Archive of Our Own

“In my experience, when someone won’t answer your texts, they don’t want to see you,” Zepile says in a sympathetic, self-satisfied voice that means “you’ll understand when you’re older.” Which is ridiculous because thirty is not so far from twenty-one, and Zepile doesn’t understand anything about Kurapika.

Irritation scrambles up Leorio’s throat on wooly legs. He glugs down his beer in an attempt to drown it. The beer is lukewarm and watery, but he can’t complain. It’s on a two-for-one special.

“Yeah, well, I don’t give a shit what Kurapika wants,” Leorio says. It comes out louder than he meant, and the bartender glances over at them with a raised eyebrow. Leorio’s face is warm in the faux-sunburn way it gets when he’s toeing the line between sober and tipsy. His tongue feels heavy in his mouth. “If he’s ghosting me, he’ll have to tell me so to my face.”

“It’s pretty hard to catch a ghost when you don’t know where he is,” says Zepile.

Around them, patrons jostle against each other like pickles in a jar, elbows knocking when reaching for a drink along the bar, those lucky enough to secure a booth pressed thigh-to-thigh or knee-to-knee under the table. Leorio prods at their basket of fries, tilting it toward him. It’s empty save for a few tiny survivors who tumble out from where they were hiding in the ridges of the wax paper. They’re less fries and more shivs, sharp and too brown. Still, Leorio tosses them into his mouth with great relish, lets them scrape against his hard palate.

“I’m a Hunter,” he says around flecks of potato quickly turning soggy. “I’ll, you know, hunt him down.”

Zepile is only half-listening. Well, maybe three-quarters-listening. His heart is in it, but he keeps glancing over Leorio’s head at the nearest TV. All the televisions in the bar are tuned to a bout at Heavens Arena. He has money on the fight. So does Leorio. Two hundred jenny on the underdog who challenged a floor master, a kid around Gon and Killua’s age wearing a white dōgi. Ten to one odds. Zepile laughed at him, “If you want to throw money away, why don’t you buy me dinner instead?” But Leorio likes his chances, always gambles to win.

“All I’m saying is it seems like a lot of effort.” Zepile tips back the remains of his third beer. He flags down the bartender, gesturing for another round. “Your plate’s pretty full with med school already.”

Leorio’s plate is full, isn’t it? Lectures and clinical rotations heaped so thick he can’t see the china pattern. Quivering scoops of board exam prep threatening to dribble over the edge. Nen training balanced on top or wherever he can fit it in. All of it doused in a gravy of minutiae, things like laundry, errands, and personal hygiene. Still, he always has room for dessert – dinners with Zepile when he’s in town for an appraisal, parties with the other med students that aren’t really parties so much as small gatherings where they drink too much cheap wine and talk shit about the attending physician everyone hates, and the occasional hookup with someone he meets at the gym, or the library, or the grocery store. Fleeting, delicious moments of reprieve that melt like candy floss on his tongue.

He’s impressive at Yorknew University. Has made a bit of a name for himself. Sits at the top of his class, leads a study group, volunteers twice a week at the free clinic downtown. He’s the only Hunter at the university, too, but tries not to make a big deal about it. He’s a humble guy, all right? Got here on his own merit just like everyone else. So what if he puffs out his chest a bit when he hears people whispering amongst themselves, ”Hey, isn’t he a Hunter?” And yeah, maybe he’s flashed his license once or twice while chatting someone up in a bar. But only when they were a little out of his league, and only when the topic came up naturally. He worked hard for that license, dammit. He worked hard for everything he has.

On nights when Leorio drinks coffee straight from the pot and has his textbooks spread across the kitchen table, he thinks about how he could be doing more. About how cushy it is to sit inside his apartment doing desk work when there are rumblings on various Hunter websites about an invasive species of magical beast causing problems in the NGL, and how Gon said something about heading there to help out a friend the last time he called. Thinks about how Kurapika hasn’t stopped fighting in over six years, hasn’t stopped tracking down the eyes. As if he’ll crumble to pieces if he stops moving, as though pressure is the only thing holding him together.

Leorio knows about pressure. Knows when to apply it to a wound and how much to use. He’s contorted his own hand into a levee, felt his patient’s blood gush against his palm and throw a fit when it realized it was trapped. Knows that in order to heal, the pressure needs to be removed, tourniquet cut free, fingers pried from the gash. Pressure needs to be replaced with stitches, bandages, and gauze. And so, Leorio studies to be a doctor. And so, Leorio will search for Kurapika.

“Semester break is coming up,” Leorio says. “Weren’t you just telling me I need a hobby?”

“Yeah, I meant like crochet.”

“Crochet.”

“Why not? It’s creative and you can get cheap yarn secondhand. Definitely better for you than playing a depressing game of hide-and-seek with some guy you want to bone.” The bartender sets two fresh beers in front of Zepile, who slides one over to Leorio. On the screen, the floor master clips the kid’s chin with his fist and sends him flying.

“I don’t want to ‘bone’ Kurapika,” Leorio says, ears going hot. When he lifts his beer to his mouth, the coaster rises with the glass, condensation biting down and refusing to let go.

Zepile raises an eyebrow. “You sure? You’re obsessed with the guy. Won’t shut up about him.”

“We’re friends.”

“If I heard any of my friends talking about me the way you talk about Kurapika, I’d know they wanted to smash.”

Scattered cheers erupt like bottle rockets among the rafters as the kid takes a critical hit. The ticker on the bottom of the screen displays the score: four to one. The floor master peacocks at the crowd, flexing and jeering. Behind him, the kid pushes himself to his feet and settles into a fighting stance, knees bent and fists pulled close to his chest.

