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Chapter Text

The mystery of Killua’s roommate’s identity was resolved traumatically and, most importantly, criminally. There were a number of unexplainable occurrences leading up to the occasion, but in hindsight, Killua was only just now reading them as what they were: evidence.

Evidence that his first week of college was cursed from the start.

Killua’s parents were none too pleased to learn he wouldn’t be attending an ivy league but instead chose a quaint, private, and vaguely religious college his grandfather had attended. His grandfather was now a professor there and in the summers of Killua’s childhood, he would spend blistering afternoons running amuck from his grandparents’ house to the campus. 

His grandfather liked having him around after his grandmother died back then.

An ivy league experience was something his parents always wanted for themselves but could never afford. Now that they could, their golden child had chosen the comfort of familiar pastures instead. Killua snubbed their privilege, and he tried not to feel guilty about it. 

Moving into campus that first week meant moving Alluka’s things back into their parents vehicle. It was an annual exchange altered only by the lack of Killua’s things accompanying Alluka’s pink suitcases in the backseat. 

Killua shut the trunk and brushed off his hands. “That’s everything.”

“Do you really not want help moving in?” Alluka asked. 

“Do I really want mom and dad sniffing around my neighbors dorms and causing a scene?”

“Okay, fair point. But I’m only asking because I’m nosey and I want to see your dorm room.”

“That’s what phones are for and that stupid disposable thing you gave me—”

“It’s a camera! It’s not a new concept.” 

“ Whatever .”

“You never use it! Use it!”

“I said whatever .” He stuck his tongue out at her, which earned him a finger to his cheek. He gritted his teeth against the pressure as Alluka dug her forefinger in with contempt. 

“Easy now, before you bruise him on his big day!” their mom chided from the porch. Their dad was stepping out the front door and shutting it behind him, grandfather nowhere in sight. 

Killua’s jaw clenched as his mother approached. She was dressed to empress an executive chairman—another reason Killua loathed to even consider letting her anywhere near his dorm room. His neighbors would think he was a nepo-baby (which he debatably was, not that he wanted to admit it).

He grimaced against her weirdly affectionate hug. The skin of her collarbone was milky and warm from the summer heat and the fact that she was wearing a blazer . He couldn’t remember the last time they’d hugged, but he hoped it was the last. 

“Mom, stop.”

She squeezed tighter. “But I’ll miss you— ”

“Okay, I’ll miss you too,” he said, straining through every word until she released him. 

Her satisfied sigh made him feel like he’d lost his integrity. He staggered back a little, heel slipping off the pavement and into the grass. His mother dabbed her eyes with the pad of a manicured thumb. 

“I don’t know why I’m so emotional,” she said, reverently. She sniffed, smiled, and patted Alluka on the head as she passed to reach the passenger door. “Imagine if we’d been dropping you off at Yale. I’d be inconsolable.”

“I’m sure that would do wonders for my reputation,” he said. A thump on his head sent him nearly face planting, only to have himself teetered into his father’s side. 

His father ruffled his hair. “Good luck, kid. Alluka—let’s get moving.”

“Okay,” she said, and spared the time it took their father to start the car to hug Killua. 

He squeezed her around the middle and said, “Call me if you need anything.”

“Back at you. And don’t forget cameras exists. And postal services. ”

“What ever .” 

Killua waved until they were down the street and he could no longer see Alluka’s pearly smile through the gridlines on the back of their parents’ Buick. 

By that afternoon, Killua was stuck in the waiting line on the stairs of his dorm building. Between passing families and students milling about, it was single-file up and down each flight of carpeted stairs and dark oak paneling. Considering it was only a ten minute walk to his grandfather’s house, he’d walked with two suitcases and nothing else.

Sweat had accumulated in his armpits.

Christ , he thought, scrubbing his cheek against his shoulder, you’d think they’d put AC in!

The heat only accumulated further up he went. By the top floor, the fourth, Killua was flushed and hoping his roommate wasn’t in.

He very much was, and Killua should have counted that as odd, seeing as Killua was otherwise the first fourth floor student to arrive. 

Killua slowed at the sight of his open door at the end of the hall. The diamond grilles on the tall, stained glass windows at the end of the hall turned the wood threshold into fuzzy, red and gold slashes. Killua’s sneakers hesitated on the carpet runner as he peered past the crack in the door.

A silhouette passed by, only to double back. 

Killua straightened when the door jerked fully open. 

Before him stood a freckled boy with black hair astonishingly windswept like he was ten steps out of a salon. It was made wild by his hand darting up to brush it back so Killua could see the glint of a piercing at the corner of either brow. 

“Ah,” they both said. 

The boy smiled, sharp and pointedly amused. He pointed to himself. “Gon. Sorry I got here a bit early, so I just picked a side.”

“That’s fine,” Killua said. When Gon didn’t move, Killua startled. “Oh. I’m Killua.”

Killua was struck momentarily dumb by the effect of Gon’s smile. He’d never seen a smile so picturesque—like an airbrushed celebrity on a bodega tabloid meant to capture him and make him question cutting the cover off and pinning it to his bedroom wall. A pinup. 

As Killua entered, he found Gon’s side tidy if not barren. Killua’s was no better by the time he unpacked. All the while, Gon studied him from his bed until Killua extracted a radio from his bag. 

“Ah! What’s this?” Gon said. 

Killua squinted at him, giving the device a shake. “A radio. Wanna listen to something?”

“Do I ever!”

So Killua propped the stand out and said, “Quality’s not too great, but it’s something my grandfather used to use.”

Gon flopped back on his bed and clasped his hands behind his head in lieu of a pillow. The radio crackled into focus as Killua dialed to his favorite station with complete muscle memory. The static deflated into a crispy guitar solo.

Gon crossed an ankle over one knee, barefoot. “What’s this?”

“The Police.”

“Police?”

“ The Police.” Killua should have filed this away as evidence, but Gon accepted the correction without question and simply hummed at the ceiling, foot bouncing. 

“I like this,” he said at last. He turned onto his side, head propped up on his hand and knee up. “What’s your favorite musician?”

Killua shrugged. “I don’t have a CD player.”

“Oh. I’ll get one,” Gon said, and just as Killua suspected he’d dig through his bags, Gon left the room. Barefoot.

He came back twenty minutes later with a CD player, and Killua asked, “Did you leave it in your car or something?”

“Car? I don’t own a car,” Gon said, flipping the CD player across the room. Killua was lucky to have caught it as Gon flopped back on his bed, sifting through a stack of disks, and asked, “Do you know how to drive?”

Killua was so thrown that he didn’t consider where else the music could have come from. He read through the handmade track list on the back, impressed by the mix. Half-distracted reading, Killua said, “Yeah, but I don’t own a car either.”

“That sucks. I’ve always wanted to learn how to drive. Could you teach me?”

Killua snorted. “We’d need a car first.”

“Ah, really? That’s easy.”

He blinked. “Easy.”

Gon shrugged. “I mean, how hard could it be?”

He blinked again. “Getting a car? It’s not like you can walk into a dealership and say, ‘Give me the keys.’ That would definitely make it easier.”

Gon opened his mouth and looked to be on the brink of saying: “ Really? ” His shock faded quickly. “I see your point,” he concluded. He settled back in to listening to the latest song on the radio, foot tapping to the beat. “I need to think about this.”

Killua was dumbfounded. He thought to press the discussion further, but decided that if his roommate was an idiot, he’d rather not be an active participant in discovering it. 

Instead, he said, “We should probably get our books before the school store is sold out. Do you have your list?”

“List…” Gon repeated, testing the word again as he sat up as if in a trance. “List, list, list… Ah! List!” He swiped it out of a ratty duffle bag, crumpled and barely legible. 

They compared lists, which Killua swiftly ascertained, “Are you a theology major?”

“No, philosophy. You?”

“No. English. Are you planning to go to seminary school or something?” Their college had a famous seminary chapter, and any philosophy major was bound to merge with them. Killua didn’t exactly peg Gon as a priestly fellow—exhibit A being his brow piercings and, as Killua observed further, earrings. 

Gon tapped a finger to his chin. The backs of his hands were dark with smudged ink. “Mm… I don’t think they’d let me. I’m more interested in the philosophy of it all.”

“I-I see…” Weirdo , Killua thought. 

He tucked his paper into a tote bag and said, “I don’t know how you can wear sweatshirts in this weather. We’ll be walking a ways.”

“I like the heat.”

“Are you from the south?”

“Sort of. Don’t you like the sun?”

Killua’s expression flatlined. “Does it look like the sun and I get along?”

He hadn’t expected Gon’s smile, nor the sincerity as he said, “Yeah! The little sunburn on your nose is cute!”

Killua was too stunned to speak. 

Gon reached over to poke at it with his thumb and forefinger. “It’s starting to peel, too.”

Reflexively, Killua batted his hand away. If the fourth floor was hell, Gon’s skin was inferno. “Sh-Shut up. You can’t just touch peoples’ sunburns,” Killua said.

Gon pouted as he followed Killua’s march out of the room. “Aw, why not?”

“For one, they hurt .”

“Did that hurt?”

“A little.” He locked the door behind them and turned so he wouldn’t have to see Gon’s face. 

Gon didn’t cling as Killua had worried. Instead, he floated about as if tethered to Killua’s side at a distance. Between the dorm and the store, Killua observed a miracle: the way the sea parted, the way people noticed Gon and stopped in their tracks just for a moment. It made traversing the narrow dorm stairwell smooth and painless.

At the wall of textbooks in the school store, they were watched from the aisles by a cluster of girls as Killua scanned for the last textbook on his list.

“Dammit,” he said. 

Gon, who had been skimming through a parable for a 4000 level course, set it aside to glance over Killua’s shoulder. “Course 2041… Missing!”

“I should have picked it up last week,” he sighed. 

“Were you here last week?”

Killua nursed an oncoming headache. He still needed to read that book before class on Tuesday. “Practically. My grandfather lives pretty close. He might have it in his library.”

“Maybe someone picked up an extra,” Gon said, embarrassingly loud as he glanced around them. 

“Who would even—”

“Here, you can have mine!” came a voice behind them, and the moment he turned, a girl from the aisle cluster thrust a book in Gon’s direction. “I-I was just picking it up for my roommate.”

“I-I couldn’t take it from your roommate,” Killua said. 

Gon flipped the book up so the victorian-era cover faced Killua. He was all dimples and jest. “Then she should have picked it up herself,” Gon said, and then turned to the girl. “What’s your roommate like? Do you think she’ll be mad?”

Killua was beyond logic at this line of questioning. Who just asked people stuff like that, and then proceeded to grill them like they were in therapy? 

The girl went on about being labeled a pushover in high school, and Gon listened intently, leaning back against the shelves with his full attention on her. Killua glanced between them as a label seared itself into his forehead.

Third-wheel .

Killua rolled his eyes and walked away as Gon went on flirting with the girl.

At the checkout line five minutes later, Killua was found and bestowed the book by Gon. 

“I really don’t need it,” Killua said.

Gon stared at him. His faint smile dampened a bit, and it sent a cold thrill through Killua’s body. It fractured off across his spine and called his attention to what used to be instinct: fight or flight. He was trapped between the two. 

Unable to act or speak, Killua just watched as the book lowered a fraction and Gon said, “But I got it for you. Don’t you want it?”

What’s the significance of this? Killua wondered. It felt a lot like anxiety, of which he was familiar with, but this was out of pocket. Anxiety with his parents, with his brothers, he could understand. It came naturally. 

This anxiety felt foreign and desperate to appease.

“Why did she even give you the book?” Killua asked, but he already knew the answer. “You realize she was just flirting with you, right? You shouldn’t take advantage of people like that.”

As tainted as the book was now, Killua snatched it from him. With a scowl, he added, “But I might as well take it. Thank you, I guess.” He’d never be able to read that book without thinking of the girl’s faceless roommate now and how upset she might have been to not get the book in time for class.

“She was flirting with me?” Gon said, and the lilt of surprise nearly sent Killua tripping as they stepped forward in line.

He whipped around and said, “ Yes . And you flirted back at her!”

“I did? I was just asking questions. Interesting.” 

“It’s because you’re conventionally attractive. You’re probably numb to it.”

Gon gasped at him, and Killua went hot with the realization of how sincere his comment was. He could no longer feel the AC in that school store basement. If he’d made such a comment in high school, his classmates would have grilled him for it. They knew he was gay, but not that gay.

“Don’t—Don’t let that go to your head,” Killua snapped, turning back around. 

“I’m flattered!”

“G-Gon, seriously. You’re acting oblivious.” It dawned on him that Gon probably lived in California. He believed the attractiveness levels in California skewed higher than the rest of the country, so Gon could have been a 7 there rather than a whopping 10/10 here.

He chose to believe this and live in willful ignorance until Gon offered the information up himself.

They spent each day leading up to the semester out in the quad while waiting for freshmen activities. Gon, sunbathing and reading, and Killua, trying not to burn himself by sticking to the shade. In the dappled sunlight on the grass, Gon swung his feet to and fro and flicked through the pages of his newly purchased book on Biblical Hebrew. He murmured quietly to himself, the breeze catching in his unruly hair. 

Killua glared at him from over the seam of his book binding. Summer hadn’t relented to September, and yet Gon was in black jeans and a hoodie. It was unnatural, but then again, Killua had never been to California. 

He chose to believe this.

“Tell me why you’re staring?” Gon said, quietly, patiently, like he was commenting on his reading instead of Killua’s blatant staring.

Killua’s unease toiled again. There was something pointed about every question Gon directed at him. Like a threat, and Killua’s amygdala responded to it.

Killua looked to his book. The words blurred together as a cold drip of sweat slipped between his shoulder blades. The heat, which Killua had consciously ignored, swept in and suffocating his lungs with humidity. 

“I’m not staring,” he said.

Gon lowered his book, lifted and eyebrow, and turned it onto Killua.

Killua shrugged. “You don’t have to sit with me, you know.” 

He knew as well as Gon that Gon could make himself a staple in the social ecosystem blossoming on campus. 

The way people responded to Gon was magnetic. The way they observed him was less so. They tended to keep Gon at a distance, content to watch like a celebrity through a television screen. Killua wasn’t given that option, rooming with Gon and all.

“But I like sitting with you,” Gon said, and his smile returned to stamp away Killua’s anxieties. The nauseating concern dissolved, and Killua could almost forget that it kept happening. 

Classes started and on Tuesday, Killua entered lecture and wished he hadn’t. By the end, it was clear he’d made an enemy, and that enemy couldn’t stop glaring at him from across the room. 

She approached him after class before he could manage a swift getaway. 

“You’re Gon’s roommate, right?”

Killua staggered back from the exit, and then off to the side so they could stave off a traffic jam. As their peers flitted past, Killua sighed, “Yeah, I am. Is there a problem?”

She laughed. “A problem?”

The moment Killua had noticed her death glare, he’d waited for their professor to do role call so he could ask, “Machi, right?”

Her head tipped to the side, amusement fading to begrudging respect. “Yeah. And you realize that book isn’t getting restocked, right? None of the local bookstores have it either. They overenrolled students to 2041 this year.”

Ah, the roommate . She was the only enemy he could imagine making ever since Gon’s confusing acquisition of the book.

Killua flipped open his bag and dug for it. “I realized that after—I felt bad taking it, and I finished it last night so you can keep it.”

Despite the hesitation on her face, she held out her hand. “That’ll make quoting it later difficult.”

“But that’s not your problem anymore, is it?”

“Agreed. You aren’t as bad as your roommate. I expected you to be a pill.”

“How so?”

Machi gave an annoyed huff, tossing her ponytail over one shoulder. “Half the people I talk to either love him or hate him. It’s only been three days but it’s like people lose their minds when they talk to him. You know my buddy’s girlfriend gifted Gon her CD player. My buddy got her that shit for her birthday, like, two weeks ago. Made a mixtape for her and everything.”

“What?” This was beyond convincing the girl to relinquish Machi’s book, but even then, Gon didn’t convince. She offered. It took half a second longer for Killua’s blood to turn cold at the realization that he’d been listening to a mixtape meant for someone else’s partner. “That doesn’t sound right.”

“Really? Then how do you figure it? Because it sounds to me like he stole it and threatened her not to say.”

Killua floundered. By then, the lecture hall was empty and their voices echoed back to them. He didn’t need Gon’s stern expression to feel the nerves crawling in wondering if Gon could overhear them. 

“I’d really like to continue this conversation,” he admitted as genuinely as he could, “but I need to get to my next class. Are you busy right now?”

She checked her watched. “I have half an hour. If you don’t mind, I’ve been really interested in getting her CD player back.”

Out of curiosity, Killua asked as they walked out together, “Does she miss it?”

“No, but I thought she’s just been pacifying my friend. He’s really beat up about it. Thinks she has a thing for Gon—I don’t really know,” Machi explained.

“I can’t get it to you now, but maybe next class?” he offered, and she agreed. After taking the steps down to the quad, Killua said, “I thought it was weird how Gon got the book from your roommate.”

“How so?”

“She offered it up. He didn’t even directly ask for it—I don’t even think he was talking to her,” he said. 

Machi considered this, a hand cupping her chin. “You aren’t the first to say this. She was with some girls from our floor, and they all said something similar, but they felt bad for Gon.”

Killua’s steps slowed. He paused, facing Machi. His brain was reeling too much for his feet to keep up. “ Bad for him? It wasn’t like he was lamenting a great loss or anything sentimental. It was just a book.”

“So you find it strange as well?”

Killua’s relief was overshadowed by Gon himself being sighted across the quad. It was easy to spot him between the colorful summer shirts and khaki shorts—all black and long sleeves, catching sight of Killua and waving amicably.

“Is that him?” Machi asked, following the line of Killua’s wave in return.

“Yeah.”

“Well, if you don’t mind, I’m going to keep my distance,” she said, and internally, Killua agreed. 

He couldn’t explain this rush of protectiveness he felt, and how oddly it clashed with possessiveness. His little bubble with Gon, while confusing, was also rewarded with moments of sheer bliss when Gon smiled at him as he closed the distance and ignored the attention he gleaned from passerbys. Like Killua was the center of his world.

He wondered if this was how Machi’s roommate felt as Gon listened to her and flirted back. Perhaps it was just the work of a crush he could brush aside later. They were roommates, after all.

“How was class?” Killua asked. 

“Confusing! But the professor seems nice,” Gon said with an added nervous laugh. He rubbed at the back of his head, glancing past Killua in the direction Machi took off in. “Who was that?”

Killua was relieved to see that Gon’s smile stuck. “Just someone from lecture. We both hung back to ask the professor questions about the summer readings.”

“Cool. I love her hair. Do you think I would look good in pink?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Harsh!”

“Green might be your color, though.”

As Gon trailed alongside him to his next class, Killua considered his loose partnership with Machi to be the key he wanted. Machi was proof that Killua wasn’t going insane, because outside his little bubble with Gon, there were third-parties being affected.

By what, he wouldn’t know for certain until the end of his first week of college.

Chapter Text

Killua worried his thumbnail between his teeth as he attempted to focus on triple-checking his syllabi that day and the following morning. Their dorm room was stuffy and humid from all of the heat in the building collectively rising, so they took to the campus grounds once again. And, once again, people avoided them. 

Killua suspected, however, that if Gon were to raise his voice, they’d all hear him. 

Gon was relaxed on his back, his languages book raised overhead to shield his eyes from the sunlight. His brown irises were so warm and light they were nearly gold. In his free hand, he spun the CD player around on his finger like a basketball

Killua couldn’t decide if this was a matter of talking Gon out of keeping it, or a matter of stealing it.

“I was thinking about going on a run later,” Killua said. “Do you run?”

“Only when I need to,” Gon said, and tipped his head back to study Killua. “I didn’t know you were a runner.”

“I was in cross country in high school.”

“Cross country… That’s long distance, isn’t it? What’s the farthest you’ve run?”

“I trained for the marathon last year but sprained an ankle,” Killua said, and rotated his ankle experimentally. It was fine now. “So sixteen miles.”

Gon was dazzled by this news. “Can I run with you?”

Killua lowered his foot back down. “I do better running solo. But I was wondering if I could borrow your CD player for my run?”

“Oh. Sure!” Gon wound the cord around the device and stretched an arm far above his head for Killua to reach it. 

His sleeve pulled back just a fraction to remind Killua of the ink blots and to define them as tattoos. His wrist was entirely blacked out and accompanied by an inky bracelet of slim, fine-tipped diamonds. 

The tattoos went on, but the sleeve covered them. Killua took the CD player and tucked it into his backpack. 

“I’ve been curious about your tattoos,” Killua said as he settled back. “Is that why you wear long sleeves?”

Gon glanced at his arms and looked back at Killua. He’d expected Gon to be offended—perhaps he was self-conscious of them—but instead Gon smiled. “No, I’m just cold.”

Killua openly laughed. “Yeah, right.”

“I’m serious,” Gon said. “I’m practically cold-blooded.”

He sat up, turned, and crossed his legs as he wound one sleeve up past his elbow. 

Gon’s forearms had definition, but that definition was obscured by blackout tattoos and barbed, thorny bracelets. It wasn’t a standard sleeve, that much Killua knew. He couldn’t imagine what on God’s green earth possessed Gon to feel inspired enough to tattoo himself for life like this. 

And then Gon tugged at the collar of his hoodie. At the base of his neck were those same diamonds, spun like a crown of thorns across his collarbone and over his trapezius. His grin was sharp and pointed by a dimple. “There’s a lot more.”

“That must have cost a fortune,” Killua said. “My friend got one over the summer. Cost him like eight hundred dollars.”

Gon started rolling his sleeve back down. Killua tried not to focus on Gon’s hands, or how attractive they were. His knuckles were angular and webbed by tendons. 

Abruptly, and without mercy, guilt churned Killua’s stomach cold. He wondered which came first—the feeling, or Gon’s eyes on him without warning. Stern. He swore he felt the guilt first, like Gon sniffed it out. 

“What’s wrong?” Gon asked. 

Is it really that obvious? Killua wanted to ask, but knew better. He knew he was stoic as ever—practice he could thank his brother for. 

“Nothing,” Killua answered, but that just made him feel sick with self-hatred. 

What had Gon really done wrong? Been at the whim of other peoples’ generosity? Turning down gifts and offers was an awkward ordeal. Perhaps Gon was just bad at it—after all, he hadn’t even realized he was flirting with Machi’s roommate.

Killua swallowed hard as he snapped his book shut and pushed at the ground to stand. He needed to be gone . Two minutes ago when he got the damn CD player. “I’m gonna go on that run. Mess hall at six?”

Gon’s sternness broke under the weight of his furrowed brow. “Sure. Are you sure you’re okay?”

“ Yes . I said so, didn’t I?” 

“I just—”

“Just trust me. It sounds like you don’t trust me.” Gaslighter. Manipulator. God, he was starting to sound like Illumi. 

It was the most puzzled he’d ever seen Gon. Somehow, though, Gon relented. “I just… worry, I guess,” Gon said, and then shook his head, hands waving. “But I trust you! If you ever want to talk, I’m here!”

Killua scoffed, turning away. “What are you, my therapist? Bye.”

“Have fun running sixteen miles!”

Killua bristled and didn’t bother looking back as he said, “I’m not running that far!”

Distantly, he heard the muffled thump of Gon falling back down and muttering, “Sixteen miles…”

It wasn’t a pleasant run, by any means, and it made Killua never want to run again. At the end of every mile, Killua pleaded with himself to stop. It was too hot out, he needed water, and his grandfather’s house would be better than the crusty dorm showers on their floor. But at the end of every mile, the corner of the street seemed close enough to reach. He could go just a bit further.

Killua’s legs were jelly by mile six. Dammit . He nearly buckled as he waited for a green light, hand on the post. His shirt was warm and wet, drenched with sweat. 

He wondered what Gon would say if Killua actually came back from a sixteen mile run. 

No . He clenched his hands into fists and turned around. What am I thinking?

He half-fell through his grandfather’s back porch patio and called out, voice hoarse, “Grandpa?” to no answer. All the lights were off, and the kettle was cold against Killua’s inflamed hand. He left behind a sweaty print on the stainless steel.

He padded through the house to the bathroom. As he shed his clothes and set his room key aside, the lack of Gon’s CD player was evident. He hadn’t even bothered to bring it with him—it sat in his backpack up in their room, waiting for Thursday.

On Thursday, Killua and Machi sat together and exchanged the CD player. “He doesn’t know I took it.”

“Will he miss it?” She didn’t seem bothered by the chance.

“I don’t know. Told him I lost it on a run and he didn’t seem fazed.”

That was a blatant lie, but Killua didn’t know how to explain Gon’s concern in a tangible way Machi would empathize with. Gon’s concern was a plague on Killua’s integrity. It was the concern of a parent knowing their child diluted the alcohol cabinet after throwing the biggest party their senior class had ever known, but were waiting for them to fess up. 

But what Killua did wasn’t bad. He didn’t endanger anyone. He was just righting a wrong, and in doing so, he questioned Gon’s rightness. Gon’s integrity. Shouldn’t he trust Gon?

Killua had been tense ever since. 

“Listen,” Machi said as the professor entered the room. They still had another few minutes while the projector was powering on. “There’s a party tonight at one of the co-ops. You should come.”

A party? Killua hadn’t even established a proper friend group. Sure, he vaguely knew his floor neighbors from freshmen activities, but Gon’s intimidation factor kept the two of them at a distance. 

Machi rolled her eyes. “I mean, you don’t have to. It’s pretty lame—at least, that’s what I hear. A bunch of science geeks from the forensics department.”

“It sounds cool.”

“Are you gonna bring your roommate?”

Killua debated saying no. “Should I?”

“I don’t know. Should you?” 

The answer was no, but they stared at one another for the few seconds before their professor said: “Alright, raise your hand when I call your name.”

Killua wondered if inviting Gon would right the wrong of their mutually snubbed integrity. They clearly didn’t trust one another, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t be friends or, at the very least, amicable roommates. And, so, at lunch they met up and Killua’s resolved solidified.

“I was invited to a party tonight. You should come with,” Killua said.

Gon gasped, a devilish grin splitting his lips. “A party? Sounds scandalous. I’m in.”

Killua rolled his eyes. “Apparently it’s just a bunch of science guys running it. It might be lame.”

“Not if I’m there. Have you been to a college party before?”

Killua considered it, and his hesitation bred intrigue. It should have been a simple yes-or-no, but Illumi and Milluki complicated things. “My older brother graduated last year. I sometimes visited him, and would hang out with his college buddies. I wouldn’t call it a party though.”

“Cute,” Gon cooed, head tipped against his hand with a fondness in his face that Killua couldn’t stomach.

“G-Gon, you can’t just say that,” Killua said. 

Gon’s expression popped into confusion. “Why not?”

Unwanted heat swept up Killua’s face. His ears were on fire. “It sounds like you’re flirting.”

Gon’s smile was back. “So? Your reactions are so cute I can’t help it. Does it bother you?”

There were a number of things Killua could reason. A) They were roommates; B) Gon had no reason to suspect Killua was gay; and C) It was the start of the semester . They’d only just met and had a year of awkwardness to endure if anything happened. 

Which Killua could not entertain. 

“It’s complicated,” Killua said.

Gon groaned, head lolling and flailing. “ Humans are complicated,” he bemoaned. It was such a ridiculous reaction that Killua couldn’t help but laugh. 

“Have you ever dated before?” Killua asked, which felt just as ridiculous to say. The answer was obvious to him: of course Gon had dated. Aside from Gon’s intimidation factor, he was a desirable person, and people melted under his attention. 

“No,” Gon said. 

Killua was momentarily breathless. When he caught himself on a gasp, Gon looked up from his food in surprise. “You’re kidding.”

“No. Why is that surprising?”

“I— Exhibit A) The bookstore girl .”

“Ah, see, evidence to support me: I didn’t know we were flirting.”

“By that logic, maybe you didn’t know you were dating someone when you were.”

“No. I disagree. Have you dated?”

“No.” It was simple. Of the people in his high school who were gay, Killua wasn’t attracted to. Dating wasn’t a priority anyway when his parents expected ivy leagues to accept him.

“Then neither of us can speak to it,” Gon determined, and went back to eating. 

Gon ate like he’d never eaten before. The man didn’t know the definition of pacing himself , and thus always finished before Killua and went back for seconds. Killua’s sweet tooth couldn’t comprehend Gon’s lack-thereof—with a sweets bar always open for dessert, Gon never touched it. The few chocolates he tried from Killua’s plate ended with a disgusted, “ Bleh .”

“You’re such a carnivore,” Killua accused as he picked apart his brownie to eat in pieces.

“Probably,” Gon agreed.

Killua didn’t read into this as he should have.

That evening as they were preparing for the party, Killua spared a glance at Gon as he was changing. He blamed it on Gon’s blatant flirting earlier that day, but knew it wasn’t permission to look. His Plan B for excuses was curiosity. Gon had said there were more tattoos, but Killua still wasn’t prepared for what he saw. 

There was nothing about Gon’s back tattoo that Killua could convey in words. It was shapeless, yet solid, and couldn’t seem to catch the light. Killua couldn’t make sense of the form beyond the patchy, solid-black exteriors that wrapped around his tapered waist as Gon rolled down his shirt and turned to reach for a collared flannel. It was a deep, forest green, and Killua prided himself on having predicted Gon’s ideal color.

Killua looked away just as he suspected Gon would look at him. “Ready?” Killua asked. 

“Almost,” Gon said. He flipped open a wooden case of earrings as he folded up his sleeves. He swapped one of his studs for a small hoop clipped to a chain. The chain pierced through his cartilage. 

Killua was enthralled. He felt as though he were observing a choreographed scene in a movie, but then again, everything Gon did warranted this. He was smooth and almost scripted, except for the moments he wasn’t. The moments Gon questioned Killua with that flatlined look he couldn’t stand .

It made no sense to Killua, and yet there he was, inviting Gon to a party he himself was invited to. He hoped Machi wouldn’t mind, and a part of him hoped that meeting Gon would sway Machi a bit. Perhaps she would understand Gon better than he did.

He counted Machi as a reliable witness when he shouldn’t have.

People seemed more wary about Gon when his tattoos were hidden, but that day, with even just a snippet of them visible on his wrists and collarbone, people seemed more open. More in tune with Gon than they were before. 

Killua watched as the people flocked and openly stared. On campus, Gon was marveled at briefly and avoided, but here at the party, Killua overheard girls and guys alike whispering to their friends about Gon Freecs , the philosophy freshman on the fourth floor of Hatsu Hall. 

They all knew about him, and Killua wondered where they got their gossiping done because it was rarely in front of him so blatantly. 

Within minutes of entering, Killua determined this wasn’t the standard geek party Machi had chalked it up as. The first floor and foyer were packed, and music filtered up through the floorboards. Killua’s sneakers buzzed against the bass, and his heart thrummed at the rise of attention Gon was getting—and Killua by association. Normally when people stared, they diverted their eyes upon being caught.

Killua met their eyes with disdain and they didn’t back down. It was mildly threatening. 

“I don’t like the look of this,” Killua confessed without thinking. 

Someone had just delivered a solo cup to Gon, who passed it to Killua without a second thought. “Why? Should we leave?”

Killua bristled at the suggestion. The staring flitted, and unease prickled across Killua’s skin. The current seemed to flow backwards, or perhaps that was Killua just now noting a group of people leaving. He begged it to be a coincidence.

“No. I’m just saying,” Killua said. 

His fingers dug into the plastic as Gon stared him down. He tried not to whither under Gon’s golden eyes as he took a long gulp of his drink. It was a miracle he didn’t choke.

Gon fingers fiddled with the cuff of his rolled-up sleeve. At last, he pulled them down as he said, “I see.” 

“I’m gonna find my friend. I’ll catch up with you later,” Killua suggested, and his breath came easier after he was five steps away from Gon. 

Killua rubbed at his chest as he descended into the pit below ground. The stairs were clogged by students with cups and bottles, and the concrete below was slimy with alcohol. Killua’s eyes adjusted to the kaleidoscope of light fracturing off across the dance floor. It was just a packed concrete basement, nothing more. 

Pink was harder to spot than he anticipated in the dark, but Machi was there. He found her lingering at the bar, alone.

“Hey,” he said, testing his voice. The music was deafening.

“Hi,” she said. 

“Would you want to meet my roommate?” he asked.

It wasn’t how he planned on opening the conversation, but she seemed to understand as well as he did the implication.

She studied him a moment, and then glanced at the bartender. The man was six-foot-something and looked to pack a punch. Killua recognized the jersey even in the multicolored light, and it seemed authentic. He probably played for their university.

“Sure,” Machi said at last, and finished her drink. She tossed the cup into the bin behind her and gave an incomprehensible comment to the bartender. Killua led the way back to the stairs.

At the first flight, Killua paused at Machi’s hand on his wrist. They let people pass behind them and huddled to the corner. “Are you sure about this?” Killua asked.

“You don’t seem sure.”

“I just don’t think he’s normal.”

“Explain.”

“I can’t. It doesn’t make sense.”

“Words make sense of all sorts of nonsense. Give me something to work with here.”

Killua pursed his lips. It wasn’t charisma or influence in the way Killua understood the words. There was something innately sinister about it that amplified with Gon’s ignorance. Like he didn’t understand it himself. 

“It’s like he’s possessed. Or other people are,” he said at last.

Machi’s expression didn’t change. He’d hoped, for a moment, that she’d mock him. Instead, she said, “I agree. But you seem more lucid than my roommate about him.”

Killua’s breath caught. “Lucid? Is your roommate not?”

Machi’s jaw twisted into a knot just below her ears. “She’s downstairs right now.”

Oh . It wasn’t the explanation he’d hoped for, but he took her concerns at face value. “I’ll keep him away from her. Did you give back the player to your friend?”

“Yes, but he said she didn’t want it. She was furious with him.”

“Is… she here today?”

Killua’s lungs stung as he waited for Machi’s reply. “I don’t know. How are you able to keep a level head?”

“I haven’t thought about it.”

“About what?”

“Keeping a level head.”

“If I talk to him, I need to know,” she insisted, and a flit of panic seized Killua’s nervous system. Her nails were in his wrist. 

That paranoia was back, and he trusted it. He can hear us. He’s probably behind me , he thought. 

The bass was nothing but a hum in his flesh as the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. His heart beat to attention, bruising his ribcage as he turned. At the top of the stairs stood Gon, waiting to catch his eye. 

And then, Gon smiled and waved, solo cup in hand. 

“Yo,” Gon said. He gestured back the way he’d come. “You coming up?”

Of course I am , Killua thought, because he felt he didn’t have a choice. 

Both he and Machi stared in silence before Killua looked back down at her. Her eyes were on Gon and nothing else. “He’s harmless,” Killua reasoned, but it felt like half a lie. It was true that Gon hadn’t done anything malicious or violent, and he believed the chances were slim. 

But belief wasn’t a fact.

“Let’s go,” she said, and looked down only to check her footing on the stairs before leading the way up to Gon.

“Are you Killua’s friend?” Gon asked. 

“I wouldn’t call us friends,” she said.

“Harsh,” Killua said as Gon laughed. “We just take Romantic Age Literature together.”

“Romantic.” He emphasized it with a devious purr of the ‘ R ’. “Very classy.”

“It’s not like that,” she said. 

Gon tipped his head curiously, a look Killua recognized often. Studying her, reading her, and the quick flit of his eyes across her shoulders led Killua to believe he knew her through-and-through. 

And then, Gon did something Killua hadn’t imagined in a million years. He reached into his pocket. “Do you recognize this?” 

He flicked the CD player up between two fingers like a flashcard. 

Killua wanted to die. Any self-preservation Machi may have had vanished. 

She pointed at Killua. “He gave it to me.”

Gon’s lack of response put Killua further to the edge. This wasn’t at all what he’d hoped, and within seconds, he’d lost Machi as a confidant. Her unguarded expression wasn’t anything he recognized, nor was the childlike smile on her face when Gon laid a hand on her head and gave her a pat. 

“Thank you, I think,” Gon said, and Machi understood the dismissal. Killua stared after her even as she didn’t spare him a glance. 

They watched the calmer atmosphere on that first floor in stiff, suffocating silence. Killua stared at the ratty foyer rug, wishing Gon would just roll him up in it and pitch him into a fire. 

“I’m not sorry,” Killua said.

“I know you aren’t,” Gon admitted.

Killua almost looked at him, but couldn’t manage it. 

“Can you explain why?”

The tension knotted in his spine snapped with a flinch. He pinched the bridge of his nose. “I can’t explain it, but you stole the player from that girl. And I don’t know how you convinced her not to say anything, but—”

“I didn’t steal it,” he said, “she gave it to me.”

“I believe you, but it was sentimental.”

The word drew Gon to a stop. Killua felt the entirety of Gon facing him. Heat raised to Killua’s face and turned his ears red-hot. 

“Sentimental,” Gon repeated. “How?”

Killua explained, haltingly, that it was a birthday present from her boyfriend. Giving it away was a snub on her partner. He’d made the boyfriend insecure in return. 

When Killua managed a glance, he found Gon studied the player between his fingers like it was news to him. He turned it over between his hands as Killua resumed looking anywhere but Gon. 

“I’m sorry you couldn’t tell me sooner,” Gon said at last. “I didn’t realize.”

“Didn’t realize what? ” The venom startled both of them. Killua was struck with the urge to cry the second he met Gon’s eyes. 

Gon’s eyes were glassy. “Sorry,” he repeated, a bit more feebly. Sick with guilt, Killua feared he might throw up. 

“I know you’re a good person, but I can’t make sense of any of this,” Killua managed, hoping to pacify him. He did believe that much, but it did little to satiate Gon’s guilt. 

“I’ll return it. She’ll accept it if I give it back to her,” Gon told him. “Please don’t be angry with me.”

“I’m not angry. I’m just confused,” Killua admitted. “You scare me.”

“That isn’t true,” Gon said. 

Killua risked scrubbing his eyes over his forearms. Moisture clung to his arm hair. He felt wet with sweat again, and it sent him crawling to escape his own skin. 

“I need some air,” he said, and stepped out. 

Gon didn’t follow him, and on the front porch, Killua panted like he’d run sixteen miles. 

Chapter Text

If it weren’t for Killua’s promise to Machi, he might have run sixteen miles away from the party. Instead, he spent the evening keeping Gon on the first floor of the party and listening to oblivious people flirt with Gon just to be flirted back. Half of the time, soto voce, but the devious look on Gon’s face made it difficult for Killua to imagine Gon was doing anything else. 

By the end of the night, Killua was both surprised and relieved to find Gon being accompanied out by only him. 

“I’m sorry I made you so uncomfortable tonight,” Gon said on their walk. “I did return the CD player.”

Killua buried his hands deep in his pockets. “It’s fine. I think I’ve just been high strung lately with classes starting.”

“Did you have fun tonight though?”

Killua wouldn’t exactly call it fun . Machi ignored him the rest of the night, and when their paths did cross, she didn’t appear to recognize him. It made him want to melt between the floorboards. 

“Not really. But I’m not much of a partier anyway.”

“Second time’s the charm!”

“I think it’s ‘ third time’s the charm’ . And anyway, everyone seemed to really like you.”

“I think they liked you too.”

“Be serious.”

“I do! You’ve got this whole moody, mysterious vibe going on. It intimidates people.”

You’re one to talk , Killua thought, but Gon had actually been approached that evening. Killua suspected it was the change in apparel—the flannel and undershirt combo did wonders to soften the hard edges of Gon’s appearance.

He didn’t read in to the exposed peaks of Gon’s thorny collar tattoo.

“I was invited to another party tomorrow,” Gon said. “It’s at one of the frats. You should come with.”

“What? No.”

“Come on! This is me paying you back for inviting me out tonight. It’ll be fun—more fun than tonight, I promise,” Gon said, twirling around the sidewalk and lamenting Killua’s wet-blanket attitude. At the promise, though, Gon toiled back to Killua with his pinkie outstretched. 

Killua gave the jewelry on Gon’s fingers only cursory acknowledgement. Compelled once again to believe Gon, Killua hooked his pinkie with Gon’s and gave it a firm downward shake. 

“Fine, I’ll go.”

That early morning as Killua fell back into his bed, he turned onto his side and stared at the wall. He swore sometimes that Gon didn’t sleep, but he was respectful about it. The small reading lamp clipped to Gon’s bed frame flicked on, casting a warm hue to the edges of Killua’s shadow. 

He closed his eyes and listened to the buzz of activity down in the courtyard and in the hallways as students returned to their rooms drunk and prattling on about their Thursday night exploits.

Killua only had one class on Fridays, and it was one he regretted excelling at thanks to his upbringing at a catholic boarding school. Latin came easy to him, but that didn’t mean he enjoyed reading St. Jerome’s latin translation of the Old Testament. 

Killua stifled yawn after yawn through the syllabus reading, staring off into space and watching beetles flock to the windowsill sealant. Beyond it, he watched people mill about the quad. The temperature was more tolerable that day, and the breeze was a heavenly current across the room. It broke the stagnation in the professor’s voice as he droned on.

Killua wanted to be outside, and by the time he was properly there, so too was Gon.

“You were up before me and I didn’t get to ask what class you had today,” Gon said. Fridays were lazy for him, Killua knew, because his course schedule was empty on Fridays.

“Latin. I’m taking it for my theology credit. Perks of private school life,” he said with an air of annoyance. “As if I didn’t already read the Bible enough in grade school.”

“Are you religious?”

“Are you gonna talk to my catholic school teachers?”

“No.”

“Then no, not especially. I’d consider myself agnostic, if we really wanted to get into it.”

“Interesting.”

“Are you?”

“Am I what?”

“Religious.”

“I think that’s a complicated question. I don’t know how to answer it.”

“Why?”

“Because religion is about faith, and I’ve never had to practice.”

Killua, once again, was dumbfounded. He paused their walk just underneath the archway gate to the front of the school just to look at Gon properly without the sun in his eyes. 

What does that mean? he thought. “Are you a satanist?” he said instead.

Gon laughed. “No. I don’t know what that is.”

“You do. I swear you do.”

Gon laughed harder. “I’m not!”

“You have, like, satanic tattoos on your back,” Killua insisted, which just sobered Gon’s laughter and increased the blush on Killua’s face. “I mean—Not that I looked too closely or anything. I can’t really tell what they are if I’m being honest.”

Gon’s grin was more amused than offended. “I think even satanists require faith, which I don’t have.”

All Killua could say in response was, “Confusing.”

Gon laughed. It was bright and entertained, like Killua was just a toy. It shrunk Killua in an indescribable manner. “It’s not a big deal, really. We should go before the store closes.”

They went thrifting because Gon’s wardrobe was sparse and Killua was paranoid for the same reason. Though he brought everything he owned to his grandfather’s house, uniformed boarding school gave his wardrobe limits.

It came as no surprise to Killua that Gon looked good in everything, but after Thursday night, Killua was secretly relieved by how Gon leant towards conservative clothing. There was no way for Killua to voice his concerns, or how superstitious he was about Gon’s exposed tattoos. He kept them covered under earthy turtlenecks and chunky, vintage sweaters.

Killua sifted through racks of plaid slacks until Gon found him and said, “I think this is everything I’m getting.”

“Cool. Let’s check out then,” Killua said. 

At the register, Killua paid for the one shirt he was satisfied with and watched from a distance as Gon laid down his neatly folded stack of clothes. He continued to watch as the girl complimented the clothes and said, “This one looked nice on you.”

“Thank you,” Gon said, beaming. “I bet you get all the best picks though, working here.”

She blushed. “I try to save them for the customers,” she said. “There was this excellent suede coat yesterday—Someone snatched it immediately.”

“That’s a shame. Ah, shit,” Gon said, patting his pockets. “I forgot my wallet.”

Killua slapped a hand to his face, only to startle when the girl said, “Oh, you can just take them.”

He lurched forward without thinking, grabbing Gon by the arm just as he said, “Really? Thank you—”

“No, you have to pay for them,” Killua said, urgently. Gon blinked at him, and the girl gave him a look just as sour as Machi’s annoyance that first day in class. “Gon, seriously.”

Gon floundered for a moment before saying, “I really don’t have my wallet.”

He could have just told the cashier to hold the clothes and they’d be back later, but the underlying issue still stood: the cashier had accepted the deal, and Gon needed to break it. Another CD player, another book , Killua thought, and wondered what else Gon had taken like this. 

Killua fished for his own wallet. “Just—Pay me back later or something,” Killua said, and passed the cashier two twenties. 

“No,” she said, “he can take them.”

“That’s fine, he’ll pay,” Gon said, and the girl accepted the cash without question again. 

Killua’s heart wound itself in knots in his chest as they waited for the change. Gon’s brow had furrowed, deep in thought, and Killua was relieved to leave the moment the coins were in his hand. “We’re leaving,” Killua said, and thanked the cashier on his way out.

They barely made it past the store window when Killua faced Gon and said, “If you take things like that, the cashier’s held responsible. They would have taken that out of her paycheck.”

