Hisoka was just about to change for bed when there was a knock on his apartment door. Not that there was any question, after the events of that day, who was standing on the other side of it.

"Hisoka! Good, you're still awake!" Tsuzuki proclaimed when he opened it, and began to invite himself in.

Hisoka refusing to move out of the way did put a bit of a crimp in his plan, though. "It's late, Tsuzuki," Hisoka said as he covered a yawn. "Any chance we can do this tomorrow? I mean, now that we have all the time in the world to catch up. . . ."

But he recognized the uneasy, shifty look in Tsuzuki's eyes. "You're right, absolutely. It's just . . . Well, I've been away for a while . . ."

"Oh my god! You're not worried giant spiders moved into your apartment while you were gone again, are you?"

"Actually," a sheepish grin, "someone did move in, but not spiders. Guess I've been gone so long the landlords had me evicted in absentia. There's a family living there now, which I only just barely managed to find out before two little girls got traumatized with home-invasion nightmares for life."

Hisoka knew there was no fighting it. He stepped aside, and shut the door after Tsuzuki.

"I promise I won't overstay my welcome," his partner said as he kicked off his shoes and shrugged out of his trench. "The chief got me a hearing with Enma first thing in the morning to discuss my future as a shinigami, and if all goes well and he determines I can stay, I should be assigned a new place by tomorrow night. But to be honest, I wasn't looking forward to going back there—and I don't just mean the spiders. That apartment never felt like home the first night after coming back from a long trip."

"What about all your stuff?"

"I didn't have that much I was attached to," Tsuzuki waved off his concern, though Hisoka couldn't help feeling like his partner was trying to convince himself of that more than anything. "Other than the garden, but I was away so long I probably wouldn't recognize it now. It would be best to just let it go. I'd cry if it turned out something died while I wasn't there to care for it."

Then Tsuzuki promptly began rooting around in the kitchen cupboards with the declaration, "I could use a drink. You?"

Hisoka shook his head at him. Some things never changed. And for the dead, they changed even less. But he couldn't blame Tsuzuki. It was one comfort worth clinging to, with Tsuzuki's upcoming hearing looming over all of them, to know that Muraki hadn't done anything to erase the Tsuzuki Hisoka remembered.

"I'm sorry about your plants," Hisoka told him, crossing his arms over his chest. He never did understand how a person could get emotionally attached to a hydrangea, but he'd been subjected to enough boring stories and picture shares to know what it meant to Tsuzuki. It was probably easier not to think about any of that, particularly when one's future and even existence could be on the line.

Tsuzuki, however, acted as though he hadn't heard. "I'll have to get a whole new wardrobe, of course. That won't be cheap, but maybe I can convince Tatsumi I'm owed some back-pay for everything I've been through in the last couple of months. Then again, probably not. . . . Terazuma was nice enough to provide me some hand-me-downs in the meantime, so don't be surprised if I smell like an ashtray for a week or so. Kind of surprised me he'd do something so generous, actually. What do you think: Wakaba's influence?"

"Believe it or not," Hisoka said, "I think Terazuma actually missed you."

Tsuzuki snorted. "Yeah. Right." But he would never know how true Hisoka's statement was. Nor did Hisoka think it was his place to try and convince him. If Terazuma wanted to revert back to being a thorn in Tsuzuki's side the moment they reunited, that was his prerogative. It wouldn't surprise Hisoka if that was how the former detective chose to show he cared. "Hey, is it true that he's no longer possessed? How did that happen?"

"It's kind of a long story. . . ."

There was a triumphant "Ah-ha!" from the kitchen at the same time, followed by the pop of a cork.

Hisoka started. "Hey—I was saving that!" he said as Tsuzuki drank right from the bottle of red wine. Not a cheap one, either. Granted Hisoka had been saving it for Tsuzuki's return, but it was the principle of the thing. "I was hoping we could drink it together over a nice meal or something, but it's too late to cook and you don't deserve take-out."

Perhaps by way of apology, Tsuzuki retrieved a tumbler and poured a portion for Hisoka. Too generous of one, in Hisoka's opinion, as he never had managed to be anything more than a lightweight when it came to alcohol, and would be sipping on that one glass all night. Of course, what he didn't finish, Tsuzuki would.

"We can still share it," he said as Hisoka took the glass. "To things that aren't too late." Tsuzuki clinked the wine bottle against it. "Kampai."

He didn't wait for Hisoka to drink before taking a long swig from the bottle.

"Now." Tsuzuki settled himself and the bottle down into the closest chair. "I want to hear all about what you've been up to while I've been gone."

"That's a lot to tell," said Hisoka, who didn't know where he was supposed to start.

"Well, I've got a lot of time to hear it. Don't think I'll be feeling like sleeping any time soon."

Naturally, a few hours later found Tsuzuki passed out across Hisoka's bed.

Fortunately Hisoka had had the presence of mind to notice the wine bottle was empty and the inevitable was in sight, and while Tsuzuki was still somewhat conscious—and entirely drunk, which, true to form, Tsuzuki insisted he never got even while he was—Hisoka managed to convince him to take the bed and lie down, before he fell asleep in the armchair and got a sore neck.

Of course, Tsuzuki had needed assistance to get over to the bed—seemed he could undress himself while inebriated just fine, but walking in a straight line posed a real challenge—and all while Hisoka was propping him up he insisted that, while he would do what Hisoka asked because it was Hisoka asking it, he had no intent or desire to fall asleep.

He wasn't snoring. At least, Hisoka wouldn't have called it that. But Tsuzuki was breathing so loudly that there was no question just how exhausted he had been. There was no getting him back up again, either. Which means I get to sleep in the uncomfortable chair.

Or maybe not.

Now that Tsuzuki was back, and there was some semblance of a back-to-normal, it would have been all too easy, all too tempting to deny it. Affection. Love. . . . Those weren't exactly things Hisoka was used to being on the receiving end of, and it had been an equally long time since he'd given them. What he had received had been too twisted to call by either of those names.

Yet what he had felt from Tsuzuki that morning, just pouring from him straight into Hisoka's soul, had been pure. It had been strong. And he had wanted to surrender to it so badly, only the knowledge of being separated from his coworkers by a thin wall and venetian blinds kept him from giving in. Well, that and not knowing what exactly Tsuzuki had been up to the past several months.

But there was no one else here. And Tsuzuki was too tanked to hold it against him later. There was no one Hisoka needed to pretend for, other than himself. And he was sick of pretending.

Carefully—though he needn't have worried, as Tsuzuki wasn't a light sleeper—Hisoka settled himself into his own bed behind Tsuzuki. Hesitating, he put his hand on Tsuzuki's waist, and held his breath when Tsuzuki sucked in one of his own and shifted under his touch. But it was only to get more comfortable. His breathing deepened, evened out again.

