Hisoka woke in the middle of the night, Illumi asleep next to him, hands neatly clasped under his cheek. Hisoka eased himself out of the bed. It wouldn't be good to stay. Illumi might even have regrets. Though he hoped not; Illumi had seemed more than eager.
Angry Illumi could be interesting.
No, it'd be boring. Illumi hated everyone else already who wasn't family and yet he slept with Hisoka. Hisoka found that exhilarating.
Hisoka slipped out of the room and into the shower. Exhaustion tugged at his eyelids, but he refused to allow them to close. He headed down the stairs to the kitchen to make coffee and found Machi, her hair damp and in her robe, making hot chocolate.
"Great," Machi complained.
"Relax, I'm just making coffee."
"You're never 'just' doing anything." Machi rolled her eyes.
Afterglow, Hisoka thought. With whom? It wasn't Chrollo, that was for sure. Paku had Oito and the baby in her room. So Shizuku, or one of the guys. Phinks seemed to head over heels for that mom. Hisoka's mind whirred.
"Can't sleep?" he asked. The clock read three in the morning.
"Woble woke up and was crying. Oito finally got her to go back to sleep after apologizing six million times, so I'm making her and Paku and myself some hot chocolate."
"Oh, so you were on that floor?" Hisoka pressed brew on the coffee machine.
Machi ignored him.
"So, no."
"Why are you so interested in my sex life? It's creepy."
"I'm not."
"That's a lie."
"It's not. My own is so much more interesting. You just are fun to tease and we both know you don't hate me as much as you pretend to."
Machi huffed. A smile almost crossed her face. "Kalluto doesn't sleep much at night, you know. I've found him in the kitchen before and made him hot chocolate. I think it's almost a habit at this point."
"You don't mind having brats around?"
"No. At the foster home I was in before I ran away, I had to take care of all the younger ones. They annoyed me, so I left. But no one makes me do anything here." Machi turned off the stove and poured the hot chocolate into three cups. No, four. Hisoka pressed his lips together.
The coffee finished. He dumped sugar and cream into it.
"You have more calories in that than I do in all these cups of hot chocolate," Machi pointed out, arranging them on a plate to carry up the stairs.
"I'll work it off." Hisoka leaned back against the counter, breathing in the creamy scent. "So was it one kid you'd get to calm down with hot chocolate, or most of them? Or was it yourself?"
Machi looked away, towards the darkened staircase. Her voice box bobbed in her throat as she swallowed. "You know," she said. "You're an idiot."
"You've said that before," he pointed out.
"You should have learned a lesson after going through that mess with Chrollo," said Machi. "Instead you seem to have dug in your heels and are repeating everything. You're stupid as fuck."
"Huh?" Hisoka gaped. He squeezed the mug in his hand.
"You're not the only one who observes people of interest to them," Machi responded.
"Does that mean I'm of interest to you?" he hollered after her. The joke felt heavy in his abdomen. He chugged more coffee, hoping to rinse it away. Instead it settled in his stomach, wrapping around him from the inside like arms made of lead.
"It means you're like an obnoxious child like the ones I wanted to scream at when they touched the hot stove after being told they'd get burned!" The floorboards creaked. She cussed as she must have stepped on the broken one. Well, she clearly wasn't dead; the cups hadn't crashed.
She somehow knew about Illumi, didn't she? But it wasn't like that. They'd defined it. Fake dating. And then just experimenting. Okay, they hadn't clarified that, but it wasn't anything more. Hisoka raised the mug to his lips and found that it was empty sooner than he'd thought. He scowled and slammed it onto the counter. He'd have to brew more.
More, more, more. He always wanted more. When he was younger he thought he might find living water, or something to fill him. It didn't exist, so he swung from pleasure to pleasure , wind on his face and always at risk of falling, but it was a challenge.
"You're a street kid. You won't live; you'll just exist. No one wants you."
He couldn't remember who'd said that. A cop? A do-gooder? Another street kid, or a beggar adult? Or was it just something he imagined from the messages everyone would send him?
No one would want him, but he could want things and experiences and people for nights when they wanted him too. They did want him. And he was living. He knew he would die, but he could feel things. He wasn't still on the streets.
Fuck you, he thought to a blank silhouette. It bore his shape.
A shadow.
Running.
Hisoka froze. Two shadows, creeping along the kitchen floor. Chrollo had sent them all that text about Tserriednich… he'd love to kick that pompous ass right in the dick. He bet it was tiny anyways.
But the figures were way smaller.
Hisoka yawned and moved towards the staircase. He ducked into the living room, racing towards the front door. He unlocked it and slipped out without fully shutting the door, racing to the other side of the house. His daily workouts served him well.
"Run!" yelled one of the figures. A familiar voice.
