Author's Notes:
RELATIONSHIPS: Neon Nostrade/Kurapika, Kurapika/Leorio Paladiknight
RATING: Mature
NOTE: This was written for the 2024 Hunter x Hunter Big Bang. Please be warned that this story contains depictions of death, depression, addiction, drug use, smoking, alcohol, and censored sexual content. Azzy and Cherry provided illustrations. To view the images, check out the uncensored version on Archive of Our Own (AO3 username: lemonpika).
Chapter 1: Moonflower in the Fog
Deep within Nostrade's mansion, carved into a provincial mountain range, the heiress of the mafia family walks with leaden feet toward her father's home office.
Neon is just about to enter when a ruckus from within stops her in her tracks. The door is cracked open by a sliver. She leans in to peek.
Inside the office, her father is thrashing everything in his immediate vicinity. Chairs are being kicked over, documents torn into strips, and pencils snapped in half.
Kurapika, her head bodyguard and her father's right-hand man, watches wordlessly from a safe distance away.
"What the hell am I going to do now?" her father howls at Kurapika. "Without Neon's precognition, I have nothing! That was my one advantage! My only bargaining chip! My sole source of income!"
Out of breath from all his hollering, her father turns away. He grips the varnished edges of his desk and hangs his head. When he swivels around, he's snarling and hurling a hefty glass paperweight in Kurapika's direction.
Even as Neon claps a hand over her mouth to stifle her gasp, Kurapika remains motionless. He doesn't flinch — not when the paperweight barrels an inch away from his face, not when it shatters against a bookshelf behind him.
"This is all your goddamn fault!" her father roars. "How dare you bid 2.9-billion Jenny for the scarlet eyes at the auction? I ordered you to — that's true — but you should've wised up and warned me not to shell out such an exorbitant amount! What sort of useless advisor are you? Since the eyes ended up being stolen back in Yorknew anyway, you might as well have set a mountain of my money on fire! Now there's no money left! None! All I have are debts, and zero ways to pay them!"
Her father falls to his knees now. His hands grip fistfuls of his disheveled hair as if he's seconds away from tearing it all out. His next words are spoken in a broken croak. "Kurapika, I'm begging you. Tell me what to do, where to go from here. Because I just don't know. I don't understand how I could've plummeted from the top of the world to the depths of hell in mere days. How could any of this have happened?"
Neon doesn't know the answer to this question either. She's also in the dark about the sudden loss of her ability. No matter how many times she's attempted to summon it, the Lovely Ghostwriter has stayed elusive since the tail end of their last visit to Yorknew. In the city, she encountered a stranger with a bandaged forehead, snuck into the Cemetery Building with him to attend the underground auction, stopped for drinks at a café, then fell ill. Which part of this sequence of events — if any part is indeed to blame — could've instigated or contributed to her current impotence?
Her attention shifts back to the present as Kurapika speaks for the first time since she started spying at the door.
"Please don't worry too much about this, boss," Kurapika assures in his attractive, authoritative voice. "I promise I'll take care of everything from now on."
With a drained expression, her father struggles back to his feet and collapses on the chair behind his desk. He gives Kurapika a dismissive wave. "Summon my daughter to my office. I must speak with her privately."
"Right away, sir."
When Kurapika makes his exit, he doesn't show any surprise at the sight of Neon hovering behind the door. Has he known the entire time she was listening in? He's always been perceptive this way.
His voice is soft and tentative when he addresses her, as if he takes no pleasure in throwing her to the wolves — well, the wolf — on the other side of the door. "Neon, your father requires your presence in his office. Go right in."
She can run away right now. She can hide in a closet — since the mansion has dozens, it will take forever for her aging father to find her — and whisper instructions for Melody to surreptitiously deliver her trays of warm food at mealtimes.
Ultimately, though, she can't bring herself to escape, not when she's under Kurapika's intense scrutiny like this. His gaze — dark and impenetrable as the dead of night — follows her steadily as she drags her feet toward her father's office.
Her father whirls away from the liquor cabinet when she enters. "Shut the door."
She does so, dread churning in her stomach.
Her father's hands are clasped over his desk when she turns to face him again. But any attempt on his part to maintain an air of professionalism pales amidst the proof of unchecked chaos all around his office.