Encouraged, Hisoka pulled himself closer. Buried his face in Tsuzuki's back and breathed in the scent of him, amazed he could have missed it for so long. As if years had passed rather than nine months. And, like catching a scent as a grown man that he hadn't experienced since he was a boy, those nine months melted away as though they had never been. At the same time, Hisoka knew nothing was really the same. They had crossed too many lines for things to ever go back to being the same. And that was a sobering thought.

Whether Enma came down hard on Tsuzuki, it was out of Hisoka's hands. But he had him now, in his arms, if only for this little while. Tsuzuki's heartbeat slowly coaxed Hisoka's into its own rhythm, and Hisoka wondered if he would dream Tsuzuki's dreams.

Sakaki was not expected to last the night. Even if Oriya had arrived sooner, and Sakaki hadn't lost so much blood, the damage to his organs was too severe and too extensive to repair, all the more so for a man of his age.

Perhaps mistaking Oriya's guilt for grief, the doctor directed him to the hospital chapel, as they were doubtless trained to do when they saw the last vestiges of hope drain from a family member's face. But the only gods Oriya still had faith existed had no need of human prayers or curses, nor could they be bothered to listen.

He went anyway. Perhaps deep in his subconscious he had an inkling that he would be there. An angel of death if ever Oriya knew one. Only this time, in a charcoal trench coat. Oriya didn't think he owned anything that wasn't white anymore.

"I see you, but I don't know whether you're alive or dead."

"Alive," Muraki confirmed, thankfully not in the form of a koan. "For what that's worth."

"So is your man. But not for much longer, by what I've been told."

"I know."

"Is that all you can say?"

"You're right." Muraki bowed his head. "Thank you, Oriya, for being there to call for help when I was not. I have always been able to count on you to cover for my shortcomings."

"You know that's not what I meant!"

Oriya gestured with a sweep of his arm to the chapel door, and the hospital beyond where, somewhere, Sakaki lay on a gurney, fighting for his life. Surely Muraki's thoughts had to be on the welfare of his man, too. Unless Oriya was wrong, and there wasn't a shred of human compassion left in his old friend. But he could only bear to meet Oriya out of the corner of his eye. His goddamned dry eyes.

"Sakaki would have given anything for you!" Oriya accused him, gritting his teeth so hard they ached. "Including his life. Now it looks like he may do just that. And this is how you repay him? By dismissing him like refuse the moment he's no longer of use to you?"

"He knew what he was signing up for—"

"Then you truly feel nothing. His sacrifice means nothing to you."

Muraki did turn to confront him then, fully, and Oriya almost regretted it. How badly he had missed his old friend, he didn't even know until they were standing face to face. There was an otherworldly beauty to Muraki that Oriya had always felt himself drawn to despite his lack of attraction to other men. Perhaps the way the men of Sodom were drawn to the angels: to something so beyond oneself that one couldn't help but desire to stand in its light, and keep it for oneself. And he hated that Muraki had that effect on him—and knew he wasn't the only one on whom Muraki used that power to his advantage. Just as Oriya hated that he never seemed to be able to hold on to his anger in Muraki's presence, even when he knew it was justified.

Even now, it was poised to flee at the sight of Muraki's face. Oriya had thought his old friend unmoved, but he recognized the melancholy in those silver eyes. The stubborn Buddha smile that hid a pain to which Oriya was always denied access.

"Sakaki knew this was a possibility when he entered into the Muraki household. I was just a child then, I didn't know he existed. But he knew of me—what my grandfather deemed it necessary to share, in any case. And even being privy to what monstrosities the men in my family were guilty of, he never ran, though he had so many chances to do so. Given the choice, he chose to stay. He chose to be an accomplice to our sins."

Oriya could hardly believe what he was hearing. "Are you really saying this is his own fault? That he brought his own death on himself?"

Muraki began to protest, but Oriya wouldn't let him. He was sick of the excuses, sick of the lies and the shifting of blame.

"I knew you were cruel," he said through his teeth, "and that you don't have much regard for the rest of humanity. But I thought you would at least be capable of feeling some measure of indebtedness to the man who's been looking after you for so long. You're probably the closest thing he has to kin. You should be in there with him, instead of cowering in here, before a god you can't possibly believe in. You should have to look him in the eye and face that you're responsible for this! Don't you owe Sakaki at least that much? Surely gratitude isn't beyond you, or remorse—"

"Remorse!" Muraki breathed the word like it was a revelation, tilting his head back as though to laugh. But he did not laugh. "Do you know, Oriya, that if not for Sakaki I would have died the night of my parents' funeral? Cut down by my own half-brother. I don't think I ever told you that. Sakaki saved me, shot Saki in the back while he held our father's sword to my throat—"

"You told me Saki died of an accident."

"And you always assumed that meant I killed him. Didn't you?"

He shot Oriya a knowing grin, and Oriya could not deny it. He had never said so aloud, but he had long harbored a certainty, ever since learning Muraki was capable and indeed partial to killing, that his old friend was responsible for Shidou Saki's death. And Oriya had long since justified it to himself, telling himself it must have been in self-defense, or, as Muraki had told him, an unfortunate accident. If he were entirely honest, it wouldn't have mattered to him if Muraki killed his brother in cold blood; Saki had earned his death long ago in Oriya's mind.

"I never told you the truth because I could not forgive Sakaki what he had done," Muraki confessed.

But he saved your life, Oriya wanted to argue. What was so unforgivable about that?

But this was Muraki they were talking about. How many lives might have been spared if Saki had succeeded that day?

"I felt that revenge for my parents' deaths should have been mine alone to take, and that if I died in the attempt to achieve it . . . well, at least I would have committed one act of filial piety in my short life. Sakaki took even that away from me. He robbed me of my revenge. It wasn't until I was robbed of the chance a second time that I realized what a worthless goal it had been. All those years I had been clinging to a worthless old injury. It was undeserving of me."

Oriya could have laughed. If he wasn't so disgusted. For a moment, he had believed his old friend to be on the brink of a breakthrough—about to confess how he had been wrong so many years, how he regretted hurting the people who cared about him. Oriya should have known better. He should have known better than to think that Muraki even noticed what blood was spilled for love of him.

"Sakaki understood that," Muraki said with renewed conviction. "He tried to tell me, countless times he tried to tell me, that I was made for something greater. I could not afford to let my grandfather's work be in vain, pursuing an adversary who was so far beneath me."

"Then, this is still just about you," Oriya muttered. "It's always been about you. Hasn't it? Your revenge, your destiny, your legacy—how you have to live up to your grandfather's ideals? I'm sick of it! What about the people around you, Muraki? Don't their feelings matter? Their lives? The sacrifices they've made—for you?"