“It isn’t like that between us.” Even as he says it, the lie stings like lemon on Leorio’s tongue, its sour flavor turning his stomach and making him angry. His memories of Kurapika – his fussy mannerisms, his voice, that moment in Yorknew when they were alone in the car and Leorio thought something, something, would finally happen because Kurapika kept biting the corner of his bottom lip and glancing at Leorio’s mouth – are covered in dimpled rinds. When he wants to revisit them, Leorio has to pierce through the skin, tear it apart with his fingers to get to the segmented nostalgia inside. Bear the burn of the juice as it leaks over his palm and down his wrist, finding its way into every scrape. His lips pucker into a snarl. “I just miss him, okay? And he’s making a big fucking mistake throwing me away. I’m a good friend.”

“A great friend,” Zepile says, eyes glued to the match.

“A great friend!” Leorio slams his hand on the bar with each word. Their drinks teeter but don’t spill. “Great friends don’t let their friends walk out of their lives without a fight.”

“So, you want to fight him?”

“No, I… Actually, yeah. Yes. I want to fight, I have a lot to say to him.”

“I bet you do,” says Zepile, “like how he needs to return your calls.”

“Damn right.”

“And how he’s making you worry.”

“Giving me heart palpitations!”

“And how you two should hook up.”

“Exac– oh, fuck off.”

Zepile’s smirk is swallowed up by a sinkhole of a frown as his jaw loosens and drops open. The drunks around them let out a chorus of moans. Zepile gestures at the television with his pint glass. “Come on, are you kidding? There goes five hundred jenny down the drain.”

Leorio turns to follow his gaze. In Heavens Arena, the kid stands triumphant next to the unconscious body of the floor master. The announcer cheers, “Zushi wins the match by knockout!”

Later, when Leorio returns to his apartment two thousand jenny richer, he’s still covered in the glittering grime of good fortune. It clings to him like the residue the city leaves on his skin, gritty on the pads of his fingers and the hollows of his nostrils. It’s after two in the morning, but Leorio feels reckless and wired. Like he should buy some scratch-offs at the bodega around the corner or apply for that prestigious research grant on a whim. Needs to put his luck somewhere. Doesn’t want to let it go to waste.

Leorio flops on his couch and stretches out so his ankles rest on the opposite arm, shoes still on, heels leaving a smudge on the beige microfiber that he’ll have to deal with tomorrow. He pulls his phone from the front pocket of his trousers. It still has eighteen percent battery, another stroke of luck. It hasn’t been charged since last night. He decides to play a game of roulette.

He scrolls through his contacts until he lands on Kurapika’s name, pressing “call” without hesitation. Sure, it’s a quarter after two here, but it could be any time for Kurapika. Hell, if he is in the same time zone, Leorio hopes the call wakes him. Hopes he can’t fall back to sleep afterwards. Wants him to feel even a tiny prick of the pain Leorio has felt over hundreds of nights staring at the ceiling and imagining all the devastating, heart-rending reasons why Kurapika isn’t getting back to him.

While the phone connects, Leorio places his bet. The odds Kurapika will answer are low. The chance that his phone rings perpetually until Leorio is the one to hang up is almost a sure thing, but bleak. And there is a slim possibility that Kurapika’s number is no longer in service, the most depressing outcome of the bunch. Leorio gambles on the long shot.

It rings once. Twice. Then the line goes dead.

Leorio sets his phone on his chest and sighs. Exhaustion catches up with him, leeching into his bones and making his limbs sand-bag-heavy. It wasn’t the outcome he had hoped for, but he’ll take it. A rejected call means Kurapika is still out there. And for a few seconds, wherever he is, Kurapika thought about Leorio.

Leorio falls asleep on the couch wearing his rumpled suit and with the overhead lights on, feeling like a winner.

Researching is not so different from hunting. Both begin with tracking the prey. Leorio scours Hunter databases and websites for news of Kurapika, each article about the Kurta eyes a broken twig on a branch, news of the Nostrade Family footprints in the mud. Sifts through pages of information until his eyes are bloodshot and dawn light floats between the gaps in his blinds to pepper his cheek with rose gold kisses.

Kurapika is skittish, he knows, so Leorio does his best to stay downwind, wear camouflage, avoid making any noise. Instead of calling Melody or Gon to demand information about the last time they spoke with Kurapika, he documents sightings of Nostrade Family goons. Circles the places they appear most frequently on the map. And in case he needs bait, he tracks down the names of a few flesh collectors rumored to own a pair of scarlet eyes.

But hunting a Hunter is not as easy as trailing a buck through a forest. Kurapika is careful, doubles back across his tracks, crosses streams in zigzag patterns to hide his scent, doesn’t stay in one place for long. Many of the activities attributed to the Nostrade Family turn out to be false, as do the rumors of the whereabouts of the eyes. Leorio finds himself stumbling out from the underbrush, tired and covered in burrs, only to discover the trail has gone cold.

The search takes longer than he planned. Semester break comes and goes, wasted to nights stuffed in bus seats and staring out train windows. It steals his weekends next, greedily stuffing Leorio’s few morsels of spare time into its mouth without so much as a thank you or a glimpse of familiar blonde hair. Leorio gets sick of airport coffee and learns how to study in the light of passing street lamps.

There isn’t much to do while sitting still in a vehicle hurtling hundreds of miles an hour, so Leorio lets his mind wander. On a twelve hour bus ride with his knees squashed against the seat back in front of him, Leorio plans out everything he will say to Kurapika, including counterarguments to whatever bullshit Kurapika spouts about “needing to focus on his duty to his clan” or how he’s “keeping his friends safe.” Comes up with a few good one-liners to work into the argument in order to maintain the upper hand and remind Kurapika how clever he can be.

On an airship observation deck on a red eye to the Balsa islands, Leorio wonders if he should simply tell Kurapika he misses him. Imagines Kurapika receiving that information with a blush and a delicate smile. Imagines Kurapika apologizing and saying it back, maybe even embracing him. Decides this might be the preferred way to go, until Leorio realizes this fantasy resembles the plot of the romantic drama that had been playing in the airport lounge. This makes him feel so stupid that he snaps at a passenger trying to make small talk about the view and feels like an asshole for the rest of the flight.

