Yami No Matsuei Fan Fiction ❯ Little Things ❯ Play ( Chapter 14 )

Little Things

Play

By: eternalsailorsolarwind

 

Disclaimer: Yami no Matsuei and all its characters are owned by Mtsushita Yoko, her Japanese publisher, Viz, and US Manga. I just play with her characters for fun.

 

A/N: Hisoka watches Tsuzuki playing and regrets. A little bit angsty. Hisoka/Tsuzuki.

 

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Hisoka marveled at his partner. Tsuzuki was sitting on the ground with a young boy, playing some sort of children's game with him. Watching from a nearby bench, he wondered what the name of the game was. They were sitting outside of a small circle drawn in the dirt, with little glass balls inside of it. They took slightly larger glass balls and, using their thumbs, knocked the smaller ones out of the circle. It was nothing he'd ever seen before.

 

But then again, he could barely remember a time when there had been childhood games. He'd been very young when his parents had locked him away in the basement. And with the servants too frightened of him to come near, there was no one to play with. Hisoka hadn't really missed those games, since he hadn't known what he was missing until he was in the hospital. By then, it was too late. His body was too wasted and ravaged by the curse that would eventually kill him to join in, even if he'd wanted to.

 

He felt a little lost watching Tsuzuki play - easily - with the child. How could this grown man sit on the hard ground like that? His long legs were tucked out of the way of the action, but his lover didn't seem to mind the discomfort in the least. One of the older man's rare true smiles was plastered on his face, and his eyes shone like polished amethysts. While he enjoyed seeing Tsuzuki like this, Hisoka couldn't help but feel…jealous of the boy playing with his lover.

 

Hisoka didn't know how to play. Such frivolousness had been frowned upon by his parents, even before he was sent to the basement. And afterwards, he'd felt no urge to play. He needed and wanted other things at the time. Now, however, he felt like he had missed something important.

 

“Hisoka?” asked a familiar, concerned voice. The empath jumped at how close the voice actually was.

 

He'd been so lost in his thoughts that he hadn't noticed that Tsuzuki and the boy had finished their game, and that his partner had joined him on the bench. “Oh, is your game over?”

 

“Yeah, he had to go home,” replied Tsuzuki, leaning against the bench, and flinging an arm across the back, unconsciously drawing Hisoka closer to him.

 

Hisoka allowed the older man to do so, enjoying the relative warmth of his lover's body. “What were you two playing?”

 

“Marbles,” Tsuzuki replied absently, glancing around the park. “It was one of my favorite games when I was that age.”

 

“Oh,” said Hisoka quietly, looking away.

 

Tsuzuki turned his head sharply at the tone in his lover's voice. He knew something was wrong, but couldn't quite place it…until he saw where Hisoka was staring. His eyes were locked onto the slightly scuffed out ring in the dirt where he had played with the boy. It suddenly all made sense.

 

Smiling slightly, the amethyst-eyed man pressed his lips into the wheat-colored hair crowning his lover's head. “It's never too late, you know.”

 

“Huh?”

 

“Just because you're an adult doesn't mean you have to stop playing. I do it all the time,” replied Tsuzuki, loving the cute look of confusion on Hisoka's face. “It's easy.”

 

“All that playing would explain the small mountain of paperwork sitting on your desk, wouldn't it?” asked Hisoka severely, though his green eyes twinkled with suppressed humor.

 

“Um….” Tsuzuki scuffed his feet on the ground, flushing slightly and starting to look puppyish. Hisoka managed to hide a smile. Sometimes he found his older lover's antics extremely cute…other times they made him want to strangle the man.

 

“Don't worry about it,” Hisoka said quietly. He wasn't sure if he meant the paperwork mountain or about playing.

 

Tsuzuki turned a blinding true smile on him. “Sank you, `Soka-chan!”

 

Unable to help himself, the blonde blushed. The pet name was supposed to be kept private, not that the other man ever did. “Tsuzuki!”

 

A warm chuckle escaped his dark-haired lover. “Still so much fun to tease…. But I'll let you off with any easy game to start with, Hisoka.”

 

“What's that?” asked the younger shinigami, curious despite himself.

 

“Tag. Whoever is `it' has to catch the other people in the game. Whoever he catches first then becomes `it',” Tsuzuki explained patiently.

 

“Sounds simple.”

 

“It is. And you're `it!'” cried Tsuzuki, pressing his lips hurriedly against Hisoka's, before pulling away and hurrying off. “Catch me and you win a prize!”

 

Hisoka sat stock still for a moment, the manner of being named “it” rooting him in place. But then what his lover had said about a prize, and the smirk that went with it made the younger man put one foot in front of the other in chase. He knew exactly what kind of prize Tsuzuki had in mind, and he certainly wanted to win that. Maybe there was something to this “playing” after all.