Chapter Text
It’s his first night in his new home, and Leorio can’t sleep.
He’s exhausted from getting up at the crack of dawn that morning to drive the eight-hour stretch from Manhattan to Virginia, but he can’t drift off. It takes him a while to diagnose the source of his insomnia. His new bed is comfortable enough (although he’s sleeping on a bare mattress and using his jacket as a blanket), he isn’t hungry (his stomach is full of gas station beef jerky and sunflower seeds), he doesn’t have to pee (probably too dehydrated from all of the salt), and he isn’t overdue on any bills that would potentially cause him late-night anxiety.
Around 2 am, tossing and turning, he figures it out. He’s never spent a night somewhere so quiet. There are no traffic sounds, no subways rumbling beneath his floor, no drunks fighting on the sidewalk, no bottles smashing against the street, no garbage trucks rattling their way down the road at 4 am. Instead, he hears a lone bullfrog croaking somewhere in the distance, the rustling of the breeze in the forest, and...silence. It unnerves him.
He chuckles to himself as he rolls over in bed. Is he really homesick for New York City already? He only moved away about twelve hours ago. That was kind of pathetic. Zepile will enjoy hearing that story.
Yawning, he glances at the clock again. It’s already 2:37 am. Damn. He’s going to be exhausted in the morning, and he has a lot of unpacking and shopping to do tomorrow. He wants to be fully settled in before school starts next week.
A few nightbirds are cooing in the trees outside his window. The bullfrog stops abruptly for a moment before switching to a different pitch of croaking, and after another minute a second frog joins in. Leorio wonders if the nature around here is always so talkative.
To help himself fall asleep, he grabs his phone and plays a Japanese for Beginners podcast at low volume. He’s been trying to learn, but the female teacher’s voice is so soft and soothing that it makes him sleepy. Was it true that you could learn in your sleep? He doubts it, but it couldn’t hurt. Either way, it does the trick, and he finally falls asleep.
His dreams are complicated and vivid in the way that dreams often are after a day of traveling. He feels the impressions of Kurapika and Pietro without actually seeing their faces. In one dream he walks through the hallway of the hospital towards Pietro’s room while dragging a heavy black duffel bag across the tile floors, sweating and panting. He hears Pietro’s voice echoing down the hallway, telling him to hurry, but with each step the bag grows heavier and heavier. Dream logic tells him to glance down at his feet to see if they’re glued to the floor. As he stops walking, the bag splits open and spills out a congealed glob of bloody eyeballs. He jumps back from the gory mess in revulsion, and the dream dissolves.
In spite of his trouble sleeping the night before, Leorio wakes up early the next morning feeling well-rested. From the look of the lemony sunlight streaming in through his bedroom windows, it’s just past sunrise. There’s a riotous chorus of songbirds singing in the trees, and the smell of freshly brewed coffee is wafting in from somewhere outside. Mouth watering, he gets out of bed and pads into the bathroom to get ready for the day.
As he’s figuring out how to adjust the old-fashioned faucet in the shower (hopping gingerly in and out of the water as it alternates between scalding and freezing), he remembers the mysterious note that he found in his kitchen cabinet last night.
I hope your travels went smoothly. It was too dangerous to contact you by phone or internet, so I hope that this note finds you well. I have a rather complicated matter with which I believe you could assist me. If you are interested, please meet me at 8 pm, 9 days from now, at the obvious location.
Leorio re-reads the note several times once he’s out of the shower and dressed. Frowning, he touches the handwriting. It looks so much like Kurapika’s, but is it possible that he’s imagining it? And what was the obvious location, anyway? Nine days didn’t feel like enough time to uncover the secret. Besides, he needs to get ready for school. He isn’t sure if he has the time or energy to get sucked into another adventure.
Everything that happened last spring was crazy. It was confusing and intoxicating and more than a little dangerous. Kurapika was mixed up with some seriously sketchy people. In a lot of ways, it’s a terrible idea for Leorio to get mixed up in anything like that again.
