Chapter Text
“I trust this won’t happen again.”
With the ice pack still pressed to his busted eye, Hisoka nods adamantly. “Absolutely not, sir.”
“That’s good to hear. Otherwise, we’ll have to think of further consequences,” the counselor says, hands crossed over his bulging belly as he leans back in his chair. “Given that you weren’t the one to start the fight, I’ll let you off the hook for now.”
Hisoka grins, the blood still on his teeth, and says, “Yeah, I’m just a mere victim in this situation.”
The bell rings, leaving the wooden bookcases in the counselor’s office shaking from the power of the sound. The counselor sighs and props up his glasses.
“Stay out of trouble, alright? And get to class before you’re late.”
“Will do, sir.”
He nods as a sign of dismissal, and Hisoka grabs his backpack from the seat next to him to get up and leave the office. The door bangs shut behind him as he joins the whirlwind of teachers rushing past him to get to class. He should follow their lead so as not to get caught up in any more shit.
As he casually walks through the lockered halls to get to his English class, he tosses the ice pack in the trash. His eye already grew numb from the cold, anyway.
To think that it’s his third fight of the semester and it’s only September. The previous summer’s warm embrace can still be felt on his skin, tingling under his varsity jacket along with his tanlines. That camp counselor gig was not worth it.
Hisoka stops by a drinking fountain to spit in it. The metallic taste lingers, however, even if he actually tries to drink next.
He needs to cut this shit out, he knows, because if he got caught once, he most likely will get caught again. However, he does not want to. If a few loose teeth and busted noses guarantee that he doesn’t have any pent-up frustrations for the two following weeks, he’d say it’s worth it.
The blue classroom door is already closed when he gets to it. Sunlight floods the hallway with warmth and Hisoka has to swallow his pride and knock on the door.
The English teacher, whatever her name is, loves to hate him, so he’s not surprised when it takes a good minute for her to come open the door and then look up at him with her small eyes, cheeks hollow like a walking corpse, and click her tongue.
“What happened to you?”
“You should see the other guy,” Hisoka reasons with a grin. “I was at the counselor’s. Can I come in?”
“What do you say when you’re late to class?” she asks pointedly, and Hisoka holds back the urge to roll his eyes. The rest of the class is looking at them, probably wondering what happened because this is the first time Hisoka has left an altercation with visible signs of what he went through.
He should stick to fighting nerds. Taking their lunch money. Shoving their heads down the toilet. If he goes after the other guys on the football team again, that’s just going to end in trouble. They’re not going to accept hits of a joint as an apology forever.
“I’m sorry for being late,” Hisoka says, deadpan, as if reciting a foreign language from a paper, before smiling sweetly at the old hag. “May I come in?”
With a sigh, the teacher opens the door completely to let him in. “Let this be the last time this happens. I already started explaining the new project.”
Hisoka walks over to his seat in the back row — perks of being one of the tallest people in the class — and tosses himself on the chair. Some guy who Hisoka doesn’t properly know but who was notoriously caught getting down and dirty in the locker room with a girl during freshman year taps the redhead on the shoulder.
“Hey, you good?” he whispers. “There’s blood on your jacket.”
Hisoka looks down at the stain on his collar. That’s not his blood. He then looks back up at the boy and grins. “Consequences of menstruation, I guess.”
The guy raises an eyebrow. Hisoka is ready to explain his joke, but as expected, the boy is weirded out and leans back in his seat, looking anywhere but at the taller boy.
Hisoka leans back as well, slipping a hand into the side pocket of his backpack to get a piece of gum. How rebellious, he knows, but lately he’s found that he can hardly concentrate without having something else to do, and this teacher has warned him time and time again not to repeatedly click his pen anymore.
“So, as I mentioned before I was so rudely interrupted, I’m pairing you up for the project that will take place during the next few weeks,” the teacher explains, the projector showing her self-made slideshow at the front of the classroom. “You’re seniors now, so I’m giving you a big responsibility. You must read and research a book, a short story, a poem or a play of your choice and write an analytical essay on it with a partner.”
Some groans echo through the classroom while Hisoka tries to blow a gum bubble, but the substance is still too stiff.
Whoever he gets partnered up with, he’ll just get them to write the essay for him. He has more important matters to attend to, like figuring out if that girl from his math class, Machi, is still single, and even if she’s not, if she’d be willing to meet him in the handicapped bathroom stall during lunch the following day.
