Live Through ~ Chapter Nine
At this point I must bow and worship my pal Karasu, who helped me out
with Tatsumi in this part. ::pauses:: Okay, she wrote about 90% of his lines.
She had to talk sense into Hisoka because all I wanted to do was beat his head
into the wall. Eheh.
Part Nine
Either Akimiya decided not to talk to Tsuzuki, or what he said had
absolutely no effect at all. The next few days pass in sullen silence from both
of us. It’s probably not the most miserable I’ve ever been; that’s a statement
reserved for the three years between my first encounter with Muraki and my
death. But I’m definitely miserable. Tsuzuki seems to be pretty depressed, too.
But I don’t know why. Did my words about his self-esteem actually get through,
or is he just angry with me?
It’s four days before the next mission comes in.
Fortunately, the beginning, at least, requires mostly research. It gets
handed to Watari and the Gushoshin, but it’s with the understanding that when
they have a place to start, Akimiya and I are going to go.
“You should talk to him before we leave,” Akimiya says, startling the hell
out of me as he wanders over to me. I’m in the field again. Where Tsuzuki said
he loved me in the dream. Call me nostalgic; I certainly won’t argue.
I turn to look at Akimiya, somehow keeping an entirely neutral expression.
Points for me. “Talk to who about what?”
He gives me a disgusted look, which I completely deserve.
I look away. “Tsuzuki and I have nothing to discuss.”
“Right.” The disgusted look doesn’t go away.
“Nothing that it’ll help to discuss, anyway.” I raise an eyebrow at him. “I
take it you never talked to him like you said you were going to.”
“I thought I would respect your wishes,” Akimiya says, in an acidic tone.
“Maybe that was stupid of me.”
I shrug. It’s kind of amusing how my apathy completely infuriates him.
“I’ll talk to him tomorrow,” Akimiya says. “Because keep one thing in mind,
Hisoka -- you told me that when you thought you were dying, you couldn’t stand
the thought of dying without ever telling Tsuzuki you loved him. And now you’re
going to go off on a potentially dangerous mission with the two of you not even
on speaking terms? That’s an excellent idea, Hisoka.”
I glare at him. “What am I supposed to say to him? I’ve told him I love him.
He . . .” My voice cracks. Damn it, I was doing so well, too. “He doesn’t want
me.”
Akimiya looks at me steadily. “Hisoka, if you go on an assignment like this,
you’re going to get yourself killed, and you will feel like an idiot.”
“What, are you precognitive now? Leave me alone.” And I walk past him, the
last of my friends.
~~~~
It’s annoying, not knowing exactly when we’re going to have to leave. I’m
completely on edge. Tsuzuki keeps . . . looking at me. In that way that makes me
want to cry. But I don’t. I think I may be learning to live like this, as scary
as that may be. It’s a reinstitution of the gauze. Emotional gauze. Listen to
me. I sound like I’m crazy.
But that’s exactly what it is. The whole world just fades out some, so it
doesn’t hurt as much anymore.
Five o’clock. Time to go home. I wonder where Tsuzuki’s been sleeping. I
don’t know whether or not he’s okay at night. I’m not there for him anymore.
I have to stop thinking like this.
“Kurosaki-kun?” Tatsumi-san sticks his head out of his office. “Can I talk
to you for a minute?”
I blink at him. “Uh, sure.” I haven’t done anything wrong lately, so this
must be about Tsuzuki. Ah, yes. Tatsumi-san wants us to be ‘happy together.’ I
think he’s in for a rude surprise.
Tatsumi-san ushers me in and closes the door. Then he pushes his glasses up
on his nose and gives me that glare of his. “Kurosaki-kun, what on earth are you
doing?”
I look at him. Try not to look too puzzled. “Standing here . . .?”
“Exactly,” he says. “Why aren’t you talking to Tsuzuki-san?”
“Tsuzuki and I have nothing to talk about.” Still keeping my voice even. I
turn to go.
Tatsumi-san grabs my arm, which is rather unexpected of him. “That’s not
acceptable, Kurosaki-kun.”
“What business of yours is it?” All right, I’m snapping. I’m losing my
so-called perfect cool. Then again, I was never very good at it to begin with.
“If you two keep building the tension up in the office, soon it’s going to
be everyone’s business,” Tatsumi-san says evenly.
That stings.
