Chapter Text
Whale Island is at once the same as Kurapika was imagining, and completely different. The small details are off—somehow he’d imposed his own childhood memories on top of Gon’s stories, and the wide open areas and friendly people in town are different from the Kurta clan’s deeply familiar forest home.
He walks through the center of town slowly, allowing himself to soak it up like the sunlight. It’s been a long time since he felt so unburdened.
He talks to the fishmongers and other people nearby. Ducking into a small store with an open door and a sign similarly proclaiming it OPEN, he buys a bracelet with pretty blue beads, telling them softly that he’s a friend of Gon’s. “I’ve never been here before,” he says. “But it’s very nice; I can tell that Gon loves it here.”
That gets them to open up a bit more to him. Gon’s name alone makes them light up.
“We met at the Hunter Exam a few years ago,” Kurapika tells them. “He’s charming and very kind, everyone liked him there. I also passed the exam that year, and we’ve been friends ever since.”
“Kurapika!” Gon’s voice calls out through the open door, and then there’s a weight around Kurapika’s middle and Gon is barreling him down, forcing Kurapika to quickly adjust his weight to catch him. Gon holds onto him, hands clenched in the back of his clothes—Kurta clothes now, his people’s love and culture.
It’s so easy to twist and wrap his arms around Gon. “Hi, Gon.”
“You actually came!” Gon’s smile is toothy and wide, looking up at Kurapika. “I didn’t know you were coming today! You should’ve called!”
He really should have, but he forgot again. He sighs and shakes his head. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” Gon says, forgiveness as easy as breathing. “I’m just happy to see you again! I was worried about you, hearing about everything you were doing.” He turns to give a smile at the people around them. “You already met him, but he’s my friend Kurapika!”
Kurapika supposes that’s its own kind of answer; Gon forgives him for not being there when he was in the hospital. It doesn’t erase the guilt that kept Kurapika away from him, but it does heal part of him, stitching together a wound that Kurapika desperately wants to get better. Later Kurapika will have to talk to him about it, if he doesn’t try to sink into the forgiveness he still doesn’t deserve.
Later, though. Kurapika turns and smiles slightly at the people from Whale Island, and then Gon drags him to his house to meet his aunt.
Mito is a good person. She scolds him for not calling much harsher than Gon does, but in that familiar motherly way that makes Kurapika sigh through his nose fondly. She reminds him a lot of Gon, with that stubbornness that defines him.
Gon’s great grandmother is similarly kind. She compliments his attire, and part of him feels actually bashful about it, though she certainly doesn’t know it’s the style of clothing the Kurta dressed themselves in.
Gon gives him a sunny smile from across the table, because he knows.
After that’s done—when Kurapika has confirmed that yes, he’ll stay in their house even if he had been intending to stay in town, and yes, he’ll stay for dinner, and yes, he’s perfectly fine right now, and no, he doesn’t need anything else, he’s an adult after all, he’s a Hunter among other things and he can take care of himself—he watches Mito leave for something she has to do, and turns to Gon.
“I owe you an apology,” he says. He reaches forward with a hand without any chains, to lie on the space on the table between them. “I wasn’t there for you when you needed me.”
Gon blinks. “You mean… the hospital?”
“Yes,” Kurapika nods stiffly. “I didn’t know anything had happened to you, but that’s no excuse. I ignored my friends—I should have come there to see you.”
Across from him, Gon frowns. “You didn’t know,” he echoes. “You were busy, and I didn’t think you ignored it on purpose.” Gon gives him a gentle smile, the kind that lingers bittersweetly. “I was also asleep that whole time. I wouldn’t have known.”
Kurapika considers this forgiveness. “Alright,” he says, though his guilt is still bitter in his mouth. “If I’m allowed to ask, what happened?”
Gon looks at him with an innocent look—this is the Gon that Kurapika knows, the boy he wanted to be there for at a dark moment, even if Gon wouldn’t have known either way. The forgiveness that Gon gives him comes with something else; how Kurapika knows his own flaws. Every person he’s failed on a quest he still can’t regret.
Gon, apparently, knows his own flaws as well. “I made a contract,” he says simply. “I was fighting a chimera ant royal guard—and I killed them.” He looks down at his lap. “A lot of other things happened at the same time, but—that’s why I was there.”
