Ok doke,I have an anouncement to make. Apparently, I am grounded from the computer and everything else until I get two reportrs with straight Bs. (Excluding math, I can get a C in that.) All I have left is Tv, and I think my mom only let me keep that to get me out of her hair. However, since I have to use the computer for school, I will try to update whenever I can, though I don't think my lead will last for long. On with the chapter!


Chapter Six

A week or so passed, and Hisoka found himself falling back into the routine of life at the Judgment Bureau. Of course, Tatsumi was pissed since the Bureau's spending was back in the red, but the aura around the office was a lot more upbeat than when he had first come back. The very mortar of the buildings had reeked of depression.

It had taken him a week or so to work out the paperwork with the apartment heads at his home in Hyuga, and another day or so to get all of the stuff that he wanted out of the apartment, which wasn't much other than his exercise equipment. Oh well.

At least his house wasn't as empty as it had been before. Hell, he finally had a use for the empty room downstairs. He still kept to the bare necessities, but it felt a little more lived in now. A little warmer.

And of course, Hisoka had been dodging questions for a week, ones that he had no intention of answering. He had always been pretty secretive (or at least everyone thought so), but he wasn't exactly proud of the fact that he had been working in a dive bar for the last five years, eking out a living among the darker side of humanity.

However, after spending enough time there, it didn't seem so dark to him. Sure, there were those less than savory characters- whores, drug-dealers, mercenaries and the like- but there were those few people who were actually nice, who had just fallen into this side of the world. People like Dante.

Dante had told Hisoka once that he had originally wanted to be a doctor, but he had inherited the bar from one of his relatives. He stayed because he made good money, plus he worked his own hours and could drink as much as he wanted. Good thing too, since doctors- and hospitals- tended to creep Hisoka out.

Oh well. It looked like he wouldn't be going back to that life, since everyone knew about his powers and could track him. Plus, Tsuzuki was stuck to his side like a bur everyday, making certain that he wouldn't try anything like that ever again.

Not that he wanted to. Though he hated to admit it, Hisoka was oddly at ease with the world. He was still a lot more withdrawn and standoffish than he had been before he had left, but he was more relaxed, no longer as feral. It felt like a huge weight had been lifted off his shoulders.

It was also during this time that he found out that Tsuzuki was ending up sharing Hisoka's house with him.

Hisoka hadn't intended it, but Tatsumi had commanded that Tsuzuki live with Hisoka since he could no longer afford to keep paying for his own apartment. Hisoka had initially been extremely pissed at this, but had relented to his fate when he saw how cheerful Tsuzuki was about things.

And though he would never admit it, it was sorta reassuring to be housemates with the amethyst eyed shinigami, to know that if he ever needed help, Tsuzuki was sleeping just down the hall from him. Hisoka didn't know why he would need help, but he still felt that way, especially at night when his memories stirred and the curse marks flared on his skin, reminding him of that night. Haunting him…


Cold hands pushing him on the ground, scraping along his chest and leaving marks like bird talons. His hands were bound to a tree root above him; he couldn't move. He couldn't run. He was trapped. All he could do was scream.

The presence above him did nothing to stop his frantic yells, in fact, he seemed to enjoy it. He could feel the sick emotions radiating off of this being, his shields were gone and his empathy was open, every emotion so intense that it brought him as much pain mentally as he was receiving physically.

He was practically begging for release, to be let go- whether by escape or death he wasn't sure- but all he knew was that he had to get out. Adrenaline, fueled by panic, was pumping through his body, but it did little good thanks to his binds. That and the fact that the man above him was strong, stronger than any thirteen year old.

And then a blade was being scraped along his skin, leaving wounds that soon turned to a burning mark, embedded deep in his being, in his very soul. A hand was on his throat, choking him. He couldn't scream, couldn't breathe, and all he could taste was blood and bile as he struggled for air…

Hisoka snapped awake, drenched in sweat, and nearly screamed in panic when he realized the hand he had felt was still there. He closed his eyes and lashed out with his left leg, hearing a grunt when he felt his leg impacting into another body, before opening his eyes a little unsurely to see concerned amethyst eyes in front of him. The hand on his throat was still there, but lightly pressing under his jaw.

"Your pulse is racing." Tsuzuki whispered quietly.

Hisoka panted as the dream-induced adrenaline rush dissipated, and he lowered his eyes. "I'm fine."

"Bullshit." That was pretty harsh coming from Tsuzuki, but Hisoka could tell that it wasn't directed at him, more like Tsuzuki was just frustrated as he reached out and tilted his partner's head back so that Hisoka would look at him. "I'm not stupid, Hisoka. You don't sleep often, and when you do you have nightmares."

When Hisoka didn't answer, he sighed tiredly. "Was it Muraki?"

Hisoka's head jerked up, before he remembered that Tsuzuki only knew that Muraki had killed him, not what else the man in white had done to him, the source of the recurring nightmares that made him snap awake, curse marks burning on his skin.

Speaking of which… Hisoka winced slightly as he felt the blood-born markings burn on his chest, as if thinking about them was their cue to start hurting like a total bitch. "Yeah, but I'll be fine, like I said."

