Dis Aliter Visum - Chapter 87 - 2,394 words
Note: Here we go. I love Killua.
Beta-reader: Lea Summers.
Chapter summary: A few day with friends.
Chapter 87
There was a large festival the next day - the anniversary of the founding of the town actually - so that when they returned to the hotel where Kurapica was staying with Kuroro, it was full. They found them an overpriced room one and a half blocks away. The room was simple, clean and comfortable. There was no space for four young men to stand or sit however, so they soon all found themselves in Kurapica's room, the three younger ones chatting softly, the older one reading quietly in a corner.
There eventually came a lull in the conversation and silence fell. Suddenly, there was a loud gurgling sound and Gon's smile turned sheepish.
Killua snickered.
“Are you hungry?” Kurapica asked the boy for confirmation, although none was actually necessary.
“Yeah,” Gon answered, rubbing the back of his head. “Starving, actually.”
Kurapica got to his feet.
“I'm starting to feel pretty hungry myself,” he assured his friend. “Shall we go grab lunch?”
He paused, suddenly realizing that he hadn't specified whether Kuroro was welcome to join or not. By now, he by now was pretty used to doing everything with the Spider Head, but no matter his personal feelings about his former enemy, he still didn't feel entirely comfortable seeing his two young friends near someone so dangerous, especially given their past history.
His eyes strayed towards the older man and he was surprised to find Kuroro's gaze on him. They stared at each other for a moment, then Kuroro's gaze returned to his book.
“I'm quite comfortable sitting here,” he told the blond, eyes on the pages of his book. “You go have fun; I'll simply order room service. Rest and books sound like a perfectly wonderful afternoon. I'm sure you have a lot more to talk about and would be able to do so far more freely without me around.”
Kurapica felt a sudden rush of relief and gratitude, yet also a twinge uneasy It wasn't that he wanted expressly to reject the older man's company and seeing him give him an out and feeling so glad for it kind of made him feel rather guilty. Still, he nodded.
“All right,” he said, as if there were nothing to be tense about. “If there's anything, just send me a text. I'm not sure what time I'll return.”
He followed Gon and Killua outside of the room and down the hallway to the small elevator. Lost in thoughts, it was only when they had reached the ground floor that he realized that his two friends were staring at him.
He blinked.
“Yes?” he asked, right as the elevator dinged and the door opened. “What is it?”
Killua shrugged, turned around and walked out of the elevator, but Gon stayed behind a moment longer.
“You look better,” he commented to the blond, “even better than when we last saw you. You look less... angry. Happier.”
He turned around and stepped off the elevator, leaving the Kuruta to gape after him. The door started closing, jolting him to action. He stepped into the lobby and followed after his friends, yet it felt like only his body was moving; that his thoughts and mind were still frozen, back in the elevator.
He looked happier?
... Happier?!
He had more or less slowly come to grips with his evolving sentiments about the Spider Head, but this latest revelation was still a shock.
They found a restaurant and sat around a small, round table. The youngest chatted easily back and forth about Iono, the festival starting the next day, about this game that they had taken part in and about Killua's new Hunter license. All the while, Killua's eyes kept sliding over to the blond. Gon had said his piece and apparently had no more thought on the matter. Kurapica kept buying time, pretending to go through the menu, although he wasn't actually reading any of it. It was clear that he was pretty transparent to the other youth, however.
In the end, he gave up on the menu. He picked the first thing that seemed half-good and closed the booklet.
“Do I really?” he asked at length. “Look happier?”
Gon didn't even hesitate.
“You do!” he answered right away.
Killua looked at him in silence a little longer. Finally, he sighed and looked away.
“I guess,” he muttered, obviously ill at ease.
Kurapica relaxed somewhat, though he wasn't sure why that was. Somehow, he felt like confirmation shouldn't make him feel relief.
And suddenly, it clicked.
Gon and Killua had just validated the very same emotions that he had been tormenting himself with these past couple of months.
