A/N: Sorry this took so long. Work and stuff. Many, many, many thanks for the reviews, dearest readers! I am truly thrilled to hear from you and I do not exaggerate when I say your words, foremost, inspire my wilted and wanting writer's heart to keep this going.
As preempted, there's more Kil in this chapter. Wee.
justanotheridiot: I have an idea as to how I'll be putting Leorio in, but I'm not yet sure how big a part he'll actually play. I'm just letting the narrative take its course. Also, I'm dispensing with nen in this one, albeit I've designed the world to be pretty parallel with a lot of everything else, sans powers.
Enjoy.
UNTOUCHABLE
Chapter 2. The Heir
Killua was pissed. On his skateboard, he swerved deftly between students and faculty members, leaving in his wake a trail of gasps and half-curses hastily bitten back by those who recognized him in time before they could launch a tirade. Idiots and cowards all. They would let a sophomore run amok just because of a family name he had not chosen? Well then, it was not his fault if he pushed his luck.
I didn't ask for this.
"Oi, watch it."
"Mou, Zoldyck, every time...!"
Kurapika and Neon, the only other students in the school who didn't bother to sugarcoat every word addressed to him. Unfortunately, neither of them really bothered with him at all except to berate him for being. It was nice not to attract attention for a change, but there was no excitement to being completely cut-off. Besides, without all their prestige, the two were probably much like the rest of the students in the school, embracing the lives laid out for them like they had chosen it for themselves. Killua had no interest in people who he knew would just try to shove him into his.
"Killua!"
The figure at the end of the hall zoomed in too fast. Only when Killua was suddenly, dangerously close to the bright hazel eyes and broad childlike grin beaming at him from what had been miles away only seconds ago did he realize how fast he was truly going.
A flood of adrenaline pushed him into an automatic swerve, knees bending mechanically to put all his weight on the heel brake. His hand shot out to buffer a crash against the line of lockers. He felt his skateboard slip, skid, grind against the tiles. The desperate stop ended in a harsh crash against metal, a shoot of pain up his wrist, and sharp gasps from nearby onlookers, who did their best — and failed miserably — to avert their shameless gaping.
Killua froze for a moment, his temper suddenly, rapidly reeling him in. He bit down on his lip. The storm that had been churning inside him swelled dangerously, and he felt the curses rise in his throat.
Fuck them. Fuck this school. Fuck heritage.
He kicked his skateboard up into his hand, prepared to walk on before he could lash out and make the scene the crowd around them was eagerly waiting for.
The hand that pulled him to attention tugged on his shoulder before he even realized it had taken hold. Gon Freecs' eyes were wide and warm and so suffused with concern that, in Killua's head, shock and confusion suddenly cut into rage.
"Daijobu ka, Killua? Gomen!"The hand on his shoulder tensed. "I just wanted to say hello but you were going so fast. Daijobu ka?"
Killua remembered to pull away from Gon's grip too late, but the boy didn't even seem to notice. He wanted to say something suave, something smooth, but found nothing in the sudden stillness of his aborted rage.
He paused, hesitating. The crowd gaped on. Gon's eyes burned into his, oblivious.
"It's nothing," Killua finally mumbled, hollowly. "Gomen."
"Are you sure? You hit — "
"It's fine."
Killua met Gon in the eye, meaning to silence the transferee with icy dismissal, but the other boy's face was too openly apologetic, too sincerely concerned, that the shards of Killua's gaze merely bounced off his anxiety in resignation.
"What's going on here?" Kurapika sounded annoyed as he caught up with them, Neon tagging along behind him looking irritated in a different way.
"Oi, Zoldyck, what did you do this time," the Nostrade heiress demanded. "Who do you think you are, disrupting the peace — "
"Neon — " Kurapika sounded exasperated.
