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Autumn was indeed a lovely time of year. Kurapika took a deep breath of the crisp icy air and sighed. It was nice to see the big oak tree leaves beginning to change color, despite the laborious task of raking up the fallen leaves and bagging them.
Most of these mid-fall days found them curled up with a book and spiced tea. Leorio called it recovery. Kurapika called it painfully repetitive.
Granted, the past few days had been anything but repetitive.
Kurpaika wasn’t daft. They’d heard of Halloween and knew a great deal about it. Yet, most of their experiences had been lived on the outside looking in. They had never celebrated it.
Leorio…
He was on cloud, no, spider web number nine.
“I think you may be overdoing it, Leorio.” Kurapika offered as they leaned against the rake, letting their weight rest against it.
Leorio glanced back from his perch on the ladder. “Naw, Sunshine. No such thing as overdoing it for Halloween!” He cheered happily.
Kurapika slowly blinked and looked away from Leorio, noticing the curtains shifting in the living room window. They must have stared long enough because Leorio’s following questions sounded concerned.
“How are you doing? Do you need to go in and rest?”
“No, I am perfectly fine. I just wanted to watch you work for a moment, that's all.” Kurapika answered with a smug smile as they turned and returned to their task, ignoring the fluttering of the curtains.
The living room did have a draft.
“Oh?” Leorio watched Kurapika as they began to rake. “The view isn’t bad from here either.”
“Finish setting up your spiderwebs.” Kurapika teased and shook their head and continued to put their efforts into finishing the raking quickly. As it was, Kurapika could feel themself getting more exhausted.
Life after the Black Whale was alien to Kurapika. No more troupe to hunt down. Their clan all laid to rest. And their Nen had been destroyed once they completed their goal. Living, not just a normal life, but living after everything had taken some time to adjust to.
“You got an excellent pile of leaves.” Leorio hummed as he surprised Kurapika with his sudden closeness and wrapped his arms around their own. Trapping Kurapika’s limbs to their chest, along with the rake they still held.
“I suppose. Did you get down to help me bag the leaves up?” Kurapika asked softly, looking up and over their shoulder at the now established Doctor Leorio.
“Nope!” Leorio cheered and took the rake from Kurapika’s hands but still held them to his chest before he flopped into the pile of leaves.
Reddish-brown leaves shot up around them like a plume, and Kurapika squawked their protest. “Leorio! They took so long to rake together!” Kurapika squirmed their way off the man and pouted down at him. “You are such a damn—“
Kurapika was cut off by Leorio throwing a handful of leaves at them from his places in the dead center of the pile. After they turned away and spat out the leaves he’d gotten in their mouth, Kurapika turned back to face him. Their eyes burned scarlet. “Sunshine?” Leorio (rightfully) cautiously sank down into the leafy mound.
Kurapika spread their arms as if they planned to hug Leorio but instead closed the pile of leaves over him, effectively burying Leorio in a nice grave of oak leaves on their front lawn.
“Are we interrupting something?” Killua snorted as he sauntered up the sidewalks towards the duo. Gon was finishing up paying for their shared cab and grabbing the duffle bag he and Killua also seemed to share.
“Aside from Leorio ruining all my hard work to—“
“Oh, sweet! Dogpile!” Gon cheered suddenly, noticing that Kurapika was sitting in the pile of leaves, ran as quickly as he could to belly flop into the leaves himself. Only to land on the still covered Leorio. Kurapika had enough time to scramble out of the fray.
Leorio wheezed from somewhere under his foliage coffin, and Gon rolled away, groaning himself. Kurapika reached out and fished for Leorio’s hand to haul him up. When he surfaced, Leorio had leaves stuck in his hair and under the frames of his glasses. “Hi, Gon. Nice to see you.” He choked out slowly as Kurapika worked slowly on de-leafing their partner.
“Yeah.” Gon grimaced while rubbing at his rib. “Looks like you went way out there with the decorations this year.” Gon pointed out with a nod up to the house.
“My first Halloween off in like three years,” Leorio began, “I wanted to celebrate hardcore.”
“Then why are we doing a lame-ass movie night instead of going to that haunted hayride?” Killua muttered as he picked up the discarded duffle bag Gon had dropped.