Kuroro was possibly the worst mate for him to choose, but now he was caught. He'd been drawn, like a moth to a flame - no; he was caught like a moth in a spiderweb.
Now that he was in this situation, however, he found he didn't mind being caught. And somehow, his two friends' confirmation made him feel better about this. And this moth wasn't as helpless as the spider might like to think.
The waiter came to take their orders and that managed to draw Kurapica out of his own thoughts. When they had everything all sorted out, there was a moment of quiet.
“So what's the plan?” Killua asked, breaking the silence.
“Pardon me?” Kurapica asked blankly.
“The plan,” Killua persisted, “the plan to get back at this guy. You've got one, right?”
Kurapica looked from one to the other slowly, slowly going through all of his pros and cons, considering all of his options very carefully .
“I do have a plan,” he finally admitted. “I'm not entirely sure of all of the specifics just yet, so I'd rather keep most of it silent, but some of it could use some help.”
“We'll help!” Gon promised him right away. “Right, Killua?”
“Uh, yeah,” Killua answered, fiddling with his cup of water, obviously self-conscious. “We're friends, right? What'cha need us to do?”
The waiter returned with some coffee for Kurapica and juice for the younger boys, which paused their conversation and gave the Kuruta time to think about how his friends could possibly help without putting themselves in harm's way.
Once their server had gone again, Kurapica started slowly explaining the plan that he had for the next few weeks. He laid out what he felt he could divulge without jeopardizing his end game, were this to get to the ears of the Spider Head.
By the time the waiter returned with their meal, Killua sat back with a low whistle.
“You?” he said, looking at the blond. “Are completely off your rockers.”
“It could work!” Gon contradicted. “It could totally work! We can do this.”
Killua opened his mouth and Kurapica knew enough of their dynamic now to know that the silver-haired boy was about to protest, but then Gon turned to his best friend.
“Right?”
Killua deflated instantaneously.
“It's a crazy plan,” he grumbled, “but I guess it could work.”
“We can't let you become a Spider.” Gon said, deadly serious. “We really can't.”
“I won't become one,” Kurapica promised.
“But you still kinda like the guy, right?” Killua asked, and that really was the crux of his current predicament.
Gon turned his large eyes on him and Kurapica couldn't muster the energy to lie.
“He is... fairly decent company,” he finally admitted. “I still do not approve of how he lives his life, however, and I will be no part of it.”
“What if he tries to kill you?” Killua asked, eyes watching him carefully.
“Then I will defend myself,” Kurapica answered.
Killua and Gon both stared at him with sharp eyes for so long that Kurapica started feeling rather uncomfortable.
“I will,” he insisted.
“All right,” Killua said and caught Gon's eyes for a moment before nodding. “We can definitely help you.”
Kurapica nodded in turn and started eating. The conversations after that turned to less serious matters. After lunch, they stayed at the restaurant and ordered more coffee and juice so that they wouldn't be asked to leave. They caught up on one another's life, chatted about different things and people that they had met through their adventures. When the time got closer to dinner rather than lunch, Kurapica's phone vibrated. Surprised, he took it out of his pocket to glance at the screen. There was a single sentence on the screen, the text coming from Kuroro's phone.
I'm ordering dinner too, so take your time.
It felt so nice to just be eighteen once again; not the last of the Kuruta, not playing mind games - or other sort of games - with Kuroro; just Kurapica, an eighteen year old teenager hanging out with his friends.
All-in-all, it was getting dark by the time they parted ways and Kurapica headed back to his hotel, he realized that he was actually looking forward to being with the older man. He actually smiled when he walked into the room and Kuroro looked up from his book to meet his gaze.
It was so easy to lose oneself in the fantasy.
He spent the next day at the festival with his friends. He didn't really think that Kuroro would spend the entire day cooped up in the hotel room, so he wasn't really surprised when he returned to find the Spider Head gone. Their roles were reversed when Kuroro walked in to find him reading in the same armchair that he had been sitting in the day before.