Seeing that he’s gotten to me, he continues in the same vein. “Watari,
Sakamoto-san, and I were the only ones to hear your outburst the other day, but
if you don’t want it becoming common knowledge, you and Tsuzuki-san have to come
to some sort of civil agreement.”
I fold my arms and glare at him. That’s about all I can muster.
“Understood?”
“What am I supposed to say to him, Tatsumi-san?” All the anger goes out of
me. I sort of droop into one of his chairs.
“You could start with ‘I’m sorry,’” Tatsumi-san says dryly.
“Sorry for what?” I snap. “What did I do wrong?”
“That little speech you gave in front of us, for one thing,” Tatsumi-san
says.
“Was any part of that a lie?”
“No, but it could have been saved for behind closed doors.”
He has a point there. “I wasn’t thinking about it. He started the
conversation, anyway.”
“Because he was worried about you.” Tatsumi-san sits down behind his desk. I
feel like I’m in a shrink’s office. How did I get into this?
“Because he was mad at me,” I say stiffly. “For going in his place. I tried
to save him from some pain, and he took it as a direct insult.”
Tatsumi-san sighs. “Tsuzuki-san has a tendency to take many things as
insults. But he was more worried than angry.”
“He’s mad at me now,” I say stubbornly. “Obviously.”
“How can you tell?”
I give him an incredulous look. “He’s certainly acting like he’s mad
at me.”
Tatsumi-san folds his hands in front of his face for a long minute, looking
at me carefully. “You know what I think? I’m willing to bet he thinks you’re
mad at him.”
I sort of am, but I’m not sure I want to admit that.
Tatsumi-san continues. “Thus he is avoiding you, because if there’s one
thing Tsuzuki-san hates, it’s having people he cares about be mad at him.”
“Would it be wrong to be mad at him?” I ask carefully. “I mean, I’m not very
angry at him. But . . . I don’t know why I’m mad. Because no matter what I say,
he doesn’t listen.”
“No, you’re not wrong,” Tatsumi-san says, and I sag with relief. “But with
Tsuzuki-san, you need to explain in a comforting manner exactly why you’re mad
at him. You can’t just glare at him from across the room and ignore him the rest
of the time. Being mad at him without communication isn’t getting either of you
anywhere.”
“It’s not like talking will do us any good,” I say with a sigh.
Tatsumi-san glares, looking like he’s about to smack me. “Look, enough with
the defeatist attitude. I swear, the two of you have no idea how much you sound
alike sometimes.”
I ignore the latter part of that statement. “I have a right to be a
defeatist. When has anything in my life ever gone right?”
He raises an eyebrow at me. “So you regret saving Tsuzuki?”
“No, of course not!” I glare at him. “That’s not what I meant at all.”
“Then something went right.”
I’m still glaring. “Not in the long run.”
His eyebrows go higher. “How do you figure? He’s still around.”
“But not mine.” I stare at the floor. Why am I having this
conversation with Tatsumi-san, of all people?
“No. Not right now. But that isn’t why you saved him.” He gives me a
skeptical look. “Or are you telling me that if you’d known he wouldn’t be yours,
you wouldn’t have saved him?”
“Of course not!” I repeat.
“There you are, then,” he says. “Something went right. Do you know what a
good chunk of Tsuzuki-san’s problem is?”
“No, but I’m sure you’ll enlighten me.” Color me bitter . . .
“He’s afraid he’ll hurt you. He wants to offer you what you want, but he’s
afraid something will go wrong. He’s not mad at you.”
“Oh, and he doesn’t think about how much completely ignoring me hurts me?”
Tatsumi-san gives me an incredulous look, and I feel like a complete and utter
asshole. “Never mind. That was incredibly hypocritcal of me. I take it back.”
He nods a little.
Silence.
“I don’t want to talk to him,” I say. “But I don’t know what to say to you.”
“Why don’t you want to talk to him?” Tatsumi-san asks.
“Because . . . I’m scared.” I’m not even sure he heard me say that, I said
it so quietly.
He sighs softly. “Kurosaki-kun, these days you’re scared every time the two
of you are in the same room. If you talk to him, at least you’ll know where you
stand. You won’t be scared of a nebulous thing that may or may not be.”
“But if it’s nebulous, I can still hold on to that tiny piece of hope,” I
admit.
He sighs again. “What exactly do you want from Tsuzuki-san? And don’t just
say you want him to love you.”
