Gon isn't allowed up there and he isn't about to stress test how much he can break the rules, but he can watch from the sidelines while Kurapika does more intense, focused practice with another acrobat. There are things they do that Gon wouldn't dream of trying, the double flips, triple flips, using each other's bodies to swing and hanging from the trapeze by their bent legs. He can see why people enjoy watching this with their hearts in their mouths, hell there's a safety net there that he knows is safe and he's still leaning on worried.
Maybe it's a little quick, but he's prepared them both lunch - does Kurapika like sandwiches even and where's the guy from, was he from the last town and available so they hired him on as an acrobat or did he meet up with them here or along the way? He's the first real, nice, polite, friendly face he's met and is around his age and all of a sudden he's latching onto him like they're life long friends.
It's best if he just got his stuff and left, Kurapika must feel so on the spot which might be why he's making no mistakes and hasn't fallen yet. Gon collects his stuff, snack boxes and all, into his pack and thinks of a way to apologize without being too informal.
"Gon, where you headed?" Kurapika is already climbing down to meet him and hops the last couple feet. He can't just run away now, that's too awkward, there needs to be a talk so there's a clean break and Kurapika doesn't have to feel bad or anything.
"Oh, hey, I saw you were busy at practice and, um-I'm really sorry about everything, this must be weird." He motions to his pack and himself, geez he must seem so done up with different pants and his bag and everything. "I was just leaving."
"Why, I thought we were having fun. I mean I won't hold you up if you have to go-"
"No, no it's just I don't want to burden you any more then I already have."
For the first time, Kurapika frowns. "Did that weird white haired kid say anything to you?" He said or did the wrong thing then, Kurapika doesn't realize now is his chance to get out scot free from whatever they were or were becoming.
"No, it's just I've been selfish and assuming in all of this, I mean here I am doting on you, taking up all your time, you probably have tons of other friends who you need to go see and everything." Gon chirps and shrugs. Kurapika raises a hand to his mouth and lowers his eyes, says nothing for so long it hurts. Looks like he called this one right, he isn't wanted in Kurapika's world. "So, I'll get my stuff and I'll go. It must be so embarrassing-"
"You, you over think a lot." Kurapika's hand moves to show a smile and Gon doesn't know how to process that, is he being made fun of or is Kurapika finding the whole situation funny. "You're not a burden, you know, you're honestly a nice person to be around and I was hoping you'd come back to play on the trapeze more. I spent most of my time wondering when you'd get back."
"I-I'm forbidden, the Ringleader says so."
"Aw, well. But Gon, don't worry, if I don't want you around, I'll tell you." Kurapika puts a hand on his shoulder and Gon can feel his face go flush which is stupid because Kurapika's nice and all but he shouldn't be so happy because someone's decided to pay a little bit of attention to him. Wouldn't anyone wonder if someone would come back when they were called, it was just polite, natural instinct.
"Okay, okay." Gon takes a deep breath hand calms down, taking his pack off his shoulder and opening it up to show the large banquet of food; four sandwiches with lettuce and tomato, mayo and mustard packets, two plastic bowls of fresh melon and grapes, and two thermos that were packed on either side of the bag.
"Gon, you made me lunch and," Kurapika laughs, geez did he do that badly with the food, it looked okay to him. "Sweet, precious thing." Wait, what?
"Um, ah- yeah that one's ham and this one's turkey, I didn't know which one you'd like so I made two." Act natural, pretend you didn't hear that and it'll go away and you won't have to deal with it because then you'll just act weird and end up chasing him away. "Mustard and mayo, sorry there wasn't enough space left over for me to pack in pickles and other sauces-"
"Heh, nice."
He and Kurapika spend the entire rest of the day and even into the afternoon, chatting about his past and Kurapika's nothing like he thought. He's a young, eighteen year old native of a dying tribe, learned how to trapeze in his spare time swinging on trees, now he's traveling around trying to find the rest of his family and find out why they're so scattered in the first place. Which is both fucking awesome and downright weird, it's one thing to look like he should be the strapping main character of some mythical quest, its another entirely to actually be one.
They've long since finished lunch and moved on to relaxing in one of the private, less used trailers in the back, where the performers prepare. Sitting in the room with the faded orange lights, where the clowns keep their makeup, props and costumes and the spare equipment like show lights and deflated rainbow colored balls.
"We're having our first performance in this town tomorrow, I'm performing right after you." Kurapika's sitting upright on the wide bench in front of a massive mirror that stretches from one side of the trailer to the other. Gon's lying besides, face towards the front window of the trailer watching the stars appear in the sky.
"Sounds cool, was that the routine you were practicing earlier?"
