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Hisoka is always so insistent on inserting himself into places where he doesn’t belong, placing himself as an aberrance, a conspicuous presence that hardly serves any purpose. Illumi is sure that Hisoka’s motivations are consistently self-serving and pursued on a whim, and he’s sure that this is also the case for Hisoka’s interest in Illumi’s own life.
Illumi rearranges, ever so slightly. Pushes things to the side only millimeters so there’s room for him. As long as Hisoka operates on arbitrary decisions, there’s no harm in it.
“We should spend more time together.” Hisoka says.
“Hm? Why?” Illumi asks, though inside his mind, he’s already contemplating what trinkets he can move around to accommodate. Maybe, depending on how much time Hisoka has in mind, he can even throw some of them away.
“I have some targets that would best be pursued with a partner.” Hisoka says, and emphasizes the last word by cupping Illumi’s cheek in his hand, nails digging into his skin.
If it were someone else, they would be dead before they could get within inches of him. But Hisoka is stronger than others, so Illumi doesn’t engage, but Hisoka is also different, so he doesn’t flinch, either.
“Alright.” Illumi answers.
Hisoka smiles wider, and takes his hand away. “Alright?”
“Yes. Alright.”
Illumi makes space.
The disruption, the destruction of his organization and reorganization and reorganization and reorganization—begins when Hisoka invites him along on a scouting mission.
Well, Illumi equates it to a scouting mission, for the sake of familiarity and eloquence, but it’s really nothing more than stalking people.
“Our first official date, Illumi, and you look so unenthusiastic.”
Illumi is not sure if he has ever looked enthusiastic. He’s not about to start for something like this.
“We do this all the time anyways. How is this any different?”
“Because I said so,” says Hisoka.
Illumi doesn’t press on. Hisoka’s word means very little as a pathological liar.
Hisoka describes his target, the leader of an organization Illumi’s never heard of. His name is Kohga.
“Allegedly, he’s a strong fighter.” Hisoka carries on, “I’m just dying to fight him.”
Something about the way he says this creates a kind of tension inside of Illumi, a misplaced annoyance that doesn’t have any place distracting him while they’re trying to follow someone unnoticed.
“How strong?” he asks, despite himself.
“Strong enough that I’m interested,” Hisoka says, “And that I think you would be, too.”
The feeling inside Illumi twists his stomach, a tightness he wills away until he forgets.
Illumi is typically not interested in people other than his family and their clients. The likeliness of this man he’s never heard of falling into the latter category is low.
Illumi thinks Hisoka knows this. Hopes, almost, that he would remember, take it into account when weaving whatever manipulation scheme this is, to at least make it believable, convincing enough to the point that his statement would have a semblance of caring to it, another stitch of believability in the curtains that will fall to reveal Hisoka’s newest trick.
Illumi typically operates on a basis of what will benefit his family first, and himself second.
Hisoka, more than anyone else, is an exception to this, but Illumi justifies it since he finds Hisoka’s time and his company interesting. Enjoyable, even.
As they move in silence, Illumi wonders if Hisoka might feel the same.
The location they find themselves at reminds Illumi of one of the bases of operations for the Troupe, a dreary, abandoned facility that looks more temporary than anything. Something that was once a warehouse, from the outside. Illumi thinks any attempt to capitalize off of the Spiders short of joining them is a waste of time, and that pursuing these types of people is something similar, but he doesn’t mention this.
Hisoka has already killed the man they were following by the time they enter.
The outside was a decoy, apparently, as they step inside to be greeted by three armed guards and sterile white hallways, a maze of clean linoleum and fluorescents.
Hisoka throws a punch to an assailant’s nose, and Illumi can recognize the subtle sound of bone breaking, piercing brain tissue. Illumi stabs through the chests of the other two.
“Let’s go,” Hisoka says, placing one hand to his chest, and extending the other out towards Illumi’s own empty one.
Illumi reaches up only to push Hisoka’s hand away, which makes him laugh.
“Are you embarrassed? There’s nobody here to see.” Hisoka says, with his hands now returned to his sides.
