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Kurapika watched as a single droplet of water cut through the fogged-up mirror, creating a narrow path of clarity which reflected the paleness of his own flesh in stark visibility. He knew he was not supposed to be doing this– he hadn’t the time. And yet, he reached out an arm and traced a wider route, wiping away the condensation so that he could better see.
Kurapika adhered to a strict set of rules throughout his daily life which were necessary for both his own mentality and those around him. If a single one were to be broken, it could result in any situation ranging from mildly uncomfortable to fully devastating, and so the essential problem lay within that broad range of unpredictability.
He was well aware of why his own rules existed, was well aware of what could happen, especially during such a tumultuous experience as the hunter exam.
Which was why he himself was surprised at his own lapse of judgment as he stared at his own body in the mirror of the cramped hotel room in the middle of the hunter exam, knowingly breaking the third rule on his own list.
But he was feeling nostalgic, a rare emotion, and even rarer, had the urge to act upon it. After finding that relic of the Kurta, memories had surfaced in the back of his mind, faint yet urgent. Longing rushed up into his chest and throat and so he stared at his body in the mirror and ached.
Before leaving his clan, he had never felt like this. He didn’t even look that different, one could argue, objectively, from Kurapika at age five, or even ten. But his own eyes were scrutinizing and could detect even the subtlest softness, a curve where there should be a line or a roundness where there should be corded muscle.
He’d been wrapped in clothing thus far, the entirety of the hunter exam. It had been easy to forget what was underneath, to focus on the tasks at hand, to focus on the people around him. Nobody here cared what he looked like. Nobody except…
There was a loud thud from outside the bathroom, a hinge’s squeak as if the door of the hotel room had been thrown open. Which made little sense, as Hanzo was quiet and respectful in his entering and exiting (mostly exiting, he had seemed less than happy to be sharing a room). Kurapika began toweling himself off hastily, heart pounding with the adrenaline of being abruptly wrenched out of his melancholic state.
“Kurapika?” A voice called– Leorio’s voice, he realized, and suddenly the noise made sense.
He sighed, pulling his pants on. His heart was beginning to slow at the sound of the familiar voice. “Yes.”
It took him less time than usual to pull his binder on, even with the dampness of his skin, left over from the shower and the humid air, but by the time he was out, Leorio was sprawled out on Hanzo’s bed, ridiculously long legs hanging off the end.
“You could at least knock first.”
Leorio propped himself up on his elbows, grinning. “I don’t have to. I’m your new roommate. Hanzo decided to trade rooms with me.”
“Still, roommates should show common courtesy,” Kurapika knew he was being a bit rude– he would much rather be sharing a room with Leorio than Hanzo– but it was only fair, really. Leorio wasn’t exactly the most gentlemanly. Frankly, his manners were absurd.
The man’s eyes were on him as he started out the door. “Where ya going?”
He gripped the door handle. He was still unused to getting this much… attention. If it had been anyone else, Kurapika would’ve questioned the nature of Leorio’s interest by now. But it was Leorio. “Nowhere, as far as you know.”
The weight of the metal in his pocket pulled him down and out of the hotel.
🀢
Leorio showered later, after they’d walked back together from the burning memorial, after the steam in the bathroom had dried up entirely.
Kurapika wondered if his handprint from earlier would reappear with fresh condensation. He wondered if Leorio would make his own path, to stare at himself not in shame but in distant contentment. He’d probably never looked at his body the way Kurapika had. He probably had no rules to prevent any sort of disaster the way Kurapika did.
Leorio had a weight between his legs and a lightness in his chest and the need to duck when he entered doorways.
Leorio had the audacity to look at Kurapika differently than anyone else and it made no sense.
He’d watched Kurapika burn memories not twenty minutes ago with lended matches, fire reflected in his eyes, the corners of which were soft and sympathetic. The depths of Leorio’s kindness were constantly being rewritten in Kurapika’s head. He’d lend a listening ear, easy, offer a hand or advice, and then go off and do whatever it was he did during the third part of the hunter exam, costing his own dignity and almost Kurapika’s respect. Almost.
