Chapter Text
“Hey, Kurapika,” Leorio called into the back room where I was prepping crescents and pastries for the morning shift. “Gon and I are locking up, you sure you don’t want one of us to stay? You don’t have to do all that yourself, you know.”
“I’ve got it, Leorio,” I said, not looking up or otherwise acknowledging the man. I didn’t have to in order to know he would be leaning into the small kitchen space, one hand braced on the doorframe, lanky figure half in and half out of the room. “I like the quiet.”
“Sure, Kurapika, whatever you say.” I again did not have to look up to know the part pained, part aggravated way his lips would twist down as he said the words and left the doorway. “Gon!” I heard him say, voice trailing away into the front of the store, “we’re heading out! Tell Killua we’ll be there, and he’d better have food!”
I sighed, shut my eyes, and waited for the two voices of my co-workers to fade out the front door with the tinkling of the bell that hung to announce customers during operating hours. Its final, melodic chime meant I was alone and could relax into the routine of kneading the dough.
Opening my eyes without fear of what they’d show, I quietly went back to folding the butter into the dough, layer on top of layer. “I don’t need companionship,” I said to my flour-covered fingers. “I am content on my own.”
Content, and safe. I had organized my life to promote my safety above all else. A non-descript job working as a barista in an out of the way coffee shop and cafe, a small apartment I walked a different route to every evening and did not invite guests to view, a lack of hobbies that took me away from this tiny world I had created.
And the motivation to sling my ever-packed bag over my shoulder and leave it all behind at the first hint of unease, as I had several times before.
I could recreate a life as easily as fold butter into a flaky, perfectly layered crescent.
Clenching my jaw at the thought, I arranged the pastries on a metal tray and placed it in the cooler for the next morning. Multiple trays later, I dusted my hands off, ensured the tiny kitchen was in order, and walked out the door, my bag slung over my shoulder, a familiar, comforting weight at my side. Something I could rely on, the only thing I could rely on, except myself.
“Friends are a liability,” I murmured to the lock, then turned away and headed into the night. The streets of York New City were empty and silent. I didn’t have a shift the next day and had lingered, prepping more than the usual number of pastries, until the desolate hour of two a.m.
The shadows might keep me hidden, making my way to my apartment, better than the press of people.
The exhaustion might let me sleep.
Unconsciously, my fingers flexed, making my rings, with their connecting chains, that I had put back on after working with the dough, click and clink. The rings were a useless extravagance, but they grounded me and allowed my hands something to do when I had nothing. Thinking of sleep, and dreams, made my hands reach for that solidity. That slender sliver of stability.
“Stop it, Kurapika,” I whispered, the night stealing the words and muting them down to shadows. My fingers clenched around the chains threaded through them. “There is no reason you should have gone with Leorio and Gon. No reason you should be with anyone else right now.”
And no reason I should be entertaining thoughts of the past. A past full of clan and the constant presence of others.
“Oh,” a voice purred out of the darkness ahead of me, “I can think of a few reasons.”
Catching my breath on a small, startled sound, my heart hammering behind my ribs, I took a step back. The scratch of my shoe over the cobblestone felt loud in the night and my body thrummed, as if it had become glass struck by a tuning fork. Every part of me had become fragile. And jagged. As if I could cut.
“Who are you?” I called, voice high. “Bastard! Stop hiding and tell me what you want!”
A melodious chuckle, relaxed and full of itself, rippled across the air, and the tall figure of a man slid out of the liquid shadows. His hair shone as red as fresh, hot blood in the sliver of moonlight around us, and his body was lither grace, despite its size and musculature. His long-fingered hands clapped when he saw me gasping at him, and a wicked grin curled his lips up, making the star and teardrop tattoos on his cheeks stand out prominently.
“I want you, of course,” he said, voice languid, slow, drawing out each vowel like it was satin slipping through his fingers and coiling every s until it became a hiss. “Kurta.”
A strangled noise of shock escaped me, and my hands balled into fists. All my fractured edges seemed to press against my skin, threatening to slice through from the inside out, even as I felt my face go numb and stiff. “How do you know my name?” I dragged out of my tight throat. “Who are you?!”
His coiling smile did not falter any more than this measured, even steps toward me. “My name is Hisoka,” he said levelly, coming to stand above me, leaning down as if I were a child he was indulging. “Though, I’m often called the Magician. Or even,” he leaned down further, so that those smirking lips were near enough my ear to whisper, “the Grim Reaper.”
I recoiled from his breath fanning over my neck, another sound, this one of disgust, breaking from my throat, even as I as stumbled back away from him. My feet clumsily sought ground I could imagine was firm in my swaying world, but not so I could run. Not so I could give into the frantic pulse of my blood pumping through my veins.
No, those brittle shards of rage I carried with me always had carved through my flesh and all I wanted was to attack.
Unthinking, heedless of his size compared to my diminutive height, I reeled back and threw a punch at his face, which was still level with mine. With the smack of flesh on flesh, he caught my fist and held it easily in his hand. I gasped, arm shaking with the effort of the force I had put behind my strike, and he merely stood there. Standing back to his full height, the sides of his mouth curved up in amusement, unmovable and unmoved as a stone.
“I admire your fire, little Kurta. But if you’re going to strike,” his fist tightened over mine, compressing it until I could feel the bones straining under the pressure, “be sure you are able to finish your opponent.” With the last words he shoved me back, the strength behind the thrust sending me back peddling, my feet tangling in each other.
My own momentum, and the shifting weight of my bag, would have had me sprawling, but I flew back no more than a few feet before crashing into a wall of warm flesh. I grunted, eyes widening, as two large hands came down on my shoulders to steady me and a face, framed by masses of gray hair, leaned over me, showcasing a toothy grin.
“Really shouldn’t play with the clown,” this new figure said. “He’s a mean bastard.”
Crying out, I jerked away, not expecting to be freed, but finding myself untethered from both the men stalking me. Fear taking the place of rage, I turned to run, only to pause after no more than a step. The two were behind me, but in front of me, slowly advancing with the small steps of the inevitable, was a third figure. No taller than I was, but wrapped in black from head to toe, with a dark scarf emblazoned with a silver skull covering the lower half of his face, the man radiated an aura of night-black menace.
Without thinking, I took a step back, only to pull up short and throw a look over my shoulder. The two men there had advanced on me, boxing me in.
There was no way to go, no avenue of escape, and my mind reeled, body both tightening around me and seeming to float away from me at the same time. I might have run, might have fought, but before I could make a move, a long-fingered hand with meticulously manicured nails curled around my face and pressed a rag over my nose and mouth.
“Good night, little Kurta,” I heard Hisoka purr in my ear even as one of my hands flew up to grip his wrist. “Sweet dreams.”
Then darkness overtook me and, for once, I had no dreams of any kind.