Lunchtime be damned.
As in, I'm posting this now. As radical an act for me as Willow's eating a banana when it isn't lunchtime was for her, since my natural inclination is to hang onto it forever so that I can tinker with the same few lines in the middle over and over, without risking the awful possibility that anyone will ever see it. But I've been tinkering with those lines for a day and a half now, and I'm not convinced I'm making things better. Also, I'm not convinced that, having started with something elliptical to the point of incomprehensibility, I have not now elaborated to the point of hopeless tediousness.
So it's time to put it up, right? Only behind a cut tag, because I still feel weird about this.
Oh, oops. It's a vignette-ish kind of thing that takes place during the King of Swords arc. It's definitely based on the manga version, which strikes me as critically different in emotional tone from what little I've seen of the anime. Anyway, spoilers, if mild ones, through that point. Warnings for unbeta'dness, wilfully ignorant mangling of Japanese social conventions, and possibly a harder-edged Hisoka than the average. This is a stand-alone -- it actually started life as a drabble -- but it seems likely to me that a whole alternate universe would branch out from this point, even though what happens here is a minor ripple in the stream.
So.
Portrait of the Empath as an Involuntary Voyeur
=================================
Hisoka doesn't get roses. Instead, he gets a melon. Fragrant as a summer morning, translucent as jade, wrapped in painted silk inside an ebony box. There's a note with it.
A frisson of dread accompanies notes aboard the Queen Camellia these days, and Hisoka turns it over automatically, looking for the ribbon and seal of the killer. But they're not there, and this is a different writing paper, and his own name is on the envelope, written in Western characters in a harsh, fluid hand.
"My dear Hisoka--" the note begins. The choice of English is a clever touch, evading the delicate question of an honorific, rendering the opening endearment correct and formal even as it crawls along Hisoka's nerves. He pauses a moment to admire the wit of it before turning his attention to the body of the note.
The rest is written in short, uneven lines with irregular punctuation: poetry, Hisoka guesses. His English isn't up to this, so he takes it to the Gushoushin. The Elder G looks at it, taps his keyboard, looks at the result, and mutters. He taps again. "It is a poem," he confirms at last. "Very famous. It says:
'This is just to say
I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox
and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast.
Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold.'"
There's no signature, but then, there doesn't need to be, does there? Hisoka glances over at the Elder G. The Gushoushin are hard to read, even for him, but Hisoka gets the distinct sense of carefully-presented unconcern, as though the Elder G were looking at the ceiling and whistling. It's none of my business, and I have no opinion, and I'm not saying anything until I know which way Kurosaki-kun's going to jump.
This is one of the reasons he likes the Gushoushin, this cool acceptance of all human follies, or at least, all those that do not involve the destruction of libraries. It steadies him, helps him kick aside the tangled mess of feeling that Muraki always rouses in him. He has a rare chance to think about this in some kind of orderly way here, now, without Tsuzuki's feelings about the doctor, and Tsubaki-hime's feelings about the doctor, swirling around in his head pretending to belong to him. One or the other of them's bound to show up at his door any time now; he may not get this chance again. So, which way is Kurosaki-kun going to jump?
First, dispose of the obvious question. Is Muraki lying?
Answer: who knows? Perhaps not even Tsuzuki: Muraki, after all, has proved to have a cavalier attitude about other people's memories. But Tsuzuki came back from his exploration of the Queen Camellia's cold storage hold -- the icebox, yes -- giddy, with Muraki's scent on him; and when Hisoka mentioned it he blushed and babbled and changed the subject and fled.
Say it's true, then. Next question. Does he have a problem with this?
He's expected to have a problem with it, that's clear enough. Tsuzuki would be shocked that he’d even had to ask himself, and will probably be dreadfully disappointed if he doesn't. But Tsuzuki's going to have to learn to live with the disappointment, or else Hisoka's going to have to fake the outrage, because he's not finding shock and horror anywhere in his own reactions. In fact, what he’s finding is a temptation - well, no. He is not really tempted to send Muraki roses. But he is tempted to send him a bill for 50,000 yen.
It's not that he doesn't care about Tsuzuki: far from it. Hisoka is fond of his idiot partner; and he feels protective of him (even as he recognizes the absurdity of that, as though a firefly had appointed itself protector to a dragon); and Muraki likes to hurt his lovers. But Tsuzuki's not a thirteen-year-old mortal; he has the raw power to protect himself if he needs to, and have enough left over to level half of Meifu. The ways he can get hurt from this aren't ways Hisoka can protect him from, or that he'd even have a right to protect him from. And anyway Tsuzuki seems just fine, blushing and babbling aside.
