Re-edited May 5 2011 ;]

OWC: 2,926

Disclaimer: *point at Yoshihiro Togashi*

"You don't mind running, do you, Goldie?"

Akane blinked, caught off guard with Killua's sudden statement. She wondered what the point with the White-headed kid was. Realizing soon enough though that he was insulting her, her eyes narrowed into slits—humorous yet still pissed in a way—and asked him, "What do you mean, 'goldie'?"

"Goldie, 'cause, you know, you have yellow hair," he said, shrugging as he jogged beside her without so much as an effort. "It's… nothing, I just wanted to call you that way. …So you don't mind running?"

Akane did a quick round of her mental checklist of her state. She still had stamina, but she was getting a little parched, she realized, as she licked her cheeks. She checked her breathing—just equal and paced. Finally looking up at him with a reply, albeit a little hesitant, she answered him with a strong and confident "No."

He looked at her with wary, criticizing eyes before he finally put the matter aside. Looking away from her, he turned to face ahead again. "I'll be going on ahead then," he said as he jumped up to his skateboard. "Just shout if you need something…anything."

And with just that, he moved away swiftly on his skateboard; so far away Akane could barely see or notice that his face had turned dead serious once more, eyes squinted as he criticized and maybe tallied the number of probably 'good competition' in the crowd. She laughed at her situation. And I was hoping for a kind remark from the kid—at least one little 'Hey, you can take the skateboard' wouldn't kill him now would it?

But somehow she knew better than that. Even though she'd only been with Killua for a little time, she could somehow figure out his character. Her conclusions said that he was strong and he wasn't going to let anything get his way… he would push it off like it didn't matter. She decided that he was kind of a brat. But him as a brat was a smart kind of brat, Akane thought, and she couldn't help but chuckle. Killua's character is so weird, thinking about it right now. She noticed how, ever since it—the exam proper—started, he'd, in a way, changed. To her he became rather stiff and arrogant and serious and, in a way of her seeing, un-Killua like.

She thought the change was so abrupt, like he was forced to do it, like he would be electrocuted if he didn't do it.

Akane shook her head with a soft sigh, and finally looked back up (she had been looking at her feet as she ran while she thought of those things). She saw that he had covered quite a distance between them. She wasn't bewildered or anything about his speed and endurance—it was just the things that seemed to come along with him. With that in mind, she dashed even faster to catch up with him, shouting, "Hey Kil!"

Half—or maybe even more—of her expected him to look coldly back at her. So when he just turned his head around to look at her with raised eyebrows and a questioning look, with the childish features back on his pretty face, she was surprised. Pleasantly surprised, though, and it felt like a thorn out of her flesh.

"Yeah?" he asked her.

Suddenly Akane couldn't help but laugh. Her mind told her that now that his serious stage was finally off, she could start scolding him. She was a bit sadistic, after all. "I told you that you could go forward, but I didn't tell you to leave me behind," she said, her tone a little chastising as she elbowed him a little because she had already caught up to his skateboard's pace. Then, she flashed a wide and proud grin, saying, "Good thing I was fast enough, eh?"

She smiled at how Killua's eyes became full of mischief. "Oh yeah snail pace?" he said, a little teasingly. "Let's see you catch up to this!" And with that Killua pushed his skateboard way ahead with one powerful kick to the ground, leaving Akane in the dusts he had left behind in his wake.

Unfazed by his demeanor, Akane continued to giggle in delight. Suddenly, she felt so happy. Killua was such a carefree spirit; she couldn't help but be changed and awed by him. "Oh yes I will!" she said with a very content smile as she ran after him with a hyperactive gait.

Happiness contorted into a dark shade of disappointment once more when she realized—after she had caught up to him—that his grins and his laughter had faded away into an emotionless, almost stoic expression again. Akane was left to wonder why he kept doing that, hiding everything and his seemingly real and honest and cheery personality to replace it with that. She figured that maybe he was trying to build up the imaginary reputation of being a strong opponent, but it wasn't just righteous to her. Not in her dictionary.

Lost in her thoughts, still thinking with worry about Killua, the acquaintance she'd grown so close to, she still ran after him.

And filled with surprise, she was, when after she had (once again) finally been in pace with him, when she saw and heard someone shout at him.

"You're cheating! That's not fair at all!" she heard the tallest man say. He had dark hair and sunglasses, and he was wearing a suit-like outfit, carrying also a briefcase.

He shouldn't be here. He's supposed to be at work! Akane said in her head, but she continued watching.