"Neon, what's this I hear about your recent refusal to tell any fortunes?"
"I'm not refusing to. I can't make poetic prophecies anymore. But I am trying, Papa. I swear I am."
"Clearly, you're not trying hard enough. You've never had trouble activating your ability before. Why now? Why all of a sudden?"
"I don't know —"
In a flash, her father is back on his feet. He slams his palms against the surface of his desk. The smacking sounds echo horribly around the closed space. "Stop wasting time and figure it out! You know I'm relying on you, right? Your natural-born talents are the secret weapon for Nostrade to soar through the mafia's ranks! I work tirelessly day and night to fortify our family's foothold within the community, and all I ask in return is you call upon the Lovely Ghostwriter at the request of our associates! Is that too much to ask?"
"No, but —"
"Do you understand what will happen if our family loses its claim to fame and the root to its revenues? We'll all suffer! You, me, all my employees! I won't have the means to spoil you and dote on you like I used to! So you can kiss all the lavish gifts and benefits goodbye!"
Her tears have started falling midway through her father's tirade. She's never been the target of his turbulent moods before, and she can't take any more.
When she flees from the office, her father makes no attempt to chase her.
She rushes toward her favorite location in the mansion. She calls it her sanctuary. The four walls of this vast chamber contain all the prized possessions she's procured thus far as an avid flesh collector.
As her shoulders continue heaving with sobs, she takes a turn about the chamber. Her fingers trail over rare and expensive treasures supported by shelves intricately carved from a fallen branch of the World Tree. Doing this — soaking in such wretched beauty — always helps ground her whenever she's having a bad day.
Her collection includes the following items. In a box of ballistic glass, the preserved head of a child displaying the symptoms of jelly syndrome. Turquoise scales from a patient afflicted with dracodermic disease. A mummified arm excavated from an ancient chieftain's megalithic grave. The horned skull of a unicorn tribesman. A corked vial with the used tissue of a famous actor. A braided lock of ebony hair from an even more well-known actress.
This last object she snatches from its box inlaid with crushed velvet before flinging herself down on a sofa. She rubs the end of the braid against her cheek as if she's applying blush with a makeup brush. Eventually, with these rhythmic, circular motions, her frantic sobbing subsides.
From her reclining position, her eyes wander over an array of antique bottles on the shelf situated closest to the sofa. Sniffling, she sits up and reaches for a bottle. Its surface is cut into countless crystal facets, while its stopper is a crystal ball the size of a marble.
Slowly, she spins the bottle in her hands and contemplates.
Months trickle by. Each new day is as unbearable as the last. Her father sells off her beloved collection of treasures, piece by piece, in a last-ditch effort to maintain the family's facade of wealth.
With every item traded away, Neon loses yet another thread tethering her to her previous existence of plentiful and pulchritudinous possessions. She sinks deeper and deeper into the pit of despair.
Autumn turns to winter turns to spring turns to summer. A new year begins and, in what feels like a millennium of misery, half a year elapses.
Her Nen ability shows no signs of ever returning.
On Neon's eighteenth birthday on the last day of July, she cradles two cylindrical jars to her chest.
These scarlet eyes were the only presents she requested for her special day. It took weeks of whining before Kurapika relented and consented to secretly assist her in acquiring these coveted items through the seedy channels and connections he'd fostered thus far within the underworld. Of course, she was so overjoyed by his success that she attempted to cover every inch of his face with kisses, all of which he gracefully fended off.
"As of today, we're the same age again!" she now says brightly to him. "We're equals in at least one way! How does that make you feel?"
His only response is a slight shrug. He isn't even looking her in the eye. He's gazing out the window, through which the soft golden light of the setting sun is streaming.
She doesn't mind the silence from his end. She's used to it by now. She understands he isn't the type to fill the air with pointless chatter. If he senses he has nothing valuable to contribute, chances are he won't continue the conversation at all.
The two of them are alone in her bedroom. The door's locked to keep out the rest of the world. Without question, his is the only company she desires for her birthday celebration.
