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matrixrefugeeAt long last, the first of (possibly) several YnM fics I have planned for the 12 days: this based on a prompt from ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
veleda_k who requested "Hisoka and Tatsumi at the office Christmas party. (Can be either gen or Hisoka/Tatsumi.)" It's mostly gen but maaaybe there's something hidden behind Tatsumi's blue eyes...
This one turned out a lot better than I feared it would, and I made it up to Watari for Putting Him on a Bus in the Twhinelite crossover: I think I finally got his voice down pat, and the same goes for Terazuma, who's a tough guy to write in all senses of the phrase (mentally casting his voice with Adrian Pasdar's "cigarettes and whiskey" gruffness helped; yes, I map the dialogue by imagining the VAs from the anime, or fantasy-casting the ones who didn't get cast.).
On the Eighth Day of Christmas, the Matrix Refugee fanficced for ye:
One Meifu Christmas office party,
A drunken Evangelion New Year's party,
Redpills stealing a Christmas tree,
Harry Dresden for the holidays,
Frank Sweitz adopting a David unit,
One Chateau Christmas party,
One Christmas spirit in the American Gods 'verse,
and An A.I. fic with David decorating his first Christmas tree.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
"Not Quite the Life of the Office Christmas Party"
by "Matrix Refugee"
Disclaimer: I do not own Yami no Matsuei, aka Descendants of Darkness, it’s characters, concepts and other indicia, which are the intellectual property of Yoko Matsushita, Hiroko Tokita, Manga Entertainment, Viz Media, Hakusensha, et al.
Author's Note: I had a heck of a time getting into this story, but once I did, I snowballed through it. Then I got slightly stuck while typing it. And mind you, I love this fic (well, I love all my stories) and the characters in it, but for some reason, my hands kept failing me as I worked on it: I suspect part of me wanted to keep it to myself...
And also this fic proves I actually *can* write one for this universe which doesn't feature any insidious energy vampires.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
EDITED: Three times to fix broken code, more broken code, and a forgotten Lj-cut >.<
Parties of any kind were never Hisoka's thing, even when the crowd included even those nearest and dearest to him. In the three years since he had first joined the Summons Section, he had -- though he would never admit it to anyone -- come to regard the other shinigami as a surrogate family. Tsuzuki in particular had become more than just his work partner, but "friend" or "brother" didn't quite fit either. Especially since the Kyoto incident, it was hard to put a name to it, unless he used the term "lover", though the emotional weight and the implications added to that word made him uneasy. But he could not deny that the goofy, clumsy, sweets-loving shinigami meant as much to him as his own existence.
Even if that meant having to put up with embarassing things, like the fact that Tsuzuki was now trying to get Konoe and Terazuma to join him in a rousing chorus of "Jingle Bells", while Hisoka was going over a final sheaf of paperwork, trying to make sure nothing had been overlooked. At least it was keeping Saya and Yuma, in town from Hokkaido on a visit, from tackle-glomming on him again as they added their squeaky voices to the chorus.
"Okay, second verse, same as the first," Tsuzuki said.
"I'm gonna pass, bad enough I let you talk me into it the first time," Terazuma grumbled, loping away and plunking himself down behind a table on which Wakaba and the Hokkaido duo were arranging an assortment of treats.
That didn't stop Tsuzuki from tailing Terazuma. "Aw, where's your holiday spirit, Terazuma?" he asked, popping a felt Santa hat onto Terazuma's head.
Terazuma snatched the hat off, wadded it up and lobbed it back at Tsuzuki. "Get that thing off me," he snarled.
"Hey, no quarrels at the office Christmas party," Konoe barked, a crooked smile crossing his face.
"Wrong hat for him," Saya said, popping the hat onto Tsuzuki's head. "He'd look better with an elf hat on," she added, her eye on Terazuma's pointed ears.
"Don't you start, blondie," Terazuma snarled, putting his feet up in the tabletop and leaning his chair back on two legs.
"You boys better play nice, or no cookies for any of you," Wakaba said, coming in from the office kitchenette with a platter of fresh cookies which she set on the table. "Hajime, could you move your feet?"