Suddenly a boy, the shortest one in the group, started to squeal in a way. His brown eyes widened with amusement upon seeing Killua, and in Akane's mind he looked like a fanboy. "Awesome! Oh—What's your name? And—how old are you?"

"Oi oi oi, shouldn't you be siding with me, Gon?" the first man said, staring at the younger boy.

"How am I cheating?" Killua's steely voice broke through, obvious because of the difference in pitch (his voice was rather a bit deep for a kid his age) and the way it was spoken. There was irritation and something screaming 'kill' lacing the tone of it. Akane was surprised at how his four words just angrily cut through the childish banter like a sharp sword in soft fabric.

Akane grinned once more and decided she'd just linger behind a bit farther, maybe to enjoy the show.

The man continued to argue. With a huff in his voice, he faced Killua a little angrily and said, "Isn't it obvious? This is supposed to be an endurance test! Not a walk in the park!"

But the little boy did not quite understand. He seemed to see the simple things in life, well, as simple as it was. He turned to the blond—which Akane soon realized was the blond she saw on the ship to Dole—and asked in a really childish voice, "The examiner just told us to follow him, right, Kurapika?"

"Who's side are you on, anyway, Gon?" The older man said with an incredulous look on his face.

"Leorio, they said you can bring anything to the Hunter Exam. So he brought a skateboard. And he's using it. There's no cheating involved," the blond said with a matter-of-fact tone, but it did not change or at least move the older man's perspective.

With a look that could be described as 'hurt,' the older man looked back at the blond. "Even you, Kurapika? What kind of friends are you?"

Suddenly, a rather fat man came to Akane's view, distracting her. As her eyes peeled away from the interesting scene, the man started to talk to her. "Hey… you're a new kid, aren't you? I've taken the exam a lot of times now. There's a lot of things you don't know—"

"Thanks, but no thanks," Akane said dismissively, not even letting the man finish his sentence and she pushed the man away with a strong hand. She decided maybe she needed to show up to Killua at that point, because he seemed to have faded in the background in the first group's discussion.

But Killua saw her first. Looking at her with an involuntary broad smile, he said, "And you finally caught up, snail-pace."

"I've just been… hanging around," she answered back as she rolled her tongue out at him.

The shortest boy—Akane tried to remember and heard the man call him Gon—turned his attention to Akane, the new-comer to the little conversation hub. "Anee-san, hello. What's your name? Are you his friend?"

Akane looked at him, a little too disinterestedly than she really was inside. "Hi. I'm Akane. No, I'm just his acquaintance. And if you're asking, I'm 16." The words rolled out like a routine from Akane's mouth, and she didn't like it one bit. Suddenly she started regretting introducing herself that way.

But the boy did not mind. Instead he tugged at Akane's sleeve and asked once more, "What's his name?" as he pointed at Killua with his lips.

"Killua," came Akane's immediate reply, but she was quickly elbowed by Killua, who towered over her as he stood on his skateboard. She gave him an innocent look and asked him confusedly "What? We're supposed to be friendly, aren't we?"

But Killua didn't seem to be humoured at her statement. With narrowed eyes he told her, "I didn't exactly give you permission to tell everybody here in this tunnel that I'm Killua, now, did I?"

Back off, back off… Akane murmured in her head, realizing maybe it wasn't the time to be joking with Killua. Turning away from him with a sheepish grin as she was unable to answer him back, she just decided to turn her attention to the boy earlier. "I didn't ask you… what's your name?"

"I'm Gon Freecs! I'm 12 and I want to be a Hunter because I want to search for my father!" He shouted gleefully, his voice echoing in the little cylinder we were running in. Akane couldn't help but laugh. Immediately it was like she knew so much about him, and all she asked was his name. But so he continued. "These are my friends Leorio and Kurapika," he said, pointing to the dark haired man and the blond with a friendly smile.

Finally Akane got to connect the name with the person.

On the brink of boredom, Killua turned his attention back to the group. "Just how old are you, ojii-san?" Killua asked, and she immediately saw the vein that popped in the older teen's forehead.

"Don't call me Ojii-san, I'm just in your generation!" He shouted defensively.

Akane, wanting to play Killua's game, immediately decided to back his question up with another—

"Then how old are you, really?"

The black-haired teen gulped, his adam's apple bobbing up and down with his motion. "I'm just 19!"