But Oriya didn't give him a chance to answer and defend himself. He didn't want to have to hear the same old bullshit granted the dignity of spoken words. "You asked me once, if you died, would I shed a single tear for you. But could you ever shed a tear for anyone else? Other than your goddamned Tsuzuki, that is," he snarled, seeing the refutation already forming on Muraki's lips. "That's right. I know he's what this is really about. And I assume we have him to thank for murdering Sakaki. How many people have to die for him, Muraki? How many more have to die because you can't let go? Because he's already fucking dead!"

It might have shamed Oriya, to curse in what was meant to be a holy place, to lose his composure and resort to language he had come to see as plebeian. But he didn't care. He was past such petty concerns. With Muraki standing before him, the one person he could honestly say he loved and wished he didn't, ready to throw his life away again. And again. And again. . . .

And take whoever was nearby down with him.

"Where does it end?" Oriya could no longer help the waver in his voice, but Muraki could think as little of him for it as he liked. "How many more lives do you have to take before you put an end to this nonsense?"

"Just one."

It was a chastened Muraki who spoke, and it robbed Oriya of whatever other accusations he had wanted to make. The reflection of candlelight from the altar on his glasses reminded Oriya of their last night together in Kyoto. The graveyard full of lanterns, like souls in limbo drifting through the autumn night. . . .

It vanished when he tilted his head—replaced by a different fire, deep down in his cold eyes. "Just one more. And then, I promise, I will trouble you no more."

But that wasn't the answer Oriya wanted. He wanted to take Muraki in both hands and shake sense into him, until he got an answer more satisfactory than that. Yet all he could manage was a sighed, "Muraki. . . ."

It was his old friend who reached out. Though, as natural as gestures of reassurance might seem to come to a doctor of long practice, Oriya never could make himself believe there was genuine warmth and affection in it. He wanted to, but knowing what Muraki was capable—and culpable—of, he could never make himself believe it.

"I'm not sure I've ever been capable of feeling love," Muraki told him with a candor that Oriya would have been ashamed to admit he could not entirely trust, "but if I have felt it, it has only ever been for four people in my life. One is dead, another soon will be, and one is in Hell. I cannot lose you, too, Oriya. Not now."

What are you trying to say? What the hell am I supposed to take from that, Muraki!

But the tear that rolled down Muraki's right cheek stunned Oriya to speechlessness. Was this the sign he had been waiting for for twenty years? The sign that he had his friend all wrong—that he hadn't wasted his own life defending this man he knew was indefensible?

No. Of course not. Because the tear that rolled down that one side, from under the veil of hair that hid Muraki's artificial eye, wasn't a tear of remorse. Or love. Or anything Oriya could have hoped for. It left a pink trail down Muraki's cheek, from diluted blood or . . . Oriya didn't want to think what else might have tinged it that unhealthy color.

Muraki released him and reached for a handkerchief, turning away as he dabbed at his face. "I'm sorry. This eye . . ."

"What's wrong? Is it infected?"

"A malfunction. Nothing you need worry about."

He lowered the handkerchief for a moment as he blinked and rolled the eye around its socket. The scarred and stretched tissue around it did not seem changed, except that the years had only made the damage more pronounced. But Oriya thought the eye itself seemed different. Dimmed. Out of synch. Lacking in a certain razor-sharpness that had always unnerved him when he looked into it.

Malfunction, my ass. Though Muraki insisted the eye was artificial, Oriya could never shake the feeling that it was as alive as the rest of him. If not entirely human.

"I have to go," Muraki said suddenly, startling Oriya from his musings and rekindling his anger.

"What? Because your eye is bothering you? You don't get to walk away from this that easi—"

But it was Muraki who grabbed his arm and pulled him close, so Oriya could not escape the chapel or that rotting eye's gaze if he wanted to.

"I need you to make me a promise as well," Muraki said. "That if you ever see Ukyou again, you will care for her, and love her, the way I was never able."

"Ukyou?" Oriya started. "What does she have to do with this?" But even as he asked the question, he knew it was all connected. He would not have gone looking for Muraki if it wasn't her disappearance he had been trying to solve. And he would not have found Sakaki on the mansion floor, nor be standing here now, beside a Muraki he never thought he would see again in the flesh.

He could have kicked himself that her name hadn't been the first word out of his mouth when he saw Muraki. Now that the time left to speak seemed to be slipping away, the questions all came out in a rush: "Do you know where she is? Is she still alive? Do you know why her house looks like a bomb fell on it?"

Muraki released his hold, but Oriya wasn't done with him just yet. He grabbed on to Muraki's coat, and shook him once, hard. "Of course you know, bastard. . . . Tell me where she is! Tell me she's alive!"

Just say that one little word, Muraki. "Yes." It would be so goddamn easy. Please. Even if it's a lie. Just say it!

But for all of Oriya's pleading, the word would not emerge from Muraki's lips. Nor could Oriya find it written anywhere on Muraki's face. Yet he speaks of seeing her again. . . .

"Just promise me, Oriya. That's all I need of you. You know she always loved you more than she did me."

His audacity. . . . Oriya might have been the companion of convenience, and the safer choice of the two, but "We both know that isn't true."

Though how often had he wished it were? How many times a day, when Ukyou came on one of her visits, did Oriya wish they could pretend that it had only ever been the two of them, no engagements or other affections to stand between them, no murderous mutual friend to further complicate their lives. But then, would he and Ukyou have even met if Muraki had never existed? Would they have anything left to bind them to one another if he disappeared?

Oriya wasn't sure he wanted to find out. Was it worth it, to gain everything he had dreamed of, if it came at the loss of a love he couldn't escape for all he tried?

"No, it isn't." Muraki let his smile fall, as Oriya's hands fell away from him. "But it's what should be. It's what you both deserve."

Home.

And another day in it so very like all the others. Even a nine-month furlough couldn't change that.

That was what Tsuzuki felt overwhelmingly as he stood among the undead cherry trees of Enma-cho. He should have been elated. His return was hard-won, after all. But all he could feel was how much the same it was to all the seventy-five-plus years that had come before it. As if I never left.

Some consistencies he was thankful for, of course. Hisoka was still here. Tsuzuki didn't have to look everyone in the eye with the knowledge hanging over them that he was responsible for his partner's destruction.

And waking up this morning—that had been a new one. Hisoka probably hadn't meant to fall asleep, because Tsuzuki was sure he would have been mortified to have anyone catch them in the position they'd been in. Even in sleep, Hisoka had held on to him like a child afraid someone was going to take his teddy bear away. Tsuzuki, however, had felt such a deep and pleasant warmth fill his body that he hadn't felt since . . . well, since earlier that day when he learned he hadn't killed Hisoka after all. If he hadn't had an appointment to get to, he might have decided to stay and see what happened when Hisoka woke up naturally.

