Hisoka sighs to himself as he sits on the edge of his bed. He has stripped it so there is only a single sheet between him and the mattress. It's too hot for sheets, too hot for clothes, even, though Hisoka is wearing his lightest pair of night clothes.

He grabs a fan and his current book from his bedside table and sprawls over his bed. Even though he only moved from the living room to his bedroom, he's sweating lightly. The humidity was clinging to his skin, and while the damp was pleasant where the cool air from the fan could reach, the rest of his body suffers from it.

Frustrated, he sits up, abandoning his book and glaring at no particular spot in his room. He decides that he room would be cooler if he turned his light out, but he is reluctant to do so.

Hisoka has never liked the dark. It reminds him of the years he spent downstairs, locked away from the world. After growing up in a world of light, the dark of the basement was frightening.

It was in that basement that he developed his aversion to heat. The basement was always cold. It was all he knew for six years before he was moved to the hospital. Not once during those years had be been exposed to warmth.

Now he bites his lip, but decides he'd rather have it dark and cool then light and sticky.

He gets up, turns the light off and opens both windows in his room for air. The wind is cold, but in its absence Hisoka can't feel a temperature difference between inside and outside.

Hoping it will rain soon, he goes back to his bed, enjoying the sound of crickets outside his window. He picks up the fan as he eyes the dark room suspiciously. He knows there is nothing there, but the dimensions of this room seem to change with the shadows. Things don't look like they should. It makes Hisoka feel like he's not in his room at all, but someplace different. Someplace he doesn't know.

He's frightened.

When he realizes this, he growls at himself. It was childish to be afraid of the dark, and he was not a child.

He remembered Tsuzuki saying to him, "Hisoka, I'm 98. You're 16. You're a kid compared to me." Hisoka might have let it go if he hadn't added, 'compared to me.'

He yelled at Tsuzuki that, "sixteen doesn't qualify as the age of a kid!" Watari had laughed, saying that he was five years away from being a legal adult. Hisoka had fumed at the statement, but Tsuzuki didn't pay attention to his current mood and had hugged him, saying that when he was older they would stop teasing him.

Hisoka sensed the sincerity, but the problem was that he was never going to be older.

"If you don't stop teasing me now I'll never speak to you again. Hey, I'm serious!"

"But Hisoka! I never get to tease you about anything!"

"There's a reason for that, you know!"

"He's got you there, Tsuzuki." 003 chirped in agreement.

"Get back to work!"

Hisoka smiled slighting at the memory. He wasn't pleased about being a child in Tsuzuki's eyes, but Tsuzuki had said that everyone there was younger than he was; he only treated Konoe and Tatsumi like adults.

Though it was meant to be reassuring it had only deepened Hisoka's desire to grow up. He decided to give up all his childish habits in his effort to be viewed as an equal.

The sound of wind chimes rustling bought Hisoka back to his darkened room. The sound was hollow and echoing. It made him feel like he was alone in a vast space, alone in the dark with only the sound of wind chimes and crickets for company.

He sets his fan down and runs his free hand through his hair, trying to calm himself. The only time he felt safe in the dark was when he was with Tsuzuki.

The memory of Tsuzuki holding out his hand to him in Hokkaido flashes before his eyes. Hisoka opens them, blushing slightly, and waves it away. But the memory had eased the wryness of the dark….

What was it about Tsuzuki that made him calm? Everything in Tsuzuki's actions was obnoxious, not calming at all. But there was some quality there, a certain way he acted, a unique presence of something in his countenance.

Hisoka sighs. He'll figure it out later. He has the rest of eternity. Delaying it one night won't matter. But he keeps thinking of Tsuzuki. That alone is soothing, it seems.

The wind chimes outside ring along with the sound of rustling leaves, but Hisoka didn't pay it any attention. Tsuzuki was with him; he was safe; there was no reason why he should.