Kurapika lets out a breath. “I understand, Gon.” Maybe his prior assessment that he was more similar to Killua than Gon due to Tserriednich’s death was wrong. It stings, a wound barely starting to heal.
Gon shakes his head. “It’s in the past now.”
“Regardless, a contract is a serious thing to do.” Kurapika’s heart clenches, as if the chain is tightening, coiled around the organ and squeezing with the lingering guilt of telling Gon about his own contract, back in Yorknew—knowing, of course, that Gon made this choice himself. The two of them made their choices; it’s nobody’s fault but Kurapika’s.
Gon, though—a boy like this should be taken care of. He shouldn’t be like Kurapika at all.
Gon lets out a soft laugh. “I know. I’ve been thinking about it a lot—about you. About what it means to make a condition on your own life.”
There’s no way that Gon knows—Kurapika’s Emperor Time is still kept secret. Gon doesn’t know that Kurapika has been using his own life force as fuel for a fire that has now burnt out. Kurapika looks at his own hand on the table, realizing the distance between what Gon thinks of Kurapika and who he’s become, and thinks—I should tell him before I leave.
He should learn how to be honest before it drags him further into hell.
But his mouth doesn’t fit around the words. He doesn’t inform Gon—it would be cruel when the memories of the fight he’s been through are sitting on the surface, brought up by Kurapika’s questions.
“I see,” he says. “And has thinking of me helped at all? If not, I want to ask you to stop.” He swallows thickly. His voice is soft, and he feels now more than ever that he should be careful with this child who he loves so dearly. “I didn’t want you to do that yourself if it’s hurting more. You’ve been through enough.”
“It’s helped, don’t worry!” Gon shakes his head. “It’s just… yours was so much more thought out than mine. You gave up the ability to fight anyone but the Spiders, and I gave up… well, everything.”
Kurapika smiles thinly. “Yes,” he says, though it’s nowhere near the full truth.
“You were so much smarter than me,” Gon says, and the admiration in his voice sticks in Kurapika’s chest like a sob. Gon has no idea how little he should admire Kurapika. “You actually thought about it, and what it means to stake things on something specific like that.”
“Gon,” Kurapika says, because he can’t handle it. “I thought it through, but that doesn’t make it good.”
Gon’s expression turns serious, eyes trained on Kurapika. For a moment, it’s like he’s seeing through him—past the pain and exhaustion and into the heart of the matter: that maybe, thinking about Leorio’s tears and the time that Kurapika has lost, he’s found a way to regret what he did to himself.
But only a little. Not enough to confess to Gon in this moment.
“You’re a good person,” Gon says instead of digging up a truth Kurapika doesn’t know if he can see. “And I’m just glad we’re not alone. Right?”
“Right,” Kurapika says. He stands up slowly, smiling at Gon. They really aren’t alone, and isn’t that a strange thing? After so long avoiding it, Kurapika has come back to realize that Gon is just like him. “May I take a bath? I should have asked earlier.”
Gon nods and stands. “I’ll show you where it is!”
Gon takes Kurapika out into the forest, where they climb over large tree roots and listen for the scutter of squirrels in the trees overhead. It’s calming, a winding path through a wild childhood.
Sunlight dapples the long grasses. Gon expertly clears away branches before they catch on Kurapika’s clothes. It’s full of little things that Gon knows all about, the animal paths through the bushes. Gon knows about the places where the animals drink and what water is good to swim in. He chatters about growing up here and the times he was away, about Mito and Ging and especially Killua.
Kurapika talks about his life in turn.
“Queen Oito is kind, and a good queen,” he says, following the trail after Gon’s footsteps. Whale Island’s lake is waiting for them. “I regret many of the things I did in her presence, but I don’t regret working for her. She’s trustworthy and strong—and a good mother to the fourteenth prince. She protected her, even when the odds were against them.”
“Wow,” Gon says, as the sunlight shining over the water comes into view, shaded green by plants under the surface. “She sounds amazing.”
“A lot of the people I worked with were,” Kurapika says.
Gon turns to grin at him. “You had a real adventure. Even if it took you away from the mainland—it must be amazing to go on a trip close to the Dark Continent. Ging sure made it sound cool.”
