Poisoned Amaryllis

by kigamin

At nineteen, Hana has figured out one thing about herself: she is unlucky. The new case submitted to her merely confirms that truth, digging up some nasty memories she would rather forget. And yet, when she meets Killua, a charming and intriguing young man, she feels like, just for once, her luck might have turned. [Aged-up] [KilluaOC] [cover by the lovely jyuanka]

11. Spilling

A/N: Hi hi! How are you guys? I missed you! I always feel like I'm waking up when I update.

Here's the huge chapter promised! The actual word count is around 15k (fanfiction dot net messes up the count I guess).

On the news side:

1- I'm still working on chapter 15. It's coming out well I guess, though I'm struggling to write some scenes because of lack of motivation/constant worries/lack of time. I've got three scenes finished, two halfway there and one that I still need to entirely write. So I guess you could say I'm 60% done with it.

2- I've decided to post a link every two weeks on my tumblr for people who don't have accounts and prefer checking their tumblr. I hope it will help.

3- I was thinking about posting an excerpt of the upcoming chapters one week before the update, on Tumblr, to keep readers on toes and give a little taste of the chapter before it's published. However, I probably won't do it if no one reads them because that'd be useless. So it all depends on what you guys want. Do you like the idea or do you prefer waiting two weeks? It's up to you. Tell me what you want.

Huhh, on the random side, I've started playing Pokémon Go and I'm having the time of my life, so that's for the random news. I'm dying to catch more Eevee because that little puppy/fox/bunny is adorable. (I had never played Pokémon before but boy I'm having fun.) (I REALLY WANT THAT JOLTEON.)

Anyway, as always, thank you for all the feedback! Reviews, messages, faves, follows… They all warm my heart. Thank you forever, sweet readers. Bless you forever. I hope you choose to stick with me through this journey. It's a long one and sometimes it feels lonely, so your support means the world.

---

Chapter 10: Spilling

---

Wednesday, April 15th

5:03 A.M.

His hand hovering near her face, opening like a deadly flower, splayed fingers twitching ever so slightly as they moved closer. That was what she had always seen. The same scene rewinding each night, the same pictures roiling on and on in her mind. Obsessing and intoxicating, yet so usual. It had always started with his hand reaching for her, and ended right before it could. The only difference now was the cruel amaryllis on his palm, taunting her, peeking through the burnt glove with its swirling petals.

That night was no different.

Her eyes snapped open, a sharp intake of breath stirring a somersault in her chest. The thrumming of her heart was loud in her ears, hammering in her skull, pulsing in her temples, her throat, her chest. Yet, after but a minute, it quieted down, gradually, and her ragged breathing stilled.

After all, that was something she was used to. The default nightmare her brain played on repeat when it had nothing better to show. At least, that was something she knew to expect; no bad surprise or dead friend to haunt her. Just the hand.

Her eyes stared at the ceiling, her head weighing tons. It was barely dawn, and she really could use some sleep, but she knew it was useless. She would just have another nightmare, one that could hurt her more than the usual one. She didn't want to gamble on that; she couldn't muster the strength to face another reenactment of the failed mission.

With great effort, she dragged herself out of her bed, throwing a shawl over her bare shoulders and holding it tight on her chest. Her eyes narrowed when she checked her phone. She took it with her to the kitchen.

There, she made herself a coffee, sat down at the dining table and looked out the window, at the stars dotting the ink sky. The steam unfurling from her cup warmed her chin, and she cupped her hands around it. The sun would rise in three hours, and not before, as would any of her friends. Until then, she had to deal with her thoughts, with the sinking fear in her chest and the deep sense of failure bending her back.

All these years for nothing. Three years learning to live with the trauma, forgive herself, love herself. Three years to learn how to move on and accept her scars and her bruises and see past her nightmares. All for nothing.

Her hand slipped to her stomach, to the scar underneath her clothes.

"Is it still fine? I mean, this…" she said, lifting her shirt with quivering fingers. Exposing herself. "Wouldn't it ruin your drawing?"

Ilvana stayed quiet, her eyes stuck on Hana's stomach. "No," she simply said. "But if you're not comfortable, there's no need to push yourself."

She clutched her stomach, memories unfolding one by one. Memories of a sunny afternoon in an artist's workplace, surrounded by paint stains and brushes and unfinished paintings waiting to be completed.

She started stripping while Ilvana looked for her sketchbook, until she was naked. Even then, her hand instinctively tried to hide her scar, her shame, her failure, no matter the nakedness of her breasts or her backside. "Where do I go?" she forced herself to ask.

Ilvana didn't miss the gesture, her face blank but her eyes kind. "You can lie on the mattress. You'll have to hold a position without moving until I tell you so. Is that okay?"

Hana nodded. She sat on the mattress while Ilvana flipped through the sketchbook.

"You know," Ilvana started. "Scars tell stories."

The words hit Hana, unexpected. "How so?"

"They're remnants of something ephemeral. Something that passed so fast the moment you notice it, it's already gone. But scars will brand that ephemeral moment on you, like words in a book."

"A reminder of our mistakes," Hana whispered.

"No. A reminder that you lived through something, perhaps something painful, and survived it. At some point, you bled through an open wound, but now look at what your body made for you." She pointed at the scar. "A new start. New skin to fix the gash. And a proof that at some point, you won a battle." She tested a pencil on the sheet, angling it in different ways. "Your body is a patchwork of experiences. Bruises, scars, abrasions, pimples, hickeys, stretch marks… They're an open book to your story."

Hana shifted, transfixed by Ilvana's word. Somehow, somewhere through her explanation, she had removed her hand from her scar.

Ilvana finally looked her in the eye. "And I think that's beautiful."

She stood up, going back to her bedroom. There, she opened a cabinet embedded in her shelves and took one of her notebooks out of it. She flipped through the pages until she found a few loose sheets of drawing papers. With infinite care, she took them.

Some nude sketches Ilvana had drawn of her. A year and a half ago, barely a few weeks after Hana had turned eighteen.

Her eyes roamed over the grainy paper, over the graceful lines Ilvana's art had crafted. She could still see her pencil flying on the sketchbook, catching every single detail on Hana's body, every single chapter of her story. And as she saw herself back in her workroom, moving on the mattress to look right or left, or wrap her arms around her knees or lie on her side, sorrow seized her, thick in her throat.

The Hana in the drawings had been lost, scared and insecure. Obsessed by the scar tearing through her, the thoughts that simmered and snickered and shamed her. And yet, with every flick of Ilvana's pencil, that Hana had felt beautiful. A masterpiece, with the patchwork on her body, mistakes and successes alike sewn on her skin. A living and breathing tale with all its twists and turns. A human being with all the stamps time had made on her.

That day, in Ilvana's workroom, while she posed to become a painting, that Hana had begun the long and painful process of learning to love herself again. She had never been quite done, or even close, but confidence had bloomed in her, and motivation had driven her forward, through any relapse and any doubt. Rise, and rise again, after every fall.

She had believed in herself.

She had believed in her redemption, someday, somehow.

Slowly, she closed the folder. She put the drawings back in the cabinet, stepped back until she sat on her bed, and exhaled a long breath.

It had all gone to waste.

---

9:24 A.M.

She flipped a page of Gayan's diary, gulping down paragraph after paragraph.

Her phone suddenly whisked her away from it. She put a bookmark where she had stopped and got up, leaving her workroom with her phone. She opened the message as she reached her bedroom.

'Hey wyd?'

She tilted her head, noting the deterioration in Killua's texting patterns. It seemed that they had grown close enough for him to show his real texting habits. 'Not much, working… but I need to take a shower.'

'( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)'

She giggled. 'Omg. No.'

'You got smth against lenny'

'Nop, I like him, I was just surprised!'

'( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) good'

He stopped typing but a picture was loading. When it finally became clear, she saw it was a picture of a strong detergent. 'use this for your shower,' was the comment he had sent with it.

She bit her lower lip. 'Fuck you?'

'Whenever you want ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)'

'Oh. My. God. Killua.'

'( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)'

They talked about their meeting at the court. He wouldn't be able to come the next day, but he would that night, and that was more than she could ask for.

When he said he was about to leave, she started spamming him with crying emojis. She assumed they were close enough for her to behave like the ass she actually was. He stayed online, and read all the 'texts', but he was silent. Until she stopped.

'you're done?' he asked. She sent a couple more emojis then. Just to have the last word. 'good I'm gonna feel missed now,' he sent, with a smirking emoji. She chuckled then.

When he was gone, she went to the bathroom. She really could use some warm water on her sore back.

While she massaged her scalp with shampoo, her thoughts drifted toward him again. The wonder that Killua Zoaldyeck was. She was quite pleased to see that they talked every day. If she wasn't the one prompting a conversation, he was. Lately, he had even been sending her messages out of the blue, and she had to admit it made her happy.

Sometimes, it was to know if she would come to the court. Other times, he would just send a photo of something cool, or a random joke, or something funny or viral he'd seen on the internet. But whatever the message was, she liked it.

She washed the shampoo away, her muscles relaxing with the warm water. She could have stayed in the shower for hours if it weren't for the diary waiting to be pieced apart in her workroom. So, she stepped out of the shower, clean and energetic, and dried her body.

She stopped along her scar, brushing the puckered skin with her fingertips. She lingered for a moment, trying to remember how it felt to have a smooth skin, void of any giant failure stamped on her body that glared at her every time she undressed. It occurred to her that there had been a time when that fantasy had been a reality. Not her reality anymore.

She slipped in skimpy cotton shorts that barely stretched lower than her white lace thong. God, if Nana saw me, she thought. Her underwear barely covered what needed to be covered and her shorts barely covered that underwear. Her grandmother would have had a stroke.

She perfected the stay-at-home look with an oversized white t-shirt she had won at a science fair, with the Fourier transform printed on it. She had a day-off, but no matter how much she wanted to go out, she needed to work on that diary, so she would stay home until further notice.