"Ha-ha. He's 19, and he says he's just 19! Everybody, would you ring a round of applause for the sarcasm of the century," Killua said, and he started clapping his hands lightly, mockingly.

Surprisingly, Gon clapped his hands too, and a little more enthusiastically than what was needed for sarcasm. Akane laughed at him and his naïveté. Seeing their stares, Gon suddenly fell into a halt and asked, "Didn't he tell you to clap?"

Akane couldn't control the facepalm-urge that came rushing toward her, and with that Killua laughed heartily. Gon as well. Kurapika laughed too, but a little softer, more modest, as he covered his mouth with his hand. Leorio was turning very much beet red, but he laughed as well.

Akane's thoughts started to work with her. Heck, maybe they are nice people to be with, very much worth the time.

But of everything and anything, what Akane hated the most was running up and down the dreaded and stupid and most hated staircases.

Akane was getting dizzy, but she told herself that she was just in the first test of the entire exam. If you fail this one, you're a goner! She shouted to herself.

But of all kinds of staircases, it had to be the long and tiring and spiralling one, right?

Akane couldn't prepare herself, but she did feel it—the fuzzy feeling in her stomach, and the pillow that seemed to curl up inside of it. So when her legs finally buckled down and decided to betray her, it was only a bare feeling, that the pain didn't seem to come at all.

The blackness that swallowed her took over her completely, but she was still mentally awake. Inwardly she waited for the fall, the final end. She waited—a little too patiently, even—for the thump-thump-thump. She waited for the piercing pain, maybe a few cracked ribs or maybe an arm, maybe a damaged skull with the fall.

She expected every one of those to come, but none of them did.

And her body just suddenly shut off.

"Akane. Akane. AKANE."

It wasn't long before the voice actually started to stir her from her unconsciousness. As Akane started to awake from my sleep—caused by a bad incident—her eyelids fluttered and she tried her best to be back on normal mode. She felt like she was a newly-booted up computer, fresh and ready. (More on the ready part.) She opened her eyes to see myself and Kurapika in that very awkward position, her face being reflected in the endless blue of his.

"Ooh—shucks—God my head hurts—oh—OH SHUCKS!"

She immediately pushed herself away from contact, defensively, and, arguably rather shamefully. Her head started to spin, and she clutched it in her hands in an attempt to ignore the pain.

Her actions, meanwhile, made Kurapika scratch his head sheepishly. "I don't think you should be moving around much now," he said his voice filled of brotherly concern. He continued to stare on at her as her face contorted with the pain that hit her.

"Oh... geez… maybe I shouldn't… my head's spinning…" she murmured, weakly and painfully. Kurapika could imagine the royal headache she was having. He felt pity.

Kurapika stared at her blankly, almost unwilling to give her that hidden—yet so tempting—offer. But then he really did.

"D-do you want me to carry you?"

Akane's eyes shot up to him, a faint reddish tint on her pallid cheeks. She ordered, in the back of her mind, that her feet be filled with energy again."N-no, no, I—I'm fine," she said, struggling to get up. Kurapika took her arm and helped her stand.

They started to walk once more—not jog yet, because Akane's head was still throbbing in hurt—with Kurapika keeping a slow and patient pace with Akane. They pushed themselves forward until Akane could walk with leaning toward him, and finally they caught up to the group.

Akane gave a long, well-earned sigh of relief after it had dawned on her that they did not pass any more stairs. Of course it wasn't only Akane who sighed in relief—also Gon. Killua, however, just looked on with a look of mild irritation and indifference.

"Akane! Kurapika! I thought something happened to you!" Gon said, a worried, motherly-sounding tone evident in his voice. (Even if he was a kid.) "Nee-san, are you alright?"

"Alright now, Gon," she said with a sheepish and almost still pained grin. Akane, awkward being under Gon and Killua's heated stares suddenly, looked desperately for an attention-reliever… and she found it.

"Look, it's the exit, Gon!"

Gon turned around to see where she was pointing. He brightened up even more. "The exit!"

"What amuses you so much?" Killua asked, indifferent to the prospect.

"'Cause the exit means we're one step closer to being a Hunter! Isn't that cool?"

"…It's just an exit," Killua said with an uncaring grunt.

"We're going to be one step closer to our goal, Killua. Being a Hunter."

"Why do you want to be a Hunter so badly anyway?"

"Because my father is a hunter and I swore I'd find him! You're going to stay with me, aren't you?"

Killua just shrugged, hands in his pockets as he skated his way out of the darkness, into the light.

Kids.