Hisoka grabbed the first figure by the shoulder, throwing him to the ground. The kid gaped up at him.
Killua Zoldyck?
A foot smashed into Hisoka's skull. He lashed out, grasping the kid's leg and throwing him down behind his friend. His skull throbbed. Damn, he was gonna have one hell of a headache.
"Ow!" yelped the kid who'd kicked him. Hisoka shone his phone's light into his face. Gon Freecss.
"I can't say I'm not impressed with your pluck," Hisoka said. "Come to apologize to your brother, Killua?"
"No!"
"Figured. Which means you're here looking for dirt on him."
Gon pushed himself up, glancing at Killua. Killua set his jaw, as if refusing to answer.
"Want me to call him right now?" Hisoka asked, brandishing his phone.
Gon lunged for the phone.
"Down, idiot," said Hisoka, shoving him away. This kid's fire reminded him of himself.
"Are you his friend?" demanded Killua. "You know he told me I didn't deserve friends, right? That I—that family was all—"
"No, we're just fucking," Hisoka answered. Illumi really said that, didn't he? Probably told himself it was for Killua's own good, that he was all Killua needed. Illumi was the most emotionally repressed person he knew.
Killua's eyes bulged. His mouth twisted in complete horror.
"Leave your brother alone," Hisoka warned them. "Unless you want me to tell him, which I'd be happy to do. He at least gives me dick whereas you two are just nuisances potentially coming between me and said dick." Not that it was likely to happen again. But he liked the possibility.
"Ugh!" Killua doubled over, clutching his hands over his ears.
"Illumi's a risk," said Gon. "He hates Alluka and doesn't even believe she's a person. He's the one who's barely a person."
"Sounds to me," said Hisoka. "Like you've got a plank in your own eye, kid." He rose. "Get off this property in ten seconds or I'll calling Big Bad Illumi."
Killau scrambled to his feet. Gon grabbed Killua's hand, dragging him along.
"Why are you even involving yourself?" Hisoka yelled after him.
Gon whirled around. "Because he's my friend! And I want to help my friends!"
To the point where you'd do something stupid for what you want. Well, he could respect that. And because of that he wouldn't tell Illumi.
The blank silhouette slipped closer. He thought of kissing Illumi again, of irritating Chrollo, of graduating with honors to fuck with Netero. Those thoughts burned inside, melting away the cold fingers of an empty shadow.
Chrollo sat up in the attic, watching Hisoka head back into the house after scaring those two kids away. There was one small window, shaped like an octagon, in the attic. Boxes and furniture crammed everywhere, giving it the appearance of a haphazard attic filled with only junk. But drawers in empty bureaus were filled with jewelry, and if someone studied the furniture, they'd find antiques.
You don't have the money to keep this place going.
I'll get it.
Everyone helped him, really. Sometimes. But no one knew the extent of it—except Hisoka. Chrollo pulled his coat tighter around him.
He knew when he welcomed Hisoka into the house that the man didn't care about anyone but himself. And he knew he wanted to find out just how Chrollo had clawed his ways out of the gutters, and that he wanted to get into Chrollo's pants. He'd agreed to the latter simply because it was fun, and he needed some stress relief.
It backfired.
They were just friends with benefits, but then Hisoka was still taking other lovers, even if he insisted he was using protection and Chrollo figured that to be true since Hisoka didn't seem the type to want to risk herpes. But people were whispering, muttering that Chrollo was being used, and he didn't like that at all. Just another notch in Hisoka's belt.
Not hardly. He refused to be just anything. A fortune teller told him once. He'd do great things. He was eight and starving and spent his last coins on her fortune instead of on food. Once she told him that, he knew he needed to survive and stole bread like Jean Valjean, because even at eight he was reading Les Mis even though he didn't know what half the words meant. He didn't get caught. Because fate had a plan.
So he decided to show Hisoka up. The Kurta boy seemed like the perfect target. Hisoka himself had commented how gorgeous he was, and of course, the Kurtas were legendary for their eyes. Rumor or not, the golden halo surrounding his face, his peculiar clothing, and his delicate, angelic features set Chrollo's stomach fluttering.
And then it all crashed and burned when Kurapika flipped out about being used. Chrollo snorted. Stupid self-righteous boy. They were all using each other, right?
"So Pairo was right," Kurapika mused, looking down. "You really were only after my eyes and sticking it to someone else. You didn't really like me."
"I mean, I liked you enough to choose you," Chrollo pointed out, pushing his hair back. Their make out session had dislodged some of it from its gel prison, but when he'd requested to see Kurapika's eyes, the other boy pushed him away.
And Kurapika turned to glare at him, and then Chrollo knew that the rumors about the Kurta eyes were true. They glowed scarlet, and they took his breath away, and they were bleeding tears.
"I didn't need this right now," Kurapika said, chest heaving.
