Warnings: Uhhh.... shopping. And Watari. Oh, yeah, and the fact that we're pretty much totally ignoring Tsuzuki's back story. Not that they gave him much of one in the anime... but we tried to work around it, heh.
Chapter Eighteen
“Hey, how about this one?” Fuuma held up a shirt that was cropped rather short, but at least was made of solid fabric, so it was going better than most of his suggestions. It looked tight, however. Kakyou glared at it speculatively.
“I’d freeze,” he finally said, and turned back to the pants he was perusing. He had a cart that he was leaning on at times, that already contained three pairs of cargo pants he had tried on, a pair of black slacks, and two pairs of pre-abused blue jeans. The kind you paid extra for so they were comfortable when you got them. Fuuma had pointed out the display of leather pants, and Kakyou had agreed to look at it so he’d stop making puppy dog eyes.
Fuuma pouted and put the shirt back. He already had an armful that had passed inspection, though Kakyou hadn’t yet tried them on. He seemed fond of dark colors: navy, deep purple, maroon, dark brown, forest green. Sweaters, mostly, but a few other shirts. Fuuma knew he got cold easily, but some of the shirts were too cool to be denied.
“What about this?” he asked, holding up a cream, silk, button-down shirt. It would do him some good to be in light colors for once.
“That I’ll try,” Kakyou agreed.
“And . . . this?” Fuuma whirled out a black mesh shirt with purple shimmery threads running through it. It looked like it was designed to be tight, but it also looked far bigger than Kakyou.
Kakyou picked up the cue. “It would look good on you; terrible on me.”
“I’ll try it.” Fuuma tossed it in the cart. “I need to scare Kamui.”
“I don’t see how sexy clothing is going to scare him.”
“I dunno,” Fuuma said, and continued to poke through racks. “How about this?” he pulled out what was basically a long-sleeved T-shirt, but made of a soft, stretchy dark red fabric.
“If you get that for me in any other color, I’ll go for it.”
“I got you a maroon shirt earlier,” Fuuma said.
“Yeah, but red is different from maroon.”
“Ah, of course, Martha Stewart.” Fuuma found the shirt in dark green and put it in the cart.
“Don’t insult me.” Kakyou was watching Fuuma; he’d been acting rather oddly all day. Kakyou wasn’t sure when he’d been sleeping. Periodically, in the night, he made it a point to brush up against Fuuma’s dreams and make sure he was content, but Fuuma hadn’t slept at all last night. Kakyou didn’t think he’d slept the night before that, either. And his exuberance seemed anything but natural.
“You have to try this one,” Fuuma said, holding out a form-fitting dark grey sweater, not leaving Kakyou any choice in the matter.
“I’ll try it if you tell me why you’re wound tighter than a spring.”
“It would look good with those leather pants,” Fuuma said with a nod.
“I’m sure it would, but no dice until you give me an answer.”
Fuuma walked over and absently riffled through the rack of leather pants until he found one in his size and dropped it into the cart so he could try on. “Just haven’t slept, that’s all,” he said absently. “Do you need a rest before the changing room?”
“I’m debating which one of us needs it more, and I know you haven’t slept. But why not?”
“Uhhh . . . haven’t felt like it.” Fuuma snagged a pair of black boxers with shiny red hearts off a rack and put them in the cart.
“Those had better be for you,” Kakyou said.
“Aww, Kyou-chan, you don’t think you’d like them? I think they’d look good on you.”
Kakyou stopped walking. He picked up the grey sweater, the boxer shorts, and the leather pants, then put them on a shelf. “Give me an answer or they all stay here.”
Fuuma looked at him for a long minute, eyes unreadable. “I haven’t slept,” he said slowly, “because I’ve been thinking about other things.”
Kakyou gave him a disgusted look. “You know, you’ve been difficult in the past, cranky, upset, at times even vaguely violent, but you’ve never been tight-lipped before. I’m gonna think the problem’s with me.”
Fuuma shrugged. “Think that if you want, but it isn’t.”
“Then why won’t you tell me?”
“Because I need to work this out for myself.”
“Promise to go to bed tonight,” Kakyou said, then added firmly, “and sleep.”
Fuuma was silent for a long minute. “I can’t,” he finally said.
