Disclaimer: I do not own Yami no Matsuei

Shout-outs:

laustic: Hi! Welcome to my review board and thank you for your kind words. I read your "Satin Angel" story and found it incredibly sweet. Keep it up!

elirian: Terazuma is so easy to tease because he's so masculine, which automatically casts him in the "clueless guy" role. Yep, I loved the Kazusa/Hijiri and am very pleased with how they turned out; I thought I owed them a moment since they're tertiary characters and don't get much spotlight. Touda/Suzaku is unpopular—I've only read one fanfiction about them on this site—but I always root for the underdog, and they're so Darcy/Elizabeth that I can't pass them up. And Tsuzuki/Hisoka just lends itself to loveliness.

jennamarie: Thank you very much. I'm so glad people enjoy Terazuma/Wakaba. About Kurikara and Riko—I know he never had a chance, but that thing about Water versus Fire bugs me a little. Water should defeat Fire.

Young Hisoka…(Tears up) I'm so glad he's dead actually, at least he's away from Yatonokami and his freaky family. I swear, the only attractive ones are him and his father. Speaking of attractive…Seiryuu and Tatsumi, OMG. I'm actually just "okay" with the yutaka; what makes Tatsumi eye-catching is how his face is drawn.

The villagers probably should have Yatonokami dropped on their heads, if only to wake them up a little to the suffering of that family. Oh, and in the anime, Maria's hair is dark purple. (I'm pretty sure…I loaned Disc 1 to somebody and it's been almost three months since I've seen it…)

(Glomps the Count)

Kiko812: I'm sorry? I don't understand what you wrote, exactly. Did you dislike the chapter? Did you have to leave? (Sweatdrops)

AnimeAngelRin: Second Death is scheduled for 16 chapters. Incidentally, Southwest of Eden is scheduled for 9 chapters. Oh, and Brownie Points to whoever can name the book I'm referencing. It actually becomes a plot point in Southwest, and I want to see who is well-read. It's an excellent book.

Eternity's Heir: Thank you! (Blush)

Amethyst-eyed Koneko: (Pets both George and AEK) I'm going to see this story and the sequel through to the end, I swear it. In fact, I can't believe I'm going to say this, but I can't wait to finish Second Death so I can start Southwest of Eden.

You're one of those crazy yaoi fangirls, aren't you? Hee, that Suzaku/Touda scene was actually difficult to piece together smoothly because I took it in two different directions. But I'm glad they're there; they're going to be prominent in the sequel, as will Tatsumi/Watari (and, yes, Tsubaki/Eileen, though not as much), and of course, Tsuzuki/Hisoka.

Was there a point to Kazusa-Maria talking? Pro'lly not. Still, I enjoyed writing it and didn't really want to nix it. I'm the kind of writer who can't stand to leave any character—main, secondary, or tertiary—with a hanging plot point. It was just some closure for the small Hijiri/Kazusa in chapter 5. I was kinda experimenting with this story, seeing who I would focus on, and since I've shifted the view to Tsuzuki/Hisoka, Touda/Suzaku, Tsubaki/Eileen, etc, I wanted to give them their due so I could cut them off. Besides, the tale served well as a segue into Tsuzuki/Hisoka, because making them show up just after Terazuma/Wakaba was too jarring for me.

Speaking of Terazuma/Wakaba, yes, they are too cute. I originally planned that the gloves would be what prevented Terazuma from transforming, however, there is a new plot point I thought up afterwards that I'm going to implement in the last chapter.

I wanted Miya there for a couple reasons. One is that, for some reason, I'm feeling the Miya-love. I don't know why, but I think she rocks. Also, she is going to be in the sequel, so I wanted to expound on her friendship with Hisoka (which will serve as a contrast to his relationship with his parents, who also are going to be in the sequel). And thirdly, I was feeling sort of random and giggly, so I wanted to include the teeny-tiny Miya/Rikugo just for kicks. Yes, I'm arbitrary like that.

