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This was a nightmare, it had to be, it couldn't be true. Chrollo Lucilfer, the leader of the Phantom Troupe, the man who murdered his entire clan and sold his eyes without remorse, couldn't be his soulmate.
It couldn't be true...
"No..." Kurapika muttered to himself. "This has to be a joke..." He mumbled, trying to convince himself that none of this was real.
"Well, isn't this a surprise?" said Kuroro, who seemed remarkably calm for the situation.
Kuroro didn't have a chance to say more before Kurapika delivered a sudden punch to his face.
"Shut up! This doesn't mean anything!" Kurapika exclaimed hysterically, landing a series of blows to Kuroro's face, worsening the wounds he had inflicted moments before. But despite that, the smug look on kuroro's face remained, making him even angrier.
"Kurapika, stop!" Leorio shouted from the front seats of the car. He seemed somewhat confused by Kurapika's sudden outburst, but Melody also appeared rather disturbed, so it must be something serious. "Remember, we need him alive if we want to rescue gon and killua," she reminded the blond, which seemed to calm him down a little, or at least enough for him to reluctantly let go of the dark-haired man.
Kurapika tried to get as far away from Kuroro as possible, who was watching him curiously but wisely decided not to say anything more.
To say this afternoon was quite eventful would be an understatement. But he certainly hadn't imagined he'd end up in a car, chained to a blond guy who was practically bursting with the urge to kill him. He wasn't worried, though; he knew his spiders would handle this.
Besides, he found the situation he was in genuinely amusing. The chain bastard—or as he could guess, that was his name, Kurapika—was his soulmate.
He hadn't really given much thought to soulmates, or at least not since the Phantom Troupe was formed. He simply had other things to worry about. But he still remembered being particularly obsessed with the whole soulmate thing when he was a kid. Despite his limited knowledge of them—after all, it wasn't like they were a big topic of conversation in Meteor City—people there tended to see soulmates as a burden.
Most of the people there barely had time to worry about themselves, to worry about someone else.
But when he discovered about it, thanks to one of the nuns at the church he sometimes went to, he ended up delighted with the idea of soulmates. he was fascinated by the mere idea of having someone who was essentially born to complement him, someone who was supposed to love him no matter what.
But unfortunately he wasn't born with a mark like most people, despite his complaints and discontent for that.
And it's not like everyone born with a mark, there's people who have to wait to have one, to wait their soulmate to born.
It wasn't until he was seven or eight years old that a mark finally appeared on his arm. A red peony bud, but from what little could be discerned, it also had hints of a color similar to burgundy. Usually, the flower was supposed to have a meaning that would give a clue about what his romance with his soulmate would be like, but he had no idea what his meant. —He would investigate later.— But he was truly happy; his soulmate was supposed to have already been born. Before, he had been afraid that his lack of a mark meant he didn't have a soulmate, but it seemed it meant that they hadn't been born yet.
After that, he was especially insufferable about it. In Pakunoda's words, during that time he was truly obsessed with finding his soulmate.
Even after the troupe was formed and they left Meteor City, there were still times when he unconsciously found himself searching in the crowd for someone with his same mark, despite how unlikely it was to find his soulmate that way. However, ever since Pakunoda once mentioned his habit, he stopped doing it and simply began to forget about it.
After a while, he began to consider not having met his soulmate a blessing. Thanks to his profession, he had too many enemies; his soulmate would be in constant danger, and he didn't like the idea much.
Besides, people often talk about how truly painful it is to lose your soulmate after met him, so much so that some who suffer this loss even succumb to suicide. Of course, he was much stronger than them, so he doubted he could go that far, but even so, it didn't sound very appealing.
But the blond wasn't weak either.
Despite his delicate appearance, he must be strong if he managed to defeat Uvogin.
It was a shame, but most likely the blond and his friends would end up captured or even dead. A real shame, indeed. The blond possessed incredible nen abilities, which, if he could, he would steal, to be honest, although the idea of the blond using them himself for the benefit of the spider appealed to him more for some reason.
And not to mention how capable he was; having managed to capture him proved it. The blond would undoubtedly be a formidable spider, besides he had basically earned his place among the spider by defeating Uvo.
It's was truly a shame that the other one poses a threat to the spider for now. The best thing to do is eliminate him, or failing that, immobilize him so he can't do anything to harm the spider. He was sure the others knew about this, and even if it meant his death, he knew they would watch over the spider's survival and well-being.
"Are you sure you're okay staying here alone with him...?" Melody looked worried, and understandably so. Leaving Kurapika with the other man right now wasn't the best idea, especially after what had been revealed.
"Yes, I'm calmer now. Don't worry, I'll be fine." Kurapika tried to reassure her.
"If you say so." Melody looked at him with concern but said nothing more.
"Seriously, no one's going to tell me what's going on?" Leorio asked, shifting his gaze from melody to kurapika.
