Makoto practically crashes into the room, nearly ripping the handle off its hinges, and Killua lets her before following, shutting the door with a soft click. For a brief moment, he just rests his forehead against the chipping paint of the old wooden doorframe. Everything was too much, too overwhelming, and he understands that he is to blame for a large part of that. He could hear Makoto heaving behind him, her pants echoing, reverberating one corner of the small room to the other. They've faced things that would break anyone, and they've surmounted them countless times. Yet, between the shaking of his hands and the clattering of his teeth, Killua knew that nothing could ever compare to this.

It's different when the one trying to kill you is yourself…

He draws his eyes shut when Makoto stutters out another breath. She rocks back and forth, and there is a scream on the edge of her lips that doesn't come out. And then when it does, it comes accompanied with her hurling a chair into the old bookshelf against the wall. The old chair shatters at the impact, its damage minutely hidden only by the books that subsequently fall atop it. Killua inhales sharply at the sound.

Calm down. You're in no state to help if you're the same. Calm down. He breathes, four seconds in, eight seconds out. His body looks for a rhythm as he desperately tries to block out the harrowing cries of distress behind him. Four seconds in, eight seconds out. He pulls his trembling fingers back into fists with a certain violence, willing his hands to stop shaking. Calm down.

Four in, eight out.

It isn't anything clever, and it certainly isn't anything new, but as a child, counting his breathes during moments of intense pain and torture reassured him that he was alive. If he could still hear himself count the inhales and exhales, then his body was still functioning, and his mind still there.

And then, when Killua finally finds his rhythm, the noise dulled as though as if he had been submerged underwater. Everything is still blurry, but it buys him a little bit of time for a moment of reprieve, a moment where he could hear himself think and not feel as though precious air is being sucked from his lungs. Once his mind sees everything just a little bit sharper, Killua allows himself to push away from the door that, he hadn't had a chance to note, was wholly the reason he remained standing, and move towards the mess he created.

Makoto hadn't been completely done healing herself when Killua set off to find kindling and firewood. He didn't know how much longer she would take, and the temperature had begun to drop almost dangerously. The last thing Makoto needed was hypothermia too. But in his hate and unwillingness to leave the girl alone for too long, he picked up any wood he can without regards to their moisture content. As the fire took, the dampness in the wood vaporized, creating a mounting pressure, until – pop! The fire crackled, startling the huntress out of her trance. Gun shot. Makoto shot upright and ran.

Makoto is huddled on the ground, clearly seeking security in the tight corner between the bed and the nightstand. Killua approaches slowly as to not spook her, but the way Makoto's body shakes as another sob wracked through her being makes him think she may not even be aware enough to notice him. Still, he stands in her peripheral for a minute, hands visible. Makoto doesn't pay attention -

"Maks, hey, it's me," Killua starts softly as to not startle the girl. From where he stands, his best friend doesn't even look herself – the dyed chestnut hair frazzled and falling over wild, hazel-contacted eyes, the outfit that looks borrowed, and the heaving chest of someone who can't catch her breath. It was too much to take in. "Makoto. Makoto."

Rocking back and forth, Makoto barely registers her name. They sound like syllables of a foreign tongue, coming from a beautiful boy she hardly recognizes. His lips move once more, forming the same shapes, and even though everything is blurry and unfocused, she tries her hardest to follow the curve of his lip.

Killua's chest tightens at her semi-dissociative state. He found his way here to help, but never has he found himself to be quite so helpless as in this moment. All he wants to do is to fold her into his arms and tell her everything is alright, but that was something he should've done long ago, and now it's too little too late. Instead, he kneels so they're eye-to-eye, and in an attempt to not overwhelm her, he taps lightly at her thigh, just one index finger making contact. "Makoto, focus, Makoto," he says, a false calmness claiming his voice. His tapping is rhythmic, methodical. Almost like something from someone who's learned music.