“What?” Gon said, alarmed. He pointed to the store. “Just now?”

“ Yes .” A truck swept by. Over the engine, Killua took a deep breath and said, “Is that how you would get a car?”

“A car?”

“Yes. The first day we met, you said it’d be easy to get a car. Is this what you meant?”

Gon opened his mouth. He closed it. “Yes. I imagine so.”

“Do you really have a wallet back at the dorm?”

“I do! I really will pay you back—It’s just—Sometimes people offer and I—”

“You can’t take things just because people offer it to you. That’s not how this works.”

“Okay,” Gon relented, though it pained Killua to know that Gon hadn’t been fighting this entire time. He’d accepted Killua’s request without question, and yet Killua still stood there hounding him. It was sickening to Killua. Again, Gon said, “Okay.”

“Good,” Killua said. He released the tension that had overtaken him and exhaustion came in its wake. “ God .”

“I’m sorry,” Gon said. “Please don’t be angry.”

“I’m not angry! Why do you always say that?”

“Because I can tell when you’re angry! But you never listen when I ask you not to be.”

“Do you just expect me to do things because you want me to?”

“Kind of,” Gon said, and at Killua’s appalled expression, Gon’s eyes broke. They flitted to the street. “Not actually. I don’t know. You’re confusing to me, too.”

With Gon vulnerable like this, Killua’s mind eased a little. Spiders were just as afraid of Killua as Killua was of them, and he’d forgotten that. Gon was, perhaps, frightened of Killua, too. 

Killua sighed. “Okay, fine. No use harping over it.” He nodded for Gon to follow him, and the two of them started back to campus. 

Killua mulled over Gon’s reaction, his phrasing. Perhaps there was some truth to Gon understanding Killua’s ire before Killua could put a name to it, and this would add some validity to Gon’s suspicions the day Killua plotted to steal the CD player back. 

Though Gon may not have been scary, his intuition certainly was. And Killua didn’t know what to do with this information. He couldn’t fault Gon’s flawless perception—it wasn’t a crime, it was just unnerving. Perhaps that perceptiveness was what allowed him to manipulate people into giving him things.

Killua subconsciously shook his head. He’d witnessed it firsthand three times now—the book, Machi’s interrogation, and now the clothing store—and the way Gon indirectly asked questions didn’t coincide with the results. It just didn’t make sense .

A hand fell to Killua’s hair. He ducked against it and looked to find Gon smiling at him. “If you scrunch your face up anymore, you’ll get wrinkles,” Gon said.

Killua seethed and batted his arm away. “That’s a myth,” Killua said.

“Nuh-uh! It’s true!”

“As if!”

The day passed with increasing levels of relaxation. Despite the brief lapses of judgement on Gon’s part, Killua was content with Gon as a roommate. He was tidy, comfortable to talk to, and Killua found his ignorance somewhat endearing to witness. 

He thought, more than once, to ask Gon about his upbringing. Gon’s lack of knowledge on basic social constructs led Killua to believe Gon’s family was fundamentalist in some capacity, but Gon’s definition of religion didn’t lend to this. Gon’s over-fascination with the world also suggested cultish behavior—fashion trends, hair colors, even tattoos fascinated Gon despite Gon clearly having tattoos of his own. His tattoos and piercings were also a knock to Killua’s fundie theory.

Gon loved music, and without the CD player, they took to listening to Killua’s radio that afternoon as they wasted time before the party. When the speakers on frat row reached them, though, they shut the radio off to listen to the frat boys shouting and cheering. A pingpong table was being carted through the front door.

“What game is that?” Gon asked as they watched the frat boys set up solo cups on the table in the front yard.

“Beer pong,” Killua said. Maybe he grew up in a cult. California has cults, right?

“Cool. Do you like beer?”

“Not really. I like tequila.”

“ Cool .”

Killua deadpanned. “It’s not that special.”

Gon rolled back over, hands behind his head. “It is to me. College is so cool.”

Killua snorted. At Gon’s raised eyebrow, Killua said, “I think you and I are having thee most low-key college experience.”

“Really? But we went to a party last night.”

“Yeah, but that was a co-op. And it wasn’t even wild .”

Gon watched Killua for a moment, eyes glittering and golden in the sun. He tipped his head back into the dappled shade and closed his eyes. “It could have been wild, but I thought you didn’t like ‘wild’.”

It took a moment for Killua to remember the sensation of walking into the party. The repugnant attention on him, clawing through his skin. He shuddered at the thought, and the fact that he’d forgotten it. 

“That’s different,” he said. “I felt like I was going to die.”

That got Gon’s attention. “You did? Why?”

He hadn’t given it much thought, mostly because he didn’t remember it until now. “It felt like walking down a dark alley alone.”

“You weren’t going to die, Killua.”

“Obviously. But that’s what it felt like. Didn’t you feel anything off?”

Gon relaxed on his hands, shoulders nearly up to his ears. “Maybe. If I promise you won’t die on my watch, would you… What I mean to say is—”

Killua struggled to follow. “Would I be interested in… going wild.”

“Yeah, that.”

Killua considered the suggestion. In hindsight, Gon had been careful with his words, careful enough that Killua couldn’t decide whether or not his compliance was of his own volition. Had he come up with the idea himself, or had Gon unintentionally planted it there? 

“There’s probably going to be drugs at the party,” Killua said, cautiously. “I’ve only tried weed before. It doesn’t mix well with alcohol for me.”

“What else is there?”

“They’d probably have harder drugs. Acid, maybe. Have you ever been interested in psychedelics?”

Gon’s grin was wide with wickedness. “I could get us acid, definitely.”

Killua’s expression fell, peeved. “ Pay for it.”

Gon rolled his eyes. “Yes, I’ll pay for it . If you couldn’t get hooked on anything, what would it be, though?”

This line of questioning was, as Killua realized now, intentional. Gon’s interest was temptation incarnate, and Killua found himself vying for it. He could recognize then that Gon wanted this for Killua. He was intrigued by what “ under the influence ” meant.

“Be realistic,” Killua said with a scoff. 

“I am realistic. What if I told you you wouldn’t get hooked on my watch. One and done.”

“That isn’t how it works.”

“Boo,” Gon cooed, pathetically. He flopped back down and Killua stamped down his disappointment. He’d lost Gon’s interest. “Acid is fine, I guess. We’ll have fun.”

As sincere as Gon’s reassurance was, Killua wished he could offer Gon more. “Okay,” he said, and flipped open his book back to its marker. He glanced over at Gon’s calm demeanor, and the slim, barely noticeable divot where his dimples cut when he smiled. Relaxed, Gon’s dimples should have been ghosts, but instead the shadows darkened. 

He was smiling and barely containing it.

Killua rubbed at his hairline and tried to focus on the book. Energy buzzed like static across his skin. 

Anticipation .

When night fell and the staff parking lot emptied out, campus was alight in light stick bracelets and confetti poppers. Girls in short dresses were colored in glow-in-the-dark makeup, guys shirtless under striped suspenders and neon paint strips. Killua leant against their dorm windowsill to watch.

“Ready?” Gon asked. He propped open the door and let the muffled pandemonium seep in. Their entire hall was alive, and Gon’s sleeves were rolled up just above his wrists as they had been Thursday night. 

“Yeah, let’s go,” Killua said, and stepped out. Gon locked their room and led the way without question. 

Killua trailed beside Gon, heart tapping at his throat. At every corner, Killua watched in awe as Gon commanded the space. The magnetism returned and with it, everyone’s attention. Killua breathed in the acrid smoke of their desires laid so plain on their faces—how desperate they all were to absorb Gon into their very skin. 

As they walked, however, Gon was unattainable. They weren’t glommed onto until the sidewalk just outside the frat—Sigma Delta Alpha, which Killua knew to mean athletes lived there, mostly. The house was overrun by ivy and sparkling lights, the front porch occupied by a fire and the yard by a volleyball net. Spray paint riddled the grass and walkway in a neon mosaic. 

And Killua tasted the smog on his tongue—weed, mostly, but also the bitter tang of Jameson being passed to Gon before they ever even entered the premises. They’d slowed long enough to be ensnared by the partygoers. 

Gon reached for Killua, and his hand found Killua’s sleeve before anything else. “Stick with me,” Gon said, and gave Killua a firm moment of eye contact. His irises were black in the night, the ring of gold gone until the light shone on them. “Are you scared right now?”

Killua registered his elevated pulse, the sound of his blood in his ears. “No,” he decided. 

“Tell me if you are,” Gon said. 

“Okay. I’m not.”

“Good,” Gon said, dimples rising. 

He walked ahead of the group and, as the current flooded toward them, soon the porch was obscured by people. Killua pressed himself to Gon’s side at the table where Gon gave his name and said, “Killua’s with me.”

“IDs?” 

“I’m twenty-one,” Gon said, and the stamper took that at face value. When they looked to Killua, Gon said, “So is he.”

Killua put his hand out to be stamped. 

Killua stared at the back of Gon’s head, amazed, as they were let inside. He stared at the blue ink on his hand and wondered that if he blinked, it might disappear. 

Gon’s tanned fingers slipped over Killua’s hand. Even the gold on Gon’s rings were scalding on Killua’s chilled skin as he pulled Killua by the wrist. “Come on,” Gon said, grinning, “We should watch the party for a bit.”

“Watch? I thought people went to parties to party.”

“I know, but it’s fun to be a fly on the wall.”

Killua couldn’t deny it and had a hunch that Gon knew Killua preferred it. He let Gon lead him across the dingy house. Each room pulled a colorful film over Killua’s eyes—blaring music, glaring lights, people in costume and dress. Killua nearly tripped over the legs of a couple making out on the stairs as Gon walked them up past the frat boy securing the stairwell from unwanted visitors. 

They passed the bathroom line and a row of locked bedrooms with the names of their owners written and defiled on chalkboards pinned to the paneling. Gon crossed the house like he knew it intimately. Killua felt like he was somehow dreaming sober.

“Ah, here I think,” Gon said, and was greeted instantly by a couple standing outside of a door waiting. 

Killua glanced back the way they came. The bathroom line wrapped around the corner, but half of them stepped out to peer after them. 

Gon accepted a hit from the woman, who then held it out to Killua. Gon waved a hand. “Oh, no, we’re here to talk to your friend in there,” he said, voice a bit parched by smoke curling between his teeth.

“Heard,” she said. “Shal can help you out. What are you looking for?”

“Just a tab,” Gon said.

Her boyfriend was knocking on the door before Gon ever spoke. He peered inside to ask for Shal, who pulled the door ajar far enough to observe Gon and Killua. 

“Oh,” the guy said, voice peppier than Killua expected of an alleged drug dealer. “I don’t know you.”

“How much for a tab?” Gon asked. 

The guy stared at him with wild, childlike eyes. “For you, free.”

“No, for me,” Killua said. 

“Five bucks.”

Killua had little to no concept of price when it came to drugs, but it felt relatively cheap in exchange for a potentially life-altering ordeal. 

“Are you Gon?” the girlfriend asked as Shal left to get the tablet.

Gon leant against the doorframe, his hand still loosely burning Killua’s wrist. “Guilty,” he said. “You?”

“Shizuku,” she said, and pointed to her boyfriend, “Phinks.”

“We’ve heard a lot of people talking about you this week,” Phinks said.

Gon licked his lips and said, “All bad things, I hope.”

They both laughed and Killua wondered if Gon even realized what he was doing with his words and body language. It was an unmistakable invitation, and Shizuku and Phinks were helpless to it. Killua only ever saw charm in Gon’s encounters when he flirted like this. 

Killua gave his arm a tug, and when Gon glanced at him with a raised eyebrow, Killua returned it as if to say, “ Dude, cool it .”

Shal returned and passed the baggie to Gon and said in an aside: “I snuck in an extra for you. Have fun you two!”

Gon gave him a pat on the back before departing with a cheery, “See you around,” and pocketed the tablets. 

Baffled by how smoothly that went, Killua wrote it off as him being inexperienced, naive, and trusting of Gon. 

Gon was now weaving them back the way they came, saying, “Did you see his room?”

Killua hadn’t even thought to check it. “No. Why?”

Gon turned back to him on the steps, which put him a few inches shorter than Killua. “ Full of Brad Pitt posters.”

Of the posters to have pinups of, Brad Pitt was not on Killua’s list. He burst out laughing. 

At the landing, there was a balcony overlooking the foyer into the living room. Gon pulled them over to the railing, ignoring the greetings from nearby onlookers as he took charge of a corner near the wall. This shooed away a cluster of freshmen to make space for them. 

Gon took a sip of his drink as Killua scanned the party and the people on the balcony with them. They didn’t hesitate to meet Killua’s eye, and the gossipy atmosphere amplified when they only looked away to whisper to their friends.

“You seem in your element,” Killua commented.

“And you seem out of it,” Gon said. His hand left Killua’s wrist to turn Killua’s head toward the party. “ Watch .”

Killua rolled his eyes but complied. They relaxed against the railing to observe and chat, about school, high school, friends, family. At every moment, Killua wondered about Gon and his hypothetical California in his hypothetical cult, but Gon’s attention was on him and the euphoria of keeping Gon there with his stories kept him from asking. 

“So you’ve never dated, never done drugs— no , weed doesn’t count—, and you haven’t kept friends from high school,” Gon concluded.

Killua laughed into his palm. “Drugs do not need to be on that list. That’s, like, a minor detail. Minuscule .”

“Fine, never dated, no friends. Anything else?”

Killua flopped his hands over the railing and leant back. He clasped on, swaying. “It’s not that big of a deal. Half the people I knew in high school were evil, honestly. It would be different if there were people there I actually liked.”

“I’ll take your word for it.”

“My sister Alluka is my friend, though,” he said. “Which—Shit, I keep forgetting to use her camera. I need to send her a picture of the dorm room.”

“Why?”

“She wants to see it. I don’t know.”

“Tell me about your sister.”

Killua sighed as the music warped into the next track. People cheered, more sweeping in from adjacent rooms to join the mosh pit. “She’s my best friend, I think. If a sibling can be a best friend.”

“Has she graduated too?”

“No. Still has another year,” he said. “I think she wants to go into medicine, and her grades are better than mine honestly. She could probably get into Yale if she wanted to.”

“Does she, though?”

“I can’t tell,” he confessed. Normally, Alluka was motivated and intentional, but when it came to college, she gave non-answers and indifference at every turn. That just made it easier for their mother to take charge.

“Maybe she doesn’t want to leave you,” Gon suggested.

“Maybe,” he agreed. He’d considered it when attending their grandfather’s alma mater. “Maybe she’ll end up here. Who’s to say. The premed program is good I guess.”

They’d been talking—or rather yelling over the music—for nearly thirty minutes before Killua asked, “But what about your friends back home?”

Gon gave a dismissive wave of his hand. “They’re fine. We haven’t talked since I got here.”

“Have you tried calling them?”

“No. Haven’t bothered.”

“We should check if you have messages,” Killua suggested, because Lord knows he’d been avoiding doing the same. 

“Later, maybe,” Gon said. Uninterested. Killua battled against the urge to give in to Gon’s indifference to the topic. His teeth gritted with resolve.

“They probably miss you.”

“They’ll live.”

Killua cursed under his breath, partially winded, which earned him a cheeky smile from Gon. 

“If it’s any consolation,” Gon said, drawing Killua’s eyes back to him, “I think my friends would really like you.”

Killua sobered at this. Contented with Gon’s hypothetical cult friends liking him, Killua turned away with a blush. “Cool. But does that mean I’d like them, too?”

At this, Gon gave a nervous laugh. “I don’t know. They might scare you a little…”

Killua snapped back to attention. “What’s that supposed to mean?!” Definitely in a satanic cult!

Gon gave a shout of alarm, startling Killua. He reached into his pocket and produced the baggie of LSD with a groan of annoyance. “Aw! It takes thirty minutes to take effect—! You could be tripping right now—”

“G-Gon!” 

Gon popped open the bag and beamed at Killua over the opening. “You can take it now, if you want.”

Intentional , Killua thought. He found questions with Gon a near-inescapable task, but this wasn’t a question. How much of Gon’s influence was in those words, or the blotter between them was less obvious to Killua.

Killua rationalized this decision by how often Illumi and his friends got high, and how frustrating it was to be kept out of it back in high school, middle school. He was nothing but a kid to be babysat by his eldest brother and even now, he doubted Illumi would want him to do this. 

Never in a million years .

“Fuck it,” Killua said, beaming ear-to-ear. “Yeah, I’m game. You should try it, too.”

“Oh, I’ve already done it. Don’t you want a sober spotter?” Gon said, half-giggling as he yanked the baggie out of reach. 

“You’ve done it before? Why didn’t you say so!”

They bickered over it until Gon relented, saying, “ Fine , we both do it—but you give me yours and I’ll give you mine.”

Killua agreed, only to register the request after Gon had raised Killua’s blotter out of the baggie and up to the light. 

It was nearly translucent in the flashing lights. “Say ‘ah’,” Gon said, smug as ever.

Killua stammered, stuttered, and at last winced out a pained, “A-Ah.”

Gon’s fingers hesitated within a hair of Killua’s teeth. His concentration betrayed a glint of something foreign in Gon’s eyes, which were now unmistakably vibrant and gold. The glint there was gone in an instant. 

“Lift your tongue for me.” Gon’s words were a minty breath on Killua’s cheeks.

He flinched a fraction, but complied. The tab grazed the underside of his tongue with cool peel. It dissolved like a confessional wafer against his salivary glands. A bitter aftertaste, not unlike over-steeped tea.

Gon pulled his fingers back as Killua closed his lips. He raised the baggie up to Killua and said, “Your turn.”

Killua lifted the plastic up to the light and found Gon’s sheet with ease. It was beyond delicate as he held it between his thumb and forefinger up to Gon’s mouth. 

Gon leaned in, hands in his pockets, lips parting. He touched his tongue to the roof of his mouth. Killua wondered who else—other than Gon’s dentist—had seen the veins on the underside of Gon’s tongue. Blue and purple. Killua’s mouth went dry before the tab ever suctioned itself to the veins like paper against water. The texture of it vanished before Gon ever lowered his tongue. His canines were all fangs as he grinned at Killua.

“Thank you,” Gon said.

“Sure. Anytime.” His lungs were struggling to remember their proper function.

Gon ditched his drink and jabbed a thumb in the direction of the dance floor and said, “We should get down there before it kicks in. We’ll leave in twenty minutes. Yeah?”

“O-Okay,” Killua agreed, and let Gon lead they way once again.

Twenty minutes , Killua thought. The clock was ticking. 

There was an hour left to the end of his first week of college.

Chapter Text

It didn’t take long for Killua to grow tired of dancing, but that was normal for him. He never did like dancing—unless it involved Alluka and the intro song to their favorite show, but only at 2AM. It was not 2AM. It wasn’t even midnight yet.

Killua circled the dance floor in search of Gon, which was more difficult than he anticipated. Within seconds of joining the floor, Gon dissolved into the crowd and became one with the people and the music clustering around him. The claustrophobia suffocated Killua enough to half-fight his way out of the mob. 

Feeling foolish and out of his depth, Killua pulled himself up onto a windowsill to get a better view. 

“Oh. You’re here,” someone said below him. 

He glanced left, then right, and found Machi. 

Killua jumped down from the sill. “Oh, now you recognize me,” he said. 

“Yeah, you’re Gon’s roommate.”

“Figures.” 

“What’s your name again?”

Killua blanched at the realization that he really never did give her his name. “K-Killua. Sorry I didn’t give you my name sooner.”

“The professor called it out Thursday, but I wasn’t paying attention,” she admitted. “How’s Gon?”

Killua grimaced. It wasn’t her usual line of questioning and seemed rather typical. Totally brainwashed , he thought, but then again, he might have been losing his mind. He reassured himself that the acid had another three songs to kick in. “Beats me. There’s too many people in here and the humidity is nauseating .”

Machi gave a cursory glance at the window and dragged her finger across the condensation. “Agreed. Well, when you see Gon, tell him I say hi.”

Killua’s flippant hand-toss was pure exhaustion. “Yeah, sure.”

When Machi left him, her place was swiftly filled by Gon. Killua was amazed by the speed and ease with which Gon found him when Killua had spent the last five minutes attempting the same exact thing.

“Wh-Where were you?” Killua said. 

Gon was out of breath. “Dancing. One last song?” 

“What are you, a dog? Do you need me to throw a ball for you to catch, too?” 

Killua’s raised tennis ball-throwing gesture was caught by Gon’s hand spinning him toward the dance floor. They were at once closed-in and Killua strained against the back he was pressed against. It only succeeded in pushing him further into Gon’s front. 

Elbowing his way around proved both painful and fruitless until the noticeable, sweltering heat of Gon’s hand centered Killua’s attention again. “ Relax! ” Gon shouted above the bass. He gave a vague, flowing sweep of his hand and said, “Follow the people around you!”

Killua ceased pushing. The person behind him had a rhythm, and it matched the person to his left. He let them lull him to and fro, and Gon’s grip on his back loosened to his waist. 

He watched the word “ Good ,” form a pleased smile on Gon’s lips.

It was a shot of pure dopamine. Killua grinned back. As aware as he was that he was inadvertently grinding against Gon, Gon was following the flow just as much as he was. The crowd wasn’t as hectic and uncoordinated as Killua had observed form a distance—they moved as one. 

At the end of the song, Gon rolled his sleeves down as if the incessant, consolidated body heat there in the middle of the mosh pit didn’t bother him. The person behind Killua alleviated pressure, and cool air caught on the back of his shirt. 

The music went on, but the pressure on the floor lessened. They slipped out with ease as Gon buttoned the hems of his shirt sleeves. 

“We should have danced more,” Gon pouted.

“One song is enough for me.”

“Yeah, but you were having fun. Next time, maybe.”

Killua resisted against his want to smile. “Next time,” he agreed. 

Just as Killua was certain they were heading back to their dorm, Gon tugged him by the hand. His fingers made Killua feel as though he’d dunked his hand in hot dish water. “This way. We’ll get sick of our room eventually, so we should end there.”

“You sure know a lot about this.”

“I just want you to have a good time.”

Killua told his heart to cool it, it was just his roommate being nice, but Killua still preened at Gon’s assurances. 

They were approaching the top of the hill overlooking the athletic fields down frat row. The wings of the campus converged on the football stadium where the activity had dispersed to the party he and Gon just left. He watched the flow of traffic blend into the texture of marching ants across the sidewalk, flooding the street traffic, and waving their neon light sticks about. 

He hadn’t realized he’d stopped walking until Gon asked, “How do you feel?”

“My stomach feels weird,” Killua confessed, touching a hand to it. 

“It’s absorbing probably. Digestion does that. Sit on the bench here?”

Killua complied without thinking. They sat together in the park before the forest, ensnared by their microcosm of a city. 

Considering Killua had never done psychedelics before, he didn’t have the language to describe it the way he could well-worn daily life. This was a new path his brain had never traveled, and the more he sat trying to quantify it, the less he grasped. 

That tension always led Gon’s hand to squeeze his and say, “Don’t think about it like that. Just relax.”

“But I want to explain it to you,” he admitted. It was such a desperate want that Killua nearly tripped over it. It compounded without his realizing it, and left unchecked, Killua forgot his defenses.

But he only just nearly tripped over it. 

Killua stopped himself from slipping over his impulses. Gon’s hand squeezed again in passive warning. Something akin to glitter was seeping out of Gon’s buttoned sleeve, curling like smoke over his smudged, blackout tattoo. It looked soft and gold in the dark, emitting light as it went. 

Killua reached for it with his free hand. Gon stopped his wrist, holding it firmly. His hand didn’t look the way Killua remembered, but he recognized the shape of Gon’s angular knuckles and tendons—he’d stared at them too often to forget them. 

“Are you scared right now?” Gon asked.

Killua stared at him then. There was a haze over Gon’s face unlike the rest of the world. Where Killua could see detail and definition blocks away from their vantage point, Gon was fuzzy and unmoored. 

“No. There’s something on your hand, though,” Killua said. 

“Is that it?”

“I just—” Gon’s face wasn’t where Killua last left it. With a skip of his heart, Killua said, “I don’t recognize you, really.”

“Then keep hold of my hand. I won’t let go, so you’ll always know it’s me,” Gon suggested, and the sentiment melted what was left of Killua’s defenses. 

He ducked his head, eyes on Gon’s not-hand, and gave a bashful smile. 

“Killua?” someone said, just as Killua was relaxing again. 

He looked up from Gon’s hand to the person approaching the peak of the hill. From what Killua knew about Illumi’s trips, hallucinations weren’t always a reliable aspect. Perhaps it was because Killua’s only exposure to psychedelics was his brother, but why now of all times would Killua even want to see Illumi?

Illumi looked real, though—more real than Killua had ever seen him before. His skin was alive and dotted with texture—tanned, a bit sunburnt on his hands and bony wrists, and his inky hair lay heavy in a ponytail tossed over his shoulder. 

“You—” Killua started, forgetting where he was, what time he was in. He liked to believe that Illumi was trapped at his own university, stuck doing coursework instead of pestering Killua at his university . His tongue was chalky. “What are you doing here.”

“You know him?” Gon asked. 

You see him?! Killua thought, and dread sunk like a rock to his stomach. 

Illumi wasn’t just a figment of Killua’s nightmares, come to shame Killua at his most vulnerable.

“I was waiting at Hatsu for you. Your neighbors said you went out,” Illumi said, pausing to prop his foot on the curb of the walkway. He tucked his hands in the pockets of his sweatpants. He became a cutout from reality, plucked out of the stream of marching ants and continuity Killua had appreciated from a distance. 

Illumi was now outlined, defined, and highlighted. Inescapable.

And his eyes dropped to their joined hands on the bench.

He’s angry , Killua thought. He doesn’t even know I’m tripping balls right now and he’s already angry .

Instinctively, Killua loosened his grip on Gon’s fingers and tried to shake free. Gon held fast. “I’m not leaving you,” Gon said. 

“Too bad,” Illumi said. “I need to talk to him. Alone .”

“Let go,” Killua said. He looked at Gon—or what he thought might be Gon—and said, “I’m not kidding. Let go .”

“No,” Gon said.

“Cute. Romantic,” Illumi taunted, head tipped to the side. “Too bad I don’t care. Killua.”

“It’s not like that,” Killua insisted. He couldn’t look at either of them. The ground was shifting under him, and his feet feared it. He was sinking in lake water and avoiding the seaweed. It was slimy and crawling up his legs, clinging on and dragging him under. “Gon, this is Illumi.”

“Oh,” Gon said. His grip didn’t relax as Killua had hoped. And then, with a ferocity of conviction Killua felt but couldn’t react to, said, “ Leave .”

For a moment, Killua thought Illumi might comply. He stole a glimpse at his brother, if only to see his reaction. 

Illumi stared at Gon, eyebrows arching. He gave a slow blink and said, “Impressive. Does that make the little freshmen run scared?”

Gon sucked in a sharp breath, and Killua felt it like his own oxygen was being depleted. He gave Gon’s arm another yank and this time, his grip came free. 

“Stop it. Don’t do that with him,” Killua said, and pushed to his feet.

He stepped into the seaweed and grass and let it drag him toward the forest with Illumi on his heels. His fists clenched at his sides. Vertigo threatened to send him completely overboard, and on the path, he reached for the nearest tree to solidify himself once again. The bark churned like tires under his hands and burned like rubber.

“I thought Milluki was exaggerating about the rumors at school. You really are a faggot.”

“Like you really care,” Killua seethed. “And it isn’t like that with Gon.”

“No? So you just hold hand with all your best guy friends ,” Illumi said. “First you drop ivy—and an actual future with an actually promising major —and now you’re forfeiting your education to focus on more important things , like screwing some guy.”

“I’m telling you , it isn’t like that . And it’s Friday! Syllabus week! It’s not like I have anything better to do today,” he insisted. He’d spent the better part of four years enduring the pandemonium of a homophobic catholic school, but he’d be damned if his academic integrity had anything to do with wanting to screw Gon.

Which he didn’t, probably. Maybe.

Illumi pinned a finger to his chest. Killua’s back hit the tree. “I came because I was worried . Is this really what you want to be doing with your life?”

“Excuse me?”

“You and I both know you’re capable of more than a hobby degree. If you cared about your academics as you say you do, you’d pick a challenge, not the easy way out. You’re not proving anything this way, especially not to me.”

Killua swatted his hand away before it could dissolve into his chest and grab his heart. “Not everything is about money.”

“I didn’t say it was. I’m saying your bar is too low. Higher bars equating to more money was a link you made, not me.”

He ground his teeth together. Dammit , he thought. He wasn’t equipped with a shovel to dig himself out of Illumi’s pitfalls. 

“Are you really even here because you care?” Killua said, and the reality of this truth ached to tear his throat out. It was probably a hassle for Illumi to drive two hours to be here, and Illumi wasn’t one to make a journey like that without reason. 

Illumi’s eyes scanned him. His ethereal highlight seeped into the event horizon of Illumi’s pitch black irises. 

Killua started sweating.

“You’re high, aren’t you,” Illumi said. 

“I’m not.”

“ You are . What did you take.”

“ Nothing .” Killua could handle seaweed, but being absorbed into Illumi’s blackhole was another battle entirely. He writhed against Illumi’s hand under his jaw, fingers digging into his cheeks. “Stop it! You’re paranoid.”

Illumi laughed. “ I’m paranoid? Your eyes aren’t bloodshot—mushrooms, maybe? Oh-ho, how did you manage that? Already making friends?”

“I’m telling you—!” 

“Oh, I heard you.” He was sucking the life and color out of everything . The world dimmed into blackness. Killua’s only tether was Illumi’s hand on his face. 

Killua clutched at Illumi’s wrist in panic. His heart lurched, feet skidding beneath him. “Don’t let me go,” he begged.

“I told you not to . I warned you it would be like this, didn’t I? And you risked it anyway?” Illumi seethed, but his smile was unmistakable. “You never listen to me, even when I. Know. Better .”

“I know, I know,” Killua gasped, grimacing. Illumi had his jaw now, finger pressed so deep into his cheek he could feel his own molars. He couldn’t close his mouth. “But I wanted to see for myself. You never let me see for myself.”

“Have you no faith in me?”

“I do, I just—”

“You’re just like Alluka, but we got over this years ago, her and I,” Illumi lamented, grip relaxing. Killua clamped his teeth together. “I doubt mom and dad would be paying for her university if I gave them the pictures.”

Killua’s grip slackened, but panic surged. He grappled for Illumi’s shoulders. “What? What pictures.”

“Ah,” Illumi said, light coming to his eyes. Killua staggered at his return to the world, feet touching the ground. Illumi’s smile was a hazard Killua hadn’t seen before. “She didn’t tell you. Of course she wouldn’t.”

Killua’s knuckles cracked under the strain of his grip. “Tell me what . What did you do .”

“Nothing. Nothing at all,” Illumi sighed, reverently.

Killua went for his throat, thumb punching in at the juncture of his jaw. “ Tell me! ”

Illumi tugged at Killua’s arms, but he resisted. “I don’t think she’d appreciate you knowing. Don’t you want to respect her wishes? You’re best friends after all.”

“I’ll fucking kill you—”

“You wouldn’t.”

“ Do it .”

The breath against Killua’s ear was tantalizing and familiar. He’d spent the past week vying for its comfort and reassurance. 

Killua’s grip slackened. Illumi was under him. His knees were in the dirt, and he couldn’t recall the fall. 

Illumi shoved at Killua. His elbow cracked across Killua’s nose. Heat popped across Killua’s face and cleared the ground in a splatter of red. 

“ Honestly ,” Illumi seethed. “You’ll do anything but listen.” 

Don’t you find it odd that Alluka has been so compliant with mom and dad?

Doesn’t it bother you that Alluka’s so nonplussed about her future?

Isn’t it sad how Alluka’s letting mom mold her like this?

If you’d been listening, you would have heard her cries for help years ago . Maybe you could have gotten the pictures and saved her all this trouble. But that’s a bit beyond you, isn’t it. 

“I hate you,” Killua said, face hot with tears. “I fucking hate you.”

“Fine. It’s not like you’ll do anything about it anyway.”

“ Don’t you want him to die? ” Temptation whispered in his ear. 

He felt the golden rings like molten lava on his wrists, curling down to his hands. It took hold of the back of Killua’s palms, fingers sliding between his own. Golden glitter oozed around him, melting into the earth and across his blood in the grass.

Illumi was walking away, shaking his head. He was getting away, and Killua was too exhausted to care.

“I don’t know,” he confessed in a whisper, tears bubbling to the surface once again. His vision warped. “I can’t do anything right.”

He scrubbed his eyes with both arms, the backs of his hands wet with tears. Drowning, he couldn’t breathe. It wasn’t about the temptation to kill Illumi—he didn’t want Illumi dead, but he didn’t want Illumi around either. He wanted Alluka to do what she wanted, not what their family wanted.

When he opened his eyes again, it was to a thud in front of him. Something soft, heavy, and limp fell across his feet. 

It took Killua a moment to notice it, because his eyes were wholly struck by Gon standing above him, recognizable only by his hands and the piercings Killua was most familiar with. Illumi had always said hallucinations were rare, but there was no other explanation for the antlers protruding from Gon’s temples.

They were encased with gold and crystals, like rain on spiderwebs. His scleras had gone black. He was beyond lifelike—the world Killua knew paled in comparison to anything he was currently experiencing, and it was all Killua could do to keep calm and say, “Holy fuck .”

“There,” Gon said. “That was easier than I thought. They make it sound so scary.”

“What?”

Gon folded his arms. He was back in focus, though the antlers were flickering like a bad satellite reception. A buzz had taken hold of Killua’s senses, and he held his breath for a radio announcer to betray everything that Gon had just done. 

Gon tipped his chin in a gesture to the ground between them. 

Killua reached for the body before he knew what to think of it. His hand pushed into the shoulder, the rope of black hair tied at the back of his broken neck. Illumi . 

If it were possible for Killua to convey what happened to Illumi, he might have gone to the police. He might have done anything but look at Gon and say, “Is he sleeping?”

“No, he’s dead. You wanted him gone, didn’t you?”

Killua couldn’t control himself or the tremor that wracked through him. “Well, yeah , but not dead .”

Gon frowned, and it struck Killua harder than any solemn look Gon had given him that week. He was supposed to be happy—Gon had done this for him—but he was out of his mind and terrified of what his parents might think of this. Even if Killua hated Illumi, his parents didn’t. 

Gon ducked down, kneeling with the body between them. “Don’t cry—I didn’t mean to make you cry. Shit.”

“I’m—” Killua gasped, clutching at his chest. “I’m happy.”

“You aren’t. You’re just saying that to make me feel better.”

“Y-You did this to help me—”

Through the tears, Killua watched Gon break into anguish. Killua flinched against the molten heat of Gon’s hand against his cheek. Glitter temporarily blinded him. “Stop it, Killua. Tell me the truth.”

“I want you to like me,” Killua said. 

Gon grimaced, his brow pinched with worry. “No, Killua—”

Killua was losing him. He’d reacted wrong—he’d done everything wrong—and now Gon would hate him for it. Gon was just helping him.

Between them, Illumi began to sink. The hand Killua pressed to his shoulder pulled him down, the earth swallowing him up to his wrist. Gon lifted him up by the elbow. The ground yearned after Killua’s arm, elastic like putty, until Killua was on his feet again. 

“Please—I just want you to like me,” Killua begged. “You can do anything—”

“Shit,” Gon said, and when Killua opened his mouth, Gon clasped a hand over it. It scalded against Killua’s freshly peeled sunburn. Gon’s eyes were on the ground. “ Shit .”

“But—” Killua’s voice was muffled. Gon’s hand tasted like dirt. 

“Quiet.”

The command flushed through Killua in an instant. Pliant and unlikely to complain, Gon swept Killua away from the buoyant earth where Illumi had dissolved. Killua stumbled, flush with Gon’s side, and then his back as Gon pulled Killua behind him. 

Killua staggered, gripping at Gon’s flannel. He hadn’t stopped trembling since identifying the body, and now was no different. The hand emerging from the pool of liquid earth was pale, but it wasn’t his brother’s. 

Its clawed ends were tipped red like blood. It seared the grass with steam. A muscled bicep followed, roped in bloody tattoos and scantily clothed. The face that followed was from Killua’s worst nightmares, he feared. 

Okay, now I’m scared , he would have said if he had any control over his person. He was Gon’s now, he knew that, and found solace in continued compliance with his order: To be quiet .

It was a face of a thousand toothy smiles and as they merged to one, its smile still split the creature’s jaw apart. Tusks the length of hands cut up and down from its gums as it parted from the earth. Its eyes pinned Gon with glee .

“Found you,” it said, its voice materializing somewhere in Killua’s chest. It resonated through every bone in his body before it ever reached his ears. 

He swore Gon tensed. “Hisoka,” he said in greeting. 

The beast shook its head and gave a slow, taunting wag of its clawed finger. “You know the rules. You broke them—and now it’s time to come back home.”

“I’m not going,” Gon said.

The buzz in Killua’s ears grew to a roar. The air itself was spinning. The creature tipped its head, its body, and arched to see Killua trembling in its wake. 

“I see,” it said, “you made a friend. And you broke your friend.”

“He’s not broken! I can fix him,” Gon said. “The night… didn’t go as planned.”

“Clearly. You killed, Gon. You aren’t meant to kill.”

“ I know that . He was pissing me off.”

“A lot of people piss me off. You’re pissing me off. Now let go of your little toy and come back to us—Meruem misses you.”

Gon groaned like a contemptuous child. It was a wonder he didn’t stomp his feet. “That’s not fair . You’ve all spent centuries on Earth! They have radios!”

“They’d have had a lot more if you picked a later century,” Hisoka said in a amused purr. Killua shuddered at the sound as it was accompanied by sharp, hollow clicks. 

Gon’s hand, which held Killua’s steady, tightened. “Can I bring Killua?”

“ No , you cannot bring a human. In fact, because of what you’ve done ,” Hisoka snarled, growing near and far taller than the both of them combined. His hooked claw struck Gon in the collarbone, and Gon stood stubborn against it. “ Chrollo is off hunting the soul of the pesky human you forfeit before the body decomposes.”

“Can’t you just turn back time?” Gon said, and his fight weakened just a fraction. Killua felt it in the lurch of pressure Hisoka put on Gon’s clavicle. 

“If you’d convinced your pet to do it, of course. But you didn’t . And we wouldn’t interfere even if you had convinced him. That’s how life works .”

“A-Ah… I see…” Gon said, straining around a nervous smile. He straightened a little and said, stronger than before, “But I’m still not going home!”

And then, in the most horrific scene of Killua’s entire life, the beast unhinged its jaw in a series of clicks and grating bones. The static hum in the air consolidated into an unholy shriek that only amplified when Gon reared back and screamed back into the bloody expanse of the devil’s mouth. The force of their shouting spat unnamed gore across the both of them that Killua couldn’t escape, even with Gon as a barrier. It shed itself from Killua’s skin like slime.

“Hisoka, stop it,” someone said. “You’re making a mess of things.”

The beast’s jaw crackled back into place. The transformation was so abrupt that Killua was shocked to discover it looked quiet human after all. Albeit, a practically-naked man. 

As he turned, he exposed a shorter man—at least, he appeared to be a man based on Killua’s human standards—drenched in shadows. Killua couldn’t make out the definition of much more than his face and a pair of dense, rounded horns like that of an oak tree branch. He looked exhausted and skeletal. 

He dragged with him a white, feathery substance that streamed like smoke beside him. He raised it with one hand, and it swept vaguely in the air before settling limp. 

“Where’s the body?” the man said. 

“I kept it nice and warm for you,” Hisoka said, and crouched down between them. He extended one long arm into the ground and peeled Killua’s brother out by the hair—albeit, healed, and as close to the brother Killua remembered. 

The man took one look at Illumi and said, “You couldn’t have kept his clothes.”

“They got in the way.”

“ Of what ?” At Hisoka’s blank stare, the stranger sighed. “Never mind. Gon.”

Gon stood at attention, and then let out a tremulous, “Hey, Chrollo…”

The man’s eyes narrowed to slits. 

Hisoka grinned, glancing between them. “Oh my.”

The fog was building, and it was stretching toward Killua’s brother. The newcomer, Chrollo, unclenched his hand and let the smoke fall. It slithered toward Illumi and dissolved the moment it made contact. Within seconds, the smoke was gone. 

And then, with baited breath, they all watched. 

“He should be breathing by now,” Hisoka said, pityingly. And then, with a dramatic sigh, laid a hand to his forehead. “Oh dear.”

Chrollo wound a fist back and punched him in the arm. “You were supposed to keep it cold , not warm .”

Illumi gasped awake. 

Killua took an involuntary step forward, clutching at Gon’s arm. Any attention that may have been on Illumi spun at once to him.

Fuck , Killua thought, because though it hadn’t been a direct violation of Gon’s request, “ quiet ” felt a lot like “ don’t be seen or heard .”

He jerked back, facing away from them and everything to do with his brother now coughing up soot on the ground. Killua’s arm bent awkwardly behind him, his hand still fused with Gon’s. Gon gave his fingers a squeeze—reassuring, but it did little to quell the agony of Killua’s mistake. 

“This is going to take some work,” Chrollo chided, his voice a dull murmur. “And Gon’s pet…”

“I can fix him,” Gon hissed. “Just give me the semester.”

“A day,” Hisoka said.

“ Midterms ,” he barked back. 

“Aw, cute. He sounds like a human.”

“It’s unseemly,” Chrollo said. “The pet can fend for itself once you’re gone. The humans will call it a psychotic break. He’ll be back to normal by the next full moon.”

“I can’t do that.” Gon’s voice cracked. Killua’s hand was no doubt bruised now. “ Please . Meruem would let me. You know he would.”

“And guess who isn’t here. Me-ru-em,” Hisoka mocked. “Do I need to leash you?”

“No! Just—Until his brother’s better!” Gon said, and it was punctuated by the visceral sound of Illumi gagging and coughing up tree bark and pebbles laced with an indeterminate sludge.

The silence that followed, however, was promising. They were considering it, and Killua’s chest swelled at the hope in Gon’s grip. 

“How long will that take,” Hisoka said.

“A month, if that,” Chrollo said, and then in a scathing mutter, “How deep did you take him? ”

“How deep indeed…”

“A month?” Gon cheered with a thrilled gasp. “Twenty-eight days?!”

“That’s February. It’s September.”

“Deal!”

“An apartment will be difficult to come by. Start of the semester,” Chrollo wondered aloud. 

Gon let out another gasp. “We can ask the professor who helped me enroll! You could stay with him!”

“We are not asking humans to help us,” Hisoka breathed with disdain. 

When Gon pulled Killua forward, he caught a glimpse of Chrollo shrouding Illumi’s bare skin in shadows. His brother had passed out, but after studying Illumi’s arms dangling limply over Chrollo’s shoulder, Killua swore he saw his brother take a breath. 

Killua stared as Gon faced Hisoka with a glare. Hisoka’s smile turned Killua’s insides ice cold. “He only has room for two,” Gon said.

“That’s too bad,” Hisoka said, not sounding bad at all, “I’m staying. To keep you company.”

“ No .”

“I am.”

Gon bristled, scratched irritably at the root of his antlers, and threw his fist down. “ Fine . Just— stay out of my life . I can fix Killua on my own.”

“Oh, no doubt,” Hisoka taunted, looking more and more pleased with himself. 

Killua trailed along Gon’s every whim. When he paused, Killua paused, and observed in pure, childlike fascination as Gon bickered with his comrades. Hisoka walked ahead as Gon gave a dismissive, “Don’t listen to him,” to Killua. Killua had already forgotten what Hisoka had said, and now he could only watched the movement of Hisoka’s tusks as he spoke to Chrollo. The chatter in the air was gone. 

They maneuvered through foot traffic without fuss. Between Hisoka’s height and Chrollo and Gon’s horns, they stood far above the students funneling down frat row. No one batted an eye at Illumi’s limp body strewn over Chrollo, his figure swathed in darkness. Illumi’s hair was just an extension of it—black as night.

Killua looked to Gon, who’s expression he could read better than his own though only a week had passed. Gon’s eyes, now shadowy with black sclears, were steady ahead, his jaw tight. His dimples were ghosts. 

Gon’s eyes caught his briefly and backtracked at once. He gave a faint, strained smile. “It’ll be okay, Killua. You’ll feel better in the morning.”

Killua opened his mouth to speak, but couldn’t. He looked away. Gon didn’t want him to talk.

“It’s okay to talk now,” Gon said. 

“You’re upset with me,” Killua said immediately, and at once felt guilty for mentioning it. Gon’s brow was unable to mask how troubled he was. “I’m sorry. Tell me what to do—”

“Killua, I—”

“Just give him something to do,” Chrollo suggested, just loud enough to reach them. 

Gon considered this, and then snapped his fingers. “The telephone! Killua, can you show me to the Hatsu phone booth?”

