A/N: Pagebreaks and Kamaoji indicate change in POV

（￣_￣；）

The thing about Pakunoda is that she's a terrible liar.

It's not that she's adverse to telling lies—far from it—or that she's particularly clumsy when it came to words—she's an eloquent young lady, thank you very much.

In truth, it's mostly because of her perpetually impassive expression that most of her lies fell short of believable.

She's not a very good actress and she quite preferred it that way. She's much more comfortable with brutal and ugly truths rather than pretty dolled up lies. Lies often had a way of biting you in the ass at some indeterminate point in the future, and more often than not, it just really wasn't worth it. Truths were far better in that regard as they were straightforward, simple, and unlikely to betray you.

So when Father sent her to interrogate—question, he had said but the interrogation part was heavily implied—the strange lady, she didn't know what to make of it. Surely, there were better candidates for that kind of task.

"Why?" She had asked, unsure. She still had a few baskets of laundry to go through before the day ended and she knew for a fact that those clothes weren't going to wash themselves.

"Well," He began. "Why not? You're the best at distinguishing the lies from the truths."

Ah. Her nen then.

"Yes, but, I'm sure that there other ways to extract the truth from her." She shifted, her eyes flicking to the door. Had she sorted all of the clothes properly?

"Phinks would break her kneecaps if you asked him nicely enough, I think." Shalnark suddenly piped in. He was curled up at one of the priest's couches, his hands never straying from the strange contraption he was fiddling with.

Father gave Shalnark a gaze of disapproval.

"It was a joke." Shalnark shrugged his shoulders.

It was not and Pakunoda knew that for a fact.

Father sighed, before returning his attention to Pakunoda once more. "You're the only one who can do it subtly enough without committing bodily harm. I just want to find out about her motives without killing her, her name—remember don't kill her, Pakunoda—why she's here—please don't break her kneecaps—and how she got here. Her death is not the objective. Please, please, don't kill her." He said, emphasizing the part that she was not to harm the lady many times. "I just need you to use a bit of your Nen to wheedle some information out of her."

If Pakunoda was offended at Father's lack of faith—pun unintended, she certainly didn't show it. "Can't you ask her yourself?"

He frowned. "Well, I mean, I did, and she was very forthcoming about herself but…"

"But?"

"…There's just something about her that unsettles me." He finally said after a few seconds. "She's a sweet young lady, yes, but she feels…different. No, that's not quite it. It would be more accurate to say that I can't feel her." Ah. So it wasn't just her who noticed then. From behind her, she felt Shalnark gaze at them with sudden interest. "I'm inclined to believe that she's hiding something and I worry that her secrets will cause trouble for us in the future…"

Frankly, the only trouble that Pakunoda could foresee was the laundry not getting finished in time. She was still a little dubious about the entire mission and wanted to respectfully decline. But at one sharp look from Father, she eventually agreed to it, under the terms that no one was to touch the laundry in her absence.

Father smiled at her in exasperation. It was the same kind of smile he used when reigning in the rowdier children and Pakunoda felt slightly miffed. "I'm afraid I still don't understand why you're so fixated on our clothes Paku, but if it makes you amenable to my request then I don't see why not."

"Well," Shalnark began, as he slid something inside his pocket before standing up from the couch. "The last time anyone aside from Paku did our laundry, all our clothes turned orange. But, well, I mean if you reaaally want orange robes then—"

"No, no, no, that's quite alright. Pakunoda can do the laundry first before questioning our…guest."

"But what if she escapes?"

"She's not a prisoner. She's free to leave whenever she wishes, but it would be troubling if she were to disappear before we got our answers…" Father trailed off, looking uncertain.

Shalnark's eyes twinkled in mischief and Pakunoda eyed him warily. She knew Shalnark had a taste for pranks of the kind that usually (read: always) didn't end well for anyone but him. "I could keep her company while Paku finishes the laundry."

Father clapped his hands in delight. "Ah, what a good idea Shalnark!"

Pakunoda was inclined to disagree.

⌒°(❛ᴗ❛)°⌒

Shalnark was bored.

