School and a bit of trouble writing delayed this one a bit, but I'm pretty happy with the result, and I hope you will be, too. Life's just been all around a little weird for the past few days, so I'm glad to be uploading a new chapter. Especially a feel-good one like this. I won't keep you any longer, now. Read away!

I stop my feet when I feel the air conditioning wafting out of the clear doors, and Alluka promptly grabs my arm and attempts to pull me inside, completely unsuccessfully. It's no challenge not to move an inch with her strength. Then Killua pushes me from behind and I stumble forward. I open my mouth and hiss. He acts like he doesn't see it.

The inside of the building has a lot less people than outside, but manages to be just as cluttered. Shelves, on the walls and independent of them, fill the space, and strange pairs of apparent shoes fill the shelves. And all of it's inside of a giant bubble of chilled air.

A woman in a tight skirt and buttoned shirt approaches. I stare at the things on her feet. The shape of the shoe is distorted to force her to stand on her toes, with only a tall, flimsy spike to rest her heel on. Other shoes of similar design sit atop some of the shelves.

Now that I think about it, I think I've seen humans wearing shoes like that...maybe. I feel like I have, but if I have, why didn't I note them? Because they're weirder than an unbalanced, awkwardly genetic-ed ant.

She talks to Naii. "Welcome! Is there anything I can help you find today?"

For a moment, Naii stares at the woman blankly. The muscles in the woman's face tighten, one foot shifting slightly in desire to retreat, but she stands her ground under the piercing gaze.

When Killua speaks up, Naii finally looks away from the now guarded woman.

"We're looking for shoes for him."

The woman glances at Killua, then follows his jabbed thumb to me. Her eyes widen when they meet mine, which is a reaction I haven't got in a while. I nearly forgot where humans have white in their eyes, everything but my pupil is blue. Her eyes shift to my feet, then also linger there. I cross my arms.

"Are you done? It's only natural to look at beautiful things, but I'm not in the mood to be gawked at."

A tiny jolt shakes her and she finally looks away. She opens her mouth, but it sits open silently for a second before she gets out, "W-Would you be looking for tennis shoes, then? We sell socks as well."

"Anything that covers his feet."

She glances back at Killua, then Naii, then settles back on me. It takes another second of preparation before she's able to ask me, "Do you know your shoe size?"

Killua answers instead. "No, it'd be great if you could measure that first."

"Ah, yes, of course." She motions to a few low, padded, stump-looking things. "If you want to take a seat, I'll be right back with the measuring tool."

She skitters off. Killua plops down on one of the seats. He's the only one to sit. Alluka walks along the shelves, staring at the shoes. I don't bother looking at Naii. Instead, I wonder at the nonsensical shapes of the human feet coverings. Plenty are thick and clunky, but there are also a ton that cover almost nothing, some look like they climb up the leg, and then there are those sloped spike shoes.

The woman returns with something in both of her hands. Her right hand offers me a little square.

"If you could clean off your feet, so the brannock doesn't get dirty…"

I quirk a brow, and take the square. It crinkles in my hand as I turn it over. Killua holds out a hand to me, and after a second, I pass it over. He rips it open, pulls out a little white sheet, and extends it back, saying, "To wipe off the dirt."

My fingers close around it, then immediately retract empty. "It's cold."

A short argument and a brief scuffle later, Killua shoves me into the seat he was just sitting in, forces the cool, moist cloth into my hand, and snaps, "If you go around covered in dirt, people will look at you with the same disgust you had for Matta."

I clench my hand and jaw, and make sure to send him a glare. Then I lean down and start scrubbing away at the crusted brown on my foot. He sits sideways with his lower back pressed against me. Every time the cloth turns dark with filth, Killua hands me another cold little slip, until at last there's only the pale white of my smooth feet. I flex my toes, admittedly a bit satisfied. Without the layers of grime, my feet are just as unmarred and slender as the rest of me.

The woman kneels down before me and places the contraption in her hand on the floor. Just looking at it, I can see the metal's cold.

"Please put your heel against this part, if you would." She holds out a hand as if to take my foot. I look at Killua, who rests his chin in his hand, and reluctantly let the human guide my foot onto the chilled contraption. When I curl my toes against the cold, she requests, "Please lay your foot flat."

I only listen in the hope that it'll be over quicker if I do.

Thankfully it really doesn't last all that long. "You're a five and a half, Sir, but we do recommend that you look at shoes half a size larger if you're still growing." She sets the metal thing under her arm and stands, asking, "Is there anything else I can help you with?"