Of course he could—Killua had spent his childhood on this campus and knew the ins and outs of every building. He and Alluka used to waste coins calling the operators.

Once near the dorms, Killua led the way. He took Gon by the hand through the entrance, and watched as Gon’s horns flickered and fazed through the doorframe. Hisoka hunched over and ducked through the door. Two students had followed them in and passed straight through Chrollo in a haze of black dust. 

Killua gestured to the hall where the booths were and said, “Over here. I have quarters.”

“Ah, thank you,” Gon said. “Can you dial for me?”

Gon didn’t have the number, so Killua dialed the operator. As the phone rang, Killua asked, “Which professor?”

“Ah, Mr. Zeno.”

Killua froze. Zeno wasn’t exactly a common name, but it was the first name of someone he knew. Killua short-circuited trying to remember everyone in his life before Gon, and beyond his brother lying limp in Chrollo’s arms. 

“ Directory Assistance, may I help you? ” the operator said. 

“Zeno?” Killua repeated. He had a face to the name now. 

“ Pardon? ”

“Ah, I mean—Zeno Zoldyck, please,” he corrected, and was still dumbfounded by the familiarity of the professor. He knew this man, personally, and yet was slipping through Killua’s fingers. 

It wasn’t until the call went through that Killua heard his grandfather’s tired voice. “ Hello, Zoldyck residence .”

Killua broke eye contact with Gon, gasping, “H-Hi, Grandpa?”

“ Killua. Is something the matter? It’s late .”

Killua startled at Gon reaching for the phone. He nearly passed it on, but the muffled sound of his grandfather’s voice stopped them both. Gon pushed the phone back into Killua’s hands and said, “Ask if we can come over.”

“Actually,” Killua started, confidence rising with Gon’s encouragement. “I need some help with something. Would it be okay if a few friends and I stopped by?”

“ Sounds important. I’ll get the kettle on. Are you staying the night? ”

Gon nodded.

“Yeah, if that’s okay.”

“ Certainly. Come through the back—lock the gate behind you .”

“Okay. We will. Thank you, Grandpa.”

When he hung up, Chrollo was unimpressed. “You’ve befriended your pet’s entire family.”

Gon stuttered. “ That’s what ‘grandpa’ means? I thought that was an honorific for a professor!”

Hisoka made a comment that Chrollo responded with: “No, please, go on thinking that. I’m sure your little human professors will love that.”

Gon turned to Killua, pointing at Illumi, “How many relatives do you have?!”

“Alive?” 

“All of them!”

Killua’s entire head started overheating in an instant.

Hisoka closed his eyes, nursing a headache with the edge of one red talon. Beside him, Chrollo said, “Gon, that’s impossible knowledge for him to regurgitate.”

“Oh. Killua, stop, I don’t want to know anymore. Let’s go to your grandpa’s house,” Gon said, and so to grandfather’s house they went.

Chapter Text

At Gon’s behest, Hisoka locked the gate behind him before entering the backyard of Killua’s grandfather’s house. 

The kitchen light was on and, as they stepped onto the back deck, a light came on. The back door slid open. 

“Killua, a lovely yet unexpected surprise,” his grandfather said as Killua stopped at a distance. Unease pulled him further into Gon’s side, practically behind him, to keep a buffer. 

His grandfather’s eyes settled on Gon first. His eyes, though worn with sleep, gradually lifted to alertness. The cup in his hand steamed, and Killua’s eyes trailed with it. After a long pause on Gon’s face, his grandfather registered Hisoka and Chrollo behind him. 

“Oh,” his grandfather said. “This isn’t good, is it?”

“Sorry to bother you again,” Gon said, sheepishly. “I really appreciated your help, and your grandpa is my best friend now!”

“Grandson,” Chrollo corrected.

“Grandson!”

In hindsight, Killua was amazed his grandpa didn’t drop the mug. As he shuffled inside, he kept his eyes on Gon and the others. “Come inside and we can talk.”

Gon urged Killua over the threshold first. Killua stumbled into the house as if he hadn’t set foot in it before. Awkwardly, he fumbled with his shoes but ultimately lost concentration at the ever-changing motion of his shoe laces. Gon ducked down to pluck the laces free despite how they writhed and snared his fingers. Soon, Killua was free from their clutches. 

“There,” Gon said, beaming up at him. 

His grandfather was watching them. He set the mug down. “How did… you two meet.”

“We’re roommates,” Gon said. He gestured to his friends, “I killed Killua’s brother, so Hisoka and Chrollo brought him back to life.”

If the mug wasn’t already set down, it would have shattered. “What?”

Hisoka shut the door behind him and, with a flick of his claw, locked it. As Killua observed, he found his grandfather unable to focus on Illumi. In fact, he didn’t seem all that concerned about Chrollo at all. His eyes were alert and flitting between Gon and Hisoka. Can he not see Chrollo’s shadows? he wondered. 

“We’ll be staying here while we fix your grandsons,” Chrollo said. 

“Grand son ,” Gon corrected. “Killua and I will be at Hatsu. He’s my responsibility.”

Hisoka gave a short, cutting laugh. Killua couldn’t hear it, but the sound still vibrated his spine, and that cunning, toothy grin was unavoidable.

Gon’s expression withered with annoyance. “We’re not staying here with you guys.”

“Harassing my family wasn’t a part of our deal,” his grandfather said in as strict a voice as he could muster at two in the morning. “I gave you admittance. I did not give you my grandsons.”

“It wasn’t intentional!” Gon insisted. “He’s like you—Really, he is. He just—Right now he’s just—”

“It’s a bit late for humans,” Chrollo interrupted, patient and calm, if not cold. “We can discuss in the morning. Your grandsons will be fine in the meantime.”

Killua caught his grandfather staring at him. He redirected his eyes to Gon’s back, ashamed. 

“Okay,” his grandfather said at last. “But Killua stays here tonight.”

“We’ll be back in the morning,” Gon promised in a half-whine. 

His grandfather closed his eyes. He was frustrated, Killua knew, because he’d seen that look before whenever Killua had done something wrong. 

His grandfather looked beyond Gon and Killua. Killua followed his gaze to Hisoka, whose tusks shifted as he spoke. He was relaxed, leant back against the door, and appeared to have shrunk in size since entering the house. Killua didn’t bother straining to hear him—and he felt content not knowing anyway. He trusted Gon implicitly that this was for the best.

“Alright,” his grandfather said at last. He pointed a finger at Gon. “ First thing in the morning.”

“Yes! Breakfast here?”

A sigh. “Sure.”

Gon pulled Killua around him to head to the door. Hisoka stepped aside as Gon threw over his shoulder, “I really like pancakes!”

“Don’t push it,” his grandfather said. 

Outside, Killua and Gon donned their shoes and Killua stood still as Gon tied his laces. As they left, Gon said, “If I’d known your grandfather was Zeno, I would have said something. I really didn’t know.”

“That’s okay,” Killua said.

“He’s really nice. I can see why you like him.”

“What did he mean by ‘admittance’?” 

Gon hummed. “Ah, that. When I left Hell, I wanted to go to university. Zeno was the first person I bumped into and he showed me to the enrollment office.”

Killua considered this. There were deeper implications to Gon’s story that Killua didn’t have the bandwidth to foster questions. Besides, he didn’t want to question Gon—Gon knew best, and this was the information Killua needed to be satisfied. 

Gon lifted their hands. Killua still clung to his, but for a brief moment, they separated. “K-Killua! Your hand—”

“Don’t let go,” Killua said, tensing with fear. 

Gon’s expression had torn with something akin to the anguish he’d seen in the forest. It was all Killua could do to keep from crying—Gon told him not to cry, so he wouldn’t. “I’m sorry,” was all he could manage.

“You should have said something sooner,” Gon said, and after a moment’s hesitation, unlaced his fingers from Killua’s. 

His palms were fire-engine red and shining with blisters. Killua still reached for him, but Gon stepped back. 

“I don’t want to hurt you, Killua,” he said. “It’s okay if we don’t hold hands.”

“But I’m scared,” Killua said. “I feel better when you hold me.”

They’d stopped walking to stare at one another. Killua’s shoulders tightened, caving in. He’d never felt so small against anyone other than Illumi, and to top it off, he’d upset Gon again. 

“You’re scared?” Gon repeated, eyes wide. “Just now?”

“When Hisoka showed up.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?!” he cried, only to slap his hands to his face and groan. “I told you not to. Fuck .” 

It felt like Killua’s chest was being ravaged by a wild animal. The tears were surfacing and he couldn’t stop them. “I’m sorry—I’m sorry—” he sobbed, frantic, and was met with golden tears in reply. 

Gon scrubbed his forearm over his eyes, sniffing. “It’s fine. It’s okay, Killua. I’m sorry for upsetting you. You can hold my sleeve, if you want.”

Killua did want. He wanted more than that, but he’d take what Gon could give him. He nodded, and so they continued, tears tracking their cheeks and arms loosely linked by Killua’s blistered fingers pinching Gon’s sleeve. 

At Hatsu, Gon asked about a first aid kit at the front desk and took it with them to their floor. At their room, Gon said, “We should probably shower.”

Killua had forgotten about the blood from Hisoka and Gon’s screaming match. It was smudged into Gon’s skin now and peppered his clothes. 

In their room, there was a full length mirror mounted to the back of the door. Killua saw for himself just how well he’d faired that night—dried red gore scored his complexion and clumped in his hair. He tried to drag a hand through it, and winced. His pain receptors were coming back to him.

“Come here,” Gon said, and directed Killua to his desk chair. He pulled the lamp string beside them and set out the first aid kit. With a deep, pained sigh, Gon murmured to himself, “Shit. This looks painful. I swear my skin isn’t normally this hot.”

“It doesn’t hurt,” Killua lied, grimacing as Gon wiped his palm down with an antiseptic cloth. He gritted his teeth through Gon’s cleaning, and then the numbing salve. 

They took turns in the showers. Killua scrubbed down with his injured hand held high above the stream and inadvertently tore out bits of hair when the substance didn’t give. It was like pulling hair against gum, and no amount of water diluted it. 

Wrapped in a towel and out of the shower, he found Gon brushing his teeth. Killua followed suit, watching Gon out of the corner of his eye. 

Gon spat foam down the drain and ran the tap. “You’re going to be furious with me when you’re back to normal,” he sighed. He didn’t look up from the faucet, even as he tossed his toothbrush into his caddy and leant forward to grip the edges of the sink. 

His antlers were buzzing in and out of focus. Killua was hypnotized by how the mirror reacted to them—like liquid mercury absorbing gold. 

Gon took a deep, calming breath and offered a smile through his reflection. His dimples weren’t in it. “Maybe once the acid wears off you’ll be yourself again?”

“I won’t be furious,” Killua said, “I just want you to like me.”

Gon’s shoulders slumped. “But I already like you.”

Killua blinked, baffled by this news. It hollowed out his innards and left a resonate hum in his system he couldn’t hear over. “You do?” he said. 

“Of course I do,” Gon said. “You’re my best friend.”

Killua didn’t know what to make of the turmoil in his ribcage, like it was caving in. It was a riot he quelled, because he wanted to accept Gon’s offer of friendship. That was what Killua wanted after all, wasn’t it? 

Gon took his and Killua’s caddies and said, “Let’s bandage up your hand.”

Their corridor was silent as they padded back to their room. With no sleeve for Killua to hold on to, he lingered, unmoored, behind Gon as he unlocked their door and stepped in. He ushered Killua inside and shut the door behind them. 

After (mostly) dressing for bed, Killua sat at the desk with Gon straddling the back of his own chair. He watched as Gon leant his chest into the backrest clad in nothing but boxers as he unwound gauze from the roll. Killua put his hand out and a moment later, his palm was mummified. His fingers shook without his say-so, and even after, they trembled. 

“How does it feel?” Gon asked.

Killua couldn’t lie, not with a question like that. “Really bad,” he said. 

Gon let out a pained, choked sound and cleared his throat. His eyes flitted across the first aid supplies before digging through it again. He unearthed everything across Killua’s desk before Killua said, “I have a high pain tolerance. I don’t mind.”

“I just—I feel bad . And I can tell you’re upset with me.”

Killua frowned. “I’m not upset with you. What can I do to convince you?”

Gon sunk his head into his hands, dragging his fingers up through his damp, unruly hair. He folded his arms over the back of the chair and admitted, “I felt it when I told you that you’re my best friend. It’s… fine if you don’t want to be my friend, but—”

“I want to be your friend,” Killua said. 

At this, Gon’s brow sunk with confusion. His eyes flitted between Killua’s and seemed to find his answer there. “Okay. I believe you,” Gon said, “but why does that upset you?”

“I don’t know,” Killua confessed.

Gon rose an eyebrow. “You don’t?” He considered this for a moment, scowling off in the distance. “Maybe it’s because it isn’t authentic yet. Which means you need to sleep and wake up not high , and maybe my temptation will have worn off by then.”

Gon urged Killua to his bed and lowered him down, hands on his shoulders. Killua sunk into the mattress, still lured by the deep concentration on Gon’s face. He wanted to make this easier for Gon, and listening to him was the first step. 

Killua relaxed back in bed. It was nearly too warm for blankets, so he made do with his sheets and pulled them over his shoulders as Gon cleaned up the first aid supplies. He tugged the chain on the lamp, dressed, and left to return the kit to the front desk. 

Killua watched the moonlight pool on his pillow, which curled like a river under his hand. He traced the folds of the fabric as they breathed to life—water trickling down a stream. He let his fingers sink into the pillowcase, dug them in, and hooked his nails into the cushioning. The world still shifted around him as he fell asleep.

In the morning, Killua woke with the distinct sensation that he was missing something. The room was pale and colorless, and after scrubbing at his irritated eyes, found that he’d been crying. Again, perhaps? Or residue from upsetting Gon?

Killua shook his head, squinting in the daylight washing over him.

“You’re awake!” Gon said, and Killua’s heart skipped in his chest. 

A fraction more lucid now, Killua found Gon not as he remembered him, but as he was most familiar: human. Gon’s antlers from the high were gone, and he’d dressed properly since tending to Killua’s wounded hand.

Killua’s hand throbbed . His pulse beat against the seared flesh of his palm and fingers, constricted by the bandages. Delicately, he placed his good hand over the bandages and said, “Hey.”

“How are you feeling?” 

“Disoriented,” Killua confessed. He felt like he’d just stepped foot out of the cinema after having entered during the day, and now it was night. 

Only, it was the other way around. 

He rubbed the heel of his good hand into his eye socket. He broke into a yawn. 

“Do you…” Gon started, hesitating. Killua met his eyes, and the way Gon bit his lip. His shoulders were taut, pulled up around the hood of his sweatshirt. “Do you remember last night?”

He’s nervous , Killua realized, and tried to temper his responses to combat Gon’s nerves. “You wanted pancakes this morning,” he said, and smiled. “Pancakes sound good right now. My grandpa makes pretty good blueberry pancakes.”

Gon’s shoulders slumped. That wasn’t the response he wanted. 

Lucid, Killua had a firmer grasp on his emotions, but the urge to sob, beg, scream, cry, was a shock to his system. He grappled for it, saying, “Gon, really, I’m okay. I’m not angry with you—You were worried I’d be angry with you.”

Gon pulled his knees up, hands to his hair. He scrubbed them viciously over his face and groaned. “It wasn’t the LSD. Fuck .”

“I’m sorry. What do you want me to do?”

“I want you to be you again,” Gon said. He threw his hands down, but his gaze didn’t lift higher than his knees. 

“I—I am me,” Killua insisted. “I don’t understand what you’re—What you’re asking of me .”

Gon got up to pace, fingers pinching his bottom lip. When he returned to Killua, he sat in the desk chair and said, “Do you remember telling me off for not paying for the clothes?” 

Killua blinked. “I shouldn’t have done that. That made you upset.”

“ No —Killua, that’s not the point,” he said, a morbid, strained laugh on his lips. He was crazed, eyes wild. “I like when you do that. I want that Killua back. Can you do that for me?”

Telling Gon off contradicted everything Killua wanted in that moment. The high of listening to Gon, doing what Gon wanted, was too addictive to stop now .

But you would be doing what he wants , Killua thought, and innately understood that this was all Gon wanted. Simple tasks and short-term goals aside, this was Gon’s ultimate ask.

“I can—I can try. I don’t remember how,” Killua confessed. 

Gon let out a relieved breath. His dimples deepened. “That’s okay. Trying is all I ask right now. You can—You can start by trying to remember your principles, okay? And ask me to conform to them. Alright?”

“Principles,” Killua wondered. He’d had those at one point, but they were fleeting and fickle now. 

Gon let him think about it for a moment as he got up to rifle through Killua’s closet. Killua trusted Gon to do the right thing, that was his north star. But what Gon asked suggested Gon didn’t do the right thing always. How was Killua to know the difference?

He scowled at the greyed-out sheets. He was missing something important, and it wasn’t the color of last night—it was right and wrong. And wrong… wasn’t in his vocabulary anymore. 

It took vague shape, like his grandfather at the mention of “ Zeno ”. He was well-acquainted with the concept, at one point, and now he needed to reacquaint himself. With his grandfather, he’d been exposed to his grandfather’s voice and at once remembered him—perhaps the same applied to the concept of “wrong”.

Gon returned with clothes for Killua as he checked his watch and gave a disgruntled squeal. “Ay! It’s almost ten. Hopefully your grandfather won’t be too upset by us being late.”

Killua dressed quickly to avoid that possibility. They were out of the room in five minutes with Killua checking his breath against the palm of his good hand. It would have to do. 

At his grandfather’s house, they found Hisoka and his grandfather sitting out on the back deck smoking. Killua missed the vibrance of the greenery, which was now muted in a washed-out, grey film. 

He did not, however, miss the way Hisoka looked the previous night. That morning, he looked abnormally human—tall and lanky, all limbs and stark red hair. His nimble index and middle fingers were crossed around the cigarette like he was planning to lie.

And that smile—Killua recognized it even without the tusks. He was looking at Killua as he spoke, but he did so quietly. Killua glanced at Gon, who studied them both.

“How are you feeling, Killua?” his grandfather said. 

“Good,” Killua said. 

Hisoka gave a roll of his eyes. 

His grandfather groaned as he pushed to his feet, knees cracking. He tossed his cigarette, smoke still curling from it, in the ash tray. Killua met him partway and followed his grandfather’s eyes to the bandages. “It’s just a burn,” Killua reassured, turning his palm over for his grandfather to see. His hand still shook without his consent.

“Have you taken pain medication for it?”

“No, not yet.”

His grandfather looked to Gon. “I’d like to speak with my grandson alone for a moment, if that’s all right.”

“Oh. Sure,” Gon said. 

Killua stamped down his worries. Gon knew best, even if that meant separating them. They’d gone the whole walk without holding hands, and Gon had brushed Killua’s hand from his sleeve at the start. 

Anxiety curled its talons through his ribcage. It squeezed. 

He hates me , Killua thought. He doesn’t want me around. That’s why he wants me back to normal .

Killua trailed after his grandfather, barely listening. He could hear Gon’s muffled voice bickering with Hisoka outside, though it seemed to be one-sided. He still didn’t want to hear Hisoka’s grating, taunting voice. 

“—llua,” his grandfather was saying. 

Killua blinked back into focus. “Oh. Sorry,” he said. 

His grandfather’s eyes softened with concern. “Has he hurt you at all?” 

“No. This was an accident,” Killua said, raising his hand. “I didn’t want to let go of his hand. He’s upset about it.”

His grandfather didn’t seem convinced, but said, “I see.”

He reached into the medicine cabinet and twisted the top off one. He shook two pills out. “Take these. Should help with the inflammation.”

“Thank you. Gon probably appreciates this,” Killua said. “His skin isn’t normally as hot as it was last night. Neither of us realized.”

“Are you feeling all right? Genuinely. You can tell me.”

Killua nodded, only to hesitate. He shook his head. “Gon asked me to do something today, and I don’t know if I can do it. He seems to trust you, though.”

His grandfather returned the medicine to the cabinet and asked, “What did he ask of you?”

“I think—I think I’m supposed to know what’s right and wrong, and tell him when he’s wrong. But he’s always right,” Killua explained. 

For a moment, he was simply stared at. And then laughed at. 

“It isn’t funny,” Killua said, frustrated.

“He isn’t always right, Killua.” This aggravated Killua, which earned him a pitying sigh. Killua’s blood boiled, and if he could clench his fist, he would have. “I can see he’s trying. You were probably a good influence to him before last night, I take it.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

His grandfather held a hand out, and then the other, and Killua begrudgingly accepted the invitation. He leant into his grandfather’s hold, though he was a head taller. He tucked his chin against his grandfather’s wispy white hair. 

“If you ever have to convince yourself he’s right, he might be wrong,” his grandfather said. Killua’s grip tightened. “You have a conscience. Use it .”

Killua wasn’t convinced, but Gon trusted Killua’s grandfather. Killua knew his grandfather well, and couldn’t ignore the comfort he found in his grandfather’s hug. This was someone he could trust, too. 

He gave his grandfather one last squeeze before pulling away. “Okay,” he said, his resolve made confident by Gon’s implicit approval. “I’ll try my best.”

Chapter Text

Illumi was sick in the bathroom when Killua visited him at a distance. With Gon beside him, Killua didn’t have much interest in seeing Illumi. He just wanted to go back to eating pancakes.

Illumi coughed over the lip of a bucket full of damp, greenish-black muck. It reminded Killua of the time one of Illumi’s friends had alcohol poisoning and had their stomach pumped. 

As he slumped back in the tub, one knee sloping to the side and the other thrown over the edge. There was something vacant in his red-tinged eyes that barely registered them. 

“He can’t recognize you,” Chrollo said. “He’s probably hallucinating from the fever.”

“Fever?” Killua repeated. 

Chrollo’s sleeves were rolled up. He looked like an average human now, albeit an exhausted, more emo version of Steve Jobs. Killua noted that the backs of his palms were blacked out more than Gon’s smudged tattoos, each ring darker than the last. 

He walked past them to deliver a fresh empty bucket and took the one from Illumi’s limp arms. He raised it. Killua tried not to breathe. “Good fertilizer for the garden,” he said, and left them to dump Illumi’s earthy innards in the compost. 

“It’s September and I already have new tomato plants from the waste,” his grandfather said from the top of the stairs. He stepped aside so Chrollo could pass before approaching the bathroom. He addressed Gon as he said, “Your friend has him starting a strict diet today to purge the rest.”

Gon shrugged. “I don’t really care,” he said. “Illumi made Killua upset.”

His grandfather looked to him then, and Killua couldn’t deny it. He had been upset when Gon helped him last night. Help was often good, wasn’t it?

“Alright…” his grandfather said, and shut the bathroom door. He looked to Gon, “Killua informed me that you’re trying to restore his conscience.”

Gon blinked. “Yes. He lost it last night,” he said, like it was a wallet. “I like when he tells me I’m wrong. I think it’s very useful for adapting to human society.”

His grandfather rubbed at his beard in the way Killua recognized as barefaced, amazed, bewilderment. Gon had just said something absurd, Killua knew then, because it was often what his grandfather did in reaction to his other brother. Not Illumi. Killua could only remember the face—round and soft like putty. 

“I think you’re approaching this wrong,” his grandfather said. “A conscience has three elements: what one ought to do; self-approval when we do it; and regret when we don’t. I take it you’ve broken the latter two, correct?”

Gon considered this, and Killua’s grandfather allowed him to think in silence as they walked. The french doors at the end of the hall opened to a room Killua loved—the library. It contained a conglomeration of mismatched shelves and bookcases packed with stacks of books, manuals, pamphlets. 

His grandfather propped open the bay window overlooking the backyard. Only then did Gon make his decision.

“I think you’re right. But what does that got to do with Killua not recognizing right and wrong if he knows what he should do?” Gon asked.

“The things you’ve done since bringing Killua to me don’t appeal to logic . If we’re starting from the basics, you should be testing him on something that doesn’t appeal to feelings and emotion but on fact ,” he said. He lowered himself onto the bay window bench with a sigh and patted the seat beside him. “Killua, observe us for a moment, if you will.”

Killua studied the plaid cushioning before looking to Gon. Gon nodded, so Killua agreed to sit beside his grandfather and simply watch.

“Gon, fetch the chess table for us,” his grandfather said. “You’ll be playing me. I’d like to test a theory.”

“Oh—I’ve never played,” Gon said.

“All the better for it. Now, please.”

Gon lifted the chess table by its marble top and carried it with ease. He settled it in front of Killua and his grandfather and joined the arrangement with a chair of his own. He sat on it backwards, arms hooked over the backrest. His grandfather began a simple explanation, and wrote a cheatsheet as he went for Gon to identify the pieces. 

Killua recognized the pieces well and how they weighed in his hands. Countless hours were spent at this game, and he knew from the gnawing frustration at the back of his head that he still hadn’t beaten his grandfather at a match.

“Okay. Now, you begin,” his grandfather said. “Killua will be our referee. I won’t question your moves.”

“Does… Does Killua know how to play?” Gon asked, first to his grandfather, and then looked to Killua for an answer.

“Yes,” Killua said. 

Gon watched him a moment, hands hovering over the row of pawns. Killua’s eyes flitted from Gon’s outstretched fingers to Gon’s face. Gon wasn’t even looking at the game when a smile split across his face. 

Killua melted with relief at the sight of Gon’s dimples. A small smile pulled at his own lips. 

“I see what you mean,” Gon said at last to his grandfather, and made his first move. He moved the pawn a space ahead and checked Killua’s expression.

Killua stared at the board and, after a few seconds, his grandfather moved a pawn two spaces ahead. Gon tried the same with his initial pawn. There was only a second before his grandfather made another move—like the infraction wasn’t registered. 

Killua held his breath, frustration roiling in his gut. His grandfather was a stickler for following chess rules, and yet he kept playing around Gon’s bad moves. A rook— a rook! —moving diagonal! There was a cheatsheet as well—perhaps his grandfather had written it wrong, because Killua knew Gon could read. He wasn’t blind. 

Gon was grinning, making a mess of the board and of his grandfather’s pieces. Each white piece he took was unlawful, but his grandfather’s head remained cool, like nothing was amiss. Killua’s fists clenched over his thighs, clawing into his jeans. 

His grandfather took one of Gon’s black pieces successfully, and Gon let out a groan of complaint. 

Killua’s concerns vanished in an instant. His fists relaxed. Of course he wanted Gon to win—did it really matter how?

There came an extended pause after Gon’s last move—another illegal play. Killua glanced at his grandfather, who nursed the side of his jaw like he had a tooth ache. He reached for his mug of tea and took a sip.

“Interesting,” he said at last, and did the foulest thing Killua had ever witnessed.

He moved a knight three spaces ahead and to the left and took a pawn from Gon.

“That doesn’t work,” Killua said, affronted. It was one thing to take Gon’s pieces legally, but another to do so illegally . When his grandfather ignored him, Killua bristled. “You did that intentionally. Of course I know how to play, you don’t need to test me.”

“Why did you wait until I made a mistake to say something?” 

“It wasn’t a mistake. You meant to do that to frustrate me,” Killua said, irritation building at the back of his throat. He swallowed against it, pained by their questioning of him. 

Because now Gon was watching the both of them, eyes wide and wild. 

“Gon has made a number of errors, but you haven’t corrected him,” his grandfather said.

“He hasn’t done it on purpose or maliciously like you have—”

“But he said he wanted you to tell him when he’s wrong, and you aren’t complying,” his grandfather said. “You knew he has been playing wrong. He’ll learn how to play better if you tell him how.”

He hadn’t stopped speaking and Killua’s throat was already tied in knots. He’d confided in his grandfather hoping for help, but instead he was now being exposed in front of Gon as a terrible friend. Now Gon knew he couldn’t do what was asked of him. 

His grandfather combed a hand over the back of Killua’s head. Killua nudged his arm away and said, “Stop it.”

“Is something the matter?” Gon said as Killua shuffled away from his grandfather. 

He pushed to his feet and said, “I don’t want to watch anymore. Please don’t make me.”

“Killua, it’s okay—” Gon started, only to halt at the sight of Killua’s tears resurfacing. 

Killua scrubbed at his face as Gon pushed out of his chair and reached for him. Killua shuddered against Gon’s warm hands on his shoulders, rubbing down his arms in comfort. Embarrassment swelled hot and angry to Killua’s face as Gon’s hands massaged feeling back into the static overtaking his skin. 

“I-I know you didn’t mean to—” Killua started, gasping for air. He took a second to breathe. “You weren’t playing wrong on p-purpose, so I thought—Maybe it was okay—”

“Games have clearly-defined rules,” his grandfather said.

Killua was too furious with him to listen. He stepped away from Gon with a roll of his eyes as his grandfather went on.

“Life’s rules aren’t as clear. If you’re able to express how a game ought to be played with Gon, then we can build your self-approval for expressing yourself.”

Killua shoved his hands over his ears, facing away. He didn’t want to leave Gon alone with his grandfather in that moment, and couldn’t help but stand and listen to his grandfather’s muffled explanation to Gon: “Right now, he doesn’t have the palette for self-approval, and without the dopamine of self-approval, he won’t feel the regret of not experiencing it.”

Gon’s hand rubbed smoothing across Killua’s shoulders. His fingers warmed the nape of Killua’s neck. After a lapse of silence, Killua lowered his hands and Gon said, “Could we… imitate the dopamine response? Or boost it?”

Killua glanced at Gon, and beyond him, found his grandfather still at the windowsill watching them. His hands clasped around his mug. “No. I wouldn’t advise that,” he said. “What were you considering? Treats, like training a dog?”

“Maybe. Or I was thinking cocaine…”

“Absolutely not.”

“Okay, I definitely was not thinking cocaine. He does like holding my hand, though.”

To demonstrate, Gon reached for Killua’s good hand. At once, Killua’s heart raced. 

They hadn’t held hands the entire day, and the distance pained him in ways he couldn’t express because best friends didn’t hold hands like this . Gon had been using Killua’s injured hand as an excuse, but Killua still had a perfectly good, uninjured hand at the ready.

And now Gon was holding it. 

He beamed. Perhaps his concerns about Gon slipping away were unwarranted.

“I… suppose a reward makes sense,” his grandfather said. 

Gon faced Killua, his eyes bright and his confidence a security blanket Killua couldn’t resist. “What do you say? You can watch another match of ours, and you’ll get to hold my hand whenever I do something wrong.”

Killua blinked. Vaguely, it felt like a trick, and as he spiraled deeper into it, Gon slipped his hand out of Killua’s. 

Killua’s heart stopped. “Okay,” he said, quickly, “Okay, I’ll try again. Please.”

So Killua joined them at the chess table again. He brought his own chair with him to avoid sitting beside his grandfather. His grandfather accepted the distance with a glance of acknowledgement as he rearranged the board for the next match. 

This time, when Gon played his first pawn and the two of them waited for Killua’s call, he writhed against his own desperation to hold Gon’s hand. Technically the play wasn’t wrong… but it could have been done better. 

His grandfather went, and Gon played the same exact move—the initial pawn went two spaces again. 

Killua reached for Gon’s free hand where it rested beside the board nearest Killua. He hesitated as Gon’s eyes settled on it, and then on him as Killua’s fingers grazed over his knuckles. They waited several long moments in silence as Gon drew his pawn back.

“It’s a start,” his grandfather determined, and urged Gon to try again.

Killua released Gon’s hand until his next infraction—misusing the rook again. When Gon asked what he should do instead, Killua pointed to the bishop with his bandaged hand. “This one goes diagonal. The rook goes straight.” 

Gon squeezed his good hand. As Gon redid his play, he murmured under his breath, “You’re both so smart. I don’t know how you keep this all straight.”

Killua retracted his hand, anticipation rising for Gon’s next illegal move.

By the third game, Gon’s illegal moves were fewer and farther between and, Killua realized, were becoming intentional repeats. Those were Killua’s favorites, because it meant he knew the consequences would be to hold Killua’s hand, and yet he risked them anyway. Overanalyzing it , Killua thought to himself as he released Gon’s hand after reminding him of the king’s limits. 

Around then, Hisoka wandered in, shaking a cigarette out of a box. His hair nearly brushed the doorframe, and he looked sharper than before in clothes Killua didn’t recognize. That morning on the deck, Hisoka had been wearing one of his grandfather’s robes. 

His jeans were cuffed and one leg was swathed with pinstripes like a bowling jersey. His shirt was bright pink and appeared to have been embroidered with flowers by a toddler. 

Gon gasped at him. “Where did you get those?!”

Disinterest was plain on Hisoka’s face. He said something unintelligible to Killua, but Gon responded with a simple, “The colors suit you!” as Hisoka closed his lips around the cigarette.

Another cig was produced and stuck between Killua’s lips without warning. He startled and reached up to take it. He used to smoke with his parents as a kid, but then his mother quit. He only ever smoked at his grandfather’s house now, or if other kids offered at the boarding school.

An imposing shadow edged over Killua. He turned and found himself cheek-to-cheek with Hisoka leaning over him with the ember at the tip of his cigarette breathing bright red.

“I don’t think he can hear you,” his grandfather said. Killua was too focused on Hisoka’s proximity to look anywhere else, even as Hisoka’s sharp eyes flitted away from Killua to his grandfather. 

With his unsteady, bandaged hand, Killua held his cigarette end to Hisoka’s. Smoke curled a moment later as his grandfather asked, “Did you ask Killua to do something regarding Hisoka?”

Gon hummed. “Not that I recall…”

Hisoka relaxed back on his heels to lean a hand on the back of Gon’s chair. Uneasy, Killua watched his lips move, and the way Gon ignored him in favor of staring at Killua. 

The sun was scalding now. Sweat had started to collect on Killua’s chest and back. “Did I do something wrong?” Killua asked. 

“You can hear Hisoka, right?” Gon asked.

“Of course he can. Your pet is just acting dense,” Hisoka said. His voice was less sinister than Killua remembered and more… sensual . The ominous clicking was gone and replaced with a light drawl, like he couldn’t be bothered to separate his words.

Killua blinked. “You sound different.”

A single, slim, sharp brow peaked. “Oh?” Hisoka said, and then returned his attention to Gon and the game. “You beat Grandpa yet?”

“Chess is hard,” Gon said, and then with a fond smile, added: “Killua’s teaching me.” 

Killua smiled back, only for it to turn to a scowl when he met Hisoka’s scathing eyes.

“Open the other windows for us if you plan on smoking in here,” his grandfather said.

Hisoka rolled his eyes but complied. As he was in the midst of cranking out the front window, he called over to Gon, “Meruem’s worried about you.”

“Then he should pay us a visit!” Gon said.

Hisoka laughed, and then cast a dead look over his shoulder. “Oh. You’re serious.”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

Hisoka crossed the room, smoke threading the air behind him. “Well I think that’s an excellent idea,” he said, but was overlapped by the bathroom door opening down the hall and Chrollo shouting, “ No it wouldn’t be ,” over the ruckus of Illumi vomiting.

“He might know something we don’t about getting Killua back to normal,” Gon said.

“Or Illumi,” his grandfather said. 

“No, Chrollo has that covered,” Gon said. 

Killua watched his grandfather stare blankly at Hisoka for support, but Hisoka merely took a drag of his cigarette and blew it out the window. Gon reached for Killua’s cigarette where it lingered near his mouth, but never quite on it. He plucked it from Killua’s fingers and inhaled around the filter. He returned it to Killua’s gauze-wrapped fingers.

His grandfather sighed, stood, and went searching through his library. “Meruem has some significance to you all. Does he have a title?” 

“That would be prince,” Hisoka said. He reclined back where his grandfather once sat and, propped on one elbow, reached out with his free hand. The cigarette was laced between two crossed fingers, but his thumb and ring finger made do to checkmate Gon. “Check.”

Gon gasped. “You know how to play?!”

Killua followed the sound of pages shuffling. His grandfather was rifling through a translated copy of the Bible, brow furrowed. Killua loathed to read the Latin and understand it on the spine, so he turned away. 

Hisoka said, “You’d be surprised by what I know how to play. I could teach games you humans couldn’t even dream of.”

“Killua wouldn’t like those games,” Gon decided through a smokey sigh. He’d taken Killua’s cigarette again and this time, kept it. He spoke around it as he moved his queen out of the range of Hisoka’s knight.

His grandfather set aside the Bible—he’d swapped latin for Hebrew now—and marked the page. When he opened the lexicon, flipping voraciously, Hisoka emitted a long and luxurious sigh, smoke spilling from his lips. “Ah… no, that wouldn’t be his Hebrew name. That would be Mammon .”

“Prince of Greed?” Killua said.

“You know him?” Gon said.

“Not personally,” he said, plainly, which earned him an amused huff from Hisoka. “The Seven Princes of Hell. Lucifer, Satan, Beelzebub, Asmodeus, Leviathan, Belphegor, and—”

“Mammon,” his grandfather said. “The princes are primarily thought to be personifications of sin, not… literal Princes. Asmodeus, for instance, isn’t apocryphal, and mammon isn’t often interpreted as a being .”

“One: I resent to hear that about Asmodeus. I’m sure he isn’t pleased,” Hisoka said, ticking it off on his fingers, “and two: that’s why he prefers ‘Meruem’ these days. It’s tricky being labeled as the noun you serve.

“And three—” Hisoka’s eyes steadied enough to linger on the both of them—Killua first, and then his grandfather. “—Meruem doesn’t take kindly to his toys being kept from him. And by that I mean Gon.”

“That’s why I’m saying he should pay us a visit,” Gon said.

“That sounds like a terrible idea,” his grandfather said, going green in the face. 

By now, Chrollo had arrived to speak reason. He came with a towel, drying his hands as he walked. He waved it in his grandfather’s direction and said, “I concur with Zeno. If you want to cure your pet, Meruem’s influence won’t help with that. Though, he has better control than you do.”

“Does not!”

“Does to.”

His grandfather shut the lexicon, pinched his brow, and sighed.

Killua touched the back of Gon’s hand. He’d exposed his queen but didn’t understand it until Killua gestured with his bandaged finger the position Hisoka would surely take. 

“Oh. Thank you, Killua,” Gon said with a cheeky laugh, resetting the queen and defending her with his bishop. “Your turn, Hisoka.”

“Smart. But not smart enough,” Hisoka said, raising up to take Gon’s bishop and say, “Check.”

Gon threw his head back with a cry of defeat. He returned, determined, and studied the board. After a long minute of silence, Chrollo had joined them to watch, and his grandfather continued rifling through his religious section for further research on mammon .

Though Gon hadn’t made a mistake, Killua would be sore to let Hisoka win. There was a chance, and he wanted Gon to take it. He hovered over Gon’s hand as Gon acknowledged him with intrigue. 

He pointed to Gon’s remaining players—most of his pawns were gone, but Killua explained, “Move your queen here and on your next play, place a pawn here as a decoy. We’ll force Hisoka to move his king then and you can take him.”

“Foul,” Hisoka said through a grin. “Go on then. Do what your master tells you, dog.”

Gon stuck his tongue out at Hisoka before following Killua’s instructions. Hisoka countered their future attack by moving his king prematurely—a ballsy move, but one that exposed a new tactic. Killua hadn’t bothered retracting his hand as he stopped Gon from continuing. “No, the decoy won’t work now. Play here.”

“Of course,” his grandfather observed from a distance. “Though I wonder where his competitive streak was when I was playing you.”

“It’s because he’s scared of me,” Hisoka replied. “Playing offense won’t change that, little human.”

Killua festered in his rage. He didn’t want Gon to lose, and yet there they were, skipping into traps! Hisoka took Gon’s bishop with a sly sweep of his hand and a curl of smoke. 

Gon groaned, scratching at his wild hair. 

“You’re doing well,” Chrollo reasoned, to which Gon said, “Not well enough to keep my bishop, apparently.”

“Queen to D7,” Killua, pointing to the tile, said. He was writhing with discomfort at being chased by Hisoka across the board until, at last, Gon’s queen was in check again.

Hisoka moved his queen just a tile closer. F5 .

Killua glowered at him. “Be serious.”

“Oh, I am serious,” Hisoka said.

“What does that mean?” Gon said, looking to Killua.

Hisoka’s eyes were level with his, his head tipped against his raised shoulder. The acrid smell of nicotine on Killua’s unblinking eyes dried them out. He blinked away the unintentional tears as he studied Hisoka’s board again. His hands curled into fists despite the bite of agony in his injured hand.

“Ah,” Chrollo said. “It won’t help to pacify him.”

“Help what?” Gon said.

“If you lose to me,” Hisoka drawled, pulling one knee up, “your pet will have a meltdown. It would help if you could read him as well as he reads you. Checkmate me.”

Killua tensed with rage . He should be better at chess than this. His grandfather had left Hisoka in an optimal position to win, but still, Killua should have been able to lose honorably. He’d done it before— hundreds of times to his grandfather. 

At last, Gon picked up his queen by the crown and swept her across the board. He took Hisoka’s queen with a simple, “Checkmate. We win.”

Chapter Text

They restricted training to just chess and more menial boardgames like cards. Hisoka wasn’t interested in chess as he was gambling, and it was Killua’s fatal flaw to always compete against him with the objective never to lose . It certainly didn’t help that Hisoka kept letting him win under the guise of being bored. It haunted Killua throughout the afternoon and evening and Grandfather’s house.

Hisoka didn’t view Killua as a worthy opponent. In fact, Killua suspected he thought Gon was a better opponent than Killua was, and Gon wasn’t even good at gambling. 

“You won’t help him get better by throwing every match,” Killua retaliated at last, throwing his cards down in frustration. 

Chrollo spared a glance up from his book. He and Killua’s grandfather were at the reading chairs reading City of God and other texts on moral determinism. He only ever moved at the distant sound of Illumi throwing up, or to prepare a fresh cocktail for Illumi to drink. 

“Clearly, my aim is not to help him win. Though I do think he’s getting the hang of it,” Hisoka said. It was true. Gon knew all the pieces by name and value, and had started to guard his main players well. This awareness put him on the defensive, though.

“Thank you, Hisoka. I’m touched,” Gon said, and then with added venom and vigor: “I’ll play until you actually defeat me!”

Killua stared at them both in mild horror. He withered under the pressure a little, because what would it take for Hisoka to take a game seriously? 

“Go fish,” Hisoka said in a seductive drawl. 

Gon cried out in anguish and took a card from the pile. 

Hisoka tiptoed around winning until at last relinquishing the suit Gon wanted, and they won. Killua suspected he’d had it all along. 

Gon wanted to lose authentically, and Killua was determined to make that happen—

And then Hisoka stood up. “I’m going out,” he announced, and tossed his cards down on the chess board they’d repurposed for cards. The sun was setting and the room was cast in a golden hue that turned Hisoka’s pink shirt orange. He reached up, stretched, and side-stepped Killua’s chair. 

“Is that really such a good idea?” his grandfather said, and gave a droll stare when Hisoka approached the back of his chair to lay a kiss on his hair. “I’d appreciate if you didn’t do that.”

Hisoka gave his cheek a pat, and then moved on to Chrollo. He leaned over the backrest, hands on the armrests beside Chrollo’s elbows, and squinted at the pages. “Aw, you’re doing research for our dear Gon. How precious.”

“Don’t tempt anyone to commit heinous crimes that end up in the Sunday paper,” Chrollo chided, absently, as he flipped the page. His face scrunched when Hisoka kissed his head and patted his cheek in passing. 

Killua breathed a sigh of relief when Hisoka merely waved to them, but Gon was furious. “Get back here and win like you mean it!”

“Bye bye,” Hisoka sang out the door and out of view.

“Do you really think he’ll be in the paper tomorrow?” Killua asked, turning to Chrollo.

“It’s possible. He doesn’t enjoy the attention, but he doesn’t avoid it,” he replied. He looked up from the page and viewed Killua with renewed interest. “Is it the fact that you’re lucid now that you’re speaking with me?”  

“I found that peculiar as well,” his grandfather said, closing his book. “How are you feeling?”

“Fine, I guess,” Killua said. He’d feel better if Hisoka came back here so Killua could hold Gon’s hand while they played. He glanced at Gon—for what, he wasn’t sure, but he found encouragement there in Gon’s hopeful smile. “Was I… not speaking to Chrollo before?”

“Not really,” Gon admitted with a guilty smile.

“This is good. He’s able to start his own conversations,” his grandfather said. 

“He doesn’t seem interested in temptation from myself or Hisoka as well,” Chrollo said, addressing his grandfather. “We have better control over temptation than Gon, but Hisoka has been trying to manipulate Killua all day. He’s resistant to it.”

“He has?!” Gon cried in abject horror, lurching to his feet. He clenched his fist in the air with a sneer. “I’m gonna punch him.”

“Gon, don’t do that, Killua never even registered it,” Chrollo said, and then to his grandfather, “Gon is less than two decades old. He’s considered an infant by our standards—hence why the Prince is so concerned and why Hisoka insisted on babysitting him.”

“I don’t need babysitting,” Gon complained, flopping on the windowsill bench and spinning so his legs were up on the glass. He tipped his head back and met Killua’s eyes where Killua was still sitting at the chess table. “Never mind. I think what Killua was doing before could be classified as babysitting.”

