A/N: Just a forewarning, I'm going to butt into the story sometimes. And the document manager is eating up my spaces still x.x
Summary: Extremely slight A/U. Rei Suzuki has just turned fifteen and as a birthday present, her parents decide she can finally take the hunter exam. She soon finds out that it won't be as easy as her brothers told her. No pairings as of yet. Takes place during the anime - kind of.
Disclaimer: I don't own Hunter x Hunter. I'm not writing this for any personal gain.
Leaving Home - Kazuma and The Ship to Dole
"Mother, puh-lease. I can pack how I want. And besides, it's not like I'm going away for a year!"
"Oh, but honey! You need some other clothes besides just three outfits! Trust me, you'll be grateful for them."
Rei Suzuki rolled her jade-coloured eyes at her mother. Rei began to pull out outfits from her over-stuffed bag - no one she knew wore nearly as much as she did. And didn't her brothers say that she only really needed one pack for the exam?
Of course she knew that they might be lying, but it wouldn't hurt to have an easy pack to carry. She went over her packing list in her head.
'Lets see ... two outfits, knives, wooden dagger, my tooth brush, hair brush, two books, my soaps, lighter, flashlight ... Uhm ... Oh yeah! And my notepad and some pens.'
She smiled up at her mother, and dodged a pillow just in time.
"Hey! What was that for?" Rei stuck out her tongue and dodged another pillow, only to be hit in the face with a stuffed animal.
"Being cocky of course! You know, maybe while you're out there, taking the test ... You'll find a nice boy to bring home?" Her mother's eyes sparkled sickeningly. Rei knew that she was thinking - Grandchildren.
She playfully punched her mother's arm, and kissed her cheek. "Aw Mother, don't bring that up so quick ... I'm only fifteen ..."
Her mother returned her daughter's kiss and held her in a short embrace before getting up to put away the things she had tried to pack for her daughter. "Are you absolutely sure you have everything? I don't want you to forget something important ..."
Rei sighed and hugged her mother a last time, "I'm absolutely positive."
Rei giggled as she remembered the act her mother put on during the packing. She knew her mother was really depressed about her leaving for the hunter exam, but Rei thought it was funny all the same.
Her oldest brother, Kenta, had told her that Mother had done the same to him when he was packing for the hunter exam. He of course married off right after he got his license and proceeded to rake in money for him and his wife. Their other brother - the youngest, Takumi - had taken the test as soon as he turned twelve. He passed as well. She hadn't been allowed to take the test right away because she was a girl, and because her mother and father didn't see fit for her to train like a boy.
She had proved them wrong though.
For weeks she trained vigorously with Takumi so she could convince her parents that she was fit to partake in the hunter exam this time. In only a month she was able to knock Takumi onto his butt, and in two months, she began to train with Kenta. She hadn't been able to knock him down before she had to fight with her father, but she was able to land a few punches.
Her father was impressed when he found out how fast she had learned to fight and convinced her mother to let her try and pass the hunter exam.
She was headed down to the docks on whale island to catch the last boat to Dole City.
It would take her a total of three days to travel by foot to the docks, and the ship left in five days. Rei planned to use some of the money her mother left her in order to acquire food and a place to stay.
Of course, she planned to spend it on the cheap stuff so she'd have some money left over.
Rei looked down into the depths of the water before her. Never before had she been to the ocean, and she thought it was even more beautiful then in the pictures her parents and brothers had shown her. She was sitting on the dock that would hold the boat to Dole with her feet dangling in the water. She had rolled up her dark green pants up to her knees and her pack and shoes sat next to her, socks rolled up inside the shoes.
She almost jumped when she felt something brushed the back of her long burgundy hair - she had worn it in a loose ponytail.
Looking back to see what had touched her hair, she didn't actually see anyone. Her face soured momentarily, but she kept the urge to growl to herself.
Rei had that sort of habit. Since her family owned their own plot of land a few miles away from the nearest town, she had to make friends with the animals that roamed around her yard. After a while, she had developed a habit of growling when she felt something unpleasant - Be it physically or mentally.
Something itched at the back of her mind and Rei fought the urge to bare her teeth and snarl at the white glop on her hands, as well as the person that made her mind itch.
A seagull had decided to drop something on her head. A present of sorts.
Rei let out a frustrated sigh and washed the glop off her hand. She thought a moment before deciding that she ought to get the bird shit out of her hair before it turned chalky.
She pulled her feet out of the water and hooked her toes into the boards, hoping with all her might that she wouldn't fall in. She rolled up her dark-greyshirt sleeves and took a deep breath. She leaned forwards and plunged her head into the cool ocean water, using one hand to support her while the other scrubbed the shit out.
