Stories (1?)

Rating: T

Pairings: Tsusoka…eventually

Warnings: shounen ai, mild swearing, some graphic violence, references to rape and suicide…spoilers for the anime and magna.

Summary: Even if you try and hide from it, love eventually makes itself heard. What's a reluctant empath to do?

Note: Yes, Osco is undertaking another YnM fic! This story is heavily influenced by the song "Stories" by Trapt…listen to it once and see what I mean.

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters or storylines of Yami no Matsuei…I am but a poor college student trying to entertain herself.

Reviews are greatly appreciated! Please enjoy!

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Stories

I found a line, and then it grew

I found myself still thinking of you…

---"Stories" by Trapt

Prologue: Dreams and Realities

It was dark, save for the eerie crimson glow cast by the blood-red moon in the sky.

He walked slowly among the sakura trees surrounding his home, watching the pink blossoms twirl about in the slight breeze, dancing to a tune that only they could hear. He didn't know what possessed him to go for a walk this night, or what possessed his parents to leave the household open for him to leave, just that it did and was…and now he enjoyed the serenity the night was giving him...a change from the miasma of hate and fear he felt during the day. If he had his way, he'd never leave these trees and the peace they brought with them…

And then, a man embracing a dark-haired woman caught his eye, turning his attention towards the happy couple. He wondered briefly what it felt like to be loved…what it felt like to be held so gently in the arms of someone who would tell him that he wasn't a monster and that everything would be all right. He scowled slightly as he watched the couple bathed in red light, envious of something he did not have, but then…

Everything changed.

He felt a stab of horror clutch his heart, followed closely by pain, regret, and betrayal…and then he saw the knife rise in the air and come down. More red…but not from the moon…and it was everywhere. He felt the woman die, killed by the man who, save for the red of her blood, was cloaked in all white…and he was frozen. The body dropped, and the man turned around, fixing one silver eye and one mechanical blue on him…why wouldn't his legs move! The man smiled at him, but not in a nice way, and he started walking towards him, still clutching the knife he killed that woman with and still dripping in her blood…his legs began to move.

He stumbled on the hem of his kimono but didn't fall…but that stumble was all the man in white needed. He was being dragged back towards the sakura tree he murdered the woman under, one hand clamped around his mouth to prevent him from screaming and the other hooked around his waist…fear that was his own blossomed and he tried to kick, pull, anything to get away. But the man just laughed and threw him down to the ground, pinning him with stronger limbs than a thirteen year old boy would ever hope to have. It wasn't anger that he felt from the man…it was something dark, something that made his stomach clench with dread as that feeling was mirrored in his mismatched eyes.

He pleaded, begged, beseeched this horrible man to let him go. He wouldn't tell anyone what happened….he'd be quiet forever. Just please let me live…

The man just laughed softly and ran a finger down his cheek…and the other hand untied the obi of his kimono. He was a beautiful doll…that's what the man whispered in his ear, trailing the outside with something wet…his tongue. He shivered as he felt this man's hands start roaming over his bare skin…please, he thought, stop it….please, please, please! He struggled further, but he couldn't get away…the kimono was gone, and so was the horrible angel's jacket…lips pressed against his own savagely, biting and causing blood to spill forth onto his swollen lips…

"The blood looks lovely with your pale skin in the moonlight…"

It hurt, everything this man did hurt so much…he screamed, which the man only seemed to enjoy, as the silver-locked demon touched him in ways that he knew was horribly wrong. He screamed when something unwanted was forced into his small frame…ripping him apart along with his innocence. He screamed when the knife carved into his skin…creating a bond that made him an unwilling doll to this puppet-master…a broken boy. Why didn't anyone hear him? Why didn't they care that their son was being raped and murdered not even two hundred meters away from his cell? Why didn't they love him enough to stop this before…before…

He felt himself floating now, clasped behind by strong and warm arms…they shielded him from all the blackness surrounding him. His red curse marks, disguised as tribal tattoos to anyone who didn't know better, were glowing angrily and his skin felt as if it were on fire…but hands that weren't his own smoothed over the marks, and made them disappear. He struggled again, but the arms held fast…keeping him from falling and holding him up. His arms were mark free, and the hands moved to his back…it felt so good, not feeling their presence any longer.