Chrollo’s voice faded into the background again as Killua studied Gon’s face. His expression had hardened to impassiveness, though his brow was tight, eyes on his fingers where he picked at a hangnail. His lashes were long and soft against the nearly-imperceptible shadows under his eyes. Even sleepless, Gon looked flawless. 

Killua held his hands together to stop himself from touching Gon’s hair. Gon was answering something Chrollo had asked. His grandfather responded. Killua was lost, and suddenly everyone was standing. 

“Where are we going,” Killua asked, startled as he followed Gon.

“Dinner,” he said. “Grandpa Zeno recommended I help and you watch.”

“Cooking?” Killua wasn’t sure what his proficiency was in cooking, but it certainly wasn’t enough to teach Gon. 

In the kitchen while Grandpa and Gon took out ingredients, Chrollo mixed a fresh drink for Illumi. Killua watched, appalled, as chalky, black paste oozed out of the blender and into a cup. He topped it with a straw and paused. Killua met his eyes with his face screwed up in disgust. 

Making dinner went about as well as could be expected. Though Killua knew Gon wasn’t likely to know how to cook, he didn’t realize just how bad he would be with a knife and a cutting board—the cutting board part was a step he missed and one his grandfather interrupted, saying, “Killua.”

Killua lifted a hand above where Gon’s knife hovered over the tomato. Gon paused and said, “Maybe… while I have a knife, stand next to me and grab my sleeve instead.”

Killua did just that, which ended about as well as Chrollo expected—with Gon flustering under Killua’s undivided attention and the temptation of a knife between them. 

Chrollo watched, bored, from the dining room table as Gon said, “Do I hold it like this?” and Killua said, “Your elbow doesn’t have to be out like this.” Chrollo knew the blade was a shiny object in Gon’s possession—he knew this from experience, but that thrill was evenly tempered by Killua reaching around Gon to pull his elbow in loosening Gon’s grip to less of a strangling fist. 

“Hold it closer to the blade with your thumb here,” Killua said, and followed up with a smooth sawing gesture that Gon followed. 

Pompous snake , Chrollo thought, of course Gon already knows how to use a knife . 

Gon’s grin went unnoticed by Killua, though, who moved away to stand out of range of the board. Killua’s eyes were softened by his attentiveness and proximity to Gon—it was clear to Chrollo that, the brief moments he saw them apart, Killua was tense with yielding anxiety. Now, however, Killua was relaxing into the role of Gon’s human teacher. 

I suppose it helps that he appears to sincerely like Gon , Chrollo said. He wouldn’t define Killua’s behavior as love , but there was certainly potential for more. Love was too pure a temptation for Gon to be capable of instilling. Obsession, attraction, possession—those were all a possibility. Love wasn’t in the cards for demons like them. 

But Gon’s reaction to Killua was telling. Meruem wouldn’t be pleased to see Gon blushing like a school girl when Killua demonstrated how to cut an eggplant. 

Hisoka was back by the time dinner was served, this time carrying a satchel, wearing heart-shaped sunglasses, and carrying a canvas bookstore bag from the university. Chrollo observed the memorabilia with morbid interest. “Hisoka, you didn’t,” he said. 

Gon looked up from where he was setting the table. Hisoka nudged his glasses up into his untamed hair, face splitting into a shit-eating grin. “The things I’ve discovered,” Hisoka said. He pointed a manicured finger at Zeno and said, “ You’re the reason Gon’s studying philosophy.”

“H-Hisoka!” Gon shrieked, mortified. “You went to the enrollment office, didn’t you?”

To his credit, Zeno didn’t pause in the process of setting the casserole on the porcelain stand at the middle of the table. “Gon is my student, yes,” he said. 

Chrollo glanced at Killua, who’s eyebrows rose a fraction. He didn’t know , Chrollo determined. He opened his mouth to speak, but Gon was already fuming.

“You didn’t enroll, did you?” Gon said.

Hisoka shrugged. “So what if I did? Does that upset you?”

Flabbergasted, Gon sputtered and seethed. At last, he managed to articulate, “But school is my thing! At least major in something else!”

“But then we wouldn’t be sharing classes.”

“I don’t want you in my classes!”

“Fine, I’ll just major in whatever Killua’s majoring in.”

“ No! That’s even worse! ” Gon flung his arms up over his head and groaned miserably. “ Fine . You can be in my classes I guess.”

Hisoka beamed, pleased, and joined Chrollo at the table. He turned his grin to Chrollo and asked, “How’s your experiment going?”

Chrollo sighed, flipping the page in his book. “Fine, no thanks to you,”

He felt Hisoka shift with a dramatic, condescending eye-roll. “I apologized for the temperature imbalance. How long are you going to hold this grudge?”

“Until the month is over,” he said. It wasn’t that Chrollo hated Earth, but it was that he hated humans. And now he was playing nurse to a human on behalf of Gon’s mistake that he wasn’t the least bit sorry for. Like he was the mother of two children who couldn’t be bothered to do the goddamn dishes. 

It was a pity, really. He could be curating his favorite rooms at Meruem’s place instead, or if he had to be on Earth, at art auctions. This was the era of Andy Warhol and Eric Fischl—he could be stealing first editions for their more modern collections. 

Instead, he was stuck reading philosophy books from the 80s on free will and human conscience .

“Are you even interested in philosophy?” Gon complained, slumped in his chair and looking sick with annoyance.

“Oh, plenty.”

“I’ll have my TA add you to the attendance sheet and drop off the syllabus tomorrow,” Zeno said and put out his hands to either side. Killua instinctively took it while Gon, Hisoka, and Chrollo went on staring blankly. “Now let’s pray.”

With an uncomfortable and awkward eye-roll, Hisoka took his hand and held one out to Chrollo. When Chrollo did nothing, Hisoka elbowed him hard enough for the entire chair to budge. Chrollo took it. Gon and Chrollo did not join hands as his grandfather prayed over the meal for them all.

Killua hadn’t considered how soon classes were coming up. Tomorrow was Sunday, and the following day Killua would be back in lecture— without Gon . Maybe he could switch majors, but something told him both Gon and his grandfather wouldn’t take kindly to that. Illumi had gotten upset with him over majoring in English, and that was enough motivation for him to stay put right where he was. 

Fuck what everyone else thought about it. 

That night, Killua and Gon left with the promise of returning in the morning for another day of chess and cards. During the walk, Gon kept his hands to his pockets, which left Killua to debate holding onto his sleeve again. 

Saturday night turned the streets into colorful party attire and college paraphernalia from a sports game across campus. Killua saw the light shine in Gon’s eyes at every front yard party they passed. The people kept their distance this time around. Gon’s tattoos were covered. 

“Do you want to go to one of the parties?” Killua asked as Gon’s eyes trailed after a group of upperclassmen heading in the opposite direction. They all canvased Gon with their eyes and whispered to one another once they were out of range. 

“Yeah,” Gon admitted. “Do you?”

Killua was indifferent until Gon had said yes . “Sure,” he said. “It could be fun.”

“Just for one drink,” Gon said, and his hand left his pocket to pull Killua along by the wrist, following after the upperclassmen group. 

They followed the upperclassmen to a frat two doors down from the one they’d taken LSD in the previous night. Killua’s nose chased after the barbecue out front, but Gon was drawn to the scene inside, and so Killua didn’t linger. 

The lights were off aside from neon string lights surrounding the room and a ceiling full of glow-in-the-dark stars. The atrium just inside the foyer was doused in black lights that turned the checkin sheet bright purple. After being waved in without question, Gon turned to Killua and ruffled Killua’s hair.

“You’re glowing!” he said, laughing. 

Killua grinned. “It’s from the black lights. See?” He pointed up to the chandelier where cords roped like spider legs to the walls. 

“But your hair—”

“It’s white. Anything white,” Killua said, pointing to Gon’s shirt and Killua’s sneakers. His sneakers were too dirty to be vibrant. “Well, mostly white things.”

Gon gave Killua’s hair one last ruffle, and then his cheeks a squeeze. “ That’s so cool! ” he shouted over the music. Killua couldn’t help but laugh as Gon took his good hand and pulled him along up the stairs. Gon kept glancing over his shoulder at the lights and at Killua, the people around them, and the lights again until they were out of view. 

Gon all but sniffed out the bar—Killua swore he must have had a sixth sense, because it took then less than a minute to find it without asking strangers questions. Gon sidled up to the makeshift bar, folded his arms over the ledge, and asked the bartender to make his favorite drink—he didn’t specify, but seemed pleased by the result.

He passed it off to Killua after one sip and let out a scream Killua had never heard before. He startled and nearly dropped the cup. 

“Wh-What are you doing?! ” Gon cried at someone over Killua’s shoulder.

Killua dreaded to look, but curiosity got the better of him. There, standing no more than five inches from Killua’s flesh and blood, stood Hisoka. 

Killua bumped into Gon’s chest with a curse. 

“Chrollo was right—Saturday nights are too much of a temptation for you,” Hisoka chided with a wag of his finger that threw Killua approximately twenty-four hours back to the forest with Illumi’s dead body between them. Instead, he stole the cup from Killua and set it aside, snapping a finger at Gon. “You two. Outside. Now .”

Gon all but kicked and screamed, begging to be back at the bar where his favorite drink (substance unknown) was waiting for him. Hisoka ignored him in favor of dragging Gon out by the front of his hoodie at the discretion of literally every person in the party staring at them . Try as he might to keep covered, Gon’s tattoos were being flashed left and right, and Killua bristled at the vibrant attention they received. That sinister sensation was crawling along the back of his neck, at which point he didn’t mind fleeing as much as he minded Hisoka’s interference.

Out on the porch, Hisoka flung Gon away from the door and into the nearest bench. The metal grated on the concrete platform against Gon’s weight, which was shoved back down the moment Gon tried to flee. 

“You want to fix your pet?” Hisoka seethed, a hand to Gon’s chest keeping him down.

Gon glowered up at him, teeth grating. 

“ Do you? ”

“ Yes , of course I do—”

“Because he can’t say no to you right now. Don’t tempt him unnecessarily,” he said, emphasizing his words with a harsh shove. Everyone on the porch was staring, and Killua quite liked the idea of leaving. Instead, he stood and watched from a distance as Hisoka stood to his full height, sighed, and fixed his hair.

Gon pushed against the bench to rise. Hisoka’s foot came up, one heeled boot slamming into the wood between Gon’s legs. Gon slowly settled back down. 

“Two things,” Hisoka said, brandishing a single red-tipped finger. “One: No parties; Two: No sex.”

Gon went red. It took a long few seconds for Gon to say anything. “Wh-Wha—That—I don’t even—”

Hisoka put his two extended fingers together and shushed Gon with them. “And three: Don’t argue with me. I’m not in the mood.”

“A-Alright, fine! No parties and no— whatever .”

“Good.” Hisoka released his heel from the bench. It left behind a chipped dent that Gon observed with mild terror before lurching to his feet. 

Hisoka didn’t pay Killua any mind as he strode past and wandered back down the stoop. Killua stared after him before turned just as Gon grabbed him by the arm to chase after Hisoka. “You followed us?! ”

“Of course not. I just followed your trail of sin ,” Hisoka teased without looking back. He crossed the lawn in the direction of Killua’s grandpa’s house. 

Gon balled his free hand up into a fist and shouted after him, “ Stay out of my life! ”

Hisoka raised a calm and cool middle finger over his shoulder. 

Gon stuck his tongue out and huffed. When he spoke again, his tone had changed completely back to normal. “Oh well. I guess we can’t party.”

“Do you always listen to Hisoka?” Killua asked. 

“Mm… Yeah, kind of. It gets ugly if I don’t,” he admitted, and led the way.

Killua’s chest warmed when Gon still held his hand even after they’d crossed the street. It wasn’t until Killua impulsively squeezed Gon’s hand that Gon let go and awkwardly ran his fingers through his hair. In the intermittent street lamps, Killua saw that the back of his neck was red. 

“I’m… sorry if Hisoka made you uncomfortable…” Gon said. “I don’t know why he said… that.”

“About the party?”

“No, the, um, the other thing.”

To his great horror, Killua’s face betrayed him. He looked away, ashamed. He’d seen just how uncomfortable Hisoka’s comment had made Gon. “It’s okay. He’s just looking out for you.”

“I just—I want you to know that I’m not like that,” Gon insisted. “Really, I’m not.”

Killua pursed his lips. He hadn’t given much thought to Hisoka’s comment beyond Gon’s discomfort and how much he wanted Hisoka to shut up and leave Gon alone. 

But now he was thinking back to their dorm room as Gon mended his hand, which still throbbed at his side. Gravity pulled the weight of all his blood to the callouses on his palms. He fidgeted with the gauze. He hadn’t given much thought to his sexuality since the night in the forest, or even thought to question his reaction to being called Gon’s best friend . 

Had he been more lucid, he might have recognized it sooner. 

“What do you mean?” Killua asked. 

“Ah, I knew it made you uncomfortable,” Gon whined miserably.

“We don’t—I mean, we don’t have to talk about it—”

“I just mean that isn’t something I’m interested in, necessarily,” Gon explained like he couldn’t wait for the words to be gone. They approached a stoplight and as Killua paused on the grated ramp, Gon turned to face him, back to the street. His hands were in his pockets, and then crossed, and then in his pockets again. “That’s kind of Hisoka’s thing, you know? And Chrollo has his gremlin hoarding thing and I just—I’m into intoxicants.”

That certainly wasn’t what Killua was imagining would come out of Gon’s mouth. “So you just… don’t dabble in the rest? Are you not allowed to?”

“I mean, I can , I guess. But I don’t want to. Not really,” he admitted. “There’s a lot to learn and explore and I’ve got a lot of time. It just feels weird dabbling in their stuff when they’re, like, so good at it.”

“Good at… hoarding and sex,” Killua reiterated.

“Well, now you make it sound weird and insignificant.”

“I’m not calling it insignificant, I just never counted hoarding as something people excel at.”

“I always get lost in Chrollo’s room. It’s, like… the size of the football stadium ,” Gon explained, flinging his arms up and swinging around in the direction of the stadium. It was out of sight, but he went on with a sweep of his arms. “He’s got walls of books and antiques. Human skulls . Organs in glass jars. He’s even got little lights so they all glow on command… I used to wander his room for days .” 

An urge came back to Killua that he hadn’t felt since… before . It rushed in warm and energizing— curiosity . He’d felt in the grass in the quad, wishing he could ask about Gon’s friends and family back in his hypothetical Californian cult. 

Killua’s breath shook. He inhaled deeply. He could ask now, he realized, and knew that Gon would answer.

“Do you think you’ll miss Hell eventually?” Killua asked. 

Gon leant back against the streetlight. They were able to cross, and students filtered around them to do so, but Gon and Killua stayed put. The night was clear and warm, anyway. “Probably,” he admitted. “I miss Meruem. We used to do everything together, but he’s so… beyond time, I guess? You and I are linear, I guess is what I’m saying. Meruem exists always in every universe.”

Killua tried desperately to understand. “If he exists always… why do you say ‘ used to ’?”

“He’s been distracted lately. Getting lost in other centuries, I guess. He really, really likes the rise of capitalism, you know. Spends a lot of time there.”

Killua studied the forlornness on Gon’s face and the faraway look in his eye as he absently picked at his fingers. “You haven’t seen him in a while, have you?” 

Gon hesitated. He shook his head. “No. I haven’t. It’s probably been… a year, maybe? Maybe longer?”

“I’m sorry he’s left you so long.” Something didn’t feel right, though. Killua pondered Meruem’s absence a moment before saying, “But it sounds like Hisoka still has contact with him?”

At this, Gon crossed his arms, half-hugging himself. “He can track Meruem better than me. He’s good with time and stuff. I think that just comes with being around for, like, five millennia.”

“Oh.” Hisoka didn’t look that old. “That’s—Wow. I didn’t know that.”

“Yeah, so anyway. I don’t really miss Hell right now because Meruem’s not around.”

“Well, fuck Meruem. He sounds like the worst,” Killua said without thinking, and it was so stark and uncalled for that Gon let out a startled laugh. Killua clamped a hand over his mouth. “Oh my God, I don’t know why I said that. I mean—I know Meruem’s your friend. I shouldn’t have said that.”

Gon just laughed harder. Flushed, Killua stammered some more, panic thick in his chest as Gon doubled over, clutching at his stomach. 

“I-It’s fine—Really—I—” Gon paused to laugh into his hand. He started crossing the street, shaking his head.

Killua lurched after him, having to jog to catch up. “It’s not funny!”

“It’s really definitely funny.”

“It isn’t!”

“You’re starting to sound like yourself again,” Gon said, and let out a long, drawn out, wistful sigh. “ Wow . That’s a relief.”

Killua’s blush only worsened under the weight of Gon’s arm slinging around his neck. He rustled Killua’s hair for the third time that night. “If you ever meet Meruem, I just know he’s gonna love you!”

I really hope that doesn’t happen, because I already hate him , Killua thought, but a flicker of hope echoed in his chest. Meruem was a pillar in Gon’s life—Gon wanting Killua to meet him was a privilege Killua couldn’t pass on.

Chapter Text

The highlight of Sunday involved Grandpa’s TA visiting. His grandfather had shooed everyone away from the kitchen and dining room near the TA’s arrival, though Killua was permitted to observe. Gon ushered Killua down the stairs and into the hall with an encouraging thumbs up and said, “You should meet him! He’s really nice, and his hair is white like yours!”

Killua rolled his eyes. He glanced up beyond the balcony railing to where Hisoka stood, arms crossed over the banister. He gave a slow, elegant wave of his hand as Killua glared and passed beneath the balustrade to head to the kitchen. 

His grandfather had tea out and was just pouring a cup when Killua entered and was immediately interrupted by a knock at the patio. 

“It’s open,” his grandfather said, and the TA let himself in. “Killua, this is Kite. Kite, my grandson Killua. He’s in the English department.”

“Oh. Nice to meet you, Killua,” the TA said, reaching a hand across the table.

Killua gave him a half-hearted shake. “Likewise,” he said, though he truly didn’t care. He’d met a number of his grandfather’s TAs over the years, especially during any time that overlapped the school year, and he sometimes found them all loitering in his grandfather’s library when he wasn’t even home. Other times were spent coaxing his grandfather out of the house and to some downtown bar for a smoke.

He always thought it odd that half of his grandfather’s TAs had keys to his house, or that his grandfather left the door unlocked. One time he’d busted them for smoking weed in the library while grandfather was at a board meeting, and they paid him five bucks to not say anything. The smell did all the talking anyway when his grandfather returned that night.

Kite looked like the type of guy to do that right up until the moment he said something. He was soft-spoken and nerdy, and wore bottle cap wire glasses that made his eyes the size of the moon. Though his hair was long like a hippie, his outfit was conservative like the sticklers in Killua dealt with in the English department.

Gon’s right , Killua thought as Kite laughed at something his grandfather said, he is pretty endearing .

Kite pulled the papers from his satchel and said, “Here’s the material for the new student. It sounds like you’ve met him already.”

“I have. I’ll just be a moment—you two keep talking,” his grandfather said, and before Killua could complain, he was gone and shuffling up the stairs. 

Killua turned, painfully, back to Kite. 

It felt like it’d been a decade since Killua spoke to anyone outside of his grandfather’s house. He started to sweat. He was so in tune now with the sound of Illumi being sick that he wondered if Kite could hear it through the vents. 

“How are you liking your classes?” Kite asked. 

“They’re fine, I guess,” Killua said. 

“Really? What professors do you have?”

Killua listed them, and Kite hummed knowingly. “Sounds like you’ll have your hands full.”

“Maybe.”

“You don’t seem excited. Did Professor Zoldyck pressure you to enroll?” He leant in like it was a big secret and said, “You can tell me.”

Killua managed a weak smile. “No. I just like it here, I guess.” And then he remembered. “The scholarships were good, too.”

“Ah.”

The steps started creaking again, and so Killua opted to stop talking and wait until his grandpa was in view again.

“No need to be quiet on my account,” his grandfather said. 

Kite stood from the table. “Thank you for the tea, but I really should be going. Mass is in an hour and—”

“Do you play chess at all?” his grandfather said. 

Kite blinked, hand on the back of his chair. He pushed it into the table and said, “I do, I suppose. Why, is there a game in my future?”

“Possibly. You should stop by for tea after office hours tomorrow,” he said, and Kite agreed. 

Once he was off the deck, Killua said, “I take it Gon and I will be here tomorrow after office hours, too.”

“That you will. Half past three tomorrow and not a minute after,” his grandfather said with a shake of his finger. He took his mug with him and wandered toward the sunroom in his distressed hoodie and plaid pajama bottoms.

“Shouldn’t you be getting ready for mass, too?” Killua said. 

“I’m too old for that,” his grandfather said, and collapsed back in his favorite recliner. “I’ll go when I’m ready.”

“Uh-huh. And by that you mean next week.”

“If that’s when I’m ready.”

When Killua returned to the foyer, he found Gon and Hisoka still waiting on the balustrade. Killua started his ascent, his vicious competitiveness resurfacing at the promise of another match against Hisoka. 

“Mass?” Gon repeated. 

“Church,” Killua said.

“Shouldn’t you two naughty boys be going?” Hisoka chided with a cheeky tsk. Killua nearly missed the resurgence of Chrollo from the bathroom and only caught sight of him a second before he smacked the back of Hisoka’s head in passing.

“Wouldn’t you burn up at the altar or something?” Killua retorted.

Gon laughed and Hisoka’s expression soured. He passed Gon with a sarcastic, “So this is what we’re restoring?”

“I told you he’s funny!” Gon said. 

By nightfall, Killua was feeling a significant level of existentialism that his grandfather and Chrollo classified as progress. Chess with Gon was a breeze—Gon had stopped making intentional mistakes when Killua grew numb to the high of his reward. Now he saw it as childish, like Gon was teasing him, and while he did enjoy holding Gon’s hand, he couldn’t help but glower at Gon in response.

Killua’s brain, however, retaliated with hyper-vigilance and the desperate need to moderate Gon. Though he could handle disrupting Gon’s balance—telling him off (politely), or cracking a joke at his expense (not as politely)—he couldn’t handle others doing the same. 

Hisoka pissed him off the most. He seemed to have a knack for throwing Gon’s entire mood off at the drop of a hat, oftentimes with the express purpose of getting a rise out of him. It was insufferable, and his condescension grated like nothing else.

His grandfather was trouble in a less aggressive way. His patient reminders to Gon were often accompanied by disappointment that made Gon’s glee bleed out. “Killua, you know what he said is wrong,” his grandfather would say, a betrayal, and Gon would pout, his big doe eyes on Killua. 

Those were the worst, because it wasn’t a game. It was life. And Killua was doing it wrong—he wasn’t the perfect conscience for Gon that he was before. 

“I can’t be right all the time,” Killua said. “And what if I agree with Gon?”

His grandfather stared at him, speechless. His open jaw shut with a clack. “Gon, can you give us a moment?” his grandfather said, and so Gon left. 

Killua bristled at his absence. “He didn’t need to leave. I want him to know that—”

“That you wanted him to kill Illumi, is that what you’re telling me?” his grandfather said.

Perhaps he was wrong, and that Killua didn’t want to be right, but he’d already taken his stance. It was the centerpiece of the problems he’d brought to his grandfather’s house, and Killua couldn’t back down now. He couldn’t question what Gon had done. 

“Maybe I did!” Killua cried. 

“Killua, you aren’t being reasonable. I know you wouldn’t kill your brother.”

“But that doesn’t mean I didn’t want to.”

His grandfather, pale in the face, pulled back a chair for Killua. Killua shoved it back into the table. “This isn’t an argument. I’m not budging on this.”

“Tell me what happened that night,” his grandfather begged, hands open on the table. When Killua merely crossed his arms, he said, “ Please , Killua. You know better than this. I know you do.”

Killua’s hand burned like nothing else. It prickled and itched under the gauze, damp from the icepack he’d been clutching minutes before. “I already told you.”

“You didn’t. You haven’t told me much of anything—I’ve only heard from Hisoka what happened that night. Surprisingly, a demon has been more forthcoming than you have.”

“That’s because it was in self defense,” Killua said. “Sort of. I don’t know.”

“Killua—”

“I was high,” he said. He hated the wide-eyed look his grandfather gave him, like he’d just introduced his grandfather to the concept of LSD when he knew for a fact his grandfather used to wear bellbottom jeans and smoke pot with the other professors in the philosophy department’s record room back in the day. “I don’t remember much.”

After a pause, his grandfather said. “You’re lying. You do remember.”

“ I don’t .”

“Then look me in the eyes and say that again.”

Killua looked everywhere but his grandfather for the few seconds it took him to convince himself that it was worth it to lie for Gon. They were a united front, he believed, and so he looked at his grandfather and said, voice strained, “I. Don’t. Remember.”

“You’re going to have to do better than that. Did Illumi say something to upset you?”

Oh, how easily his grandfather could read him. Killua rubbed irritably at his eye socket. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Clearly, because Gon didn’t damn Illumi because of it. Because Illumi is purging muck from Hell for no reason—”

Killua put his hands to his ears. “ Stop it . I don’t know why you don’t believe me when this is exactly how my parents have always treated Illumi! Why am I always the villain?! Everyone always defends him—”

“Killua, your brother died. ”

Killua’s hands pressed tighter as he walked away. His pulse screamed through the gauze, the heat of his burns scalding his temple. His grandfather was usually right—he’d proved that, and had intentionally tricked Killua into admitting it over chess. 

Killing Illumi was too significant a fault to put on Gon. Gon had done it for Killua, Killua should be grateful. If he wasn’t, that would mean Gon had done something irreversibly bad , and that Killua shouldn’t forgive him. 

What had he done? What was he doing? How could he have let this happen? 

Killua staggered out the side door. The brick overhang where his grandfather’s Oldsmobile sat was damp and smelled of iron and wet asphalt. The rain was colder than any day they’d had that September, and it brought some solace to Killua’s sweltering hand. 

He trudged down the concrete steps before, at last, settling on the bottom one. He sunk his arms over his knees, hands in his hair, and considered the worst. 

How could he admit to Gon that they’d done something so unquestionably immoral? That Gon had done something horrible in response to Killua’s distress? He’d been so dysregulated that Gon had seen Killua in agony and committed a crime Killua had only read about, listened to on the radio, and seen on television. It was a solution Killua couldn’t dream of, but one he’d planted in Gon’s head by choking his brother. By saying—

It’s all my fault , Killua realized, clutching at his throat. His pulse answered back, strong and quick. His skin was tacky against the gauze.

Gon was just following through. He’d trusted Killua’s insight, his wisdom, and all of that culminated to this .

The door cracked open with an alarming shriek. 

Killua jolted on the step, heart racing. He glanced back and found Gon standing there, looking slightly lost as he looked up and down the drive. 

“Are you okay? It’s a bit cold out,” Gon said. 

It wasn’t cold enough for a sweatshirt, but ninety was cold enough for Gon, so Killua didn’t blame him for bringing one of the living room blankets out. He dressed Killua’s shoulders with it and tucked it around his front before joining Killua on the step. 

Killua stared out at the car’s green paint job. They stared in silence. 

“Do you want to talk about it?” Gon asked.

The pressure in Killua’s throat rose. His eyes burned. With a hitch in his breath, he managed a weak, “What have I done? ”

Gon’s arm fell around him. Killua tipped into Gon’s shoulder. He’d lost control of his lungs and his tears, and it was all he could do to stop himself from sobbing into Gon’s sweatshirt.

They sat through Killua’s tears well into the dark. 

The rain didn’t stop. It poured all through class on Monday, which Killua nearly missed. Gon had to drag him to class before sprinting to make it to his own lecture. 

When Gon skidded through the entrance, Professor Zoldyck was already at the front unpacking his material for lecture. He spared Gon a brief glance of acknowledgement as Gon caught his breath and raised a thumbs up and a smile.

At the very front row of the hall was a head of unmistakable red hair, reclined back with an ankle crossed over the opposite knee. He was clad in a bubblegum turtleneck, jeans, and his now-favorite heart-shaped glasses. Gon resisted the urge to groan as he stalked to the front, walked along the row, until he was standing directly in front of Hisoka. 

“You have some real nerve,” Gon said.

“Oh, I have a whole lot more than just that,” Hisoka breathed with a devastating grin that Gon detested in that moment. As Gon settled into the seat beside him, Hisoka took to leaning on the elbow rest between them, red-painted nails drawing lines up and down his cheekbones. “So this is what you’ve been doing the last week.”

“More or less,” Gon said. “First week is different. This is real now.”

“Ah. I see.”

“Can you not breathe on my shoulder?”

Hisoka turned to face him, his nose nearly grazing Gon’s ear. “Um… maybe.”

Gon writhed in his seat and elbowed Hisoka’s arm. Hisoka elbowed him back. Just as Gon was preparing to start a real tussle, a clap sounded from the front.

“Gentlemen, please,” Killua’s grandfather said, already nursing a headache. Gon straightened and Hisoka, slowly, resumed a more acceptable posture. “I’d like to start by reminding you of your final research projects, because today we’ll be pairing you with your semester-long partner. Each of you draw a name from the front of the class and read it aloud so your partner can find you. Kite will be recording them, and there will be no switching.”

Hisoka raised a hand. Gon tried to yank it back down. 

Killua’s grandfather looked exhausted. “Yes, Hisoka.”

Hisoka lowered his hand. “I was just wondering if I can go first.”

“No, you may not.”

Professor Zoldyck called on someone at the start of their row, which earned Gon a glare from Hisoka. Gon beamed back as he was the first to select a name. 

He skipped to the front and said hi to Professor Zoldyck, who smiled back, shook the bag, and held it out to Gon. Gon rifled around a bit before settling on: “I…kalgo?”

A kid near the back raised his hand. “Present,” he said, and moved the bag off the seat beside him for Gon to take. 

Gon grabbed his things, stuck his tongue out at Hisoka who tried to grab it, and lurched away to join his semester partner.

Hisoka strode languidly to the front. If Gon’s picking was a show, Hisoka’s was a production . The room held their breath like they were on the set of something spectacular—all sound, all noise, ceased to the unfurl of Hisoka’s fingers sinking into the bag.

He gave it a swirl. Extracted his hand. His fingers were empty—until a slight twist of his hand produced a paper from thin air. Someone in the front row clapped until they realized no one else was. 

Hisoka’s eyes took their time settling on the name. “Kurapika,” he said.

A hand raised near the dead-center of the room. Hisoka tracked it, pointed to it, and identified a blonde kid in a ponytail and wire glasses. As Professor Zoldyck called for the next person, Hisoka walked off, and the room could breathe a little easier again. 

He slipped past tucked-in knees and around backpacks before at last approaching his partner. The kid looked like a sophomore who hadn’t cooked properly freshmen year. All the buttons were done up on their button-up and not in an endearing way. 

He sunk his bag into the neighboring seat and sat, glancing over his shoulder as he did. Gon and his partner were chatting, Ikalgo looking like Gon hung the stars in the sky. 

“I don’t recognize you. Were you here last week?” Kurapika asked.

“Oh, I’m everywhere always,” Hisoka replied, distracted.

“No, seriously. The professor seems to know you.”

“We’re close. Would you mind—” He made a zipping motion with his fingers without looking. He was trying to hear what Gon said, because it was starting to look like Ikalgo might commit a murder for him if Gon so snapped his fingers.

He was interested in hearing the undercooked sophomore speak, and yet a second later, they were talking again. “We should decide our topic at the end of class if you’re able to stick around.”

Hisoka’s teeth grated in annoyance. “I’m not interested,” he said, only to halt. Intrigue swept over his indifference. 

He turned, sharply, to Kurapika. Kurapika’s magnified eyes narrowed, brow furrowed. The kid had nice brows, Hisoka had to admit. Work could be done here, surely, but he was more interested in—

“If you’re not going to take this class seriously, I’ll just do the project myself. I was only offering out of respect,” Kurapika said. “I was planning on doing it myself anyway.”

“Were you now?” Hisoka preened. The kid was telling the truth. “And who’s to say I wouldn’t do a better job at it?”

Kurapika’s expression flattened, the polar opposite of Hisoka’s shit-eating grin. Oh , Hisoka thought, I see why Gon’s so enthralled by Killua now . Though he didn’t hate humans the way Chrollo did, they were only fun to play with when they could think for themselves.

And by God, could this one think .

“I highly doubt that,” Kurapika said, arms folded. They reclined back in their seat, eyes at the front, like lecture was happening. They were only on the third row now. 

“I think it could be fun. You and I. I could bring a unique perspective to the table.”

“I don’t doubt the ‘ unique perspective ’ bit,” they said with air quotes. “Now if you don’t mind, I actually have to pass this class.”

“And you can’t do that with a little help? It’s a team project for a reason,” he purred with the lure of sweet serendipity on his tongue. 

Whether Kurapika felt it was another story. Hisoka grinned at the rushed way Kurapika looked at him—like Hisoka just suggested they find the nearest bathroom and fuck—and turned away with an exasperated huff, shaking their head. 

What was it about noncompliance that just did it for them—for Gon, for Hisoka? He knew instinctively that Chrollo wouldn’t care either way. Chrollo was a simple man that way, always content with the friends he already had and preferring the company of demons on top of that. Hisoka liked that life, preferred the comforts and luxuries of Hell, certainly, but he was nothing if not inspired by a challenge.

  At the end of class, Kurapika was out of his seat and down the aisle in an instant. Hisoka swept after him, taking the steps two at a time. 

“So… the topic, then?” Hisoka said in a lilting tease.

“I’ll decide. See you next class,” Kurapika said.

“Aw, but I could help. I’m an excellent helper.”

“No. Bye.” They were at the doors to the building, turned to nudge them up, and stuck their middle finger up at Hisoka. The lecture crowd closed in after them, and Hisoka stood above them all. Over their heads, he watched Kurapika walk resolutely away, satchel at his side, cleaning his glasses.

“I already made a new friend!” Gon said from behind. “How was your partner?”

“My partner?” Hisoka repeated, reverently. Gon was at his side now. He put a protective arm around Gon’s shoulders, exhaled tenderly against him, and admitted, “I want to fuck them.”

“All of them?”

“No, just my partner. Couldn’t give a damn about the others,” Hisoka said, like his desires were a great mystery to the universe. He passed his tongue along his teeth and sighed. He patted Gon on the cheek and stepped away. “Ah, well, I have a month to do it. Definitely enough time.”

“Uh-huh.” Gon wasn’t convinced. “Well, I need to pick up Killua. He was looking a bit lost this morning. I’ll see you later?”

“Yeah, at Gramps’ place,” Hisoka said, and let his hand trail along Gon’s hair until Gon was out of range. 

Gon hopped the steps and leapt in the direction of the English building across the quad. A class was getting out and the rain was still coming down, which meant the lawn was clear of studying students. He crossed the empty grass and ignored the dampness of his socks. He rifled through his bag and nearly dropped a book in the process of fetching the umbrella Zeno had given him.

He waited for the class to clear out, rain pattering on the plastic. Eventually, the stoop was clear except for a few stragglers, and no Killua in sight. 

Gon climbed the stairs, shook his umbrella out, and stepped in. The lecture hall doors were still propped open. The professor was speaking to a student at the front, their voices echoing. At the back of the class sat Killua.

There was a notebook on the pullout tabletop in front of him, pen in hand. He’d taken no notes and looked worse than how Gon had left him that morning. 

He propped the umbrella against the wall and rushed to take the seat next to Killua. “What’s wrong? Should we go back to the dorms?”

Killua opened his mouth and nothing came out. He shrugged, helplessly, eyes wide and unseeing. Gon brushed his hair back from his forehead and Killua leant into it. He pulled Killua toward him for a hug, which he accepted with ease, pen and notebook abandoned.

Gon tucked his face into Killua’s shoulder and breathed in his soft skin. He still smelled warm , like sunscreen despite the rain, and though nothing could stave off the chill of Earth in Gon’s bones, Killua was very close to it.

Chapter Text

His grandfather’s TA visited that afternoon to play chess, and after one too many missed opportunities from Killua, Gon played as well as he could manage given his skillsets. He’d caught on well, but he was still no match for Kite, who was too much of a stickler to lose to Gon, and too eager to teach to let Gon lose on his own.

Killua sat on the sidelines not quite processing any of it. He took to sitting at the reading chairs with Chrollo. Hisoka was nowhere to be found, and his grandfather was working in his office. 

“Dammit!” Gon groaned, slapping his own face twice for motivation. 

Kite smiled graciously as they began resetting the pieces. “You’re doing well for having only just learned two days ago. It’s important to keep dominion over the center of the board.”

Gon made a sound of utter bewilderment. “Really? I thought that area was dangerous.”

“It is if your opponent gets there first,” Kite said. He demonstrated with two pawns. “I have a lot of bandwidth here—I can play offensive from here very well, as opposed to keeping my pieces near the walls. You lose mobility.”

“Oh. Oh , I understand now,” Gon said. His next match faired a bit better, which Killua heard in his excited gasps and stiff, silent concentration between rounds. 

Killua fiddled with a sheet of paper until it was torn into tiny, minute shreds on his lap. Chrollo was nearly done with his second book that day and it was only noon. “How do you read so quickly?”

Chrollo glanced up from the page and said, “Practice.”

Killua didn’t know how to answer to that. He’d been practicing all his life and had thought he was a fast reader until Chrollo came along. “What would you recommend? That I read, I mean.”

He’d wondered how long Chrollo had contemplated this, because he moved without hesitation, and the book was at the top of his ever-growing stack of read-vs-to-be-read books. He tossed it over the coffee table, and Killua narrowly missed it. 

He turned the cover over. It was blue and well-worn, printed in the sixties. Killua recognized the author. Altered States of Consciousness .

“Not necessarily about the conscience, which I think you’re starting to get down,” Chrollo explained, still studying his own book. Killua wondered if he was still reading as he spoke. “There’s interesting articles on hypnosis and LSD that might apply to you…”

“Oh. Thank you. I guess?” Killua said, unnerved by the analysis. 

“I’d also recommend a book from the 2030s, but it doesn’t exist yet,” Chrollo said, and at Killua’s blank stare, lowered his book to say, “It’s on post-psychosis. Patients who experience psychosis often experience severe depression after an episode. You could apply it to reflection with a restored conscience.”

“O-Oh,” Killua said. That could explain it . He didn’t exactly count his trip with Gon as a psychotic break, but upon reflection, it was quite maddening that he’d considered killing Illumi. And it was certainly awful of him to have defended Gon for it. 

A slow, disgruntled exhale drew Gon’s attention from chess over to the reading area. Killua’s hair glowed in the stained glass filter of evening light—reds and yellows peppered with green. Gon ran his thumb along his bottom lip as he considered Killua and the state of his affliction so plain on his tightened brow. 

Kite’s chess piece clinked onto the table. “Check, Gon.”

When they were all called upon for dinner, Killua was the last to leave the room and only did so because Gon’s concerned look back sent a rush of adrenaline through him. Only then could he stand, and only then did his grandfather take one look at him and say, “We’ll handle cooking tonight. Rest a little.”

Killua rubbed at his eyes. They stung from the aftermath of crying. “I’ve been resting all afternoon ,” he said, but his grandfather wasn’t convinced. He relented and left to waste time in the sunroom where the rain could distract him from the pit his mind lived in now.

After dinner preparations were done, the house smelled of spices and fresh rosemary garlic bread. Killua stuck to his chair, knees pulled up, as the silverware started clinking. He hadn’t realized his grandfather had called for him until he recognized Gon’s reflection in the dappled window saying, “Are you not hungry?”

Killua’s eyes, sluggish to reply, absorbed the state of Gon from over his shoulder. The black sleeves of his shirt were powdery from dinner, and the drawstrings on his hood were tied into a bow.

“Is Kite still here?” Killua asked.

“Yeah, but he’s upstairs with his TA cohort working. They showed up a little bit ago.”

Whatever little motivation Killua had to eat died with the knowledge that even more people had arrived. He didn’t know why his grandfather insisted on having an audience for Killua’s mental breakdown. 

Gon pulled the neighboring armchair closer and said, “Do you… want to talk?”

Killua’s fingers dug into the damp icepack. It left a wet patch on the thigh of his sweatpants. 

“It’s okay if you do. Or don’t,” Gon said, quickly. “Though I would like to know what you’re thinking, if that’s okay.”

It surprised Killua when he opened his mouth to speak. All that came out was a strained, “I want…”

Though he could see Gon leaning toward him out of the corner of his eye, Killua couldn’t raise his eyes beyond the armrest. “I want to tell you. But it—It feels like I’ll die if I do,” he said, unable to control the spasm of fear that ricocheted up his spine. He was trembling, clutching at the icepack.

“Are you—Are you worried you’ll upset me?” Gon said. 

It wasn’t far off, so Killua nodded. 

“I won’t be mad, Killua. And if I am, it’s not because of you,” Gon said. “I wouldn’t—I won’t hurt you if that’s what you’re worried about—”

“No—I mean, sort of,” Killua admitted, which was a risk to say and it hurt to say it. Gon’s face crumbled in anguish, and it was as close to Killua’s imagination as he could manage in that moment. “I’m sorry. I just don’t really know what you’re capable of anymore.”

“That’s okay,” Gon said, clearly not okay. “I promise I won’t hurt you.”

When Gon raised his pinkie, Killua breathed a little easier. It still felt like someone was stacking cinderblocks on his chest, but he was getting stronger. Killua’s finger hesitated pinkie extended.

“I—I only think that because… of what you did to Illumi,” Killua admitted. His chest seized and it took a second before he could speak again. His voice was barely above a hoarse whisper. “It really scared me. I didn’t want that to happen.”

“Oh,” Gon said, carefully. “Then…”

“I was a-afraid you’d kill someone else. I didn’t want to upset you anymore, and I think…” That’s why all of this happened , he thought, but it was getting harder to breathe again. He let the words trail off in favor of not turning blue. 

Meanwhile, Gon looked vaguely green in the face. When he didn’t say anything for an entire long, agonizing minute, he looked away from Killua and out to the garden. 

Killua swallowed hard past the knot in his throat. “Even playing chess. It was easier, but Hisoka and Chrollo say that you’re still young for a demon. I was worried you’d start throwing tantrums if you lost, but I see that’s not the case.”

“Tantrums?” Gon repeated. His voice was distant. 

“When human children haven’t learned how to lose, they can get upset. Throwing things, screaming. It’s not exactly a stretch of the imagination other assume a… demon might kill someone , even by accident.”

“Oh. Yeah, I used to throw those sometimes,” Gon said, absently. He slumped back in his chair, eyes still on the window. “Though Meruem and them are more durable, definitely. It’s been a while.”

Killua released an uneven exhale. “Well that’s—If I’m being honest, that’s not really reassuring.”

Gon grinned. His golden eyes shined on Killua as he asked, “So are we good again?”

Killua gave a tentative smile. “I think so. Though this whole… demon thing is going to take some getting used to. Is that why you don’t really sleep?”

“Yeah, we hibernate,” Gon said. 

That wasn’t at all what Killua expected. He laughed despite the strain it put on his chest. “Excuse me, you what .”

“It’s like when humans get overtired! And you start to feel sleepy everyday, except it’s once a year.”

“You’re joking. For how long?”

“It depends on how long you push it off. Chrollo said he once slept for a decade. He went kind of crazy being so overtired. I think he caused a war maybe…”

“ What— ”

“Hisoka and I try to sleep once a year for about a month.”

A month?! Killua wanted to shriek, but Gon had spoken of the devil and the devil appeared— directly behind Killua’s chair. 

Killua lurched at the shape of Hisoka in the window, and then leaning over his shoulder to taunt Gon. “Which we should have been doing nearly two weeks ago .”

Gon bristled in his chair. “But it’s boring .”

“Tough shit, kid.”

“You—” Killua said, the pieces clicking. “You came to Earth instead of hibernating? ”

Hisoka patted his hands on either side of Killua’s face and said, “I see this one finally has a brain.”

“You’re like a toddler that doesn’t want to go to bed,” Killua accused of Gon, who’s lips twisted into a foul purse, cheeks pink. 

“Am not!”

The more Killua thought about it, the more he wondered about how obvious the shadows were under Chrollo’s eyes, and how, every now and then, he swore he saw them on Gon. He tried not to look at Hisoka too closely to notice.

That day, however, Gon was alert and full of energy—nothing new was there. Killua tried desperately to pinpoint Gon’s exhaustion, but it simply wasn’t there. Surely he won’t start a war like Chrollo did? Killua thought.

But Gon had pushed for a month on Earth when Hisoka and Chrollo had wanted a day. Killua supposed he should be counting his decade lucky that Gon wouldn’t be staying the entire semester. After seeing the influence Gon had on campus, he found himself believing the possibility of it. The chaos Gon was capable of.

Hisoka ushered them out of the sunroom. Killua staggered out into the open attention of his grandfather and Chrollo, who were already eating. Gon’s plate was half-empty, and Hisoka’s was completely cleared. 