But still. He would be lying if he didn’t want to see Kurapika again. Their time together was so short. Leorio replays their one night together in his mind so often that he’s started to worry that he’s fabricating details. The softness of Kurapika’s hair. The look in his dark eyes.
The morning sun is already strong when Leorio walks outside to start unpacking his rented U-Haul truck. Cicadas buzz in the trees, and there are thunderheads building up on the horizon. It’s promising to be a hot, humid day; the sooner he finishes carrying boxes into the house, the better. He breaks into a sweat almost immediately.
As he carries a box of clanking dishes into his kitchen, he makes a deal with himself: if he can figure out how and why Kurapika sent him that note and where the “obvious location” is before school starts, then he’ll go to the meeting and see what Kurapika needs. If not, he’ll do his best to forget about the whole thing, and move on with life. School was too important for him to blow off, and if he doesn’t graduate and become a doctor, he won’t be able to live with himself.
He finishes with the last of the boxes and wipes his sweaty palms on his jeans, steeling his resolve. He can’t let Pietro’s death be in vain.
Leorio’s new apartment came mostly furnished, but he still needs to buy a lot of stuff to make it habitable. He’s been standing in the cookware aisle of Target for twenty minutes, enjoying the store’s aggressive air conditioning but stunned by indecision.
Before he moved, Senritsu helped him make lists of what he would need for his new place. Although Zepile had been a great roommate in many ways, he had also believed in the power of Windex as an all-purpose cleaning solution. Once Leorio caught him spraying it onto a pile of stinky laundry to freshen it up. After hearing that story, Senritsu took pity and offered to help. Her own apartment, a loft in Astoria with expertly installed soundproofing, was immaculate and elegant.
The lists are helpful but overwhelming. There are three pages of kitchen supplies alone, and he hasn’t even looked at the bathroom list. He grabs a few kitchen utensils at random and heads into the bathroom section instead, wondering if there was a nearby thrift store. Everything here was so expensive. It doesn’t help that his mind keeps wandering back to the strange note.
“If I don’t immediately know what the obvious answer is, then it can’t be that obvious,” Leorio grumbles to himself. “I can’t be that dumb.”
He says it with more conviction that he feels, and starts to worry that he’s been missing clear hints. But Kurapika’s phone has been disconnected since April, and he has no email address or social media presence. Leorio has no way of contacting him to figure anything out.
Focus, he chides himself, realizing that he’s been zoning out in front of the shower curtains. He gives his head a little shake and chooses a light green shower curtain and the cheapest plastic liner available. His budget is quickly dwindling, and he still needs to buy new bedding. And a trash can, and groceries, and a used car, and textbooks for school, and...
Oh well. Nothing he can do about it now. This was still better than going broke in New York.
After ringing up his purchases at the self checkout ($257, a number that gives him minor heart palpitations) he walks back outside into the stultifying warmth of the parking lot. Heat shimmers off of the black asphalt. The lush mountains surrounding the town are hazy in the humidity. Leorio loads up the U-Haul with his purchases and shades his eyes to look up at the mountains, and notices a large metal star glinting from top of the closest peak. He hadn’t noticed it last night, and makes a mental note to look it up when he gets home.
Around 2 pm, Leorio takes a break from shopping to get a cup of coffee, and finds a cafe near his apartment. It’s in a small brick building at the foot of the mountains. The roads leading up to it grow steeper and steeper, criss-crossed by old train trestles and low-hanging tree branches. He’s never spent time in the mountains before, and he likes the cozy way that the greenery presses in from every side.
As he waits in line for his coffee, a new thought crosses his mind. Perhaps Kurapika hadn’t mailed the note at all. Maybe he was actually in Roanoke right now and had somehow gained access to Leorio’s apartment before he moved in. The idea gives him a jolt of adrenaline. He glances around the coffee shop, just in case.