The emptiness, actually, is more reason for concern to Illumi than if there were others here. There’s nobody in sight, and nobody he can sense, either. Their intrusion didn’t go unnoticed, Illumi is sure everyone is hiding, waiting to ambush them, which can really only mean their arrival was expected.
Hisoka knows this. He has to.
Illumi doesn’t mention it. Maybe Hisoka’s taste for chaos is infectious, leeching onto him as a result of prolonged exposure to the source, like radiation poisoning. Illumi continues to walk aimlessly alongside Hisoka for no reason he can discern. For the company, for the intrigue, for an experience he could never have on his own.
This could be normal for him. They could do this more often, Hisoka could continue to invite him on borderline-pointless manhunts and Illumi could accept every time, they could have a routine that takes up more space in his life (and leaves less space for Illumi’s other obligations), and he could somehow find peace with that.
When they round a corner and are immediately surrounded on all angles, people pouring in from doors and behind walls, Illumi anticipates it, prepares himself without concern.
What he does not anticipate, however, is for Hisoka to put his hands up, smile, and announce, “Oh, we’re surrounded, aren’t we?”
“Hisoka—” Illumi starts, reaching for his needles despite his declaration, but is cut off when Hisoka continues.
“We surrender!” He says, almost singsongs, stepping in front of Illumi.
Illumi knows when he’s no longer in control, when to be quiet, when to read the room. He’s has plenty of practice at home, learning from restrictions set by his parents, their expectations of him, of his understanding of his power and his place in the business and in the world.
But here, Hisoka has claimed that power, weighed their joint custody every more slightly towards himself, so that Illumi’s inclined to give up the fight.
Just to see what happens. To see what Hisoka wants, really, even if Illumi already has an understanding of it, and if he is suspicious that what Hisoka wants, and what he gets, are not things Illumi should share an interest in.
As Illumi allows himself to be cuffed and escorted, the disturbance continues.
They have been “kidnapped.” As Hisoka would like to put it.
“I didn’t think they’d kidnap us.” He says, nonchalantly. This is a lie. This is an obvious lie, even for Hisoka, but Illumi thinks that to acknowledge that instead of taking it in stride would be wrong. It’s not what Hisoka planned. So he doesn’t mention it.
“You don’t seem to care much. And you knew it was a trap, didn’t you?”
“Guilty.”
“And the leader?”
“I’d still like to fight him.”
Illumi thinks, processes that Hisoka’s chaos can be dangerous to him, too. That it was planned to be that way.
He keeps things as they are.
From where they sit, a room as white and blank and bright as the hallways, they stare at opposite walls. Their backs are to each other and both are handcuffed, bound around the middle by chains that Illumi has left intact only for the sake of complying with Hisoka’s plan.
Well. Hisoka got them into this. Illumi breaks them anyways, first the ones around his wrists, then the ones around his middle, freeing Hisoka in the process.
“Illumi, don’t you want to sit with me anymore?” Hisoka croons. Illumi answers by standing and walking away, going to lean against the wall.
Hisoka, though Illumi is sure he is able to, makes no effort to break the chains still bound around his wrists, but he does rise to approach him, looming over him and stretching his arms up, putting his palms against the wall above Illumi’s head and leaning in closer to his face.
Illumi turns away, dodging what he thinks was intended to be a kiss.
“What’s wrong, darling?” Hisoka draws out the last word, and it drips like syrup from his mouth, sticky sweet and artificial.
“Nothing,” Illumi says, because nothing is wrong, per se, nothing he can explain without making himself sound foolish for accompanying Hisoka or for not fighting back or for remaining compliant up until this point, and even now as Hisoka slides his hands down, putting his hands next to either side of Illumi’s head so the chain drops behind his neck, then lowering his arms further towards Illumi’s waist, pushing their bodies closer as the chain is forced to pull taut, bringing Illumi away from the wall.
How is it a date if I don’t even get to touch you?” Hisoka whines.
“You’re touching me anyways.”
“This hardly counts. I’d rather touch you differently.”
Illumi is only off-put by Hisoka’s lewdness enough to turn away again, but not smack him like he thinks he should.
“You’re pouting.” Hisoka says. Illumi looks down. “Hey, it’s fine that you prefer the romantic stuff. There’s a time and place for everything.”
