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Leorio’s back has never been in worse shape.
He certainly never thought med school would be easy, but he at least thought that the decade he’s spent teaching himself medicine would get him ahead of the curve. Nope. Not even a little bit. It did help him pass the entrance exams, but ever since classes have started he’s been totally lost. He’d go so far as to say the first semester has been harder than the Hunter Exam was.
It’ll be worth it, though. Soon he’ll be a doctor and have his own practice and an apartment with a dog. Maybe he’ll hit it big and get one of those really tacky houses with pillars and double doors and some sort of naked statue in the front yard. Maybe he’ll hit it really big and have a family.
He does have to figure out this “Nen” business, though.
Medicine is constant. There’s real science involved, specific cause and effect that Leorio is able to follow. That’s part of why he likes it so much. Nen, on the other hand, is all about aura and energy; things that seem intangible. Leorio doesn’t like placing his faith in things like that. He likes to touch, feel, see, and understand.
Gon and Killua have learned it. Have they figured out a technique yet? Has Kurapika learned it yet?
Ugh, he needs to stop thinking about Kurapika. Every time he thinks about him he starts to spiral. Now is really not the time to spiral. Now is the time for the tangible. Pop quizzes. Homework. Notes.
A family.
He groans and flips to the next chapter.
Wake up, go to the library, study, take a break. Take a practice test and take another break. Check the answers, go home, study Nen. Meditate for half an hour. Try the trick with the water and the leaf (and fail.) Call Kurapika if he’s feeling courageous and leave a voicemail because he never answers. No drinking on weekdays.
This is Leorio’s schedule. Or, more accurately, it was Leorio’s schedule. Five months of practice have seen him actually succeed at the trick with the water and the leaf (he’s an Emitter! Sweet!) so he’s been a lot more diligent about taking time to meditate and consider what kinds of technique he can develop and how his studies can apply. Still no drinking on weekdays, though.
Today he’s at the other end of the library in the middle of his second break, reading a book that he’s looked at a few times already. A Complete History of the Kurta Clan. He hasn’t checked it out yet, and he doesn’t think he ever will. If he checked out the book then he’d really have to face the reality that he’s learning all this stuff for one person. Not checking it out gives him plausible deniability. Not that there’s anything weird about wanting to understand your friends’ cultures. In fact, that’s normal. But…well, it feels different than learning the history of the Zoldyck family or the societal standards of Whale Island would. It’s more serious. More sacred.
There’s a whole chapter on Kurtan astrology, but Kurapika was right about it being hard to understand. Leorio can’t wrap his head around it to save his life. Maybe if he were here, he’d be able to explain it. A lot of things would be different if Kurapika were here, or even if he were in Leorio’s life in some capacity. He’d feel steadier. More secure. Better, like he always did.
Don’t think so much, Leorio, he thinks. Haha. Thinking about not thinking too much, what a paradox. Why don’t you go home early today and meditate? That’s a productive use of your time.
Leorio closes the book and puts it back on the shelf before starting the trek back to his apartment. He’d bet money that Kurapika has already become a Nen Master. He’s so quick on his feet, he’d be a great study.
It’s natural to miss Kurapika, right?
It’s totally normal. He misses all three of them, especially Gon. Gon is the kind of boy who reminds Leorio why he wanted to be a Hunter and why he wants to be a father. But something about missing Kurapika is different. He misses things about him that shouldn’t matter at all—the grace with which he moves, the way his lips part ever so slightly when he gets angry, that earring, that fucking earring. It’s really weird. One night he was mindlessly scrolling through the internet and all of a sudden he got seized with this bizarre need to be with Kurapika. There wasn’t even anything he wanted to do together. Just…sharing space with him. Watching the patterns of light his earring makes on the wall.
Whatever. He’s not here, and there’s nothing Leorio can do about it beyond hoping that Melody is keeping a watchful eye. He should get back to the important things.
He doesn’t. He gets home, stares at his computer screen for three hours not even doing anything, and goes to sleep with guilt slowly gnawing at his brain.
Leorio’s default joke with straight men is “you know why they call me Leorio, right? Cause I got so many lays.” It’s sleazy and stupid and it never disappoints.
Apparently all six of the classmates out with him tonight are straight, because they’re all howling as they slam back shots. Leorio isn’t nearly drunk enough yet (the one advantage to being 6'4" is that his tolerance is as high as he is) but he will be by the end of the night. He’ll also probably have someone on his arm when he leaves. It’s not exactly what he wants, but Leorio is happy to show a girl a good time, and if he never takes a night or two to unwind he might actually collapse from exhaustion.
The girls are always blonde. He doesn’t like to dwell on that.
