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Hisoka awoke late into the night, shivering. Or maybe, it was early in the morning. As he searched for his jacket, using the moonlight to see, he noticed where it peeked out from the corner of his window and confirmed that today was in fact tomorrow.
He curled up on his mat and tucked his legs up to his stomach, itself so empty that he felt like he could crawl right in, so he could fit underneath the fabric. Winter was merely a whisper by this point, but it was still frigid enough for his teeth to ache.
Hopefully he’d have something better, something thicker by the time winter came knocking on their door. Then again, having a door to knock on was probably the first step in safeguarding against her icy grasp.
Although maybe that curtain they used to cover the threshold would be a better blanket than his lone jacket. It was thinner, yes, but much longer. Maybe he could fold it. Or better yet, perhaps both it and the jacket would finally be enough for his tense body to relax into sleep.
He shifted to get up, his limbs trembling from the chill settled deep in his bones, but curled back up when he heard her voice. Hisoka turned to face the wall and closed his eyes as Mama came into their home giggling and whispering, telling the man she brought with her to stay quiet.
The man said it was her fault. That she did this to him.
They were both moaning then, after that. Then they were gasping, oh, no, it was just the man gasping, just barely louder than the wet slurping. He was getting gaspier, his exhales heavier and more frequent. He moaned loudly, but was promptly muffled.
Wet smacks, like when Mama kissed Hisoka’s check, only doubly so. The man murmured something. Hisoka couldn’t quite hear. But he did hear the rustle of clothes, the swallowed hitch of Mama’s gasp, the throaty moan of the man.
Then came the rhythmic slap of skin, wet and squelchy and frantic.
Mama was trying to stay quiet.
The man wasn’t.
He grunted and moaned and muttered about how she was a nasty little whore, how she took him so well, how she was made for this.
Clearly the man had never seen Mama sew a ladder stitch or peel an apple or shuffle a deck, since it was obvious by the deft movement of her slim fingers that she was made for art.
The slapping grew faster, louder, before stopping suddenly in conjunction with the man’s low groan, like he’d been punched in the gut.
Hisoka curled his hand into a fist, imagining it driving into the man’s soft flesh.
The man sighed, light and satisfied and weightless, while Mama seemed to have taken this man’s burden upon herself, its added heft collapsing her onto the rickety floorboards. She breathed too, small and quick and muffled.
Between the heavy footsteps heading out the hut, Hisoka heard the clatter of coins tossed to the floor.
It sounded like a lot.
It sounded like more than what Mama usually brought back when she went out to meet men late in the night.
Hisoka wondered what the added value was in coming here, where it was cold and drafty with no soft mattresses or soapy baths. He thought about the way travelers would stare at him and his mother as they passed by, gesturing to their tarot decks and embroidered cloths. He recalled the words they would use to describe them. Unique. Cultural. Exotic. Their stares were often as much for them as their products, so then did their words, their interest, extend to them too? To their bodies, their ways, their lives?
He heard Mama shuffle across the room, picking herself up and collecting each precious coin before depositing them into the jar she hid beneath the floorboard beside the fireplace. His breathing had been slowed in time for her to reach their mat, and he tried to stay still, but not stiff, as she crawled in behind him.
Her body was hot from the exertion, and Hisoka couldn’t stop his body from melting underneath her embrace as she pulled him back to her chest. Mama brushed aside his hair, growing long enough to guard his neck during the oncoming winter chill, and placed a careful kiss on his temple.
It was possible she noticed the grin he could feel slipping across his face, but she didn’t say anything.
Together they lay on the mat. Hisoka’s mouth tasted stale and sour, and his stomach caved in on itself in a vain effort to consume. But he was warm, and there was money in the jar, and there was a person to wrap their arms around him.
And it was enough.
.
.
.
Hisoka opened his eyes as the first rays of dawn peeked through the windows stretching floor to ceiling beside his bed. The last tendrils of his dream still wound around his body like a choking vine, ensnaring him and dragging him back from whence he came.
