Kurapika picks up photography.

Why does he suddenly miss places like this? Develops a desire to know them? There's longing and fear and apprehension he doesn't know where they come from and stops asking the moment he acquires a camera. Learning the skills was easy, deciding what to shoot was not.

At first, he'd just carry his new camera uncertain where to direct it. The new object feels heavy around his neck yet he finds it comforting. It's a reasonable weight, he thinks.

First picture is of his office in the Association's building, taken from the door. Second picture is of the only plant flourishing against the window glass of said office. And then he isn't uncertain anymore.

All pictures are in black and white.

.

Mizaistom sees a picture by accident (or Kurapika makes it seem like an accident or Mizaistom does or both do). Tells him he's got an eye for it.

.

Kurapika loves beauty, but doesn't take pictures of beautiful things.

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The city is too big and too small and he learns to stroll through it with the curious heart of his child self and the confident steps of his older self. He thinks 'older self' because he can't connect a timeline between the two. Not a coherent one, anyway. 'Older self' seems appropriate for now, with a sense of finality to it. It helped him obscure any and all possible futures. His feet were no longer growing but the space around them was. He denies himself the abstract. For the first time in many years he doesn't think of tomorrow. For the first time in many years he likes not thinking of tomorrow.

He walks through the city like a shadow, plants himself in dark corners but is drawn to the light always drawn to the light.

Years, years back the city at large was as alien as witnessing the life you once knew crumble before your very eyes in the span it took to read a newspaper headline. And deep in his heart it disconcerts him still. He's not a city boy, never been. His tragedies all happened in different cities and when he closes his eyes it's sprawling meadows he sees.

For that he guides himself towards the asphalt streets and concrete towers and the lonely trees along the sidewalks. Towards a flock of plastic bags huddling at a far corner shivering in the wind, and from a distance he mistakes them for trembling birds. They exist and he accepts them.

In this city one can't see the stars, but the other day Piyon had told him of all the best spots to witness the sunrise and the sunset and everything in between. He never realized how much he needed that.

He's finding healing and peace in spaces that used to scare him. He doesn't know if it's working and is perhaps a little afraid to ask himself. At least, he knows he enjoys it. Back in the day he wouldn't have accepted a reason like that. For now he does and he thinks it's fine.

For now, it's fine.

.

"Is it like a purposeful thing you're doing? A metaphor?"

All the signs that show up in his pictures can't be read, apparently. They are always at the far corners of the photographs — cut in half, distorted, edging outside the frame. He only notices when Leorio points it out. Kurapika doesn't like it, and thinks it would be disingenuous to find a sub-textual meaning now when it never was his intention. Regardless, he never changes the angel.

However, when Leorio sees the pictures he can recognize all the signs. Kurapika is a little impressed but doesn't say it. Leorio knows the city more than him. For Leorio the streets and sights inform the signs not the other way around. Later he admits he only guessed at them by remembering the places in the pictures.

A little less than a decade ago, at some point before leaving, Leorio had acquainted himself with the city so well it turned out he recognized the darkest of swerves, the most obscure alleyways. Kurapika wonders why he hadn't done the same. What was he doing back then?

His fingertips had traced the maps but never the real thing.

He thought he knew.

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In Mizaistom's house, Kurapika dares to bring the camera. He doesn't ask permission when he takes a picture of the other man. Shirtless, his hair black and cropped short like a soldier, his eyes dark and wide and glistening like pearls before the chimney fire, lips parted mid-sentence, mid-smile, in something like surprise. Something too pretty to keep.

So Kurapika doesn't keep it. Mizaistom doesn't ask about it, although he does ask about the other pictures and Kurapika shows him all of them.

"You never told me why you're taking pictures."

Kurapika smiles and turns up the volume on the old cassette player. "I enjoy it."