“I suggest you choose your subject carefully, because this will be a big part of your final grade, as you can see on the slideshow.” The teacher switches to the next slide. Hisoka better get some nerdy bookworm for a partner. “I will now show your project partners, listed on the next slide.”
Well, even if he doesn’t, he’ll manage. He nearly blew up the chemistry lab the previous year — on purpose, but still — and still passed the class just fine.
The slide changes, and Hisoka chews his gum as his eyes fly down the list of names to find his own. And there it is, in a nice Times New Roman font, right next to the name of his project partner.
Chrollo Lucilfer’s name on the screen doesn’t awaken anything in Hisoka per se, but he still sighs. He’s never spoken to the boy before, or if he has, he’s been a total dick to him. Who wouldn’t be, given the gothic makeup and the pierced ears and the weird outfits?
The boy’s practically asking to get bullied.
Hisoka scans the classroom until he sees the back of a head, hair black like a raven’s feathers. He sees Chrollo’s hand on his desk, over a dark red notebook. His nails are painted black.
Great. This motherfucker is going to make Hisoka read Lovecraft and he’s going to hate every second of it.
Or maybe not. If Hisoka remembers correctly, which he often doesn’t because he does not have the capacity to care enough to do so, Chrollo was hanging up posters for a drama club during freshman year. Which means theatre. Which means plays. Which means, hopefully, something shorter and easier to digest.
Not that anyone would actually be lame enough to join such a club, especially with the weird goth kid as a leader.
“Please get into pairs. You have until the end of this class to research what subject you’d like to use for the essay. You may stay in the classroom or go to the library,” the teacher explains while Hisoka leans back with a sigh. At least he can scroll on his phone and pretend to participate.
He stands up and grabs his backpack, towering over half of the class rushing across aisles to get to their own project partners. However, as Hisoka makes a beeline towards Chrollo, all of them step back and wait for him to pass before rushing on.
Hisoka taps Chrollo on the shoulder with his manicured index finger — no nail polish unlike the other boy; he doesn’t want to stand out like that — and waits for him to look up at him.
His eyes are dark, like seriously dark, not a hint of colour in them. But it’s not like the rest of him is any better. There’s dark makeup on his face over the white base, going from the front of his brows to the bridge of his nose as well as eyeliner under his eyes that kind of resembles spiderwebs. It’s weird. His black high-collared shirt is tucked into his slacks, which hang over his stupid combat boots.
Overall, Hisoka doesn’t get it. The only colour on him is in the form of his teal earrings, spheres attached to his earlobes. Isn’t that kind of boring?
“Wanna go to the library?” Hisoka asks.
Chrollo quietly observes Hisoka’s eyes before nodding. “Sure. Let’s go.”
He gets up from his seat while grabbing his black messenger bag and red notebook, and Hisoka just thinks about how he isn’t sure he has ever heard Chrollo speak before.
They leave the classroom along with a hoard of other students, heading through the empty hallways towards the library. Hisoka has his hands in his pockets, chewing his gum alongside the shorter boy who just holds on to his notebook and faces straight ahead.
They are the first ones to make it to the library’s glass doors, and they enter and Hisoka scans the empty tables between bookshelves for the best spot. Having spotted one by the windows, he walks over and tosses his backpack on it. It’s now reserved.
Chrollo quietly walks over to the table and sits down. Hisoka rolls his eyes at the lack of a reaction before sitting down across from him. He naturally pulls out his phone and starts scrolling through social media.
He can feel Chrollo staring at him for a good while before the boy actually speaks up. “Do you have any specific title you’re interested in?” he asks.
“Nope,” Hisoka responds. “I think we should just pick something easy to get it over with.”
Chrollo blinks with his big bug eyes and points out, “The project is worth like thirty percent of our grade.”
Hisoka lowers his phone for a second and narrows his eyes at the other boy. “And?”
“...And I’d like a good grade out of this class?”
Oh, so he’s one of those. His mommy and daddy probably expect him to get into a top university and he’s internalized the pressure. Many such cases, Hisoka supposes.
“Then what title do you recommend?” Hisoka asks with what hopefully comes across as a patronizing smile.
“I read all sorts of things, so anything is fine with me. You can suggest something.”
Is he saying that Hisoka doesn’t read? That sure is what Hisoka is hearing, at the very least. And sure, even if that is mostly true, because between fighting and football practice and partying, he doesn’t have much time nor motivation for picking up a book, he doesn’t like hearing it.
