This is my first Hunter X Hunter fic, I've only read up to chapter 258, so... yeah. Anyway, hope it is okay.
Disclaimer: Hunter X Hunter belongs to Yoshihiro Togashi.
What was it? Some freakish thing that moved inside him. Why did he feel it every time that he saw her? Every time she beat him- the king. Every time she looked at him with those empty eyes that seemed to see straight into him and yet he knew that she couldn't even see him externally.
"4-5-1 kiba." She stated, staring at the board blankly. He didn't move, he sat there contemplating her for a few seconds. She looked up, this was the first pause that he had initiated between moves since the start of the game. "Your majesty?" She questioned with blank eyes. "Forgive me if this is a bit forward… but are you staring at me?"
"… no." He lied and glanced at the board before making his move. "8-7-2 choushou." He said, placing the piece upon the board. A strange thought suddenly came to him and he chuckled darkly, causing the woman to look up at him questioningly. "It's nothing, make you're move." He stated with a smirk.
"Very well, sire… 4-3-3 yumi." She placed her piece down, the way she said the words carried a sense of tenderness and love…
"That's it!" The king burst out suddenly. Pufu glanced up at him from his book.
"Sire? Is there something you require?" He asked, marking his place and standing gracefully.
"No. I'm fine, go back to your book or get out." The king stated and considered the board. "2-1-1 kiba." He placed his piece with a short clack. 'That's it…' the king thought as he looked at the woman before him with a small smile of peace on her face. 'I love this woman… this… human.' He thought as she made her final move.
"6-6-1 choushou." She said, then: "checkmate." She looked tired, there were bags of the lightest purple that were barely discernable beneath her eyes and she was swaying slightly.
"… take a break, rest, eat, come back in the morning." He stated, sitting back form his kneeling position and stretching his legs to the side.
"But I can-"
"Go!" He commanded and she quickly stood. He was not used to being argued with, it annoyed him to no end. "Go…" he repeated slightly softer this time. "There is no point in playing if you are not at your best." He reminded her as he has said a few times before when he had let her take a break.
"Th-thank you, your majesty." She bowed before closing the door behind her and leaving himself and Pufu in the room alone.
"Make no comment." He stated as soon as Pufu opened his mouth to do just that. Pufu immediately complied and turned a page in his book. The king leaned forward and silently went back over every play that was made, he was clearly distanced during this game, he replayed a few moves in his mind but always ended with the woman beating him again, a small grin graced his features. 'This woman drives me crazy at any opportunity, whether she knows it or not.' He thought wryly, shuffling the pieces off of the board and crossing his legs. "Pufu, bring me my evening meal." He ordered and listened with his eyes closed as Pufu quickly shut his book with the smallest rustling of pages and the click of his shoes as he exited the room, leaving the king with his own thoughts that seemed to more or less drift to the subject of a specific human and his… emotions about her. He cared for her in a strange way, he was pretty sure that it had little to no sexual basis upon it, but he cared about her well being, felt the questions about her rise in his mind but quickly beat them down. He should not wonder about this human, it was not kosher for a king to question his subjects about their personal objectives, lives, feelings, etc. But then, he wasn't the ordinary king that would be taken over eventually and their crush kingdom rot into the gutters, he expected his to flourish and grow, expand to the very reaches of the earth…
"Your majesty… your meal." Pufu said, placing the platter of aura rich human remains in front of the king. Pufu saw the look on his king's face and took up his book again, prepared to sit there until the king finished his meal, but he knew that the king wouldn't eat until he was done thinking. Until he was done discovering what love felt like. 'I wonder if I'm going to have to kill this girl…' he thought absently as he turned a page. 'The king should not be having these lapses in which he must contemplate a mere human…' but he knew that as long as his king felt for that woman, that he would be unable to do anything that was in the better interest for his majesty. That he would not be able to make the suicidal move that would make him unable to follow his king to the end, to the redemption of the world and the ruling of it by his king; until then, he could wait.
