"You should look to be more like your brother..."
That's what her parents, her mother, and father, used to tell her. It's what the whole village used to imply.
"Stupid Sparrow."
Flashbacks to a bloody nose and punches from outsiders encroaching on the village came to Y/n's mind, which was already throbbing in pain. Most of all, it had been ages since anyone referred to her as what she was: a Sparrow of the Emerald Tribe, The Emerald Kingdom.
"Okay, alright, focus, focus!" Y/n whispered to herself desperately.
"Calm down, you trained all your life for this shit!"
But the calming shackles of Peace Training had broken. Y/n was unable to tame the millions of thoughts- of flashes of memory swimming in her head. Images hit her like lightning in her mind's eye. The bright smile of a brother, the disgusted scorn of a mother, the gentle gaze of a teacher. More than any of this, however, what she could feel the best is the horrific pulling and tearing of her heartstrings. She could hear voices of people she once knew who were all now dead, leaving her with griefs and grudges she alone would have to bear.
"Why can't you be more like your brother?"
What had that man dressed in green, with long stringy black hair, done to her?
"You're not concentrating. You have so much anger inside you."
"Don't listen to them. They don't know what it's like out there. But I've seen it. You can see it too."
"You're a disgrace to this family. You are useless."
It was at this point that Y/n could not handle the pain any longer. A gagged cry came from her mouth as she sunk her head into her knees, holding the bulk of her brain in her hands. She knew she must not be loud, but she couldn't remember why.
There's something I must do. But none of it matters anymore. This pain is too heavy a burden to bear. She could no longer see or sense the real world. All she could see was black and sparks of rancid rainbow hues bouncing in different shapes in her vision. Now she really wanted to pray- to any and all 273 gods she had studied in the short time she wandered outside the village that had seemed like a dream. Her crazed mind through their names only briefly— Dunsava, Lindaguren, Koresh, Shelstar, Yeshta, Strangeson, The Holy Trinity of Ofhunja, Sayapokitle— when a new sensation hit her. She could feel dozens of hands rise from the swaying grass of bright purples and sickening greens aiming straight towards her. They pulled at her clothes, gripped at her ankles, and scratched at her clammy skin.
"More like your brother, you stupid Sparrow..." they seemed to groan.
Y/n stumbled forward, and before she knew what was occurring she turned to see a tall figure made of furious black smoke. She could clearly see the eyes of at first her mother, then her father, her brother, a sister, a teacher, the authority, who all jeered at her. When it began appearing closer to her, reaching out an ink-black claw at her, she bolted from her spot and ran for her life. A hand would reach out and grab her from the foot and she'd tumble. Rotting corpses hung from the ceiling of Y/n's hellish mindscape, brushing her cheeks as she flew by, scratching her with molding fingernails when they could. She managed to slip onto an elevated stone in the ground and held her breath as if that would keep the creatures of her past away. She held her breath in a horrified suspension, waiting for something to attack. She could see the forest now, dotted with hallucinations of piercing demon eyes and she could hear the drumming of hunting music.
"Y/n!"
She turned to the source of the voice.
Interrupting the hell-scape was a young man with bright blond hair and odd clothing. He had soft eyes and his face was drenched in sweat that had mixed with bits of forest debris and sticky pollen. Who was this guy?
"Y/n? It is me, Kurapika. I heard you scream, I tried to find you, I just-"
Y/n eyed him curiously. The man was obviously exhausted from something, but she could not tell what.
"Please, even when you caught sight of me you just ran faster, and it's so dangerous out here if you are not being careful. Please," he said, a hand outstretched towards Y/n.
She peered at his hand, soft but flushed, cupped in its white sleeve.
"I just want to go home," Y/n said.
A terrible sadness ripped through Kurapika's heart when she said this and then a shock when she collapsed into his arms from exhaustion.
"Oh, Y/n. Why do we always end up like this?" He whispered. "You shouldn't be here."
He stared sadly at Y/n's soft face now peaceful in sleep as he held her, their sweat mixing. He kissed her head at the hairline and lugged her up as he balanced his already tired body onto his knees, and then his feet.
***
The beating of the steady drums rumbled in Y/n's belly as she hid behind a tree in the wilderness. Her small hands dug into the bark of the tree. The sun was reduced to speckles of light on Y/n's face, filtered green by the foliage above. Her eyes wandered curiously, but it was her ears that worked hard to hear the music of the haunting.
Five or six men waded through the trees like panthers, eyes doused in black paint to keep them from the sun. Y/n could hear their occasional pants that were kept quiet. There was a horrifying screech that echoed through the dark green forest, and it excited her. The wind made its own music like wooden flutes in the sky. The sounds of their feet were only enough to make xylophone tunes upon the roots of the musical trees they stepped on. This was the art of the haunt, a form of magical animal hunting, in the Emerald Kingdom.
"Sen, DA. Kopli, pochitle! Sen DA!"
The men cried the sounds of a nearing success.
"Hunt the animal, find the animal! Jadyn! Two o'clock!"
That was her older brother's voice.
