II. I Now Understand Regret

"Hey! Why are you at the hospital when you don't even look sick?" A sixteen year old blonde girl asked the black haired stranger that was across from her hospital bed. Her tone was annoyed and sharp, something that is disrespectful for her young age.

"Oh my Curapikt! That is rude and disrespectful of you, apologize to him at once!" Her mother reprimanded her and gave the stranger an apologetic look.

She didn't know why but ever since this man joined her in her hospital room three days ago she had been very irritated by his presence. It's not like the man was loud and rowdy, in fact he doesn't even do anything but read all day and he doesn't bother her at the least. He also exchanges polite pleasantries with both of her parents when they visit her. There's something about him that just ticks her off and she thinks the nightmares that she has has something to do with it.

In the nightmare, she dreams about bloodied corpses and gouge eyes. A man with a cross in his forehead that was surrounded by twelve people. She also sees two kids with black and white hair, a man with eyeglasses and a woman (?) that hears a heartbeat. She also sees a lot of red eyes inside canisters, which is odd considering that her and her parents' eyes are blue. She doesn't know what her dreams meant but it always ends the same. Her dying alongside the man with the cross that oddly resembles her roommate and throughout this dream all she feels is hatred.

So, instead of thinking about it and making her head hurt from thinking about it, she does what she knows best in her young teenage mind and that is to annoy the man as much as possible. She projects all the emotions that she feels in her dreams into this man. She hopes that by doing so the man could be the one to initiate a room change (because she sure as hell doesn't want to leave, it would look like she lost). She knows that it's unfair for him but she sure as hell is stubborn and prideful so there's no going back now.

The stranger smiled at her mother, dismissing the rude behavior that she did (as he always does). Instead, he decided to answer her question.

"Well you know, I may not look like it but I'm about to hit the bucket soon. I'm only here at the hospital because I'm trying to appease the people around me that's encouraging me to live longer." The man stated as if he was talking about the weather. However, she was directly looking at her when he said that. His gaze was soft, a contrast to his bland delivery and for the first time she realized that this was the first moment that she truly held his gaze.

She suddenly felt pity for the man and she knows that it's not fair of her to feel that because the sad part about it is that she can relate with that. Ever since Curapikt fainted in her first year of junior highschool, her memory has always been of the hospital. When she thinks that she can finally return to a normal life due to the symptoms decreasing, life would be a bitch again and a headache would soon lead to vomiting and that would lead to fainting, that would immediately send her to her usual companion, the IV drip. She was in her second year that she fully understood the meaning of her disease and that it doesn't have a cure. Thus, if she's pitying the stranger then she's also pitying her circumstances.

"I'm so sorry Quwrof-san." Her mother offered for her, as she did not speak after that. This was the first time that she heard Quwrof-san say that. She knows that people that stay long in the hospital just like her are bound to have a deadly disease too. After her mother left she did not annoy Quwrof anymore and oddly enough she didn't dream of anything that night.

"Quwrof-san, I'm sorry." They just had their dinner and they were spending their time inside their room when Curapikt suddenly decided to apologize to him. The guilt was eating the girl up and she now realizes that it was wrong of her to do that to someone that is clearly not the same person that is in her nightmares.

Quwrof decided to stray his eyes from the book he's reading and look at the girl across from him and smile.

"It's okay. I know that you're angry about the situation that you are in and if projecting it into me would help then I am fine with that."

That's not quite it but she decided to go with the flow.

"But it's still unfair to you, you haven't done anything wrong to me so I shouldn't have lash out at you like that everytime." She was pouting now and for some reason Quwrof found that cute. He chuckled at the thought.

"But I did." He spoke softly

"Huh?"

"I did something wrong to you."

Frowning, Curapikt asked, "When was it? As far as I know I was the stubborn brat that always tested your patience."

The man looked at him, as if contemplating whether to say something or not and then decided to close his book and put it into the drawer beside his bed.

"Looks like the universe decided to pity me a little in this lifetime and decided to spare you the heartache."

"What?" Curapikt was confused as to what this man was saying to her.

Quwrof then laid back into his bed and asked, "Can I ask you a question?"

Curapikt nodded.

"When someone did something horrible to you, could you find it in yourself to forgive that person?"

The girls' brows knitted with confusion. "I guess I could forgive them if they apologize to me and I can feel that they truly meant that apology."

"Interesting. How can you say that one truly meant that apology?"

"Easy. When I feel that they have regretted their actions and that they feel remorseful for what they have done."

"But what if you didn't know what they have done to you and what they're apologizing for?"

Putting her fingers on her chin, Curapikt decided to think of the man's question thoroughly.

"Hmm... Then I guess all the more reason to forgive them."

"Why?"

"Well if I didn't remember and they did, then they can just not apologize to me. However, they do want to apologize, meaning that they did feel regret through their actions. The guilt is eating up at them and that they have acknowledged that what they did was indeed wrong. Thus, making their apology more sincere since I know that that person spent a huge amount of time gathering the courage to either bring it up or just brush it off. So all the more reason that I should forgive them."

Quwrof's gaze softened at her answer.

"That's nice. Thank you."

With that said, he turned around. Leaving Curapikt to swallow her reply.

'What a weird man.' She thought.

After five minutes had passed Curapikt assumed that the man did not want to talk to her anymore and she too had turned in her bed.

When she was about to drift off to sleep, she heard the man say "I'm glad to have met you again, Kurapika."

'I now regret it.'

When morning came, she woke up to the cold body of his roommate. She found out that at age twenty-five Quwrof-san had an illness where his blood had been secreting poison into his body and it had already spread throughout his organs. He was supposedly scheduled to have his surgery this morning and he was transferred into this hospital three days ago due to it being one of the most prestigious and advanced establishments in the country. He had been diagnosed with this disease at the age of twenty-two and due to his predicament being complicated he had been transferring hospitals ever since.

She overhears the nurses talking that Quwrof-san inherited a huge amount of money from his parents passing when he was just born, and that he was incredibly gifted in the realm of academe, but instead of making use of his money and knowledge into being a bigshot, he had used it to help people in need. He had supplied funds for charity and orphanages in churches.

When her Mother and Father visited her that morning she suddenly felt tears forming in her eyes.

"Are you okay, sweetie? Do you want me to get the nurse?"

Shaking her head no, she looked at Quwrof's side of the bed. She noticed that the book that he had been reading was still there. It was a black book which had an upside down cross on the cover. She reached out for it and hugged it to her chest. There's a strange feeling in her chest that she can't name.

"I wanted to get to know Quwrof-san more."

When she spoke those words, that's when she felt the dam burst.

Her mind brought her back to their conversation last night and she remembers it now. All her hate towards that man. All the crying that she had done when he had killed her clan. All the killings. The both of them fight their lives off until they die.

And...

And...

The regret that he feels with what he has done and the amendments that he has done in this life. He had let him annoy her as a form of saying 'I'm sorry' to her.

Just when she finally understood his regret did he have to go.

'I wish I could have forgiven you Chrollo Lucilfer. ' With that thought Curapikt continued to cry into her hands.

The two parents looked into each other's eyes and then back to their daughter's figure. They consoled her until her tears stopped flowing.