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Leorio’s last conversation with Melody had left a lot unsaid - which was not usually his style but Kurapika is a surefire method to make Leorio break his own rules, damn him. Take care of him, he’d said, leaving the ‘because I can’t… and even if I could, he wouldn’t let me’ implied. You have a good heart, Melody had replied. ‘And he’ll realize that he needs you eventually,’ is what she’d meant.
Well, eventually was turning out to be a long fucking time. And Leorio had never been a patient man.
Med school is a challenge and a half - honestly, there’s times he longs for the relative simplicity of the damn Hunter Exam - so it’s not like he isn’t keeping himself busy. And he’s just as passionate as ever about keeping up his studies, qualifying as a real doctor, and taking his new services to people who really need him, who can’t afford any other option and who might die, the way Pietro did, without his help.
It’s only on his rare weekends off and semester breaks that Leorio allows himself to think of Kurapika. The other students in his cohort go out drinking and partying and generally celebrate surviving another term - and Leorio sometimes joins them. But he’s the only Hunter in the entire med school - possibly one of the only Hunters period focusing on a combination of medical science and Nen as opposed to just refining their healing Nen. It leaves him feeling uncomfortably isolated - stranded between two potentially incompatible worlds.
Kind of like being both a Blacklist Hunter and a goddamn mob boss. Leorio assumes, anyway. Because he can’t ask Kurapika about it because Kurapika, that little shit, won’t answer his fucking phone.
It hadn’t always been like this. In the immediate aftermath of Yorknew, they’d texted back and forth - Kurapika being one of those people who was too stiff and formal for an actual call to be any fun, but he loosened up a little via text. He’d even used an emoji once. Leorio had the screenshot saved for posterity.
Kurapika never went into much detail, of course. Work was either ‘fine’ or he’d ‘had a bad day and no he didn’t want to talk about it.’ But he’d been a willing recipient of Leorio’s stream of consciousness bitching about his classes, his classmates, the guy who’d scratched his car, his loud neighbors… basically anything Leorio wanted to text about. Leorio dominated 90% of the conversation, but it had always been like that between them, so the med student didn’t think much of it - at least at first.
Things started to change during a long, rambling text chain about his Nen studies. Leorio’s self-study had proved woefully inadequate - he’d found a few forum posts about Ten but that was about all that had leaked out of the secretive martial arts world. And Ten alone wouldn’t do shit - Yorknew had made that clear to him.
Found a guy offering to teach Nen for money, he’d texted.
Which is kinda shady but honestly?
We’re really hitting it off. He’s like my cool drunk uncle.
We both live in the real world, where jenny is king.
Unlike some people I know.
When Kurapika still hadn’t replied to the bait after several minutes, Leorio had continued merrily texting away. It hadn’t been uncommon for their conversations to go this way - Leorio typing until Kurapika deigned to reply to something in the rush of words.
Emitter, btw.
I know you didn’t ask but I’m gonna pretend you did for the sake of our friendship.
I have some ideas for how to apply external aura manipulation to medicine.
But that’s a long ways off.
Probably years. Or decades.
I’m no prodigy like you three.
He’d almost missed the call when it came - he’d been about to put his phone down, not expecting a real reply until the next day, or possibly not at all. But here Kurapika was calling him, which had already become a rare event.
“Hello,” Leorio had said into his phone, trying to sound suave and unbothered by this attention from his crush. It probably hadn’t worked.
“Delete those messages,” Kurapika had ordered. No time for ‘hello’ or the pretense of small talk, apparently.
“Excuse me?” His hackles had gone up automatically. He’d never liked being talked down to by his self-appointed superiors - and Kurapika hadn’t put himself in that category since their initial, mutual terrible impression on the boat after Whale Island.
“You’re not an idiot, despite how often you act like one. You know it’s a bad idea to voluntarily reveal any details of your Nen ability.”
“Maybe for you. Nobody cares about my Nen. I’m not in the fucking mob, sunshine.”