The walls are painted robin-egg blue, and there are cartoons and newspaper cuttings pinned to an overflowing bulletin board near the door. Someone who worked here clearly loved chickens, because half of the kitschy art hung on the walls is chicken-themed. Many of the patrons sipping their coffees at the mismatched tables and plush couches are dressed in relaxed, hippie-ish clothing; lots of workout gear and Birkenstocks. Everyone seems unhurried and friendly. It couldn’t be more different from a hip New York espresso bar if it tried. Kurapika would be wildly out of place here with his sleek black suits and private chauffeurs...
“Hon?”
The barista is waiting expectantly for Leorio to order. Blushing, he blinks rapidly and asks for the simplest thing on the menu (a large Americano), and hopes that he wasn’t spacing out for too long. He’s been doing that a lot these days.
“Sorry about that. I think the heat is getting to me,” he says abashedly, leaving an extra-large tip. The barista, a tiny blonde woman, waves her hand and chuckles.
“You’re fine, sweetie. It’s a hot one out there. Here, have some water too,” she says, offering Leorio an ice-cold can of seltzer. “My nephew is your age and is always forgetting to hydrate.” Her accent makes the word come out ha-dray-eight.
“Thanks!” Leorio says gratefully, accepting the drink and immediately gulping down half of it. “Wow, I guess I was thirsty.”
He moves to the side of the counter to wait for his coffee, glancing at the listings tacked to the bulletin board.
“You new in town? I haven’t seen you in here before,” the barista continues as she flips on the espresso machine. It churns to life with a rush of hot steam. She’s wearing her hair in curly pigtails, and the effect is weirdly girlish for an adult. “Are you a student?”
Leorio laughs. “Guilty as charged. Is it that obvious?”
“Well, your accent is a dead giveaway. What are you looking for on that bulletin board, anyways?” She finishes making his coffee and slides it across the counter.
“A car. Used, and very cheap, preferably. Do you know anyone who’s selling one?”
Her eyes light up. “Actually, yes! My nephew has an old Honda he doesn’t drive anymore. What’s your budget?”
Leorio sips his hot coffee, wincing. “Um...”
She laughs and scrawls something on a piece of paper before handing it to him.
“Then you’re in luck. He’s selling it for $800. Here, take his number. I’ll tell him you’re going to call. I mean, really, this car is nothing special. But it runs.”
“Sounds great!” Leorio says, pocketing the number. “Really, thanks so much. What’s your name?”
“Biscuit,” she says, offering a very small hand. “Biscuit Krueger. My friends call me Bisky.”
Biscuit...? What kind of goofy southern name is that?
Leorio tries very hard to keep his face neutral as he shakes the woman’s hand. Her grip is shockingly strong.
“Awesome. Thanks, Bisky. And thanks for the coffee, too.”
Two hours later, Leorio is the proud new owner of a beat-up 2002 Honda Civic. It’s bright blue and has 160,000 miles on the odometer, but Leorio doesn’t mind. He’s grateful to Bisky for the help.
Her nephew turns out to be a muscular young guy who introduces himself, much to Leorio’s amusement, as Knuckle. They’ve met in the parking lot of a Petco, both sweating under the hot afternoon sun.
“Thanks a million,” Knuckle says as Leorio hands over the check. “It still runs fine, but I’m saving up money. Every last bit helps right now.”
“Been there,” Leorio answers truthfully. “I know it’s tough. You trying to go back to school?”
Knuckle looks embarrassed.
“No, actually, I...” he begins, glancing towards the Petco, “I’m trying to start an animal shelter. One of the no-kill ones, you know?” His large brown eyes glimmer with tears. “I just c-can’t stand thinking about any animals getting put to sleep.”
He looks so upset that Leorio gives him an awkward pat on the shoulder, car keys jangling in his hand.
“I hear you, man. Right on. Once I start making some money, I’ll donate whatever I can.”
Knuckle sniffs and wipes his eyes. “Thanks, dude. Sorry. God, I’m just hopeless when it comes to the critters. It was Leroy, right?”
“Leorio. It’s a weird one, I know.”
