Mask of Innocence

Disclaimers: Standard disclaimers apply. Hunter X Hunter is a manga made by the great Yoshiro Togashi. No money is made in the creation of this fanfic.
Warnings: The usual YAOI warning ^_^ Hint of OOCness on some characters, ehe, forgive me ^_^'
Notes: If this doesn't show that this is some sort of angsty romance story, I don't know what will. Comments are greatly appreciated! - kurapikasama@yahoo.com

Chapter 3 - Do you see me...?

The light in the small cafe was fairly dim, giving the place an elegant feel to it. The black marble surfaces of the tables, black leather and metal chairs even enhanced the atmosphere even more. The door continuously opens and closes as customers walk in and out of it, indicating a well-run business. Waiters stood in different places, waiting for a call, greeting newcomers and bidding those who go out a polite goodbye. The sweet, strong aroma of caffeine lingered in the cold air-conditioned place, with the busy rustle and bustle made by the waiters and the customers.

Leorio fingered the small fork in his hand, playing with the remaining whipped cream that laid in the small platter in front of him, swirling them around. The small tinkling sound of silverware against glass echoed in his ear, but nevertheless, he wasn't really listening to it. It just seemed to pass through his ear, through his empty mind and out the other ear. Like the way his companion's words seem to just ring around his head, without him understanding even just one word of it.

On another other side of the table, Kurapika shifted his eyes from the speaker, Killua, to a certain, usually talkative doctor that sat on a seat next to his. The table was a black, marble square, one seat on each side. Technically, he wasn't beside anybody, but it can be considered that somehow.

"...so then Miruki called and told me that Illumi's running around himself as well. They don't know where, but it seems as though Karuto saw him in some hotel a few cities from here and..."

The younger boy's words also died down from the Kuruta's senses, his gaze mainly focused on the doctor. Blue eyes turned worried when the older man didn't even give him a sign that he noticed him looking, even if Kurapika was fairly sure that he was being obvious. His gaze momentarily shifted to Killua and Gon, checking if the two were all right. Killua was still talking, his words focused on Gon mainly instead of the three of them. He didn't mind though, he and Leorio have always known that Killua was much closer to Gon than anybody else, so it wasn't a surprise that he finds a more suitable person to talk to whenever they're together. As for Gon, he was listening at Killua's story attentively, sipping his juice from time to time, but his eyes never left the light-haired boy.

Assured that Killua and Gon weren't looking, long, slender fingers reach up to tap the other man's arm once. The other's eyes widened behind dark, round glasses, immediately looking at him with a look that the blue-eyed boy can't exactly decipher. Concerned eyebrows furrowed into a frown, his head tilting to one side in a silent question.

Are you all right?

Those were the words that Leorio found in the other's eyes, a pure look of a slightly calm alarm. He's worried for me, he thought, judging from how the young Kuruta looked at him. He tried to speak, to tell him that he was fine, but something trembled and knocked inside of him, asking him the very same question. A question for the answer of "I'm fine" that he was just about to say.

Am I?

The question bothered him, making him silent still. He looked into the eyes of the boy slightly across from him, gazing into their deep blue depths, searching for an answer. What would he say? Could he tell him how he was feeling? How much he wanted him, adored him, loved him? How much it hurts to look at him and only see friendship reflected in his eyes with the way he looks at him, to tell him how much it hurt to smile for him when all he wanted to do was cry everything out? Will he be able to stop pretending not to see the look of obvious rejection in his beautiful face? Will he keep on masking everything out because he was too afraid to lose him?

Dark brown eyes finally looked away, shifting their attention to a fairly tall palm plant just beside their table. To all the questions he just asked himself a few seconds ago, the answers were all but a simple yet painful word: No.

Kurapika didn't miss the look of longing in Leorio's eyes, but like he had always done, he pretended he didn't see it. Like always, he acted as if he was just a friend, somebody who'd look at the doctor in friendly terms but not as something more.

But it wasn't because he didn't want to.

It was because he can't.

"Hey!"

Killua's voice sounded, breaking the moment, breaking the silence that had befallen their already silent conversation. But the silence was a different kind of silence. Just a while ago, they were talking, mentally. They seem to do that quite often actually, to only have the need to look into the other's eyes and immediately know what the other wants. They were that close, and both knew it. But the silence that had just befallen them through the other one was different, colder, painful. It was the silence they get into because they were afraid to look anymore, and they'll stop "talking" because the unspoken words are getting far too intimate. Far too undeniably clear, yet always denied and ignored.

Both pairs of eyes moved to look at the owner of the voice, one trying to catch the other's gaze while the other fought to avoid it. Kurapika tried to ignore the pain that suddenly crossed him then, dismissing the momentary ache, convincing himself that it was nothing.

But he knew it wasn't nothing. This was Leorio. The only one who can own his attention far more than anybody had owned it. He was the one who would always look at him, and smile when he looks back. He will always be there, no matter what the Kuruta did. He was always hoping, yet expecting nothing despite the many favors he had done.

Was he looking for something now? Was he starting to ask for his part of their so-called "friendship"?

Or was it really called that? As far as he could remember, Leorio had done him more favors and pardons than what can be expected out of anybody. But what has he done for the other? None. Only the right to look at him whenever he wants to, to look into his eyes with more than the usual look without getting punched square on the face. But was that fair? Was that what he was supposed to do?

No. But nevertheless, he does it.

Killua blinked up at the two. "Are you two even listening to what I was saying?" he asked. He rolled his eyes when both looked down in what looked like a gesture of apology that says "No, we didn't listen because we were staring off into space like a bunch of idiots". The young boy sighed and repeated his words from a while ago. "I was trying to ask you all if it's okay if we stay at my family's house for a while. Miruki said that it was the only other way my father could have me and Illumi back with them. Something about the idea of killing you guys and Illumi's supposed companion instead as a bad thought even to just think about," he said, shrugging.

