BREAKING THE GAME
CHAPTER FOUR
After Tsuzuki’s departure, Tatsumi worked well into the night. The damages and expenses documentation
genuinely had to be completed by somebody, and though it took him a lot longer than it would
have done Tsuzuki, the secretary was able to cobble together much of the relevant information
from Hisoka’s reports. However, he would also need to access Tsuzuki’s PC.
He picked up the phone.
“Watari-san, are you still wasting the department’s electricity?”
“Hey there, hypocrite,” came the cheery reply. “I bet you’re not sat in the dark either.”
“Yes, but I don’t have Bunsen burners on all day.”
“Bunsen burners run on gas,” Watari pointed out helpfully.
Tatsumi gritted his teeth. “Which makes them, if anything, even more expensive. But that isn't the issue. I need a favour. Could you hack Tsuzuki-san’s network
and email passwords?”
A low whistle. “That’s not very by-the-book. Do you want to check if he’s been sending
mucky mails or something?”
“No, of course not, I just need some details of his last investigation. Don’t pretend to be
coy, you’d do it if he had something you wanted.”
“Yeah, but then I’d have motivation. What’s it worth?”
“Nothing.”
“Wah, you utter cheapskate.”
“Look,” Tatsumi tried not to let his frustration show in his voice. Watari was always this
way; he didn’t know why it grated on him so much tonight in particular. “This is fallout from last
week. That person was too upset to handle it himself, and if I don’t get the case details so I can do
it for him he’s going to draw the wrong kind of attention from up above.”
Watari paused. “OK,” he said, a little more seriously. “But if there’s trouble, I’m telling
the teacher you pulled rank. Gimme a minute to get to the server room, my terminal here’s running
a simulation.”
“Thank you. Phone me on Tsuzuki-san’s line,” said Tatsumi, trying to blank out the echoes set
off by Watari’s use of the word ‘teacher’.
He replaced the receiver, catching sight of his own hand as he did so. He noticed how long his
fingers were, and how they tapered in a slightly feminine way which had always embarrassed
him. He turned the hand palm up and studied it. Eternally smooth.
Better get moving now, Watari wouldn’t take long.
Tatsumi was relieved to quit his office; at the very least he would no longer be irritated
by the ink stain, which he would definitely remove in tomorrow’s daylight. First he took a trip to the
rest room to straighten his increasingly tired-looking suit in front of the mirror and fill his coffee mug
with water for the third time that evening.
As he raised the drink to his lips in the cool atmosphere of the tiled room, he realised that, rather
than being erased by the flow of water, the taste of Tsuzuki had now transferred itself to the rim of his
mug. Tatsumi lowered his hand, hesitated, raised it again, tried to reach for the soap dispenser,
realised he was still holding the mug and would have to put it down first, then froze in place, utterly
bewildered by his own indecision.
The western-style cup itself had been a present from Tsuzuki. It said “I’m not superior, I’m just
better than you” in red writing on the side. Tatsumi had vowed never to use such a tacky artefact,
but it always seemed to be conveniently around.
Tatsumi felt his arm coming up again. His tongue swept around the china rim and
tasted again the secretions of traumatised flesh, sickly, shocking and sweet. In return for the
uncounted times Tatsumi’s fingers had lightly brushed at the face of a sad little boy he did not
dare to really touch, Tsuzuki had given him a choking handful of sweat, pain and adult need.
Need.
Tatsumi dumped the mug on a shelf and leant uncomfortably against the
projecting lip of a sink, bringing his forefingers up to rub his eyes behind his glasses. The feelings
of release and shame from forty years ago had come over him again. This memory did not often
get out, and when it did he treated it without mercy. Tatsumi waited, half conscious of what he was
doing and half in adamant denial, but nothing happened. The carefully maintained springs of his
repression refused to snap into place.
Instead, he pictured his lover’s eyes as they had been that definitive night, unclouded
wells of trust, fear and love, peering over his pinned shoulder. Tatsumi remembered the taste of
Tsuzuki’s liquid self when it had been more than just a residue. The contours of his muscles as
they bunched, trembled and relaxed under Tatsumi’s control. The exalted cry as he finally
released his pain.
Enough!
Tatsumi reached for the mug, ready to rinse it out, but at that moment he heard a
phone ringing.
