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 WARNING (in the uncensored AO3 version): Sexual content.
Chapter 11: Various states of undress
(There is a deleted scene here.)
He does his darndest to smother the name that tumbles from his throat as he pitches off the edge, but the final two syllables manage to sneak past his teeth.
"— pika!"
(There is a deleted scene here.)
The girl with whom he's been fooling around for the last fifteen minutes flips around on the mattress to lie on her back. Her long hair, dyed turquoise and mussed up from when he was yanking on it earlier, fans out over her pillow.
His lips are in the process of quirking up into a loopy grin when her palm smacks him hard across the face.
Her words spill out with the velocity of bullets from a machine gun. "Should you really be calling out another girl's name? This was supposed to be a special occasion! You fooled me into thinking you were a sweetheart when you're actually just a jackass like the rest of them!"
Not knowing what to say, he sits back and busies himself with rolling off his used condom, knotting its top, and tossing it into the trash can. When he meets her eyes again, he sees she's still waiting for an explanation.
His speech is slurred, thanks to all the shots he's drunk since arriving at the bash at Dolle Residence Hall. "T'wasn't a girl's name. Wasn't a word at all. Just — just random syllables."
"Oh, yeah? So, what, you're a wordsmith now?"
He scratches his head. "Hey, don't ask me to explain where my mind goes. 'Cause I dunno either. Besides, what else was I supposed to say? You never did tell me your name."
"And I never will now."
She probably says this with the intention of wounding him, but he can't bring himself to care if he never sees her or speaks to her again. Nothing about this girl's attitude or her treatment of him post-coitus is appealing to him.
Still, he tries giving her his puppy-dog eyes, if only to undo the damage he's inflicted on her ego. But seeing this only prompts her to slap him once more, with double the force.
As he's rubbing the smarting red marks on his left cheek, she leaps off the bed. Muttering angrily, she snatches up her panties and her denim cut-offs from the floor and wriggles back into them.
He watches her from the bed as he buttons up his shirt. He doesn't bother keeping three buttons undone like he did earlier. "Look. 'M sorry. I fucked up. What can I do to — to make things better?"
She doesn't spare him a single glance as she hooks on her black bra. "Get the hell out of my room. Never show your face here again."
"'Kay. That's more than fair. I'll leave you in peace once I'm all dressed."
His jeans are crumpled where she yanked them off earlier. But his boxers are nowhere to be found. Crap. They were his favorite pair too.
He picks up his glasses from the nightstand and crams them on before getting on his hands and knees on the floor to search for his underwear. Oh, here they are under the bed. The flashlight from his phone illuminates the pearly pink fabric, patterned with magenta hearts.
Once he's fully dressed, he glances at the girl, who's touching up her makeup in front of the mirror. "Bye, then. It's been, uh." A shit show. "It's been real."
Eyes remaining on her reflection, she flings out her right arm to flip him off.
He couldn't be more grateful to snap the door shut behind him. Grumbling to himself, he prowls through the corridors of the dormitory as he hunts for his friends.
He eventually finds Knuckle and Shoot playing beer pong in the rec room. Nearby, Palm is laughing her head off whilst perched on Pietro's lap. One of Pietro's leanly-muscular arms is wrapped around her waist, while the other is sparking up a fresh smoke.
The sight of overlapping handprints on Leorio's cheek instantly snuffs out Palm's giggling in response to whatever Pietro has been whispering to her.
Her eyes grow wide. "Whoa. What happened there, Leorio?"
Leorio shrugs. "Oh, you know. I bumped into a grizzly bear and decided to square up."
"Need me to get some ice for the swelling?" she asks.
Leorio waves a dismissive hand. "Nah, I'll be fine. Kinda makes me look macho, right?"
After managing to lay off tobacco since his arrival on campus, Leorio caves in and bums a cigarette from his childhood friend. Leorio leans in to let the tip of his cancer stick touch the end of Pietro's.
Leorio straightens up and inhales. He holds the bitter smoke inside his lungs for as long as he possibly can, then blows it out with a prolonged sigh. The stimulant assists in clearing the clouds of alcohol in his skull somewhat. Fuck, he's missed this rush.
Pietro lets his other arm snake around Palm's waist as he echoes her words now. "So what happened there, Leorio? I mean, really? You were all hot and heavy with that sophomore with blue hair, but it obviously didn't end well. You didn't make her do anything she didn't want to, did you? That's not cool."