“It was more difficult than good—I didn’t want to go to the continent myself. Unlike Leorio.”
“I know,” Gon says. “I kinda wish I could do something like that, though—but I’m not trying to ignore that it’s hard.” His smile is weaker for the briefest second, and then it grows back. “I wonder what Leorio is up to over there, though!”
If Leorio were to talk about his adventures, would he say they’re worth it? All the hardship there, in exchange for an adventure and a cure. That’s what Leorio wants—he did not set off to the continent with his own dreams. Even now, so long since he last saw him, Kurapika wonders if he’s a curse on Leorio.
Leorio would hate him for thinking that, so Kurapika puts the thought away.
“I wonder what he’s doing too,” Kurapika says softly. He doesn’t let the silence sit. “You said you fished here—where did you fish from?”
Gon smiles properly again, holding out his hand. “Want me to show you?”
Kurapika clasps Gon’s hand in his, and gets pulled along to the tree overhanging the water, the branches twisting over the lake.
Kurapika climbs the tree right after Gon. The footholds are solid and stable—a little small for adult hands, but no match for two Hunters. Kurapika sits next to Gon and looks out at this small piece of the world, feeling like he understands, for maybe the first time, where Gon came from. Someday, he thinks, he’d like Gon to see the remnants of the Kurta’s home—and maybe Gon will understand him, too.
“Gon,” Kurapika says, when Gon is done recounting the Lord of the Lake and how he came to the Hunter Exam. He hates to turn the mood somber, but the lull in conversation feels right. It feels correct. “I have something to tell you.”
Gon turns himself towards Kurapika.
A breath leaves Kurapika’s lungs. “I only have a few years left to live. I made a nen contract with my life force as collateral. I’m sorry.”
Gon’s eyes widen. “Oh,” he says.
Kurapika looks out over the lake, towards the shore and the trees. He’s just avoiding Gon’s gaze, like that will make the confession vanish. Instead, it hangs thick in the air. “I needed to tell you. You deserve to know.”
Kurapika waits, sitting in a tree above the water, watching the worry tangle itself in Gon’s expression. He waits for Gon to process it, this terrible thing that Kurapika did to himself, which Gon is, perhaps, the only one capable of truly knowing the extent of. Though Kurapika doesn’t know how far Gon’s own contract went, he knows his own.
“Why?” Gon asks. His hand wraps around the tree’s bark, nails digging into it. “Why would you do that?” Kurapika doesn’t know how to read his tone.
“I had to. The scarlet eyes aren’t simply a color change, but they give us—” gave us, he almost corrects himself, “—strength and speed. I simply drew from that, and knowing that I could make myself stronger only using my future—I had to.” It sounds almost pathetic when he says it like this, drawn out and desperate. “Using my life for power, for the eyes and for my brethren… It felt right, at the time.”
“But—!” Gon cuts himself off, expression wavering. “You can’t say it’s only your future. That’s not right. You shouldn’t.” His eyebrows furrow into an expression that’s almost angry—or maybe bitter is the right word, with how much Kurapika knows they’re alike.
“It’s already been done.”
“That’s no excuse.” It makes Kurapika ache, a fragile friendship that he wishes he could mend with words like it was my choice, the way he did with Leorio. “I thought your contract was only for chain jail.”
“No,” Kurapika says, being as gentle as he can even though his chest is full of guilt, apologies, defensiveness, stubbornness. None of those are helpful here. None of what he’s learned over these past few years will mend this. “Chain jail was a special condition, but the contract was entirely on my life. I used it as much as I had to in order to avenge my clan.”
There’s a darkness he hears in his own tone—was this how he always sounded?
Gon’s eyes widen. “But your revenge was over. You were just searching for the eyes. Was the contract—did you do it before Yorknew?”
Kurapika nods. No going back now. “Even back then, I felt I needed as much power as I could get. And even after I let go of the Phantom Troupe, I was still following the people who had the eyes. Who had bought my people.” His fingers dig into his knee. “You understand, don’t you, Gon? We’re alike.”
