Summary: His friends check on him often and his phone is a log of unread voice mails. Maybe one day he will finally allow himself to return their calls but right now, he has more important things to do. — Kurapika and the path to self-destruction.
A/N: I can't believe this is my first Kurapika-centric story. Wow. I write too much for Killua… gotta give the other characters so love too.
Missed Calls
It has been five years and Kurapika has not forgotten.
The day it had rained fire will be one he vows to always remember, seared into his mind like engraved carvings on a metal sword. Kurapika returns to the valleys of the Lukso Province and sees familiar streets covered in ashes from burned down houses, his childhood community reduced to something unimaginable. The sight of it all leaves him paralyzed for a second in eternity.
When he can move again, he runs along the main road, side stepping bodies scattered across the path, and tries not to let the stench of death overwhelm his senses. The village chief is off to the side, small knife on the ground beside him, and Kurapika knows that the elder tried to defend their people the best he could.
Kurapika finds his parents at their house on the living room floor, lying on their backs. There are deep sunken holes where their eyes used to be, before they were gouged out by whoever murdered them. The blond kneels down beside them, desperately grasping at hands that won't hold him back.
A little further into the room, he notices a brown-haired boy in traditional red clothing. Pairo's face is twisted in an expression of pain and Kurapika prays that the kill had been quick, merciful. He wonders what his friend was doing at his house, whether his mother had been busy preparing a meal for dinner, whether they were waiting for his return.
His ears ring and his eyes bleed tears to the chime of voices he will never hear again and his hands spend hours, days, weeks digging individual graves for every member of his clan. A total of one-hundred twenty-seven dead bodies and the village of Lukso Province has become a cemetery.
He leaves his home with a new purpose, hatred clawing him from the inside, and it takes him too long to relearn that the world contains more colours than just red.
.
Senritsu tells him to let go.
There is wisdom in her soft voice and there is beauty in her caring eyes despite the balding of her hair. Her words come from experience, having been someone who longed for things to be reverted back to how it had been in the past herself. It's not worth it, she advises even though she knows he doesn't want to hear it.
Rest and take care of yourself, she says to him, genuinely concerned. If it had been anyone else, Kurapika is sure he would've snapped at them.
The thing he admires about Senritsu is: she is able to hear beyond the normal capacity of humans, but she goes even further than that and takes the time to actually listen. That, whether it is attributed to her Nen ability or not, is a real talent often overlooked by others.
And in exchange, she lets him listen to her as well; her true voice that only comes out when her lips are pressed against silver, fingers resting at home on her flute. These words, hidden in between arpeggios and chords and switching melody lines, are harder to decipher and Kurapika only wishes he were as skilled as her when it comes understanding the meanings behind each note that is being breathed out.
She plays for him occasionally, when she picks up on his sudden erratic heartbeats and the scarlet flashing of his eyes behind his contacts. The anger and frustration and anxiety all flood out of him when Senritsu takes his wounds and bandages them up, wrapped around soothing tunes. His eyes are closed this particular time when he realizes that she has stopped before completing the song.
"Kurapika," she says, "your phone is ringing."
He blinks to clear his thoughts as if coming out of a trance. The device in his pocket vibrates in consecutive buzzes as he takes it out to look at the screen. There are quite a number of missed calls and unopen text messages that he had never gotten around to replying, and the caller ID now displays Gon's name.
"Your friend?" Senritsu asks politely. When he nods in confirmation, she urges him, "You should answer it."
But then Basho slams open the door to their room, yelling that Dalzollene is dead and the captured Phantom Troupe member has escaped, and Kurapika instantly forgets about the call from Gon; stuffs his phone back into his pocket before rushing out.
Seeing the empty chair where Uvogin had been tied up makes him livid. Senritsu tries to place a reassuring hand on his shoulder but he roughly pulls away because he doesn't want to be comforted right now. He had been so close, five years and one-hundred twenty-seven dead clan members and so close—but not enough. Not nearly enough to satisfy his thirst for revenge.
That night, he goes out to kill Uvogin. The Troupe member's loyalty to his group enrages him and the Judgement Chain squeezes Uvogin's heart due to his refusal to answer any of Kurapika's questions. The body of his clan's murderer does not bring him any joy or satisfaction like he had expected it to; instead, he walks away from the battlefield with no information on the whereabouts of Uvogin's comrades and blood stained on his hands.
When he returns, Senritsu is waiting for him. She doesn't ask questions, doesn't say anything at all; simply gestures for him to take a seat and gives him a look that shows she understands. As she takes out her instrument, Kurapika wonders how it is that she already knows everything without having him tell her.
The song of choice today is slow and quiet, full of long beats drawn out by fermatas. Senritsu's music is more than just fingering patterns onto the keys of her flute; it's a healing process that sets Kurapika's heartbeat back to a steady thump thump thump rhythm and allows him to inhale and calm down.
And when she blows out the last breath of the song, the notes being conveyed finally reach him: I want to be your friend. Let me help you. You are not alone.
You are not alone.
Kurapika looks at her and she's smiling ever so slightly in that sincere way he's grown familiar to. It makes him wish he had listened—truly listened—to her sooner.
"Get some sleep," she says, putting her flute away in its case.
He nods. Maybe revenge needs a break sometimes, too.
.
He wakes up around midnight, the gentle glow of the moon illuminating his room through the window. His head is clear for once and he smiles up at the ceiling because he'd almost forgotten what it's like to not be hell-bent on terminating the Phantom Troupe.
Reaching over to the table by his bed, he picks up his cellphone and checks the logs. There is a total of 18 missed calls and 5 voice mails and over 30 unread text messages dating back to two months ago. Ignoring his friends like that was a mistake, he knows now.
This time, he will be the one who calls first.
He punches in the only number he has memorized by heart. After three rings, he hears a familiar gruff voice on the other end. "Kurapika?"
The Kurta smiles and already, he can feel all his problems dissolving away. "Hey, Leorio. It's been a while."
A/N: I think toward the end of the series, Kurapika started collecting the Scarlet Eyes not to take revenge on the Phantom Troupe but simply to return them to their owners. At least… that's what I hope, haha. We'll never know for sure unless Togashi updates the manga, so for now, have this headcanon.
~Madin456.