“Did you know they’re supposed to be hibernating right now?” Killua asked his grandfather. 

“Hibernating?” he repeated. “I suppose it is getting cold out for you three.”

Chrollo had been shocked still by the topic switch. He recovered to say, “It’s not seasonal. Truthfully, I’m overdue by half a year.”

“ What .” He’ll summon the antichrist, won’t he?! Killua thought in mortal terror. “I guess that’s proof that putting off your bedtime isn’t just for toddlers.”

“Hey!” Gon whined.

“He’s a grown man! Demon, whatever. You’d think he’d have his sleep schedule down to a T,” Killua said, gesturing to Chrollo.

“I was in the middle of something,” Chrollo explained dispassionately, taking a bite of chicken. “Haven’t you ever procrastinated sleep to work on a project?”

“Sure I have, but the worst I’ve done while overtired is question my existence, dye my hair, and text an ex,” Killua said, and stuck his mouthful of food so he would stop talking while his grandfather muffled a laugh behind the back of his hand. 

Dinner resumed a amicable cadence that primarily involved Hisoka sharing stories while the rest of them finished eating. He wasn’t one to bring them up, but Chrollo had the memory of an elephant, it seemed, and wouldn’t stop pestering him, saying: “Remember that time you were mistaken for Aphrodite and caused the Trojan War.”; “Remember your piracy phase?”; “Remember when you were an emperor’s consort?”

By the end of the night, Hisoka had his head in his hand, shame radiating every word. 

“Remember—”

“ Stop . I don’t want to remember. Why don’t we all remember the time you— ”

“I don’t recall.”

“I didn’t even finish the sentence—”

“You’re remembering wrong. That never happened,” Chrollo said. 

Hisoka flicked him off and stood from the table. Killua watched him go for his grandfather’s liquor cabinet before asking, “If Hisoka has existed for five millennia, do you mind me asking how long you’ve existed?”

“I’m a little younger by a few centuries,” Chrollo said. 

It didn’t put their ages into much perspective, and Killua wouldn’t fully process them until that night back at his dorm with Gon. Even if he chronicled every historical event he knew of from school, the timeline wouldn’t be long enough or even accurate . Five millennia ago, humans were just starting to make tools out of bronze and emerging from the stone age. 

Killua’s head spun. 

Gon returned from his shower in shorts with a towel around his shoulders. He scrubbed at absently at his hair as he wandered behind Killua, studying the book lying open on his desk under the lamp light. His fresh skin smelled like sandalwood and something smokey .

Killua took another sniff, and then turned to look at Gon and say, “Were you just smoking? In the shower?”

“No, after. One of the guys down the hall gave me a cig,” Gon explained. “What are you reading?”

“Trying to figure out when Hisoka and Chrollo were born. Came into being? Spawned?” 

“Forged is more accurate,” Gon said. “I was made from rhyolitic magma and sulfur.” 

Killua turned fully to stare up at Gon—ignoring the blinding brilliance of his six pack—and said, “You’re made… from rock.”

“Yeah. Is that really so surprising?” Gon said, and then put the back of his hand to Killua’s pulse.

It was searing hot, he knew, but the heat still surprised him. For a split second, it was cold until his nerves caught up to him. “Well, now I have a lot of questions,” Killua said.

Gon beamed. “That’s good. You didn’t have many questions when you were under the influence.”

Killua rolled his eyes, turning away. He really shouldn’t have been embarrassed by his lack of autonomy, but still, it was demeaning to know that Gon had held such dominion over him over the weekend. For that reason, it was embarrassing, and warranted the flush through his system. 

“Whatever,” he said, muttering it. He scratched at his hair and groaned at the reminders of everything he’d forgotten. “ Fuck . I haven’t checked for messages from Alluka.”

He pushed to his feet, which put him nearly chest-to-chest with Gon. They stared at one another for all of two seconds before Gon stammered, “O-Okay. You’re going down now?”

“Yeah. That a problem?” Killua said. He still felt the heat where Gon’s hand had touched his throat. Its pulse demanded attention like that of his injured hand.

“No. Not at all.”

“Good. Then… can you move?”

Gon stepped back and into his desk chair. He staggered, sat, and watched as Killua fled the scene of the crime. The moment the dorm door shut behind him, he crossed the hall to the brick wall where he could catch his balance. 

How in Hell had Gon been forged to be the single most attractive person Killua had ever seen and yet still be sexless? Try as he might to rationalize it, the only logical answer was that Killua was cursed. Lucifer—or whoever was in charge down there—must be laughing at Killua’s luck.

There was a kid in one of the booths when Killua arrived, so he put a two-booth buffer between them and sat at the stool to dial up his voicemail. There, he found a simple message from Alluka insisting he call, and before that, his grandfather inquiring about his weekend plans. That was Thursday. 

Killua put in an out-of-state call and chewed on his nail as the phone rang. A crackle split through the fifth ring. 

“ Hello? ”

Great , Killua thought, mom .

He covered the mic, cleared his throat aside, and said in an effeminate voice, “Hello. This is Jamie calling on behalf of Brown’s enrollment offices. May I speak with Alluka Zoldyck?”

“ Brown? ” his mother cried, and with a stammer, shrieked for Alluka. Killua put a hand to his mouth to muffle his laugh. 

When Alluka came to the phone, she said, “ This is Alluka. ”

In his regular voice, Killua said, “Hey this is Jamie from Brown.”

“ Shut—! Hang on .” He listened to Alluka bicker with their mother, who was no doubt two feet away. Once the room was clear, Killua waited for the other line to pick up. It didn’t. “ We’re in the clear .”

“How are you?”

“ I’d be better if you used your damn camera, moron .”

Killua laughed. “You’d hate to see what I’ve been up to. I’ll start using it tomorrow and send something on Wednesday.”

“ Good. And what have you been up to? Something nefarious I hope. ”

Killua laughed. He admitted to attending three parties over the course of the weekend, which earned him envy from Alluka. Killua wished his stories weren’t so diluted, and the lack of detail lent itself to doubt. 

Alluka hummed, like she didn’t believe him at all. “ Uh-huh, so you’re a party animal now. Is that it? ”

“No, definitely not. Nothing else was going on.”

“ Huh. Sounds like it .”

“Fine. You don’t need to believe me.”

“ Well, you didn’t take any pictures how could I believe you .”

“Smart ass,” Killua tsked, and Alluka laughed. 

There was a blip of static on the line. Killua switched to Jamie’s voice. “Would you like me to repeat the address?”

“ No, I have it down ,” Alluka said. He could hear the smile in her voice and couldn’t help but do the same. He ducked his head to study the ink on the phone booth table from notes’ past. “ Did you have any other questions for me? ”

“No, that was it. We look forward to reading your follow up essay. Have a lovely evening ,” he said, and hung the phone on the cradle before he could hear anything embarrassing from his mother listening in on the other line.

Chapter Text

Illumi fasted for all of Monday, though by Tuesday, Chrollo’s cursed smoothie sludge was back in his system and wrecking havoc. He wasn’t well enough to think, let alone speak , so Zeno took it upon himself to flip through Illumi’s work books in search of a phonebook. 

Chrollo watched as Zeno flipped to the back of Illumi’s agenda and released a triumphant, “Aha!” Zeno flicked the page and said, “Found it. This should do the trick.”

“I’ll take it from here,” Chrollo said, and ignored the hesitation on Zeno’s face as Chrollo sifted through the names and numbers. Illumi’s supervisor wasn’t far down the list. 

He dialed the number and, with Zeno watching, gave the name of the supervisor to Directory Assistance. The call was forwarded to the company where Chrollo first made do with the secretary. 

“Hello. I’m calling on behalf of Illumi Zoldyck. He can’t make it to the phone,” he said. 

The secretary was at once sympathetic. “ Oh, dear, I hope it isn’t too serious. We were concerned when he didn’t call in yesterday .”

“No doubt,” he said, amicably. Judging by the skepticism on Zeno’s face, Chrollo likely sounded more inauthentic than the secretary could tell. “He was out of commission all yesterday, couldn’t lift a hand to the phone, you see.”

“ Oh, how awful .”

“Yes. He asked me to call and say he’ll be out for a month. This is his nurse speaking—I can fetch a doctor if need be.”

“ That won’t be necessary .”

“May I speak with his supervisor? I’d like to relay the information to them directly.”

“ Absolutely. I’ll put you on hold and pass you along .”

“Thank you. You’re a doll,” Chrollo said. 

The call with his supervisor went just as smoothly, and at the end of it, he cradled the phone and turned to Zeno. The old man was in shock. 

“That is,” he said, wagging a finger as he walked off. “That is a trick for sure.”

“At least your grandson won’t lose his job,” Chrollo said. “That influence will spread like a virus. No one at the company will question his absence.”

“Are Gon and Hisoka like this?” Zeno asked, no doubt thinking about lecture.  He had just paired those two with humans, and though Hisoka seemed harmless and sane enough, Gon had killed his grandson.

“Hisoka, yes. Gon is still learning,” Chrollo said. 

He followed Zeno to the office at the back of the house. It was just as populated with books as the library was, only these were sentimental. Essays by colleagues, books by peers, a combination of both by past students. Chrollo had even found a bound copy of essays from Killua—scripts from debate club and juvenile research papers. 

It wasn’t a stretch that being kindred spirits made Chrollo like Zeno. Zeno was a connoisseur in his own right—books—and Chrollo appreciated that more than anything. 

Just as Chrollo was going to ask about a paper he’d read from one of Zeno’s colleagues at the university, a thump distracted him. His eyes went skyward, and then back toward the foyer. 

“Is something the matter?” Zeno asked. 

“Your grandson is up,” Chrollo relayed, and moved to the stairs. The last thing he needed was Illumi falling and breaking his neck on the stairs. Though that wouldn’t be a direct consequence of Gon, his behavior now certainly was . It wouldn’t hold up in court, so to speak, and they’d likely be pushed back another month in progress. 

By the time Chrollo reached the top step, Illumi had shuffled to the balustrade in a bad imitation of The Shining . 

  “What did I say,” Chrollo said. “No walking.”

“Fuck you,” Illumi slurred, hand missing the railing. He slumped against it, over it, and Chrollo held the back of Illumi’s sweat-stained shirt to keep him from going over. 

And go over he certainly tried. The shirt strained as Illumi lowered his entire torso off the railing in an attempt to fall. 

Zeno peered up at them from the archway to the office. “Is everything all right?”

“Impulse control is nonexistent,” Chrollo explained.

“Impulse my ass— ”

“Now, that’s quite rude.”

He straightened Illumi up, and the tall, gangly bastard sloshed against him with a giddy, maniacal laugh. His teeth were wooden with brown sludge from the smoothie. 

“It’s a good thing his coordination is bad,” Chrollo reassured over the railing as he began walking Illumi back to the tub.

Wednesday classes faired better for Killua, but Gon still walked him through the residue of a rainy start to the week. The grass was stark green, but to Killua’s post-existential haze, he couldn’t help but compare it to his LSD trip. Nothing could compare to those colors, the texture, and the reactivity of the world. This grass was stagnant and stale by those standards. 

“Are you sure you’re okay to go to lecture alone?” Gon asked. 

“Gon, I went to class alone yesterday.”

“I know. I’m just making sure, I mean… I’m sure your grandpa wouldn’t mind if I skip to watch over you…”

Killua deadpanned. “Please don’t. It’s embarrassing enough that you’re making a scene of this.”

“It’s not a scene, it’s a suggestion .”

“Scene, suggestion, whatever . Now get to class,” Killua said with a dismissive flick of his entire arm. 

Gon groaned and shuffled off. Secretly, he’d wanted to sit in on Killua’s lecture if only to avoid Hisoka, but the closer he came to the building, the more thrilled Gon became. He had a new friend, after all! And here Gon had almost abandoned his new friend Ikalgo. 

Ikalgo was slouched in the back again, hood up, and, as Gon drew closer, asleep. 

Gon leant in beside him and, with a slow inhale, shouted, “Ikalgo!”

Ikalgo flailed with a curse. Gon dropped back into his seat, howling with laughter. Ikalgo grappled with Gon, got him into a headlock, and laughed, “You’re such an asshole!” 

Up ahead, Kurapika was sat centerstage again, reading. Just as Hisoka suspected, Kurapika was a stickler for being early, which made it difficult for them to avoid Hisoka beyond occupying the seats on either side of Kurapika with their backpack and coat respectively.

Hisoka did away with the coat with ease, tossing it over Kurapika and on top of their backpack. Kurapika watched with offense as Hisoka took the coat’s seat without a second thought, tossed an arm over the back of Kurapika’s chair, and said, “I missed you. Yesterday was so boring without you in it.”

Kurapika opted not to admit that they shared another class—Econ. It was easy to spot Hisoka from across that particular lecture hall thanks to the man’s inability to avoid neon colors.

Kurapika squinted in annoyance and said, “We don’t have to sit together.”

“I’m not interested in what I have to do but more in what I want to do,” Hisoka said, and the dip at the end made Kurapika feel slightly violated by the blatant suggestion. 

“Are you having a stroke or something?” Kurapika said.

Hisoka rose an eyebrow. 

“It just sort of feels like you’re operating at half capacity right now. Your brain could do with a little more blood and then maybe you could read my lips: Not. Interested .”

“Aw, don’t be like that. And deny the possibility of us being a dream team?”

“I’ll take my chances.”

They lifted their backpack and coat, moved to that seat, and placed their items between them before Hisoka could claim the free spot. Hisoka rolled his eyes and relented. Clearly, he’d need a new tactic. 

Professor Zeno started the lecture, which further emphasized how little Kurapika wanted to deal with Hisoka—the man took no notes! Kurapika glanced at Hisoka’s notepad once and found the bastard doodling hearts and badly-drawn portraits of the professor. 

Kurapika shook his head, biting back a sigh. They didn’t mind doing the project solo, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t had a sliver of hope that Hisoka wouldn’t be completely useless. In high school, Kurapika could always be depended on to commandeer group projects anyway—this was no different.

At the end of lecture, though, it was clear Hisoka was familiar with Kurapika’s tactic to flee. They were out the front door of the building, step-in-step, with Hisoka saying, “Where is your next lecture?”

Just as someone said, “Hey babe!” 

Kurapika groaned, hand slapping to their forehead. Their peers were filtering out, but the newcomer wove between them to reach Kurapika and Hisoka at the center stair railing. 

“I told you, you didn’t have to come,” Kurapika said. 

“Eh, lab ended early,” he said.

Hisoka rose an eyebrow in interest at the man. He rivaled Hisoka in human height with sunglasses better suited for a mobster. His attire was rough at best—hand-me-down and a bit short on the sleeves, and his socks were two different colors. 

The man flung Kurapika’s bag over one shoulder and jerked his chin in Hisoka’s direction. “This your partner you told me about?”

“Yeah. Um, Leorio, Hisoka. Hisoka, my… boyfriend Leorio,” Kurapika said.

Ah , Hisoka grinned internally as the boyfriend put out a hand for Hisoka to shake. The added aggression to the shake cemented it all: insecure, wanted to start a fight with Hisoka, but was too passive to engage then and there on the stoop. 

Jealous. 

As if Hisoka wasn’t familiar with that particular sin. 

“You’re… taller than I expected,” Leorio said. 

“I get that a lot,” Hisoka teased, and stretched his hand to feign strain. It buffed the boyfriend’s ego a tad, which lent to a smile down at Kurapika. 

Kurapika, who didn’t look pleased at all.

“Anyway. I’m leaving,” Kurapika said, and started ahead down the stairs. When Leorio didn’t immediately follow—too busy staring at Hisoka—Kurapika barked back, “Leorio, you have my bag.”

“Oh, shit! Right. Nice to meet you, tall man,” Leorio said with a mock salute and took the steps two at a time down to meet Kurapika on the sidewalk. 

Shortly thereafter, Gon found his way out with an arm around his new friend’s shoulders. They were talking about a party on Thursday—tomorrow—before Ikalgo parted ways. Gon settled with a sigh at Hisoka’s side, and accepted a brief side-hug in greeting. 

“How’s your partner?”

“Dating someone,” Hisoka said. “But it’s no matter. I’ve engaged in thruples before.”

“Wh-What!” Gon cried, blushing. 

“I think their boyfriend will be easily tempted,” Hisoka thought aloud. He gave Gon a pat on the shoulder and said, “I have work to do. See you at Gramps’.”

“I—Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!” Gon chided, but Hisoka wasn’t listening. Gon’s hands swung to his sides. “He’s going to do everything I wouldn’t do, isn’t he,” he said with dread. He sighed.

Across the quad, Killua’s class was flooding the sidewalk. Gon held his breath as he walked, waiting for Killua’s white hair to make an appearance. He released his worries shortly thereafter—Killua left the lecture hall without a fuss. 

“You made it!” Gon said, thrilled.

Killua gave him a weird look. “Yeah, duh. Don’t make a big deal out of it.”

“Sorry. I was just worried you were dissociating again. That’s what Chrollo calls it.”

Color spread across Killua’s cheeks. “Y-You talked to him about me?”

“Of course! I was worried.”

“Well, don’t be. I’m fine now.”

Gon still walked him to his next lecture, and after, they walked to lunch together. The rain had brought with it colder temperatures, but nothing a sweatshirt couldn’t do for Killua. Gon, on the other hand, was in triple layers and looking miserable. 

Now that Gon had mentioned his hibernation, Killua couldn’t help catching glimpses of Gon’s exhaustion. It came in flashes, usually when they were walking in silence. In those moments, Killua kind of pitied Gon for his stubbornness.

But then again, who was he to order Gon to sleep the month away? Killua had his fair share of all-nighters in high school and even more over the summer catching up on his freshmen year readings. He couldn’t fault Gon for this.

Killua paused in the mess hall line, tray in hand. Was that… him speaking, or residue from Gon’s influence? 

Gon glanced back at him and the gap that he had made in the line by accident. Killua stepped after him and served himself a spoonful of vegetables.

“What’s wrong?” Gon asked.

“Nothing,” Killua said, but he recognized Gon’s flat expression and the adrenaline that pumped in after. “I’m just trying to sort my thoughts. I can’t always tell what’s always been there and… whatever affect you have on me.”

Gon took five slices of ham. Gon was so covered up that people were starting to treat him normal—the cafeteria worker gave Gon a scathing glare.

Gon served Killua a slice of ham and said, “I’m not doing anything right now.”

“I don’t think you have to,” Killua said. Gon was still wearing his gloves so Killua couldn’t see the tattoos. “I’ve been meaning to ask you something.”

“Go for it.”

“Do your tattoos have anything to do with your… powers, I guess?”

Gon glanced at his arms like he forgot they were there and nearly tipped his tray over in the process. Killua straightened it before anything could slip. “Oh. Yeah, they do. I’m surprised you noticed.”

“It’s just an observation,” he admitted, flushing under Gon’s compliment. He couldn’t differentiate that either from Gon’s influence. He waited until they were out of the line to go on. “At the parties, you rolled up your sleeves. And had your clavicle tattoo out.”

“It’s complicated, but the best way I can describe it is a leash. For me,” Gon explained. They sat across from one another, and Gon pointed to his forearms. “These release inhibitions. And my Crown of Thorns is for sin. The Thorns make people feel… wilder , but if I don’t have my forearm tattoos out—”

“They’re less likely to act on it?” Killua finished, and Gon nodded. “So it can be dangerous.”

Gon winced. “Yeah, I guess. I didn’t realize until that first party. You’re really perceptive.”

Killua remembered. He remembered so well, he felt the hair on his arms prickle to attention. “Yeah, I remember. Chrollo has a lot more tattoos than you do.”

“Yeah, it’s kind of newbie stuff. Hisoka doesn’t need to use them if he’s tempting people, and Chrollo doesn’t either. I think he just likes how they look. They make him feel more in control or something,” Gon suggested with a shrug. 

“But if it’s a leash for you, wouldn’t that tame the effect?”

Gon thought about it for a moment. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. They’re the opposite of a leash.”

Killua glared at him. “That’s a horrible metaphor.”

“Is not! I tried my best.”

Killua reached across the table to point to one of the lumps in Gon’s gloves. “What about the rings?” he said. 

Gon plucked his glove off, pinching the middle finger between his teeth on each finger. Once they were gone, there was a noticeable shift around them. People started looking, and Killua tried once again to ignore their distant stares. 

Gon held his palms up for Killua to see. The rings were gold, just like his brow piercings and studs. “Are you familiar with tzitzit?” 

Killua hadn’t expected the rings to have meaning related to the commandments, nor had he expected to hear Hebrew so early in the day—and outside of lecture, no less. Rings in general were a societal, capitalistic invention which he believed were only loosely tied to Rebekah’s piercing in the Old Testament. 

“They’re attached to prayer shawls. Each knot is a reminder of the commandments in the Torah,” Killua said.

“Yeah. These rings don’t mean that.”

“Then why did you bring it up!”

“I just wanted to hear how smart you are,” Gon said with an oblivious smile. Killua resisted the urge to face-plant in his food. “The rings are a reminder of ownership and have more… supernatural control than just the tzitzit. When I wear them, I can’t break the laws of Meruem’s domain.”

“Then… theoretically, could you remove them? And just do whatever you wanted?” Killua asked. It didn’t sound like much control to him, but then again, he didn’t have a manual on How To Break The Law In Hell.

Are there laws in Hell? Killua wondered, frowning off to the side.

“I could, but I like my prince, so I keep them on. No other being can claim me if I have Meruem’s rings on, but without them…” Gon gave a vague poof gesture with his hands. “Asmodeus could sweep in and force dominion over me.”

Killua had been curious about the brief mentions of Asmodeus—the Prince of Lust—and how it correlated swimmingly with Hisoka’s niche. “Did Hisoka used to belong to Asmodeus?”

Gon marveled at him. “Wow, you catch on really quickly! Yes, he did. But because he has Meruem’s rings, Asmodeus can’t control him anymore. He used to cause a lot more trouble back then. A lot. You heard about the Trojan War.”

“Asmodeus had… ‘dominion’ over Hisoka then,” Killua concluded, and Gon nodded. “When did he transfer? Is that the right word?”

Gon shrugged. “I don’t know. It seems like a sore spot, so I haven’t asked and he’s excellent at deflecting.”

Killua had observed this ability. His memory from the past weekend came in and out of focus and the times he spent with Gon were the clearest. He had been so tuned to Gon that everything else faded and fuzzed at the corners. 

Gon fiddled with his earrings and said, “These are just for aesthetics, but it’s Meruem’s gold. He likes having us pierced… or wearing his jewelry. Even if I lost my rings, he’d still be able to find me. He knows where all his gold is kept—I mean, unless whoever takes my rings also rips out my piercings which— ow . Does not sound like fun.”

“Yeah, definitely not.”

“Do you have piercings?” Gon asked.

Killua reached up to his earlobe. “I did one myself back in middle school, but the nuns hated it. I haven’t put anything in it since.”

“You should wear some of Meruem’s gold! It’s good luck to have it,” Gon suggested.

Killua really didn’t think that was a good idea, but he couldn’t deny that he was intrigued by Meruem’s alleged Gold Radar. “It sounds interesting. Is it actually good luck?”

Gon’s grin was devilish. “You should see for yourself.”

“This won’t, like, damn me to Hell and force me to be Meruem’s butler or something, will it?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

”You don’t think so?”

”W hat’s so bad about being damned? We could have fun down there.”

“I don’t think fun for you is the same fun that my soul will be getting.”

“You’re so cynical. No wonder faith is so fleeting with you,” Gon said, feigning a pout. 

Killua rolled his eyes and resumed eating. They’d talked long enough for the two tables near them to clear out and then it was just them, their food, and Gon talking about where he came from. He was still talking about magma when they arrived back at their dorm with an apple from the mess hall.

“It won’t even hurt,” Gon insisted as he sifted through his belongings. His jewelry box, now that Killua had a better look at it, looked like something he’d find haunted amongst his grandmother’s things. The innards were straight out of a Titanic safe. 

“Do we really not need a regular needle?” Killua said. 

“No way. Now sit down.”

Gon sliced the apple with a pocketknife—Killua had no clue where he got that—and raised the wedge up. 

Killua struggled with his composure. Gon was coming at him up close and personal with a golden, St Peters cross on a stud and Killua’s heart was rising in his chest. He squeezed the armrests on his chair, ignoring the itchy sting of his burn as the apple pressed to the back of his earlobe, sweet and sticky. 

“Okay, count of three,” Gon said. “One—Two—”

He shoved earring in.

“ FUCK! ” Killua screamed. He slapped a hand to his ear, nearly hitting Gon in the process. He must have been blushing when Gon pierced him, because now his hand was hot with readily available and swiftly flowing blood . 

Barely recovered, he shrieked, “ Gon! I thought you were counting to three!”

Gon reached for him, piercing back in hand. “I got too excited! We need to cap the back—”

“Gimme that! I’ll take care of it—”

“No! I want to. Your ears are so cute and I want to touch them—”

“ God ,” Killua swore, astounded by Gon’s sheer audacity . He checked his palm and yes, that was certainly blood. He dodged Gon to get to his bath towel. After dabbing up the blood, he let Gon spin the backing on with an audible click . 

“There. That wasn’t so bad,” Gon said.

Killua wasn’t even fully in front of the mirror and he could see that the shoulder of his shirt was stained red.

Chapter Text

Killua’s piercing was a topic of great interest at the breakfast table Thursday morning before class. He ate in relative silence as Gon helped clean the kitchen and, gradually, the others came down to eat. His grandfather was at the head of the table with his newspaper spread out.

“Morning,” he greeted Chrollo, who sighed in reply. “Bad night?”

“One of the better ones thus far,” Chrollo said. Gon passed him a cup of coffee. “Thanks.”

“I made it.”

“I retract my thanks until further notice.” Chrollo took a sip, let the taste melt in, and said, “Acceptable. Thank you.”

Gon beamed. “You’re welcome. I’m getting better at it, aren’t I?” Gon’s face squeezed as Chrollo ruffled his hair affectionately.

When Chrollo joined them at the table, only then did he look at Killua and a cough sputtered on the rim of his mug. He dabbed his face for coffee, drink aborted. 

Killua gave him a dry stare from over his homework. Chrollo was too busy staring at Gon, though, and silently gesturing with his eyes to Killua’s ear. 

Gon, oblivious, shrugged and went back to the sink. 

A swift trill of footsteps flew down the stairs, circled the banister, and swept into the kitchen with a slap of both of his hands on either side of the archway. Hisoka leant in with a low and slow, “ Goooood morni—” 

The word was aborted the second Killua looked at him. 

After a second stuck frozen, Hisoka’s hands dropped to his sides. He straightened. “Gon, I need to speak with you outside,” Hisoka said. 

“Why me?”

Hisoka mocked and mimicked Gon’s words back at him. Gon stuck his tongue out at him but when Hisoka snapped his fingers and pointed resolutely at the door, Gon complied. He let Hisoka drag him to the patio with a hand to his bicep. Hisoka only paused to grab the pack of cigarettes off the kitchen counter. 

“Did something happen?” his grandfather asked, glancing over his shoulder after them.

“Nothing… strictly life threatening, so I don’t think you need to worry about it,” Chrollo said. 

“Oh, good. That makes me feel so much better.”

Chrollo took a short, stiff sip of his coffee before setting it aside to say, “Killua, did Gon explain the properties of Prince Meruem’s gold?”

Killua felt sick before he even said anything. “I get the feeling he downplayed some of it.”

“Yeah. I get that feeling too,” Chrollo said with a terse breath. He glanced at Killua’s grandfather and said, “Killua’s wearing one of Meruem’s piercings.”

His grandfather’s paper folded down to get a better look at Killua. He tipped his glasses down, peered over the rim, and put them back up. “I noticed that earlier. It looks good, Killua.”

“Thanks.”

Chrollo pressed his middle finger to his temple. His eye bags were more prominent now. “Meruem can trace any gold he owns. He knows who has it at any point in time. You’d think that because he has a lot of it —more than you can even fathom—many people would own it. That isn’t the case. If he had a phone book of names of everyone he’s lent gold to, it would be less than two hundred.”

“Of… all time,” Killua reiterated.

“Yes. Of all time.”

“Okay,” Killua said. His heart was pounding so hard he heard it in his swollen, freshly pierced ear. “Okay. I see the issue.”

“I don’t,” his grandfather said. 

“The Prince exists in all dimensions, time, universes. Through all of that , suddenly a piece of his gold ends up in hands he’s never met,” Chrollo explained. 

“If he exists at all times, he’d know certainly that Killua has had it before Killua even had it,” his grandfather reasoned.

“It’s different with demonic interference. We don’t exist in the future, we only exist in the present,” Chrollo explained. “We can skip ahead in time, but that’s just it: skipping . The time we skip—we don’t exist. Do you see what I mean?”

“So this gold Killua now has,” his grandfather said, “doesn’t exist in the future. Because it’s in the possession of a demon. And now it’s been brought out of that pocket in time and can exist in the future because it is now on a human.”

“Precisely,” Chrollo said. “And, of the two hundred or so people that have been given Meruem’s gold, maybe… ten of them are human, give or take.”

“I see. What becomes of the gold when humans die?”

“Meruem reclaims it,” he said. “Humans and supernatural creatures alike have used Meruem’s gold as leverage for wishes. Demands. You could ask anything of Meruem in exchange for returning his gold.”

“Gon did not explain that,” Killua said. “I don’t want anything from the Prince.”

Silence followed Killua’s statement. Chrollo waited for more, shook his head, and said, “Nothing. You want for nothing . Nothing material, no knowledge.”

“Well, I didn’t consider knowledge,” Killua admitted with a scoff, grinning at his grandfather. He shook himself back to the present. “But that’s besides the point. It was a gift from Gon. I don’t think he meant for me to use it like that.”

“Really. Who’s saying that right now?” Chrollo asked, and it drew Killua up short. 

He couldn’t untangle Gon from the gift the way Chrollo was asking him to. If it wasn’t a gift, Killua wouldn’t hesitate to consider all he might ask of Meruem. Might he know the cure to all illnesses? The meaning of life? 

Killua shook his head. “I’d feel this way even if a friend or family member gave this to me. Unfortunately, I’m sentimental. So long as it isn’t, like, illegal for me to have it, that is. Would Meruem be furious if he knew?”

“Oh. He knows,” Chrollo said. “But I can’t say for certain how he feels about it.”

The patio door swung open and rebounded. Hisoka caught it before it could give him a black eye. He put up a hand just as Killua’s grandfather and Chrollo opened their mouths to speak. “Not. A word.”

Hisoka went to the kitchen, followed closely by a tendril of smoke, to where his designated pink mug was left with steaming coffee inside. He grabbed it, stuck the cigarette in his mouth, and said, “I’ll be upstairs.” 

With Hisoka gone, Gon approached safely and quietly to the table until Chrollo said, “Is this your cry for help?”

“Maybe,” Gon admitted with zero shame. 

Chrollo slapped a hand over his face, tapping irritably at the table. He stole a glance at Killua’s grandfather for support, and so his grandfather said, “It sounds like… this might be a nonissue. But you should have discussed this with Chrollo and Hisoka first. This involves them, too.”

Killua hadn’t considered that. He was still hung up on the fact that Gon had, perhaps inadvertently, given him the key to the universe. And that said key was shishkebabed in his earlobe.

Gon, on the other hand, withered. His great show of guilt chiseled away at Killua’s hard-earned conscience. Try as he might to stop it, it was a slippery, snowy slope and an icepick wouldn’t help him from falling over the edge.

“Chrollo and Hisoka didn’t have to come here,” Killua reasoned. “And Gon made it clear that he’d be doing what he wanted. They agreed to that.”

“You’re right. We’d just let Gon be seismically obliterated for breaking a crucial law,” Chrollo said. “His reasoning for killing Illumi wouldn’t hold up in Hell’s Court. He might get some leeway being a younger demon and not understanding the consequences, but he’s being raised by the two of us—three, if you count Meruem. The expectations are high.”

Killua sneered a little, glancing away from them. He put a hand to the earring and leveled, begrudgingly, with the fact that Chrollo was right. Killua didn’t understand hellish law and had no place critiquing it. 

“Would you and Hisoka be punished for Gon’s wrongdoings?” his grandfather asked.

“Reprimanded, probably,” Chrollo admitted. “Meruem would probably strike a deal with God. We’d have to do charity or something boring like that.”

“That doesn’t sound so terrible.”

Chrollo cast his grandfather a scathing look that nearly made Killua laugh. He barely stifled a cough to cover it up.

His grandfather’s volume dipped in severity. “There are worse things than doing good in the world, Chrollo.”

“You think I haven’t had millennia to do good? Good is temporary—bad deeds are forever.”

“Yeah! I mean, look at that war you started! Killua learned about it in school!” Gon said.

Killua’s grandfather put a hand to his face and gave up.

To make up for stressing Hisoka out, Gon opted to keep him company that night following their classes. If Killua had plans, they went out the window as Gon insisted he tag along. He hadn’t realized that “keep Hisoka company” entailed following the man against his will across the small college town. 

Killua had started to suspect that Hisoka’s relationship to Gon was more complicated than just babysitting . An exhausted, annoyed parent might be thrilled to have the night off spent away from Gon, but Hisoka embraced the company with an arm slung over Gon’s shoulder as if escorting Gon to Earth’s great treasures. 

Gon, thrilled at the prospect of being shown something new, fell into step with an eagerness Killua couldn’t explain. They were just going to a restaurant, and one Killua had been to before.

“My grandpa’s TAs go here sometimes,” Killua explained to Gon in an effort to downplay it. “He says the drinks aren’t even that great.”

“Your grandfather has a refined palette,” Hisoka reminded him. “We aren’t here for Italy’s best red .”

“I’m just saying—there are less expensive places to go,” Killua insisted.

Hisoka ignored him in favor of reaching for the door. Gon stepped under his extended arm and into the venue with a grand smile in Killua’s direction. Killua paused a step away from the door and where Hisoka waited for him to cross. Killua distinctly felt like he was taking his first step into Hell with the way Hisoka gestured him inside. 

Killua glared up at him as he stepped around Hisoka’s back rather than the open bridge beneath Hisoka’s extended arm. He distinctly felt the roll of the demon’s eyes. 

The lounge reminded Killua of his grandfather’s office with its dark wood paneling and curated, backlit bookcases. Candles dotted the velvet niches occupied by upperclassmen. It wasn’t exactly the spot for freshmen without IDs, but Killua knew from experience that they were lax with it. He’d been served a frothy beer the last time he and Alluka joined his grandfather to be teased by his TAs last year.

The rich, acrid smell of heavy tobacco created a haze in the back where a curtain separated the cigar lounge from the front. There was a light film over everything, though, and Killua couldn’t stop the urge to breathe in deeply. It scratched an itch in the back of his head that always admitted to loving the smell—it was comforting to be reminded of his grandmother’s crocheted vests infused with smoke.

Out of pure habit, he followed after Gon. As the temperature dropped that night, Gon was bundled up and invisible to the crowd, but Hisoka was a captivating force in the lounge. His bright hair and fur coat were nothing if not out of place as he bypassed the hostess and claimed a spot at the end of the bar. 

Killua stood awkwardly between them as Gon peered into the back room and said, “Have you been here before?” Gon asked.

“No. I’m testing a theory,” Hisoka said.

“A theory?” Killua said, ever the skeptic. When Hisoka didn’t respond, Killua said, “If you’re interested in cigar bars, there’s a better one closer to home.”

“And you never told me about it?!” Gon said.

“We’ve only known each other for a week and a half—!”

“So?”

“Half of that time I spent hypnotized,” Killua reminded him as Gon joined him and Hisoka at the bar, pouting. 

A bartender came out from the back room, cradling bottles of unopened wine. “I’ll be right with you,” they said, and dipped out of view to stash the bottles away. 

“We should go to the backroom,” Gon suggested. “Have you ever had a cigar?”

“Yes,” Killua said. 

“You wanna try it again?”

Killua glowered at him. “My grandfather has better ones at home.”

Gon groaned. 

The bartender reappeared, took one look at them, and settled a stiff glare onto Hisoka. “Oh. You.”

“Yes, me,” Hisoka said through an amused grin. Killua recognized it from the number of games they’d played as Killua regained awareness—he was an interested party in this bartender. 

Gon gasped. “You two know each other?”

“We’re in the same class with Professor Zoldyck,” the bartender said. 

Gon pointed at Killua before he could stop him. “That’s his grandpa!”

Killua rolled his eyes away in an effort to avoid the bartender’s attention. He really wasn’t interested in being labeled a teacher’s pet—he’d avoided the philosophy department strictly for this reason. “I’m sure he’s not interested in knowing that,” Killua said. 

“I didn’t know he had a grandson,” the bartender said. He reached across the bar and said, “Kurapika. Sophomore.”

Purely out of politeness, Killua took the hand. “Genuinely, I’ll be of no help to you with my grandfather.”

“That’s not why I’m introducing myself. I just really admire Professor Zoldyck,” Kurapika said, hands on their hips. 

Killua appraised Kurapika’s uniform—it was just as he remembered it: black fest on black button-up, slacks. On Kurapika, it was vaguely androgynous with their blonde hair pulled back into a short ponytail, which was further emphasized by Hisoka saying:

“They’re type A academically like Gramps,” Hisoka said, “It’s no wonder you admire him.”

Kurapika’s expression dropped to complete annoyance. It was an impressive yet jarring shift that nearly made Killua laugh.  

Gon gasped again. “You two are partners for the project!”

“Unfortunately,” Kurapika muttered. “Are you going to order anything, or should I just walk away?”

“Bottle of your favorite cab,” Hisoka said.

Kurapika started to move, stopped, and glared at him. “How did you know cab is my favorite?”

Hisoka shrugged. “Just a lucky guess.”

Kurapika squinted at him suspiciously before walking off. The moment they were gone, Gon said to Killua, “We can usually tell what a person prefers.”

“That’s a vague category.”

“For Gon, it’s mostly intoxicants,” Hisoka offered, leaning back in his stool. He laid a delicate hand on his chest. “For me , sexuality is also a factor. I can read anyone.”

Killua wished he’d never known that. “Thanks. Don’t tell me.” 

Hisoka’s smile was borderline threatening. “Of course not. And for the record, I can’t get a read on Gon. I’ve determined he may be impotent.”

“Hey!” Gon cried. “I don’t even know what that means!”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“I don’t like it when you say that. It makes me worry.”

Kurapika avoided them for so long that their coworker took their orders instead. Killua didn’t blame them, though he found it interesting that Kurapika was so resistant to Hisoka and Gon’s presence. If anything, he avoided them like the plague. 

Only after this analogy did Killua begin to connect the dots. They were attending the same university, after all—a university with a philosophy department infamous for converting its students to seminary. Killua finished off his drink in three quick gulps before deciding to ask.

“Are religious people more resistant to demons?” he asked.

“Are you religious?” Hisoka asked.

“He’s agnostic,” Gon said.

“Close enough. That’s a good assumption to make.”

“I think Kurapika might be in seminary school,” Killua said. “My grandfather’s course is taken by a lot of seminary kids.”

“Doubtful,” Hisoka replied. Killua waited for an expansion Hisoka avoided by taking a long drink.

Killua rolled his eyes. “Care to explain?”

“Not especially. It isn’t my place to share,” Hisoka said. 

“Kurapika’s gay,” Gon said. At Hisoka’s arched brow, Gon beamed. “I’m right, aren’t I?”

“That hasn’t stopped priests before,” Killua said, and only registered the morbidity of the comment a second later. He shut his eyes. “Pretend I didn’t say that.”

“You provide such a colorful perspective,” Hisoka praised.

“Stop it.”

Kurapika didn’t interact with them again that evening, and they left after Killua forced them to close their tab. He waited until they were outside, at which point Gon huddled close, shivering in the cold. 

Hisoka appeared mostly unaffected, and Killua would have blamed it on the weight of his coat, but Gon was in three layers. He resolved to question this another time when he wasn’t so baffled by Hisoka’s attachment to Kurapika. 

As far as he’d observed, Hisoka wasn’t interested in humans. He imagined the life of a multi-millennia being encompassed a slew of fascinating subjects and he found it unreasonable to suggest a 20th century (alleged-) seminary student being the center of Hisoka’s attention.

Which, ultimately, led Killua to assume: “There’s something about Kurapika that I can’t see, isn’t there?”

Hisoka blinked at the comment and met Killua’s eyes directly for, he realized, the first time that night. He closed his mouth and, Killua realized, debated not answering at all. Eventually, he said, “You aren’t all that different from Kurapika. The only difference is that I won’t tread in Gon’s territory.”

Killua couldn’t help the flush that went through his system. “ Territory ” was a bit of a stretch, he felt. “I don’t think that’s it,” he said. “Kurapika seems emotionally unavailable. I think that’s worth some self-reflection from you.”

Hisoka gave a droll roll of his eyes as he stepped away from them. “Noted. Walk straight home and don’t end up in the papers tomorrow.”

“No promises,” Gon said, but at Hisoka’s dreadful stare, he corrected himself. “Okay, I won’t be in the papers.”

“Good.”

When he and Gon started in the direction of their dorm, Gon offered his hand. Killua stared down at it—at the red tinge to Gon’s fingers in the alleged cold down to the deep tan of his skin—and pocketed his hands instead. “I’m fine,” he said.

“But I like holding your hand,” Gon admitted. “I won’t burn you.”

“That isn’t my concern,” Killua admitted. Clearly , he thought, because he’d risked second-degree burns on Gon and still had the bandages to prove it. Physical pain was something he could handle. “You’ll be warmer if you use your pockets.”

Gon took this advice, and as they walked, Killua wondered about Hisoka’s ability to read people, and how easily Gon had picked up on Kurapika’s sexuality. It wasn’t too far off to suggestion that Gon knew the same about Killua and simply kept it to himself. 

That was almost more humiliating than Gon simply saying it outright. It made Gon’s offer of handholding less genuine and more condescending. 

It wasn’t a conversation for tonight, but Killua resolved to worry about it later. As Hisoka had insinuated, and Gon had repeatedly proved, Gon wasn’t interested in romantic human connection. He hadn’t involved Killua for that reason, which put Killua further to sea. 

Why was he involved, aside from proximity? Convenience? Inevitable exposure?

Romance was, Killua decided, very human. It was likely an expression demons either weren’t capable of or recreated artificially. Hisoka’s sensuality leant into sex, but Killua never read his personality as romantic . Perhaps this was where demons differed from humans.

“You’re thinking too hard,” Gon said, reaching up to ruffle Killua’s hair. 

Killua shook him off. “Am not.”

“I can tell! We should have gotten cigars.”

“That would not have helped.”

“You don’t know that!”

“You just wanted to smoke, didn’t you?” 

“So?”

Killua rolled his eyes, nudging Gon’s side. “Next time, maybe. I get the feeling Hisoka’s going to want to go back there.”

Gon gave Killua’s words a thoughtful moment to absorb. By then, they’d returned to campus and passed under the entrance gate. “I think so, too.”

Chapter Text

Killua’s attention had recovered from the weekend by the time Thursday lectures started. He missed some of the context from the start of the week thanks to overanalyzing Gon in every capacity. He hadn’t realized how much time he’d spent just thinking about Gon and reliving every interaction they had had in the hours prior to lecture.

But now he could turn off his Gon Radar except for when he couldn’t—when he knew for a fact that he was crushing on Gon and couldn’t stop it from happening. 

He tried to write this off as an artifact of his breakdown, but he recognized elements of it from before the LSD when Gon had altered his brain chemistry. 

Gon was, without a doubt, attractive in every sense of the word. If Killua didn’t know any better, he’d call Gon’s appearance calculated, but by observation, he knew that Gon wasn’t. It was accidental, it was innate, and it never seemed to cross Gon’s mind that he might be heart-stopping to observe even from a distance.

It was difficult for Killua to avoid the blinding glare of Gon’s shine when they spent most of their time together. To Killua’s great struggle, Gon had managed to memorize Killua’s schedule during his lapse of conscience. With Gon determined to walk Killua to his classes, Killua wasn’t all that inclined to disagree. 

He secretly appreciated the company, if only because of the atmosphere Gon brought with him. 

Whether he be invisible or avoided, Gon was the perfect storm to avoid socializing. Killua preferred this. Greedily, Killua absorbed Gon’s attention for himself sans the impact of others. It was only on Friday that Killua was given a moment to be interrupted.

A shadow cast over Killua’s readings. Gon had an afternoon class that didn’t overlap with any of Killua’s lectures, which gave him a brief stint of reclusion. Instead, he’d managed to be found by the subject of Hisoka’s interest.

“Kurapika,” Killua said. 

“Hey,” Kurapika said, and hesitated. Their eyes dropped to Killua’s reading. “Sorry to interrupt you.”

Killua flipped packet closed. “You aren’t interrupting anything interesting, believe me.”

