title: pain is inevitable while suffering is optional
summary: It's not impossible to feel again; a lost heart can always be found if there's someone to share it with.
pairing: Killua-centric, Gen

don't you think it would be wonderful to get rid of everything and everybody and just go some place where you don't know a soul?
~haruki murakami

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01.

It gets messy this time around. It's not a hard job for Killua, and he should have expected it anyway; all he has to do is keep it quiet and slit once across the throat. Sometimes there is a fighter; this time, Killua has to knee him in the stomach and knock him to the floor before he cuts; he makes it slow and painful, not on purpose, but because he likes watching the fire die in the victim's eyes, likes watching the light for them fade out before it can get anywhere. Blood splatters everywhere and gets on Killua's nose and all over his hands and there are a few drops on his shoes, too. Then he moves his gaze to the man's face before he pushes the body away; the man fights until his very last breath, and Killua's expression hardens; wonders what exactly there is to live for that was important enough to try so hard.

The blood under his feet is slippery and the knife he is holding is warm. It feels disgusting and yet not unfamiliar.

Killua can only afford a simple line of logic; the notion of death doesn't linger on his hands, in his mind, if there is no lingering blood on him by the time he gets home. Sometimes he even forgets, that he's killed, and it weighs as an unimportant conscience. And he's good at forgetting, too, even if killing does happen to be a part of his daily routine, and he manages to convince himself that it simply doesn't happen. Not in the delusional way, of course; Killua really can't afford to be delusional, either. It feels like forming a detachment, or an automatic default button that hits whenever he's killed, whenever he doesn't want it to be wrong. It's only wrong if he wants it to be.

On the way home, Killua washes his hands in the rain and rubs at his nose. He stares at his shoes; they are the kind that absorb whatever liquid that hits. The blood splatters don't disappear no matter how hard he rubs. He frowns. They were a nice pair of shoes, he thinks wistfully, and he slips them off to throw them in someone's trash bin.

Still, Killua prompts. He doesn't understand. He was probably never meant to, but there is nothing stopping him from at least trying to. Sometimes it is only until the very end when they suddenly remember, only seconds before he brings the knife down on them, that they remember to say 'please'. Sometimes Killua hesitates. Sometimes he doesn't.

After all, it is too late then—much too late.

(He gets home then; pushes the 'erase' button in his memory, and returns to being just Killua.)

.

02.

He feels lucky. It is a good thing that no one knows who Killua is, and an even better thing that the government was so disorganized anyway. It is difficult to notice Killua as an assassin. It is a good thing, sometimes, to be invisible to the naked eye. It is a good thing, to be invisible to the public. He leaves the knife on the kitchen table and makes plans to clean it before he goes out the next day. It's bloody and gross, right up to the hilt, so much that he's afraid that if he looks at it for too long, he might remember.

Killua leaves the house to buy lunch, and realizes, suddenly, that he is being watched. He stops in his footsteps and lets the crowd of people surf around him when he tries to detect it. A nagging feeling of uneasiness stabs at his gut, and he carries it with him. The feeling does not leave.

It's not unusual, being watched. Normally the people who tail him are people from different agencies, or people who have witnessed something. Sometimes there are people who want revenge, and when those people attack him, he pulls out his knife and lets them rest with their significant other, hoping that somehow, they'd find peace.

This one is different though; Killua doesn't sense any sign of bloodlust, doesn't sense the air of hatred nor the tingling that told him it was a witness. He senses full intent; they want him. It's not malicious intent, like it usually is, but a kind of curious, quirky intent, and he knows it well enough to recognize it. It's not friendly, but it's curious.

He is painfully aware of this, and the person follows him to the convenience store and halfway back, and then the feeling is gone. Killua grips the plastic bag in his right hand and studies his left as he waits for traffic to pass. There is a little bit of dried-but-not-yet-dried blood hiding under his fingernail. Blood is never good.

When he goes home, he takes his knife and cleans it in the sink with soap; it smells of strawberry and watermelon and it is lovely. He watches the blood spiral down the drain and with it, the problems out of his mind.

