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Many things, Hisoka has learned, are temporary. This has always been the case.
A nameless boy with no home or family learned this before he learned to count. He learned that you have to eat quickly so that your food doesn’t ruin before you eat it; learned that warmth disappears once you take a step away from the bakeries; learned that once people are kind, you leave quickly before they think you’re a glutton. He learned that pity was his friend, and that it only lasted so long.
This lack of permanence taught him to be as swift and fleeting as the wind, as empty and cold as the chilling winters that would threaten his life every year; death’s icy claws pulling at the chains of this mortal confine.
It’s so, so, so cold. It’s a miracle that the child survives.
He meets a priest with a cat, once. Both of them are kind to him, and for once, it seems like he hasn’t overstayed his welcome.
The priest teaches him that there is someone watching over him. That there is an almighty being that safeguards his life, protecting him. That he is good because he doesn’t steal, and he’s rewarded for it; that those whose hands are clean are loved by the Above. The priest gives him bread—still warm, still fresh, ready to be savoured lovingly. The boy eats it quickly before it can disappear. He doesn’t stop to taste it.
But the warm bread is soft in his mouth.
He realises he likes softness, and he realises he likes warmth.
Within a year, the priest dies. The church holds a funeral for him. The boy is not welcome, though—the people hold the same disgust for the scrawny, homeless child.
Everything is cold again. The child does his best to survive.
He almost dies, one year. Without food; without more than a few scraps to shield his small frame from the cold, he shivers under the shelter of the hood of an abandoned garage in an alley. He doesn’t dare steal—not when the words of the priest remind him that he would lose the favour of the force keeping him alive.
He wonders if that force is still watching him; if it sees his fingers starting to turn blue from the cold. He’s heard of ‘frostbite’—that once his body starts to turn ashy, it’ll disintegrate. That’s why the children with mothers or fathers wear clothes even on their hands and feet.
He doesn’t think he’ll survive this winter. His skin will freeze and turn to cold ash, and his starving body will decompose into a bony corpse. Whether the cold or the hunger will get him first, he doesn’t know. As a final plea, he puts his hands together like the priest used to.
There is an answer to his attempt at prayer—someone in a dark hood leaves something by him, and he scrambles over to pick it up. It’s warm. It’s so, so warm, and smells so, so good. He closes his eyes and takes a bite. The muffin is sweet.
He realises he likes sweets.
The other boy is gone before he can even think to thank him.
The muffin gives him enough will to keep trying. He thinks he might survive again this winter. Staying hidden, running away.
Except this time, he’s being pursued. Two people who wear black, one of them asking him to come back with him. The other clearly doesn’t want him there.
He refuses. He knows people who don’t want him around are dangerous.
The boys come back. Again and again. It’s the same thing every time.
One day, the kind one holds out something warm to him. It smells good—and sweet, and he wants it. The kind one gives it to him.
“What is this?” he asks, quietly.
It tastes so good. It’s warm, soft, and sweet. And there’s a part of it that warms his throat more than the treat feels like it should.
“It’s gingerbread,” the kind one tells him. He promises the scared, starving boy that he can have more gingerbread if he comes with them.
He agrees. At least if he dies, he’ll die with warmth, softness, and sweetness.
The kind boy gives him a name—December.
December realises he likes kindness.
This place—the Organisation—is better than the cold, unforgiving world outside. December learns this quickly, when he’s given three meals a day and a bed to sleep in. It’s difficult to adjust to, at first. December spends a few nights sleeping on the cool wood of the floor because the bed is too squishy and makes his back feel weird.
The mean boy’s name is April. The kind one is August. April’s a little scary, but he’s really good at doing what the Organisation wants, and he seems happy about it. August is like that, too, but he’s not scary, so December likes being around him a little more.
August teaches him a lot of things. Like how to read, count, write, and do math. It’s a little hard, but December manages to learn them, and sometimes April helps despite his scorn.