There was a screech of an animal. Y/n heard it far away, but suddenly, she could feel the pum-pum of an animal's hooves and desperation coming straight towards her. She turned behind her and there it was, less than five feet away, the wild yellow eyes of a saber-toothed violet boar, purple irises flipping wildly this way and that, with horrendous foul-smelling breath and spit being ejected from its snout and mouth as it stomped towards little Y/n with the force of a couple hundred pounds.
Y/n felt a tug at her waist and opened her eyes to see her older brother's examining face before her– upside down. His eyes, surrounded in haunter's obsidian paint, were the same charming color as Y/n's but he had long abandoned the babyish round face Y/n possessed and carried instead a sharp and handsome face.
"Let me go, Resa!"
"And let you fall to your death?"
It was only then that Y/n noticed the forest floor was easily 100 feet below them. She wondered if that would really kill her.
"Huaresach!" a voice called.
Resa grimaced at the call.
"Damn it, Y/n."
He placed Y/n gingerly on the thick branch next to his and lightly dusted off her tiny temple uniform.
"I... I'm sorry. I just wanted to see the haunt," Y/n said, a little ashamed.
"Huaresach!" the voice was more insistent.
"Over here," Resa called in his strong baritone voice.
Two men swung into view. One man, who she did not know, was slim, albino-skinned, and wide-nosed with brilliant red tufts of hair, who seemed mute. She knew the other man, Resa's boss. Resa pushed Y/n behind him, if only slightly. Y/n was always scared of the boss... they called him Big Zee.
Big Zee was... big, brown, and with shoulders wide enough to carry several men and a waist small enough to make outsider women envious.
"Huaresach. Your kin... again," he said, in a voice that made the tree beneath them quiver.
"Yes, I apologize. She must have wandered here accidentally."
"We lost the Violet Boar because of you," said the red-headed man.
"It won't happen again, sir."
"We're feeding families here, Huaresach. Do you understand that?" Big Zee said.
"Yes, sir."
Big Zee looked at Y/n, who now hid behind Resa's girthy thigh.
"Young monk, you should be at the temple."
Resa nudged her on the shoulder blade.
"Y-yes, sir. I apologize."
"Who is your teacher?"
Y/n knew the next day she'd get it for sure.
"Menachem."
"Menachem, huh? The old man can't keep up with a bunch of six-year-olds to save his life."
He clicked his teeth, amused.
"Go home now, little Menach. One day you may even be qualified enough to watch a haunting."
A Menach, a student of the esteemed war hero Menachem.
Big Zee turned to Res, his gaze hardening once again.
"Ten minutes," Big Zee concluded, and he flew away with his Sparrow staff.
"You'll tail and catch this time. And this counts as your daily bread," said the red-headed man. He ignored Y/n.
"Yes sir."
And the red-headed deputy was off.
Resa shook his head. Y/n wanted to cry. Big Zee had pitied her.
"ONE DAY you MAY EVEN be qualified enough to WATCH..."
She felt stupid and small. Resa took note of this and settled onto his knee. He placed his big hand on Y/n's nape.
"You understand why you can't be here, right? It's very dangerous. You could have gotten very hurt. And there's information you're not really allowed to..." he sighed deeply, giving up on lecturing her.
"This is why Mom and Dad hate me. I just cause trouble for them. All. The. Time."
"Hey, hey! No one hates you, Y/n. I felt the same way when I was your age. Except it was worse because I wasn't so lucky as to have a dashing and brilliant older brother such as myself."
"Really?" she replied, ignoring his attempts to make her laugh.
"Yeah... don't listen to Mom and Dad. They don't know everything as you might think."
"Is that why you used to fight with them?"
This took Resa a little aback and Y/n noticed the hurt in his eyes. The hurt from the memories of domestic turbulence.
"Ah, those were just my angsty teenage years."
"You're still a teenager. Youu're sixteen," Y/n pointed out.
Resa rolled his eyes with a small smile.
"Still. You'll understand when you're older."
"Everyone always says that."
He reflected upon this carefully, his lips pursing in thought. Resa was like that, a high-energy boy, but when he did take the time to listen, he'd focus on you totally and think profoundly before answering, even if he were only talking to a child. That's why Y/n liked him. He took her seriously; he had faith in her.
"Well, only because it's true. There's a whole world out there. You can't tell anyone I said this, but I... I've seen it. There's a world bigger than rules and modesty and pacifism. Just know that. There are even jobs where people work haunting magic, but not just for hunting animals. They're called Hunters."
Y/n felt awkward hearing her brother say things like this. He was a devoted Sparrow, a good haunter, a young pillar of the community at this point. He wasn't allowed to say these kinds of things. Dreamy ideas of the outside world, the implication that "out there" was somehow better than this Emerald haven. Resa was like a third parent and seeing a parent of any kind break down, even if momentarily, was enough to boggle a child's mind.
"Why are you telling me this?"
Resa blinked at her and looked away, face flushed and eyes hard.
"I-I don't know... I think... I need someone to know what happened to me."
Y/n tilted her head curiously.
Resa bowed his head; Y/n didn't know exactly why.
"I love you very much, Y/n," he said. "You'll understand when you're older. I love you very much... "
***
"Y/n?"
