Author's Notes:

PAIRING: Leorio/Kurapika (Leopika).

RATING: Mature. Eventual sexual content.

This story features art by HeyHaleyHAE on Twitter. To view the image, check out the version posted on Archive of Our Own (AO3 username: lemonpika).

Chapter 1: Exposition, or where Kurapika sets up a romantic hero

There are books of all sorts and subjects to keep them occupied — to while away the fifty hours that Leorio squandered in a reckless attempt to acquaint himself with the dips and curves of a woman's shape — but Kurapika selects a classic romance from the shelves. Only then does he retreat into his bubble. As Gon enlightens Killua about the proper manner of baiting and hooking dinner in the wild outdoors, and as Leorio drifts to slumber over cotton cushions, Kurapika suspends himself in an imagined realm, far above the earthly occurrences of this temporary confinement.

Kurapika fully comprehends, of course, that his time will be most intelligently spent in rigorous study of science, art, and history, for what else must a Pro Hunter be but disciplined in mentality as well as physicality? Who's to say that the fourth phase will not involve a traditional examination to test this very mental acuity? Romance, however, is the sole guilty pleasure that Kurapika permits himself beyond the single-minded fixation on his goals. Romance is relief stolen from the prearranged words in minds more placid than his own. More often than not, the genre provides common-trodden twists and turns, a denouement tied neatly with silken ribbons, perhaps even the conclusive clang of wedding bells.

Boy meets girl, and for weeks or months or years afterward, the prospective couple engages in this push-and-pull of warring wills — a token resistance to a predestined conclusion that the reader has already divined a dozen chapters prior. There is comfort in this predictability, a palpable catharsis as the heroine crashes for the last time into the hero's arms. She stays with him for good, and all the feuding and the falling out of love that come afterward — as they must — are wisely left off the page. Reality is burdensome enough without bleeding into fictional escapes.

While the fabrication of love frequently adheres to this general framework and all its accompanying tropes, the particularities ensure that every retelling is fresh. In the present iteration in Kurapika's hands, aptly titled Seduction by the Simulacra, the hero is a spy tasked with infiltrating the innermost workings of an organized crime syndicate. He meets and falls at the feet of a good woman, as violent men in fiction often do, and comes to worship even the dirt over which she walks. Swearing from this point onward to emulate his heroine's pacifist ideals — to raise his revolver only to defend and never to maim — he then works to extract his heroine from her myriad entanglements with the seedy underbelly of their city, ranging from the debts that she must pay on behalf of her departed ancestors, to the bejeweled family heirlooms that she must recover from the black market.

Love as redemption for the hero, and love as salvation for the heroine. It's a story that Kurapika has read any number of times before, but the particularities in this instance incite a curious effervescence within his chest. The author's description of the hero, to be specific, strikes an all-too-familiar chord, or several at once. Cassander Sol, as the hero is called, towers over everyone around him. He has broad shoulders, black hair fashioned into spikes, and small eyes the color of coffee grounds, with the same invigorating impact as a straight shot of espresso. Whether in the dead of night or in the height of noon, he wears his signature sunglasses, supposedly to retain a permanent dark partition between himself and the world.

Kurapika chances a surreptitious glance over his current romance, just in time to see the hook from Gon's fishing rod snare a loosened thread on the cuff of Leorio's trousers.

"Right on target!" Killua whoops, brandishing the fishing rod in triumph as Gon cheers beside him.

Unceremoniously jerked awake by the yanking motions on his ankle, Leorio grumbles, telling the two children to knock it off. But the mischievous stars in Killua's eyes only glimmer, brighter than ever. Rather than heeding Leorio's entreaties to set him free, Killua doubles down on reeling him in.

Kurapika's jaw drops as, with a vigorous tug from Killua, Leorio's trousers slide down his backside, liberally exposing the crack of his buttocks.

Seeking to conceal the flames that have swallowed his face with an alarming rapidity, Kurapika buries behind the pages of his book again. His eyes dart swiftly from sentence to sentence even as Leorio begins bickering with the sniggering Tonpa.

