sweetdeath | [004 | text, Japanese]

"Ichinomiya's the one who Watari claims is his husband," Tsuzuki explained, leading the way through the school's run-down hallways. The one who sees ghosts, he didn't add. He still needed to ask Ichinomiya more about that himself.... "Short, red eyes, white hair?"

Busy counting turns and staircases, he didn't even notice Hisoka's fraying nerves.

Hisoka was thankful for that.

"...Was he the one talking about a chip removal causing the time loop?" He saw the small icon on the network, but what with the pixels, it was really just a stab in the dark.

Also, he really wished Tsuzuki would remember that his legs were much longer than Hisoka's were.

"That's him," Tsuzuki agreed, coming to a stop by one of the doors and turning back. "He's from... oh, what was it? Taisho something. Taisho 15. I've only talked to him a few times so far. And this is Watari's room! I've just been staying with him the last few weeks. There isn't any coffee to spike, you see."

As he spoke, he pushed the door open, peering inside. "Watari, are you there?"

"Taisho--"

The room was empty. Of people, anyway - which he again noted he would have been able to sense without actually opening the door, but he really shouldn't be thinking about that. "...Apparently not."

He tilted his head. "Last few weeks. How long have you been stuck here?"

"Just about two weeks now," Tsuzuki said absently, walking into the room and staring around once more. No, there was definitely no Watari here. "I wonder where he went? Oh, and Watari's been here longer than I have. More than a few months."

He came to a stop by the window, looking out. Silent dusty devastation stretched out to the edges of the city. "There are some people here from the past. Others from different worlds entirely - I met a young man who didn't know what England, Japan and Germany were."

"I talked to a man who said he was from a planet named 'Gaia'," Hisoka shrugged, following and shutting the door behind him so he could lean against it. He needed some sort of stability, even if it was artificial. And superficial. But as he moved, he heard a weird and very loud sound rumble from somewhere near him.

And promptly realized that it was his stomach.

Tsuzuki turned around, blinking. "Was that you, Hisoka?"

...Ignoring the bright color of red his face was turning, he crossed his arms and stared his partner down. "No."

A rumbling stomach wasn't quite normal for a Shinigami. On the other hand, Tsuzuki told himself, neither was a scabbed-over finger. And he'd kept himself fed out of habit; cooking was a pleasure and pleasures were something to cling to.

"Have you eaten since last night?"

"I haven't eaten since--" when? It was before he'd gone to confront Kurikara, and since he spent all that time with the Tengu...

"I think it's been a few weeks."

Being a mother hen was, as far as Tsuzuki was concerned, all part of being partners. He closed his mouth with a snap and pointed firmly at the table.

"Hisoka, we don't heal here. I think you need to eat." Without waiting to make sure that Hisoka sat down, he bent to rummage through Watari's collection of canned foods. There, soup. Soup was probably good, and all he'd have to do was reheat it... where did Watari keep the bowls again?

It took him a moment to understand what the pointing meant. Table? I see the table. There's nothing on the table. What do you want me to know about the ta-- oh.

He rigidly went to sit down. "I guess I thought of that, but what was I supposed to eat? A bit of tombstone or a rusty doorknob?"

Tsuzuki winced. Well, at least it had only been a day. Probably. Wouldn't Hisoka have said something if Tsuzuki had forgotten his arrival? Loudly?

He dug out the can opener, applying it to the soup can. "Do you like chicken noodle? There isn't too much around here other than cans... I think it might be what's left from the people who once lived in this city."

"I'm not really in a position to be picky, am I?" Hisoka sighed, tapping his fingers on the table nervously. His stomach growled again.

And Tsuzuki was making him food. Wait a second. Hisoka jumped to his feet a little faster than absolutely necessary. "--I can make that, Tsuzuki. You don't have to cook for me!"

If this place made them mortal, Hisoka didn't want to think about what would happen to Tsuzuki and his guilt if he killed Hisoka with soup. The man could hardly boil water correctly.

"It's no problem!" Tsuzuki protested, dumping the condensed soup into a pot. "...But if you want to stir while I light the fire, just add a couple of cans full of water over there." He waved at the cooler, crouching to throw an extra log onto the fire and blow the coals back to life.

Hisoka hurried to do just that, knowing he was overreacting but at this point just needing something to distract him. He took the pot over to the designated cooler.

Thin tongues of fire leapt up from the coals at last, finding a home in the dry wood. Tsuzuki got back to his feet, making a face at the twinge from his bruised side, and smiled at Hisoka.

"There! It ought to heat up in a few minutes. Kind of weird, isn't it? I don't think much technology has survived here... well, except for what the scientists trapped here can build." Like that robot, he thought, and shook his head. "I've run into two different mechanical engineers so far, not counting Watari."

"At least these scientists have enough sense to kidnap a variety of people, if they want a small-scale society that can actually support itself," Hisoka shrugged, adding water to the condensed soup and not finding it particularly appetizing. If the scientists wanted them to survive here, though, why take away their abilities?

"I haven't figured out what the point of keeping us all here is," Tsuzuki admitted, reaching out to recover the pot and set it on top of the stove. "Does our living here have some kind of effect? I haven't heard of anyone getting sick, so they can't still be testing to make sure this place is plague-free." And no one in their makeshift society seemed to be making any progress towards restoring the city. This wasn't their home, after all.

Maybe whoever was in charge of the technology was just insane. Given the way this place looked, Tsuzuki couldn't really hold it against them.

Hisoka, deeming the floor to be a little too disgusting to sit on, returned to the table. "If we regained our abilities, it makes me wonder if we could even shift planes."

"Maybe." Tsuzuki paused for a long moment, letting the crackle of flames and the soft sloshing of the soup as he stirred fill the silence, then went on, "One of the people here who had his chip removed told me that he saw ghosts everywhere. If this place has some kind of analogue of Meifu, I think I'd like to talk to a few people there." The soup was bubbling; he pulled the pot off the fire and walked over to the table, looking around for a bowl.

Forgetting his good table manners for the sake of presentation, Hisoka rested heavily on his elbows and looked vaguely cranky. "If this entire world was wiped out by a sudden plague, I wouldn't be all that surprised."

Tsuzuki found a bowl and poured soup into it, leaving the remainder in the pot. Bowl and spoon went in front of Hisoka, and he sat down on the other side of the table, eying the pot and considering how long it had been since he'd eaten. Dinner yesterday, right?

"Apparently a number of the ghosts were wearing hospital gowns," he said, looking back at his partner. "You're probably right."

Hisoka just looked at him. Tsuzuki knew better than to think Hisoka would eat while being watched. And mentions of deaths in hospital gowns in dilapidated nightmarish old buildings only made his stomach twist more with his own memories.

Funny what extreme circumstances could conjure up, but really, he supposed it was better than Muraki.

"Yeah," he muttered, looking down and fiddling with his spoon.

Tsuzuki returned Hisoka's look for a long moment. His partner wasn't eating. Maybe stealing some of the soup would work. He scooted back from the table, standing up to go look for a spoon of his own, and trying to shake the chill that talking about the ghosts here had brought. He wasn't immune to his own memories, after all, though Hisoka's worried him more at the moment....

He came up with the spoon at last, and sat back down, pulling the pot towards himself. Better to avoid the extra washing up, right?

"...Are you going to eat that, Hisoka?"

[004 | text, Japanese]

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[action / mini log] ffff WATCH ME FAIL FOREVER

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