Humming a happy birthday tune to herself, she places the scarlet eyes on the nightstand and unearths a chest of vintage crystal bottles from underneath her bed. She sets a single bottle on her mattress, along with a petri dish and an eye dropper.
The clinking noise, coming from the chest being shoved back beneath the bed, finally draws Kurapika's full attention. From where he's seated before her desk, he watches as, with trembling hands, she unstoppers the bottle and tips it slightly over the dish.
"Neon." His voice is stern. "I know it's tempting to cave in to the pressure that your father insists on heaping upon your shoulders for matters woefully beyond your control and out of your depth, but this is no way to solve your problems."
It must be token resistance at this point. Kurapika must realize by now she can't be dissuaded.
She pouts as she douses the eyedropper into the small splash of liquid in the dish. "It's my special day! Today, more than any other day, I have a right to do what I want!"
"Well, what's your excuse for every other day these past few months? Has there been even a single day when you resisted from indulging in your favorite vice?"
Ignoring his admonitions, she throws her head backward so that she can squeeze a droplet over each of her eyeballs. After a pause, she adds another drop per eye. Four has always been her lucky number, hasn't it?
She sets aside her paraphernalia then stretches out on her bed. With eyes screwed shut, she waits for the effects of the stoppered substance to seep into her system.
What dreams will the drug produce this time? She can't wait to experience them. The images that play like a movie behind her eyelids are sometimes verdant, sometimes violent, always vibrant.
She's just started floating away when Kurapika's voice brings her back to her bed. "What does it feel like? Getting high?"
She opens her eyes. Her pupils must be dilated to the nth degree. Sluggishly, she taps her index finger against the bottle positioned next to the scarlet eyes on the nightstand. "Why don't you take a hit? See for yourself? Course, you gotta remove your contacts first. They're so freaking fake. Dunno why you insist on wearing them 'round me. I'll never find out your actual eye color, will I?"
"I'll pass."
What does he mean? Is he declining a dose of the drug, or is he refusing to remove his contacts? Rather than seeking clarification, she asks, "Hey, what do you know about this?" She points at the bottle again.
"Not much," he admits. "I looked up what I could based on the design of the bottle and the color of its contents — just to verify the substance wouldn't be hazardous for you to ingest, especially at your rapid rate of intake — but neither physical books nor online resources were able to provide me with exhaustive information on the subject."
She dissolves into a fit of giggles at the sight of his solemn expression. "Oh, Kurapika. If you were curious all along, you could've just asked. I have no secrets from you. I'll always tell you everything you wanna know."
Easier said than done, of course. As the substance blends into her bloodstream, she starts slurring her words more and more. Even so, she tries her best to explain everything she knows about these bottles she procured shortly after she first developed a taste for fleshly wares.
Inside the bottles she's snuck beneath her bed are the concentrated tears of the now extinct Pythian clan, known throughout Yorbian history for its skillful soothsayers. The tears can induce hallucinations of fortunes relevant to people and places from centuries past, or so the legends go.
Her father has always claimed his late wife was an ordinary person who received no Nen training whatsoever and who died due to an incurable illness. Neon, however, likes to imagine that her deceased mother, of whom she retains no memories, belonged to the Pythian clan and passed down her proficiency for formulating prophecies.
"I see," Kurapika says as Neon lapses into silence. "I suppose your theory isn't beyond the realm of possibility. I've sometimes wondered about the extent to which genetics can impact an individual's likelihood of developing into a so-called Nen genius, as you are. Besides, it wasn't too long ago when the Pythians were rumored to have died out, not unlike the Kur — not unlike this country's other ancient families."
Halfway through her explanation, he moved his chair closer to the bed, presumably to better discern the babbling flow of her words. This means he's close enough for her to touch.
Fighting the fog with every nerve of her body, she forces herself to sit up and seize his hands with her own. She struggles to enunciate the words spilling out now from somewhere deep inside her. "I hate it, Kurapika. I hate what my life has become. Before Nostrade was a mafia family, it was a family first. Mother, father, daughter. Mama was gone before I ever knew her, and now I feel like I'm losing Papa too. Nothing will ever be normal again."
As she tightens her grip, her fingernails lodge into the links of the chains on his right hand. She yanks her hands away once she feels the chains coiling ominously within her grasp.
