YnM: Exorcism, Part 4
Jun. 6th, 2011 08:33 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gaudiorTitle: Exorcism
Rating: R; language, description of rape
Pairing: Hisoka/Tsuzuki
Genre: Case fic
Chapter: 4/4
Comments: Spoilers for the entire anime, particularly the Kyoto arc.
Keiko tried to pull her hand away. “Kurosaki-san?”
Hisoka didn’t let her. “Yes?”
“I thought we were going back to your headquarters,” she said. “You’re hurting my hand.” She was starting to be scared again, and he could feel it, and he liked knowing he could make her feel that way. He could always make her feel that way. There was something he was forgetting, he thought, something teasing at the back of his mind. He had other things to think about at the moment. “Let go.”
“Hush,” Hisoka said, tightening his grip until he could feel the bones hard against his hand. “Don’t make a fuss.”
Her face changed, losing any attempt at polite decorum. “Let go of me!”
He felt her fear. It was strong enough that it should have knocked him out, but the emotions he sensed seemed duller somehow, as if the pleasure he felt served as armor. “Quiet,” he said, pulling her toward him. “I won’t take long. I just need to feel you again.”
She swore. “Get off!”
Her blouse was torn already, he saw. She looked ridiculously enticing in these clothes, in this body. She was already half naked-- he could see most of her legs. Stripping her would hardly be a challenge. The thing he was forgetting tugged at him again. “Calm down,” he said, reaching for the top of her shirt.
She punched him hard enough that he saw stars, hard enough that he almost let go of her hand. He staggered, pulling her toward him and striking her hard across the face. “You--!”
She kicked out and got him in the thigh hard enough to make him yell again. She hit him again and again with her free hand, crying, screaming “No!” He winced at a particularly hard strike, and she jerked her hand free. He punched her again, knocking her to the ground. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
“Hisoka!” Hisoka dodged backwards, thrown by the sudden appearance of the shinigami in front of him. Tsuzuki’s shock was almost as sharp as his fury. “What are you doing?”
Hisoka glared up at him. “Get out of the way.”
“Tsuzuki-san!” Keiko was behind him, her good hand cradling her wrist. “It’s him! It’s not him, it’s-- he got him!”
Tsuzuki didn’t take his eyes off Hisoka. “Ajari Joan,” he spat.
Hisoka paused. That was his name. Except, of course, that it wasn’t. He stepped back, looking up at the much larger man in front of him. “Go,” he said.
“Ajari,” Tsuzuki growled, and his anger felt like a coat of flames around him, “get out of him. Now.”
He’d have to be careful, Hisoka thought. The shinigami was powerful, much more powerful than he. He could have howled in frustration, too, because she was right there behind him looking so delicious, flushed and panting, eyes wide... He was forgetting something, he thought again, more urgently. “This has nothing to do with you,” he said. “I don’t care what the gods you work for say anymore. I want her.”
An ofuda appeared in Tsuzuki’s hand, and he was summoning, getting ready to cast. Hisoka lunged forward and grabbed his hand, tearing the ofuda away. “I won’t let you deny me this,” he spat. “Not after this long. Why should I give up what makes me happy when nothing else does?”
Tsuzuki grabbed him hard around the shoulders, trapping his arms against his body. “What about her happiness?” he growled, his anger beating hard around them. “What about Hisoka’s?”
“What about it?” Hisoka struggled, managed to dig a fist into the shinigami’s gut. Tsuzuki grunted, but didn’t let go. “It’s her or me. I’m sick of denying myself.”
“Bastard!” Tsuzuki’s arms slackened just slightly in his disgust. “Just because you’re sick of going without, you think that’s a reason to rape someone?”
Hisoka shuffled his feet, trying to get a better position. “I’m not going back to that frustration. I don’t care about what I have to do for it.”
“Asshole,” Tsuzuki growled, “you could ask.”
Hisoka stopped moving. “What?”
Tsuzuki panted, not trying to get a better position, just holding on. “You don’t just take. Not against someone’s will. That’s unforgivable.” He felt a little hopeful, reaching out. “If a person chooses you back, it’s different.”