After awkward smalltalk and establishing that Kurapika could, in fact, join Killua, they sat together in silence. For a moment, Killua distinctly felt like they were two kids stuck in the principle’s office together, and it was only a matter of asking, “ What got you here? ”

Instead, Kurapika said, “I don’t know how to ask this.”

Killua’s heart seized in his chest. He had forgotten about Machi until this moment, and the guilt of abandoning her discovery of Gon’s demonic origins left him momentarily speechless. 

Luckily, Kurapika didn’t have the words to continue the conversation. Killua collected himself enough to say, “I know what you mean.”

Kurapika gave a sharp laugh, shaking their head. Their eyes were on the table between them. “I don’t think you do,” he said. “You’re friends with…”

“It’s complicated,” Killua said. “Gon’s my roommate and Hisoka is his friend.” And Gon also killed my brother and Hisoka helped bring him back to life, but I don’t think you could handle that right now .

“They… really aren’t your friends?” Kurapika clarified.

Killua hesitated. “It’s… complicated. Gon’s my friend.”

“The freckled guy with dimples?”

“Yeah.”

Kurapika took this information and spent a moment mulling it over. They shifted in their seat, a hand to the table. Their expression had twisted into something akin to distress . “I don’t know how to tell you this,” they said. 

“Trust me, I think I can handle it.”

“I just get the impression that—that you’re a good person,” they went on.

“You don’t need to pacify me,” Killua said, almost amused. Still, his chest was tight. 

“I don’t think… Gon. Or Hisoka. Are normal ,” they started, intentionally vague, and Killua just wanted to scream at them to be more specific. Euphemisms wouldn’t get them anywhere. “Have you… noticed that?”

“Yeah.”

“Really? Because I don’t think—”

“Trust me. I have.”

At this, Kurapika managed to hold Killua’s gaze. The tufts of strawberry blonde hair that didn’t make it to the ponytail were wiry and framed their porcelain face and round glasses. Their face was all smooth edges and soft skin—youthful. Killua found it hard to believe that they were hired to mix drinks at a cigar bar.

Kurapika took a winded breath, but it didn’t help the effect their exhaustion had on their voice—like they’d just run a mile. “You know, then. And you still… are with them .”

Killua paused. “Yeah. That’s accurate.”

“ Why? ” Kurapika shook their head, eyes shut. “Never mind. I just wanted to make sure you were aware.”

Killua stopped them from leaving with a hand to their arm. “I’ve been wondering since we met at the bar: Are you religious?”

Kurapika stared down at him. “Excuse me?”

“I’m agnostic,” he explained, as if that helped at all to someone who may or may not have been in seminary school. “I just mean—I have this… theory that religious people are less affected. Hisoka and Gon aren’t convinced that you are religious.”

“Really?” Kurapika’s voice raised, baffled. They cleared their throat, glancing awkwardly around them. The study space was void of all sound aside from pens scratching on paper. 

They sat back down. “I am religious,” he admitted. “I’m planning to transfer to seminary studies next semester, honestly.”

“Oh.” For dread uncategorized to Killua, he felt sorry for Kurapika. “I think that appeals to them. They like the challenge.”

“I imagine so,” Kurapika said. After studying Killua a moment, they said, “You’re… very aware then.”

Killua shrugged. “It’s more of a morbid fascination right now. Possibly influenced by Thanatos, I can’t really tell.”

“Do you spend a lot of time with them?”

This line of questioning drilled quickly to the crux of Killua’s problems: his exposure to Gon. He’d taken to reclining back in his seat, arms crossed, in full discussion with Kurapika over the state of his mortal soul. 

Kurapika was a patient listener, and Killua loathed to admit that this would make for a good confessional. He didn’t dare risk alluding to the events of the previous weekend, though. 

“Gon seems interested in having a conscience,” Killua confessed. “He’s been using me to determine what’s right.”

“Is that really the case?” Kurapika wondered aloud. “I appreciate his effort, really, but he isn’t… an agent of free will, is he?”

Killua hadn’t considered that. “Isn’t he?”

Kurapika shrugged. “I don’t think so.”

“I always assumed free will was a sinful construct.”

“It isn’t strictly connected to lack of sin,” they said. “Free choice is the trap, isn’t it? To have the opportunity to sin… it seems people like Gon and Hisoka are uniquely positioned to sin.”

Killua considered how easy it was for Gon to sin by merely existing in a world so attuned to his wants. The world bowed to him without question. “I don’t think it’s their fault,” Killua said. “They only sin until people like us impede them.”

“I appreciate your effort, but you should know it isn’t the responsibility of man to reform… people like Gon and Hisoka,” Kurapika said, and Killua knew immediately the word Kurapika truly wanted to use. Gon and Hisoka weren’t “ people ”.

“Maybe not,” Killua agreed. “But I also don’t think it’s your responsibility to convince me of that.”

“If not me, then who?” Kurapika said, and at Killua’s raised eyebrow, they went on. “I’ve found a lot of people don’t question them.”

“Again—I think it’s religion-based.”

Kurapika sighed, disgruntled, and folded their arms. “Many are religious, as far as I’m aware.”

“I rest my case.”

“Killua, you can’t honestly convince me that every seminary student I’ve heard interact with Gon or Hisoka is affected due to lack of faith.”

Killua shrugged. He had his opinions, and he wasn’t exactly in favor of putting Kurapika’s future colleagues on blast. 

At length, Kurapika stood again, more peeved than when he’d sat down. He reached for Killua’s pen and jotted two phone numbers onto the top of Killua’s notebook with scribbled titles for each. “Call if you need anything—seriously. Home, restaurant. One of the two—I’m always there.”

“Got it,” Killua said, though he severely doubted that he’d ever call Kurapika.

If he’d known how desperately he’d need to memorize Kurapika’s phone number, he wouldn’t have left it in the middle of a random notebook shoved to the bottom of his backpack—

—but he wouldn’t need it for another week.

Killua’s grandfather found Chrollo sitting in the guest bedroom he often reserved for Illumi. Illumi had yet to leave the bathroom for more than an hour at a time, and thus the room was sparsely occupied by more than his suitcase.

Which lay open on the bed, Chrollo in the corner reading chair. He was flipping through a leather-bound journal, evidence of his escapades stacked on the nightstand. 

“Are you—rooting through Illumi’s belongings?” his grandfather said, eyebrows raised and gaze suspiciously just above the rim of his glasses. 

Chrollo looked up from the book. “I am.”

“Any particular reason why?”

“Curiosity,” he replied. 

“Which I’ve heard kills cats,” his grandfather said. He stepped past the threshold, hands clasped behind his back. “I’d appreciate it if you left his things untouched. He wouldn’t appreciate having them violated by your eyes.”

“My eyes have been in constant violation of his sick. I think this is fair payment.”

“I appreciate your help with curing Illumi, but I’m sure there’s other payment forms we can think of.”

“You have nothing I want. I’ve already seen all your paintings and prints, and unfortunately, I’m not interested in your granddaughter’s artwork from fifth grade.”

“Artwork is what you’re interested in?”

“And books, but your first editions don’t interest me.”

It took a beat before his grandfather could respond to this. “You’ve found my first editions? I keep them in the safe.”

“I might be interested in your late wife’s wedding ring,” he admitted.

Unfortunately, Killua’s grandfather didn’t think this a fair trade. “I’ll let you continue your snooping,” his grandfather said at last, and walked away.

Chrollo had initially been intrigued by the way Illumi wrote his loops. It was mechanically illegible and so aggressive that each line contained ghosts of the characters from pages before it. The ink blotted at every small loop, which turned into oddly abstract art from afar. He always appreciated cursive, and Illumi’s could have been considered a snub to that. 

He wrote in shorthand for work, and Chrollo found himself in the depths of courtroom antics. Most were packets of stenographs that Chrollo quickly parsed to be from family court—divorces, specifically. They were quite juicy.

The next time Chrollo was interrupted, he was fully invested in a marital affair that had broken up the family years prior and was only just now being resolved. 

The shuffle of footsteps were distinctly unsteady in comparison to Zeno’s slow but steady amble. Chrollo looked up before Illumi ever loomed in the doorway like a poorly strung marionette.

“I haven’t vomited in three days—” It had been less than twenty-four hours since Illumi’s last puking session, but Chrollo felt it impolite to interrupt. Illumi waved a half-empty sludge glass up and said, “—do I really need to finish this?”

“Yes, you do.”

Illumi rolled his eyes. He brushed his hair back from his face and set the glass aside. It nearly tipped off the table as his hand lingered a second too long on it while walking by. “You know, as much as I hate puke, passing this shit isn’t any better.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“You should be.” He sat on the edge of the bed, loosely clutching the bed frame post. His eyes wavered around the floor, and then the patterned comforter, before at last processing the contents on the bed. “You’re going through my things,” he said, a fact.

“I am,” Chrollo said, also a fact.

Illumi took a deep breath, brow furrowed. It took an entire minute for him to respond, so Chrollo went back to reading. Their assets now totaled well over thirty million dollars—and the petitioner would receive half of it . Chrollo thought she ought to get more. 

“What the fuck,” Illumi said at last. “Why are you…? Going through…”

“I was interested in your handwriting, but now I’m more interested in this case now.”

“Case?” It confirmed for Chrollo that Illumi had forgotten completely about his occupation. 

Chrollo turned the paper around for Illumi to squint at. “You’re a stenographer, are you not?”

“No,” he said. Intrigued, Chrollo waited for proper clarity. At length, Illumi said, “I’m… a paralegal.” And then, frowning elsewhere, scratched at his head. “Where do I work?”

“It’ll come to you,” Chrollo said in a voice better suited for someone that didn’t care at all. “Would you be interested in a walk?”

Illumi didn’t respond. He was stuck in the grain of his mind where the law resided and wondering how he got there. Still, he followed Chrollo’s gentle cue to stand up, and the two of them walked across the house to the library and back again.

By the time they returned to Illumi’s room, he was exhausted but more pliable to the idea of finishing his sludge smoothie. He fell asleep amidst the innards of his suitcase on the floral comforter, and since the nightstand light wasn’t a bother, Chrollo continued his reading there. 

By the afternoon, Hisoka had popped in briefly to visit. Chrollo set the transcription aside to listen to Hisoka’s ramblings about his proposed conquest. 

“Let Gon know I’m at the bar if he’s interested in a smoke,” Hisoka said before leaving. 

When Gon and Killua arrived, Gon was, indeed, interested in a smoke. “I’ll be gone for, like, an hour,” Gon promised, and the second he was out the door, Killua said, “It’ll probably be three hours.”

“I figured,” Chrollo said. 

Killua was more interested in the state of Illumi’s affairs. He studied the clothes scattered about, Illumi on the bed, hair askew, and appeared deep in thought. Chrollo found Killua’s sluggishness most applicable to things completely unrelated to Gon—his life before Gon, mostly. Illumi was no exception. 

Chrollo resumed reading for the minute it took Killua to catch up to what he was looking at and why it interested him so much: the reason Illumi had come to Killua’s university in the first place. 

“You’ve been going through his things,” Killua concluded.

“I have.”

“Have you found any… photographs?”

He considered the question honestly. “Yes. They seem personal,” he said. 

Killua swayed a fraction, stuck between keeping his distance and reaching for Chrollo to shake the answers out of him. His mind flew up and down the spectrum of what Illumi might have on Alluka that would upset their parents so much—drugs, maybe, or perhaps she was a lesbian. Did she have a girlfriend Killua didn’t even know about?

Which led to his ultimate conclusion. His stomach churned with discomfort, chest tight and sickened by what Illumi may be willing to use against their little sister. Granted, Illumi wasn’t one to make their private affairs public, but knowing Chrollo had seen them was enough of a betrayal. 

Illumi had brought this on his sister—pictures she may never have wanted to share, even. “Was a… girl in them? Brunette, long hair?” Killua asked.

Chrollo lowered the papers. “Why?”

“That’s our sister.”

Interesting , Chrollo thought. Killua’s gaze was steady, and he was telling the truth, though he didn’t seem to know the content he spoke of. “Why would your brother have these photographs? Should I be concerned?”

Killua took a deep, unsteady breath. If the content was what he assumed, this certainly did look awful. “My parents wanted all of us to go to ivy. Illumi and Milluki weren’t accepted, but I was. I didn’t go, and now they want Alluka to go.”

“Ah. Blackmail,” Chrollo concluded, and Killua nodded. Chrollo resumed reading. “That’s none of my business.”

Killua outwardly groaned. “Can’t you just give them to me? I can find them myself.”

“They’re mine now,” Chrollo said. “When would you have thought to look for them had I not interfered?”

It was an impasse Killua didn’t have an answer to. It was true that he had forgotten about Illumi’s blackmail until the evidence was before him—maybe he wouldn’t have thought about it at all until Illumi was better, a pain in his ass again, and Chrollo was back in Hell with Gon and Hisoka. Life would have continued as if they’d never interfered at all.

But they had interfered, and though Gon and Hisoka’s continued imposition had its own consequences, Chrollo was hardly a consequence. He was just trying to keep the status quo.

“You aren’t above impacting my life at this point,” Killua insisted, though he knew that logic was shaky. Chrollo’s lack of reaction said so. “So what if I would have found them after you leave? You could just give me them now and save me the trouble.”

Chrollo licked his thumb and swiped to the next page with it. After letting Killua sweat for a second longer, he said, “After I’m done here. But I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s copies.”

It was a reality Killua didn’t want to consider but knew he should. “Maybe. But at least one less copy will exist.”

“I’ll be down before Gon and Hisoka return. Illumi won’t be up before then anyway.”

Killua let him be after that, his skin buzzing with adrenaline. His hand shook as he shut the door behind him, still holding the knob. The odds that Illumi had copies were higher than Killua wanted them to be, but the optimist in him hoped that Illumi hadn’t thought that far ahead. 

He took a deep, unsteady breath and stepped away from the Illumi’s room. It bothered him almost just as much to know that Chrollo had seen the pictures, but at the very least, he was reassured that Chrollo wasn’t exactly the type to make a fuss about it. He hardly seemed interested in human dynamics.

Which didn’t explain his sudden interest in family court affairs—not that Killua was aware.

Distracted by his own anticipation and anxiety, Killua barely finished a page of his poetry reading assignment in the hour it took Chrollo to finish reading everything Illumi had brought with him from New York. Killua listened for the sound of the guest bedroom door opening and closing and, by the time Chrollo padded into the library wearing a pair of slippers from his grandfather’s collection, Killua was on his feet. 

In Chrollo’s hand was a crisp, unlabeled envelope. Killua snatched it the moment Chrollo held it out. “This is the reason you threatened Illumi then, I take it.”

Killua hadn’t anticipated the accusation. He flinched in reply, envelope pressed to his chest. He scrambled to tuck it away in his hoodie pocket, out of sight. “Yeah. Sorry.” Sorry this all happened because of Alluka’s pictures .

“It isn’t my place, but you’re a better man than most people,” he said. “Gon’s very sensitive to these sorts of things. He could probably read Illumi’s intent, and I don’t think it was entirely your fault he acted the way he did.”

Killua found that difficult to believe considering the number of awkward situations Gon put him in. If Gon could read people so well, then he should have known better than to take things from people unawares. 

“Thank you, but I disagree,” Killua said. “Gon… trusted my intuition. When I threatened Illumi, he took that at face value. I’d given him no reason not to .”

“I wasn’t there,” Chrollo said, “I’m just saying Gon sees things that you don’t. We all do. Illumi isn’t a good person.”

“Harsh.”

“It’s true. And I don’t agree with him keeping the polaroids. I didn’t mean to imply that you shouldn’t take them—”

“I know. I can tell you’re trying not to influence our lives more than you need to,” Killua said, abruptly sick with himself. It was clear to him now that this was the case for Chrollo, and yet— “I shouldn’t have put you in this position. You’re right—I could have found the pictures myself. Thank you for giving them to me anyway.”

It was the longest discussion they had ever had beyond Meruem’s gold. Killua only realized this after Chrollo unfocused from him, eyes on St. Peter’s cross dangling from Killua’s ear. Self-consciously, Killua touched it as if to hide it. 

“Well,” Chrollo said at last, turning away. He glanced back, not making eye contact, to say, “Your grandfather’s in his office. Burn the pictures before he’s done grading and Hisoka and Gon get back.”

“R-Right.” 

Killua took the envelope with him to the kitchen where Hisoka left his lighter behind on the counter near the patio. It was still damp outside when Killua crumpled newspaper up in his grandfather’s small fire pit, and though it took him approximately six tries to get a flame, eventually, the newspaper crumpled to black powder. 

The corner of the envelope caught fire. He tucked it into with the smoldering embers and watched as the adhesive melted and the ink from the polaroids turned translucent and oily. The orange flames turned green and blue when the ink caught. He didn’t bother to look at the contents as the envelope shed away.

Despite the waxy scent in the air, Killua breathed a little easier as he crouched beside the fire, elbows on his knees. This was where Gon found him as he and Hisoka returned from no doubt harassing Kurapika.

“Are we having a fire tonight?” Gon asked as he joined Killua, crouched on the ground.

“Maybe,” Killua said. He looked up and found Gon studying him from a comfortable distance—just close enough for Killua to breathe in the tobacco still on Gon’s coat and scarf. “How was Kurapika?”

“Good, I think. His boyfriend was there, but he seems to like Hisoka. He’s a lot more interested in chatting and gossiping.”

“That’s… good? I guess?”

“You should have been there!” Gon said, and his disdain for Illumi went unsaid—as though Killua checking on Illumi was a pity compared to whatever crimes Hisoka and Gon were committing in his absence. 

Killua rolled his eyes. “My brother’s doing fine, by the way. Not that you were wondering or anything.”

“I wasn’t, but thanks for letting me know,” Gon said. 

Killua couldn’t help but laugh at Gon’s blatant allegiances. Still, though his grandfather’s house was tolerable with Illumi unconscious in it, Illumi’s mere presence exhausted him. He wanted to go back to the dorms. “Would you want to go to the mess hall for dinner tonight?” Killua asked.

“Sure, that sounds good. As much as I love cooking here, I like spending time alone with you more,” Gon declared, pushing to his feet.

Killua sputtered, heat flushing his chest all the way up to his ears. “Y-You can’t just say that.”

“Why not? I mean, I spend so much time with Hisoka and Chrollo usually. It’s nice to get away and I like hanging out with you,” Gon explained.

Killua couldn’t meet his eyes as he hurried ahead to the door. “I— get that , but it’s—it’s complicated human stuff, I guess.”

He slid the patio door ajar, Gon at his heels. “Does this have to do with you being gay?”

Killua bristled at the comment. He turned on Gon in an instant, mouth ajar and floundering for words. 

Just as he thought he knew what to say, Gon’s eyes jumped away from him and in the direction past the kitchen and to his grandfather’s office. “Zeno! Killua and I were just gonna head to the dorms.”

His grandfather folded his arms over his chest and said, “You sure? I heard today is meatloaf—the cafeteria’s meatloaf is a mystery to me.”

“I’ll eat anything,” Gon confessed. 

“That you do… Alright, then. Will you stop by tomorrow?”

“Sure, but it’s gotta be in the morning. We have a couple parties to hit up in the evening.”

Killua slapped his hand over his face, as if he wasn’t flustered enough. “Gon, you can’t just tell my grandfather we’re going partying ,” he stressed, though he hadn’t even known he was attending parties until then. 

His grandfather laughed. “Oh, I know how it is. Don’t censor yourself on my account—See, back in my day— ”

Killua grabbed his backpack from the kitchen table, waved, and said, “Okay, bye! I’m leaving!”

“No, wait, I wanna hear this—!” Gon insisted, but Killua grabbed him by the arm to drag him outside.

Gon relented with a disgruntled moan as he trudged after Killua through the back gate. Killua walked several paces ahead, shouldering his backpack, until Gon caught up to him. They trudged onward, crossing the road, before either of them said anything.

“I made you uncomfortable, didn’t I?”

Killua rubbed at his face to avoid answering. He’d hoped Gon would just drop it, but evidently, that wasn’t the case.

Gon groaned, hand in his hair. “I don’t know how to ask these things. It’s why I don’t like dabbling in what Hisoka does.”

“It’s fine. We don’t have to talk about it,” Killua said, and hoped Gon would get the hint. He’d rather avoid the topic entirely because the more Gon talked about it, the more crushing the weight of his crush became. 

It wasn’t realistic for Killua to like Gon any more than he would a friend. Gon was so far off Killua’s playing field he might as well be in Hell—physically, actually, completely out of Killua’s depth.

“I know I said I have a lot of time to… learn about all that,” Gon started, eyes on the ground. His foot scuffed a pebble, kicking it ahead of them. It ricocheted off a crack in the sidewalk. “But I kind of just… I don’t know. I want to hear your thoughts.”

Killua didn’t even know where to begin. Neither of them did. Sexuality was complicated, nuanced, and volatile to Killua’s mental wellbeing. It had always been a contentious part of his life having grown up in a family where homosexuality wasn’t even on the radar.

“It’s… really not the best topic to discuss in public,” Killua admitted, wishing he’d worn a lighter shirt. His entire face felt inflamed. “It’s a really sensitive topic.”

“Even more than drugs?”

“ Yes . Honestly, probably more sensitive than drugs,” Killua said. “Being caught tripping on acid by Illumi was less debilitating than him realizing I’m gay , if I’m being honest.”

“Oh,” Gon said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize it was that taboo. I mean, Hisoka’s touched on it a little. He said this era isn’t really progressive yet.”

Killua opted not to read into that. He found that any mention of the future glossed over his mind like rain on an umbrella. “Yeah, it isn’t. If Illumi tells my parents, I’ll probably be disowned.” And he could probably even use that as blackmail for Alluka, too , he realized, dizzying with the possibility.

“Your grandfather too?” Gon asked, an edge of alarm in his voice. 

Killua shrugged. He honestly didn’t know—he’d always been too fearful to bring up the topic. After all, his father was raised by Zeno Zoldyck. Granted, his father wasn’t the philosopher and thinker his grandfather was, but Killua wasn’t sure where else his father could have gotten his bigoted ideals. 

“I’d like to think he’d be accepting, but I don’t want to risk it,” Killua confessed. “When you mentioned it and he was right there, I swear my heart stopped a little.”

“I didn’t realize—! I thought you seemed off but I thought it was for a different reason,” Gon confessed. 

Killua patted a hand to his chest where his heart was skipping over every step they took. His palm was clammy, and his bandaged hand itched. “Chrollo said you’re really observant about emotions. Earlier today.”

“Kind of. Except for you and your family, I guess. You’re all a bit more…” Gon made a frazzled motion with his hands around his head. “ Difficult . Kurapika, too. It’s difficult for me to get a grasp quickly, if that makes sense. Like, in the kitchen I almost thought for a moment that…”

“What?”

Gon licked his lips, glancing away. His nose was red from the crisp autumn air. “Nothing,” he said, and his voice squeaked a little.

“Was it me?”

“Yeah. But it’s fine.”

“It doesn’t sound fine.”

“I thought you might…” Gon scratched at his hair again. “I can’t really conceptualize it… but it’s related to you being… What we can’t talk about in public.”

They were approaching the dorms, and he was so baffled by Gon’s tiptoeing that he couldn’t help it—he laughed. He backed through the entrance door and held it ajar for Gon, saying, “Got it. Save it for the dorm room, then.”

They climbed the carpeted stairs as students filtered down dressed in their Friday bests. There was a line filtering out of the mess hall doors, which Killua secretly hoped would dwindle by the time they’d dropped off their things at their dorm room. 

Their hall was busy with a couple bickering through the open door of a neighboring room where the occupants were getting ready to go out. Gon stuck his tongue out in annoyance for only Killua to see as he unlocked their room door. Killua stifled a laugh as they disappeared behind their door. 

Killua barely had his backpack off before Gon said, “I thought you might like me. For a second.”

Killua hesitated, one arm outstretched. He pulled his arm back in, but he really wanted his backpack off. Awkwardly, he let it slide down his arms as he distinctly felt Gon observing him like a science experiment—cautious, but with attentive eyes scanning for a response.

As if Killua’s heart wasn’t beating fast enough. He felt it in his burn like a hammer to his sensitive, flushed skin. 

“I mean, yeah, we’re friends,” Killua said, thinking, Smooth one . 

“No, I mean more than friends.” Whatever happened to Killua’s face, it wasn’t what Gon was prepared for. “I mean—! That’s fine, really! I’m not upset or anything, I just don’t really understand it, is what I’m saying.”

“That… doesn’t really help my case,” Killua said, his voice dampening. He wondered if Gon could even hear him over the muffled turmoil out in their hallway as the group fled their room to head out for the evening. “Was I really that obvious?”

“No! No, not to, like, normal people,” Gon said. “I only know it because you get this kind of electric glow when it’s just the two of us. Like when we were by the fire. It’s not really something humans can even understand.”

How embarrassing , Killua thought, to have my emotions so beyond my sleeve .

Gon’s shoulders slumped. “I’ve made you uncomfortable.”

“I just really didn’t want to know that, I guess,” Killua said, hardly reassuring. “Having a crush isn’t something humans want known unless they say so .”

“I shouldn’t have said anything—”

“You didn’t know,” Killua said, mortified.

“How do I reciprocate?” Gon asked.

Killua startled at the suggestion. He tugged at the front of his shirt to try for some air circulation as he paced away from Gon and across the room. With his back turned, Gon rambled on. 

“Isn’t that what you want? For me to reciprocate?”

“Gon, that definitely isn’t how this works.”

“Then tell me how it works! I really care about you, and this is important to me—”

The hairs on the back of Killua’s neck were rising again. He rubbed anxiously at them and feared, once again, that looking at Gon’s face would make him crumble all over again. 

All of the complacency Killua had built in the protection of Gon’s muffled tattoos was quick to shed away at the realization that—he still wanted to appease Gon. That perhaps nothing had changed.

In his bones he knew that his crush wasn’t a fabrication of his breakdown, but now it was twisted under the urgency of Gon’s desperation to appease him . It was a vicious cycle, and it sent Killua’s lungs on fire. 

“Killua, wait—Can you breathe?” Gon said, panic edging in his voice. 

Killua put a hand out before Gon could get within arms length. “Stop—I’m trying to—I can’t—” All of the heat in his face bubbled over his eyes. His skin felt like it plastic-wrapped, and the pulse of his burns reminded him of how fiercely he wanted to cling to Gon’s hand no matter the pain it may cause. 

But he couldn’t. Not when he was slipping again. 

“I didn’t mean to upset you,” Gon said, quickly. “Tell me what I can do—”

“Gon, stop ,” he snapped, voice breaking. He took a few shallow breaths, leaning into his desk. “When you ask me— that —it just makes me want to cave . Because I know you want to reciprocate, but I can’t—I can’t tell you how to do that .”

“Why not?” Gon begged, pleading. 

“Because doing something just to make someone happy isn’t consent ,” Killua explained. “ Especially when it comes to r-romance or… sex . Consent is, like, the foundation of all of this, and realistically, I can’t consent when I’m under your influence. You can’t consent unless—unless—”

“Unless I know what I’m getting myself into. Is that it?” Gon asked, and when Killua nodded, Gon said, “Then can’t you teach me? I can learn from you.”

Killua shook his head, uneasy. “I don’t think it’d be… moral of me to do that. It would be one thing if you were human starting your first relationship, but I’d be taking advantage of your naïveté in this instance.”

After a minute spent processing, and a minute spent catching his breath, Killua managed to relax a fraction. The tension in the air had dissipated, and the weight of Gon’s reckless demands were lessening. His want for Killua to comply had swelled in the air, but now, diffused, he could breathe again. 

Gon slumped in his desk chair, studying the bland, worn-out carpet. Killua sunk back on one hand against his desk, passing his bandaged hand over his hair. He brushed the accidental tears away from his cheeks and let out a winded, yet relieved sigh. 

“Holy shit,” he laughed, unable to contain his tired smile. “I don’t think I can eat right now. I’m exhausted.”

“I could bring something up for you,” Gon offered.

“Maybe. If they have garlic bread?” 

Gon agreed, but didn’t move. They watched the floor together as the voices of their neighbors dissolved in the distance. Eventually, Gon said, “I really wanted to try and be human while I was here.”

“You aren’t, Gon,” Killua sighed.

“I know. But I still want to try .” 

Killua’s shoulders sagged. When he managed to pluck up the courage to look at Gon, he was gutted to see the shadows under Gon’s eyes. “Not everything about being human has to do with… romance ,” Killua said. “And I really like being your friend. Friends are, like, the best .”

“I know. And I’m so stoked about that and all,” Gon said, reverently. He clasped his hands together over the back of his chair and gave a weak stretch. “But the reason I like hanging out with you alone is for the moments you’re all sparkly and flustered. And now that I know what it means, I… really wouldn’t mind. Dabbling in that.”

Killua sputtered. D-Dabbling in that ?! he screamed internally.

He opened his mouth to argue, but clamped it shut a second later. He checked his watch and calculated the time. “Fine,” he said, and ignored the way Gon perked up. “I guess I can… give you a brief lesson on what romance is.”

Chapter Text

“Nothing you say will upset me.”

“He died well. That should please you. No bribe attempts or blubbering. Simply said, ‘Please. Please, I need to leave.’ It was the ‘please’ that caught my memory. I asked him what was so important for him. ‘True love,’ he replied. And then he spoke of a girl of surpassing beauty and faithfulness—I can only assume he meant you.”

Killua took popcorn from Gon’s bag and tossed it into his mouth. The cool daylight on the screen illuminated Gon’s bright face and even brighter eyes as he stared, enraptured, at the screen. 

He nearly leant over to whisper something, but the person next to him gave him a glare just for inhaling. He reclined back in his seat. 

The entire theater was packed that Friday evening and it was a wonder they managed to snag two seats next to each other. He’d only just been to the theaters a month ago with Alluka, but that film hadn’t been nearly as new. 

“Can you move at all? ”

“You’re alive. If you want, I can fly.”

“I told you I would always come for you. Why didn’t you wait for me?”

“Well, you were dead.”

“Death cannot stop true love. All it can do is delay it for a while.”

“I will never doubt again.”

“There will never be a need.”

Killua rolled his eyes but caught a glassy edge to Gon’s eyes. It was almost comical if it wasn’t so endearing. Killua leant his elbow into the armrest, hand on his chin, and watched the remainder of the movie with a unique interest in Gon’s reactions. It was like watching a movie with a kid experiencing cinema for the first time—his laughter was infectious, and he was certain the rest of the theater cackled with him. 

As the credits rolled and the lights came back on, Killua and Gon remained in their seats as the theater cleared out and staff swept in to clear the trash on the floor. Gon rubbed at his eyes, sniffing a little.

“That was really good,” Gon said. “And you’ve never seen it before?”

“It came out literally today,” Killua said. 

Gon laughed, stuffy from crying. “I take it that’s a ‘no’.”

“Here—” He passed Gon the remains of his napkins. 

“How are you not sobbing right now.”

“I’m used to cinema, I guess. This is your first movie?” Killua asked, and when Gon merely nodded, he said, “Movies are pretty cathartic. Do you feel better after watching it?”

Gon flopped miserably in his chair and said, “I just feel so happy for them .” And then, with more gumption and misery, “ Killuaaa… ”

Killua laughed. The staff had reached their aisle, so Killua nudged Gon’s leg with his foot and urged them both to leave. They gathered their things and Killua thanked the staff as they passed. After brief prompting, Killua convinced Gon to toss his empty popcorn bag and soda in the bin outside the theater. 

They stepped out into the night chill and damp asphalt under the theater marquee. The line for the next showing was already being ushered into the lobby as he and Gon lingered a while by The Princess Bride poster,

Gon studied the art and sighed, hands in his pockets. He shivered a little, chin tucked in his scarf. “So that’s romance, huh?” he said. 

“Kind of,” Killua said. “The movies exaggerate it for sure, but it’s the most obvious sort of love I could think of to show you.”

“Thank you,” Gon said, and though Killua couldn’t see his smile, he could read it in the crescents of Gon’s eyes. “So is that the sort of stuff you’re into? Marriage and all that?”

“No. That isn’t in the cards for me,” he said. He hadn’t dissected his preferences that far down, but knew Gon would be curious. He’d spent the entire movie thinking about his answers. “I guess I like security and taking care of people. Like how he defends and saves her. I find that stuff pretty romantic.”

“Unfortunately, I don’t see a future where you get imprisoned and I have to break you out,” Gon said. 

Killua laughed. “Okay, well, I think that particular instance would be reversed.”

“No way! I could talk my way out of anything— including prison.”

Killua wasn’t convinced, but before they could dig too deep into the logistics of Gon ending up in prison, Killua said, “But yeah, that stuff isn’t realistic or common. So I’d say the usual, too. Like holding hands, kissing , physical touch. The basics.”

“Well, we held hands before,” Gon said, and then pointed to Killua’s bandages. “And we see how that turned out. But I swear my hands aren’t usually that hot.”

Killua couldn’t contain his smile. “Yeah, I know. But I think you already knew this about me. You used it when you and my grandfather were training me to call you out on your bullshit.”

Gon sputtered. “It—! It was not bullshit.”

“You know how pawns work. Why would you keep making them skip two spaces at a time?”

“Okay, maybe that was a little bullshit… But I also just liked holding your hand, too!”

Killua covered his face with one hand and tried not to scream. “Gon, you can’t just say that .”

“I know you said not to tell you, but you’re getting all sparkly again. It’s really pretty.”

“ Gon .”

He just barely managed to survive the walk back to campus without heartburn. He could tell Gon was still thinking about the movie and everything Killua had said, because they’d barely made it to the quad when Gon said:

“I want to see another romance movie. Do they show more at that theater?”

Killua laughed. “Sure they do. We could go see the one Alluka and I saw last month—I think it’s still out.”

“Tomorrow?”

Killua grinned. “What, I thought we had parties planned.”

“We do! Did! I don’t know. I want to try this instead,” Gon said, and when Killua halfheartedly agreed, Gon pestered him until it was decided: they’d catch a movie after stopping by his grandfather’s place for lunch.

He wasn’t inclined in the slightest to mention any of this to his grandfather, let alone Hisoka and Chrollo, and Gon seemed to get that idea after their brief chat about Killua being disowned. Hiding it, however, cast fuzzy, frenetic energy over Killua’s skin as they ate in the sunroom. 

Gon kept looking at him like he had some great big secret to hide and was just waiting for someone to call him out on it. Killua squinted at him to avoid laughing. He could tell by Chrollo’s suspicious glare that they weren’t being sly, but he didn’t know what about. 

Unless he did know , Killua thought, trying to push his mind away from Gon for the moment. If Gon could see him crushing helplessly into oblivion, then surely Chrollo could as well.

The second their forks were down, Gon was standing. “Killua and I have to leave.”

His grandfather twisted around to check the clock. “It’s barely two.”

“I know, but we made important plans,” Gon insisted. 

“We’ll be by tomorrow,” Killua promised, grabbing his and Gon’s plates and rushing them to the kitchen. Gon met him at the patio with their coats and together they shouted farewell and dashed.

Killua swung with the backyard gate, feet off the ground, as Gon raced after him. He hopped down, shut, and locked it as Gon said, “How long does it take to walk there?”

“Fifteen minutes.”

“And if we run?”

“Eight for me, probably ten for you.”

“As if! Race you—Hey!” 

Killua took off five paces ahead of Gon, only to be overtaken by Gon running like a professional track sprinter about to complete an 800m. Killua threw his head back laughing, unable to keep up, but they had no choice—the matinee was starting in ten minutes. 

They passed the glow-up poster for Dirty Dancing , sweaty, jackets dragging behind them. The cashier in the window was so bewildered and smitten with Gon that she didn’t hear Killua asking for tickets until Gon shrugged his jacket back on and Killua took to rapping on the window with his knuckle.

She snapped back to attention, blinking at the sight of Killua extending two fingers. “Two, please,” he said. 

Killua forced her to take the money for Gon’s ticket by dragging Gon away before she could hand it back to them. In the lobby, Gon pointed to the refreshments stand and said, “But popcorn—?”

“No time—I’ll pick it up later,” Killua promised, and pushed Gon past the staff member checking tickets. 

The theater was already dark by the time they stumbled in. Killua put his fingers to his lips, dropping Gon’s arm as he walked ahead, checking their seat numbers in the light of the screen. 

The theater wasn’t nearly as packed, so Killua ditched their numbers in favor of claiming a seat near the front. 

“I thought the back of the theater was the best,” Gon whispered as they settled in.

Killua pointed over their shoulders for Gon to take a look. They were in a college town, after all—and even matinees were occupied by couples snogging in the back. 

When Killua and Gon looked back at one another, they were closer than before, each leaning on the armrest between them. Killua knew what Gon was going to say before he even said it, saying, “Gon, no—”

“That could be us,” Gon teased with a barely-restrained laugh, nudging Killua’s arm. 

Killua shoved at him, snickering, as the movie started with a roar on the speakers. He urged Gon to be quiet and sat with him through the first two scenes—Killua had a horrible knack for forgetting the first sequences of a movie—before getting up to fetch them snacks. 

Killua pulled his wallet out of his back pocket and sifted through it as he assessed the candies at the counter. Unintentionally, he caught himself lingering on the mints. 

No , he told himself, tossing a box of Nerds on the counter. He wouldn’t even give himself that opportunity.

The cashier asked if that was all, and Killua said, “Could I get nachos and popcorn too, please? And two cokes.”

She fetched them, and as Killua tossed cash on the counter, she said, “Oh, no, you don’t have to pay.”

Killua’s heart stopped. It was one thing to hear that when he was with Gon, but now he was floored . 

Unsure what to say, Killua pushed the cash a bit closer, but she pushed it back, almost aggressively.

“Seriously, I’ll pay,” Killua insisted, but it was no use. Internally, Killua was swearing. What was going on? he thought, tucking the cash away in his pocket with the candy. 

He was sure Gon hadn’t spoken to this cashier, but he couldn’t say the same about yesterday, or why that influence would extend to Killua. 

He returned to his seat, reeling at the possibility that Gon was inadvertently bending the world to Killua’s will. It was unsettling but most of all, frustrating . Gon was getting better at dismissing peoples’ offers and freebies—so why…?

Killua wore his thumb nail down over the course of the film. Gon was once again enthralled by the pictures, the choreography, the music—it all lived and breathed through him and Killua wouldn’t have been surprised if Gon started dancing in the middle of the theater and got the rest of the measly crowd to join him. 

As the plot thickened, though, Gon dampened with anxiety, eyes wide and terrible for the sake of Penny. The first time he teared up was when Baby apologized on behalf of her father, and Johnny said, “The reason people treat me like nothin’ is ‘cause I’m nothin’.”

“That’s not true! You—! You’re everything!”

Killua tried to be discrete as he observed Gon as Patrick Swayze’s deep voice resonated in the speakers. “I’ve never known anybody like you. You look at the world and you think you can make it better.”

To his deep embarrassment, he caught Gon glancing at him then, tears in his eyes. Killua was too stunned to look away as Baby retaliated:

“ I’m scared of everything . I’m scared of what I saw, of what I did, of who I am. Most of all, I’m scared of walking out of this room and never feeling the rest of my whole life the way I feel when I’m with you.”

Killua looked away the second he noticed Gon’s eyes drifting lower. Subconsciously, Killua’s hand went over his mouth as he leant into the armrest and resumed watching the film.

The next time Gon cried was when Johnny found Baby in the bunk and said, “ I’m out, Baby. ”

“They fired you anyway because of me ,” she said, spurned. Gon had his fingers to his mouth, lips ajar with horror.

“ And if I leave quietly, I’ll get my summer bonus.”

“So I did it for nothing . I hurt my family , you lost your job anyway , I did it for nothing !”

“No, no, not for nothin’, Baby! Nobody’s done anything like that for me before!”

And though Gon cried again during Johnny’s speech, the glee of watching them dance on the stage was enough to make him smile, foot tapping to the beat. Killua muffled a laugh behind his hand when Gon started shimmying his shoulders like he was two seconds away from standing and coaxing Killua up with him.

Which was exactly what he did for the credits as the lights came back on. Killua shook his head, groaning, “No, definitely not…” but Gon wouldn’t have it. 

“Come on, let’s dance,” Gon said, knocking Killua’s hand out from under his chin so he could grab it and haul him to his feet. 

In the space between the screen and the seats, Gon spun the two of them around and fell into an easy salsa sway. Killua only knew it from dance lessons as a kid for various events his parents used to attend, only, he was used to leading. They clashed and tripped over one another as a consequence until Gon adapted to him. 

The kids from their university filtered down from the back and on a whim joined. Killua wondered if it had to do with the edge of Gon’s tattoos peaking out from his wrists as Killua extended his arm to spin Gon underneath it. 

At the end of the song, they were all breathless, and as they all dispersed, clapping and cheering, Gon was invited to yet another party down the block. The theater staff filtered in to clean as Gon turned a bright smile onto Killua, raised his eyebrows, and Killua said, “No way. I don’t have the energy for more than three parties.”

Gon flopped his arms down and moaned, “Aw, come on!”

They gathered up their trash and dumped it. Out in the lobby, Killua pulled Gon over to the cashier to make good on his internal promise to pay for their snacks. He passed the money over to Gon and said, “Tell her it’s for our snacks.”

“Did she not let you pay?” Gon asked. 

Killua had hoped this was just something normal, and that Gon wouldn’t blink twice. As he suspected, though, that wasn’t the case. He flipped and folded his wallet nervously. “No, she didn’t,” he admitted.

The cashier approached and, after gathering his bearings, Gon handed her the cash and asked to pay for their snacks from earlier. She took it without question and delivered the change.

They were quiet leaving the theater. Gon’s dancing spirit had swept out into the streets as the measly crowd from Dirty Dancing took to singing and waltzing down the sidewalk. 

“Chrollo and Hisoka are able to influence people they haven’t even spoken to directly,” Gon said. “I thought I had another decade or two before that started happening.”

Killua considered this. “Maybe it’s because you’re spending an unusual amount of time with humans. Like… immersion language schools. If you’re around it all the time, the faster it catches on.”

“Maybe,” Gon agreed. “I just don’t like that it’s affecting you.”

It did suck, Killua agreed internally. When he was with Gon, it was easy to dismiss—Gon could so smoothly change the course of everything with just his word. But at the cash register, Killua had felt helpless. Nothing he said could sway her. 

And he wasn’t sure when the next time would be.

Trepidation prickled along his spine at the thought of being left alone for any amount of time at a party with Gon. He wouldn’t be able to talk his way out of anything offered to him. 

Abruptly, he wanted to go home.

“I kind of want to head back to the dorms, if that’s okay with you,” he said at last. 

“That’s fine. Are you feeling all right?” Gon asked, concern etching a worry line on his forehead. 

A shiver of goosebumps dotted up Killua’s arms. “Yeah, I’ll be fine. I just got a really bad feeling just now.”

“Should… I go with you?”

Definitely , Killua thought. “Maybe.”

Gon glanced back down the sidewalk where the crowd from the movie had danced off. He laid a hand on Killua’s shoulder to turn him around and lead the way back to the dorms. 

The Sunday paper displayed the face of someone Killua really shouldn’t have felt so suspiciously close to. He swore he’d never spoken to that girl, but the closer he squinted at the back of his grandfather’s newspaper, the more his paranoia surfaced.

She was from the theater and had danced with them beneath the screen. He remembered how her frizzy hair caught in the projector light when her boyfriend spun her. 

The moment Killua realized, he couldn’t look away because if he did, he’d look at Gon.

“See something interesting?” Hisoka inquired, a cup of coffee dangling from his fingertips on the rim.

Killua swallowed back his dread, but it was lodged at the base of his throat. “Not especially,” he lied, and reached for the jam. 

His grandfather flipped the paper over to glance, upside down, at the page that caught Killua’s interest. He studied the portrait. “Did you know her?” his grandfather asked. 

“ Did ” was the keyword. “No,” Killua said. “Just thought I maybe saw her on campus before. How did she die?”

“Overdose, seems like,” his grandfather said after scanning the column. “Unfortunate. Seems she was in the business school—I’ll give my condolences to my colleagues who may have had her.”

Killua hid his horror in the bite he took of too much jam on his toast. He glanced at Hisoka as he did, and the rat bastard was studying him with sharp, narrowed eyes. 

Chrollo hadn’t joined them for breakfast that morning until Gon was already helping clean up. When he came down, he came with a shadow at his heels. 

“Illumi’s awake,” he announced.

“I don’t need a herald,” Illumi deadpanned. He barely sounded conscious, let alone sober. His eyes were wary and squinty in the sunlight as he scanned the room. He settled on Killua, pointed a finger, and said with scathing intent, “ You .”

“My name isn’t Herald,” Killua said, pointing to himself.

“No fighting so early in the morning,” his grandfather chided. 

Chrollo maneuvered Illumi to the table where Gon’s seat was still pulled back. He sat Illumi down and said, “He can only drink water and eat starchy foods.”

“Toast it is,” Hisoka said, and tossed a slice onto the placemat in front of Illumi.