Seconds later, she wonders whether the metallic motion was simply her addled brain playing tricks on her.
"What exactly is normal to you, Neon?" Is it the real Kurapika who whispers beside her, or is it the fictitious version of him from her fever dream? "An existence brimming with excesses and indulgences? Hunting down the items most desperately coveted by flesh collectors around the world, whose outlandish price tags are matched only by the degree of agony suffered by the dead and by the living who survive them?"
"You get me, yes. You're the only one who ever does." She's rambling as she snatches the scarlet eyes from the nightstand. "You and I, we'll keep these treasures safe. My favorites. My beloved. We won't give 'em up again, won't let 'em be sold or stolen. Y'know, my heart cracked open when I lost the first ones. Almost like they were family to me. In a way, maybe that's what happened. Beginning of the end, and all that. Y'know?"
"I know, I know."
Her head feels so heavy. She can't hold it up. It lolls forward and falls against his neck.
"You fixed it," she mumbles against his collarbone. "You filled the hole they left behind."
Her right arm cages the jars to her chest, while her left arm snakes around to stroke his back. His body is rigid within her embrace. He seems to be holding his breath. If not for the thrumming in the delicate underside of his jaw, she might even believe him dead.
She passes out to the erratic flitter of his pulse.
The next morning, Neon wakes up disoriented on her bed.
Kurapika is still seated on a chair close by. His dark gaze flits from the pages of the novel in his hand toward her face, unflattering as can be in its bleary-eyed and pillow-creased glory.
"Have you been here this entire time?" she asks.
"I have."
"Must be boring watching me get high and crash down. Especially when you're so determined to stay sober."
"I had to keep watch. With the increased dosage you took yesterday, you could've choked on your own vomit in your sleep. I hope you don't mind that I borrowed one of the books on your shelf."
"Take whatever you want. Take them all. I'm not a bookworm like you so I don't care. Papa was the one who insisted on putting them there." She sits bolt upright once she realizes something's missing from her bedroom. "Where are my scarlet eyes?"
Kurapika, who has risen to return the novel, is facing away and staring at the bookshelf when he answers. "I hid them in a safe place. Somewhere Light can't locate them and sell them."
She blows out a sigh. "Oh, good. You think of everything."
Upon returning to his chair, he hands her a glass of water and a single pill, which she swallows without question. It must be a painkiller for the usual symptoms of her crashes. They've gone through this post-use routine more times than she can count.
Something feels different about today, though. Though his eyes are as enigmatic as ever behind contacts too black to be natural, there's a pronounced crease between his brows that she hasn't seen since the harrowing sequence of events during their last trip to Yorknew.
Before she can inquire about what's worrying him, he heads her off. "Listen, Neon. I have to talk to you about something extremely important. I'll need your full attention for this so I'm willing to wait until I can secure that. Do you require a breakfast of praline waffles à la mode to soak up your comedown?"
Her tummy grumbles at the mention of her favorite breakfast dish, but she forces herself to concentrate. "Just tell me. Let's get this over with. What's Papa complaining about now?"
"This news will affect your father, yes, but it isn't about him. Not really. It's about you and me."
Her heart hammers upon hearing that last part. Butterflies are in full flutter in her belly as Kurapika's fingers brush against hers to pass a piece of paper.
Whatever strange emotions his words have stirred, her mind wipes blank instantly as her eyes fall upon the page, which has been torn from a lined notebook.
The header, written in his even, exquisite handwriting, states, "Kurapika K, 1982-04-04, AB." The rest of the page is filled with five quatrains, etched in spidery penmanship.
Wild-eyed, she looks at Kurapika. "It's back? My Lovely Ghostwriter is back?"
"It would seem so. At midnight, you suddenly awoke. But you weren't acting like yourself. You — or the spirit that was briefly possessing you — told me you could predict my future as long as I wrote down my name, birthdate, and blood type on a piece of paper. As requested, I jotted down those personal details. You then dashed down those quatrains whilst in a fugue state."
Her face splits into a smile so wide it makes her cheeks ache. She pounces forward to hug him with all her strength.
"I've done it!" she crows. "I've regained my ability! I've saved the family! Papa will be so freaking proud of me!"