Kakyou’s hands twitched with the urge to strangle him. “Why not?”
“Because I’m afraid of what I’ll dream.”
That was it; he was going to strangle him. “Will you sleep if I promise not to look at all?” he asked, trying to remain at least vaguely calm about the matter.
“See, now you’re mad at me.” Fuuma thudded onto a nearby bench. “That’s why I didn’t want to have to ask you that.”
“I’m exasperated. I’m not mad. Two totally different things.”
“I . . . I can’t tell you, Kakyou.” Fuuma looked up and met Kakyou’s eyes. “Please . . . just trust me.”
Kakyou sighed and plunked down next to Fuuma. “I promise I’ll try not to ask again, and I promise that I won’t look at your dreams, but you need to sleep tonight.”
“I’ll try,” Fuuma said, and leaned his head on Kakyou’s shoulder. “I just didn’t want you to realize anything was wrong.”
“You were getting bags under your eyes.”
“Only small ones. I didn’t know you looked that closely.”
“There are really only two people I notice at all, so it stands to reason that I would notice everything.” Kakyou paused. “Speaking of those two people, you started acting oddly ever since Kazuki went to see you the other day.”
“Did I,” Fuuma said casually.
“Didn’t we just go over that I notice everything?”
“Yes. Yes, we did.”
“What were you talking about? Or is that what I’m not supposed to ask about.”
“In a nutshell.”
Kakyou tried to figure out what the hell Nataku could possibly have asked about that would have upset Fuuma so much, but couldn’t think of a damned thing. “That’s it. I can’t even guess.”
“Probably all for the best.”
“Not for my sanity, but we’ll let it go.” Kakyou stood up again and began walking towards the dressing rooms.
“You’ll probably find out pretty soon, anyway,” Fuuma said. “So don’t worry about it too much. If I don’t come to a decision in the next few days, I’ll go crazy myself.” He really wished there was someone who he could go to for advice. Kanoe was a slut. Yuuto was a playboy. Satsuki was a sociopath and in love with her computer. Seishirou was just insane, particularly on the matters of love. Kusanagi was dating a fourteen-year-old, so he was no prize. Nataku was five. Kakyou was the problem.
“You’re already crazy,” Kakyou said. “But it’s sort of endearing.”
For a while, there was very little conversation as they tried on clothes. Most of the shirts Fuuma had chosen for Kakyou both fit and looked good, and Fuuma found himself staring and drooling a bit more than he was comfortable with. Of course, he hadn’t gotten laid in months, now, and Kakyou was beautiful, so that ought to account for it, right?
“Well, Kyou-chan?” he asked, coming out of the dressing room in the black mesh shirt and leather pants. “What do you think?” The shirt was extremely tight on him and cropped just above his belly button, as opposed to the pants, which were also very tight and settled fairly low on his hips. Fuuma shoved his hair out of his eyes and put his sunglasses on the top of his head.
Kakyou blinked a few times, before managing, “Very nice. Now go take that off, please.”
“Awww . . . why? You don’t want me to buy it and wear it the rest of the day?”
“My sanity can’t take it.”
Fuuma winked at him. “You mean your libido can’t take it.”
“That too.”
“Kyou-chan,” Fuuma said, quite seriously, “you need to get laid.”
“Most likely. Can we please stop having this conversation?”
“I’ll be good.” Fuuma went back into the changing room and came back out in his normal jeans and T-shirt, which looked almost as good on him and was bad enough as far as Kakyou was concerned.
“I need to get some kimonos,” Kakyou said.
“What the hell for?” Fuuma asked, following him.
“I like them.”
“They’re scary. They’re for old people!”
“I’m twenty-six. That’s old enough.”
“Don’t remind me.” Fuuma grimaced.
“What does it matter?”
“I dunno. It just does.”
“Whatever you say, Fuuma my dear.”
~~~~
Tsuzuki was still moody, and Hisoka was ready to strangle him. No matter how many times he asked Tsuzuki what was wrong, he always got the same answers of either ‘I don’t want to talk about it’ or ‘it’s nothing, really.’ He had stopped asking after a while, because Tsuzuki was obviously getting upset.
“So what do we know?” he asked as they left the Sakurazuka library. “Besides the fact that Seishirou inherited his grandmother’s cranky gene.”