"Yeah." Kurapika breathes a little deeper, rubbing his hands together and staring at a long clothes line of colorful, puffy costumes.
"Cool, since you're going right after me I'll have time to come see you. There'll be an intermission, probably." Gon nudges him, shoulder to shoulder and he doesn't respond. Gon nudges him again and Kurapika's eyes twitch.
"I'm not sure if there'll be a net."
First performance with no backup, that is worrying, it sounds like how he started with the snakes - he didn't have to do the lion afterwards, but learned the hard way to keep anti venom in his back pocket and out of view for a worst case scenario. Took him a while to get back into the swing of things, both physically and mentally, having to recuperate from the shock, he nearly got fired from the circus after that...
But to be up there, tens of feet in the air with the spotlight bearing on you while everyone watches with baited breath, that's a whole other can of worms and he sure as hell doesn't envy him. And no net? He liked trapezing but you couldn't pay him enough gold bars to be up there, no, no way. Kurapika...can do it- no, he's definitely going to do it, there's no doubt in Gon's mind that he's got the entire thing totally handled.
Gon takes Kurapika's hand and smiles with him, "Breathe, I've seen you perform; you'll do fine, better then fine. You'll be great, people will come to the show to see you. I know it."
Kurapika smiles back at him, then pulls his hands away and cups his face with his palms. Ah, here we go, here's when he starts regretting everything. "I don't know about that, but thank you."
"Yeah, besides if anything happens Leorio can patch you up and the circus will be a`okay with everything. Or you can ask Illumi to let you have the net, he'd rather you be safe then hurt."
"Sounds nice."
"It's pragmatic, trust me, its purely pragmatic." Gon says automatically, a level of disgust and spite in his voice that's almost unbecoming of him.
"Ah," Gon can see where Kurapika catches the hint and begins to lean off the subject. "Gon, I'm curious, what's your story? How'd you get into the circus?"
Oh, here we go, straight into this minefield again. Kurapika had good intentions but he might as well have kept bringing up Illumi. Where would he even begin with that story, really - Gon rubs over his face once, twice, can't come up with anything but an aching pang in his chest. He catches himself sitting up on the bench, feet kicking the ground with one hand pressed to his temple and biting his own lip.
"If it helps you feel any better, you don't have to answer that."
Yeah...yeah no he'll take Kurapika up on that offer. "Thanks."
"No problem."
The following silence is enough of a tell that he's been the one driving most of the conversation, now he doesn't want to talk because, frankly, fuck everything now. He leans against the bench and his whole body shifts into a heavy heave, Kurapika doesn't say anything but he rubs his shoulder and gets up, walking out of the tent. Looks like that's the end of that...
He drifts back into his trailer and its awful, his nose is all stuffy and he's sobbing and mumbling things to himself but he promised himself he wouldn't be like this, he could get over it - he's stronger now. He can do this, right? He gets himself into his sleeping clothes, a black tank top and some short jeans and makes himself some hot chocolate despite it being the middle of summer. He's not six anymore, damn it. He shouldn't be sobbing into his hot chocolate like a baby...but he spends the rest of the midday and into the night sobbing into his palms until he drifts off to sleep.
When he wakes up, and he sure as hell doesn't want to but he has a performance sometime today and he has to go, he's groggy and has to wipe the yellow sticky fluid out of his eyes, wash his face in the tiny bathroom in the back of the trailer and take a shower in the long trailer outside. You're fine, you're fine, keep it together, compose yourself now and you'll have all the time in the world to cry like a giant ass baby all you want afterwards.
He manages, lurks around his own trailer until he's almost disgusted by the sight of the thing and heads towards the tent and, looky here, here comes trouble, skateboard included. Killua gives him a once over, as if he's never seen someone dress down before, the douche.
"What is it?" He snaps, the guy's staring is making him too self conscious. Luckily, Killua shrugs and keeps going as if he hadn't been all but glaring at him for a full minute.
"Illumi sent me to tell you your performance will be the usual lion taming stuff, basics, nothing fancy until the third day and then nothing fancy until the day before we leave."
Gon gives him the briefest possible, 'okay' he can and walks right past him to rush to the tent. Killua, not getting the message, follows him. If it weren't for the fact that he was Illumi's brother, he'd kick him.
"I asked my brother, he said I should get over you, but then I asked Hisoka and he said I should follow you and ask about you." Killua shrugs his shoulders, "People are weird."
"Somehow you're both preaching to the choir and being a hypocrite." The tent's open and ready and he walks through, everyone's getting some last minute practicing, more then likely half these people have been up all night. It's not unusual for the more physical members to do overnight practice, sleep right before the performance, wake up and dash on stage, as much as Illumi hates that.
