The Path to the King of Practical Jokers II: Chef Watari
“Muraki-san!” A voice cheerfully sails through the empty office.
“Eh?” Muraki looks up from his paperwork. It’s noon in Meifu, and everyone’s out to lunch, even Tatsumi, who has been needled into taking a break. Muraki volunteered to stay behind to work on the papers. He needs a few moments of quiet.
“Ah, here you are,” Watari says, walking in with a square pink box. Muraki thinks it looks suspiciously like a pastry box, but says nothing. “I brought something for you.”
“Hmm?”
Watari presents the box to Muraki. “Congratulations on your first case in Chijou! Tatsumi told me all about it!”
“Oh, no…I couldn’t accept this,” Muraki says graciously, trying to cover for the fact that he just wants to be left alone and has no interest in dessert at the moment.
“That thing with the fire…that’s very cool! I wouldn’t think that a spell could hold a burning soul like that, but wow, it saves on garden hoses. Did you know I actually invented a device to put them out?” Watari chatters on, cheerfully bent on prattling Muraki into submission. “But Tatsumi said I couldn’t use it because it was fourteen stories tall and ate small children…but it didn’t eat them on purpose! It just sort of grew a mind of its own. Then again, it didn’t really ‘eat’ them so much as process them through a knitting factory that made them custom-fit sweaters. Really fashionable ones too…”
“Well then, thank you very much for your present,” Muraki says finally, taking the pink box if for nothing but to hopefully make Watari leave.
“It’s a cherry pie! I hope you enjoy it. I baked it myself,” Watari replies, as he checks his watch. “Oops, I better get going. My solution’s not titrating itself. Ja!” Watari wanders off, and disappears from the general office.
Muraki sneaks a glance at the pie in the pastry box. It’s passionately normal looking. He frowns, because he doesn’t have a particular fondness for cherry pies, and closing the lid, shoves it to one side of his desk.
Minutes pass as he works quietly, but the box keeps getting in the way, to the point that Muraki feels as though it is being driven by some infernal mechanism bent on making absolutely sure that he paid attention to the box in some way, shape, or form.
So Muraki decides to do what any normal person would do. He picks up the box, and deciding it was a waste of a perfectly normal pie, takes it to the break room with plans on leaving it there with a note that says, ‘please eat.’
On the way to the break room, he runs into his fellow Shinigami, just returning from lunch.
Or, to be precise, he runs into a specific pair of fellow Shinigami.
“Tsuzuki-san!”
“Muraki!”
For a moment, there’s a definite awkward tension. The two don’t seem to be certain whether they should run from each other or try something. Mutual confusion sets in, and eventually an uneasy truce seems to settle in, in which both keep their distance.
Tsuzuki sniffs the air apprehensively. His ability to sense pie is perhaps even greater than his ability to fight supernatural crime.
“Is that pie?” Tsuzuki asks cautiously.
“Cherry.” Muraki offers helpfully.
“Oh, can I have a slice?” Tsuzuki says, before his young partner can smack him upside the head with a definitive ‘no.’
“Of course. I was just bringing it to the break room to share, Tsuzuki-san,” Muraki says. “Care to join me?”
“Pie!”
“Won~der~ful!” Tsuzuki’s in heaven. The nice big slice of pie is everything and more he hoped it would be, fresh cherries cooked down into a sweet syrupy consistency, latticed with a sugar-sprinkled crust. Muraki looks on in amusement as Tsuzuki spoons pie decadently into his mouth.
Hisoka rolls his eyes, sitting next to Tsuzuki at the break room table. He was sure this was going to happen – there’s not much one can do when it came to Tsuzuki and desserts. He looks at Muraki suspiciously across the table. Muraki appears to be trying nothing, but the provenance of the pie was always suspect.
“Hey. Where’d you get this pie?” Hisoka asks.
But before Muraki can say a thing, Tsuzuki slips a spoonful into Hisoka’s mouth. Hisoka blinks in surprise, and nearly chokes. But then he remembers to chew, and oh yes. It’s quite a delicious pie.
“Ne, Hisoka. Isn’t it good?” Tsuzuki says, with a bit of a glint in his eye. “Want another bite?” Tsuzuki’s intentions can be sensed a mile away even as Muraki is stunned speechless.
“Of course,” Hisoka says, playing along even if he doesn’t *really* want pie. Obediently, he shuts his eyes and opens his mouth as Tsuzuki feeds him another bite of pie.
It’s quite disgustingly cute. Muraki’s eye twitches.
“Another bite, Hisoka?” Tsuzuki says sweetly.
“Please,” Hisoka breathes, his voice tinged with lingering pleading. “I want more. Please…”
Tsuzuki obliges gracefully, this time purposefully letting a bit of cherry filling catch along Hisoka’s lips.
“Oh, you’ve got something on your face,” Tsuzuki says with exaggerated concern. “Here, let me get it.” He leans forward, making as if to kiss Hisoka, and pulls back at the last second to wipe at the stray bit of cherry-infused syrup with his finger, sucking the red sweetness off his finger lasciviously.
Muraki is somewhere between livid and scandalized. Hisoka tries his best to keep from laughing out loud.
