Pixie Says: Here's the third chapter! It's a bit longer, so I hope you enjoy it. Thanks for the reviews, faves, and follows. I'll try to post on a weekly basis. All feedback is welcome!
A few hours later, Nikita opened her eyes to be greeted by darkness. There was an alarm clock on the nightstand that read a bit after 1 a.m., and it didn't take long to realize why she woke up.
She was so incredibly hungry.
After turning on the light and shuffling to the bathroom with the help of the wall, she did what she needed to do and washed her hands and face. There was a complementary toothbrush and paste set from the hotel, and she gladly used those, too. When she was done, she made her way to her crutch, and then trudged out of the room and into the living room.
"Morning, Nikita-san!" Gon greeted from the couch.
"Oi, focus!" Killua chastised him, and Nikita noticed that they both had video game controllers in their hands.
"It's one a.m.," Nikita said flatly, watching as they battled it out in a car-racing game. "Why aren't you kids sleeping?"
"We're studying," Gon replied, in all honesty, as he drove his car off a cliff. "Nooo! I'll never get my license like this!"
"Idiot!" Killua shouted back. "This is a game! Driving a real car will obviously require more than pushing buttons!"
"What? More?" Gon asked, horrified.
"You're studying for…your driving license?" Nikita asked, and Killua scoffed.
"No," Gon answered. "Killua and I are looking for a video game that my dad made. We don't know what kind of game it is, so we're practicing everything we can."
"When we're not trying to earn money that is," Killua added. "But at this rate, 99% of the world's population would have a better chance of beating your dad's game than YOU!"
"Killua! Don't be mean!" Gon whined. He suddenly perked up and looked at Nikita. "Oh, by the way. Leorio went to study at the library, but he left you some sandwiches in the fridge."
"Oh, great. Thank you," Nikita replied, before going to the kitchen to grab them. They weren't that hard to find- the fridge was practically empty except for the plate of sandwiches, a bottle of milk, and a bunch of energy drinks. She grabbed a glass and filled it with water from the sink.
Nikita got back to the living room and made herself comfortable on the couch as she watched the two continue to race each other. She wondered what Gon's background was. His father? Videogames?
Somehow, her thoughts stung her but she couldn't, for the life of her, remember why.
She ate the sandwiches in peace- well, apart from Killua and Gon's banters. The sandwiches were actually quite good, and they filled her up immediately. She set the plate down and sipped at her water.
It was quite obvious that Gon was outmatched by Killua's gaming skills. When Gon had driven his car off a cliff for the fourth time in a row, Nikita interrupted his wailing to ask if she could give it a try.
"I won't go easy on you just because you're a girl," Killua warned. He was sitting cross-legged on the floor, but despite the difference in height, his glare was still fearsome.
"I wasn't expecting you to," Nikita answered neutrally, looking away from his eyes to the screen.
A few minutes later, and they had both completed a track. Nikita had, of course, lost, but she managed much better than Gon had, and it almost looked like Killua had struggled.
"Wah! Nikita-san, you almost beat Killua!"
"No, she didn't!"
"Can we go again? I didn't get the hang of the buttons in the beginning," Nikita asked Killua, who simply rolled his eyes and obliged.
The second one was even more amusing. Killua's fingers moved at lightning fast speed, but when the race was over, he had only won by 2 seconds.
"Gah! This game is stupid!" Killua said, obviously not happy with his narrow victory as he threw his controller across the floor. "I'm going to bed."
"Killua~" Gon whined, shooting apologetic looks to Nikita, who had to hold back a chuckle. He was a sore loser, it seemed.
There was one thing that bothered her, though. Well, two. In this place, there was not a single letter she could decipher. Not on the TV, nor the books on the shelf nearby. Outside, the neon lit advertisements made no sense to her, and that filled her stomach with dread.
