It's a slow crawl of awareness like nails down his back.
Something like grief, or a cousin of it that winds its way into the room every time that Tsuzuki and Tatsumi talk, the way that they shift their weight, avert their eyes, or brush, just so--far enough not to touch. Or something like anger in the way that Tatsumi's eyes flash and Tsuzuki's shoulders set, how neither of them are ever pushed to their extremes in day to day conversation except with one another.
Which makes no sense, for the flood of warmth that is in the room when Tsuzuki flutters off to bring Tatsumi tea or coax him out of the office to lunch. He's happy even though he usually just comes back with a new stack of paperwork and a slightly chastened expression.
Hisoka never knows why Tsuzuki goes back, save for old ties, lingering strings. The last remains of a partnership that Tatsumi threw away. And it makes sense sometimes, after all, that Tsuzuki would want that approval.
It just doesn't make sense that it goes both ways.
Hisoka has bookmarked his dictionary on the page with the symbol for love.
He reads over the definition every few days, just to remind himself.
He thinks that he remembers ribbons of it, tiny pieces, from when he was very young and the weight of his mother's hand was on his forehead. There is almost always sunlight, and the rush of morning like a wave over his skin.
But for the most part, Love now is a composite of emotion he picks up around the office, and Hisoka knows what a futile fight it is. The Shokan division is populated by the emotionally damaged; it's fundamentally unwise to try and find love in a group of people too attached to miserable life to go on to merciful death.
It's what he has, and he'll work with that, though. Hisoka is nothing if not adaptable. He can change. He has; and he knows this from the flowering approval he feels in Tsuzuki's smile: so clear and sweet and unabashed that it comes less from his empathy than it does from his own two eyes.
To sense something consciously, rather than to have it assault him through his skin is a wholly different concept, Hisoka has realized. The difference between rain and a typhoon.
Stupid as it is, Hisoka's getting an image, low relief of Love.
It's strange, and a bit tremulous, shaky like uncertain earth beneath his feet, and just as organic. It is in the way that Wakaba looks up to Terazuma through thick lashes, and how she plays with the folds of her skirt when they're talking by themselves in the corner. It is in the way that Tatsumi lets himself breathe--really breathe--when the Shokan division books are balanced at the end of the month, in the black at least, not quite so close to disaster.
But most of all, and most intimately, Hisoka finds it in the skin of Tsuzuki's palm, the warm brush of dermis along his own: calloused and rougher. It makes Hisoka remember that Tsuzuki and his sister worked for a living in between flashes of sunflowers and blinding light and for some God forsaken reason chocolate cake every time that Tsuzuki touches him.
And it's never intentional touches that give Hisoka pieces of insight. Tsuzuki for all his bubbly exterior remembers the first days of their partnership, and puts up elementary but enthusiastic shields when he puts his hand on Hisoka's shoulder.
So that when they're alone or Tsuzuki is dragging him this way or that, Hisoka always only feels the thick, dense lead of a psychological wall. Hisoka's nearly sure who taught Tsuzuki that, too. The fabric of Tsuzuki's blankness is the same as Tatsumi's: gray and economical, smooth like obsidian and dull like cement. Frictionless and flawless, simple but enough to keep Hisoka out of Tsuzuki's thoughts, out of Tsuzuki's heart.
Some ways, Hisoka resents that, loathes to lose how easy it was to know Tsuzuki those first few weeks. Other ways, he's glad for it.
He's been reading stupid romance novels on the sly. They're bad sources of information, but the flowery prose all yield the same derivative outcome: that love is a process, that discovery is an unmatched journey, and that the end is sweeter for the trials one has braved to meet it. Hisoka dreams about knights and castles and Tsuzuki's purple eyes, even though none that makes any sense at all.
Because dying at sixteen due to a curse from a crazy doctor is terrible, and he didn't go through all of that to come out halfway between two sides as a gay teenager whose voice is going to crack forever.
There's just something terribly cruel about that, funny in the worst way, and it's very nearly overshadowed when Tsuzuki leans over his shoulder and says, "Hisoka, Hisoka! Time for lunch."