"Bossing me around as usual," Terazuma said, his grumble turning goodnatured as he obligingly lowered his feet to the floor.
The door to the hallway opened and a silver disk hovering about five feet off the floor buzzed into the room; from the underside hung a large sprig of mistletoe tied with red ribbons.
"Whoa, wait, what's that?" Tsuzuki cried, as the thing hummed straight toward him and came to a standstill, hovering directly over his head.
"Ooh, I think it likes you," Wakaba said.
"Hee! Of course it does. Everyone likes Tsuzuki," Saya cried. Terazuma rumbled an objection, but said nothing articulate.
"He's impossible not to like," Yuma added, darting a glare in Terazuma's general direction while he had his back to her.
Watari entered from the corridor, twiddling with what appeared to be the remote for the hovering mistletoe transporter.
"Watari, just what is this thing?" Tsuzuki asked, eying the gadget as it now circled around his head.
"Isn't it obvious? I call it the Instant Mistletoe 12-2500. I designed it to respond to body temperature and pheremones. It seeks out the warmest and most cuddle-able person in the room, but also the one most in need of some affection," Watari gushed, like a kid on Christmas morning.
"So of course it would find Mr. Tsuzuki first: he's so sweet and he needs the most love, the little woobie," Yuma crooned.
"Ooh, which one of us gets to kiss him?" Saya asked, her eyes dancing.
"I thought the person who was closest to the person under the mistletoe was supposed to kiss them?" Tsuzuki asked, as if pretending to ignore his proximity to Terazuma.
"Well, it's certainly not gonna be me," Terazuma rumbled.
"What? I'm not good enough for you?" Tsuzuki shot back, pouting, his eyes sparkling with mischief.
"Spoilsport," Wakaba said. "If you won't kiss him, I will." She set aside the second tray of cookies she had brought in and approaching Tsuzuki, planted a teeny smooch on his right cheek.
"What was that? I didn't feel a thing," Tsuzuki said, reaching down and hugging Wakaba one-armed before he leaned down to kiss her. She giggled and pulled away from him, blushing.
"Hey! Get yer gob off my girl, you purple-eyed fiend!" Terazuma snarled, jumping to his feet.
To Hisoka, the air seemed to have caught fire. Setting aside the papers, he said, "I'm going out to see what's keeping Tatsumi with the ice cubes." He got up a bit too quickly as he made his way to the door to the corridor and stepped out into it.
"I told you two, no arguing at Christmas," he heard Konoe bellowing at the two quarrellers.
"Just protecting Wakaba's honor," Terazuma replied.
Hisoka closed the door quickly behind him, putting it between him and the wretched gadget, before he stepped out into the hallway. The last thing he needed was the two harpies from Hokkaido glomming on him.
At that moment, Tatsumi approached from the opposite end of the hallway, carrying the bag of ice he'd gone out for. "Is the crowd getting too much for you, Hisoka," Tatsumi asked.
"First it was the twits from Hokkaido, now Watari's inflicting his latest monstrosity on us," Hisoka said.
Tatsumi shook his head, a small smile quirking one corner of his mouth. "I'd hoped he'd take the spirit of the season into consideration and *not* unleash that thing today. Or any day. Tell me it didn't go near you?"
"No, it went for Tsuzuki, which didn't surprise me," Hisoka said.
"Do I want to know who was closest to him?" Tatsumi asked.
"It was Terazuma of course, but he wasn't about to take the bait, so Wakaba offered to do the honors," Hisoka said, shifting his weight to his other foot and rubbing the back of his neck.
"And that's when those two started to argue over her," Tatsumi said, adjusting his half-rimmed eyeglasses with one hand in a way that it looked like he was facepalming.
Hisoka looked away, shoving his hands into his pants pockets. "Yeah," he murmured.
Tatsumi stepped into his sight range, cocking his head and eyeing Hisoka half-over, half-through his lenses. "Do I detect a hint of jealousy?"
"Not really," Hisoka said, knowing it was a half-truth. He quickly dodged the question. "What's with him and Terazuma always going for each others throats, anyway? Tsuzuki can be a nuisance and a lazy ass who leaves you stuck with his paperwork, and he can get a little too friendly with Wakaba, but that's bearable once you've gotten to know him."
