Title: A Memory Away
Anime: AU crossover of Yami no Matsuei and Weiß Kreuz.
Author: mizamiko
Rating of Chapter: PG

 

 

Chapter 2: Tsuzuki Asato: How did I fall in love with you?

 

 

Remember when, we never needed each other
The best of friends like sister and brother
We understood we'd never be alone

   I opened my eyes and knew that Tatsumi had been by. A steaming cup of honey milk. He remembered. For once I woke because of something good and not because of another nightmare.

 

   Thank you.

He has always been there. Even after he broke off our partnership, he took care of me. Small things, simple reminders that I was not alone, those little things that kept me sane or insane. He was my worst critic and my best friend. I wanted everyone happy and of everyone I so wanted to see him smile. But, in all the years that we've known each other, I could count in my hands the number of times I've seen him truly happy.

   *I always made you unhappy, didn't I?*

    He always felt he had to take care of me, but he knew he couldn't. He always seemed so frustrated whenever he did what he could. It always ended seeming cold. I have called him cruel many times before.
 

Those days are gone, now I want you so much
The night is long and I need your touch
Don't know what to say, never meant to feel this way
Don't wanna be alone tonight
 

    I wondered why he wasn't by this afternoon and asked Kachou when he dropped by. He said there was an emergency and he was preparing everything at the office before meeting with Enma DaiOh. The days where he was just another shinigami doing solo jobs were gone. So much responsibility was now on his shoulders and there was so little time for anything else. I knew he dropped by when he could. In the middle of lunch or late at night, even when I was asleep, just to check on me. Even if we couldn't talk, he still took pains to see how I was.

    Like this night.

    I wish he had stayed, but that would have been unfair. Even deep in dreams I knew his touch. The light brush of his shadow as they wiped my brow, they have always been so gentle. How could the others look at them as mere weapons of death? They have always been the kind hands that protected me, shielding me from those who would harm me. He was my very own guardian angel.

    How did he know when I needed his touch? I never learned how to ask him. But like a lover who has learned all of his beloved's quirks, he touched, gave, scolded, and left alone all at what he thought was the proper time. But he never understood me. He knew but he never understood.

    If there was anything that I learned in this tragedy then it was that I was selfish. Hisoka showed me this when he went in the fire to try to bring me back. Now I know why, long ago, Tatsumi told me he couldn't go on to the next world and rest or let himself die on any of his assignments. Kachou. He explained it to me the night before. Tatsumi fought so hard to live because he didn't want the others to feel pain. To die meant to hurt those left behind, and that was unacceptable. And yet… with me he questioned his own beliefs. He asked if what he did was right when he saved me. He was willing to live with the hurt of my death if death was truly what I wished.

 

What can I do to make you mine?
Falling so hard, so fast this time
What did I say, what did you do?
How did I fall in love with you?

 

    I love Hisoka.

    I was able to say that now. Moreover, I knew he loved me in return, not exactly the way I felt for him though. Maybe in the future, he will return it and I would have the courage to say it. He asked me to live for him and that was one of the reasons why I was still here and not mere vapor. It was a different feeling for what I had for Tatsumi or how I hoped he felt for me.

    He told me that Hisoka was the one who was best suited for me. He was right. Hisoka seemed cold at first but under it all there was someone who could and maybe someday would smile back at me. He said I would heal him and I was just right for him. He was right, and he has become so precious to me. After everything that happened. Like the prediction of our compatibility… it was the worst and the best. The worst especially with our priorities. The best for our personalities melded together that where one weakened the other remained strong.

    I think I'm falling.

 

I hear your voice and I start to tremble
Brings back the child who I resemble
I cannot pretend that we could still be friends
Don't wanna be alone tonight

    It was funny how Tatsumi-san showed such a terrible face to everyone. He was tight fisted, cold, and unsociable. I knew there was a reason for him being such, and he has yet to tell us why though, but I believed in him. To him I would always be a child, someone to shelter, to save, to scold and be a general mean bossy person.

    Tonight though, I could almost forgive him all that. The only apology that he has ever learned to say was through this little cup. He always brought me honey milk, which meant 'I'm Sorry' in his own little way.

    Sometimes I wonder if we were friends, brothers, or just strangers. I remembered him ignoring my pleas of help, but then he was the one who was able to save me when no one else could. At times I would wish that I never met him, because then I would never question what I felt for Hisoka, but then I would never have Hisoka in the first place.

    But it does not matter, right? He will always be there for me. I can love Hisoka without fear. He told me himself. He was the past and Hisoka was the present and the future. Hisoka will be beside me and all I had to do was turn around and he will be there, even if he wasn't always close.

 

I've gotta say these words
And it has to be tonight
Just need you to know…

 

    An icy touch traces down my spine and I have a sudden urge to find him. Kachou did say he was working overtime tonight. I looked at my sleeping partner and smile. I was just going to take a quick stroll.