Illumi snaps back up. “I don’t—”
“Oh?”
“That’s not what I meant, you know.”
“I know,” says Hisoka. He’s touching Illumi again, less aggressively, chained hands running through his hair and his lips on his cheek. “Don’t worry, Illumi. We can go at whatever pace you like.”
Hisoka sounds sincere. Pressed against him, Illumi can feel his heartbeat through his chest, the same pace as always, not at a quicker rate that might accompany careless deception.
Inside his own body, meanwhile, a reaction to Hisoka’s statement occurs, something that lingers a second too long, too unfamiliar for him to do with it immediately.
When the guards return, and Hisoka remains wrapped around him, the feeling remains. Even after they forcibly remove Hisoka (who complies more than they know), after they rechain Illumi, and after they leave.
It stays up until they’re rejoined by another man Illumi hasn’t seen before but suspects is Kohga, given his confidence in a room alone with them and the airy way he brushes off the others who wanted to stay. Illumi immediately senses that he is strong, like Hisoka promised, but his aura is strange in comparison, hardly foreboding and… belligerent, if anything. Something Illumi would ignore, on another occasion.
“Hisoka!” he greets, and Illumi feels his teeth grit. “You brought our… guest.”
“The Zoldyck prisoner, as requested,” Hisoka sings, and Illumi knows he’s lying, but for him, for his family to be used a pawn, some stupid tool for Hisoka to get leverage to find a way to fight.
There’s no way Hisoka actually thinks Illumi could ever be anyone’s prisoner. There’s no fucking plausible reality where Illumi wouldn’t immediately slaughter everyone in this building if that were the truth.
He realizes, what he’s been feeling this whole time is anger, or some bastardization of it, that only serves to multiply itself, creating more of an unpleasant, unwelcome emotion that drills into his head.
He is angry at Hisoka. He is angry at himself, for accompanying Hisoka, for believing Hisoka, for thinking Hisoka might perceive him differently, as a friend and not as a pawn in his lifelong game of hunting power, and again at himself for his childish emotional reaction, and again at Hisoka, alternating and combining, an inbred response that he struggles to contain.
Kohga is suspicious, that much Illumi can tell. But proud enough to be unwilling to call in his followers.
“Illumi,” Kohga addresses him, “I have trouble believing you were compliant in this.” He’s uneasy. He should be, as there is really nothing stopping him from breaking his chains and then breaking his neck.
“It’s too late for that now,” Hisoka says, and launches into attack.
Illumi watches Hisoka fight. Hisoka’s nen makes him adept at hand-to-hand combat, is overall versatile, and as difficult to understand and its wielder.
Kohga’s nen ability is unremarkable. Clearly a conjurer, he summons knives of different variations. He throws a knife so hot it’s glowing at Illumi’s face. He ducks but doesn’t retaliate.
“Careful,” Hisoka chides, “He’s mine, after all.”
“Your’s?”
His?
“Mine,” he confirms, and deflects a jab at his neck.
Oh.
Kohga is strong enough to last several minutes in a fight with Hisoka, who is only holding back a little, and powerful enough that the crossfire is something Illumi actively has to avoid. A formidably strong opponent, if he were to fight.
The anger inside Illumi is making his body rot. He culls it while he still can. Compartmentalizes, organizes, makes space for that, too. To deal with later. Typically, he would forget, but the Hisoka that resides in his psyche took so long to accommodate for… he keeps them both. They look nice next to each other. Complimentary, even. Like a matching set.
Hisoka spares him a glance. Not his first time, actually, but Illumi isn’t sure what he could want. Maybe its an invitation.
Hisoka catches a machete crackling with an electrical charge and goes to toss it back towards Kohga, who dodges accordingly, unexpectant of moments later, when it snaps back towards Hisoka’s hand. Bungee gum, Illumi remembers, but doesn’t understand his tactic until the knife is thrown to him while Kohga is distracted.
The electricity hasn’t left its metal body.
An interesting ability, but a shame that Illumi is used to voltage much stronger than this.
Illumi holds onto it, but waits until there’s a stagnant moment in the battle to approach Kohga from behind.
Before Kohga can even sense him, Illumi is inches away, and before Kohga can turn his neck to see him, Illumi’s hand is through his chest, heart crushed inside his body.