"Haa hahaha. And I thought I was weird."
Rei cursed and sat back down. She blushed furiously when she realized that her ass had been sticking up into the air.
"Who're you? What do you want?" Rei silently cursed herself again. She wasn't the type to go around making friends right away. In fact, her only human friends weren't even alive anymore.
"Relax, relax. My name's Kazuma Yamada, and you do realize that you gathered quite a crowed over there? Maybe you should look into crowd etiquette."
Rei turned to Kazuma and glared at him. She had already been blushing, but her color deepened when she saw that the boy, whom looked a tad bit older than her, was pretty cute. His dark hair was tinted blue, and he had matching eyes. His arms looked Kazuma trained regularly, yet they still held their youthful look. She barely paid attention to his black shirt and dark grey shorts as he was barefoot. She snapped her attention back up to his face and sent him her harshest glare.
"Hey, don't get mad at me! I wasn't the one waving my ass all over the place!"
Rei looked behind Kazuma and saw that he had been right - eight people were pretending to be doing something, but they all were looking over at her and Kazuma. She saw even more people on the streets, and they all had stopped and were still staring over.
Rei clenched her fists to the point they made a sickening pop. She wrung out her hair and reached for her shoes, but Kazuma had stolen them away.
"Hey, these look about my size ... Thanks!" Kazuma chuckled and took off. He wasn't as fast as Rei had imagined, but she jumped up, scooped up her packand ran after him all the same.
She had to chase him up onto some rooftops and through a few ally's, but she eventually managed to catch him when he cut his hand on some jagged metal when he attempted to climb over a rusty chain-link fence.
"Kazuma, give them back!" Rei couldn't control the urge to growl anymore. She let out one loud, long, feral sounding growl that would have even frightened her wolf-friend. She almost bared her teeth at the boy, but when she saw how scared he was, she backed off - but only a little.
"I - I ... Please, I was just ... Just pla-"
Rei cut him off with a sharp glare. "Hand them over and let me see your hand."
Kazuma swallowed loudly and held the shoes out to Rei. She snatched them back and motioned for Kazuma to show her his wounded hand.
Rei wasn't surprised to see how reluctant the boy was to let her tend to his wound. He kept insisting that it didn't need to be looked at and than Rei should mind her own business.
"Don't do that! You'll open up the cut!" Rei held Kazuma's hand still while she wrung out the last of the sea water, from her hair, onto the boy's open palm. He cringed as the stinging liquid cleaned out the blood and infection.
"I'm Rei Suzuki, by the way." Rei didn't look up into the boy's eyes, instead she focused on picking out the little shards of rust that had dug into the cut.
Kazuma winced and tried to wrench his hand away from Rei. "Well, Rei, why don't you just leave me alone? You got your shoes back."
Rei released the boy's hand and shook her head. She reached for her shoes again and half-expected Kazuma to bolt for it. Surprisingly, he just stared at her.
"You don't like to look up, do you ...?" Kazuma sat forwards on his heels and tried to look into her face, "You should do it more often though. You're eyes are very pretty."
Rei felt herself turn crimson. She'd heard it from her mother a lot, but when a human boy - that she had just met and chased down - said it, it felt as if she really should look up more.
"Do you ... Do you really think so?" Rei glanced up through her damp burgundy hair - which had long since fallen out of it's restraints - to see Kazuma nod enthusiastically.
"Yes, of course! They're the first eyes I've seen that look exactly like clear Jade."
Again, Rei felt herself blush.
"Thank you, Kazuma. Your eyes, they look like the stormy ocean ... Or the color of blue after the sun sets ..." Rei couldn't stop herself from complimenting Kazuma on his own eyes. Of course she actually did think they were that color, but she couldn't help feeling like she'd just lied to the boy.
"Ehhh? Really? Hmm... I always thought that they just looked like my hair." Kazuma stuck out his tongue and his nose scrunched up. Then he laughed.
Rei couldn't help herself to laughing either. She also couldn't understand why she was getting along with a thief.
"Truce?" Kazuma held out his good hand and smiled at her. Rei stared at the hand a moment before she realized that she was supposed to grip it and shake. Her father had told her that before she had left, but she still didn't quite get it.
"Truce for what?" Rei gripped his hand they way she had been shown and felt it rather uncomfortable to be touching someone like that. She didn't let go however, as she was also told that it was rude to do so.
"Uh ... Well, I don't really know ... Hmm ... How about being friends then?" Kazuma said it so innocently that Rei smiled and nodded. She waited a moment before letting go of Kazuma's warm hand and stood up, offering her new friend some help up.
Kazuma and Rei raced down the docks, laughing and dodging each other's attacks. They were headed for the ship that was about to set for Dole.