“We know that the Tree has a phylactery,” Tsuzuki said, having discovered this in the very first book. “And that’s completely useless.”
“You’d think it would have mentioned that yesterday,” Hisoka grumbled.
“I don’t think the Tree thinks like that,” Tsuzuki said thoughtfully.
Hisoka glanced at him. “Aa. How do you know him, anyway? Er . . . it. Whatever.”
“When I died, it was the Sakurazukamori who finally killed me, and I met the Tree on the way through,” Tsuzuki said bluntly.
Hisoka blinked. “Oh. Um. I thought you had, um . . .” he waved vaguely at Tsuzuki’s wrist, then looked away.
“Committed suicide?” Tsuzuki finished for him. “I tried valiantly.” He wasn’t quite sure why he was handing out information. Somehow, the manner of his death seemed to be the least of his worries at the moment. He had tried to commit suicide for years, and just kept healing. The Sakurazukamori had finally done him the favor of inflicting a wound he couldn’t heal.
“Oh,” Hisoka said again. “The Tree was very, uh . . .” Words failed him.
“The Tree is very many things,” Tsuzuki said, smiling slightly.
“Well, so . . . it has a phylactery. But either they don’t know what it is or it isn’t recorded anywhere, either of which are possible. Which leaves us with nearly no information that he didn’t give us yesterday.”
“Didn’t the Tree warn us that there wouldn’t be much?”
“Well, yes,” Hisoka replied. “But we had to try. I mean, anything to kill Muraki, right?”
“Quite right,” Tsuzuki said with a nod and a smile.
Hisoka sighed. “I suppose I should go let Seimei and Seishirou know. Want to come?”
Tsuzuki was torn. On the one hand, he was green with jealousy of Seimei, but on the other, he didn’t want to intrude. “Uhh . . . you can go ahead. I trust you.”
Hisoka blinked at him. “What does trust have to do with it?”
Tsuzuki blinked back. “Nothing! Just . . . uh . . . I don’t know.” He smiled cheerfully, hoping to put Hisoka off the question.
Hisoka wasn’t about to be put off. “Okay, I understood when you were just moping. But now you’re acting really weird. And you do it every time I bring Seimei up in conversation. What on earth is going on?”
Tsuzuki sputtered for a second. “Just don’t want to invade your privacy . . .” he managed.
Hisoka blinked at him, then sighed. “Tsuzuki, sometimes you make no sense.”
“I know.”
“I’ll go to Seimei’s and tell him, but . . . whatever is bothering you, I wish you’d tell me.”
“You can’t fix it,” Tsuzuki said softly. “And it would only make you worry to know.”
Hisoka folded his arms over his chest and glared at Tsuzuki fiercely. “Like I’m not worried now?”
“You’d be more worried.”
“I wish you’d let me be the judge of that.”
“Can’t you just let it go?”
Hisoka sighed again. “Fine. But . . . oh, never mind. It’s not like anything I say will make a difference.”
With that, he turned and walked away.
~~~~
Kamui had taken to spending evenings at Keiichi’s, which had raised a few eyebrows (Sorata’s and Subaru’s in particular), and he usually insisted on Keiichi not walking him home, because of Fuuma. However, when it was early enough, occasionally Keiichi would convince him. Usually by the fact that walks in the park were very romantic. Kamui was very big on romantic things.
“See you tomorrow in school?” Keiichi asked, stopping on Kamui’s doorstep.
“Maybe you could just stay ‘til tomorrow . . .”
Keiichi laughed and poked his nose. “No. I have chemistry homework to do. That’s why you came home, remember?”
“Oh.” Kamui pouted, then lifted his face up for a kiss. Keiichi was only too glad to oblige, despite the fact that they were standing where anyone could see.
And anyone did see, as at that moment Subaru opened the door and nearly walked into them. Their kiss had gone from casual to serious at this point, and Subaru simply stood there with raised eyebrows, waiting for them to finish. When it didn’t appear that they were going to any time in that hour, he cleared his throat.
“Oh! Subaru!” Kamui disentangled himself from Keiichi. “Hi. You didn’t see anything, right?”
“You mean, did I notice the fact that you two were making out on the front step?” Subaru asked calmly, lighting a cigarette.