He couldn't see the owner of the arms, and when he reached with his empathy, he found a wall more solid than anything he could ever construct. The arms encircled him again…funny, he didn't even notice that they no longer held him for a moment, giving him a chance to flee; one he didn't take. They spread over the marks on his chest…but stopped and hovered over his heart…they couldn't heal those without permission, he knew that right away.

"Let's look for something new…"

A voice, one that he knew…he turned around in the arms, but all he was met with was darkness…he called out, but no one answers. A flash of light, a brilliant emerald light, fills the area and makes him squint…a shape forms, but he can't see what it is. He steps forward, and the ground gives way…he falls down, but feels the arms wrap around him again.

Falling…

Falling…

…

…

"AH!" Kurosaki Hisoka yelled as he startled awake, breaths coming in heavy and sharp gasps as his bright green eyes search around the room wildly before calming down enough as he comes to full awareness. His hands were fisted into the sheets, knuckles white with strain, and it was another minute or two before he felt calm and…secure enough, before he loosened the grip. He was alone, in his room, and it was just a dream…just a nightmare. Or was it?

He took a steadying breath and ran a steady hand through his ash blonde hair, pushing away his covers and clambering out of bed…it wasn't quite dawn yet but he had a feeling he wouldn't be getting back to sleep any time this morning. He covered his mouth as he let out a yawn, oblivious to the childlike way his face scrunched up at the action and walked into his bathroom…he might as well start getting ready for work and show up early. He splashed his face with cold water from the sink in an attempt to fully rouse himself, pausing only to steady his reflection in the mirror as he dried off his face.

His verdant eyes narrowed critically as they studied himself for a moment before he tossed the towel at the reflection and spun around to start his shower. Hisoka hated being reminded of the fact that he was permanently stuck in the body of a sixteen year old boy and with his lithe frame and skinny legs, that's just what he looked like too. His appearance tended to make people treat him as if he was a child…which made Hisoka even more frustrated than his body could ever hope to accomplish. It really wasn't because he thought that at sixteen years, he shouldn't be considered a boy anymore…it was because Hisoka doubted he had ever truly been a child after he turned four and his parents locked him away in a basement. That and when you happen to be an Empath and can feel things from others, things that no child should know about, it tends to make a person grow up pretty quick.

No, Hisoka decided as he shed the oversized shirt and boxers he slept in and entered his shower, he had never really been a child after he made the mistake of asking his mother why she was sad.

But, there was no use in thinking about things he couldn't change…so the green-eyed Shinigami shoved the thoughts out of his mind and focused on washing his hair. Before he had even finished with his shower though, he felt his thoughts wandering back to the dream he had, a strange mix between a nightmare that haunted his mind and a dream that promised something he didn't remember feeling. He was all to aware of the beginning of his dream…he had that nightmare, a grim reminder of his past, enough times after the maniac gave him his memory back.

Muraki…two years later it still left a bitter taste on his tongue.

"It was just a dream, Kurosaki," he chastised himself while picking out a pair of jeans and a long-sleeved black shirt to wear that day…it wasn't exactly cool today in Meifu, but the sleeves hid the scars from prying eyes in case they decided to flare up. "Nothing more, nothing less." And with that, he shoved the dream, even the parts he didn't mind so much, away and forced himself to not think about it…dwelling on the past didn't mean it didn't happen and wouldn't change anything. And, the last thing he wanted was to deal with nosy co-workers (i.e. a nosy partner who was to caring for his own damn good) prying into why he was withdrawn today. Well, more withdrawn than usual.

He had managed to keep the details about his rape a secret from everyone, and he had no intention of blabbing about it now…he hated he thought of pity he would feel from everyone as they watched him walk down the halls. No…it was better this way…his problems were his own and no one else's. Maybe Tsuzuki had some sort of idea about what happened, sometimes Hisoka would feel protectiveness from the man that was stronger than usual between partners, but if he only knew Muraki killed him. He didn't know that Muraki had broken him too…and he preferred it that way.