It wasn't until the third day that they did anything remotely related to work, such as it was. Gon and Killua weren't very interested in visiting the museum where they were told that a pair of Scarlet Eyes were displayed, but they did go with Kurapica and the Spider Head in support of their friend.
The four young men walked quietly through the well-lit halls, looking at the various reconstructed skeletons, the fossilized skulls of long extinct beasts of gargantuan size, the fossilized impressions of strange creatures in slabs of rocks. They had gone through the entire museum and were walking through the final hall when Kurapica finally laid eyes on the two canisters holding the Scarlet Eyes.
It was still hard, after all of this time. His right hand clutched at his shirt, right over his heart. It felt like the hand of death had a cruel grip on his heart and it hurt, it hurt so much.
He felt a warm fingers slip around his and squeeze lightly. His eyes slid to the left and there was Kuroro, right by his side, holding his hand. The situation was so ridiculous, so ironic that if Kurapica hadn't been in so much pain, he would have laughed.
It was strange, such an odd situation that he found himself in, and the thought of his two younger friends witnessing this intimate gesture made him pull away. When he glanced at the older man, he caught his dark eyes watching him thoughtfully Kurapica gave him a little smile to make sure that Kuroro understood that the blond wasn't pulling away in anger. As he looked away, he caught both of his young friends staring at them, which made Kurapica feel even more self-conscious.
Killua was the one to look away first, and turn his attention to the canisters on the display stand. He then nudged Gon with his elbow and walked through the hall to leave the exhibition. The other youth followed, then the blond and the Spider Head. No one said anything until they were back in the larger hotel room.
“We're going to help you,” Gon said without any prelude.
“What?” Kurapica turned to face his friend. “No!”
“We'll follow your instructions to the letter,” the younger boy promised. “We won't put ourselves in danger, I promise.”
“There is no way I will have you two be any part of it,” Kurapica declared.
It was the Spider Head who gave the boy the answer that he obviously wanted to hear.
“They could help,” he told the blond. “I can think of a few things they could do that would not put them in any danger.”
“I don't want them to get in trouble with the law either,” Kurapica insisted.
“Oh, well....”
Kuroro stalled for a minute, obviously revising any plan he might have come up with.
He eyed the two young boys pensively.
“Define trouble,” he asked of the blond.
“I don't want either of them to even risk getting arrested by the authorities,” Kurapica demanded, placing himself in front of Kuroro.
“What about getting a warning only?” the Spider Head asked.
“I don't care about the law,” Killua commented. He then sighed and rubbed the back of his head. “You want us to be a distraction, right?” He looked past Kurapica to the man behind. “Act like truants or something, so that the attention isn't on the museum.”
“Yes,” Kuroro confirmed. “If you act as lookout, it would be far too easy to connect you to the burglary we're going to commit.”
Gon looked surprised for a second, then his face morphed into a determined frown. Killua didn't even blink. He sighed again, then shrugged.
“Okay, so you want us to act like a couple of kids messing about and get the attention of policemen or guards?”
“Actually, I want you to trip the alarm at the museum and get yourself caught,” Kuroro explained. “While they disable the alarm, Kurapica and I will go into the museum and get the pair of Scarlet Eyes.”
“How?” Gon asked, looking curious.
“It's better if you don't know,” Kuroro said. “The less you two know, the more genuine you will look to the people who will surely interrogate you.”
Gon looked about to protest, but Killua spoke first.
“Got it,” he said. “Just make sure to get those eyes and don't get Kurapica killed or arrested.
“Oh, that I can promise,” the older man said, solemn. “We'll get the eyes and get out without a problem.”
“Good,” the silver-haired youth replied. “We'll make sure we do our part, too. What time do you want to do this?”
“Sometime past midnight,” Kuroro answered. “Make it to the museum and trip the alarm at zero-forty-two sharp. We'll be counting on you both.”