Kurapika drew his knees up to his chest and sighed. He was distracted today, too distracted to read to distract himself. The irony was not lost. Instead, he stared at the rough pattern of the blanket. The stitching was loose and scratchy. Really, this hotel was not worth much treasure at all.
The shower shut off. Kurapika thought he might’ve heard the man whistling, slightly warbling and crashing through several keys as if musical theory did not apply.
And then Leorio stepped out of the bathroom naked, and Kurapika’s brain short-circuited.
His spiky hair drooped, water dripping from the ends onto his torso and making its way down, down, like the droplets on the mirror, gravitating towards the sharp lines of his abs, his ribs, his navel and the dark line of hair that started there…
Kurapika shrieked like a girl and buried his burning face in his knees. “Leorio!”
The man barked out a laugh. “What!”
“Put some pants on at least,” He hissed, still hiding. “Have some decency!”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” He replied, but there was a soft swish of fabric that indicated he at least respected Kurapika’s boundaries. In a way. “I’m decent.”
Kurapika looked up warily and was relieved to see that he was at least wearing loose boxers– the important bits were covered– and his typical white button-up, hanging open and rolled up to his elbows.
Leorio grunted as he flopped onto his own bed, looking perturbed. “Really. What’s the big deal if I walk around naked? We’re all men here.”
Kurapika didn’t reply to that. He was preoccupied with the simmering in his gut, a mixture of annoyance, envy, and something else he couldn’t pinpoint. Quietly, he slipped under his covers, rolling over to face the wall, away from Leorio, who was still spread obscenely across his bedsheets. It was too hot to be buried under blankets, but Kurapika couldn’t find it in himself to care about that.
“You make yourself more suspicious by getting the wrong idea,” Leorio grumbled, half to himself.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Kurapika’s voice was sharp enough to cut through the muggy air.
“You– never mind. I didn’t mean, like, it’s not a bad thing–” He stammered, as if he hadn’t expected any sort of reply. Normally, Kurapika would’ve ignored the stupid sentiment, but he was already worked up, on high alert and more emotional than usual.
“Whatever. Just go to sleep,” He snapped. He could feel his binder tight around his lungs the harder he breathed. He needed to calm down. He’d gotten used to sleeping with it by now– it was loose, anyway, not as restricting as when he’d first gotten it– but it still wasn’t the most comfortable thing in the world.
A click, and the light went out, encasing the small room in mellow darkness.
There was a pause, in which Kurapika was almost convinced Leorio had actually and thoroughly followed his orders. But then; “Y’know, you probably shouldn’t sleep with that thing on.”
It took him a few moments to register what he’d said, and by then, he was almost sure he’d imagined it. “What?”
“Your binder,” Leorio added, sounding obscenely casual. “I mean, you can if you want to, but as your doctor, I’m advising against it.”
“You’re–” Kurapika’s throat felt dry with shock. He swallowed. “You’re not my doctor.”
“Uh, yeah, I am. Who else is there?”
He couldn’t think of a response– all he had were questions. The silence was almost unbearable, but he was hesitant to fill it.
Kurapika let it sit until he couldn’t take it anymore, the sound of the waves crashing distantly against the hull of the ship and Leorio’s faint breathing not enough to fill the perilous void. “How did you know?”
“Hm?” He sounded sleepy, as if he’d been dripping off.
“How do you know what a binder is?”
It was so out of the realm of what Kurapika expected, even from Leorio. Usually, people were either prejudiced or entirely ignorant. He’d assumed Leorio would fall on the latter side of the scale, considering his kindness yet also his… man-ness. He was aggressively heterosexual. No way would he be involved in any sort of circles where the topic of gender identity would be mentioned or acknowledged. And yet.
Leorio had the audacity to laugh. “Sunshine. You’re supposed to be the smart one.”
Kurapika sat up, suddenly angry, to face him. He was still on top of his covers, hands behind his head as he smiled up at the ceiling.
“Explain yourself, Leorio, or you will need to bandage your face again.”
The man yawned, entirely too calm in the face of Kurapika’s threats. “Did you not see me earlier?”