"I did, so—"
When Kurapika punched him and stalked off, everyone laughed.
In truth, Chrollo hadn't known his parents had just died. But if he had known, it wouldn't have mattered, because he had no idea what that meant.
Chrollo slipped down the stairs to meet Hisoka as the man came back up to their floor. He winked at Chrollo.
"Seduced Illumi already?" Chrollo asked.
Hisoka shrugged. "I don't owe you an explanation."
"Do you really think I'm not over you? Do you really think I actually cared?"
"No," said Hisoka. "I knew you care. Not about me, but about everyone else in this house. You're living in fear that I'll sleep with someone else from the house and hurt their feelings, aren't you?"
"You're petty enough." Chrollo crossed his arms.
"I'm not the one who tried to seduce a freshman because his eyes were pretty," Hisoka pointed out.
Chrollo gritted his teeth. "If you tell Tserriednich—"
"Why would I? That man's a rapist. He can fuck himself. If he shows up I'll gladly punch him."
Chrollo bit his lip. "If you go for Oito, that will only—"
"I have Illumi," Hisoka said. "We're dating."
Ew. Chrollo arched his eyebrows.
"You seem to think I don't have standards."
"Because you don't."
"I do." Hisoka pushed past him. "Sleep well, Chrollo dear."
Chrollor resisted the urge to punch him in the face. "Why did you even decide to live here? No one wants you." But you stick around anyways.
Trash like you should go off and die.
Whoever'd said that to him as a kid, he'd resolved to prove wrong.
No one wants you.
Who cares?
Hisoka let out a harsh laugh. "If you're worried I'll rat on your stash, rest assured, I like having a place to live." Hisoka paused, studying Chrollo. "And it's filled with interesting people, and you're always a challenge." He shut the door.
Chrollo curled his fists. Don't pretend you have anything to gain by wanting to be here! I'm not your toy! He turned and stomped down the stairs towards the kitchen. Another all nighter it was.
A baby's cry rose. He found Oito bouncing Woble in the living area. "Sorry," Oito stammered. "Did she wake you? She's fussy because—"
"No," said Chrollo. "I was awake anyways." He rubbed his forehead.
"I really don't want to be an imposition," Oito said.
"You're not." Phinks liked her, Chrollo was certain of that.
"You're all students, though. You need your rest."
"You hardly seem like you're older than us," Chrollo said, grabbing a copy of The Tempest and settling onto the couch.
"I'm twenty," Oito said sadly.
Chrollo swallowed.
"I thought he loved me—he said he did, and he said I didn't have to worry about affording school anymore, or anything. He was happy when I told him I was pregnant. I was happy too, until—he doesn't care about Woble, and he doesn't care about me. All he cares about is himself, and money, and I'm a fool for not seeing that." Oito studied her daughter, quieting at last as she lay on her back. "But he gave me Woble, so I'm glad."
"I wouldn't know," said Chrollo. "Family isn't something I understand or care about."
"Then what's this house?" asked Oito.
Chrollo pressed his lips together. He did not like that question. This house was... revenge. Against the world. Proving trash could make it.
"My family was poor. I was the middle child out of five, and I always—dreamed of a life like Nasubi led," Oito said, stroking her daughter's curling hair. "They don't want me back, I'm sure. They have other things to worry about."
"You can stay as long as you need," said Chrollo. And he didn't even understand himself. She wasn't useful to have around.
Maybe this is just fate.
Oito shrugged.
"Did you love him?" asked Chrollo.
"I thought so," said Oito. "I think I just—loved what he represented to me. A man on a white horse."
Chrollo hardly thought Nasubi looked like any sort of prince. Well, maybe Oito grew up with different storybooks.
"I was a fool," Oito said sadly. Woble stirred, and she lifted her daughter up, breathing in her scent. "This house is your white horse, isn't it?"
"I don't understand," Chrollo said. The house? We just use it. And each other. And it's good, because it gives us a sense of purpose and a place to belong to, to recharge when we need to. It didn't rescue me. Then again, men on white horses don't rescue either, do they? They just want someone to knock up, ensure their legacy.
And I want... the graduate with my degree. To write a paper and ensure I'm not forgotten. To have all these people remember me.
That isn't how most people are, is it?
"Want to hold her?" Oito asked, gesturing.
"Um. Okay." Chrollo held his arms out.
"Are you and Kurapika exes?"
"No," Chrollo insisted, the baby settling in his arms. He supported her head. She barely fluttered an eyelid.
She can't do anything.
She's useless.
But you still want to protect her. So much so that you gave up everything else you had.
For what, though? Did you want adventure after all, like Hisoka, like me? Or did you—was it really all for your child?