Watari has no "dark side" but he does have an awful past that hurts him greatly. I really don't think anyone is going to guess what it is, though. But be patient, you'll find out what it is in chapter 15, and it'll be explored greatly in I think chapter 8 of the sequel.

Hope you enjoy this chapter! And yes, they are adorable.

Yuka Hasumi: (Evil grin). Thank you, thank you.

Side Note #1: An obi is the tie around a kimono or a yukata that keeps it from falling open.

Somewhere I have never traveled, gladly beyond

Any experience, your eyes have their silence:

In your most frail gesture are things which enclose me

Your slightest look easily will unclose me

Though I have closed myself as fingers,

You open always petal by petal myself as spring opens

(Touching skillfully, mysteriously) her first rose

………………

Nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals

The power of your intense fragility

………………

(I do not know what it is about you that closes

And opens; only something in me understands

The voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)

- E.E. Cummings, "Somewhere I Have Never Traveled"

Somewhere I Have Never Traveled

"Tsuzuki, this is…!"

"Yep," Tsuzuki answered. "The place you saw in my memory, in Kyoto two years ago."

"This is the place you wanted to go to?" Hisoka asked incredulously. Tsuzuki had been uncharacteristically taciturn throughout the small amount of time it had taken to them return home, change into more traditional and comfortable Japanese garb, and then to teleport, Hisoka blindly, into Chijou. "Why here, of all places?"

"I need to do something here," Tsuzuki answered, sitting down on the ground and kicking off his sandals. Hisoka stared at him, and then transferred his gaze around the rocky clearing and the meters of meadow surrounding it. The rows upon rows of long grass seemed to be the same height as they had been in 1907; the ground had the same gravelly composition; the night sky was the same dark mix of black and blue like a bruise left unhealed. It looked untouched by time. It was frightening.

"Sit," Tsuzuki suggested more than commanded, and Hisoka pulled off his sandals, discarding them as he sat down. Tsuzuki pulled him into the crook of his arm, his hand on Hisoka's far shoulder, as a chilly wind blew through the field and seeped into Hisoka's clothes, sending a shiver up his spine.

"After I regained consciousness," Tsuzuki said, his voice eerily absent from his story, "I stayed here because I was too sore to move. It's no one's property—still isn't, I checked—so I could stay here as long as I wanted to. I just watched the horizon and waited for the sun to come up. And then, suddenly, all these fireflies came out…like there!"

Tsuzuki's hand brushed Hisoka's ear and his pointed, and a small flash of green light caught Hisoka's eye. Another followed in its wake, and another, and another.

"I was fascinated that there were so many," Tsuzuki continued, regaining self-possession. "And they all seemed to fly in pairs. I thought they were little married bug couples." Tsuzuki laughed at the memory of his own childish imagination.

"I'm sensing a "but"…" Hisoka murmured.

"Of course," Tsuzuki replied. "There had to be one loner firefly. I felt bad for him, being alone with all these other couples flying around him. I caught him and brought him home with me. But…fireflies don't live long…"

Tsuzuki's eyes dropped sadly, his memory flashing the sight of the frozen dead insect on his bedroom windowsill.

"Ruka told me that it was only natural, but I thought I killed him. I was so miserable. It's pathetic, but that bug dying made me so upset that I didn't come back here for 10 years after that. It wasn't until…until Ruka died, that I came back. Something just carried me here. It was like…like they were chasing me and throwing rocks again, but this time…this time…" Tsuzuki trailed off. "Anyway…this is where Muraki Yukitaka found me. This is the last place outside the hospital I remember."

Hisoka looked down as he felt something small and ticklish brush his hand. A small firefly glowed its green light against his skin, and then spread its wings and took to the air. His eyes followed the flight path of the tiny creature as a pair of arms wrapped around his stomach and Tsuzuki buried his face in Hisoka's shoulder blade.

"Tsuzuki, why did you bring me here?" Hisoka asked, barely audible.

"I don't want anymore sad memories of this place, Hisoka," Tsuzuki whispered. "I want something in Chijou that I'm glad I remember."

Hisoka nodded, still staring at the sky, feeling his mouth, hands, and intestines tensely clam up. "I understand."