"Thanks, but we'll take it from here," Killua dismisses her. When the woman once again leaves, he turns to me. "Find some boxes that say five and a half. We reconvene here."

With that, he pushes off the chair and starts searching the shelves. Naii takes a nearby seat to wait, and not wanting to stick anywhere around her, I get up and wander over to Alluka.

"Aren't these cute?" She turns to me with a tan shoe with a shorter spike and flowers around the front. I find it hard to call something like that cute. Seeing my expression, she purses her lips and looks again at the weirdly shaped shoe. "No? I thought they were cute. I wonder if Brother will buy me a pair of heels while we're shopping for you," she muses aloud as she sets the shoe back on a shelf. "I've never actually worn any. Ah! But we're here for you, so it's okay if I don't get anything." She waves her hands with her words, still smiling away. "Let's go over to the boy's section."

She passes me to head somewhere else, but my eyes linger on the enormous number of slanted, feet-distorting shoes.

I shake my head. "Why do humans wear stuff that makes them walk on their toes?" What's the advantage to it?

Alluka stops and turns back. Her head tilts as she looks at the shoes I'm staring at. "I don't know. I think women wearing heels look really mature, you know? Like they can do everything themselves. They also look really pretty on people. Then they make people taller. So there are lots of reasons why humans wear heels."

Yet another term I don't understand the humans' use of, although I guess calling something that goes under your heel a heel makes more sense than giving something multiple different names.

But mature, huh? What exactly does that even mean? I take one of the heels, one that barely covers any of the foot and is colored like ropes of silver, and examine it. After a moment, I lift my head and look around for that woman from earlier. Although I can't see her feet from where she is a few shelves away talking to another human, I doubt she's taken off her shoes since she talked to us. She doesn't so much as teeter, though, despite the heels on her feet being as long as the one in my hands.

Slowly, Alluka's blue eyes light up as I consider how humans balance on these things. It briefly crosses my mind that with pale skin, dark hair, and her eyes a foggy ocean, she's actually a pleasant human to look at, in a different way from her brother.

"Do you want to try some on?"

I look from her to the shoes in my hand, and turn them over again. The spike is barely the width of my thumb. My gut tells me trying such a thing would end in tripping. The rest of me screams that if a human can do it, I can, too.

Alluka has to help me figure out how to tie them around my feet, my knees unusually high as I sit and put them on. After a minute, the two of us manage to make them somewhat secure. She stands to the side, and I lift a leg to look at the shoe. I can't say I suddenly get the shape, but the material of this pair is quite nice against my skin, although it's kinda tight. Alluka holds out her hands to help me stand. I ignore her, set my foot back on the ground, and get up.

My ankle twists and I stumble. Alluka catches and fumbles to steady me as I let out a sharp breath. I've no choice but to lean on her momentarily while I adjust my feet, finding how to balance. As I straighten up, Killua rounds a shelf to approach us and stops. Finding my center, I push off of Alluka. It seems one has to stand straight to stay steady in these things. At first I try to divide my weight between my feet, but the ankle that failed stings, and I'm forced to prop myself largely on my left.

A few bursts of laughter escape Killua.

I huff, looking at Alluka. "This isn't so hard."

"They're so pretty on you!" she gushes. Clearly she's happy, but not in the same way as her brother, so did I or did I not do something worth laughing at?

Killua holds back his laughter to ask, "What're you doing?"

"Proving these things aren't a challenge." It really is just balance. "You humans are weird. Only someone without sense would compromise their ability to move just to be taller."

"Says the one wearing the heels."

The hotness in my chest brought on by his blatant amusement begins crawling up my neck. It rises, and so does the realization that this...maybe now's one of those times Killua thinks I'm cute?

The thought makes his laughter a little less belittling.

Killua takes out his phone and holds it up. Then he puts it back, still grinning, and says impishly, "Blackmail material acquired. But being serious, hurry up and take them off. We need to get shoes you'll actually wear so we can get going, and you're supposed to use those sock things when you try on shoes, anyway."

After I get the heels off, Killua hands over a couple of boxes, and we get to rifling through them. The sock things he mentioned turn out to be these little stretchy, see through cloths that fit awkwardly around the foot.

Every shoe he hands me feels clunky, both in weight and to look at. I guess they're not as restrictive as the heels from earlier, but they look a hell of a lot worse. I jam my toes down on the back of the shoe on my foot to get it off. This is boring.