Fortunately — for her and her outside-yearning self — it was raining that day, so she wasn't missing on a sunny day at least. There nothing better than snuggling up in a warm bed with a hot chocolate and watching a nice movie on a rainy day.

… Or snuggling up a desk chair to work for hours on a dead man's diary with a scathing black, sugarless coffee. That worked too.

She pushed the door of her workroom, switching on the light and slumping on the chair. She tucked her knee under her chin, opened the journal and started reading.

She hadn't discovered much about Gayan, apart from the fact that he seemed to work as a butler of some sort. Problem was, she couldn't find which family he worked for, and he didn't mention it anywhere. She couldn't find his last name either, and it didn't help that Gayan was quite a common name in Megamshill. Needless to say, the Hunter website couldn't do much for her if she didn't have his complete name.

Which was why she was still at it.

As she flipped through a few more pages, she found an entry dated four years and a half ago.

September 12th

I'm not quite sure how to talk about today in proper terms.

Let's just say the entire Torana family was massacred.

The words hit her in the gut. Torana? She frowned, but kept reading.

I was so shocked—and I wasn't the only one. Ziam Torana, a man my master had always admired, killed in a grand fire with all his family. His wife, their children, all of them. Even their newborn son, barely a few days old, whose body entirely burned down to ashes. The funeral will be held in three months, to give the time to the Police and the HCDS to find who did that.

But in my opinion, that will unnecessary. I've heard that the corpses were unidentifiable. A dry mass of charred flesh, hard like wood. Madam nearly fainted when she heard.

She grimaced at the corpses' description. A newborn. After all the corpses she had seen, she still couldn't bear the idea of corpses of babies. She had never seen one, and she hoped she would never have to.

Master seemed troubled after the Torana massacre. Not in the way one would expect after the death of a friend. I was pretty sure to spot anger on his face.

And perhaps, just perhaps, a flicker of fear?

The entry ended here, leaving her with a disturbing feeling thick in her veins. Torana was a common Tanalean name, a large clan of people who came from the flat and mild meadows in the center of Tanalea. Yet, seeing her last name in the journal of a complete stranger, in an entry about a Tanalean family completely wiped away from Earth, wasn't the most pleasant feeling.

She turned the page, her gaze settling on an article Gayan had glued in the journal.

The article said exactly the same thing, although with a few more details. Ziam Torana, as well as his wife Sana, and their four children, Alina, Miban, Kolanai, and the newborn Narii, had all been killed in their mansion, in a grand fire. And according to the forensics, they had died in atrocious pain.

She shuddered, imagining the body of a tiny human being —Narii— burning to ashes. She forced her eyes away from the names, and read the last paragraph instead.

Evidence of an arson has been found, thus dismissing the theory of an accident. However, the reasons for such a terrible act are still blurry, and the Police have yet to figure that out. Vengeance, rivalry, or jealousy, specialists are not quite sure. However, as Tanalea celebrates its fourth anniversary of the end of the Kumotori Crisis, specialists cannot help but wonder if this atrocious crime could be linked to the wave of crimes against the Tanalean community that submerges Megamshill around that time, every year. The Mayor has called for calm at a time when the inhabitants of Megamshill need to support each other.

There it was. The yearly wave of hate crimes against her people, for a crime they didn't commit. For a crime that had been committed against them. Suffering once wasn't enough, they also had to play as scapegoats for what the rebels and the government had done.

It could have been anyone else. Her father, her uncle, her aunts. Her cousins and her friends. And it didn't help that this man shared her last name; it made all too easy to imagine her father's body, charred and dead.

She shook the thought away. Hating every word written in that article.

Still, she took a pen, grabbed her notebook, and wrote in distinct letters the one name she would need to remember from this macabre entry.

Ziam Torana.

---

Sunday, April 19th

7:25 P.M.

The Gala was scheduled for that night.

Killua finished buttoning his shirt, smoothing the rare wrinkles with his hand. He had picked a deep purple button-up shirt, this time, to change a bit from his favorite burgundy shirt. He did the knot of his black tie and adjusted the length until he was satisfied. Then, he dipped his fingertips in some soft gel to sweep his bangs up, revealing his forehead. A few rebel strands remained untamed.

He stepped out of his room, wearing his blazer above his shirt, and texted Hana. She told him to come fetch her at her apartment. So, he went out, locked his apartment's door and slipped his keys into his pockets.

The elevator opened to Hana's floor, and Killua walked out, hands in his pockets. He stopped in front of her door and rang. He was tempted for a moment to ring and ring just to get back at her for destroying his ears with her repetitive doorbell ringing. He was even surprised his neighbor hadn't complained yet—he suspected she was too old and deaf to care.

"Just a moment!" Hana shouted from the inside, and he heard her heels clack on the tiles.

Then, she unlocked the door.

It swung open.

And he saw her.

Holy fuck.

"I just need to take my coat and I'm ready," she said, but he barely heard her. Focused instead on the wine red lace sleeves covering her arms, on the patches of golden skin peeking through the delicate fabric. His eyes fell on the lace flowers running along her off-shoulder neckline, on her cleavage enhanced by the intricate pattern. While she wasn't looking, his gaze ran down her flared skirt, to her long legs in sheer black tights, perched on black patent heels.

"Looking good," he said, finally looking at her. Red lipstick, discrete eyeliner, pearly rose gold eyeshadow, and a porcelain doll blush… When she rose bright green eyes to him, his heart broke into a wild dance.

"Thank you," she said, grinning. "You look really good too. I love what you did with your hair."

He chuckled. Coming from her, who had tied her hair in an elaborate bun, leaving only a neck-long strand caressing her cheek… that was hilarious. "I just put gel in my hair. Not some twisting bun or whatever you did."

"Still." She peered into his eyes. "Makes your eyes stand out."

"You like my eyes, don't you?"

"More than I like you."

"… How sweet."

She closed her apartment, locked it, and led him to her car in the parking lot. An average-sized, bright blue car. "We're gonna pick up June and Thomas first," she explained.

He sat on the passenger's seat, closing the door. He noticed then that she had removed her heels to wear ballerinas instead. Surely to drive—it was always safety first with her, so he wasn't that surprised.

She fastened her seatbelt, checked if the rear-view mirror was correctly adjusted, and started the car. "Fasten your seatbelt," she ordered. "I get anxious otherwise."

He glanced at her, amused, but complied. She told him to switch on her CD player and put the first track on it as she drove. Curious about her music taste, he did as she instructed.

… And Uptown Funk started playing.

"Ugh."

Her fingers drummed along the song on the steering wheel as they drove through the neighborhood and out of it. "Gotta kiss myself, I'm so pretty," she sang, and he smiled as he watched her, rolling his eyes. "Can you check on my phone if Tom is ready?"

He took her phone. "He said he's waiting outside with June."

She turned left in a brightly lit street, entering the St-Georgio neighborhood, renowned for being home to many students as the biggest university of the country stood there. She drove past the high walls of the Mechanical Engineering Department near the campus and turned to stop in front of a residence. Two young men in suits were waiting for her. "Hey!" she greeted when they were in the car.

"Yo, dork!" the first young man, with black hair tied in a small bun, exclaimed. "And you must be Killua?"

"Yeah, that would be me. I guess you're June?" He extended his hand, and June took it, a warm and energetic handshake.

"The one and only." He pointed toward the boy next to him. "And that's Thomas, my boyfriend."

The boy named Thomas looked at Killua. The first thing Killua saw were his eyes, turquoise striking against his freckled skin. They almost shone in the dark. "Nice to meet you," he said, taking Killua's hand.

"Same here." He turned back before Hana smacked him for not sitting properly. "She's told me so much about you, it was about time I met you."

"Don't worry, we've had our share of Killua as well," Thomas said.

"Fasten your seatbelts," Hana scolded, interrupting their meeting. "Or else I'm not going anywhere."

"Yes, mom," June said.

The car started, then, and Hana silently drove while Killua got to know her friends. Apparently, Thomas was majoring in creative writing and English literature, though he had a knack for French literature as well. As for June, he was a musician and was working in a group with some friends of his. An artistic couple, basically, both creative in their own ways.

(Hint: Killua liked creative people.)

June was more talkative than Thomas, though. Thomas eventually sat back and let his boyfriend make conversation with Killua, glad to be forgotten.

A few minutes later, Hana parked her car in the parking lot of a hotel, the one the charity organization had rented to organize their gala.

"We have a table reserved for us," Thomas said, leading them inside.

Killua scanned the surroundings. A red carpet led the guests inside a grand room. The guest tables were scattered in the room, far enough from each other to provide enough privacy to the group of friends coming together. Chandeliers hung high from the ceiling, glass dots reflecting the lights on the white tablecloths.

A waitress greeted them and thanked them for coming. She checked their invitations and led them to their table. Killua sat next to Hana, while June and Thomas faced them.

The waitress came back with a plate of appetizers she left on the table and brought a bottle of red wine. She poured wine into their glasses, then left.

"Fancy," June commented, looking around him. A disk-jockey was changing the music, a few guests dancing on the dancefloor before the performance started. "I have high expectations for Sandy now."

"She's gonna be awesome," Thomas argued, the hint of a smile on his face. He turned toward Killua then, and, again, the turquoise of his eyes struck him. It shone even brighter under the chandelier. "So, tell me, how does it feel like to be friends with this dork?" He nodded at Hana, who gave him a long look.

Killua scoffed. "How does it feel?" he repeated. He took his phone and typed something while Thomas and June watched him intently. A few seconds later, Hana's phone buzzed. Again. And again. And again. Repeatedly. "Buzz buzz, Hana's trying to catch your attention."

They burst out laughing. "This is hands down the best imitation of Hana I've seen," Thomas said as he looked at her still-buzzing phone.

"Not even true," she pouted, tipping her chin up.

