Summary: It starts with the repetitive knocking on his door. (And damn it, Killua curses, it just won't stop.) Slight Kirugon. Modern!AU.
Disclaimer: I do not own Hunter X Hunter.
Accidently on Purpose
It starts with the repetitive knocking on his door.
Grudgingly, Killua opens his eyes and rolls over in his bed, pulling the blankets higher in attempt to cover his ears and block out the noise. He lives alone so he knows that the person on the other side is most likely a salesperson, begging him to purchase one of their products, so he waits for them to leave. The sound of the knocking is annoying, and it seems to penetrate through the walls, getting louder with each beat. All he wants is a few more hours of sleep so he won't look like a zombie with dark circles under his eyes during the day, but the knocking continues, over and over and over again, and it just never stops.
It is seven in the morning on a Saturday and Killua is forced awake due to the obnoxious sound of knuckles against hard wood.
Slowly, sluggishly, he puts on a sweater and makes his way downstairs. He can't bring himself to care that his hair is still a mess, or that his breath probably stinks, or that his eyes could be blood red from the lack of sleep he's been getting for the past week; still in his pajamas, Killua opens the door and greets the visitor on the other side with sharp eyes narrowed into a glare and a scowl planted on his face.
The boy on the other side, who looks about his age and far too enthusiastic and too full of energy at merely seven in the morning, jumps back slightly when the door abruptly swings open. He stands there rigid for a second, moving his arm to greet the white-haired boy with a salute before feeling self-conscious and retreats from his position. His chocolate brown hair blinds Killua with the sunlight that's reflecting off it, and before he can stop himself, the words come tumbling out of his mouth: "Pandas!"
Killua is tired and frustrated and irritated so he thinks that he must have misheard the word because he refuses to believe that he got woken up because of some kid who wants to talk about pandas of all things. He frowns and squints against the sunlight at the opposing boy. "What?"
Said boy, not having lost any of his morning cheer, stretches out his hand and points at Killua's pants. "Your pajamas have pandas on them! They're so cute! My pajamas have little brown bears on them and they're really comfortable because Aunt Mito gave them to me for my—"
As he blabbered on, the white-haired boy glances down at his pants through half-lidded eyes and resists the urge to sigh and bang his head multiple times against the wall. "What do you want?" He asks finally in a rather rude tone, cutting off the meaningless talk. He just can't be bothered to care that this stranger might be offended by his harsh words.
"Oh, sorry," the boy reaches out his hand. "I'm Gon, your new neighbour. I just moved in a few days ago. Nice to meet you!"
Killua stares at Gon's outstretched hand. The gesture does not register in his head. He does not return the handshake. "What do you want?" He repeats.
"I think I may have entered the wrong address to the mailing company when I told them to deliver one of my boxes." Gon lets out a sheepish laugh. "I, um, I think I may have delivered it to your house by accident."
Killua blinks. So the boy had something important to ask after all. "Hold on a second, let me go and check."
Thinking back, he remembers that he received a package a few days ago that he hasn't opened yet due to his busy schedule. In the living room, he sees the cardboard box and upon closer inspection, notices that the receiver name is GON FREECSS. With a heave, he carries the box back to the door and hands it over to the boy.
"Thanks!" Comes Gon's reply. "Sorry to bother you!"
Killua watches Gon leave, shuts the door, and finally lets out the sigh that he has been holding back because it is too late to go back to sleep now and he'll just have to deal with looking like a zombie for the rest of the day.
.
A week later, Killua finds himself opening the door for Gon again. This time, it is Killua who speaks first.
"I've been waiting for you."
Gon sends his neighbour an apologetic smile as he takes the cardboard box from the white-haired boy's hands. "I guess I put down your address again for this delivery."
Killua frowns. "Did you happen to put my address for anything else you brought?"
The spiky-haired boy rubs the back of his neck. "Probably."
Before Gon can add in an apology, Killua had already shut the door.
.
It is eleven o'clock at night. It is eleven o'clock at night and there is a maniac banging on his door.