And with these words, it was set.
Beta-reader: Lea Summers.
Chapter summary: A few day with friends.
Chapter 87
There was a large festival the next day - the anniversary of the founding of the town actually - so that when they returned to the hotel where Kurapica was staying with Kuroro, it was full. They found them an overpriced room one and a half blocks away. The room was simple, clean and comfortable. There was no space for four young men to stand or sit however, so they soon all found themselves in Kurapica's room, the three younger ones chatting softly, the older one reading quietly in a corner.
There eventually came a lull in the conversation and silence fell. Suddenly, there was a loud gurgling sound and Gon's smile turned sheepish.
Killua snickered.
“Are you hungry?” Kurapica asked the boy for confirmation, although none was actually necessary.
“Yeah,” Gon answered, rubbing the back of his head. “Starving, actually.”
Kurapica got to his feet.
“I'm starting to feel pretty hungry myself,” he assured his friend. “Shall we go grab lunch?”
He paused, suddenly realizing that he hadn't specified whether Kuroro was welcome to join or not. By now, he by now was pretty used to doing everything with the Spider Head, but no matter his personal feelings about his former enemy, he still didn't feel entirely comfortable seeing his two young friends near someone so dangerous, especially given their past history.
His eyes strayed towards the older man and he was surprised to find Kuroro's gaze on him. They stared at each other for a moment, then Kuroro's gaze returned to his book.
“I'm quite comfortable sitting here,” he told the blond, eyes on the pages of his book. “You go have fun; I'll simply order room service. Rest and books sound like a perfectly wonderful afternoon. I'm sure you have a lot more to talk about and would be able to do so far more freely without me around.”
Kurapica felt a sudden rush of relief and gratitude, yet also a twinge uneasy It wasn't that he wanted expressly to reject the older man's company and seeing him give him an out and feeling so glad for it kind of made him feel rather guilty. Still, he nodded.
“All right,” he said, as if there were nothing to be tense about. “If there's anything, just send me a text. I'm not sure what time I'll return.”
He followed Gon and Killua outside of the room and down the hallway to the small elevator. Lost in thoughts, it was only when they had reached the ground floor that he realized that his two friends were staring at him.
He blinked.
“Yes?” he asked, right as the elevator dinged and the door opened. “What is it?”
Killua shrugged, turned around and walked out of the elevator, but Gon stayed behind a moment longer.
“You look better,” he commented to the blond, “even better than when we last saw you. You look less... angry. Happier.”
He turned around and stepped off the elevator, leaving the Kuruta to gape after him. The door started closing, jolting him to action. He stepped into the lobby and followed after his friends, yet it felt like only his body was moving; that his thoughts and mind were still frozen, back in the elevator.
He looked happier?
... Happier?!
He had more or less slowly come to grips with his evolving sentiments about the Spider Head, but this latest revelation was still a shock.
They found a restaurant and sat around a small, round table. The youngest chatted easily back and forth about Iono, the festival starting the next day, about this game that they had taken part in and about Killua's new Hunter license. All the while, Killua's eyes kept sliding over to the blond. Gon had said his piece and apparently had no more thought on the matter. Kurapica kept buying time, pretending to go through the menu, although he wasn't actually reading any of it. It was clear that he was pretty transparent to the other youth, however.
In the end, he gave up on the menu. He picked the first thing that seemed half-good and closed the booklet.
“Do I really?” he asked at length. “Look happier?”
Gon didn't even hesitate.
“You do!” he answered right away.
Killua looked at him in silence a little longer. Finally, he sighed and looked away.
“I guess,” he muttered, obviously ill at ease.
Kurapica relaxed somewhat, though he wasn't sure why that was. Somehow, he felt like confirmation shouldn't make him feel relief.
And suddenly, it clicked.
Gon and Killua had just validated the very same emotions that he had been tormenting himself with these past couple of months.