Gon piped in. "Can we? Please? If we're allowed, I don't think it would be so bad. And even if they are trying to do something to us, they would've done it straight away instead of making us go in circles, right Killua?"

Killua nodded. "That's right. So what do you say?" he asked the other two.

Leorio, who was still in his best-friend-ignoring spree, looked at Killua and shrugged. He grinned, his momentary silence, self-hatred and regret hidden yet again in his trademark mask. A smile.

"Could be fun," he said. "And what the heck, we're stronger than last time now, eh Gon?"

Gon grinned back and nodded. "Of course!" He then looked at Killua. "Last time, we were told you were able to open three doors. Let's see who opens the most doors this time!" he said, giving Leorio and Kurapika a challenging look as well.

Killua nodded enthusiastically, giving Gon back the look of challenge.

Kurapika only smiled, a smile directed at Gon and Killua yet a smile that wished to reach the remaining member of their group as well. Again, he looked at the other. And again, he was ignored. And this time, when the cold pain came, he welcomed it. Because he knew he deserved it. He deserved it, because this kind of pain may not even be half of what he had caused the other.

But still...

I never really was worth being special to someone like you. Of course it hurts, but what hurts the most is that I can't tell you why. I'm afraid you wouldn't understand. I'm afraid to tell you because you might move away. I'm afraid to lose you.

But isn't that what it seems to be now? Or am I just hoping that you'll get over it and this anger will pass, leaving you with me without anything else to worry about? I don't want to risk it, but I wouldn't want to lose you this way either.

I don't know what to do.

I'm weak, helpless against these things. I get depressed too easily, to the point that the depression becomes obsession, and obsession becomes madness. And every time it happens, I always run to you for comfort even if I make it show as if I do it by myself. I look for you whenever I fall. Can't you feel it? Can't you see it?

Don't leave me now. I know I can be quite selfish, but if you're planning to punish me, not now. Please, not now.

Not this way...

* * * * *

"An invitation then?"

Illumi nodded. He had just told Hisoka about what his younger brother, Miruki, had called to him over the phone for. Just a while ago, the young boy called him through his cellphone, asking him if he even had plans of coming back. It was tempting to say a straight "no", but he knew that wouldn't be much of a good idea. So all he said was that he wasn't sure. When the younger boy pushed him further with his barrage of accusing questions, accusations that had a slight bit of truth in them, he finally confessed.

He didn't want to go home.

Why? He didn't know. Sure, he was always ordered around by his elders to do them more favors than how much they give his other siblings, but that never really bothered him before. Usually, he'll only nod his head without even a sign of resentment against his father, mother or grandfathers. He was trained to be that way. He was made to be a master of his opponents, the god of his victims, yet a slave to those more powerful than he was.

But what caused him to change? Why had he suddenly turned childish, to a boy like Killua, who only does what he wants and disobeys orders when told? Why had he suddenly had the thirst to be free, to do as he desires without having to be pushed around and punished for disobeying? Why did he suddenly want to stay with another person, to always be where this other man was, even to the point of leaving the family all in all because he was driven by an alien feeling of loss if ever he'd even try to move away?

Illumi Zoldick was not like that. Illumi never neglected his duties, Illumi is always cold, aloof, bound to his parents' commands, abiding always to the rules. He never did go against the family, he never turns his back even if he was all but a simple member of the assassin group when his much younger brother will be the next heir. Illumi never cared, Illumi never felt anything, absolutely nothing. Nothing could ever go through his thick shield of dangerous ice that keeps him to be what he was supposed to be, to keep him from the world that might change him into something his family wouldn't want for him.

But were these questions really that hard to answer? He knows fully well what the answers will be, just by looking up to look into the eyes of the man who, as his conscience accused, changed him.

But that was why he didn't want to look. He was afraid to face the truth, because he still wanted to believe that he was still the same Illumi he knew, that his family knew. He didn't want to admit that he started to want something he wasn't supposed to, and he wouldn't admit that he's starting to drift away. He didn't want to go any further because if he did, life would be so complex. He never really liked it, life. How could he? He was an assassin. He takes life away. What was it like to be like him, one might ask?

Empty.

He's made to kill, made to obey. He has no right to live the way others do, because he wasn't like everybody else. But that was what he had thought before. That was when he accepted his fate, his destiny, to be a full-pledged killing machine with eyes that say absolutely nothing to the world.

But that phone call from Miruki just confirmed his fears.

He changed.

Hisoka noticed his companion's silence. Not that the younger boy hasn't always been silent, he just knew that something was unbearably wrong. He smirked, finally living to see how Illumi Zoldick handle inner conflicts. He had always thought if it was even possible for the young man to even feel anything, but overtime, while they were together for the past few days, he found what he wanted to see in more ways than one. And he was gravely amused.

But then, that was the sadistic side in him talking. His little "experiment" with the eldest of the Zoldick siblings was complete. He was just curious at first really, all but trying to see if he'll get a result. But in due time, not only had he learned something about the other man, he also found something in himself.

The part long hidden, the part he thought was lost, or had never been there to begin with. But that was when he discovered how it was to look for somebody again, to yearn and search for a kind of intimacy, a kind of physical contact if one would allow him to call it that. No amount of magic or power could ever give him the satisfaction he wanted from time to time. And that part was awakened by Illumi, and now that he thought that everything was over, now that he thought things will end just when Illumi admitted it to himself that he was capable of being someone opposed to what was required of him, he was unable to go.

A stupid thing to happen, but unconsciously, he fell into his own trap. And now he couldn't leave.

End of chapter 3