Chapter Text
Kurapika notices the bucket first. A shiny thing, chipped in some places and definitely not belonging to him, dangling on a crude pulley system looped over the iron balcony rails.
“Killua,” he calls, eyes not moving from the offending contraption.
There’s the sound of the fridge door slamming shut, and a muttered curse he doesn’t catch. “Yeah? What- oh.” A head of white hair protrudes from the sliding door, pale cheek half-pressed against the glass. “Yeah, that’s ours.”
“It’s certainly not mine.”
“No, ours like- mine and Gon’s.”
Kurapika tugs the rope, discovering it’s actually just two jump rope cords cut and tied together. “Who?”
The coffeemaker hums, loud. Screams. Killua darts back into the kitchen. “Want me to pour?” He manages to both address and ignore Kurapika at once, who is testing the security of this bucket-pulley system. It effectively connects their tiny apartment balcony to the one right under it on the sixth floor. A transportation system. Below them, the city begins to wake and buzz, everything pale and blue and tired.
“No, I can. Go get dressed for school,” Kurapika steps back inside, closing his eyes. The sunless, cold March morning sky eats at something in him.
Their kitchen is all peeled white linoleum and cheap surfacing. There is no living room. They live alone. A cathode monitor with a cable box stuffed under it sits on the counter, two stools encircling it. You lied, Killua had observed one day, months ago, as they watched a morning rerun of Smallville. We don’t have a TV. This is just a computer screen.
Kurapika swallows, doesn’t remember his own reply. No, they don’t have a real television. God forbid. He pours coffee and sips. When Killua reemerges with his slacks and tie and blazer in place, he cuts into an apple.
“I don’t want the skin,” Killua makes known, as if Kurapika has not memorized this fact.
“Fix your tie.” He pulls at the crooked knot.
“Gon. That’s his name. That bucket’s his,” the boy finally decides to clarify.
Kurapika watches him lick a bit of juice from his own chin as he bites the apple slices.
“I see.”
“The pediatrician’s kid, y’know, downstairs.” Killua says this like the adult he pretends to be.
“The Paladiknights?” Kurapika couldn’t remember their first names. A father and his son about Killua’s age as far as he knew, occupying the apartment directly below theirs. Killua had mortifyingly introduced Kurapika as his mother when they’d moved in. “I didn’t know you two were friends.”
“We talked on the elevator, the other day. I was standing in front of him and he put a sticker on my backpack.”
“That’s nice,” Kurapika half-listens.
“And then I asked if he knew how to get into the boiler room.” Killua’s latest interest has been trying to map every room in the building he’s not allowed into.
“Mmhm. And did he?”
He shrugs. “No. But listen. His dad is the guy underneath us who gets on your nerves for smoking.”
The scent of smoke sometimes floats into their kitchen when they leave the door open in the mornings. It’s thick today. A weekday. After he sends Killua out the door, Kurapika pokes his head out the back. Leans over the balcony grates. If the man was there before, he’s gone now. The bucket swings in the vertical space between them.
Kurapika’s world is quiet.
The to-do list tacked to the fridge is half Kurapika’s cursive, half Killua’s print. Get milk. Pretzels. Find a new handle for the drawer that broke. Kurapika adds, at the bottom: “confront the culprit.”
On Thursday, the pediatrician’s kid downstairs left them a can of soup in the bucket.
Kurapika hauls it up to look at it; it’s Campbell’s, not the off-brand stuff they usually buy. He whips around to examine Killua, where he’s still sitting in the kitchen; bony but not emaciated. Certainly he’s not starving him. So.
“Why,” he calls, “did Gon leave you soup.”
Killua crosses the stripped hardwood floor to the balcony, mildly offended that Kurapika had taken it upon himself to inspect the contents of his sacred bucket. He snatches the can. “Not yours,” is his only reply for a moment, then: “I told him I liked it, when I had some at his place. His dad made it for us.”
“You went to his apartment?” Kurapika steps back, surprised.
“Uh huh.” Killua sits the can on the counter. “It’s nicer than ours. They have a real TV.”
“Ours is perfectly good,” he scolds gently. “And besides, we bought that-“
“CD player, I know. The nice one.”