Kuroro was possibly the worst mate for him to choose, but now he was caught. He'd been drawn, like a moth to a flame - no; he was caught like a moth in a spiderweb.
Now that he was in this situation, however, he found he didn't mind being caught. And somehow, his two friends' confirmation made him feel better about this. And this moth wasn't as helpless as the spider might like to think.
The waiter came to take their orders and that managed to draw Kurapica out of his own thoughts. When they had everything all sorted out, there was a moment of quiet.
“So what's the plan?” Killua asked, breaking the silence.
“Pardon me?” Kurapica asked blankly.
“The plan,” Killua persisted, “the plan to get back at this guy. You've got one, right?”
Kurapica looked from one to the other slowly, slowly going through all of his pros and cons, considering all of his options very carefully .
“I do have a plan,” he finally admitted. “I'm not entirely sure of all of the specifics just yet, so I'd rather keep most of it silent, but some of it could use some help.”
“We'll help!” Gon promised him right away. “Right, Killua?”
“Uh, yeah,” Killua answered, fiddling with his cup of water, obviously self-conscious. “We're friends, right? What'cha need us to do?”
The waiter returned with some coffee for Kurapica and juice for the younger boys, which paused their conversation and gave the Kuruta time to think about how his friends could possibly help without putting themselves in harm's way.
Once their server had gone again, Kurapica started slowly explaining the plan that he had for the next few weeks. He laid out what he felt he could divulge without jeopardizing his end game, were this to get to the ears of the Spider Head.
By the time the waiter returned with their meal, Killua sat back with a low whistle.
“You?” he said, looking at the blond. “Are completely off your rockers.”
“It could work!” Gon contradicted. “It could totally work! We can do this.”
Killua opened his mouth and Kurapica knew enough of their dynamic now to know that the silver-haired boy was about to protest, but then Gon turned to his best friend.
“Right?”
Killua deflated instantaneously.
“It's a crazy plan,” he grumbled, “but I guess it could work.”
“We can't let you become a Spider.” Gon said, deadly serious. “We really can't.”
“I won't become one,” Kurapica promised.
“But you still kinda like the guy, right?” Killua asked, and that really was the crux of his current predicament.
Gon turned his large eyes on him and Kurapica couldn't muster the energy to lie.
“He is... fairly decent company,” he finally admitted. “I still do not approve of how he lives his life, however, and I will be no part of it.”
“What if he tries to kill you?” Killua asked, eyes watching him carefully.
“Then I will defend myself,” Kurapica answered.
Killua and Gon both stared at him with sharp eyes for so long that Kurapica started feeling rather uncomfortable.
“I will,” he insisted.
“All right,” Killua said and caught Gon's eyes for a moment before nodding. “We can definitely help you.”
Kurapica nodded in turn and started eating. The conversations after that turned to less serious matters. After lunch, they stayed at the restaurant and ordered more coffee and juice so that they wouldn't be asked to leave. They caught up on one another's life, chatted about different things and people that they had met through their adventures. When the time got closer to dinner rather than lunch, Kurapica's phone vibrated. Surprised, he took it out of his pocket to glance at the screen. There was a single sentence on the screen, the text coming from Kuroro's phone.
I'm ordering dinner too, so take your time.
It felt so nice to just be eighteen once again; not the last of the Kuruta, not playing mind games - or other sort of games - with Kuroro; just Kurapica, an eighteen year old teenager hanging out with his friends.
All-in-all, it was getting dark by the time they parted ways and Kurapica headed back to his hotel, he realized that he was actually looking forward to being with the older man. He actually smiled when he walked into the room and Kuroro looked up from his book to meet his gaze.
It was so easy to lose oneself in the fantasy.
He spent the next day at the festival with his friends. He didn't really think that Kuroro would spend the entire day cooped up in the hotel room, so he wasn't really surprised when he returned to find the Spider Head gone. Their roles were reversed when Kuroro walked in to find him reading in the same armchair that he had been sitting in the day before.