Killua sucks his teeth hard enough to wake the dead and swings the skateboard over his shoulder, too self satisfied with his attitude. "Now you sound like that weird flying blonde fairy kid-"
Right on cue, Kurapika jumps down the pole and all but runs to hug Gon. On instinct, he hugs back - he didn't think that Kurapika would go so far as to actually embrace him and, he can feel the angered eyes on him, but he accepts it.
Kurapika pulls away, still holding Gon's shoulder. "I'm sorry last night, I had a moment."
"We both had a moment, nothing too bad right?" Gon shrugs despite the overwhelming 'yes, it was too bad' tucked away in his voice that he wishes he could rid of.
"Ew." Killua all but shouts. Kurapika's head snaps up, there's a tightness in his lips, wow this may be the first time he's seen Kurapika honestly enraged.
"So." Kurapika says with a hint of bitter sweetness. "Who's your friend?"
"Not my friend."
"Killua." He declares with a level of monotone apathy that would make anyone think he wasn't being a little shit.
"...Interesting name." Kurapika's clearly having none of it and his half second glance of 'we need to get you the fuck away from here' is appreciated and reciprocated in kind.
"Sorry we can't all be named after Pokemon."
Kurapika blatantly ignores him and grabs Gon's hand - a little too intimate but at the same time, so long as Kurapika's getting them away from that asshole he can't quite find it in him to complain. Killua doesn't follow, thank god, and they get halfway through the tent. "Who exactly was that?"
"Same asshole who got me in trouble for being on the trapeze, he's been watching me, I think." Gon looks back and Killua is speaking with Hisoka, who seems all too pleased at the sight of the younger white haired man - please, please don't be plotting anything weird together.
"Ew."
"Are you going to practice before the show?"
"Ah- no. Too much practice and I get cramps, not good for flips."
"Makes sense-" Wait, while Killua and Hisoka are distracted maybe he can actually do something fun for once. He rushes ahead and grabs Kurapika's hand, geez he wonders if he'll actually like the surprise but at the same time, nothing ventured nothing gained. "I can't go on the trapeze, but you could probably come to my trailer or come see the animals!"
"Your trailer, definitely." Kurapika follows him back to the living area and into his trailer and- damn it. With fresh eyes, the place is a mess. Already worn clothing is spewing over the wardrobe, the place reeks of ramen noodles and canned vegetables, his pull out bed is pulled out and unmade. Kurapika doesn't seem to care, he rests on the bed - seemingly waiting for Gon.
Okay, play it cool, best friend sitting on the bed, just gonna have a nice talk, chat about some stuff, maybe pull out a few video games and let the world burn before the performance. He steps towards the bed...and he immediately trips on a pair of discarded jean shorts. Real smooth there.
After Kurapika catches his breath and stops laughing to help him up, he takes his place besides him and they talk about so many things, how their present lives are doing, Gon complaining about Hisoka's weirdness and the sweet reprieve he's had as of late.
"You think Killua has is out for me?" Kurapika asks him what he means and Gon rolls onto his back and stares at the ceiling. "He reported me for being on the trapeze, he dragged me out of the tent and to a meeting, he was so rude when he met you and kept insulting you, called you a fairy. I mean, what a fucking asshole right?"
"Alright, that's enough Gon, I'm not going to force you to spend time with him but-"
"Oh, but what? There's no contest the guy's an asshole-"
"I'd take a moment to consider that your comparing someone who did their job to someone who molests you for fun."
Ah, well, geez, that's a damn good point. It was Killua's job to make sure he didn't do anything stupid and, as an added bonus, he's employed by his brother. Hisoka's an asshole, that's literally it - he has no reason to be so damn creepy.
"You can stay away from him, trust me I get it, he's a complete brat, but I'd rather not automatically hate him until I get to know him more." Kurapika shrugs and Gon feels a tiny bit guilty. He was right after all, Killua could be acting like a childish brat for no reason and, otherwise, he's just doing his job. If they missed the net, he could have gotten seriously hurt.
Not much is said after that, Kurapika only reminds Gon that they have to leave soon for the performance and they do, but this time Gon heads to the tent the long way, heading towards the back tent where the animals are kept and wasting time away before the show goes on.
The way is clear and he's coming this close to being late, but he makes sure to avoid running into Kurapika on his way to the stage. The animal trainers are all in place, the lions, snakes and the bunnies - ah damn it, he missed the fluffy bunnies - are ready, willing and waiting. All that waits is for the show to begin. The clowns do their segment, acting like the usual bunch of wacky fools, though this time its a different routine with Hisoka, jokingly angry, trying to get them all back in line, which works about as well as expected.