Makoto finds herself diverting attention from his lips to his finger now, the tapping a metronomic beat that makes the pounding of her chest want to play in tandem. For a moment, she allows herself to close her eyes, and at first, all she hears is the blood rushing to her ears and the thudding of her heartbeat. And then, from far away, she feels the tapping. Each tap accompanied by the seemingly foreign syllables. Ma-ko-to, Ma-ko-to, it says. As her breathing slows, each syllable becomes more melodic and less foreign.

When Killua can finally see the recognition set back into her eyes, he stops saying her name, but his finger keeps tapping, softly, softly. She looks so tired, so small. Her eyelids droop with the weight of it all, and her shoulders slowly drop as the adrenaline fades. The pain begins to set in, and Makoto finally slumps against the bed, boneless. It takes another 5 minutes of Killua's silent tapping before Makoto can gather her thoughts to say –

"You can stop now."

For a brief second, almost as though he was startled to hear her voice, Killua' rhythm falters and he looks up to search her face. She looks calmer now, her cheeks no longer pulled up in distress, and her pupils have since become focused on their point of connection – his finger on her thigh. He inhales a breath of relief, but his fingers picked up the rhythmic tapping once more, this time slower. Makoto doesn't react immediately, and Killua wonders for a long moment whether he's upset her again, but then, to his relief, her eyes flutter close with a slow exhale, a silent consent for him to continue. Her frostbitten lips, though cracked and slightly bloodied, have since fallen into a neutral position; gone is the animalistic snarl from a mere minute ago, gone are the teeth, baring to bite.

The tapping subsides when Makoto finally reaches out to take Killua's hand. When he moves to pull away however, Makoto just holds it in place, carding her fingers through his, gently pulling and pressing at his palm and knuckles as though she were massaging it. She watches with an intense interest as the pink hues of his flesh turn white when she presses down, briefly cutting off the circulation. When she releases, his palm regains its rosy color as the blood runs through it again. He is real. He is here. Alive.

And so is she.

The knowledge both reassures and frightens her at the same time. Killua, too, looks contemplative, his brows scrunched up on his forehead, and he holds a gaze that is at the same time piercing and far away. "What are you thinking about?" she blurts out in a hushed whisper, startling her companion for a second time.

Killua blinks up at her for a second like he wasn't expected to be addressed, and regains his composure just as quickly as his gaze falls back down to where she holds his hand in her lap. Logically, he knows that that hand belongs to him, is attached to his arm, to his body. But looking at the way she tugs and squeezes at his fingers, interlacing and unlacing them with hers, Killua feels very far away indeed. It's almost as if he isn't here, but instead entranced in some sort of a memory. He belatedly feels the sensation.

But maybe he isn't really here, Killua thinks, because her movements had dug up a memory that was long forgotten.


"Fifty hours! Fifty hours because you had to be a perverted old man!" Kurapika scolds, arms crossed as he walks through the hallway that would eventually lead to their 'waiting room.'

"Ahhh, I get it ok? Just shut up already!" Leorio moans, not at all sorry for having groped a perfectly female convict.

Although filled with annoyance and exasperation, their voices are a sound for sore ears, for Makoto has been in said 'waiting room' for seven hours on her own in deafening silence, with three left to go. She quickly clambers up from her position on the couch and greets her long-separated friends as they enter. "Hiya!"

Leorio bursts through the door and sees her first. "Makoto!" He grins a grin so wide that his face looks like it was about to split, clearly happy for the change in company. "Hey! What are you doing here!"

Makoto lets the much taller man pull her into a tight hug before settling back into the couch. "I think they just have a few rooms like these for losers like us who can't seem to make good decisions."

Leorio hums – how lucky! If that were the case, then they could have just as likely shared a room with Hisoka. He'd choose Makoto any day.

"Oh!" Kurapika exclaims by way of greeting, clearly just as surprised, but before Makoto could say anything, Gon and Killua come racing in.

"Makko-chan!" Gon yells enthusiastically, pounding over, whereas Killua lags behind, a look of disinterest replaced by surprise for only a fraction of a second before his usual bored expression sets back in.

"Eh? The coincidence."

Makoto feigns a pout at his comment. "You could pretend to be happy to see me."

"I already pretend to be a good person all day, more pretending doesn't interest me." He says nonchalantly and with a shrug, but nevertheless takes the seat on the same couch, each of them leaning against opposing armrests.

