Chapter Eleven
Seimei thought it was just dandy that Hisoka and Tsuzuki were going to be around for a while; not only was Hisoka his first real friend (at least that he could talk to honestly), he remarked that it was nice that someone was helping, at any rate. He had gone out to dinner with Tsuzuki and Hisoka the previous evening and come to the conclusion that the two of them would definitely make the cutest couple on earth.
Hisoka had offered to walk home with him on Friday afternoon on the theory that he might be able to talk to Seishirou again and hope the man was in a more agreeable mood. Tsuzuki had looked for a minute like he was going to resume the teasing about Hisoka having finally made a friend, but subsided.
Given that Seishirou wasn’t expecting Seimei to be at his apartment until around four, they took their time on the walk home. Hisoka found an ice cream stand and the two of them got cones, then plunked down on benches with their treats.
“So,” Seimei said, thoughtfully, “You and Tsuzuki-san really would make a cute couple.”
Hisoka shrugged, concentrating on the ice cream in front of him. “What makes you say that?” he asked. He thought that his voice came out totally casual and uninterested, but he was wrong. Seimei hid a smile.
“The fact that the two of you light up when you’re near each other,” he answered dryly. “Oh, and that you already bicker like a married couple.”
Hisoka flushed pink all the way to the tips of his ears. “He doesn’t light up,” he muttered, sounding sullen.
Seimei grinned, biting back the urge to do more than grin and outright laugh. “I notice that you aren’t denying that you do.”
“Well, no, I’m not,” Hisoka said, and glared. He knew it was pointless to deny that much; Seimei was certainly not an idiot, and had probably known about his little crush since the first time he saw Hisoka and Tsuzuki together.
Seimei smiled, trying to look disarming. He was not as good at it as Seishirou was, but the end result was much more genuine than Seishirou could ever hope to be. “Why are you so angry?”
“I’m not angry.” Hisoka licked at his ice cream cone and refused to comment further.
“Then why are you glaring at me?” Seimei asked.
“Because I always glare.”
Seimei had to admit that Hisoka had a fairly good point. In the weeks he had known Hisoka, he didn’t believe that he’d ever stopped glaring for more than few minutes at a time. “Well, then one would assume you’re always angry about something,” he pointed out.
“I’m not angry,” Hisoka insisted, shifting uncomfortably.
“Okay, not angry,” Seimei conceded, “but nervous.”
“I suppose I might be a little nervous,” Hisoka admitted grudgingly, finishing off his ice cream cone by popping the very end into his mouth with a decisive crunch.
“About what?” Seimei asked casually, crossing his fingers behind his back and thinking, Come on, just say it!
Hisoka considered this for a minute, then said firmly, “Tsuzuki doesn’t glow.”
Seimei nearly fell over at the non sequitir. “Yes, he does.”
Hisoka sighed explosively and tried yet again to change the subject. “We’re just friends!”
“I know,” Seimei said patiently. “I was merely pointing out that you could be more if you wanted to be.”
“If I wanted to be?” Hisoka asked skeptically. “No, there I’d have to say that I’m one hundred percent positive that you’re wrong.”
“You don’t want that?” Seimei asked innocently, deliberately saying something he knew was untrue in an attempt to get Hisoka to admit it.
“That’s not what I meant,” Hisoka replied, sounding flustered. His face was slowly moving from pink to crimson. “You said if I wanted to be more, we could be, and that isn’t true.”
“You think he would refuse,” Seimei stated.
“Yeah,” Hisoka said, looking steadfastly away, the blush still tingeing his cheeks.
“Have you ever thought about asking him?” Seimei asked, sounding unconvinced. He wondered why he was bothering to get into this in the first place. The two of them had eternity, after all. Surely they were bound to work it out eventually. Still, something about Hisoka’s unspoken, well-concealed misery struck a nerve with him. For some reason beyond his grasping, it reminded him of his father. “He really does seem happier when he’s with you.”
“Well, yeah, but as a friend,” Hisoka said insistently, which was a fairly good answer to Seimei’s first question. “Not as anything more.”
“I meant talking to him about being more,” Seimei said patiently, not about to let Hisoka squirm out of the question.
“I just don’t think he would listen,” Hisoka said, looking away. After a brief pause, he said, “And who said I felt that way about him anyway?”
Seimei resisted the urge to punch Hisoka in the face. “Oh for pity’s sake. I’ve been implying it the entire conversation, and you haven’t denied it.”
“Well, I’m denying it now,” Hisoka said, a definite note of sulk in his voice.
“It’s too late for that!” Seimei said, exasperated. “You can’t just suddenly decide to deny it!”
“Look, it doesn’t matter,” Hisoka said, his face now a brilliant shade of red. “Tsuzuki doesn’t care for me that way and that’s all there is to it.”
Seimei shrugged. “I think he does.”