Kurapika prefers music to the drone of television. Yes, their real treasure is the CD player next to the stove. The paycheck eater. Every other Friday they used walk to the department store and Killua would pick a CD, until they couldn’t fit anymore in the spice cabinet. They both stare at it for a moment, then Kurapika’s gaze falls down to the soup can.
“Did you meet his dad?”
“Only for a second,” answers Killua, who is obviously calculating what he thinks Kurapika wants to hear. “He was funny, weird.”
Interest flares in Kurapika; he has to catch the smoker now. His son is establishing relations with the enemy. He sets his alarm 15 minutes earlier than usual for the next day.
It works- not even 6 a.m., still in his plaid night shorts, Kurapika leans over the edge of the balcony yet again. The metal freezes his toes, bitter morning haze and- there it is. The culprit is just below, bucket swinging over his head, tiny dark frames over his eyes. The pediatrician. Kurapika swells with pride like a hunter dropping a bullet in the eye of its prey. “You,” he accuses.
No response.
“You’re a doctor.” Kurapika says this as if observing it for the first time, just loud enough to get his attention. He can only see the top of his head from here.
He looks up at him, cigarette in hand. “Have we met?”
“I didn’t think doctors smoked. That’s all.”
“Some do.”
“I see that.” Kurapika frowns. He realizes he has no plan of attack.
“You didn’t answer my question,” the man returns his gaze to the street. The sun is beginning to break, like a hot blister on the sky’s complexion.
“I’m- we’ve met. I’m Kurapika. Forgive me, but I don’t recall your name.”
“It’s okay. Leorio.”
“Leorio,” he echoes. Mildly aware of how different the timbre of their voices is.
Kurapika stands above him in the smoke for a few minutes. Coughs meaningfully. Eventually he finds the same sky. His brazenness dies in his chest as he inhales.
When he finally leans to look back down at Leorio over the edge of the rail, he finds him staring back. Right up through the grates.
“Hi.” This escapes Kurapika’s mouth without his consent.
Finally, Leorio smiles. All the way to his scruffed cheeks. “Hi.”
Kurapika folds his arms on the balcony’s edge and buries his head in them. “Your son, Gon. He gifted us your soup can yesterday.”
Leorio stares, the connection visibly making itself in his head. “Killua, that’s your kid?” He laughs, like this information is incredulous.
“Kind of.” By law, the answer is yes. In true nature it is more complicated. Killua was a runaway. And though Kurapika has adopted him, he is of course not a father. Moreso his roof. His floor, his four walls, the clothing around his body, the shoes under his feet. All this because Killua is the little pinprick pain in his heart in exchange. His weak spot.
He says none of that.
The man seems to ignore this. The cigarette gets dropped into a turtle shell ashtray. “He was here two days ago. He’s smart.”
“I know.”
Leorio’s eyes find the bucket swinging between them. He reaches up and flicks it, chuckles- Kurapika is dismayed at how solid the sound of his laugh is. It reminds him of the creak of a mahogany desk. “I love their, uh, installation. I hope you don’t mind it.”
“I don’t. But please keep your soup.”
Again, his laugh. Kurapika sits up.
“No food gifts, huh? Then how about you two come down for real food sometime?” He pauses. “Gon was planning on having him over after school, anyway. Not sure if that plan made its way to you.”
It hadn’t. Due to the parental un-parent nature of Kurapika’s bond to him, Killua sometimes acts without asking permission. Kurapika lets him. His own family had been killed when he was his age. Had been in a foster system for four years. And so part of him understood.
“C’mon,” Leorio insists, brusque. It irritates Kurapika.
“Stop smoking.”
“I’ve been-! Look, I was trying, before. To quit.” An ambulance roars beneath them. A woman a few windows to their left is watering marigolds, listening, maybe. Killua might be awake now, he realizes.
“So try again,” he smiles despite the growing annoyance. Something is working. When Leorio says nothing, Kurapika disappears back inside, feeling somewhat victorious.
The soup is still on their counter. A reminder that his territory has been infiltrated. The CD player’s dock is clear plastic, and Kurapika watches the disc on the inside spin, no sound coming out. It slows to a stop.