Y/n opened her eyes. Kurapika was staring intently at her. His pale brown eyes were wide, his airy blond lashes swept agape and his slim face beat red. Y/n had never seen him like that.
She swirled her head up, bathing her vision in fluorescent white hospital lights as her neck cracked slightly.
"What a confession," a voice said. It was Leorio.
"What?" Y/n replied, licking her chapped lips and trying to sit up.
Kurapika's tabard was off and he was wrapped in a gray woven blanket. He had been pulling his long knife in and out of its wooden sheath absent-mindedly. Leorio had equally removed his blazer and his shoes were off as he skimmed a magazine and chewed on an old plastic spoon that clung to his hand. There were styrofoam cups of spicy ramen piled on the plain white nightstand. Next to it was a bouquet of sunflowers in a sky-blue vase and a yellow "GET WELL SOON" card with a brown teddy bear on the cover spotted in ink with four signatures. The large window on Y/n's left displayed a noon-day clear sky. Now, both boys seemed to be surprised to see her awake.
"It was nothing, you're probably still very tired."
"I love you very much!" Leorio crooned into Kurapika's ear, to which he received a swift strike to the head.
"I must have been dreaming... I saw my brother." Y/n said, not even affected by Leorio's teasing.
"I didn't know I had a brother. I think he had plans of becoming a Hunter... a sacrilegious act for us peaceful Sparrows. Oh god."
Y/n felt the hangover of yet another collapse of her mind, same as during the cooking phase of the exam. Kurapika cleared his throat and spoke as he stared at the polished floor.
"The doctors performed an analysis on your brain and found your hippocampus was experiencing extreme shifts in chemical process making."
Kurapika looked up at Leorio and Y/n, realizing he had made sense to no one.
"Er, your brain was rapidly changing, specifically the part of your brain that holds memories. It seemed not to affect your recovery, though. They said there seemed to be something different about you, but they said they weren't interested in investigating you more deeply unless you failed to continue recovering."
Leorio leaned in.
"What happened to you, Y/n? I noticed the same symptoms as before."
"Truthfully, I was very worried about you. Er, we were all worried about you, Y/n."
Y/n rested her head back on the pillow.
"I saw memories of my childhood and-"
Her eyes widened. "What about the exam?"
Leorio and Kurapika look at each other wearily.
"About that... " Kurapia tried.
Leorio spoke easily, though his eyes were solemn.
"You were eliminated."
After a moment, Y/n closed her eyes and sighed.
"You, unfortunately, failed to receive enough points, and you were disqualified. Nugatory were our attempts to... wake you up in time. Luckily, you were able to receive treatment at this local hospital. You also suffered no major injuries, just plenty of dehydration and exhaustion. You must have run for days with no food or water, Y/n," Kurapika said gently.
Y/n stared at the ceiling, memories of her hallucination session rushing in. She remembered her mother, ungiving and dismissive, her father, ever-silent and contemptuous, her brother, a striking ball of sunshine with hidden grief. She remembered summers when she'd hang out with some of the other Sparrow kids, though during the rest of the months she was in training at all times with her teacher and a select few other monk trainees. She remembered the taste of joja milk her mother used to make before she grew ashamed of Y/n. She remembered getting in trouble for lying, sneaking away from responsibilities, not controlling her anger, for desiring riches at such a young age. She remembered the painful punishments for these transgressions. The burning of water down her nose and throat, the burn of the muscles in her legs when she was forced to run miles, her screams as she pounded on the door of a dark, dingy chamber. She shivered at the thought.
"Y/n?"
"Hm?"
"I asked if you were in need of anything?" Kurapika looked at her, and he brushed the back of his hand over her forehead, checking for a fever.
Her face grew heated.
"I don't know. How long was I asleep?"
"Days, I'm afraid," Kurapika replied, still checking her temperature.
Y/n couldn't believe it. She was only with her brother for a few minutes.
"And the exam?" she inquired.
"The next phase of the exam is upon us. In fact, Leorio and I may need to take our leave soon."
"Of course. I wish the two of you luck... I can't believe it. I'm out, all over some mental episode."
"Your mental state is just as important as your physical one, Y/n. Besides, both were suffering. The health of the mind is no joke," Leorio interjected. Y/n could tell his doctor's expertise was speaking.
"We'll come to visit once it's over. I promise." Kurapika said, giving her warm hand a squeeze. She remembered his angelic image at the height of her craze, his delicate kiss on her forehead, his firm but gentle hands holding her frame intimately as she slipped into oblivion. The butterflies in her stomach began fluttering at her finally remembering this sensation.
Suddenly, the blow of failing the exam softened slightly. Y/n gave a tired smile with a blush.
"To be honest, I think I'll take a nap until then," she said, resting her tired eyes.
Kurapika gazed at her warmly as Leorio rose to leave, collecting their things. Eventually, Kurapika did the same and as he was exiting the door, he turned off the light. Y/n was sound asleep by then.
"Rest well, for now, Y/n. You've been through a lot."
Did you know
Y/n and Resa used to prank their neighbors by committing arson when they were very young. Oh, you adorable troublemakers!
Also stay tuned, next is a special chapter where we'll find out how to make joja juice!