Hello! I know it's been a while (like four damn years awhile) and I've graduated Medical School successfully, so sorry for the neglect.

So anyway, I hope you take note of the changes in POV in the chapters, because a lot of things happened in this story, I sometimes don't know where to stitch them together. Thanks for reading!

Gon woke up with a start. His vision was bleary and his whole body ached. He wanted to move but it doesn't seem like he had the strength to do so. He had never felt this drained in all his life and he felt helpless. He turned his head slowly to the side. He was in a warm bed, with a small lamp hanging overhead. The floor was swaying. Oh, right. He was in the middle of a fishing trip. The twelve-year-old closed his eyes again. He had a terrible headache.

He heard a door creaking as it opened and heavy footsteps coming near him. He opened his eyes again as he sensed someone sit on the bed, placing a cool hand on his forehead, "Good, your fever finally subsided," the scratchy voice commented. It was the captain. "You've been out for a good two days, boy."

Gon tried to remember what had happened. There was a storm that night, and a sea monster came up from the depths and started attacking the ship. He saw a large tentacle grab the man next to him and he had been so adamant about saving the guy.

He didn't know how it happened but suddenly he felt very powerful and he lunged for the head of the monster which was starting to eat at the bow of the ship. It was over in a matter of seconds and that was when he was suddenly felt a pain so intense, he couldn't even support himself and got thrown off the ship after a huge violent wave crashed upon the deck. He was vaguely aware of something pulling him back and he was out. "Somebody saved me,"

"Aye, you should thank him. If it was just us, we wouldn't have been able to find you in that maelstrom," the captain grinned at him, "He also took care of you the whole time you were out. You owe him your life, that you do," he pointed a thumb towards the window seat where Gon could make out a sleeping figure.

"Nigg-san?" Gon inquired, he couldn't see well because he was lying flat on his back on the bed. He wanted to stand and he felt like he could. He looked over at the captain but before he could ask for assistance, Nigg was already walking towards the bed, apparently awake the whole time. Gon tried to sit up, but he couldn't move his hands. That was when he noticed both his forearms were in casts. "What?"

Ging stood at the foot of the bed, arms crossed, "Your forearms are broken. And I assume everything else hurts?"

Gon wanted to nod but thought otherwise. It made him dizzy. "Yes," he mumbled, "What happened to me?"

"You forcefully opened all the pores in your body that releases your life energy. You're lucky that's all you got. More than half the people who do that the way you did die immediately after releasing it one time," Ging explained. He wasn't one to take care of other people. He never did believe he had such a capability. But there was no one else to take care of Gon as every hand was busy repairing the ship, so Ging would have to do.

While Gon was unconscious, Ging noticed that his micropyles had not closed, slowly draining the boy of his life force. Gon wouldn't have survived if Ging did not stop the flow for him, rendering him in a temporary state of Zetsu until he recovered. He would have used his Nen to speed up the healing of the boy's broken arms but Ging thought it might be a good lesson on recklessness. "I controlled it for you, but you'd have to eventually learn to do it for yourself,"

"Can you teach me how?" Gon's voice was filled with excitement. Ging remembered Mito's voice telling him, Can't you take care of him? He shook his head to dispel such thoughts.

"I can't," he answered. He doesn't have enough time for that, there's only four days left until they make it back to Whale Island and he would have to leave again, "There's people specifically for that. Go find them yourself,"

The boy seemed down after that, "I see…," and then he instantly recovered again and beamed positively at him, "Thank you for saving my life, Nigg-san,"

Ging looked away, scowling. Tsk. This guy knows what he's doing. It wouldn't be the first time the boy would make him agree to something. He turned back to the boy, "I guess…I can at least teach you the basics, something you can do on your own before you find a proper teacher,"

There was something terribly wrong.

Amane could feel it in the air, but not because of the howling storm. That's a pretty natural phenomenon on the mountain, kind of part of the natural defense of the estate. However, she could not pinpoint where exactly she could sense this foreboding sensation that felt like bile was threatening to rise up her throat. She glanced at her companions around the table still playing Monopoly. Gon was looking dead inside as he mortgaged his last property just to pay for landing on Canary's Boardwalk hotel. Amane wanted to tease him but the dread made her feel like she'd puke if she opened her mouth. She hates this. It felt so much like that night. She hates it so much.

