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Nobunaga stared at Machi. He looked at her as if she was a gorgon, and he was a newly petrified warrior. He found himself grasping for thought, or at least words, and coming up short. She refused to look at him, staring down at her feet as the fire between them threw light across the campsite. If he didn’t know her better, he would say that she had been crying.
“What did you just say to me?” Nobu said finally, voice clinging to the rough edges of a dry throat. She was silent, eyes glossy and empty.
Nobu stood suddenly, a rush of anger and dread and grief churning in his gut. He put his hand on his sword, more habit than threat.
“Machi, what the fuck did you just say to me?” he asked again, tears pricking at his own eyes.
“I said they’re dead,” she said flatly. She didn’t flinch. She didn’t even look at him. He had seen this quiet sadness in her before, and every time he had sworn to protect her from it. “Hisoka killed them.”
“Kortopi,” he said. He felt lightheaded. He felt as if he were suffocating. He felt as if he was freefalling down a dark hole.
“Yeah,” she said.
“And Shalnark?”
“God, Nobu, don’t you have ears?” She finally looked at him. Her eyes were red around the edges, and lack of sleep clung beneath them. He wouldn’t say she’d been crying. “They’re dead. Hisoka killed them.”
Nobu sat back down on his log beside the fire. He sat there dumbly for a long moment. “They’re dead?”
Machi let out a strangled growl and hid her face in her knees. “I won’t say it again, Nobunaga.”
It didn’t matter if she said anything more. Nobunaga could hardly hear anything anymore. He sat there in silence, watching the fire burn in its pit. It was hard to conceptualize that light could still exist here and now, when the world was clearly so much darker. He looked back over to Machi, who was decidedly ignoring him at this point.
She had come to find him on her own. She had wanted to be the one to tell Nobunaga to his face what had happened. He knew she had more to say about what would happen next and whatever plans the boss had in store for their revenge, but they said nothing. The grief was a heavy silence that weighed heavily on the both of them. Nobu had known that Chrollo would win his fight against Hisoka, but he never could have imagined the fall out. Though, after losing the invincible Uvo, he should have prepared his heart for anything.
“Fuck,” he said aloud, tears finally falling. He hurried to wipe them away and huffed. Part of him wanted to talk about his feelings with Machi, but looking at her now, she looked so small. He couldn’t burden her with that now. He slowly got to his feet. “I think I’ll go for a walk.”
That got her attention. Her head snapped up and she glared at him. “You’re joking. You think I’m about to let you alone?”
“What?” Nobunaga responded, trying to keep his tone conversational, “Do you think he followed you here?”
“I don’t know,” she said cooley. Nobu let himself be amused for a moment. She wore a mask like Shalnark did. Used to, he realized with a stabbing pain. However, hers was made of glass, and he could see the concern plainly beneath it. Don’t go, it said, I’m worried about losing anyone else. She couldn’t say that aloud. Nobu huffed and sat back down.
“Fine,” he said, irritated, but he knew better than to second guess her. Even if Hisoka wasn’t out there, it was better to move in pairs now that they could. He chewed his bottom lip thoughtfully, trying to ignore the way his eyes burned with the threat of tears. “They’re really dead, huh?”
“Yeah. They are.” Machi said bitterly, but her voice had lost its edge. He had expected more chastising for asking one last time, but the resignation in his voice softened her. Nobu hummed thoughtfully. The air was damp with the threat of rain, but the crackle of the fire was strong. It wouldn’t be so easily snuffed out. Nobunaga prodded at it with a long stick, collected for that purpose.
“You didn’t tell me how,” Nobunaga said, sniffing.
“And I’m not going to,” she snapped. “We found them dead in a park near where we were hiding out. That’s all you’re getting.”
“That’s fine,” he said, digging the end of his stick into the embers roughly, “I’m an imaginative man. It’s too easy to imagine the kind of fucked up shit that clown did to them.”
Machi peered at him from over her crossed arms.
“What?” he asked, looking at her blankly.
“Friends, huh?” she asked, half scoff.
He scoffed back, but his lips tightened into a line as he fought back the tears that threatened to come. Machi uncurled from her position across from him.
“I can barely remember the last time you called Shalnark your friend,” Machi said, crossing her arms in front of her chest this time. Nobunaga scowled into the flames.
“We were friends once,” he said, after a moment of thought.
“I remember,” Machi said, “But ever since he and Uvo started seeing each other, things got really tense between you.”
“Yeah, well, he wasn’t ever really into Uvo, right? He was just using him,” Nobu said, breaking the stick in half and tossing it in with the flames.
“Using him for what?” Machi asked with a scoff.
“God I don’t know, Machi, I never understood that guy.”
Machi sighed and picked up a long stick on her side of the fire and started prodding at the fire with it. “When we were kids and the only fights you got into was over line delivery.”
