Gon poked his spiky black-haired head into the hotel room. "Kurapika, are you feeling better?"
Sitting on the couch in the center, hands folded in his lap, the fatigued blond looked his way. "Gon." The corners of his mouth curved upward. "Yes. I'm feeling much better."
Gon stepped farther into the hotel room, holding something behind his back. "That's good!" he called, beaming brightly – doing his best to ignore the dark half moons underlining Kurapika's eyes. "I'm so relieved."
Shortly behind Gon entered Killua, hands shoved in his pants pockets. He waved in greeting. "Yo. I heard about all the Nen you exerted while chaining Chrollo and that Pakunoda woman. Using that kind of power must have taken a toll on you."
Kurapika nodded. "Yes. But I can't make the Nostrade guard wait any longer." He leaned forward as he stood. "I really should be getting back to work. And you two are trying to buy that expensive game, right?"
Gon's mouth hung open in desire to say something, but he only ended up uttering a "yeah."
Attempting a smile, Kurapika gave them a small bow of his head. "It's been nice seeing you two again."
Before Kurapika could hurry them out, Gon quickly dodged between Kurapika and his path to the door. "A-actually –" Gon fidgeted nervously, which caught Kurapika's attention. "I brought you something I hoped might cheer you up while you recover," he confessed. From behind his back, Gon revealed two controllers and a white box with the words "JoyStation" etched in foreign, violet letters across the sides.
This gesture was not purely out of good fun on Gon's part however. Earlier that day, the following conversation had taken place:
"He's still not back to normal after the entire incident with that Pakunoda woman and the leader of the Spiders," Leorio had whispered discreetly to Gon and Killua, standing outside in the hallway of the Nostrade guard's checked hotel suite. "I don't think he should be going back out just yet, especially with the Phantom Troupe still on the loose. Nothing I say can convince him to stay put, though."
Gon and Killua had nodded in agreement.
"Yeah," said the ex-assassin. "But what should we do? We can't exactly lock him in there until the Troupe has moved out of the area."
Turning to Gon, Killua and Leorio noticed the reassuring determination in his face.
"Don't worry. I have an idea."
Seeing the game system in Gon's hands and the eager expression on the boy's face, Kurapika brought a hand to his chin in thought. "Well, Melody said the guards had things under control." Coming to a decision, he sank back down onto the couch. "They don't need me immediately."
Gon turned to grin at Killua, who nodded and grinned in return. It worked!
Yeah.
Stripped to their less formal clothing, – Gon to his black shirt and green shorts, Killua to a plain blue turtleneck, Kurapika to his white sparring underclothes, – they situated around the plasma flatscreen. Gon handed Kurapika a controller as Killua clicked on the JoyStation. Disk and memory card in place, the boys pushed through the title screen and select scenario, choosing which avatar most appealed to them.
"So, to play," Gon explained as the game world rendered onscreen, "you control your movements with the D-pad on the left, while the D-pad on the right allows you to attack and use items. Also, the R and L buttons on the top let you duck to dodge attacks."
"Sounds simple enough," said Kurapika.
"It gets more complicated the farther you progress in the game," Killua interjected. "But for right now, it's just a mindless hack and slash!" World and details fully rendered, he spammed the buttons on his controller with mad intensity, his character raining a wave of punching attacks onto the monsters nearby – all of which died.
"You got that right!" Gon exclaimed, following suit.
Kurapika looked back to the TV, which was split into four sections. The characters ran around at high speeds with swords, daggers, and other varieties of weapons, bashing monsters that flew back and disappeared into black smoke once their damage meters were empty. Kurapika urged his character forward: a brown-haired mage dressed in a green cloak, who held a wooden staff with a crystal ball at the top. Upon encountering his first enemy, Kurapika lightly tapped the top of the right D-pad, which swung his character's staff and sent the enemy flying in the opposite direction. It disappeared into black smoke once it hit the ground.