"Terazuma looks on Tsuzuki's cheerfulness and friendliness as a weakness," Tatsumi said. "He's always been rather hard-skulled, but that may be more pronounced since he became fused with his shikigami. Tsuzuki lives without filters, letting everything and everyone in; but you are the exact opposite. In a way, you're a bit like Terazuma: you set up walls to keep everything out, but your heart is open within those walls. That's not a judgement on either of you; it's just an observation on how differently you handle the same thing," Tatsumi said. "Each of you is at the same time both stronger and weaker for using these different methods. And yet somehow, his openness and your reticence play off each other, balancing you out. You've both changed since you started working together."
"He's not as open as he seems, at least about himself," Hisoka replied.
"No, he isn't, but you've succeeded in getting him to open up, something I failed to do when I was his partner," Tatsumi replied.
"What made you leave him in the first place?" Hisoka asked.
"It wasn't any one particular thing that made me decide what I did, but a series of events," Tatsumi said, adjusting his glasses, his sapphire-colored eyes gone dark with thought. "Every case we covered, every soul we collected and lead into the afterlife, he would turn depressed. There was one case which stands out, a young man who had turned suicidal after the love of his life rejected him in favor of a richer, more handsome man. At that point, I realized I couldn't do much to help him. I could tell him not to be so sensitive, or to grow a thicher skin, but that did nothing to help him; if anything, my words made it worse for him and only added to his hurt."
"He can be irritating when he frets over a soul we've escorted, but he does that only because he cares so deeply for them," Hisoka said. "He cares too much at times, but there's enough people in this world who don't care enough." A shadow passed through his memory, but he let it move on, taking care not to flinch.
"You're wise, young man, wise beyond your age: you saw that in him, and I didn't see that until well after he and I had parted ways," Tatsumi replied. "You will succeed where Terazuma didn't even try and where I failed him." He glanced down the hallway. "This ice is going to turn to water; shall we return to the party?"
Hisoka shrugged one shoulder. "May as well, before the money you spent on it goes to waste."
The moment they stepped through the door and into the room, that gadget of Watari's buzzed right up to them, pausing between them.
"Hm, it doesn't seem to be getting a clear read from either of you," Watari said, his eye on the remote for the hovering nuisance. "That can mean just one thing: the both of you need a little affection."
"Well, don't make me kiss Hisoka: remember what happened the last time I got punked into doing that," Terazuma growled, getting up and moving to the further end of the table, putting it between him and the door.
"Ooh, maybe they should kiss each other," Saya suggested.
Hisoka looked up at Tatsumi, who looked vaguely nauseous and delicately avoided looking directly at him. "I couldn't: touching people sometimes causes me to read things in them that they don't want revealed."
"Well that could be useful: you might find out where my second in command is hiding all of his extra cash," Konoe teased.
Tsuzuki came up behind both Hisoka and Tatsumi and put an arm around the shoulders of each of them, leaning in between them with a gleefully conspiratorial grin. "I know: both of you kiss me instead." The two of them stared at Tsuzuki, then at each other. "Aw come on, fellas, you know the both of you like me."
"Ooh, I like this even better," Saya said to Yuma, who was surreptitiously pulling a a small digital camera out of the pocket of her skirt.
Hisoka felt his heart skip a beat. It's just a kiss, he told himself. He glanced up at Tatsumi; the taller male's eyes ticked uneasily behind his glasses, and even without touching him, Hisoka could tell he felt conflicted. Perhaps there had been more to his reasons for ending his partnership with Tsuzuki than he had admitted to. Perhaps he had felt something too deep to fit into their professional relationship, something that he did not wish to reveal to anyone, even the object and cause of those feelings, something he wanted to keep concealed, even from himself. Hisoka had to admit to himself that he'd felt the same way about his own feelings; he'd thought at first that he felt this way toward Tsuzuki as a result of the time when the elder shinigami had used him as a conduit for his powers, when Muraki had trapped them in Nagasaki. But he knew there was more to it than a mere fondness, more than some mere echo of that event. Something as simple as that would have faded over time, but over time, the feelings had remained and continued to develop and grow, like a small plant growing into a tree. I can do this, he thought. He's touched me enough times: ruffling my hair as if I were a dog, hugging me, holding me when I'm spiraling into myself. The least I can do is return the favor, even if it's in jest. But the joke isn't in my heart...