Leorio shakes his head. "No, no. Nothing like that. We were into it. We both were. Then I sorta messed up toward the end. I turned her off. And she sure as shit let me know."
"Ah, that sucks. So did your mistake, whatever it was, merit being slapped like that?"
Leorio shrugs for a second time. "Probably, yeah."
Leorio is contemplating saying more. All of a sudden, he's filled with this urge to talk to someone, and not just about tonight's disastrous hookup with the first girl at the party who caught his eye and pretended to laugh at his jokes. No, he's longing to hash out everything that's been going on in his life in general. This past week, especially, he's grappled with confusing feelings he hasn't felt before and doesn't know how to handle.
Of course, he can't just air out his private grievances in a public place like this where everybody's supposed to be having fun. If only he can speak with Pietro alone. It's been too long since the two of them have gotten together, splitting a twelve-pack of beer and simply shooting the shit like in the old days. Lately, his friend's been too preoccupied with his photojournalistic assignments for The World Tree Chronicle and with his budding relationship with Palm.
Leorio is puffing on his second smoke for the night when he spots the turquoise-haired sophomore walking into the rec room. Her emerald eyes, upon meeting his deep brown ones, narrow with displeasure. She whispers something to one of her fellow residents at Dolle Hall, who then joins her in sending him a death glare.
Ugh. He understands he hurt the sophomore's feelings due to his carelessness, but this character assassination she appears to be inciting is really killing his vibe.
Perhaps it's time to ditch the plan that he's silently been formulating in his head with the aim of extricating Pietro from the rest of their friend group. Pietro is too tied up with Palm at present, in any case. Those two will probably hang out all night then head back to his dorm room or hers. As direly as Leorio needs a confidant, he knows full well that Pietro wouldn't be caught dead acting as a cockblock if their situations were reversed.
Besides, if Leorio is really being honest with himself, it isn't Pietro's company and conversation that he craves the most. Physically, Leorio might be here right now. Mentally, however, a part of him has been left behind at Milsy Hall. At increasingly frequent intervals throughout the night, his mind has been drifting back in the direction of his own dorm room, like it's doing at this precise moment.
The best thing he can do at this juncture is cut his losses and go. He's gotten the most out of this party that he can hope to get, anyway.
Leorio claps Pietro on the shoulder. "Think I'll head out first. I'll see y'all over the weekend, right?"
Pietro gives a huff of surprise. "What? You're leaving already? You know the real party can't start till I beat your ass at beer pong. Let's do this — you, me, and a battle with your pride or mine at stake. Palm will be my partner, of course. As for you, take your pick between Knuckle and Shoot."
Just then, a ping pong ball thrown by Shoot whistles satisfyingly into a cup on Knuckle's side of the table. Knuckle stamps his feet in a comical fit of mock rage before tossing back his pompadour to chug the cup's contents.
"Between you and me," Pietro continues, "you should definitely choose Shoot as your partner. You won't have any hope of victory, otherwise."
"As fun as that all sounds, I really gotta run," Leorio tells him. "Rain check on the game till the next party, 'kay?"
"I totally get why you're dying to escape." As Palm says this, she nudges Pietro with her elbow and jerks her chin toward the girls glaring at Leorio by the door. Pietro hums as the rationale for Leorio's early departure becomes clear to him. "You take care, Leorio. It's a long walk back to Milsy. Once you arrive, send Pietro a message so we know you're safe, okay?"
Leorio nods. "Will do."
Upon bidding a quick goodbye to Knuckle and Shoot, who are too deep in their game to do more than wave, Leorio has to brush past the two girls glowering by the door to leave the rec room. He doesn't turn around or make any retort as they both hiss expletives toward his retreating back.
He bounds down the broad steps at the entrance of Dolle Hall then stands there, at the foot of the stairs, to take the last few drags of his cigarette. All around him are figures in various states of undress.
(There is a deleted scene here.)
He keeps his eyes trained on his oxfords before crushing the butt of his cigarette beneath his sole.
He then commences his solitary walk back to Milsy Hall. The light exercise helps clear his head further from its tequila-induced haze.
That being said, as he arrives at the door to his Milsy dorm room after climbing four flights of stairs, he has to wonder if he's still stuck on some level of inebriation, after all. He's checked every pocket and even his wallet for his key, but it's disappeared to God knows where.
Now Leorio has no choice except to rouse his roommate, who specifically said earlier in the evening that he didn't wish to be woken up once again by drunken mumbling and stumbling and fumbling from Leorio.
