Author's Notes:

RELATIONSHIP: Kurapika/Leorio Paladiknight

RATING: Teen and Up Audiences

Chapter 4: Contract Negotiation

Over dinner, they cross swords — or knives and forks, perhaps — as they attempt to renegotiate certain problematic clauses and conditions of the contract they executed after they uncovered each other's hidden alter ego years ago.

In their initial contract, they agreed to pretend to be archnemeses while secretly working together behind the scenes, all in the service of a common goal — exposing the unchecked corruption and criminality rampant in Yorknew City's underbelly.

In the course of their long-term arrangement, they've managed to take down human traffickers, flesh collectors, and black marketeers, among other sources of senseless violence and misery. The media has repeatedly lauded the Medic, as well as the allies with whom he's aligned at any given moment, for their united endeavor to clean up the city. On TV screens on every street, these heroes and vigilantes wave their gloved hands at the cameras and beam beneath securely-fastened masks.

In the same breath, reporters then denounce Scarlet Shackles and other villains who have thus far escaped the long arm of the law and have continued to leave jagged paths of destruction in their wake, all of which have necessitated the existence of heroes and vigilantes in the first place.

As his claim to infamy, Scarlet Shackles frequently butts heads with his fellow villains instead of learning to work alongside them. He's wiped out half the Phantom Troupe almost single-handedly.

Since Leorio is aware Kurapika's agenda against those bandits, identifiable by their tattoos of twelve-legged spiders, is painfully personal, he never dares to interfere with these hunts. He doesn't offer help either, but he won't hesitate to drop everything upon Kurapika's request.

Kurapika — always a paragon of self-sufficiency to the point of foolish recklessness — never sounds the alarm for Leorio's assistance during a spider hunt unless he's caught himself in the direst of circumstances. The things Leorio has witnessed upon racing to remote locations to Kurapika's aid. . . .

At present, Leorio takes a giant gulp of ginger ale. Though he's craving a sip of whiskey, he requires a clear head for their periodic contract review meetings. Otherwise, Kurapika will gain leverage to walk all over him.

Leorio leans across the dining table, his pen poised over a highlighted paragraph on his copy of the agreement's latest version. "Okay, hear me out. Page thirteen, item —"

"No," Kurapika interrupts. He's not even looking at Leorio. He's staring out the window and fingering the stem of a wineglass, presently filled with water.

"You don't even know which item I'm about to single out!"

Kurapika meets Leorio's indignation with a perfectly placid gaze. "You're going to invoke the exit clause, aren't you? The answer's an unequivocal no. The contract subsists till I've rounded up the last member of the Phantom Troupe. And that's final."

Leorio exhales an exaggerated sigh. But it's not like he was expecting any other response from his husband.

Now that Leorio has presented the biggest ask and has received a prompt rejection, he'll have a much better shot at amending the terms that have given him grief lately. He'll have more wiggle room to poke holes through the rigid contract Kurapika drafted in those first days. Any chance he has to offer his spouse more protection and support, he'll take without hesitation.