Licking his lips to moisten them, Hisoka leaned up and kissed Tsuzuki lightly on the cheek; even through his careful touch, he could sense a whirl of emotions: warmth and friendliness that came from the innermost core of his being, a love that had endured trial and grown stronger from it, even a touch of embarrassment at feeling this way for the party involved: namely, for him. He felt Tsuzuki quiver and felt the older male's cheek grow warm under his lips. Somehow, in that moment, Hisoka sensed an echo from Tatsumi, as the other took off his eyeglasses and moved in to kiss Tsuzuki's other cheek: an echo of warm concern and care, usually so cleverly masked behind the secretary's propriety and professionalism. But did he direct these feelings toward Tsuzuki or toward Hisoka? Or to the both of them? He wondered if it was the latter, considering how Tatsumi had opened up to him early and on other occasions.
He dimly heard a gagging sound from Terazuma; the Hokkaido twins giggled, and he realized he could hear the wing-click of Yuma's digital camera.
"Tsuzuki, you're going to turn as red as that Santa hat," Wakaba said, breaking the spell.
Hisoka backed away from Tsuzuki, feeling his own cheeks start to burn. Tatsumi stepped back as well, replacing his eyeglasses. "Any warmer and this will really melt the ice and waste what I'd paid for them," he murmured and headed for the kitchen.
"Mrrff... Tsuzuki, you're squishing me," Hisoka grumbled, wriggling out from under his partner's arm.
Tsuzuki rubbed his cheeks. "Wow, that was quite a kiss, Hisoka," he said, keeping his voice low. "Or were you playing it up for the camera? You know Saya and Yuma will get jealous, or they might start teasing you about it."
"I know that. I just don't do things by half-measures, you should know that by now," Hisoka said. As soon as he said that, he felt someone's gaze on him. He looked up to spot Tatsumi quiddling with a large ice bucket on one end of the table, a little more studiously than was really necessary...
veleda_k who requested "Hisoka and Tatsumi at the office Christmas party. (Can be either gen or Hisoka/Tatsumi.)" It's mostly gen but maaaybe there's something hidden behind Tatsumi's blue eyes...This one turned out a lot better than I feared it would, and I made it up to Watari for Putting Him on a Bus in the Twhinelite crossover: I think I finally got his voice down pat, and the same goes for Terazuma, who's a tough guy to write in all senses of the phrase (mentally casting his voice with Adrian Pasdar's "cigarettes and whiskey" gruffness helped; yes, I map the dialogue by imagining the VAs from the anime, or fantasy-casting the ones who didn't get cast.).
On the Eighth Day of Christmas, the Matrix Refugee fanficced for ye:
One Meifu Christmas office party,
A drunken Evangelion New Year's party,
Redpills stealing a Christmas tree,
Harry Dresden for the holidays,
Frank Sweitz adopting a David unit,
One Chateau Christmas party,
One Christmas spirit in the American Gods 'verse,
and An A.I. fic with David decorating his first Christmas tree.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
"Not Quite the Life of the Office Christmas Party"
by "Matrix Refugee"
Disclaimer: I do not own Yami no Matsuei, aka Descendants of Darkness, it’s characters, concepts and other indicia, which are the intellectual property of Yoko Matsushita, Hiroko Tokita, Manga Entertainment, Viz Media, Hakusensha, et al.
Author's Note: I had a heck of a time getting into this story, but once I did, I snowballed through it. Then I got slightly stuck while typing it. And mind you, I love this fic (well, I love all my stories) and the characters in it, but for some reason, my hands kept failing me as I worked on it: I suspect part of me wanted to keep it to myself...
