Dis Aliter Visum

Chapter 74

Kurapica hated when Kuroro was being cryptic. For all of his his show of deceitful honesty, he sure liked to keep an air of infuriating enigma. He glanced at him and after a moment, the older man flicked him a look too.

"Something the matter?" he asked, for the umpteenth time in their two-day journey since they'd left the university town.

"No," Kurapica lied again, not because he wanted to deceive his companion – he knew better – but because he wouldn't know how to answer further questioning. Silence returned to the car – a new one; black, this one. They'd gotten rid of the green one as soon as they could. It was far too easily linked to them, after all.

"Have we gone back to staring at each other in silence?" Kuroro asked him.

The blond shrugged. "It depends. Do you have anything to talk about?"

"Not exactly," Kuroro answered.

Kurapica huffed a half sigh. "Then I guess we have."

Kuroro sighed too. "Well," he said after a moment," tonight, we'll stop at a small hotel I know."

"Okay," the younger man replied, closing his book and twisting around to place it down onto the backseat.

"When we leave tomorrow, we'll drive for a couple of hours before we reach Merro. You'll have to dress as a woman again, I'm afraid."

"Okay," Kurapica said again. After a minute or so, he asked, "Why Victorian etiquette?"

"Our next mark is Lady Florenzia. She has a thing for extravagant Victorian parties."

"So we're going to infiltrate one?"

"Yep!" Kuroro answered cheerfully. "I've thought of something to get men to stop giving you grief, too."

Kurapica glanced at him again. "What men?" he asked, although the image of the ugly professor immediately came to mind.

Kuroro sent him a look. "Playing dumb doesn't suit you," he commented. "Men like Forkey. Unless you like that sort of attention."

Kurapica's temper immediately flared. "Don't be ridiculous!" he exclaimed. "Of course I don't like when old men try to touch me inappropriately or watch me in such a way that I know they are mentally undressing me! Why –"

"Who tried to touch you?" Kuroro interrupted. "Forkey?"

There was a dark, dangerous look in his eyes, which gave Kurapica pause.

"He would have," he said, treading carefully now, "but you got there early, thankfully."

Kuroro's shoulders lowered a fraction. His reaction to all of this intrigued the blond, but he knew better than to ask him. "So," he asked after a long, tense moment, "what was that special plan you mentioned?"

Kuroro glanced at him. He was silent for a moment. Kurapica would have given anything to know what was going through that sharp but dark mind.

Well, almost anything.

"Have you heard of the Wholfir people?" Kuroro finally asked him.

"Is this another way to get me to agree to a tattoo?" he couldn't help asking. He was mostly joking, but he was also intrigued; the Wholfir were pretty much living works of art. With every milestone in life, no matter the path they chose, more and more intricate tattoos were added to their bodies to commemorate the event.

Kuroro's eyebrows rose for a moment and his lips curved into a near-smile. "We'll use professional special effects makeup," he explained. "The only tattoo you need is the twelve-legged Spider."