Just now, what was Kurapika even imagining? How can he think of comparing Leorio, of all people on God's green earth, to Cassander the wise, Cassander the gentle, Cassander the brave. . . .

At the moment, Kurapika is doing whatever he can to forget every wise, gentle, and brave feat that he's already witnessed his new companion accomplish. The way that Leorio cleverly tricked Majtani into betraying his bluff, when Kurapika's refusal to kill the prisoner threatened to jeopardize the entire team's chances of clearing the Hunter Exam. The way that Leorio earnestly treated the injuries of a Kiriko in disguise with the first-aid supplies he stows in his suitcase. The way that Leorio dove forward, with barely a flicker of hesitation, to save a stranger who'd pitched over the side of a storm-ravaged ship.

Try as he might, Kurapika can't get Leorio and all his virtues out of his mind as he continues consuming every tension-filled scenario in the book. Even when Kurapika arrives at the ending — his heart squeezing with hitherto unknown intensity as Cassander finally kisses the heroine in the forty-fourth chapter — he can't bring himself to meet Leorio's eyes as he traverses the room to single out his next romance. Another tale, perhaps, that will allow him to indulge in this newfound fancy.

As Kurapika's fingers trail over the spines, a shadow darkens his view of the embossed titles and authorial credits.

"Was your last book any good?" a deep voice rumbles over Kurapika's head.

If Cassander were a real person — flesh and blood like the flesh and blood behind Kurapika now — would his voice sound like Leorio's? Kurapika has to wonder.

As Kurapika turns around to face Leorio, the proximity between their bodies forces him to brush against the expanse of Leorio's muscular chest. Kurapika looks up at his face, but Leorio is not at all returning his gaze, preoccupied as he is with scanning the uppermost row of books, far beyond Kurapika's reach.

From this position, Leorio can so easily pin Kurapika's thin wrists against the shelf. Leorio can lean in, slow and steady, the way Cassander did at the end of the novel, with brown eyes begging silently for consent to the long-awaited contact of their lips. In an alternate universe where Leorio sees Kurapika as Kurapika is seeing him now, will Kurapika, just like the heroine, say yes?

Leorio tilts his head downward to stare. Kurapika feels his eyes go wide and his body turn rigid, at least until the disappointing realization of Leorio's true intentions surges over him. Leorio is simply waiting for an answer to his earlier question, not steeling himself for a passionate lock of lips.

"The story's sheer amount of coincidences and conveniences left much to be desired," Kurapika tells Leorio now. "Its language, however, was undeniably evocative."

"Eh. . . ."

Just as Kurapika has hoped, this cryptic response instantly saps Leorio's interest in his preferred reading material. Leorio snatches a book with a scientific illustration of a skeleton on the cover and saunters off without another word.

Turning back toward the shelf, Kurapika haphazardly grabs around twenty titles that sound at least vaguely romantic before returning to his makeshift reading nook. Better to minimize as much as possible the necessity for return trips to the bookshelves and, consequently, such dangerous encounters with Cassander's doppelganger.

Kurapika dives back into the hallowed halls of make-believe again, but the face that he's trying to escape accosts him wherever he turns. His mind persistently casts Leorio in the role of romantic lead, regardless of the actual character's profession, physique, or peculiarities.

Worse than that, however, is the role to which Kurapika finds himself relegated during these fantasies. As exhausted as he's historically been of correcting every brute who misgenders him as a woman, he can't avoid projecting himself onto these delicate romantic heroines, who will more often than not stand in stark contrast to the macho men who seek to protect them from the perils of the outside world, who seek to possess them once they're alone behind closed doors.

Leorio is the charming prince who visits from a neighboring kingdom, while Kurapika is the mythical princess who loses her memories as well as her crown. Leorio is the fireman who offers the spare room in his apartment, while Kurapika is the single mother of two whose house has been razed into ashes. Leorio is the veteran pilot who valiantly attempts to wrest control of a careening airship, while Kurapika is the bright-eyed tourist in a floppy hat who breaks both legs upon landing but who nevertheless winds up being the sole passenger to survive the tragic crash.