He threw off those memories along with his covers, ignoring the faint chill of the apartment AC (different than the whispers of an early winter, so very different) as he stretched languidly underneath the sun beam streaking across the mattress (not a thin mat barely softer than the rotten wood it rested upon, a real cushion on a real bed). Soon, his bare limbs warmed, and he took a moment to breathe and savor the sensation.
He rolled out of bed and onto his feet, standing nude before the windows to take in the city below. It was early enough for the streets to be mostly bare, save for the most industrious of workers or the ilk who were just now returning from activities done under the cover of night (his mother, she had been both of those types; always working hard, so very hard, twice as hard for the two lives she had to keep from the ever-approaching shadow of death; she’d only managed to save the one though, despite everything). He watched those handful of people with an idle eye before his stomach rumbled and sent him strolling into the kitchen for breakfast.
While the coffee machine worked its magic, Hisoka washed and cut fresh strawberries (so red, unlike anything he’d ever seen growing up; he still recalled the first time he’d tasted one a decade ago) and placed them into matching porcelain bowls of Greek yoghurt. He ambled over to his bookshelf and perused its contents (part of him, a deep part that he preferred to keep a secret even from himself, was giddy at the fact that he could read the titles). He carefully dragged his finger across the spines until he felt the urge to grab one.
His tastes today? Hm, a dessert novel as he called them. Sweet and pleasant, but ultimately bereft of any true substance. Perfect for a lazy morning.
Hisoka tucked the paperback underneath his arm and carried a bowl in each hand, while hooking two fingers into the handle of his mug, flirting with the risk of spillage for the sake of making one trip. He padded quietly back into the bedroom and eased open the door.
His bedmate still lay on the bed, tangled in the covers save for one sculpted calf peeking out. Hisoka crept to the bedside to set one bowl on the nightstand closest to Illumi and peeked over his shoulder to see the sleep mask he’d gifted Illumi last Christmas –cat eyes as big and black and empty as his beloved’s—firmly fixed over his eyes.
Illumi had an unusual sleep schedule, often staying awake or falling asleep for several days at a time, but Hisoka was pleased, in an intense way he often did with things he owned, that Illumi both felt safe enough to take his rest at Hisoka’s home, in Hisoka’s bed, and that he usually deigned to wake up the next morning no matter his exhaustion the night before.
So, knowing that time was bound to come, Hisoka sat himself on his side of the bed –back propped against the headboard— and tucked into his breakfast and novel (his stomach celebrated its next meals with a gusto that still remembered long days without; his mind soaked the words of the novel, gorging itself to make up for the years lost).
He forced himself to eat slowly (not scarfing it down with the savagery that he would have in his youth; that little starving boy was long gone by now, forever) and savored each bite with the languor of one whose next meal was sure to come. The subtle sweetness of the yoghurt, the gentle tang of the strawberries, the creamy bitterness of the coffee. His tongue was thankful for every flavor, and his body hummed with satiated pleasure.
After his meal was finished, the main character of his book was just letting her naïve lips touch the leading man’s for the first time when Hisoka saw movement in the corner of his eyes.
His place was marked and the book set aside to join the empty bowl and mug on his nightstand. He turned onto his side to watch the first moment of wakefulness wash over Illumi. A wrinkle of the nose. A muscle twitch in the shoulder. A soft grunt breezing past his lips. Lips which Hisoka, unable to wait, touched against his own (perhaps there was still some remnants of a greedy child left within him).
Hisoka clutched Illumi’s hands before he could remove his sleep mask. The slim fingers intertwined between his own were strong and capable of a deadly artistry, and Hisoka squeezed them as he rolled his weight onto Illumi, pressing all of him against all of Illumi.
This person sharing his bed wasn’t slight of frame or fair of hair. This person didn’t safeguard Hisoka from the dangers of life. This person didn’t even claim to love him. Not even once.
And yet, this person was warm. This person was here. And this person did say they loved Hisoka, with every visit, with every touch, with every kiss.
Together they lay on their bed. Hisoka’s tongue replaying the flavors of the strawberries and coffee that settled heavy, reassuringly, in his gut. He was warm, in a home that he owned, and there was a person to wrap their arms around him.
And it was more than enough.