The show planners used the rabbits to gauge the crowd and always did either to lion or the crocodile to finish. The rabbits would probably go back to their own special place right after the show was done, his own fault really. He tried to keep one, didn't work out. Which is probably why Illumi has Killua following him in the first place. In any event, the lights are about to go live and he takes his place; the same starting show as three towns ago.
The lights come down and Hisoka is stood on the plinth in the center of the tent, all lights and eyes on him and his stature. Funny, for a while he was with Kurapika and, after they finished talking about him, he forgot Hisoka even existed. "Ladies and gentleman, such a frightful display of strength that was
Swinging a hoop on his arm and showing the crowd a smile while the rabbits hop through in formation, they're all as fluffy and cute as he remembers. He swings it wherever he can, between his legs, over his head with his knee bent so the rabbits can jump on him before jumping through. Playing with the bunnies is more of an autopilot, easy, relaxed show to get him and the crowd in the rhythm of things then anything.
Then comes, honestly, his favorite part. Three more bunnies come from the west along with one...a little...bigger then the others. A clown in a fluffy filled, near round bunny suit tries to hop through, Gon times it right and the clown lodges himself through the hole and rolls along with the rabbits. The crowd laughs loud for that one - they don't normally do this one often but
"Now, now, I do believe I told you to stop fooling around."
The clown beams, honks the horn on his nose and chases the rabbits about for the giggling crowd. Gon's work here is done. He disappears as the intermission begins and, pushing past whatever he might feel, searches for Kurapika. The costume tent yields nothing but half of the clowns, both literal and figurative, discussing where in town they can get dead drunk when they finally wash off the makeup.
The intermission is winding down, still no sight of him - until he actually takes Kurapika's joke as advice and looks up. He's preparing on the trapeze with another acrobat while the other half of the clowns distract the crowd by giving out toys and gifts.
He was way too late, it seemed and worse off, no net. Kurapika must be sweating bullets. He takes a seat towards backstage and watches from the sidelines, the audience can't but Gon can see Leorio on the standby and the heavier air - everyone's off kilter, which they should be. He doesn't remember seeing these performances when he was younger, but he does know from experience; they're dangerous as fuck.
The lights beam back, the show is back on, Hisoka stands on the plinth with one hand tucked behind his back. "Ladies and gentlemen, we have a real treat for you tonight. For the first time in over a decade, the Phantom Trope would like to introduce you to their new trapeze team!"
They come swinging out and its everything Gon loved and feared; Kurapika is there in his pure white clothing, on the top left of a four person mounted swing of interconnected limbs and performing actor smiles. The winds blowing through his hair, he's almost like some type of sparkling prince soaring through the sky. Gon couldn't think of a time or a place where he'd feel comfortable doing any of this. The risks are too high for something to go terribly wrong.
The movement begins, the trapezers separate, leaping, soaring to different bars until they've formed a line. Seeing Kurapika flying with the others until he reaches the raised platform, the sheer straightness and sharpness in his movements, the control in every limb and practiced movement. Kurapika leaps onto his beginning platform, looking out on a line of trapezers, all hanging upside down with waiting arms.
Kurapika grabs his hands and flips to the next one, then to the next, Gon's heart is in his throat - and- Kurapika reaches out for the second to last one and-
He missed. That wasn't planned, Kurapika's diving towards the ground and Gon swallows down his heart, eyes dart from side to side, how can he help Kurapika. The crowd's let out a huge gasp, a wave of frightened screams, Leorio's gripping his bag, Gon's gripping the hem of his pants until he can feel his palms begin to ache, please, please don't get hurt. Kurapika's falling, falling- a trapeze with plumes of purple smoke dancing round it, snatches him out of the air.
Gon exhales, rubs a calming circle over his chest. Kurapika's alright. But that was a mistake and Illumi isn't going to take that sitting down. And the worst part is, even he can tell and he's godawful. There's a slight twitch in Hisoka's movements from the plinth. Come on, Kurapika, you're so much better then that.
Kurapika is swung to the second to last trapezer and finishes his routine without another hitch, coming into smooth movement on a front flip and uncurling in time for his feet to hit the opposite platform. The crowd erupts into applause and more acrobats appear, but its clear Kurapika's more 'in the spotlight' time with the others is done. Gon only hopes that Illumi doesn't hold his first mistake against him too harshly.
The acrobats flip away and the clowns take over the finishing act of the show with Hisoka leading them from above, always from above, never with the act and if he's with the act he's the only one there. Which is good because it leaves him with no good reason to stay and no reason to feel guilty about leaving.