Hisoka resisted the urge to bring up his empathy; it would be unfair. Tsuzuki had fairly strong natural walls, and he’d purposely built them up after becoming Hisoka’s partner, for the sake of both for Tsuzuki’s privacy and Hisoka’s sanity. In truth, Hisoka could feel relatively little from him, and only in strong moments of emotion, and it would be almost as bad as lying to imply that he could feel Tsuzuki’s emotions and use that to get Seimei to shut up. “Why?” he finally asked. “Just because he lights up? Which he doesn’t.”
“Because he’s always so concerned for how you feel,” Seimei said. “And yeah, he’s nice to everyone, but he goes out of his way for you. He worries for you like he doesn’t worry for anyone else.”
Hisoka shifted, again uncomfortable. “But that’s because he’s my friend.”
Seimei dredged around in his memory for the names of the other Shinigami. Hisoka had spent an interesting lunch period once describing all of them, names, duties, personalities, and the way they all interacted. He was going to regret it now. “He’s Watari’s friend and he doesn’t act that way towards him.”
“You’ve never seen him around Watari,” Hisoka said stubbornly, though privately he had to admit that Seimei was right.
“You’ve told me about all of them,” Seimei reminded him. “You’re just being stubborn.”
“I just don’t believe that Tsuzuki feels anything special for me,” Hisoka insisted, though deep down, in a place whose existence he had barely acknowledged, he wanted to believe. He wanted Seimei to offer him incontestable proof. Nothing would have made him happier than to lose this argument, but he was incapable of believing. Hisoka had been hurt too many times to take things on faith.
“Like I said,” Seimei replied with a nod. “Stubborn.”
“Just because he treats me differently doesn’t mean anything,” Hisoka snapped. “Why hasn’t he ever said anything?”
“Maybe because he’s just as nervous as you?” Seimei suggested. Tsuzuki didn’t seem like a nervous person by nature, but Seimei had to admit that since the way he felt seemed relatively obvious, he didn’t know why Tsuzuki had yet to approach Hisoka with it. “Maybe he hasn’t realized that you return his feelings and he’s afraid of being hurt.”
“Come on,” Hisoka said in a dismissive tone. “I’m much more obvious than him.” He realized what he had just said and turned, if possible, even redder than he already was, groaning slightly.
“Got ya,” Seimei said with a grin. He decided to move on to a different tactic, before Hisoka got any more irritated than he already was. “How old is Tsuzuki-san?”
“Old?” Hisoka asked, seemingly bewildered by this sudden turn in the conversation. “I’m not sure exactly . . . he’s been a Shinigami for about seventy years, but he had a very strange life before that . . .”
“So he’s had a lot longer than you to perfect his acting skills,” Seimei pointed out.
“But why would he bother acting?” Hisoka countered. “If he cares for me, why doesn’t he just say so?”
“Maybe because you seem rather reluctant to care about him, or at least to show that you care about him like that?” Seimei suggested.
Hisoka turned away. “I don’t try to hide it. It just happens.”
“Maybe he’s having the same problem.”
“This is stupid,” Hisoka announced suddenly.
Seimei raised an eyebrow, eerily reminiscent of Seishirou. “Why?”
“Because we’re arguing over something neither of us has any proof of,” Hisoka pointed out.
“So get proof,” Seimei said. “Go ask him.”
“No,” Hisoka said. “Because even if he does, he won’t admit it.”
Seimei resisted the new urge to find Tsuzuki and bang his head against Hisoka’s until one of them had grown an ounce of sense.
“Look, it’s not like I didn’t drop enough hints at first,” Hisoka said, now sounding just as irritated as Seimei felt.
“Maybe he’s dense,” Seimei suggested, not feeling the need to point out that both of them were a bit dense to have kept up this stupid charade of ‘just friends’ for nearly two years.
“No, he got it,” Hisoka said, voice full of certainty. “I’m not an empath for nothing. He got it and ignored it. Whenever I bring it up . . . whenever I even vaguely hint at it . . . he always changes the subject right away, and I can tell he’s uncomfortable with it.”
“Maybe it’s not just that?” Seimei suggested, though he didn’t really think he was right. “You said he’s a bit . . . skittish about some things.”
“He is, but . . . this is more than that.”
“How so?”
“He gets really nervous,” Hisoka said with a shrug. “I’m not sure I’d call it scared, not exactly, but it’s more than uncomfortable. I’m worried that I’ll push too hard and end up pushing him into something he doesn’t really want. And . . . I’m afraid of losing what I have with him.”
“That I can sympathize with,” Seimei said, thinking back to how many times he’d given the Tree that excuse for not trying to get closer to Seishirou. “You just have to decide whether the possible gain outweighs the possible loss.”
