Work Text:
Tsuchigomori lifts his head a fraction when the distinct sound of a door opening clicks through the air. He doesn’t need to see who it is to know. “Need something, Honorable No.7?” Hopefully something isn’t relentless torment. Hanako’s mastered the art of being a brat.
Silence responds, stiff and wrong.
He turns slowly, feigning exaggerated irritation as he rests his arm on the back of the chair. “Don’t tell me you’re ignoring me—”
If he had a heart, it would stop.
Curled up tight on the sofa is Hanako’s small frame, legs pressed together with his arms wrapped around them, his back facing Tsuchigomori. Ghosts don’t need to breathe, but he can see the rise and fall of Hanako’s chest, a little unsteady—trying to control something that wants to spiral. His tsueshiro’s float above him, statue-like with lazy wisps trailing off them. Dying sunlight spills on him, further highlighting his stature by how he’s trying to hide himself.
It’s painfully familiar. His mouth screws, instinctively trying to find the perfect words that will make Hanako say something. He presses his lips into a thin line when they don’t come. As infuriatingly helpless it feels, he knows if Hanako doesn’t say anything, he won’t be able to drag it out. And there’s no guess in his head as to why he’s sulking. The need for knowledge itches his mind, the thought he could read Hanako’s book laying heavily.
He doesn’t care about privacy.
It still feels like a breach of it to do that.
Mentally waving it away, he swivels back to his dreadfully slow-going work. As much as he complains about kids, grading their assignments is what he hates the most. Kids are a hassle, and their work is worse. The past brushes him, soft and tinged with hurt. Hanako’s grades were never very good. Back then, the seemingly interminable decline didn’t bother him, when he already knew why it was happening... when he thought it would get better. Now, he wishes he tried a little harder.
Funny, to care when it’s too late.
A clink makes him turn again, chair creaking. Hanako’s bad mood has moved to the fish tank by the window, him sullenly poking at the glass. From Tsuchigomori’s angle, he can see part of Hanako’s face. His head is resting on the table, tired eyes staring at the fish as they press back in the tank, opposite to where his finger is touching the glass. Dejection wavers in the watery half-moons of his eyes, mouth pulled into a frown.
The listlessness of his posture doesn’t look like Hanako at all. It’s an unnerving sight, a boy he’s used to being energetic suddenly drained.
(It looks like someone else)
“Stop scaring the fish,” Tsuchigomori deadpans, annoyance lacking heat.
The only acknowledgement of Tsuchigomori’s words is a drop of Hanako’s hand. He turns his head, burying it into his arms.
Say something. Just say something.
Crawling nostalgia digs into Tsuchigomori’s gut, waiting for a desolate child to give him something to work with, and finding nothing every time. All he can do is swivel back to his work and wait until Hanako decides to throw him a bone that falls apart when examined, or leaves.
Shortly after, that little clink comes back. He groans loudly, slamming down his papers with more force than necessary. A scalding remark rests on his tongue and it extinguishes the moment he sees Hanako again. He's staring at the fish like they’ve delivered news of death, brows turned downward, devastation just laying under the surface. Concern flits by, but he lets it pass. To his knowledge, Hanako’s little assistant and the exorcist boy are fine. So what's the issue?
He hates how much he wants to help, despite fifty years of knowing it would do no good.
Maybe it’s the regret.
“...Hanako—”
Using Hanako’s name may have been too much emotion for him, because like a child throwing a tantrum the second Tsuchigomori speaks he drags the curtain in front of himself. The harsh sound of metal screeching on metal makes Tsuchigomori wince. He raises his hands placatingly—though Hanako can’t see with the physical barrier he’s made—and turns back to the papers on his desk.
Unwillingly, memories of a battered boy flash in his mind, clutching curtains as he tried his hardest to disappear behind them.
It goes on like that for awhile. He looks up when he’s tired of staring at the same words, and finds Hanako sprawled back on the couch, laying face-down. Another time, he’s messing with the fake skeleton, and another, standing by the beakers and staring at his reflection in them. He always goes back to the couch, never looking at Tsuchigomori.
Time flies until a near hour has passed. By the time he notices, a soft presence moves next to him, near unnoticeable. The lack of piercing eyes on him makes Hanako feel more invisible, existing just enough to stand beside Tsuchigomori with a head laid on the desk, too heavy to keep upright.
Tsuchigomori carefully keeps his pen writing. It’s after a few minutes of staving off irritation—fed up with the silence—that he chances a glance at Hanako. His eyes are startlingly blank, but, curiously, not as distant as they were before, like he’s looking at something this time. Subtly, Tsuchigomori follows the gaze, eyes landing on some of the books on his desk. They’re ones he needs to add extra notes to, or patch up in some way due to students' recklessness. But, that's not it.
Hanako is specifically casting his eyes on an astronomy book with torn pages inside.
Whenever I look at that rock, I feel like I could go anywhere.
The decision already made, he heaves a sigh, flattening the papers and picking them up in a neat stack with one hand. Satisfied, he places them into a drawer, admittedly glad to no longer be picking away at them. Then, with an air of picture perfect innocence surrounding him, he slides the astronomy book out from its place.
If he was anyone else, he wouldn’t have noticed the shift in Hanako’s demeanor, perking up ever-so-slightly.
He doesn’t talk of his old passion anymore, especially apparent when compared to a boy with a forgotten name and prized possession in his hands. Despite it tapering off, it seems his interest has stayed.
(It was too late, even back then. A teacher instead of reaching the moon)
Tsuchigomori stays on the pages a little longer than needed, hovering when there’s a lack of anything to repair or add to. Hanako watches like a tired hawk, eyes sharp as ever, but the spark faded. He looks like he could pass out right there, lazily eyeing the various pictures and words inking the pages. Tsuchigomori would guess Hanako knows everything in this book—some things last, even in death—but it doesn’t deter him.
Sitting in a quiet so still it’s frozen, only the sound of a page turning breaking the ice, it’s almost peaceful. If he was an escapist, he could pretend for this moment he’s just a teacher, and that there’s light in Hanako’s eyes.
Hard to escape to something that was never reality. As it is, he’s a timeless man trying to give a semblance of comfort in the only way Hanako will let him.
They keep their agreed silence, and he’s halfway through the book when Hanako abruptly jolts up with more purpose than Tsuchigomori’s seen all afternoon. A vague panic crosses his face, then diminishes, his mouth thinned into a displeased line. He stands straight, moving as if to leave.
“Going somewhere?” Tsuchigomori questions.
“...the garden,” Hanako says, voice barely above a whisper.
And then he’s gone.
Tsuchigomori has a pathetically short minute to think before his train of thought is interrupted by Kou barging in, holding a terrifyingly gross container of bugs and yelling about something related to his books.