Which isn't exactly the shock it might be. The Kurosaki heir was given a good formal education, monster or no, and he recognizes a pattern in his history with Muraki.
Hisoka's first meeting with Muraki was tragedy; the second, in Nagasaki, was melodrama; this third time is the repetition as farce. Tsuzuki’s blushing and babbling are only to be expected, embarrassment and the need to convince people that they didn’t really see what they thought they saw being the classic dangers faced by characters in a farce. He, his partner, and his murderer have been trapped for days in what seems to be an endless Act One; and Hisoka is sick of it. Furthermore, he’s not sure he likes the part he’s been assigned. He has wished that he could sit Tsuzuki down and explain to him, in clear simple words that the idiot can't evade, that the only way Tsuzuki can shield Hisoka from his desire for Muraki is to not have any desire for Muraki; that Hisoka understands that Tsuzuki can no more decide to stop wanting Muraki than he could decide to stop wanting pie; that since this is the case, Tsuzuki might as well stop torturing them both and take what he wants. Or allow what he wants to take him, as the case may be.
He's tried: Enma knows he's tried. He's told Tsuzuki he doesn't see anything inherently wrong with Muraki's advances. He's joked about the worldly advantages of taking a wealthy lover. He's displayed nothing more threatening than amusement in the face of situations like Tsuzuki's ridiculous poker game (and what makes Tsuzuki think he could convince anyone, let alone Hisoka, that he's an innocent victim of sexual harassment when he does things like bet the use of his body on a hand of cards?). But none of that has worked, and he doesn't dare make it any more explicit. Talking about it directly would force Tsuzuki to acknowledge that Hisoka knows what's going on, and if that happened, Tsuzuki would only blame himself for not being able to protect Hisoka from yet another melodramatically-unforgiveable failure.
And for Tsuzuki to blame himself for things does not help. So far, it's only made the situation worse.
Worse, because it’s turned what began as a joyous attraction to beautiful dangerous things into something twisted and dark, laced with flavors of guilt and compulsion and love of pain. Tsuzuki's revulsion at what Muraki did to Hisoka is real; but Tsuzuki wants Muraki more on account of it, not less; and he despises himself for it; and that very despising fuels his desire. Hisoka knows this isn't hurting his partner, exactly -- indeed, he can feel Tsuzuki's pleasure in it, a fierce bright strand in his partner's mind -- but he has to live with it too, and he liked Tsuzuki's first reaction to Muraki better. These bits of overheated fantasy about Muraki and knives and silk restraints may not be Hisoka’s, but they feel like his when Tsuzuki's having them, and really, he's more than ready to send the two of them off somewhere comfortable, preferably somewhere far away and out of his range, until they get it out of their systems. Or at least, until they take the edge off sufficiently to allow Tsuzuki to be around Hisoka without driving him nuts.
If Hisoka charged Muraki 50,000 yen a night and turned the funds in to Tatsumi, maybe he could get the secretary to fix the paperwork, and Tsuzuki would still have a job when he came back. Maybe they could go to Boston, and get married, the way Muraki's always asking in Tsuzuki's dreams. Boston would probably be far enough away. Maybe --
-- All right. No, he doesn't mind. In fact, he's a bit surprised at just how emphatically he doesn't mind. At least, as far as Tsuzuki's safety and scruples are concerned.
But it's not just about Tsuzuki and Muraki, is it? Hisoka runs over the poem again, considers its implications. Third question, then. Is Muraki right? Does he want Tsuzuki himself?
Well, how the hell should he know? Muraki wants Tsuzuki, and Tatsumi wants Tsuzuki, and random passers-by in the street want Tsuzuki; there are powers in Meifu that Hisoka hasn't even met, but that he can feel, lurking around the edges of his awareness, that want Tsuzuki; and Hisoka naturally sees precisely what they all see in him. When none of them is within range, Hisoka's mostly basking in the relief of not having to think about wanting Tsuzuki. He'll know what he actually thinks, and feels, at about the time that everybody else gets out of his head for more than an hour or two at a shot.
Which leaves only the question of the letter, and the melon. There's something oddly collegial about this formal, mocking apology for taking Hisoka's sweets. Muraki might have intended this as his revenge for Hisoka's interference in the casino, or found that he had no one better to gloat at aboard the Queen Camellia, or just be trying to keep him generally off-balance. Or he might have discovered over that hand of poker that he likes the game better when Hisoka can at least hit the ball back to him. Muraki likes him; he knows that. That's never a good thing, but . . .
