Author's Notes:
PAIRINGS: Leorio/Kurapika (Leopika); Hisoka/Kurapika (Hisopika); Hisoka/Illumi (HisoIllu); Hisoka/Illumi/Pariston/Kurapika
RATING: Mature
NOTE: To read this story's missing scenes with sexual content, check the uncensored version on Archive of Our Own (AO3 username: lemonpika).
CONTENT WARNINGS (in the uncensored AO3 version): Sexual content (some of which involves a minor), non-consent/dubious consent. Please skip this chapter if these topics are triggering or objectionable to you.
Chapter 10: Every person is a pitfall
Locked inside his bedroom on his eighteenth birthday, Hisoka twirls an envelope around his long fingers. A minute goes by before he decides he can't delay this revelation any longer.
He analyzes the envelope, now laying flat on his palm. According to the crimson typeface, this letter is from the University of Zaban. The paper is cream, expensive, and hefty in his hand.
Born a quick learner, he's never dipped lower than rank ten in his batch despite sometimes skipping classes and landing himself in detention. In recent times, however, he's doubled down on his studies to achieve his private mission of making the cut for the most selective academic institution within Kukan'yu Kingdom.
He tears open the envelope, unfolds the letter within, and scans the top of the first page.
Dear Mr. Morow,
We are delighted to inform you that we have accepted your application for admission as a University Scholar. We eagerly welcome you to join our thriving academic community and to benefit from a roster of world-renowned courses taught by highly-qualified faculty members, should you choose to reserve your slot. You shall find enclosed. . . .
Well, well. Hisoka should be celebrating right now, shouldn't he? But there's not an ear in the vicinity he cares to bend with these good tidings.
The staticky hum of the television in the adjacent room does nothing to disguise the frantic creaking of bedsprings or the yowling akin to alley cats in heat. The more high-pitched voice, he's been cursed to know his whole life. The deeper one, he likely won't have to tolerate for much longer, given it's been nearly a week since he first heard it.
Voices tend to possess a short shelf life in this household.
Hisoka certainly doesn't bother wasting his own breath raising pointless matters such as his schooling when occasionally brushing shoulders with other bodies in the kitchen whilst he's making himself a breakfast sandwich and they're rummaging through cupboards for aspirin, which they wash down with stale beer more often than not.
Nobody else knows Hisoka applied to Zaban U. He himself didn't decide he wanted to go there until a year and a half ago when he snuck into the guidance counselor's office and rifled through the freshman records for the career plan worksheet of one specific student.
All Hisoka wants for graduation night is to enjoy Kurapika to the fullest. In the clearing within the thicket by the boy's home, Hisoka takes what he wants, as he always does.
His new school will be an airship ride away so this will be the last time in a long time they can be alone like this.
As soon as Hisoka rolls off him, Kurapika crawls toward the gas lamp on the edge of the clearing to retrieve the shirt discarded beside it. He tugs the fabric over the fresh hickeys dappling his shoulders and chest.
Kurapika turns back toward Hisoka's panting form on the grass. "Aren't you going to tell me where you're going yet? I don't get why you're being so coy about this."
Hisoka can't help but smirk at the petulance in the boy's tone. "Why so curious? Are you planning to come visit me on the weekends, after all?"
Kurapika lowers his gaze to the grass as he speaks. "I — I'm just worried. You said you wouldn't be coming back. Not even for summer breaks."
"Yes, I'll be too busy working. I might've nabbed a scholarship, but there'll be other expenses. I certainly can't waste whatever money I've earned on return trips."
"I know you can't wait to get away from your mother. Who can blame you, given everything she's done or hasn't done? But what about me? Isn't it worth coming home just to see me? I have no idea what's going to happen if you're not here. Am I even going to make it without you?"
Hisoka rolls over to his side and props up his chin on his fist. "You'll be fine, golden boy. I've taken you under my wing all this time so I have full faith in you. Stay in your bedroom where it's safe as much as possible. Don't get too close to anyone. Not even your parents. Never let your guard down. Every person is a pitfall waiting to happen. Remember that. The more somebody tries to charm you with their smiles, the more likely it is they're hiding an arsenal of weapons behind their back."
Kurapika's fingers are twisting the hem of his shirt. "But if you just tell me where you'll be, I'll know where to find you when I need you. I'll feel better."
"Is that right?"
(There is a deleted scene here.)
Hisoka permits the prepared lie to fall from his lips. "Lukso Community College. That's where I'll be for the next four years."
Kurapika pauses from wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. His voice, raspy from the soreness in his throat, is muffled against his skin. "So close?"
"Of course. I'm as close as I need to be. Anything for you, golden boy. Isn't it a relief to know I'll be watching over you and protecting you even when you think I'm not there? I held off on telling you my secret for as long as possible so that I could bestow you with one final gift before my departure."
When Kurapika lets his hand drop from his face, his lips are curved upward. His stiff smile fails to reach his eyes, which have reverted back to brown.
Hisoka arrives at Zaban U with the full intention of laying low and biding his time till Kurapika joins him in two years. Hisoka can stir up his unique brand of chaos at that point, with his favorite by his side.