About half an hour after his classmates disperse, Leorio finds Blonde No. 5 sitting a few seats down from him. He tries not to look at her for too long, but he can see that she has legs for days and a chest that fills out the front of her green dress. A minute later, the bartender sets down a craft beer in front of him. He casts a sidelong glance at her and she shrugs innocently. Suspicions confirmed.
“Damnit. I was gonna buy your drink, but you beat me to it.”
She takes the seat next to him and says “guess you’ll have to settle for second place.” Good, she’s forward.
He buys her a drink, and they make smalltalk for a while. What brings you here tonight, I’m a med student, I go to school five blocks down, all that jazz.
“Oh, you’re a student? I thought you had a job, you look older.”
The corner of Leorio’s mouth turns upward. “Well I do have a job.”
He knows the deal is all but sealed the second he flashes his Hunter’s license. From there, the conversation gets a lot more hushed and she moves close enough for their knees to touch. He couldn’t have asked for a better outcome. But then she brushes her hair behind her ear. She’s wearing earrings with red crystals that dangle and glint in the dim light, and all of a sudden Leorio’s mind is shutting down for reasons that he can’t explain—no, for reasons that he can explain, which is even worse. He plasters on his suavest, fakest smile and just keeps flirting, trying not to focus on the red gem and every association he has with it.
She leans forward and presses her lips to his ear. “You wanna get out of here?”
He feels sick. He doesn’t show it.
“I thought you’d never ask.”
He should really quit smoking.
Leorio picked up smoking at 13 because the kids who bullied him smoked and for some reason he thought maybe they’d respect him more if he smoked, too. No dice there. All it got him was another thing to save up for and an utterly impractical habit. He’s going to be a doctor, it would be stupid to get through med school only to die of cancer. It also doesn’t add to his sex life at all; Leorio has made out with a bunch of smokers, and they never tasted good.
Kurapika probably doesn’t like the taste of smoke.
Yeah, sure. As if Kurapika has ever thought about kissing him a day in his life.
Should he call him again? He’s called him at least three times in recent memory, but he definitely hasn’t called him this week. All that will happen is the call will go to voicemail. There’s no harm in that.
The phone rings four times, then he hears “Yes?”
“…Kurapika?”
“Speaking.”
It’s him, it’s him, he’s here. “Oh my god, hi! It’s Leorio!”
He hears Kurapika’s breath catch on the other end of the line. It sounds happy, but that could just be wishful thinking. “Leorio, hello. How have you been?”
“Better now that I’m talking to you! School has been super busy, I have to start preparing for midterms in—wait, I’ve definitely told you this, you haven’t been listening to my voicemails?”
“No. I got a new phone.” Leorio can tell that’s a lie, but he’s too glad to be hearing Kurapika’s voice to be mad about it. “Listen, I have to go.”
“What? Why?”
“I can’t tell you.”
There it is; the moment when his joy starts to wane and the frustration starts coming back. Well, it was nice while it lasted. “Can you at least tell me you’re safe?”
Kurapika scoffs. “Really, Leorio? You don’t trust me to handle myself? I didn’t know you think so little of me.”
“I fucking don’t.”
Kurapika is silent. Good, Leorio has shit to say. “Believe it or not, Kurapika, I trust you more than anyone, which you’d know if you ever bothered picking up the phone. There’s a difference between not respecting you and worrying about your bodily safety.”
There’s a minute of silence before Kurapika mumbles “I apologize” and insists that he really does have to go.
“Wait, Pika, please—”
The line goes dead.
Fuck. Fuck, is there anything in his life he doesn’t ruin?
Leorio lights another cigarette with the butt of the one in his mouth (another horrid habit) and he blows out a stream of smoke that curls towards the sky.
This is a stupid idea.
There’s no utility to this, this is going to cause him nothing but pain in the long run, he could be doing so much more with his time.
No. He’s an adult. He aced his pop quiz and has been doing really well on the practice tests, and if he wants to indulge in some reading then there’s nothing wrong with that. Leorio flips to page 404: “Love and Marriage within the Clan.” He tries to just skim over the basics and not focus too heavily on any details for fear of letting his mind wander too far, but skimming ends up making the little things stick out even more. Kurtan wedding colors are white and red. Kurapika would look beautiful in red, wouldn’t he?
Why is he even thinking about this?
“Excuse me, young man?”
Leorio looks up and sees the librarian who watches over the second floor. “You’ve been coming back to that book for some time now. Would you like to check it out?”
Fuck it.
“Sure.”
He dreams of red that night.
One afternoon while he’s studying, he gets a call from a number he doesn’t recognize. It’s the hospital. Gon Freecss is in intensive care. They won’t tell him the extent of his condition or why it happened, just that Leorio is allowed to visit him.
He can’t stop fucking shaking.