In a shared sleeper car on a transcontinental train ride, the snores of his roommate mixing with the rhythmic clunk of wheels against track, Leorio imagines ways to bait Kurapika into swinging at him. Kurapika is better with words, gifted with a scalpel tongue that cuts swift and precise. Leorio’s mind gets foggy with emotion, his words lost somewhere in the haze only to be recovered hours later when the air is clear and they’re no longer needed. But he is good with his hands, has skills he honed over hundreds of minor tussles with Pietro and barroom brawls even before he began proper martial arts training. He can hold his own against Kurapika, surely. It might be best to let out months of pent up frustration with a few good punches so they can have a clear-headed conversation afterwards. Leorio drifts to sleep with the choreography of their grappling playing out in his dreams. His fist colliding with Kurapika’s jaw. The sounds of their grunts. The smell of their sweat. Kurapika wrestling him to the ground, cheeks flushed with exertion, hands closed tight around his wrists. Both of them panting. Leorio wakes with damp sheets, grateful the shower in the miniscule compartment bathroom only runs cold.

It’s already dark when Leorio arrives in the largest city in the Federation of Ochima. Around him, skyscrapers burst like mountains from where they’re rooted in concrete, built so tall and close together they crowd out the sky, their lighted windows forming constellations in the steel firmament. Despite the late hour, throngs of people mill about the streets, laughing from food stalls along the main road and scurrying past with arms full of shopping.

His briefcase digs into the flesh of his palm, growing heavier each moment he navigates the labyrinth of stairs and bridges that connect this city built into the side of a canyon. He can feel a blister forming where his shoe rubs against the back of his left heel, and his tie holds sweat captive around the base of his neck. He’s here following up on a credible rumor that a local politician has a scarlet eye as part of his personal collection of oddities. New information, thanks to his former assistant who ignored their nondisclosure agreement in favor of a front page spread in some tabloid rag. If there’s an eye here, Kurapika might not be far. But Leorio is too focused on finding a cheap room with a clean bed and a hot meal to think much about him.

The GPS on his phone directs him to an inexpensive hostel with good enough reviews. Leorio plods up a seemingly endless staircase, tilting his phone to avoid the glare of neon lights on his screen so he can better read the directions. He wonders if it would be quicker to walk or hop on the elevated tram whizzing overhead. Someone steps into the path in front of him, and Leorio stumbles, phone slipping from his hand.

“Damn it,” Leorio says, surging forward to snatch his phone before it cracks against the stone. “Watch where you’re–”

“Oh,” Kurapika says with a mixture of fondness and astonishment. “Leorio.”

He’s wearing a black suit, expertly tailored and expensive, judging from the drape of the fabric and the stitching on the lapels. It makes him look slender but not delicate, knifelike in the way his shoulders end in keen points, his pinched waist suggesting a serrated edge. His hair is longer and could be described as “scruffy” or “unkempt” on someone less fine-boned and beautiful. It makes him look older, as though Kurapika hung up his boyhood along with his tabard in the back of some closet. There are dark circles under his eyes. His cheekbones are more pronounced.

But his voice is the same.

The sound of it washes away every script Leorio wrote in his mind. All he can say is, “Kurapika. Hi. It’s been a while.”

Kurapika smiles at him. “What brings you here?”

“Uh,” Leorio rubs the back of his neck with the hand holding his briefcase and it whaps between his shoulder blades with annoyance. “Hunter stuff.”

“Hunter stuff?” Kurapika’s lips quirk up even higher.

“Yeah, you know how it is.”

A few business men walk out of the building Kurapika just exited and push past them. Leorio steps toward the wall. Kurapika moves closer to Leorio to stop them from impeding traffic. Leorio has the urge to reach forward and take Kurapika’s hand, to keep him on a tether so he doesn’t disappear again, to prove he is real, and here, and alive. He keeps his hands at his sides.

Kurapika glances at the street. “Are you busy? I was on my way to dinner.”

They end up in a hotel restaurant a few blocks away. A more formal place than Leorio would have chosen for himself, furnished with solid wood tables that have cabriole legs and booths upholstered in thick, burgundy velvet. Honest-to-god chandeliers dripping with crystals hang from the ceiling. They’re more of an aesthetic choice than a practical one. The lighting is low and warm, hazy in a way that suggests its history as a smoking lounge, the ghost of cigar smoke linking arms with the light fixtures.

“Yeesh,” says Leorio when he reads the menu. “They must keep it dark in here so you can’t see the prices.”

“I’ll pay,” Kurapika says like it’s nothing. Leorio takes him up on it, because mafia money has to go somewhere, and it will do more good in his belly than whatever else the Nostrade Family uses it for.

Kurapika orders for them; dumplings, noodles, various meats in decadent sauces. He doesn’t ask Leorio what he would like. Which should bother Leorio, but Kurapika seems so genuinely pleased to see him, glancing up at him over the table like he’s almost surprised to find Leorio sitting there, the curve of his smile present in the way he shapes his vowels. Leorio decides what he has to say can wait until after dinner. He’s more level-headed with a full stomach, anyway.

Formality hovers around their table like an overzealous waiter. Stunts their conversation. Makes them pay extra attention to the placement of their napkins and that they’re keeping their elbows off the table. Kurapika speaks in polite euphemisms about his work, side-stepping Leorio’s questions with canned phrases like “it’s going about as well as expected” and “I won’t bore you with the details” before remarking on the food or the decor. Takes prim, little bites of his meal. Asks Leorio the same dull questions about school that his aunts do when he calls home once a week. It makes Leorio tense, resentment buzzing between his eyebrows and in the hinge of his jaw. He has seen Kurapika cry, has teased him and been teased in return, has pressed his fingers to the feverish skin of Kurapika’s forehead while he lay in his sickbed. Any stiffness between them that thawed sometime on Zevil Island is now frozen over again after months of neglect. He downs the pint of beer Kurapika insisted he try – a local specialty – and orders another.

The present is uncomfortable. The future waits for them with raised voices, curses, and sharp words they will never be able to take back. So, Leorio speaks about the past.