Kurapika doesn’t quite catch him again the rest of the week, and at some point while sitting in the office he realizes he inadvertently shot down an invitation. Whatever. Kurapika really, truly, seldom talks to other tenants or other people on the planet earth for that matter. He works as an archivist in the inner-city library- preserves tapes, newspapers, literature, sometimes translations or speeches. But mostly they feed him tapes. Like a machine.
He doesn’t hate it, necessarily, in fact sometimes it feels important to him. It’s preservation of the past. Turning it all into neat accessible files on shelves that you can stare at and rationalize. On his desk is a cracked photo of Killua from the year they met. He touches the glass reverently, admires the sunlight stained fade of it. It means time has passed.
Four years ago. He was twenty-four. Killua was only eight. Both of them had been alone, aimless.
He remembers the coastal breeze of the shipping company’s warehouse he worked at back then. He remembers Killua’s white, tiny teeth. Missing one in the front. He was a runaway, from somewhere he could only see outlines of. Someplace scary.
Why are you always following me, he’d asked that tiny boy, then instantly became afraid he would leave. For the first time since Kurapika had become the lone survivor of his family, since he had been hollowed out and left stomachless as a child- he’d felt drawn to someone.
Killua seemed intelligent, and Kurapika wanted him to be in school instead of roaming the docks, bored all day. It became his priority. Like life had some kind of purpose again. After almost two years of sleeping under the same roof with him, roots of trust grew between them, and he used what was left of his inheritance and moved to the city, taking Killua with him, absorbing him permanently. Enrolled him in the private school four blocks away.
They have lived in the complex ever since. With no living room and one cathode-ray tube monitor and one kitchen and one empty fish tank from a failed attempt at having a pet, and hardly any furniture, because tuition swallows up the cash. And Killua is mostly happy. His adult teeth have all come in, and Kurapika has had the pleasure of collecting each one to fall out. Of raising what’s left to raise of him.
Each other’s only friends.
He bends a paperclip under his thumb.
It’s only partially an accident when Leorio sees him again. On Tuesday he catches the familiar outline leaving the hardware store in front of his bus stop home from work and impulsively decides to linger. Hoping to frame it as coincidence. He’s carrying AV cables.
“You,” he initiates with the same word as he had before. Without really meaning to.
“You!” Leorio is smiling. Kurapika looks down and examines himself as he approaches, his cardigan, his embroidered jeans. They let them dress casually at the library, and now he’s acutely aware that he looks like a second-grade teacher.
“What’s that for,” he feigns interest in the packaged cables in a wild attempt at conversation.
The taller scratches his face, brushing over fuzz and acne scars. “I snapped the audio wire trying to jam it in the wrong port, y’know, on the TV. Been watching basketball in total silence.”
“Ahh, your famous real television.”
“Sorry?”
“We,” Kurapika blinks. “Don’t have a- it’s a computer monitor. Our TV.”
Leorio nods like this is heartbreaking. Starts to walk towards the apartment, staring at Kurapika all the while; an invitation to walk with him. When they’re beside each other on equal footing like this, the difference in their height is practically humiliating. He hopes Killua never outgrows him like this.
“Thanks for having Gon over yesterday. He thinks Killua’s, like, the coolest.” Leorio’s eyes crinkle at this, like he secretly shares the opinion.
“Mhmm.”
They cross the street, weave between cars. Kurapika remarks on the seeming permanence of the clouds in the sky these days. The heaviness of them, looming but refusing to fall with rain. They exchange where they work, their unmarried statuses. Where they went to school. Kurapika went almost purely on scholarships for information science. Leorio went to grad school to be a children’s surgeon, but works in the general ward as of now.
Kurapika realizes, all at once, how scarcely he holds conversations with people like this. The building is less than a block away, and they walk, Kurapika mostly looking back and forth between Leorio’s side profile and his white shoelaces.
“I actually have another errand to run,” Leorio shakes his head when they approach the complex’s awning entrance. Looks left and looks right. “I’ll see you around, Kurapika.”