"Maybe later..." Kurapika replied.
"Unless you tell me now, I'm not going to leave you alone with him." Leorio snapped, giving Kuroro a stern look, who was simply listening to the exchange with amusement.
"Please, Leorio, I don't want to talk about it right now." Kurapika replied wearily.
"But—" Melody interrupted him.
"It would be best to leave it for now. I'm sure Kurapika will explain everything when he's ready." Melody started toward the door, pausing for a moment as she reached it, waiting for Leorio to follow her.
"Okay, but you and I will talk about this." he said to the blond, who was now looking at him with relief.
"Yes, I promise," he replied. He really needed these moments alone, or almost alone, but he simply didn't trust that the moment he took his eyes off the dark-haired man, he wouldn't do something to harm his friends.
"I'll be going then. Speak if you need anything..." With that, Leorio hurried out, closing the door behind him.
Hearing the door close, Kurapika let out a sigh he hadn't realized he'd been holding back. He wasn't particularly comfortable with the other man, but he also didn't want his friends to keep exposing themselves to him. Besides, kuroro's hadn't deigned to speak since their last conversation in the car, so he considered it a small victory.
"Your friends really care about you," Kuroro said, more as an observation to himself than to the blond.
"I suppose i spoke to soon..." the blond thought resentfully.
"It's really curious how fate works, don't you think?" Kuroro said as he watched the blond rummage through his things.
Kurapika quickly found his tribal clothing. He was already fed up with the outfit he'd been forced to wear, —the receptionist uniform.— but what really bothered him most was the damn skirt. The more time passed, the colder the weather in Yorknew became, and the skirt wasn't helping at all.
"Are you going to change right here?" Kuroro watched as the blond simply cleared his throat at hearing him, but continued what he was doing.
"Personally, I don't mind, but others might even consider it scandalous, you know?" Kuroro said. To which Kurapika instinctively decided to ignore him.
"It's really rude of you to ignore someone when they're trying to start a conversation."
"I don't want to talk to you." Kurapika surprised himself by how calm his voice sounded, even though he was already imagining at least a thousand ways to torture the raven-haired man.
"You don't want to? Personally, I think we have a lot to talk about." Kuroro chuckled inwardly as he watched the blond man tense up more and more.
"I don't care what you think, just shut up already!" Kurapika demanded, now clearly much more irritated by the man's presence.
"Ah, but I think it's really important that we talk about this." Kuroro's gaze instinctively went to his arm, specifically to his soulmate mark.
"You really like the sound of your own voice, don't you?" Kurapika snapped at kuroro's turning sharply to face him.
"But as you can see, I don't find it as enjoyable as you do." He paused briefly before speaking. "So... could you just shut up already?!" Kuroro watched with mild amusement as Kurapika unconsciously moved a little too close.
Just when it seemed Kuroro was about to shut up, Kurapika stepped back, realizing he was too close.
He was about to grab his things to change when Kuroro decided to speak.
"You know, all of this is really funny. Most people would be thrilled to meet their soulmate." Kuroro said, managing to observe, before Kurapika struck him, how his face flashed with a thousand different emotions.
"Most people's soulmates didn't murder their entire family!" Kuroro seemed about to say something when Kurapika interrupted him.
"And if you think this will somehow change anything," Kurapika pointed to his own mark on his arm. "You're sorely mistaken."
Kurapika roughly grabbed kuroro's by the jaw, forcing him to look directly at him.
"I swear to you, Lucilfer, that no matter the circumstances, I will kill you and all your damned spiders." Kurapika finished, a worrying amount of hatred blazing in his eyes, flashes of intense red visible through the edges of his black contact lenses.
"Despite how painful it would be for you?" he asked curiously, observing kurapika face with fascination.
"I'm sure that pain is nothing compared to the pain you caused me by taking my family from me, so yes, I would do it." Kurapika finished, glaring at Chrollo with hatred.
Kurapika released kuroro's jaw and stepped back a few inches.
"Hmm, I see..." Kuroro was distracted as he felt Kurapika's chains tighten around his mouth, forcing him to silence.
"That'll make sure you shut the hell up once and for all." Kurapika turned his back on the other and walked away to start changing.
"What an impressive creature the last Kurta is..." Kuroro thought to himself.
He heard someone knock on the door, waiting a few seconds before opening it.
"Kurapika?" he heard the short woman from before say.
"Yes." the blond replied almost automatically.
"The woman, Pakunoda, is already here..." The blond's gaze hardened quickly.
"Tell her I'm coming."
The woman nodded, preparing to leave, but not before giving the blond a worried look.
Kurapika pulled Kuroro, urging him to get up from the bench where he had been sitting.
"Hurry up, we don't want to keep your dear spider waiting, do we?"
Kuroro could only manage a grunt of nod before the other practically dragged him along.
The more he learns about the last survivor of the kurta clan, the less encouraging the idea of ending him becomes.