But that is what I want. I search for alternate phrasing. “I just want him
to need me as much as I need him. And for him to always be there for me.” That’s
all I mean to say, but the last bit slips out anyway. “And for him to not be
ashamed of kissing me.”
Tatsumi-san raises an eyebrow. I feel like an idiot.
“To begin with,” he says, “I think you’ve already gotten the first two.”
“I don’t know if he needs me that much,” I say.
“The two of you aren’t on speaking terms,” Tatsumi-san says, “and he’s
miserable. Please don’t question such obvious matters.” He’s got an eyebrow
twitch. It’s kind of funny. “And he’ll certainly always be there for you. As for
the bit about being ashamed of kissing you . . . would you care to clarify?”
I look at the floor, turning red. Why am I discussing this with him? “Hekissedme.”
“Excuse me?”
“He. Kissed. Me.”
“I gathered that much.” Tatsumi-san is a master at making me feel stupid.
“When?”
“Right after I first told him I loved him.” That’s it, stare at the shoes.
“Akimiya walked in on us.”
“Why did he kiss you?”
“He said . . . I was special to him.” My eyes are burning and I can barely
talk past the lump in my throat. If I cry in front of Tatsumi-san, I will kill
myself. Metaphorically speaking, of course. “And that if that was enough . . .
he’d stay with me. And then he kissed me. But later he asked Akimiya not to tell
anyone what he’d seen. He thought I was asleep, but I wasn’t.”
“So you immediately discounted what he’d said, about staying with you,”
Tatsumi-san surmises. I nod. Rub my eyes. I hadn’t really thought about how much
this had been bugging me. “And then, when you had that fourth dream -- don’t
look at me like that, Sakamoto-san told me -- it made things even worse.”
I nod again. Oh God, I really am going to cry if he keeps this up.
“But I don’t think Tsuzuki-san was ashamed in the way you think he was.”
I just blink at him.
“Allow me to use a metaphor.”
“Uh oh.”
“Have you ever gotten some sort of gift from a relative that you really
liked, only the gift was something terrible?”
I want to tell him that I never got any gifts when I was alive, but he’s
stopped twitching and I want to keep it that way, so I just nod.
“Let’s say it’s your grandmother. You don’t want to hurt her feelings, so
you say ‘I really like it’ or something like that. Which is of course a blatant
lie. And you know it’s a lie, and if you use this to say that Tsuzuki-san
doesn’t care for you, I may resort to violence.” He must have seen the look on
my face. “You don’t want to make your relative feel bad, but you’d still be
ashamed if someone called you on the lie. You’re ashamed of the falsehood, but
are you ashamed of your grandmother?”
“So your point was that he was ashamed that the kiss was a lie, not that he
actually kissed me.” I pause. “You know what? That doesn’t make me feel better
in the slightest.”
Twitch. “He didn’t kiss you as a lie. He kissed you for the wrong reasons.
His desire to make you feel better, to return your feelings, that wasn’t a lie.
He just chose a method he wasn’t ready for.”
“I guess.” I don’t agree, but I get the feeling that I shouldn’t say that.
He seems to know anyway. “He thought that was specifically something that
would make you feel better. But, correct me if I’m wrong, you wanted the
affection, not the kiss itself.”
“Yeah,” I say, and there I have to admit I feel a little better. “But how do
you prove love?”
“Love is the need to have the person around,” Tatsumi-san says. “And if you
ask me, you two are proving it quite effectively by driving the entire lot of us
crazy by not speaking to each other and being completely miserable.”
“I guess.”
“And I really think that the whole physical element of a relationship is
lost on both of you,” Tatsumi-san continues. “Even on you. You don’t want much
more than a few kisses and hugs, do you?”
If I get much more embarrassed, my head will explode. Mental note: never
discuss sex with Seiichirou Tatsumi. “Right.”
“However, what do you think the odds are that Tsuzuki-san thinks you want
more?”
I blink. Stare at him. Why did that never occur to me?
“He’s nervous, because he thinks you really do want more than he can
logically give you in the near future. He’s wrong, but since you’re not speaking
to him, he doesn’t know that.”
“I still don’t know how to talk to him.” I frown suddenly. “Why aren’t
you talking to him?”
“Because Sakamoto-san said he would. And he asked me to talk to you,
because, and I quote ‘what I’m saying sure as hell isn’t working.’”
I can’t help but laugh a little at that.
“Will you talk to him?”
“I’ll . . . try.”