He says goodbye. Feels cut open; all attempts at distance drain out of him when he hears his name in that gruff, strangely honest voice. When he retreats into the building, he hopes that Killua is home already.
“You waited for me?”
Gon nods, eyes too massive for his head, for some reason.
Killua kicks at the lobby bench with his dogged Nike Dunks. Gon looks down and blocks it with his shin. The apartment complex’s first floor hasn’t been renovated in fifteen years at least, mostly maroon and comprises of a reception desk, some threadbare seating and a few plants. And the shorter boy had sat there patiently with his hands folded in his lap, waiting for him. Killua wants to laugh.
“I wish my school had uniforms,” Gon laments, following the other sixth grader to the elevator and punching in the button.
Killua pulls himself free from the plum-colored tie around his neck. “No, you don’t. I hate it.”
“You and your mom are invited to dinner. Dad keeps asking me to tell you that.”
Gon is effortlessly funny in this way that makes Killua trip with giggles as the doors scrape open and they step inside. “He’s a dude , I told you! Kurapika is not my fucking mom. I was joking.”
Killua enjoys the slight shock that ripples on Gon’s face each time he swears loudly.
“Um, he looks like a girl,” the boy qualifies. “And my dad and I bought a stir fry, so you should come try it. And Killua, the lego truck kit, the one that actually drives- it was on clearance yesterday, and for my report card treat I asked for it so we can put it together later if you-“
“I’ll ask,” Killua interrupts, grinning. “But I don’t think he’ll want to come. He’s an- an introvert.”
“Hm?”
“It means a hermit.”
“Oh.” The elevator dings. Gon steps off, waves bye. Bounds down the hall and turns and says bye several more times in the process.
Killua peels off his blazer in between the sixth and seventh floor, tying it around his waist and letting himself in his apartment- Kurapika is usually still working when he gets home. There are few other latchkey kids around the complex, and it makes him feel older somehow. He flits though the spice cabinet, clicks Sam’s Town into the CD player. Inhales the box of Kraft that Kurapika left him cold on the stovetop earlier.
After a long internal battle of mental discipline, he opens- but doesn’t touch- his homework, which is how Kurapika finds him when he returns. Surrounded by a moat of quadratic graphs.
“You’re invited to dinner with Gon and the guy,” he informs the older without looking up.
Kurapika doesn’t respond for a moment, and Killua hears him sigh timidly. Then he knows, instantly; he’s working himself up to it.
He’d finally properly been introduced to Gon yesterday. Killua brought him around as a way of coaxing Kurapika out of the stubbornness, because he knew he would love Gon. And he did- beamed at the kid’s earnest compliments and manners with that subtle look at Killua- see, you ought to behave this politely- it only amuses him.
But it didn’t work enough, apparently.
“Not tonight.”
“Please?” Killua begs, unsure why he wants him to come so badly.
“No. Do your homework.” And he does. Kurapika looks over his shoulder and frowns at his uneven parabolas.
When he’s finished, he tears a page out of his notebook and molds a fortune teller. Under each flap he inscribes increasingly horrible ways to die, putting much thought onto each until his masterpiece is complete and his pen is throughly chewed. Kurapika receives a fortune that his body will need to be scraped out from the grooves of tires on a semi truck, which he scoffs at but Killua can feel the fondness in it. At times he feels unlikable. Kurapika’s fingers smoothing his hair tell him he isn’t.
Pleased with the final product, he lowers the fortune teller into the bucket outside and kicks it hard to make a sound. Announce the delivery.
A much taller head than he was expecting emerges from the door below.
“Old man,” Killua crows.
Leorio looks up. “Little boy.”
“Boss said not tonight.”
The man’s expression softens. “That’s ok, kiddo.” He retrieves the paper in the bucket and hands it to Gon, who had perched himself in their doorframe. The beam he gives Killua melts the grates between them.
When Killua slips back inside, the music has been paused. Kurapika has his head in his hands and a manila folder in his lap. “I still have to date these translations,” he speaks into his own palms.
Then he says: “There aren’t enough.”
“What?”
“Hours in the day.” The blond looks up. “Tell Leorio 5 p.m. tomorrow.”
Killua drops another piece of paper into the bucket.