Two, she remembered something. Evenings on the couch with her father and his friends, playing fighting videogames and laughing. Her father. She couldn't remember what he looked like, but she could hear him laughing. She could feel him pat her back when she wiped the floor with one of his friends at Tekken. There was something else. What was she missing?
"Sorry, Nikita-san. Killua's being extra grumpy today," Gon said, coming back from his and Killua's room.
"No worries, Gon," Nikita told him. She opened her mouth to say something, but hesitated.
"What's wrong?" Gon urged her, looking at her with wide eyes.
"Gon, is there an atlas somewhere here?" Nikita asked Gon, and to her surprise, he nodded, running off to the bookshelf by the TV and grabbing one of the larger books.
"What are you looking for?" Gon asked, plopping down on the floor and opening the book to a page with the map of the world. Nikita felt her heart drop. This was a cruel dream.
Gon noticed her hesitation and gave her a questioning look. Sighing, Nikita sat down on the carpeted floor beside him, being careful about her leg.
"I come from a place that doesn't look like… that. We have the same continents, I think, but they're arranged differently," Nikita explained. She saw his eyes widen.
"So, you're not from…here? This world?" Gon asked, and Nikita shrugged.
"I think I should be freaking out about it, but I'm kind of hoping this isn't real," she admitted. Without saying anything, Gon leaned over and poked Nikita's cast. "Ow! What was that for?" She hissed, and Gon gave her a steady look.
"It wouldn't hurt if this was a dream," he told her, and that was that. The last grain of doubt she had in her mind vanished, and she realized her situation. Somehow, she felt at peace. Like the calm before the storm.
"So, what does your world look like?" Gon asked, looking back at the map. Nikita smiled and began explaining how the continents were arranged differently and what they were called. Some of them sounded familiar to him, like Azia, but others did not.
"I can't read the writing here, either," Nikita admitted, when Gon pointed at the name of the country they were currently in. Gon looked at her in disbelief.
"But you speak it perfectly fine!"
"I don't know why I can do that. I can't read though. Where I come from, I know English and French…" she trailed off as she said that. The words sounded so foreign to her in her new tongue. She really was speaking a different language. "Anyway, we use the Latin alphabet in both languages. I have no idea what this is," she said, gesturing to the letters on the Atlas.
Gon was quiet for a moment. Then he said, "So, if this was your world, where did you live?"
They spent about an hour talking about their worlds, with Gon showing Nikita where he was from, a quaint island appropriately named after its cetacean-like shape. He told her about his life, Mito-san, and his father. He explained how he had met his two roommates –the hunter exam- and what that was exactly. There was also a mention of a fourth boy who would be meeting them in York Shin.
Nikita enjoyed listening to the boy talking- he was very animated and excited about sharing the experiences he had over the last year, but once the hour was up, she found herself falling back into a state of exhaustion. Gon noticed and helped her up before getting her to bed.
She slept well, but there was that constant worry nagging away at her. How on earth was she going to get home? And why couldn't she remember much of it?
At around noon, Nikita slowly opened her eyes to the glaring sunlight that came through the window and landed oh-so-conveniently on her face. She rubbed her eyes and ran a hand over the messy ponytail that held her dark brown locks before slowly heaving herself out of bed.
She could hear that others were up- there was some commotion coming from what she presumed to be the kitchen. After using the bathroom and getting ready for the day, she made her way back to her room.
Her leg felt much better already, and she wondered if it was all right to stretch. In the end, she decided to chance it.
Her muscle memory was impeccable, and with the feeling of stretching her limbs, she remembered performing gymnastics. She didn't understand how she could forget such a big part of her life, but now that it was back, she felt like part of her identity had been retrieved, at least.
The sweatpants came in the way of doing splits, so she took them off. She was wearing black boxers underneath that didn't restrict her movements much. Just as she was about to use the bed to slowly lower herself onto the ground with her legs on either side of her, there was a knock on the door and in came a disgruntled-looking Killua.