He didn’t grace that vagueness with a reply.
“Y’know, when I was naked ? Or were you too busy screeching about proper manners?” He dropped his head to look at Kurapika, wiggling his eyebrows. He seemed absolutely delighted to have the upper hand for once. Kurapika, for his part, was aggravated and confused.
He grumbled. “I saw enough. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. Just explain. You’re being uncharacteristically sly.”
“Clearly you didn’t see enough!” And with that, Leorio yanked his boxers down to his knees.
Kurapika responded by slapping his hands over his eyes, of course, what else did the man expect. “My god, Leorio, what is wrong with you? Put your– your penis away and just answer my question!”
Leorio was laughing again. “My what !”
“Don’t make me say it again!”
He coughed. “Okay, okay, fine I won’t do it like that. Pika, my pants are back up, you can stop hiding. But I’m sticking with what I said earlier. We’re both men, you shouldn’t be so bothered.”
He was indeed clothed, and sitting up, legs crossed and arms folded as he watched Kurapika emerge from his arm cage. He had never been so bewildered, frustrated, and warm all over. His face was on fire.
“Just tell me what is going on. And stop laughing, or I’ll punch you.”
Leorio stopped laughing. “Sorry, sunshine, I’m just enjoying this too much. But, obviously I know what a binder is. If ya weren’t such a prude you’d–”
He glared, and Leorio cleared his throat.
“-- I mean, sorry. But, I don’t have a penis , like you said. Which is why I know that you shouldn’t be sleeping with a binder, cause I used to do that and now my ribs are a little fucked.”
Kurapika blinked. His eyes flicked down to Leorio’s broad chest, where his shirt lay proudly open, where there was only flat skin over taut muscle. When he looked back up, Leorio met his gaze. “I got ‘em chopped off five years ago. Questionable surgeon, I had to go to Meteor City, but he did good work. Can barely see the scars, huh?”
Kurapika nodded, slowly. He hadn’t known…
“Here, c’mere,” Leorio scooted towards the edge of his bed, letting his legs uncross so that they were spread. His mannerisms, even the subtle ones, were so effortlessly masculine… it didn’t seem possible. And yet. “You can feel.”
Kurapika cautiously stood and shuffled over to stand in front of Leorio, who held out a hand, palm facing up. Kurapika, after a second of deliberation, placed the back of his own in Leorio’s palm. It was warm and dry, tanner than his. The difference in size was noticeable.
The man guided Kurapika’s hand to his chest, just underneath, and sure enough, he felt a barely-there line of healed scar tissue along the underside of his pecs. He’d bet if he’d looked hard enough he could see it, too.
Everything about Leorio, his hands, his chest, his eyes– was warm.
“I feel a bit idiotic,” Kurapika admitted.
Leorio shrugged, letting go of his hand. He let it fall to his side, awkwardly. “S’okay, I’ll take it as a compliment.”
“Still, I didn’t know you could even… have a surgical procedure like that done. And, besides, you seem so…”
“Manly?” Leorio grinned and flexed his triceps ridiculously. “But, yeah, you can have surgeries for gender reassignment.”
Kurapika frowned. Gender reassignment. Leorio studied his face. He could feel his eyes on him.
“Say, sunshine… how much do you know? About men like us?”
Men like us , he thought. He felt a bit giddy. “Not very much, I suppose. It’s different in your culture than in mine. I realized that when I left the Kurta for the first time. That’s all I know.”
“How is it, for the Kurta?”
“Well…” He hesitated. He hadn’t ever put these thoughts together in comprehensible sentences. It hadn’t been necessary. Nobody had ever asked, or needed to know. Men like us . “It’s more fluid. We have words for genders that don’t exist in your language. Sex is strict here, and definitive. I didn’t call myself a man until your people assumed I wasn’t one.”
“So there wouldn’t be a Kurta who, ah, looked like me?”
Kurapika shook his head slightly. “No. You’re… you look like a man who was born a man.”
Leorio smiled. “I didn’t always. I have to do hormone treatments and stuff to look like this. That’s why I’m so ripped.”