The Organisation isn’t like August and April, though. They’re cold. They put cold, hard metal in December’s hands, and teach him how to use them. He’s seen knives before, used them to cut fruits to eat. It doesn’t take him too long to learn how to swing them. The guns are less simple—they have to be loaded before they can be used, and they’re loud and jarring when they fire. He jumps a little, the first few times, but he gets used to it.
He asks what he’s supposed to do with them, but the only answer he gets from August is a close-lipped, sad smile. August doesn’t get to explain it to him before he learns from the Organisation firsthand:
When December spills blood for the first time, he cries all night. August tries to console him, and April hesitantly hovers around him, too. They don’t seem to understand why it’s so scary. But the red on December’s hands feel like they will never wash off, and he can hear the priest’s voice reminding him that he’s giving up the gift of protection.
The only word that can leave December’s mouth that night is an apology, even as August holds him, gently running his hands through his hair.
August is still warm, and eventually April warms up too. There’s a lot of things that December doesn’t really understand that August insists are important, like presents and board games and cooking. April’s cooking is the best, but he makes everything too spicy. Still, December knows that he makes it less spicy for December before adding more.
December doesn’t really like spicy things. It hurts his mouth, and their heat is too much for him. It doesn’t feel like the warmth of gingerbread, or muffins, or bread, or other things December likes. But he still eats it, because food is food, and a full stomach is better than an empty one.
But it’s the first time December’s allowed himself to think about what he dislikes. The privilege is almost scary, like it could be taken away at any moment. Still, the other two understand, and April makes December’s food less spicy. August says that it’s important that a family looks out for each other, even for small things like this. August likes that word a lot—family. He says it has a lot of meanings, like gingerbread and Secret Santa, and even when April and December fight, or December throws his marshmallows at April and April gets huffy about it, that’s a family thing too.
December realises he likes family, too. April and August are his family.
The night everything goes wrong, December loses it all.
The winter air is cold. The rain is hard and pelts his clothes and skin.
He doesn’t know what went wrong, but they got caught—retreating is the only option, and as he runs, he can hear August’s footsteps behind him, echoing in his head almost as loudly as the gunshots that down the agents on this mission, one by one.
The night air tastes like blood, strengthening with the merciless, unforgiving gunfire. December is fast—he runs, and he runs, and it isn’t until he hears a quiet gasp from August that he turns back around.
August is quite far behind, more than he should be, and he’s stumbling, leaning towards one side as he runs. He isn’t going in the right direction anymore, and as December goes after him, he just barely pulls August back before he stumbles off a cliff.
August is dying.
August is dying.
He’s lost too much blood to live. And worst of all, he’s accepted it.
December can’t let August die alone. He won’t. He can’t let it happen.
He can’t return without August. The grief, the loss, will consume him whole, and December will be nothing but an empty shell.
Hands shaking, December brings the vial of the death serum to his lips, and August delivers one last, final truth. August couldn’t bear to be the reason December or April died, so he switched the serums. Death for amnesia. An end for a beginning.
December’s heart drops.
The serum doesn’t taste sweet.
“Live.”
August pushes December off the cliff.
As he loses consciousness, December realises there’s nothing left for him.
The ocean that comes to greet him hits him with all the delicacy of a truck as he plunges into ice-cold saltwater. August is dying on the cliff, and April will be alone. December will lose his name, his past, and everything he’s come to love.
The man that wakes up alone on the beach with nothing but torn and soaked bloody clothes feels empty.
A nameless man with no home or family learns that there’s something dangerous to his past. His safety, along with everything that would come with it, is temporary.
He steals clothes to look less conspicuous, showers in a hotel bathroom, and wanders through the streets of Tokyo. The winter is freezing, but bearable—but as soaked and hungry as he is, it’s a miracle that the man survives.
He collapses in front of a warm-looking building, hoping this won’t be where he dies.
When he wakes up, strangers ask for his name.
He isn’t sure. But muscle memory provides for him: “Hisoka Mikage.”