Hisoka shook. “Bullshit! Who are you to talk-- you’ve been after me for weeks!” He twisted sharply, throwing the bigger man over his shoulder to crash hard against the ground. “You fucking hypocrite!”
Tsuzuki gasped, stunned. “Hisoka...”
Hisoka laughed. “Don’t pretend you’re better than me,” he said. “I held myself back for my whole life except that once. You couldn’t wait one day before you were trying to get me in your bed!”
Tsuzuki rolled onto his side, leaning his weight on his arm, starting to rise. “Hisoka,” he said, his eyes brimming but intent. “Do you really think I would do that to you?” He rose, slowly, until he was kneeling at Hisoka’s feet. “I know you can feel that I love you, and I’m sorry, I wish I could keep that from bothering you.” His voice shook. “But do you really think that I’d hurt you? Ever?”
“But,” Hisoka said. “But you want me. Like I want her.” He gestured to Keiko, who was curled up around her hand, eyes wide.
“No,” Tsuzuki said sharply. “You,” he hesitated, “you want to own her. To make her your toy. I don’t want to own you like that, Hisoka.” Hisoka didn’t remember ever looking into Tsuzuki’s eyes for this long before. They held him. “I-- I’ve been wanting to be yours.”
Hisoka staggered. “I,” he said. “That is...” He laughed, suddenly seeing through it. “That’s fine for you, shinigami,” he said, and something felt wrong, but he didn’t know what. “But I don’t like men. Too bad.”
Tsuzuki’s head shot up. “Ajari,” he said, and his eyes looked like purple flames. “I won’t forgive you for this.”
Something felt very wrong, sickeningly wrong. Hisoka tried to shrug it off. “Don’t get in my way,” he spat, fighting to keep his balance.
“Let him go,” Tsuzuki said. “You have no right to him. Let him go!”
Wrong, the feeling of wrongness grew, overwhelming him, battering through his dissolving sense of pleasure. Hisoka stretched upwards, feeling his limbs thicken, his hair grow, the horns sprout from his head. “Mine!” he roared. “I--” No, something was not right. “I’ll kill you!”
Tsuzuki leapt at him from the ground, his arms going around Hisoka’s neck, riding upwards as Hisoka’s body grew. Hisoka saw a casting circle starting to form bright around him, and why on earth should that have made him feel hope? He batted at the man hanging from his neck, his foot-long claws cutting deeply into the shinigami’s back, but there was no difference in the pressure of arms holding him. “No!”
There was a scream at his feet. Hisoka looked down, seeing the girl staring up at him from the ground. He raised his arm, and the feeling of wrongness almost paralyzed him. Tsuzuki swung his weight to the side, throwing off Hisoka’s balance so that he spun around away from her. Furious, he tried to crush the shinigami, but his hands would not move, would not obey him. No, he thought, and something deep inside said, yes.
“Hisoka!” Tsuzuki called. “You know who you are. You don’t have to let him do this. Come out!” His voice was commanding. It sounded like the summons for a god. “Hisoka!”
Hisoka screamed. “I won’t let you! Mine! Mine! Mi--” He shuddered, and something rippled through him. “Mine,” he said. His body lost its bulk. The excess flesh melted off him, the snarl smoothed from his face. These were his hands, with no claws, no hair hanging off the back of them-- his hands again, strong and white and pressing against Tsuzuki, who was again taller than he was. Tsuzuki fell away, his back a mass of blood.
There was a clattering at Hisoka’s feet. The skeleton was clutching his ankles, desperately trying to hang on. “Mine,” the skeleton rasped, its voice as shattered as the ruin around them. “Mine.”
Hisoka screamed, casting a spell he hadn’t known he knew. “Begone! Take yourself out of the world to the place you belong!”
The skeleton skittered away from him, reaching for Keiko. “Mine...” She snarled and brought a fallen stone crashing down on its skull. The skull shattered, its empty grin hanging disconnected above its spine, but it kept coming. Hisoka poured power into the spell, speaking the words of it again and again. “Go to hell!”