"I love you."

"I know."

Tsuzuki kissed the side of Hisoka's face and Hisoka closed his eyes, feeling rather than seeing Tsuzuki's hand move to untie his obi.

His soft gasp opened Hisoka's eyes and he tilted his head downward to see what had caused Tsuzuki's reaction. Peeking out from Hisoka's sleeves was a winding red river of ancient writing, glowing sinisterly against his ashen skin.

Hisoka pulled away out of Tsuzuki's arms. His hands moved around himself, holding his yukata together.

"You don't want this," he murmured, curling his head into his collarbone. "You can't. This isn't…this isn't…"

Hisoka felt himself being pulled backwards and his back softly landed against Tsuzuki's chest. Tsuzuki's arms wrapped around Hisoka's neck and he buried his face in his husband's shoulder.

"No, it's okay," Tsuzuki whispered, kissing Hisoka's cheek. "I thought that maybe…this might happen. We just have to…have to ignore it, okay? Are you okay?"

Hisoka nodded once more and looked away, trying to keep the blood-born curse marks out of his vision. Tsuzuki put his hands on Hisoka's shoulders and guided him around to make eye contact. For a moment, they sat in perfect stillness except for their hands: Tsuzuki's hands burying themselves in Hisoka's hair, Hisoka's hands trembling where they rested on his legs. And then, Tsuzuki hooked his fingers around the fabric of Hisoka's yukata and pulled it completely off Hisoka's bony shoulders.

"You're okay," Tsuzuki said, not a question, not a statement, almost a plea. "You're okay," he repeated.

He pressed his mouth against Hisoka's, passionate and mild, intense and undemanding. Gently he pressured Hisoka onto his back, commanding himself with every fleeting moment to forget how cold Hisoka's lips felt on his own. He sat on the ground completely and pulled Hisoka's hand onto the knot of his obi, silently asking him to do as he himself had done earlier.

The small tremors that had been in Hisoka's hands steadily began growing like a malignant tumor as his fingers tried to loosen what suddenly seemed like a meticulously intricate knot. After a few short seconds that felt like several long minutes the panic took over and he retracted his arm vertically against his chest, his knuckles covering what Tsuzuki could tell was his quivering lip.

"It's all right," Tsuzuki soothed.

"It's pathetic," Hisoka berated self-disparagingly, looking away shamefacedly and angry with himself. "For me to be so weak…"

"No." Tsuzuki's hand guided Hisoka's face back to look at him. "It's not pathetic. You can be as weak as you want with me."

"I don't want to be weak," Hisoka replied, strangled, insistence wrapped in fright and warmed over with uncertainty. "I promised you…I promised I'd be ready…I'd be okay…d-mn it, I don't say things like that lightly, I can't break this promise, I…!"

Tsuzuki's fingers brushed over Hisoka's mouth, shushing him kindly. "You won't. I know you. If you've made up your mind to do something, you'll follow through even if it kills you."

The tips of Tsuzuki's fingers traced elongated ovals up and down the side of Hisoka's face. With his free hand he untied his obi, and he stretched out on top of Hisoka, using the yukata as a makeshift blanket to guard against an unseasonable bitingly cold wind. Hisoka sucked in a sudden harsh breath; Tsuzuki felt his chest rise and fall at an undeniably unhealthy and rapid rate that only seemed to increase with each passing second. Hisoka's ashen skin seemed bloodless and devoid of warmth; his perennially starved limbs were shaking in just barely hidden animalistic terror.

Tsuzuki kissed him, tenderly and passionately, breathing into him. The hyperventilation slowed and turned into a soft sort of pant.

"There. My version of mouth-to-mouth resuscitation."

Hisoka laughed, suddenly and bordering on obnoxiously, and the sound of it shocked both of them into wide-eyed surprise. Then, Tsuzuki positively giggled, and he smiled.

"See? I know words with more than two syllables."

"They don't do you any good," Hisoka replied, "if you don't make frequent use of them."