“I got invited to some potluck thing with the other residents a few weeks ago. You’ll never guess what they asked me to make. Pork. I haven’t touched that since the Hunter Exam.”

“Was the purpose of the potluck to study the symptoms of food poisoning in medical students?”

“Ha, ha. My roast pork turned out better than yours, you know.”

“That’s not how I remember it.”

It is a strange thing to know someone so deeply and have spent such little time together. To carry the memories you share in cupped hands without the risk of any spilling over. Leorio does his best to make them stretch. Adds filler by reminiscing about things like their hotel in Yorknew and the ship to the exam. Cuts his stories with interstitials about Pietro. Speaks about things that happened to Gon and Killua with an undue sense of ownership. The strain eases, each story melting the tension in Kurapika’s shoulders until he looks his age, loose and boyish in his posture, leaning across the tabletop to challenge Leorio’s embellishments with a smirk. He even lets Leorio coax a laugh out of him. So Leorio ramps up the exaggerations, speaks loudly, gestures wildly. Feels heady with something that can’t just be from the beer.

When the food is gone and their glasses are almost empty, Leorio looks around the restaurant. “Oh shit, we’re the last people in here. What time do they close?”

Kurapika pushes up the sleeve of Leorio’s jacket to uncover his watch, two fingers pressed against the skin below the band, his thumb curled around Leorio’s wrist like it belongs there. “Ten minutes ago.”

The tips of Leorio’s ears grow hot. Kurapika doesn’t remove his hand.

“Where are you staying?”

“Uh,” Leorio says, wondering if Kurapika can feel his heartbeat, “nowhere. I just got in a few hours ago. I’m planning to crash in a hostel or something.”

“All the good places will be fully booked at this hour. I have a room upstairs, you can stay with me.”

Kurapika’s voice is even, casual, as though he’s suggesting they go see a movie or asking if Leorio might like to get ice cream on the way home. But there is something weighty in his expression, almost desperate. It’s a look Leorio has seen many times on the faces of patrons in his favorite sports bar, one he’s worn himself at the blackjack table. A mix of anticipation and expectation. The face of a gambler waiting to see if luck is on their side or if they’ll leave with empty pockets.

Leorio feels a little woozy. His heart squeezes. He wonders if he should have had that third beer.

“Okay,” he says.

Kurapika’s “room” is a suite. It could be the cousin of the restaurant downstairs with the same repeating medallion pattern on the carpet and golden wall sconces that look like adolescent chandeliers. There’s a kitchenette, a wet bar, a seating area with a couch and two arm chairs, and a second room. Through the open door, Leorio can see a king bed covered in crisp, white linens and piled high with pillows.

“This place is bigger than my apartment,” Leorio says, setting his briefcase down next to the door and wiping his palms on his thighs.

“I have connections in the city. They were gracious enough to set me up with suitable accommodations.”

The buzzing is back between Leorio’s eyebrows. He knows what types of “connections” Kurapika has made, the company he keeps. Men in black suits with rings on their fingers and lackeys who clean up their messes in back alleyways. The kind of people who steal and kill for no other reason than greed. Leorio wants to grab Kurapika by the shoulders and shake him, tell him there are ways to navigate the underworld that don’t involve selling your soul to the devil. Instead, he peers out the window at the sprawling, neon city and tries not to wonder about the things Kurapika has done.

“Would you like something to drink?” Kurapika asks, opening the fridge in the wet bar. Inside, rows of backlit cans glimmer on the shelves like golden teeth.

“Don’t bother with that stuff, they overcharge like crazy for drinks in the room. Tap water is fine.”

Kurapika removes two bottles of Perrier from the fridge. “I’m not concerned about the cost. Consider it part of the dinner.”

Leorio takes the bottle offered to him, but doesn’t open it. He sits on the couch and sets it on the coffee table in front of him. Frowns at it.

Kurapika takes off his jacket and drapes it over the back of one of the dining chairs. “There was something I wanted to ask you.” He joins Leorio on the couch, sits so close their thighs are touching. The chains on his right hand clink as he twists off the bottle cap and takes a sip.

“Oh yeah?” Leorio can’t help but watch the way Kurapika’s throat bobs as he swallows, lets his gaze skate down the lines of his neck to rest on the sliver of collarbone winking at him from where Kurapika undid the top two buttons of his shirt. Each time Kurapika shifts, Leorio feels it against his thigh. The speech he prepared on the train all those weeks ago is suddenly far away, buried in the bottom of a chest and sunken somewhere in the depths of his mind.

“Did you come here hoping to find me?”

“Yes.”

Kurapika smiles a little at this. “And I suppose you knew exactly where I would be.”

The expectant look is back on his face. Leorio feels out of his depth, doesn’t know what he’s after, goes panning for the right thing to say and hopes he finds gold. “Nah, running into you was a coincidence.”

“There are over twenty million people living in this city.”

“Just got lucky, I guess.”

“Yes, very lucky.”

Kurapika puts his hand high on Leorio’s leg, fingers grazing his inseam. Leorio’s throat goes dry then too wet. He swallows twice and tries to reroute the blood from his dick back to his brain so he can make sense of what’s happening. Kurapika’s hand is on his thigh. Kurapika’s hand is almost touching his cock. Kurapika is moving now, putting his other hand on the back of his neck and pulling him close. Kurapika’s eyes are half-lidded and his lips are just barely parted, which is unfair considering how much time Leorio has spent thinking about his lips, dreaming about his lips, imagining how they might feel against his own or on other, more sordid places. Leorio’s brain is all beer-battered static with phrases like “right now?” and “here?” and “going to kiss me” breaking through the noise. This is going to feel amazing, says his limbic system. This is why we came here. Except that doesn’t feel right to Leorio even as he lets Kurapika tilt his face toward him. Feels a prick in his brain. His prefrontal cortex pinches its cheeks to wake up, to get some color back in its face. Thinks, “I was supposed to talk to him at dinner.”

