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“When is your birthday?”
The two of them are seated at a nice little cafe, the kind that serves coffee in vintage cups and mismatching saucers, drinks resting on the table between them. Chrollo’s is arguably more cream and sugar than coffee, but Hisoka learned very early on not to make comment—unless he wanted to stir up trouble, of course. Outside, the tail end of fall kicks up strings of leaves and blasts them through the streets like so many colorful birds in flight. It really would be a pleasant afternoon outing, if Hisoka hadn’t realized then and there that he’s missing such an essential detail in his knowledge of his partner. In the loosest sense of the term, they’ve ‘been together’ for a while now—or at least long enough for him to feel a modicum of embarrassment over not knowing Chrollo’s date of birth of all things. He certainly knows Hisoka’s. Gave him quite the surprise early last summer—but he’s getting off track.
Chrollo smiles that cryptic, painterly smile of his—the one Hisoka either hates or loves, depending on the context and his mood—and picks up his coffee to take a sip. For a moment, Hisoka is transfixed by the elegant shape Chrollo’s hand makes as it grasps the cup’s porcelain handle, the way he almost closes his eyes as he drinks, the sunlight catching in his dark hair, all those subtle, refracted colors—but then Hisoka remembers that he asked a question and is waiting for an answer.
“Have I not told you?” Chrollo says, responding with his own query. Typical.
“No, I don’t believe you have,” Hisoka says, following the cup as Chrollo replaces it on the saucer with a faint clink. If he looks directly at Chrollo, he’ll get distracted again.
“Well, that’s surprising. I’m usually so forward with personal details,” Chrollo says, polite but facetious. His entire way of being, really.
“When is it?” Hisoka asks again, getting impatient. On another day he might be down to draw out this little game a bit longer, but today he has a different mission.
“Why do you need to know so bad?” Chrollo asks with a laugh. “I usually don’t like to make much of it anyway. It never had a lot of meaning to me.”
“I want to give it meaning,” Hisoka replies honestly. He may not have had much growing up, but he always loved his birthday. Even if he didn’t get any physical gifts, the extra bit of attention was present enough—and he knows very well that Chrollo isn’t adverse to a little attention, now and then. It gives Hisoka sincere joy to provide it. A birthday is just an excuse, really.
Chrollo smirks, though not unkindly. Even his harshest expressions often seem to have a soft edge to them, as if he were built to smile but learned through circumstance to scowl and frown. “I’m sure you do, knowing you,” Chrollo says, getting up from his seat. Hisoka had been so focused on him he didn’t notice he’d finished his drink.
“Where are you going?” Hisoka asks. They don’t have anything planned—they rarely do—but part of him expected to spend the remainder of the evening with Chrollo. He wasn’t aware he had other engagements.
“Just… out for a bit,” Chrollo says, glancing through the coffee shop window at the leaves drifting in the wind. The dying afternoon sun casts beautiful, warm shapes along the side of his face. Hisoka wants to reach up and taste them, but he stops himself.
“I’ll make you a deal,” Chrollo continues, his words instantly earning Hisoka’s full attention. “If you can figure out my birthday, I’ll let you celebrate it however you like.”
Hisoka frowns. “That doesn’t seem fair. It’s your birthday. How would you spend it?”
Chrollo’s smile turns a funny shade. It isn’t sadness—more like longing with a muted, despondent edge. For as often as Hisoka has seen it, he really ought to have a name for it by now. “If I had my way,” Chrollo says, looking down at him. “I’d spend it like any other day: running into you by chance and going along with it because I can’t think of anything better to do, or anyone else to do it with.”
He exits the coffee shop before Hisoka has a chance to respond, leaving him behind to process the words, melting over his tongue like a sugar cube. Hisoka isn’t sure if that was an insult or a compliment. This is why they never get old: Chrollo always finds a way to surprise him.
—
It takes some digging.
First, Hisoka tries the obvious: asking the troupe, Chrollo’s only friends. Surely they must’ve done something for their beloved boss in the past, his protests be damned. But even those closest to him—the short, angry one and the dumb, tracksuited blonde—don’t have a clue. Or at least they pretend very convincingly not to know when Hisoka asks them. He is well aware of how little love was lost when he revoked his official membership, and besides, Chrollo could have warned them ahead of time to keep it a secret. It seems unlikely—Chrollo is all about keeping their games fair—but it is a possibility.