“My bad! Cool, man.”
“All good,” Leorio says, opening the car door. “Thanks again!”
Knuckle waves goodbye as Leorio starts the car and drives out of the parking lot. As Bisky promised, the car runs just fine. It’s old and rattly, and the upholstery smells vaguely of cigarettes, but it’s his. It will make life a lot easier.
The next morning Leorio wakes up early to explore the town. He wants to walk up to the metal star on top of the mountain before it gets too hot. According to Google Maps, the star is 3.2 miles away from his house, which seems doable. He fills up a water bottle with tap water and sets out into the sunny morning.
He quickly realizes that walking long-ish distances in the suburbs is very different from walking miles and miles in New York City. For one thing, there are barely any sidewalks, and he keeps having to trudge along the asphalt shoulder of two-lane highways, frequently ducking into the long grass to avoid getting hit by a passing semi-truck. It’s also much hotter than he realized. He’s sweating through his long-sleeve button down after ten minutes.
After thirty uncomfortable minutes of walking in the sun, he reaches the start of the mountain trail that leads up to the star. The coolness of the woods is a relief, and he unbuttons his shirt down to the middle of his chest to get some fresh air on his sweaty skin.
The trail grows steeper and steeper as he reaches the top. After another thirty minutes of climbing, he emerges onto a wooden platform underneath the huge metal star. A few mothers with toddlers in strollers are standing around and taking pictures, but it’s early enough that it isn’t crowded.
He strides onto the platform and whistles appreciatively at the view. From here, he can see for what was probably hundreds of miles across the valley all the way to the distant blue mountains on the horizon. Roanoke looks like a model-train set from here. He shields his eyes from the sun and scans the city until he spots his own tiny house.
“Wow!” he says aloud, and a nearby woman giggles. He blushes and realizes that his shirt is still unbuttoned. He hastily buttons it back up as the woman approaches, pushing a flushed baby in a stroller.
“Are you visiting?” she asks, smiling and tucking a strand of curly dark hair behind her ear. “Quite a view, isn’t it?”
“Oh, no,” Leorio says, covertly wiping the sweat from his forehead. “I actually just moved here and haven’t been up here yet. What is this thing, anyways?”
“Just a tourist spot, I think,” the woman says, fanning herself with a manicured hand. Leorio can’t help but notice that she isn’t wearing a wedding ring. “It’s real pretty at night, though. What did you move here for?”
“Med school. I came down here from New York.”
“Oh, a city boy!” she laughs, her cheeks dimpling. She pulls a business card out of her purse and hands it to Leorio. “Well, if you ever need a haircut, you just come by my salon. Nice meeting you!”
Everyone here is so friendly, Leorio thinks as the woman waves goodbye and pushes her baby back down towards the trail. A minute later, it dawns on him that she was probably hitting on him. Ah.
He spends another ten minutes walking around the platform and admiring the views, pausing to take a photo for a group of tourists. Once he’s satisfied that he’s explored the place, he heads back into the woods and begins the long walk home.
This had to be the place Kurapika was mentioning. What could be more obvious than a huge star on a mountaintop? It was like X marks the spot on a treasure map. He’s filled with renewed energy as he walks back through his neighborhood, dripping with sweat in the intense noon sun.
After stopping by his apartment to change into a pair of shorts and a t-shirt, Leorio walks downtown to continue exploring. There’s a charming brick square in the middle of the city, and he spends a pleasant hour walking around, admiring the colorful flower arrangements and peeking inside touristy art galleries. Compared to New York, he feels like he’s on a movie set. Everything here is so small and tidy. It also smells a lot better here. Nobody is peeing onto the sidewalk, for one. He orders a lemonade from a cafe and sits on a park bench to drink it, zoning out and idly watching the people go by.
Once he’s down to the ice cubes in his drink, it occurs to him that he hasn’t checked the Japanese news on the murder at the Mainichi auction for a while. Earlier in the summer he had gotten into the habit of checking obsessively to ensure that Kurapika’s name wasn’t popping up anywhere, but after a while it had made him so queasy and nervous that he forced himself to stop.