“That’s good enough for me.”
~~~~
I decided that I had better talk to Tsuzuki before I lost what little nerve
I had. This resulted in what would probably count as the most awkward moment in
my life. Very unfortunately for me, Akimiya chose about the same moment to
corner Tsuzuki that Tatsumi-san had chosen to corner me.
So, after I got a cup of tea to calm my nerves, I walked down to Watari’s
lab. And now I’m standing outside the door, listening to Akimiya talk to
Tsuzuki. I really know I should leave. I’m not the eavesdropping type. But . . .
I can’t pass by this chance to see how Tsuzuki really feels. Around me, he can
be guarded, because he knows what I want from him. If I listen to this, I might
see how his mind works.
I walk up to the door as Akimiya is saying, “Why do you think he’s mad at
you?”
Ah, deja vu all over again . . .
“Because he’s avoiding me,” Tsuzuki answers.
“You’re avoiding him. Are you mad at him?”
I peek inside. Akimiya is sitting on one of the infirmary beds while Tsuzuki
cleans something up. I suspect Tsuzuki is cleaning only so he doesn’t have to
actually look at Akimiya. I hold my breath, not sure I want to hear the answer
to this question.
“I don’t know if I’m mad or not,” Tsuzuki answers, sounding very distressed.
“He . . . he said such mean things to me, but he was right. And I can’t get mad
at him for being right. I mean . . . he’s only trying to help me.”
I kind of sag against the wall, feeling relieved. Despite Tatsumi-san’s
reassurances, I really did think that Tsuzuki was mad at me.
“I still think he’s mad at me,” Tsuzuki goes on to add.
“How would you know if you won’t talk to him?”
“He keeps glaring at me,” Tsuzuki mumbles, and I feel a blush rise to my
cheeks. I really have been glaring at him. That’s not just his paranoia.
“I really don’t think he’s very mad,” Akimiya says. “And even if he is, I’m
one hundred percent positive that he’ll forgive you for whatever he might be mad
about if you’ll just ask him.”
“Don’t know why,” Tsuzuki says softly, and I resist the urge to bang my head
against the wall.
“Because he loves you, Tsuzuki.” I peek in just in time to see Tsuzuki
flinch away from those words. “Does it hurt you when I say that?”
“Of course not,” Tsuzuki says, a little too quickly.
“You looked like you were hurting,” Akimiya says.
“Why would anyone love me?” Tsuzuki asks the counter.
The counter, naturally, doesn’t answer, so Akimiya does. “Tsuzuki, I’ve
known you less than a month, and I can say with confidence that there’s plenty
about you to love. You’re considerate and you’re handsome and you’re funny, when
you go near chocolate cake you’re probably the most adorable person in all of
existence. You’re incredibly caring and kind. You’re probably one of the most
lovable people on earth, and you wonder why Hisoka has fallen for you?
You should be wondering why it’s never happened before!”
It has, but I’m not sure Tsuzuki ever realized how Tatsumi-san feels about
him. I wonder briefly why Tatsumi-san never tried to win Tsuzuki over himself.
Did he just think they weren’t right for each other? Or maybe he did try, and
Tsuzuki ran from him the way he’s trying to run from me. And Tatsumi-san either
isn’t as stubborn as I am, or thought that being too stubborn might hurt Tsuzuki
in the long run.
Tsuzuki is bright red. He’s probably never received such a long string of
compliments before in his life. “But . . .”
“I don’t know where you got such a low opinion of yourself,” Akimiya cuts
him off casually, as if he didn’t realize Tsuzuki had started to talk.
Tsuzuki looks at the floor. “Things . . . have gone wrong,” he says quietly.
“I hurt everything I touch. I’m . . . I’m not even human.”
It’s all I can do not to burst through the door at that comment and tell him
that after all the discussions we had on the subject, he had damn well better
not change his mind now. But I hold my ground, waiting to see what Akimiya does
with it.
“Not human?” Akimiya asks. He sounds surprised. Then he frowns. “I guess
that depends on how you define it. I don’t know where you got the idea that you
aren’t human, but you look human, act human, and feel human, so you may
as well be human. It’s all semantics, really.”
Tsuzuki is blinking at him. I don’t think anyone ever tried to disarm his
argument about his humanity using semantics before.
“Besides,” Akimiya says. “What do you think you are?”
Tsuzuki just stammers for a minute.