“Yes. That.” Kamui looked nervous.
“I am neither blind nor stupid, unfortunately.”
“You could be really inobservant . . .”
“No, not that either.” Subaru smiled at Keiichi. “Well, I’m going to talk to Kamui for a bit, so if you don’t mind . . .”
“Ah, of course.” Keiichi leaned over and gave Kamui a quick kiss on the cheek. “See you tomorrow, Kamui.” He hurried away.
Subaru raised an eyebrow at Kamui and opened the door for him to come inside.
“You made him leave,” Kamui said, pouting.
“He was leaving anyway,” Subaru said calmly.
“Oh, poo.”
Subaru snickered. “So, I see your relationship has . . . progressed.”
“I . . . suppose, yes,” Kamui said nervously.
“I suppose you’ve probably already had The Talk,” Subaru said, still laughing slightly, “and you’d probably die of mortification if I tried to give it to you anyway.”
“I think I’d have to run away,” Kamui admitted. “Possibly screaming.”
“Yes, but if Sorata thinks we’ve had the talk, then he won’t try to talk to you, so you’re far better off this way,” Subaru said, smiling.
“Who made Sorata my father?”
“Him,” Subaru said. “If I might inquire how far this has gone? You don’t have to tell me, of course, but . . . the fact that you’ve barely been dating a week makes me concerned.”
“I haven’t slept with him yet,” Kamui protested.
Subaru snorted. “And by that ‘yet’, I take it to mean that you have plans on it in the near future?”
“Oh, for Pete’s sake, we’re two teenaged guys.” Kamui stuck his tongue out at Subaru.
“Quite,” Subaru said, obviously still amused. “I just wanted to be clear.”
“Can we stop having this horribly embarrassing conversation now?”
“I don’t know, I’m having a bit of fun watching you squirm,” Subaru said thoughtfully.
“Don’t make me strand you on a rooftop.”
~~~~
At this time, Satsuki was aware that Tsuzuki and Hisoka were coming, and she was quite proud of the fact that she was. However, Fuuma had instructed her to let them pass without molestation, but to inform him. Thus, Fuuma was flopped onto the couch in the common area when they walked in.
“What can I do for you dead gentlemen this afternoon?” he asked congenially, smiling at both of them.
They both blinked. Hisoka coughed slightly, then Tsuzuki snickered. “We came to see you about Nataku,” Hisoka offered. “Since we heard you were . . . displeased . . . with Muraki’s conduct.”
“You could put it that way,” Fuuma said, sitting up. “Did you have an idea?”
“One of our scientists, Watari, might be able to help,” Tsuzuki said. “We were wondering if we could bring Nataku to meet him, and talk to him a bit. You can come too, if you like.”
“We think,” Hisoka added, “that Watari might be able to help enough so he wouldn’t need the constant maintainence anymore.”
“That’d be great.” Fuuma bounced off his couch. “I guess mad scientists really are dime a dozen. Out of curiosity, why the help?”
“We want Sakurazuka-san to be able to kill Muraki without causing the harm of an innocent,” Tsuzuki answered evenly, with a slight smile.
Fuuma blinked at them. He knew from what Kakyou had told him that Hisoka had extreme reason to dislike the man, but Tsuzuki too? He didn’t seem like the bloodthirsty type. Fuuma pondered this for a long minute, then said, “Well, okay then. Take me to your mad scientist.”
Hisoka raised an eyebrow.
“Oh, wait, I’ll go get Nataku. Gimme a sec.” Fuuma walked into another one of the rooms. He came out a second later with Nataku in tow. “Kazuki, you remember Hisoka and Tsuzuki, right?”
Nataku nodded. “Very nice to meet you again.”
“They’re gonna take us somewhere to meet another guy who might help you outgrow your tube, ‘kay?”
Nataku considered this. “So Muraki and his creepy eyeball will go away?”
“Yeah, we hope.” Fuuma smirked at this. Hisoka sniggered. Tsuzuki just looked vaguely surprised.
He continued to analyze. “And no more tube?”
“Well, we think maybe.”
“I like that.” Nataku smiled at Tsuzuki and Hisoka.
“You’ll like Watari,” Tsuzuki assured him. “He’s not creepy in the slightest, uh . . . is it Kazuki or Nataku?”