If Muraki is going to insist on playing games with him, Hisoka would very much rather those games be played with letters and gifts than with curses and knives. Maybe this is a trend he ought to encourage.
He catches the Elder G's eye, looks heavenward to signal non-explosive exasperation at his partner's adventures, and is rewarded by a little ripple of complicit amusement. He thinks about plums, and recalls a stray bit of botanical trivia. Then he checks the desk of his first-class cabin and finds the writing paper.
His calligraphy, he knows, is good. His poetry rarely rises to mediocrity; but it is adequate, he thinks, for this. He grinds ink, lifts the brush, and writes:
Violet as eyes,
plums sweeten after picking.
Still good for breakfast.
Let Muraki wonder what that's supposed to mean, and whether or not Hisoka really means it. When Tsuzuki shows up an hour later and makes a beeline for the melon, he's still grinning.
_________________________________
Notes and acknowledgements:
1. Muraki is quoting William Carlos Williams, of course. I suppose that it is like him not to have provided the attribution himself -- and perhaps equally like him to tell you, should you object, that he would not like to insult his correspondent with the implication that he thought said correspondent might not recognize the poem otherwise.
The Elder Gushoushin's translation is improbably perfect, because hey, magic.
The boys, ship, and situation belong to Matsushita Yoko, and are borrowed without permission, but with gratitude and respect.
2. A friend of mine who has family in Japan swears to me that the pieces of exquisite and ridiculously-expensive fruit that are used as formal gifts for various social occasions are generally watery and tasteless. Which is all right, because no one is expected to actually try to eat them; they’re meant only as gestures. But I think a sorcerer who can arrange for his white clothes to be without bloodstains no matter what he was doing five minutes ago can probably arrange to send melons that taste and smell as good as the ones you find in France, while still managing to look as good as the ones you find in Tokyo.
The same source tells me that although it would be appropriate to send one of these things by way of apology for some minor social offense, the way an American might send flowers and an apologetic note after having too much to drink at a dinner party, this sort of gift is much more common between business associates than between friends. I have not tried to investigate any further, because I’m afraid I’ll find out that this is all wrong, and I want it not to be.
3. Tsubaki-hime, as Hisoka notes in passing, has her own fantasies about the doctor. In her case, they consist of variations on one principal plotline: Muraki's fiancee dies of a dreadful illness, one that the doctor can neither prevent nor cure, and Tsubaki-hime alone is able to comfort him in his desolation and guilt and grief. Really, it's a wonder Hisoka didn't kill her days ago.
Comments, criticism, philosophical arguments about canon or orientalism or the likely aftereffects of major childhood trauma are all welcome.
So it's time to put it up, right? Only behind a cut tag, because I still feel weird about this.
Oh, oops. It's a vignette-ish kind of thing that takes place during the King of Swords arc. It's definitely based on the manga version, which strikes me as critically different in emotional tone from what little I've seen of the anime. Anyway, spoilers, if mild ones, through that point. Warnings for unbeta'dness, wilfully ignorant mangling of Japanese social conventions, and possibly a harder-edged Hisoka than the average. This is a stand-alone -- it actually started life as a drabble -- but it seems likely to me that a whole alternate universe would branch out from this point, even though what happens here is a minor ripple in the stream.
So.
Portrait of the Empath as an Involuntary Voyeur
=================================
Hisoka doesn't get roses. Instead, he gets a melon. Fragrant as a summer morning, translucent as jade, wrapped in painted silk inside an ebony box. There's a note with it.
A frisson of dread accompanies notes aboard the Queen Camellia these days, and Hisoka turns it over automatically, looking for the ribbon and seal of the killer. But they're not there, and this is a different writing paper, and his own name is on the envelope, written in Western characters in a harsh, fluid hand.
"My dear Hisoka--" the note begins. The choice of English is a clever touch, evading the delicate question of an honorific, rendering the opening endearment correct and formal even as it crawls along Hisoka's nerves. He pauses a moment to admire the wit of it before turning his attention to the body of the note.
The rest is written in short, uneven lines with irregular punctuation: poetry, Hisoka guesses. His English isn't up to this, so he takes it to the Gushoushin. The Elder G looks at it, taps his keyboard, looks at the result, and mutters. He taps again. "It is a poem," he confirms at last. "Very famous. It says:
'This is just to say
I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox
and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast.
Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold.'"
There's no signature, but then, there doesn't need to be, does there? Hisoka glances over at the Elder G. The Gushoushin are hard to read, even for him, but Hisoka gets the distinct sense of carefully-presented unconcern, as though the Elder G were looking at the ceiling and whistling. It's none of my business, and I have no opinion, and I'm not saying anything until I know which way Kurosaki-kun's going to jump.