He towel dried his hair and ran a fine comb through the ash-blonde strands before heading towards the kitchen in his modest apartment, trying to direct his thoughts anywhere but Muraki and Tsuzuki…too bad the mind never seems to work that way. He poured himself a bowl of cereal, some Western brand that Tsuzuki bought for him because "he was to thin and needed to eat more" in the violet-eyed mans opinion. Frankly, Hisoka thought nothing was wrong with his eating habits…just because he didn't inhale ten meals before lunch, like his partner, didn't mean he didn't eat. But…it had made Tsuzuki smile when he accepted the cereal, luckily something that wasn't made of eighty percent sugar, and he hardly saw the true smile anymore.

Great…now he was thinking about Kyoto…what a spectacular morning so far. Why didn't he just throw in memories of his parents' hatred and fear towards him while he was at it? Even a year after that horrible case, and Hisoka still hated remembering that day, the day he almost lost the very first person in his life, and after life, that gave a damn about him…the day he almost ended up all alone again. He didn't blame Tsuzuki for wanting to kill himself, he knew whatever Muraki had told him was bad enough, and he still felt that sometimes he was much to selfish for making him stay when he so obviously didn't want to. Neither of them had really gotten over that case, and he suspected that Watari, Tatsumi, and a few others in the Shokan office knew that, but they acted as if they had.

Hisoka was starting to get really tired of all the acts he kept up nowadays.

The problem with him, left by that case, was that he didn't know how to deal with, or identify the new emotions he felt within him, and from others, as a result of that day. He knew that when he leapt into Touda's fires and flung himself around Tsuzuki's neck, pleading with the broken man to stay and live for him, that he had crossed a line somewhere…problem was, he didn't know what that meant. His logical side told him that he knew what it was that he had crossed into in respects to his partner, but that didn't mean understanding came as well. He knew he cared for the man more than a partner…but beyond that, he hadn't a clue.

'Looks like Muraki did his job well,' Hisoka thought to himself as he finished his breakfast. He didn't really want to think it, he hated when he got into those self-pitying moods, but the thought still came. He had a flash of his dream again, of a pair of arms encircling him and shielding him from…some unknown darkness, but as quick as it came, it was pushed aside. He had work to do, and he couldn't focus on trivial things like dreams and old memories that refused to be forgotten.

It was light outside know, but still early…maybe too early to show up to work. He didn't care though, it's not like there weren't reports he could fill out while waiting for others to filter in…and Watari was probably already there. Besides, at least at work he could focus his thoughts on something else easier…it beat bemoaning over dreams and realities anyhow. Mind made up, Hisoka cleaned up the remaining dishes in his sink and grabbed his jean jacket before heading out the door. He could always teleport to the office, but that just meant more of Tsuzuki's late and half-started reports getting filled out by him, and he could do with a walk anyway.

He walks at a normal pace to the office, his hands stuffed in his jacket pockets and a slight breeze playing with his hair, with a neutral expression on his face. It doesn't take long before the familiar building of the Shokan offices come into view, the rows of sakura trees lined out front and in bloom as they always were. He lets a mirthless smile cross his features for a brief moment as he walked down through those rows of trees and towards the place where he got a chance at a "second life" so to speak. Maybe it is better that he died…he certainly hadn't been living while he was alive…yes, this is better.

He paused for a brief moment before entering the complex, as something skittered past his mind, an elusive thought that he couldn't quite grasp. He frowned at the trees as his mind tried to think…but all he saw was some indistinct shape with its arms held wide open. He shook his head and entered the building…it was time for work and he'd figure out what was bothering him if he didn't think about it. That's how it always worked out…

But, the thought kept nagging him in the back of his mind…calling out to be heard by him, no matter how much he tried to hide…

It was going to be a long day.

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A/N: Review pretty please! I think you'll all like how this one turns out…it's my take on Hisoka and his empathy and what he would be able to do if he was in more touch with his feelings. I felt this calling to me, beggin to be written, so here it is!

Oh, and as a note, I stated that Hisoka thinks that Tsuzuki doesn't know about Muraki raping him because, as was pointed out to me, he doesn't know what Tsuzuki and Muraki talked about at the café. So, let's go with that Hisoka has no idea that Tsuzuki knows about the night under the sakura besides he was cursed, shall we? So, review and more will come!

Osco