Tonight meant nothing, he told himself as he hurried towards the Kyushu area office.
You’ve been overworked with the accounts, and Tsuzuki was overwrought because of that painful
case. You’re not like that normally, and he isn’t either. He’ll have forgotten it completely by now,
his moods change so fast. He’s probably at home, happily immersed in something ridiculous on
the television.
If he does think about that time forty years ago, then he’s as embarrassed as you are.
Tonight will end up the same way, except that this time you won’t let it damage your friendship.
he’ll thank you for pretending nothing’s happened when you see him tomorrow.
And he never normally thinks about that night, does he.
Does he?
Of course not. Now do your job.
“Yes, Watari-san, have you found it?”
Watari’s voice was amused.
“He’s got one and the same password for everything. Technology and our little
sweetie-freak don’t go together.”
Tatsumi clamped down on the affectionate amusement that surged up in a corner of
his mind. He couldn’t afford the luxury.
“Typical,” he commented briskly. “What is it?”
“Sakura.”
~~~~~~~~~~
Half-drunk in the late evening after his clumsy flight from the secretary’s office, Tsuzuki decided that Tatsumi would want him to shower.
It seemed a Tatsumi thing to do, a ritual cleansing, but he probably wouldn’t have wanted Tsuzuki
to eye the belt lying on his pile of clothes, have an attack of self-reproach and end up crying, or to
drip shampoo into his eyes and knock the bottle down the toilet. And certainly not to begin frantic
masturbation, leaning against the tiles while the heat made his head spin, possessed by the
images and sensations of forty years.
No amount of sake could blot out the living memory of Tatsumi, in all his aspects, hard
curves naked on Tsuzuki’s bed or hidden under brown cloth. Spectacles gleaming in judgment.
Handing over cake with a smile. Removing his belt and doubling it in his hand. Eyeing the end of
a cane as if it had just insulted him. Pressing his cock against Tsuzuki’s back, spurting sweet and
excruciating warmth into wounds which ached through a post-orgasmic haze. Holding Tsuzuki
down on the bed so he would not be swept away.
Tsuzuki brought himself off with the mechanical efficiency of disgust, deft even in his half-drunk
condition, trembling with lust and self-revulsion, unable to stop. Their relationship was dead, he
had killed it, it had never been. He had no right to ask any more of Tatsumi, who simply wanted
friendship and that curious, quintessentially Tatsumi-ish arrangement where he watched over
everything Tsuzuki did while pretending not to care.
Crystal clear even after forty years, Tsuzuki remembered the blended lust and
compassion in Tatsumi’s eyes and the slashing lick of the belt. The humiliation and liberation of
being held fast by a pain that forced him to beg for mercy which would not come. He had
abandoned himself utterly and his lover had kept him safe.
The sweetest and most agonising truth was that, for the brief time that Tsuzuki was writhing under
his hand, Tatsumi too had forgotten to be afraid.
Tatsumi was still capable of wanting that connection, or he would never have taken the cane
when Tsuzuki offered it to him. But if he hadn’t realised this about himself tonight, it was never
going to happen.
Tsuzuki slumped to the floor of the shower, stubbing his toe against the rim, and cried in earnest
while hissing streaks of water struck his back and dwindled away.
~~~~~~~~~~
Tatsumi woke at his own desk, raised his head from a crinkled, dribble-stained sleeve and
realised with horrified confusion that he could hear Konoe arriving in the next office. While he'd
spent the night in this place and position before, no power in the underworld could normally make
him oversleep. What could have come over him?
Tatsumi rose stiffly into a sitting position and regarded his damp sleeve distastefully. The dry
cleaners...
... vanished in the searing recall of Tsuzuki forgetting himself in pleasure as he arched against the
chair, his wounded hand still glistening with Tatsumi’s saliva.
Emotionally receptive after his deep sleep, Tatsumi understood what he had witnessed: Tsuzuki
truly free of the pain he carried closer than his shadow. That had happened twice only. Forty
years ago and yesterday evening.
Overnight, the past had changed shape. It suddenly came to Tatsumi that he had a sexual
history, albeit a painfully curtailed one, running in tandem with his surface awareness of himself as
a shadowmaster and a shinigami.