And also this fic proves I actually *can* write one for this universe which doesn't feature any insidious energy vampires.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
EDITED: Three times to fix broken code, more broken code, and a forgotten Lj-cut >.<
Parties of any kind were never Hisoka's thing, even when the crowd included even those nearest and dearest to him. In the three years since he had first joined the Summons Section, he had -- though he would never admit it to anyone -- come to regard the other shinigami as a surrogate family. Tsuzuki in particular had become more than just his work partner, but "friend" or "brother" didn't quite fit either. Especially since the Kyoto incident, it was hard to put a name to it, unless he used the term "lover", though the emotional weight and the implications added to that word made him uneasy. But he could not deny that the goofy, clumsy, sweets-loving shinigami meant as much to him as his own existence.
Even if that meant having to put up with embarassing things, like the fact that Tsuzuki was now trying to get Konoe and Terazuma to join him in a rousing chorus of "Jingle Bells", while Hisoka was going over a final sheaf of paperwork, trying to make sure nothing had been overlooked. At least it was keeping Saya and Yuma, in town from Hokkaido on a visit, from tackle-glomming on him again as they added their squeaky voices to the chorus.
"Okay, second verse, same as the first," Tsuzuki said.
"I'm gonna pass, bad enough I let you talk me into it the first time," Terazuma grumbled, loping away and plunking himself down behind a table on which Wakaba and the Hokkaido duo were arranging an assortment of treats.
That didn't stop Tsuzuki from tailing Terazuma. "Aw, where's your holiday spirit, Terazuma?" he asked, popping a felt Santa hat onto Terazuma's head.
Terazuma snatched the hat off, wadded it up and lobbed it back at Tsuzuki. "Get that thing off me," he snarled.
"Hey, no quarrels at the office Christmas party," Konoe barked, a crooked smile crossing his face.
"Wrong hat for him," Saya said, popping the hat onto Tsuzuki's head. "He'd look better with an elf hat on," she added, her eye on Terazuma's pointed ears.
"Don't you start, blondie," Terazuma snarled, putting his feet up in the tabletop and leaning his chair back on two legs.
"You boys better play nice, or no cookies for any of you," Wakaba said, coming in from the office kitchenette with a platter of fresh cookies which she set on the table. "Hajime, could you move your feet?"
"Bossing me around as usual," Terazuma said, his grumble turning goodnatured as he obligingly lowered his feet to the floor.
The door to the hallway opened and a silver disk hovering about five feet off the floor buzzed into the room; from the underside hung a large sprig of mistletoe tied with red ribbons.
"Whoa, wait, what's that?" Tsuzuki cried, as the thing hummed straight toward him and came to a standstill, hovering directly over his head.
"Ooh, I think it likes you," Wakaba said.
"Hee! Of course it does. Everyone likes Tsuzuki," Saya cried. Terazuma rumbled an objection, but said nothing articulate.
"He's impossible not to like," Yuma added, darting a glare in Terazuma's general direction while he had his back to her.
Watari entered from the corridor, twiddling with what appeared to be the remote for the hovering mistletoe transporter.
"Watari, just what is this thing?" Tsuzuki asked, eying the gadget as it now circled around his head.
"Isn't it obvious? I call it the Instant Mistletoe 12-2500. I designed it to respond to body temperature and pheremones. It seeks out the warmest and most cuddle-able person in the room, but also the one most in need of some affection," Watari gushed, like a kid on Christmas morning.
"So of course it would find Mr. Tsuzuki first: he's so sweet and he needs the most love, the little woobie," Yuma crooned.
"Ooh, which one of us gets to kiss him?" Saya asked, her eyes dancing.
"I thought the person who was closest to the person under the mistletoe was supposed to kiss them?" Tsuzuki asked, as if pretending to ignore his proximity to Terazuma.
"Well, it's certainly not gonna be me," Terazuma rumbled.
"What? I'm not good enough for you?" Tsuzuki shot back, pouting, his eyes sparkling with mischief.
"Spoilsport," Wakaba said. "If you won't kiss him, I will." She set aside the second tray of cookies she had brought in and approaching Tsuzuki, planted a teeny smooch on his right cheek.
"What was that? I didn't feel a thing," Tsuzuki said, reaching down and hugging Wakaba one-armed before he leaned down to kiss her. She giggled and pulled away from him, blushing.
"Hey! Get yer gob off my girl, you purple-eyed fiend!" Terazuma snarled, jumping to his feet.