Killua curses under his breath. "Gon." He's practically seething when he opens the door. "What do you want now?" What do you want that's so important you had to come bother me at eleven o'clock? But he already knows. There is only one reason that his neighbour would come visit him.
"The package—I heard it got delivered yesterday—I just came to—"
Killua holds up a hand—stop. He walks back to his living room and kicks the box all the way to the door, his eyes already threatening to close from exhaustion. "Take it. Take it and go."
Gon gives him a guilty look and rushes out, box in his hands. Killua locks the door with a click.
.
Killua doesn't even jump when he hears knocking the next time around. He's ready. Prepared. Drawing in a deep breath, he goes to get over the meeting with Gon that he understands is now inevitable.
Except, this time Gon has something for him too. "Extra pie!" The brown-haired boy holds out the dessert, arms outstretched. "I couldn't finish it so I thought I could give the leftovers to you. Think of it as an apology for all the times I've troubled you."
"… Thanks." Killua reluctantly accepts it, not denying the fact that Gon has troubled him far more often than what should be possible. "Here's the package that came for you a few days ago."
Gon takes it and is about to leave when he abruptly stops. "Hey, what's your name?" When Killua gives him a confused look, Gon explains, "You never mentioned it."
"It's Killua."
Gon grins, waving. "Bye Killua!"
And for some reason, Killua isn't even annoyed this time when he shuts the door.
.
Killua doesn't want to deal with this anymore; the constant meetings at the doorway with Gon that occur every week, he's decided, has to stop. It's becoming a routine, he's becoming used to it—used to the idea that a stranger (his neighbour, yes, but a stranger nonetheless) knocks on his door frequently and he's beginning not to mind it so much. And it bothers him. It bothers him because he shouldn't be growing accustomed to this and the fact that he thinks he might miss the small talk that Gon makes every time he comes to retrieve one of his packages causes Killua to wonder if he's going just a little bit crazy.
So he decides to take action.
The cardboard box, all nicely taped up, is right in front of the white-haired boy. With a few snaps of a pair of scissors, a grunt, and the inhalation of a deep breath, Killua flings open the lid of the box, because privacy be damned, he needs to find out what, exactly, Gon ordered so many of.
Executing the plan: success.
The result: rocks.
Lots of rocks. A box full of rocks all the way up to the rim. If Killua had been a geology student, he might have been amazed by the variety of rock types, ranging from sedimentary to igneous to metamorphic. But Killua isn't a geology student and he hasn't bothered to name the different rock types since fourth grade when he learned about basic geography, so all the rocks lined up neatly in the box are just rocks and he couldn't care about them if he tried.
And, worst of all, he feels cheated. Lied to. Taken advantage of. Made a fool of.
Where, exactly, does Gon get all these rocks? Why does he want all of them? Why rocks? Killua narrows his eyes to glare at the package and lets the anger flow through him, willing it to grow stronger, because his neighbour has a lot of explaining to do and he is definitely not going to let him off the hook easily.
He is going to show Gon just how rough things are about to get.
.
The next day, it is Killua who knocks on Gon's door.
"What is this?" Killua demands the minute he sees Gon step into the doorway. He sets down the package that he opened yesterday with a thud and gestures towards its contents sharply. He suddenly feels like grabbing a few of the rocks and throwing them at the other boy's face, but manages to refrain himself.
Gon blinks, eyes wide. Then, he laughs nervously. "So you found out, eh? I was hoping to keep that a secret but I guess it's too late now."
The brown-haired boy's tone sounds final, but Killua isn't done. He presses on. "Why do you want so many rocks? Why did you deliver them all to my house?" Killua looks him in the eye, voice dangerously low. "Tell me the truth."
He watches as Gon fidgets, brown orbs flittering around. "It's not that I wanted the rocks… I just needed an excuse to talk to you."
Killua doesn't know what kind of answer he expected from Gon, but certainly nothing like this. "Wh-what?" He stutters, his anger slowly subsiding and being replaced by pure shock. "You wanted to talk to me?"