Part of his mind can’t even process this information. Gon has always bounced back from injury so quickly it was almost inhuman. But now he’s in critical condition? And no one will tell him how or why? It doesn’t make sense. It’s intangible.
He must look like a madman to the staff, a beanpole racing through the hallways and desperately trying to find Gon without asking anyone for assistance. A few minutes into the search a nurse takes pity on him and gives him directions to the room number he gives her. Leorio doesn’t bother knocking.
The first thing he sees after busting through the door is an absolutely massive man; the only man who’s given Leorio a run for his money height-wise. His face is solemn. “You must be Leorio.”
“Who are you?”
The big man says his name is Morel.
“Where is he?”
Morel gestures to his left, and Leorio collapses.
It’s not just his knees giving out; everything inside Leorio just collapses onto the linoleum floor. He has to put both hands over his mouth to keep from shaking the entire building with his sobs, and he’s already getting tears and snot all over the damn place. It was already too much to comprehend that Gon got hurt, but now he has to reckon with the fact that his friend has become this massive mangled thing on a ventilator, and Leorio is the one who put him here. And yes, he is responsible, because he could have done something. He could have called him, or gone to Greed Island with him, even have been an emergency contact, just fucking something. The whole reason he’s in med school is to keep this from happening. If he couldn’t protect Gon then what has it all been for? What even is the reason to keep going?
Morel pulls him off the ground and leads him to a chair where he collapses again. “That’s my kid,” Leorio sobs. “That’s my boy.”
Morel claims he knows, but he doesn’t. No one will ever know.
He failed.
Leorio has a new schedule.
Wake up, go to the hospital. Check in on Gon’s condition, research all the treatments they haven’t tried yet. Take a smoke break. Do all his assignments. Go back to his apartment, meditate for half an hour, practice Nen for another half an hour. Come back. Start thinking about Nen applications that could save Gon. Fall asleep in a chair and get woken up by Morel or the staff and go home.
He brings the Kurta book with him every time. He doesn’t even look at it while he’s there, but Leorio feels wrong being without it, and he gets the sense that if Gon were conscious he would agree. The book being here is the closest they can get to Kurapika being here.
Honestly, as hard as it is to get mad at Kurapika, Leorio is really starting to lose patience with him. He hasn’t told him about Gon’s condition, but if he actually bothered to communicate then he would have known by now. He’s calling him for the fifth time this week, and he’s leaving a voicemail because he has no idea how to express how dire this is without telling him.
“Hey, Kurapika. I’m sure you’re sick of hearing from me, but this is really urgent and I need you to pick up if you can. Gon is in the hospital. Critical condition. I…I don’t think he’s going to make it.” He breaks. Again. When is he not broken? “He’s unconscious, but I know he’d appreciate it if you came and saw him. Try to get down here if you can. It might be your last chance.”
He hangs up without saying goodbye or I miss you. Kurapika won’t listen to it anyway.
“Killua?”
Leorio can hear Killua sigh over the phone. “Hey, old man.”
“Hey, kiddo. You doing okay? Where are you?”
“Don’t call me ‘kiddo.’ And I can’t tell you, I’m not even supposed to be talking to you.”
A chill runs down Leorio’s spine. He’s certain there’s a reason for the secrecy, and he absolutely trusts him to come back safe (if anyone is going to make it out of anything alive it’s Killua Zoldyck,) but Killua is his kid too, and he wants to protect him any way he knows how.
“I just talked to Morel. I’m coming back, and I’m going to heal Gon.”
Against all better judgment, Leorio believes him. Not because he genuinely believes there’s someone with special life-giving powers, but because he’s desperate to believe in anything but the reality that Gon Freecss is going to die before even having lived yet. “Just make sure to come back soon, kay?”
“Come on, you’re such a geezer you’ll be dead by the time I come back.”
“I’m only 20 years old, you brat!”
Killua laughs. His laugh isn’t as bright as Gon’s, but it feels like home all the same.
“I’m really thankful you’re doing this for Gon. He’s very lucky to have a friend like you.”
Leorio can hear Killua’s eyes clouding. “I love him.”
If it were anyone but Killua, Leorio would have rolled his eyes. But Leorio was 13 and in love once, and he gets the sense that whatever the kid is feeling, it’s as true as what he felt back then, if not truer. “How do you know?”
“Dunno. Just do.” He’s definitely not telling Leorio everything, but it wouldn’t be right to pry further. The fact that he responded at all says a lot.
“Okay. Come back safe.”
Killua hangs up, and Leorio cries without even knowing why. He can’t help but think about how the only thing he wants to do is cry into Kurapika’s chest, and that just makes him cry even more.
Just do.
He cries and cries until he can’t do anything but sleep.
He punches Ging Freecss in the face.
On live TV.
And everyone cheers.