At this point, Makoto is already too miffed by the boy that she hardly notices Tonpa and Leorio each curling in their respective corners to get some precious shut-eye. Kurapika, too, seems exhausted, but he pulls out a pocketbook and settles into the opposite couch instead. Gon takes the spot next to the blond, and the three boys seem to collectively take a moment of silence until curiosity gets the better of Makoto.

"So…what did you guys have to do?" She blurts out, eyes darting between the three of them. The last seven hours had been so boring.

Killua turns to press his back flat against the armrest and kicks his feet up, crossing them and taking up the better part of the middle seat. He then throws his head back as though the conversation no longer concerns him, and that he would rather someone else answer.

Gon is more than happy to oblige. From Tonpa's quick surrender to Kurapika's refusal to terminate his match, from his own candlestick battle to Leorio's rock-paper-scissors fail, Gon spares no details, and Makoto is kept thoroughly entertained by the animation of it all. Finally, when Gon hits a lull in the story, Makoto interrupts, pointing at the assassin without sparing him a look. "What about this one?"

Killua leans further back. None of his business. None of his business.

"Ah um, Killua's match was actually really short, it only took him about three seconds, right Kurapika?" Gon turns to his friend for validation, to which Kurapika answers,

"Y-Yeah."

The hesitation in the blond's voice does not pass by Makoto undetected, and she decides to address the person in question. "So? What did you actually do?"

Instead of a reply, Killua opts for kicking the girl not all that lightly, only to have her shove his legs to the ground with equal force.

"Ok listen here," she starts, immediately annoyed at having been kicked. "I know you don't like me, but you can at least have the courtesy to keep your dirtyass shoes on the ground."

Smirking, Killua makes a gesture of kicking off his shoes, only to put his feet back up and pressing them to Makoto's legs. "And no kicking." She smiles sardonically, slapping his leg and enunciating the words as though he were a child. "Yes, Killua, not even people you don't like."

He ignored the first one, but the second repetition of the statement got him sitting up. "Who says I don't like you?"

"You. With literally every gesture and every word that comes out of your mouth." Makoto deadpans, and as Killua opens his mouth to interject, she turns back to Gon. "So then what happened?"

"Well he-"

"Fine! I'll tell you." Killua groans, throwing his hands up as Kurapika and Gon both turn to him in surprise. He doesn't know why he didn't want Gon to narrate his match, doesn't know what difference it would make, considering the dead man is already dead and sitting just a hallway away. On top of that, as per the last time Killua's seen Makoto on the airship, she had already found out he came from an assassin family. So why is it that he wanted to tailor the story so badly? To present it to her slowly, to make sure he told it the correct way? Makoto is now looking at him expectantly, but then again, so are Gon and Kurapika – he can't deal with this audience.

Instead, he jerks his head to an empty corner filled with bean bags and poufs, and the pair makes a move towards some privacy.

"You know, this whole 'mysterious vibe' thing isn't as charming as you think it is," Makoto says as she plops down on the ground, grabbing a small pouf to hold.

"It seems to be working on you just fine," Killua replies with the same annoying smirk from before, but it disappears as fast as it came.

"Geez, who's got the Zaoldyeck so worked up? You sure stall a lot for a 'three-second' battle." Then she jokingly snaps her fingers at him, "come on, I've only got two hours here left."

"Just for that, I should just wait to tell you when we get out of this tower." Killua muses, relaxing into a beanbag.

"Stalling again," she accuses, then adds, "good luck on getting out of here on time, you're stuck for fifty hours."

Killua rolls his eyes at her blatant attempt to pick a fight, but begins his story nonetheless, making sure to mention that he was faced with Jones the Dissector, a monster who had brutally murdered and torn apart at least 150 people with his bare hands. He adds that Jones had no interest in a fair fight, emphasizing what Jones had told him about only wanting to "dig his fingers into Killua's flesh" and that "all Killua had to do was scream." The assassin could tell that the girl was on the edge of her proverbial seat from his unintentional build-up that was meant to simply explain his circumstance, not add to the story. Her interest makes it that much harder to gloss through the end, how he simply reached and pulled out Jones' heart, neglecting to mention that he had crushed it in his hands in front of the dead man as it still beats.