“But I am,” Kurapika had said, his voice hot and urgent.
Leorio hadn’t gotten it at first. He’d just laughed. “Are you saying people would use me to get to you? You can’t be serious…” And then the silence on the other end had stretched so long that it became unbearable and Leorio had amended, “Holy shit. You’re serious.”
“Delete the messages, Leorio. I’ve already removed them on my end.”
“These hypothetical enemies of yours aren’t very smart,” Leorio had snarled - well and truly upset now by Kurapika’s rough handling. “If they actually knew you, they’d realize I don’t mean that much to you. Not enough to call me for any reason but telling me off-”
“I don’t have time for this,” Kurapika had said - his tone the ice to Leorio’s fire - and just like that, he’d hung up.
Leorio was always quick to anger, but it burned itself out again just as rapidly. By the following day he’d texted an apology to Kurapika; then, when he received no reply, he’d called and gone straight to voicemail and left another. Kurapika had eventually texted him back for some unrelated matter, making no mention of the incident, and everything had gone back to normal.
But gradually - so gradually that Leorio himself hadn’t realized it for months - Kurapika left his texts on reads more and more often. His replies became even more cursory - a couple of words to confirm he was alive, nothing more.
And one day he’d stopped replying altogether.
Leorio had assumed the worst at first. How could he not? It sure seemed as though Kurapika’s paranoia had turned out to be justified. Rival mobsters had put a hit out on him, or the cops had broken up… whatever family he was running now… or something worse. But this turned out not to be the case; an apologetic Melody eventually responded to Leorio’s frantic texts and calls to confirm that yes, Kurapika was alive. No, his phone wasn’t broken. He was just… busy.
He’d hung up feeling ashamed, like a jilted lover making a fool of himself. The worst part was that he’d never even gotten to kiss Kurapika, let alone do any of the other filthy things that his traitorous imagination now helpfully conjured for him.
He’d gone out and gotten drunk, and gotten laid. It hadn’t helped. Sleeping around had never helped, because nobody he slept with was Kurapika. Nobody even came close.
He knew he should stop texting Kurapika. Maybe if he actually gave the other guy the space he clearly wanted, Leorio would start to get over him.
He didn’t stop texting Kurapika.
It was sort of fun at first, actually. Now that he knew he wasn’t going to get a reply, Leorio threw out all sorts of bait. Nothing mean, but some of his best teasing, if he did say so himself. All the short jokes he’d never had the balls to make, all the dad jokes he’d had the decency to hold back.
But no matter what he typed, he’d always get that read receipt in the end, and nothing else.
As the silent treatment extended for months, Leorio grew worried. He might be upset, but his damnable big heart triumphed over his hurt, as usual. His texts took on a different tone. Reminding Kurapika to take some time for himself. To at least eat and sleep and drink plenty of water - I’m gonna be a doctor soon, y’know, I know my shit (in this area specifically and nothing else, LOL, beat you to it!)
And eventually he got angry - real, ugly, long-term anger, not just the quickfire, there-and-gone bluster he was known for. I’m not just gonna wait around forever, Kurapika. Friendships give you back what you put into them - you ever hear that one? And the way you’re treating me, you’re on thin fucking ice, buddy. I have better things to do with my life than text some self-important prick who won’t give me the time of day.
(Never mind that all the empirical evidence suggested he did not, seeing as how he kept texting, even after this latest volley received no reply. Leorio had no shame left at this point, and sometimes he hated himself for it. Look at what Kurapika reduced him to - what he’d let himself become).
By the time Gon was laid up in the hospital - basically dead, beyond the reach of modern medicine and even beyond a Nen Exorcism - Leorio’s anger wasn’t even hot anymore, but it was no less venomous for it. I know you won’t call me back. You probably don’t even care, but just in case there’s some shriveled remnant of a heart left in that preemptive corpse of yours, Gon needs you, Kurapika…
One night - after the whole election farce is resolved but before Leorio is appointed to the Zodiacs - he has a few drinks. Not too much - not enough for one of the really embarrassing voicemails that he can’t even remember the next morning - just enough to take the edge off, and look at the situation with a certain degree of emotional insight that his sober self lacks.