Illumi reached for it, only to have his hand swatted by Chrollo, who then cut the toast in half and only gave him one piece. Illumi glared at it, at Chrollo, and said, “I hate you.”

“Is there still coffee?” Chrollo asked, ignoring him completely as he left the table to investigate. 

Killua watched as Illumi took a timid bite of his toast and chewed it like a child deciding they didn’t like the texture of toast at all. Puzzled, his brother turned the toast over to see if it was hiding some horrible secret underneath.

“How are you feeling?” Killua asked.

“Bored,” he said, tossing the toast down. He slouched back in the seat—truly un-Illumi like behavior—and said, “And horny. When can I go home?”

“Wow,” Hisoka laughed, looking to Chrollo.

“His filter isn’t quite there yet,” Chrollo sighed.

“Did I miss something?” his grandfather said, emerging from his office dressed in his Sunday best. 

“No,” Chrollo and Hisoka said.

“Definitely not,” Killua said.

Gon looked at them all, at Illumi, and then at Killua’s grandfather and smiled. 

His grandfather squinted at them all. “Please, don’t burn the house down while I’m gone.”

“We wouldn’t dare,” Hisoka said, hand on his hip. He gave a loose, cheeky wave with his free hand until his grandfather was out of the house and out of sight. “I could take care of the horny part.”

“Please don’t,” Killua begged, horrified. 

“He’ll get over it,” Chrollo said. “Illumi, eat your toast.”

“But it tastes weird,” Illumi said.

At Chrollo’s disdainful glower, Illumi threw his head back with a groan. He kicked his feet out and nearly took Killua out at the shin in the process. 

“I’ve… never seen Illumi like this,” Killua said. He turned to Chrollo. “Are you sure you can get him back to normal in two weeks?”

“Yes. He’s made good progress,” Chrollo said, but Illumi shaking his head with his tongue out and mockingly lip-syncing to Chrollo’s voice. 

When Hisoka started talking, Illumi flapped his hand like a puppet. “I, for one, am thrilled to have a new form of entertainment at breakfast.”

“He’s going to be at breakfast every day? ” Killua asked, wishing it wasn’t so.

“Hopefully,” Hisoka said, as Chrollo answered, “Yes.” 

Hisoka pumped a fist in the air and said, “ Awesome . Today is a win for me. I’ll be off, then.”

“But the bar is closed on Sundays?” Gon said.

“Who said I was going to the bar?” Hisoka said. “I have a date with destiny .”

“You got a date with Kurapika?” Killua said, and when Hisoka didn’t respond, he went on. “But I thought Kurapika was dating someone else.”

“Oh,” Gon concluded. “It’s for the semester project, isn’t it?”

“It’s a date,” Hisoka insisted, more viciously than before.

“Study date, study date,” Gon sang, swinging his hips at the sink as he scrubbed a plate.

“That isn’t a date,” Killua reminded him, but Hisoka was already at the foyer and calling out from the door, “Bye bye!” before slamming it shut.

Chapter Text

Hisoka’s “study date” took place in public and as the perpetual third wheel of Kurapika’s relationship, which is to say, Leorio joined them. Hisoka quite liked libraries because he believed in sultry whispers above all else, and what better place for those than a library? It was brilliant. He wished he’d thought of it himself, but the location was decided upon by Kurapika.

“I’m only doing this because you actually sounded somewhat competent in class on Thursday,” Kurapika said. 

Hisoka knew the philosophy professors in the department loved an outspoken opinion, of which Hisoka had plenty. And, so it seemed, Kurapika did as well—which ended in no less than two debates between the lectures that they shared Thursday and Friday.

And clearly, Kurapika wanted someone with a brain and by God, Hisoka was determined to prove he had one of those. 

“Is that such a surprise?” Hisoka said as he joined their table, his voice low. He crossed his legs, propped his chin on his hand, and smiled at the two of them. 

Leorio was reclined back in his seat, pen between his teeth, studying chemistry when Hisoka had approached. Now, however, he was twirling the pen about, delighted by Hisoka’s presence. 

“It is, honestly,” Kurapika said.

“I don’t know. He has the sort of confidence people get when they know what they’re talking about,” Leorio argued, glancing to the side at where Kurapika glared at him. 

“Who’s side are you on, anyway?”

“Yours, of course. But your partner seems fun,” Leorio said, gesturing vaguely to Hisoka. 

“That’s because I am fun,” Hisoka said. 

“Pity. I hate fun.”

Hisoka rose an eyebrow as Leorio gave a solemn nod. “It’s true,” Leorio said.

“That’s okay. I’m quite the fan of masochism myself.”

Kurapika snapped open their textbook and slapped it on the table, punctuating the end of that particular conversation. They shoved a finger onto the neon pink notecard with Hisoka’s name on it and said, “You take these sections. Read them.”

“Here? Now?” 

“ Yes . Why else would we be here?”

“To have fun.”

Kurapika eyes looked like they were one more word away from rolling down the hill outside. “No talking. Just read .”

And so Hisoka read, happily, in their company. He wondered, absently, if this was how Chrollo felt surrounded by the rest of them in the library, though there was chaos always flying about at Zeno’s place. The library was a quaint little vacuum of noise—not a sound to be had outside of pages flipping and Leorio’s pen tapping idly at his front teeth and against the rim of his glasses.

Hisoka set the book down some time after. “Done,” he said. 

Kurapika looked up from their book like Hisoka had just woken them up from a nap. They stared at Hisoka’s textbook, and then up at Hisoka. “Really?” they said. 

“Wow,” Leorio grinned, turning in his chair to face Kurapika. “He reads faster than you do.”

“Does not,” Kurapika insisted, turning the book over and tipping it out of view of Hisoka. He flipped a few pages back. “Summarize The Liberty of Subjects for me.”

So Hisoka did, quoting little, embellishing some, and overall, pissing Kurapika off with his accuracy. 

Kurapika slapped the book shut, nursing a headache. “Fuck. You did read it.”

“Now can we have fun?”

“No. Read my book next—we might as well compare thoughts,” Kurapika said, and flung their book at Hisoka’s face. He caught it before the spine could make contact with his nose. 

While Hisoka read Kurapika’s designated sections, Kurapika flipped through Hisoka’s textbook, glaring between every page, a bit of a frantic edge to their reading now. To play nice, Hisoka slowed his pace down. 

By the end of the hour, their books were closed. Kurapika, thoroughly frazzled by the readings, took a break to fetch water. When they returned, they came back with a cigarette instead. 

They breathed the smoke aside as they sat down in the midst of Hisoka and Leorio chatting about Kurapika. “I was just telling him how you got accepted into the seminary.”

“Oh, grand,” Kurapika sighed. 

“It’s a big deal!” Leorio whisper-shouted, jostling Kurapika by the arm. 

Kurapika put the cigarette to their lips, leant back, and said, “It’d be a bigger deal if I was more traditionally feminine . I’m sure it took so long because they couldn’t figure out what I am and if I should be a nun instead.”

“But you prefer being more masculine,” Hisoka concluded.

Kurapika shrugged. “I don’t know. Everyone says I’m a man, so might as well be. You know?” He took another drag and said, “But you don’t use pronouns with me. Why is that?”

“He doesn’t?” Leorio said, surprised. “I haven’t noticed.”

“They-them? It’s quite popular in the 21st century,” Hisoka said. 

Kurapika paused a moment to filter out Hisoka’s mentions of the future. “Yeah. I don’t mind it. It just threw me for a loop.”

“Never heard of it, then?”

“Never. Where did you come up with it?”

Hisoka shrugged. If he could detail his history with gender, he’d have his own Bible. “I used to be a woman in 2000 BCE. In between then and now was a bit ambiguous.”

“BCE?” Kurapika repeated, brow furrowed. “‘Before Christ…’?”

“Sorry. Yes, that. Do you have another cig?”

Kurapika was statuesque, unmoving, and so Leorio fetched his own pack and held it out to Hisoka. He offered a light, too, which Hisoka took with the cigarette between his lips, leaning over to Leorio’s flame. 

“You were around for all of this, weren’t you?” Kurapika said, gesturing to the books between them.

“More or less,” Hisoka said, impressed. The future was also difficult for Killua and Zeno to grasp, but the past had an easier hold on them. Kurapika seemed to be the same. “I missed a few pockets here and there, but overall I was there.”

“I’m confused,” Leorio said. 

“So you… could have met Thomas Hobbes.”

Hisoka put a finger to his grinning lips. “I don’t kiss and tell.”

Kurapika’s jaw dropped, closed, and opened again. The cigarette teetered between their fingers, unaddressed. “I feel you’re a biased participant in this project.”

Hisoka put a hand to his chest. “Am not.”

“You’ve met Thomas Hobbes.”

“So? I could provide unique insight.”

The repeat of their first conversation flickered across both their minds and, namely, over Kurapika’s face. They stuck their cigarette between their lips and started packing up. “We’re done here. I’m not letting you alter the history books and impact my grade in the process.”

“Oh, Professor Zoldyck knows,” Hisoka said. 

Kurapika paused. Leorio was looking swiftly between them, processing little. “He knows,” Kurapika said, and then with certain defeat, “ Oh , he knows. Oh… my gosh. Killua knows… ”

“I’m sure Zeno would make an exception for us,” Hisoka said, though he chose to ignore the two week deadline he had. Rather, that deadline was for Gon —Hisoka could return after putting Gon down (to sleep, of course) and continue where they left off for the semester.

Kurapika didn’t need to know that, though.

“I’m still confused,” Leorio said. 

Kurapika put a hand to his shoulder and said, “Don’t think too hard about it.”

After giving Kurapika a moment to think about it, they unpacked their backpack. “Fine. Let’s see what insight you can provide,” they said, and they officially got to work dissecting determinism in depth.

Illumi was frustratingly good at chess despite being half-there in the head, and it made Gon’s teeth grate with annoyance. By the third game, Gon stood up and said to Killua, “I hate your brother.”

“You and me both,” Killua said with mock glee from his reading chair.

Illumi flopped over the back of his chair, swooning like a disheveled medieval portrait, and said, “When can I go home?”

Chrollo, who had completely cleared out one of his grandfather’s bookshelves and had moved on to the next, said, “When I say so.”

Illumi pouted, chin resting on his folded arms. Gon was now pestering Killua to leave, but wasn’t convinced until Illumi said, “Do you find me attractive?”

“Okay, I’m leaving,” Killua decided, packed up his bag, and all but pushed Gon ahead of him out the door. 

All the while, Chrollo said, “I haven’t found things attractive in a long while. It has nothing to do with you.”

“Hm… But if I wasn’t human?” Illumi said, head flopped to the side.

“ Bye ,” Killua deadpanned from the door. 

“Will you be here tomorrow?” Chrollo asked.

“Not if Illumi’s awake—and don’t do anything weird with him. He’s straight,” Killua said, pointing a finger at Chrollo.

It took a second for Chrollo to catch on, but by then, Killua and Gon were already at the stairs and not likely to continue the conversation. 

Mildly flushed, Chrollo put his book up to avoid meeting Illumi’s eyes from across the room. “I’m not interested in… that ,” Chrollo said at last. 

“Come on . Just once ,” Illumi begged, and when Chrollo didn’t grace him with a reply, pouted, “Stick in the mud. Wet blanket. Bor-ing . There’s nothing to do here.”

“There’s plenty to read.”

“As I said: B-O-R-I-N-G. Would you like me to write it out for you?”

Chrollo could already see it in his head after having studied Illumi’s handwriting in great detail. The sharp loops of a capitalized B to the blotted hooks of the g —it was all there in Chrollo’s mind. 

“Fine. Be that way.” Illumi bounded to his feet, oddly nimble at first and then off-kilter and drunk when he reached the door. He drummed a hand on the frame and said, “I’ll be in the shower if you need me.”

“I won’t. Need you, I mean,” Chrollo said without looking up. Normally so witty, Chrollo was frustrated by his sudden lack of foresight the closer Illumi came to self-awareness. “For anything , really,” he said to no one at all, because Illumi was already gone. 

Chrollo let the book fall on his face once, twice for good measure, and again just to suffer a little longer.

He wished Hisoka was there to diffuse some of this tension. Hisoka was so reliably forward when it came to sex—at least then Chrollo wouldn’t have to pretend it didn’t exist and try to move on. 

Illumi was an interesting case study in repression, though, and one Chrollo couldn’t ignore. He was, after all, Chrollo’s patient. Without inhibitions, of course Illumi would be more likely to indulge in the things he spent his entire life ignoring. 

Death often did that to people, and near-death even more so. People came back from the dead every day with a renewed and uninhibited look at the world—it was entirely possible that Illumi would come away from Chrollo’s treatments as a completely different person. They couldn’t erase the experience completely—Illumi had still gone through Hell and back.

Chrollo sighed. The words on the page had dissolved, so he shut the book and sat, fingers cradling his lips as he listened to the rush of water from the shower down the hall, muffled through the walls.

He supposed… he hadn’t thought about sleeping with another being in a while. And perhaps it would be beneficial to Illumi’s recovery to…

Chrollo shook his head, eyes shut. No, definitely not , he thought. How could I even consider it?

He needed something to drink—preferably with a strong proof. 

He left the library only to enter the same hallway Illumi entered from the guest bedroom, naked in nothing but a towel around his waist. 

They both froze. 

And then Illumi, thumb hooked on the waistband of his towel, began to inch it down .

Chrollo put his book up in front of his face, blocked the view, and hurried down the stairs. He was so inflamed that, as he approached the liquor cabinet, he found his handprint forever etched into the cloth binding on the book cover.

Fine , Chrollo thought as he poured himself a hardy drink. Maybe just once, but only when he’s more aware of what he’s doing.

“Illumi is so embarrassing,” Killua complained, flopping back onto his bed in their dorm. He slapped his hands over his face and groaned. “I never want to see my brother like that ever. Again .”

“Yeah, he seemed more like a prude before,” Gon agreed. “Though, they say the prudes are the most sexually repressed ones.”

“I take it by ‘they’ you mean ‘Hisoka’,” Killua said.

Gon snapped his fingers, winked, and gave Killua the finger-gun show. Killua resumed slapping his hands over his eyes so he wouldn’t combust.

He considered, once again and not for the last time, the danger of the previous night. Though Killua’s imposing sixth sense was at ease now, alone with Gon, he wondered about the consequences of letting Gon run free.

How many people could be impacted by Gon’s words alone? Had Gon’s influence managed to incite the overdose in the newspaper?

Before Killua’s mind could spiral any further, the weight on his mattress tipped. It didn’t take a genius to realize that Gon was joining him on the bed, and did so with an eager, satanic smile of pure delight in seeing Killua fluster.

“What… do you think you’re doing,” Killua said, hardly able to see between his fingers. With his eyes wide open, though, he could feel the flutter of his lashes against the gauze as Gon braced his hands on either side of his head, like he even knew what he was doing. 

“I want to try something,” Gon said through a smile that softened with tenderness Killua couldn’t endure. He watched the push of Gon’s tongue against his bottom lip, and the pull as he brought it between his teeth before saying, “You said you like kissing, right?”

Killua… supposed it had been roughly an entire day since the concept of “ kissing ” was added to Gon’s Killua-centric lexicon. “Sure, I guess,” he said. “We don’t have to, though.”

“Just once. And I can see how it goes,” Gon suggested.

Killua’s heart stuttered in his chest. Wordlessly, he nodded, and let Gon pull aside his wrist from where his hands still barred his flushed face. 

“Just once,” Killua urged. 

Gon agreed, his golden eyes on Killua’s lips. They spared a second to meet Killua’s gaze, just inches between them. 

Killua held his breath, and only thought to breathe when he closed his eyes against the graze of Gon’s skin on his. His lips pushed into Killua’s with a slow and cautious closing of his mouth. Killua’s breath stuttered out of him, sapped by the imposing heat of Gon, like he was in a sauna instead of his bed in their shared dorm room.

Killua relaxed back into his pillow as Gon pushed in further, his chest nearly flush with Killua’s. It was suffocating , but in the moment, Killua was too drunk on endorphins to care. Within seconds, he was dizzy, and as Gon’s hand curled up from Killua’s cheek to his hair, it turned Killua’s skin cold before his nerve endings caught up to it. 

“You’re burning me,” Killua said against his lips. 

Gon’s hand jumped away. “Sorry,” he said, but it was promptly followed by a sizzling sound above them. “Ah, shit—” 

He sat up, straddling one of Killua’s legs as he shook his hand out. Killua glanced up and, upside down, found a scalding black hand mark on his bed frame. 

He checked his hair to see if he’d lost any. He hadn’t, but the idea sent him laughing, rolling on the bed. 

“Does—Does it hurt? ” Gon cried, horrified. 

Killua doubled over his stomach. “N-No—I’m just— Jesus Christ, Gon .”

When it became clear that Killua was not, in fact, sobbing, Gon relaxed back on his heels and pulled Killua up with him. With his hand less of a fire hazard now, Gon brushed the hair from Killua’s face and asked, “Wanna try again?”

Killua snorted, smiling. “We agreed on once . One time. ”

“Yeah, and then we reevaluate,” Gon said. “And? What’s the evaluation?”

Killua pulled his leg in, hugging it. Heat swelled to his face. “It was good,” he confessed, though internally he was thinking, Really good for a first timer, actually.  

Gon beamed, already leaning in again. “So we can go again?”

Killua put a hand to Gon’s face. “Give it some time, geez. Think about it for a minute.”

“Okay. I’ve thought about it, and I want to try it again.”

“That wasn’t a minute. Give it a day .”

“But that’s so many hours —!”

Gon fell into him with a pathetic, fake-cry. Killua caught him, laughing, and settled in for a sweltering day spent in bed with his personal, portable furnace. As Gon tucked himself into Killua’s side, he reached for Killua’s wounded hand. 

Gon nestled his cheek into Killua’s pillow, his chin against Killua’s shoulder. “Do you need an ice pack? I can go get one.”

“No. It’s feeling a lot better actually,” Killua confessed. He started to unravel it and Gon finished the job. With the gauze gone, all that was left was a faint, tender red tinge to his palm. 

Gon ran the pad of his thumb along the lines on Killua’s hand and asked, “Is this okay? You said you like physical touch, so I just…”

“Yeah, this is fine,” Killua said. “Do you like touch?”

Gon nodded. “I’ve always cuddled with Hisoka and Chrollo, but that’s… different, I guess. This feels different.”

“A good different?”

“Yes, this is good.”

Killua relaxed then, contented by Gon’s approval. He twisted around and reached over Gon to grab the radio so they could listen to music, which led them down a country music rabbit hole after Gon forced him to stop on the station.

After complaining about the frat parties never playing country music, Killua changed the station, much to Gon’s annoyance. They bickered over music and Killua tried helplessly not to fall hopelessly in love.

Gon wasn’t his forever, and it was only a matter of five days before this fact was made clear to Killua. 

Chapter Text

It started with Killua waking up to find Gon still on his bed , only rather than finding Gon reading as he normally would, Killua was instead met with Gon’s wolfish eyes on him like ants on honey. 

Killua closed his eyes and pretended he was still asleep, but it was too late. He slapped his hands over his face as Gon said, “Good morning.”

“Stop, I probably have drool on my face,” Killua said, scrubbing at his cheeks and mouth. He flopped his arms down. His shirt was damp with sweat, and he could thank Gon’s body-heat for that.

“You look good.”

Killua slapped an arm up, searching for Gon’s face to shove it off the bed. Gon went down cackling and flailing.

As Monday commenced and their 8AMs began, Killua found himself smiling for no reason at his notebook. He felt giddy , like he could spin around the nearest lamppost and call himself Mary Poppins. Embarrassed by his own lack of self-control, Killua covered his smile behind his palm, fidgeting with his hair, his earring, and tried desperately to focus on his lecture and all of the readings that went out the window the second Gon kissed him the previous day.

When Killua left lecture, Gon was still occupied in class by Ikalgo and a last-minute question for Killua’s grandfather. Killua waited out in the hall as, slowly but surely, the class filtered out. 

Hisoka, ever the fashion icon, stepped out in bright red latex pants (that fit a bit too tight, might he add) and an embroidered, denim jacket. On his heels was Kurapika, who looked far less hostile than Killua last saw them.

“Hisoka, Kurapika,” Killua said, surprised. 

Hisoka stepped aside from the crowd. It took Kurapika a second longer to process what they were seeing. 

“Killua,” Kurapika said at last, startling when someone brushed behind them. They crossed the hall to him. “How are you?”

“Great.” Killua glanced at Hisoka, but addressed Kurapika as he said, “How are you?”

He could see the gears turning behind Kurapika’s eyes. “Better,” they said. “I start seminary next semester.”

“Cool. Super cool.”

“Yeah. Anyway, I have to meet Leorio, so I’ll talk to you later,” Kurapika said, and waved as they stepped away. 

Hisoka lingered as Kurapika passed. Killua raised an eyebrow at him and said, “Character development?”

Hisoka raised one polished nail and said, “Do not mistake the long game for character development. I am a devotee.”

“Ah.”

Killua risked meeting Hisoka’s eyes and loathed what he saw there. Skepticism, eternal judgement. Killua’s ears went hot at the attention and, needing something to fidget, went for his earring. It brought unnecessary attention there that Killua hated even more. 

“Well, I’m just waiting for Gon. So.”

“Of course. I would say ‘ don’t do anything I wouldn’t do, ’ but I would do everything.” Hisoka let out a wistful sigh, arms crossed. 

“‘Do as I say and not as I do’, perhaps,” Killua offered. 

Hisoka wagged a finger of acknowledgement, stepping away. “Precisely. Carry on.”

Killua snickered as Hisoka left the building and, ultimately, Killua to his own devices while he waited for Gon. 

Killua paced the silent hall from the TA’s office back to the front doors. The rain had ceased and, in the sugary post-summer haze, Killua peered out to a quad full of shorts and t-shirts, tank-tops and dresses. When Killua had opened their dorm window that morning, Gon had opted for his usual hoodie, sans scarf for once. 

It was a good day, he thought, and mentally prepped to spend the rest of the afternoon out in the lawn doing homework with Gon.

He supposed he could call it a study-date… Perhaps he was keen to have one of those.

Something tapped against his backpack strap and plinked on the tiles. He brushed a hand against the cloth strap, confused, and then looked down.

A hand patted his opposite shoulder. 

“I believe you dropped this.” It was the voice of monotonous and distinctly Queen’s English.  

The hair on the back of Killua’s neck responded to the voice’s authoritative edge. He’d only felt a fraction of this tremor in his bones before, but this . Instinctively, he thought to keep his head down, but in the time it took to turn, Killua’s eyes had already lifted on their own accord. 

From the hand extending to Killua, the backing of his earring pinched between two fingers. To the plain appraisal in the man’s eyes— red . It was a color Killua had never seen in human eyes before, and he couldn’t help but stare.

The man looked simultaneously older and younger than Killua. His features were softer than he’d imagine for a Prince of Hell, his posture smaller and less imposing than even Hisoka. 

Still, danger was screaming at the back of Killua’s skull the longer they went in silence. 

“Meruem,” Killua concluded, his lungs constricting. He couldn’t reach above a whisper.

The Prince lifted his hand a touch higher, drawing Killua’s attention to it. “This is still yours. Take it,” he said. His words were clipped.

Limply, Killua put up a hand. And, gingerly, Meruem placed the backing on Killua’s open palm. 

With great care, he folded Killua’s fingers over it and said, “I see you don’t want to exchange just yet.”

“It was an accident. I’m sorry,” Killua said. He hurried to snap the backing in place. 

“It happens. It’s difficult to tell when someone’s removing the earrings because they’re a coroner or wanting to make an exchange,” Meruem replied. 

Killua’s ears were beyond flushed. His fingertips were ice cold in comparison, and he held them there in an attempt to calm down. Meruem’s eyes were unblinking with anticipation for something Killua couldn’t predict.

He hadn’t woken up that day expecting to meet a Prince of Hell, the very one that owned his best friend.

Meruem’s hair, jet-black, flowed softly to the side and around a cast of gold encompassing the shell of his ears. The chains and charms dangled just above his shoulders where, to Killua’s surprise, he was adorned in human clothes. Killua would have anticipated something closer to what Chrollo had worn when Killua was on LSD.

His pinstripe button up was tucked into a pair of jeans and fully open at the front, black t-shirt underneath. Killua caught himself assessing the look down to his fresh, green sneakers. 

“You’ve befriended Gon, I take it,” Meruem concluded.

Killua’s eyes jumped back up. “Yes.”

Meruem glanced down the corridor and back again. “Where is he now? It’s been a while.”

“He’s in class.”

“Class?”

Shit, was I supposed to admit that? Killua thought, sweating. “He’s taking philosophy with Hisoka.” 

He grimaced, resisting the urge to close his eyes in distress. Just drag everyone else into it, why don’t you!

“Bring Gon to me, please,” Meruem said, though the ‘ please ’ felt more like a formality to an order Killua couldn’t refuse. 

He stepped away without a second thought and made a brisk exit to his grandfather’s lecture hall. 

Gon was at the front of the room playing a handheld game at one of the front row seats. His grandfather was talking to some guy (Ikalgo, not that Killua knew) when Killua half-tripped in his rush to make it down to them. 

His clumsiness caught their attention as he remedied his balance against the railing. “Holy shit, Gon,” Killua blurted, suddenly shaking. It was a reality his nervous system was only just catching up on now that he’d put some distance between himself and Meruem. 

Meruem, who was standing right outside the lecture hall waiting for him .

Gon lowered the device, eyes wide. “What is it?” he asked, but Killua could only flounder, pointing up the stairs. 

“Meruem,” was all he could say, and Gon was on his feet.

“What?” his grandfather said, and then to Ikalgo, “Give me a moment, will you?”

“Sure thing, doc,” Ikalgo said, and snatched the game device from Gon’s hand. 

“He’s here?” Gon said, a smile splitting across his face. “And you talked to him? How?”

Killua bent over his knees, trying to catch his breath. “I don’t—My earring. It fell out.”

“But you still have it,” his grandfather noted. “Sit down a moment, take it easy.”

“I can’t. I need to bring Gon to him,” Killua insisted, waving his grandfather off. 

The look on his grandfather’s face was wretched with concern. It tore at Killua’s heart as Gon grabbed him by the sleeve and led the way up the stairs. 

Just before the door, Gon faced him, rubbing his hands up and down Killua’s arms. “It’ll be okay, all right? Trust me. He won’t hurt you.”

“H-How can you be sure?” Killua said.

Gon smiled. “Because he likes me and I like you.”

Be realistic , Killua wanted to say, but Gon was already passing the threshold and tugging Killua along with him. 

Meruem was at the exit, the door propped open against his foot. Killua almost didn’t want to approach, but Gon still had his sleeve hostage, so he relented.

“Meruem?” Gon said, and when the Prince turned, Gon let out a thrilled laugh. He dropped Killua’s arm to lunge at Meruem with all his might. 

Meruem caught him in a hug, arms hooking up around Gon’s shoulders and holding him close. Killua couldn’t see his face where it was tucked against Gon’s hoodie. 

“I missed you so much!” Gon cried, reeling back. 

Meruem’s eyes were bright and scanning Gon’s face, his neck, shoulders, and the rest of him before concluding:

“You look human ,” Meruem said, his English accent lending a note of righteous contempt.

Gon posed a little. “You think? Does it look good on me?”

“It… suits you, I suppose.” He looked back at Killua, which prompted Gon to turn, an arm around Meruem’s shoulders. 

“Meruem, this is Killua Zoldyck. He’s been helping me out.”

“What could he possibly help you with,” Meruem said, plainly. 

Harsh , Killua thought.

Gon winced a little, scratching at his chin. “Well, I kind of killed his brother. Chrollo’s been bringing him back to life, though, so it’s nothing to worry about.”

“Oh, good. You should have led with that,” Meruem said, and Killua swore he caught a fraction of alarm on Meruem’s otherwise stoic face. 

“But Killua has a good conscience, so he’s been teaching me all about it,” Gon said. 

At this, Killua was once again under scrutiny for things he couldn’t see or fathom. Meruem’s eyes scanned him once again before leveling with something beyond Killua— through him , perhaps—and saying: 

“I can see that. His shame and guilt is quite rich, though.”

“Yeah, but it’s easy to look past that,” Gon said. 

“You can see that?” Killua said, voice cracking, appalled. 

Gon was quick to appease him. “It’s nothing to worry about! It adds a little color to your aura. Meruem likes that stuff.”

“I do like that stuff,” Meruem concluded. He ran a hand up from Gon’s back to his hair, ruffling the hairline at the nape of his neck. “Your hair is getting long.”

This turned into an analysis that brought Meruem face-to-face with Gon, tugging at his under eyes. “You haven’t been sleeping,” he concluded. “No wonder you’re here. I’m sure you’re running on nothing but sin right now, aren’t you?”

Gon gave a guilty smile. “Maybe a little. I only killed one person, though.”

Two , Killua mused, thinking of the overdose in the Sunday paper.

Meruem looked at him then as if he’d said it aloud. Gon hadn’t reacted, though. “Interesting,” Meruem concluded. He brushed Gon’s hair back like he was petting a dog, and Gon preened under his attention. “Where are Hisoka and Chrollo?”

“Ah, well, Hisoka is on campus somewhere, but Chrollo would be at Zeno’s house.” As an aside, Gon whispered, “Zeno is Killua’s grandfather. He’s also my —”

“Take me to Chrollo, please,” Meruem said, extending a hand. Gon took it and started off, but not before they passed Killua and Meruem said, “You’re coming with.”

“Okay,” Killua said without thinking. 

Killua imagined the walk to his grandfather’s house would be supremely awkward, but instead, Gon filled the silence with stories about his time on Earth. Killua noted how distilled his comments about Killua were, and how he hadn’t mentioned the movies at all. 

Though Killua was running circles around in his head, it was easier for him to keep it together so long as Meruem was in his presence. For a brief moment as they entered the house, Killua was out of sight, and the pressure nearly punched a hole through his chest. 

Gon leant out of the house, grabbed Killua by the front of his shirt, and dragged him inside.

“Tada! This is Zeno’s house!” Gon declared to Meruem, who stood vacantly in the foyer as if he’d been shown a public restroom instead. 

“Where’s Chrollo.”

“Upstairs, probably. I can show you the library and—”

“That’s fine. Just show me to Chrollo—the human can stay down here.”

Killua watched, feet rooted on the foyer rug, as Gon escorted Meruem up to the balustrade and down the hall. Gon looked down at Killua and gestured a quick, pleading motion of apology before vanishing from sight.

Gon first checked the library, which was empty. The bathroom, too, was empty, which brought Gon to Chrollo’s guest bedroom.

Empty. 

“Weird,” Gon said, “maybe something happened with Illumi. Try that room?”

Meruem followed Gon’s point to the adjacent room and tried the handle. It was locked, so he gave it a sharp tug. The bolt snapped and he pushed inside. 

Killua heard screaming from the foyer. A second later, Meruem appeared at the banister, looking almost identical to how Killua first met him only this time, with a haunted look in his eyes. 

“Interesting,” Meruem said, and descended the stairs posthaste. 

To Killua’s horror, Chrollo rushed into view—indecent and sporting a throw blanket around his waist. “Why are you here?! ” Chrollo shouted.

“Oh my God,” Killua realized, a distraught laugh at the back of his throat. “ Oh my God .”

Meruem didn’t look at him as he passed Killua by, waving a hand in the air. “Proceed.”

“I can’t just— proceed . Meruem—Please tell me you saw nothing.”

“I saw—” Meruem started, and with great control, pausing in the dining room archway, “ everything .”

Gon staggered into view next to Chrollo. “Wow— OW! Hey!”

Chrollo whacked him in the arm, marched off, screaming, “Just— let me get changed first . Fuck!” A second later, a door slammed shut. It reverberated up the soles of Killua’s shoes and rattled the nearby paintings.

Gon skipped and half-slipped down the stairs. He slid into the foyer, grimacing as he approached Killua. “So… that was interesting.”

“Please tell me you didn’t see anything,” Killua said.

“I didn’t—Meruem was the first in the door. Thank God ,” Gon said, laughing. 

Killua’s chest felt exorcised. Their brief stint upstairs had spawned the shortest panic attack of his life, but now with Meruem and Gon nearby, he managed to shove it down into his empty chest cavity. Static had overtaken his arms where his nerve endings used to be.

Meruem was in the kitchen investigating Hisoka’s lighter near the patio door. Though he didn’t sigh, Killua felt it in his words as he uttered, reverently, “I didn’t think Chrollo was capable of… copulating.”

“He did kind of have eternal virgin energy,” Killua said. 

Meruem turned to glance at him as Gon shrugged in agreement. His red eyes all but drilled into Killua’s soul and made him wish he’d said nothing at all.

“Sorry,” he said, belatedly, to the silence.

A pair of footsteps rushed down the stairs and skidded into the foyer. Chrollo appeared, frazzled, and disheveled in a pair of grey sweatpants and a half-buttoned collared top. His hair was a mess, and Killua tried not to read into how red his lips were. 

It took a second even then for Chrollo to collect himself. “I wasn’t expecting to see you.”

“Clearly.”

“I missed you,” Chrollo said, but at Gon’s raised eyebrow, flushed. “Not that—Not that me missing you had anything to do with—”

Meruem cut him off with a deep embrace. Chrollo’s arms settled around his shoulders, and then his neck, and they held each other like this until Meruem’s voice muffled against Chrollo’s shoulder.

“It’s good to see you again,” Meruem said. “Thank you for taking care of Gon in my absence.”

“Yes, of course. Well, Hisoka’s been doing most of the babysitting,” he said, stepping back with a half-shrug. 

“Yes, but your reparations seem to be going… well.”

Killua could only see the backs of Chrollo’s ears flush. “Yeah. By the end of this week, probably.”

“ Week? I thought I had a month!” Gon cried. 

Chrollo put a hand up to silence him, but Meruem addressed it anyway. 

“Did you two make a deal?”

“Gon enrolled in university. He wanted to stay for the semester, but Hisoka negotiated him down to a month while I fixed Illumi,” he explained. 

“And push sleep off for so long?” Meruem said, a judgmental edge to his voice as he spared a glance at Gon. 

Gon withered instantly. “But I want to stay a bit longer…”

Meruem’s eyes were unavoidable, and they tensed. It was the most expression Killua had seen on his face, and it sent his pulse racing, a cold sweat breaking out. 

“You shouldn’t put off sleep, Gon,” Meruem said, and then to Chrollo. “You either. In fact, I’d prefer it if you returned home now.”

Chrollo said nothing for a painfully quiet beat. His shoulders had tightened up, and in the patio reflection, he looked panic-stricken . “Just until the end of this week,” Chrollo said. 

“I’m sure Hisoka can handle the last leg of Illumi’s cure,” Meruem said, dismissively. He took a seat at one of the counter stools, a foot propped up on a spoke. He flicked the lighter open and shut again. They all listened to the metal snap, snap, snap . 

And then, Meruem’s eyes narrowed on him. “I’ll make you a deal in exchange for coming home now.”

“No,” Chrollo said. “I can’t.”

“You know what I’ll offer, and you couldn’t resist it. Don’t you want it?” Meruem said, his voice eerily low. 

“Please don’t offer it.” 

Killua had never heard Chrollo so distraught before. He looked to Gon for support, but found him equally broken by the sound. 

“I’ll be good until the end of the week.”

Snap. Snap. Snap .

Meruem clutched the lighter in his fist and uttered a soft, “Interesting,” as he studied his knuckles. He perched his chin atop them. “Usually so unflappable. And to think you would have been more interested in my gift back at home when I could have just offered you this instead. Though whether it’s for the best is debatable.” 

Killua struggled to interpret what Chrollo could possibly want. Chrollo was normally so disinterested—perhaps it was something supernatural, something Killua couldn’t comprehend? 

“You got him a gift?” Gon said, and then pointed to himself. “Do I get a gift?”

“Yes, of course,” Meruem said, his impassive expression lightening just a fraction as he watched Gon do a little celebratory dance. 

There was a fondness in Meruem’s eyes that Killua couldn’t deny was reserved solely for Gon. This was clear the longer the three of them talked with Killua peering in from the outside. 

He was missing class and he knew it, but was frozen by Meruem’s order to stay on the first floor. Though he hadn’t been explicitly restricted from leaving, the house felt safe, and so Killua stayed put.

Some time later, movement was spotted from the backyard. Gon opened the door before the newcomers could arrive, shouting, “Hisoka! Meruem’s here!”

“So I’ve been told,” Hisoka said as he climbed the deck stairs and entered, hands in his jacket pockets. 

He lingered at the threshold, hair nearly touching the frame. Behind him, Killua’s grandfather approached, briefcase in hand. Hisoka’s eyes settled squarely on Meruem. 

“Hello,” Meruem greeted.

“You’re here,” Hisoka said.

“I am. So are you, it seems.” There was an awkward silence that pained Killua to endure. “I was told you were keeping an eye on Gon while he was in classes. Thank you.”

“I couldn’t exactly let him cause more havoc than he already has,” Hisoka said, nonchalantly. He still hadn’t entered the house, feet barely on the patio door grates. “You’re staying… here , aren’t you.”

“Just until the end of the week. I’ve made a deal with Gon, though he doesn’t care for it,” Meruem said, looking to Gon.

Gon groaned. “But you promised me the month .”

“Gon, don’t argue,” Hisoka said. He padded inside then, gesturing back to Killua’s grandfather. “Meruem, this is Zeno. Killua’s grandfather.”

“Nice to meet you. Welcome to my home,” his grandfather said, and to Killua’s great astonishment, reached a hand out to Meruem.

Meruem shook it, as if he wasn’t a Prince of Hell. “Thank you for letting me stay,” he said. 

So he can be polite , Killua thought, and put his fingers to his lips when Meruem’s blood-red eyes caught on his. No one else seemed to react, at least not until Meruem did. 

Just a second was occupied by their shared gaze before Meruem split away to ask his grandfather a question. Killua tried not to flush when Hisoka squinted at him. 

Can they all read minds, maybe? Killua thought, but he’d gone the past two weeks unscathed by his internal monologues. 

“If I shadow Gon this week, will I need to enroll in university? I’d rather not,” Meruem said. 

“Oh, I’m sure you could just walk in,” his grandfather said, dismissively. He seemed unbothered by Meruem’s presence, which baffled Killua. 

Killua became distracted, once again, by Hisoka walking in his direction. He straightened, only to flinch when Hisoka glared down at him and said, “I’d like to speak with you.”

“Here?” Killua whispered.

“No. Follow me,” he said, and at the archway to the foyer, declared, “We’ll just be a moment,” to the others.

“Tea will be ready in four minutes,” his grandfather said.

Killua followed Hisoka until the stairs, at which point, he couldn’t budge a step. 

Hisoka stopped halfway with an annoyed sigh and said, “He told you not to go upstairs, didn’t he.”

When Killua nodded, Hisoka retreated, brushing past Killua with a disgruntled eye-roll, and instead shut them away in his grandfather’s study. The moment the door was shut, Killua was backed into it by Hisoka looming over him, a hand above Killua’s head to keep the door shut. 

“What were you thinking ,” Hisoka seethed. 

Killua shrunk, fingers knotted together with anxiety. His insides felt like they were on fire. “I didn’t mean to . The backing on my earring fell off.”

Hisoka saw it was the truth and let out a dismayed laugh. “Unbelievable,” he huffed, stepping away. He scrubbed a hand up the side of his face and through his hair, free hand on his hip. His eyes settled on the earring. “And you didn’t give it back? Clearly. You’re still wearing it .”

“He gave it back to me,” Killua explained. “Is that significant?”

“ Significant? ” Hisoka barked out a laugh. “Killua, you and Meruem cannot be in the same room together any more than necessary.”

“I can’t exactly disobey him ,” Killua said, voice fragile. “He told me to come here with them. I can’t just leave .”

“I’ll convince him to let you go back to the dorms, don’t worry about that,” Hisoka sighed. He paused a moment, cradling his cheek as he pondered the situation. At length, he lowered his hand, staring at the ground. He emphasized each word with a fist to the air. “I think there’s a possibility that he might take you to Hell.”

Killua blinked. “Why?”

“It’s just a hunch,” Hisoka insisted, hands raised in defense. “But if you want an escape route, you need to stay away from him. The more time he spends around you, the easier it will be for him to dissect you—read your thoughts, wants, desires. 

“He’s likely already suspicious of Gon developing new emotions. He’ll read you like a book by the end of the week if you let him.”

Hisoka’s warning did nothing to stave off Killua’s panic. “Is that why he’d take us? As, what, gifts for Gon?”

“Yes.”

As if he wasn’t already paranoid, Killua cut his train of thought off before he could divulge it. He slapped a hand to his forehead as if to keep them in place—the realization that Gon knew this just as well as Hisoka, and that he’d avoided all the telling signs of their blossoming romance in his reveries on the walk over. 

Of course he did, because clearly, Meruem wanted them back in Hell. He’d tried bargaining with Chrollo, after all, but that didn’t explain…

“But Gon keeps arguing to stay longer,” Killua said.

“He’s usually difficult. If he wasn’t, Meruem would think Gon is hiding something.”

“Oh.” Duh . “Will Gon stay the night here, then?”

“It’s likely. He’ll probably suggest… I don’t know. A slumber party in the library.” It was said with an amused scoff. Hisoka crossed his arms. “Think about what you’re going to ask of Meruem. He’ll want the gold back before he leaves.”

“But I don’t want anything from him,” he insisted, and when Hisoka simply rose an eyebrow, Killua reiterated. “I don’t .”

Hisoka shrugged, said, “Suit yourself,” and reached past Killua to open the door. 

They left the safety of the office and Killua distinctly felt as though he was walking into a fire, equipped with nothing but a wooden shield. 

Chapter Text

Hisoka made good on his word. Seeing as Meruem found Killua’s grandfather more interesting, Killua was dismissed from the house with a simple, “Very well,” to Hisoka’s reminder that Killua had homework to do back at the dorms.

Killua stepped over the patio grates and turned to shut the door. Hisoka was there to shut it, and Killua barely caught sight of Gon waving from the kitchen before his view was replaced by a sunny glare. 

Killua spent the entire walk back to the dorms trying not to succumb to a panic attack. Trembling and out of breath, Killua ignored the worried ask from the guy at the front desk and instead stumbled to the nearest phone booth down the hall. It took him three tries to put the quarter into the slot.

He leant into the counter, head in his hand and phone to his ear. His leg bounced under the counter as he waited. His breath came a little easier by the time the phone was answered.

“Hi, Jamie from Brown again,” he said, feigning a higher pitch. “Is Alluka available to chat about her essay submission?”

His mother replied, “ Oh, I’m so sorry, she’s still at school. She’ll be back by two .”

Fucking Hell, Killua thought, because of course she was at school. “Right. Absolutely. I’ll call back then—let her know we called?”

“ Of course! Have a nice day, Jamie from Brown .”

He hung up and immediately rang his voicemail. There were messages from Alluka and his grandfather still leftover from days prior, and he sat through every last one, tears on his face.

He scrubbed his hand over his eyes, pinching his fingers over the bridge of his nose. What was he doing, what was he doing, WHAT WAS HE DOING?!

He slammed the phone on the hanger and sat there, head on his arms, for what felt like hours. He pinched his bottom lip, straightening a little, and began to think. Properly think.

With the haze of his panic gone, Killua felt more in tune with the mind he’d forgotten—before the LSD, after Gon restored him. He followed its natural curves and reassuring processes that dismantled his worries about Gon being with Meruem.

With Meruem being here .

Hisoka’s threat of being dragged down to Hell .

Killua dismissed this instantly. He knew Hisoka, however vaguely, and knew that Hisoka preferred being back in Hell and to retain the status quo—of the Zoldycks going back to their normal lives. The threat of Hell was certainly a sufficient deterrent.

But perhaps it wasn’t as big of a threat as Hisoka worried.

Killua relaxed under this assurance. His heart stabilized as he slumped back against his chair, a hand patting his burning chest.

He was fine. They were all fine .

Killua spent the rest of the day alone. His appetite returned in time for dinner, which came as a jarring surprise to him. He sat at his and Gon’s usual table amidst the dinner crowd and realized, pathetically, that he hadn’t made any friends.

And by the end of the week, Gon would be gone. 

This was a melancholic churn in his mind that continued into the morning, Tuesday, when classes proceeded as if a Prince of Hell wasn’t on campus feigning being a student. Killua dressed in his empty dorm room and left to join the breakfast rush at the mess hall.

When he emerged to the quad following his morning class, he observed a distinct shift on campus. He paused on the stoop of his building, watching clusters of his peers milling about the sidewalk, their breaths held and eyes on the lawn across the quad. The central focus was so eminent that Killua wondered if there was a cosmic event happening, but the sky was clear.

Instead, as he padded down the steps, he discovered movement against this stoney grain of observers. It was Gon, Hisoka, and Meruem. 