He smiles at Chrollo once more and says, “No, no, I insist. You pick.”
Chrollo looks down at his red notebook on the table. Both of them must be frustrated by the other already, and it hasn’t even been ten minutes.
“Well, maybe Wuthering Heights? Or Frankenstein?”
Only one of those Hisoka has even heard of. Maybe he’s a lost cause. “Frankenstein sounds fun,” he says. It’s not a play, but it might be pretty easy to read, since so many people have managed to read it before him.
“Have you read it?” Chrollo asks.
Hisoka blows a gum bubble only to have it pop over his upper lip. After having scraped it back into his mouth with his teeth, he says, “Nope. I figured you’d be the expert here.”
“Can you buy the book, then?”
“Nuh uh. Not interested in keeping it around after.”
Chrollo nods slowly, as if considering something carefully. “...Well, I can maybe lend you my copy. Beats the strict return policies at the library, anyway.”
Oh, so now he thinks Hisoka can read and is worthy of Chrollo’s own personal copy, one that probably has colour-coded annotations? What a joke.
Hisoka leans back in his seat and picks his phone back up. “Alright. I’ll see if I can get around to reading it.”
Chrollo doesn’t comment, but his stiff shoulders and pursed lips say enough. Hisoka holds back a laugh as he goes back to liking the posts of some girls that are on the cheerleading team. If he were asked, the uniform skirts could be shorter. That would make the football matches at least a bit more entertaining.
“You know, picture day is coming up,” Chrollo says suddenly, and Hisoka looks back up, annoyed.
“What about it?”
“Do you really want your face to be busted when it comes?” he asks, like Hisoka made the willing choice to get into a fight. Well, he did, but that’s beside the point.
“Chrollo, let me be so honest with you right now,” Hisoka says, placing his phone down on the table. “I do not give a shit.”
Chrollo quirks an eyebrow before smiling a bit. What the hell is he smiling at? “Okay,” he says with a nod. “Suit yourself. You’ll probably get lots of signatures in your yearbook even with a black eye.”
If that is Chrollo’s way of calling him hot, it does nothing but infuriate Hisoka. Or maybe he’s just jealous, because even though Hisoka is big and scary, he still gets way more girls than Chrollo could even dream of.
“Yeah, it must suck not having any friends to sign yours,” Hisoka scoffs.
Chrollo straightens up a little in response. Then he chuckles softly. “Well, I do have my own circles, even if they’re not as big as yours. The drama club will probably sign mine, since we’ll get our own page and everything.”
Hisoka pauses, as if his frontal lobe just got a necessary update and he had to shut down for a second or two. He didn’t know anything actually became of the drama club back then.
“We have a drama club?”
“You didn’t know?”
“...Guess I didn’t care,” Hisoka shrugs when in reality his ears just perked up like a dog’s. He thought that was just some distant fever dream Chrollo had. Who would actually be interested in a club like that…?
“Well, we do. I’m the leader, and let’s see… I think you know Machi, at least? She’s mentioned you once or twice.”
“Machi’s in the drama club?” Hisoka asks, even more surprised. “I mean, that’s a pretty lame hobby, isn’t it?”
“I wouldn’t say so,” Chrollo says with a tilt of his head. “You get to become anyone you want in there. But I guess if you’re used to pretending, it’s nothing special.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing, just ignore me.”
Hisoka furrows his brows. Chrollo flips open his notebook. “You should come check it out sometime,” he says so very casually while pulling out a pen to write something down with. “We can be a fun crowd.”
“And have my teammates see me hanging out with nerds?” Hisoka cackles loudly. Some other classmates shoot him disapproving looks from around them. “Yeah, no thanks.”
“Suit yourself,” Chrollo replies, and that’s that. They don’t speak again until the class ends. Hisoka fiddles with his fingers, chews his gum, plays games on his phone and scratches his scalp until the bell finally rings and he can bounce up from his seat.
He’s on his way out of there when Chrollo calls after him.
“Hisoka.”
“Hm?” he asks, looking back from the library doors.
“I’ll bring you my copy of Frankenstein tomorrow, okay?” Chrollo says, having gotten up with his belongings as well. He looks like a black flower. Hisoka doesn’t know the names of any flowers with black petals. “It’s better to start reading it early.”
Hisoka holds back from scoffing. “Yeah, whatever,” he says and turns around to leave once more.
“And Hisoka?”
“What.”
“Should we exchange numbers so we can keep up to date with the project?”