He snorted. “Sure.”
“Are you denying my ripped-ness, Pika?”
“That’s not a word.”
“Sure it is, I just said it!”
It occurred to him then that he was leaning forward, and Leorio was leaning forward, and he was standing between the man’s legs, and there was less than a foot of space in between their noses. Leorio didn’t have his glasses on– they were on the bedside– and his eyelashes were thick and dark, making the brown of his irises stand out more against tan skin.
“That’s not how it works,” Kurapika said.
Leorio didn’t reply– just watched him, closely. Neither of them moved.
“Turn around,” Kurapika breathed. Leorio frowned in confusion.
“What?”
“I’m taking my– binder off. Turn around. I’m not an exhibitionist like you.”
“Shame,” Leorio grumbled, and Kurapika smacked him upside the back of his head. “Ouch!”
He hurriedly pulled off his shirt after making sure Leorio was fully turned, and then tugged his binder over his head, folding it up and putting it on his pile of discarded clothes before putting his undershirt back on. It was relieving, to breathe without constriction, although he hated to admit that Leorio was right.
“I’m decent,” An echo of Leorio’s earlier words, and the man himself returned to leaning against the headboard of his bed.
It was strange to not be wearing anything under his shirt. He supposed that’s what Leorio felt like all the time. He tried to imagine what it would be like to have a smooth, flat chest, to wear soft fabric that lay easily over it, undisturbed.
He sat down with a huff, unthinkingly, on Leorio’s bed. “So…”
He paused, collecting his thoughts. Leorio hummed, surprisingly accommodating as he waited. He stretched out his ridiculously long legs so that they almost brushed against Kurapika’s thigh, which he’d pulled up underneath himself.
And he met Kurapika’s eyes, easy, gazing at his face and not his chest as if he hadn’t even considered the latter a possibility.
“So, are there other procedures? Have you, for example, had any other procedures?”
He wasn’t used to having a lack of knowledge so wide in any area. But this was a matter that pertained to him, and thinking about it usually made him feel more isolated, more frustrated, and selfish, so he had avoided the subject in the past. Now, however, it pertained to Leorio , and Kurapika’s curiosity was a swelling current in his head as he studied this specimen before him.
“Yeah, there’s others. Some people get phalloplasty, too,” Leorio apparently noticed Kurapika’s gaze flick downwards at that implication, and he grinned. “Obviously I haven’t had any others. It costs a shit ton of money , of course, and I prefer what I got anyways. Feels better, if y’know what I mean.”
As if Kurapika didn’t know what he meant (he did, he wasn’t an idiot), Leorio winked rakishly.
He ignored that. “I see.”
For all Leorio’s ridiculous posturing, he was incredibly respectful. Kurapika wondered if that came naturally, or was a product of the things he must’ve gone through with his own identity.
He found himself comparing the man to those interested in the past, despite himself. There hadn’t been many– well, there hadn’t been many he’d dared to entertain. Two men, both of whom he’d realized about halfway through the encounter didn’t respect him in the slightest, perhaps saw him as something new or exotic to obtain. He’d felt disgusted with them and himself, and lashed out physically before running away, on both occasions. There was a woman, too, who evidently only saw him as a fellow woman, and the similarities between their anatomies, rather than feeling comfortable, were enough to make him gag.
But his similarities with Leorio were… something different. It was like looking in a mirror and seeing the best possible version of himself. If he were to experience something with Leorio, hypothetically, of course, he wouldn’t have to explain himself, because the man would already know, would already understand.
Kurapika blinked. He was getting ahead of himself. He wasn’t ignorant enough not to have picked up on Leorio’s flirting, but it was very possible that flirting was all it was. His personality was just… like that. Besides, he was so… loud .
“Sunshine?”
“Yes, Leorio?”
“‘M fallin’ asleep, here.”
“Oh.”
He started to stand, to cross the room, but a hand caught his wrist, held him back. “Do you want to stay? I mean, like in bed. With me. Just for tonight, of course, not, like forever , that would be–”
Even in the darkness of the room, he could see the flush of Leorio’s cheeks. “Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Okay.”