"Oh yes, it is, I have all the proof," Thomas argued. "I've got good news for you then," he said to Killua. "That means she likes you enough to wake you up on a Sunday morning with a bunch of 'hey buttbaby'."

"She's done that already," Killua noted, glaring at her while she shot a toothy smile.

"You've officially been promoted to Hana's restricted circle of close friends then," Thomas went on, crossing his arms while June solemnly nodded.

At this moment, Killua glanced at her, catching her gaze. And he smiled, a thankful and content smile, welcoming their words like a blessing.

(He liked the sound of it. Close friends.)

She smiled back but blushed and looked away. "Keep talking as if I weren't here," she mumbled.

"Heard something?" June looked around himself. "Voices."

She tried to poke him, but he moved away as she did, snickering. "I'm just gonna sulk now since no one likes me." She crossed her arms. However, she immediately turned back toward them when the song changed. "Holy shit, it's Mambo N° 5! Oh please, someone dance it with me?"

"Voices," June repeated, pretending she wasn't here.

She frowned, and turned toward Killua, showing him the biggest puppy eyes he had ever seen. If he hadn't been immunized against Gon's pleading puppy eyes, he probably would have given in. "Nah, I don't dance on this song; makes me look uncool."

"Meanie," she shot.

Thomas fidgeted on his seat, but eventually took her hand. "Let's go."

"Really? It's okay?" she asked with well-kept concern.

"Yeah, I can do it," he smiled, though he seemed a bit uncomfortable. He rolled his eyes when Hana didn't move. "Come on, the song's gonna be over and you won't have moved your ass."

"Okay," she agreed, and June patted his boyfriend's shoulder.

They exchanged one last gaze before he left with Hana. She was very nearly hopping as they walked to the dance floor with other couples. The song then started, and Killua watched them move together, laugh at their missteps and their clumsy choreography. Thomas, who had first seemed uneasy, seemed more relaxed when more and more people joined them.

A part of Killua wished it had been him instead of Thomas, fingers clasped around her own as he made her swirl in the room. Even though he had been the one to refuse. Something twitched in his chest when they both burst out laughing after he stepped on her foot.

"You're jealous," June observed. When Killua turned to him, he saw he was smirking.

"Me? Nah." And yet, the twitch in his chest was still there, a string pulled every time her eyes shone with affection for her best friend.

"I assure you, you are," June insisted. "You have the exact same face I had every time they were together, back when Tom and I weren't dating." He rested his head on his hand, as though he was recalling something. "Back when I thought he liked her."

But Killua just shrugged, stubborn. "I'm telling you, I'm not jealous," he lied.

"And I'm not gay," June shot back, and Killua unwittingly laughed. "C'mon. I'm not blaming you. She's quite a catch."

Killua's eyes flew back to her. She had a goofy expression, the kind that suited her so well. The kind that filled him with tenderness. "I know."

June's lips tipped up in a smile. "You have no idea how glad I am for her existence."

Surprise forced Killua's gaze back on June. "How come?"

"I owe her a lot. Both for what she does for Tom, and what she does for me." He stayed quiet for a moment, watching his boyfriend move more freely with Hana. "She's a breath of fresh air," he added and smiled fondly when Thomas laughed once again with her.

A breath of fresh air.

"Don't let go of her," June finally said, his eyes never leaving his boyfriend.

An easy smile brushed Killua's lips. "I won't."

June sat up. "Okay, that was very emotional. Let's talk about something crude before they come back and think we were getting mushy about them."

"Have you ever realized that Bowser is basically naked?" Killua said.

"… Right. That's true. I don't know what to do with this information."

"Yeah, and he has spiky leather bracelets around his arms." Killua thought, picturing Bowser's design. "And a choker too. That's kinky."

"Bowser is kinky," June said as though it were a revelation. "You just ruined Mario Kart for me."

Hana and Thomas came back at this moment, stopping right at the table. "Hana, let's go back," Thomas said, pretending to walk away from them.

"Wait no, I'm very interested in that conversation!" She fought. She sat back, and leaned in, as though she were about to reveal top-secret information. "What about the cages? The chains? Bowser is kinky and into BDSM."

Thomas watched them with a forfeiting expression. "I give up. I'm surrounded. I'm never playing Mario Kart again."

"You say that every time I kick your ass anyway," June said. "Sore loser."

"Don't call me a sore loser, huh. You whine every time Hana beats you."

"Which is all the time," Hana butted in.

"Shut up, the girl is a demon on the Mario Kart roads! I've never seen anyone ace the Rainbow Road like that, she's a monster."

Killua arched an eyebrow. "Let me guess. She won't just overtake you. She will shove your car into the void and then overtake you."

June pointed at him. "Yes!"

"Not true," she fought.

Killua smirked, way too amused for his own good. "Tell me everything. Just how much of an annoying ass is she when she plays video games?"

"She's the worst. She's even more of a sore loser than Tom. She won't stop cussing. And she's so loud, gosh," June kept going.

"Oh my God, stop it," she ordered, though she wasn't convincing with her huge grin. "I'm not that bad."

"You're even worse," he said, and she pouted. "You're that ass who takes all the ammo while I kill all the zombies and do all the work! And when we play Mario Bros, you wait for me to jump and you jump on my fucking head to make me drop in the lava, and we're on the same team."

Killua laughed, picturing too well all the things June mentioned. "She's unbearable basically."

"Hella annoying," June agreed. "0/10, would not recommend."

"I'm filing for a divorce," she said, crossing her arms like a stubborn child.

"You're the one who accepted to marry him, now you gotta bear with him," Thomas intervened. "Feel my pain."

"What pain? I'm a delight."

A waitress stopped at their tables, putting plates filled with entries on their table. The lights dimmed then, just enough for the dancers, the performers, to come on stage and perform.

"It's starting," June noted.

Killua asked Hana if Sandy was among them, but Sandy would come later, during the last dance. Killua checked the piece they would be dancing on for the last part. Vivaldi's Four Seasons, and Sandy was performing as Summer.

They started eating, applauding when they should, laughing at some of the jokes June threw between the interludes. Throughout the dinner, they also exchanged bits about their lives, listening to the stories Killua told of his travels, or the stories Thomas told of June and Hana behaving like kids—and there were a lot of those.

When they finished eating the main course, the lights brightened and the disk-jockey changed the music, inviting the guests to wait for the dessert. Two men, one carrying a deck of cards and the other a bouquet of white and red roses, started going through the guests' tables.

"What are they doing?" Killua asked, eyeing them with curiosity.

Thomas craned his neck to see them. "Every year they have a game like this. They go through the guests and ask them if they want to challenge them at a card game. I think it's rare that anyone wins."

A smirk stretched on Killua's lips. "Rare, you say?"

"You want to challenge them?" Hana asked, picking a cherry tomato with her fork. "Magnificent Killua wants to prove he's the best?"

"You're one to talk," Thomas said. "Had it been something you didn't suck at, you'd have jumped on the opportunity. 'Please, look at me! I'm the best!'"

She sighed. "Are you trying to scare him away from me?"

"I already know what I'm getting myself into," Killua teased.

The young men arrived, then. One of them spoke with grand manners and a theatrical kind of composure. The other was quieter. "Hello there! Card Games club speaking. How's everyone?"

"Great," June answered. "What about you? Having fun owning everyone?"

The man laughed. "Well, so far, we did own everyone. Would you like to challenge Pierre and me, Rafielo, and, who knows, turn the tables?" He smirked. "Perhaps the beautiful lady?"

(Killua nearly cringed.)

"The lady is good," she replied. "She sucks at card games."

"Ah, that's too bad."

Killua finished his glass of water. "I'll challenge you," he said, sitting up as the men brought chairs to sit at the end of the table.

"Great, let's have some fun. You sound confident," Rafielo eyed Killua, a playful glint in his eyes.

"I am."

Rafielo nodded with approbation. "If you win, you get to take this beautiful bouquet, made by the Association who organized the gala."

Killua's eyes fell on the roses. They were mainly white, but a few blood red roses dotted the silk white bouquet.

He already saw them in Hana's living-room, in her crystal vase on the coffee table, glistening under the lights of her chandelier.

"I'm in."

---

Rafielo shuffled a small deck of card. "The game we're gonna play tonight is called Tarot Africain in Françailles," he explained, his accent bumping on the French words. "We'll play with twenty-two cards. The cards go from 1 to 21, 1 being the weakest and 21 the strongest. And the last card…" he showed a card with a star in the corner and a drawing of a man playing a string instrument. "Is a trump card— either 0 or 22 depending on what the player decides—called Excuse, and you will excuse my poor accent."

Hana cracked a smile, watching the three of them get ready for the game. Rafielo sometimes glanced at her—especially when he made a joke— and she couldn't deny she liked the attention.

The second man —Pierre— distributed the cards, until all three players had seven cards. "Each round, the number of cards I will distribute will decrease by one," he explained. "Until we finish with one card and put it on our forehead without looking at it."

She let out a small snicker, glancing at June who was nudging her for her camera. She saw Killua smile a little. "Okay, I get it. What should I do, then?" he said, staring at his cards.

Rafielo explained the rules then, but she didn't pay attention to him. She had always sucked at card games—an outrage for a lover of strategic games and probabilities like her— but the real reason was that Killua looked particularly engrossed in the game, and her brain had decided his serious expression was the most gorgeous and fascinating thing ever.

For a reason; there was an air of power and defiance on his face that was incredibly… sexy. From the determined glint in his eyes to the sheer confidence emanating from him. Confidence was one of her biggest turn-ons, but confidence on Killua, whose intense gaze turned her stomach into a drunk grasshopper, whose touch made her feel like butter in a hot pan, whose laugh made her heart dance the samba on a moving rollercoaster… was quite an experience.

Killua glanced at her then, unleashing the aforementioned samba in her chest when he smirked. He didn't say anything, but she could almost read a cheeky 'I caught you staring' all over his face. She was starting to feel a little hot.