It wasn't until the third day that they did anything remotely related to work, such as it was. Gon and Killua weren't very interested in visiting the museum where they were told that a pair of Scarlet Eyes were displayed, but they did go with Kurapica and the Spider Head in support of their friend.
The four young men walked quietly through the well-lit halls, looking at the various reconstructed skeletons, the fossilized skulls of long extinct beasts of gargantuan size, the fossilized impressions of strange creatures in slabs of rocks. They had gone through the entire museum and were walking through the final hall when Kurapica finally laid eyes on the two canisters holding the Scarlet Eyes.
It was still hard, after all of this time. His right hand clutched at his shirt, right over his heart. It felt like the hand of death had a cruel grip on his heart and it hurt, it hurt so much.
He felt a warm fingers slip around his and squeeze lightly. His eyes slid to the left and there was Kuroro, right by his side, holding his hand. The situation was so ridiculous, so ironic that if Kurapica hadn't been in so much pain, he would have laughed.
It was strange, such an odd situation that he found himself in, and the thought of his two younger friends witnessing this intimate gesture made him pull away. When he glanced at the older man, he caught his dark eyes watching him thoughtfully Kurapica gave him a little smile to make sure that Kuroro understood that the blond wasn't pulling away in anger. As he looked away, he caught both of his young friends staring at them, which made Kurapica feel even more self-conscious.
Killua was the one to look away first, and turn his attention to the canisters on the display stand. He then nudged Gon with his elbow and walked through the hall to leave the exhibition. The other youth followed, then the blond and the Spider Head. No one said anything until they were back in the larger hotel room.
“We're going to help you,” Gon said without any prelude.
“What?” Kurapica turned to face his friend. “No!”
“We'll follow your instructions to the letter,” the younger boy promised. “We won't put ourselves in danger, I promise.”
“There is no way I will have you two be any part of it,” Kurapica declared.
It was the Spider Head who gave the boy the answer that he obviously wanted to hear.
“They could help,” he told the blond. “I can think of a few things they could do that would not put them in any danger.”
“I don't want them to get in trouble with the law either,” Kurapica insisted.
“Oh, well....”
Kuroro stalled for a minute, obviously revising any plan he might have come up with.
He eyed the two young boys pensively.
“Define trouble,” he asked of the blond.
“I don't want either of them to even risk getting arrested by the authorities,” Kurapica demanded, placing himself in front of Kuroro.
“What about getting a warning only?” the Spider Head asked.
“I don't care about the law,” Killua commented. He then sighed and rubbed the back of his head. “You want us to be a distraction, right?” He looked past Kurapica to the man behind. “Act like truants or something, so that the attention isn't on the museum.”
“Yes,” Kuroro confirmed. “If you act as lookout, it would be far too easy to connect you to the burglary we're going to commit.”
Gon looked surprised for a second, then his face morphed into a determined frown. Killua didn't even blink. He sighed again, then shrugged.
“Okay, so you want us to act like a couple of kids messing about and get the attention of policemen or guards?”
“Actually, I want you to trip the alarm at the museum and get yourself caught,” Kuroro explained. “While they disable the alarm, Kurapica and I will go into the museum and get the pair of Scarlet Eyes.”
“How?” Gon asked, looking curious.
“It's better if you don't know,” Kuroro said. “The less you two know, the more genuine you will look to the people who will surely interrogate you.”
Gon looked about to protest, but Killua spoke first.
“Got it,” he said. “Just make sure to get those eyes and don't get Kurapica killed or arrested.
“Oh, that I can promise,” the older man said, solemn. “We'll get the eyes and get out without a problem.”
“Good,” the silver-haired youth replied. “We'll make sure we do our part, too. What time do you want to do this?”
“Sometime past midnight,” Kuroro answered. “Make it to the museum and trip the alarm at zero-forty-two sharp. We'll be counting on you both.”
And with these words, it was set.