Perhaps he would've wound up sticking to this plan had he not, before his first ever college class, taken a few seconds to survey the room before him.
Amidst a sea of people who've yet to hear of him or fear him, he spots a few gazes glinting with interest, urging him silently to join their clusters of friends. But he forgoes all these in favor of claiming a seat next to an especially arresting pair of eyes — in terms of beauty, these eyes are third only to Kurapika's flaming scarlet and Chrollo's deceptively innocent steel.
The stranger, who's seated alone in the back row of the classroom, turns his finely-drawn features and dark stare toward his new neighbor. His eyes are tarry pools threatening to suck Hisoka inside them the longer he looks.
The stranger's voice simmers like a dormant volcano. "I strongly prefer my solitude."
Undeterred, Hisoka extracts a stolen fountain pen from his pocket and presses a finger against its sharp tip. He applies just enough pressure for a single droplet of blood to ooze out. "You and I are the same, then. Let's be lonesome freaks together. Wouldn't that be nice?"
The stranger's hand, pale as a ghost, twitches as if narrowly resisting from throttling whomever's closest. It then tightens into a fist and falls white-knuckled over a notebook laid open on the table. On the header of the notebook's first page are the words, twice underlined, "Property of Illumi Zoldyck."
The sight of this penned phrase makes Hisoka's flawlessly-arched eyebrows shoot toward his hairline. A Zoldyck? Can Hisoka's seatmate be related to the chairman of one of the most affluent academic institutions in the world? All the advantages of making such a connection — limitless wealth, unfettered access to student records, and the likelihood of lenience in the face of disciplinary charges — prance all at once before his mind's eye.
What a lucky turn his first day is taking!
Hisoka's fortune holds for the rest of the week. In an implausible twist of fate, he and Illumi happen to share the exact same schedule, down to the electives they've selected.
He trails after Illumi as they drift from one class to the next. They sit beside each other in the back rows of classrooms or in the shade of the tallest elm tree in the southern courtyard in between classes.
At the swimming pool, they monopolize adjacent lanes and, upon the starting whistle, silently compete as they do laps — back and forth, back and forth — with barely any breaks for oxygen.
At a corner table in the cafeteria at lunchtime, neither of them utters a word as they attack their heaping trays of food with ravenous hunger.
That Friday evening, Hisoka invites Illumi over to his room in Milsy Residence Hall. Just as Hisoka has hoped, Illumi counters this with an offer to take him to his apartment just beyond the campus grounds.
Amber eyes alight, Hisoka examines every intricate detail of Illumi's lavish residence, from the wrought-gold chandelier to the polished marble surfaces to the velvet drapes partially drawn over floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking what must be a breathtaking view of the urban landscape below.
The moment Hisoka meets Illumi's obsidian gaze, however, all these extraneous details flee from his skull and cease to matter. Something unnameable coils tightly just beneath his navel, and his mouth fills with drool.
He licks his lips before telling his new friend to lead the way.
(There is a deleted scene here.)
Afterward, Hisoka lies curled up — bruised and bitten and bleeding — with Illumi's sculpted arm resting loosely over his waist and the measured inhalations and exhalations of slumber wafting over his back.
Hisoka should take this opportunity to poke around the apartment for trophies to take back to his dorm. Given the severity of the damage to his bottom half, it's only right he receives the reparations owing to him.
However, when he attempts to slip away, both of Illumi's arms wrap around his waist and cage him in place. Hisoka holds his breath and braces himself for a second round of the onslaught, but the steady rhythm of Illumi's breathing doesn't shift one bit.
As it turns out, even in the thick of sleep, Illumi's penchant for possessiveness matches or maybe even exceeds Hisoka's own.
It's in this moment of quiet recognition when Hisoka conceives an idea that will take two years to come to fruition — perhaps he might be persuaded to share Kurapika with somebody else, after all.
All the twisted thoughts that have plagued Hisoka's brain ever since he first glimpsed those fiery eyes in the Spider's hideout, Illumi will understand them. Hisoka just knows it.
Back when Hisoka was butting heads with the gang's leader over the fate of the red-eyed cousins, Hisoka unequivocally rejected each of Chrollo's suggested clauses hinting at permissiveness over the question of Kurapika's ownership. Chrollo fought till the end to borrow Kurapika for a single night, to use Kurapika even one time after Hisoka had already finished breaking him in. But Hisoka kept refusing, and he had a gambit — a Joker card — ready in his hand to seal his victory. Throughout the negotiation process, Hisoka continuously feigned an interest in Kurapika's cousin. Then, in that crucial moment when he and Chrollo arrived at an impasse, he easily traded away Pairo's life to ensure Kurapika would remain unsullied by any other hands.
Hisoka can tell that Illumi is nothing like Chrollo, whose callousness with his toys got him caught in the end. If Hisoka can learn to share, then Illumi must be capable of being reasonable as well. The two of them have been mirroring each other since their first meeting, haven't they? Illumi is special in that way.
Maybe — just maybe — Illumi isn't the only one. Perhaps there are others out there who can relate to Hisoka on this soul-deep level.