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It was a dark and stormy night on the outskirts of Yorknew City. Within one the derelict apartments that stood dark against the grey skyline, thirteen people began to settle down among the debris. They had only arrived recently.
Phinks laid himself again the least uncomfortable looking pile of rubble, trying his hardest not to get his tracksuit dirty. Not that it mattered, he grumbled to himself. He was hoping to get everything dry cleaned tomorrow, while they still had time before the auction. Soon, Phinks would be completely muck free.
There was a piece of rhubarb that wouldn’t stop poking into his side no matter how many times he shifted on the concrete, and alongside the bickering of his fellow Spiders and the hard rain outside, he knew he wasn’t going to be falling asleep tonight. Peaking one eye open, he surveyed the scene in front of him: the Boss high up in the shadows, the new guy Hisoka sitting by the windows, Pakunoda cleaning her pistols. He could hear the others’ voices, mostly Uvogin, but they were all out of view.
Maybe I should join them. No use in sitting here all by myself, he thought, and stood up to dust off his jacket and pants.
But before he could do that, someone was already yelling at him.
“Phinks!” It was Franklin. “Glad to see you’re awake. We need you to run to the store.” Slowly, he turned around to where they were sitting.
“Are you kidding? I just woke up.”
“You weren’t sleeping in the first place,” Pakunoda spoke up from behind him, and to Phink’s embarrassment everyone snickered.
“Why do I have to do it? You're all right here and ready to go, but you’re going to dump the chores on me.” He made his way over to where the rest of the Spiders were sitting in a circle around a small fire, making sure to punctuate his steps by slamming his shoes on the floor.
“‘Cause fuck you specifically,” Machi mumbled, and Franklin glared at her before giving his own answer.
“Because truthfully, the rest of us don’t want to go. We’re all weak and tired from the trip and would like to rest. You’re the second strongest of all of us, we're just asking you to help contribute to the team.” This answer did not make Phinks feel any better. If anything, it did the opposite. He felt like he was seconds away from hitting someone, but remembered the rules about infighting, and took a much exaggerated breath through his nose.
“Exactly,” he hissed through his teeth, “I’m only the second strongest. Why not make Uvogin go?”
Franklin raised a thin eyebrow. “You want Uvo to go into the grocery store in Yorknew? He’d stick out too much.” From where he was sitting between Franklin and Nobunaga, all 8’6”, 415 lbs of Uvogin gave a giant smile and thumbs up. Maybe ‘stick out’ was too light of a term. Phinks scowled.
“Make Feitan go.”
“No,” Feitan said from in front of him.
“I’m going to kick your little fucking head in, you--”
Before he could pull his foot back all the way, Machi moved to grab it, and pulled it out from under him, sending him falling onto his stomach and knocking all the wind from his lungs. Feitan had jumped out of the way before he was crushed. “Flip a coin,” she grumbled, before returning to her spot in the circle.
Phinks slowly lifted himself up onto his forearms, and watched as Franklin pulled the coin out and tossed it into the air. As it hit the back of his hand and he covered it, Feitan yelled out, “Heads.”
Uncovering the coin, Franklin smirked and raised his gaze to Phinks. “Heads.”
“Son of a bitch,” he whispered, and let himself fall back onto his stomach. There’s no arguing when you flip the coin.
“What am I even grabbing? I thought we nabbed everything we needed when we arrived.”
Shalnark spoke up this time. “We thought we grabbed everything, but it turned out we forgot one small thing.” His voice currently sounded like a cheese grater on Phinks’ ear drums. When he looked up again, Shalnark motioned over to Shizuku, who was curled up in a fetal position between him and Franklin. Phinks had noticed her, of course, but had assumed she was just being, well, Shizuku. Now that he was paying attention, he noted her face was contorted in pain.
That’s kinda weird, he thought. Shizuku usually isn’t scrunched up like that... Usually. “What? I need to go grab some painkillers? Can’t she just Blinky whatever is hurting her out?”
