Her body moved insanely under the colorful lights of the room to the sound of a repetitive and irritating electronic beat. Although she was dressed much more discreetly than the other girls in the club, wearing simple jeans and a black tank top, she drew attention and caused a small audience to gather around her. Dancing with a big, strong man covered in tattoos and looking like a local crime boss, she moved boldly and sensually, with a loose laugh that occasionally lit up her face.
"Is this just alcohol effect or did she use something else?" Hisoka questioned the man standing next to him, without taking his eyes off Machi on the dance floor.
The tattooed man's hand slid down her small body and slipped under the black tank top, pressing her waist against him while his mouth whispered something in her ear that made her laugh. Hisoka's fists clenched hard.
Illumi shrugged before answering the question in a monotone voice:
"I don't know, she was already like this when I arrived, so I called you. She's dancing with my target and it doesn't look like she's going to leave him anytime soon. So I called you. I figured you wouldn't want it to be me taking her out of there."
Hisoka moved his eyes to face the ever-so-cold colleague. He was right. If he used his methods against Machi, even if it was just to get her out of the way, he would have to make a little reckoning with him. But the assassin was smart. Illumi decided to turn the situation around and, by calling Hisoka, he won himself a favor to collect later.
When the magician looked back at the pink-haired woman, he saw the tattoed man leading her towards a door in a reserved corner of the nightclub.
"Is that what I think it is?"
Illumi observed the scenario calmly and then turned away, unconcerned.
"Just remember that no matter what he does to your girl. He is my target and I need him alive. I will wait outside."
Hisoka responded with an annoyed snort before walking in the opposite direction of his friend. The bloodlust that exuded from the magician made people open the way naturally, looking suspiciously at the strange man who carried a macabre look on his face.
He unceremoniously kicked down the door to the private room, much to the surprise of some people who ran away, but not Machi. She has been waiting for him, even though she was pressed against the wall by the other man's body. She could be intoxicated, but her perception would never fail to notice Hisoka's bloodlust.
Hisoka leaned against the damaged door frame, crossing his arms casually as he faced the scene in the room by the half-light.
"Oh, am I interrupting something?" He asked wryly.
The tattooed man immediately released Machi and faced him without fear.
"What's up, clown? This one is mine now, if you want the leftover you'll have to wait outside."
Hisoka laughed shortly. The man had given the worst answer he could when he was so obviously in a risky position. He was nothing between the two nen users — even though one of them was intoxicated — and the only difficulty the magician faced was being forced to use only his fists to bring down the thug. He didn't like having to control himself that way, not when he wanted to end the existence of someone so weak and unwary, but he would have to leave that to Illumi.
Machi only seemed to understand the situation completely when the man was already lying on the floor unconscious, and Hisoka was heading to her with an enigmatic smile.
"You could have chosen someone stronger, you know? This is almost an insult..."
"What are you doing here? After everything you've done, you decided to follow me?"
Even though the place was dark, Hisoka could see her cheeks flushed. Her eyes shone with tears and her lips swollen, red, and moist; probably as a result of the kisses she shared with that useless guy. He took a long time to analyze it, for a moment believing that it was because he had to determine if she was under the influence of a drug other than alcohol.
His hands grabbed her face, and the only reaction she had was to hold his arms as if she was going to try to stop him, but she didn't actually apply enough force to it.
"I'm too busy to follow you, ok? But when a little bird tells me that you're out there screwing up, I have to act, don't I?"
Machi laughed sadly, her chest shaking almost quietly between them, and Hisoka realized that he was still analyzing her for a reason other than trying to investigate the possible sources of her drunkenness. He was mesmerized by the way emotions were running free in her face, something he had never seen before.
"You think I'm weak, Hisoka..." she murmured under her breath, and then in a burst, she pulled his hands away from her face and pushed him away. "Do you think I need you to defend me from this ?" She pointed to the dead weight on the floor and then laughed sadly again.