“What are you doing?” Leorio asks, jerking free from Kurapika’s tender grip on his neck.

Kurapika retracts his hands, contorts them into a tidy fold, and places them on his lap. It’s as though he’s frozen over, his spine an icicle, his elbows pipkrakes. “It seems I’ve misread the situation. I thought this is why you came here.”

Leorio feels two steps behind, feet sliding out from under him, unable to catch his balance. He sputters out, “I wouldn’t spend all this effort tracking you down just to get laid.”

He knows it’s the wrong thing to say as he launches it from his tongue. Can do nothing as Kurapika lets out a laugh that’s more like a huff, the sound of someone stepping on the porch in the middle of winter and gasping as frigid air hits their lungs.

“I didn’t realize I would only be some lay to you.”

Irritation swells inside Leorio. It crackles between his bones, churns in his stomach, inflates his lungs with a roiling, gurgling indignation that bubbles up his trachea and spews from his mouth. “Yeah, sure, because we have such a good relationship.”

“I consider you a close friend,” says Kurapika, words coming out wearing business suits and walking in a single file line.

“You never fucking talk to me, Kurapika.”

“I see. You’re upset because I do not always reply to your texts.”

“Don’t do that. Don’t pretend I’m overreacting here.”

“Aren’t you?”

“I know you see my messages, and I know you screen my calls. How is that a friendship?”

“I thought you understood why I’ve had to keep my distance.”

“Yeah, you’re selfish and a coward.”

Kurapika’s mouth forms a tight line. His nostrils flare. Scarlet leaks from the edges of his contacts creating a bloody halo around his irises. The air feels thick, clotted. Leorio doesn’t need to use Gyo to recognize the rage pouring from Kurapika’s aura and flooding the suite. He clenches his jaw, molars grinding against each other as his own anger mounts to match Kurapika’s.

“Take that back,” Kurapika says.

“Hell no! Unlike those goons you work with, I’m not afraid to tell you the truth.”

“I’m retrieving the stolen eyes of my brethren. There is no act more selfless than defending the Kurta’s honor.”

“At what cost? You’re in the fucking mafia, Kurapika. You spend all your time with asshole creeps who beat people up and take their money.”

“I’ve seen to it that Nostrade Family business is all technically legal.”

“Don’t give me that. ‘Technically legal’ doesn’t mean moral.”

“The money and connections afforded to me by the mafia are necessary tools. You wouldn’t understand.”

“How would you know?” Leorio is really in it now, burning with all the frustration and longing that’s been building for months, the heat of it broiling his organs until they’re crisp and brown, steaming his blood until his veins are full only of vapor. He gets in Kurapika’s face, so close their foreheads are almost touching. Prods him in the center of his chest with a stern finger. Regrets not socking Kurapika as soon as they collided. “What gives you the right to dictate the rules of our friendship, huh? You don’t get to come and go as you please and expect me to wait around for you every time. Do you have any idea how that makes me feel?”

Kurapika swats his hand away. “I don’t expect anything from you.”

“Well, you should! You should want to rely on me. That’s what friends are for.”

“Why? So there can be a repeat of what happened in Yorknew? You say I’m selfish, but I refuse to put you in danger for my sake.”

“That’s not your decision to make.”

“You don’t know what it’s like.”

“Because you’re the only one who’s lost someone, right? Look around, Kurapika. Everyone has lost someone. I’ve lost someone. Grief isn’t some special burden made just for you.”

“It’s not the same. Every person I loved was taken from me,” Kurapika says, voice rising for the first time since they began arguing. His eyes glow with eerie anguish, the scarlet turning his contacts the color of riverbed clay. “Everyone who ever cared about me is gone.”

“You know that isn’t true.” Leorio pokes Kurapika in the chest again, pushes so hard he can imagine it denting Kurapika’s flesh. “The boys care about you. I care about you. I think that scares you. It’s easier for you to pretend you have nothing so when you put yourself at risk, you don’t have to acknowledge there are people in the world who you’re hurting.”

Kurapika turns away from Leorio. “You’re a distraction, yes.”

Leorio grabs Kurapika by the shoulder and hauls him back so they’re face to face. “I want you to get all the scarlet eyes back, but I also want you to let me in.”

He’s breathing hard and his tie feels too tight on his throat, fabric straining each time he sucks in air. Kurapika looks at him for a long moment, saying nothing. Leorio becomes conscious of the way his fingers dig into Kurapika’s shoulder. Of how slight Kurapika is under his hand. And of how strong, his body held together with the same steel beams and concrete that craft the skyscrapers blocking out the moon.

“I read all your texts,” Kurapika says, voice softer and with less bite, a sound like honey being added to herbal tea, “even the mean ones. You’re on my mind more than I care to admit.”

“Why don’t you answer?”

The corner of Kurapika’s mouth twists up into something that isn’t quite a smile, it has too much acid in it, too much weight. He glances down, then at Leorio’s mouth, then looks him in the eyes. “When I remember how badly I want you, I forget my rage.”

It occurs to Leorio that the hunt is over. Kurapika has been spotted and snared and brought back to camp. Leorio has said his piece, emptied his pockets of grievances. No longer has to imagine Kurapika’s reaction. All of his careful plans end after that, his fantasies of chewing out Kurapika falling off a cliff into a pleasant void. Reality, of course, keeps going. So Leorio decides to trust his gut, to take a gamble. This time, he bets on the sure thing.

Kurapika kisses in a bossy, self-assured way, twisting his fingers in the hair on the back of Leorio’s head and fisting his shirt to hold him in place, eyes screwed shut like he doesn’t want to wake from a nice dream. He’s not a great kisser, too forceful and too eager with his tongue, lapping into Leorio’s mouth with a hungry sort of desperation. Leorio doesn’t care. Every cell in his body sizzles and shakes with the thrill of it, nerves setting off fireworks and hosting barbecues in parts of his body he never expected to be turned on by a kiss. Kurapika moans against his lips, soft and low. The sound goes straight to his dick.