In the past few months, he had secretly taken to fueling a quarrel between the local baker and his wife just because. It had resulted to a very messy confrontation that involved the loss of a few patches of hair and some dignity of the married couple but ended on a rather lackluster note when they quickly reconciled and proceeded to do things he was pretty sure he wasn't supposed to see at his young and tender age.

Shalnark was convinced that the image of the old baker's wrinkly butt would forever be burned in his mind so he swiftly sought another means of entertainment that hopefully didn't involve wrinkly butts anytime soon.

Luckily, a new source of entertainment soon landed into his lap in the form of interrogating—questioning, Pakunoda corrected him many times—some strange lady that wore equally strange clothes.

"Can't we just," He gestured vaguely with his hands. "Get Phinks to break her—"

Pakunoda sighed. She was a few paces ahead of Shalnark and turned to face him. "You heard Father. No busting of kneecaps."

"It's not like the Old Man will be there though. We can just tell him that she ran away."

"With busted kneecaps?"

He grimaced. "Yeah, fair point."

Shalnark quickly went over his other viable options for interrogation but Pakunoda was an unfortunately perceptive girl and was quick to squash his ideas.

"Don't prank her. Or interrogate her. Or do anything of the sort." Pakunoda gave him a stern look. "Wait. For. Me."

"But Paku," He said sweetly, batting his eyelashes for the innocent effect. "Whatever do you mean?"

"You know what I mean Shalnark. Don't break her. She's not your toy."

Yet, a small part of Shalnark's mind added.

"Ugh, fiiiine!" He pouted but Pakunoda was not swayed by his charming appearance. "I'll wait for you!"

Once Pakunoda was satisfied, she gave him a brisk nod, before leaving him to his devices as she went to the yard to finish the laundry.

ε=ε=ε=ε=┏(;￣▽￣)┛

I liked to think that I was a fairly optimistic person. Whenever things got tough, I wanted to look at the brighter and sunnier side of things –I was once told that this was escapism at its finest, but I digress—to comfort myself, no matter how small it was.

Wandering back into Meteor City? Okay, yeah, cool, cool, I can maybe handle that. Sure, there were better places to be at, but at least I'm not dead yet!

Misplacing the object that I was supposed to trade for my way back home?

Alright, fine, very concerning. But I've read enough isekai novels that dealt with these kinds of situations. That must be helpful in some way, right?

Right?

.

It was not helpful in any way. At all.

The thing about a lot of isekai novels, was that they made everything seem easy for the protagonist. It was as if winning over the friendship of the characters (both major and minor) was but a walk in the park and was as easy as breathing for them.

It was their natural charm, the author would explain.

And hey, I could buy that! Some people were certainly charming that you couldn't help but gravitate towards them. Actually, now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure that that's how cults were born—I briefly wondered if my otome game heroines qualified as cult leaders with their set up—but that's a pursuit for another day.

So, you know, I actually kind of thought that my adventure would be something like around those amiable terms; get to know the characters, befriend them, have adventures with them, have some heart pounding encounters (mostly due to fear) with the love interests and so on.

But I was too naïve.

That sort of thing only happened in otome game transmigration stories!

I forgot that HunterxHunter was of a total different genre. It's a shounen manga. A notoriously violent shounen manga.

Shit! I knew I should've read more of those shounen transmigration light novels! My otome game transmigration light novel binge most certainly did not prepare me for any of this.

This, referring to how a strange little boy managed to incapacitate me and tie me up with a jump rope, while I was fresh from my bath.

It honestly felt a little surreal how I was tied up, in the middle of a rundown church, (in Meteor City no less!) donned in nothing but a bath towel.

…A part of me felt like my lack of decent clothing was slowly going to become a recurring pattern in these visits.

Why.

"Um," I licked my lips in confusion as I tugged against the ropes that bound my wrists. It was loose enough that I could break free any time I wanted to but I felt like the strange little boy wouldn't be appreciative of my escape. He had worked very hard to tie me up. "What is happening?"

The strange little boy—who oddly enough reminded me of Mirmo* with his adorably pink cheeks and small stature—looked at me sweetly. "Can't you tell, nee-san? This is an interrogation!"

"An interrogation…?" I echoed weakly.

"Yup! Interrogation, as in to question someone aggressively!"

