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“What do you mean you already sold it!” Kurapika slammed his hands on the counter of the antique shop he was in. Behind the counter, the shopkeeper, who'd tried poorly flirting to distract Kurapika from the fact that he was being swindled, flinched back some.
“We-we have a strict pickup policy,” the shopkeeper tried to defend. “And it just so happens there was already an interested buyer who was here when your pick up time passed.
“I wasn’t late.”
“It’s already twenty-minute past whe-
“Because you wouldn’t answer me when I asked where my artifact was. I arrived on time.”
“You messaged about a time extension. I assumed you’d be arriving late-”
“So you admit you sold it before my pick up time had passed anyway, and that you did receive my message about a later pickup time?” The shopkeeper went quiet at Kurapika's retort, and the blonde closed his eyes, taking in a deep breath. He straightened, rubbing at his temples as he felt the onset of a headache forming. Eyes slipping back open, Kurapika stared at the shopkeeper, who had paled significantly at the realization that they'd openly admitted to breaking their contract. Not that it wasn't obvious.
Kurapika had come into this shop that hour, on the dot, to pick up a Kurta relic he'd been tracking for the last five months. He'd had so much trouble tracking down the actual owners, and various hands it had passed through over the years before Kurapika tracked it to this very shop. He'd immediately placed it on hold, with a down payment of a third of the object's asking price, and then got a ticket on the closest airship that would take him there the fastest.
“P-Perhaps I can interest you in something of equal value! I’ll give you a discount as well to make up for your deposit.” The shopkeeper began to bargain, stuttering over their words, and Kurapika flatly watched the greasy man scrounge around for something even slightly similar in value.
The antique shop wasn’t the worst Kurapika had been in over the last two years, but there certainly wasn’t too many things in it that valued in the same as a one of the kind Kurta artifact. Still, though the man tried and seemingly thought he’d succeeded when he led Kurapika to an old, admittedly beautiful impressionistic painting of a flower field.
It was gorgeous with an old, possibly original, hand carved wood frame. The field in the painting looked as if it stretched for miles with a small cottage and waterwheel dotted in the corner and lakes and ponds splashed in various directions. It was enchanting.
“Is this an original Wynne,” Kurapika asked. His fingers brushed the wood frame, the grain of the wood rough against them. “With a real wood frame?”
“Yes!” The shopkeeper nodded in relief. “As I said if you’re interested then I’ll simply do you the favor of taking your deposit out of its price.” Kurapika tilted his head to the side thoughtfully. There was a very likely chance the painting was a high-quality dupe. The frame, however, was not.
At present wood and most things made by it were rare. The Hunter Associate banning anything being manufactured from wood unless absolutely necessary and the attempt to even buy it through anyone without a government permit a felony. Unless it was from an already existing item before the law was passed. So mostly in priceless artifacts.
“I’ll take it,” Kurapika agreed. The shopkeeper grinned absolutely giddy at making another high dollar sale in one day. “I’ll also take the name and any contact information you have of the buyer for the artifact you swindled me on.” The man’s face fell.
“I can’t give you that information! All my client’s information is confidential and I’d be liable for a lawsuit.”
“You’ll be sued either way then.”
“You have no proof of your arrival at my shop within the allotted time! You can’t sue-”
“I’m not talking about that.” Kurapika cut the other off. He looked at the shopkeeper with an icy glare. “You will,” Kurapika started out slowly as he pulled out a small, silver badge from the pocket of his hazard suit. “Tell me all the information I need to find your client before I report directly to the Hunter Association that you have both committed a federal crime.”
“I haven’t done anything-” The shopkeeper stared at Kurapika’s badge speechless. I-Your-!”
“You only think that, and you can continue thinking that and enjoy your profit from both parties you’ve neglectfully pulled into your crime. If, you give me the information I need to track down the person who’s taken something that wasn’t theirs” Kurapika slipped the badge back into his pocket and watched was satisfied look as the shopkeeper began to scramble to get the information the blonde needed and the paperwork for Kurapika’s purchase of the painting.
The next day Kurapika stood outside the door of a high-rise complex. The buyer, who'd unwittingly swiped Kurapika's artifact out from under his nose, was a man by the name of Chrollo Lucilfer. The shopkeeper had informed him that this man was an avid collector of relics from multiple lost cultures. Though apparently, Kurta pieces happened to be a special interest, and this Chrollo had amassed a vast collection of Kurta artifacts. The man might even have the biggest collection there was.
