The walls are bright, and he can taste the iodine. The copper, slated steel. (Probing instruments. Muted lines. "Shadows --- And I couldn't let him die --- Would have been --- I'm so sorry I ---")

He can see the golden whips of hair. Brighter than sunshine. (It hurts his eyes, in a stinging, brittle light. It hurts more than the scattered vibrancy on that night. That lone evening. Black-ashes, skin burned to the bone. The way Tsuzuki's fingers rattled. Ivory. Skeletal.)

And he wakes up to that, his skin growing back. His hands bound fast. (Thrashing in his sleep, Watari later explained, he needed some restraint. He displays his cheek to prove it.)

And he cannot watch him look to him like that. Concern frothing. Bubbling gloom. A smattering of muttered blue in the wake of yellowed plumes of thought. (Words. Never spoken. A childish rind, left in hope of talk. "BonIcan'ttellyouhowluckyyouwere.")

So, Hisoka nods. Permits the sterile touch of Watari's fingers on his shoulder. (Still sore. Aching. A reverberation of wailing doves. Of hellish lands. Of the far-flung language of Tsuzuki's eyes. Mouth. Curling arms. Gathered grips. Shredded calico. Foreign hair. Rushing reeds, that hissed of verbal atrocities. Like the gulf of dreams.)

That whispered sacred whims. Of tender-footed fancies.

And Watari left him alone. Becoming the answer to Tatsumi's call. Beckoned. (And he saw the way Tatsumi's gaze wavered. His stern lips drawn in a tighter line. Looking both evanescent and impermeable in that tired lapse of time.)

As if to say: "Kurosaki. You contemplate what will become of this, now."

(And contemplate, he did. In drift of his snow-stained bed. As white as gleaming bones that still muttered, foul, beneath the sinewy muscles of his legs.)

And contemplate, he later did. His slipping consciousness. A strangled shout. Caught in his teeth, that closed around his tongue. (It healed. Quick. Effortless. He was getting better. His hands, he noted, were unwrapped. Pink like artificial sugars that decorated each and every raw slab of cookie dough. That failed attempt at kindness. Kurosaki-san, you overcooked them! A helpful smile. Her hair gleaming under the dull kitchen lights.)

Wakaba stood before him. And the scent of gingersnaps, pouring through his hazy senses. The thin gauze that fluttered tantalizingly in the front of his mind.

"I brought you these." (Day two? Three? Wakaba's hands were soothing and bright upon his forehead.) She appeared to shimmer under the infirmary lights. Like glass. Like marble. Rose quartz. Gold. "I know you don't like sweets." (Bi-colored eyes. Half-on him. Her words like brooks and streams. Lost under the babble. He nodded off, again.)

It seemed he blinked and she was gone.

(And sweet-sour scent of night was clogging his nose. The bitter taste of bile at the back of his throat. A strict command at his bedside. In the form of a note:

'Kurosaki,
I will not have you wandering through the facility, again.

Stay in bed. Next time, I will dock your pay.

By order of the Secretary.')

And in his mind. The need to rise buzzed. (Had he left? He could not remember. He just knew that, somehow, he was convinced he must go. Somehow. Somehow---Oh.) The tile was clammy. Or was it his feet? (His knees shook, slightly. He felt as though the floor was caving, underneath.)

And each sound, it seemed, was augmented by the silence. (The timid pad of feet. The struggle of his breathing. The search for something. Nonsensical sentences, fragmented - flooding stairwells. Flooding from his lips.)

And each murmur came in clearer as he breeched the facilities' door. (The outside air. Cool. His clothes. Singed. For the first time, his memory - once static - parted, left it. Cleared.)

And---

A brief jog. He knew --- A weary tone:

"Hisoka?" (The swish of robes. The sudden emergence of ---)

"Tsuzuki?" (His peripheral vision. Swam. He found soon they were pressed against each other, side by side, for support.)

"You---"
"Came looking ---"
"For me?"

Asynchronism, synchronism. Hisoka found, after a moment, he rolled his eyes. (They were heavy. He almost wished he did not. Tsuzuki's skin was warm. He smelled of antiseptic. He smelled of ashes. Snow. Dust.)

Tsuzuki's laugh was raw. Muted. ,Hisoka.
(And Hisoka swore, more than once, his eyes were only irritated by the sudden chill. By the scent of medicinal herbs. By the scratchy fabric of Tsuzuki's hospital robe. As Tsuzuki chanced an arm around his shoulders. A gentle, silent affirmation. A thank you, in the quiet, where nothing else sufficed.)

And he let him hide against him. Let him let these feelings go. Left to feel foolish. Like a child. Left to deny the wetness he left on his chest. The moisture of a watery frown.

Left to echo this with a smile, while his words, weighted and exhausted, spoke:
"You're such an idiot. You're an idiot!"

And Tsuzuki's voice. His own words.
"I know."