"W-Why?" Seriously. Why?! Isn't it way too early in my adventure for the dark and edgy content?! This kind of thing usually happened at least mid-arc! It's too soon for any of those heavy developments!

"Because it sounds like fun! Or at least, I think it will be." Strange little boy—Mirmo—frowned, his face scrunching cutely. "And, well, the Old Man said that you were suspicious so we need to make sure you're not a Bearzatti! But mostly because I'm bored, you know." He scratched his head as he looked lost in thought. "I hope you don't have a wrinkly butt."

There were a lot of things I had to say in response to that barrage of sentences, but I eventually decided to settle on the most important detail. "I don't have a wrinkly butt! No, no, wait! I mean, I'm not anyone suspicious!"

I paused.

Somehow, I felt like I've said that line before.

Weird.

"Haha, funny you should say that! Somebody once told me not to believe anyone who claims that they're not suspicious." The boy—who shall henceforth be called Mirmo—dragged a chair in front of me, before twirling it so the backrest was facing in my direction. He pursed his lips in concentration as if he debated on the proper way to climb it.

A few seconds passed wherein he just stared at the chair, his head occasionally tilting as he inspected it.

Feeling a bit awkward about the silent that ensued, I said, "Um, do you, ah, need help getting seated?"

"Oh, no, it's okay, I just need to—" A small hand reached out to stabilize the seat while the other was used as a lever to pull himself up. "Just give me a few—"

The rickety chair swiftly toppled forward, propelling Mirmo along with it. He let out a soft 'oh' at the abrupt motion but otherwise didn't look particularly startled or distressed. It was a different matter for me however as I, out of worry and shock, immediately undid the flimsy jump rope before diving to cushion his fall.

Of course, I was not blessed with lightning reflexes as impossible and as insane as a fictional character's but I still tried, nonetheless. After all, I wasn't heartless enough to allow bodily harm to come to a child, fictional or otherwise!

But, surprise, surprise, Mirmo didn't really need my help and as soon as my hands reached out to catch him, he did this fancy little flip before using my head as a booster for his foot to leap off.

I slid forward on my face and Mirmo landed on my back.

Surprisingly, my towel was not dislodged one bit during this entire exercise in futility.

Was this the magic skirt (towel?) trope* at play?!

"Oomph!" Gods. This child was a lot heavier than he looked! Either that or my strength was severely lacking.

"Huh," He said blithely, as if he weren't crushing my lungs. "Guess that didn't work out too well."

"Ngguhhhoohhmiiii" I groaned from underneath him.

As I was about to tell the boy to get off my poor back—yikes, my inner older lady was showing—a loud creak echoed in the room and I felt Mirmo shuffle on top of me.

"Oh, hi Paku!" He chirped.

"Shalnark, no!" A distinctly feminine voice hissed and it was accompanied by soft footsteps that neared me.

Wait.

Shalnark?!

"Shalnark, yes!" Mirmo—Shalnark—responded in a petulant voice but made no move to get up from my back. "Come on Paku, I just made your job easier for you! I even got you ambience—" Shalnark waved (probably) his hands at the general area of the room."—and tied her up for you—ah, she undid it. Oh well, we can just tie her up again."

"Shalnark, I don't need help." Paku's—if I had to hazard a guess, it was Pakunoda— voice was flat. "And don't tie people up just because you're bored. Father will get mad."

"Hmm," He hummed. "You don't look very surprised at it though. Alarmed, but not surprised."

She sighed. "This has become the norm for you, Shalnark."

"Well, I'll have to try harder next time,"

"Please, don't."

"I feel like I've been issued a challenge."

"Shalnark."

"Paku."

"…Um, I'd hate to get in between your conversation but could you maybe please get off my back?"

.

Once I was finally fully clothed and thankfully not tied up like some meat about to be cured, the three of us settled into my temporary room. It was a little cramped with both Pakunoda and Shalnark occupying the bed, so I opted to sit at the cool cemented floor. Thankfully, it looked clean so I wasn't too worried about picking up anything dangerous.

"So," I began conversationally, as if I were talking about the weather. "Interrogation?"

Pakunoda let out an exhale of exasperation but her flat expression remain unchanged. "I apologize on Shalnark's behalf. He was dropped on his head as a baby, you see."