"Did you get it?" Rafielo asked then, leaning back in his seat.

Killua looked at him, then at his cards, forgetting her shameless staring—much to her relief. "Yeah, I get it. Let's go."

The game started. Rafielo bet he would win four tricks, and Pierre one. Killua thought for a moment, then said he would win one trick. Hana blinked, confused, as to why they were betting anything—had she missed something important while she was indulging in Killua's beautiful face?

"You have to bet on the numbers of tricks you win in each round," Rafielo explained, catching her confusion. "The only thing is, the sum of the bets mustn't be equal to the number of cards in hand—so the last player to bet has an extra constraint."

She nodded, quite pleased that she had understood that, at least. "And how do you win a trick?"

"You place the highest card," Rafielo answered. "If you win too many tricks, you lose. If you don't win enough tricks, you lose too. So it's pretty tricky—and yes I did make that pun," he added, eyeing Pierre with victory.

"Oh, okay," she said. She rested her chin in her hands.

"He's already explained that," Killua then said, placing a card on the table. "Weren't you listening?"

She shivered at his suggestive tone—and his goddamned smooth composure. He made her want to… to… probably kiss him. "I'm clueless with card games," she said. She felt someone hit her foot under the table and caught Thomas pulling the I-didn't-do-this face while June smirked.

(There. They had found something to tease her on. And she had practically served it to them on a silver platter.)

Embarrassed, she looked away, losing herself in a piece of bread near her glass, pulling an expression that she hoped was casual. But naturally, her phone buzzed barely a minute later. Her acting skills worked on everyone, except Thomas. He had this sixth sense that a lot of parents had that whispered to him whenever she was lying. She was convinced that in another life, he had been her father.

She cast a glance at Thomas. Your phone, he mouthed.

She slowly took it, unlocked it—all the while glaring at him— and read his message. 'Is your bread suddenly tastier than your Killua?'

'Fuck you,' she quickly sent, her cheeks burning red. Her dad hadn't been one for dad jokes—he couldn't understand most jokes, let alone tell them— but Thomas and June made up for the lack of lame jokes and parental teasing in her life.

She heard June ask a question to Rafielo, but she had stopped listening to them. The tricks came one after another, cards falling in the center. In the end, Killua and Pierre won the first round, and Rafielo lost.

'I'm not the one you should tell that,' Thomas replied, with a damned smirking emoji. 'There's a very fine-looking Killua next to you (but I think you've noticed)(hell yeah you've noticed so good lmao).'

She bit her cheeks. 'Was it that obvious?'

'You were practically drooling 6_6'

'Well fuck.'

She peeked at Thomas and saw him smile. Killua was concentrated on the game, so that one less thing to worry about. 'You're endearing,' Thomas said. 'You know, he was almost glowing.'

'Killua?' she typed, quickly checking he wasn't looking.

'Yeah. He seemed to like the attention.'

'Whatever.'

'Dude, I'm sitting in front of him. I see the guy. He likes it when you give him attention. He's always looking when you're not looking.'

She flushed, locked her phone, and glared some more at Thomas—who was acting innocent. But as she glanced at Killua, she did catch him looking at her from the corner of his eyes. And he smirked then, his eyes still calm, still self-possessed, still smooth. If he was embarrassed to have been caught, he didn't give that impression at all.

Meanwhile, the samba burst in her chest, and there was a tango in her belly, and a dreamy waltz in her head—and a card game on the table that she decidedly wasn't paying attention to.

(How frustrating.)

She refrained a sigh and watched the game instead, promising that she would get back to Thomas for messing with her already messy hormones.

Yet, as the game kept unfolding, she realized that… Thomas wasn't necessarily wrong. Killua did play more accurately when she was watching—from the little she understood. Now that she was pretending to understand the game, he was focused, and again, the sharp edge of his serious profile struck her.

Curious, she leaned closer to peek at his cards, wondering why he was that serious—and breathed in his beguiling white musk perfume then. He had the 21, as well as a bunch of small cards.

"You see anything to play?" he asked her, swiveling to look at her.

She realized how close they were—if she could, she would get closer, just to drown in his ice blue eyes— but she only blinked. "You don't want me to help. Unless you want to lose."

"Just this trick," he said. And smiled. And her will crumbled. And she grinned back like the giddy, airy fool she was.

"Is it allowed?" she asked Rafielo, who gave a brief nod. He was surely aware it wasn't in Killua's advantage.

She scooted closer to Killua, close enough to feel the warmth of his body. She examined his cards with so much seriousness, as if her life depended on it. She had already forgotten the rules—and it was a strategic game! Shame on her! — but she didn't want him to lose because of her.

Desperate, she rose big puppy eyes to him.

"Trust your instinct," he whispered.

With a little huff, she closed her eyes and randomly pointed toward a card. She opened her eyes.

The 4.

"Okay, watch," he said. He put the 4 on the table.

Pierre put the 3.

And Rafielo the 2.

"Are you serious," Killua said, to Rafielo, who was laughing so hard for some reason Hana couldn't comprehend. "You made me win a trick with a 4?"

"Did you lose?" she asked, flashing the same puppy eyes.

"Nah. Not yet." But as the next tricks unfolded, it became obvious that he had lost this round. "There are three rounds left. That's plenty enough for me to win," he added when he saw her face.

"I told you not to trust me."

"But you bring me good luck."

"Lies. I made you lose with a card that shouldn't have made you lose."

"For real," he said, his eyes riveted on the cards. "I win more when you look at my deck."

She thought of Thomas's message and blushed a little. "I'll keep looking then, but I'm not doing anything more."

"Man, that's unfair," Rafielo said. "I'd win more rounds too if a pretty girl was looking at my deck."

She chuckled—Killua didn't. "Sorry. I can only bring good luck to one guy at once." Let's see if it's good luck, she thought.

Killua did win the next two rounds. And since he had won the first round, he had to win the last one to win the game itself. He and Rafielo had won as many rounds—Pierre was falling behind by one round.

Pierre distributed the card. Hana realized with amusement it was the single card round, the one where the players had to put the card on their forehead without knowing what it was.

June swiftly called her, discreetly miming someone taking a picture. She surreptitiously took her camera from her bag and handed it to him. He snapped a picture of Killua with a card on his forehead. Killua smiled like a father catching his children doing something silly—which was basically what June and Hana looked like.

When they had gotten their share of stupid jokes over the Forehead Card Fight, Hana focused back on the game. Pierre had a 12, Rafielo a 20.

Then, she looked at Killua.

He had the weird card, the Excuse.

… Which, if she remembered…

Rafielo sighed. "You gotta be kidding me. I bet zero."

"Same," Pierre said.

… could be both 0 and 22 if the player wanted it to?

"I don't have much of a choice. Zero then," Killua said. He looked at this card and nearly gasped. "Hell yeah," he exclaimed while Rafielo complained.

"How lucky does this guy have to be? The Excuse on the last round? He wins no matter what!" He laughed. "You completely bluffed us. Congrats."

"He won?" June said, looking at the men. "Holy shit, he won, wow, what happened?"

Rafielo got up while clapping, signaling the other tables to clap for the only winner, and Pierre gave Killua the bouquet of roses.

"If you allow me," Rafielo stopped him, picking a rose from the bouquet —a red rose—and handing it to Hana. "For the lady." He then bowed, which made her grin as she thanked him. Then, he and Pierre left after congratulating him one last time. And, well, after Rafielo winked one last time at her —she couldn't stop giggling, especially when she saw Killua's tight expression.

"Wow, you won," Thomas said. His first words since the beginning of the card game—at least out loud, because he definitely hadn't been silent, texting wise. "Sandy will be so psyched when I tell her."

"I bet she'll be," Hana said. "It just went like, bam! And suddenly he'd won." She turned toward him, already forgetting the rose as she beamed at him. "That's my Killua!"

He gave her a crooked smile. The kind of smiles he gave her when she became affectionate. In the Killua language, she had learned that it meant 'I love what you said, and I'm secretly happy because of it, but I'm getting a bit shy because I precisely like it too much and I don't know how to properly react—so I'm going to be adorable and fry your brain.' Eventually, those had become her favorite reactions.

"How did you understand the rules so fast?" Thomas asked. "I didn't get a thing until the last round."

"I still don't get it," June butted in, raising his arm as if to ask for permission to speak.

Killua shrugged. "I like card games. I knew how to play poker when I was six—ow," he stopped as she lightly punched his shoulder.

"You're a gambler," she started, frowning. "You're a gambler and you have the guts to say you hate math?" Oh, the irony, coming from her, the math-lover-who-really-sucked-at-card-games.

He poked her nose. "Yes, because I don't need math. I'm that awesome."

"You were terribly lucky with that last round, though," Thomas said. "I mean, I sorta understood that you got the best card a player could get?"

"Yeah. I may have lost otherwise."

"Where does that luck even come from?" June said as he nibbled some bread.

Killua didn't answer, shrugging at June, who then turned his attention toward Thomas to bicker with him—like an old married couple.

But then, she felt Killua's gaze on her, and turned to meet his knowing smile.

His words rewound in her mind.

You bring me good luck.

---

A waiter took their empty plates away, replacing them with desserts.

Hana stared at her dessert, impressed by the swirls of berry sauce decorating the edge of her plate. She dug into her molten chocolate cake, anticipating the wave of chocolate pouring out of the gash.

"This is like an orgasm," Killua said, closing his eyes as he took a bite of cake.

June snorted. "You either love chocolate a lot or need a better sex life."

"My sex life is fine, thanks," he joked.

"It does look like food porn," Thomas noted. "I've never managed to make the chocolate ooze like that."

"That's because you suck," she said. "I do it just fine."

Killua glanced at her, the corner of his lips pulled up. "You'll have to make me taste."

(That sounded suggestive.)