Leorio should be deathly embarrassed right now, but honestly, he’s so high on adrenaline and pure rage that he could probably fight God if he wanted to. He isn’t sure if he’s hated anyone as much as he hates that man. Maybe Tonpa. (Or Kurapika.) Because it’s not just that Ging hasn’t visited his son on his deathbed, it’s that he made the conscious choice to leave him. If you don’t want to raise a kid then don’t have a kid, that’s what Leorio has always thought.
Everyone around him is so damn selfish. Nobody bothers to care about anything but themselves; not Ging, not Pariston, nobody. And Leorio got so pissed about it that he punched Ging Freecss in the face on live TV to uproarious applause.
There are questions being flung at him a mile a minute and a ton of cameras flashing all around him, but it doesn’t matter. Leorio feels like he could do anything in the world right now. He could be the greatest Nen Master ever. He could cure a million diseases. He could be a father.
Kurapika would be a great father.
Leorio doesn’t just feel like he could fight God, he knows he could.
Gon is healed. How, Leorio doesn’t know. He hasn’t asked Killua how he did it and he gets the sense that it’s better he not know. He did get to give him a very firm hug and briefly meet his sister, who captured Leorio’s heart before even saying a word. He can finally get back to going to classes and perfecting Nen. Things feel…well, brighter.
There’s a knock on the door. Leorio doesn’t know who it is, but whoever they are, they can’t take his smile from him.
He opens the door, and is immediately proven wrong.
“Can I come in?”
Leorio nods and slaps Kurapika across the face as soon as he’s entered the apartment. Maybe (definitely) he shouldn’t have done that, but holy shit, his smile is far gone now and he is angry. “What the fuck, Kurapika, are you allergic to answering your phone? I’ve called a million times, what have you been doing? How did you even get here?”
“Word travels fast and I have connections in high places.”
“Gon almost died. You know that, right? You’re aware he almost died?”
Kurapika seems to flinch when he hears Gon’s name. It’s the most reaction he’s gotten out of him so far. “How is he?”
“Full recovery. He met up with Ging tonight. I think he’s heading back to Whale Island soon so make sure to catch him before then.” He’s being cruel. He’s messing everything up, like always. He should be happy to see Kurapika, he is, it’s just…fuck. “I’m…look, I’m sorry for being a dick. This week has been like hell. How long are you in town?”
“Not sure. Three days, maybe.”
Leorio’s eyes fall on Kurapika’s earring and it casts a light on his heart. “Then let’s make it a good three days.”
On day one in Kurapika’s company, Kurapika tells him he’s going to die.
On day two, Leorio is alone.
On day three, he shows up covered head-to-toe in blood and lets Leorio wipe him clean, and they spend the rest of the night doing things Leorio had been dreaming about for so much longer than he’d like to let on. He asks him to stay, and he says okay.
It’s the morning of day four. Leorio has been trying to let himself sleep in the past few days now that he doesn’t have to go to the hospital anymore, but he still finds himself waking up early. Kurapika is still there, and the morning sun turns his hair into pure light. Leorio tucks a strand away from his face and lets his fingers brush across his cheek.
Kurapika’s eyes slowly blink half-open. “Hi.”
Leorio smiles. “Hi, Sunshine.” Stupid, but Leorio can’t think to call him anything else when he looks like this. “Sleep well?”
Kurapika nods, and Leorio yawns. “Go back to sleep,” Kurapika says. “You’ve had a long week, you need rest.”
Leorio is about to protest, but Kurapika’s lips on his keep him from doing so. He sinks into the kiss, and any other day he’d deepen it and ask Kurapika if he wanted to do it again in the light of day, but he actually is very tired.
Go back to sleep. Yeah. That’s a good idea.
He wakes up four hours later to an empty bed.
Just when he thought his eyes would have a break from crying.
Leorio has been in love before.
If he had to describe it in one word, it would be “young.” He was Gon and Killua’s age. Everything was new and yet he thought he knew everything. He and Pietro could have done anything back then, because they were young, and when you’re young you’re invincible.
There’s nothing young about this. In fact, it feels old. It feels like something that has existed for so long he doesn’t even remember it not being there, carved with age lines in the shapes of constellations he doesn’t recognize.
Of all people, it had to be Kurapika.
Kurapika, the man who’s allergic to answering his phone, the man who has enough blood on his hands to fill an ocean, the man who he’ll never be able to grow old with because he’s so stuck on revenge that it’s literally killing him.
Kurapika, the man who sews his clothes by hand, the man who can swallow the most bitter whiskey imaginable and not bat an eye, the man who remembers exactly how Leorio likes to be touched and always pulls Leorio’s arm over his chest when he’s tired enough to allow himself sleep.
Yes. Of all people, it has to be Kurapika. Because Kurapika is gold and honey and blood, and Leorio loves him.
He just does.