“No!” Gon says immediately. “Well—I guess,” he allows after a second. “But I made mine in an instant, and you…”
“I planned it out,” Kurapika says. He’d long accepted his own death—a consequence of being the only one to survive. A consequence that was the only thing that had kept him going against the troupe, and eventually against Tserriednich as well. “I made my choice many years ago. But it’s already past now. I know my future is a valuable thing now. It’s over now, Gon.”
Gon’s face falls. It feels odd to be where Gon should be happy, and to strike down any joy he could have. But unlike Kurapika—whose future is short, a small thing that he will care for quietly—Gon managed to survive despite it, whole and intact.
Here on a warm day on his home island, Gon thrives.
Kurapika was scared of the vulnerability of sitting next to Gon and knowing that Gon deserves more hope than Kurapika can give him. He deserves to know that Kurapika has a future after everything.
Gon, so similar in using his life as collateral for something dark and all-consuming, deserves a full life complete with friendship and sunlight. How can Kurapika bear to look him in the eye and say, don’t be like me? He’s gone too far for that. Everything he can say to Gon, any lesson he can impact has already been learned while Kurapika was absent.
Kurapika takes a breath. “I wish I had more time,” he says. “Leorio said he would try to find a way to increase my lifespan on the Dark Continent—it’s been found before, apparently, so…”
Gon looks up. “Really?!”
“Yes, though I wouldn’t put all my faith in it,” Kurapika says. “I do regret that I didn’t think of what would happen after as I should have.”
“It’s okay,” Gon says. “You’re right, I really can’t judge. But—it’s different. I wanted a lot more years with you, Kurapika. I wanted us to all get together again, or… something. But you’re going to leave before Leorio comes back.”
“I’ll leave the island,” Kurapika says, “but I’ll still be around. There’s so many places left to go.”
There’s so much out there in the world; Leorio, too, knew this. Kurapika only wishes he’d gone to the Dark Continent for his own sake, his own curiosity, but at the same time it’s so Leorio for him to decide to carry on for Kurapika’s sake. All of Kurapika’s friends are so good at caring for him even when he cuts down the possibility.
Gon nods.
He’s being oddly somber, not that Kurapika can blame him. He remembers how Gon had looked at him when they’d thought the Spiders were dead, the false corpse’s faces stuck on loop in Kurapika’s mind. There was blood on the fake Chrollo, his eyes dark and unseeing. In that moment, Kurapika had felt a dull horror, a fierce regret at not being able to carry out the murder of any but Uvogin.
And then there was the next feeling; that he shouldn’t have to kill them at all. That someday, Kurapika could be free of this cursed group of thieves. This seed was planted by Gon, his spirit strong as he stood in front of Kurapika and made it clear that their deaths were good.
If Gon was right, Kurapika had thought—he could be free. Alive.
It hadn’t lasted, but that seed had stayed inside Kurapika—perhaps it was that which let him seek the eyes and let go of the Spiders.
Kurapika swallows. “Gon,” he says. “You’ve given me so much strength since we met. You are the one who told me to focus on getting the eyes back. I may have given some of my life for revenge, but getting my brethren back was more important. You helped me see that.”
“I’m sorry I couldn’t help you more,” Gon frowns.
Kurapika smiles. “Funny, that’s the same thing Killua said. And I should say the same thing to you, too. While you were facing that royal guard that you fought, I couldn’t do anything. So we’re even.”
Gon blinks. His eyes are wide and still so very sad. “We’re even,” he agrees after a moment.
“Everyone helped me as much as they were able,” Kurapika says with a soft, almost fond sigh. “Even when we were apart, you gave me strength—I survived so that I could keep being friends with you, Leorio, Killua, and everyone else who has shown me kindness in a world that I thought only held my rage.”
Gon smiles at that. “Let’s spend as much time together as we can.”
Whatever fear Gon carries, Kurapika knows he’ll have to let it go—Kurapika doesn’t want this trip to be stained with reminders of his own small and fragile life.
“I’d like that,” Kurapika says, looking out into the forest, the green that stretches far and wide. It’s a nice place, but this isn’t Kurapika’s final destination. No—out there is everything the Kurtas hid from, and everything Kurapika wants to bring back for them in whatever afterlife awaits him. The new journey continues.