After twenty more encounters of the same ilk, Kurapika gave an inward chuckle. Huh, this game is really simple, he thought. They like this?
On the floor, below Kurapika, Gon and Killua seemed fully engrossed in the game. They were using combo attacks to take down a larger enemy in a hidden oceanic enclave.
Killua ordered, "Gon, as soon as I have him on the ropes, strike him between the eyes, okay?"
"Sure thing! Just give me an opening for an attack!"
They seemed pretty serious about their strategy.
Leorio entered the hotel room strolling up behind the three gamers. "Ooh, that looks fun! How do you play?" he asked, inviting himself to sit on the couch beside Kurapika. He grabbed a controller and added himself to their game, appearing in the fourth split section of the screen once he'd chosen an avatar.
"Just start playing, you'll figure it out as you go along," said Killua, his concentration glued to the large crab-like enemy onscreen. At the shadowy, explosive defeat of their enemy, him and Gon watched the screen with gamer's lust in their eyes. Once the items appeared, Killua threw his controller angrily onto the ground. "Are you kidding me?! This is a load of bull!"
Gon whined, "We didn't get the rare item the villager promised!"
Leorio was still trapped at the start with no way of knowing how to proceed. "You couldn't have given me any better of an explanation...?!" he mumbled irritatedly, his character running away from enemies in tiny circles.
"What's the objective of this game?" Kurapika asked suddenly.
"Huh?" The question surprised Gon. He thought hard. "Uhh, what is the objective of the game...?"
"It's an RPG," Killua told them, unwrapping a sour pop from his pocket and inserting it into his mouth. "There isn't one set goal."
"What do you mean?" Gon asked.
"Oh!" Leorio jumped in, "I've heard the term 'RPG' before! That means there're multiple ways you could go about playing the game." He crossed his arms, looking intelligible though at that moment his avatar screamed.
"Multiple ways to play...?" Kurapika repeated slowly.
"Yeah," said Killua, one finger pointed in the air as he held the sour pop in his mouth. "While one player may think that being the town hero is the way to go, another might want to collect all the treasures in the land to be the wealthiest person in the entire game."
"W-wealthiest person in the entire game?!" Leorio blurted. He took up his controller and dashed his character forward once respawned. "Count me in!"
"So then, what kind of game are you and Gon playing?" Kurapika inquired.
"I'm looking for the strongest opponents so I can beat them and become the strongest!" answered Gon.
Killua shrugged. "Collecting items and battling enemies is pretty fun. But I don't have a specific aim so I'll just follow Gon around."
"What about you, Kurapika?" asked Gon, turning back toward him.
Kurapika felt the others holding their breaths as they anticipated his answer, which he found odd – though said nothing about. "Hmmm..." His gaze drifted up to the ceiling. What kind of game do I want to play...?
"...I'm not sure yet," he said finally. He looked away from the ceiling and smiled at the three of them. "I'll just follow you guys."
It hadn't been the answer they'd expected.
The four of them played until Gon and Killua decided they should head back to their own hotel to train for the upcoming Greed Island screening, by which time Kurapika surmised Neon and the Nostrade guard would be returning soon and instructed Leorio to leave as well. Melody, Basho, and the others did come back shortly thereafter, but Neon and her two maids locked themselves up in Neon's bedroom, and the bodyguards took leave in their own area of the suite for some well-deserved rest – shopping with Neon was far more exhausting than playing RPGs all afternoon. This left Kurapika for night watch.
Posting himself as the lone sentry in the main living space of the suite, Kurapika seated himself on the couch in the darkness. It was then he noticed the dim blue backlight of the TV stretched across the carpet. The JoyStation and controllers Gon and Killua had brought over were still plugged in.