Illumi throws the knife he was given at Hisoka’s feet, now discharged.
“You didn’t want to play?” Hisoka asks.
Illumi doesn’t respond.
Illumi leaves without Hisoka, only kills the people that get in his way, and goes home. Hisoka, through all this, does not try to follow him.
Illumi’s proposal to Hisoka is as follows: a set of coordinates, a time, and date sent over text.
Hisoka responds with a heart.
“They’re a target.”
“Inviting me to interfere with your family’s business?”
“I’m not paying you.”
“I figured as much.”
Illumi has been hired to kill a group of people, some rebellion force against his client. All of them are unremarkable. If Hisoka really does attempt to cause trouble, it wouldn’t be that big of a deal.
Illumi remembers his anger, having kept it inside, but it’s triggered again by Hisoka approaching him from behind, putting his arms up and over his shoulders, letting them drape over his chest and linking his wrists together to hold Illumi in a loose hug.
Illumi does not know what he wants, but he isn’t about to ask.
Something inside him has shifted without his discretion, it must have, otherwise, he would not be allowing Hisoka to be coaxing him into a kiss, he would not be reciprocating, he would be enjoying the sensation of Hisoka’s body pressed up against his. The awkward angle makes it messy, makes Illumi’s neck ache, but it’s almost forgotten when set against the way Hisoka’s mouth is gentle against his.
Hisoka pulls away and steps back, moving his hands up to Illumi’s shoulders and spinning him around to face him. Some of Illumi’s hair gets stuck against the saliva left on his own mouth. He wipes it away and looks up at Hisoka.
“I would’ve fixed that for you,” Hisoka says. “I always clean up after myself.”
“Hm.” Is all Illumi can say. He knows that isn’t true.
The rebellion leaders (hardly a rebellion as much as a human rights organization, an weak attempt at proletariat uprising) are a couple. Bonded over their mutual love of ethical standards and hatred for human exploitation, or something. To make up for their lack of nen, they have numbers, and they have a large number of automatic firearms. It’s an easy job.
His client had told him to get rid of the couple no matter what. The other ones were just pulled into their fearmongering, he’s sure. Illumi had assured him every member would be dealt with (the pay is better that way).
“I think,” Illumi says, from the rafters of the warehouse the group is gathered in, a militia of dozens ready to storm the mansion of his client, “I won’t make them all needle people.”
Illumi’s ability works best when he’s alone. There’s little need for hand-to-hand combat when he’s operating at his peak and there’s little room for others to interfere while he’s puppeteering people’s bodies around. When he was cultivating his nen, he never took the potential of allies into account.
Hisoka, meanwhile, works well alone, and works well with others, even if others are reluctant to work with him. As this was Illumi’s proposal, he decides to make the compromise.
“And why not?” Hisoka asks.
“For fun.” Illumi answers.
He does, however, cast one needle down to start, has someone standing in the back shoot his neighbor and then himself. Nobody would be able to see the glint of metal on skin, and especially not from the front of the room, where the couple stand, hand in hand, guns strapped to their backs and visible to all on pedestals made from shipping crates.
Killing inefficiently, just to incite chaos. He thinks, if Hisoka is his guest, he may as well entertain him.
He jumps down to fight.
Hisoka follows.
In the crowd, panic has already arisen, concerned screams and accusations, but gunfire doesn’t follow until Illumi has already killed five people, strikes to the neck and solar plexus hard enough to kill without shedding blood. Hisoka joins him, taunting their fire with east dodges, stealing guns with his bungee gum and returning playing cards that pierce flesh in their place.
It takes minutes, if that, to wipe the majority of them out. The couple in charge, a man and woman younger than him, true to their promise of leadership, have been consistently firing at him and Hisoka. Illumi, even from where he’s engaged, watched the girl rush towards him to fight him directly, watched her partner grab her arm to stop her and shove her weapon into her hands.
“It’s dangerous,” Illumi watched him mouth to her.
Hisoka, surprisingly, has spared them up to this point. After he kills another grunt, it’s just four of them in the room left alive.
All that’s left is the couple.