“Nataku,” Fuuma and Nataku said in unison. Fuuma noted Tsuzuki’s confused look and said, “Kazuki’s just a little pet name I have for him.”
“Ah,” Tsuzuki said, still confused. “Well, we’re going to take you to the Meifu, okay?”
“The land of the dead?” Fuuma asked skeptically. “Can living people go there?”
“We usually don’t bring the living there,” Tsuzuki answered. “But they can come, yes, as long as they’re brought by one of us.” He wasn’t sure if Nataku technically qualified as living or dead, but he didn’t want to bring that up.
“Ah, okay.” Fuuma didn’t ask how they got there.
“Close your eyes,” Hisoka instructed. “It’s kind of disorienting if you’ve never done it before.”
Fuuma and Nataku both obediently closed their eyes. Nataku reached for Fuuma’s hand for reassurance, which Fuuma found very cute. When Hisoka instructed them to open their eyes again, they found themselves standing on the front steps of a large stone building. There was sakura everywhere.
“Nice,” Fuuma said. “Looks like Seishirou’s version of Heaven.”
Hisoka gave him a look that bordered between confusion and distaste. “Come on,” he said, and gestured for them to follow him. They took the back hallways to avoid too many questions. Just as they reached Watari’s lab, there was a large explosion. Nataku and Fuuma both looked startled, but Hisoka just pushed open the door as if this was an everyday occurence.
“I like him already,” Fuuma said as they went inside, though Nataku looked quite nervous.
“Oiiiii! Tsuzuki!” Watari bounced out of the stacks holding a beaker that contained something green and bubbly. “Try this for me, ne?”
Tsuzuki backed away. “Not a chance.”
Watari’s eyes landed on the two strangers and lit up. “Hey, do you think you could -- ”
“Don’t you dare,” Hisoka said, snatching the beaker. “You can’t change Nataku’s gender anyway. He doesn’t have one.”
“Oh.” Watari’s face fell. “Well, I’ll slip it into the office coffee later, in that case.”
“Tatsumi-san will murder you,” Hisoka told him.
Watari just grinned. “Anyway, so you must be Nataku, right?” He bounced over to him and extended his hand. “Nice to meetcha.”
Nataku shook his hand. “Nice to meet you too.” He gave Fuuma a look that bordered on terrified.
“Don’t worry about it,” Watari said, catching the look. “I won’t experiment on you. This is just my pet project, that’s all.”
“Good, because I don’t like experiments,” Nataku stated.
“Well, come on into my office and sit down.” Watari shuffled them all inside a cluttered room that had two chairs. He waved for Fuuma and Nataku to sit down, then pulled himself up to sit on his desk. Tsuzuki and Hisoka both ended up leaning against the wall just as 003 flapped into the room and landed on Watari’s shoulder.
Nataku’s face lit up. “It’s cute!”
003 gave him a curious look, then flapped over and landed on Nataku’s outstretched hand. The two of them, for lack of a better term, started making owl eyes at each other.
Watari, for his part, started asking questions about Nataku’s origin. Fuuma’s answer to this was to hand him a large folder he had picked up in Nataku’s room and to say “Here, read that.”
There was silence for a bit while Watari skimmed it. Nataku and 003 continued to study each other.
“Okay,” Watari said, putting the folder aside. He was now dead serious. Even the smudges on his face started to look respectable somehow. “He’s got a lab set up, right?” Fuuma nodded and he continued. “I know that I can keep up his maintainence fine, I’m not sure about getting him to not need it anymore, but I can try. If I change the settings a little, that is. It might take me a week or three, though.”
“Will it hurt?” Nataku asked.
“Nah. You may feel a bit tired for a few days until I get the settings right, but that’s all.”
“You promise?”
“Yeah,” Watari said. “See, here’s the thing -- when you blew up your lab, you weren’t finished. Uh, no offense. But all these files here -- you pulled them from the old lab’s computers, right? -- detail what they were going to do to get you fully functioning. So all I have to do is follow these plans.”
“Well, that’s cool,” Fuuma said.
“I didn’t mean to blow them up,” Nataku said shamefacedly. “Well, maybe I did mean to, but they were very horrible.”