Hisoka hates that, too, how easily Tsuzuki can dispel a mood. Nothing in Hisoka's thorough research of adolescence suggests that anything should be able to do that--even mood-altering drugs require three to four weeks to take effect. Besides which, lunch with Tsuzuki almost always means illicit trips to the mortal realm for the latest pastry shop or cake store. Half the time, Hisoka finds himself lounging in an outdoor table, amused and hiding it badly, asking if Tsuzuki was intending on eating any actual food at all. Tsuzuki, who isn't nearly as stupid as he likes to pretend that he is, enjoys saying that if Hisoka lusts after salt so badly, Tsuzuki will buy him a salt lick for Christmas.
Hisoka feels the grain of paper against his fingertip and the press of Tsuzuki's mind against the back of his neck for just the barest moment before the wall slams down.
It's irritating, and slightly disconcerting how well Tsuzuki learned that particular trick. "Tatsumi is a good teacher," Tsuzuki had said one day over paperwork at half past one in the morning. And Hisoka had marveled at Tsuzuki's perpetual kindness, despite the situation. Hadn't it been just six hours ago that Tatsumi had stormed into their office shouting that if Tsuzuki didn't turn in his paperwork by six AM, then even the Count couldn't save him? Hisoka would never understand the concept of not holding a grudge. It seemed a bit dangerous to push that: it was, after all, only a grudge that left him clinging to whatever coil of life he still claimed to lead.
"I'm going home early," Tsuzuki says, and Hisoka turns at that.
"Home?" Hisoka looks at the wall clock. "It's only three thirty."
Tsuzuki shrugs, a self-deprecating smile on his face as he sifts through the piles of papers on his desk, already reestablished after only two weeks. "Don't tell Tatsumi, okay, Hisoka?" Tsuzuki says through a grin.
Hisoka frowns. His partner looks entirely too cheerful for facing certain death. "I don't need to. He always knows."
Tsuzuki raises his eyebrows--fine, narrow brows too pretty and arching for a man's face--but just smiles more broadly. "Takes one to know one, Hisoka." And as Hisoka flushes a dark, dark red that he hates almost as much as how he's almost always found during his lunch hour relieving some pressure in the men's restrooms--God damn sixteenness--Tsuzuki adds, "Anyway. I'll be fine. If he asks, says I'm in the bathroom."
Hisoka watches, helpless and itching underneath his fingernails, like he wants to say something to stop Tsuzuki from going. It won't work and Hisoka's not that persuasive anyway. He's wondered often why he has mind-reading abilities if he can't develop mind-control abilities. It'd simplify everything: Muraki, walk into moving traffic. Count, stop molesting my partner. Tsuzuki, that much sugar can't be healthy. Tatsumi, the plant is going to drown.
Tsuzuki is nearly out the door when Tatsumi melts into existence seemingly out of the shadows. Hisoka frowns; he's going to have to work on that, paying attention to other things when Tsuzuki is in the room. Because otherwise, it sounds suspiciously like a crush, and he's standing by the fact that his afterlife government job sucks enough, and that an additional bout of homosexuality is not an option.
Hisoka represses a wince. The leaden weight in the room increases threefold just as he feels Tsuzuki's drop out.
Overkill, Hisoka decides, and starts digging through his desk for the headache medication that is inevitable. Utter and total overkill; if Tatsumi wields shadows as weapons, he uses them for stones, too, buries Hisoka so deeply in a mountain of darkness that there's not even the slightest chance that Hisoka can read him or anybody else within a six yard range.
Strange also that Tsuzuki always looks so defenseless before Tatsumi, when Tsuzuki's the only one who can make Tatsumi bend. Like a willful shaft of light. Shadows parting way to make room, and almost uncertain how to do it. Hisoka finds it uncomfortable sometimes to watch it, and can't quite put his finger on the push-pull of it all. It's not Love, he knows that from the way that Tsuzuki doesn't shake like Wakaba does in front of Terazuma. It's not hate, because Tsuzuki isn't still, either. And neither of them move, like an immovable object and an unstoppable force, fighting every step of the way though it's not necessary at all.
"Tsuzuki-san," Tatsumi says, and his voice is deep and rich, a threat just on the edge of his tone.