He sat down besides Leorio, who scooted over hastily to make room, letting go of his wrist.
They lay side by side without touching. The room was still warm, a bit humid from Leorio’s shower, salt air from the sea drifting in through an open window. He could feel the man’s body heat– he was like a human furnace– on his left, but he didn’t turn his head, just stared at the ceiling and listened to crashing waves, creaking metal and Leorio’s steady breathing.
He liked the idea of turning an old ship into a place to live. Repurposing. A big hunk of scrap metal, once empty, filled with travelers and prospective hunters. He wondered if he and Leorio were the only ones alike that had ever been in this room. He wondered if there were others, before, and if they were lucky enough to meet someone who could understand.
Never, since he’d left the Kurta, had Kurapika felt lucky to be the way he was.
Kurapika wondered that, if he spent enough time with Leorio, he’d be able to look at himself in the mirror and feel nothing but distant contentment.
It was a selfish thought.
He turned his head to look at Leorio and found him looking back, eyes barely visible in the dim light but gleaming nonetheless. As their gazes met, he didn’t look ashamed at being caught.
“For what it’s worth,” Leorio said, quiet as he could possibly be, which was really not all that quiet. “I think you’re really handsome.”
Kurapika swallowed. “Not as much as you.”
He shook his head, and then slapped his hand over the bottom half of his face. When he spoke, it was muffled, through his fingers. “You think I’m handsome?”
“I’m being objective here, Leorio,” He rolled his eyes. Obviously. “You’re ridiculous.”
He reached out instinctively to grab the man’s hand, pulling it off of his face. Once again, he was almost shocked at the difference in size. Even holding his hand with both of his own, Leorio’s hand was lanky, fingers calloused and crooked. Kurapika traced the tendons with the tip of his index finger, following ridges and grooves and finding tiny scars from unknown battles.
“Is this from the hormones?”
“Is what?”
“Your… considerable size.”
Leorio's smirk was huge and promising of worse things to come. “You think I’m considerably sized ?”
“Be quiet,” He tightened his grip. “You don’t even have… that… so stop implying elsewise.”
He frowned playfully. “But it’s even funnier now that you know.”
Kurapika sighed. “Frankly, I cannot believe your way of telling me was by walking around our shared room nude .”
“How else was I supposed to do it!”
They were whisper-shouting like children at a sleepover, Kurapika clutching Leorio’s hand to himself like a lifeline, nose-to-nose with sheer intensity. He felt giddy. He never felt giddy. Maybe the air of this ship was laced. Maybe that was the next phase of the hunter exam.
“You could’ve just used your words!”
“Words are so unsexy!”
“Oh, you wanted it to be– to be sexy ? Why on Earth–”
He wasn’t sure who initiated the kiss. All he knew was one minute, he was noticing the crinkled corners of Leorio’s eyes and the surprising fullness of his bottom lip, and then the man’s mouth was on his own and everything else was dark and murky. His free hand wound around the back of Kurapika’s head, threading through his hair, pulling softly so that he leaned up into the slow embrace.
Their legs tangled together easily– the man slid one of his own in between Kurapika’s, pulling him to halfway on top of himself. Kurapika felt every point of contact as if he was being burned there slowly and pleasantly by something like melting candle wax, or by human furnace. The heat shot into the pit of his stomach where it simmered, waiting.
Leorio kissed with intent, and if his intent was to single handedly dismantle all of Kurapika’s thought processes and turn him into a puddle of shaky human mud, it was working. He couldn’t bring himself to do anything but touch– Leorio’s face, his collarbones, shoulder blades, the dip of his stomach– and attach himself to his mouth as if it was his source of life. He’d always regarded kissing as a means to an end, something a bit awkward and unpleasant. Now, he was beginning to realize what the fuss was all about.
As Leorio pressed his mouth to the spot just beneath his ear and jaw, Kurapika let himself feel, just for that moment, peace in his own being.
And peace in Leorio’s understanding. He sighed into the darkness.
In the fogginess of his own mind, a broad hand swiped through condensation, creating a pathway of clarity.