Truthfully, as annoyed as Kurapika still was about being swindled, he was quite happy with what it had lead to. He had been doing his best to trace as many pieces of the Kurta people's culture, but rarely came up with anything but a few broken pottery pieces, severely damaged relics, and many, many fakes.
Raising his hand to the pin pad by the door, Kurapika pressed the button to ring inside the complex and waited. He waited for a long moment, but no response came, and with a frown, he pressed the button again. A few more minutes passed with no response, and Kurapika jabbed the button once more. Irritation simmered low in his gut when no response came again. Glaring at the button, he pressed his finger against it and held it down.
“You are quite persistent,” a mechanical and annoyed voice spoke from the pin pad speaker. Kurapika kept his finger pressed on the button. He heard something move above him and peered up to a camera bolted above the door. The blonde glared into it.
“You have something that belongs to me,” Kurapika said.
“I don’t even know you. You're stranger and you’re claiming I’ve stolen from you?”
“Brutus, from Meteor Antiques,” Kurapika explained. “He sold you a rare Kurta piece that already belonged to me. You may not have known but the fact still stands that it’s mine and I want it. Let me in before I call security.” There was silence over the intercom for a moment, and then the mechanical sound of locks turning reached Kurapika's ears. A second later, the door in front of the blonde slid open, disappearing to his left.
On the other side of the doorway was a man, slightly taller than Kurapika, with sopping wet black hair and dark eyes. He was dressed haphazardly in a dark gray shirt, that was awkwardly clinging to his lean frame, and black pajama pants. A cross tattoo was etched on his forehead. "Are you seriously threatening to call the security of my own building on me?" The man asked with a raised brow.
Kurapika could admit when an idea sounded better in his head than in reality, that didn’t mean he would admit it though. “Until other authorities could arrive,” Kurapika reasoned. A smirk spread across the man’s face.
“Well as much as I’d love to see how that would turn out,” the man chuckled, “there’s no need. This wouldn’t be the first time Brutus has pulled that stunt on someone. Myself included.” The man stepped back and gestured for Kurapika to join him inside. Kurapika nodded his thanks and stepped in.
Stepping inside, Kurapika expected to see a room cluttered like the basement of a museum after Brutus had described the man as such an avid collector. However, the apartment was very empty and minimalist. Whatever was displayed was just run of the mill decor items that Kurapika had seen in other apartments and hotel rooms. “You are Chrollo Lucilfer?”
“I am,” the man said. He closed the door behind Kurapika and began to walk across the living room to the open kitchen on the other side. “Brutus gave you my name and address? You must have really scared him, or you must have deep pockets.” Chrollo paused as he opened a cabinet to look back at Kurapika. Dark eye’s appraised the blonde and a curious, devilish smile slithered across Chrollo’s face. “Both,” He stated decisively before turning back and digging two glasses out of the cabinet.
“He understood the error of his ways and wanted to make thing right,” Kurapika answered neutrally, and the dark-haired man snorted.
“That’s one way to put it. Would you like anything to drink?” Chrollo shook one of the glasses as he pulled a carton of juice from the fridge and poured it into the other empty glass.
“No thank you. I’d rather have my relic.” Chrollo didn’t answer him. He returned the juice to the fridge and slowly sipped from his glass with a contemplative look.
“What’s your name?”
“Kurapika.” Chrollo stared at him, leaning lazily against the kitchen counter, and Kurapika felt irritation start to spark through him. He had to force himself to not tap his foot in agitation. A bad habit he’d picked up from Leorio during his recovery at the HA facility.
“Hm.”
“What?”
“I’m sorry,” Chrollo said, sounding sincere. He put his half-finished glass down on the counter. He tilted his head giving Kurapika a cutting grin. “I just don’t remember seeing your name written on it..”
There’s another beat of silence as the two stare each other down. Chrollo kept his shit-eating grin on his face and he looked much too amused at Kurapika’s completely dumbfounded expression. When Kurapika managed to finally respond he was livid.
“Are you a child?”
“No, no. It was just a joke if I were a child I’d go up to a stranger after finding out they have something really cool I want and throw a tantrum.”