"What, he doesn't know how to place himself. Why do you always let him slide, Kurapika? He's not learning anything — "
"You should learn," Kurapika's voice brooked no arguments, making it clear he was not in the mood to be overtaken by her childish outbursts. Neon got the message; she glared at Kurapika with sulky spite, lip quavering in the effort not to retort any further.
"Gomen, Kurapika," Gon cut in. "It was really my fault — "
"That goes for you too, Gon. You haven't been here long enough to justify how many times you've gotten yourself in trouble. I thought I had given fair warning — "
"About me." Killua's voice sliced off the rest of the statement cleanly. Again, for some reason, he looked almost amused, except that his grin was empty and haunting, and there was an unfathomable turbulence in his tone that made it difficult to tell what kind of a response could save one from a very likely backlash.
Kurapika hesitated.
"Let's go."
Gon took a moment to realize that he was the one being spoken to.
Killua turned his back on Kurapika, Neon, and the subtly gathered crowd, all frozen students pretending to look for something in their lockers as they strained to hear every word.
And Gon found himself following readily.
- x -
Gon wasn't sure how far he should go with the silver-haired Zoldyck heir. They had already walked up several flights of steps and down several long corridors and still Killua Zoldyck had not spoken a word, just continued to walk silently half a step ahead of Gon, deep in thought. Indeed, Gon found it remarkable how little attention Killua had to pay to the bustle around him. Every time Gon spaced out for a moment, he always bumped into one thing or another. Killua had no such troubles. The crowds parted for him mechanically and, beside him, Gon was thrilled to find a pocket of peace from the rush.
But, really, am I still supposed to be here?
Killua climbed up another flight of steps. They were already on the highest floor, and the heavy metal door waiting for them at the top of stairs was locked shut, with "Authorized Access Only" written in thick red letters across the front. Killua did not seem deterred. He approached it steadily, still lost in thought.
"Killua," Gon attempted. "We can't go up any further."
In reply, one pale hand emerged from deep inside a pocket and reached up to touch a sheet of blue-lit glass on the wall beside the door. There was a glow and a beep, and a few seconds later, the heavy metal door slid open, leading the way to what appeared to be a sunlit rooftop. The light flared off his silver hair for a moment before he walked on and vanished into the heat of the morning, a somber backlit silhouette.
Gon hesitated at the foot of the stairs, beginning to think he really should have changed direction earlier on. Maybe Killua's plan was really to shake off Kurapika and Neon by feigning friendship with him, and then shaking him off somewhere along the walk.
"Oi, we can't keep this open." Gon looked up to find Killua glaring at him from the doorway. "You're already missing English Composition anyway."
"Eh?!" Gon was too shocked to ask how Killua even knew what his first period was. He pulled back a coat sleeve to check his watch. "Mou, Aunt Mito will kill me!"
Killua was unimpressed. "Ja, I'm shutting this — "
"Matte!" Gon was up the stairs, through the door, and on the rooftop in a heartbeat. Killua blinked at him, surprised. Gon stared back, refusing to let on that he was also surprised at himself.
Killua shrugged and shut the door.
The rooftop was all open air, sun-soaked cement, and the muted buzz of students chatting and professors lecturing coming from everywhere and nowhere at once. They were on the highest building in the school compound, overlooking the expanse of lawns, fields, school buildings, parking lots, sports arenas (including a horse stable and training paddocks), and all the other amenities of the sprawling campus, foregrounding a clear view Kukuroo Mountain. It was not quite picturesque, but the place was wide and empty and still, though the humming of life in the floors below them charged the space with a kind of precarious tension with the rest of the world that it was isolating itself from.
The silver-haired heir walked to the ledge and leaned back against the gray railing. Without warning, in one swift movement, he fished out a slim cigarette and a black lighter from his pocket, torched the end of the stick, and sucked in the smoke, breathing out a thin cloud in a slow exhalation.
