Chapter Text
“So, what do you think happens when someone dies?”
Leorio had asked Kurapika this once upon a time. Early on in the strange events that lead to them simultaneously deciding, but never entirely saying, “I’m yours, and you’re mine,” they simply were together.
Kurapika, at that time, had shrugged their shoulders and rolled onto their back. “I do not fear death,” they linger on the words. Sensitive to Leorio’s fragile heart and state of mind. He’s still a young doctor with far too much hope.
Leorio sometimes thinks that death can still be merciful, and when the life eventually fades from his first few patients, all of them, beyond saving by the time he’d met them. The loss weighs heavy on Leorio’s shoulders.
Kurapika had long since accepted the reaper’s cruelty.
“That’s not what I’m asking,” Leorio sighed as he curled over onto his side, russet brown eyes examining Kurapika. His love language is touch, and Kurapika can feel every ounce of Leorio’s affection in the way his fingertips trace away a few stray wheat blond hairs from the high arch of their cheekbones. Soft, gentle touch and Kurapika felt nearly strangled by the innocuous gesture. They still subconsciously lean into the feeling, and more of Leorio's hand cups their face. Touch starved, fearful of the vulnerability, but Kurapika doesn’t move away this time.
“To be honest,” Kurapika returns Leorio’s heated gaze, with their own kaleidoscopic eyes of grey, red, and gold, sectoral heterochromia, Leorio had called it, “I have hardly ever cared to think about what happens after. I have only truly thought about the act of dying.”
Now, years later,
The memory of that moment was both welcomed but poorly timed.
Kurapika staggered on their right leg. At least one bullet had buried itself deep into the meat of their thigh. They leaned against a nearby wall and checked their guns clip.
“Fired ten, five in the clip,” Kurapika cited as the cartridge clipped back into place. They stashed the weapon into the concealed pocket of their suit jacket. Exhaustion begins to take a stranglehold on their senses. Dulling the world around the young mafioso.
Kurapika harshly throws themself against the rough, unforgiving concrete. They need to stay focused. “Come on,” Kurapika hissed through their teeth, “kick in, kick in .” Kurapika’s fists shook at either side of their injured leg, and Kurapiakd drew another breath before they finally struck their leg around the wound. They silently scream. The pain ignited their nerves like a key in an engine.
It’s foolhardy to rely so heavily on adrenaline.
Kurapika struggled their belt off their hips and around their upper thigh. A notch is pre-cut into the fine leather, the perfect size to turn the mundane accessory into a makeshift tourniquet.
Indeed, it is a blessing their partner is passionate about his profession and unknowingly teaches Kurapika so much of first aid responses and protocols. Leorio is always saving their life, even if he is (for the time being) blissfully unaware.
They recovered enough to collect themself and dial Dalzollene’s number from memory. “Sir,” Kurapika dutifully waited until their permitted to speak, “It’s done. I’m wounded, but I can make it to the nearby apartment complex for extraction.” Kurapika explained as they slouched free off the brick wall and began to grapple from the alley and into the crowded street.
Dalozollene thanks them and tells Kurapika to head to the second floor of the Cunningham Tower Apartment complex. Help is waiting for them, one of the underlings from the very bottom of the barrel, no doubt. The prospect of “help” fills Kurapika with dread.
Help, in this sense, is not the assistance that one would typically hope for. But unfortunately, the Nostrade family can not have loose ends, so Kurapika will be cut off. Painfully, cut off.
Kurapika appeared to be one of the drunks. With pale, clammy skin and an uneven gait. No one cared to pay attention to the blood languidly slipping down their leg. Or the trail it cast after them, highlighting their path away from the shoot-out. Thunder rolled across the sky in the distance. Even their earlier transgression will be washed away.
They made it to the apartment. Kurapika grabbed the handle of the main door and found the lock broken. Undoubtedly, the deed had been done by the Cleaner that awaited them.
Kurapika could barely see straight as they teetered up the stairs. Once they reach the top of their mountainous climb, three firm metallic knocks from the laundry room to their left. Their ‘help’ was already here, and the knocks were their cue.
Kurapika stills in front of an unassuming, undecorated door. Behind it, the inhabitants have no idea that their night is about to go off the rails. They’ve been randomly selected to be Kurapika’s saviors.
“Hey, fucker,” It’s a gruff voice Kurapika didn’t recognize. They stood motionless at the door, “got any change for the washer?” He approached and loomed over Kurapika. “Damn Dollface, what are you rolling on? You look like shit. Someone should have cut you off a few rounds back.”
It’s him. This person will attack Kurapika and leave them to be found by the apartment’s actual occupants.
“Firstly, I have no money for the washer. Secondly, I have no recollection of giving you permission to call me by any pet name. I do not know you,” Kurapika chanced a glare over their shoulder at the thug. His sickly white pot marked with deep scabbed over gouges in his arms and face and branded with prison tattoos. Kurapika took a moment to read this man’s faded stick-and-poke ink like the cheap dime store literature that he is.
Where Dalozollene finds these urchins to act as cleaners, Kurapika doesn’t know. They try to not brace themself and prepare to take the beating.
“Mouthy little bitch,” he reared back, and Kurapika let the attack come. His knife ripped in just under their ribs. Serrated and jagged.
Kurapika sucked a breath through their teeth and clutched the wound. When they looked up, all Kurapika saw was a steel-toed boot, just before it collided with the side of their head. They hit the adjacent wall with a disgusting, sickening crunch.
While dazed, Kurapika is kicked again.
They could scream, but years in this line of work trained Kurapika not to. It’s a habit they struggle to break. Finally, when they’re bloody enough, the man steps back to admire his work. Their eyes meet as if he’s asking, “this enough? Should I stop?”
Wordlessly Kurapika nods. They’ve been in his position before, the cleaner. The one to re-weave the loose ends and clip the mafia free from suspicion. Kurapika hated their time as a cleaner too.
Kurapika’s attacker knows just where to look to find their wallet and takes their gun from their jacket. Then, with his job done, the man flees.
Thankfully the commotion does what it’s supposed to. The unsuspecting couple inside finally investigates the sounds at their front door and finds a young blond, bloody and nearly unresponsive, with no identification.
Kurapika can hear the young woman screaming while her lover explains the situation to emergency services. They cling to life, and once again, they hear Leorio’s voice. Soft and sated, speaking to them from the distant past.
“So, what do you think happens when someone dies?” Leorio had asked Kurapika once, long ago, early into their relationship.
Their eyelids are heavy, and sirens are steadily growing louder. Kurapika doesn’t have the energy to laugh as they slip into unconsciousness, but their own thoughts sound amused as they drift away.
“I think I am about to find out, Leorio.”