I'll have to return this to them tomorrow, Kurapika thought, rolling up the cords of the controllers and setting them atop the dormant JoyStation. He reached toward the switch to power down the TV, but stopped. Kurapika looked around. No one else was pressed the JoyStation's power button sat down on the couch with a controller in his hand. If I keep the sound off I shouldn't bother anyone. And I'll be able to hear if someone tries to break into the room. A few calculating clicks emitted from the JoyStation, then the title screen appeared as the disk spun in the disk drive, humming gently. Kurapika pressed "Start" and selected the same avatar as before – the mage cloaked in green – and, beginning at the same point, headed west in the direction of the enclave Gon and Killua had fought the large crab-like monster. He felt rather silly being interested in this children's game. However, still being ill and needing something to keep him awake all night for watch duty, the game was an ad hoc distraction.
Kurapika figured he must have taken a wrong turn when instead he came upon a mountainside with a series of tunnels and caves running through it, but continued forward anyway, encountering goblin and troll-like creatures along the way.
A few hours later, around midnight, Kurapika came close to shutting off the game in acceptance of the night's cumbersome watch duty, until he arrived at a cave much bigger than those he'd previously found himself in. Inside were his monsters from reality.
In the reflection of the screen, Kurapika's eyes flashed a potent scarlet-red.
That morning, Melody found Kurapika on the couch in only his white sparring clothes, having drifted off with a controller in his hands, segments of blond hair fallen over his face, head tilted to one side. She switched off the TV and did the courtesy of laying him sideways, folding his blue and gold overclothes beside him and covering him with a blanket. When the other guards woke, she told them to continue to let him sleep, still drained mentally and physically from using so much Nen against the Phantom Troupe, and from being awake all night as the watchman. They agreed and left him in peace, accompanying Neon on her shopping again.
Leorio showed up later in the day.
"Wow, you're still playing that game...?" Leorio asked, hesitant. Somehow, the shadows under Kurapika's eyes had become darker since the day before.
"It's actually pretty entertaining," Kurapika said, focused on his avatar, who was running across the central field of the game's map toward the mountains in the distant north.
"That's unlike you," muttered Leorio, sitting down on the couch. "Maybe you should give it a rest."
When Leorio grabbed at the controller, Kurapika didn't budge.
Once Gon and Killua showed up, they played until sundown, more experienced and involved than before. They left around the same time, remembering when Kurapika said that Neon and the Nostrade guard would return, but Kurapika was still on the system as they left. It made the three of them to wonder why Kurapika had become so hooked to the game overnight.
On the third day, they were playing contently when they noticed Kurapika casting spells to immobilize and mercilessly destroy hordes of spider-looking creatures within the game. The expression Kurapika sported during these killings caused all of them a great scare, so Gon hurriedly suggested they go out and do something else as Killua unplugged the system. But Kurapika sat on the couch for a long time afterward, his Ten surging into Ren with a palpable rage.
"What do you think you're doing?" he asked, scarily calm. His eyes betrayed otherwise, fixated on Killua with an intent close to murder. "I was in the middle of something."
Even Killua caught a shiver up his spine from the glare of the angered Kurta, and plugged the machine back into the wall socket with a "sorry."
They continued to play until dark, this time in awkward silence – the only sure sounds were the cries of the spidery creatures in the game.
On the fourth day, Leorio, Gon, and Killua met outside the Nostrade suite to devise a plan to get Kurapika off the JoyStation.
"I thought it would make him better but it's only made him worse!" said Leorio exasperatedly – but also hushedly, since Kurapika was just behind the door.
"Yeah, he's still feeding his addiction to destroy the Troupe," said Killua, "just in a different form."
Gon watched the floor sullenly. "I really thought we'd be able to get the old Kurapika back again," he murmured quietly.
This stunned the other two.
After a moment, Killua went toward Gon, resting a hand on his shoulder. "Don't worry, Gon. Kurapika may be stubborn, but nowhere near as stubborn as you. We'll definitely be able to slap some sense into him." He smiled.
Gon looked up and smiled at him. "Thank you, Killua."
Killua removed his hand immediately, grin wiped from his face. "Hey, hey, don't get all mushy on me now."