Gon sits next to Kurapika while he’s on the phone with Melody.
Kurapika doesn’t mind it. The warm breeze flutters through his hair, and Melody is so far away that Kurapika doesn’t know what to say to her—something similar between how he looks to her for help, and how he looks to Leorio, Killua, and, of course, Gon. All of them are his friends, and yet he feels like he can’t ask anything of them.
“I can come back for you,” Melody offers, tone worried next to his ear. “Or at least, it seems that I’m allowed to leave if I need to.”
“No,” Kurapika says. Gon is kicking his feet next to Kurapika, so he focuses on the gentle thump thump thump of his boot heel hitting the porch. Things feel small here. “Do what you need to do before you change course for my sake.”
“Mhm,” Melody’s affirmation is a gentle song. “That was the plan. Have you been back to the Nostrade headquarters?”
“I went there briefly, but didn’t stay long to take my role there again—I’m leaving that to other people right now. I’ll go back properly soon.”
“I see. You gained a lot of connections there, Kurapika. There are a lot of people who are loyal to you, for better or for worse.” She pauses. Following this winding conversation is something Kurapika has been waiting for, he can feel it. “I once referred to the Nostrade family as a devil, but it’s not so simple now.”
“Is that so? After all you’ve been through?” Kurapika almost wants to smile—it’s more like he’s become a devil, and he can’t even help her with her true goal—he knows nothing about anything but the scarlet eyes. His drive never wavered, not even for her. Is he capable of not being a devil? After all this time? After Uvogin, after Tserriednich?
But no—he should be past those regrets. He thinks of Killua and of guilt, the way Killua had accepted it, washed it smooth. None of it is gone, but this was Kurapika’s revenge; he became something other than what he started as, and he’s okay with that.
“It’s not simple for you, either. I can tell.”
Kurapika sighs. Melody knows him well. “Are you still looking for it?” Kurapika asks; he doesn’t want to say the name of the Sonata of Darkness in front of Gon.
“I am. That was my next goal.”
Kurapika closes his eyes. “I see. Good luck with that—I don’t know any more about it, but I hope your travels are safe.”
“Thank you, Kurapika.”
“And,” Kurapika continues, “I don’t know any more devils out there, but I’ll keep an ear out, until the very end.”
Gon’s foot stops swinging against the porch. Kurapika feels the silence stretch—the wind against the leaves, the distant windchimes, the feeling of peace that spreads from Kurapika’s chest to the calm brown of his eyes.
“So you’re still going to work for the family?” Melody asks.
“Yes,” Kurapika says, tired. “But things will change. I’ll use their resources to protect the people I can—I’m in your debt too, Melody.”
Melody hums, a soft laugh in her voice. “You don’t need to think of it like that.”
Beside him, Gon leans over, shoulder against Kurapika’s shoulder. “Can Melody hear me?” He’s grinning.
“Yes I can,” Melody says, still pressed against Kurapika’s ear.
“Do you need something?” Kurapika asks.
Tilting his head and then moving quickly, Gon grabs the phone from Kurapika. “Hi!” he says, while Kurapika tries to grab it back. Gon jumps to his feet and dances a few steps away to avoid him. “It’s Gon, Kurapika’s friend. Please take care of him!”
Kurapika can’t hear what Melody says, but he groans anyway. It’s halfhearted, though—he really is so fond of Gon, trouble and all. He didn’t even have to take the phone from Kurapika for this—but he supposes he’s happier with Gon bouncing around than he would be if Gon was staying in place.
Keeping an eye on Kurapika, Gon hops from foot to foot. “Thanks, really—yeah, he’s on Whale Island! Not sure he’ll stay…”
“Gon,” Kurapika says. “Can I have it back?”
Gon blinks at him. He doesn’t look guilty at all. “I need to tell Melody to look out for you,” he says simply. Kurapika’s heart aches.
“It’s fine, Gon,” Kurapika says. He wonders what he did to deserve friends as good as Gon, Leorio, and Killua. Melody, too—someone who will talk to Gon with kindness and ask Kurapika what he’ll do with his future. “I know she will.”