“Cause we know you’d be no fun at a haunted attraction. You’d point out how none of it scares you and just egg the actors on.” Gon answered truthfully.
Before Killua could rebuttal, Leorio added, “You’d also probably, like, try to scare some of the actors back.”
Killua deflated. “Okay fine, but-“
“I also would rather not go to the hayride, if you all want to, please. I can stay home.” Kurapika added. “I am not a fan of the excessive gore the hayride advertised. Seeing carnage on screen would be easier than in person. As I said, please feel free to go without me.”
Killua snapped his mouth shut, “naw. That hayride would probably be lame anyway. Besides, it’s gonna be gross and cold when the sun goes down, and no one wants to deal with that.”
“So!” Leorio cheered. “Wanna get settled? We can order pizza and figure out which movie we’re gonna watch. Eat while the kids come around to trick or treat, ya know, take turns passing out candy.”
Gon and Killua agreed. Kurpaika led them to the guest room while Leorio got the front light on and the large bowl of mini candy bars ready. As Kurapika gathered plates and napkins for the pizza, they noticed the basement door had been left open.
Kurapika frowned as they carefully set their items down and closed the door. They watched it for a few moments. Leorio and Kurapika had lived in the house for several months, and that door had never just opened by itself before?
“Curiouser and curiouser.” Kurapika hummed as they gathered up the plates and napkins once again and rejoined their friends and partner in the living room.
Several hours and nearly two pizzas later, the gang had settled on some popular haunted house movie. Gon and Killua had taken up the couch with their own bowl of popcorn. Leorio settled into his favorite chair, and Kurapika curled up in the bay window’s seat. A warm mug of tea nested between their hands.
The movie had just begun. It was dated back to the mid-sixties. A paragraph of text slowly rolled along the front of the screen, giving some background about the two leads.
“Based on a true story? Give me a break.” Killua snorted. Gon shoved a pillow over his boyfriend’s face and passed the popcorn over to Leorio.
Killua began to swing wildly and struck Gon in the temple. “ Boys .” Kurapika warned. As much as they had all grown and changed from the Hunter Exam, they were still the same. Once the rowdy young adults settled, Kurapika was able to focus on the movie.
The first jump scare was a preteen girl accidentally putting her fist through a boarded-up wall. Kurapika only took a sharp intake of breath and immediately relaxed.
“You should see your face, Old man!” Killua howled as he pointed at Leorio, who froze up entirely after nearly jolting out of his seat.
“Shut up!” Leorio squawked back. “It just got me, which is what the movie is supposed to do.” He glanced over to Kurapika and offered a simple look, but they’d known him long enough to know Leorio was silently asking, “you okay?”
Kurapika nodded and finished their cup of tea. They stood to put the mug on one of the side tables, steal the throw blanket off the couches back, and then curled back up to continue watching.
As the movie went on, the jump scares worsened, and to Kurapika’s credit, they managed to stay steel-faced and outwardly unaffected by them as they happened. From ghost hands appearing from the dark to clapping beside the mother’s head, loud crashes of glass, the sudden appearance of a demon-possessed witch. Nothing got a peep out of Kurapika. Leorio cussed, gasped, and yelped enough for the both of them.
Gon and Killua just laughed or mused about the various other things the characters could have done. Kurpaika lost interest in trying to stop their conversations and solely focused on the movie. At least there was some softness in the overarching love story between the two paranormal investigators.
That made some of the more horrifying things easier to ignore.
In the end, the paranormal investigators had intervened and saved the poor housewife that had been turned into a puppet for the demon within the home. Something about the witch’s evil curse and all had led to her becoming possessed… through rather bile means.
While the final credits rolled, Leorio leaned over and turned the light on. Kurpaika stood and began to gather up the dishes to run to the sink. Both of the boys got the sequel loaded up, and Leorio had walked off to the bathroom. Kurapika began to rinse the plates from the pizza and got another bowl of popcorn for the next movie.
They were elbow deep in suds when they heard the basement door suddenly creak. Kurapika turned quickly and glared at the door. Has it always done that?
Yes, it did. Of course, Kurapika was just noticing it now, because they were antsy from the horror movie. That’s it.
