Always (Kuroro Lucilfer) Chapter 0 - Prologue

You were a hunter, a Nen user of the Materialization group.

You were a stubborn and strong fighter who followed your own path; your own gut.

You were close friends with Gon, Kurapica, Killua, and Leorio. All of you had been together since you first met on Whale Island (aside from Killua, whom you met later on). You had gone through all of the hunter exams together, fighting side by side to survive.

You were the kind of person who remained loyal only to your friends; they were the most important thing in the world to you, even more so than your own life, and you would never do anything to hurt or betray them.

That’s what you always believed. At least until you met him.

That one man managed to completely flip your world, send your heart into turmoil and your mind into a raging battlefield.

When you first met him, you didn’t even know who he was. He was just some guy you had accidentally bumped into at the bookstore. Of course, you would have just walked away after apologizing, but he wasn’t having that. He engaged you in a conversation about the book you were buying before you even had a chance to move past him.

Oh, if only you had known who he was. If only you had known that it was planned by the mysterious man. But how could you? There was no way you could have known. For some reason, your senses just hadn’t been working at that point in time and didn’t warn you.

Maybe it was fate or destiny.

Maybe it was Karma kicking you in the ass.

Or perhaps it was just lady luck having fun at your expense.

You didn’t know, but you thought it was too cruel.

You remembered clearly how much you hated yourself when you found out that he was the boss of the Genei Ryodan. You remembered the betrayal and anger in your friends’ eyes when they learned that you were dating Kuroro Lucifer. The only one who didn’t glare at you was Gon; he was crying and staring at you with hurt and betrayal lining his brown orbs.

And Kurapica… the way he glared at you with a look full of rage… you could just feel the murderous intent pouring off of him.

He wanted you dead.

He wanted to kill you.

You only had one source of comfort and that was from the man who had ruined your life.

The man who made your world crumble with a simple smile.

Even then, he offered little comfort to your aching heart.

You were too often alone in those hotel rooms.

The Silence.

The Sorrow.

The Loneliness.

It all beat down on you day after day, wearing down your body and mind, heart and soul.

The other members of Ryodan didn’t like you nor did they accept you. You were a hunter, after all, and ex-friends with the chain-user who had killed one of their own. Because of that, Kuroro never brought you around them.

Since he was always in their presence, that meant that he rarely spent time with you.

The spider was more important.

It always had been and it always would be.

You hated him for what he had done to you, but you couldn’t leave. You were tied to him by that damned red string called fate.

He was all you had left.

There were times when you’d go months without seeing him, and in that time, your heart stopped aching painfully and your mind would ease, headache finally disappearing. But then he’d appear out of nowhere and mess everything up again.

You often found yourself believing that he did it on purpose.

Let the prey feel relaxed and calm as if it has nothing to worry about, and then strike, ripping its world apart and tearing it limb from bloody limb.

As much as you hated to admit it, you were the vulnerable lone deer.

Kuroro was the mighty and powerful lion.

Cornered and alone, there was no escape.

Even if you wanted to leave, you wouldn’t make it very far. He knew that and used it to his full advantage.

You belonged to him and him alone.

Destroying your world was how he managed to grab a hold of you.

Sending your world into a never-ending spiral of turmoil was how he was going to keep you.