“Well, don’t worry about it,” Watari said. “I don’t think I have to do anything big, but if I do, I’ll put you in stasis so I promise it won’t hurt. Okay?”
Nataku thought about this for a minute, then nodded.
“Okay then! Why don’t I come down to Chijou with you and check out the lab,” Watari suggested.
“Cool for us,” Fuuma said.
“We’ll get back to work,” Hisoka said. “Or, uh, something. We’ll go tell Seishirou that he can try to kill Muraki. You know, again.”
“Tell him to try shooting him in the nuts this time,” Fuuma said.
Nataku frowned. “I don’t understand.”
Hisoka coughed slightly. “Maybe if we’re lucky, he won’t be able to grow them back.”
Tsuzuki tried not to grin.
“I still don’t get it and I want somebody to explain,” Nataku announced.
Fuuma cleared his throat. “Nuts is slang for genitals, Kazuki.”
“Oh,” Nataku said. “Was that so hard?”
They all just looked at each other.
~~~~
Kakyou was sitting on the couch reading when Fuuma and Nataku came back in with Watari in tow and 003 flitting around his head. “We’ve acquired a blond and an owl,” he stated, blinking at them.
“Yo, Kyou,” Fuuma said. “This is Watari-san. He’s the new mad scientist, and it’s his owl.”
“It’s very nice to meet you,” Kakyou said, then looked back at Fuuma. “So where’s the pervert?”
“I dunno,” Fuuma said. “Hisoka and Tsuzuki went to go tell Seishirou he was entitled to kill him all he wanted, if he was so inclined.”
“Oh, trust me, he’s inclined.”
“Well, one might think he would stop after the first time didn’t work, but not our boy Seishirou.” Fuuma shrugged slightly. “Ne, Watari-san, why don’t you go check out the lab and lemme know if there’s anything I can help with?”
“Sure,” Watari said, with a friendly smile at Kakyou. He went into the lab, with Nataku in tow.
Fuuma turned back to Kakyou. “Anyways, Tsuzuki and Hisoka suggested this guy, and he seems really nice and quite competent, if a bit crazy.”
“You did say mad scientists were a dime a dozen,” Kakyou reminded him.
“Yeah. And, well, he thinks he’ll be able to ‘finish’ Nataku, so to speak.”
Kakyou raised an eyebrow. “That must be putting Nataku over the moon.”
“Well, he’s understandably a bit leery of any changes, but I think he’s looking on no more tube as a good thing in general.”
Kakyou smiled. “Oh, I have something for you.” He motioned for Fuuma to follow him into his room, which he did. He had wondered where Kakyou had been that afternoon; apparently he’d been at a store, because he now presented Fuuma with a large, wrapped box, topped with a huge bow.
“Whatcha got there?” Fuuma asked, trying to pretend he wasn’t nervous and flopping onto the bed.
“A tarantula,” Kakyou told him, and placed the box in his lap. “Don’t shake it.”
“Yeah, tarantulas hate that,” Fuuma said, tentatively accepting the box and giving it a close look. Something about the straight face Kakyou was keeping, not to mention the air holes punched in the box, was making him very uneasy. “Can I open it?” Kakyou nodded with a grin. Fuuma took off the bow and placed it on the Dreamgazer’s head.
“Weirdo,” Kakyou commented.
“Yeah, but you’re so cute.” Fuuma lifted the lid off the box and was presented with a small, gray, flop-eared bunny. Its nose twitched. Fuuma was at a loss for words. Finally, he came up with the brilliant statement of, “It’s a rabbit.”
“Yep,” Kakyou said with a grin.
“Whatever possessed you to get a rabbit?” Fuuma ignored the fact that the rabbit was almost certainly for him, not for Kakyou, and held the box out to Kakyou.
Kakyou crossed his arms, clearly not taking the box, and shrugged slightly. “You seemed like you needed one.”
“I don’t want a rabbit,” Fuuma said, looking down at it in bemusement.
“Why not?” Kakyou sat down next to him on the bed.
“Because bunnies are cute,” Fuuma said, “and it’ll ruin my image if I have a cute pet.”
“Who cares?” Kakyou gave on waiting for Fuuma to get used to the idea. He scooped the rabbit out of the box and settled it carefully onto Fuuma’s lap, where it began to sniff at his shirt. Kakyou set the box on the floor, looking very self-satisfied.