“I know you’re saving these messages, Kurapika. I looked it up. Even the latest model phone can only hold about 40 before you start getting that ‘voice mailbox is full’ auto-response. Which I’ve never once gotten despite calling about five times more than that! Bet you thought you were real sneaky, huh? Well, I figured it out - eventually. I know you can’t get enough of me… You could’ve just asked, you emotionally repressed little gremlin. I’d’ve been happy to sing you to sleep every night - uh, pretend you didn’t hear that, I don’t know what came over me,” he chuckles, trailing off, painfully aware that the flirting has just become much too real. Too honest and vulnerable.
He falls silent for so long that he runs out of time on the message. Undeterred, Leorio just calls again and continues where he left off.
“Y’know, I’ve been thinking about it… You acted a lot different during the Hunter exam. Sure, we were all under a lot of stress, but Current Kurapika would’ve never admitted he was a Kurta, or talked about his true motivations, or fallen asleep in a dangerous place with only some arrogant idiot like me to watch out for him.
“And I think I get why, now. That guy we met… that was the last remnant of the little boy you were trying to kill and bury forever. You probably would’ve opened up to anyone who wound up on your ‘team’ - and it always would’ve been the last time. The final death of all your innocence.”
Again, the messaging system warns him that his time's up. Again, calls right back to finish his thought.
“What I’m trying to say is… I’m just… I’m just glad I’m the one of the guys who happened to randomly be there for that, Kurapika. Have a nice life.”
But despite the note of finality, Leorio’s first thought when Cheadle asks him to be a Zodiac in Ging’s place isn’t to accept. It’s to bargain - to see if he can recommend someone else, a very specific someone else, to take the spot vacated by Pariston.
Even if that someone is a stuck-up little shit who probably won’t even know why the Association is trying to reach him until it’s too late.
Leorio goes back to class - he has to, while he’s waiting for all the paperwork approving his ‘work-study’ under Cheadle to go through - and when he feels his phone vibrate in his pocket, he thinks nothing of it at first. He’s not gonna stop paying attention to a lecture just to check who’s calling.
He regrets that when the class ends and he finally checks. At first, he’s pretty sure he’s dreaming. Or perhaps he’s been placed under some sort of Nen hypnosis because there is no way that Kurapika just tried to call him for the first time in literal years, and when Leorio didn’t pick up, he’d actually left a fucking voicemail like a functional member of society.
He almost drops the phone a couple times, fumbling frantically to check the message.
“Leorio,” Kurapika says. He sounds… older. More tired. But mostly it’s the same voice which has been tormenting Leorio’s dreams. “I object to your last message. It wasn’t random. Do you believe in fate? In something that was always destined to happen? In two people who knew one another in a previous life? The Kurta do. And I… I did, once. Before the Spiders. Perhaps I’m starting to believe again.”
Leorio stands there, in the middle of the campus, stunned into a rare silence. Then he hits the closest bench at a rush, a whirling dervish, fingers flying over his phone screen.
I can’t believe you called me.
I can’t believe I was in class. Of all the rotten luck…
Hang on a minute.
It wasn’t luck at all, was it?
Did you look up my class schedule?
You did! You creepy mob stalker, Kurapika!
I guess you didn’t have the balls to say any of that sappy shit to my face.
That’s fine. I get it.
I can be the bigger man.
I always have been.
Pretty sure you only reached out ‘cause you’re accepting the Zodiac thing.
So I guess I’ll be seeing you again.
Did they mention I’m a Zodiac?
I bet they did.
I bet that’s the only reason you accepted.
C’mon, you can admit it.
I know you missed me.
Kurapika, inevitably, doesn’t reply to any of this. But Leorio still walks confidently to his next class, a smile on his face.