"Oi, if you don't get up soon, there won't be any food left for-" he began, but then paused when he saw what Nikita was wearing. Or, more accurately, wasn't wearing. "What the hell are you doing?!" he yelled accusingly, and Nikita found the fact that his cheeks turned several shades red very amusing.
"Oh, Killua. Could you help me?" she asked him, lifting herself off the bed with her arms. "I'm trying to do a split, but the cast is in the way," she explained, and he looked at her like he couldn't believe his eyes.
"Your tibia was cut in two and you're doing splits?" he asked her, and she shrugged.
"If you help me, I won't put too much pressure on it and it shouldn't be a problem," she told him, and he paused. She could tell he was thinking of bailing, but after a few moments, he sighed and closed the door after him.
Without saying a word, he put his arms under her shoulders and slowly let her sink towards the ground. Once she was comfortable, he let go and stepped back.
"Is it true you're not from this world?" he asked her, extremely direct. Nikita looked at him and was, once again, caught in his ferocious stare. She looked away quickly.
"Mm, it seems so," she told him neutrally.
"And this doesn't worry you?" he asked her. Again, his tone was to the point.
"Of course, it does," she replied. "I have no idea where I am or how I'm going to get back. But there's too much to sort out right now, so worrying about it is a waste of time and energy. I don't seem to have much of the latter at the moment. Help me up half-way."
Killua stepped up again and helped her up partially. Carefully, Nikita moved her legs so that they were in front and behind her. Her good leg was easy enough, but the damn cast made everything heavy on the other one. Killua set her down slowly once again.
"You know, there might be people out there looking for your kind," Killua said softly, almost like a warning.
"What do you mean?" Nikita asked him, concentrating on her legs so that she wouldn't have to look at his electric blue eyes again.
"The Outside is a place that people aren't allowed to go to or even get involved with. There are probably countless hunters waiting to get their hands on something, anything, from the other worlds to find out more about it," Killua explained, and Nikita was surprised that "other worlds" was a legitimate thing here.
"Is this something else I should be worried about?" Nikita asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Probably," Killua told her casually.
"Is there a way to see if others are from "the Outside"? she asked him, and he shrugged.
"According to Leorio, your Nen looked different. That might be a way," Killua said, and then stepped up when she looked at him expectantly. He helped her up until she could sit on the bed on her own, and Nikita smiled at him. She stood up on her own, and without warning, placed a hand on his head and ruffled his hair.
"Thank you, Killua," she told him, before turning around to put her sweatpants back on.
"What the hell?" she heard Killua exclaim, a few seconds too late. She looked at him over her shoulder and saw that his cheeks were dusted with pink. She smiled cheekily at him and shrugged, hoping that she hadn't overstepped her boundaries too much.
"Ugh. Whatever. There might be some pancakes left if Gon hasn't gotten to them yet," he grunted, heading towards the door. Nikita nodded, grabbed her crutch and made her way after him.
The kitchen was lively, with Leorio doing dishes and Gon staring at a plate of pancakes with an almost painful expression. He looked up when his best friend and Nikita walked through the door.
"Morning, Nikita!" Gon greeted her, and she smiled. Leorio looked over his shoulder at that and smiled.
"Ah, morning. I got you a few things today," Leorio told her, nodding at a bag on the kitchen table. Nikita stared at the bag and then at Leorio, but he didn't pay her any notice.
Walking up to the table, she looked through the bag. In it, she found some simple shirts, pants, a sweater, scarf, and even a pack of underclothes.
"Lisa, the nurse, gave me your size," Leorio explained, seeing the look of disbelief on Nikita's face.
"Were you really studying last night, or were you fooling around?" Killua said, obviously disgruntled.
"Both~" Leorio sang. "Lisa helped me study!"
Nikita saw Killua facepalm himself, but she was too distracted by the gift to laugh.
"Leorio, this… I don't have anything to repay you with," she told him, almost shyly.
Leorio turned the tap off and dried his hands, before turning around and placing his hands on his hips.