Time held still for the three of them. Killua’s chest ached at the sight—of Gon with his arm in Meruem’s, and Meruem, looking perfect even from this distance. 

It hurt to see.

And then he swore Meruem’s face turned in his direction. His eyes, too far for Killua to see, were still fresh in his mind. Blood red in a blackened ring. 

Killua turned and half-jogged out of view and around the bushes. 

Killua waited at the side of the building until the coast was clear—the quad resumed motion. Bikes continued down their paths. Skateboards grated against concrete. 

Grandpa , Killua thought in a rush, and turned to hunt down the nearest phone booth.

He all but crashed inside, scrambling for a quarter. His grandfather wouldn’t be at home, so he tried his office on campus. 

A TA answered. “ Hello, Professor Zoldyck’s office this is Kite speaking .”

“Hi! Hey, hello, this is Killua. Is my grandfather around?”

“ Yes, he’s in. Give me a moment .”

Killua clasped his hand to the mic and thanked Baby Jesus and all that is holy. 

A minute later, his grandfather came on the line with an urgent, “ Killua, are you all right? ”

“I’m fine, I’m fine. How was it last night?” he asked.

“ It was fine, all things considered. Chrollo actually wanted to speak with you—you should ring the house. I don’t think Meruem’s there. ”

“I know. I just saw him pass through campus.” After a pause, Killua asked, “You have class with him tomorrow though, right?”

“ I do. ”

Killua wondered how that would fair, or if his grandfather would be giving a lecture to the only three lucid people in the room—Gon, Hisoka, and Meruem. The visual was oddly comical to Killua. 

“ It will be all right, Killua ,” his grandfather said, and his voice shook the tension out of Killua’s ribcage. “ Surprisingly, Meruem isn’t much of a challenge for me. Though he’s damn good at chess .”

Killua laughed. “I mean, he’s been around longer than you have, so I don’t doubt it.”

“ Age has nothing to do with it. Chess is timeless .”

Killua leant into the booth’s wall. The phone gave a ding. “I gotta go. I’ll call you later, maybe?”

“ Of course. You know Gon’s schedule better than I do .”

Killua rolled his eyes and hung up. He dialed the house next, and Chrollo picked up on the first ring. “ Zoldyck residence .”

“Hey, it’s Killua.”

Chrollo didn’t miss a beat. “ I need you to do something. Is there a spare key to your grandfather’s house? ”

“I—” He thought about it. “No. He got rid of them because of all his TAs breaking in to smoke in the library.”

“ Do you have a spare, then? ”

“Yes, I suppose I do.”

“ Bring it here .”

“What? Now?” Killua floundered for his keyring. “Any particular reason?”

“ I just think we might need it. ”

Weird request, but okay , Killua thought. He promised to stop by in the ten minutes it’d take to walk to the house. 

He hung up shortly thereafter and left campus. The sun was beating down and by the time he arrived at his grandfather’s back porch, he’d taken off his sweatshirt and tied it around his waist. 

Chrollo met him at the door and ushered him inside. “Does Meruem need an extra key or…?” Killua asked, key in hand.

Chrollo snatched it from his fingers and said, “I need you to do something else now. Follow me.”

They crossed the dining room, under the balustrade, and into the foyer where Killua, once again, was mentally stuck at the stairs. 

He barely inched a foot onto the step and the butterflies in his stomach turned to dragons. Fire breathing dragons . He stepped away, waving his hands about in an effort to shake the sensation off. 

“I can’t,” he said. “Meruem told me to stay down here.”

“Shit. That’s right,” Chrollo sighed. “Hisoka mentioned that. If I carry you, it should be easier to get over the initial hump of breaking the rules, trust me.”

“ Carry me?” Killua repeated, incredulous. “No way.”

Chrollo leant off the first step, hand extended. “Just five seconds should do it. Come on, then.”

“No! That’s so weird, and—” he started, but Chrollo came after him before he could make a proper escape. 

True to Chrollo’s word, the initial hump was the worst of it. Killua broke down in tears somewhere between the first and sixth step, but by the top, he’d screamed enough bloody murder to realize that it was a bit over the top of him to be screaming bloody murder .

His feet touched the carpet. His cheeks felt like they were plastered over. 

“There. That wasn’t so bad,” Chrollo said.

“Never do that again,” Killua scolded, a finger in the air. “Now what am I doing up here anyway.”

“Feel free to say no—”

“Oh, you didn’t think to say that downstairs? ”

“I’d forgotten about the staircase issue. Follow me.”

They ended up in the library where Chrollo had returned most of his books to their proper places. The place looked full again and less cluttered by Chrollo’s reading habits. 

“I’ll need you to remove your piercing— Not now ,” he said, quickly, as Killua reached a hand up to it. Chrollo’s eyes had widened at the gesture. “At least think about it , Christ.”

“Oh, shit, right.” Last time he’d removed his earring, Meruem appeared out of thin air. He dropped his hands like his ear was on fire. “Why, exactly, do I need to remove the piercing?”

“Meruem can’t track it if it isn’t in living hands,” Chrollo reminded him. “He likes to retrieve it immediately , but it would be difficult for him to find if you hide it in a book here.”

Killua scanned the room with all its nooks and crannies and infinite books. It certainly was a good hiding place, he had to admit. Even if Meruem did find him next to one bookcase, it would take ages to properly sift through the stacks nearest him. 

“But as I was saying before you almost sprung Meruem on us,” Chrollo went on, voice dulled with irritation. He opened a book were the back few pages were cut into—perfect squares out of the middle of the page. 

“I don’t want you to remove it today , but by tomorrow, I’ll be done making a container for it here. Even when it’s in the book, so long as the book is in your hand, Meruem believes it’s still on you. Got it?”

Killua nodded. Chrollo showed Killua to where the book originated—down an aisle where four bookcases collided. Chrollo reached through a gap to the adjacent case. 

“You put it here. That way if he appears at the end of the aisle, he can think you left it here and not in the neighboring one.”

“Got it,” Killua agreed. “Would he really search for it?”

“I don’t know. I can’t think of a time when a human has hidden it—Meruem’s gold never ends up in treasure troves and tombs. He might be more interested in why you’ve hidden it.”

“Because… I don’t want him tracking me,” Killua said. He shrugged. “That’s not a big deal. I think a lot of people would agree to that.”

“Then you can give him that answer,” Chrollo said. “It’s better to be truthful with him.”

Speaking of truth… “What did Meruem want to offer you? In exchange for going back to Hell?”

At this, Chrollo pulled the book back and took it with him down the aisle. Killua watched him go before realizing that Chrollo wasn’t even planning on giving him an answer.

“Come on! Does it have to do with war crimes, stealing things? You can tell me,” Killua asked.

“No, none of those things,” he said, and Killua won with the faint, amused grin on Chrollo’s face. He waved the book and said, “I need to keep working on this. Tomorrow or Thursday—the earring needs to go in here .”

“Got it. And after, you gotta tell me what Meruem offered.”

“Ah, no. That’s not how this works.”

“I’m just curious.”

“And as your grandfather says, that often kills cats, so maybe stop being curious.”

“I don’t think I will. Tell my brother I don’t say hi.”

Killua left then with Chrollo scoffing under his breath in contempt. 

________

Killua did as Chrollo suggested the following day. It’d been on his mind since the inception of it, and it was with great difficulty that Killua managed to reframe it enough in his head that he wouldn’t put Chrollo or the book at risk. There was no telling how much or how little Meruem could interpret from Killua’s head, but it was clear his inner monologue would be at risk. 

He decided to skip lecture altogether and instead left campus before Meruem’s presence could pause time itself in the quad. Town was quiet that day as Killua half-jogged to his grandfather’s yard. 

The backdoor was open—thank God , because Killua never thought to ask where Chrollo left the key. The kitchen was quiet, and the upstairs even quieter. 

“Chrollo?” he called out, but upon investigation, he returned to the kitchen where a note was left behind where Hisoka’s lighter usually was. 

It read: Took Illumi out for a walk .

Classic , Killua thought, because there was nothing better than having his brother loosely correlated to dog metaphors. 

He laughed to himself as he tore the note up on his way back upstairs. The library was quiet, and as he reached through the gap at the intersection, he found Chrollo’s book right where he said it would be. This time, he registered the spine: Altered States of Consciousness . 

Killua checked for Chrollo’s pocket.

The worn pages were sliced in perfect succession to make a divot where Meruem’s earring could live. The pages were glued at the back and Chrollo had even left a bit of adhesive on the page immediately on top of it. If Meruem shook the books about, the back pages wouldn’t budge. 

Killua tucked the book under his arm and, with both hands, untwisted the piercing back. 

“Alright,” he told himself, “It’ll be fine.” Because did he really want Meruem tracking him? 

Something told him Meruem preferred it that way. After all, he’d returned the backing to him—if Meruem wanted Killua gone and out of Gon’s life, he wouldn’t have been polite enough to return it. 

Killua dangled St Peter’s cross over the pages before dropping it into Chrollo’s divot. He sealed the page on top of the earring capsule before shutting the book and giving it a jostle.

The earring didn’t budge. It was a snug fit, and he couldn’t even hear the chain clanking. With his free hand, he grabbed a random book, and with the other, he reached through the gap and slid the book into place. 

He swiped his hand away from the spine and back to the random book in his possession. His elbow knocked the shelf and rattled his funny bone with a strong and boisterous, “ Fucking shit —that hurt!”

“Are you all right?”

Killua swore again and nearly knocked over a bookcase this time. Meruem, just as Chrollo predicted, had appeared at the end of the aisle. 

Killua steadied the bookcase behind him, heart already in his throat. “Yeah, I just—You know.” He propped his elbow on the nearest shelf and leant into it. Not smooth at all, he thought, and tried for a smile.

It did nothing. 

Meruem looked just as devastating as the day prior—youthful, impassive, and altogether intimidating despite his casual, patterned shirt tucked into a pair of faded jeans. 

He stepped down the aisle, red eyes never blinking. They were on Killua’s hand—specifically, where Killua’s hand met his ear.

“You removed it,” Meruem commented. His eyes dropped to the book in his hand. 

Quietly, if not sinisterly, Meruem took the book. His gaze lingered on Killua’s before dropping to skim the pages. He snapped the book shut when the contents provided nothing. 

“Just now… you removed it,” he said, and with the book pinched shut between his fingers, Meruem looked at Killua.

Studied him. 

He was close enough for Killua to smell something metal on his skin, warm like a furnace, and tinny like water sizzling on hot asphalt. 

The edge of a threat scraped its blade along Killua’s spine. He shivered under it, bracing himself with a hand on a shelf to keep from backing into it. 

Meruem’s brow furrowed. They were eye-to-eye. 

Killua’s thoughts rushed faster—skidding in their attempt to slow down .

“What… is that ?” Meruem said, staring somewhere between Killua’s eyes—his brow, his forehead.

“T-Time of My Life by Bill Medley,” Killua said.

When Meruem didn’t react, Killua couldn’t stop himself. He uttered a weak and shaky, “‘ Yes I swear… it’s the truth… because I owe it all to y— ’ Okay, never mind. I’m a little too tone-deaf for this so I’ll just—”

Killua side-stepped Meruem, who looked more and more like he was having an aneurysm the longer he spent listening to Killua attempt to sing. 

“Do you… not want an exchange?” Meruem asked, belatedly turning to face Killua. “Where did you put it?”

“No,” he said, truthfully. “But I don’t like… you knowing where I am all the time. I guess.”

He waited, mentally singing and dancing to the credits of Dirty Dancing while Meruem struggled to sift around it. It was written in his furrowed brow and tight, red eyes. 

Confused, Meruem said, “That’s it?”

Killua shrugged. “Yeah. Is that a problem?”

“No, I just—” He looked around himself, lost amongst the books, and said, “Where did you put it? Won’t it get lost—”

I guess I’m not the only one with anxiety , Killua thought, and Meruem’s eyes were on him in an instant. Killua slapped a hand over his mouth and continued singing, ‘Now with passion in our eyes—there’s no way we could disguise—’

Killua slid the book on the nearest table and, shimmying his shoulders a little, pretended to dance his way out of the room. 

He did a little side-step, spin, and walked backwards to find Meruem following him, arms crossed and eyes incredulous.

“This does make me anxious, you’re correct,” Meruem said, voice raising as if to match the volume of Killua singing in his head. Still, he pressed on. “If you’d known the things humans ask for, you would be wary, too. It could be months from now, decades, centuries even before—”

“I won’t lose it,” Killua promised, criss-crossing his way down the stairs. “Trust the process, maybe?”

At the foyer, Meruem caught Killua’s raised hand. His skin sparked against Killua’s and sent a chill up his bones that froze him completely. 

At the whim of his own momentum, Killua spun against Meruem. With such little proximity to Meruem’s inhumane eyes, Killua feared he might die.

His lungs ceased functioning.

“Gon and the others seem to trust you,” Meruem said. “Trust isn’t easily earned by people who have lived longer than you can fathom.”

Killua overestimated his ability to respond. He opened his mouth and nothing came out. Meruem rose a sharp eyebrow at that but held fast, one hand to Killua’s back and the other freezing the hand that Gon had burned. 

“Alright,” Meruem relented, and pushed Killua out. He staggered away, and dropping from Meruem’s. “Whether it be you or Zeno, I estimate your requests will be manageable.”

“My grandfather?” Killua repeated, frowning. 

“I just hope it doesn’t end up in the hands of your… brother .” Meruem uttered the word like it was his least favorite food.

Killua couldn’t help but laugh. “Trust me, he won’t find it.”

“ Trust . Trust, trust, trust—You certainly have a lot of faith in that,” Meruem said, and in the split second Killua spared to blinked, Meruem had vanished. 

Chapter Text

If Killua had known removing the earring would mean garnering Meruem’s indefinite attention, he would have waited until Thursday night to do anything about it. It was better to be tracked than personally monitored by Meruem, and he could tell the moment he saw Hisoka that the demon was furious about this.

Killua woke up that Thursday morning already uneasy. Oh no , he thought, something is about to go horribly wrong . 

It wasn’t dread he felt after the movies, or during parties when Gon’s tattoos were on display, but it was something a touch more muted. Just enough for Killua to get up and ignore and go about his day. 

In the lobby, however, he found the source of his anxiety. 

The lobby had ceased functioning as a moving, breathing thing. Instead, all its occupants gathered for a scene, which Killua immediately thought, Maybe a fight broke out? but there wasn’t any sound. Surely there would be a ruckus if a brawl was going down.

He paused at the landing just before the foyer and, gut sinking, said aloud, “Fuck.”

He recognized Meruem’s haughty posture through the front windows. The Prince was standing out on the stoop, staring out into the yard, smoking.

Killua debated going out back and ultimately, this was what he did. He circled the banister, headed past the mess hall, and backed through the exit students used to smoke weed out by the dumpsters. 

He made it to the neighboring dorm room and was freedom bound from there. Still, he scratched his head and pondered curiously about what prompted Meruem to drop by. If he was looking for the gold, he was sorely mistaken—clearly it wasn’t on Killua’s person.

He bounded up the steps to his first class and came to a screeching halt the moment he entered the corridor to his lecture.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Killua breathed.

Meruem was at the lecture hall door, blocking traffic yet again.

Everyone stared like statues in a museum as Killua nudged past them. Meruem straightened from where he’d been relaxed back against the wall beside the door, his eyes following Killua even as he passed by, singing, “ With these… hungry eyes—one look at you and I can’t disguise—! ” in his head.

“Can you—stop singing all the time? It’s more distracting than normal thoughts,” Meruem stressed, his voice trailing just a few paces behind Killua down the steps of his lecture hall. 

Everyone who had been seated stood, abruptly, and it halted Killua in his tracks. They’re all possessed , Killua thought, morbidly, and turned to face Meruem.

Meruem, who’d managed to come within a breath of Killua once again.

Meruem took a deep, calming breath. His expression flatlined once more. “Believe it or not, I can’t hear most of what you think. You aren’t a very linear-thinker, so to speak.”

“Forgive me for being cautious,” Killua said. 

“It is… certainly an adjustment. I can’t blame you,” he went on, and as Killua went on replaying the choreography in his head, staring Meruem in the eyes, Meruem raised a dismissive hand in the air.

The lecture hall sat at once. His peers from the hall filtered in, resuming their normal function and swarming about to their seats. 

Meruem tucked his hands into the back pockets of his jeans, posture relaxing. “You should stop by the house tomorrow. It’s Gon’s last day.”

It took a monumental amount of effort not to break his pace when singing, “ I wanna hold you so he-ar me out—! ”

“Are you avoiding them on my account?” Meruem asked.

“ I wanna show you what love’s all about —!” Killua hummed internally.

Meruem brow tightened. “Visit the house tomorrow,” Meruem ordered, and took a step back. The music dropped like a cinderblock from Killua’s mental grasp. Meruem backed up the steps so he could meet Killua’s eyes as he said, “Breakfast tomorrow. Don’t be late,” before turning around and leaving. 

Killua wasn’t sure how long he stood there in the entrance to his row until lecture started and he was forced, belatedly, to find a seat. 

In an effort to feel normal after that particular exchange and a lecture he didn’t listen to, Killua returned to his dorm and re-listened to his voicemail. The first on the list was Alluka, demanding once again that Killua use his goddamn camera for once, Christ . “ Okay, that’s all, bye. Wait—! Actually, I have to tell you about this thing my friend did at school. It involved a knife and the principal’s office. Call me! ”

The next was a message from the previous week from his grandfather asking that he stop by the house. Just as Killua prepared to hang the phone up, a new message came up from the previous day.

“ Hey Killua. ” It was Gon. Killua returned to his seat, eyes wide on the advertisement board across from him. “ I guess you aren’t at the dorms right now. ”

There was a pause in which Killua expected Gon to hang up without a goodbye. He nearly laughed at the thought of Gon in his grandfather’s kitchen twirling the curly phone cord around his finger. 

“ Well anyway ,” Gon went on, clearing his throat, “ I guess I just miss you. I might be gone for a while but… I’ll see when I can come back, alright? Would that be okay? Wait, you can’t answer ‘cause you’re… not at the phone right now. Well, tell me if it’s not okay. I’ll understand. Okay, bye now! ”

Killua pulled up his voicemail again and skipped Alluka and Grandpa’s notes to relisten to Gon’s message. He sat there, palm resting on his lips and fingers cupping his jaw, and thinking a little too deeply about how sad Gon sounded.

He hung up the phone and sighed, arms crossed, slouched back in the chair. Perhaps… there was a chance Killua could convince Meruem to let Gon stay…

Definitely not , he reasoned, because Meruem hadn’t budged for Chrollo or Gon. The odds that Killua could make a difference at all…

But I still have the earring , a dangerous little voice crooned from afar, and Killua blocked it out instantly. 

He couldn’t. It was all well and good to imagine storming into his grandfather’s house to put Meruem in his place, but he knew Meruem’s requests were no different than Hisoka’s bargaining and Chrollo’s involvement: they just wanted the best for Gon. 

And they knew, perhaps even better than Killua’s experience, that Gon was a danger to society the longer he spent here.

Killua left the dorm then on a mission. He returned to the English department where, after a long  arduous process of hunting his Friday lecture professor down, discovered them in a meeting with their TAs. They met Killua in the hall where he said:

“An emergency came up at home,” Killua explained. “I won’t be able to make it to lecture tomorrow, but I have the homework done if I’m able to give it to you now.”

“Oh, that shouldn’t be a problem,” they said. 

Killua blinked. Odd , he thought, because as far as he was aware, his Friday professor was more of a stickler than the rest. Fridays were often the classes students skipped, so attendance was crucial to his grade.

“Really?” he said, the homework held limply in his hand. 

His professor tugged it free of his hand and scanned it before passing it off to one of the TAs. “Certainly. Have a nice rest of your day, Mr. Zoldyck,” they said with a smile and returned to their meeting. They shut the door, effectively ending the conversation.

Killua dropped his hands from where they’d been frozen midair. 

It was a smooth exchange, if it weren’t so unnatural . He recognized his professor’s mannerisms, he couldn’t place how foreign the reaction was. How amicable . If Killua hadn’t been so tuned-in to Gon’s reactions to people, he would have missed it completely.

This was the power of Meruem’s influence—nearly imperceptible, but making a difference all the same. It would have been so easy for Killua to chalk this up as good luck, maybe to assume his professor liked him more than they had led on, and go about his day.

He fled the building and nearly straight into a person standing out on the stood.

“Oh, sorry,” Killua stammered, raising a hand to steady them. 

He recognized that blonde ponytail. 

“K-Kurapika?” Killua stammered.

“Hey,” they said, and then canvased the state of Killua: frazzled, sleepless, and wanting to scream. “I… actually had a question for you.”

Killua tried to right himself up, straightening his shirt. “I, um, sure. What is it?”

“Is Hisoka okay?” they asked, and Killua rose an eyebrow. “I just mean—There was someone new at lecture and they gave off… I don’t know.”

“Yeah, um—” Killua was assured by the constant motion on campus. If Meruem was around, time would have stopped for him. Still, he pulled Kurapika toward the door and into the antechamber. 

There, Killua said, “You saw him?”

“The new guy?” Killua nodded. “Yes. I get the impression that he’s different than Hisoka and Gon.”

“He’s kind of like their superior,” Killua explained. “They’re actually leaving tomorrow. All of them.”

“All of them?” Kurapika groaned. “Right at the start of a group project. Got it. I guess I was planning on doing it myself anyway.”

“So you… haven’t talked to Hisoka this week,” Killua concluded.

Kurapika shook their head. “Just Monday. He told me not to approach him when he’s with the new guy, so I haven’t been able to catch him alone.”

So Hisoka had talked to Kurapika already , Killua thought. The only time he could think of was immediately before Hisoka and his grandfather had entered the house Monday afternoon. The likelihood of his grandfather going to fetch Hisoka was high, and the odds that Hisoka had been with Kurapika at the time were also plausible.

“Oh. That’s good,” Killua said. “I’m glad he warned you.”

“Have you talked to their superior?” Kurapika asked.

When Killua nodded, he caught himself fidgeting with his backpack strap. He pocketed his hands to feign calm and said, “He’s staying at my grandfather’s house. I’m stopping by tomorrow for breakfast.”

It was a risk to mention it, but one Killua didn’t regret taking. Kurapika’s brow furrowed, unnerved. “Well. I get the impression Hisoka isn’t thrilled that his superior is here. What does Gon have to say about it?”

Killua shook his head. “I haven’t talked to him since Monday.”

“Oh.” There was something frustratingly akin to pity in Kurapika’s eyes. Killua felt like he was in confession again, and Kurapika was giving him the expression he imagined his priest wore through the screen. “I didn’t really believe you about teaching Gon how to be human. I’ve felt bad about it—I really do think you’re a good influence on them.”

Killua quirked an eyebrow. “Has Hisoka even talked about me?”

“Not in so many words. I try not to ask too many questions,” Kurapika confessed. “But I don’t think they’re are much different from humans when it comes to sin. We’re all born sinful, are we not?”

“According to the Bible we are,” Killua agreed. 

“I just… don’t believe that Hisoka and Gon are the embodiment of sin like I thought initially.”

“That’s because you’re a pessimist at heart.”

“You make me sound like a terrible person.”

“No. I like that about you—I think Hisoka does, too. He just won’t admit that about me. I think he secretly hates me.”

Kurapika laughed. “I’m sure he doesn’t. If you see them, give them my best, though. Be careful, Killua.”

“Likewise,” Killua said and, albeit mockingly, crossed his heart and chest as Kurapika turned away.

They doubled back with a laugh to playfully shove Killua in the shoulder. “I’ll count that as sacrilege,” they laughed, and walked off, shaking their head. 

Killua was early for breakfast that morning despite his best intentions to be as late as physically possible. With his anxiety at an all-time high, he approached the back patio with the intent to knock, but it was open. 

Hisoka was there looking exhausted just by the sight of Killua.

“Hello to you, too,” Killua deadpanned.

“Unbelievable,” Hisoka scoffed, rolling his eyes away as he turned toward the kitchen. “I need more coffee.”

Killua stepped in with his backpack on—though he’d be skipping class, he didn’t want his grandfather to know that. He brushed off his shoes on the rug before slipping them off. He shut the door behind him as he canvassed the room. 

It was just the two of them and, as Killua observed, his grandfather at the head of the table with his newspaper. 

“Hey,” Killua said, and tried not to sound sentimental about it.

His grandfather looked just as he always did, which was more reassuring than anything else. He’d trusted his grandfather to be a pillar of normalcy, and he came in clutch.

“Good morning,” his grandfather said, checking his watch. “You’re in early.”

“Couldn’t sleep,” Killua confessed.

“I can tell,” Hisoka said.

Killua glared at him from across the room. 

Hisoka raised a spare mug and said, “Coffee?”

Out of spite, Killua almost said no. “Sure.”

With his mug freshly filled by a pissed-off demon, Killua took it with him to approach the table. He didn’t quite make it in time before company joined them. 

Killua’s mug paused against his lip, his eyes on Meruem approaching from the foyer. He was striking in a pair of emerald green slacks synched at the waste with a black belt over a tucked-in, mostly-unbuttoned, black shirt. Adorned with his signature gold, Killua felt the absence of his earrings more than ever. 

He tugged at the fresh, empty divot in his earlobe as Meruem approached. He was followed closely by Gon, who met Killua’s eyes, however briefly, from over Meruem’s shoulder.

He looks tired , Killua thought, with a note of relief. He hoped that exhaustion would be rectified soon, given Meruem’s promise.

Meruem stalled at the archway, studying the three of them and, in particular, Killua. “Good. You made it,” Meruem said. 

“Didn’t give me much of a choice.”

He swore Hisoka hissed something cursed behind him. Killua took a sip of his coffee, the chime in his head a brutal reminder to Meruem that he was still insufferable.

He saw it in the twitch in the Prince’s eye. Meruem took a step toward him and said, “Stop singing. It’s grating.”

“I’m not singing anything,” Killua insisted. 

“I told you—It’s quieter if you just think like normal .”

Hisoka scoffed off to the side. At Meruem’s passing glance, Hisoka said, “Classic. That’s a nice touch.”

“Thank you,” Killua said, earnestly.

“What’s he singing? AC/DC?” Gon asked. 

Meruem waved a dismissive hand as he reached for a fresh cup of coffee. “Something about the time of his life.”

Gon gasped, thrilled. Though he tried to dampen it, Killua still met his smile. 

Meruem observed Gon from over the rim of his mug. “You know it, then.”

“Yeah,” Gon said, and proceeded to hum it, shimmying a little as he crossed the floor and into the kitchen. He twirled around Hisoka as he sang and the Prince watched, amused.

For a moment, Killua was comforted by the normalcy of this scene. It wasn’t too far-off from the mornings he was familiar with now—the warm, golden light catching on the wind chimes, Gon’s eyes shining like glitter over the sink as he fetched himself a glass of water. The fuzzy feeling in his chest when Hisoka ruffled Gon’s bedhead awake.

It halted with the intentional way Meruem looked at him then. Killua took a sip of his coffee, feigning busyness.

“I have class in an hour,” Killua lied. “When are you all leaving?”

He felt the chill of Meruem’s gaze on his cheek as he turned aside to join his grandfather at the table. In Memoriam was still printed in the papers, and Killua’s internal defeat worsened. 

Though he knew this was for the best, a part of him still ached. 

He realized a second too long that Meruem never answered. He glanced back, and first noticed Gon looking up at Hisoka, who was glaring at Killua from over Meruem’s shoulder. 

“Why would you lie to me?” Meruem said.

Killua’s mouth fell open a fraction. Though Meruem’s expression hadn’t changed, he sensed the offense. He shut his mouth, palms clammy. “It’s not a lie. Class is in an hour.”

This, more than anything, furrowed Meruem’s brow. Perplexed, Meruem said, “You didn’t lie that time. How did you manage that?”

He hadn’t even thought about it, and didn’t give himself the space to think about it. “I don’t know.”

Meruem took a sip of coffee and, resolutely, pulled out the chair beside Killua. He sat with his full attention on Killua. 

Dread sunk in with Hisoka’s look of unadulterated disdain for Killua’s mental fortitude and Gon’s plain confusion. Meruem’s attention, less like Gon’s heat-seeking missile of a stare, was frozen. Steely. And though his focus was for Killua alone, Meruem’s lack of emotional response made him feel insignificant, like he wasn’t worthy of the fondness he shared with his fellow demons, or the banter they exchanged with Killua and his grandfather in the background.

Killua swallowed hard, knowing that his mental soundtrack was wavering under Meruem’s proximity. 

It ceased entirely when Meruem’s hand met the side of his face, hovering near his cheekbone. 

Killua’s ears flared red-hot, but the chill of Meruem’s fingers dampened the sensation. His breath stuck to his esophagus. 

“There,” Meruem uttered, and though his expression kept Killua at a safe distance, his voice was intimate. He shuddered. “I can hear you now, almost. You’re planning to skip class—the second one wasn’t a lie. Class is still happening in an hour, you just won’t be there.”

Out of pure impulse, Killua slapped Meruem’s hand aside. 

He flinched at himself, at the sharp intake of breath from Hisoka, and the quick, “Killua!” from his grandfather. 

“Sorry,” Killua said, instinctively, though Meruem’s sharp focus was familiar—he’d just lied. “Okay, not sorry. I just don’t want anyone in my head.”

“I’m always in your head,” Meruem said simply. “Everything you’ve ever wanted, desired—”

Meruem didn’t so much pause as he did freeze . His hand was no more than a breath away from Killua’s head, but that was all it took.

Of course Killua, panicked, human , would think of the one thing he wanted, the one thing he desired, in that exact moment. And of course, the Prince best equipped to capture such information was vying for it.

“You—” Meruem started, and for once, his stoicism broke. 

Killua had imagined this nightmare scenario in the sleepless nights leading up to breakfast at his grandfather’s house with the Prince of Greed. He’d imagined sprinting as fast and as far as his legs could carry him, falling to his knees and winning an Oscar for Best Liar in a Supporting Role, and more.

Instead, something bizarre happened.

Meruem, more than anything, wanted Gon. And to have Gon, he needed Killua. 

“Take me with you,” Killua said, pleaded. 

“Killua,” his grandfather started, breakfast, coffee, and paper abandoned. “Meruem, you’re manipulating him. That isn’t what he wants—”

“That isn’t true,” Meruem said, earnestly, red eyes never leaving Killua. “He understands his predicament perfectly. And you—”

He rose from the chair, turning slowly to face the kitchen. Over the counter, Gon had gone white as a sheet just behind Hisoka’s shoulder. 

“You should know better,” Meruem said, each step slow and calculated as he circled the counter. “Though I want what’s best for you, I’m far more interested in giving you what you want. And you’ve kept this from me? I’m impressed.”

“I’ve been… learning from the best, I guess,” Gon said, eyes flitting briefly to where Killua was stuck in his chair, unable to move. “Can’t I—Can’t I just come back? He doesn’t… need to come with us—”

Meruem reached them, reached past Hisoka, and put his hands to either side of Gon’s head. “You’re tired. You aren’t thinking straight,” Meruem said. His head tipped to the side, searching Gon’s face. “Don’t you want your pets to live forever? Life on Earth is so fleeting. And you’d watch Killua age? Watch him die? Is that what you desire?”

“You’re playing dirty, Meruem,” Hisoka chided, though his usual light, teasing undertone was gone. Killua feared to look at his face. “Gon wants Killua to be human—He came to observe humans, not change them.”

Meruem’s thumbs brushed just above Gon’s temples, Gon’s brows pinched with distress. 

“That isn’t what you want,” Meruem concluded, and Killua watched in agony as Gon’s eyes drifted to him . 

Killua shouldn’t have been as surprised as he felt. He’d known Gon would want him in Hell—he just hadn’t imagined stalling his entire life for Gon. 

“Then I’ll give you Killua,” Meruem decided, giving Gon’s cheek a fond pat. Gon’s eyes hadn’t left Killua’s. “And when you wake, Killua will be there for you to play with. Agreed?”

“ No ,” Hisoka said. “Gon will regret this. You know it—He’ll be—”

“He’ll be better equipped to handle it later,” Meruem said, meeting Hisoka’s eyes. Their height difference was almost comical. “You’d really think I’d leave your silly little humans untreated? And take you all back? Chrollo’s done a brilliant job repairing Illumi—it’d just be a matter of wiping their memories of the last month. Gon would never be able to reconnect with his pets.”

So that’s why — Killua started, but caught himself at the stiff way Meruem almost turned to him. Like a cat, perking its ears. 

Killua put his fingers to his lips and forced his thoughts far from the cigar lounge and the seminary school on campus.

Meruem lifted his hands from Gon’s face. Killua watched, enrapt, as Gon’s eyes fluttered shut. Gravity pulled him down and against Meruem. 

The moment Gon collided with Meruem’s shoulder, fast asleep, a dark haze melted across him. He dispersed in a flurry of black smoke over Meruem, who stood, poised, arms open to accept him. 

When the Prince’s arms lowered, Killua realized that this was it. 

Gon was sent back to Hell, and Killua had watched it happen .

“Now then,” Meruem said. He turned to the dining table where Killua and his grandfather sat in utter disbelief. “Sorry to disrupt your meal, but I think it’d be best if we were all off. Hisoka will take care of things here for you.”

“What,” Killua rasped. Why would…?

Killua turned sharply to his grandfather, whose glasses had slipped off the bridge of his nose. His grandfather pointed a finger to himself and said, “I… have no business in Hell. Though I suppose if you take my grandson…”

“He can’t—” Killua started. It was one thing for Killua to be involved, but another to drag his grandfather to Hell with him!

“This isn’t about your grandson,” Meruem said. “And it reckon it won’t be forever. You’re quite good at chess.”

His grandfather removed his glasses, looking beyond appalled. “Well that’s—Well… I suppose that’s innocent enough…”

“ Grandpa ,” Killua cried, mortified. “You can’t just— go to Hell to play chess with—with—”

“Sure he can,” Meruem said. “Besides, I’m sure you’d like the company while Gon’s asleep.”

“Couldn’t you just… give us a little time?” Killua insisted. His chest was constricting. “At least until Gon’s awake? What use will I be if—”

Meruem had approached him and, with the brush of his hand against Killua’s forehead, the world went black.

Chapter Text

Killua woke as if from an accidental nap—disoriented, lost, and feeling as though he missed something important that day.

“Fuck,” he said, to no one in particular as his eyes adjusted to the dim. His hands sunk into feather-light sheets. They were green—a color bedspread he didn’t own, and void of the quintessential floral patterns his grandmother had populated the linen cabinets with at his grandfather’s house. 

The air was so still and quiet it was static to Killua’s ears. His own blood rushed back to him as, slowly, he raised his eyes to the room ahead. 

He first noticed windows—windows the height of the colossal buildings on campus and framed by columns that seemed to drip from gothic vaults. The windows themselves were arched and spindly with curved grids and elegant stained glass. They washed what little light Killua had into blues and greens.

For a moment, Killua felt waterlogged. It was a sensation he could only equate to playing pretend as a child with Alluka in their swimming pool back in New York state. 

Swimming at night, with nothing but the eerie pool lights and the moon. The stars.

Killua was frozen by unexpected fear . He sank deeper into the mattress, sheets pulling up, until they were over his head and he could count to ten and believe he was in his dorm. 

It was all for naught.

Eventually, as the silence endured—reassuring with its consistency—Killua edged toward the floor. He let the sheets trail after him, pooling on frigid tiles under his socks. 

His leg bumped into something clunky. He jolted at the unexpected touch and, looking down, found his backpack. He hurriedly donned it.

He was still in his clothes from that morning—or was it that morning? He’d lost track of the time, and as he neared the window, he couldn’t make sense of what he saw beyond the pane. 

Evidently, time wasn’t a concern for him here, he decided, and resumed circumnavigating the room.

The bed was situated at the head of what appeared to be an atrium, or perhaps a ballroom—whatever the case, the space was more ideal for a gala rather than a bedroom . His footsteps were all but silent despite the stone and bricks—what walls weren’t occupied by windows were instead strung together with tapestries and weathered banners. 

He followed a row of tapestries to the nearest archway. It led to what appeared to be an infinite corridor.

Where am I? he wondered, and decided to test his voice. 

“Hello?” he called out, but even his voice didn’t carry. He lost sense of space with this simple test.

With only one direction to go, Killua started a long trek forward with no end in sight.

The vaulted ceilings seemed to hang and drip with curtains, banners, and chains from chandeliers. Killua walked across webs of shadows from windows to his left, each sill and pedestal occupied by statues, trinkets, and books. He passed furniture swathed in white, like he’d stepped into a foreclosed castle.

The moment Killua approached an intersection, he took the turn and tried again to say, “Hello…? Seriously, is no one around? ”

It was all some wretched nightmare. Trapped, alone, bound to forget where he came from or where he was going. It was a miracle he stumbled upon candlelight at all. 

A chandelier was on the floor ahead, its decorative crystals aglow with few candles still lit. The wax had turned to white puddles on the marble tiles.

“Killua?” someone said, and Killua waited for an echo that never came. 

He turned, searching for the voice. It spoke again and this time, he recognized his grandfather’s voice. “Grandpa?” he said, circling the chandelier. 

A piece of furniture shifted. 

Killua startled and nearly screamed. His grandfather had chosen to sit in a chair obscured by the chandelier. 

He could have been walking for days given the tears of relief that burst from Killua’s eyes. He threw himself at his grandfather before the man had even risen past the first crack in his kneecaps. 

His grandfather gave a short, relaxed laugh. “Careful. How long have you been awake?”

“I don’t know,” Killua admitted, his face tucked into his grandfather’s tweed vest. His sandalwood cologne dispelled all of Killua’s worries in that moment. He squeezed tighter. “I don’t have a watch on me.”

When they parted, Killua hastily scrubbed the tears from his cheeks. He sniffed as his grandfather tugged his sleeve back to check the underside of his wrist where his watch face sat.

“I’ve been up for an hour, took a break about twenty minutes ago. There’s a lot to look at,” his grandfather appraised, glancing about them. 

Sure enough, beside his grandfather’s sheet-covered chair sat a collection of items his grandfather had acquired. He’d wheeled over a little red wagon and stacked it full of prizes from his walk: scrolls, books, a metal kettle, and a bottle of wine. 

Killua joined him, tugging a sheet off a nearby chair and dragging it across the tiles. His cheeks felt tight from crying, and he found that he couldn’t stop now that he’d started. 

Vision perpetually warped through tears, Killua sat and said, “Where are we?”

“Don’t you remember?” his grandfather asked. When Killua shook his head, it took a moment longer for his grandfather to continue. “Do you remember our guests back home?”

“Guests?” Killua repeated, leg bouncing. He clutched at his knees to control his fidgeting. 

Illumi had visited him. He should have left for New York by now—his brother had a full-time job now as a paralegal. 

“My brother?” he asked. “He…”

Died .

“Gon,” Killua rasped, horrified. “Oh my God—”

“Deep breaths, Killua,” his grandfather said. The warmth of his hand weighed on Killua’s shoulders as he bent over his knees, fingers steepled over his nose. “I haven’t seen anyone yet. Chrollo left before you even came to the house—I’d hoped to run into him before Meruem.”

“Chrollo’s here?” Killua said, meeting his grandfather’s eyes as best he could given the state of his tears. 

His grandfather reached into his pocket for a handkerchief. He dabbed at Killua’s tears, but they defied logic and gravity. They watched Killua’s tears billow up, lost, toward the ceiling. 

“Can you tell me why Meruem thought to bring you here?” his grandfather asked.

Killua struggled to understand it himself, at first, let alone explain it to his grandfather . He pushed his hands together, fingers weaving, unweaving, between his knees. “Gon and I are friends,” Killua said, simply.

“Yes, I know this,” his grandfather said. “And it’s okay to be friends with Gon, but that can’t be all there is to it.”

“Can’t it be?” Killua insisted, wishing his grandfather would just drop it. “He wants to be a better person. I can help him with that—and Meruem wants what Gon wants. Isn’t that how this works?”

“Killua,” his grandfather sighed, handkerchief brushing across Killua’s cheeks. He let his arm drop to say, “Lying won’t do you any good.”

Killua couldn’t bring himself to speak. 

Eventually, his grandfather relented on his questioning by rubbing Killua on the back and saying, “It’s okay. You don’t have to say it.”

“I’m sorry,” Killua said, strained. 

It became clear after a second hug that Killua’s tears weren’t stopping for anything, and they still needed to find Chrollo. His grandfather urged him along with his arm hooked in Killua’s. 

Killua bent down for the wagon’s handle and trailed it behind them. It was unnervingly silent as they walked, and Killua left an incidental breadcrumb trail of tears in their wake. When he looked up, he saw them glittering like stars across the tapestries.

“Gon once told me that Chrollo’s room is the size of a football stadium,” Killua reported, and after having woken up in a ballroom himself, he was no longer surprised by this fact.

“Then it should be easy to identify once we get there.”

As they walked, the sensation of being submerged in water persisted. Killua could breathe so long as he didn’t think about it, but the thought kept surfacing. Every surface he touched felt almost pruny to his fingertips, and though his hands came away clean, he found his environment did not.

The vaulted ceilings he was familiar with, suddenly, became bogged down by barnacles of tarnished bronze and fine metals. It pillowed the columns, seeping into rust and pooling on the floors. Killua wondered if it had always looked like this, or if he was only just noticing it. 

They paused in an antechamber preceding a room that forked off. The crevices in the walls were foggy with cobwebs. His grandfather had drifted off to a buffet where, in the top drawer, he found what he was looking for. 

“Aha,” he said, turning to Killua. It was a cork opener.

His grandfather sat at a bench that, as the sheet tugged away, Killua noted looked better suited for Versailles.

“I fear we’re getting nowhere,” his grandfather said as he twisted the cork off his wine bottle.

“Where are we going again?” Killua asked. 

His grandfather mopped at his brow and sighed. “Of course. You only found me because you must have thought of me. What are you thinking about now?”

The question warranted no pause, and yet that was what Killua did. 

“Killua.”

“Gon, I think,” he confessed. 

“Gon is asleep, Killua. But Chrollo can help us,” his grandfather said.

“Why do we need help?”

“To get home. We can’t stay here, Killua, least of all you .” Though it wasn’t meant to be an insult, Killua felt offended. His grandfather gave his arm a squeeze and a light shake. “I’m old, Killua. I’m better suited for this place—you certainly aren’t. You should be on Earth with your friends.”

“I don’t have many of those,” Killua confessed, feeling small. He was aware, once again, of his tears making constellations on the ceiling. “Gon’s my friend, though.”

“You can’t leave Alluka behind for Gon, though. She’s your sister,” his grandfather said, “and though I know you hate to admit it, Illumi cares about you, too. They’ll be upset that you’re gone.”

Killua swallowed hard against the lump in his throat. He hadn’t meant to abandon his sister—but fuck Illumi. Killua couldn’t care less what his older brother did—Illumi was supposed to be in New York, far from the measly little life Killua was building at university.

“Fine,” Killua agreed, rubbing uselessly at his leaking eyes. “We’ll find Chrollo then. For Alluka.”

“Good. But give me a moment, my feet are sore,” his grandfather said, and so Killua joined him at the gold-encrusted bench for a brief break and a spot of wine from a bottle from the 1800s. It was the best wine Killua had ever tasted. 

He capped the bottle for his grandfather, however amateur the re-corking was, and they continued onward. 

“We should talk about Chrollo to keep your mind focused,” his grandfather said. He’d taken on a limp as they passed a relief the size of an olympic swimming pool. “Is that all Gon mentioned about Chrollo’s room?”

“No,” he admitted. He’d grown wary of the lack of windows despite what little light they gave. “He… talked about getting lost in it. And shelves full of… human organs and bones.”

“Oh, sounds quaint.”

“It sounds just like Chrollo.”

“He’s a collector, I suppose. Though he wasn’t interested in any of my paintings.”

“Did you offer them?”

“Yes. Unfortunately your paintings from fifth grade don’t fetch a steep price.”

Killua laughed. “I didn’t exactly paint those with the intention of selling them to a demon from Hell. Maybe I would have put more effort into it.”

They came to an impasse where, upon further inspection, Killua discovered the painting at the dead-end was peculiarly placed. 

He left the wagon with his grandfather and approached it in all its bloody glory. 

“Dante,” his grandfather said, just as Killua thought it as well:

“Salvador Dali.” It was a stark watercolor in a scale Killua had never seen it in before. The blue was deepened by the dark, underwater vault they appeared to occupy.

The gold bordering overlapped the wainscoting but hovered just an inch above the floor—hung, not leaning. Upon tugging at it, it hinged outward from the side. 

It weighed a ton. He put his back into it. The only sound it made was a hollow moan into the abyss beyond it. 

Killua stood in the gap, panting, as his grandfather approached his side. 

A faint glow started around the embellished baseboard of the room. It cast a gleam across polished tiles and marble columns. Slowly but surely, the light radiated skyward when the floor refracted the light. 

“Holy…” Killua breathed, amazed by the sight.