This is one of the reasons he likes the Gushoushin, this cool acceptance of all human follies, or at least, all those that do not involve the destruction of libraries. It steadies him, helps him kick aside the tangled mess of feeling that Muraki always rouses in him. He has a rare chance to think about this in some kind of orderly way here, now, without Tsuzuki's feelings about the doctor, and Tsubaki-hime's feelings about the doctor, swirling around in his head pretending to belong to him. One or the other of them's bound to show up at his door any time now; he may not get this chance again. So, which way is Kurosaki-kun going to jump?
First, dispose of the obvious question. Is Muraki lying?
Answer: who knows? Perhaps not even Tsuzuki: Muraki, after all, has proved to have a cavalier attitude about other people's memories. But Tsuzuki came back from his exploration of the Queen Camellia's cold storage hold -- the icebox, yes -- giddy, with Muraki's scent on him; and when Hisoka mentioned it he blushed and babbled and changed the subject and fled.
Say it's true, then. Next question. Does he have a problem with this?
He's expected to have a problem with it, that's clear enough. Tsuzuki would be shocked that he’d even had to ask himself, and will probably be dreadfully disappointed if he doesn't. But Tsuzuki's going to have to learn to live with the disappointment, or else Hisoka's going to have to fake the outrage, because he's not finding shock and horror anywhere in his own reactions. In fact, what he’s finding is a temptation - well, no. He is not really tempted to send Muraki roses. But he is tempted to send him a bill for 50,000 yen.
It's not that he doesn't care about Tsuzuki: far from it. Hisoka is fond of his idiot partner; and he feels protective of him (even as he recognizes the absurdity of that, as though a firefly had appointed itself protector to a dragon); and Muraki likes to hurt his lovers. But Tsuzuki's not a thirteen-year-old mortal; he has the raw power to protect himself if he needs to, and have enough left over to level half of Meifu. The ways he can get hurt from this aren't ways Hisoka can protect him from, or that he'd even have a right to protect him from. And anyway Tsuzuki seems just fine, blushing and babbling aside.
Which isn't exactly the shock it might be. The Kurosaki heir was given a good formal education, monster or no, and he recognizes a pattern in his history with Muraki.
Hisoka's first meeting with Muraki was tragedy; the second, in Nagasaki, was melodrama; this third time is the repetition as farce. Tsuzuki’s blushing and babbling are only to be expected, embarrassment and the need to convince people that they didn’t really see what they thought they saw being the classic dangers faced by characters in a farce. He, his partner, and his murderer have been trapped for days in what seems to be an endless Act One; and Hisoka is sick of it. Furthermore, he’s not sure he likes the part he’s been assigned. He has wished that he could sit Tsuzuki down and explain to him, in clear simple words that the idiot can't evade, that the only way Tsuzuki can shield Hisoka from his desire for Muraki is to not have any desire for Muraki; that Hisoka understands that Tsuzuki can no more decide to stop wanting Muraki than he could decide to stop wanting pie; that since this is the case, Tsuzuki might as well stop torturing them both and take what he wants. Or allow what he wants to take him, as the case may be.
He's tried: Enma knows he's tried. He's told Tsuzuki he doesn't see anything inherently wrong with Muraki's advances. He's joked about the worldly advantages of taking a wealthy lover. He's displayed nothing more threatening than amusement in the face of situations like Tsuzuki's ridiculous poker game (and what makes Tsuzuki think he could convince anyone, let alone Hisoka, that he's an innocent victim of sexual harassment when he does things like bet the use of his body on a hand of cards?). But none of that has worked, and he doesn't dare make it any more explicit. Talking about it directly would force Tsuzuki to acknowledge that Hisoka knows what's going on, and if that happened, Tsuzuki would only blame himself for not being able to protect Hisoka from yet another melodramatically-unforgiveable failure.
And for Tsuzuki to blame himself for things does not help. So far, it's only made the situation worse.
Worse, because it’s turned what began as a joyous attraction to beautiful dangerous things into something twisted and dark, laced with flavors of guilt and compulsion and love of pain. Tsuzuki's revulsion at what Muraki did to Hisoka is real; but Tsuzuki wants Muraki more on account of it, not less; and he despises himself for it; and that very despising fuels his desire. Hisoka knows this isn't hurting his partner, exactly -- indeed, he can feel Tsuzuki's pleasure in it, a fierce bright strand in his partner's mind -- but he has to live with it too, and he liked Tsuzuki's first reaction to Muraki better. These bits of overheated fantasy about Muraki and knives and silk restraints may not be Hisoka’s, but they feel like his when Tsuzuki's having them, and really, he's more than ready to send the two of them off somewhere comfortable, preferably somewhere far away and out of his range, until they get it out of their systems. Or at least, until they take the edge off sufficiently to allow Tsuzuki to be around Hisoka without driving him nuts.