Once he would have been tempted to break the spell, and tease Hisoka for trying to get him into his bed. But not this morning. After all they'd been through, Tsuzuki couldn't be that cruel to the kid. No. Better if Hisoka awoke after Tsuzuki received his sentence, whatever it may be. After it was too late to do anything about it. Despite the headache from the wine coming on, Tsuzuki had been extra careful not to disturb Hisoka as he disentangled himself, and let himself out.

While he watched the falling petals, trying to will away the throbbing in his temples, a lone butterfly drifted toward him through the grove. Wings of palest green, the same hue as Death's horse in the Book of Revelation, with a large black spot on each side. Tsuzuki raised his hand to it, and the little creature, looking for a perch, allowed itself to be tempted in.

In one swift motion, Tsuzuki closed his fingers around it and squeezed it tight in his fist. He felt the tiny body burst against his palm as his fingertips pressed down and inward, blood flood the creases, wings crumple and disconnect. Yes, Muraki. Life is a fragile thing. He understood that now. Though to be fair, he had always understood it. But understanding and accepting were two different things.

"The chief said I might find you here," Tatsumi said as he strode up. "Collecting your thoughts before the hearing? You know, it's only human to be nervous."

To anyone else, Tatsumi's words might have sounded cold, blunt, falsely cheery. Not so to Tsuzuki, who had known him for so long. You know what I need to hear right now, don't you? Just pretend everything will go on being the same, never changing, never ending. Stay human. That's what they want of you.

"Why should I be nervous?" Tsuzuki said, though neither one was fooled. "I've been judged before. And reprimanded before, too."

Not like this, Tatsumi's patient smile itched to say, but even he didn't want to voice it. As if to do so might skew Tsuzuki's chances. "You're right. You're a pro. You and His Highness must be on first-name terms by now."

"Just about!"

The secretary chuckled. But his eyes behind his glasses were full of all the gravity the rest of his demeanor resisted. "I want you to know I have faith you can come out the other side of this, Tsuzuki. Just answer all of Enma's questions honestly and open your soul fully to inspection. Enma rewards honesty. So long as you don't let Miru-me and Kagu-hana distract you into reacting defensively."

The two severed heads at the foot of Enma's throne were enough to give anyone the creeps, no matter how many times one endured their gaze. "I know, I know," Tsuzuki said. "Lie, and Enma will rip out my tongue. I was taught that as a kid, too, Tatsumi."

But his glibness didn't sit well with Tatsumi. The shadows seemed to hang darker around him this morning, with a dread that he dared not mention.

"Hey," Tsuzuki said. "You're not going to lose me after just getting me back." He wasn't sure that he really believed that, but it seemed to be what Tatsumi needed to hear. And he couldn't stand Tatsumi looking at him like it was the last time he was going to see Tsuzuki. Just which of them was supposed to be the moral support here? "I'm too valuable to Enma and his plans, right? Even if I begged him to, he wouldn't dream of letting me go."

That seemed to do the trick, and Tatsumi brightened. If only just a little. "Of course. You're right. Nevertheless, I'll be waiting there for you the very moment you get out, at which time you are free to grouse to me about your ordeal to your heart's content."

"Can I grouse over dessert in Chijou?"

"Don't press your luck."

"Well, I suppose I could settle for an anpan from the cafeteria. . . ." Tsuzuki grumbled, but he couldn't quite stifle his grin. And he gestured for Tatsumi to lead the way.

Once Tatsumi had turned his back, Tsuzuki opened his fist. Free, a little butterfly fluttered out, whole once more. Meandering mindlessly on its way to the next flower, the next perch, as if it had felt nothing, remembered nothing.

Yes. Very much the same. Death lost its sting when even the tiniest insects here couldn't die. Couldn't be reborn. Couldn't move up the ladder of transmigration, or ever attain the reward of complete nothingness that he could only pray awaited him at the end of his service. If it ever came to an end. . . .

Perhaps he did owe Muraki for opening his eyes, for he could see the truth of this place much more clearly now: When nothing was able to truly die, life lost something precious too.

Tsuzuki was different.

Then again, given what untold things he had been through in Muraki's care, Tatsumi should have been surprised if Tsuzuki had returned to them the same. Whatever the doctor had done, Tatsumi wasn't entirely sure he wanted to know, but he was certain it was unforgivable.

He could hear it in the message left on his phone from a number he didn't recognize. He could feel it in the anguish in Tsuzuki's voice: "I need you, Tatsumi. It's bad, I'm afraid. Real bad. You remember the sparrow's nest on Crow Street?" It seemed he had been on the verge of breaking down with every word, yet, in his urgency, he managed to get them all out clearly.

Sparrow's nest, huh? How could Tatsumi forget?

The sign on the door had said Suzu's, though even that may not have been the official name. Just the name of the Mama-san who ran the joint. A hostess bar long before such things ever became franchised, or dragged into the light. A place for survivors of the war to commiserate over their new lives, as another year passed of bearing the unbearable; and where a couple of shinigami who had gone through their own kind of hell together and come back out the other side could pretend for a night that they were just as miserably mortal as the rest of the clientele.

He and Tsuzuki—he could never remember who started it—had taken to calling it their sparrow's nest, a pun on the proprietress's name, on account of their spending half their time there up on the roof, no matter the time of year. Watching downtown Kyoto grow through the decades, counting construction cranes while sake or whiskey sat warming their bellies, until one year the blinking lights reached over their heads.

The crumbling pre-war building on Karasuma that had housed Suzu's had come down decades ago, replaced by a sleek department store that took up half the block.

But it made sense that Tsuzuki would still see it as a place of refuge. Tatsumi did not waste time wandering around the lower levels, but teleported directly to the roof. For only a moment, scanning unsuccessfully for Tsuzuki's face among the rooftop garden crowd, did he doubt he had the right place. But in a section that was closed to the public, he found his quarry, crouched down behind an air conditioning unit, jumpy and covered in drying blood.

There was so much Tatsumi wanted to say. Not least of which, to ask how Tsuzuki had managed to escape. But all that seemed to come out was, "Tsuzuki, thank god. . . ."

"It isn't mine." Tsuzuki must have noticed how Tatsumi's gaze zeroed in on the blood. "Not most of it anyway—"

If it had been, it wouldn't have been cause for worry. But then, Tsuzuki hadn't said it as reassurance, but as a confession.

"When was the last time you ate?" He was trembling so bad, his complexion paler than usual, and Tatsumi could sense the depletion of his energy. But how much was due to shock, and how much to whatever struggle Tsuzuki had been in, he could not know. Tatsumi wanted to ask if the blood was Muraki's—a large part of him hoped very much that it was—but it was at that moment that Tsuzuki's composure finally failed him. He bent over his knees, hid his face from Tatsumi as he mumbled about something he had to do, apologizing profusely. Tatsumi couldn't make it out very well. Except for Tsuzuki's plea that Tatsumi not leave him. That reached him crystal-clear.