"Ok then. Do you want me to leave?" Tsuzuki's tone was casual, but Hisoka could tell that he was guilt-tripping himself and his feelings of uncertainty were raging. Stop worrying about it, you idiot! It's not your fault, it never has been, and I'm sick of you and everyone else walking on eggshells around me.

Hisoka made a show of yawning and stretching his back, glancing at the clock to see what time it was. Six o' clock in the morning, just the right time for him. "Nah, I don't feel like going back to sleep. Might as well go ahead and start my day."

Tsuzuki was silent for a moment, and Hisoka was kinda getting unnerved by that. Then, with little empathetic warning, Tsuzuki leaned forward and caught the blonde up in a tight hug, making Hisoka blink in surprise as his breath caught. Tsuzuki's feelings were reassuring, and Hisoka could tell that they were meant to be comforting.

Almost as soon as it started, the moment ended. Tsuzuki released Hisoka before he could have time to freak out and before bad memories of Muraki began to surface, almost as if he knew. But he couldn't… It was a logical impossibility. Hisoka was pretty sure that Muraki would never tell anyone about his carnal crimes, and Hisoka himself wasn't talking.

Tsuzuki stood up from where he had been sitting on the bed and flashed his partner a hesitant smile. "Ok then. Well, I'm going back to sleep. See you in a few hours, Hisoka." He left the room and closed the door behind him.

After he was gone, Hisoka sat on the bed and pondered what had happened just moments before. What the heck was that?


Tsuzuki sighed as he left Hisoka's room. He was angry, but not at Hisoka, but at the bastards in his life that had made him so distrustful. Tsuzuki knew that it wasn't just Muraki, but his parents as well, and no matter how many times he told Hisoka that he was human, it never seemed to sink in for the empath.

It felt like a twisted joke to him. No matter how much they tried to tell one another that they were human, neither of them really believed it. Tsuzuki had often mused that of the two of them, he was the closest to actually being a demon, but it appeared that Hisoka didn't share his views on that.

His fists clenched as he remembered stepping into Hisoka's room, having heard the frantic yells, the cries for help, to be released from the pain he was suffering from in the memory. They chilled his blood, and the worst part of it was to hear how scared Hisoka was, how he begged for death to the demon from his memory just to escape. He denied his fears when he was awake, but in nightmares you can't escape: there's no where to run.

No wonder he doesn't like the Sakura, or the darkness. No wonder he's so cold. Tsuzuki thought sadly to himself. It seemed to him that EnMa must have a very morbid sense of humor to place cherry trees, which symbolized life, in Meifu, the land of the dead. And he knew all too well how much seeing those trees hurt his partner, dredging up dark memories for him and rubbing salt in his wounds every time he came to work.

Tsuzuki laid down on the bed in his room, hearing Hisoka still moving around down the hall. He had felt how hot his partner was, his skin burning, as though someone had trapped a fire within him. He knew that it was Muraki again, and he wanted to kill the man in white for still hurting his partner, even so many years after his death.

They were both contradictions, he realized. Both hanging on to something that they desperately wanted to believe, yet at the end of the day, their hearts told them a different story. Tsuzuki would stick with him forever, even though he knew that Hisoka wasn't even certain that eternity existed. But Tsuzuki would hang on to him harder than anything else, and he'd be damned if he let anyone take Hisoka from him.

He loved the empath. He had realized it shortly after Kyoto, and it was apparent that Hisoka felt the same way; otherwise he wouldn't have leapt into Touda's flames to save Tsuzuki. But Hisoka was also scared. He was too scared to hope, only to be let down again. It was a sad existence for someone who no longer had any hope- the driving force behind humanity- and Tsuzuki was noticing that Hisoka was treading the line of sanity more precariously with each passing day. He had also picked up a cynical streak while in the city and all of the hard work that Tsuzuki had put into changing the empath's views had become unraveled in their five year separation.

Hisoka's thoughts were dark, and were not something to be pried into. That was something that he instinctively felt, but Tsuzuki did it anyway to try to get the empath to open up, knowing that it would probably go a long way to helping repair Hisoka's psyche. Tsuzuki honestly wondered how Hisoka had managed to keep his hold on sanity for so long. But Hisoka would have to resolve his internal conflicts on his own. All he could do was watch over the empath, and catch him if he fell off the edge.

Hopefully he wouldn't be too late.


Damn, I'm not sure I like that ending. It's too dark for my tastes. That's what I get for reading very dark fanfictions before writing. Don't get me wrong, this fanfic is serious, but that depressed me. Looking at it now, several weeks after writing it, hurts. Mayeb someday I'll get off my lazy butt and fix that ending. My Muse is gonna bug me until I do.

Anyways, I put that in the ending because somewhere I read a post that Tsuzuki and Hisoka were "complete opposites, a fangirl's biggest irritation, and only tolerated because their basicaly considered the canon pairing" and it seriously pissed me off. That strikes me as the observation of someone who really knows nothing about YnM, because Tsuzuki and Hisoka actually have a lot in common. They were both alienated as children for something they couldn't help, they both have been tortured by Muraki, and they both wear masks because of their experiences: Tsuzuki with his smile, and Hisoka with his attitude.

Anyways, I gotta go. See you all!