Standard disclaimer applies: If I owned Hunter X Hunter, then I would be Japanese, male, married, in my 40's and named Togashi Yoshihiro.

SLAMBOOK FEVER

Chapter 1: The Gift

"Quick! Open it up! It may be money."

"Nobody sends money through the ordinary post, Leorio old man," Killua pointed out as he and Gon entered with the four postmarked packages they found outside Gon's door.

"Who are you calling old man, you little twerp!" Leorio retorted as he made a grab for the package that had his name clearly written on it. Killua sidestepped so Leorio ended up grabbing for air and crashed down.

"Alright, stop that now you two," Kurapika said in an effort to halt any brewing fight. It was Christmas after all and they were all guests at Gon's house in Whale Island. It had been nice of Gon and his aunt Mito to invite the three of them to spend the holidays there. Quite nice actually since Gon and Killua were already a handful being the kids they were and then there was Leorio who was also a handful but well, wasn't a kid.

The four of them eagerly opened their package, they were all identically wrapped in an unassuming brown paper and each of them had gotten one. Killua and Leorio opened theirs with great enthusiasm, Gon with a little less, and Kurapika with the least being very careful of not ripping the wrapper.

They all looked at the unwrapped gift in their hands, then at each other, then almost at the same time said, "What the…

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…heck is THIS!" Phinx said, annoyed as he waved the flat notebook angrily at his companions' faces.

They were all gathered at the Genei Ryodan's hideout, most were there because they had wanted to avoid the festivities all over the city. Christmas? Shudder.

Sharnock had one finger to the tip of his nose, thinking as he held the notebook, "I've seen one of these before but it was a long time ago."

"It's strange that we all got one, and they're all the same…" Shizuku's voice trailed off as they all looked at Korutopi with varying degrees of suspicion.

Korutopi's eyes widened…well actually they could only see one of his eyes…with surprise. He hastily assured them, "It's not from me!"

"Then let's see who's it from," Sharnock suggested then he looked regretfully at the torn wrapping in his hand. "Did any of you save the wrapper?"

The others slightly blushed and looked sheepish. Feitan had shred the wrapper into ribbons in opening the gift, Phinx, not to be outdone, had torn it into confetti, Shizuku had made deme-chan suck the wrapper off while Nobunaga had made slashing movements with his sword and voila! No more wrapper, just the notebook.

Sharnock was about to make a heroic effort of piecing together his torn wrapper when Franklin silently handed him his own wrapper, intact and not a crumple to it. Sharnock sweatdropped and laughed self-deprecatingly. Franklin was scary-looking and fierce in battle, but he was really gentle, could he be…? Sharnock quickly applied himself to the task of finding out the sender.

"Look at this!" Sharnock called out triumphantly as the others crowded around him to see. "It says: 'Enjoy and with all…

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…my love, T.Y.'," Kuroro read out aloud disbelievingly. "With all my love! How lame can you get?" he thought and asked aloud, "Who is frigging T.Y.?"

"Ooh! Ooh! It might be a secret admirer!" Hisoka said enthusiastically as he looked at his own unwrapped notebook.

Illumi looked at Hisoka without expression but all the while berating himself silently on why he chose to spend Christmas with Hisoka and Kuroro in the latter's present hideout. "Wait, oh yeah," Illumi told himself, "I remember, Kuroro paid me."

Kuroro was also thinking something along those lines, "What the hell possessed me to have these two with me?" He didn't admit it to himself but he did feel a little lonely especially since he couldn't be with his Genei Ryodan. Not unless he wanted that demmed sword of judgment piercing his heart. So he had paid Illumi to spend the holidays with him and…it could be because of a momentary touch of insanity…invited Hisoka as well.

He now said dryly to Hisoka, "Have you ever considered that your prospective admirers could only be, well, insane?" Then he added, "Come to think of it, if that's the case then you were probably the one who sent this to yourself."

Hisoka giggled, why hadn't he thought of that?

Illumi shook his head in defeat and decided to find out what exactly was this stupid gift. "Oh," he said as he scanned the pages, "it's a sort of sign-up book, a…

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…an autograph book," Kurapika decided.

His three friends looked at him puzzedly. "What do you mean?" Gon asked.

"This was a practice fairly popular back then," Kurapika explained. "As you can see inside, there are all sorts of questions about yourself and usually about your friends or others. All you have to do is sign your name on the first page."

"An autograph book?" Gon repeated. It was the first time he had seen one.

"Well, it's also called…

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…a slam book!" Sharnock said smugly as he remembered.

"So all we have to do is sign our name and then what?" Machi asked suspiciously, why was this notebook nosy?

"You pass it to a friend who answers all the questions," Sharnock continued, "Then he or she passes it to another who does the same thing until…

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…all the pages are filled and the last one gives it back to the owner," Illumi explained to a thoughtful Kuroro and a grinning Hisoka.

Kuroro asked after a few moments, "Wouldn't the others be able to read what you wrote?"

"Yes," Illumi agreed, "But you can opt not to put in your name or answer some of the questions. It's only the owner of the book who has to write his own name on the cover so the last one can return it to him."

Hisoka was very happily amused by now. "What fun! Let's do it!"

Illumi and Kuroro both looked at him in disgust.

"What? What?" Hisoka asked innocently then he leered at them and asked suggestively, "Do you have any other pleasurable way to pass the time in mind?"

Illumi and Kuroro hastily picked a pen and wrote in their slambooks.

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A/N: The next chapters are all going to be about their answers so they'll have a different format. Gon, Killua, Kurapika and Leorio's answers are up next. Guess who's T.Y. Not too creative I know, but I can't think of anyone who will give gifts to all of them . Try to review, thanks!