Seriously?
“...It’s the first day,” Hisoka says matter-of-factly. He then sighs and continues, “Just give me your socials or something.”
“I don’t really use any aside from an account meant for advertising our plays. Can I have your number?”
“...Fine.” Hisoka pulls out his phone once more and watches Chrollo do the same. His is an old model, that much Hisoka can tell, but he doesn’t comment and just shares his digits with Chrollo, who types them in.
Then he calls him, and Hisoka hangs up. He saves the number under Chrollo’s name.
“Keep me updated on your reading progress,” Chrollo says. “Then we can start discussing the themes and the essay.”
“Yeah,” Hisoka says, just to get this damn boy to calm down.
He finally manages to leave the library and go to the bathroom to check up on his swollen eye and try to wash the blood from his jacket collar. It’s a lost cause since it has already dried.
It’s kind of funny, in a way. He doesn’t even remember the name of the guy he attacked even though they’re on the same team. Well, that ought to make practice after school more interesting, at least.
Really, what is a lame drama club compared to real life drama? All the fights in plays are make-believe. No blood, no bruises, no broken bones. What’s the fun in that?
Besides, Chrollo seems way too serious to be an actor. A playwright, sure, but not someone who can dedicate himself to a role that’s nothing like him. How did he even get enough people together to form the club? He was supposed to be a loner.
Hisoka washes his face in the sink and looks up at the mirror, his other eye darkened from the forming bruise. Girls like bad boys, don’t they?
And Machi’s in the drama club, and Hisoka’s been wanting to hook up with her since freshman year, if not since middle school when they would bicker by their lockers, conveniently assigned next to each other.
Well, there’s still plenty of time before their graduation to get on her good side. For now, though, Hisoka has to suck it up and make amends with whoever the poor guy was who he beat up during the morning. Or who beat him up, if one wants to think of it that way. Either way, he has to apologize for provoking him lest he get kicked off the team for being a shitty teammate.
-
The coach makes Hisoka stand in front of the shorter, brunet boy on the edge of the football field with all their other teammates staring at them with their arms crossed. The afternoon sun all around them turns the field into a desert, Hisoka sweating in his shorts and the shirt with the shoulder pads.
“There should be no bad blood in our team. Apologize to each other now,” the coach demands, but the boy with the busted nose and one missing tooth just scoffs and rolls his eyes.
“He started it.”
“You hit me first,” Hisoka points out, because everyone saw it. Usually he wouldn’t mind getting the blame put on him, but it’s a bit too late for that now.
“Because you were being a dick!” the boy exclaims. “Seriously, what is your issue? I haven’t done shit to you.”
“I was just chatting, though.”
“Yeah, because telling me about how you’d like to fuck both me and my girlfriend at the same time sure qualifies as casual conversation!”
Hisoka’s eyes widen. He said that? Even he can’t keep up with his hilarious antics anymore.
“I was just messing around,” he says with a shrug. “It’s not my fault if you can’t handle a joke.”
“This is why no one here fucking likes you. You’re so fucking weird,” the guy claims, and Hisoka just chuckles before feeling total silence overtaking the field. All of his teammates are looking away.
Well, he already knew he was unwanted, so there isn’t much to be done about that.
“This isn’t constructive,” the coach intervenes. “Say that neither of you will do it again so we can get on with practice.”
Hisoka raises his hands as a white flag. “Alright. I promise I won’t ever joke about not being able to choose between you and your hot girlfriend again. You happy?”
“Do you want me to beat you up again?”
“Watch out, I might like it.”
“Hisoka. You’re not helping,” the coach warns. “Do you want to win the upcoming match or not?”
In all honesty, he doesn’t care. Partly because of his slacking, their team hasn’t won many matches against other schools for a while now. Regionals or Nationals are a faraway dream by this point.
“How about this,” Hisoka starts, deciding that it’s better just to get it over with, “party at my place soon. Weed’s on me.”
“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that,” the coach says loudly.
The guy scoffs once more, but now the other teammates are warming up, calling for the boy to just forgive him and move on even though Hisoka hasn’t even apologized yet.
“Fine. Whatever. But if you piss me off even once, I’m gonna break every one of your ribs.”
Kinky. Hisoka grins.
The coach claps his hands together and yells, “Okay, that’s great! Let’s get on the field to do some warmups, alright?”
The team obeys, and so does Hisoka. He can’t wait for graduation so he can drop this stupid sport and team and act.