He is already achingly, agonizingly hard. Which is a little embarrassing and makes him feel fifteen again, like he’s back in that movie theater trying to hide his boner while kissing Pietro’s cousin and feeling her up over her bra. But then Kurapika pushes him down and clambers onto his lap, and none of that seems to matter anymore.

“Wanted this for so long,” Leorio breathes out, unbuttoning Kurapika’s shirt with swift, impatient fingers, irritated with trying to work his hand under the fabric and anxious to touch more of Kurapika’s skin. Underneath, Kurapika is toned and pale. A collection of paint-splatter bruises decorate his ribs. Something for Leorio to ask about later. For now, he’s focused on Kurapika’s nipples, pert and the same shade of pink as his lips. He runs his thumb across one, gives it a pinch, pride bubbling up as Kurapika arches with pleasure.

“Mmm,” Kurapika says, planting open-mouthed kisses on the side of Leorio’s jaw and down his neck. “Since when?”

“Since,” Leorio breaks off into a groan when Kurapika finds a sensitive spot just below his ear. He hisses as Kurapika kisses him there again, slower, sucking a little. “Ah, since we met up in Yorknew.”

Kurapika is pushing Leorio’s jacket off his shoulders. Leorio shimmies out of the sleeves. “Is that so?”

“When I saw you I realized – oh god, Kurapika.” His shirt is undone now, and Kurapika is nipping at his collarbone, mouthing at his chest, swirling his tongue around Leorio’s nipple. “I thought ‘why didn’t I notice how beautiful he is?’”

“Such a romantic,” Kurapika says, pushing himself up so his hair curtains his face, the color of wheat fields in July when the evening sun hits them just right, almost glowing. “I never expected that.”

“I’m full of surprises, baby.”

Kurapika presses a kiss to Leorio’s throat. Sucks until Leorio whines and bucks against him, digs his fingers into Kurapika’s hip. His cock is leaking, leaving a wet spot where it strains against his boxers. It twitches whenever Kurapika kisses him, or runs his hands over his chest, or touches him at all. Carbonated bubbles of arousal fizzing under his skin. The building pressure making his toes curl.

“By the way, I beat you,” Kurapika says.

He sits back, finding the bulge in Leorio’s pants and grinding down. Leorio shudders, biting his lip and digging his heels into the couch cushion. Lust pops and crackles in his subcutaneous tissue. Makes him ache. All he can say in reply is, “Huh?”

“I’ve wanted you longer.” Kurapika rolls his hips and watches Leorio with rapt attention, tracking the way Leorio flutters his eyelashes and groans. There is no innocence in his gaze. No naivete. Kurapika stares at Leorio like he’s spread out on butcher block and he’s preparing to tear him apart. Like he’s mapping his shank, loin, flank, weighing which might be the most succulent, which might melt in his mouth. For the first time, Leorio feels like the prey.

“You were an asshole during the Hunter Exam,” Kurapika continues.

“So were you.” Leorio runs his hands up Kurapika’s thighs. Kurapika takes his wrists and pushes them against the couch. Holds him in place. Leorio thrusts up into Kurapika, feeling deliciously restrained.

“Hot-tempered. Avaricious.” Kurapika rubs himself faster against Leorio, riding him fully clothed. He flushes with arousal, chest and neck mottled with bursts of pink like spring flowers peeking out through the snow. “Loud.”

“Get to the part where you wanted to fuck me.”

“During the first phase, when you took your shirt off.”

“You think I’m hot,” Leorio says, feeling pretty smug for someone pinned down to be used.

“Don’t let it go to your head.”

It is impossible for this to go to Leorio’s head. All of the blood meant for his brain is in his dick. Every thought he has is focused on the weight of Kurapika pressing down on him, his heat, and the dangerous friction building between them as Kurapika moves his hips, dragging his pussy over the length of Leorio’s cock. Leorio hasn’t jerked off in two days, third class airship tickets guarantee a seat on the flight but not much privacy. He jerks against Kurapika, ripples of pleasure cascading through his body until he’s ready to burst. He bites his tongue. Begins to list bones in the body. Does his best to last.

“I always imagined what it would be like to be with you,” Kurapika says in a low voice, rocking against the head of Leorio’s cock.

Leorio can no longer name a single bone. “Oh yeah?”

“How you would feel inside me.”

Kurapika picks up the pace, rutting until Leorio is squirming against him. Until he’s panting. Leorio wants to beg Kurapika to slow down. To stop talking. Is already so lost in sticky, syrupy pleasure he can’t speak. Can only lie there and give himself to Kurapika.

“How good you would look bent over while I fucked you.”

Leorio grinds against Kurapika, feverish. Primal. All of his self-control incinerated by his smoldering need. He has never felt this good in his life. He has never felt so lucky.

“And how it would feel to pin you down, just like this, and use you until you couldn’t take anymore.”

Leorio comes with a whine, hips stuttering, head thrown back. His muscles are taut, strings of a guitar abused by the tuning pegs and pulled too tightly over the fretboard. Mumbles saccharine nonsense in a sharp, pitchy voice. Shakes with the exertion of it. With the pleasure. Breaks free from Kurapika’s grip on his wrists and scrambles to grab him. Clutches at Kurapika’s waist while spilling into his boxers.

Satisfaction quakes through him, aftershocks turning his bones to jelly. He relishes in his release. It is short-lived, however, a tsunami of embarrassment following in its wake.

“Shit,” Leorio says, shoving himself up on his elbows and staring wide-eyed at the place where their bodies meet. “Shit.”

Kurapika smirks down at him. “I guess you couldn’t take anymore.”

“I can take it,” Leorio says in a shrill, stringy voice, a sound like a screen door shutting. The cum is already cooling around his softening cock, his boxers beginning to stick to his damp skin. He wonders if he should soak his trousers in cold water to avoid any chance of stains. They’re not his nicest, but they weren’t cheap. “This doesn’t ever happen to me. I mean, it happens sometimes. It happens to everyone sometimes!”