“That relic-”
“I get it. You were screwed over. How is that my fault though? I bought a precious artifact fair and square. I had no idea about your and Brutus’s deal and in turn, it had nothing to do with the sale to me. You just got a bad deal this time. Learn to pick your dealers. I know I can’t trust Brutus with anything unless I’m standing right in front of him, with money already in hand. Now you’ve learned for next time. Really, sincerely, you have my condolences, but it was my buy. I have the ownership papers you don’t and I have no intention of selling my relic to you let alone just giving it to you.”
“Why did you invite me in to just tell me no?” Kurapika snapped as crossed his arms.
“Oh. Cause of your face.” Kurapika was once again rendered speechless. Chrollo smirked. “Quite a cute face at that even if your attitude is sour. Kind of makes you cuter though, a good offset. Like salted watermelon. Enough bitterness to highlight the sweetness.”
“What the hell are you saying?”
“You being cute isn’t exactly what I meant though.” Chrollo left the counter and walked back into the living room. Kurapika walked back a few steps, making sure the space between the too stayed as the dark-haired man came closer. Chrollo stopped at the end table by the couch. He opened the top drawer and pulled out very carefully, a thin slip of paper in the shape of a small square. Kurapika’s breath caught.
“For years, hundreds of years,” Chrollo spoke, his voice almost a whisper. “The Kurta were said to have no known descendants. Their past and culture lost in time after the Chimera Outbreak. The only reason we even know they exist is from the very few things they left behind on multiple continents. There’s next to no recorded accounts of them from any of the other people they lived near though. They were nomadic and prided themselves on staying far away from outsiders. It’s as if they were purposefully wiping their traces away.” Chrollo held the paper up to face Kurapika.
“This is the only known photo of anyone in the tribe. They didn’t use technology but apparently, an adventurer came across them once in what used to be the Lukso Forest. In her journal, she said she was injured and two young boys from the mysterious Kurta clan helped nurse her back to health and show her the way back out of the forest. She’d traded them a book she had from another country in exchange for letting her take a picture of them.”
Kurapika stared at the image. It was faded and there were spots of discoloration. The edges were rough and torn but the image was still clear enough to see two young boys around the ages of eleven or twelve. They weren’t smiling. They were simply staring straight ahead at the camera with curious eyes.
A boy Kurapika didn’t know stared back at him. Or more accurately, a boy he couldn’t remember. He had dark brown hair and his eyes were faded. Kurapika wondered if it was because of the damage to the photo but something in the back of his head said it wasn’t. Kurapika stared at the photo taking in the designs on the boys deep red tribal clothes. They were similar to the ones he would doodle when he lost in his thoughts when he wrote or took notes. Distantly Kurapika thought he could hear laughter. High pitched and soft, with a calming lilt. He could smell wildflowers and wet earth, and hear rustling leaves coming from overhead. For a moment he was back, back in time, back to being twelve in woods he knows he grew up in but can’t remember. With people who cared about him but he can’t recall them. Their names, their voices, all whispers that sound familiar but as soon as he focuses on them their gone.
“If they have no descendants, then why do you look like him.”
Chrollo’s voice is like a cinder block smashing through to him. He’s suddenly back in a stark-white walled, nearly empty apartment. With Chrollo curiously watching him as he holds the photo out. Kurapika looks at him puzzled until he looks back at the photo to the other boy in the picture. The other boy with similar blue tribal clothes to the ones he was given after he woke up in the HA rehabilitation facility. Similar blonde hair, though much shorter. The same blue eyes that Kurapika saw each time he looked in a mirror.
“I take it the Hunter Association has been hiding things,” Chrollo continued after a moment. “Is that why you wanted the relic? To learn more about your ancestors.”
“You’re close,” Kurapika murmurs. He closes his eyes, forcing himself to stop looking at the picture and trying to recall things he knows have already slipped away from him. “The Kurta’s currently have no known descendants.” Chrollo opens his mouth to argue. “I look like that boy because I am that boy,” Kurapika explains. “If I’m correct, then this picture was taken when I was about twelve, if my math is correct, that’s about four hundred and eighty-three years ago.”
Kurapika reopened his eyes and met Chrollo’s wide ones. The blonde gave the other man a tired smile and moved to sit down on the couch Chrollo was still standing next to. “I think I’ll take that drink now.”