Gon knew it was completely against the rules — of the school and of the law — to just stand by and watch him indulge the vice, but he felt no urgency or alarm to tell Killua to stop. There was an edge to the Zoldyck heir's quiet control that he knew was volatile and potentially dangerous if provoked. He had learned long ago not to forcibly inject medicine into a tense animal, especially if it was wild and untamed, even if one knew what was best for it.
"You're Gon Freecs," Killua said, evenly, breaking into Gon's thoughts with a calmness that betrayed nothing of his pent-up rage. The smoke curled around his face and clouded his dull blue eyes in a gray mist.
For some reason, Gon felt suddenly, deeply saddened.
Killua blew out another cloud of mint-laced smoke. "Why did you follow me?"
Gon shrugged. The immediate answer was, of course, that Killua had asked him to, but Gon knew that was not a reason Killua would accept; the embarrassing answer was that Gon was intrigued by the Zoldyck heir and he had simply leapt at the first initiative from Killua to respond to him, after several weeks that Gon always made the first move to say hello; the real and final answer was that Gon wanted to, because he knew in his gut that, in that moment, the scowling, seemingly calm, desperately aloof teenager needed company.
Killua eyed him, expectantly.
Gon offered a small, sheepish smile, scratching his head. "Honestly? I thought you could use a friend."
Killua stopped halfway through an inhalation of smoke. "A friend," he echoed, slowly.
"Yeah. I guess...you look like you're going through something."
Killua stared at Gon, not quite sure what to make of the open-faced, wide-eyed transferee. The sun melted the brown of his eyes to a strange orange-flecked gold and there was nothing, absolutely nothing in them, that suggested anything other than an offer of support. Killua had no idea where and how Gon Freecs got the idea that he could, in any way, be a friend to Killua Zoldyck, but strangely enough he felt no repulsion.
Killua had watched Gon Freecs for the past few weeks, ever since the school year began with him waking up to a photo of himself on a projector screen, tagged untouchable by an upperclassman with whom he had hardly exchanged two words with for the duration of his stay in Nostrade High. Nonetheless, Gon had completely ignored the awkwardness of the situation and chose to act, every day after that, as if they were, at least, casual acquaintances, never failing to flash a grin or a wave whenever they encountered each other in the hallways.
Killua soon found himself taking note of where and when he usually encountered Gon Freecs. That was how he eventually figured out that Gon began everyday with English Composition and ended with Mathematics. That was also how he came to realize that he was not the only one who found the transferee oddly disorienting. The kid was making waves all over school, raising eyebrows with his oddly unaffected antics and questions about where he came from, how he came to the school, and why he had been accepted. Very few knew what to do with him, so many opted to either ignore his strangeness and assume he was really just an abnormally sincere rich kid without issues or ignore him entirely.
Killua opted to do neither. Instead —
Instead, I dragged him away from fussy Kurapika and Neon to save his apologetic ass, and now what. Who the hell is this kid.
Gon's eyes flickered down to the cigarette that had gone slack in Killua's hand. "You'll burn yourself," he said and, true enough, the stick was almost consumed to the filter.
Killua inhaled from it one last time, savoring the flavorful rush of mint that always gathered towards the end of the stick, before dropping the butt and crushing it under his shoe.
"You know my parents had that door made for me to make me agree to attend this school," he told Gon, quietly. "In exchange for my compliance, they gave me a place above the rules, above the law — untouchable, as your friend likes to say. No one can come here without my consent, not even my family." Killua laughed, bitterly. "That was why I thought it would be worth it." He turned and leaned his elbows against the railing, leaning his weight against the metal as his eyes traced the shadow of Kukuroo Mountain in the near distance. "I was stupid."
In his head, he heard his mother's voice again, high and squeaky in her incessant insistence that he begin to learn the ways of the business now, now while he was young and not yet insolent enough to leave at their endless urging, her pitch rising steadily as her curses grew more violent at his petulant resistance, his spoiled tantrums, his worthless emotions, his pointless ambitions —
Until he finally punctuated the tirade with a sharp slap across his own mother's cheek.