Illumi throws needles into each of their necks and has them kill each other. They turn to face each other, then shoot simultaneous rounds into each others’ hearts, falling forward as their knees give out, foreheads knocking and bouncing them back into uneven heaps on the ground.
“That was a little cruel, hmm?” Hisoka notes. He doesn’t sound concerned.
Illumi can’t think of what to say. The corpses, lying beneath them, now have a calmness to contradict their previous mindless aggression. Two dead lovers, for Illumi at least, is a more romantic notion than two who are alive. Something to do with the tragedy of it all, the blood staining their clothes and seeping out of their mouths and down their necks, pooling around their cracked skulls.
“I’m surprised you invited me.” Hisoka remarks. “You could’ve easily dealt with them on your own.”
“I thought we should do more couple activities,” he says, looking away from the bodies and back to Hisoka. “Like you said."
Hisoka’s face twitches oddly, just for a second, his lips part and close again and his eyes just barely narrow. “I’m surprised you initiated.” he says. He sounds pleased enough. Illumi thinks this is presumptuous of him. “When you were planning this, were you reminded by,” he pauses, gestures to the mangled bodies on the ground, “them?”
“No.” Illumi answers. This was premediated. “This was the activity.”
The longer Illumi goes without being in combat, the more his anger he had been storing away returns to him, the feeling from his previous meeting, the bitterness and pain and something else unknown that had not quelled itself, only sat inside him.
“Your family seems so traditional,” Hisoka says. He emphasizes family, trying to get a ruse out of him. “But I guess the assassination genetics won over the courting etiquette. Have you ever been on one with anyone else before? A date?”
“I have,” he defends, “Clients will take me on dates sometimes.”
Hisoka laughs, short and quiet. Veering onto his usual malicious one, but not quite. “You make it sound like you’re an escort.”
“I would kill them if they touched me.”
(After he got payment.)
“Of course you would.” Hisoka drawls. Illumi feels Hisoka’s hand on his waist, slowly moving towards his hips as he says, “But what about me?”
Illumi traps Hisoka’s wrist in his hand before he can get any further down. “I’m going to kill you anyways.”
Illumi’s first strike is to Hisoka’s jugular, hand flat and fingers pointed. He gets close enough to barely be able to feel the give of flesh. Against someone as strong as Hisoka, that’s impressive. He could even go so far as to say he caught him by surprise.
Hisoka jumps back, steps into stance, pushes a displaced lock of hair behind his ear in a gross display of nonchalance towards his attack. “I guess our date is only just beginning, then?”
“Seems like it,” Illumi answers. He still sounds nonchalant, he knows this, but inside, he is still feeling, something he can’t get rid of, even though he’s been trying.
Hisoka deflect Illumi’s kick, Illumi deflects his punch and strikes back again.
“You’re not really trying to kill me now, are you?”
Hisoka is right, but his words somehow make Illumi angrier.
“No,” he replies, throwing a needle. Hisoka dodges, then roundhouse kicks towards Illumi’s face. Illumi ducks, which Hisoka was expecting, because he uses his same momentum to knee him square on the cheek, knocking Illumi off balance and onto the ground.
Illumi pushes himself up with his arms, springing up onto his feet, where he returns to his fight with Hisoka, a spar that Illumi can feel himself putting too much effort into, missing hits because he’s putting superfluous force into them and losing his balance because he’s putting his full weight into every swing.
Hisoka is a formidable opponent, he tells himself. But:
“Illumi,” Hisoka taunts, “You’re off.”
“Yes,” Illumi says, breathily, as the hit he takes to his stomach knocks the wind out of his lungs.
He shouldn’t have made so much room for him. Should never have allowed, accommodated, invited. Now, or any time before, he should never have thought there was a place inside him where Hisoka belongs.
Illumi is milliseconds away from getting the shit beaten out of him, he knows. He feels primal, animalistic in his desire to retaliate, to counter and attack and dominate. His mind regurgitates a reminder that he allowed this, from the first moment he met Hisoka to every minute decision made with him in mind, he created this reality for them.
As Illumi starts to stand, Hisoka readies his next move before he can fully compose himself, grabbing him by the hair to pull him up to his full height. Illumi feels his own face betray him, twitching into discomfort, more of a psychological reaction than physical, but it’s enough for Hisoka to loosen his hold and move his hand away.