"Neon, hang on —"
Though Kurapika manages to maneuver himself out of her embrace, her good spirits can't be dampened. "How do you think this happened? Do you think maybe the soothsayers' tears have done their magic on me? Is Mama blessing me from heaven? Well, regardless of how it happened, what matters is it happened! My life can finally go back to normal!"
"Before anything else, you have to concentrate. Focus on reading and understanding the poem in your hands, especially the last two stanzas."
"Oh, I never look too closely at my own fortunes. They work better that way!"
"You have to, Neon," he insists. "You'll understand once you do."
Nothing except the urgent tone of his voice can make her snap out of her euphoria and listen to reason. Wanting to please him, she sits still and reads the following lines, as requested:
As August dawns, His Majesty shall roam,
Forsaking the moonflower that he grew.
She shivers when deprived of glassy dome,
Her petals wilting with the fog and dew.
Before the rot must come a brief rebirth
For bonded knight shall fight the elements.
He'll relocate the bloom to fertile earth,
Her pot sealed with gold and irreverence.
With steely fingers offering to waltz,
He'll conjure up a princess from a plant.
Upon a night that falls devoid of faults,
Her dearest wish he eagerly shall grant.
The fourth week's final day has its own plan,
A steady road which knows no way to bend.
A visit to the sea where all began
Is where the monarch meets her binding end.
Heart staked and bleeding by his own design,
The knight shall close her casket with his hands.
Now bloodline blue has left him next in line,
With chains he must subdue the kingdom's lands.
Neon's mouth falls open as her mind absorbs the poem's meaning. This so-called monarch meets her binding end on the last day of the fourth week of August, does she? Is this monarch supposed to be her? Who else can it be in the context of the poem?
Fingers aquiver, she thrusts the page closer to her face and rereads the offending lines under her breath several times.
She's fated to die within the next few weeks, and this fate is irreversible. The Lovely Ghostwriter is telling her so.
No. No. This can't be right. Her interpretation must be inaccurate.
But a single look at Kurapika's somber expression confirms that the worst possible outcome is imminent.
Her hand spasms, and the paper flutters to the floor.
He bends over to pick it up. When he glances up at her, the rumple of concern is back between his eyebrows.
A realization slams into her skull just then — something significant has eluded her attention in her initial panicked state.
She swallows, seeking to compose herself so that she won't be stumbling all over her words. "Kurapika, wait. Something's off about this fortune. Isn't it possible this is a product of a drug-fueled delusion? Whatever this is, it isn't the Lovely Ghostwriter's doing. You see, a limitation of my ability prevents the Ghostwriter from foreseeing my future. Logically, then, I can't predict my own death."
He stares down at the sheet of paper. "That limitation did occur to me as I was weighing all the possibilities after you went back to sleep. Thankfully, in the past, you trusted me enough to divulge every intricacy of your Nen ability. Thus, that restriction leapt to mind as I was analyzing the fortune. The more I thought about it, though, the more I came to accept that there can be no other explanation for your behavior at midnight. What origin can this poem have except the Lovely Ghostwriter itself? Besides, I saw it with my own eyes — the eerie creature that appeared to animate your unconscious body and control your hand."
Her heart, which has only just begun budding with renewed hope, sinks back toward her stomach.
"You weren't supposed to lose your ability for months or regain it without warning," he goes on, "yet these events transpired for no apparent reason. Sometimes, Nen works in mysterious ways. As you mentioned earlier, it's possible your constant ingestion of the soothsayers' tears had the unexpected effect of recovering your prophetic ability, though with decidedly different limitations this time around."
"You think that's what happened?"
He shrugs as he passes the paper back to her. "I'm simply pointing out that it's not impossible."
If Kurapika himself saw the Lovely Ghostwriter in action, then there's no doubting it's back. But as much as she's missed the power it bestowed upon her, why did it have to return only to spell out her certain doom?
"What am I supposed to do now?" she asks fretfully. "Is there anything I can even do?"
His voice is grave. "You must tell your father at once. As hard as Light has been on you lately, he deserves to know the truth as soon as possible. He needs to be able to prepare himself for all the coming changes."