What a shitload of fuckery this is.
"I transferred here because I kept failing math in my previous school," Gon offered back. "I told Aunt Mito it was because I couldn't study because of the time it took to travel there, but the truth was that I just couldn't get any of it." Killua stared blankly at Gon, but the transferee missed the look as he leaned his chin on a hand and stared out at the view before them. "But then, I guess I don't mind being here..."
Realizing that Gon genuinely thought the weight of his confession paralleled his, Killua shook his head, giving up on figuring out how the raven-haired transferee's mind worked. "You must be an idiot," he mused, accidentally, aloud.
"I'm not an idiot!" Gon looked affronted. "I studied as hard as I could, but I just ended up drooling all over my books — hey, what's so funny?"
Killua shook off the spreading grin on his face by looking away resolutely. "What. What's funny."
"You were making fun of me!"
"Of course not."
"I saw you smirk!"
"No, I didn't."
"I saw you!"
"No, I — " Killua cut himself off. What the hell am I doing?
He stood up abruptly, startling Gon who looked like he was just about ready to fire back a sincerely childish "did too!" Feeling oddly shaken, Killua squared his shoulders as if to call himself back to center, and, stuffing his hands into his pockets, began to walk back to the access door without a word.
"Hey, where are you going? Killua?" Gon looked confused as the silver-haired heir pushed past him. "Oi?"
Killua paused for a moment, refusing to look at Gon's sunlit hazel eyes. I don't have friends, you idiot. Yet instead of ignoring the teen as he normally would any other student in the school, he couldn't help but glance sideways to let the wind carry an answer to Gon.
"You still have Calligraphy, dumbass."
- x -
Gon carefully sealed the bandage around the leg of a young, sufficiently sedated foxbear. Its mother had fallen prey to poachers and it had been left for dead with a bullet in its leg until a teenage mountaineer stumbled upon it and took it to the shop for preliminary aid. The bullet now lay in a small pool of blood, turning dark on a clear dish beside the veterinary surgery table. Gently, Gon lifted the animal and returned it to a spacious recovery incubator, careful not to move the injury any more than necessary.
"Well, you look cheerful," Mito commented from where she was hanging up her work frock in preparation to leave for her evening classes on veterinary medicine. "Did something good happen in school?"
Gon shrugged, noncommittally, a small smile on his face. "Not much," he said. "Actually, there hasn't been a lot going on. Still adjusting. Making friends. Stuff."
"Oh yeah?" Mito looked sideways suspiciously at her younger cousin. "How's making friends with the Zoldyck kid?"
Gon shrugged again. It had been a few days since the rooftop conversation and Killua had since shown no signs at all of having intimated his hang-ups to Gon. In fact, the heir seemed to retreat even further from the school crowd even as he continued to blithely make his way around campus, a loose silver arrow. For all intents and purposes, it was as if their short interlude had not even happened.
Yet Gon saw, in the few times that he managed to corner Killua into a short chat — as the heir was gathering books from his locker, as they were lining up for lunch in the school cafe — the bruised knuckles and tired eyes that marked nights of emotional rampage; the strain of youthful longing in his hollow voice...
Mito's eye caught the headline on a tabloid left to the side of the veterinary table. On the upper right corner, bordered in a tacky yellow frame, was a rather grainy photo of a silver-haired kid, appearing to be in front of a fancy bar of some sort that he was definitely too underage to enter, a neon light casting a dim glow on his face that traced his features and lighted up the cloud of smoke he was exhaling into picture-perfect prominence. The caption was not at all subtle: "Zoldyck heir spotted in red light district! Do good looks and civil disobedience go together? Exclusive photos inside!"
Mito shook her head. "Gon, I know your heart, but saving that kid might not be the best...preoccupation right now. That's some heavy stuff you're asking to deal with."
"I'm not trying to save him," Gon said, defensively. "He doesn't need saving. He just... He could use a friend, I think."