The rest of the troupe proves just as fruitless. Even Machi—usually the most sympathetic to his cause—is no help, shrugging him off in favor of some training at the gym.
Official records are a no, of course. If Chrollo ever did have a birth certificate, it was lost the moment he became a resident of Meteor City, whenever that was. The thought does cause Hisoka’s mind to wander, though—if such a thing did exist, would it have read ‘Chrollo Lucilfer?’ Hisoka often idly wondered if that was his legal given name—and that in and of itself proves once again how little they still know about each other. Not by lack of trust, but simply because Chrollo doesn’t find it important.
Hisoka resolves to know more. It’s a contest now, after all.
Most of his ideas beyond that are dumb ones—membership cards, looking up special discounts at department stores, raiding Chrollo’s study for nonexistent albums filled with nonexistent photos, stealing his phone to check his calendar (who would ever put their own birthday in a calendar anyway?—Hisoka would, but that’s beside the point), divination, astrology, tarot cards—all of which Hisoka knows nothing about but which suit Chrollo’s aesthetic to know—and many of which require a birthday to even perform.
This particular trail of thought does finally lead him somewhere though: to his one and only shot, and a long one at that.
Returning to Chrollo’s study, Hisoka diligently cycles through the row of notebooks lined up neatly on a shelf, kept separate from the rest of Chrollo’s small fortune of a library. Hisoka knows Chrollo doesn’t always keep his notebooks for long, and he uses a fairly cryptic shorthand, but if he gets the date right…
Fingers skimming along the spines, Hisoka stops, making his selection. It’s a particularly thin note, fairly worn—and there, right towards the middle, is exactly what he’s looking for: Neon’s fortune.
It’s a miracle Chrollo even kept it, and it’s a miracle Hisoka remembered enough about Yorknew to recall that while the troupe had their fortunes told on loose paper, Hisoka noticed this thin little notebook nestling among the small collection of books Chrollo kept with him on missions, hidden under his coat, strapped to his thigh in a leather holster.
And it’s a miracle that right above the girl’s flawless, swooping penmanship is a messy scrawl in Chrollo’s own hand: name, blood type, and date of birth.
Hisoka closes the notebook and replaces it carefully on the shelf, wondering if this had been too easy. Chrollo can’t have forgotten about Neon’s fortune, or how it worked—the ability is his own now, after all—so it’s likely he remembers the notebook as well. Unless he doesn’t. Both are possible, though Hisoka is unsure over probability. Chrollo often places his little wagers with full knowledge of at least one route to his opponent’s success. According to him, it keeps things interesting. Hisoka can never figure out if this same peculiarity applies to him, but here might be the proof that it does.
Walking out of the study, Hisoka decides to let the matter rest. He has Chrollo’s birthday—and thankfully, it’s coming up soon. All that’s left now is to decide how to celebrate.
—
When the day comes, Hisoka treats it as any other: waking at seven and placing a tender kiss to his sleeping lover’s forehead before slipping out of bed. Hisoka discovered pretty quickly that Chrollo’s sleeping schedule is… erratic at best, when he even sleeps at all. It’s likely a product of his upbringing. Not many places to sleep soundly in a wasteland. Hisoka does his best not to wake him as he cycles through his morning routine, but he can’t help but steal a few glances at him every now and then—Chrollo is always beautiful, in all states and forms, but there’s something particularly entrancing about how he looks while fast asleep, all curled up in the comforter and pillows. It’s something peaceful and innocent—and totally at odds with the chaos of his waking life. Hisoka savors these secret moments like a fine delicacy, a once-in-a-lifetime treat, even though he’s lucky enough to wake up to it almost every day.
Hisoka plants one more reverent kiss on Chrollo’s forehead before walking out of their bedroom to start the day, praying this plan of his works.
He spends the morning letting his feet carry him wherever they like: a patisserie, a park, a pet store. It’s a blustery fall day, the sun peaking out as the mood strikes, the sky thrumming with energy: a sea of clouds moving rapidly across the blue, spurred on by the wind, looking like a fleet of ships setting off on an expedition. It’s joyous. This late into fall, there aren’t too many leaves left, but even the sun-beaten stragglers have their lacey charm. Everything feels fresh, almost like it should be spring instead of autumn. It’s hard for Hisoka not to equate the weather with his lover: today, more than ever, the whole world reminds him of Chrollo.