Tsuzuki looks down. Always playing the bitch, Hisoka thinks strangely.
"It's only three thirty," Tatsumi says smoothly. "Where are you going?"
Tsuzuki's head rockets up, and his eyes are impossibly wide and bright. For a moment, Hisoka is nearly sure that Tsuzuki is going to cave, just like every other time under every other incarnation of Tatsumi's leaden stare.
It takes a minute, but Tsuzuki says, "I'm going home."
If Tatsumi wasn't there, Hisoka realizes, Tsuzuki would be broadcasting so loudly that Hisoka would have trouble telling where he ended and Tsuzuki began.
Tatsumi frowns, and light glints off of his glasses. "It's not five," he says.
Tsuzuki tilts his chin up, and his fine cheekbones are pretty in that curving overhead light. He looks pretty like that, too pretty, and for one shuddering moment, Hisoka almost understands Muraki, gets how he would want to touch something that beautiful at any cost. It takes another second for Hisoka to remember that he can touch Tsuzuki any time he'd like--just--just not uncovered, never totally bared, and at his own request. He'd said for Tsuzuki not to touch him, not like that, and Tsuzuki had complied.
"I don't care," Tsuzuki says.
Hisoka noted with some amusement that the shadows in the room were crawling dangerously toward Tsuzuki's legs, as if Tatsumi's not-so-well-hidden urge to strangle the shorter Shinigami were manifesting itself through his tension.
"Well I do," Tatsumi said, and one long-fingered hand wrapped around Tsuzuki's arm and started to haul him back into the office. "You don't have the luxury of skipping work when your debt is--"
"I don't care," Tsuzuki said, more loudly this time, jerking out of Tatsumi's grasp, real fire in his eyes. "I don't. I'm going home."
Tatsumi narrows his eyes as Hisoka widens his own and Tsuzuki seems to shrink back a bit at that, curling inward and wrapped around by Tatsumi's shadows until Hisoka has this distressing urge to run toward his partner, to drag him out of the artificial dark.
"Tsuzuki-san," Tatsumi repeats, and the threat is clear now, razor-edged.
"I--you say I'll never pay back my debt anyway," Tsuzuki says defiantly, the tilt of his chin returning with his words. "And that I'm always breaking things and that I'm useless and you don't know why you keep me around, right?" Tsuzuki looks away, mouth turning down at the corners into something that might have been a smile if it wasn't so terribly bitter. "So why do you care if I stay. I'm going home."
It's a flash, and Hisoka is getting the idea that he doesn't want to be here for this.
It's in the way that Tatsumi's shoulders tense, and how Tsuzuki's eyes narrow just that fraction. He's heard stories about the legendary fights that Tsuzuki and Tatsumi had while they were partners. He'd asked around after the fiasco at the Count's mansion, and Watari had given the best and most spirited accounts.
"Don't let Tatsumi fool you, Hisoka," Watari had warned. "His anger isn't always so controlled."
Hisoka is starting to believe that. It's crawling under his skin and he's starting to see a lot of things.
"You're staying, Tsuzuki-san. You have work to do," Tatsumi says, calm and dangerous.
Tsuzuki takes a step back but not backing away, and Hisoka doesn't even know how that works. Both of them have, apparently, forgotten that Hisoka's in the room. He's okay with that. Something about keeping your head down.
Tsuzuki pulls on his coat with more forcefulness than necessary, as if emphasizing a contrary point.
Tatsumi's eyes flare. "You're not going anywhere."
Tsuzuki glares. "Go do some paperwork," he shoots out, sounding remarkably like a twelve year old. Hisoka crouches down in his chair.
"Watch your tone," Tatsumi growls and Hisoka winces as the shadows rush the corners of the room like sentries.
There's just something wrong about somebody's temper having potentially destructive properties for the entire building. Part of him wants to yell at Tsuzuki and tell him to just stay at work already. Giving in this time won't be that much different than every time before, but part of him also knows better than to interrupt. There's a crowd gathering outside of the door and Hisoka spies Wakaba watching and Terazuma's satisfied smile, Watari's knowing grimace.