Light flashed around them. For one moment the priest, bitter and denied, stood backlit before he vanished in the sheet of light. “Go,” Hisoka gasped, and then it was gone, and the pentacle he’d cast was fading away. Hisoka stared down at the place where it had been, flexing his hands. Mine, he thought, feeling the muscles move at his command, his own skin touching as he would have it touch. Keiko fell to the ground, crying with relief. I got him, Hisoka thought. We got him-- “Tsuzuki!”
Hisoka dropped to his knees beside his partner, who lay curled up on his side. That's too much blood, Hisoka thought, I didn’t know I cut him so deeply. There were bones poking through the flesh. “Tsuzuki!”
Tsuzuki opened his eyes, his face grey. “Hisoka?”
Hisoka grabbed his hand. “What did you do that for? Look at you!”
”Hisoka,” Tsuzuki breathed, smiling.
“Tsuzuki... Lie still.” Hisoka leaned over to press his hands to his partner’s back, trying to push the wound closed and staunch the blood. “I’m sorry.”
Tsuzuki hissed a breath, but didn’t pull away from Hisoka’s hands. “It wasn’t you.”
Hisoka bent his head over Tsuzuki’s back. “It was, though,” he said. “It wasn’t just me-- it was him, too. That bastard.” He could feel Tsuzuki’s skin starting to move underneath his hands, his body starting to repair itself. “But I meant what I said, too.”
Tsuzuki said nothing, just winced as his flesh reknit.
“But you held on,” Hisoka said. “You brought me back to myself.” There was a layer of skin over Tsuzuki’s back now, so he didn’t have to keep holding him, but he still pressed his hands against Tsuzuki, leaning forward to rest his forehead against Tsuzuki’s shoulder. “Thank you.”
Tsuzuki hesitated. Then he put his arms around Hisoka, and it felt like coming home. “Any time,” Tsuzuki said. “Always.”
There was a cough. “Um,” Keiko said, blushing faintly, “could we get off the mountain now?”
*************************************************************************
It seemed less complicated to blink Keiko home than it would have been to try to send her back, as she didn’t look like she was in any state to take the train. She sighed, looking up at her front door. “My parents are going to kill me.”
Hisoka and Tsuzuki, both feeling drained, gave each other a look. “We could try to explain it to them for you...” Tsuzuki offered.
Keiko shook her head quickly. “No. Thanks, but... no. I think I’ll just struggle through on my own.” She stepped back, starting to move towards saying goodbye. “Well, I... thank you.” She bowed. “I think you saved my life. A bunch of times. And that’s-- well, I owe you.”
“It’s our job,” Tsuzuki said. “I’m just glad you’re all right.” He beamed at her, and Hisoka couldn’t quite believe how joyful his partner felt just to see her standing safe and sound.
“Asano-san,” Hisoka said, “I should apologize.” He wasn’t sure how, though. He didn’t see how any apology would be enough.
“What for?” She still felt uncomfortable, Hisoka thought, and shaken, scared, and exhausted, but she didn’t flinch from him. “You didn’t do anything to me, remember? Not after I hit you.”
Hisoka blinked. “But still--”
She shook her head. “No way. You helped me so much. And besides-- we beat him.” There was a new pride there, still unfamiliar around the edges, but growing inside her. “You, mostly. But I smashed his skull in.” She grinned fiercely. “Bastard.”
”Good for you,” Tsuzuki said with a touch of pride of his own. “Well done, Keiko-chan.”
She ran a hand through her hair. “It’s over. I can’t believe it’s over.”
“It is,” Tsuzuki said firmly. “And just in case, we’ll be watching. You don’t have to worry any more.”
”Thank-you,” Keiko said. “So much. Thank you.” She edged toward her door again. “Well, um, good luck, with,” she did not meet their eyes, “whatever. You two.” She was blushing. “Yeah.”
Tsuzuki smiled gently. “Thank-you, Keiko-chan.” He smiled at his partner. “Come on, Hisoka.”
“Right,” Hisoka said. Tsuzuki turned away. Hisoka looked at Keiko. “Thanks,” he said. She bowed one last time and went into the house.