She bit her lip and pilfered a cream puff from Gon's snack plate to get a rise out of him. Nothing like sweets to calm her nerves. Gon was pouting now as he was finally pushed out of the game, trying to regain some sense of dignity out of his bankruptcy. He looked so much like Ging in that moment that something in Amane's heart ached.

Ging's mannerism did make him more awful than a real child.

He had always been like that ever since their first meeting. She had been seven years old, freshly orphaned due to a car accident, with only the grandmother she had never met before the only family left in the world. Her grandmother had sought employ with the Zoldycks shortly after being widowed in order to support her child and had never been able to see them since though the paychecks regularly came. Amane's mother only had kind words to describe Tsubone and the sacrifice she made, that's why she had no qualms following her grandmother to the estate when she showed up at the hospital and offered her a new home.

Amane finished her tea and sat back on the couch, closing her eyes, feeling a headache coming. It had become a reflex reaction about anything concerning Ging.

After the awkward introductions she got as her grandmother showed her around her new home, she saw him, this man who seemed out of place. He was wearing slovenly clothes and had a generally unkempt appearance. But despite this, she could feel the dignified aura emitting from the man. This man is dangerous, that much even she could tell, like a force of nature.

She had stared up at the scrawny man peering down at her with an expression akin to horror. It made her uncomfortable with each passing second of his intense attention. She slowly wiggled her hand out of her grandmother's grasp and had cautiously backed a step. That seemed to break the man out of his reverie.

"You mean to tell me this is your granddaughter?!" he had exclaimed at her grandmother in indignation as if he had been betrayed "Who? What? Where? When? How?!"

Ging Freecss is a very rude man.

As she grew up in the mansion, Ging became her object of curiosity. She observed him in between her training and the rare times he successfully managed to show up. He never does his job, he's almost always drunk, he doesn't show an iota of respect for their masters, he disappears from the estate for indefinite periods without any notice and it's doubtful that he even takes a bath. It's not even a secret that everyone wants to punch him in the face.

And yet…Ging Freecss is, without a doubt, dearly beloved.

She could hear it amidst the dozen complaints and insults the other servants had about Ging. She could see it in the glares. She could feel it in the punches, the slaps, and the strangleholds. It was strange. She doesn't know how he did it. Gotoh-san is a stickler for rules and Ging is the resident rule-breaker, but he always lets him get away with it. Grandmother is fiercely loyal to the master's family and Ging won't stop bickering with the master even in her presence, but she always fawns over him.

He rarely displayed his own power, but it was widely known that before he entered the estate, he was one of the top five Nen Users in the world and that he still is, aside from being obscenely wealthy, rumored to be even more so than the Zoldycks. So what was he doing playing around as a servant?

Ging Freecss is a very fickle man, she concluded.

But one thing is for certain, though - no one could match the depth of his heart.

She could see it in his aloof nature. She could see it in the way he always tries to sneak away when there's too many people around. She could see it in the way he appeared to grudgingly be taking care of their young master. She could see it in the way he beat his young ward up, all the bickering, all the fights, all the biting. She could see it in the way everyone who observes them had that tender look in their eyes.

She felt it in her own little heart every time he never failed to notice her "cute little button nose".

Amane opened her eyes to find Gon sitting on the other end of the couch, massaging her feet as he watched the others play on the table. He turned to look at her, "Are you alright now? You look like you're having a headache again. Should I ask Hishita-san for medicine?"

Ah, Gon-kun is such a nice boy, unlike that disaster of a human being that was her first love.

Amane smiled softly, her headache gone. "No, I'm fine. Just remembered something," she relaxed as she burrowed further into the warm couch. The storm had not subsided at all outside and the dread still lingers but she thinks she'll be alright now.

Gon tilted his head in confusion but decided to let it go and continue massaging her feet.

She had been about to fall asleep when Hishita-san appeared at the door with a grim expression on his face and told them their orders.