Actually, he was defending her from Illumi, who wouldn't be so patient with her drama, but Hisoka resigned himself to smile in response, making her snort.
"I hate you!"
There was a very sincere feeling in those words, which came out of her mouth as if they were ripping her up. This made Hisoka lean his head in curiosity. However, Machi simply looked at him from head to toes in disbelief before turning away and stumbling out of that room, pushing one or the other person off her way and randomly stealing a drinking glass from one of them as she headed to the exit.
Hisoka sighed, grabbing the unconscious man by the hair and dragging him along while he went behind the woman. He caught up with Machi near the door, where even the security guards had already moved away. Without saying a word, he wrapped his arm around her waist and lifted her off the floor, carrying her out despite her protests.
"This is yours," Hisoka declared as he threw the unconscious body at Illumi's feet.
The body that writhed and struggled, trying weakly to attack Hisoka without ceasing, was his.
"Do you want some help with her?" Illumi offered, watching the woman's wildness with some curiosity.
"No, she has the right to protest. When she gets tired, she'll see that this is in her best interest."
"Don't talk about me like I'm not here, you wretch! Fight me like a man! I'm going to kill you with my bare hands!"
Between punches and kicks, Hisoka just waved a greeting to Illumi and went on his way.
When he crossed the threshold of his hotel room, Machi was less savage in his arms. In fact, at some point along the way, she had given up attacking him and started just pouring out words about him being a traitor, about Chrollo, and even something about Pakunoda's death. Some of her words actually made sense, but the state she was still in, which seemed to get worse by the second, made any response from him useless.
Therefore, in the face of silence, Machi finally burst into tears before reaching their destination, and Hisoka thought it was best to cradle her properly in his arms so that when they crossed the door she was being carried like a bride, but a tearful one against his chest.
When he tried to accommodate her on the couch, she clung more tightly to his shoulders, as a clear sign that she didn't want to part at that moment.
"Oh? I thought you hated me," he declared with a playful laugh.
"Why do you have to be like this?"
Her voice was so heartfelt that he couldn't help but sigh before settling on the couch with her in his arms. Machi wouldn't remember any of that the next day, which is why he stopped to think for a few seconds about what she just said. He knew that she was not referring to his jokes, but to the fact that he had lied for years and, in the end, revealed a goal that clashed with her own completely. If it weren't for that, maybe she wouldn't have to hate him that much.
She finally looked up and, not without effort, focused her reddened eyes on his. Hisoka looked at her expression legitimately surprised. He could expect hatred and tears on her part, but the way she looked at him now was... sweet. For some reason, he was sure that if he kissed her now, despite anything that preceded this moment, what he would taste on her lips would be something so deep and meaningful that, yes, it scared him.
That's why he didn't kiss her, allowing her to break the silence:
"You're spinning..." Machi murmured, and then laughed in a silly way, breaking the magic as well. "You're spinning and you're not going to tell me anything, are you? You're not even here, I'm imagining you," she put her face back on his shoulder. "At least you smell good…"
"Machi, what did you use?" Hisoka knew he probably wouldn't get a coherent answer, but that doubt had haunted him since the moment he saw her that night. It was hard to believe that only alcohol would do that to a woman as strong as her. There had to be some other chemistry influencing her altered state.
"What did I use?" She asked, confused, and then looked up to him again. "Ah… you wanna know if I did something," she approached his ear and whispered: "Maybe…"
Suddenly she let go of his shoulders and stood up, staggering a little and cleaning the tracks of the tears on her face with the back of her hands. She walked a few steps erratically and looked around in amazement before looking at him again.
"Do you pay to sleep here?" Machi asked in surprise and laughed right away as if it were really hilarious. "You pay! You're such a fancy-pants."
Hisoka just settled down more comfortably on the couch, watching the scene. On several occasions, he wished to see her acting more spontaneously, freer, but this situation was just sad. He didn't even want to take advantage of it or tease her about it — at least not until the next day.