He thought of Kurapika's face earlier that day, when he mentioned his parents. If I had parents like that, I couldn't bear to lose them. "No," said Chrollo again. "We're not, because we're from different worlds." And a part of him wished he was from Kurapika's world, had that faith in the world that burned inside the red-eyed boy, had not tried to use him.
If I was different, could we be different?
Illumi made sure Kalluto was to hear nothing of what had happened between him and Hisoka. Hisoka agreed.
Are we fake dating? Or was that real?
Why did I sleep with him if it wasn't real?
Because it felt good. But… I wanted too.
And I'd do it again.
There was still no word on Killua as the weekend rolled around. Illumi was starting to panic when he arrived home from classes around five to see a familiar car parked in the driveway. His heart picked up pace. Did they find him?
Illumi burst inside to see Mom and Dad sitting in the living room. Mom was fussing over Kalluto's kimono. She always wanted a daughter, Mom had. Nature hadn't given her one. Unless Alluka… but they say Alluka's an it.
"Illumi!" Mom cried out, racing towards him.
He let her embrace him, though he was stiff like normal. His eyes found Dad's, the blue, cat-like shape that only Milluki shared, though Kalluto and Killua had aspects of it as well. Illumi's eyes were all his mother's: huge, dark. "Did you find him?"
"No," Dad stated. "Illumi—"
"I've been looking," Illumi blurted out. "And I will keep looking. I suspect he may be at Gon Freecss; if we can get a warrant—"
"Have you talked to the police?"
Illumi blinked. "I thought you would."
"We have, of course," Mom said, wringing her hands. Kalluto studied his feet, face flushing the color of his eyes. Illumi heard creaking on the stairs and a baby's gurgle.
"About this specifically," Dad cut in, voice like ice. A voice he hadn't used on Illumi since the coffee incident, though he commonly used it on Milluki.
"I was going to this weekend," Illumi stated. But he felt he should be able to do it without the police. Dad also said to never involve the police unless it was necessary.
"Why not now?" demanded Dad, crossing his arms. "It seems like you are not doing much besides studying."
Illumi swallowed. "I'm—"
"Letting a clown screw you?"
Illumi's spine crawled with fear. His eyes wouldn't even blink now. "I—"
"We had the pleasure of meeting him," Dad said. "Or, rather, Kalluto pointed him out."
Kalluto took a step back, clasping his hands together. He was shaking.
"It was just once, and for fun," Illumi said.
Dad's hand smacked Illumi across the chin. He stumbled back, barely staying on his feet. His cheek stung. His nose ached. His pride felt broken. At least he didn't hear others around here. "Fun, or your brother, the future of the Zoldyck family?" Dad snapped. "You're becoming like Milluki, Illumi. That creature could be killing him."
Illumi's hand drifted upwards to clutch his cheek. But no, he couldn't let Dad see pain, or weakness. He'd just be even more disappointed in Illumi, and he wanted to stand tall even though he was an adult and had finished growing and would never, ever be as tall as his father.
He looked at his father and wondered if his father could see any of himself in him. Tsubone's words echoed and echoed.
"Too much like their mother…"
But you love her. You married her. Right? Right? I'm not wrong?
I am wrong. All of me is—wrong.
Illumi bowed his head. "I apologize. I will take responsibility. I swear I will find Killua, and soon. And Alluka as well."
"Don't tell me," said Dad. "Show me."
Don't tell me you love me. Show me.
Don't tell me you want to be strong. Show me. Stay up all night. Hit your brothers. Succeed in school.
Don't tell me. Show me.
It all made sense. Words were cheap, after all. But then why this empty feeling? Why a sense of loss whistling through him?
"I promise you," Illumi said, meeting his father's eyes. Please, at least see your determination in me.
I am a Zoldyck. It's all that matters to me. I'll do whatever you want, forever.
I will bring Killua back. I'm the one he loves most, right?
"Fine," Dad said. "Don't let me down, son."
Illumi's heart lifted. "I won't."
Mom clapped her hands together. "Now, let's go out for dinner."
"Of course," Illumi said. He headed for the lavatory. Dad was an expert in giving hits that would hurt but never bruise. Still, Illumi combed his hair in front of his face. He stepped out and glanced at Hisoka's open door. He wasn't there.
Illumi remembered what it felt like to have Hisoka over him, inside him, holding him together.
I can't do it again.
But...
I'm so weak. No. I'm not. It has a purpose. Hisoka is helping me. I can do it again because I'm in control I'm in control I'm the one calling the shots I'm making decisions and calculating costs I have value I matter to this family I will be the one to get Killua back because I know him best and I'm willing to give it all and I have less to lose than Mom or Dad I'll win I'll win I'll win!
I'll win.
And another thought came unbidden into his mind, slapping him with calloused knuckles harsher than Dad's palm. What was it you wanted to win again, anyways?