Kurapika isn’t listening. He dismounts Leorio and moves toward one of the armchairs. With Leorio watching, Kurapika steps out of his pants and sets them aside on an end table. Wearing only an open shirt and socks, Kurapika sits down in the chair.

He looks like a true mafioso, leaning back with his legs spread wide, his black socks held halfway up his calves by sock garters. Something old world and threatening in the way he carries himself. No longer the teenager with a wide-eyed idea of justice. Now a man used to bringing others to their knees. Leorio’s heart hammers in his throat. Doesn’t know if he’s attracted to danger in general or only when Kurapika wears it.

“Well,” says Kurapika, “you know how to make it up to me.”

Leorio slides off the couch onto his knees. He crawls over to where Kurapika sits, eager. Flushing a bit at the humiliation of it, but mostly because of the way it makes Kurapika’s eyes darken with lust. He stops with his head between Kurapika’s knees. Leorio is overwhelmed by the sight of him – the lean muscles of his thighs that lead to a crop of curly, blonde hair, a few shades darker than the stuff on his head; his cunt, slick and lovely, lips parted open, inviting him in; his swollen clit. Leorio swallows.

“What are you waiting for?”

Leorio doesn’t need to be asked twice. He mouths at Kurapika’s cunt, desperate to taste all of him, drawing his tongue from the bottom of his folds up to his clit. Flicks his tongue against Kurapika’s clit, sucks it. He’s rewarded with Kurapika’s small sigh of pleasure. He sucks harder to make Kurapika’s hips jump.

Kurapika is losing himself in it. He presses Leorio’s face deep into his pussy and grinds against him. Rubs his cunt back and forth against Leorio’s tongue. And Leorio hardly has to do any of the work, just sits there and takes it. Lets Kurapika use him for his own pleasure.

“You love this, don’t you?” Kurapika says. “Being used like this.”

Leorio moans in response. Feels too hot. Drools a little, spit mixing with Kurapika’s juices and making a mess of his chin. Kurapika falls back and spreads his legs wider, shoving Leorio toward his clit. Leorio laps at him. Takes him in his mouth. Pays attention to what makes Kurapika gasp and shudder so he can repeat it.

He grazes Kurapika’s clit with his teeth, making him shout. Kurapika’s legs tremble as he breathes something that sounds like “I’m going to come.” So Leorio does it again, slower this time, following the sharp edge of his teeth with the caress of his tongue. And Kurapika is groaning, pulling his hair, humping against Leorio’s mouth so his clit bumps against Leorio’s nose. Then his thighs fall closed and he comes. Leorio didn’t think it was possible, but he feels Kurapika get wetter. Keeps his mouth on him until Kurapika stops shaking. Until his breathing evens out.

“You’re good at that,” says Kurapika, breathless.

Leorio isn’t finished, hasn’t had his fill of Kurapika. He presses an open-mouthed kiss against Kurapika’s swollen pussy, teasing him with the dart of his tongue between his folds. Kurapika quivers.

“Please, Leorio. It’s too much.”

Leorio moves closer, sliding an arm under Kurapika’s thigh and hoisting it over his shoulder. He flattens his tongue against Kurapika, sliding it up so the tip brushes his clit. He’s intoxicated by the taste of him, the scent. Earthy with an almost metallic tang, like the breeze through open windows during a thunderstorm. He doesn’t know when he’ll be able to taste this again. Gorges himself on it.

His nose is just below Kurapika’s clit now, tongue circling his hole. Kurapika has both legs over his shoulders. He digs his socked heels into Leorio’s back so he can arch against Leorio’s mouth. Grinds himself urgently against Leorio’s nose.

“Fuck,” Kurapika whines. “Don’t stop.”

Leorio buries his tongue inside him. Fucks him with it, moving it in and out as Kurapika moans above him. Kurapika’s fingers are back in his hair. Pulls it each time Leorio enters him. Shudders. He drips down Leorio’s chin. This shirt might be a lost cause. The tie, too. Leorio doesn’t care, he has others.

“Leorio,” Kurapika cries out, trying to push Leorio deeper. “Leorio.”

He’s so loud Leorio is sure their neighbors can hear them. It makes him swell with a twisted sort of pride. He is the one making Kurapika scream in pleasure. He is the one making Kurapika come. His dick is hard again. It throbs between his legs, a neglected thing dripping precum and begging for attention. Leorio is too focused on Kurapika to care.

Kurapika twists and writhes under Leorio’s hands. Leorio can tell he’s close by the way his thighs quiver. He licks a stripe from the bottom of Kurapika’s pussy to his clit. Drags his tongue around it. Teases. Doesn’t touch it. Stretches it out until Kurapika is begging for it. Waits until he hears Kurapika say, “Please, I need it,” in a wrecked, demanding tone. Wraps his lips around Kurapika’s clit and sucks.

He comes quietly, the silence broken only by gasps as he sucks in air. Leorio’s head is sandwiched between Kurapika’s thighs so tightly he can hardly breathe. But it is a sweet torture, well worth it to feel tremors run through Kurapika’s thighs as he rides out his orgasm, to enjoy the prickle of discomfort as Kurapika twists his fingers in his hair and holds on for dear life.

When Kurapika is finished, Leorio crawls up the chair to kiss him. Kurapika pushes him off with a laugh, makes him rinse off his face with Perrier. The carbonation snaps and sparkles against Leorio’s chin. Kurapika’s mouth is tender against his swollen lips.

Somehow, they find their way to the bed. Kurapika lounges against the pillows, still in his shirt and socks. He watches Leorio with a hand between his legs, making lazy circles in his folds. Leorio lies naked on his back. He pumps his cock in steady, even strokes.

“Kurapika,” he says, a bead of sweat trailing from his neck and down his chest, “let me fuck you. I want to be inside you. Please.”

Kurapika smirks at him. Says in a voice on the edge of mean, “Show me you can last.”