“See? You don’t even know. So you may as well be human, since you don’t have
anything else to be.”
Tsuzuki blinks at him some more.
“Anyway,” Akimiya says, “just because things have gone wrong is no reason to
crawl into your own little bubble and let your life get worse. Why don’t you try
to improve things rather than hiding from them? It’s not like Hisoka’s life has
been peaches and cream. He’d be good for you.”
Tsuzuki looks away. Actually, he’s looking at me, but he doesn’t see me. The
door is only open a crack. “I don’t deserve him,” he says. “I would only hurt
him in the end. I can’t give him what he wants. What he needs.”
“Tsuzuki, you don’t know that,” Akimiya says patiently. I really admire his
patience. Tatsumi-san’s, too. I wouldn’t want to have to deal with myself, or
Tsuzuki. “For one thing, I can’t stand the whole ‘I don’t deserve him’ idea.
He is in love with you. That’s his choice, not yours. You can’t say
you don’t deserve him when it’s entirely up to him to decide. Obviously you do
deserve him, since he’s fallen in love with you.”
Tsuzuki doesn’t reply.
“And what on earth do you think he wants that you can’t provide?” Akimiya
asks. “He wants your company. You give him that on a regular basis. He wants
your affection; you already want to give him that even if you don’t want to
admit it. That’s about it.” He pauses. “Don’t give me that wounded puppy look.
And don’t tell me I’m wrong. And please don’t tell me you can’t give him the
right kind of affection. Tsuzuki, honestly, Hisoka’s gone through the same thing
as you; he doesn’t want anything more than some kisses and cuddles.” Now I’m
blushing. Akimiya definitely conferred with Tatsumi-san before they had these
conferences. “I know you’re terrified of sex -- anyone who’s been through what
you have would be. Which is what you have to keep in mind. Hisoka has been
through this too. He won’t be ready for sex for . . . oh, at least a few years.
And by then, you might be ready, too. It’s not like Hisoka will push you if
you’re not.”
Silence.
“So what’s the problem?”
More silence for a minute. Then Tsuzuki says softly, “I’m . . . so scared.”
I shouldn’t be listening to this.
“What are you scared of, Tsuzuki?”
“A lot of things.” Tsuzuki lets out a soft laugh. I definitely should not be
listening to this. “That . . . he’ll go away. That I’ll lose him. That I’ll hurt
him.” He pauses, the blurts out, “When I nearly died, he brought me back,
because . . . he needed me. And I couldn’t abandon him. But I’m scared. Because
. . . I need him. I’ve never needed anyone before. I don’t know what I would do
if I lost him.”
My heart feels like one big ache in my chest. I know I should leave, but I
can’t bring myself to. I want . . . no, I need to hear what he says.
“For one thing,” Akimiya says, his voice very gentle, “Hisoka will never
just leave you. It’s true that you may lose him . . . we’re Shinigami, and it’s
a dangerous job. But with the two of you looking out for each other, I think
you’ll be okay. And you two would be very happy together.”
“We can’t even sleep in the same bed,” Tsuzuki says bitterly.
“For now,” Akimiya says. “But dreams don’t last forever. I’d say in the
fairly near future, you’ll only be having those dreams once a week, or so. And
if Hisoka works on his shielding some, I think you two would be able to manage
it. It’d be a risk, but not a very dangerous one.”
“But how do I know I won’t hurt him?” Tsuzuki asks, his voice small.
“You don’t know that,” Akimiya says. “There’s no way to know that without
being able to see the future. But Hisoka’s a tough cookie. He can take a lot.
You don’t know that you wouldn’t hurt him -- but I do know that you’re hurting
him right now, by pushing him away. So take a chance. It’ll be better for both
of you, in the long run.”
“I don’t know how to care about someone the way he cares about me,” Tsuzuki
says. He sounds lost.
“Tsuzuki, the way you’re worrying about how you might hurt him, and how you
can’t get by without him, trust me,” Akimiya says. “You don’t need to change a
thing about how you feel.”
I creep away then. I’ve heard all I need to hear, and I’m so confused that I
can barely walk straight.
Somehow, I can’t bring myself to believe it. I know that Tsuzuki wants me to
be happy. But does he really care for me the way I do for him? It seems
impossible after all the denying he’s done. Is he just doing this to make me
happy? Or is this actually the way he feels?
I’ve lived too long without hope.
I want to believe.
But I don’t know if I can.
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