“So,” Tsuzuki said. “We should go back to Meifu. We have lots of reports to file on this.” He sighed. “Not much of a vacation, huh?”
”Tsuzuki,” Hisoka said. Tsuzuki, who hadn’t been fooling either of them for a minute, caught his eye. “I need to think,” Hisoka said. “About what you said. I need to take the time to figure it out.”
“Right,” Tsuzuki said. “Of course.”
The uncertainty hovered in Tsuzuki’s emotions again, and Hisoka did not like it. Whatever’s going on with me, he thought, I don’t see any reason to make you feel like that. It’s not just me here. That was an odd insight, and it was going to take getting used to. It’s not just me or you, or me versus you. It’s us. Which makes no sense at all, and I don’t know how it’s going to. Weird. But worth a try. “Hey,” he said. “You want to go get something to eat?”
Tsuzuki lit up inside, warm as a hearthfire. “Yeah,” he said. “Hmmm... what’s good in Takarazuka? They have hachikazuki-chan-- you know, with the sweet potatoes...?”
Hisoka sighed. “Trust you to know that,” he said, but it wasn’t what he felt like saying. He didn’t know how to say what he meant just now. He’d have to work on that. “Come on,” he said, and Tsuzuki followed.
*************************************************************************
Author’s Notes:
The Kamakura period was from 1192-1333, about 600 years after the introduction of Buddhism to Japan. The Heisei period began in 1989.
Takurazuka is a small city most famous for its tradition of all-female theater and for being the birthplace of Osamu Tezuka, who created Astro Boy, Black Jack, Phoenix, and much of the modern manga/anime industry.
Japanese has a number of different words meaning “you” of varying levels of politeness. Hisoka called Ajari Joan kisama, which is usually translated as “you bastard!”
The story of Ajari Joan and Hokkatsu-san is a real Japanese folk tale, much as Hisoka told it. “Hokkatsu-san” literally means “Skeleton Mountain,” but I couldn’t find out whether it’s a real mountain or not. The girl’s reincarnation isn’t part of the original story, just as her name isn’t. They seemed worth adding.
Rating: R; language, description of rape
Pairing: Hisoka/Tsuzuki
Genre: Case fic
Chapter: 4/4
Comments: Spoilers for the entire anime, particularly the Kyoto arc.
Keiko tried to pull her hand away. “Kurosaki-san?”
Hisoka didn’t let her. “Yes?”
“I thought we were going back to your headquarters,” she said. “You’re hurting my hand.” She was starting to be scared again, and he could feel it, and he liked knowing he could make her feel that way. He could always make her feel that way. There was something he was forgetting, he thought, something teasing at the back of his mind. He had other things to think about at the moment. “Let go.”
“Hush,” Hisoka said, tightening his grip until he could feel the bones hard against his hand. “Don’t make a fuss.”
Her face changed, losing any attempt at polite decorum. “Let go of me!”
He felt her fear. It was strong enough that it should have knocked him out, but the emotions he sensed seemed duller somehow, as if the pleasure he felt served as armor. “Quiet,” he said, pulling her toward him. “I won’t take long. I just need to feel you again.”
She swore. “Get off!”
Her blouse was torn already, he saw. She looked ridiculously enticing in these clothes, in this body. She was already half naked-- he could see most of her legs. Stripping her would hardly be a challenge. The thing he was forgetting tugged at him again. “Calm down,” he said, reaching for the top of her shirt.
She punched him hard enough that he saw stars, hard enough that he almost let go of her hand. He staggered, pulling her toward him and striking her hard across the face. “You--!”
She kicked out and got him in the thigh hard enough to make him yell again. She hit him again and again with her free hand, crying, screaming “No!” He winced at a particularly hard strike, and she jerked her hand free. He punched her again, knocking her to the ground. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
“Hisoka!” Hisoka dodged backwards, thrown by the sudden appearance of the shinigami in front of him. Tsuzuki’s shock was almost as sharp as his fury. “What are you doing?”
Hisoka glared up at him. “Get out of the way.”
