Le Clown Rose

10!

The lights, the cameras, the stage, the audience.

The sweat, the music, the cheers, the adrenaline.

Living a long life was never on Opal's agenda. Her prime goal was to serve and to entertain, the cheers from the people that came to see her with smiles on their faces are what kept her going in life.

A life with these treasures that extend much farther than the fame and fortune was a life Opal strived to upkeep until the day she died, whether it be tomorrow or next week or 50 years from now. Never mind the aching of her feet after collaborating with the trapeze artists or the exhaustion from overusing her Nen. So long as people left dazzled with a night they'd remember for the rest of their lives, Opal would give her heart and soul.

She was short tempered, foul mouthed and narcissistic, but no one could say she didn't love her fans. When she wasn't performing on prestigious stages across the world, she was visiting sick children in hospitals and giving them their own personal shows, donating massive chunks of her fortune to charities for orphaned children, and inviting groups out for dinner and drinks when she had the time. When a person has their childhood stripped from them, they fight tooth and nail to make sure no one else goes through the same ordeal.

All was going well and according to plan, until he showed up.

What a man, she thinks to herself as she lays on his bed, examining the box containing a brand new phone on the bedside table that he so generously gifted her. Terrorizing her childhood just wasn't enough for him.

But did he really terrorize me? She thinks to herself. Sure, he beat me a lot and belittled me every chance he got... but it was all to make me stronger, right? He meant well. He wasn't all that bad. He was just looking out for me.
He's basically family at this point. How could I be mad at him?

The image of Karl pops in her head. His gruff, greyed neck and yellowed eyes and dark lips from smoking. Karl was in it for the money, there was no doubt about that. But what if he actually did care about Opal to some extent? What if Hisoka leaving just made Karl realize that Opal is all he had and thus... he loved her as his own daughter?

She sighs at her own silliness. If Hisoka didn't care about killing him, well, then neither did she.
Lifting the duvet off her body, she flips off the sun shining so brutally through the massive window panels of his room and heads downstairs.

She follows the sound of a gorgeous string of acoustic guitar playing wildly from an unopened door across the living room area, the music a delicate, unchained homage to Mexican melodies using guitars no doubt made in heaven. Her ears perked up, her footsteps matching the beat of the flamenco tune.

Once she opens the door, she's met with the sight of a home-built gym with padded floors and impossibly heavy dumbbells scattered in organized mess around the jester as he benched a whopping 500KG plated barbell. His bare chest glistened like precious diamonds on his perfectly carved pectoral muscles, his face unfittingly relaxed and amused. He made it look so easy, all to the tune of Hanuman by Rodrigo y Gabriela blasting from the speakers beside him on the padded floor.

Surprisingly, he hadn't noticed her standing there in unfathomable awe, her jaw dropped in amazement from the sheer power and will of the monster before her.
Frightening her, he drops the barbell to the floor just as the song began picking up in speed, the muscles on his bare legs contorting as though synthesizing the Spanish guitar themselves. He gracefully turns his back to her, exposing an unfamiliar spider tattoo that certainly wasn't present the night before on his back, and jumped up to grasp the trapeze bar hanging from the ceiling.
As his body swung front and back with his feet dangling in the air, he began simultaneously doing pull ups and executing a professional trapeze performance with such grace that one would assume it took him decades to master. Yet for Hisoka, he makes it look as easy as taking a walk.