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Steam rose in heavy, thick clouds and I made a low grunting sound behind my bandana and muttered a few words in my native language. It was a childish enjoyment to twine my slender fingers through the swirling white and watch the heated mist change course and slip through my grasp. I did it thoughtlessly and a few more singsong, rhythmic exhales of vocalization slipped out of my mouth.
It wasn’t until I clenched the knife in my left hand too tight and nicked my thumb I realized I had a wide, goofy grin on my face and had forgotten what I was doing in favor of watching the mugs steam while slowly waving my fingers through it. Any other time it would have been a problem and I would have berated myself badly for it. If I’d even have allowed myself to get into such a consumed mindset. Complete rests were rare among the Gen’ei Ryodan, and most often we were on guard even in our quiet times, but every so often that changed.
And sometimes it changed at relatively set occasions.
I flexed my hand in the steam one more time, enjoying the feel of the heat that would likely slightly sting or scorch other people’s hands as if it was no more than lukewarm. My Rising Sun took the pain out of fire and steam was like nothing to me. Pretty mist was what it was to me, and I liked my play, but I’d had a purpose for heating the milk and stirring in the chocolate until it was smooth. Just as I had a purpose for the puffy, white bunches of marshmallows on the cutting board under the hand that held the knife.
I looked down at the sweet treats, hoping guiltily I hadn’t stained them red with the few drops of blood I’d drawn from myself while not paying attention. The kitchen had lacked knives that had actual blades on them, and so I’d pulled one from my personal collection to operate on the marshmallows. It was short and wickedly curved but I’d managed not to do more than snip off a tiny strip of skin. Nothing serious. Nothing I couldn’t manage with. And the sweets were undamaged. That was good. Danchou wouldn’t chide me for ruining the treat, but I still did not want to waste the sugary stuff. There had been a time when we would have fought and killed for a single fluffy marshmallow. Just because now I had a whole ripped bag of them spilling what resembled little pillows across my cutting board didn’t mean I couldn’t remember what it was like to willingly take a knife to someone for something rare.
Shaking the thought away like the blood I flecked off my hand, I mumbled into my bandana and resumed cutting the large cylindrical delicacies. I’d acquired a taste for sweet things after too long with the smell of garbage clogging my nose, and I had gone a little overboard with the preparations for this rest. I should have gotten the small marshmallows designed to be dropped into hot chocolate, but instead I’d purchased the extra-large ones and now found myself cutting them into neat pieces that would fit in the mugs. I couldn’t say I regretted the acquisition any more than the fact I’d actually taken the time to buy them, and all the other little niceties for this rest, instead of stealing them.
I could have stolen them, I could have stolen everything, but I hadn’t wanted to. There had been something about piling my arms high with pleasantries in a store, while my Danchou waited outside on the street that was alluring. That followed by the walk through the crisp winter air to the hotel had been more than refreshing. Well worth the additional effort and uncertain stares from shopkeepers.
But just about anything would be worth going through for my Danchou and our customary retreat. We had been going off alone together like this ever since Meteor City and the rotting trash heaps, when we could afford little more than fighting for some interesting scrap and savoring it together while we licked our wounds.
Things had changed since then, arguably improved, but our yearly absences from the rest of the Gen’ei Ryodan had not. Humming thoughtfully at the recollection, I dropped the precisely cut squares of marshmallows into the mugs and watched them bob a moment, to be sure all was well and prepared properly. Conciseness and care in preparation was another pleasure I'd acquired, and I refused to rush an enjoyment.
Once sure our treat was arranged to perfection, I slid the knife back onto my belt and picked up both mugs. It was a short trot to the bedroom area from the kitchen because the bed took up the center of this room. It was large and sat center stage, with obvious intent of what it be used for. All other furniture was scattered discreetly to the edges of the room, just as the dimmed kitchen was nestled behind a sparkly glass bar that was well stocked in things that would make your head turn.
I hissed with subdued distaste as I passed the bar and made my way to where Danchou sat on the side of the big bed with his long legs stretched out and his hands in his pockets. I had never liked the things stocked in bars. They unsettled me and even the other members of the Spider knew to keep alcohol away from me, but this unpleasantness was forgotten when I reached my Danchou’s side. Danchou always had nice legs and I had it in me to regret there would be no use for the bed, aside from sleeping. Any other of our private escapes there would have been more pleasant things to do with that too big expanse, but that was before Hisoka Morow had come traipsing into the Gen’ei Ryodan and made a mess of everything.