"I know you don't have anything to repay me with, but you still need clothes," he argued, looking at her head-on.
"But-" she began, and he held up his hand to stop her.
"Nikita, I want to become a doctor to help people, free of charge if necessary. Right now, you're letting me help you. There's nothing more fulfilling than that, in my view. So, please. Just accept the clothes and focus on getting better," he told her, and Nikita had to swallow back tears.
"Thank you," she said, her voice hushed.
"Don't worry about. Now eat some pancakes, before Gon swallows them with his eyes," Leorio ordered her, turning back to the dishes.
Nikita chuckled slightly, taking a seat beside said boy. The plate had about five pancakes, and he obviously wanted more.
"I'm not too hungry, Gon. I don't think I'll eat more than two. You can take the others if you want," she told him, and his eyes immediately shone when he looked at her. He broke out into a grin and was about to shower her with 'thank yous' before Killua stuffed a syrupy piece into his mouth.
"You've been too noisy today," he complained, taking a seat on the other side of Gon and pouring himself a glass of milk.
Gon didn't object- he was happy enough to chew the sugary goodness- and Nikita piled her pieces onto a plate and began eating.
"Thank you for the sandwiches last night," she said to Leorio, suddenly remembering them.
"No worries," Leorio told her. "Now stop thanking me for every little thing." He sounded almost annoyed, but he flashed her a grin to show her that he wasn't serious. She smiled back and continued eating.
"Ne, Killua, what should we do today? Gon asked, having almost swallowed a pancake whole.
"Internet café downstairs? We still need to raise money for the game," Killua suggested after wiping a milk moustache from his face.
"Sure, sounds like a good idea," Gon agreed before looking at Nikita. "Why don't you join us? We could use my Hunter card to find out more about your situation," he offered, and Nikita nodded.
"Okay. I need to start somewhere," she said, smiling at him in thanks. He had sort of explained to her what a Hunter was last night, but she still didn't get her head wrapped around the concept completely. She did, however, understand that it came with a bunch of benefits- which was how Leorio got into college and how they booked this luxurious hotel suite.
After she finished eating, Nikita insisted on finishing up the dishes instead of Leorio. She felt that she had to do something to repay him. It didn't take too long before she was able to put her new clothes in her room and meet the boys in the corridor outside the suite. Leorio was going to study in the living room, since he'd have the whole suite to himself.
As the three of them made their way to the elevator, Gon suddenly jumped up and looked at Killua.
"Killua, want to race?" Gon asked, and almost as though Killua read his thoughts, he grinned and nodded. Gon looked back at Nikita. "Take the elevator and we'll meet you in the lobby!" Gon exclaimed, and at the count of three, they were off- speeding towards the staircase.
Nikita watched them run at an unfathomable speed and sighed. This world was so weird. Now that she thought about it, she felt almost lighter in this world, though she couldn't be sure. It was like the gravity here wasn't as strong.
She took the elevator and pressed the button to go to the ground floor, where the lobby and Internet café were located. It took a few minutes to go down the 29 floors, and when the doors finally opened, she was almost surprised to find Gon and Killua waiting for her, panting slightly.
Almost. She was getting used to these impossible things quite fast, it seemed.
"No running in the lobby!" came a familiar voice from behind them, and they all turned to see the bellboy. What was his name again?
"Sorry, Seif," Gon apologized, looking almost guilty.
"Just kidding," Seif teased. "Internet café again today?" he asked them and they nodded. "You kids…" he sighed, before smiling again. "I'm just about to go on a break. Would any of you like to join me for a few minutes?"
"Ooh! Nikita could join you! And in the meantime, we can get started at the café," Gon suggested with much excitement. Nikita didn't know why he volunteered her, but some fresh air wouldn't hurt.
"Great. I'm heading to the staff room to get some coffee and my cigs. Would you like anything?" he asked her, and when he saw her hesitate, he added: "Coffee? Tea? Hot chocolate? Come on, it's free of charge!"
