Filched

By Yukitsu

Disclaimers: Hunter X Hunter is not mine. No profit, please don't sue, no money, just a college student about to graduate this semester here.

Notes: Not as much of a crack as the first chapter anymore, and I think I got rid of the head-hopping. But at any rate, I'd still like to keep this as humour. Even though it's so sad now that it's not funny anymore.

Dedication to Lynlyn, as usual, who I now fondly call Lynffles and eat the food of when we see each other. Yes, this is to thank you for your choco-banana-mango thing. XD

And Inverse-chan, because her drabbles rock.

Chapter Two:

Something Smaller.

He had enough Nen to cover his presence up with Zetsu. If he tried hard enough, he'd even be able to pull In off, but he wasn't sure how long he'd be able to keep it up. No matter how much he tried to will his body to, it would not recover overnight – or, in this case, four hours.

What mattered was that he could move around without attracting attention. Years of self-imposed training and the half-year he spent in the forest after the massacre alone had honed his stealth to a very fine degree. He wasn't as good at it as Killua, granted, but then again, not many people were.

It was nearly dawn. He didn't have much time to do what he came there for.

As he gazed down at the blank face of the sleeping Kuroro Lucifer, Kurapika mused vaguely on how nothing really changed with the man even through slumber. The dark-haired Dancho slept curled up on his left side, with an arm under his head and the other over his abdomen. Apart from his leather coat, nothing else had been taken off – he even had his boots on.

Kuroro still looked intimidating, in his charming and handsome way – Kurapika would have to admit that for a supposed master criminal, Kuroro looked very pleasant to the eyes. He had always assumed that only a monster could have been behind his clan's genocide.

But then, Kurapika had yet to convince himself Kuroro was otherwise.

The man was difficult to analyze. Kurapika wasn't too good with figuring people out – he still hadn't figured his present friends out yet – but he had a decent grasp of people's characters. Kuroro was, to put it mildly, an enigma.

It would have been easy to just leave Kurapika in the hands of the greedy bastards who had abused his heritage. It would have been easier still to just kill him on the spot for the sins he had done to the group in the past. Two years wasn't too long a time, but except for the samurai, he couldn't really feel any anger from the members of the Ryodan during the twisted reunion before; an unhidden wariness, maybe, but nothing more. It could be that they didn't think too much of two people's deaths, especially since they hadn't thought much of a whole tribe's demise, but he was still a threat.

Simply put, he knew this wasn't in character for the Spiders, or at the very least, the Spiders as he and everyone else knew them in his head.

So why, then, was the leader – who he concluded was the cause of this – acting against the general benefit of his group? As he was, even the failures of the Hunter Exam of his batch would have managed to finish him off without much effort. It would have been too easy.

He took his attention off the man as he stared at the spider crawling up the wall in one dark corner. It scuttled up, slid down, and then scuttled up again. Kurapika wished he could throw something at it.

If he thought about it, he wished he had something to stab Kuroro with too.

Kurapika stretched his hand, focused his In as he materialized his Judgment chain, and let it hover over Kuroro's heart – he wasn't going to do anything, really, he owed the man his life and with his state of brain functioning at the moment, Kuroro would just find a way to get past his conditions anyway. The chain glinted, dully reflecting what little light filtered through the broken patches of dusty windowpane.

The Judgment Chain disappeared in the next second, and he struggled to keep his Nen from flaring wildly at the break in the flow. Kuroro didn't even move, and he inwardly sighed in relief.

"There is hardly a need for this, Kuruta."

Kurapika jumped, tripped over his own feet – he really shouldn't have forced himself around with his weakened body, walking around in the dark no less – and landed on his rear on the floor in front of him. He stared at the man who was giving him an amused look.

"Your Eyes, Kuruta."

So bad was his shock that he could barely will it to return to normal.

"Since when--"

"The temperature rose a few degrees when you came in here," Kuroro cut him off, fluidly sitting up from his relaxed sleeping pose and crossing his legs. For some inexplicable reason, the blond felt his face heating up, and he concentrated on staring at his enemy's hair whilst he recomposed himself mentally.

"First time seeing me with my hair down?" Kuroro asked conversationally, causing Kurapika to blink, process, and glare in disbelief.

"There must be a reason why you're here, apart from trying to pretend that I'm a bloody corpse; I don't think you'd willingly socialize with me otherwise, and I did tell you we would be gone by morning. Is there anything I can do for you?"

"I…" The blond didn't really know what to say, apart from 'Give me my family back.' As he tried to gather his thoughts in an organized sentence, he realized how stupid he must look, sprawled on the dirty floor. He hastily got to his feet but kept his eyes down.

"Have a seat."

He was about to say 'no, thank you,' but thought of how foolish it would make him seem if he just stood in front of the man like a student being berated by a teacher. Kurapika sat down at the edge of the bed, as far away from Kuroro as possible.

The mattress collapsed under him, and he yelped as his rear fell through the steel frame.

The older man said nothing, and Kurapika felt even more embarrassed because of it. He picked himself up with a little difficulty and stiffly resumed his seat, although he had to sit closer to the man to do so.

For the life of him, Kurapika didn't know why he was feeling embarrassed in the first place. This was his enemy, the person he vowed to kill for murdering and treating his kin like mere artifacts.

"You still sit like you did as a child," Kuroro remarked.

