Recommended listening: Aqua Harp by Animusic

My Angel

Chapter Three

"Ne, Hisoka, I think we should go shopping," Hisoka heard Tsuzuki speak up after a few moments. Surprised and confused by such a random question and now at such a time, he turned around, raising an eyebrow as his grip on the mug handle tightened slightly. "Shopping?"

Tsuzuki nodded. "We need new clothes to fit you, cause I can't let you keep on wearing what you were in last night when I found you. It's not suitable for this kind of weather."

Hisoka looked back out the window, avoiding the purple gaze as best he could. "You don't have to, I can manage."

"No, it would make me feel better if I did, plus it'll help you, so it's a win-win situation," Tsuzuki said quickly. "Will you let me?"

Hisoka glanced up at the caring eyes before he sighed, closing his own. "If you wish to, I can't rightly stop you."

"So how about we go when some of this snow clears up?" Tsuzuki asked, his purple eyes lighting up considerably.

Hisoka stared out the window for the third time that morning and shrugged. "It doesn't look like it will for a while. And once it stops, it may be too deep to walk through, or drive through for that matter."

"Hmm, maybe you're right," Tsuzuki spoke to himself as he walked up the boy's side, mug in hand and eyes set at the falling snow. Hisoka looked at the taller man out of the corner of his eye. The way his eyes seemed to set into serious concentration, the way his emotions leveled out seemed incredible at what Hisoka would have guessed to be a normal, happy go lucky man. However, he seemed a bit different. It was if the snow made him think about something… something that made him feel, in a way, empty.

Hisoka didn't want to pressure him about the feeling he could sense, mainly because it wasn't exactly his place to do so. Nevertheless, the emotions he could feel… they felt so sad, like deep wounds on an already scarred heart that he knew would never be erased by even the best of healers or by the most powerful god. He was just so pained…

Hisoka took another sip of his hot chocolate, rolling the rich taste over his tongue for a moment, glancing around the room, eyes taking their rest on a faded picture. He turned and walked over to the picture, his eyes flickering and examining it as the look within them softened at seeing a familiar face in the picture. It was Tsuzuki, well, a younger version of him, anyway. He was being hugged by a woman not too many years older than he was. She had the same color hair and the same skin tone as well as the same facial features, but her eyes were different. She had warm brown eyes while Tsuzuki had warm purple eyes.

'Interesting,' Hisoka thought before turning back to his older friend by the window. "Who's this?"

Tsuzuki's eyes blinked when he realized that Hisoka was no longer standing beside him, but rather a good ten feet, right next to the one picture he loved dearly. He stared at Hisoka for a moment, seeing only innocent in his eyes, the innocence behind the question he had simply asked out of curiosity. Tsuzuki covered up his suspicion with a smile and he walked over, standing next to Hisoka.

"This is my sister," he said gently, pointing to the woman in the photo. Then he chuckled, pointing to himself. "And this is obviously me. My hair was so short back then."

Hisoka allowed a small lift of his lips at his own comment about himself before he wondered something and asked, "Where is your sister now?"

At that question, a look of pain crossed the once cheerful features and sorrowful emotions suddenly slammed into Hisoka. Sadness, grief, longing, remorse, sorrow, guilt, shame… PAIN! Hisoka gasped and dropped the mug, his arms going up to hug himself, the only way he knew how to shield himself from the onslaught of foreign emotions as his knees buckled, sending him to the floor.

"Hisoka, are you all right?" Tsuzuki was suddenly kneeling in front of him, his mug being set on the ground as his other hand came up to check his forehead for illness. His sad emotions from before were now better shielded and instead replaced by concern, worry, care, and warmth. The pain of feeling the emotions from earlier immediately subsided and he felt more in control. His irregular breathing began to slowly level out evenly and he didn't have to clutch himself so hard.

"What happened?" asked the purple eyed male as he felt the boy's neck for fever, in case his forehead didn't show it. "You just suddenly…"

It seems he couldn't find the right words and Hisoka shook his head, pulling away from the touch and leaning against the wall, his body shaking slightly, his eyes jittering for a minute as though in R.E.M. sleep. Tsuzuki wasn't sure what to think. He had only thought of what had happened as he tried to sort out how to answer Hisoka's question when suddenly, as though he had felt his pain, the boy just collapsed. But the boy was quite normal as far as he was concerned and there was no way he knew what he thought.

"There is," Hisoka whispered briefly, as if reading his mind all over again. Tsuzuki stared at him as his eyes fluttered open, setting its small, but intense gaze towards the purple eyes. "There is a way."

"What are you talking about?" Tsuzuki inquired, his mind not registering anything completely. Hisoka frowned, switching his gaze from Tsuzuki, instead to the mug that had shattered and then to a cut he had on his ankle from when the cup had shattered. "Gomen ne… I'll get the mug."