“Tsuzuki-san!” Keiko was behind him, her good hand cradling her wrist. “It’s him! It’s not him, it’s-- he got him!”
Tsuzuki didn’t take his eyes off Hisoka. “Ajari Joan,” he spat.
Hisoka paused. That was his name. Except, of course, that it wasn’t. He stepped back, looking up at the much larger man in front of him. “Go,” he said.
“Ajari,” Tsuzuki growled, and his anger felt like a coat of flames around him, “get out of him. Now.”
He’d have to be careful, Hisoka thought. The shinigami was powerful, much more powerful than he. He could have howled in frustration, too, because she was right there behind him looking so delicious, flushed and panting, eyes wide... He was forgetting something, he thought again, more urgently. “This has nothing to do with you,” he said. “I don’t care what the gods you work for say anymore. I want her.”
An ofuda appeared in Tsuzuki’s hand, and he was summoning, getting ready to cast. Hisoka lunged forward and grabbed his hand, tearing the ofuda away. “I won’t let you deny me this,” he spat. “Not after this long. Why should I give up what makes me happy when nothing else does?”
Tsuzuki grabbed him hard around the shoulders, trapping his arms against his body. “What about her happiness?” he growled, his anger beating hard around them. “What about Hisoka’s?”
“What about it?” Hisoka struggled, managed to dig a fist into the shinigami’s gut. Tsuzuki grunted, but didn’t let go. “It’s her or me. I’m sick of denying myself.”
“Bastard!” Tsuzuki’s arms slackened just slightly in his disgust. “Just because you’re sick of going without, you think that’s a reason to rape someone?”
Hisoka shuffled his feet, trying to get a better position. “I’m not going back to that frustration. I don’t care about what I have to do for it.”
“Asshole,” Tsuzuki growled, “you could ask.”
Hisoka stopped moving. “What?”
Tsuzuki panted, not trying to get a better position, just holding on. “You don’t just take. Not against someone’s will. That’s unforgivable.” He felt a little hopeful, reaching out. “If a person chooses you back, it’s different.”
Hisoka shook. “Bullshit! Who are you to talk-- you’ve been after me for weeks!” He twisted sharply, throwing the bigger man over his shoulder to crash hard against the ground. “You fucking hypocrite!”
Tsuzuki gasped, stunned. “Hisoka...”
Hisoka laughed. “Don’t pretend you’re better than me,” he said. “I held myself back for my whole life except that once. You couldn’t wait one day before you were trying to get me in your bed!”
Tsuzuki rolled onto his side, leaning his weight on his arm, starting to rise. “Hisoka,” he said, his eyes brimming but intent. “Do you really think I would do that to you?” He rose, slowly, until he was kneeling at Hisoka’s feet. “I know you can feel that I love you, and I’m sorry, I wish I could keep that from bothering you.” His voice shook. “But do you really think that I’d hurt you? Ever?”
“But,” Hisoka said. “But you want me. Like I want her.” He gestured to Keiko, who was curled up around her hand, eyes wide.
“No,” Tsuzuki said sharply. “You,” he hesitated, “you want to own her. To make her your toy. I don’t want to own you like that, Hisoka.” Hisoka didn’t remember ever looking into Tsuzuki’s eyes for this long before. They held him. “I-- I’ve been wanting to be yours.”
Hisoka staggered. “I,” he said. “That is...” He laughed, suddenly seeing through it. “That’s fine for you, shinigami,” he said, and something felt wrong, but he didn’t know what. “But I don’t like men. Too bad.”
Tsuzuki’s head shot up. “Ajari,” he said, and his eyes looked like purple flames. “I won’t forgive you for this.”
Something felt very wrong, sickeningly wrong. Hisoka tried to shrug it off. “Don’t get in my way,” he spat, fighting to keep his balance.
“Let him go,” Tsuzuki said. “You have no right to him. Let him go!”
Wrong, the feeling of wrongness grew, overwhelming him, battering through his dissolving sense of pleasure. Hisoka stretched upwards, feeling his limbs thicken, his hair grow, the horns sprout from his head. “Mine!” he roared. “I--” No, something was not right. “I’ll kill you!”
