Comfort Food

Food.

Sweet and delightful.

The utter fulfillment of comfort it could offer. The deliciousness it produced and the desire to have it. It was something that offered him comfort from the world he had to face every day. Especially the desserts.

The taste of a cookie or a cake or something equally sweet appealed to him the most because of the saccharine flavor to it. It was addicting in the sense that he came to crave it. Needed it when something came up. Needed it when Hisoka yelled at him. Needed it when Tatsumi scolded him. When Watari uses him as a guinea pig, making it seem like he was some naïve fool. When Muraki bothered him. When Terazuma ridiculed him. When he just finished a case. When he hated himself the most.

But, most people would think that it was impossible that Tsuzuki would be able to hate. Even more so when it was himself. But it was true. Tsuzuki hated himself. Every time he had to take a soul, had to kill someone, would he wish to weep openly. Not those baby cries. But real ones that showed a side to him that he didn't want anyone to see.

And that was when the sweets came in. He would eat to his heart's content and feel satisfied. It would take his mind off of everything and he would be happy, even if it were for a short while. He would hide behind the façade that he was easily made happy when you gave him something sugary. It was fact that it was an attempt to hide from reality. But nonetheless, it actually did make him happy.

He felt safe behind that façade and knew no one would dig deeper into his mind, knowing deep inside themselves that what they would find would make them feel disconcerted. They didn't want to believe that there was more to Tsuzuki than just sweets and puppies.

It was fine to Tsuzuki. He was damned already and couldn't care any more. That was what shinigami are. They were damned. And Tsuzuki found his anchor in that life to save him. Oh, he knew what the others' anchors were. For Hisoka, he enjoyed and hid behind the "I don't care and don't need anyone" attitude. For Tatsumi, his was his work. Watari's was his experiments. But most of the time, theirs didn't become feigned. For Tsuzuki had to put on an act at times because he just felt so unhappy or some other negative emotion like that.

In the end, it never really mattered whether or not Tsuzuki ate the sweets because they were all the same to him. His anchors in this life. His façade. His comfort food.