He’ll Never Know
You weren't always like this. Not really.
Sure, you always had a vivid imagination, a tendency to drift into your own world when things got quiet. But this… this wasn’t just daydreaming. This was deeper. Sharper. You knew the difference between fantasy and reality—God, you knew. But that never stopped the ache. The way his name sat on your tongue like a secret. The way your chest constricted when he looked at the camera in that scene—as if you were the one he was searching for.
Kurapika.
You told yourself it was harmless. Just a character. Just a story. But somewhere along the way, you stopped looking at him like a drawing on a screen and started seeing him in the in-between moments of your life. The silence before sleep. The stillness on your bus rides home. The way your fingers hovered over your phone screen, rereading the same quote from him for the fourth time that night.
“I do not fear death. I fear only that my rage will fade over time”
You whispered that line once. Into your pillow. Into the dark. Into the nothing that was your room at 3:41 a.m.
Pathetic, right?
Sometimes you imagined what he'd say if he saw you like this—wrapped in a blanket, eyes puffy, watching that one episode again, the one where he clutches his chains like they’re the only thing keeping him from falling apart. He’d probably stare at you, impassive. Maybe he’d frown. Maybe he’d be gentle. Maybe, if you begged hard enough, he’d sit beside you. Let you rest your head on his shoulder. Let you pretend—just for one night—that you weren’t so achingly human and he wasn’t so utterly fictional.
But that’s not how it works.
He’ll never know you.
He’ll never know the way your heart twists when you hear his voice.
He’ll never know the tears you cry when he mourns his clan.
He’ll never know how you’ve memorized the sound of his silence, the weight of his grief, the unbearable gentleness beneath his fury.
He’s not real.
But your love for him is.
And that? That’s what makes this whole thing unbearable.
You don’t talk about it, not really. Not with anyone who’d get it. Your friends would laugh—or worse, pity you. So you just keep it all inside. You write. You read fanfiction, drowning yourself in alternate universes where you exist beside him. Where your fingers brush his under a moonlit sky. Where he finally lets someone in, and that someone is you.
And God, how you yearn.
It’s the kind of yearning that eats away at your ribs. That slips into your lungs like smoke. That makes you look at real people and feel… empty. No one sees you like he does—not even when he isn’t looking.
Sometimes, you wish you could rip him out of the screen. Hold his face in your hands and whisper all the things you’ve never said aloud.
“I know you’re hurting. I’d carry that pain if I could.”
“You don’t have to be alone.”
“I love you—and I wish that could be enough.”
But your hands would pass through him, wouldn’t they? He’s a ghost you keep chasing through pixels. A phantom stitched into your dreams.
And the worst part?
He’ll never look back.