As Leorio raps his knuckles against the door, he's already picturing that pretty face twisting into a frown, with its tiny, upturned nose scrunching in annoyance.
"Kurapika? Hey, Kurapika? Can you please open up?"
Leorio knocks for a few minutes, but he receives no response. There's no sign at all of anyone stirring on the other side of the door.
He rests his cheek against the cool wood and sighs. He then pulls out his phone from his pocket. Perhaps he can shoot Pietro a message. Maybe Pietro will let him crash in his room, especially if he already harbors plans of staying over at Palm's tonight.
Leorio is halfway through typing a message when, without warning, the door flies open. Eager to see his roommate's face, exquisite even when enraged, Leorio swiftly raises his eyes from his phone. But Kurapika is already turning away, heading back to bed, and burrowing beneath his blankets.
For some reason, Kurapika's blankets are gray. Weren't they a shade of baby blue earlier today?
Eyes wandering over the checkered texture of Kurapika's new blankets, Leorio sinks down on his own mattress and starts to unbutton his shirt for the second time that night.
"'M real sorry 'bout waking you, Kurapika. I lost my key. No idea where it went. Maybe it vanished into the void or some shit. I almost lost my favorite boxers too." Kurapika's blond head, which is facing the wall on his side of the room as per usual, doesn't turn. It doesn't give any signs of hearing Leorio's rambling. "But that's another story. Maybe for another night, yeah?"
Having stripped down to his heart-print boxers, Leorio dives beneath his own blankets. He sends Pietro a quick message to say he's back in his room and to wish him good luck with Palm. He then locks his phone and slides it beneath his pillow.
Though Kurapika has likely drifted off to slumber again, Leorio finds himself speaking softly to the ceiling. "Honestly? I had a shitty time tonight. I got with some random girl even though I wasn't feeling her. I messed up. I regretted it. Maybe I overhyped myself for this party? I dunno. You had the right idea to skip it. I don't know why I didn't follow your lead when you're like the smartest guy in school. 'Cause I'm a dumbfuck, that's why. I shouldn't have left this room. I should've holed up here with you instead. It's strange, but . . . even though you never wanna talk to me, every time I'm alone here with you, I get the urge to spill my guts. I just wanna tell you everything. All the goddamn time."
Leorio looks over toward Kurapika's bed. Kurapika's body is too stiff, too still. He's way too wound-up to be asleep. While Kurapika has always been taciturn — and while it would be unfair in the first place to expect him to participate in a conversation after he's been rudely awakened in the middle of the night — something feels off about his silence this time.
Something is wrong with Kurapika.
As soon as this realization hits, Leorio bolts up in bed and fully faces Kurapika. "Kurapika? What's wrong? Something happened tonight, didn't it?"
No answer.
"I got this weird feeling as I was leaving," Leorio continues. "I almost made up my mind to come back and check on you — just to make sure you were okay on your own and to verify you hadn't changed your mind about ditching the party — but my friends were blowing up my phone by then so I had to hurry."
As Leorio continues staring, he notices that Kurapika's shoulder — exposed above the blanket and wrapped in a sweater too cumbersome for sleep — has started trembling. Leorio's heart, which has already been pounding so loudly he thinks Kurapika might hear it too, plummets at this confirmation that his mind hasn't been playing tricks on him.
Kurapika is definitely dealing with something tonight. Something heavy.
"Kurapika? Are you mad at me for ruining your sleep? Talk to me, will you? I can tell something else is bothering you."
Leorio reaches out and touches Kurapika's shoulder with all the gentleness he can muster.
Despite this precaution — and despite the density of the fabric separating them — Kurapika flinches violently upon contact.
Leorio draws back his hand at once. "Sorry. The last thing I wanna do is scare you off. I'm just worried about you. Yeah, so maybe we barely know each other. But that doesn't mean I don't care. I'm here. I'm willing to listen to whatever you wanna tell me."
Silence, still. Has silence ever sounded quite this loud?
If only to rid the room of that suffocating silence, Leorio clears his throat. "Um. It's late. We don't have to talk right now if you're not ready. But we'll touch base tomorrow morning, 'kay? Everything that's bothering you — no matter how little — hit me with all of it. I wanna know. I wanna hear the worst of your problems. And when I say this shit, I mean it."
Leorio lets himself fall back against his mattress now. With his body still facing Kurapika's and with his eyes steady on those golden strands of hair, which look freshly washed, he drifts off and starts to snore.