Tsuzuki kissed him again, and again and again, each one softer and more ardent than the previous. They left Hisoka's mouth and island-hopped to his forehead, his cheek, his neck, his shoulder, as Tsuzuki's hands gently, unobtrusively ran the length of Hisoka's torso.

The shaking had turned into an invisible but tangible trembling; the eyes…screwed up tightly. Impulsively Tsuzuki's hands moved to press against Hisoka's eyelids and gently massage them open. Green, scared and—even if only unconsciously—expecting pain, peeked out from in between a row of surprisingly dark eyelashes.

'Tell me what you want' was the first thought that crossed Tsuzuki's mind, but the cells therein quickly crumpled up the thought and tossed it away. That wasn't the right question. He didn't think Hisoka would be able to answer, and even if he did, he knew that he himself wouldn't know how to comply. But something needed to be said; the silence was gaining in tonnage and it was making his stomach twist.

"Hisoka…tell me what you didn't want."

Tsuzuki couldn't tell if Hisoka's empathic barriers were slipping, but he could tell that Hisoka understood what he meant.

"After I…after I got my memory back," Hisoka said through a shuddery breath, "I wanted never…to have someone hold me down again. I wanted never…for anyone to see me vulnerable again." His voice picked up speed but not strength. "I wanted never…for someone to stop me from screaming again, never to…to be the source of…of someone's pleasure again." He shut his eyes, his voice barely intelligible. "I wanted never to…hurt like that again…"

Tsuzuki's hand stroked Hisoka's temple, brushing his bangs of his face. "I have to…I have to stop your screaming. I won't expect anything of you, anything at all, but I have to stop your screaming. And I…I can't promise it won't hurt…I barely know what I'm doing…" His voiced was tortured, as if the words were physically painful to force up his windpipe and out of his mouth.

Hisoka nodded, his throat dry. Tsuzuki's curled fingers brushed Hisoka's palm and then curled around Hisoka hand in a grip rivaling that of a newborn's.

"I'll…I won't hold you down. But…if you want…if you want…I won't let go of your hand tonight."

"Don't," Hisoka said, a little more desperately than he meant to.

Tsuzuki buried his face in Hisoka's neck, softly kissing where the throat curved outward into the shoulder. Hisoka lay silently, staring up at a sudden swarm of fireflies that neither of them had noticed forming.

Tsuzuki was right. They did seem to fly in pairs.

Darkness. Coldness. Emptiness. He pulled his clothes tighter around him and huddled closer into the fetal-like ball he had curled himself up in to ward off the freezing temperatures and rested his chin on his knees, over-wide green eyes staring out at the blankness of unending black. Elusive laughter was floating into his ears from somewhere far away; laughter of happiness and derision.

A loud noise close to him, a splash of something liquid and hot. He flinched and covered his head with his hands, burying his face in his legs as he tried desperately to wipe the black and red blood wrapping around his fingers into his hair. Suddenly it felt like needles, first glacial and then scalding, were prying into his body with mind-numbing pain. With a child's anguished cry he clutched at his head as the stubborn blood trickled down his arms and into his sleeves, infesting his clothes and skin, already marked with ruby-red.

The feeling of a presence forced him to look up. A hand was descending out to him, and he gave off a strangled gasp and smack the hand away as he saw more liquid iron running from ghastly, black, infected-looking scars on the adjacent wrist.

"Hi," the hand's owner, a small brunette child with poor-looking, tattered western clothes and unusual eyes, said, and Hisoka covered his ears and looked away.

"I said "hi"," Tsuzuki repeated.

"Go away!" Hisoka screeched at him.

"No. I said "hi"."

"I hate you!"

For the first time the light in Tsuzuki's odd eyes suddenly dampened and Hisoka hid his face in his hands guiltily. The blood from Tsuzuki's wrist was dripping onto Hisoka's bare, small, cold feet.

"I said "hi"," Tsuzuki said again, this time barely hearable.

"H-hi," Hisoka replied, his voice small, peeking out from his hands. The radiance that had been diminished suddenly returned to Tsuzuki's odd purple eyes.

"You're all bloody."

"So're you," Hisoka returned.

"No I'm not."