Makoto seems to mull over his story for a moment or two, contemplative, and somewhere far, far inside Killua is a heart that seems to have skipped a beat. Has he officially scared her off? No, why would he care? He doesn't need fr-

She interrupts his thoughts with words that are so simple, casual, that they irrevocably catch him off-guard. "Are you okay though?"

His head snaps up to meet hers, his eyes a storm of incredulity and wonder. "Did you not hear the part where I killed someone?" Is she stupid or slow or-

"Do you think it's easy killing some-"

"Yes," Killua cuts in, "I am an assassin, it's literally what I do."

"I don't believe you." is Makoto's retort.

He blinks "About...assassins killing people?"

"No you idiot, about it being easy killing people."

"I did manipulate my body a little," Killua adds, forcing his hand into a state of overexerted sharpness.

"Oh…oh." While Makoto doesn't seem to be quite able to form a more coherent response, her curiosity is immediately more prominent as she reaches out tentatively, like a child going to touch fire for the first time, not sure of how it might burn. "Can I?"

Surprised at the request, all the assassin could do is nod as the girl pulls his hand towards her, resting it atop the pouf that's in her lap. Curiously but gently, she moves to tug at each finger, tracing each vein. A few times, she even presses at his palm, only to be surprised by the fleshiness of it. Somehow she expected his hands to be hardened or calloused, but they were far from it. She supposes that's what separates a professional from an amateur. She is faintly aware that, no matter how Killua washes it, the scent of fresh blood will remain for the next few hours.

It's so strange to be studied so closely. Killua is acutely aware that the mystery that shrouds his family elicits natural curiosity in strangers, but it is always in a way that is meant to be expository, exploitative – no one's actually want to get that up close and personal.

"Does it hurt to do this?" Case in point.

"No," he looks at his monstrous hand, struggling to describe the sensation. "It's like stretching, but just holding the position as long as you can for as long as you need."

"Oh," Makoto nods, loosening her hold, but still has a hand wrapped lightly around Killua's wrist to prevent him from moving away, not that he necessarily wanted to.

And then-

"Like this?" She whispers, pressing his sharp nails over her heart, a morbid curiosity looming over her.

"What the hell are you doing?" Killua hisses sharply, jerking his hand back, blade-like nails swiping accidentally against her index finger.

"Ow!" Makoto winces, putting the wound to her mouth instinctively as to stop the bleeding. When she looks up again, she's surprised to find the panic splashed across Killua's face. "I'm sorry, it's okay," she muffles quick reassurances through her finger as though he had been the one injured. "Hey, it's just a cut."

With something almost akin to anger simmering beneath his eyes, Killua pushes himself up and retracts his claws in one fluid motion. "You're a freakin' idiot!" He spits, categorically marching away from her. It takes Makoto a second to realize that the assassin is going for Leorio's briefcase, and when he returns, there is a band-aid tucked between his fingers. "I'm not a science project! What if I accidentally killed you?" He continues berating.

- to which Makoto finds absolutely comical. The irony is absolutely not lost on her, as the boy who had essentially just admitted to performing 'nonconsensual pericardiectomy' is currently panicking over having given her the equivalent of a paper-cut. She giggles to herself and tells him as much, which only makes Killua even more agitated. He all but yanks her finger out of her mouth and sloppily slaps on the band-aid, and Makoto muses at the fact that he likely has never actually used one before.

Killua then proceeds to ignore her for the remainder of her time in the room when they return to join their friends. When Makoto continues her journey down the rest of the Trick Tower, she absolutely does not fiddle with the terribly administered band-aid, and she most definitely does not feel a certain warmth in her chest.


"So…not going to tell me then." Makoto scrunches up her nose and feigns dissatisfaction, but the slight smile on Killua's face tells her he is reliving a happy memory, so she decides to let him be.

As is typical of the former assassin, he doesn't answer either, and instead extends a hand in response. "Come on," is all he offers.

