Author's notes: This was part of a Valentine's prompt I did for someone. Enjoy it!

I had to do a little bit of research on this one. The commercialism of Valentine's Day didn't show it's face in Japan until mid-1950s, and then the advertisement spread the misinformation that Valentine's Day was how women showed they liked a guy. So, that's what that is about. I took some liberties with Tatsumi and Wakaba's death dates since they weren't listed. :D

Warning: Some cute moments and angst.

Tsuzuki had moped that morning before they had left their shared apartment. Usually he pouted, but Tatsumi hadn't seen his lover and work-partner mope for over a year. Ah... He thought when he checked the date. Valentine's Day. It was still a new concept to him, but when Tsuzuki had learned about it he had grabbed onto the date like nothing else. Mainly, Tatsumi knew, his partner wanted chocolates.

Tatsumi blamed the chocolate company that had started the advertising campaign describing how American woman would use this day to give chocolate to the men in their lives. When he had been alive, he had been perplexed at the heart-shaped, chocolate gifts from his female coworkers.

His traditional upbringing, where a man protected and provided for the women and children of his household of which he only had his mother, created a social impasse at the ludicrously priced chocolates. Initially, he'd felt obligated to turn those gifts down because he hadn't considered female coworkers as part of his 'family' despite the newspaper company trying to impress that into him and others. Eventually, he'd had to relent even though he didn't like the overload of sweetness in just a morsel of chocolate. He secretly gave away many of the chocolates to schoolchildren more than eager to take them off his hands.

Normally, Tatsumi was on top of things and able to plan for these events, but they'd been unusually busy that winter with case after case of ghosts and other preternatural creatures. He had had his hands full budgeting their paychecks amidst Tsuzuki's frequent food frenzies and also with the mountains of paperwork that came with the cases.

Sometimes he would get lost in the nostalgia of stacked papers on his desk and imagined how cramped his hand would have been at his accounting job and how much he'd be cursing his senior staffer for dropping off late work with him that needed to be done right that instant. If it weren't for the inability for him to get a cramp these past six years, the amount of work before him would have made him angry and resentful rather than resigned.

Pulling a key from the narrow-most middle drawer above his legs, he unlocked the lower left drawer of his desk and pulled it open. Empty. He sighed at his memory. Now, looking at the empty wooden drawer, he remembered that the last sweets had been left on Tsuzuki's desk weeks ago. He had never been so scattered when he was alive, and he thought the mostly carefree Tsuzuki was to blame.

"Tsuzuki-san?" With her trademark navy blue and white uniform on, a high school girl in thick tights and an open, heavy coat walked in: Kannuki Wakaba. The rookie clutched a bag and an aroma of baked goods wafted towards him on the breeze of the ceiling fan.

"Ah, Kannuki-chan, he's out. You just missed him." He stood up pushing his glasses back up his nose.

She startled. "Oh. Hello, Tatsumi-san, I didn't see you or I would have greeted you properly." She bowed lightly. "I have a Valentine's gift for you too."

"You shouldn't have troubled yourself." He said as she stepped closer to him and held out an undecorated paper box.

He took it. "Thank you, Kannuki-chan."

She smiled. "It holds a sweet-bun with a bitter chocolate filling. I hope you will like it."

"I'm sure I will." Tatsumi smiled back. "I did not realize that chocolate came bitter."

"Oh, yes. Chocolate is very bitter by itself." Her white ribbons flopped on her head as she nodded.

"I see." Not being so rude to open or inspect the present, Tatsumi smile was a bit warmer. "Well, Tsuzuki-san might be found in the library if I might suggest?"

"Thank you, Tatsumi-san!" She bowed again and walked quickly out the door.

Tatsumi sat down, opened the box, looking at the anpan that smelled of chocolate, and then closed it again.

What could he do? Even though he and Tsuzuki warmed each other's beds and loved each other as well as dead humans did in shinigami bodies, he was not female and tradition dictated that he would need to be a woman to give chocolates. He had argued about this in his head last Valentine's Day, after Tsuzuki had gorged on expensive chocolates he had bought himself and whined about Tatsumi's inconsiderate nature.

He tapped his finger on the desk in irritation as he thought. It was too bad there wasn't an American holiday that gave men the chance to return the favor.

Hearing a tired shoe scuffing the threshold, Tatsumi chanced a look and met his lover's beautiful purple eyes. "Welcome back. Did Kannuki-chan deliver her Valentine's gift?"

"No, I just got back from the living realm." Tsuzuki with his tie loosened and his hair askew came around the stacks of papers creating a physical barrier around Tatsumi. He was carrying a large, heart-shaped box. "This is for you."

