DISCOVERY ➴ Chrollo x Reader

XXXI. Fish

Three days? ONLY THREE DAYS!? This could not be true... Well... It dawned on me that I had only slept twice... maybe thrice, if I counted the unconscious time I had spent on the truck of my taxi. That felt like an eternity ago... More than an eternity... The things I had done ever since... How had I gone mad in three days? This had to be wrong... I couldn't be spiralling out of control so quickly... No matter that, the time dilation wasn't my responsibility. 

"Is it really me? You could be the one making this feel like forever and ever." I snapped back as my eyes narrowed, taking in his moving figure as he trudged to shallower waters. His rear was revealed once more, dripping in water, followed by the back of his thighs. I forced my eyes to leave the flexing muscles and rest in the safety of his dark hair that slicked over the nape of his neck. Yes, safer. 

"Or we're both making this insufferable for each other." He murmured before crouching and scooping two more fish in one go. It was impressive, really, to watch the desperate flapping of two fish in his unmoving grip. He didn't even pretend to struggle to hold them. 

I cleared my throat before standing my ground, "Really now? Sharing the blame is what the guilty do." My feet dragged me closer to him, and I shivered as the breeze touched the newly exposed skin left by the comfortable water blanket.

His large back straightened as he stood, and he turned his torso to face me. The fish had stopped moving. I assumed he wanted me to hold them and extended my hand towards him, it was odd for him to be this quiet. His eyes were slightly wide as they dropped to my hand, and he could've been an ancient alabaster statue by the rigidity and stillness of his body.

Stopped in his tracks, his eyes moved from my hand to my tilting face, and then to the water that reached just over my knees. From there, they moved slowly upwards with nonchalance. He didn't blink away when his perusal reached my crotch, and continued upwards soon after what I took as a pause, time had dilated... surely, this was happening in slow motion in my head... He wasn't taking his sweet time inspecting from my belly to my chest... Not only that, but he didn't let himself pause over my lips after skipping my neck and before ending his journey on my eyes.

No. That was all in my head. He must've been wondering how fit I was... Not like I could ever beat him in a race... Not that toned body of his and his inhuman reflexes... He was on a completely different level. Why would he be checking me out? He knew all that already. What was the purpose of this? Oh, how awkward... 

My lips parted to break the weird silence, and he finally moved from his frozen state, taking a step forward and placing the two fish over my palm. I struggled to keep them stable, and my nose wrinkled as I felt the cold scales and slimy bodies. This was food, I had no reason to be feeling icky towards it. No, no... My first decent, cooked meal in three days, apparently.

It was a good distraction, since all I could think of now were the fish I was holding. "How are we cooking these?" I looked up to find his back turned to me as he continued fishing...

"With fire, Y/N, how else?" He seemed entertained with the struggling fish on his grasp for a second before ordering, "Take those to the campsite, where we dropped the wood. There's a plastic bag inside my backpack, put them there."

"Aye captain." I took large strides to the riverbank, as an overwhelming wave of shyness and embarrassment hit me. How had I let him just ogle at me? What was wrong with me? Where had my self-preservation gone? What had he thought of me...? Why had he even looked? 

The dirt stuck to the underside of my feet, and I was wincing my way back to the campsite as I pushed the embarrassing thoughts aside. I had a task to complete. That was all. 

The piles of sticks were surprisingly large... Were we staying by the riverside for long? Wait... He sent me to land without a thought. Did he just know I didn't want to escape?

How... Did I really not want to dash from here? With mud over my feet and my clothes still over the tree near the river? Yeah, well, no. I looked about, finding Chrollo's black backpack against a large bush. Could I really just... rummage through it? How much did this man trust me? It didn't make sense... Sure, he could've understood I wouldn't run back there but... this was a new situation... How could he be so sure? Maybe he didn't care that I ran?

I shrugged the thoughts off and tried to open the backpack with my free pinky, since there was no where clean to drop the fish. I managed to wiggle them into the plastic bag, which—thank goodness—was right at the top, ready to be reached by someone opening the backpack.

It'd be smart to take the bag back with me, that way he could just drop the fish inside... Yeah... Going back implied letting him watch me walk into the water naked. Ah...

I closed my eyes and took three deep breaths. It was okay... It was okay... Had he sent me away because he didn't like what he saw? Maybe he was embarrassed about the whole thing too. Why would he be embarrassed, though? It made no sense. I took another breath.

"Are you praying for the dead fish?" 

I jumped to the side and my eyes fluttered open to meet a very much still naked Chrollo holding a bunch of fishes. "Fuck, you scared me... What?"

He donned a smirk on his lips, "Were you praying for-"

"The fish? No. Do you think I should? Maybe they need a prayer to enter fish paradise..." I rambled quickly and without much thought as I held the bag open to him. Five more fishes met their mates inside the bag, and I actually considered the idea of fish paradise. The poor beings were just existing...

"Fish paradise?" He chuckled.

"Wouldn't you know all about it, priest? Or do you only specialize in humans?"

Author's Note: I'm sorry it took me a whole month~~ Hope you enjoy this chapter <3