You Will Not Be Alone Tonight
Prelude - Tinted Truth
Author's note: I own no part of Yami no Matsuei. In addition, the chapter and story titles were all taken from lyrics of songs by The Story.
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Watari
We've never had a conversation.
Oh, of course we've spoken to each other; he's not a completely reclusive freak.
It's just always been about work. "Watari, can you pull Tsuzuki out of that
book?" "Watari, can you research Professor Satomi?" "Watari, can you take a look
at this computer?" And I reply with the expected nod, or a "Yes, Tatsumi," and
everything proceeds as he wants it.
It's unnatural, is what it is. Even at the Count's parties, he's very
businesslike. The teacups and the tuxedos serve the same purpose as the Count's
mask: they allow him a safety curtain, a shield. What I have yet to understand
is why he thinks he needs these shields at all, even when he's among friends.
I don't understand why, every day, he insists on hiding from us. It's not even
as though he does a good job of it: he can't pretend to contain his concern for
Tsuzuki while he's breaking every rule in his personal code of conduct to save
him from suicide. His good heart shines through the shadow around it, and it
seems like such a waste of time, energy, and rare beauty to keep up such a
useless barrier.
Seeing through the shadow and actually getting through it, however, are two very
different matters. I've only gotten close to Tatsumi once, when his desire to
protect Tsuzuki was nearly overcome by his sense of duty. It was just so stupid,
and I've never been one for self-restraint. How can such a strong man be so
terrified of something as simple, as important as love?
Even then, he couldn't speak to me.
Of course, I don't think about this all the time, as a rule. I'm not some
half-rabid Tatsumi fangirl (although, if that potion ever gets off the ground,
I'll be halfway there). It's just that sometimes, when I see him, I wonder how
he feels. I wonder whether his barriers work on every feeling but those he has
for Tsuzuki, and whether, if they do, they'll eventually bend enough to allow
him to be happy.
I wonder whether we'll ever be good enough friends for him to tell me.
----
Tsuzuki
I love Tatsumi.
Even though he walked out on me, and he keeps docking my pay, and he keeps
interrupting my candy breaks to yell at me for spending too much money, I love
him. It's not the same as what I feel for Hisoka, but it's still love.
I love Tatsumi because I can understand him.
The shouting, the selling our services to people, the glaring... that's all just
an act. The real Tatsumi is scared of making mistakes: that's why he's so
obsessive about his work. The real Tatsumi likes to hide his power, not lord it
over everyone else.
The real Tatsumi, just like me, feels guilty for being alive, for whatever
happiness that gives him. That's why he couldn't be my partner anymore: I made
him too happy, and he was scared that he was taking too much from me. He thinks
people are like bank accounts, that there's a limit to how much love and joy you
can draw from them before they end up being drained completely, like an éclair
shell with all the cream sucked out.
I want to tell him love doesn't work that way, but he wouldn't believe me. He's
used to a very sacrificial love, and would think I was lying to make him feel
better about hurting me.
Sometimes I notice him looking at me, and I know that it's not me he's seeing.
It's the same way that I know I must have looked at Luka in the Count's book:
there's regret, and a powerful urge to dispel it by changing the past. There's
disappointment. There's fear.
There's a self-blame more painful than Touda's fire.
I've always wanted to ask him what's on his mind when he's looking through me
like that, what scene is playing through his head. I always stop. It's not that
I'm afraid of crossing a line, because we're beyond that, or that I'll dredge up
a painful memory, because it's already there.
I'm afraid his truth would remind me too much of my own, and that we'd be
damaged even more by my inability to handle it.
Maybe one day, I'll be strong enough to hear his answer.
----
Hisoka
Sometimes, I hate him.
Tatsumi can be an extremely cruel man. I don't know enough of Shinigami powers
to know whether this is a side effect of his Shadowmancy, but it doesn't really
matter. Whatever's responsible for his cruelty, it's still there.
And yet, he's one of the most gentle men I've ever met.
He's defined himself by the desire to protect and nurture a man who will never
be his, and yet doesn't resent the fact that that same man is mine. Yes, he
yells, and glares, but there's nothing behind it. He just does it because he
feels he has to, because he's afraid that loosening his grip on power would mean
losing it entirely, thus rendering him unable to protect Tsuzuki.
The depth of pain that this costs him seems almost as deep as that which I've
felt in Tsuzuki. As it would in anyone else, it drives him to hurt people, like
his mother, who he sees as ruined by his love, and Tsuzuki, whose feelings of
exclusion and negativity were reinforced by Tatsumi's abandonment of him. I
sense a deep regret in him when he sees Tsuzuki, and though I can see that he's
let go of any hope that he might once again be in my place, that resignation has
not killed his desire for it.
My hate for him goes beyond the basic fear of losing Tsuzuki to him: I detest
his cowardice. People say that he controls things from the shadows like it's a
good thing, but I think it says something about the worst part of Tatsumi's
personality. He's not in the shadows because it makes him more powerful; he
lives in them because he's terrified of the alternative.
Maybe I should be pitying him instead, and I do. But it's hard to feel sorry for
someone who's locked himself in the darkness when you've known what it's like to
be there without the power of escape. Is fear really all that keeps him there?
Is there really no key to the lock but that which has been fastened around his
own neck?
If that's the case, I can't even begin to understand him.
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