Disclaimer: I don't own Hunter x Hunter, (which is apparently coming back this month, fam). Yoshihiro Togashi does.
One
At some point in his life, Chrollo became fascinated with spiders. Maybe it was the way they hunted their prey that intrigued him, or maybe he just enjoyed watching them squirm as he crushed them under his hands, beneath the soles of his shoes. They gave a satisfying crunch when they died, at least some of them did. Others just sort of squished. And some made no noise at all, they just died.
Eventually, he graduated to crushing things a little bigger. Things a little harder to catch and kill. Like mice and birds. And then something called his conscious kicked in, or maybe it's called common sense, and he stopped killing animals for fun because there was really no point to it. Birds had some use, providing nice songs in the early morning, and mice were better off dying as food for some hungry snake or other animal, than for his amusement.
But he still found himself intrigued by spiders, years later.
Maybe it was their webs. How intricately woven together they were. How beautifully crafted they were. Webs were a work of art, and so few people appreciated true art.
Or maybe it was something else. Something unrelated to the beauty of a web that made him hold onto images of spiders well into his adulthood. He wasn't entirely sure, and he didn't care to think about the origins of his strange fascination. Rather preferred not to think at all. But no matter what he did, the image of the spider stuck with him. Everywhere he went he saws webs and people trapped on them like flies.
Even now as he stood looking over the trash of Meteor City he felt that he was looking at a giant spider web. All around him people were unaware, caught in the web of life and unable to free themselves. Like the fly caught in the web, they would eventually give up. Resigned to their fate, they would die like everything else. Forgotten. Consumed. It was sort of a tragically beautiful way to die in the sort of overdramatic manner Chrollo normally would've scoffed at, but for some reason found intriguing.
And Chrollo hosted no delusions of being outside of that web; he too was trapped and had been trapped for duration of his life, some seventeen or so years in all. And he was alright with that. One day he could be the one who wove the web. The one who trapped others.
But where to begin?
He wasn't sure. Though he was sure that the pink-haired girl who hung around the edges of the junkyard was quite lovely to look at when she wasn't frowning, which had only been once in the twelve times he'd seen her. He tried to catch her name, but she was evasive, distant, and uninterested, and he hadn't yet worked up the courage to approach her fully. The she couldn't be blamed for. At times, he was sure others looked at him the same way. But the latter was on him/
So this night, he decided to approach her with the sort of confidence one might reserve for someone who was sure of himself. Chrollo wasn't sure of himself; he wasn't sure of anything.
And he was alright with that.
The girl leaned against a car decorated with peeling white paint that had dulled to a dirty yellow. The yellowing paint matched her tank top and dirty jeans. In her hands was a bit of string she twisted around her middle finger. Intentional? He got the feeling it was. Or maybe it was some sort of subconscious way of warding anyone off.
The expression on her face remained blank as he drew near to her. "I've seen you around," he said. "I'm Chrollo."
She stared at him blankly. "That's nice."
"Not much of a talker?"
"Not one who likes being interrupted." She sat back against the hood of the car.
"From the busy task of subtly giving passerbys the middle finger?" he asked
The corners of her mouth twitched slightly. "Machi."
A nice name. "Pleasure to meet you."
She gave him another look. "You too, I guess. You from around here?"
"Aren't we all?"
"I guess. I've never seen you here before." She looked at her fingers.
"I'm usually around." He shrugged, trying to appear both interested and uninterested in the way she kept twirling the thread around her finger. The fact that he'd never seen him was mostly intentional. He'd gone out of his way to avoid being caught staring at her.
"This place sucks," she replied. Though it was hard to tell if she was referring to the junkyard, of where she lived in general.
"I can agree with that sentiment." He shoved a hand in his jean pocket unconsciously and took a step towards her. "Have you ever thought about leaving?"
"Are you trying to play therapist?"
"Just a question."
She shot him a look that turned into a scowl. "We just met. I don't want to talk to you."
"You're oddly blunt." He smirked. "How about quid pro quo."
"What?" Her frown deepened.
"Something for something. Ask me anything and I'll answer," he said.
Her eyebrows shot up. "Will you answer truthfully?"
"Probably not," he replied. "Depends on what you ask though."
She rolled her eyes. "I just asked you."
He blinked. Hm. That was a good one. "You got me. You ever consider leaving?"
She blinked, her eyes darting back down to her fingers. "Sometimes. Maybe, but then I think what's the point? It's not like I have anywhere to go and I've never been out of the city."
"That's no reason to stay," he replied. But then he had to wonder why he was still here himself if it was no reason to stay.
"I guess. What's your reason?"
"It's comfortable."
"Say what?" She gave him another look, this one slightly curious.
"Being here. It's familiar." He shrugged slightly. "Leaving would mean discomfort. I like being comfortable."
She shook her head and unraveled the string from her finger. "One way to put it I guess. You ever plan on taking off?"
"I don't like making plans," he said though he immediately regretted it.
She stood up and brushed the tousled pink bangs out of her eyes. Balling the string up, she shoved it in her pocket. "I'll see you around, I guess."
"Sure." He watched her saunter off, slowly, before turning his eyes back to the junkyard. Smooth. There was a reason he generally avoided making friends, particularly of the female persuasion. Friendships in general were a waste of time, and relationships were even a greater waste. Distractions. A relationship would only distract him. But from what? It wasn't like he was doing something, anything really. And while there were quite a few things he could do, most of them were uninteresting, or required more than just himself to accomplish.
The image of a spider appeared in his head again, but this time it came with a thought. An idea. It took him a few minutes of staring at the dark sky before that image became clear in his mind. But he brushed that idea aside for the time being, resolved instead to do something less time-consuming, something that he could accomplish tomorrow even.
Machi came to the junkyard most every night, or at least she had the last twelve nights. And tomorrow night, he would ask her out. Or rather, he'd ask her to help him steal something.