Apprehensively, he pulls up the NHK website and scans the crime section. A headline catches his eye at once, and clicks on it with suddenly trembling fingers.
SUSPECT ARRESTED IN AUCTION HOUSE MURDER
The rest of the article won’t load into English, but he scans the article quickly for a photo, paralysed with anxiety, until he sees a mugshot of an unfamiliar man with long dark hair and a strange tattoo on his forehead.
He takes a screenshot of the entire page to translate later, but he’s almost giddy with relief. If they had someone else in custody as a suspect, that meant that Kurapika was no longer a primary target of suspicion. He exhales a long breath and tips the remaining ice cubes into his mouth.
Leorio continues exploring Roanoke over the next few days, but he can’t find anywhere else that seems as obvious of a meeting place as the star. He constantly keeps an eye out for Kurapika, but doesn’t see anyone remotely resembling him.
Feeling lonely, he calls both Zepile and Senritsu to video chat so he can show them his new apartment. They’re both impressed by how much space he has and by his in-unit washer and dryer. That was an utterly unattainable luxury in New York. His new place is literally three times as big as his old apartment, and costs about half as much.
It’s a good thing that his rent is cheap, because his school textbooks cost an arm and a leg. He can’t believe how expensive they are, even purchased second hand at the school bookstore. He’s starting to wonder if he might want to find a part-time job to help supplement his student loans, which were quickly disappearing between his moving expenses, textbooks, and tuition.
On his way out of the campus bookstore, he pauses to peruse a bulletin board covered in fliers, scanning it for any potential jobs. As he’s flipping through layers of tattered advertisements for babysitters, cleaning services, mobile pet groomers, and life coaches, a sheet of neon green construction paper catches his eye.
TRAIN WITH BISCUIT, screams the WordArt font at the top of the flier.
Are you looking for a top-notch martial arts education? Do you need self-defense training? Look no further! Biscuit Krueger is a black belt Karate instructor with additional expertise in jujitsu, aikido, capoeira, tae kwon do, judo, and more. Available for private or group lessons for all ages. Inquire below!
The bottom of the flier is divided into tear-off sections listing her phone number. Grinning, Leorio rips one off and pockets it. No wonder her hand shake was so strong. She nearly yanked his hand off when they met in the coffee shop.
Later that evening, sitting on his porch steps drinking a beer, Leorio watches a family of deer wander across his lawn. He’s delighted by the sight, and freezes so he doesn’t scare them off. They graze placidly in his unmowed yard, occasionally pausing to glance across the road towards the sound of traffic.
A cloud of glowing fireflies rises over the grass in the dusk. He can’t remember ever seeing fireflies in New York. As the night grows darker, he watches in astonishment as their golden sparkles of light float into the treetops.
Nine days after his arrival in Roanoke, Leorio jolts awake at 5:30 am, immediately filled with excitement. He’s finally supposed to meet Kurapika later that night. Right now, lying in bed in the predawn darkness, it feels like an impossibly long wait.
To kill time, he goes on a long run through the woods, deliberately leaving his phone behind so he’ll get lost and the run will take longer. It’s been a while since he’s exercised at all, and it’s painfully evident after the first ten minutes of jogging. He pants for breath and clutches at a stitch in his side as he climbs a particularly steep hill, promising himself that he’ll get in better shape.
Once he finds his way home, he takes a long shower and cooks a plate of pancakes, but he’s so full of nervous energy that he can only swallow a few bites. He paces the apartment like a caged tiger for a while, pausing to flip through his new textbooks, but after thirty minutes of walking in circles he’s annoyed with himself and can’t take it anymore.
He drives to a nearby movie theater and buys a ticket for the latest spy thriller. All he knows about it is that it’s long, which is a good thing. He gets a small bag of popcorn and walks into the icily air-conditioned theater, feeling cocooned by the velvety darkness after the bright early afternoon sun outside.
