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hisoka has been wandering around the infinite hallways for nearly half an hour now, if he'd known the mansion was this big then he wouldn't have volunteered to locate his father- stupid chrollo for using his age as an excuse.
he stumbles into another room, to see yet another study adorned with victorian decor. the hui guo rous surely had lavish taste, he knew each ornate furniture costed a fortune. hisoka sighs, closing the well carved door switching to the one opposite it on the hallway.
his hand freezes on the knob when he hears muffled thumping from the other side of the door, a helpless beat. "help!" he heard, just barely, it was a dying wheeze, someone's last breath. someone who sounded too familiar for hisoka's ears to ignore.
with a deep sigh, he turns the knob and makes a crack small enough to take a peek inside without having to expose his whole face. the lights in this room were inactive like all the others, but hisoka's eyes adjust soon enough. he could distinguish the silhouette of a bed- four posters and its translucent curtains billowing from jagged movements. there were two people on top of the sheets, one he figured was a woman with long flowing hair straddling a man whom she seems to have held down with a choke hold, pressed into the mattress.
her back was the only clear feature hisoka could see, exposed by her matte dress. her hair was loose and it covered her profile in sleek waves.
"help." the man says again, broken like his windpipe under the woman's steady grip, and eventually two things dawned in hisoka's awed (distracted) mind; this woman was committing homicide that he's just idly watching; and her victim, from the looks of the shoes visible in his line of sight, was his father. his father was getting murdered, and hisoka can't find it in himself to stop his killer.
because what shook his knees isn't fear or cowardice, but arousal, and it intensified with each breath his father tried to take back. death was art, after all, and as an artist it made his blood rush faster than needed.
with a last, final breath, because hisoka's counted on far too many, the woman finally lets his father go. when she stood on the bedside, her full height shown as well. she looked near taller than hisoka, but further inspection made her heels come to view, so perhaps not.
hisoka catches a glimpse of her side profile, of huge black eyes as dark as the night outside, but she continued facing away from him. she picks up something from the night table, a phone, that she types into and soon presses into her ears. "hello."
and that one word sent hisoka off, because the voice behind it was undeniably soft and smooth and deep. hisoka presses closer, trying to catch more of that voice. "i have completed my part, yes, yes. before you go, i have a question."
he tenses up, having an inkling of an idea where this might head. "what should i do with the witness?"
ah, shit. so he's been caught.
"i'm not? then what do i- yes, sir. yes, see you at home."
"you can come out now." not as scared as he should be, hisoka pushes the door wider open, shedding some light into the dim room where a dead body lied on the bed, and the culprit of the crime standing next to it. "who are you?" she asks, finally turning to hisoka and...
oh, she's a he. the idea of him suddenly became ten times more appealing. "hisoka morow, that's my dad you just killed there."
"morow? so which son are you, the writer or the artist?"
"i would be the artist." comically, there's still some dried paint on his fingers. he might have played with a few paint cans in one of the rooms he found prior, the hui guo rous would either laugh at his gag imitation of them on the wall or would declare business war on their company. either one would provide hisoka with enough entertainment.
the lovely figure in front of him was surely entertaining too. "ah, hisoka."
"now that's unfair, you knowing my name and me not knowing yours."
"hmm." he ponders, giving hisoka a once-over. "illumi. illumi zoldyck."
"why're you wearing a dress, illumi zoldyck?" he's heard of the family name before, his father treated their every mention taboo- look where that got him. "i hear the head of the morow family fancied promiscuous late nights, so i lured him with this."
"you make for a fine specimen, illumi zoldyck, can i paint you?" the information about his father was sadly true, and his craving to paint the assassin is also true, though the idea held a positive note. illumi's phone blinks to life with a text, and once he read it he gives hisoka a look. "i need to go, it was nice to meet you, hisoka morow."
"wait-" hisoka took an instinctive step forward, blocking the doorway. "before you go, i've two questions."
"when can i see you again?" hisoka asks without pause. illumi tilts his head to the side, looking confused as to why he would even ask such a thing. "my targets are usually from high class functions like this, so maybe in the next one? i'm not too sure."
"alright, i'll take that. when can i paint you?"
"i would not make a good muse, hisoka morow. shouldn't you be chasing the beauties socializing in the party downstairs?"
"again, two things. one, how dare you belittle your beauty when i am the only one in this room who is currently staring at it? and two, there are no beauts downstairs who look as ethereal as you, who's angelic face deliciously clashes with the sins you've committed tonight. so, what about it?"
illumi walks to the open balcony, his jade dress fluttering with the wind breezing in. "i shall think about it." he answers as soon as he steps foot outside, and hisoka realizes what he plans to do.
hisoka follows suit, rushed steps across the room and towards the open doors. illumi faced him, back to the railing, and waves. "wait, what do you-" illumi leans back, lets himself fall over and down. hisoka walks up to the railing half afraid he might see the corpse of the rare gem on the hui guo rou's grassed lawn.
illumi stood there, looking up at him. how, hisoka didn't bother to think about, he waves at the dressed man, and is pleasantly surprised to see him wave back. "see you at the next party!"
hisoka comes back to chrollo with the news of their father's death, illumi zoldyck's figure still a vivid memory in his mind. later that night, he painted of fine dining and spilled wine over green lighting and dark shadows.
tonight's elusive phantom towering over the banquet with his inky eyes and blood smeared hands, it was a mosaic with a promise only he knew. he'll convince illumi zoldyck to be his muse, so he can revive tonight's ghosts, if only for one painting.
that one painting would bear his meager attempt to capture illumi zoldyck's allure, for hisoka was smitten by the echoes of death that blanketed him. and as an artist, his whole existence revolved around painting things he could never hope to hold.