“Yeah, and it doesn’t,” Hisoka said firmly. “When I think about trying to live without Tsuzuki, even as a friend . . . I go cold all over.” His mind flickered back briefly to Kyoto, to that one terrifying moment when he believed he had lost Tsuzuki forever, and shuddered.
“I think that’s a sign of true love,” Seimei said thoughtfully. “That you’ll do anything to make him happy and keep him with you.”
“Great,” Hisoka said bitterly. “Fat lot of good that does me.”
“I never said it did you any good,” Seimei said with a shrug.
Hisoka just sighed.
“Sorry couple of teenagers we are, aren’t we,” Seimei reflected, leaning back and looking up at the sky, wondering what time it was. “I think we’re supposed to be talking about girls or sports or something.”
“Well, in a weird way, we are talking about girls,” Hisoka pointed out. “If you take our preferences into account.”
Seimei laughed a little. “Yeah, I guess we are.”
“Do you have your eye on anyone?” Hisoka asked, brightening at the thought of being able to needle Seimei right back in revenge.
“No,” Seimei said with a heavy sigh. “I think I’m destined to be single forever.”
Hisoka rolled his eyes. “You’re only fifteen.”
Seimei gave him a rather odd look. “I’m a fifteen year old gay assassin. Tell me that my chances of domestic bliss are good.”
Hisoka shrugged. “I’m sixteen going on immortal, gay, dead, and in love with someone too traumatized to even talk about relationships. Tell me my chances are good.”
“Well, you do have eternity to straighten it out,” Seimei said. “That ups your chances considerably.”
“I guess.”
“I reiterate. This is sad.”
“Incredibly.”
~~~~
Kamui was distracted. He didn’t really feel like studying anything at the moment, least of all math. And if it was even possible, he couldn’t sworn that Subaru was even less enthusiastic about teaching it than he was about learning it. Of course, Subaru had only gotten out of the hospital the day before, and that was probably reason enough to not be enthusiastic about math, but Kamui wasn’t stupid. There was more bothering Subaru than the lingering pain he was in.
“Are you sure you’re up to this?” he asked, after Subaru added four and three and somehow ended up with six.
“He hasn’t called,” Subaru said, apparently thinking that this was a good way to start a conversation. “Or come to visit. Or anything.”
Kamui looked down at the column of numbers and noted another math error. “I’d ask if this was a common problem, but . . .”
Subaru looked at the pile of papers and messy columns of numbers, then picked up the paper on top, crumpled it up, and threw it away. It was entirely inaccurate anyway. “I think he was just messing with me again.”
Kamui wasn’t so sure of that. From the few moments he had watched them together, he would have sworn that there was real affection behind Seishirou’s visit. Then again, it had been proven that Seishirou was an extremely good actor. If he could fool Subaru, why not Kamui as well?
“Or maybe he just forgot,” Subaru said, leaning back in his chair and lighting a cigarette. “I sound like a whining girl.”
“I don’t think he just forgot,” Kamui replied.
“Well, then he was just jerking me around. That’s so much better.”
Kamui considered it. There was really no reply he could give to that; as much as Seishirou had seemed to be genuine in those minutes, his absence now was rather conspicuous. He and Subaru had been seeing each other more often than this even before they’d stopped arguing for ten consecutive minutes.
“Why am I so fixated?”
Kamui stared down at the trig problem in front of him. “Because you’re in love with him,” he answered absently, trying to figure out what the hell a ‘cot’ was. He knew ‘sine’ and ‘cosine’ and ‘tangent’, so it stood to reason that ‘cot’ stood for something . . .
“But why?” Subaru asked.
Kamui blinked at him, thinking, Good, ask the messed up sixteen year old for advice. “Um, if you don’t mind my asking, what happened to the, uh, raging anger about your sister?”
Subaru took a long drag on his cigarette. “I don’t know,” he finally said.
“You just stopped being ragingly angry?” Kamui asked, sounding a bit skeptical.
Subaru pondered this for a long minute, examining it from every available angle. “Yes,” he finally said.
“But . . .” Kamui frowned.
“Are you ragingly angry at Fuuma for killing Kotori?” Subaru asked calmly.
“Well, I’m none too pleased,” Kamui said, skirting the issue effectively.
Subaru didn’t bother to pursue the line of conversation; his point had been made as far as that was concerned.
“And besides,” Kamui added, “Fuuma wasn’t . . . Fuuma.”
“You’re right,” Subaru said. “I really should be angry at Seishirou and I’m just not. I suppose there’s only so long you can keep up that kind of anger.”
Kamui considered this, and decided that Subaru was definitely a bit uncorked. “Have you tried calling him?” he asked.
“No.” Subaru looked dejected.
Kamui raised an eyebrow. “Don’t tell me that you don’t know where he lives or something like that. You stalk him just as much as he stalks you.”
Subaru stared at him. “You weren’t supposed to know that!”
