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fic_promptly's Any, any, I loved every piece of him -- even the insane and dangerous ones.. fic. Sequel to "You Think You're Mad, Too Unstable" and like it, the title was snitched from Pet Shop Boys' "West End Girls", which again, also influenced the Older!Muraki/OMC.
Decker hardly expected Muraki to show up, despite the friendly promise to meet up at the same cafe where Decker had showed him the future: these medical conferences tended to drag on and he had a paper to present.
Kazutaka Muraki...the shy, skinny young surgical student, had come into his own, as it were. Decker wondered, as he sat adjusting his collar to the brisk wind that hummed among the cafe tables, if he had come into his own in another area. He watched the crowd, chiding himself for expecting a nervous young man in a dark brown trenchcoat: no doubt he'd grown past trying to look like Neil Tennant.
Decker had glanced away, when he sensed it, something nudging him to look back to the street. Looking up, he spied a pale figure in white, standing in the midst of the crowd, the passersby making room for him. He'd grown into himself: he must have stood a full six inches taller than he did ten years ago: the shy youth who'd hunched his shoulders while walking now stood erect and straight, approaching with an almost feline grace to his movements. The mud-brown trench had given way to white; even the tailored suit beneath it over a dove-grey silk Oxford shirt was white.
This was what the youngster needed to blossom into, but at the same time, Decker missed the furtive, slightly nebbish young man whom he had met so many years before.
"Kazutaka Muraki, I presume?" Decker said, standing up.
The pale newcomer smiled, offering his hand. "Doctor Muraki to be precise, but I suppose it's hard to think of a student as anything but the young man you knew."
"Yes, I see you've done some growing," Decker remarked, taking his hand. The grip was firm, but the touch was cooler than he remembered, not the most promising indicator.
"Yes, things have changed as it were," Muraki said with a small smile that left Decker feeling unsettled. It might simply seem heightened due to the fact that the younger man's whole nature had shifted, from the innocent to the experienced.
"I'd heard that you'd had some ...trouble a few years ago," Decker said, once they were seated and a waitress had brought them a pot of tea. He had to be careful, knowing he was approaching a painful topic.
Pain and something like anger flared up in Muraki's good eye, then it passed. "Yes, Sakaki, my manservant, told me that he'd informed you. A patient of mine, a boy with a brain tumor, died after I'd done as much surgery as I could to save his life. His father went mad with grief and tried to kill me: in the struggle, he succeeded in stabbing me through my right eye."
He glanced about, turning his head only slightly to the right, making certain no one was listening before he continued, his voice lowered.
"I died from my injuries. My colleagues tell me that I was dead for a half hour and that they had even signed the death certificate. They were about to inform my loved ones that I had passed...
"In that half-hour, something happened to me: that darkness, that Hunger you warned me about spoke to me," he said. "It told me that it could bring me back to life, if I would give in to it. I nearly refused, but it warned me that Ukyou Sakuraiji, my fiancee, would be left adrift in the world. I couldn't abandon her like that... and so I gave in."
"And now here you are today," Decker concluded, looking him up and down. "You've become everything I'd found that you might become. You're taller and more graceful, and you've become more beautiful than when you were young."
"Mmm, and people are finding it harder to resist my charms," Muraki replied, his voice pitched to a soft, come-hither tone. Decker felt his skin start to warm and a tugging in his loins. If they hadn't been in public, it would have been easier on his nerves if he'd simply leapt across the table into the taller male's lap, covering the other's pale face in kisses.
But he steeled his senses, and as he did so, the compulsion withdrew. "I imagine that your spells have grown stronger and more effective?" Decker asked, changing the subject.
"Mmm, they have, but there's a downside to it, of which I'm sure you're aware."
"The hunger?"
"To say nothing of the way that it goads me. But I manage: I've found a few discreet places in Shinjuku that cater to certain needs," Muraki said.
"Your fiancee isn't...?"
He shook his head. "No, she is sacrosanct: I will never let the Hunger touch her, much less sate itself on her. It respects that, though it isn't pleased with the arrangement. She is what keeps me grounded in the human world."
Decker held out one hand, palm up and open. "The offer that I made to you when you were my student, that still stands, as long as you're here."
Muraki gave him a shadow of a smirk. "I may take up your offer, at later time, perhaps when the conference is over."
****
Decker kept an eye on his answering machine all the week of the conference, but nothing came. Several nights, he stayed put in his apartment, waiting for a visit, but Muraki never showed.
It wasn't until the last night of the conference, a night Decker turned in early, that he awakened, hearing something rustle in a corner of the room. He sat up, seeking the cause of that sound.
A pale shadow moved in the darkness before it approached the foot of the bed.
"I'm glad it's you," Decker murmured. "What brings you here?"
"I'm not in the habit of keeping potential chatterers about," Muraki said. "I regret, Professir Decker, that I'll have to eliminate you. There's nothing personal about this, I simply can't take chances.
"Besides, you helped to make me what I am. I have my share of enemies, and if they were to come after me, they might use you in order to get to me. Consider this a favor, consider this my way of protecting you."
He had clearly thought this out beforehand, perhaps even before they had met that afternoon.
"Do what you need to do," Decker said.