Things will get better, he tells himself, and washes that little bit of blood under his fingernail away, too, and looks at that finger for what feels like an eternity.

(Blood is never good.)

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03.

Killua's home is quiet and bare and empty; he's not sure what to put in it, really. The only things that he is actually aware of are maybe the fridge—though obviously he's not very good at using it when things turn green and he forgets—and his brother's room, even though his brother almost never comes home, even though it's got nothing but a cot and a few tools in it. It's not like he really cares about Illumi, really; he was fine without him and will only continue to be fine without him.

But sometimes he waits. Sometimes he opens the door, just a crack, and looks in, half-expecting to see him sitting there, reading a book or napping on the floor or just sitting there, thinking. Illumi has always been a thinker, something that Killua has somewhat inherited but not fully. Sometimes Killua likes to pretend that the room is not as empty and pretends that the cot isn't trapped under layers and layers of dust and lies down, breathes in both the airy particles of dust and the faint smell of vanilla flavoured sadness. Sometimes Killua closes his eyes, too, and the vanilla triggers past memories.

And then sometimes it gets too much and he runs out, his breath shallow and his vision red, and by then, he is only waiting for himself to calm down.

(Then when he does, he's waiting again, curled in a ball next to the door, wondering when his brother will come home, wondering when his loneliness will ever start to fade and it's during these times, when he can smell the scent of vanilla, when he can pretend that he's nothing but a child, that he feels like there is a thumping in his chest., even if he knows that there really isn't and that it's lost and it'll forever be the monotonic, endless, buzzing in the back of his mind.)

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04.

He's not sure when he'll stop.

Killing has always been first nature, to Killua. Perhaps it will be the day he will finally let himself get caught, or maybe it will be the day he dies, getting accidentally run over by a car, or in some other accident, like getting mugged by a group of burglars. He's not sure, really. One thing he is sure of is that he won't do it voluntary; he won't do it voluntary so that he can settle down and live a peaceful life.

And it's not because he enjoys killing, per se; Killua isn't one of those bloodthirsty killers who do it only for the sake of the thrill and enjoyment, and/or money. He's not a person like that. Killus doesn't kill for the sake of killing; he does it because it's the only thing he's ever known. Truth be told, he's not really sure what peace means; he knows of it, hasn't had experience with it before. Happiness, maybe, but not peacefulness. It's a term that his mind no longer cares about, along with other seemingly useless words that he doesn't bore himself with anymore.

Killua's nights are all spent alone, with the thin humming of a familiar tune ringing in his ears. Sometimes he listens to these and thinks that he can piece together the music, perhaps remember what it was like again. But there are no words, and Killua doesn't know music well enough to know where to start. Sometimes he hears Illumi humming, a deep but comforting feeling of reassurance. (Killua doesn't know what Illumi is to him, really; he could be a friend, could be a fiend, could be many things, but he was never a threat. Maybe that's what keeps Killua still waiting. Still hoping.)

The killing part is the easiest. It's the only part of Killua that has learned to block out entirely, not like the discontent and loneliness that hides in his shadow.

The insomnia is a regularity; sometimes it's a good thing, to keep awake when there is the possibility of being attacked. Needless to say, it is difficult to land a hit when Killua is awake and fully-functioning. But tonight, his eyes droop and his head nods. He pushes his hair out of his face and crouches beside the door, giving into the lulling of stillness and the faint smell of vanilla lingering.

Tonight, he feels safe. Tomorrow, he'll wake up alive.

(He doesn't know which is worse.)

to be continued.

A/N: ...I don't even know, I just wanted to write blood and well really, I was thinking of writing this for Angel Beats! fandom, ffft what was I thinking. I needed to spit something out okay, otherwise I'd have too many ideas in my brain. I'm trying to organize them but this is what my brain threw up today. ...UM. I DON'T KNOW HOW LONG THIS IS GOING TO BE but I have everything sorted out sort of :'D I hope you enjoyed reading, I'm sorry my brain is such a mess, I really don't do multichapters and fft I'm not even sure how long this is going to be, probably not that long :'D