"I'll get you something from the food court downstairs," Tatsumi said, placing a hand on Tsuzuki's shoulder as though that might stand as promise enough to return. "A change of clothes while I'm at it." The hole blasted through one leg of Tsuzuki's trousers was especially disconcerting. They didn't want anyone in Enma-cho to see him in that state, and start asking questions Tsuzuki surely was nowhere near ready to answer. "Then we can go back to my apartment until you feel well enough to return home."

Tsuzuki nodded like a child, and Tatsumi just had to trust that meant he would stay put. Once again, Tatsumi thought, he was cleaning up Tsuzuki's mess. Burying the evidence. Abetting the fugitive—or murderer, he feared; he hadn't the courage to ask Tsuzuki where the blood had come from. The poor man was so traumatized and weak, all Tatsumi dared to do was shelter and feed him, lest he and his good intentions cause any further damage. Like a sparrow fallen from the nest. . . .

Now that the mask was firmly back in place, Tatsumi wondered if he had missed his chance for an honest explanation. The Tsuzuki he'd met this morning had acted as though nothing particularly horrible had happened to him.

Though maybe we owe that to Kurosaki's influence. Tatsumi so wanted to believe that.

He shot to his feet when Tsuzuki emerged from his audience with Enma, not sure how to take the half-smile that rested generically on Tsuzuki's lips. "Well?"

"I'm clean," Tsuzuki said. "Enma could find no evidence that Muraki booby-trapped my soul in any way."

"I find that hard to believe," Tatsumi said, though he did find himself exhaling in relief. He had been certain those two disembodied heads that sat before the throne would have sniffed out something. Something damning enough to put Tsuzuki away indefinitely.

"I know. I hardly believe it myself. You'd think Muraki would have left some trace of his intentions in there, but there wasn't so much as a single curse." Tsuzuki crossed his arms over his chest, as though it were some abstract matter the two were discussing, rather than his own immortal soul and shinigami body. "So, it looks like I'm clear to go back to work."

"We'll see what the chief has to say about that. I would recommend desk duty myself, just until we can prove to His Highness that you have no intention of abandoning your post and potentially compromising this realm again."

"Actually, Enma had something to say about that, too." And so saying, Tsuzuki handed over a little scroll, tied with official sashing. "He says I can get back out there in the field immediately—"

"You're certain?" This may have been the outcome Tatsumi was privately hoping for, but it still didn't seem like a wise idea, considering the circumstances of Tsuzuki's absence. Tatsumi didn't think Enma was losing his mental faculties in his ancientness, so just what was he driving at with this decision?

"So long as I submit to wearing a tracker," Tsuzuki amended. "A tracking spell, to be precise. That way someone with a little more accountability than myself can say where I am at all times, even if we're not physically together in the same place."

"I've heard of such spells," Tatsumi said as he glanced over the text of the order. Supposedly they worked even across worlds, and rendered any attempt to disguise one's whereabouts by supernatural means futile. The only reason they weren't utilized more often was that the mental intimacy the bond between tracker and trackee required had a tendency to backfire explosively for employee productivity.

Luckily for Summons, Tatsumi and Tsuzuki already knew enough of each other's secrets and had settled most of their differences in the past that Tatsumi didn't foresee the spell causing any major disruptions for their respective work. "And I would be honored, Tsuzuki."

He wasn't expecting that to garner the laugh it did. He tried not to be offended, but wasn't entirely successful.

"I'm sorry if I made it seem like I was asking you," Tsuzuki said. "I mean, I'd trust you more than just about anyone to keep me on a short leash. But Enma already had someone else in mind. And he was pretty adamant."

A gentle touch stirred Hisoka from his sleep. Feeling heavy and content, he wanted nothing more than to slip back into slumber, and bury himself deeper in the sheets, warm and decadent beneath his naked skin.

That touch had other plans, however, as it slithered up the inside of his thigh. His legs parted in welcome, his hips lifting to meet it. He trembled with his desire, ached with anticipation. And when that touch slid inside him, he could not contain his groan of pleasure, nor was there any need to feel ashamed of it.

Wait. Where am I? How did I get here? What the hell is going on?

Lips pressed against his shoulder blade, hot breath leaving its moisture against his skin. He shivered, the tension behind his navel twanging like a plucked bow. But he couldn't tell who was kissing him, and that concerned him. The phallus inside him pushed deeper, sending pleasure rippling through him like a current, leaving him gasping for more—but he didn't want more! He didn't want this! even as his flesh and the sounds coming from his own throat insisted he did.

What was the last thing he could remember? That's right. Tsuzuki.

Tsuzuki was in his bed. Hisoka had put him there when he'd drunk himself stupid, and, like an idiot, climbed in with him. Touched him. Clung to him. When Tsuzuki was asleep, when his defenses were down. This had to be his dream. Tsuzuki said he'd done things while in Muraki's custody, things he wasn't proud of. Things his mental shield had said he didn't want Hisoka to know. Was this the sort of thing he'd been trying to hide? Or only just where Hisoka's own suspicious mind hastened to go?

Never mind that. It wasn't Hisoka's right to judge. If this was just some backwash of Tsuzuki's dream, it ought to be easy enough to wake up from. Just being aware of that fact should have been enough to shake him out of it.

But it didn't do the trick. And now that Hisoka was certain where he was, he recognized the press of Muraki's mouth against his skin all too well for his comfort. Could see those pale fingers digging into his hip even through his shut eyes, transmitting Muraki's emotions into him like wires jammed under his skin. Hisoka wished he could say this cruel wanting was something entirely new and forced upon him, but even that was uncomfortably comfortable and familiar.

"You resist, pretend this isn't what you want," that hated voice murmured at his ear, deafening over Hisoka's cries, "but your body doesn't lie. It knows what it desires most. This curse that binds us works both ways, as you already know, delivering pain . . ."

Hisoka felt the scars respond at the mention of them, summoned from deep inside him. Their lines glowed to the surface, a flush across his skin. He braced himself for the excruciating pain—but it never came.

"Or pleasure," Muraki purred, as the curse did its work just so. "More pleasure than you can bear. . . ."

This wasn't right! In so many ways, it wasn't right! This should have been Tsuzuki's dream, not his. So then why was Muraki speaking to him as though he knew damn well he was Hisoka?

And why wouldn't his body respond the way he wanted it to? Muraki pushed deeper into him, impossibly deep. He must have added his fingers because Hisoka felt like he was being opened wide, and filled completely. Yet where was the pain? He wanted more so badly he thought he would burst with need, but that was a different kind of agony than what should have wracked him. The heat was building at the base of his spine with every mind-numbing thrust until he feared it would become an inferno and consume him, and still he was allowed no release. More than you can bear. He didn't know how he could bear what he felt already! The words echoed in his ears, slithered around his mind—

He could swear, Muraki was many things, but he had never sounded like that. Like a hissing viper.