The lights then dimmed again, staying just bright enough for the guests to see their plates.

"The last performance," June noted.

Warm colors flooded the stage, colorful flickers of light roiling on the dancers as they entered the stage together.

Spring, she realized. Her favorite part of the Four Seasons. A choir of violins led the dancers in a pastoral round, the cheerful rhythm of the Allegro piece limning a soft, bucolic atmosphere. The young women in light frilly dresses spun around, their partners catching their hands from time to time to lead them elsewhere.

Soon, Spring was over, replaced by the fierce violins of Summer. Presto. A few women in bright green dresses ran around, covering the dancer who acted as the Sun.

Suddenly, as the violins changed their rhythm, the dancers scattered, revealing the Sun in a golden dress.

Hana beamed when she saw Sandy —the Sun— emerge from the circle of dancers, gorgeous in her dress, her graceful movements depicting a fiery summer. She glanced at Killua, whose expression had barely changed. If she hadn't known him better, she would have unjustly thought that he wasn't impressed.

Thomas, however, had a much more readable expression, his eyes shining with pride for his older sister. And for a reason. Sandy was magnificent, a whirlpool onstage, her long red curls swinging with her light steps, her small feet gliding along the rapid music. Her body was living the music, letting it breath through her slithering movements, every single note pulsing in her dance.

When the violins died and the Sun collapsed, the whole room applauded, a standing ovation for the small young woman who had brought Vivaldi's Presto Summer to life. The Summer dancers skittered away, the Autumn performers replacing them for a pleasant waltz. Allegro, again.

Finally, the Winter dancers marched onstage, for Vivaldi's Allegro non molto Winter piece, whirling around like cold winter breezes.

The room erupted in applause when the performers bowed, thanking their audience. Sandy stood hand in hand with the other main characters, the embodiments of their seasons, bowing deep as people stood for them.

When the applause ceased and the dancers left, Sandy reappeared with a big hoodie —her brother's— on top of her dress. She rushed into her brother's arms, laughing. "I'm so glad you all came!" she said. "Hana!" she called, and Hana hugged her as tight as she could. She hadn't seen Sandy in weeks.

"You were so gorgeous, I was in awe," Hana said, patting her head.

Sandy laughed. "Thanks! I wouldn't have managed without the other dancers, though."

Thomas introduced Killua to her, and she shook his hand, thanking him for coming. Her expression changed from pleasant to excited when her brother told her Killua had won the bouquet.

"You beat Rafielo and Pierre?!" she exclaimed. "That's the best thing ever. I'm so glad you shut their mouth," she said. Rafielo was standing near the backstage, waving at Sandy —who stuck her tongue out at him. "Congrats, you just won against a cheater."

"Don't listen to her," Rafielo said as he came near them, patting Sandy's head. "She's just a sore loser."

"It's a family thing, I assure you," June joked.

Sandy then left with Rafielo, joking together. She waved at her brother before going backstage.

A woman then climbed the stairs to the stage to give a speech about the charity organization that had organized the gala. Another round of applause concluded her speech, longer than any other, and the whole team, including the dancers, thanked the audience once again.

When they were done, the guests started to leave.

---

Monday, April 20th

12:31 A.M.

The gala had smoothly ended about half an hour ago, with Sandy's gorgeous performance. Even Killua, who had seen his share of amazing dancers during in all the parties he had been invited to, had been amazed.

Hana had brought Thomas and June back to their building and had then driven back to their own.

After some small talk about the dreadfully random weather and a few bad jokes—their specialty—they stopped in front of the elevator.

Both of them were watching the glass door of the back gardens.

"I don't wanna go back yet," she said.

"Me neither."

They exchanged a knowing gaze. And chuckled together. "The court?" she suggested.

"The court. Let's say hi to Pickles."

Without waiting any longer, they went out, their hands brushing while they opened the door. A flicker of warmth lurched in his arm, a delicious thrill shaking in his body. How he wanted to take her hand, to feel her long fingers intertwined with his own.

Here you go, cheesy Killua is back, he mentally groaned.

"Killua?"

He rose his eyes, meeting with her own. She had closed her coat on her dress, but flowers still peeked at the hem, above the sleek black of her tights. "Huh, you were saying?"

"Did you enjoy the gala?"

He caught up with her. "Yeah. Your friends are cool too."

"Told you."

He smirked, glancing at her. "Fun fact: June is totally my type."

She glared at him. "Don't say that in front of Thomas," she said, though there was an edge in her voice.

Jealousy, he realized, with interest —and satisfaction. Some torturously pleasant satisfaction. And vengeance as well. A petty one. "Tall, fit, with a muscular built, bright eyes, nice hair. And wit." He bit his lip when he saw her frown. "Too bad he's in a relationship," he went on.

The flicker of jealousy had disappeared from her face, though she was pouting. "First, you refuse to dance with me, then you gush on my best friend's boyfriend." She gave him a long look. "You're doing this on purpose, aren't you?"

He gave her an innocent look. "Me? Nah." He gestured to the court as he pushed the portal and let her in. "I refused the dance because I had a much better one in mind. Under the moonlight, in the court we met at. Our court."

"God, how corny. And what about the music?"

He looked through his phone, browsing through his songs. "… Okay, I hadn't thought this through. Do you think we could waltz to Nicki Minaj?"

She burst out laughing, and he melted a little then.

"Let's just sit and talk instead. I appreciate the offer, though."

They sat down, and he leaned back, extending his legs in front of him and crossing his ankles. Pickles was licking her paws in a bush, near the portal. The night was chilly, the air just crisp enough to slap a sense of awareness on his face. He barely felt the cold, but he knew it was out there, numbing his fingers, filling his lungs with the earthy scent of after-rain.

He sat up and took the bouquet he had put next to him. He held it out to her, unsure of how else to do it. "Here. For you."

She blinked. "For me? But you just won them."

His expression became playful. "I did. But since I'm a giant awkward and shy nerd madly crushing on you, unsure of how to make you come around my pure feelings, I spent the whole gala rehearsing the moment I confess to you, under the moonlight, at the place we met. But then I won the bouquet and it seemed like an amazing opportunity. And so, I spent the last part of the gala wondering how I'd give the flowers to you."

She didn't need to know that the last sentence was true. Or that he hadn't come up with anything and had completely improvised.

She giggled. "Okay, so it's part of our corny love story script. We stopped when I, the crush, fall for you because of how amazing your view on love is. But since you're a clueless nerd, you have no idea." She stopped to think. "Episode 2, the Gala. What else is in the script?"

"Hmm." He held out the flowers to her. "You take the flowers, first."

She did. "What do I say?"

"You say, "wow, they smell so good. Thank you, I love them." and then you grin — the Hana Grin."

"Wow! They smell so good! Thank you, I love them!" she repeated, though with more enthusiasm than him, and grinned. "I could seriously kiss you right now."

He frowned. "That's not part of the script," he noted.

Her eyes brushed his lips. For a split second, but they did nonetheless. Burning his skin with her galvanizing gaze. "Isn't it?" she teased, her lips stretching in a flirtatious smile. There was something incredibly attractive about her, in that moment, seduction laced in the curve of her lips, percolating through her half-lidded eyes.

That kind of gaze worked too well on him, a crack in his perfect composure. For a split second, his thoughts jostled together in an incoherent mess before he focused back. "I'm not one to refuse a kiss."

"That can't be the nerd talking. He's too awkward to be that bold."

To which, he just smirked. "Consider that it's Killua talking, this time." He looked at the flowers. "And that it's also Killua's gift."

She chuckled, the sound light and silvery. The cheekiness faded from her face, replaced instead by genuine gratitude. "Thanks. I do love them." She looked at him, her eyes warm with affection. "They will look awesome in my crystal vase."

I knew it, he smiled.

His phone suddenly buzzed. He reached for it, reading the message he had just received from Leorio.

'Yo, kiddo. Tomorrow noon, would you grace us with your majestic presence?'

He shook his head in disbelief, a smile playing on his lips. 'Sure. I dare hope the meal will be on the par with my eminent taste buds.'

'Oh it will. And thanks; we'll all be happy to see your annoying ass.'

'Of course you'll be,' Killua replied. He imagined Maya chiding Leorio for his tone, Mina right behind giving him a thumb up while her sister wasn't looking. Partners in crime. Mina, Maes, and Leorio, three big kids Maya had to put up with.

His smile died. Two, now.

"Killua? You're okay?"

He looked at her. "Yeah, sorry. Leorio is inviting me for lunch. We were just being childish."

She tilted her head. "You're pretty close, aren't you?"

"I guess. We grew a lot closer within the last years." He gave a crooked smile. "He actually met Maya thanks to me."

"Really?"

"Yeah. I was sitting at a café, waiting for him, and she just sat in front of me. Like that. It turned out she was being pursued by some stalker and, for his own sake, she was trying to avoid him and sat at the first café she passed in front of. Then Leorio arrived. That's how she met him."

"Original," she commented. "And quite adorable, if not for the stalker. She should have broken his arm."

"Oh, don't worry. She did. A week later she couldn't bear with him anymore, and kicked his ass."

"Good."

He scoffed, remembering the fear on the stalker's face when tiny Maya held him face against the table, twisting his arm behind his back. "Maya looks sweet, but she's incredibly fierce. You don't want to see her angry. Even I get scared of her when she pulls the about-to-be-angry-at-you face—and she doesn't even reach my shoulder."

Silence fell then, and he glanced at her, confused. He saw her looking at her hands, her expression sullen. "How is she?" she asked, guilt thick in her voice.

He sat up, alarmed. How had the mood dropped so quick? "She's good. Could be better, but probably better than you think."

Still, she stayed quiet. "How is she handling the stress?"

He frowned, unsure of what she was trying to say. "She's supported, Hana. She's not alone." He turned toward her. "Look at me."

She didn't move, but eventually sighed and swiveled. "Yeah?"