By herculean effort, Hisoka manages to hold himself back from buying any gifts, although the shops certainly don’t make it easy for him. Many of them are already prepping for the holiday season, filling their window displays with extra color and cheer—simple targets for his easily-distracted eyes. But he made Chrollo a promise, even if it wasn’t quite verbal—no gifts. No ‘big deal.’
As the morning gives way to the afternoon, Hisoka starts to wonder if he’s doing something wrong. This isn’t turning out as he expected. He’s still missing the most important piece, after all.
In a last ditch effort, he decides to head to the city botanical gardens. If nothing else, it’ll be a quiet break from the bustle and movement of the impatient city. Perhaps a library or book shop would have been the more obvious choice, but Hisoka always preferred flowers over books, and today isn’t about the obvious anyway.
Hisoka makes it halfway through the orchid exhibit before he finally lays eyes on something far lovelier than any of the blooms on display.
Chrollo is dressed uncharacteristically modest: a plain black wool coat and a dark blue scarf that Hisoka vaguely remembers gifting him (and getting rebuffed because it wasn’t ‘black.’) It’s almost as if he’s doing his best not to attract any unwanted attention, although he’s failing miserably—just about every visitor who brushes past him can’t help but cast a glance his way, some lingering far too long than Hisoka would like. Chrollo himself is studying a strand of vibrant magenta orchids as intently as he would any book, as if they’re telling him a story. Hisoka wants so badly to walk over and ask what the flowers are saying, but he holds off for a few minutes, enjoying their distance and letting it complete the illusion. Chrollo remains fixed in place: compliant prey—strange and beautiful and so totally at odds with nature that Hisoka thinks the world doesn’t deserve him, and he’s upset that he has to share. If there are other people lingering in this exhibit, Hisoka no longer registers them. Nothing else exists in this moment but him, Chrollo, and the flowers.
It’s somewhere in this limbo that Hisoka finally finds it in him to walk up to the man in the black wool coat, smiling down at him and asking him a question. Hisoka himself doesn’t hear his own words—he’s too bewitched.
Chrollo glances up and gives him a half-smile and a reply, telling him so much and so little at the same time—so contradictory that Hisoka learned long ago not to pay too close attention to the words themselves. It’s his eyes that tell the truth, glass and limitless and empty as they are, and Hisoka focuses on them.
Opening his mouth, Hisoka hears himself say something else, something intentionally incendiary, but again he doesn’t register his own words. He grabs Chrollo’s hand, just to see what reaction it would bring. Hisoka understands instinctively that this is another game, and in this moment, they’re meant to be strangers—so when he entwines his fingers between those of his love he expects him to pull away—but the opposite happens instead. Always a surprise.
“You look like you belong here,” Chrollo says.
Hisoka stares down at him. These are the first words he fully hears, but he doesn’t follow them.
“Your hair,” Chrollo continues, reaching up to point with his free hand. “It’s so bright. You could easily be an orchid.”
Feeling the corners of his lips curl, Hisoka holds back a laugh. He wonders if this is Chrollo’s pitiful attempt at flirting. He never did have much of a knack for it. It might be the one thing he’s genuinely bad at. “I suppose I do feel at home here, but I’m not sure that has to do with the flowers,” Hisoka replies.
Chrollo’s face erupts into a blinding smile. Hisoka barely has time to register it before he’s buried in the smaller man’s embrace, Chrollo’s head resting comfortably on his chest, close enough to take in the familiar scent of his shampoo. It seems the thief has been using Hisoka’s again. “I couldn’t keep up the act any longer,” Chrollo says. “I’m just so happy you’re here.”
Hisoka lets himself laugh at that, hugging back. Chrollo is the most skillful liar he’s ever met—if he wants to keep up an act, then it will be kept. He probably just got bored, especially after how long it took for Hisoka to find him.
“Are you having a good birthday?” Hisoka asks.
Chrollo pulls away, pretending to look confused, but then breaking into another brilliant smile. “It’s perfect. Exactly what I wanted.”
Hisoka gathers him in for a kiss, thinking again about his words in the coffee shop a few days prior, about whether it was an insult or a compliment that Chrollo felt it inevitable that they always find their way to each other. With their lips pressed together, standing among a rainbow of orchids, Hisoka decides that it’s neither: it simply is, just as they are, and it requires no deeper meaning or explanation.
If birthdays are just an excuse, then love is a way to weather time.