Yeuch.
Sex? Why was he thinking of sex? Last night he’d been doing paperwork, nothing unusual about
that. But he’d been doing it because Tsuzuki... yes, the damage and expenses forms. Tatsumi
realised with relief that they had been completed by force of will in the small hours. They were
sitting calmly in his out tray now, mercifully beyond dribble range.
Details swam up from the strange mental sea of last night. It had been 3am, and he’d been
trying to keep the word “sakura” out of his head as he scrolled through PC files in the Kyushu area
office. His eyes had blurred while Tsuzuki’s Hello Kitty eraser and cake crumbs and broken pen
pot mocked him with their owner’s absence. Then he’d come back to his own clear desk to put
his head down just for a little while.
Now sun was streaming merrily through the window behind him, normalising his world. Pot plant,
filing cabinet, shelves.
The phone rang. Tatsumi snatched it up before it could make another offensive noise, wincing as
his stiff muscles protested at the sudden movement. On the other end was Konoe, wanting to
know whether Tatsumi was going to have the forecasts ready for him after lunch. Tatsumi had
done them days ago, and said so. Odd that Konoe should be fussing about that so early in the
morning, he was normally a last-minute type. Maybe Tatsumi’s good example was rubbing off on
him.
Tatsumi put the receiver down, reflecting on the joys of being organised, and suddenly feeling a
lot more himself. He stretched as decorously as possible, feeling the aches of the night
coagulate and flow out through his fingers.
Sakura... it was just a word. With Tsuzuki, it could simply be the first thing he’d seen on looking out
of the window as Watari tried to show him how to use the network.
Tatsumi certainly wanted it to be just a word. How terrible if Tsuzuki remembered that
embarrassing incident as anything other than the catalyst for the end of their partnership, an end
which had been inevitable anyway.
Had Tsuzuki been genuinely upset last night? Oh, Tatsumi had tried to phone him, numb with fear,
but he’d just got that maddening message: “You have reached the voicemail of Tsuzuki Asato. I’m sorry I’m unavailable at the moment. Please leave a cookie after the tone.” Giggling. Beep.
Then the line went dead, because Tsuzuki cleared the memory of his phone so seldom that it
was maxed out.
Just as well Tatsumi hadn’t got through and said anything regrettable.
Well now, he would probably have time to freshen up before Tsuzuki wandered in and Tatsumi
could combine scolding him with getting him to sign the finished forms.
It’s all right, it’s all right, it’s over.
Tatsumi glanced at the clock. And realised in horror that Konoe had only come in after attending
the monthly meeting of divisional directors, and that not even for Tsuzuki would it be first thing in
the morning any more.
~~~~~~~~~~
For what may have been the first time in his afterlife, Tsuzuki woke up ten minutes before Tatsumi,
though he did not know it. He caught sight of his watch lying sideways on the floor, ululated gently
in despair and propelled himself out of bed.
Even though he didn’t have a hangover – he wasn’t organised to have enough sake in, and had
been too depressed to go out for more – the vertical lift-off was a shock to his emphatically non-
morning-oriented system. But he earnestly wanted to be on time for work for once. It was the only
way to apologise to Tatsumi without openly referring to the fact that there was something to
apologise for, which would only compound his offence in the secretary's eyes.
He made it, just about, by dint of expending far too much energy on teleporting from his room to
the path in front of work.
Tatsumi did not emerge from his office for the first three hours of the day.
~~~~~~~~~~
“Why did nobody rouse me?” Tatsumi demanded of his pot plant as he shook himself down and rubbed his
remaining sore joints. The plant said nothing, but it could not have expressed the
concept because they’re shit scared of you any better if the planes of its leaves had been
terrified faces. This realisation annoyed the secretary, generated a stab of self-pity,
pleased him, and then sent him back to being annoyed because he was holding dialogue with a
pot plant, and this madness had to stop before he degenerated to Tsuzuki’s level.
Gods, surely his colleagues must have realised something was up when he failed to emerge for
coffee? They were out there laughing at him, they had to be.
No, in fact it was more likely that his rare lack of interest in caffeine had scared them into leaving
him alone even more.
The plant seemed to be wilting under his gaze.
“That is
correct,” Tatsumi told it.