Tatsumi found himself blushing momentarily and fumbled with his glasses. "You're not a woman."

"So? You always take care of me, so I'm returning the favor." With a wide smile on his face, Tsuzuki handed the large box to him.

Resting it on his lap since there was no room on his desk, Tatsumi looked at him. "Thank you, Tsuzuki." He personally would have been too embarrassed to walk into the department store to buy a product meant for a woman to a man. "But, how did you pay for this?"

"It was on sale, and I might have had some money leftover from the case." The look directed at him was one full of mischievous guilt.

Tatsumi scoffed. "I should have expected something non-traditional from you. Who would believe you were born in the 1900s when you act like a teenager?"

A perfect smile grinned back and winked, an American habit he must have picked up from the ghost who wouldn't move on until they watched an imported movie together in one of Kyoto's converted theatres. "No one old I've ever met was old at heart. Now open the box! I'm dying to see what's in it!"

Sighing again, Tatsumi obliged, opening the lid. Something in English was emblazoned in beautiful, but hard-to-read cursive script on the biggest chocolate heart Tatsumi had ever seen. "I can smell how sweet it is from here." Tatsumi lifted an eyebrow at him, searching his mind for the kanji that matched up with the words on the chocolate.

He had never translated English for his cozy accounting job. It had been many years since he used it, the last time being when he intercepted radio transmissions from the Americans and their allies during the war.

Because of his ability to read, write, and speak English, he had been coveted by the military and not sent out to battle. He still felt a little resentful of that. Mostly, he resented the past because even as he served the Emperor wholeheartedly his fellow radio officers condescended that he was only half-Japanese, insinuating that his translations were somehow flawed and untrustworthy.

He knew then as he did now that they had been jealous. If the higher-ups had thought he was a spy, he would have been tortured then subsequently killed. Despite that, the words had bit into him deeply. His blue eyes were seen as an aberration, something beget from a human as low as a dog, someone who wasn't Japanese. It was probably why he had been so drawn to Tsuzuki to begin with.

"No, no, I didn't buy it for me!" Tsuzuki waved his arms across back and forth. "I bought it because of the message the sales-person said was on it!"

"And what did the sales-person say?" As the correct words clicked into place, Tatsumi tried to keep his face free of the heat creeping up his neck.

"'I love you'." Tsuzuki's face immediately blushed bright red and then his lips pouted. "Hey, you said you understood English in its written form!"

"I asked because it doesn't say that." Tatsumi adjusted his glasses again, turning away. "This is much, much more forward than 'I love you'. I believe you bought a 'proposal' chocolate."

Tsuzuki stumbled over the English words. "Ai rabu... Puroppozz- What?"

"The closest translation of the words written here is 'I love you from the depths of my soul. Will you marry me?'. Don't you agree that's more forward?" Tatsumi was completely faced away from him, chocolate heart heavy like lead on his lap, as he straightened already straight stacks of paper.

Tsuzuki face turned beet-red. "It does? It actually says that?"

"Obviously, a simple 'I love you' would have sufficed."

They both looked up at the creak out in the hall and stilled.

"Uh... Hello, Tsuzuki-san... Tatsumi-san..." Kannuki's face was flushed red as she looked away in shame for eavesdropping and bowed deeply holding out her bag. "I brought you several chocolate-dipped, chocolate-filled chocolate sweetbuns, Tsuzuki-san. I made them myself."

"Thank you very much. I'll love eating them!" Stepping forward, Tsuzuki took the bag and a hurt look fluttered under the bright smile. "Wakaba-chan, don't bow to me. You didn't do anything wrong."

"I hope you like them!" She stood up straight and ran out of the room.

Tsuzuki's shoulders slumped forward as he sighed wearily.

A warm hand laid on his shoulder. "She was probably stunned at the marriage proposal. Men usually don't go around giving other men such things."

"She'll hate me, just like everyone else."

Tatsumi tried not to scoff at him. Sometimes, Tsuzuki was over-dramatic. "Not everyone hates you. The Chief likes you, the Gushoushin like you, and of course I like you."

"Our coworkers avoid me. You hear what's being said."

"I hope you aren't referring to the angry Christian in charge of Area 5, Tsuzuki. What they say shouldn't matter. There's nothing wrong with our love. We're already dead, so it isn't like we could get married and produce offspring like tradition dictates."

Tsuzuki's face twisted into something unreadable and the tears started to fall.

Stoically, Tatsumi wrapped his arms around his partner and wished he would stop.

The heart-shaped box sat quietly on his wooden chair, the lid still leaning against a leg.

End.