Fuuma looked around surreptitiously, to make sure Kamui hadn’t somehow snuck into the room, and then petted the rabbit’s ears. “Okay, but promise me two things.”
“What?” Kakyou asked, watching the rabbit paw at Fuuma’s shirt.
“Number one, never tell anyone that I have this bunny.”
“Okay,” Kakyou said, his lips twitching in a smile he made no effort to suppress. “As long as you promise that he gets some sunshine.”
“That I can manage,” Fuuma said. “And secondly, I want to be sure there’ll be a place for it . . . you know. When it’s all over.”
“I’ll make sure he gets to a safe place,” Kakyou said, resisting the urge to give Fuuma a comforting hug.
Fuuma smiled. “What, you’re not going to keep him?”
Kakyou gave in and gave Fuuma a tentative hug, being careful not to squish the rabbit. “Are you saying I’m not safe?” he asked innocently, totally avoiding the question.
Fuuma pulled Kakyou into the hug, seeing that the Dreamgazer wasn’t going to get closer on his own. “Nah. You just made it sound like you meant someone else.”
Kakyou shrugged and hugged back, still avoiding. “So what are you going to name him?”
“Bunny,” Fuuma said firmly, letting Kakyou go so he could continue to play the rabbit. He looked down at it. “And . . . thanks. Not just for this.”
“You’re welcome,” Kakyou said. “For everything. And I could turn it around on you, you know. I mean, for the first time in my life . . . I’m alive.”
“Guess that makes sense, right?” Fuuma said, letting the rabbit crawl off his lap and start exploring the bed. “I’m killing so many people, I have to balance it out by bringing someone back to life.”
“You’re saving countless billions,” Kakyou reminded him. “Don’t sell yourself short.”
“By convincing Kamui to kill me?” Fuuma laughed. “I’m beginning to think that saving people isn’t really the point. He would’ve done it. I’m just trying to make it easy on him.”
“Then you’re being merciful.”
“I went over the top. I was being dramatic.”
“Maybe.” Kakyou shrugged. He wasn’t about to get into another argument about whether or not Fuuma was a decent person; he wouldn’t listen. “But in all honesty I don’t think Kamui would’ve had the gumption to . . . you know.” He couldn’t bring himself to say it, no matter how hard he tried. “Without everything you’ve done.” He paused. “Sometimes I’m not sure which one of you this is harder on.”
“Ah, go with him,” Fuuma said. “I mean, yeah, I kill people and that sucks for my conscience, but at least no one I really cared about has ended up dead.” He was steadfastly ignoring the fact that he personally was going to die. “It just seems funny . . . I’m supposed be destroying humanity and I think I’m doing more to save it than he is.”
“He’s torn,” Kakyou said softly. “Think of it as a compliment of sorts. He chose the way he did to save you. It’s just bad luck that the lines were drawn the way they were.”
“I’m not questioning what he’s doing,” Fuuma said. “I’m questioning myself. Seems like I do that a lot these days.”
Kakyou hugged him again. “Don’t question. Your heart is in the right place, and sometimes the ends really do justify the means.”
“Yeah, tell that to the people I’ve killed.” Fuuma shifted, pulling Kakyou into his lap, but wouldn’t look at the yumemi. “Sure they’d be thrilled to hear it.”
“How about all the people you’re saving?” Kakyou asked gently.
“Well, they’ll never know, now will they.”
“They say ignorance is bliss,” Kakyou mused. “But you’ll know. You’ll know that the good outweighed the bad millions to one.”
Fuuma laughed harshly. “Yeah,” he said bitterly. “Fuck of a lot of good that’ll do me when I’m dead.”
Kakyou pressed his forehead against Fuuma’s, forcing the teenager to meet his eyes. “Stop doing this to yourself,” he said firmly. “You’re doing the right thing, now stop beating yourself up for it.” He pulled back slightly and tried to lighten the mood. “Try not to think about it so hard on your off hours.”
“I try not to, but it’s hard to forget,” Fuuma said with a shrug.
It took every ounce of willpower Kakyou had to avoid kissing him at that moment. It didn’t help that he was still in Fuuma’s lap. “I would help if I knew how,” he finally said.