Itsy Bitsy Spider

73. From the Moon

A long, long time ago, there was a beautiful girl named Kaguya-hime.

She was discovered as a baby in a stalk of bamboo, and true to her name, shining with a soft but dazzling radiance. She was loved by all who raised her and even more, becoming admired by many in the land. But as she grew, so did her dissatisfaction with her current state, a dissent against the warm, close, but restricting life she'd led.

'I'm sorry,' she finally said one day, 'but I must return to the moon, where I am from.' All the princes of the land gave her lavish and expensive gifts to get her to stay, but Kaguya simply shook her head. They continued to try, endeavored their best to change her mind, but their gifts, no matter how beautiful they were, did not convince her to remain where she was.

"With that, the moon people soon came for their princess on a glowing chariot, and bidding goodbye, she disappeared into the night sky." Kikyo closed the picture book, her youngest son nestled in her arms.

The toddler looked up at his mother, his dark eyes questioning. "Kaguya go away?"

"Yes, Kalluto dear." Her hanging hair framed his small face as she answered.

"But..." Kalluto gently pried the book from her fingers and opened it back up to the pearls, the gold, and dark, lacquered bowls. He pointed. "Pretty presents." He looked back and forth between the picture and Kikyo's thinly-pressed smile, confused. "Kaguya's not happy?"

"Perhaps, dear," Kikyo said, taking the book away from her child, "gifts simply aren't enough to keep people in one place."

Once, there was a beautiful girl named Kaguya, and the world she lived in was not large enough for her.

Noticing his hands had stalled, he quickly began to work again. The quiet clicking of the whisk filled the air and managed to momentarily keep his mind busy, but not for long.

He'd always played the role of the prince. Trying his best, giving his best, but always left behind, everything he did in vain. Maybe gifts didn't really work to keep people around, in which case he wondered why he even tried so hard at giving gifts at all. Last time he hadn't even made it in time to stop Killua and he'd left before Kalluto could offer anything up. If giving was a futile method, as it had been in the old tale about the girl from the moon, there certainly wasn't any need to keep on doing this. Still, just once...

"I'd like the story of Kaguya to go differently," he voiced softly.

Killua stood on the other side of the locked kitchen door, his hands buried deep in his pockets as he listened to his brother working and ever so quietly bring up a bedtime story he'd forgotten even existed. "So that's what that was about," he muttered under his breath before pushing off and leaving, scuffed shoes noiseless as they padded back down the hall.

* * *

A gale of wind broke through the thin curtains he'd just closed, casting a bright flash of light into the darkness he'd tried to conserve before it sharply died, breezing softly past his ears and leaving a crack between the curtains. A strip of sun lay on the carpet when the wind left, undisturbed.

Kurapika touched the sunny surface before pulling back, sitting next to the bed. He set his head back on its hard wooden frame.

His phone dinged, and despite not feeling like it, he looked down to check. When he saw who the sender was, Kurapika simply wanted to sigh and place his phone somewhere else, to ignore the notification and be left alone for the moment. When his eyes caught on message itself, however, his eyes widened.

Killua
Feitan is back.

He swallowed. When he took up his phone his hands almost trembled, but he somehow managed to keep them steady. At first he didn't know how to respond. How could he? The way he thought the blunt statement implied the impossible couldn't possibly be true.