A marionette's dance (Yandere!ShalnarkXreader

better luck next time/original oneshot/disclaimer

Authors note: Hello! I'm cross-posting this from my AO3 account because I always love Wattpad comments. This first chapter is the original one shot that the story was extended from so you can skip this chapter and move to the long story if you would like. Enjoy!
Disclaimer:None of these characters or propertys are mine! This is just for fun

The cafe had a wonderful atmosphere, chatter surrounded your table, soft light cascaded through the window, and the scent of coffee and pastries could have almost lulled you into another complex daydream. Almost. You, however, were hyper-aware of your surroundings, your heart hasn't stopped racing since you got here. Why? The answer was simple.
  “Stop looking around. I can see you.” Leorio sighed into his phone. A woman and a man sat in the plaza below your group, hushedly whispering into their phone. “It's the couple behind you? I'll wire the money to you now. The man showed the woman his screen and they both quickly left. You sat with Gon, Killua, and Leorio.
  Having grown up in meteor city was hard. Gang violence was normal, food was hard to come by, and you never knew for certain that you would wake up alive. It had hardened your heart and after what happened when you were younger you had sworn to never let anyone in again. That was the plan anyway, however when you had first met this group they had somehow broken down all your walls. You thought back on the reason you had become such a recluse.

 
‘Y/n!’ your head swivelled to look at the approaching boy, a smile instantly igniting your downtrodden face. He smiled brightly at you and held out an old baggie with a sandwich inside. ‘Woah! You got a sandwich, how?’ meat was hard to come by in the ruins of the city. ‘Not important, here.’ He tore the meal in half and handed you the larger one. The bread was hard and stale and the meat, which came from some unknown source, was tough and crusty but you didn't complain. You couldn't remember the last time you had more than an old slice of some canned food. The boy, Shalnark, sat beside you and talked with you about anything and everything. ‘I heard that old man Oliver was murdered,’’ You had brought up ‘apparently all of his blood had been sucked out of his body.’ Shalnark kept his same smiling face ‘I'm sure you will be okay. It's not like he was important or anything.’ Shal always held a strange sort of apathy toward the rising body count but you couldn't worry for anyone other than yourself or your close friends.
  Your days were usually like that: wake up, search for anything of use, try to get something to eat, avoid fights when you could, and meet up with Shal under an old desk by the trash piles. You two would talk until it got dark and the two of you split up, he claimed that he had to meet some friends and you always had to find a high place to sleep. He started bringing you more and more gifts every day, it was odd for such a young kid to find all of these gems and jewellery, you didn't bring it up though. One day when you two had met up, he had brought you an emerald necklace with all kinds of details engraved in it. You finally decided to ask what had been nagging you. ‘Hey Shal,’ he turned to look at you and nodded softly ‘where have you been getting these from?’ he stiffened a little but only for a second, maybe you had imagined it. ‘Don't get me wrong, I love the gifts,’ he gave you a look to continue ‘but how are you finding these? These aren't the kind of things to be normally tossed out.’ He turned and pulled you into a tight hug, you were uncertain as to why but you felt a quick prick on your back. You jerked back, excusing that you must have been bit by a bug and he laughed. Suddenly though, you didn't remember what you had asked him.
  Shal would never hurt someone, right? Sure, you never saw him when the bodies would turn up, sure he always seemed to find the most expensive gifts, sure one time he had a red stain on his shoes, and sure you always seemed to space out anytime you brought up your concerns but he would never hurt you. Right? You weren't so sure anymore.
  ‘Hey shal,’ you had timidly brought up ‘where do you go at night?’ you sounded more accusatory than you meant and you quickly rephrased. ‘What I mean is,’ you tried not to make eye contact, ‘you always say you’re meeting up with friends. Do I know them?’ He seemed to lighten up after you clarified and giggled. ‘Are you jealous?’ You quickly dropped that conversation. Today's meeting felt more like old times, it was comfortable and fun, you almost completely forgot your worries. Almost. When you both split up to go your separate ways, you walked out of sight then quickly hid. Closing your eyes you began to focus. A while before you met Shalnark, you had stumbled upon an odd-looking man one day. He explained to you what nen was and it sounded like pure nonsense but when he offered to teach you, you obliged. The man was old and clearly wanted to pass on his secrets to someone before he died. He was patient but strict and you eventually managed to learn the basics Ten, Zetsu, Ren, and Hatsu. When he died, you found yourself not using nen anymore. Why should you? It was just a hobby.
  ‘Zetsu’ you quietly activated to search for a nice spot to follow Shal from. ‘Gyo’ you added on, suddenly grimacing as you felt that pain in your neck again. You looked in a nearby barrel of water and saw a long needle with a bat charm on the end. When did that get there? ‘The hug!’ You felt your heart sink as you realised that Shal must have been the one to put it there. You remembered what your mentor had said ‘there are six types of nen users, Conjuration, Manipulation, Emission, Transmutation, Enhancement, and Specialisation’ This must be manipulation.
  Your fingers found themselves wrapped around the bad and pulled. It hurt more than you had thought it would. Meteor City was no nice place and you had many tales of indescribable injuries. This was worse. Tears built in your eyes like thick covers and you somehow managed to remove the needle from your back. Blood slid out the hole at a steady pace and you quickly wrapped one of your sleeves around it. That was it. You were confronting him and finally getting some answers! You traced his nigh invisible trail, needle held angrily in your grasp, to finally confront him about everything. A foul metallic stench filled the air as you got closer and you couldn't help but gag at it. Your legs stood unmoving as you tried to turn the corner. Unable to full turn, you took a mirror shard from the ground and peered around. Bile rose in your throat as you saw a gruesome scene. A man lay dead on the ground with his head split open, another was fully decapitated, and you saw none other than Shalnark controlling a large guy with some kind of game control. The large man seemed completely unaware of what he was doing and cornered a smaller man. You couldn't stand to watch the sight. Shalnark standing around with his ‘friends’ wearing that same gleeful smile he would give you as they brutalised the other people.
  The needle slipped from your hand and clattered to the ground, you don't know what happened next for certain but all you know is that you ran. You ran until your legs were numb and your lungs hurt and then some. You ran until you were long past meteor city, never seeing the shadow that settled on Shalnark’s face as he found the needle. From that day forward, you swore off any connection. No trust meant no loss.