“She can’t Blinky out her uterus,” Pakunoda spoke up. Phinks moved to scoot between Kortopi and Feitan, who’d returned to his original spot, and craned his neck to look over at the woman.
“What the fuck is a uterus?”
The entire building went silent, and all eyes turned to him. Bonolenov stopped changing his wrappings, Uvogin and Nobunaga paused their conversation, even the intense gaze of the Boss was upon him. Pakunoda looked like someone just slapped her across the face.
“What did you just ask me?”
“What? What's a--”
“Okay,” Franklin loudly interrupted. No one else had moved, and it seemed as if even the rain outside had paused. “It doesn’t matter. We’ll talk about it when you get back.” He took a moment to sigh loudly and rub a hand on his face. “Jesus, Phinks. You just… need to go steal some tampons from the store for Shizuku. Out of the blue, she started to, ahem, bleed.” As if on cue, Shizuku started groaning and flailing around on the floor, and Franklin put a hand on her shoulder to calm her.
“Vacuum out the blood?”
Machi was hardly hiding her annoyance when she reached over and grabbed Phinks’ hair, knocking Kortopi to his back in the process, so she could yank his head to face her. “Go to the fucking store and steal the fucking tampons before I stich your limbs together.” Her voice was ice cold.
“Machi,” the Boss calmly called from his spot, and she roughly let go of Phinks and settled back down.
“Go. Now."
Shalnark was forced to come along to drive. He'd cranked up the radio and was singing along to some shit top 40s pop song like he was in the shower. With every passing moment, Phinks shrunk more and more into his seat, considering the outcomes of killing Shalnark right here.
"Why can't you grab the tampons."
"I don't want to grab the tampons!" Shalnark answered, and went back to singing. He was still wearing that infuriating smile.
Before they'd left to go steal the car, Franklin gave them a run down.
"Tampons. A lot of them, just to be safe. From whatever grocery store. I don't care if you grab anything else we just need tampons."
"Can't I just grab one pack and Kortopi can replicate it?"
Behind his giant bush of hair, Phinks could still see him roll his eyes. "My replications disappear after 24 hours."
"Well fuck, you can only use tampons for so long, right? Just replicate a single tampon every time Shizuku needs one." Phinks was really starting to feel like an underappreciated genius.
Kortopi's gaze became serious, and he spoke with a solemn tone. "Phinks. I want you to know I would rather die before I let one of my replications go up someone's vagina."
Lightning crawled across the clouds, illuminating the skyscrapers across Yorknew. The rain hadn't let up in the slightest, thumping against the top of the car as they drove along the slick road. Another strike of lightning in the distance, and Phinks heard the rumbling thunder echo through the city.
They finally arrived, and the moment Phinks stepped out of the car, he was drenched.
Inside the store, it was warm, and the bright fluorescent lights burned into his eyes. It was one in the morning according to Shalnark's phone, but there were a handful of other customers perusing the aisles.
They stood by the cashiers and watched for a moment. "Should we kill them?" Shalnark whispered.
"Nah. Let's not bring any attention to us before the auction. Make it quick."
It wasn't quick. The two spent half an hour wandering through the store trying to find where the tampons were, and were too reluctant to ask for help from the employees. They checked half the building before finally ending up in a back isle, poorly lit and seemingly hidden from the rest of the store.
On the wall were shelves upon shelves of menstrual products, almost endless in any direction. Phinks took a step back in horror, glancing left and right in an attempt to locate where the wall stopped. At his side his fists shook, and his mouth felt dry.
Shalnark, who'd ran off a few minutes ago, walked around the corner typing on his phone. In his other hand he carried a twenty four pack of beer. As he approached Phinks, he glanced up and gasped, taking in the view.
"Wow. That's a lot of stuff to choose from!"
They perused back and forth, trying to which decide brand and style they should take, but the moment Phinks thought he found the perfect pack, something else caught his eye.
Eventually, they were back at square one. "What do we even grab?" Phinks asked, mostly to himself. "Shizuku's pretty tiny isn't she? Should we get small? But what if she needs big tampons? What the hell are pads?" Shalnark was still on his phone, doing a good job of not being any help.