So she pulled on her raincoat and went outside with the others.

"Hm? Amane, have you seen Gon?"

Amane looked up at Canary who was holding an extra raincoat in her hands. Gon was nowhere to be found and the ache in her head was downright nauseating.

He won't go away.

He was now sitting next to him in that familiar slouch.

He won't help him anymore.

He can't save him anymore.

He's gone. He will never come back. Killua made sure of that.

So, it's useless for him to be sitting beside him now. It was not comforting in the least.

So Killua tried his best to ignore him and hope that he'd go away soon.

But he couldn't shut his eyes any harder. He couldn't squeeze his own arms any tighter.

He couldn't shut him out.

"Killua, I saw my son a few years back." he was saying him with that stupid sheepish smile on his face.

You did? Why are you telling me now?

"Remember when I left you in the middle of Battle Olympia? I accidentally boarded a boat that passed by my home island, thought it would be interesting to check up on things since I was already there and all. Figured he should be old enough to take the Hunter Exam."

So that's where you went back then?

"Would you believe he almost died on me because he forcibly awakened his Nen abilities?" he chuckled, as if he didn't just say something worrisome.

Was he stupid or something?

"…anyway, I ended up teaching him the basics. He's a fast learner, that one. Listens well, too. Unlike some shitty brat I know."

That's because he did not grow up knowing what a shitty person you truly are.

"Someday, I'd like you to meet my son. I'm sure he'd be a lot like me. So be prepared, he sure as hell will be a lot cooler than a snotty brat like you!"

God, I hope nurture is greater than nature on that one.

"Rude. I agree."

So, what's he really like?

"He's a lot of trouble. I'm sure that when you meet him, you'd end up taking care of him."

-what?

"Are you happy, Killua?"

-what did you say?

"Besides, you were lonely all this time, weren't you?"

-no, you don't understand.

He opened his eyes and King's beady eyes stared at him from the distance.

Crack. Crack. Crack.

Killua scrambled to the ground as the bile rose up in his throat. He coughed violently as there was nothing more to empty as he had not eaten for days. He dry-heaved as he tried to regain control of his breathing. He sat up on the root of the tree he was sitting on, looking up at the raindrops as they fell from the spaces between the leaves.

Ging knew what happened to King. What it did to Killua. He was the one who dealt with him back then when he was so angry at himself, he almost- Ging knew that and he's making him take care of a human being? His son? His real son?

He couldn't do that. Ging would hate him. He can't stand to disappointment Ging.

Something snapped inside his mind back then. Then there was only black and Ging's beating heart.

He should have run away faster.

He closed his eyes.

"Killua, are you there?"

He screamed.

The storm had raged all morning and night for the past two days. It made convenient travel options outside the estate impossible to maneuver and thus there was no choice but to wait it out. It was fortunate that Hisoka was a rather patient person since he obediently stayed inside Illumi's room like he told him to. Otherwise, he would have been forced to provide entertainment and not the fun kind.

Illumi leaned on his hand as he sat in his minibar, watching the storm outside his room from the glass window. He could barely hear the shower turn off. Moments later, he could see Hisoka exiting the bathroom through the reflection of the glass, wearing only black pajamas borrowed from his closet, toweling his red hair dry. The killer clown caught his gaze, smirked and stalked towards him. Illumi poured him a fifth and refilled his own.

"Mother just issued a retrieval order for Killu." Illumi tutted, "I've been trying to see if he'd come back on his own,"

Hisoka looked at him from the corner of his eye as he downed his glass, "Sometimes I can't tell if we're talking about your brother or your dog. I'll admit that for the first few years I knew you, I assumed it was a dog,"

"If a dog gave me this much trouble, I would have killed it already," Illumi turned to look at him with his dead expression, "Killu had always been difficult to control, even more so lately,"

Hisoka stretched his hands upwards and turned his head sideways, easing the cricks in his neck, "So, are you finally going to tell me what you brought me here for?"

Illumi pushed away from the bar, a small rare smile playing on his lips, "I want you to take care of someone for me while I fix Killu,"

"Again, a dog."

I'll update soon.I have time now.