10. New beginnings.
T: Last chapter and, to carry on the tradition, it ends on a bit of a cliff hanger…many apologies for that fact! As ff. net is being annoying at the mo and not telling me when people review I wanted to thank laustic for being an amazing reviewer, for praising me every chapter and for being honest as well as nice! Warnings remain the same and I still do not own the boy's (Myagi-san is sort of mine, I suppose!)
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His first thought had been to berate Asato-san for taking such a liberty, the sadness that had lingered in the kiss, as well as the terrible sense of finality that it had held, curtailing such reproach and the other's suggestion of, "Let us leave this place," as well as his swift retreat to the exit, preventing him from responding to the touch in another manner. He'd been slow in following the other, after that, uncertainty staunching his pace and musing his thoughts enough that it'd been a good hour before he'd thought to come to Tsuzuki's side and say,
"Thank you for coming to find me, Tsuzuki." The other had smiled one of the empty smiles Hisoka had never thought to see again and told him, "It was nothing," in the guarded manner the younger Shinigami had believed burned away in the fire.
"Something is wrong."
"Do not be silly." The terrible silence that would dog the rest of the journey filtered in not long after that, he having no wish to make matters worse between Tsuzuki and himself and his companions lost in there own thoughts and feelings.
Luka was waiting for them at the threshold of Asato-san house and, all but the moment her son crosses into her line of sight; she has taken the other into her arms. Tucked in his mother's embrace the man holds a short, whispered, conversation with the woman and then retires to his bedroom.
The silence holds but a moment after this and then Luka enquires,
"Do you still have want to hear the explanation that I have promised to you, Kurosaki-kun?"
"Yes."
"I learned of the Shinigami from one of my husband's text book, the brief detail of the legends surrounding the individuals placing in my heart a desire to learn all that there was to learn of them. In the pursuit of this knowledge I gained a deep fascination into the spiritual world and, wishing to encourage this passion, my husband allowed me to accompany him occasionally upon his assignments. It was a kindness that I was grateful and that would lead me into the presence of Muraki Kazutaka." She pauses a moment and then says, "Four years ago my husband received a request from the administrator of the hospital in the Kanagawa region. A sweating sickness had begun to run rife through the wards, the illness striking swiftly enough that they had begun to believe it spiritual in origin. They wished the cause for the illness to be investigated and, if at all possible, removed an assignment that would require knowledge and patience beyond that which my son had mastered at the time and so, despite his age and the toll those years had placed onto his body, my husband agreed to undertake the task.
"The administrator spread the tale that one of the hospitals patrons had come to lend moral support in this time of great crisis, the cover story created in order that my husband might walk the hospital without suspicion and also in order that he could ask questions that might, otherwise, have caused suspicion. I accompanied my husband in order to gather information that his regimented approach might over look and also to offer him moral support. It was a task that meant that I was, more often than not, sat in one of the many hospital corridors waiting for a progress report from my husband and keeping my ears open for any gossip that might be relevant to the investigation.
"Upon one such occasion a doctor happened to note my presence and, smiling pleasantly, he enquired, 'Might you not be better off spending your time elsewhere?' There was something in his general manner that put me on edge and yet, having no want to expose that fact to him, I responded, 'There is no better place for me to be than here,' the confidence in my manner enough that he left me alone after that.
"I asked after the doctor after that and learned, swiftly, that he was in Kanagawa simply for the sake of one patient a fact that strengthened my suspicions enough that, when next I saw my husband, I mentioned the other to him. Senichi agreed that there was reasonable cause to suspect the other and left me to conduct his own enquires. But a moment after he had left my side I decided, despite the risk contained in such an action, to visit the doctor's soul patient.
"The patient's room had an unused feel, something that distressed me greatly when I saw how young and how very ill he was. I recall that I felt…itchy…as I looked at his frail form and that he flinched a moment before my hands settled onto his forehead. I had time enough to register that he was feverishly hot and then he began to scream, his voice bringing the doctor, as well as my husband, to the threshold of the room.
