Chapter 1

Allowing Leorio to create his profile was a mistake.

Kurapika thought that there was a myriad of ways he could be described. He was a coffee enthusiast who thrived at cafés and bookstores. He knew more languages than the average person and knew what it was like to switch between five languages in a conversation. He was the exceptional lawyer friend who helped people through the grey legal areas of life. But none of that came close to what Leorio wrote.

Kurapika, 20

Sticks and stones may break my bones,

But chains and whips excite me.

"What the—" Kurapika nearly dropped his phone. "What the hell is this!? People are going to get the wrong idea—"

"What should I write then?" Leorio shook his head and took the phone from his hands. "Oh, I don't know, 'I'm a pleasure to have in class. Just looking for book recommendations. Don't worry if I take months to call you back?'"

Kurapika scoffed, letting Leorio show him the photos that were chosen for the profile. The first photo showed him sitting at the library, reading a book by one of his favorite authors. The next one had him wearing a black suit, his everyday attire at work, and tugging at his tie. There was a scenic one too, where he was surrounded by food and friends at a picnic. He didn't like taking photos of himself, but these were decent enough, just simple photos of him taken by their friends.

Or so he thought. Waiting for him was a photo of him from last year, clad in a form-fitting secretary uniform. The skirt rode up on his thighs, exposing his legs in a manner that was anything but appropriate.

Leorio grinned as if he was doing him a favor. "You have to stand out in this kind of crowd."

"As if quoting old song lyrics and putting a photo of me crossdressing would allow me to? I beg to differ." Kurapika turned towards his books, intent on completing his assignments for the night. "This was a ridiculous idea."

"Yeah, yeah. Just have some fun with it, will you?" Leorio continued to scroll through the app, browsing through the various profiles of men in their proximity. "Look, you matched with a guy."

The offending screen was waved in his face. "See? I sent him a message."

Kurapika snatched the phone away and glared at the message. "You have got to be kidding me."

"Sorry. Did I go too far this time?"

"I—It doesn't matter. I'm going to delete the app anyway."

As if on cue, the screen lit up with a notification. "Well, the guy replied."

"Then ignore him."

"But he looks like your type. Tall, dark, and handsome?"

As much as he hated to admit it, Leorio was right. There was a photo of a man gazing pensively out of a window. It wasn't a selfie and it was rather amusing, really—because it was clearly a predetermined pose meant to capture some kind of dreamy atmosphere. But the sunlight accentuated his pale skin and black hair, succeeding in lending an ethereal quality to his features. Bandages were wrapped around his forehead—a head injury, perhaps?—and strange turquoise orbs embellished each of his ears. His profile read—

Kuroro, 28

Entrepreneur.

Enjoys rare books, classical music, and museums.

Father of two lovely fish.

Kurapika snorted at the last statement. As attractive as the man was, there were more important things for the night, so he promptly shut off his phone and returned to reading the textbook. He shot down whatever Leorio was going to say with a glare that was downright glacial. "Just finish your work already."

And that was that.

As much as his friends wanted to push him into a relationship, he didn't deem it necessary to pursue such a connection on a digital platform, of all things. When Leorio finally left for the night, he was getting ready to go to sleep when his phone screen flashed with a new message from the man.

He was so close to ignoring the notification, but it wouldn't hurt to check it out. It wasn't like he was going to spend any time perusing through the app any further. Thankfully, the messages that the man sent had nothing to do with what was written on Kurapika's profile. They weren't distasteful remarks or unwarranted photos of genitalia. They were just short questions about how his evening was going. Strangely enough, despite that he was drifting off to sleep soon, he felt that he needed to have the decency to reply.

Sorry. My friend made my profile for me. I'm going to delete this soon.

Kurapika decided not to mention that the first message wasn't actually written by him. To his surprise, the reply was nearly immediate.

why? are you seeing someone?

Kuroro was a tad more forward than expected, but at least he wasn't demanding to hook up from the very start.

No, I'm not with anyone. I just don't think that this kind of thing is right for me.

It wasn't that he was against hooking up. Just, the idea of applying gamification to finding a partner seemed awfully strange to him.

so you aren't interested?

Kurapika paused. He could just end the conversation there and forget about the whole thing.

I would be lying if I said that I wasn't. It seems like the whole premise of this is based on appearances. That doesn't seem like an effective way to meet people.

That made him think—how many individuals has this man spoken to on this app? How many did he actually meet in person? Kurapika was probably one of the many that he was conversing with in the middle of the night.

i have to agree with you there.

After a moment, no other messages came. Exhaustion began to catch up on and he was steadily lulled to sleep from the weight of the previous day. The screen blinked again with another message.

i saw you reading in one of your photos. so you like k. l.'s books?

His eyes widened. Before he could stop himself, he found himself replying much quicker this time.

Yes, I love their works! That book is one of my favorites. I'm surprised that you could tell from such a distance. You know them?

of course. i know all of their works quite well, actually. it's one of the reasons i swiped right on you.

Kurapika had to reread his message a few times. He was surprised to feel the sudden rush of excitement from Kuroro's words, when he had never been so invested in a stranger before.

Oh. That's good to know. They have such a complex writing style and I love how their stories always leave you wanting answers and explanations. It's nice that you can discover something new about their writing no matter how often you reread it.

He had to stop himself before he ended up writing a paper on this topic.

So, what's the other reason?

Silence.

And then—

you have really nice legs.

Notes:

I'm alive. Don't take this too seriously!

This was written for my friends on LINE. I spent my weekend on Tinder and I kid you not, I matched with this medical student who had a shirtless photo with a bookshelf of manga in the background. I literally recognized the manga right away and he was one of two guys that liked HxH out of everyone I matched with.

I'll have longer chapters for the rest of this fic and upload the other fics that I promised soon. Thanks for your patience!

I perpetually lack motivation so please feel free to leave a comment.

You can also find me on Tumblr at seiyuna.