No sooner did the word enter Hisoka's thoughts than a vision he knew he wasn't supposed to see, of teeth bared in righteous disgust, flashed across his mind. Muraki seized the back of his neck, his fingers like jaws around Hisoka's vertebrae, nails like fangs, but the violence of it only succeeded in wrenching another cry of ecstasy from his lips. Stop this, Hisoka! This isn't you. You don't have to give in. Don't listen to him! This is your mind. You can control this!

But it certainly didn't feel that way. Because whatever foreign body was fucking him, it didn't feel like any part of the human anatomy he was familiar with. Where it brushed against the back of his thigh, against the bottoms of his feet, Hisoka felt only smooth scales. Scales all the way down. Was he entirely sure he still had legs and feet, for that matter? That it wasn't his own body he felt, coiling around itself in a living Gordian knot?

And yet even the fear of realizing he did not know the answer was not enough to make him want it to stop. "Admit it!" Muraki hissed, his false eye with its unnatural pupil burning a hole through Hisoka's mind. "You'll never be rid of me. And you wouldn't have it any other way."

WAKE UP, DAMN IT!

That silver eye suddenly blazed demantoid-green and black and red, flashing sharp and cold like a stiletto through the brain; and Hisoka was jolted awake, feeling as though he had been slammed back into his own body.

His own apartment came rushing back into focus. His own bed beneath him, and he, wearing the same clothes he'd gone to sleep in.

But Tsuzuki was gone. The depression where he had lain, already cold. Sunlight was pushing against the blinds, and the digital clock on the bedside table said it was well after eight o'clock.

Hisoka breathed a long sigh of relief, and pushed himself up. At least he felt fairly confident that Tsuzuki had missed his little episode and the embarrassing erection that went along with it. Thankfully that was fading as quickly the dream, and all the confusing emotion of it that had been forced upon him.

But the visions weren't so eager to leave. The last one in particular disturbed him. It was one thing to come to grips with the knowledge that the yatonokami was an inextricable part of who he was. Quite another to be tormented by that creature's face in the same dream as Muraki's, and find the two melding together so well in his mind as to be inseparable.

Was Muraki using his curse to contact Hisoka while he dreamed? He'd never done that before, at least not like this, or at such a great distance. Had Muraki planted a piece of himself in Tsuzuki's consciousness, the same way Yatonokami had in his own? Hisoka didn't want to think that might even be possible. Because if it was, how would they exorcise it? Worse: What would happen to Tsuzuki if they couldn't?

But it was just as disturbing to think that, just when Hisoka had started to enjoy dreams that didn't involve his rape and murder, Yatonokami might be purposefully bringing them back again, just to torment his host.

"I thought we agreed we were supposed to protect each other from shit like this," Hisoka said aloud in his otherwise empty apartment. "If that was your attempt, you're doing a piss-poor job. We talked about this. About being in this together? Are you even listening to me?"

But the snake was silent. No thoughts that were not his own surfaced in Hisoka's mind.

That better not have been your doing, he sent Yatonokami a final time. And then got up, eager to get a start on the day and put the nightmare firmly behind him. Beginning with a cold, purifying shower and the largest mug of coffee he could find.

Part of him expected to arrive at the office and find yesterday was all just a dream, and Tsuzuki still missing.

But there Tsuzuki was, back at his old desk and appearing to actually be doing work.

"What are you doing here this early?" Hisoka asked him.

At which Tsuzuki snorted. "Early. . . . That's funny, Hisoka. It's almost nine. You're the one who slept in." And he flashed Hisoka so charming a grin that Hisoka wanted to punch him in the arm, just for making him miss it so much the last several months.

"Besides," Tsuzuki went on, "you know I had that meeting with Enma this morning. Went better than expected, I'm happy to report—but that probably goes without saying, seeing as I haven't been smitten. Er, I hope you don't mind I started reading The Constant Gardener. I saw it on your desk when I came in and couldn't resist," he clarified at the lost look on Hisoka's face.

"That's okay," Hisoka said, feeling like a robot. He'd forgotten he bought that the last time he went on a grocery run in Chijou, not long before he ran off to Gensoukai. Now that Tsuzuki was back, it felt like ages ago.

"I was hoping from the title it would be about gardening. Turns out it's a lot sadder than that even, and I'm only a few chapters in."

"Why would gardening be sad?"

Hisoka had only asked to make conversation, only realizing once the words had left his mouth that he should have just kept it shut. Damn it, but he wasn't awake enough for this.

"You're kidding, right?" Tsuzuki said with sudden intensity, leaning forward in his seat. "Clearly you're not a gardener! Only a person who doesn't garden would ask that question!"

"You know what's sad is this conversation," Terazuma piped up from across the room, where he had his feet up on his desk and an amused grin on his face. If he'd had a bowl of popcorn balanced on his knees, the feeling Hisoka had that he was being used as cheap entertainment would have been complete. "And to think I'd almost begun to miss this."

"That's sad," Wakaba said to him, but Terazuma assured her, "I'm better now, though. A little crazy goes a long way."

If all were back to normal, that would be Tsuzuki's cue to throw some sarcastic barb Terazuma's way, and some stupid, petty fight would erupt and just as quickly fizzle out.

But nothing, Hisoka had to remind himself, was normal anymore. And he almost leaped out of his skin when he turned back to Tsuzuki, and saw him already on his feet, and standing mere inches from Hisoka, clutching a little scroll in both hands. "Jesus, Tsuzuki—"

"There's something I need to ask you, Hisoka. It's very important, so I want you to give it some serious thought before you answer."

Across the room, two pairs of burning, female ears perked up.

Do we have to do this now, Hisoka felt like complaining. His morning coffee had barely had time to start taking effect. But he sighed his resignation, and grumbled, "Let's hear it."

"Part of my hearing today was to determine whether I was fit to return to work," said Tsuzuki. The longer he spoke, the greater significance the scroll in his clutches seemed to take on: "Well, Enma deemed me clear to return to my Summons duties, but only under one condition. He said the department couldn't risk me running off and going incommunicado again, so I can return to having a full case load only if I'm fitted with a tracking spell. That way I'll be easy to locate at any time.

"And he wants you to be the one to do it." And so saying, Tsuzuki grabbed Hisoka's hand and thrust the scroll into it.

Hisoka unrolled it and gave it a glance over. "Why me? Why not Tatsumi, or someone else who's known you longer?" Someone who wasn't in large part to blame for Tsuzuki disappearing in the first place, and wasn't currently in the hot seat for defying a travel ban.

"Because," Tsuzuki whined, "you and I have the closest connection that I've had with any partner. You've also lasted longer than any other partner I've ever had, this little hiatus aside. . . ."