This is exactly the answer she's been dreading to hear, which probably means it's the correct course of action. "Will you come with me? Honestly, I don't know if I can face him alone. The last time I tried that, it ended in disaster."
"Of course I'll come. I'll be beside you for as long as you need me. I'll always be in your corner unless you tell me explicitly to leave you alone."
"Thank you, Kurapika."
Without another word, they search for her father together.
They find him slumped over his office desk, his face flattened against the varnished surface. A collection of brandy bottles are crowded around his head and littered by his feet.
"Papa? I have something to tell you. Something important."
Her father doesn't budge, not even when she tries tentatively to shake his shoulder.
"Let me handle this," Kurapika says after a minute. "I'm accustomed to seeing him in this state so I've learned all the tricks."
Kurapika extends his right arm and dispatches the chain from his ring finger, the one tipped with a tiny ball. He flicks the ball once against her father's earlobe — the sphere grazing the ear canal's opening for just a split-second — before retracting the chain.
The old man promptly jolts awake. Bottles clatter to the floor as he jerks up his head from the desk. His face is ruddy, and what's left of his silver hair sticks every which way. He directs accusatory glares toward both Kurapika and Neon.
"What?" her father grumbles. "Whaddya want? Can't a man have some privacy to self-medicate?"
Wordlessly, she places the paper with the poetic prophecy on her father's desk. She tries to swallow, but her throat's too dry. Despite the pain medication Kurapika thoughtfully supplied, her temples are starting to throb with a migraine.
When words continue to fail her, Kurapika steps in to supplement the context to the sheet over which his employer is dazedly squinting. "Boss, your daughter appears to have mysteriously regained her Nen ability overnight." Kurapika holds up his right palm to request silence, given that her father shows every indication of wanting to celebrate prematurely, just as she did earlier. "As much as it may sound like the heavens have answered our prayers, we haven't come here to relay good news. This prophecy before your eyes may very well be the last one the Lovely Ghostwriter will ever provide. I spent all night poring over the poem's quatrains and can derive only a single conclusion: Neon shall pass away within four weeks, and I shall officially be promoted as Nostrade's new head shortly afterward."
Her father's smile slips from his face at once. His body seems to turn into stone. The office is silent but for the galloping of her heart in her chest, motionless apart from the roll of her father's eyeballs as he scrutinizes the poem's lines for himself.
"Is this your way of getting back at me for peddling your most prized possessions, Neon?" her father finally asks. Despite the accusatory import of his question, neither anger nor frustration colors his words. His tone as he continues examining the fortune is entirely devoid of emotion.
"Papa, I'd never do something so cruel to you!" she protests. "You know I wouldn't!"
Her father doesn't spare her a glance. Instead, he swivels his head in Kurapika's direction. "It's over, then. Without the fortune-telling scheme, I have nothing."
"Sir, when I told you I'd take care of everything, I meant it." Kurapika thumps his chest with his chained fist for emphasis. "This news is a blow to the family, to be sure. However, as your successor decreed by the prophecy, I promise to do everything in my power to ensure that Nostrade's legacy — everything you and Neon have envisioned and achieved together thus far — won't go to waste."
"As far as I'm concerned, Nostrade is dead," her father counters.
The venom dripping from her father's final word is yet another stab to her already skewered heart. He cares more about losing the Ghostwriter than about losing her, doesn't he? Does he even care about her at all?
She can't take another oppressive minute in this office. Before she realizes it, she's racing out the doorway and toward refuge.
By the time Kurapika ushers her father into her favorite place, Neon is splayed over the sofa and wailing at the top of her lungs.
In her sanctuary, all the shelves are bare and beginning to gather dust. The stores of soothsayers' tears, apart from the bottles she's already pilfered, are missing along with everything else.
Her father — that traitor — must've hastened to strip the chamber of every last treasure formerly displayed there. She's been too preoccupied with her bad habits and with her attempts at reactivating her ability to notice or stop him.
"Any chance the items sold can be reclaimed?" Kurapika inquires in a low voice she probably isn't meant to hear. "It's the least we can do for your daughter at this point. Wouldn't you agree?"
"No," her father mutters. "No right of redemption. You crafted the contracts yourself so you'd already know that."