"Brother, I'm confused." Alluka, who's been looking through the shoes Killua brought, suddenly looks up from the box in her hands. "These are five and a halves, but the heels Sera tried on are sixes, and they were small on him."

Killua repackages the shoes I kicked off and brings out some flat, strapped shoes. Unlike the thin ropy heels, everything about this pair feels fat, and the material is hard compared to the other shoes I've been trying on. I don't even secure them and take away my foot. He sighs and answers his sister. "The shoe sizes for guys and girls are different." To me he urges, "Hurry up and make up your mind. We've got somewhere to be!"

"I just won't wear shoes!" I don't get why this is so necessary anyway. It hasn't been a problem up till now. Unless you count those root things in the jungle, but that thing's gone, so…

"Just pick a pair and let's go. You only have to wear them when we're in town. We'll get Alluka a purse or something and you can put them there when we leave."

I cross my legs, lean back on my hands, and give him a look. Meanwhile, Alluka sidles over to my side to wonder, "What is it you don't like about the shoes?"

"What's there to like? Who wants to stuff their feet in stiff boxes? They make my feet look fat and I can't feel the ground in them. It's not that big of a deal. I've been in human settlements without shoes already and there hasn't been a problem. If we've really got somewhere to be, stop wasting time shoving me in shoes and let's go already. I'm hungry."

Alluka wanders off with a thoughtful look, while Killua grumbles, "If only you knew how to tie tennis shoes."

"Hm?" I narrow my eyes. "What's to tie tennis shoes?"

He shifts from sitting on his legs to sitting on the floor, bending a leg so I can see the shoe on his foot. "The knot. It's something most humans learn as kids, but you don't wear shoes and didn't have a human childhood, so unless you remember from the memories of the human in you, I'm betting you don't know how to tie it."

"I can tie a knot," I defend.

"Yeah, but this one's a certain kind. How about it? Remember how?"

I don't answer, because I really don't have any recollection of anything like it.

"Here, try these!" Alluka suddenly reappears and shoves a box my way. I groan, but under Killua's insistent gaze, I snatch the box from her. I open the box and dangle the shoes with two fingers hooked at the place that covers the heel. Whereas the shoes from before were large and rounded, made of thick, ugly material, these sleek, dull copper shoes form the shape of a foot. The inside bottom looks to be padded.

"Alluka, aren't those women's shoes?"

Ignoring her brother, she presses me. "Try them on."

Tired of this farce, I toss the shoes on the floor and slip in my feet.

Turns out they fit rather well. They definitely don't make my feet look huge like the other shoes. I stand up and find that the padding is actually pretty thin, thin enough that I still feel like the floor is beneath my feet.

"These work. I'll wear these." Alluka beams while Killua stares. I squat in front of him and poke his forehead, which he lets me do. "I've made up my mind like you asked, now feed me."

He rolls his eyes and we both stand up. When we leave the shelves, Naii rejoins us, and we go up to this place's half wall and Killua hands the box to the woman behind it. When she states an amount of Jenny, he clicks his tongue. "You're lucky I'm loaded." He hands over a card, and when we get it back, we finally leave the dreadful air conditioning.

I breathe in the hot air. It wavers with heat and restores me to life. Almost as soon as we step out, Alluka mentions, "Isn't about time we buy new clothes, too? Even if we can keep them clean with Nen, I miss my clothes. And you need a new backpack, too. Ever since you left it at that train station—"

Killua cuts her off with a grimace. "I know, I know, you're right, but we'll do it after lunch, okay? We've already made him wait long enough."

I listen more intently at the mention of a 'him', and it doesn't slip past Alluka or Naii, either. Almost simultaneously the two ask,

"Who's waiting for us?"

"Who are we meeting?"

"The faster we get there the faster you'll know. We'll finish shopping after lunch."

He leads us to a building (with air conditioning, they all freaking have it) that smells overwhelmingly of food on the inside. After exchanging a couple words with one of the people waiting just inside the entrance, the female leads us deeper inside. Before we've reached where we're headed, a boy a few tables down from where we are suddenly shoots his hand in the air and waves rapidly.

"Killua!"

The abrupt change in Killua's aura causes me to flinch. I glance over at his face to find him beaming no differently than Alluka was when I said I'd take the shoes. He waves back.

"Hey, Gon!"

The boy is here! You can't write about Killua and not write about Gon. They're a package deal. Now we've got five characters altogether, which is promising for interesting interactions, but a little daunting to write. It makes me thankful Naii's a woman of few words. But yeah, the next chapter should be fun! I'll see you guys again then!