Stupid clown bastard, I had the ability to think before my Danchou’s rain-gray eyes turned to me and I lost all ability to think anything. Chrollo Lucilfer might have been the head of the Spider but he was also the man who had pulled me out of a trash heap and given me a purpose. I thought distractedly I had been utterly at his mercy since the first time I’d blinked up into those gray eyes and that serious face.
“Happy birthday, Danchou,” I said, all my aggravations forgotten, even those as sweetly excruciating as one fucking clown bastard.
“Happy birthday, Fei,” my Danchou replied, slim hands moving to accept the mug I held out for him.
It wasn’t either of our birthdays, really. But we’d never minded that, and every year we chose a different date between November 15 and January 21 to disappear together and call it our birthday. A ritual that had sprung up one cold November night when the man I now snuggled up beside had come into our camp, bruised and bloody, and handed out candy sticks with the only explanation of, “It’s my birthday.”
I’d been little more than a dirty feral then, still hissing and trying to understand what it was to be in a group, and I’d never heard of a birthday before, much less known when mine was. When the stolen candy had been greedily eaten and the rest of the Spider had gone to sleep, I’d sidled up to Danchou and asked him what it was.
We’d picked my birthday date after that, and made it a habit of celebrating our combined birthdays together from then on. The how might have changed over the years, but not the subtle enjoyment of it.
And there was still enough to enjoy, even if I wouldn’t be gently pressing my Danchou into the silky sheets and making him moan sweet things.
It was snowing outside, big wispy-fat flakes shuffling down from the sky, like some candy maker had gone over excited with the confectioner's sugar on some exorbitant creation. The sky was white and the city far down below was padded in puffy blankets of the white stuff I’d licked off my fingers and chased the first time I’d seen it falling. Clean and white and unusual for one not used to anything but dirt, dirt, and more dirt, mixed with garbage. The rest of the Gen’ei Ryodan had laughed at me that day, until I’d hissed at them and my rising Nen had frightened them enough to be quiet. And until Danchou had thrown a hard and fast compact ball of the white stuff at Pakunoda, his serious face never changing and his demand to see who was good enough to win at this kind of fight waking the Spider to the only kind of play we really knew. How to beat each other to chilled, wringing wet submission.
The snow outside was a good thing, a happy thing. The warm inside with Danchou beside me and a hot mug in my hand that should have burned my skin, but did little more than offer me the barest sensation of heat was also good. We had survived another year. Somehow we were all still together.
“You’re bleeding, Fei.” Danchou’s words pulled me out of my silent considerations, and I turned my own set of gray eyes up to him.
“Is nothing. Nick finger on knife. Not pay attention. It not hurt.”
“Still, Fei.” Danchou leaned down and set his mug on the floor before taking my hand in his and gently examining the still-bleeding cut on my thumb. “This should be looked after or it could get infected, Fei.”
“You want fix?” I asked, already seeing how the fingers of his other hand were slowly moving, wanting to conjure Bandit's Secret and page through it to find one of the healing Hatsu he’d stolen.
“Yes, Fei,” my Danchou returned, and a twist of his hand brought Bandit's Secret into existence.
I watched him page through the book one-handed, it’s spine firmly pressed into the mattress, looking for the Hatsu he wanted, while I pondered his hand still holding mine. Two pairs of slender, pale fingers mixed together. One set covered in an assortment of minute scars from other, long ago times they’d bled and not had someone able to take that bleeding away with a few flips of pages in a book. The other set highly pristine, and yet…
“Here it is, Fei.”
Danchou pressed his hand over the page of Bandit's Secret he wanted, and then turned to me and ran his finger over the cut I’d so carelessly made in my skin. The abrasion disappeared under his touch, and a new scar was added to the mix. This one something I would run my fingertips over again and again, thoughtfully remembering a happy time.
“All better, Fei,” Danchou intoned, and sent Bandit's Secret away, even as he reached for his mug again. His dark hair swept forward, almost covering the cross tattooed into his forehead. My Danchou… He didn’t have scars like mine. He’d fought and he’d killed and he’d done worse things to get us all where we were, to give us the tools to survive in a harsh world, but his scars were different. They weren’t out on his skin for people to see. They were down deep inside where only I could find them because he didn’t let other people know where he hurt.
“Thank,” I said, snuggling closer to his side and forcing him to sling an arm around me to accommodate my smaller body beside his.
We sipped our hot chocolate quietly for a while after that. Me becoming disgruntled with the foam constantly clinging to my upper lip, until I was hissing lightly and trying to rub it off with fingers that only got sticky, and Danchou eventually laid a hand on my head before going to get a damp cloth for us both. This was what I loved about our routine escapes. We didn’t need words to be content in each other’s company. We were together. We had survived another year. And that was enough.