It never fails to amaze me how he does it.

I know very well that his determination, above all else, is what me decide to stick with him. Despite the way he looks, despite his childish actions, despite his sometimes unnerving naiveté, no one could ever disregard it. I can't help but think how a determination so strong could ever manage to contain itself in a body as small and as fragile looking as his. It is perhaps the very thing that mad him enter the Hunter exam, just so he could find his father. And for a while, I thought like me, nothing, not even life itself could stop him from doing so.

But I was wrong.

I guess not everyone's as selfish as I am.

Because despite the fact that he could now go and put his mission into work, he chose to temporarily put it to a halt, because there are more important matters than his personal reasons. Because he had to save Killua. Because Killua is more important to him than someone whom he barely even knew, nor even seen. Because he is living in the present, and the present is all that matters. And because the past, no matter how significant it is in being who is right now, is over.

Over.

I clenched my fist as tightly as I possibly could. A certain sensation was crawling on me, clawing the very interiors of the walls I've defensively put around myself, threatening to break the long five years of absolute indecisiveness within me. And I hated it. Sometimes it makes me feel damned that despite those long years of living alone, without having anybody giving the slightest care as to who or what I am, I still wasn't able to get rid of these emotions. And I thought that when I left Rukuso and buried my tribes' body, I have buried my emotions along.

But again I was wrong.

All these years, I never had, not even the slightest stain of doubt as to what I should do when I become a hunter. Call it arrogance if you should, but even before the exams came I knew I'd pass. I thought that what I had and what I am were enough. And it shames me to no end what a bastard I've been for ever thinking that way. I believed myself enough, no, perhaps more than enough, to go through the tests considering what I've already gone through. But now that I think about it, I wouldn't even have been able to make it to the middle of the exams if not for them. I needed them.

And I'll always need them.

Yet, I know I shouldn't feel this way. I never planned on having company, but they came. And as if that wasn't enough, I even allowed them in. I had let my guard down. But I don't want to have anything to do with anybody. Never again. I had my life laid out already, and it doesn't involve anyone. Not Killua. Not Gon.

"Kurapika? Hey Kurapika!"

And no. Not even Leorio.

I was awaken from my stupor by a hand on my shoulders.

"Are you alright?" came the next question.

"Y-" I was about to speak but he didn't even give me the chance to start.

"-Yes I'm perfectly fine," he continued, sarcastically. Then he took his hands off my shoulder and stood up in front of me instead. "That's what you always say,"

"Predictable now, am I?" I replied, a sudden wave of annoyance creeping on me.

"Very. Now spill," he said, pushing his glasses to the bridge of his nose and pocketing his hands, a sure sign that he was waiting for an answer.

I just stood there, looking up at his tall figure, feeling irritated with his commanding yet finding myself asking the same question.

Am I alright?

My face must have looked crestfallen because the next thing I knew, he was very near, towering over me with his height. His once commanding eyes were now gentle brown ones and he looked at me through his thinly rimmed glasses as though I were some child who couldn't understand how one and one became two.

"You don't look fine to me at all," he said quietly, concern implied deeply in his voice as hi gaze came to scrutinize me.

My irritation and anger all ebbed away, but yet again I jut stood there, reciprocating the look he was giving me.

"I was just thinking," I said lamely.

I heard people say I was eloquent, but how come I find it this hard to put my emotions into sensible strings of words? How come all I can do is stare blankly up at him when secretly I want to relate everything that's going on inside me?

"You don't have to come with us, and we understand how much your vow means to you," he said, his words replying to the very dilemma that's going on inside my head.

I just stood there for the nth time.

He touched my cheek and he leaned towards me as he whispered,

"Now get some rest. And don't think too much, ne? Just follow your heart," and with that, he smiled and walked off.

I shook my head while a smile formed on my lips. How could I have missed it? How could I have been so blind to see that I had a present to live for? That I had people to actually care about?

And that I had someone who perfectly understood the unspoken words inside me even when all I could manage as an answer was nothing but a blank stare?

I turned around and ran to follow your doctor-to-be. As I got to walk side by side with him, I lowered my hand and unhesitant, took his in it.

He looked at me with eyes full of curiosity, and if it were a question, it certainly would have been, "what are you doing?"

I felt his hands entwine with mine, and he was about to open his mouth, probably to ask that nonsense. But before he could, I had already answered.

"I'm following my heart."

A/N: There you go. Another shot of my hopeless romanticism with a twist of my demented obsession with this pair. Hahaha. Please RnR. :D