka read, loud and comforting in the too-silent house. It drowned out the sound of the clock, which Hisoka had often thought to destroy during his moments of severe doubt. Even the smallest things affected him then, the single feather on the weight of the world, and Hisoka continued to be amazed, come the next morning, that the clock remained intact in the end.

The book was a good one, he thought somewhere in the back of his mind, turning another page. Just enough action to keep him interested, just enough intrigue to keep him reading. Getting lost in another's life was soothing, because books had endings. Happy, sad, bittersweet, traumatic -- whatever the ending was, it ended, and Hisoka liked that sense of certainty.

Maybe his life was a series. That'd explain a lot.

A couple thumps disrupted the pattern of rain outside, and Hisoka looked up. He knew who it was -- he thought he knew who it was, it could technically be anyone --, because very few knew him well enough to come to his house and only one of them would come on his day off. Only one of them had the gall to, really.

There was a knock on the door.

Hisoka sighed, closed his book, and prepared to be irritated. When it didn't come, he frowned slightly and pulled his blanket off from around his legs. He still wasn't annoyed as he walked to the front door, and perhaps that made sense. It had come to the point where Hisoka just didn't have the energy to be irritated at Tsuzuki, no matter how many surprise visits the man insisted on having.

Besides -- and he would never admit this to anyone if he was asked --, Hisoka liked Tsuzuki. If only because, when he wasn't severely depressed or angry, Tsuzuki's emotions were steady and oddly optimistic. It was like a railing on steep stairs; Hisoka could sometimes lean against the safety of Tsuzuki's emotions enough to steady himself, whenever his empathy decided to shift yet again. Unfortunately, that made it twice as hard to cope when Tsuzuki's emotions faltered and spun wildly out of control. Hisoka had learned that lesson the hard way.

Hisoka opened the door to see Tsuzuki standing there, looking absolutely ridiculous in an oversized rain poncho and a gaudy hat (with a duckie stuck to the side like some poor experiment gone horribly wrong.) Ah, yes, at least exasperation was still intact, even if irritation wasn't.

"You better have brought me food," Hisoka warned, not letting his good mood show.

"Got it covered," Tsuzuki replied with a grin, holding up a store-bought bag and completely ignoring Hisoka's deadpan expression. "And coffee, too, so I think that earns me another hour of your time, don't you think?"

Hisoka rolled his eyes and stepped aside to let his partner in, wincing as he splashed water around the entryway. "Watch it," Hisoka warned, and Tsuzuki waved him off, pulling off his (asinine) hat. Hisoka raised an eyebrow, commenting, "You look like a drowned rat."

Tsuzuki pouted. "I went to go get us food," he whined, "and it's raining a lot harder on Chijou. But look, see? I got doughnuts!"

He handed Hisoka the bag as he took his coat off one-handed, holding the two coffees in a single hand. Hisoka took the opportunity to peak at the food and quietly quelled his growing scowl as he realized that Tsuzuki had bought plain sugared doughnuts for Hisoka, instead of the dripping-with-icing kind that he preferred.

"And the guy at the shop was really nice to me, but I think that might have been because the couple in front of me were kind of rude," Tsuzuki rambled absent-mindedly, hanging up his coat and pulling his shoes off. He slipped into the house slippers by the door, continuing, "They kept changing their order and acting all surprised when the price changed, like they could get a plain doughnut for the same price as an éclair."

"That's obnoxious," Hisoka said. "I would have told them off."

"Well, I thought about it, but they left before I could say anything," Tsuzuki said, and Hisoka knew it was code for he didn't want to cause a fuss. Tsuzuki went on, "But I was really nice to the guy and I left him a tip, 'cause it's not his fault people are jerks sometimes."

Hisoka shrugged, sitting back down in his chair and pulling out a doughnut from the box. Tsuzuki snatched the box from him and sat on the adjacent couch, tucking a leg under his knee as he took out a large chocolate monstrosity from the box.

"You," Hisoka said, "are gross."

"Are not," replied Tsuzuki through a mouthful of chocolate and dough. He swallowed and added, "You're just bland."

"I'm normal, you mean."

Tsuzuki laughed, and a twinge of bitterness hit upon his emotions. "Hisoka, I don't think either of us qualifies as normal."

Caught off guard, Hisoka remained silent for a moment, listening to the sound of rain outside. He chewed thoughtfully on his doughnut and could feel Tsuzuki's emotions sway. It could go either way, if Hisoka wished to guide it: he could either catch the bitterness and follow it down, deep into the whirling pain that was Tsuzuki's hidden consciousness. There were times that Hisoka did just that, if only to bring to light something that Tsuzuki hid protectively from the rest of the world. He wasn't sure why; maybe it was just the thought that the chaos only get worse if Tsuzuki kept it buried, even if Hisoka wasn't quite strong enough to help sort it out yet.

But other times, Hisoka let it be. For Tsuzuki's sake, he told himself, but in truth it was also for him. Because dealing with Tsuzuki's emotions was an exhausting, arduous process, and Hisoka wasn't up to it today.

"I'm more normal than you are," Hisoka finally said, glancing over at the still-wet clothing hung up by the door. "For instance, I don't wear that hat."

Tsuzuki blinked. His mouth twitched in a faint frown. "You don't like my hat?" His eyes went wide, surely on the ghost of tears with the pain that Hisoka had brought him.

"No," Hisoka answered, not fooled for a second. "It's ugly, and you know it. Don't give me that look; I can feel your emotions, you idiot, and you're about as close to crying as I am."

"Hmph," Tsuzuki pouted, slumping back in the couch and ripping another bite from his doughnut. He finished and said, "Well, I like it, even if it is ugly. It has character."

"Yeah. It's a duck."

"It's yellow," protested Tsuzuki, as if that excused everything.

Hisoka rolled his eyes. "There are plenty of yellow hats in the world, Tsuzuki. You chose the one molesting a duck. Your hat is horrible. I win."

"It's unique!"

"No, it's horrible. I win."

"But--"

"I win, Tsuzuki, stop arguing with me."

Tsuzuki glared at him with exactly enough anger to frighten a two-year-old child into hiding behind his mother. As Hisoka was not a two-year-old child, he simply stared back, casually taking another bite of his doughnut, finishing it off.

Heaving an over-exaggerated sigh, Tsuzuki slumped against the couch. "Hisokaaaa, you're so mean to me."

Hisoka drank his coffee, smirking, as Tsuzuki whined.

The book lay forgotten on the side table, marked in place neatly. Later, Hisoka would return to curl up with the story once again. Later, when his empathy stirred up again, petulantly, or when he couldn't quite keep the memories at bay. When that happened, Hisoka would return to his haven to find a brief moment of solace.

But sometimes real life was better, even if only for chapters at a time.