The two men fall silent as she flips over on the sofa to shove her tear-streaked face against a cushion.
When Kurapika speaks again, still in hushed tones, his voice is tinged with an exasperation he usually reserves for Neon. "Boss, say something to her. Sorry or something else to make her feel less alone. No one should have to feel this lonely when they still have family left. You're supposed to be her father."
"Didn't you swear you'd take care of everything? You'll watch over my daughter in my absence, won't you?"
There's no audible response from Kurapika's end. There's only the sound of hurried footsteps then the slam of a door.
She peels her face away from the cushion to confirm that Kurapika is still present in the chamber while the man who's supposed to be her father has bolted.
She doesn't know it yet, but she'll never see Light again. Later, Eliza will tell her he departed with a single suitcase and an affectionate farewell to his daughter. Neon will want, with every fiber of her being, to believe this claim of affection. But she won't. Her only remaining handmaiden has always been in the habit of lying to make the medicine go down sweeter for her mistress.
And so a countdown begins — a countdown to the end of everything as Neon knows it.
In the first week of August, she can barely move from her bed. She stares listlessly at the cracks on her bedroom ceiling and mourns over her lost treasures, her absent authority figure, and the tragic fate soon to befall her.
It's no surprise her body retains no energy to rise when her mind is caught in such a vicious cycle it can't escape.
The day after Neon finishes dropping the last of the soothsayers' tears over her expectant pupils is definitely in the running for one of her worst days on record. But the countdown isn't even a quarter-way through. Some strong contenders will be coming soon, she guesses.
From her prone position on the mattress, she lobs the last emptied bottle against the wall as if it's personally responsible for all the contemptible symptoms of her drug withdrawal.
Kurapika takes the shattering noise as his cue to enter her bedroom. He perches on the edge of her mattress, his hands clasped over his lap.
She senses a slight vibration from beneath her. It's a minute before her lagging brain processes that Kurapika's phone, inserted into his pants pocket, is vibrating with either an alarm or a call on silent mode.
He waits for the vibration to pass before breaking the silence in the room. "Listen, Neon. Did I ever tell you about this tradition passed down from generation to generation of my family? You see, my bloodline has long had a history of terminal illness. All four of my grandparents succumbed to life-limiting conditions of some sort, and chances are the same will wind up taking me in the end. Once the symptoms of disease could no longer be suppressed, my family had this ritual of gathering around the patient to celebrate everything wonderful about them — their life and loves, their passions and strengths, their milestones and accomplishments. On the precipice of death, my relatives permitted themselves to shed only tears of gratitude and fondness for the cherished memories of an existence well-spent. No tears were wasted on grief and regret, at least not in the patient's presence."
"Does this story have a point?" she grumbles. "I have the mother of all migraines right now, and your blathering isn't helping one bit."
"I would've thought the purpose of my anecdote was self-evident. But I suppose I can't expect you to bridge simple logical gaps when you're busy battling severe migraines." He pauses to watch her groan against her pillow before proceeding with his speech. "So here's what I'm suggesting. Since wallowing over your impending death isn't getting you anywhere, why not opt for the opposite strategy and celebrate your past and present? You can't change what's already set in stone. But you can still control what you do and how you handle every day until then. You have a choice — you can raise your arms in the air and enjoy the ride, or you can keep your head down and navel-gaze as you wait for the roller coaster to end. I know what I'd pick."
She gives another muffled groan. "Spare me from your inspirational speeches. Get lost."
As soon as the words leave her mouth, she feels a weight lift off the edge of the bed.
She rolls over to her back and sees she's now alone. Without making a sound, he's managed to exit the room and shut the door behind him.
When he once said he'd be with her till she asked him to go, he absolutely meant it.
Discomfort twists her stomach into knots. For once, this pain doesn't seem to be a withdrawal symptom. She can't fathom why she immediately misses his company even though she herself demanded solitude.
Before the seventh day of the countdown ends, Kurapika's words succeed in penetrating the fog circulating within Neon's skull. Nothing else has come close to reaching her.
She decides he's right. The best thing she can do at this point is celebrate her last few weeks before shuffling off this mortal coil.
If she must go, then she'll go out with a bang, not a fizzle.