When the phone is back in his hand, Gon settles next to him again, warm by his side. And Kurapika knows that Melody heard his faith in her too, something that beats in his heart alongside all the other emotions he harbors. After leaving his journey behind, Kurapika has allowed himself to expand into a myriad of other colors, not just the scarlet that has been part of him from the moment he heard about the Kurta Massacre.
The phone call ends. Kurapika puts the silent phone down beside him, folding his hands in his lap. He tilts his head back, feeling the breeze against his neck.
After a moment, Gon speaks. “You’re still working for the mafia?”
Kurapika opens his eyes. “Yes,” he says, to the dimming sky above them. “It’s not easy to leave. Even if I did, would they accept it? Would I be safe without their protection?” He feels so powerless now—after Tserriednich, the power that once flowed in his veins has grown faint alongside his resolve.
This would have terrified him if he’d felt this way all those months ago.
“You should leave,” Gon says firmly, a stubbornness that has never left him. When Kurapika looks at his face, Gon’s brows are drawn together. “Even if it’s not easy. If you don’t want to stay, you shouldn’t.”
Kurapika smiles. “I can use it, though. For Melody, and for me. But I’ll think about it.”
Gon looks terribly sad at that. “I don’t want you to have to rely on them. You should be able to do whatever you want.”
Kurapika laughs softly, but it comes out as only a whisper. In truth, he hates the mafia—hates working for them even now. Melody was right when she said it was complicated, though. After spending so much of his time with them, he’s one of them, even if he doesn’t want to be. What comes after he leaves this could be anyone’s guess.
“I’ll see if I can leave them, someday,” Kurapika says, facing Gon again. “Still, right now they’re not tethering me to them too tightly. I’m able to leave and go all over the place, even become a prince’s bodyguard. Once I deal with the remnants of my duties, I suppose I can see how it goes.” He gives Gon a smile.
“Okay,” Gon says, letting out a relieved breath. “And… about Emperor Time…”
Kurapika quickly shakes his head. “You don’t need to worry about that right now,” he says. “I still have time left, and I won’t waste more than I need to with the mafia when I have so many more important things to do.” He stands, brushing off his knees, and gives him a smile that he hopes is reassuring. “Let’s go inside.”
Gon looks up at him, and something in his expression brightens.
The two of them stay together for the next few days. Kurapika feels lively, like the world is soaking into his skin and giving him a way forward. He makes plans with Melody, and thinks about a future he never thought he would have.
Gon and Killua make that easier. Gon makes it clear that Kurapika can always return to Whale Island, and while Kurapika is there they receive word from Killua that he and Alluka are off to another country once more. The postcard photo has a cartoon frog sticker stuck to the corner.
I hope I didn’t miss Kurapika’s visit, Killua writes in the limited space. Tell him I say hi.
“He could have just sent an email,” Gon says, smiling at it all the same. “But I’m glad it came before you left, Kurapika!”
This is a future where he can visit friends, receive calls and postcards. This is a world where he can let go of chains and violence—a world for his tired heart and all the things out there for him to find.
A few months after the start of his new journey, he finds that he feels truly alive again.
The day Kurapika leaves, the sky is a bright turquoise. He packs his things into a bag over his shoulder, weighted with souvenirs from Gon’s family. Gon’s footsteps are solid on the wood beside him as they get closer to the departing ship.
“Goodbye, Gon.” Kurapika waves.
When his hand drops to his side again, Gon grabs it in his.
Gon’s hand is warm in Kurapika’s, pulling it close to himself and tightening his fingers like he thinks Kurapika will run—vanish into the sky and leave him here without waiting for him to say goodbye back. “This isn’t goodbye forever,” Gon says. “Because I’ll keep reaching out to you. I’m going to be better. Okay?”
“Okay, Gon,” Kurapika breathes. Something has changed—a weight lifted, maybe, or a friendship revived from where Kurapika buried it out of guilt. “But you never needed to be better.”
Kurapika is the one who needs to be better—to let Gon into his life a little more. But Gon grins at him, and everything feels right—like Kurapika can actually do this.
He doesn’t know where this life will take him next. Gon must know the same way Kurapika does—that coming home is no easy task, that death follows and rots. Somehow, it must be overcome. The guilt, the past—overcoming it is something new. The chains will fall away, and he will find himself on a new journey, something even bigger than what he sought before.