Tsuzuki leapt at him from the ground, his arms going around Hisoka’s neck, riding upwards as Hisoka’s body grew. Hisoka saw a casting circle starting to form bright around him, and why on earth should that have made him feel hope? He batted at the man hanging from his neck, his foot-long claws cutting deeply into the shinigami’s back, but there was no difference in the pressure of arms holding him. “No!”
There was a scream at his feet. Hisoka looked down, seeing the girl staring up at him from the ground. He raised his arm, and the feeling of wrongness almost paralyzed him. Tsuzuki swung his weight to the side, throwing off Hisoka’s balance so that he spun around away from her. Furious, he tried to crush the shinigami, but his hands would not move, would not obey him. No, he thought, and something deep inside said, yes.
“Hisoka!” Tsuzuki called. “You know who you are. You don’t have to let him do this. Come out!” His voice was commanding. It sounded like the summons for a god. “Hisoka!”
Hisoka screamed. “I won’t let you! Mine! Mine! Mi--” He shuddered, and something rippled through him. “Mine,” he said. His body lost its bulk. The excess flesh melted off him, the snarl smoothed from his face. These were his hands, with no claws, no hair hanging off the back of them-- his hands again, strong and white and pressing against Tsuzuki, who was again taller than he was. Tsuzuki fell away, his back a mass of blood.
There was a clattering at Hisoka’s feet. The skeleton was clutching his ankles, desperately trying to hang on. “Mine,” the skeleton rasped, its voice as shattered as the ruin around them. “Mine.”
Hisoka screamed, casting a spell he hadn’t known he knew. “Begone! Take yourself out of the world to the place you belong!”
The skeleton skittered away from him, reaching for Keiko. “Mine...” She snarled and brought a fallen stone crashing down on its skull. The skull shattered, its empty grin hanging disconnected above its spine, but it kept coming. Hisoka poured power into the spell, speaking the words of it again and again. “Go to hell!”
Light flashed around them. For one moment the priest, bitter and denied, stood backlit before he vanished in the sheet of light. “Go,” Hisoka gasped, and then it was gone, and the pentacle he’d cast was fading away. Hisoka stared down at the place where it had been, flexing his hands. Mine, he thought, feeling the muscles move at his command, his own skin touching as he would have it touch. Keiko fell to the ground, crying with relief. I got him, Hisoka thought. We got him-- “Tsuzuki!”
Hisoka dropped to his knees beside his partner, who lay curled up on his side. That's too much blood, Hisoka thought, I didn’t know I cut him so deeply. There were bones poking through the flesh. “Tsuzuki!”
Tsuzuki opened his eyes, his face grey. “Hisoka?”
Hisoka grabbed his hand. “What did you do that for? Look at you!”
”Hisoka,” Tsuzuki breathed, smiling.
“Tsuzuki... Lie still.” Hisoka leaned over to press his hands to his partner’s back, trying to push the wound closed and staunch the blood. “I’m sorry.”
Tsuzuki hissed a breath, but didn’t pull away from Hisoka’s hands. “It wasn’t you.”
Hisoka bent his head over Tsuzuki’s back. “It was, though,” he said. “It wasn’t just me-- it was him, too. That bastard.” He could feel Tsuzuki’s skin starting to move underneath his hands, his body starting to repair itself. “But I meant what I said, too.”
Tsuzuki said nothing, just winced as his flesh reknit.
“But you held on,” Hisoka said. “You brought me back to myself.” There was a layer of skin over Tsuzuki’s back now, so he didn’t have to keep holding him, but he still pressed his hands against Tsuzuki, leaning forward to rest his forehead against Tsuzuki’s shoulder. “Thank you.”
Tsuzuki hesitated. Then he put his arms around Hisoka, and it felt like coming home. “Any time,” Tsuzuki said. “Always.”
There was a cough. “Um,” Keiko said, blushing faintly, “could we get off the mountain now?”
*************************************************************************
It seemed less complicated to blink Keiko home than it would have been to try to send her back, as she didn’t look like she was in any state to take the train. She sighed, looking up at her front door. “My parents are going to kill me.”