She smiled at his overflowing energy. "Hot chocolate would be nice," she told him, and he nodded.
"Gotcha. Be right back then," he said, and with that he disappeared behind a "Staff Only" door.
"The café is right there," Gon pointed out at the sign that Nikita couldn't read.
"I'll be there in a bit, then, I guess," she replied, and they both nodded before making their way there with Killua stretching his arms over his head in the process.
Something felt off. She knew Gon was hiding something, and Killua had given his friend a knowing look for a brief second, which strengthened her assumptions. But, she didn't want to be rude. She'd let them do what they had to do, and if things went smoothly she might even ask them about it later.
It didn't take long before Seif returned, two steaming Styrofoam cups in his hands. He gave one of them to Nikita with a slight flourish that had her chuckling. "Ma'am," he added, making the scene all the more awkward.
They walked out of the hotel and Nikita followed him a few meters away from the main entrance, finding it surprising easy to walk with the help of a crutch in one hand and the hindrance of a cup of hot chocolate in the other.
"My boss doesn't like me smoking in front of the entrance," Seif explained, looking almost apologetic. "Says it makes for a bad image."
Nikita was quiet. She sat on an empty bench and set her crutch aside, taking small sips from her cup. "This is really good. Thanks."
"What? Oh, no problem," Seif said, extending a pack of cigarettes to Nikita. "Want one?" Nikita shook her head.
"I'm 17," she told him, and he shrugged.
"You're old enough to smoke and drink in this city," he informed her, and her eyes widened. Again, she shook her head.
"I'll pass. But thanks, anyway."
Seif shrugged again, before putting a cigarette in his mouth and lighting it up. He inhaled deeply and then let the smoke out of his slightly parted lips.
"What happened to your leg, then?" he asked, eyeing her cast.
"Car accident," she replied, hoping he wouldn't ask too much. It wasn't that she minded him asking… it was more that she was worried she wouldn't have any answers to give him. "Leorio helped me. I'm staying with him until I get better," she said, and he nodded.
"Leorio's cool. Good thing he got that license of his, too. Heard he got into the best medical school in the continent because of it," Seif told her, and Nikita smiled.
"Yeah, he's been great to me."
"So, what are you going to do until you get better?" Seif asked, his dark blue eyes meeting Nikita's green ones.
"I'll probably just take it easy. Maybe help Killua and Gon out," she informed him, and he nodded in understanding.
"They're still trying to raise money for that game, right?" he asked and she nodded, not really sure how much he knew or how much she could tell him. "Well, you seem like a reliable person- minus the broken leg. I'm sure they'll be grateful for your help." Nikita smiled at him.
"Thank you."
"You say that too much," Seif laughed, taking a last puff from his cigarette. He threw it on the ground, stepping on it to stop it burning. Sighing, he ran his free hand through his dark hair, taking a sip of coffee when he was done. "I'm working for another ten hours. You have no idea how much this sucks," he grumbled, stretching his shoulders. "All this fake politeness and just, gah. You have to be nice to everyone- even the ass-hats that you really want to punch in the face."
Nikita laughed. "I'm sorry you're in this situation."
"Nah," he said, taking another sip. "Don't be. Thanks for keeping me company. You made this day just a bit better."
Nikita went speechless for a few seconds. "Oh…" she began, before clearing her throat. "Well, I'm glad I could help."
"I'll call on you for my next break," he told her, winking. Nikita laughed at how chummy he was being.
"Sure," she agreed. "I guess I should go see what the boys are up to," she said, and without a word, Seif grabbed her hand and helped her up, handing the crutch to her. "Thank-"
"You. Say. That. Too. Much," he reiterated, and she rolled her eyes.
"Thanks for the chocolate!" she told him quickly, sticking her tongue out at him before he could object and scurrying to the door as fast as she could with her broken leg. She heard him chuckle behind her and that put a smile on her face.