To Hisoka, the air seemed to have caught fire. Setting aside the papers, he said, "I'm going out to see what's keeping Tatsumi with the ice cubes." He got up a bit too quickly as he made his way to the door to the corridor and stepped out into it.
"I told you two, no arguing at Christmas," he heard Konoe bellowing at the two quarrellers.
"Just protecting Wakaba's honor," Terazuma replied.
Hisoka closed the door quickly behind him, putting it between him and the wretched gadget, before he stepped out into the hallway. The last thing he needed was the two harpies from Hokkaido glomming on him.
At that moment, Tatsumi approached from the opposite end of the hallway, carrying the bag of ice he'd gone out for. "Is the crowd getting too much for you, Hisoka," Tatsumi asked.
"First it was the twits from Hokkaido, now Watari's inflicting his latest monstrosity on us," Hisoka said.
Tatsumi shook his head, a small smile quirking one corner of his mouth. "I'd hoped he'd take the spirit of the season into consideration and *not* unleash that thing today. Or any day. Tell me it didn't go near you?"
"No, it went for Tsuzuki, which didn't surprise me," Hisoka said.
"Do I want to know who was closest to him?" Tatsumi asked.
"It was Terazuma of course, but he wasn't about to take the bait, so Wakaba offered to do the honors," Hisoka said, shifting his weight to his other foot and rubbing the back of his neck.
"And that's when those two started to argue over her," Tatsumi said, adjusting his half-rimmed eyeglasses with one hand in a way that it looked like he was facepalming.
Hisoka looked away, shoving his hands into his pants pockets. "Yeah," he murmured.
Tatsumi stepped into his sight range, cocking his head and eyeing Hisoka half-over, half-through his lenses. "Do I detect a hint of jealousy?"
"Not really," Hisoka said, knowing it was a half-truth. He quickly dodged the question. "What's with him and Terazuma always going for each others throats, anyway? Tsuzuki can be a nuisance and a lazy ass who leaves you stuck with his paperwork, and he can get a little too friendly with Wakaba, but that's bearable once you've gotten to know him."
"Terazuma looks on Tsuzuki's cheerfulness and friendliness as a weakness," Tatsumi said. "He's always been rather hard-skulled, but that may be more pronounced since he became fused with his shikigami. Tsuzuki lives without filters, letting everything and everyone in; but you are the exact opposite. In a way, you're a bit like Terazuma: you set up walls to keep everything out, but your heart is open within those walls. That's not a judgement on either of you; it's just an observation on how differently you handle the same thing," Tatsumi said. "Each of you is at the same time both stronger and weaker for using these different methods. And yet somehow, his openness and your reticence play off each other, balancing you out. You've both changed since you started working together."
"He's not as open as he seems, at least about himself," Hisoka replied.
"No, he isn't, but you've succeeded in getting him to open up, something I failed to do when I was his partner," Tatsumi replied.
"What made you leave him in the first place?" Hisoka asked.
"It wasn't any one particular thing that made me decide what I did, but a series of events," Tatsumi said, adjusting his glasses, his sapphire-colored eyes gone dark with thought. "Every case we covered, every soul we collected and lead into the afterlife, he would turn depressed. There was one case which stands out, a young man who had turned suicidal after the love of his life rejected him in favor of a richer, more handsome man. At that point, I realized I couldn't do much to help him. I could tell him not to be so sensitive, or to grow a thicher skin, but that did nothing to help him; if anything, my words made it worse for him and only added to his hurt."
"He can be irritating when he frets over a soul we've escorted, but he does that only because he cares so deeply for them," Hisoka said. "He cares too much at times, but there's enough people in this world who don't care enough." A shadow passed through his memory, but he let it move on, taking care not to flinch.
"You're wise, young man, wise beyond your age: you saw that in him, and I didn't see that until well after he and I had parted ways," Tatsumi replied. "You will succeed where Terazuma didn't even try and where I failed him." He glanced down the hallway. "This ice is going to turn to water; shall we return to the party?"
Hisoka shrugged one shoulder. "May as well, before the money you spent on it goes to waste."
The moment they stepped through the door and into the room, that gadget of Watari's buzzed right up to them, pausing between them.