“Hey. Who brought the pie?” Terazuma does a sudden stop before the open break room door. Behind him, Wakaba stops, hearing the word ‘pie.’
“No fair! Tsuzuki-chan, you have to share!” Wakaba says, as she and Terazuma join the others, sitting down across the table from Hisoka and Tsuzuki.
“It was a surprise pie! Muraki showed up with it, and we thought we’d have a slice...I wasn’t trying to hide it, honest!” Tsuzuki says as Muraki dishes up a few slices for Terazuma and Wakaba.
“I forgive you this time,” Wakaba says with a wink. “Itadakimasu!” She and Terazuma begin to eat the pie.
A few minutes of silence pass in which pie is consumed.
“Ne, Tsuzuki?” Hisoka looks a bit flushed.
“Yes.” Tsuzuki looks similar.
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“Let’s go. Ah, excuse us! We’re…uh…going to the library to study. Seeyoualllater!” Tsuzuki says, grabbing Hisoka and making a hasty exit.
“Eh? What’s that about?” Terazuma wonders. “This isn’t some sort of high school.”
“Hajime, just eat your pie,” Wakaba says. “Mmm, I love this! So good…I’m no good at baking pies. I can never get the crust right.”
“The secret, Wakaba-chan, is in the handling of the dough,” Tatsumi says, leaning on the doorway. “Really, you would think that I would get invited to these things once in a while.”
“My apologies, Tatsumi-san,” Muraki says, cutting Tatsumi a slice and plating it as Tatsumi sits across from him. “It was an impromptu pie break.”
Tatsumi accepts the pie. “For future reference, please keep me filled in on matters of departmental importance,” Tatsumi says, as he takes a bite of the pie.
Muraki doesn’t know if he’s joking or not, so he just nods in acceptance.
Terazuma pushes the empty plate back, and leans against his chair, stretching. “Ah…that was a good slice of pie.”
“Mm-hmm!” Wakaba’s still eating.
Terazuma’s arms stretch out, and one of them comes to rest against Muraki’s shoulders companionably. “You really are a good little Shinigami, you know that? Sharing your pie with us.” Terazuma’s like a lazy affectionate cat, kneading his outstretched hand along one of Muraki’s shoulders.
Muraki is very surprised.
“You know, sometimes, in the right light, you’re as pretty as a girl…” Terazuma whispers into Muraki’s ear. Muraki nearly bolts from the sudden change in character. “Since I can’t touch girls…why don’t we…” The rest is a muffled insinuation.
Muraki’s jaw goes slack.
Tatsumi pushes his cleaned plate forward, wiping at his lips carefully with a handkerchief. Of course, he doesn’t need it – he’s a meticulous eater. For a moment, a strange expression comes across his face, and it seems as if he’s fighting some internal war. But it passes in a flash, so sudden that one would think it to be non-existent. But really, it’s been shoved into a simmer, forced down to keep from boiling over. Tatsumi reaches up to unbutton the top collar of his shirt, feeling as though he’s a bit overheated.
“Muraki-san. I notice you haven’t had any pie,” Tatsumi says, suspiciously, as he worries at his tie.
“I don’t particularly care for cherry,” Muraki says uncomfortably, as he tries to untangle himself from Terazuma, who’s managed to drape himself over the taller man like a cat sleeping on a computer monitor. Except with more rubbing.
“Then why do you have this pie?” Wakaba blinks, wondering what in the world’s come over her partner. She, as it appears, remains unaffected by the pie’s workings.
“Good question, Wakaba-chan,” Tatsumi says, as he looks at her, as if noticing her for the very first time. “You have such very lovely eyes, Wakaba-chan.” Tatsumi reaches over the table, and clasps at Wakaba’s fingers with his, drowning her in his equally lovely blue eyes.
Wakaba blushes, a pretty pink. “Thank you, Tatsumi-san.”
“Get your hands off of my partner,” Terazuma says without much heat, as if more by routine than real vehemence, as Muraki tries to push him off without damaging his dignity.
“I would say the same about you, Terazuma-san,” Tatsumi says, without looking away from Wakaba, who blushes even more as his fingers stroke her hands. “Now if you could please let him go…”
“You first,” Terazuma says, nuzzling at Muraki’s neck.
“W-wait, Terazuma-san, this is…highly unusual!” Muraki squawks as Terazuma knocks them both to the floor, the chairs tumbling down around them in a disregarded clatter. Wakaba would normally be all over this with a camera, but she’s entranced by Tatsumi who’s gotten up to lean over the table as if to kiss her.
“Th…the pie!” Muraki flails as Terazuma pins his wrists. “There must have been something in it! It’s…gah! Terazuma-san, stop that! It…it was a gift from Watari!”
“Watari?” Three pairs of eyes blink as everything goes into pause for a moment.
Thirty seconds later, the Summons Division of Enmacho is much busier than it was ten minutes ago, and not in the paperwork sense.
“Professor Watari’s Instant-slut formula! Now with 30% more aphrodisiacs! Number one in the nation for curing coworker hang-ups! But wait! There’s more! Buy now and get the new and improved Inhibition-Loss Blackmail formula! Only 1700 yen + shipping and handling!”