Muraki smirked. "I promise that I will make it quick," he said. He heard a soft snick and the street light gleamed on the blade of a switch-knife.
fic_promptly's Any, any, I loved every piece of him -- even the insane and dangerous ones.. fic. Sequel to "You Think You're Mad, Too Unstable" and like it, the title was snitched from Pet Shop Boys' "West End Girls", which again, also influenced the Older!Muraki/OMC.Decker hardly expected Muraki to show up, despite the friendly promise to meet up at the same cafe where Decker had showed him the future: these medical conferences tended to drag on and he had a paper to present.
Kazutaka Muraki...the shy, skinny young surgical student, had come into his own, as it were. Decker wondered, as he sat adjusting his collar to the brisk wind that hummed among the cafe tables, if he had come into his own in another area. He watched the crowd, chiding himself for expecting a nervous young man in a dark brown trenchcoat: no doubt he'd grown past trying to look like Neil Tennant.
Decker had glanced away, when he sensed it, something nudging him to look back to the street. Looking up, he spied a pale figure in white, standing in the midst of the crowd, the passersby making room for him. He'd grown into himself: he must have stood a full six inches taller than he did ten years ago: the shy youth who'd hunched his shoulders while walking now stood erect and straight, approaching with an almost feline grace to his movements. The mud-brown trench had given way to white; even the tailored suit beneath it over a dove-grey silk Oxford shirt was white.
This was what the youngster needed to blossom into, but at the same time, Decker missed the furtive, slightly nebbish young man whom he had met so many years before.
"Kazutaka Muraki, I presume?" Decker said, standing up.
The pale newcomer smiled, offering his hand. "Doctor Muraki to be precise, but I suppose it's hard to think of a student as anything but the young man you knew."
"Yes, I see you've done some growing," Decker remarked, taking his hand. The grip was firm, but the touch was cooler than he remembered, not the most promising indicator.
"Yes, things have changed as it were," Muraki said with a small smile that left Decker feeling unsettled. It might simply seem heightened due to the fact that the younger man's whole nature had shifted, from the innocent to the experienced.
"I'd heard that you'd had some ...trouble a few years ago," Decker said, once they were seated and a waitress had brought them a pot of tea. He had to be careful, knowing he was approaching a painful topic.
Pain and something like anger flared up in Muraki's good eye, then it passed. "Yes, Sakaki, my manservant, told me that he'd informed you. A patient of mine, a boy with a brain tumor, died after I'd done as much surgery as I could to save his life. His father went mad with grief and tried to kill me: in the struggle, he succeeded in stabbing me through my right eye."
He glanced about, turning his head only slightly to the right, making certain no one was listening before he continued, his voice lowered.
"I died from my injuries. My colleagues tell me that I was dead for a half hour and that they had even signed the death certificate. They were about to inform my loved ones that I had passed...
"In that half-hour, something happened to me: that darkness, that Hunger you warned me about spoke to me," he said. "It told me that it could bring me back to life, if I would give in to it. I nearly refused, but it warned me that Ukyou Sakuraiji, my fiancee, would be left adrift in the world. I couldn't abandon her like that... and so I gave in."
"And now here you are today," Decker concluded, looking him up and down. "You've become everything I'd found that you might become. You're taller and more graceful, and you've become more beautiful than when you were young."
"Mmm, and people are finding it harder to resist my charms," Muraki replied, his voice pitched to a soft, come-hither tone. Decker felt his skin start to warm and a tugging in his loins. If they hadn't been in public, it would have been easier on his nerves if he'd simply leapt across the table into the taller male's lap, covering the other's pale face in kisses.
But he steeled his senses, and as he did so, the compulsion withdrew. "I imagine that your spells have grown stronger and more effective?" Decker asked, changing the subject.
"Mmm, they have, but there's a downside to it, of which I'm sure you're aware."
"The hunger?"
"To say nothing of the way that it goads me. But I manage: I've found a few discreet places in Shinjuku that cater to certain needs," Muraki said.
"Your fiancee isn't...?"
He shook his head. "No, she is sacrosanct: I will never let the Hunger touch her, much less sate itself on her. It respects that, though it isn't pleased with the arrangement. She is what keeps me grounded in the human world."
Decker held out one hand, palm up and open. "The offer that I made to you when you were my student, that still stands, as long as you're here."
Muraki gave him a shadow of a smirk. "I may take up your offer, at later time, perhaps when the conference is over."
****
Decker kept an eye on his answering machine all the week of the conference, but nothing came. Several nights, he stayed put in his apartment, waiting for a visit, but Muraki never showed.
It wasn't until the last night of the conference, a night Decker turned in early, that he awakened, hearing something rustle in a corner of the room. He sat up, seeking the cause of that sound.
A pale shadow moved in the darkness before it approached the foot of the bed.
"I'm glad it's you," Decker murmured. "What brings you here?"
"I'm not in the habit of keeping potential chatterers about," Muraki said. "I regret, Professir Decker, that I'll have to eliminate you. There's nothing personal about this, I simply can't take chances.
"Besides, you helped to make me what I am. I have my share of enemies, and if they were to come after me, they might use you in order to get to me. Consider this a favor, consider this my way of protecting you."
He had clearly thought this out beforehand, perhaps even before they had met that afternoon.
"Do what you need to do," Decker said.
Muraki smirked. "I promise that I will make it quick," he said. He heard a soft snick and the street light gleamed on the blade of a switch-knife.