However, they stopped fighting when Rei signalled caution to her friend. She felt the mind-itch when she saw how the other hunter applicants were staring at them, and she didn't like it at all.
Instead she fixed her gaze onto the landing platform. She smiled at Kazuma as he caught up and saw what she had cautioned him about. When he questioned her about it, she explained about the itch at the back of her mind and how it normally meant to be weary.
Kazuma nodded, but Rei knew he still didn't understand.
As they boarded the ship, they greeted the captain and the crew. They all seemed to like Kazuma more than Rei. Kazuma didn't think so and even started arguing about it.
After a couple minutes, the ship lifted anchor and began to cast off. The crew and the ship members - including Rei and Kazuma - gawked at the boy and the man that raced down the docks and up a cliff to fling themselves onto the sailing ship.
The little boy announced himself as Gon, and the other was Leorio. Soon after, Rei and Kazuma introduced themselves, and met another boy, Kurapica.
Rei could feel a strong itch at the back of her mind for both the spiky-black haired boy and the blonde boy, but she felt as if Leorio was almost as strong as her - and not a threat.
After a while, the boy in green - Gon - announced that there would be a storm hitting the ship. He also claimed that the seagulls had told him.
Rei could also tell that the seagulls were distressed, but the boy was the only one to be able to tell what they were squawking about.
Just as Gon had foretold, the storm hit their ship within two hours. Rei had long since retired to the cabins below, and she wished that the rocking of the waves would stop. They were really starting to give her a headache.
Rei sighed and re-emerged in time to watch Gon, Kurapica, Leorio and Kazuma save one of the ship's crew members. Had she been only a few seconds earlier, she would have also thrown herself out to help.
As soon as Gon, Kurapica and the crewmember was safely aboard the ship again, Rei noticed that more than half of the hunter applicants had vanished.
She shrugged to herself and asked if she could helpthe captainwith anything.
He replied with a grunt and told her to help repair the mast. She gulped and nodded.
'I brought it on myself. I brought it on myself. Don't look down ...'
Rei had managed to climb up to where four men were working on repairing the broken side of the mast's main sail and crawled over to help.
"What can I do to help?" Rei almost looked down when the crew sent her a glare and told her to get down, but she forced herself to glare right back and demand that she be put to use.
After a short argument, they decided that she could help with supporting the wooden (:Ahem: A/N: I really don't know what the ship parts all are, but, meh... I'ma just call it -->) stick that held up the main sail. (-Ahem- A/N: Sorry for another interruption, but She's on those rope nets that people climb on to get the main sail. It's held up by the top of the mast so she's able to hold the support without looking down.)
After a few minutes, some of the guys had begun to tease her about being a girl, and that she wouldn't be able to hold the wood for much longer. She sent them glares, and continued to hold it until she was allowed to let go. With the mast in working condition again, Rei forced herself to climb down. She made it halfway back to the ship's main deck when she glanced down.
Reifelt herself loosing grip on the rope and also felt her stomach churn. Her knees locked and she began to fall. Rei almost felt relieved as the ground rushed up to meet her, but the darkness never followed.
She looked up when she realized that someone had caught her, and most probably saved her from breaking her neck. Shestared up into the blonde-haired boy's relieved eyes. Rei realized that Kurapica had eyes that were almost the same as hers, but for one difference - Kurapica's eyes were a muchmore intenseshade.
Rei smiled shakily and closed her eyes. After a moment, she opened them again, to find that Kurapica was carrying her into the cabins below.
Rei felt herself staring into the other boy's eyes until Kurapica looked back down at her. She blushed and looked at her feet.
"You're name's Rei, right?"
Rei nodded and continued to study her toes. Then it dawned on her - what had happened to her shoes?
"Rei, you should take better care to not fall off such high places - especially if you're afraid of them in the first place."
Rei nodded and stared at the golden hem of Kurapica's coat. "Uh ... Kurapica? You can ... Uh ...Let me down now ..."
Rei almost itched her head when Kurapica stopped and let her walk on her own. The mind-itch was beginning to become unbearable.
They walked in almost uncomfortable silence most of the way, until Rei spoke again.
"Kurapica ... Thank you ..." Rei stared at the floorboards in front of her to gather enough courage to look into the boy's face.
"No problem." Kurapica smiled at Rei's shyness around him. He actually thought it rather amusing, but he didn't voice it or let it corrupt his demeanour.
When Rei and Kurapica reached the cabins, Kurapica excused himself and headed further down the hall. It was just as well - She wouldn't have felt comfortable sleeping in the same cabins as the guys.
She surveyed the mess around her and sighed. She would have to clear off a hammock if she wanted to sleep at all.