If Hisoka charged Muraki 50,000 yen a night and turned the funds in to Tatsumi, maybe he could get the secretary to fix the paperwork, and Tsuzuki would still have a job when he came back. Maybe they could go to Boston, and get married, the way Muraki's always asking in Tsuzuki's dreams. Boston would probably be far enough away. Maybe --
-- All right. No, he doesn't mind. In fact, he's a bit surprised at just how emphatically he doesn't mind. At least, as far as Tsuzuki's safety and scruples are concerned.
But it's not just about Tsuzuki and Muraki, is it? Hisoka runs over the poem again, considers its implications. Third question, then. Is Muraki right? Does he want Tsuzuki himself?
Well, how the hell should he know? Muraki wants Tsuzuki, and Tatsumi wants Tsuzuki, and random passers-by in the street want Tsuzuki; there are powers in Meifu that Hisoka hasn't even met, but that he can feel, lurking around the edges of his awareness, that want Tsuzuki; and Hisoka naturally sees precisely what they all see in him. When none of them is within range, Hisoka's mostly basking in the relief of not having to think about wanting Tsuzuki. He'll know what he actually thinks, and feels, at about the time that everybody else gets out of his head for more than an hour or two at a shot.
Which leaves only the question of the letter, and the melon. There's something oddly collegial about this formal, mocking apology for taking Hisoka's sweets. Muraki might have intended this as his revenge for Hisoka's interference in the casino, or found that he had no one better to gloat at aboard the Queen Camellia, or just be trying to keep him generally off-balance. Or he might have discovered over that hand of poker that he likes the game better when Hisoka can at least hit the ball back to him. Muraki likes him; he knows that. That's never a good thing, but . . .
If Muraki is going to insist on playing games with him, Hisoka would very much rather those games be played with letters and gifts than with curses and knives. Maybe this is a trend he ought to encourage.
He catches the Elder G's eye, looks heavenward to signal non-explosive exasperation at his partner's adventures, and is rewarded by a little ripple of complicit amusement. He thinks about plums, and recalls a stray bit of botanical trivia. Then he checks the desk of his first-class cabin and finds the writing paper.
His calligraphy, he knows, is good. His poetry rarely rises to mediocrity; but it is adequate, he thinks, for this. He grinds ink, lifts the brush, and writes:
Violet as eyes,
plums sweeten after picking.
Still good for breakfast.
Let Muraki wonder what that's supposed to mean, and whether or not Hisoka really means it. When Tsuzuki shows up an hour later and makes a beeline for the melon, he's still grinning.
_________________________________
Notes and acknowledgements:
1. Muraki is quoting William Carlos Williams, of course. I suppose that it is like him not to have provided the attribution himself -- and perhaps equally like him to tell you, should you object, that he would not like to insult his correspondent with the implication that he thought said correspondent might not recognize the poem otherwise.
The Elder Gushoushin's translation is improbably perfect, because hey, magic.
The boys, ship, and situation belong to Matsushita Yoko, and are borrowed without permission, but with gratitude and respect.
2. A friend of mine who has family in Japan swears to me that the pieces of exquisite and ridiculously-expensive fruit that are used as formal gifts for various social occasions are generally watery and tasteless. Which is all right, because no one is expected to actually try to eat them; they’re meant only as gestures. But I think a sorcerer who can arrange for his white clothes to be without bloodstains no matter what he was doing five minutes ago can probably arrange to send melons that taste and smell as good as the ones you find in France, while still managing to look as good as the ones you find in Tokyo.
The same source tells me that although it would be appropriate to send one of these things by way of apology for some minor social offense, the way an American might send flowers and an apologetic note after having too much to drink at a dinner party, this sort of gift is much more common between business associates than between friends. I have not tried to investigate any further, because I’m afraid I’ll find out that this is all wrong, and I want it not to be.
3. Tsubaki-hime, as Hisoka notes in passing, has her own fantasies about the doctor. In her case, they consist of variations on one principal plotline: Muraki's fiancee dies of a dreadful illness, one that the doctor can neither prevent nor cure, and Tsubaki-hime alone is able to comfort him in his desolation and guilt and grief. Really, it's a wonder Hisoka didn't kill her days ago.
Comments, criticism, philosophical arguments about canon or orientalism or the likely aftereffects of major childhood trauma are all welcome.