"You've done everything you could do." But she didn't seem convinced. She escaped his eyes. "Hey?" he called until she looked at him again. "Tell me what's wrong."

She shook her head. "Nothing is wrong."

"That's bullshit and we both know it," he said, but she was stubborn and refused to meet his eyes. "Hana, please," he called her again, his voice barely a whisper. "I want to help you. I really do. But I can't if you don't let me help."

The pained expression in her eyes when she finally turned toward him struck him deep. The guilt that swam in her eyes, mixed with the indecision crumbling under her need to confess. She said her next words with such a small voice he thought she hadn't spoken. "I lied." She turned away. "I lied to her."

"About what?"

She shuddered. "About the Whisper and the curse."

"Explain."

"She asked me if anyone had survived his curse. She asked me who had survived it. And I—" her voice died. "I told her I didn't know."

"But you do."

She gave a weak nod. "I do."

The puzzle pieces all connected. His premonition had been right, unfortunately so. "You're the survivor," he said, putting a name on her trauma. Voicing this thought he had had for a long time. How he wished he had been wrong. How he wished that just for once he had been mistaken.

She didn't deny it. "I didn't want her to know that—" She took a deep breath. "That I had survived when her brother had died."

He swallowed, a lump in his throat. He was only now beginning to see just how damaged she was. The cracks he thought he had seen behind her pretense were abysses.

He shifted on his seat, moved by a need to support her. She looked like she was about to spill, from all her stress and her fear and her guilt. He gently reached for her face, cupping it with one hand, turning it toward his own. And he peered deep into her eyes. Deep into the abyss she tried to conceal.

"Talk to me."

---

"I don't know how to start… I feel like everything is so confused in my head."

Her voice was wobbling. She hated the sound of it. As though it would spill out of her in fits of sobs.

"Start with the beginning. I have time."

She nodded. Breathed in deep.

And the words rushed out of her.

"Three years ago, then. Barely a year after I had come back. I took the Whisper's case and chased after him, like many others." An ironic smile broke on her face. "I was exactly like those hunters I'm running away from. Delusional, overambitious, and overconfident." Her voice died then. Somewhere through her confession, she found his hand, without thinking, and clasped it. As tightly as she could. Her anchor to the real world. "Except I wasn't alone."

His hand squeezed hers, easing the creases on her conscience for a moment. "A friend?"

She nodded, weakly. "His name was Feri." Her throat tightened. She saw in his eyes that he had understood, that he hadn't missed the 'was' that changed everything. "He died during the mission." She choked on the next words. Couldn't bring herself to say them.

And it was my fault.

Starting from that moment, everything happened in a blur. Perhaps because she had started crying. Or because she had so many things to say, so many things she needed to let go of, so many things she had kept buried, that she couldn't keep track of them all. "I couldn't save him, and he died on me. I don't even remember what happened after that. It's all flashes of memories that sting here and there. I was flanked on a hospital bed and everything hurt and it was so painful and my friend was dead. For weeks. I just remember being a giant wound and my whole body burnt in and out and —"

"Shh. You're fine now," he reminded her, cutting through the visions. Her shelter.

She was faintly aware that his thumb was caressing the back of her hand, soothing, gentle. She took a few deep breaths, working on slowing her breathing. "Eventually I survived. I don't know why, or how, or what the fuck kept me alive, but I didn't die, even if it felt like I would every day."

A sob caught in her throat. She tried to swallow it back, refusing to let go of the next words.

"Don't hold it in," he then said. "It's the nastiest thing you can do to yourself. Trust me."

His words broke her last remnants of resistance. "I survived, but Feri died," she managed, her resolve crumbling as sobs shook her body. She started babbling something unintelligible while he wrapped his arms around her, pulling her in his embrace, pulling her close so she didn't drift away.

And she cried there, for what seemed to her like a long time. Just spilling everything she had kept locked inside, in his arms, nuzzled against him. He held her tight, his hand drawing circles on her back while she kept trying to explain that, yes, Feri was dead, and no, she wasn't quite dead, and she knew she wasn't making sense anymore but now that she was talking she wouldn't stop.

When she ran out of tears, her back still shook with a few dry sobs. He stroked her back, soothing the last sobs away, chasing the last ounces of tension away from her body, until she melted with relief against him.

He didn't say anything. He simply kept her close, one hand clasping her own, the other on her back. "How long have you been holding it in?" he finally said.

She didn't answer. She knew it had been a month, a month denying that the Whisper was back and that she was still traumatized and that she worked under bone-crushing stress. Instead, she pulled away, no matter how much she wanted to stay against him. "Sorry for this," she said, drying her eyes, taking a tissue and blowing her nose. Thank God for waterproof makeup. "That was pretty pathetic." She let out a weak nervous laugh. Embarrassed, deeply so, but so light and relieved.

"I'm glad you've opened up to me."

She avoided his eyes.

"I'm glad you trust me enough to open up," he reworded. "I really am."

She looked at him then. Realization dawned upon her that she had indeed opened up, so much that her dam had broken and she had cried her eyes out —on his shirt. "Thank you," she breathed, a tad bit uncomfortable. She had gone out of control; she hadn't planned to stain his shirt with a pool of tears. She felt so exposed, almost naked.

And yet, she felt so good. In that moment, she really, really did think she could kiss him.

"Friends don't need to thank each other for things like that," he said. "I mean what I said. I'm here for you."

She looked away, feeling her cheeks burn with embarrassment —and, undeniably, fondness. She was usually the one giving him random confessions. She wasn't used to it being the other way around. He rarely said anything affective out of the blue.

She needed to change the topic before she was too awkward to function properly. "Let's talk about something funny instead," she suggested and saw in his sympathetic smile that he would let her get away with it —this time.

"I overheard a conversation last time. Something about pigeons coming from hell. Your opinion on the topic?" he helped her, and she held back a sigh of relief. She was so thankful for him making it easier for her.

"I definitely agree. One of those spawns of Satan shat on me once, right before a meeting with a client. I had to arrive late to get rid of the… ew."

"You? Late? Wow. That pigeon knew where to hit."

"They know everything, those little shits."

Silence fell then.

She tilted her head back, her uneasiness slowly going away. She stared at the stars as if it were the first time, and they were brighter than they had ever been. As though the tears had washed through her, and suddenly she saw better, smelled better, felt better. She recognized the Soledad in the maze of constellations and thought of his tattoos. Scattered on his back, his chest, his shoulder. That same shoulder she had cried against. That shoulder that had supported her while she broke down and folded on herself.

How many stars in the Universe?

She jolted upright. "You wanna see something funny?" she asked, but she was already on her feet, tugging at his sleeve, nudging him to stand up. She herself wasn't sure how she could go from tearful to jolly so fast.

"Sure?"

He followed her to the far end of the court, the wall on which the hoop was mounted. She squatted, moved a few leaves, pushed vines away, until an inscription showed.

How many stars are there in the universe?

There it was.

She showed the inscription, clumsily carved in thick letters. "I wrote this before I left for the exam. I was having one of my moments of insignificance. I was one of many who sought the Hunter title, and I was super nervous. I had seen the figures and I thought I wouldn't make it." She ran a finger on the rough surface, plunged back in time, to one night she had decided to come to the court for one last time. Just in case she never saw it again. "So I wrote this. To remind myself that in the end, all these examinees are just as insignificant as I am. And since they're as insignificant as I am, I have as much chance to succeed as they do." She scrunched her nose. "Then I came back to the court two years later, and someone had replied to me."

He was silent, his eyes stuck on the wall with an unreadable expression. "One: me."

She flinched, his words sending shockwaves through her nerves. She removed the vines covering the second inscription, to make the small stone conversation complete.

How many stars are there in the universe?

One: me.

A blast of wind swept her bangs, shoving them in her eyes. She pushed them and stared at Killua with wonder. "You wrote this?"

He bent over and ran a finger along the inscription carved in light letters. "I did."

A grin took over her face. Uncontrollable. "You're the smartass who ruined my fake-deep inscription?"

He smiled. "I am."

She let go of the vines. "You mean, we met before we really met?"

"We did." He stood up and leaned against the wall. Then, he sighed "You're turning my life into a cheesy romance with cheesy scenarios. It's incredible. I'm not even sure that corny story we joke about is fake anymore." He shifted, right when her brain bumped on the word 'romance'. He glanced at her, his blue gaze so gentle. "Not that I mind."

"Is that the shy nerd talking or Killua talking?"

He remained silent. Peering in her features, searching for something she didn't know. "It's Killua talking." His eyes flew to the inscriptions. Their first unaware conversation carved in stone. "I'm glad I met you." Her breath caught. "You're a precious friend, Hana."

Her heart lurched at these words. They rewound in her mind, so soothing, so sweet to her ears. Balm on her wounds. She stared, speechless, at his beloved face. With the moonlight reflecting in his blue eyes, painting the sharp edge of his cheekbones, embracing his face with an ivory glow. With the fondness pouring through his smile, unabashed, unrestrained, uninhibited. With the softness all over his face, the gratefulness, the tenderness.

She stared, and she realized.

That's it.

She breathed in. He changed the topic and started talking about how Gon had accidentally gotten himself a pet. They were in a village, and some dog had gone missing, but when Gon found him and brought him back to his master, the dog refused to let go of Gon, and eventually started following him everywhere. She chuckled and listened to another story about Gon, entranced by everything Killua said. She never wanted him to stop talking. And she figured, somehow, she never wanted to stop getting to know him.

That's it.

She told him about the time she had swung so hard on the swing, in kindergarten, that she had flown and fallen on her chin. It had been a perfect mess; she had broken a tooth and her chin had bled all over her clothes. He laughed through her story when she told him that even with a dead tooth and a ruined chin, she had cheered over her little flight. His laughter bubbled in her chest, shook a thousand nerves in her body.