Kamui snickered. “I was just guessing, actually.”
Subaru made an indignant noise.
“Seriously. Go see him. If nothing else, you can yell at him and then you’ll feel better.”
~~~~
Hisoka had gotten to Seimei’s house at just past five, but all they found was a note from Seishirou saying he was out on a job and would be back in time for dinner. Hisoka didn’t really feel like waiting around for the rest of the evening, especially given Seimei’s assurance that ‘in time for dinner’ meant anywhere between six and ten. Tsuzuki wasn’t expecting him to be late, and he still didn’t have the hotel number memorized, so he said goodbye to Seimei and went back to where they were staying.
Tsuzuki was pacing back and forth when he got there, and it didn’t take a genius to realize that not all was right. “What’s wrong?” he asked, hanging his jacket up.
“You’re okay!” Tsuzuki glomped onto Hisoka, wide-eyed.
“Uh, yeah. I usually am,” Hisoka said, bewildered, but a little gratified, by Tsuzuki’s behavior.
“I saw Muraki today and when you were late I thought he might have eaten you or stolen you or some other horrible Muraki thing,” Tsuzuki said, clinging to Hisoka.
Hisoka blinked, his precise line of thought being ‘oh, great.’ “Sorry, Seimei and I were just talking . . . I told you I might not be back until six or so.”
“But . . . oh.” Tsuzuki remembered that Hisoka had indeed told him this, and felt very silly. He let go of Hisoka and flopped onto one of the beds. “Should we order takeout for dinner?”
“Sounds good to me.” Hisoka sat down and gave Tsuzuki a look. “Where did you run into Muraki?” He picked up the phone as Tsuzuki dove for it, knowing better than to let Tsuzuki order; he would get everything on the menu given half a chance, and Tatsumi would kill them both.
“Just on the street,” Tsuzuki said. “But I have some good news!” he declared, hoping to pawn off his little deal with Muraki as a good thing, which Hisoka was guaranteed to not agree with.
“Oh?” Hisoka asked, raising an eyebrow and leafing through the phonebook for takeout places.
“By tomorrow night I’ll know where Monou Fuuma is!”
Hisoka put the phone book down. “Really? How?”
Tsuzuki made a dive for the phone book, which Hisoka let him appropriate and start looking through. Flip. Flip. “I just have to go to dinner with Muraki and then he’ll tell me -- oh look, Chinese!”
Hisoka swelled up like an enraged bantam hen. “You have to WHAT?!”
“Uh . . . Hisoka . . . let out some air . . . you’re gonna explode . . .”
Hisoka took a deep breath and attempted to calm himself. Inhale, exhale. When he spoke again, his voice was perfectly calm. “You have to what?”
“Go have dinner with Muraki,” Tsuzuki said, then added quickly, “In a public setting!”
“Yeah, like the opinion of other diners means anything to him,” Hisoka said, looking none too pleased with this state of affairs. “Couldn’t you get him to tell you any other way?”
“Hisoka. This is Muraki.”
Hisoka seethed inwardly. “And I’m assuming that you’re not allowed to bring anyone with you?”
Tsuzuki just shook his head.
“What about shoulder-held missile launchers?”
Tsuzuki blinked. “I don’t think I could get into a restaurant with one of those.”
“Fine,” Hisoka said. “When?”
Tsuzuki looked away guiltily. “Tomorrow. He’s picking me up at seven. Don’t give me that look. Do you think I’m happy about this?”
Hisoka wilted onto the bed. “No. But I hope you don’t take it amiss if I inform Tatsumi-san and he just happens to be dining in the same restaurant as you.”
Tsuzuki smiled. “Well, I can’t tell you it’s okay to do it . . .”
“Right. I’ll do it anyway.”
“Well, if I can’t stop you . . .” Tsuzuki was getting a little carried away with his role. Hisoka folded his arms over his chest and gave Tsuzuki his patented glare. “So . . . when did you see Muraki?”
Hisoka flushed, looking a little guilty. Stupid blush reflex was going to be the death of him yet. “I don’t remember exactly. A week ago . . . maybe a little more. I met him while I was walking home with Seimei.”
“And he didn’t . . . manhandle you or anything, did you?”
Hisoka looked away, feeling now embarrassed as well as guilty. “No. He tried, but Seimei got between us.” He still felt like an idiot over that encounter; he really needed to stop freezing up every time Muraki came within ten feet of him. Sure, Seimei had been there to rescue him once, but he might not be the next time. And he also had definitely attracted Muraki’s interest by doing so.
“Well, if he corners you again, call for help,” Tsuzuki said.
Hisoka nodded slightly, though he still felt stupid. “Aa.” He glanced at the open phone book still in Tsuzuki’s hands. “Give me the number for the Chinese place you want and I’ll order.”
“Aw, Hisoka . . .”
~~~~
Chapter Twelve
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