"Why?" he finally said, not looking at the man.

"Why what?" Kuroro touched his elbow to his thighs, and the tips of his fingers together. "Why you're still alive?"

"Why you didn't mention about having seen me as a child before, when I still had you captive." A pause; Kurapika turned to face his host. "That, also."

Dark eyes blinked owlishly in surprise, in such a way that reminded Kurapika of Illumi. "It would hardly have been beneficial to me in that situation, seeing as you had me bound and under the threat of bloody murder at every slight – or non-existent – provocation. I was rather attached to my teeth, and you already punched one off."

"So now it's beneficial for you?" Kurapika said incredulously, wishing he could do some punching at the moment.

"Of course. It keeps you confused and submissive enough to not attack me. I wouldn't want to be the cause of your expiration."

"And you're telling me this for the same reason?" the blond demanded angrily, jumping up from his seat and glaring down at the man in renewed hate.

"Of course." There was a twinkle in the man's eyes. "You haven't attacked me yet, have you?"

Kurapika was speechless.

"As for your second question, I believe I have already, partly, answered that," Kuroro said smoothly, "You are, after all, one of the rarest treasures currently in existence. It would be a shame if you were to die, since your worth would degenerate only to your Eyes and, while they are extremely valuable, would fetch a lesser price in the market."

"Y-you bastard!" When the weight of the explanation hit, Kurapika turned livid and his eyes flashed back to bright red. His Nen pulsated wildly and erratically; his chains wavered sharply into existence and tinkled together angrily. To be regarded as a treasure was lost on him, and he could only notice that he had been thought of as a mere object. Similar thoughts had taken so much from him and his tribe, and with a jolt, he realized that the person in front of him had a lot to do with that.

"The Kuruta and our eyes are not objects," Kurapika's voice cracked, "To be sold and coveted by anyone who has enough money to do so."

Kuroro gave him an amused look. "What do you think of the Geneiryodan as the main target of bounty hunters, then?"

"It's not the same."

"You think so?" Before Kurapika could open his mouth to reply, Kuroro had cut him off. "But it is not a matter that is worth discussing."

Kurapika stared at him in rising disbelief.

"Valuable or not," the dark-haired man continued, shifting his position to meet Kurapika's eyes, "The Geneiryodan has no interest in you. However, I consider myself an aesthete, and I see your potential. Seeing as you have ceased to be a danger to the group, I thought it best to let you be."

Kuroro Lucifer, Kurapika thought vaguely as he lashed out with a fist, was an incredibly annoying and arrogant bastard.

His fist met the palm of the stronger man's hand, and before Kurapika knew what was happening, Kuroro was on his feet and Kurapika was sprawled gracelessly on the bed. The frame creaked and the mattress sent up a puff of dust.

"I would think that a scholar such as yourself would understand the state of disadvantage that he is in, and the denotation of the word 'rest,'"

Kurapika swore, and was attacked by a coughing fit that hurt his lungs in such a way that reminded him of the ashes of his home. This was the man who had burned it, who had sealed his fate into becoming what he was now.

A pathetic child lying on a bed of mold and dust, his mind whispered to him. He killed the thought.

"I suggest ceasing this meaningless pursuit for the day, Kuruta," Kuroro said, voice tinged with both amusement and stern command. "My Ryodan's patience can only last so long, and they have proven to become rather protective of their head."

The blond remained silent, staring straight ahead at the wall, stubbornly ignoring the man. A sliver of Kuroro's coat glinted at him from the corner of his vision; he fought to keep the bile down his throat.

Another moment of silence. "Very well, then. I trust that you will take my advice and not leave this room for the duration of the night. The Geneiryodan shall be heading North, in the morning. You would do well to take a route to the South."

Kurapika didn't answer, but curled in around himself. He thought he must look lonely.

"Good night, Kuruta." He couldn't even hear the man's footsteps.

Kurapika let himself succumb to a fitful sleep, and in the morning, he found the Geneiryodan gone as promised.

He went South.

The eyes of the Kuruta were highly prized by collectors everywhere. So beautiful and unique were their color that they had been listed as one of the most wonderful colors of the world. The fact that the tribe had been wiped out more than doubled each pair's value. For every pair that disappeared, the value of the remaining pairs increased. Simple law of supply and demand.

What if someone had survived the genocide? What if that survivor went about collecting what belonged to his kin? The value not only of the remaining pairs would sky-rocket, but also of that survivor. To be the only one in the world, with nothing that could substitute his existence, made Kurapika one of the rarest treasures alive.

In two years, twenty pairs of eyes had disappeared from the market, eight more pairs were safely locked in various collectors' vaults, and only seven were being circulated.

Kurapika was a C-class on his own, while the eyes were D-class. The fact that he was skilled at hiding himself and fighting off the bounty hunters that did chance upon him made him a B-class.

Kurapika had raised his and his kin's eyes' level by at least two on his own in two years. The black market was in an uproar.

In another year, all the circulating eyes had been retrieved. Kurapika had also stepped out into the open, attracting the attention of nearly every bounty hunter and every collector in the world. And he could fight them off. He had been training. It was only fit.

He had raised his rank to A.

11:30 AM 11/9/2006 – though, I typed about ninety percent of this way back, about the same time I posted chapter one.

Tell me about what you think of the dialogue! D: Kuroro's voice in my head sounds a little too aristocratic.