Hisoka and Tsuzuki, both feeling drained, gave each other a look. “We could try to explain it to them for you...” Tsuzuki offered.
Keiko shook her head quickly. “No. Thanks, but... no. I think I’ll just struggle through on my own.” She stepped back, starting to move towards saying goodbye. “Well, I... thank you.” She bowed. “I think you saved my life. A bunch of times. And that’s-- well, I owe you.”
“It’s our job,” Tsuzuki said. “I’m just glad you’re all right.” He beamed at her, and Hisoka couldn’t quite believe how joyful his partner felt just to see her standing safe and sound.
“Asano-san,” Hisoka said, “I should apologize.” He wasn’t sure how, though. He didn’t see how any apology would be enough.
“What for?” She still felt uncomfortable, Hisoka thought, and shaken, scared, and exhausted, but she didn’t flinch from him. “You didn’t do anything to me, remember? Not after I hit you.”
Hisoka blinked. “But still--”
She shook her head. “No way. You helped me so much. And besides-- we beat him.” There was a new pride there, still unfamiliar around the edges, but growing inside her. “You, mostly. But I smashed his skull in.” She grinned fiercely. “Bastard.”
”Good for you,” Tsuzuki said with a touch of pride of his own. “Well done, Keiko-chan.”
She ran a hand through her hair. “It’s over. I can’t believe it’s over.”
“It is,” Tsuzuki said firmly. “And just in case, we’ll be watching. You don’t have to worry any more.”
”Thank-you,” Keiko said. “So much. Thank you.” She edged toward her door again. “Well, um, good luck, with,” she did not meet their eyes, “whatever. You two.” She was blushing. “Yeah.”
Tsuzuki smiled gently. “Thank-you, Keiko-chan.” He smiled at his partner. “Come on, Hisoka.”
“Right,” Hisoka said. Tsuzuki turned away. Hisoka looked at Keiko. “Thanks,” he said. She bowed one last time and went into the house.
“So,” Tsuzuki said. “We should go back to Meifu. We have lots of reports to file on this.” He sighed. “Not much of a vacation, huh?”
”Tsuzuki,” Hisoka said. Tsuzuki, who hadn’t been fooling either of them for a minute, caught his eye. “I need to think,” Hisoka said. “About what you said. I need to take the time to figure it out.”
“Right,” Tsuzuki said. “Of course.”
The uncertainty hovered in Tsuzuki’s emotions again, and Hisoka did not like it. Whatever’s going on with me, he thought, I don’t see any reason to make you feel like that. It’s not just me here. That was an odd insight, and it was going to take getting used to. It’s not just me or you, or me versus you. It’s us. Which makes no sense at all, and I don’t know how it’s going to. Weird. But worth a try. “Hey,” he said. “You want to go get something to eat?”
Tsuzuki lit up inside, warm as a hearthfire. “Yeah,” he said. “Hmmm... what’s good in Takarazuka? They have hachikazuki-chan-- you know, with the sweet potatoes...?”
Hisoka sighed. “Trust you to know that,” he said, but it wasn’t what he felt like saying. He didn’t know how to say what he meant just now. He’d have to work on that. “Come on,” he said, and Tsuzuki followed.
*************************************************************************
Author’s Notes:
The Kamakura period was from 1192-1333, about 600 years after the introduction of Buddhism to Japan. The Heisei period began in 1989.
Takurazuka is a small city most famous for its tradition of all-female theater and for being the birthplace of Osamu Tezuka, who created Astro Boy, Black Jack, Phoenix, and much of the modern manga/anime industry.
Japanese has a number of different words meaning “you” of varying levels of politeness. Hisoka called Ajari Joan kisama, which is usually translated as “you bastard!”
The story of Ajari Joan and Hokkatsu-san is a real Japanese folk tale, much as Hisoka told it. “Hokkatsu-san” literally means “Skeleton Mountain,” but I couldn’t find out whether it’s a real mountain or not. The girl’s reincarnation isn’t part of the original story, just as her name isn’t. They seemed worth adding.