"I'm not twelve," Tsuzuki shouts and it snaps something in Tatsumi, Hisoka can tell from the crack of lightning in his blue eyes. "I don't have to listen to you. You didn't even want to work with me. Just let me go home!"
Tatsumi scowls. "Then act like you're not twelve. You're obligated to be at work until five, and you're not going anywhere."
For a moment, Hisoka thinks that Tsuzuki is going to just brush past Tatsumi and leave and then the entire Ju-Oh-Cho would simply explode.
And then Tsuzuki tears off his coat, throws it across a chair, and slumps down in it, legs apart, feet flat, and arms crossed over his chest, glowering. "Fine."
Hisoka spends the rest of the day doing the paperwork that Tsuzuki doesn't want to and trying to think of ways to cheer Tsuzuki. It never seemed hard before, but Hisoka realizes that cake and pie aren't all that there are to his partner. Halfway through the afternoon, Hisoka drags him outside for a walk under the cherry blossoms, and Tsuzuki smiles like he means it.
Hisoka sees--and he doesn't know if Tsuzuki does--the powder-pink glow of the universe bending around him like a bubble. And maybe it's just Hisoka; maybe he's just imagining it.
But Tsuzuki framed by Ju-Oh-Cho's eternal spring is beautiful and uncomplicated, spare and dense with sensation like a concentration of feeling. Hisoka lets himself soak it into his skin, into his pores and breathes affection, inhales warmth--hoards it like a drug.
Later, Tsuzuki says, "Thank you, Hisoka."
And as Hisoka turns off the light to their office, he just makes a noncommittal noise.
Being loved by Tsuzuki is easy, like breathing.
Hisoka, before the Meifu and before the afterlife government job, never understood that parable, how breathing could be something simple and carefree. When he was a child, Hisoka remembered being disliked for what he knew; when he was older, he remembered being loathed for what had been done to him, and for what he lacked. As he died, Hisoka remembered his curse scars, burning shapeless patterns into his flesh, bright and real and throbbing because the doctor was still alive, and Hisoka's vision was fluttering out into darkness at the edges.
But now, Hisoka wakes up and the sky is blue outside, the weather is almost always perfect. He walks to work the long way around and he breathes, deep and sweet and cold sometimes, as oxygen is like honey and seeps into his pores, fills him inside out.
It is natural, second nature, simple and uncomplicated--easy like being with Tsuzuki.
And Tsuzuki for all of his blunders and faults is light and sweet like the air that Hisoka is learning about just know.
There are complications there, things about simple logic that Tsuzuki will never bother to overthink, would never bother to overthink, anyway. It's not his nature and Hisoka knows that; so he'll do the thinking for both of them, and it's two years down the line, at a perpetual sixteen and resigned fade of interest. He comforts himself with history books, with modern social theory, by telling himself he's not the only person to be slightly odd in the building. God knows he probably got all these ideas from the Count, not to mention from the way that Hijiri stared at Tsuzuki like a lovesick puppy.
Hisoka tells himself that he'll be ready to do something about it soon, to see the way that Tsuzuki turns dark purple eyes to him and know what to say in return. Those romance novels will amount to something and he's sure there's some kind of television series about these sorts of things.
And there are dreams now, half-fragments of what his neighbors feel and parts of what Hisoka picks up at random, but most frequently his own thoughts, which he knows like the back of his hand, familiar and frighteningly intimate. Dreams where he feels sweat-slicked hands against his skin and the brush of lips against his skin, tender and sweet and so different than everything he's known before, strange and articulated with shadows of rich, purple petals and not cherry blossoms at all. It is all in the way that Hisoka tastes salt and bitter tang on his tongue, the claustrophobic rush of desire, of love, of desperation that is half his own and half somebody else's--someone close.
But for the moment, Hisoka shakes off the thoughts and goes to work, where Tsuzuki will come in ten minutes late with a broad smile and that same wash of feeling, where desire and friendship will intersect and Hisoka will be confused by it, contained by it, comforted by it.
For the moment, Hisoka thinks, Tsuzuki will wait.
That's what love's all about, Hisoka thinks. He's very nearly sure of it.