"Hey!"

Pakunoda ignored him and pressed on. "We were supposed to go for subtlety but Shalnark has ruined the element of surprise. So to answer that, no. No interrogation."

Oh, thank god.

"But the interrogation part was implied in my orders."

"What."

"Heavily implied." Shalnark supplied unhelpfully.

I opened my mouth to defend my sorry self but a hand was suddenly firmly grasping at my shoulder. It wasn't strong enough to cause pain but it was firm enough to prevent me from making any abrupt movements. I looked up in surprise but was met with Pakunoda's steady gaze. "Tell me honestly—"

"—Who are you?"

.

.

.

Mirmo: A character from the shoujo manga called Mirmo de Pon.

Magic Skirt Trope: The trope wherein a female character's skirt defies gravity and protects the heroine's decency no matter the situation.

Hey guys! Thank you all so much for the reviews from the last chapter. Reading all of them makes my day. I've been super busy irl so I haven't gotten around to replying to them but I def will as soon as I can!

In other news, this might be the last update in a while. I'm taking a board exam in a few days, and depending on the result, I might take a while to bounce back from the failure. Gah. And writing this fic might not happen during that time so I thought to update and finish this admittedly short chapter.

Paku and Shal are as equally difficult to write so I hope I managed to do them some justice. If they're OOC, I apologize.

To apologize for the short chapter, here's a short extra I wrote! It's definitely not canon to this fic lmao.

EXTRA:

(Actors! AU wherein Even Monkeys Fall From Trees is a drama and all the characters are actors. They share the same name as the character they play but have slightly DIFFERENT personalities. Please don't take this too seriously. It's all for fun.)

(Set in Chapter 1)

"Oh my God," Hazuki's shoulders shook in laughter. She had one hand slapped on her mouth to stifle her giggling and another hand to push Kuroro off of her lap."Kuroro-san, your hair's tickling me—eep! Stop moving around so much on my lap! Ah! You'll dislodge my towel! We're barely getting by with a T rating as it is! Please don't give the author a reason to bump this story to an M rating!"

From beneath her, Kuroro gave her an uncharacteristic impish smile. "Hm? What author are you talking about Hazuki? We're in a filming set aren't we? And you know," He murmured, tugging hear head downwards as his voice dropped an octave lower. "An M rating sounds like it would steal ratings, don't you think?"

Once his lips were next to Hazuki's ear, he whispered. "I guess you could say…weave come a long way."

A chorus of groans echoed in the studio at the dreadful pun.

"Kuroro's at it again, huh?"

"Danchou…please stop."

"Can someone please remind me why this guy was casted as the leader of the Phantom Troupe?!"

Hazuki sighed, before looking at the ceiling above as she silently prayed for strength and better co-actors. Mostly better co-actors.

"Aaaand cut!" A small yet firm hand suddenly pushed Kuroro off of Hazuki's lap and the former found himself sprawled ungraciously on the floor.

It was Gon, with a horribly amused Killua standing next to him.

"Kuroro-san," He said sweetly. "This is not going to be an M rated story."

Kuroro smiled at the two children amiably before pushing himself off the floor to assume a sitting position. If he was annoyed by the sudden interruption, he certainly didn't show it. "Why are you two here today? Isn't your filming scheduled for the next month?"

"We just happened to pass by," Killua shrugged his shoulders as Gon gently wrapped a bigger and fluffier bathrobe around Hazuki's shoulders. "Besides," A devious smirk was plastered on Killua's face. "Someone has to look out for the heroine of this story. Who knows what kind of pests she might attract?"

("Thanks Gon-kun," She patted his cheek affectionately.

"Ehehe, it's no problem, Hazuki-nee!")

"Yes, of course," Kuroro chuckled, as his gaze settled on Hazuki's bare legs. Killua rolled his eyes and moved to block the man's vision.

"Stop spying on her legs like that, you geezer!"

"I can't help it, Killua-kun." Kuroro turned his head before solemnly replying. "I am a spyder."

Killua groaned.

(AKA: An AU wherein Kuroro is Kuroro except he has a taste for ridiculously bad puns. Everyone suffers.)

Don't forget to leave a review! :D