Nothing else for it: he had to leave his office, and do it now. He urgently needed Tsuzuki’s
approval and signature on the wretched damages and expenses documentation so he could
send it on up before the higher-ups’ paperwork review.
He had been working on this stuff all morning, obviously. And by the gods, he was still Shokan
Divisional Secretary Tatsumi Seiichirou, and he would strike terror into the servile soul of any
employee who dared suggest he had not.
“Leave whatever it is on my desk,” he told Terazuma,
who very coincidentally just happened to be loitering at the mouth of the admin corridor as he
swept past. Two more turns, and he was approaching the Kyushu office.
He slowed down. He wasn’t scared, he just didn’t want to... to... That was Tsuzuki’s voice.
“No, Hisoka, I can’t,” he was saying. “If it were just me, yes. But it wouldn’t be fair to Tatsumi. You
know how private he is.”
Hisoka. An empath. Of course.
Tatsumi went cold... Though
Hisoka would never violate Tsuzuki’s mind. If Tsuzuki wanted last night to be forgotten – which
obviously he would as much as Tatsumi did, because it was the only sensible course – then
everything was still safe, and Tatsumi was about to make sure it stayed that way.
Tatsumi pressed the forms he was holding between splayed hands, feeling them dimple in the
slight dampness. So he withdrew his palms again, because he was master of himself and
disliked mess. This time Tsuzuki would finally realise that reliance on him was fatal, recoil from
him forever and become stronger for it. Tatsumi prepared himself to march forward into the office
demanding a signature, scolding Tsuzuki for forcing him to do his paperwork for him yet again.
He would make it clear he knew about the password, and was disgusted by it.
Haven’t I said before that I don’t like idiots?
Tatsumi would become a fiery tornado of sarcasm and efficiency, to snap every last shoot of
emotion and cauterise the trunk forever. If only Tsuzuki’s voice wasn’t so desolately sad.
Then he heard Hisoka’s voice rising in near-hysteria, throwing out seemingly jumbled fragments
of accusation which made all too much sense to Tatsumi.
“...What I can’t believe is that Tatsumi is taking advantage of it...”
A truth so intimately horrible that Tatsumi welcomed the anger which billowed up through his
stomach and sheathed his heart in its familiar protective glove. It eclipsed the sick fear that tried
to rise with it and mastered the strange pulse of relief which had, by a split second, preceded both
sensations.
How much had that idiot Tsuzuki let slip? The damage limitation was obviously down to Tatsumi.
He was going to do it well, and he was going to do it right now.
Tatsumi did not feel himself
travel the last few metres to the office. He heard Tsuzuki bleating “Hisoka, please. I’ve told you it
won’t happen again. Tatsumi made that clear enough,” then he was at the doorway, glaring in.
Tsuzuki was standing up and leaning over his desk, arms held up at awkward angles as if he was
hugging the air. Hisoka was a defensive hunch against the far wall. Had they been geometric
shapes, they would have tessellated perfectly.
He could just retreat, leave Hisoka to comfort Tsuzuki, erase himself from the scene like the stain
he was. If Hisoka thought him a monster, so much the better. Tatsumi needed nothing for himself,
he could feed off Tsuzuki and Hisoka’s relationship.
Underneath it all, that had been the plan – until Tsuzuki came to him seeking the particular
something that Hisoka could not offer. In forty years’ time, maybe... No, not even then.
That was why Hisoka had right of judgment over Tatsumi.
The secretary decidedly disliked feeling that his entire soul was in the hands of somebody who
did not even know it was there. If Hisoka judged unfavourably...
The boy shinigami was drawing breath to do just that.
“I have?” inquired Tatsumi coldly, before Hisoka could speak. Oh, he was proud of his
unflappable formal politeness as two frightened faces swung round to take him in. He did not look
directly at Tsuzuki, though the question was superficially addressed to him. Instead he focused
on Hisoka, who had gone very still, outwardly poised and canny as a nervous cat. Tatsumi
admired that in him, that defiance and toughness overlaying a kernel of deep emotion.
If only.... no. Everything had to be strangled. Now.
“Exactly what have I made clear?” Tatsumi pressed on, stepping into the room. “And what in Meifu
is all this shouting about?”
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