"You're asking for trouble, Gon." Mito's voice began to take on an urgency she normally didn't use unless she was trying to get Gon to study properly. "The Zoldycks are difficult to get tangled up with. All that mystery. That obscene wealth."
"It is obscene," Gon agreed, vaguely. He shot the older woman a wide smile he hoped was comforting. "Don't worry, Aunt Mito. I'm not trying to do anything stupid."
Mito looked unconvinced. "Steer clear of that family, Gon. Don't make me worry. I'm gonna go now. Don't forget to check the cage locks and close up by 7? There's food in the kitchen, just whip up something. The sensei promised to let us off early so I may be able to join you. Cook for two? Ja ne!" And she was gone.
Business was slow in the vet shop. After answering a few phone inquiries and wrong numbers, Gon opened his books and tried to study. He woke up from a deep, saliva-dripping snooze an hour later at the tinkling of the door chimes and the sound of footsteps on the floor.
Gon snapped awake. "Ah! Gomen, gomen, may I help...you?" He blinked in surprise at the familiar pale, silver-haired, blue-eyed teenager staring back at him, looking equally stunned.
Uncertainty looked strange on Killua Zoldyck. "I'm looking for the vet...?" he half-asked.
Gon scratched his head, more embarrassed to have been caught sleeping than anything else. "Well, right now, that's me."
Killua shook the surprise off his face. "I didn't know you were...working."
"Well, I have to," Gon said, brightly. "We own this shop and, anyway, I love animals, so it's hardly work at all. What brings you here?"
Killua ignored the question and looked slowly around the clinic. It was a humble place, small and tidy, with an economy of equipment and an overall warmth that, for some reason, managed to explain everything that had so far confused everybody about the strange transferee: his no-nonsense ways, his simple joys, his open smile. Yet again, Killua felt strangely disoriented, and more than a little intrigued.
Then his eyes landed on the tabloid magazine spread open on the table. His grainy picture in front of a night club. That cloud of illegally puffed smoke. The crude headline.
Gon followed his eyes and gave off something that sounded almost like a shriek. "That's Aunt Mito's!"
Killua looked at him, then back at the tabloid, then back at Gon, and for one tense moment Gon thought Killua might actually, finally, fall apart, explode into a violent seething rampage, and, with a whisk of his family name's magic wand, destroy everything Gon had ever loved and worked for in his life.
And then Killua Zoldyck broke into a wide smirk. And it was mischievous and teasing and shockingly at ease, bordering almost on a laugh.
Gon started.
"Why do you make a habit of this, Gon," Killua said. "I see my face often enough, why rub it in each time I see you."
The reference to the projector episode caught Gon completely off-guard. "But — I didn't mean — I mean, it's not — I wasn't trying to..." He cut off his stuttering with a sigh of surrender, more than sufficiently embarrassed. He hoped that his face wasn't reflecting the heat he felt creeping up his neck, but judging by the sound of Killua's laugh, he wasn't making any bets.
The silver-haired heir shook his head, still smirking widely, before he decided to spare Gon a little dignity by changing the topic. "My dog's sick," he said. "Come over tomorrow." Then, unable to stop himself — "Don't bring any pictures." He turned away with a casual wave of his hand. "Ja, Gon."
And he was gone with a short tinkling of the door chimes.
- tbc -
A/N: There you go. Liked it? Let me know. Didn't? Let me know anyway so I can work on it. Constructive criticism is always welcome. Review and let me know if this is worth continuing.
A side note: not to commandeer the reading, but I never really intended this to be an upfront Gon + Killua thing. I ship the pairing, but I find it at its best in that perpetual tension/attraction between the two that don't really need to end up at anything more than what it simply is. So, I'm not making any promises about a straight-up romance story, but if you're enjoying this anyway, I'm hoping the categories won't stop you from reading on.
Thoughts, anyone?