Hisoka remembers that Illumi doesn’t like his hair being touched. And, Illumi realizes, didn’t use that to his own benefit. A silent apology that makes his heart feel strange.
Illumi isn’t the type to forgive, even more than Hisoka isn’t the type to apologize. Not wanting to mimic his uncharacteristic behavior, Illumi aims a sweeping kick at Hisoka’s ankles, an opportunity that seizes the moment’s pause Hisoka created and the new, lighter feeling in his chest.
Hisoka jumps back to avoid being knocked off balance, and, now at a distance, throws a handful of cards at Illumi’s face, which he catches fanned out between his fingers. He returns them to Hisoka, who dodges all of them.
“You’re bleeding.” Hisoka says, now at close range again.
“Am I?” Illumi says, perfectly aware of the drop of blood forming at the hairline slice through his skin. He strikes towards Hisoka, who blocks it with his wrist, and in lieu of hitting back, slowly moves his hand towards Illumi’s face, running a thumb along Illumi’s cheekbone.
“You should be more careful,” Hisoka says. His voice is soft and gentle, carrying through the air with the rising smell of blood lingering from their carnage.
Hisoka briefly presses his lips where his card tore flesh. Illumi wonders if he were to kiss him, if he would taste the metal of his own blood, overpowering the usual sweetness of Hisoka’s gum.
He tests it out. Hisoka is as sweet as ever on his tongue, and Illumi thinks his own taste must be bitter in comparison.
Hisoka breaks away first, then places a hand on Illumi’s head, right over when he pulled before.
“Be careful,” he reminds, “It’s different against me, but I wouldn’t want you to get hurt with someone else.”
As though Illumi would allow anyone else to hurt him.
He tells Hisoka this.
“Illumi,” Hisoka’s voice is void of its usual playfulness, the lack of honeyed drawl making the words ring in his ears, “I don’t want to hurt you.”
He doesn’t sound like he’s lying. Illumi’s rationality tells him that this is the truth, but at the same time, it’s hard to believe that every emotion turning over and wrecking Illumi from the inside out was not unintentionally planted by Hisoka, and even then, that Illumi was the one to cultivate them, to let them overtake and wrap around his guts and bones and heart, vines that restrict his movement and choke out his breathing to the point where he stands in front of Hisoka now he can hear his own breathing for the first time since he can remember, heavy and uneven.
“What’s wrong?” Hisoka asks.
“I think I love you,” Illumi says.
Hisoka puts on a pout, barely hiding a smile behind it. “Is that really so bad?”
Yes.
To love Hisoka, conventionally at least, would be terrifying. Illumi is scared of Hisoka to the extent he thinks he should be, considering his unpredictability and the power that allows it, but if anything, this makes him more drawn to him, the warning signals that flash turning to fireworks with Hisoka’s magic.
But Illumi knows his own love is unconventional; rare and overwhelming, shrouding, even, a dark blanket like bloodlust that hangs heavy when his heart beats with affection. When Illumi’s thoughts go soft, the rest of him compensates, going dark, deep, protective and self-sacrificial to maintain the pleasant lightness he hardly ever experiences.
Hisoka can handle his love, and Illumi would be willing to give it, as much as he would think he should keep it inside him.
Hisoka’s home in Illumi’s body is permanent, a part of the foundation, now, concrete that layers itself on and keeps his ribs from cracking under the pressure of his rapid heartbeat hard and his lungs that empty and fill themselves fast enough to knock everything else out of place.
“I love you too, Illumi,” Hisoka says, “But please don’t cry about it.”
Illumi doesn’t believe him until he registers the sting on salt water on his wound, pooling and falling where the blood did before. Hisoka doesn’t wipe this one away, because Illumi beats him to it, so surprised that his eyes are still capable of this that his hand snaps to his face before Hisoka can reach.
“I’m only like this when I’m with you,” he says. He thinks he sounds disappointed.
“You could get used to it.”
Illumi is no stranger to building a tolerance through exposure. A whole lifetime of it, actually, and this time, he can feel himself looking forward to it.
“We should spend more time together.”