Makoto hesitates for a long moment but takes it, letting him pull her to a standing position. Making the most out of the movement, Killua studies the girl before him, a girl who is his best friend, but hardly looks like her.

"You're staring." Makoto remarks, the faintest upward tilt of her lips.

"It's good to see you," the silver-haired hunter agrees without missing a beat, a fact that is not lost on Makoto from the way her brows rise the slightest bit in surprise, clearly not expecting him to admit it. "Weird to see you like this."

Makoto frowns at him for a second, then sighs softly when Killua runs an unexpected thumb along her right cheekbones to the corner of her newly hazel eyes. Makoto follows the movement of his fingers and reaches up to awkwardly pops out her contact lens, revealing the jet black beneath.

It's just one eye, but the way her companion lights up makes it seem as though the sun has emerged after a long winter. Makoto absolutely does not flush as she quickly does the same to the other, blinking with a grimace as soon as the second lens pops out. When she looks back up again, she finds Killua staring straight back at her.

"Hi." he greets. There is something soft in his features that Makoto can't quite decipher. She doesn't know if he was searching for something and has recently found it, or if he had a thought run through his head. Either way, he doesn't seem inclined to share, only to keep his gaze locked on her.

And she isn't embarrassed, per say, but when those blue eyes pierce into your soul, there are very few things you can do to reassert control. "T-The hair washes out," so she says by way of diffusing the situation.

That seems to do the trick as Killua quickly looks down to clear his throat, breaking his gaze. "Th-That's good," he replies, taking a step back, almost like an admonished child caught with his hand in the cookie jar. But what was he supposed to do? Her eyes have always been so dark and captivating – there is always a spark, a mystery, a kindness. Something mischievous, but something safe. When she had those lenses on, she looked like someone else, like her eyes were false, and he couldn't tell what goes on behind them. But he supposes that was the point of a disguise, after all. He wants to know more, and he promises he will ask all the questions when they've had a moment to settle. Right now, all he can see is Makoto in front of him again, physically unscathed (ok, a little scathed), and he is ready to take any victory he gets.

At his silence again, Makoto reaches out to him tentatively, "Killu-"

She pauses when he moves towards her, wordlessly, and wraps an arm around her shoulder, another around her waist. Makoto doesn't even realize how cold she is until she is flush against him, her icy cheeks pressed against his, and her trembling fingers tucked between her own body and the woolen fabric of his shirt.

No words may have left his mouth, but Makoto could feel him press apologies into her skin with his hot lips searing her shoulder and his fingers burning holes into her back, almost as though it were everything she needed to rid herself of the cold that has sank into her bones since the moment she got here.

Killua can feel her shaking against him, and he suspects that, in addition to the cold, her body is simply giving out from not only the previous injuries, but also just the sheer amount of stress. Gently and without ever pulling away from the embrace, he walks her backwards until the back of her knees hit the mattress, and he maneuvers her to sit. "You should sleep, everything else can wait until after."

Makoto looks up at him quizzically, a questioning smile on her face as he ushers her under the blanket. "What did you do to Killua?" She teases, no real intent behind it, but the guilt that flashes across Killua's face is nothing if not real.

Trying to be a little less like him. He settles for a noncommittal noise instead as he pulls a chair next to the bed and begins to pat her leg again, urging her to sleep.

Makoto's eyes move from his hand to his distraught expression. She can already feel her eyelids drooping, she doesn't have the strength to unpack this right now. "Come here," she gestures to the empty side of the bed, adding a firm "now, please" before Killua can retort. Seeing her blink rapidly in an effort to remain conscious, Killua climbs into bed as ordered and slips under the comforter that she holds up for him.

Immediately, Makoto flips onto her stomach, hands tucked beneath her pillow for warmth. They shuffle awkwardly at first, both trying to get comfortable, but hyperaware of the presence of the other. They move and wiggle until Killua catches her elbow, and the shuffling stops. The last thing Makoto remembers before her breathing evens out is Killua's fingers tapping against her arm. One…two…three…four…five…six…seven…eigh…t.