As the time spent in this locked room dwindles away, Kurapika reimagines himself as all these different personas who don different costumes and fight different obstacles. Always, in the end, every manufactured challenge eventually melts away as his hero, Leorio, comes thundering closer on his literal or metaphorical white horse.

By the time the buzzer goes off to signal the passage of fifty hours, Kurapika can safely say that he's leaving the room with a most inconvenient infatuation that he didn't harbor before.

With beaten bodies and blistered hands, they manage to make their way from the third phase to the fourth. Even as the boat speeds toward the penultimate stage, Zevil Island, the battle prematurely permeates the air around the remaining twenty-four applicants. As for his own plate, No. 404, Kurapika has already slipped it from its prior position over his heart into a hidden pocket sewn beneath his tabard.

Kurapika can't ignore Leorio's fidgeting beside him. Is he Leorio's target for this round? Is this what Leorio is trying to tell him? Must he lose yet another person that he's come to care for?

Leorio says that Kurapika shouldn't expect any mercy from him, and feigning indifference, Kurapika echoes this sentiment.

Leorio is sizing him up, Kurapika can sense it, wondering at his chances at overpowering Kurapika. In all actuality, Leorio won't experience any trouble whatsoever knocking Kurapika down. Leorio is unaware, however, of a failsafe that Kurapika has always kept in his bag since he was twelve — an opaque bottle filled to the brim with isopropyl alcohol, preserving the entomological embodiment of his sworn enemy. In case of emergencies, Kurapika only needs to unscrew the cap, which then triggers his scarlet eyes and enables him to effortlessly neutralize threats several times his strength and size.

But as it serves no purpose to continue letting Leorio see him, even hypothetically, as an adversary, Kurapika freely reveals the truth: Leorio isn't Kurapika's target, at least not in a way that should cause him any concern.

This admission visibly dispels the jitters from Leorio's expression. "You're not my target either!" he calls as Kurapika walks away.

Kurapika has to smile despite himself.

Staying low and close to thickets, Kurapika shadows No. 16, his prey. Tracking his target this way, Kurapika nimbly notices that he and Tonpa share a similar preoccupation with Leorio, although Tonpa's interest is decidedly more malignant. As Tonpa strikes up an alliance with No. 118, Sommy, he's thanking the heavens for assigning him a target as gullible as Leorio.

Kurapika's blood boils as the bastard boisterously outlines his nefarious plan to steal Leorio's number plate. But to actually observe the execution of these deceptive steps, this artifice as it unfolds before his very eyes. . . . Kurapika must repeatedly remind himself to lie in wait until the timing is right. If he wishes to assist Leorio, he can't afford to lose the element of surprise.

Tonpa is clutching his tummy as Leorio crouches to unclasp his checkered suitcase. Tonpa has agreed to trade information about Leorio's target — No. 246, Ponzu — for a few of the antidiarrheal tablets stashed away with Leorio's possessions, among other basic medications that an aspiring physician might keep handy.

Alerted to a rustle overhead, Leorio darts away in time as Sommy descends from the trees to attack him. Bottles of herbal creams and ointments, rolls upon rolls of bandages, silver sheets of analgesics and ibuprofen — all these things come tumbling out from Leorio's gaping suitcase as Sommy's pet monkey springs forward to pluck Leorio's plate, No. 403, as planned.

It's nearly time for Kurapika to step away from the sidelines and propose an alliance with Leorio. Once he's done so, he can openly watch Leorio's back — sinewy and strong — as Leorio purports to watch him in return. No matter what, Kurapika must not reveal his secret motives for wanting to partner with Leorio, must never forget that he can only stay by Leorio's side as a friend.

Isn't it pointless for Kurapika to aspire to achieve anything beyond this lucky hand that he's already been dealt? All these ridiculous reveries about Leorio, Kurapika should banish them to his books, to his daydreams.