"Yes you are."

"No."

"Yes."

"…Yes."

Tsuzuki plopped down beside Hisoka and looped his arms around Hisoka's upper arm, resting his head against Hisoka's shoulder as one might rest his head on a pillow. "Why do you hate me?"

"I hate everyone."

"Why?"

"Because they hate me."

"I don't hate you. I like you."

"No you don't."

"Yes I do."

"No you don't."

"Yes I do."

"…Yes you do."

"Yes I do!" The innocent violet eyes crinkled up as a smile spread across his face, and Tsuzuki planted a sloppy kiss filled with childlike unconditional affection on Hisoka's cheek.

There was another loud noise, almost deafening in its proximity and intensity, and another splash of red fluid crashed over them both like a wave breaking on the shore. Both of them yelped in terror and threw themselves against each other, burying their faces in each other's shoulders and trying to spit the metallic taste of blood out of their mouths. The shared embrace tightened as their eyes squinted shut against the onslaught of horrific images parading before them.

"Hey, hey, I think it's okay now," Tsuzuki whispered after a few minutes of complete silence. Hisoka looked up, his grip on Tsuzuki remaining. The blood was slowly receding from them, traveling away like a tide going out.

"You stopped bleeding," Hisoka observed, his eyes lingering on the underside Tsuzuki's wrists. The deep gashes had stopped pouring forth the liquid of life and death, though they glistened still with black remains.

"Yeah, well you got the blood off your fingers," Tsuzuki threw back, as if challenged. "But you've got these weird red things on your hands."

Hisoka yanked his hands back but Tsuzuki doggedly refused denial; he took them and pulled them towards him with insistence. A fat tear rolled off Hisoka's baby-face cheek, which Tsuzuki immediately noticed.

"I'm sorry!" Tsuzuki yelped, dropping Hisoka's hands. "I didn't mean it, I'm sorry, I didn't mean it!" Tears of frustration stung his own eyes and he took Hisoka's arms and shook him, trying to get his apology in through actions rather than through ineffective words.

Hisoka cried out as another roar sounded, expecting another wave of blood to attempt drowning him, and he found himself shielded by the trunk of Tsuzuki's body. The slashes on Tsuzuki's arm covered Hisoka's eyes directly; he couldn't see anything aside from the wide black lines marking death and suffering and sorrow.

"Hisoka?"

He was lying on his stomach, the side of his face resting in the dirt, his eyes open but not lucid. Tsuzuki's hand was cupped inside Hisoka's, their fingers laced as Tsuzuki leaned his fingers backwards and Hisoka hooked his own in forward. It took a moment for Hisoka to realize that he had moved his face closer to their arms and he was running his tongue over the scars, catching the taste of flesh and iron and collecting it in his mouth.

"Hisoka?" Tsuzuki repeated, moving his other hand to touch Hisoka's face.

Hisoka tucked his head against Tsuzuki's palm. He could see red running up his arm, dull but still obvious, and he shut his eyes against the abominable sight.

"These scars…they never go away, do they?"

"I guess they…no." Tsuzuki hesitated, biting his lower lip. "No, they don't ever, really."

"But…" Hisoka whispered scratchily, "they can…eventually…stop hurting all the time, can't they?"

Tsuzuki laid the side of his head against Hisoka's and nodded. "Yeah…sometimes you can forget. Well, not "forget", 'cause they're still there, but…you can ignore them…every once in awhile. They can't hurt…all the time."

Tsuzuki shifted his weight to allow Hisoka to roll over onto his back again. Hisoka's arms slid around Tsuzuki's neck as he accepted a kiss.

"Are you okay?"

"Yes."

"Good." Tsuzuki laughed uncertainly. "I'm so glad…"

"Tsuzuki?"

"Yeah?"

"Thanks. And Tsuzuki…I love you."

For a moment it struck Hisoka how amazing it was that Tsuzuki was so gentle. But as he stared up at his husband, the sadly blissful features of his visage illuminated by the glow of fireflies while he softly caressed Hisoka's face, he briefly wondered why he might have expected any different.