"No, don't worry about it, Hisoka. You're hurt. I'll get a bandage," Tsuzuki offered.

Hisoka shook his head violently, "No, it's not that deep. Do not worry about it. I've troubled you enough."

"I told you already, it's all right," Tsuzuki said reassuringly. "It's my job to care so much."

He stubbornly refused Hisoka's own refusals and in an instant, the mug was cleaned up and a small wrapping bandage was placed over the open cut.

"Gomen nasai," the boy murmured behind Tsuzuki as he picked up the last shard o the old mug. "I shouldn't have done that."

"Don't tell me you did it on purpose," Tsuzuki suddenly asked, a bit hurt at the thought.

Hisoka shook his head as response. "No. It's just… I should've had more control. But what you felt…"

"I don't understand," Tsuzuki said, his emotions blazing with a hint of fear, a fear that was small and innocent, but it was understandable.

"I can feel what you feel," Hisoka murmured, closing his eyes tightly, as though he were expecting to be hit. "I can feel your emotions… everything… and it hurts."

Tsuzuki thought about what the boy had said for a while before it began to click in his mind, when it finally made the wheels in his brain turn.

"Empathy," he uttered, having read a little on abilities such as the mentioned one just a few weeks ago. He looked at Hisoka. "You're an empath?"

Hisoka barely nodded, not daring to open his eyes to meet the swirling violet ones. "I'm sorry; I've caused you too much trouble. You shouldn't be saddled with me."

He used the wall as advantage to help himself to his feet and began to walk to the door, not being aware at how much of his weight he was putting on his injured foot. He was almost to the point of reaching out to grasp the brass door handle, wanting to get out of this house and not trouble this man any more than he already had done, when suddenly, a pair of arms wrapped around his torso, pulling him back against a broad chest. This caused his hand to slide off the door handle and fall down to his side.

Tsuzuki put his face into the boy's hair, closing his eyes and taking in the incense of strawberries. "No, Hisoka, you're not a burden. You never were. I don't want you to go out there. You'll probably freeze to death and I'd never forgive myself for letting you do it. Will you stay if I ask you to?"

The boy did not know how to respond to such a commitment. His mouth was set into a thin line of no tying emotion, yet he was in inner turmoil with himself. The emotions he could sense now from the elder man were care, kindness, warmth… and fear. Fear that he would say no, leave and freeze until his death. Well, his second death anyway, but the boy wasn't about to say that.

He put his head down so that his bangs fell over his eyes and Tsuzuki snapped his head back up, his emotions hiding behind their mental stone walls again for fear that they would overwhelm him. Hisoka brought his head back up to glance out the window, at the raging blizzard outside, at the white crystals that breathed death to anyone who ventured out with nowhere to go. Hisoka didn't have anywhere to go, but back here, in this house, where warmth was given to him.

Nevertheless, he wondered what Tsuzuki wanted in return. What did this man want from him? Was it something he could freely give? Was it something he could not do? Would it hurt him? Would it kill him?

Hisoka stretched out his empathy and gently, gently probed the amethyst-eyed man's mind, trying to not make it too obvious as he searched for the answer to his unspoken question, hoping against hope this man could be trusted.

He sensed an odd feeling he could not recognize buried deep within the confines of the male's mind, a feeling that had never felt so foreign to Hisoka before. It wasn't exactly aimed at him specifically, but just there. It was just there. It was gentle, it caressed his mind in return for not harming it, and it whispered to him, whispered some words that were soothing to the boy's mind and heart. This man didn't want to hurt him. In fact, it was as though he didn't want anything from him. Except to stay of course as he's just admitted, but nothing else.

Hisoka broke the mental link reluctantly, wishing he could have had another moment with that feeling, but it was moving too fast for him to handle and he had to give Tsuzuki his answer now. He walked forward, breaking off the man's embrace and he sensed sadness erupt behind him. He turned around to meet the saddened eyes and shook his head.

"I won't leave… if you don't want me to," he finally said, glancing out the window to avoid the gaze that changed and suddenly, he was swept back into hose arms with a happy and… dare he say it? A happy and… cute puppy clinging to him.

"Sankyuu, Hisoka!"

The boy nodded as his answer before he was released from the embrace long enough to watch the outside of the window again. For a moment, he thought he saw a man dressed in white from the head down with gleaming hair that melded with the falling snow and eyes that cut through him like ice. It made him shiver slightly, but it went unnoticed. The boy glanced down at his pendant, which was beginning to shine a deep golden color that only he could see. Hisoka immediately glanced back up to look out the window again, but the angelic man was gone.

Hisoka knew that the man was not angelic at all. He didn't have the right aura. And his cross pendant never lied to him. Someone was watching them.