“Yeah, well,” Nobunaga huffed, still fighting back the looming grief, “He was a shit actor. A cardboard cutout would have done a better job. Didn’t he know you weren’t supposed to smile in the sad parts?”
Machi grew quiet.
“I thought he was this master manipulator, according to you, at least,” she said, looking into the fire between them with tired eyes. Nobunaga’s eyebrows furrowed together. “But he was always doing that, right? Smiling during the sad parts?”
“What is that supposed to mean?” Nobu asked, gritting his teeth together.
“Just…I don’t know, Nobu,” she sighed, avoiding his gaze.
“No, you do know. Say it,” he snapped.
“I just…you made a big deal, after Uvo died, right?” she said, uncertain, “About how he was too busy playing video games to give a shit about Uvo’s death and how he never cared about him at all.”
“Didn’t that bother you too, Machi? You used to complain about how he was going to hurt Uvo,” Nobu asked, leaning forward, trying to find agreement in the minutia of her expressions.
“Yeah, well, we might have doubted his feelings, but Uvo never did,” Machi said, her voice tight with restrained sadness. Nobu cast his eyes down to the dirt.
“Yeah, that big idiot always saw the best in everyone,” he said, chewing on his bottom lip. He felt sick to his stomach. This wasn’t the time to have these kinds of considerations. It was far too late for anything but doubling down on the version of Shalnark who acted selfishly and never considered anyone but himself.
“He knew that Shalnark was trying to protect others from his own feelings,” Machi said, trying to keep her tone mild.
“Oh, bullshit,” Nobu said, teeth gritting, “He never protected anyone with the way he acted, and I know he didn’t give a shit about Uvogin. You were there, weren’t you?”
Nobu had said all of this to Shalnark’s face. Yelled it, actually, with tears streaming down his face. Shalnark stood blankly in front of him, like a wooden doll with a painted smile. He couldn’t spare a single tear for their loved one, and it made Nobunaga’s blood boil like acid in his veins.
“Don’t you even care?” he had asked, voice dripping with poison and loss. Shalnark looked at him, surprised. They stood in silence for a long moment as the gears turned in Shalnark’s head and Nobunaga watched his barb sink in, until finally Shalnark shattered the tension with a bright, empty laugh. It was the same laugh brought about by unfunny jokes or a victim’s plea on his deaf ears.
Nobu’s fist had connected with Shalnark’s face before Phinks managed to drag him away. Shalnark didn’t try to fight back. He stood there, staring into his hands as the blood from his nose pooled in his palms. He could picture it clearly now, and he could tell in Machi’s expression, she could too.
“You know,” Machi said coldly, her voice thick, “I remember something you told me years ago, when we lost Sarasa.”
“Oh, stop, this isn’t about Sarasa-”
“Shut up, and listen to me dammit,” she snapped. Her eyes burned, reflecting the fire internally, “I was upset, because Shalnark didn’t seem to care. He went straight to work, helping Chrollo with their grand mission. He didn’t shed a single tear. Do you remember that?”
“Sure,” Nobu huffed.
“Do you remember what you said to me, Nobunaga?” she asked with her eyes leveled at him. He averted his eyes.
“I don’t,” he said, stomach twisting in his gut.
“Liar,” she replied, “What did you say to me, Nobu?”
Nobu clenched his eyes closed and pressed his lips together. Uvo was right, wasn’t he? Shalnark had never changed. He still had the same smile, the same laugh, the same eagerness to please. He was broken by the loss of their friend, the same as the rest of them. He felt the same grief at the loss of Uvogin, Nobunaga realized, fresh tears pricking the corners of his eyes. When Sarasa died, he poured every spare moment into finding her murderer and assisting Chrollo with his plan. Then, when they lost Uvogin, he’d searched tirelessly for the chain user. His obsession with the game, Greed Island, didn’t start until they’d lost Chrollo.
“That’s how he grieves,” Nobu said softly.
“Grieved,” Machi corrected.
“God, I’m so stupid.” Nobu hid his face in his hands, shoulders hugging his ears.
“Uvo always thought the three of you could have been happy together,” Machi replied. The bite to her voice was gone. She curled back in on herself, drawing her knees back to her chest.
Nobunaga wiped his eyes. “I don’t know about that.”
“You’re a good guy, Nobunaga. I think at the end of the day, if Shalnark had let you both in, you could have put aside your jealousy,” she said.
“Yeah, you’re probably right,” Nobunaga agreed, voice tight. He could picture it. Uvo would put his big arms around the both of them and hold them tightly. It was too late now, of course, but maybe now he could take comfort that Uvogin and Shalnark were together again. Maybe now, Shalnark had nothing to hide from, and maybe one day, Nobunaga would join them.
Machi and Nobunaga were silent then, letting the campfire crackle and flicker between them and send embers into the night sky.