Killua was bored. "In some ways, you had a more restricted childhood than I did," he said to Gon.
Leorio started to come over. It would have still been interesting had his plan failed, but this would definitely have a higher total fun quotient. "How?!" the aspiring doctor butted in.
Killua shrugged. "Let me see... Xeno would invite me and Milluki to drinking contests." He leaned back and enjoyed Leorio's helpless fury.
"How old were you?" Gon asked.
"The first time was when I was seven. Milluki was... fifteen. I think. He could've been fourteen."
"That's illegal," Kurapika said without looking up from his wildlife guide.
"Who was going to tell us that? Anyway, Xeno could drink us both under the table, of course—"
"You were seven." Leorio again. Killua tried not to laugh. Somehow he'd managed to get the whole group involved.
"—even though he had straight poison and we just had alcohol."
Gon's eyes flashed. "Was the alcohol poisoned?"
Killua almost stopped, almost just said it wasn't and let it rest for Gon's sake, but he was having too much fun baiting his other friends. Instead, he said, "No more than the water was."
"Did you have any rules at all?"
Gon must have forgotten what had happened at the Hunter Exam. He had restrictions when he was growing up. They were just all in the wrong places.
"Yes and no. Whenever I forgot to do what my parents told me to, or was too lazy to, I regretted it, and not because they would punish me."
Killua thought that Leorio looked jealous, and suppressed a giggle, along with his anger, wishing he knew what Killua had been through to get this far. "They wouldn't punish you? I thought you said—"
"Of course they would, but if I didn't keep up on training, I was in trouble no matter what they did or didn't do." That wasn't a lie, or exaggeration. He couldn't count the number of times he'd heard that lecture, but he was sure it was less than the number of times he'd needed it.
"I see." He didn't see, couldn't see, but he'd backed down, and that was enough between friends.
Or at least, it should be. Killua decided to press his point, to explain why it was that the training his family put him through was so harsh.
"One time I approached from the target's blind spot instead of his bodyguard's... that didn't go well. If they'd been on higher alert I could have gotten hurt."
Gon looked puzzled. "You never got hurt?"
"Oh, I was hit by a variety of things, but never hard enough to hurt. I think this one is from that time." Killua pointed to a scar on his arm. It was deep but short. He actually knew where it was from, and it wasn't that particular botched mission, but he was supposed to be having fun, this wasn't the biggest lie he'd said to his friends, and he really didn't want to get into what actually caused it.
"That looks like it—"
Gon intended to be sympathetic, Killua knew, but investigating that lie was the last thing he wanted to do, now when he was making a life for himself after burning his ties to his family. There were times when he wanted to burn the last rope, the rope whose scars and memories of control were the deepest connections, but he held off.
Not yet. He couldn't permit himself to burn that last bridge, not now when these people still needed him.
He continued the conversation as if nothing had happened.
"Hurt? Nope, not a bit," Killua lied.
Kurapika set down his book. "I guess not to you."
If he'd gotten it the normal way, it wouldn't have hurt, but Illumi had ways of making anyone hurt, especially him.
"If I was anyone else, I'd be dead."
"If you were anyone else, a lot of other people would be alive," Leorio said.
That was a low blow even for him. Couldn't they just accept that the past was the past?
"I guess. I try not to think about that one."
Kurapika stood, stretched, and went to their tent. "I wouldn't want to think about it either," he said, and slipped inside. Gon and Leorio followed.
He stayed by the campfire. It was late. He should be going to sleep.
Killua was bored.