"C'mon. You're a Hunter, Shal. Can't you help a tiny bit? You gotta know more than I do."
"Why should I do your job?" Shalnark smiled. Phinks felt his blood boil.
"Give me that." Before he could protest, Phinks had snatched the phone out of Shalnark's hand and began trying to navigate through the screens. He could feel Shalnark glaring at him but did his best to ignore it, doing his best to figure out how the thing worked.
After a minute, he was starting to give up. "Shal."
"Yes?"
"Do you have Hisoka's number?"
It rang three times before the clown picked up. He'd obviously done it on purpose since the Troupe wasn't doing anything else right now, trying to seem cool and nonchalant. His sly voice sounded like a fork scraping a plate.
"Yeeeees?"
"This is Phinks."
"Oh, Phinks. What a del--"
"I need to talk to Shizuku."
Hisoka fell silent on the other side, as if pondering the request. "Hmm. I think you need to learn how not to interrupt people." Shalnark had come close so he could hear the conversation better, and Phinks could feel him tense up.
"Uh. Yeah. Sorry about that. Look, currently you're the only other Troupe member with a phone and Shal and I are kinda at a loss here."
"What's the issue?"
"We don't know what specific… tampons," he whispered, "to get Shizuku."
Once again Hisoka went quiet. Then, there was the shuffling of clothes on the other side and the loud thud of him landing on the floor. When he answered again, Hisoka sounded slightly reluctant.
"I'm putting you on now." There was a beep, and then nothing. Phinks took that as his sign to proceed.
"Shizuku, can you hear me?" There was a quiet grunt on the other side, but it was a grunt that was unmistakably her.
"Shizuku, we need your help. We aren't sure what to get you exactly." Another more forceful grunt.
"What size pussy you wear?"
There was a prolonged silence from the other end, and Phinks began to worry something was wrong. At his side, Shalnark dug his hands into his tracksuit and began to shake, which worried him even further. Eventually, there was a sob, and then the sound of crying coming through the phone. It was Shizuku.
Someone else spoke up. "Phinks, you do realise you are on speakerphone, right?" It was Bonolenov.
There was an explosion of angry voices on the other side of the line, and all Phinks could make of it was lots of insults. Shalnark, still grabbing his suit, had hunched over and was attempting to hold back tears, making himself look like a cat about to vomit on the carpet. When the yelling didn’t die down, Phinks slowly moved the phone away from his ear, and hit the end call button. Shalnark threw himself on the ground in laughter, and someone peaked down the aisle to check out the commotion.
When he finally calmed down, still laying on his back, Phinks handed him the phone and walked over to the wall, grabbing an armful of as many different packs as he could before turning around and dumping them on Shalnark, throwing him into hysterics again. All Phinks could do was watch in pain. There was a part of him that didn’t want to go back to the hideout. Maybe I don’t need to participate in the auction, he thought to himself. Maybe I can fake my own death and go back to Meteor City. Start a new life as Sphinx, the juggler, or something.
Shalnark’s phone started to ring, and through his giggles he managed to answer.
“Y-yes?” More giggling.
Phinks couldn’t hear what the person on the other side was saying and, frankly, didn’t want to. He watched Shalnark continue to giggle before he returned the gaze and smiled. “I don’t think he can talk right now, Machi, he’s pretty busy. Hmm? He’s just busy, you gotta trust me. Sorry, bye!” And then he hung up.
“You should thank me, you know! I put off Machi’s wrath by at least half an hour!” Phinks crouched down and began to pick up all the packets.
“Yeah, but now she’s going to chew you out, too.” Shalnark made no move to help, continuing to stare at the ceiling. When Phinks had everything in his arms, he scoped out the scene and nudged the other man. “Get Black Voice ready to use on the cashier. I just want to go home.”
He sat up quickly. “Okay! Can I at least play with him for a while?”
"Ugh. Fine."