But it’s part of Kurapika all the same. The revenge has left him, but it’s still who he is, somewhere inside him.
The airport windows allow in the midafternoon sunlight, shadows slanting over the seating area and while Kurapika sits in the sun. When Melody spots him, she meets his eyes with a smile. “It’s been a while, Kurapika.”
“It has.”
Part of him feels wrung out, destroyed by the past. Another part of him feels a sort of rejuvenation—like the dawn has found him at last.
Here in front of him is another friend he met along the path; Melody looks up at him. She doesn’t reach for a hug the way Gon did, and she doesn’t ask any questions of him the way Killua did—but it’s no less comforting to be by her side again.
Kurapika wonders if she feels heavier too, after the Black Whale. But then—it doesn’t matter, does it?
Crushed by the weight of the past, or seeking out a new kind of devil—these things are old news for them. They have followed pathways to the end and found themselves with new missions. For Melody to spare the time for him is something he never expected, when the rest of her search is still there for her.
Kurapika will keep helping her, and from here he plans to join her search for the Dark Sonata as far as he can without harming himself.
He gestures for her to sit next to him, and breathes in as he sits himself. Even down to his bones he feels a kind of tiredness that comes from having nothing—not even the pieces of himself he started with. He half-suspects this will never leave.
And yet—he doesn’t regret it.
In his ears he thinks he can hear his own heartbeat. Even with Emperor Time, it still beats; Melody doesn’t know a version of Kurapika without the chain.
He’s learning to be okay with that.
“Thank you for coming with me,” Kurapika says, breathing out slowly. The people around them move across the airport, not paying them any mind. Even with his clothes, dressed in bright blue and without contact lenses, he blends in.
“Of course,” Melody says. “Are we going to Lukso first?”
Kurapika smiles, staring down at his hands. His hands, which have been stained in blood, and which have hurt himself even more. His revenge was not unearned; but it has left him with only himself and his hands. “No,” he says. “I went there, after I disembarked from the Black Whale. It was… lonely.”
“Would it be less lonely with me?”
“I think so,” Kurapika hums, “but my people, they’ve been laid to rest already, and it will always feel wrong without them present. Of course, I’ll return there eventually, but…” He thinks of hotels and the nightmares he fought in them—a journey he took alone, his sleepless anxiety festering inside him.
He thinks about the weight of his family, of everyone he once loved. He’d trekked for so long with the eyes, transporting them back to the place they belonged.
He’d once thought it would be a good weight. Now, he finds that he was wrong.
Trauma isn’t so simple—trauma is the empty forest, the whispering wind he tried to block out. It’s the dirt under his nails and the ache of punishment. Maybe if the houses were still in their usual state as they’d been in his childhood, he would have explored them. Now, he finds himself a coward. The only Kurta left, and he’s scared—still a child like he was the day he left, cheating the death that left him alone.
He glances at Melody. She doesn’t interrupt the silence. If she can hear the agony in his heart, she doesn’t say so.
“I think I need some time,” he says, softly, barely a whisper.
Melody lets out a gentle hum, and gently puts her hand on his arm. She’s the first one to know—and here she is, hearing him hold back a sob.
Kurapika leaves Leorio a voicemail, explaining all that’s happened, hoping to give Leorio the type of hope that Leorio once gave to him.
The phone is a familiar weight in his hand. This time, he’s been looking at it properly, listening for when Leorio will come back for him. He doesn’t know if he’s allowed to have hope that anything will be found for him on the Dark Continent—some miracle that will stop what Kurapika did to himself.
Contract and condition. The price of justice.
Kurapika thinks about Leorio a lot; after Killua and Gon, Melody and Queen Oito, Kurapika has revived so many connections, yet this particular link is still missing. Leorio was there with him when he started—becoming a Hunter, seeking out a place in a world that would try to kill him—and Leorio is someone who feels so strongly for him that he was willing to sail further just to save his fragile life.
He doesn’t know how to thank him enough.
Instead, he ends the one-sided call like this, a smile on his lips: “When I’m ready to go back to the home of my clan, whether you found a cure for me or not,” he takes a breath, “will you come with me?”
Knowing Leorio, the answer will be yes.