"Little" wasn't the word Hisoka would have used to describe it—nor, for that matter, was "hiatus"—but he resisted the urge to interrupt.

"Just as importantly, you're empathic, which Enma believes will help you pinpoint my location even if we happen to be in different worlds."

"But you're not thinking of running off again, are you? Seems to me, this tracking spell is only necessary if you plan to run off."

Tsuzuki put up his hands in surrender. "I'm not planning to run off. Think of it as an extra safety measure. Enma still can't be sure Muraki didn't plant something in my head. He wasn't able to find anything when he spoke to me, and I don't feel like I've been tampered with in any way, but that's no guarantee that nothing's there."

"Trust me," Terazuma said as he squeezed between them on the way to the coffee machine, "if it's Tsuzuki's head we're talking about, there's nothing there."

Tsuzuki's smile fell. "Now, really, I've only been back a day, just what good does he think a comment like that . . ."

After giving Enma's orders a thorough read, Hisoka said, "Alright, I guess I'll do it. It's not like I have a choice anyway, and the reasoning behind it checks out. I just don't like how . . . personal this whole thing feels. I would essentially be able to spy on you whenever I wanted. You understand that, right? So if we do this, you'll be giving up your right to privacy."

"If it's you, though, Hisoka, I don't mind. Like we agreed before: no more secrets."

"Then there's all the stuff in here about 'mutual assuredness' and 'two minds becoming as one'. . . . Are we talking about a tracking spell or a marriage contract here?"

Terazuma sprayed coffee as he burst out laughing, but Tsuzuki determinedly ignored him. He brushed off Hisoka's concerns with a little wave. "Nah, it's nothing of the sort, Hisoka! Just don't think of it that way! It's really more of a LoJack or ankle monitor sort of thing. Besides, we're both guys, so it couldn't possibly be like marriage!"

"Men married men all the time hundreds of years ago," Hisoka said with a skeptical glare, "so that doesn't make me feel any better. Just because it isn't legal now—"

"Natsume! Help me out here. This tracking thing is a lot like yours and K's sealing ceremony, right?"

"Oh, sure," the bespectacled young man said. "Except there weren't any words or symbols exchanged when we did it. It's different with cats. She just stared me in the eyes—stared right down into the very depths of my soul. No words were needed to say what we had to say to one another. No words could say what we meant. And right then, I knew she understood me like I understood myself, and that we had a connection the likes of which I would never have with another human being. . . ."

Then he gave his own words some thought, and had to admit: "Nope. Sorry, guys. You're so getting married."

"You know that means you're saying you married a cat, right?"

"Hey, I'm not proud of it, but it's not like we ever consummated it or anything, so where's the problem?"

"It's finally happening! Hold everything, guys—IT'S FINALLY HAPPENING!"

Great. Hisoka felt whatever hope he still had in him of rescuing this conversation from the abyss of humiliation vanish in a puff of smoke. Because the last two people he needed in on it were Saya and Yuma. "I thought this day would never come!" said the latter, clutching her hands together in a prayer of thanks to whatever god had made this happen, while Saya was saying "We should make a cake! You can't spell kekkon without 'cake'!"

"For the last time," Hisoka tried, "we're not—"

But the mob overruled him. "Yeah, you know," Terazuma was saying, gesturing with his coffee mug, "now that you mention cake, it's been a while since we had a proper office party. I say if this prevert's gonna tie the knot, we at least get to make the most of it. You know, finally get some appreciation for all the hard work we do around here."

"Potluck only," Tatsumi put in his two cents. "We don't have room in the budget for catering."

"We don't have to dress up all formal for this, do we?" said Watari, just wandering in.

And Tsuzuki told him, "I think business casual is probably enough."

"You should be in business casual every day you show up at this office," Konoe grumbled from the doorway. "The only reason I never reprimand you louts for your lackadaisical attire is that you're already dead."

"I can officiate, if you'd like," said Wakaba, raising a hand. "I assisted my father with plenty of wedding ceremonies at our shrine, so I pretty much know the drill."

"But it's not—"

Saya: "Just leave the decorations to me and Yuma. We've been planning this for a while now and we have the perfect colors already picked out for Tsusoka."

Terazuma: "HAHAHA, wait, wait, I think I missed something. The fuck is 'Tsusoka'?!"

Yuma: "Do you think there's still time to send out invites?"

Tsuzuki: "Nah, I think it's best if it's a small ceremony. Friends and work family only. I don't want to overwhelm Hisoka with too many emotions all in one place. Right, Hisoka?"

But Hisoka could only stare at him and shake his head. How many times? How many times did he have to put up with this humiliation before Tsuzuki got it through his thick skull Hisoka didn't appreciate being made the office laughing stock? Maybe it would have been better if Tsuzuki had just stayed away.

"Idiot," Hisoka muttered, and made a hasty exit from the Summons office.

He didn't care how it looked. He didn't care that they were probably all going to be talking about him because of how he had reacted, wondering if their joking had hit a little too close to the mark.

Well, OK, maybe he did care—but there was nothing Hisoka could do about it now. He just had to get out of there. He had to get away before . . . before . . .

What? Before he couldn't hold the truth in any longer and it came bursting out of him in front of everyone? He didn't even know if it was the truth, or if it had all just been a side effect of Tsuzuki's absence. Absence made the heart grow fonder, right? So that must have been all it was. He was just missing Tsuzuki so much he managed to convince himself that his longing was something other than what it really was.

Surely Zepar had merely been preying on that when he infiltrated Hisoka's thoughts. He was just messing with me, Hisoka told himself, that's what devils do. Manipulating me to get what he wanted. And that particular devil's whole schtick was to imitate a person's loved one and seduce them, so Hisoka could bet Zepar wasn't going to let the chance to convince someone like him that he was deeply in lust with the person he cared about most pass him by. All those things he'd made Hisoka feel—it hadn't meant anything. It couldn't have been a reflection of anything Hisoka genuinely felt. Yet here he was, letting the illusion get under his skin, taking it to heart, leading himself on until he actually believed there was some truth to it.

The feeling that he was about to be hit by a panic attack came on strong again. Hisoka ducked into a supply room down the hall before it could. He paced among the shelves full of printer paper reams and old computer peripherals, breathing hard and trying to force the panic to just hit him already so he could get it over with before anyone came looking for him.

But it wouldn't. And that just pissed him off more.

"Hisoka, I'm so sorry," Tsuzuki's voice sounded behind him, making Hisoka jump. "I shouldn't have let them go on like that with the marriage jokes. I swear, I genuinely forgot in all the excitement that you might be sensitive—"

"How can you be so easygoing about all this!"

Hisoka hadn't meant for the hurt he felt inside to come out so plainly in his words. But once it did, he didn't feel the least bit bad about that.