    It worried me when I did not find him in his office, until I went outside and saw him walking by the sakura trees. He loved walking there by himself. He said it was always quiet and it soothed his nerves.

    He looked so sad even while he smiled up at the moon. I wanted to go up to him and make him smile but Kachou's appearance stopped me. I could not hear their conversation, only the mention of Enma DaiOh gave away that it was again about work.

    It was the middle of the night and he still was working. Workaholic.

    The next morning I was permitted to leave the healers room. Everyone I met greeted me with such happy faces that I was actually glad to go back to work. I wasn't permitted to start working till a few more days though.

    I passed by my desk and took in the jovial mood everyone was in. Even Watari was out of his laboratory.

    "Oi Tsuzuki!"

    I waved at Watari as he ran up to me. He looked happy. "Look! Tatsumi actually approved the grant for me to continue my research."

    "That's great!" I answered. I looked around for Tatsumi, knowing the ruckus would have alerted the Secretary and had him glaring at everyone to get to work. There was no blue eyed brunette though. "Where is Tatsumi-san anyway?"

    "Don't know. Nobody has seen him since office started. I'd better go back and tell 003 about it. Ja!"

    "Ja." I walked towards Tatsumi's office, wondering if the Secretary had buried himself in his work again. I knocked softly at his door, only to get no response. Now that was odd.

    "Tatsumi?" I called while rapping on the door. "You in there?"

    I reached for the knob and found it open. I pushed the door and stared at an empty room, empty as in empty clean. The table had nothing on it, not even pencils. The room felt empty, like it was swept clean of anything that would indicate that it had an owner. I frowned and wondered if Kachou would know where Tatsumi was, not that I had anything important to tell him though.

    When I met Kachou in the hall way and asked if he knew where Tatsumi was right then, he said he didn't know, that the last he saw him was at a meeting with Enma DaiOh. I decided then that I would just go to his home later. Maybe I'd get a free meal.

 

…I don't wanna live this lie
I don't wanna say goodbye
With you I wanna spend the rest of my life
What can I do to make you mine?
Falling so hard, so fast this time
What did I say, what did you do?
How did I fall in love with you

 

    I looked at his door and wondered why the usual 'Tatsumi' name at its front was not there. I was about to knock when someone cleared his throat.

    "Excuse me. Are you Tatsumi-sans friend?"

    I turned to see an old man smiling at me. I smiled back and nodded. "I work in the same division as him"

    "Oh good. You must be the one who was going to help in moving all his stuff."

    I stopped dead in my tracks but the old man just continued on and opened his room. The apartment was eerily quiet with a box here and there. I opened one and found some albums. I took out one album that I knew by heart, in the background the old man rambled on.

    "Tsuzuki."

    I whirled around at the sound of my name. I was brought face to face with Kachou. He looked at me sadly.

    "Kachou. Where's Tatsumi?" I asked and all I got was a faint 'gone'. There was something wrong with me. There was something hard pressing on my chest and it was getting hard to breathe. "What do you mean gone?"

    "Gone."

    "Why?"

    "He was called away for a job."

    A job. That I understood. Tatsumi was a workaholic.

    "When will he be back?" It was only a job right? He'll come back when it's done. Right?

    "Never."

    I shook my head. No. He'll come back. That was when I noticed it. There was something wrong with the album that I held. I flipped through the pages and frowned. No!

    No. No! Nononono!

    I fell on my knees and touched a finger on the place where a beloved almost smiling face should have been. Every one of the pictures showed something else other than what I remembered it. There was no Tatsumi in them.

    They said there was another way other than moving on where one can leave behind the life of a shinigami. Tatsumi had only mentioned it once. It entailed the erasure of everything that the shinigami was. It meant all physical mementos of that person would be wiped away, as if he never existed. Only his memory will be preserved but that too he said would fade in time. How could it not when everything to link the existence of the person is gone. He had said it was a fitting end for people who were not worth remembering at all.

    "He met with Enma-DiaOh." I whispered.

…. Everything's changed we never knew………
How did I fall in love with you?

    "Well that was very inconsiderate of him." 'Watari …'

    "Gone?" 'Hisoka…'

    "His memory will fade with time." 'Kachou…'

    I stood in the middle of the Sakura trees where I last saw him, not knowing it would be the last time.

    "You will last longer, live longer than everyone else Tsuzuki-san. I won't ask you to remember me, just promise to look up in the night and smile a true smile and not one of your masks."

    Tatsumi…

July 4,2004
 

Disclaimer:


No shinigami was hurt during the creation of this fanfiction. I do not own the characters in either worlds. Weiß Kreuz was created by Koyasu Takehito and Yami no Matsuei was created by Yoko Matsushita. The characters and associated materials of these works are used WITHOUT permission. I'm not getting any money out of this. I have no idea who sung the song… Somebody help! Original portion of the fiction included here is considered to be the sole property and copyrighted of the author.