"Hm, it doesn't seem to be getting a clear read from either of you," Watari said, his eye on the remote for the hovering nuisance. "That can mean just one thing: the both of you need a little affection."
"Well, don't make me kiss Hisoka: remember what happened the last time I got punked into doing that," Terazuma growled, getting up and moving to the further end of the table, putting it between him and the door.
"Ooh, maybe they should kiss each other," Saya suggested.
Hisoka looked up at Tatsumi, who looked vaguely nauseous and delicately avoided looking directly at him. "I couldn't: touching people sometimes causes me to read things in them that they don't want revealed."
"Well that could be useful: you might find out where my second in command is hiding all of his extra cash," Konoe teased.
Tsuzuki came up behind both Hisoka and Tatsumi and put an arm around the shoulders of each of them, leaning in between them with a gleefully conspiratorial grin. "I know: both of you kiss me instead." The two of them stared at Tsuzuki, then at each other. "Aw come on, fellas, you know the both of you like me."
"Ooh, I like this even better," Saya said to Yuma, who was surreptitiously pulling a a small digital camera out of the pocket of her skirt.
Hisoka felt his heart skip a beat. It's just a kiss, he told himself. He glanced up at Tatsumi; the taller male's eyes ticked uneasily behind his glasses, and even without touching him, Hisoka could tell he felt conflicted. Perhaps there had been more to his reasons for ending his partnership with Tsuzuki than he had admitted to. Perhaps he had felt something too deep to fit into their professional relationship, something that he did not wish to reveal to anyone, even the object and cause of those feelings, something he wanted to keep concealed, even from himself. Hisoka had to admit to himself that he'd felt the same way about his own feelings; he'd thought at first that he felt this way toward Tsuzuki as a result of the time when the elder shinigami had used him as a conduit for his powers, when Muraki had trapped them in Nagasaki. But he knew there was more to it than a mere fondness, more than some mere echo of that event. Something as simple as that would have faded over time, but over time, the feelings had remained and continued to develop and grow, like a small plant growing into a tree. I can do this, he thought. He's touched me enough times: ruffling my hair as if I were a dog, hugging me, holding me when I'm spiraling into myself. The least I can do is return the favor, even if it's in jest. But the joke isn't in my heart...
Licking his lips to moisten them, Hisoka leaned up and kissed Tsuzuki lightly on the cheek; even through his careful touch, he could sense a whirl of emotions: warmth and friendliness that came from the innermost core of his being, a love that had endured trial and grown stronger from it, even a touch of embarrassment at feeling this way for the party involved: namely, for him. He felt Tsuzuki quiver and felt the older male's cheek grow warm under his lips. Somehow, in that moment, Hisoka sensed an echo from Tatsumi, as the other took off his eyeglasses and moved in to kiss Tsuzuki's other cheek: an echo of warm concern and care, usually so cleverly masked behind the secretary's propriety and professionalism. But did he direct these feelings toward Tsuzuki or toward Hisoka? Or to the both of them? He wondered if it was the latter, considering how Tatsumi had opened up to him early and on other occasions.
He dimly heard a gagging sound from Terazuma; the Hokkaido twins giggled, and he realized he could hear the wing-click of Yuma's digital camera.
"Tsuzuki, you're going to turn as red as that Santa hat," Wakaba said, breaking the spell.
Hisoka backed away from Tsuzuki, feeling his own cheeks start to burn. Tatsumi stepped back as well, replacing his eyeglasses. "Any warmer and this will really melt the ice and waste what I'd paid for them," he murmured and headed for the kitchen.
"Mrrff... Tsuzuki, you're squishing me," Hisoka grumbled, wriggling out from under his partner's arm.
Tsuzuki rubbed his cheeks. "Wow, that was quite a kiss, Hisoka," he said, keeping his voice low. "Or were you playing it up for the camera? You know Saya and Yuma will get jealous, or they might start teasing you about it."
"I know that. I just don't do things by half-measures, you should know that by now," Hisoka said. As soon as he said that, he felt someone's gaze on him. He looked up to spot Tatsumi quiddling with a large ice bucket on one end of the table, a little more studiously than was really necessary...
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Date: 2010-01-06 05:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-06 05:51 am (UTC)