Leorio said, talking louder as if to pep talk them, "Well, we better go in and do this. You ready?"
They nodded.
As soon as they entered, Leorio stood in front of the TV screen with his hands on his hips. This startled Kurapika, who looked up at him, unfocused. "Kurapika, you've been on that thing for days. We've decided it isn't good for your health and as your friends we are performing a video game intervention." He bent over, reaching to snatch the JoyStation controller from Kurapika's hands.
Kurapika moved away from Leorio and closed his eyes, grinning wryly. "What do you think you're doing?"
"You've been on that thing for four days straight!" Leorio said. "You have to do something else!"
Killua input, "You looked like you were about to kill me yesterday when I unplugged the JoyStation!"
"C'mon, Kurapika," said Gon in his childish whiny voice. "We should do something else before you have to leave, not play games the entire time."
"You're the one who put Gon and Killua up to getting me interested in playing in the first place, right?" Kurapika directed the question at Leorio, ignoring Gon and Killua completely. He glared harshly up at Leorio from his cross-legged position on the couch. "Was I not supposed to like the game?"
Leorio froze in his second attempt to take the controller from Kurapika, eyes wide. "W-wait, you knew we wanted you to –?"
"Of course I knew!" Kurapika articulated in irate confidence. "You thought I wouldn't notice what you were trying to do?!"
"Well we didn't think you were going to become addicted to it!" rebounded Killua, irritated at being shut out of the argument.
"What did you think, then?" Kurapika demanded.
Gon shouted, "We just didn't want you to go after the Spiders anymore!"
Kurapika gasped in shock. He couldn't conjure a witty reply to that.
"We don't like seeing you this way, Kurapika!" Gon shouted in earnest. "What you did to the leader of the Phantom Troupe and Pakunoda took a lot out of you! I can see it in your face!" He relaxed his shoulders. "You've changed."
"What do you know about the Troupe or about me?" Kurapika snapped. He stood up. "How I live my life is none of your business."
"Yes it is!" Gon retorted, stepping forward.
"Of course it's our business!" averred Leorio. "We're your friends, aren't we?!"
Kurapika sat in amazed silence. How was he supposed to react to that? He hid his face from view, then loosened his grip on the controller until it dropped to the ground. "I... you're right."
The others gasped in relief.
"I'm sorry for not taking your feelings into consideration," he apologized, eyes and expression back to normal. "I won't do anything so reckless again."
He watched as their faces lit with bright smiles, and soon his did too. He'd almost forgotten how thankful he was to have such great friends.
Dusty lashes fluttered open in the darkness. The faint glow of candle fire made his eyes appear a soft smoky-red hue. Oh, I must have fallen asleep... It wasn't often he dreamed of them. It'd been years since he'd seen either hair or sign of Gon, Killua, and Leorio. That was probably for the best.
His gaze shifted to the rows of transparent tubes on the shelves below the candlelight. The Scarlet Eyes bobbed up and down in their glassy homes. Kurapika sat up, back stiff from sleeping on the flat wooden pew. Ruffling the hair matted against his face, his attention was rapt to the someone descending the stairs. He listened to the rhythm of the steps carefully.
It was one of his underlings. "Leader, we got a tip on the next person suspect to owning a pair of Scarlet Eyes," he informed, ducking just below the ceiling of the stairs behind Kurapika.
He barely turned his head. "Understood. I'll be there momentarily."
The man nodded and tromped back up the stairs. The henchman was just another Mafia dog with no aim other than status and money. They all were. Kurapika didn't allow himself a smile at the reminder of someone else who seemed to care only for wealth.
From the rows of glass before him, the red eyes watched him. The protective layer of Ten around Kurapika's body spiked aggressively as he stood. Bringing his Nen-infused right hand close to his face, the chain rings around his fingers materialized into view. Kurapika twisted his wrist, inspecting them with a loving meticulousness.
Now then. He swiped his arm back to his side and the chains disappeared. Who will I have to threaten today?