She showed him the scar on her chin, then. When he touched it, feather-light fingertips brushing her skin, her stomach twisted and folded on itself, her insides knotted together, her heart waltzed wildly.

That's it.

He joked about her child self being a tiny monkey, and she giggled because of how accurate it was. On their way to the building, she told him that once, for Halloween, when she was barely five, she had refused to wear anything but a gorilla costume, and her grandma had shot daggers at her mother for not 'raising her like a proper lady'. Her grandma had been traditional in that aspect, one of her few flaws, but she had never managed to convince Hana's mother to set traditional gender roles on her daughter. In the elevator, she showed him Baby Gorilla Hana on her phone, hanging around her father's neck, and he laughed so hard she thought she would liquefy. She didn't remember him laughing so much, before. But she really didn't mind.

That's it.

The elevator stopped at her floor. She bid him goodbye, fighting the urge to hug him before they parted. He held the elevator open for a moment while they planned to meet on the next day, at the court, as usual. She didn't miss the way he tried to prolong their conversation, but she didn't know if he had noticed that she was doing just the same. Stretching her time with him, holding to whatever second she had to bask in his presence.

He finally left after a dorky joke —she could never have guessed he was that dorky— and she walked alone to her apartment, barely getting used to the silence. When she closed the door behind her, she leaned against it, filled her lungs with as much air as she could. She really could use some oxygen to untangle the mess in her head.

She filled her crystal vase with water and put the flowers inside, placing the vase in the middle of the coffee table. Delicately, she brushed the silky petals, white and red roses alike.

That's it.

She couldn't stop thinking about him. Just as if her mind had decided that, this night, like every night since who-knew-when, there would be on the program Killua's smile and Killua's gaze and Killua's laugh and Killua's well-kept nerdy and dorky side and just… just Killua.

She grabbed her phone. That's it. She opened the last conversation she had had with Thomas, typed a frantic message, and sent it. Then, she reread it, her heart thrumming in her ears, her fingers feverish.

'That's it. Tom, I'm completely lost right now and at the same time I'm the happiest I've ever been and suddenly a lot of things make sense to me but at the same time nothing does. I mean, that's it.

'I think I've just realized it, but I've had hints all along, but I just admitted it to myself (right now, right here, I literally just realized) but I don't what to do with that information, especially that I don't know if I can handle the feelings and all the things that go with it, and, and just. Just. Wow? I didn't even know I could still experience something like that. It's the weirdest thing.

'I don't make sense. I can just picture you squinting at your phone like "what the hell, why the wall of text? What the fuck is she saying?" and I'm so sorry but I can't answer that question because I don't know. I just don't know. I can't think straight. I feel like I've been drunk and then sent in space and then drunk again and then stuck on a rollercoaster for a couple hours and God I'm so lost right now and I can't focus on anything (or almost). But Tom, I think… I mean, no, I don't think. I'm sure. Only thing I'm sure of, actually. But I'm 100%, 200%, perhaps even 1,000,000% sure of it.

'I'm crushing hard on Killua.'

---

10:45 A.M.

Hana had finished her shift earlier. Since Aleon was back to his room —again, as she had noticed — she had the whole day for her. Or well, for her work. But before working, she wanted to drop by and see Thomas and June.

She parked her car near their building. She entered it and climbed to the ninth floor. She stopped in front of their door and started spamming the doorbell until her finger got numb from it. She giggled when June shouted from inside. "I heard you alright, Hana!" He opened the door. "Yo," he greeted as she hugged him.

"Yooo."

He chuckled, pushed the door to close it and hugged her back. "Feels good to be that missed."

They broke the hug. "How are you?" she asked.

"Heh, good. Working on a song."

"So cool! Can I listen?"

"… When I get somewhere, sure?" he laughed. "I can't seem to focus today."

"Inspiration isn't a constant resource."

"Unfortunately…" he grabbed her shoulders. "Prepare your camera. There's a new pose for the Kamabookra."

"Seriously?" she whispered. "How does he find new reading positions after all this time?"

"Heh, no idea. Clearly he has more inspiration than I do."

She took her camera from her bag and followed June to the bedroom. As soon as she was inside, she snapped a picture of Thomas, lying on the bed with his feet up along the wall.

When Thomas realized she was here, he groaned and let the book he was reading fall on his face. "God, no. What do you even do with all these pictures?" he asked as she checked the photo.

"I'm gonna send them to some porn industry. They wouldn't turn down a sexy nerd down for some bed action," she replied. June snickered when he saw the photo. He gave her a thumbs-up and she winked at him.

"Hilarious. I love your sense of humor, Hana," Thomas said.

"You love all of me." She put her bag on the desk chair, knelt on the bed and threw herself on Thomas.

He let out a strangled sound. "Goddammit." He laughed.

"Hi," she greeted.

"Hi."

She sat up. "What were you even doing with your feet up? Defying gravity? Supporting a ghost? Pilates? Yoga?"

"My feet hurt."

June snorted, pulling a string of his guitar. "Look who calls us dorks after that."

"I know right? What did you even think, some Feet Fairy perched on the ceiling would come down to help?" she said.

"It did help," Thomas argued. "Until you flopped on me, that is."

"Why don't you just ask your marvelous boyfriend for a foot massage?"

Thomas rolled eyes. "June sucks at massages."

"That's not what you were saying when I—" June started.

"Shhhh. Say no more."

She laughed. "I get the idea." She glanced at June. He was flipping through some sheets, focused on their content. "You'd think a guy who rocks the guitar would be good with his hands." He made a face at her.

"Oh he is, that's not the issue," Thomas replied. "Just not massages. I'd rather have one from a steamroller."

"Rude," June mumbled.

She scrunched her nose. "True love."

"Fpeaking of which," June started, a sheet of paper between his lips. He took it and put it on the table. "How's it going with White Hair Prince Charming?"

"Killua was his name," Thomas corrected.

"Whatever. He had white hair and he was hot."

Thomas glared at him. But he turned away when he saw June flash a cheeky smile. "Yeah, what's up with Killua?" He asked, his knowing gaze making her a tiny bit embarrassed.

"What do you mean 'what's up'? Nothing. We see each other every once in a while."

"Hmmm." Thomas smirked. She could almost read his thoughts when he looked at her like that. 'Not what you were saying in your text, is it?' "Every once in a while? You mean every night?"

"Wow, slow down," June said. "Let them hold hands first. The girl hasn't had a real crush since the Black Plague."

"It was two years ago," she corrected.

"That's what I said."

"He's right, in a way. It's been a long time since you told us about a real crush. And I'm not talking about all the guys you've dated," Thomas added before she could say anything.

She couldn't exactly deny that. It had been a long time since the last time she liked someone. As in, really liked. The kind of liked when she couldn't get enough of a person and cared so, so much about them and couldn't wait to see them and couldn't even control her face muscles when she saw them and just flashed the most ridiculously huge smiles whenever he was around her. With all the physical symptoms too —goosebumps, shivers, sudden waves of heat, formula-1-heart, uncontrollable blushes, and damned urges to hold him and kiss his lips and his neck and touch him and cuddle him and more… The kind of completely cheesy, sappy, deliciously hot like. Her favorite type of like.

She had liked the guys she had dated, to a certain extent, but it wasn't the same 'like', and it hadn't lasted. She might have had ephemeral crushes for them, perhaps the space of a kiss or the time to marvel at their pretty smiles. But it was short-lived, and it hadn't elicited all this joy and this dread and this worry from her. All these questions and this doubt, but also this huge curiosity because she wanted to know everything about him, including the sides he didn't want to show everyone. The last boy she had liked that much was Kai.

Which scared her a bit, because it had not ended well and she had lost one of her best friends. She didn't want to lose Killua. Not ever. He was a precious friend.

You're a precious friend, Hana.

"I guess you could be right," she said, carefully picking her words because a part of her still couldn't believe it. She liked Killua!

"No, I am right. But I think it's a good thing, this time." Thomas tilted his head toward June. "Even June thinks so."

"You didn't discuss my love life, did you?"

"Nah. But you see, as your friends, Tom and I worry a tiny bit about your scattered love life."

"Please, one worried dad is enough. I don't need two more."

"It's true, though. It's been so long since you've had a…" Thomas paused. "Healthy crush. As in, not something fleeting, to fill a void."

She looked away. "True enough," she admitted.

"Plus, White Hair seems nice."

"Killua," Thomas corrected. "Or the hot guy, as you prefer."

June flashed white teeth at him. "Definitely my type," he provoked, and laughed when both Thomas and Hana glared at him. "Okay, okay. Not touching the Killua. But he does seem nice."

"Kai wasn't a bad person," she said.

"But he wasn't good for you. You were miserable," Thomas argued. "At least this new relationship of yours seems healthy."

"You're speaking as if I were already dating him."

June tapped on his guitar. "I give it a month, maximum, and you'll tell us he's an amazing kisser."

"We haven't held hands yet!"

"Oh. My bad. A month and you'll have fucked him against a wall."

"Oh my God." She threw a pillow at him as he howled with laughter.

Thomas shook his head. "What about your cases, by the way? Did you find anything?"

She immediately froze. She hadn't told him yet that she had done it again. "Um."

He narrowed his eyes. He knows. "What happened?"

June watched them, though he looked like he wasn't sure what to say. "Anything wrong?"

She sat correctly, her hands on her lap. "I got the confirmation that—" she hesitated. "The Whisper is back."

Thomas was silent, but she saw in her eyes that he was torn between smacking her for not telling him and fearing for her well-being. "Why didn't you tell me?"

She fidgeted with her fingers. "I didn't want to bother you."

June hopped off the chair. "I'm gonna make some tea," he said. "I'll be right back."

Thomas cast him a thankful look. He had surely left to give them some closure.

As soon as June was out, Thomas turned back to her. "How many times do I have to tell you? Even in the middle of the night. I mean it."

She couldn't look at him. "I know."

His gaze softened. "It's him, right?"