Because he’s eating mindlessly and anxiously, he finishes his entire bag of salty popcorn before the previews are over. He’s intensely thirsty throughout the entire movie, which ends up being sort of boring despite the numerous car chases and sex scenes, but maybe he just can’t follow the plot because he’s so distracted. Either way, eventually the two hours and 27 minutes pass, and he emerges, blinking and dazed, into the hot afternoon sun.
By the time he drives home it’s almost 4 pm. He’s fizzing with so much anticipation that he just feels tired. He lies down on his couch and stares at the wall for a long time, trying to imagine what it will actually feel like to see Kurapika again after four months.
The last time they saw each other was the night they finally slept together, right before Kurapika flew back to Japan. The entirety of their friendship before that had been rife with unspoken attraction and tension, and although it may have only been sympathy for Pietro’s death that caused Kurapika to finally act, Leorio wants to believe that what they experienced was real. He’s never felt anything close to that for anyone before, and the thought of pursuing anyone else now that he’s been with Kurapika seems ludicrous.
How will Kurapika react when he sees Leorio again? Will they kiss? Will Kurapika acknowledge that anything happened? Leorio closes his eyes and digs his palms against his forehead, exhaling a long breath. The minutes are passing so slowly that he checks the microwave in the kitchen to make sure that his phone hasn’t frozen. It hasn’t.
Thankfully, picking an outfit for the meeting occupies the better part of the next hour. Somehow every possibility looks simultaneously as though he’s trying too hard and not enough. He finally settles on a pair of jeans and a gray polo shirt, and sprays himself liberally with his Armani cologne. The heat makes him so sweaty that he doesn’t want to risk any stinkiness.
At 7:30, he performs a final armpit and breath smell test, glances in the mirror one last time, and heads out the door with his phone, keys, and wallet. It’s only a five-minute drive to the star, but he certainly isn’t going to risk being late.
Once he parks his car in the visitor lot and walks the remaining hundred feet up to the platform, he scans the area to decide where to go. He ends up choosing to stand near the informational placard in the front center of the platform, thinking that it’s the most visible place for him to wait.
The star is lit up with neon at night, and it really is a nice effect, glowing against the indigo twilight sky. He can see why it’s such a popular tourist attraction. The valley below is aglow with hundred of twinkling buildings and windows. Streams of traffic are blurred into rivers of red and gold.
It’s not too crowded, but there are about a dozen people milling about and snapping selfies. A Chinese family takes picture after picture in front of the star, and a thin woman with long silver hair checks her phone repeatedly. Leorio flexes his hands in his pockets, glancing around every time a new person comes into view. At 8:03 there’s still no sign of Kurapika, and Leorio’s nerves are shot.
The thin woman passes him on her way off of the platform, and a piece of paper falls from her purse. Leorio stoops down to grab the paper before it blows away in the evening breeze, but before he can straighten up and give it back to her, she’s gone.
A familiar minty smell hangs in the air. He looks down at the paper and feels a cold rush of adrenaline as he reads the handwriting:
Wait 10 minutes, act natural, and then find the green Prius waiting in the parking lot. The driver’s side is unlocked. Pick me up in front of the women’s bathrooms after you’re sure nobody has seen you leave. K
His pulse hammers in his ears. Pocketing the note, he straightens up and heads back towards the front of the platform to take pictures and pretend to admire the view. He feels like he’s going to throw up. Was that...?
The ten minute wait feels interminable. Finally, he walks nonchalantly down to the parking lot, ignoring his own parked car, and opens the door of the green Prius. Judging from the absence of personal belongings and the strong new car smell, it’s a rental. He presses the touch button ignition, and the car purrs to life immediately. He drives it carefully down the hill to the women’s bathroom and waits, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel.
After another minute the silver-haired figure emerges from the bathroom and opens the passenger door.
“Hello, Leorio,” Kurapika says, slamming the door shut and removing his dark glasses. “Thank you for meeting me here.”