He watched Machi shrink into herself again, leaning against the wall and letting the weight of her body drag her to the floor. She crossed her arms very specifically over her stomach, and he knew it was a sign that something rather unpleasant was about to happen.
"You're feeling sick," he declared, standing up to meet her.
"I'm fine, I'm fine…" Machi flinched a little more, however. "I just miss them..."
Ignoring the way she was closing herself off, Hisoka lifted her from the floor by the shoulders, as if she were a small child. He looked at Machi's eyes seriously, while pinning her against the wall.
"I know you miss them, but acting like this is stupid. I can't believe you're the same Machi I know."
"Pakunoda was the first person who cared about me in this world," she declared and then swallowed hard before continuing: "she was my family and now she's dead. Chrollo is my family and now he's far away, unable to use his nen, and I know you had a part in it. The chain guy..." Machi closed her eyes briefly as if to take his name from memory, "Kurapika, you sold our secrets to Kurapika because you wanted to, didn't you? He didn't do to you what he did to Paku, you don't have a fucking chain in your heart. You don't even have a fucking heart! You are a..." eyelids closed again, this time, however, she couldn't remember the word. A single tear streamed down her left eye. "Damn it…"
"You talk as if you have a heart," Hisoka interrupted her coldly, which made her look at him with a sharp look, a faint bloodlust pulsing from her intoxicated body. "You don't feel anything for anyone but for a few of your friends. You're not much better than me."
Machi struggled in his hands for a fraction of a second, resigning herself to kill him only with her intentions when she was unable to leave. She looked a little more like who she really was now.
"You have no idea, you idiot."
Those words were followed by a few seconds of silence in which the blue of her eyes became indecipherable. That was when he remembered who she was and why he cared so much. Machi was the lady of the labyrinth, and he had never managed to get out of her tortuous paths because, very wisely, she had never given him her threads, leaving him lost forever in her maze.
"When I fight Chrollo, who do you want to survive?" He didn't know where this question came from when it left his mouth, but the reaction it had caused in the woman justified it.
Machi blinked a few times, as if trying to calculate the seriousness of what he had asked, and then closed her eyes with a certain solemnity.
"I don't want you to fight Danchou. I don't want either of you dead."
Perhaps the answer was more than enough, but she had also progressively got closer to him, so much so that her lips touched his lightly at first, completing the touch quickly in a kiss. Without so much lightness, he finally advanced against her mouth, pressing her against the wall now with the weight of his own body.
Machi moaned at his advance, embracing him with arms and legs irresistibly, making him also express the delight that took his body and his aura when, suddenly, she stepped away from him, with such assertiveness and urgency that he couldn't stop it.
And he was thankful for that when he saw her turn and lean her body, finally fulfilling the omen he had moments ago, throwing up on the floor of the hotel room.
Hisoka gave a disappointed snort, but the way her back curved with each spasm of her stomach made him quickly accept that this night would really be unique in his life.
The night he would spend taking care of someone's booze.
Machi opened her eyes, but the ambient light hurt like a razor and she hid her face in the pillow by reflex. Both her head and stomach were aching with an intensity that made any thought difficult, but when she smelled Hisoka's scent on the pillowcase, she knew something was very wrong. She fought the pain and opened her eyes at once, sitting on the bed and trying to identify where she was. A messy double bed, a hotel room lit with curtains open. Then she found herself wearing only a stretched, cropped T-shirt with playing card suits printed and panties that she at least recognized as her own.
Her nightmare was completed when she heard the magician's happy voice humming at the bedroom door.
"Good morning sunshine!"
There he was, holding a breakfast tray and wearing nothing but one of his ridiculous pants.
Machi wanted to disappear, but the best she could do was cover herself with the bedsheets.
"Don't worry, I saw all this and much more last night," Hisoka stated at her gesture as he left the tray on the nightstand and sat beside her on the bed.
She wanted to emanate bloodlust to let him know it wasn't funny, but the pain in her body prevented her, so she just squinted, watching him pour coffee in a cup and hold it out to her.