"Him?" she repeated, and stopped escaping his gaze.

"Killua. The one who helped you." As she nodded, he kept going. "It's good that he was there, though I wish you had told me too."

"I hadn't told him anything," she corrected. "We live in the same place, and go to the same court. He just noticed I had stopped coming and…" She paused, unsure of how to put it. "Helped me out of it."

It. The numbness. The days spent with vodka and fake smiles.

Thomas nodded. "You have no idea how glad I am that he was there." He frowned. "I don't know how long you'd have avoided me if he hadn't found you. Most likely until you couldn't hide it anymore. Like last time."

She flinched. She knew what he was referring to. The last time she had isolated herself. She had gotten so drunk that she had made herself sick, and had called him out of misery and fear. He had come in the middle of the night and had held her while she cried, had held her hair when she threw up and had washed her face, had given her water until she felt better. A pang of guilt hit her. She remembered his face in the morning, one of the few clear memories she had. Tired and worried, his eyes still red with tears.

She hated being the reason for his tears.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I don't want to worry you."

"I'm more worried by your silence. You trust me to tell you when I'm feeling shitty, I trust you to do the same. Please."

"Okay," she simply said. No promise, because she didn't like promising when she wasn't sure she could do it. "I'll try. I mean it."

He was quiet. Then, he sighed. "I'm gonna get jealous of Killua. You trust him more than you trust me."

She cracked a smile. "That's not true, and you know it. You're just complaining."

"What I do best, right?"

"Nope," June came back with a plate and three mugs full with steaming tea that he put on the desk. "What you do best is me."

Hana giggled, while Thomas buried his head in his hands. "Please remind me why I fell for you?" he asked.

June gestured toward himself. "All of this."

Hana rose her arms toward him, asking for a hug. "You're the coolest!" she exclaimed. He hugged her at this moment, tightly.

"I am! And so are you!" Then, as they broke the hug, he turned to Thomas. "And you're not that uncool."

"Thanks. I'm moved." Thomas crossed his arms. "Why don't I get any hug?"

"You want a hug?" June beamed, kneeling on the bed and pulling Thomas into a hug.

But Thomas fought back. "Hell no! I just wanted to complain!"

"Admit it, you love my hugs," June said, kissing his cheek in a more tender manner than his jokes suggested.

"No," Thomas argued, though he was smiling and had given up pushing his boyfriend away.

"Go ahead, make out," Hana said. "I'm definitely not feeling like the third-wheel."

June laughed. "Bring the Killua to keep you company."

"Why the Killua? He's not a Pokémon," she said.

"But you do have to catch him," June joked back. "Show him all your qualities and he will fall for you right away."

She chuckled. "Aww, you're so sweet, June. But I'm not showing him my boobs. Yet."

"Yet," Thomas repeated.

June nodded, seemingly satisfied with that answer. "Soon enough," he said, holding one finger up. "A month."

---

Wednesday, April 22nd

4:45 P.M.

She was trying to look professional while her boss went through the bar when her phone vibrated in her pocket. She waited for her boss to disappear, and quickly checked who it was.

Killua.

She opened the message, but refrained a laugh when she saw its content.

'( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)'

She typed a quick reply. 'Are you horny or what?'

'Crude. No I just wanted to know if you were coming to the court tonight'

'I'm coming ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)'

He didn't type anything, and she checked during that moment if her boss was coming back. 'Hana no,' he replied. 'Lenny doesn't look good in your messages'

'Are you more concerned by me stealing your Lenny than me telling a crude joke?'

'I don't mind the crude joke ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)'

'Pfft. I'll be there.'

'Good. Glad that you're coming for me Hana ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)' He paused, then typed something else. 'go back to work now you bad bartender'

She rolled her eyes. 'See you tonight, Lenny.'

She shoved her phone in her pocket, a light feeling fluttering in her chest. Joy? Excitement? Fondness? Who cared. She liked Killua. She was crushing on him, feeling younger than she had ever felt, and she would see him that night.

Yazel whirled in, humming Make a man out of you as he took a cocktail. "Your fault," he muttered when she raised an eyebrow at him. She shrugged, then, turning back to her cocktail-making, picturing Killua's delicious lips while she worked. It drove her forward, in a way. Killua's lips, Killua's abs, Killua's ass. Kissing his lips, or his abs. Or his ass. At least time passed quickly when she filled her head with uncatholic thoughts, now more freely than ever since she had admitted to herself that she had feelings for him.

But obviously, this wouldn't be Hana's life if the gods hadn't opted for another way to make time pass quickly. A very efficient way, truly, as it would considerably alter her perception of time, perhaps even erase it entirely.

The side-effects of this 'more efficient way'? Not much. Just a few deep bruises and blood-curling terror.

A commotion alerted Hana. A glass broke on the floor, and a waitress screamed, shoved against a table. Hana rushed to the crowd circling the cause of the commotion, her heart nearly stopped.

Aleon.

Aleon was standing there, his eyes glassy, his breathing ragged. A wild look on his face and blood on his hand. The waitress's blood, Hana realized with horror, when she saw he had scratched her so deep her arm was bleeding.

What the hell is happening?

Was it one of his aggressive drunk moments?

But as she looked at his wild eyes, his way too conscious eyes, she realized it was worse than that.

And she was right.

He broke into a cry, toppled on the ground by some invisible force. The clients ran away, screaming, going as far as they could from him while he tossed and turned on the floor.

Quickly, Hana helped the woman up.

"What's happening?" Yazel asked her, panicked eyes riveted on Aleon's crawling form.

"I don't know, I just saw him scream," she explained. "Are you alright?" she asked the woman.

The waitress nodded. "I don't know what I did, he just lurched at me," she tried, but yelled and ran in Yazel's arm when Aleon's body arched backward, hitting the table.

"I'm gonna take care of him," Hana said. "You bring her in a safe place."

"Are you insane?! You're coming with me!" he yelled, but he was already moving away from her.

She would have replied if she could. But before she could say anything, she had been thrown on the ground, a furious mass on her back tearing at her skin.

She groaned when her chest hit the floor, wriggling away from Aleon's reach. She managed to roll on the floor and kneel him in the face. He fell backward, dazed for a moment, just long enough for Hana to throw herself on top of him, rolling him over, trapping his hands in his back and blocking him with her knee on his back.

But he was far from being fazed. He tried to escape her grip, his frantic movements too similar to those of a murderer she had caught not so long ago. Bursting with rage and inhuman strength, the kind of strength a pleasant businessman who knew nothing about nen should not possess.

And yet, in that moment, nen flowed through him.

She tightened her grip on his wrist, trying to shout some sense into his skull, but he was out of his mind. He suddenly screamed and coiled, moaned in pain, and tears poured out of his eyes. He was panting, his body relaxing for a moment during which he tried to babble something. "Not me… It's not me… Help me…"

"Sir, sir!" she tried to call him during his moment of consciousness, but terror had seized her in the throat, hurling her back to her own curse, her own days in a hospital bed twisting with indescribable pain. Moments spent hovering between pain and despair.

It was too similar.

It couldn't be a coincidence.

Aleon tensed up. His short glimpse of consciousness faded into sizzling wrath boiling under her firm grip. She knew then that Aleon was gone, and whatever curse had taken over his mind was back. He started wriggling again, with twice was much strength as before. Fury oozed from every single pore of his skin, violence pulsing through his whole being. She gasped when nen burst through him, fueling him with raw power. She loaded her hands with enough nen to counter his own without killing him, to counter the anomaly that his nen was, and crashed the edge of her hand on his nape, hard enough to make him pass out. He coughed blood then, and fainted, at last.

She panted, tension seizing her neck. Police sirens resonated outside. Hana removed her tie, planning to tie it around his wrists until the police arrived with proper handcuffs.

However, at this moment, the improbable happened. The world tumbled down. Her back hit the floor, her whole body collapsing backward. Her skull banged against the marble.

What the…?

Right above her, Aleon. Nen flowed through him, again. Stronger than ever. Stronger than before. Enlivening his sobbing body with a force he didn't want, a fury that scared him but controlled him.

Somehow, he had awoken.

Somehow, his 'nen' had grown stronger.

But when his hand moved toward her, all her thoughts shut down. A deafening silence filled her head, disconnecting her from reality. Memories rewound one by one, then all at once, tearing through the silence with her heavy breath. And finally, panic seeped through every inch of her body, in every crack and every crevice. Suffocating her. Spilling in her whole being.

Aleon was reaching for her.

His hand was open, dangerously near, dangerously nearing.

And right on his palm, mocking her with its graceful petals, its beautiful swirling stamens, a flower.

An amaryllis.

---

A/N: Yay. A cliffhanger. You totally didn't see that coming. But yeah, it's quite a little twist right? Aleon comes back in the scenery and everything is confusing and damn, what does that author have in mind? Answer available next chapter. It's not random, and yes, it's been planned since the beginning.

So, one thing I love about this chapter is that there are a lot of things in it I had already thought about three years ago, so it's like a patchwork of sparse ideas I've had in three years. The whole gala? I had this idea two years ago on my way to my classmate's apartment, to work on a group project, at night. The whole 'stars in the universe' cheesy thing? On my way to college, about six months ago. Aleon doing this? This is so old. Like, planned since chapter 1. Which was written a year ago. So it feels great to write these ideas.

Oh, also, Tarot Africain is a game I love playing, though I suck. It's really fun to play :')

Anyway, what did you think about the chapter? About Hana's feelings of failure? About the gala? About Thomas and June? About the fluff, the breakdown, the cheese, the CRUSH? What was your favorite moment? Tell me everything! I'd love to know what you thought! Every feedback is dear to me. Even if it's just a few words, it counts, and it drives me forward.

Next chapter is called Self-destruct and the cliffie gives you a nice overview of it. I promise you'll have all the answers about Aleon there.

See you soon and stay awesome! Bye!