Even though it took Tsuzuki aback. Like he'd been slapped. "What do you mean?"

"You show up again after nine months of nothing—just waltz right back into Summons like nothing happened, like nothing's changed. But everything's changed, Tsuzuki! You have no idea the shit we've all been through because of you, but you come in acting all business-as-usual. . . ."

Hisoka regretted those words the moment he saw Tsuzuki's cheery expression melt to sorrow. There he went again, thinking only of himself and his own feelings. Forgetting that Tsuzuki had spent the last few months being held captive by Muraki. Being forced to do god-knows-what—and Hisoka knew Muraki well enough he had a pretty good guess. Tsuzuki must have been traumatized by his experience, Hisoka didn't see how he couldn't be, and adopting a mask of devil-may-care normalcy was all he could do to keep from succumbing to it.

And I had to go and tear that down too. Hisoka wanted to kick himself for his selfishness. "Now I'm sorry," he said, hoping this time that he was projecting and that Tsuzuki might feel the sincerity of his remorse. "This all started because I blamed you for not being there for me when I needed you. I didn't waste much time repeating that mistake, did I?"

He wasn't expecting his admission of guilt to be met with confusion. "What are you talking about?"

"After the Livertaker case," Hisoka said. "Don't you remember, at the cafe in Kumamoto? I got mad at you for not coming to save me from Fujisawa, and not a day later, you took off without a word."

He shook his head at himself. It was so long ago, but that was no excuse. The amount of time past didn't lessen his culpability. "Ever since then, I couldn't help thinking how I'd do things differently if I could do that day over again. I knew it wasn't your fault. Muraki and Fujisawa had that night planned out to the smallest detail, and the two of us only acted out our parts exactly as they wanted us to. But I was hurt, and I took that out on you, not thinking that all the while Fujisawa was with me, Muraki was making you suffer too. Like he always does."

Like he'd been making Tsuzuki suffer these last few months. Hisoka had no right to try and diminish that.

But Tsuzuki didn't seem to care about that just now. "Is that really what you thought, all this time? You think I left because you blamed me for what Fujisawa did to you?"

Then it was Hisoka's turn to stare confusedly. Well, wasn't it?

Tsuzuki laughed, albeit sadly. "Hisoka, I left to pursue a lead! I found out who the Ukyou Mrs. Komatsu mentioned was and what she meant to Muraki, and I thought if I confronted her about him, she might give me some information that would help me track him down and kill him once and for all. Somehow I got this crazy notion in my head that, if she meant that much to him, I could hurt him like he hurt me. Like he hurt the people I care about."

"You planned to use her to get revenge." The very thought ought to have repulsed Hisoka—Ukyou was a mortal, and, as far as he knew, only guilty of associating with Muraki—but so deep was his own hatred of that man that he couldn't find it in him to fault Tsuzuki's logic, even if he knew that it was wrong.

Tsuzuki nodded. "But I couldn't go through with it. Once I stopped seeing her as bait and got to know her as a human being, a living being, and an individual with her own mind, I couldn't bring myself to do her harm just to get at Muraki."

"But you stayed."

"I stayed. I guess I convinced myself that she might still be of some use to me, and by then I'd already broken half a dozen of the most sacred commandments about what shinigami are not supposed to do. I knew if I surrendered myself to Enma's authority I would be severely punished, and I would still be no closer to killing Muraki. I had to stay and see things through, and I really did believe ending him was the right thing to do. At the time."

As if with a sudden chill, Tsuzuki crossed his arms over his chest, his gaze turning inward; and Hisoka thought for a moment he could almost feel the dark house in the Tokyo suburb around him—whole, not as he saw it the last time—and the weight of conflicting ethical dilemmas on his soul.

"I believed that the only way I could be sure Muraki would never hurt anyone again was if I killed him myself, even if it went against Enma's wishes. And the only way I could do that was through Ukyou. If Muraki wanted to stay hidden, he would make sure no one, not even Enma, was able to find him. But maybe, just maybe, I could coax him out of his hole. I could do something unforgivable that even he wouldn't be able to ignore. I could destroy the only thing he cared about, like he did to me."

It should have been a weight off of Hisoka's shoulders, to know that he wasn't the one to blame for Tsuzuki's disappearance. For the better part of a year, he'd let this whole world blame him for it, and managed to convince himself he deserved their disappointment.

But hearing Tsuzuki confess how he had almost committed the unthinkable on an innocent mortal woman, and for revenge, just replaced one guilty weight with another.

It was my fault, though. In a way. It was the desire to avenge what Muraki had done to Hisoka, among others, that had driven Tsuzuki's actions. And it was because Hisoka had begged Tsuzuki to stay, to remain bound to his miserable existence, for his sake, that the Livertaker case had even been able to occur.

And now he, Hisoka, expected to be consoled for his hardships? He could not have had it more backwards.

He pulled Tsuzuki to him, wrapping Tsuzuki in his arms, and did not let him pull away when Tsuzuki tried. It was the least Hisoka could do, to apologize for everything Tsuzuki had been through. Whether those things were on account of him or not.

And still, he could feel Tsuzuki's reluctance to return it. After a moment, Tsuzuki braced one hand against Hisoka's back; but his energy still insisted he didn't deserve this. He wanted this warmth, craved it in fact, but didn't feel he had earned it.

"Tsuzuki—"

"You don't have to say it," Tsuzuki whispered against his hair.

But Hisoka did. He had to put the words to life, release them into the air between them, provide them with a witness, or it would be as though his feelings had never existed. And he told Tsuzuki so—if in much simpler terms. "I love you."

"Hisoka, you don't—"

"Take that whichever way you wish, Tsuzuki, but it's the truth." Just as long as he didn't ask Hisoka to clarify it. He wouldn't know how to begin. He wasn't sure his feelings really needed clarification anyway. Simple "love" encompassed a lot of different virtues. And sins, too. "And if I never get another chance to say it, then that's all the more reason to tell you now."

Tsuzuki took his shoulders and gently pushed him to arm's length; and this time Hisoka was content to let him. He couldn't take the words back now. Just like he couldn't take back what he'd said in Kyoto, or everything that had resulted. Tsuzuki would have to face that someone cared as deeply about him as he did for others, whether he felt he deserved it or not.

"I would be happy to be your ankle monitor," Hisoka said. "Or whatever you want to call it in this situation. I already know more about you than anyone should know about another person." And I haven't run away yet. "I can't see how being connected by a tracking spell will change things between us very much."

To his relief, that seemed to reassure Tsuzuki enough that he smiled again, and nodded.

"Maybe we can just tone down the marriage talk? It's way too much pressure, this being only your second day back. Everything still feels unreal. Like we all just dodged a huge bullet."

Tsuzuki laughed. Though it almost sounded to Hisoka more like a sob of relief. "For you, Hisoka, gladly."