"For a brief moment I saw the doctor as he truly was and then he was again smiling at me with that gentle, insincere, smile, 'It is best that you stay away from this child, Natori-san, for I have yet to determine the source of his illness and it may yet prove to be contagious,' he informed me after a moment. I apologised, insincerely, and explained my presence with a lie that, though not convincing enough to elevate his doubt, softened the threat that had, until that moment, been present in his eyes.
"My husband chastised me for doing as I had once we were in the safety of our hotel room and then he told me, 'that doctor is even more dangerous than we had believed, Luka, for he has placed into that poor boy the most terrible of curses, one that is at the rout of the child's suffering and that shall be as his undoing.'
'Is there nothing we can do to help that child?' My husband gave no reply to that enquiry and, though I hoped still to be of aid to the child, my heart sunk.
"The administrator called my husband in the early hours of the next day to inform him that his services were no longer required and to inform him that he had booked us tickets on the first train back to Tokyo. Once we were on the train my husband told me that the man had sounded afraid, the fear in his eyes enough I had not pushed for further explanation.
"An article within my morning paper the day after had cleared away the confusion surrounded my husbands swift dismissal, the piece detailing the odd circumstances surrounding the illness and the discovery of a cure by a visiting doctor. There was a small interview with the man, the insincerity of his words leaving me no doubt as to his identity or to the identity of the one patient for whom the cure had come too late.
"As I read his words of sympathy for the child's parents and their responding gratitude for the man's efforts I felt bile rising in my stomach and I knew that I would do anything to bring the doctor to justice." He knows now, beyond doubt, that he is talking about his own death and he has want to berate her for undertaking such a crusade for one such as he. She silences the words with the smallest gesture of her hands and, her smile tightening, she says, "Though he had no want to encourage such foolishness my husband kept his ears open always for news of the doctors movements and thus when rumour began to circulate of a chain of murders in Nagasaki he was assured that, somehow, the other was at their heart. He did not tell me that he had drawn such a conclusion, or indeed that Nagasaki had become a dangerous place to visit, all that I knew was that he planed to see the sights of the town and that he had want to do as such on his own. When, but two day's later, the police rung to inform me that he had been murdered, this silence meant that my first thought was that he had been killed by someone attempting to mug him, rather than of the doctor.
"By the time I learned of the little he had kept of me and realised who his murderer was likely to be, grief had worn at my heart and set in my body the illness that would, eventually, kill me. From my sickbed I learned what I could of my husband's last movements and, on the day that I drew my final breath I learned that, at long last, my little brother had been sighted."
"Yet that still does not explain how you knew of the ill that Muraki had done me."
"That particular 'knowledge' was little more than guesswork, ototo." There is a moment of silence and then, her smile stretching out again into something truthful, she says, "I've got to say goodbye now."
"You can not leave me again, neesan."
"You'll be alright, ototo, Kurosaki-kun will make sure of that."
"Thank you for trying to help, Luka, for caring about me when no one else did." Her face lights into a truly beautiful smile and then she is gone.
Tsuzuki is clearly holding back his tears and, without thought, he crosses the distance between them and pulls the elder Shinigami into a hug. The touch allows him the barest of glimpses of the other's emotions and, pressing closer, he remarks,
"Something is wrong." The other tenses and, stepping free the embrace, he says,
"You do not have to 'look after' me, Hisoka, nor do you have to come back to the bureaux. If I tell the other's that Muraki has hidden you somewhere, that I could not find you no matter how hard I looked, the other's should pursue you for only the shortest of times."
"Why are you saying this, do you not wish to have me at your side?"
"I want that more than anything else in the world, however…however, Luka's son can give you so much more than I, can give you a life full of happiness and a heart free of shadow."
"Tsuzuki…no, Asato…you truly are the greatest of idiots!" He again closes the distance between them and, placing his hands against the other's face he enquires, "Why would I want to be anywhere else but here in the arms of the man that I love?" before he pulls him in for a kiss.
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T: Da dah! I'm sure you'll forgive me this particular cliff hanger! I love the idea that Luka was a part of Hisoka's life and that they had a connection other than Tsuzuki, I'm also partial to the notion that Hisoka's dreams were actually memories from that brief contact with Luka rather than something of Muraki's construction. Thank you very much for reading and please, please, review