"Yeah!" Gon nods sincerely. "You seemed nice the first time I met you and I really wanted to be your friend, but I couldn't think of any reason to knock on your door so I pretended to have all my stuff delivered to your house. I didn't want you to think that I was creepy or anything like that!"
The white-haired boy is frozen in place and he doesn't know whether he should yell at Gon for lying to him or to laugh because the boy only wanted to be his friend. He settles for a silence and inhales deeply. You seemed nice the first time I met you and I really wanted to be your friend, Gon had said. Killua thinks back to their first encounter and remembers that, if anything, he had been nothing but grouchy and rude to his neighbour. What Gon considers nice about his harsh words, he will never know.
When Killua finally manages to gather his thoughts and gets his vocal cords working again, he says, "So… you never actually had any real deliveries?"
"Oh, the first package really was sent to the wrong address and there weren't any rocks inside," Gon explains in a tone that sounds too light-hearted and casual for the predicament that he is in. "But the rest of the packages were fakes."
"… Idiot," Killua mumbles and looks away to avoid Gon's gaze. "If you really wanted to talk to me, you could've just come over and said hi."
"Really?" The spiky-haired boy asks with so much excitement that it wouldn't have been hard to believe he just got permission to open his Christmas present early. His eyes sparkled and he leaned in closer. "I can go over anytime I want?"
"… Yeah."
When Gon grin widens, his smile stretching all the way across his face, Killua wonders just what, exactly, he has gotten himself into.
.
Killua has not received any packages for days. The corner of his living room, the spot where he has reserved a place especially for Gon's deliveries, is now empty, has been for so long that the absence of a cardboard box is beginning to bother Killua. He would never admit it aloud, but at some point in the past few weeks, he stopped minding the sporadic deliveries that had been constant in his life for a while. When he faces the cold, bare floor of his living room, however, he smiles just a little bit because he knows that the long anticipated visit form the chocolate-haired boy will come sooner rather than later.
When Gon finally visits a few days later, there is no excuse this time—no reason for appearing at his neighbour's doorstep other than simply to visit. There are a few things that are different with this visit and Gon notes them silently in his head.
The most evident change is that when the door swings open, Killua is not frowning or glaring or feeling annoyed like he had been the previous times; instead, he finds himself smiling—the first smile that Gon has probably ever seen on his face. He is so genuinely happy that Gon doesn't even think Killua himself is aware of the wide grin stretching across his face, brightening up his features. It is a rare sight—a sight to be cherished—so Gon stares for a few minutes, feeling himself smiling along with the white-haired boy.
The second difference is that Killua steps to the side, moving out of the way from the doorway and inviting Gon inside the house for the first time. The world inside Killua's home opens up to him and it is a place that he wants to explore. He wants to trace his fingers over every dent on the wall and memorize every turn in the hallways and absorb the strong smell that is Killua into him and he wants to familiarize himself with this place until he has it engraved into his brain. And although he only just got here, he wants to come back tomorrow and the day after and every day from then on.
The third difference is that when the door has been closed and Killua gets a good look at his neighbour, he realizes that Gon shamelessly walked over to his house in his pajamas.
"Wh-why didn't you change into something more… something more socially acceptable?" Killua stammers, heat rising to his cheeks.
From behind his back, Gon surprises the boy by revealing a small duffle bag. "Because we're going to have a sleepover!"
.
"Idiot," Killua mumbles as he walks over to switch off the lights. With darkness now surrounding the room, he makes his way to the bed is and lies down on the side not occupied by his neighbour. Gon giggles and comments on their suspiciously similar pajamas and it isn't long before the two of them fall asleep, their breathing perfectly synchronized.
The next day, when sunlight leaks through the curtains, Killua wakes up to find himself close to Gon—too close—and their limbs intertwined.
Killua flushes and buries his head under the covers to hide his embarrassment, but doesn't make an attempt to get up.
.
It starts with the repetitive knocking on his door.
It ends with a sleepover in panda and bear pajamas.
.
A/N: Yeah… I don't really know what this is. This is the closest thing to actual Kirugon that I've written so far, and probably the closest I'll ever write. Er, review?
~Madin456.