Leorio bites his tongue to keep from whining. His face is so warm he knows he must be blushing. Feels like he might die of exposure, from Kurapika’s sharp gaze pricking against his skin. But, he can’t help but look at Kurapika’s face. Look at the way he’s fingering his cunt. Still can’t quite wrap his mind around the fact that Kurapika wants him.

His arousal is starting to build. It knocks on the windows, jiggles the doorknob, tries to pick the lock. Leorio turns off the lights and ducks behind the couch. He lightens his grip, slows down. Bites the inside of his cheek.

“You look good like this,” Kurapika says, all dreamy. “Maybe I should make you do this all night.”

“No,” Leorio sputters. “Please. Please, I need… I want…”

“Hmm?”

He’s cruel. Vindictive. Sadistic. Leorio would do anything he says. Leorio would give anything to be used by Kurapika forever. He whimpers, “Kurapika.”

“If you want something, you have to ask for it.”

“Let me touch you. Please. I need it. I need to touch you.”

And Kurapika, merciful Kurapika, only makes Leorio stroke himself twice more before sliding toward him. He straddles Leorio, wrapping his careful fingers around the base of Leorio’s cock. Leorio groans, cock twitching, grateful he came once already. Kurapika’s hand on him feels so good he is sure he wouldn’t be able to control himself otherwise.

Kurapika rubs the head of Leorio’s dick against his pussy, coating it in his own arousal. Then he shifts forward and guides Leorio inside him. It’s a tight fit, even though Kurapika is soft and slick inside, loosened by Leorio’s tongue. Arousal is back at the door again, ringing the bell incessantly. Threatens to bring a battering ram. When he’s fully inside, Kurapika squeezes around him. Leorio mentally recites the list of every student in his cohort to make sure he lasts.

Even though Leorio is inside him, Kurapika feels too far away. Leorio surges up, wrapping his arms around Kurapika’s waist. Holds him in his lap while he presses deeper into the wet heat of Kurapika’s cunt. Kurapika drapes his arms over Leorio’s shoulders, buries his face in the crook of Leorio’s neck.

“Fuck me faster,” Kurapika says against his skin, the vibrations making Leorio shiver.

But Leorio wants it to last. Wants to hold Kurapika in his arms for as long as possible. Fucks him slowly, stretches it out, makes sure Kurapika can feel every inch of him. And Kurapika digs his fingers into Leorio’s shoulders. Claws at him when Leorio hits a good spot and his body shakes. Leorio hopes he’ll leave a mark. Hopes it hurts a little in the morning. Wants something to remember him by when he’s working overnights, needs proof to be sure this wasn’t some beautiful hallucination.

And when will Leorio get an opportunity like this again, really? So many go their entire lives craving what they want most and never even end up in the same neighborhood. While Leorio, the lucky bastard that he is, has something he’s ached for fall right into his lap. And Leorio knows opportunities are few and far between. If this is all he gets, he’s going to make it count.

He peppers Kurapika’s neck with kisses, licks at him. Gets too greedy and bites down. Kurapika hisses and moans, the sound of it wrapping around Leorio’s neck, making his head fuzzy with desire. They match each other’s movements, finding a perfect rhythm that brings them closer to release. Pleasure taking root and creeping up the lattice of their bodies like a vine, growing through their ribs, flowering along their spines.

“Please,” Leorio says, no longer able to stave off the culmination of his desire, “look at me.”

He lifts his head. In the dim light, Kurapika’s eyes glow scarlet like the dawn. Leorio kisses him and comes. Kurapika tilts his head back like he’s basking in it. Murmuring as Leorio empties himself inside. Moves his hips faster, making obscene squelching sounds as his pussy fucks down on Leorio’s sparking cock.

“I’m close,” Kurapika says, looking at him with half-lidded eyes.

Leorio works a hand between them. Reaches down to find Kurapika’s clit. Feels Kurapika’s hips stutter when he slides his thumb over it. Fingers him in time with the thrusts, watching as Kurapika comes undone before his eyes.

“That’s it,” Leorio whispers like he’s saying a prayer, all adoration and devotion. “You can do it."

Kurapika says, “Oh, Leorio,” in that same fond, astonished tone he used when they bumped into each other on the street, and comes.

The sun is rising when they finish, its pale fingers pulling back the curtains and stretching to reach them on the bed. Kurapika is asleep on his back. He’d look like a corpse if not for the tense set of his jaw, the downward curve of his lips, the way he clenches his fists. He wears his chains even in sleep. They refract the newborn sunshine, throwing galaxies onto the ceiling and into the dark corners of the room.

Leorio watches Kurapika’s chest rise and fall. His eyes are dry and heavy. His body aches for sleep. But he pushes it off, counting down the minutes he has with Kurapika. Somehow he knows that when he awakens, Kurapika will be gone. He will be angry with Kurapika, is angry with him. The swirling, complex feelings he has for Kurapika festering somewhere between his liver and his pancreas. Something else in there, too. Anger at himself, an almost cancerous thing, dreadful and poisonous, making Leorio sick. No matter what Kurapika does, Leorio knows he will wait for him. Will come when he calls. Will do whatever he needs the moment he asks.

Leorio isn’t sure what he’ll do tomorrow. Maybe explore the city on his own. Maybe find a library and study for his boards. Maybe he’ll book a spot on the soonest return airship, make it back to his apartment with enough time to do his laundry before his next class. Maybe text Kurapika. Or not. Try to ignore the way missing him feels like hunger pangs gnawing a hole in the bottom of his stomach by blocking his number for a while, to keep him from looking at his phone every morning and after every shift to find no new messages from the one person he’s thinking about. Or maybe he will call Kurapika every day, annoy him into answering so he can hear his voice, even if he only tells Leorio to fuck off before hanging up. And maybe when things slow down with school or when he can’t stand it anymore, Leorio will search for Kurapika again. He’s on a winning streak as it is. But Leorio isn’t worried about it. He has plenty of time.

There’s only one thing he knows for certain, he’s not going to tell Zepile about this.