"Take this, it will make you feel better."
Machi held the cup suspiciously, without bringing it to her mouth, however. The smell of the drink, which at another time would be inviting, made her stomach turn.
"What's going on? What did you do to me?"
"Now, now, don't you remember anything?" He lay on his stomach beside her, looking at her in that paradoxically, uncomfortable and inviting way.
Machi vaguely remembered some things, but none of them made sense. So she let Hisoka continue:
"I saw you at a party yesterday by chance, you were already… happy… so don't ask me anything before that. You were dancing with a man who is dead now. I got him out of the way because he wasn't treating you like you deserve. So we danced, I made you laugh a few times, I brought you here, we made many, delicious things on the couch, and then against the wall, but unfortunately, you got sick and, by the way, that's why I pay to stay here, they clean up this kind of a mess," the smile broke with malice on his lips, while she tried to assimilate everything he said. "Now you, I was the one who cleaned you up. We took a hot shower together and you fell asleep in my arms soon after."
The sharp pain in her head seemed to create a wall in her own memories and in her ability to distinguish, in his words, what were lies and what were truths. Machi knew he was lying; it was too perfect a situation for him. Too easy. But the way she found herself left her without arguments.
"Well, I don't feel like we did anything much last night," she tried to fish, her voice cold, but he just laughed briefly.
"I was gentle with you this time. Believe it or not, I care about you."
"Liar," Machi accused him coldly, and then abandoned the cup on the nightstand beside her, making an effort to get out of bed, despite the pain.
It was incredible how she, always so resistant, was now suffering just because of a headache.
Machi looked for her clothes in the room, finding them folded on a chair, and began to dress while her other headache who was lying on the bed brought to him the cup she had abandoned — using nen, most likely — sipping and mumbling something about how she really should have drunk the coffee to feel better. Her eyes looked at Hisoka briefly. From her position, she had a wide view of his back, and the absence of the spider tattoo there, which was no longer needed because he was no longer keeping cover, seemed to make her a little dizzy.
How had she not realized before that his tattoo was nothing more than his Texture Surprise? How had her intuition not warned her that he was lying all the time? And why was the real Hisoka — well, at least, the Hisoka who no longer had to pretend he belonged with the Troupe — bothering to bring her coffee in bed?
She shook her head, with the excuse of trying to fix her hair, when in fact Machi was trying to put away those pathetic thoughts, even if the gesture caused her more pain. As soon as she buttoned up her jeans she headed to the bedroom door, stopping in her tracks, however, by his words, or by the unconscious desire to hear them.
"You should stay, you're not completely recovered and it's cold outside."
Hisoka sat on the bed but just looked at her with that serenity of someone who knows what they want, and knows that the object of their desire wants them in return. But it wouldn't happen today, and possibly, on any other day after he revealed his betrayal, Machi tried to conclude.
"I know how to take care of myself," she replied, determined to continue on her way.
"At least get a coat before you leave..."
"Stop pretending that you worry, you know you don't have to fake it anymore!" Machi declared, like an outburst, and finally left the room, slamming the door behind her.
Alone, Hisoka deposited the cup on the tray and lay down on the bed, taking a deep breath when feeling its comfort. He had missed it after spending the night on the couch.
He had obviously intertwined lies and truths in the story he told her. After Machi felt sick, he had actually called the room service to clean up the mess while he undressed and bathed her in the bathroom; she was so lethargic that she didn't even protest. Nor had she protested when he dressed her in his t-shirt and left her sleeping alone in his bed. Just that, and nothing more than that.
Still, he knew that last night had been very interesting and revealing in many ways, and he was satisfied with that.
He looked to the side and found a pink strand of hair on the white pillow. He took it between his fingers, bringing it to him as if it were a beautiful and precious memento.
"You have no idea, do you?" He murmured to that tiny part of her she had left behind. "You have absolutely no idea..."