Kurapika turned back and continued on. The door creaked again, and this time they ignored it. Down the hall, they could hear Leorio leave the bathroom. His footsteps made the old wooden floor sing underfoot as he returned to the living room. Once again, that same creaking sound came from the basement door, and Kurapika turned to face it. This was entirely the movie's fault. They were not jumpy, usually. Well, Kurapika had calmed down a fair bit.
After a moment of studying the old dark-stained door, Kurapika reached for the dish towel and dried their hands quickly. Then, slowly they took careful and quiet steps towards the door, one hand poised to grab the knob and swing it open.
Kurapika’s heartbeat echoed in their ears, and their breath was held deep in their chest. They clasped their hand around the small brass knob and jerked the door open. Then slapped the light switch on.
Nothing.
Just the stairs down to the basement greeted Kurapika. Along with one of Leorio’s socks abandoned after laundry day. They closed the door firmly and even tugged on the knob. It was firmly shut and latched. Kurapika chuckled to themself, amused that they had gotten so worked up. Maybe that movie did have more of an effect on them than they cared to admit.
Kurapika crossed the kitchen, reached back into the sink, and finished the last of the dishes.
Once again, the door creaked, and Kurapika rolled their eyes. Maybe tomorrow they’d have to look at the hinges or something. Another creak Kurapika ignored in favor of grabbing the last dish that needed washing. Then another louder creak. This time Kurapika felt a presence after the sound.
The hair at the back of their neck had begun to stand on end, just as Kurapika was about to turn and face the entity…
… a hand fell on their shoulder.
Kurapika let out a sharp cuss in either Kurta or Common. They couldn’t quite tell. All Kurpaika knew was that there was a knife at the bottom of the sink. Quicky, Kurapika snatched it up, and they turned quickly to strike.
It wasn’t until the odd pins, and needle feeling crawled up their arms that Kurapika’s sight faded from red to clear,and they first noticed their hand sticking out of the kitchen floor several feet away.
Leorio defensively held up a pizza box between himself and Kurapika, his Nen active and saving him from Kurapika’s sudden attack. “What the hell!?” Killua shouted as he and Gon appeared, sliding on the wooden floor in their socks. Tentatively he lightly kicked Kurapika's hand until they dropped the knife and extracted their hand from the portal. Leorio closed it and slowly moved the pizza box to the counter.
“You okay, Sunshine?” Leorio asked as Kurapika deflated and slid down to the floor.
“I, I thought you were a ghost,” Kurapika admitted. They looked up at Leorio with blush high across their features. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine, but why’d you think I was a ghost?” Leorio asked. Killua walked over and dropped the knife back into the dirty water.
“When I was doing the dishes, the basement door, it….” Kurapika paused and pointed at the door. “It’s open.” The light they’d forgotten to turn off flickered like a greeting back at Kurapika. “Did you?”
“I didn’t open it.” Leorio gulped.
“Didn’t touch it.” Killua added.
“Not me.” Gon chirped as he peaked down into the basement. “Hello?”
“Don’t talk to it!” Leorio yelped.
“Dude, it’s just some loose hinges.” Killua groaned as he walked over. He turned off the light and slammed the door shut. “There door closed.” He began to walk away when they all heard the door unlatch and slowly swing open once again.
Killua backed into Gon. Leorio made an undignified worried noise. Kurapika stood up and grabbed one of the dining chairs from the table. They closed the door and shoved the chair directly under the knob. “Would you all like to go to the haunted hayride?” Kurapika asked as they turned back around.
“Thought you didn’t want to see the gore in person?” Killua asked with his head cocked to the side.
“I can close my eyes. Besides, I would rather be scared outside of my home than in my home.” Kurapika explained as Leorio joined them.
“So long as you two promise not to attack the actors, I’m in.” Leorio offered.
“Oh! We can get hot cider there too!” Gon pointed out.
They all headed towards the front door, turning off the lights and television, before putting on shoes and grabbing their coats.
Hisoka pouted and detached Bungee Gum. “Oh well, I suppose even a few tricks can be a treat.” He watched the car filled with the four others leave the house. All of them were unaware of his presence.