I wasn't really sure if I was going to do author's notes anymore, but I feel like they're required in some places where I'd like readers to get a bit of my take/angle for particular scenes or dynamics. I basically got back into writing this story just a couple of months ago, and since I actually first started almost a decade back, it's easy to tell that both my approach to writing and the characters I portray has changed for sure. I really wanted to make Killua and Claire's relationship as realistic and messy as actual relationships are, and to be honest I'm really enjoying writing that side of them. So, a little disclaimer that it might get a tad too human and intense at some points, but I promise you'll enjoy it. Also, one of the major reasons why I took this story up again is because I've come up with a really interesting (if I may say so myself) sequence for the plot and I feel like I owe it to this tiny story to let it unfold. *exhales after a seemingly unending rant that no one asked for*

Anyhoo, the chapter's a bit short but there's more to come soon. If you have time to drop your feedback that's always appreciated.

Chapter 31:

"Séance."

On paper, Killua Zoldyck was very attractive. He knew what to say and said just enough— always leaving something to want. When he walked into a room, he didn't make you feel like he owned it; he made you feel like he owned you. His stare had somehow mastered the impossible balance between certitude and reservation. He never shied away from eye contact but never held on for too long. His attention was something you had to win, which is why whoever had secured the luxury of having it spoke feverishly and in a desperate attempt to keep him entertained. Also, the fact that he was incredibly easy on the eyes didn't hurt his chances of pulling off this persona, either. But as I said, this was just on paper.

Anyone who had the privilege to matter to him would tell you very different things about him. Like how he felt the need to use humor to dilute any situation where he was appreciated. How he'd turn into a red, nervous mess when anyone told him what he meant to them. How his care was always silent but the safest, most reliable embrace anyone could experience. How he had a set of eyes on the back of his head when it came to the needs of others, and lastly, a fact only I could tell you about him: he was the biggest romantic.

He was the guy who had figured out what kind of gestures really added value and was big on them instead of being all for big gestures that were empty. But my theory was that this just naturally came to him as a part of his knack for caring. I had recently come to appreciate how intricate and thought-out his words, presents, and reassurances always had been. Now, I emphasize the quality of him being perfect on paper because there's only so much perfection to go around before it boils down to becoming infuriating.

He talked just right, and he walked just right, but the most annoying thing about him was that he was always right too. This worked out pretty well for him but not so well for me, who always ended up becoming the target of his unsolicited predictions. Take, for instance, right now, when I was subtly trying to mask the scratchiness I felt in my throat.

"You better not be getting sick," Killua warned, his reflection capturing my gaze as he stood almost fully unclothed in front of the mirror. The towel he had draped around his hips was at an angle that I might have presumed put it in danger of falling off; I secretly prayed that would be the case. But as I said, with Killua, mishaps were awfully rare.

His words were an indication of the unbelievable amount of ice cream I had consumed the night before. I mean, at one point, I remember he looked actually scared for my life; I think I lost count on my third helping of a caramel soft serve that was repeatedly calling my name after every portion.

"I'm not getting sick," I denied, trying to disguise a cough as a scoff and somehow managing to pull it off.

"What's the agenda for today?" he gathered as per routine, his hands moving at an inhuman speed as he finger-combed through his hair.

"Just a brief shift at the office, no class," I informed, trying to gather the mental energy to sit up. The amount of self-convincing focus that I had to collect to do that gave me a very strong feeling that today was going to be a very weird day. Not that I had any medals for athleticism to my name, but this level of stalling was concerning even for someone like me.

"I'll be home mostly," he detailed, having moved to zip up his pants' fly by the time I relocated my gaze to him, and mind you, it must have been a three-second detour at most. "Let's do something tonight."

"I'm pretty sure that particular something is done every night," I mumbled, deciding I wasn't really good at being crude.

Killua turned around and rolled his eyes; I guess simply having me see that gesture through his reflection in the mirror didn't quite do justice to his portrayal of him. "I meant, let's go out, you silly kid," he spelled out, walking in my direction until our eyes were right in front of one another, just a couple of inches apart at best. This was one of those secret moments where I wondered what this gorgeous man saw in me, but I knew if I ever even let a hint of something of the sort escape my lips, Killua would be devastated.

He would lose faith in the intense amount of affection that he showered on me, and that knowledge was the only thing that always had me biting my insecurities between my teeth. "Do you know what date it is today?" I asked instead, trying to divert my mind more so than anything else.

"Is this a trick question?" he confirmed, resting his hands on his knees to keep level with my gaze. "You just got your period two weeks ago, and no one's birthday is coming up," he counted, his eyes moving sideways with each computation.

"It's September, the twenty-seventh," I pronounced slowly, hoping that would jog his memory some.

He looked every bit as blank and clueless at that piece of information as did every boyfriend in the history of ever, and this was a very refreshing way of realizing that at the end of the day, Killua was just a boy.

"We kissed for the first time today, you doofus," I ultimately revealed, making sure he saw how I rolled my eyes in irritation, "if we didn't break up, today would probably be what we could have counted as our anniversary."

Killua blinked a couple of times; with each motion, his blue eyes appeared to get just a teeny bit lighter. "Huh," he eventually blurted out.

"Now, don't go on looking too thrilled about it," I appraised, honestly appalled by his unusually stoic manner.

"Oh, no, I was just surprised," he confessed, moving to sit on the bed as he scratched his head. "It seems like way more than a year has gone by."

I understood what he meant because I was on the same wavelength about this. If you'd asked me how long Killua had been a part of my life, my knee-jerk reaction would have been to say "forever" or at least a decade as the next acceptable answer. The reality of only knowing him for a year sounded inaccurate and insulting even to the gravity of what we shared.

I just nodded to show my assent because I had no words that would correctly describe the thoughts I was weaving.

"That's all the more reason to go out," he circled back, "a 'could-be' anniversary dinner."

"Sounds like a trend in the making for on-and-off couples all around," I poked fun at his suggestion, secretly actually quite enjoying the idea of it.

"We're not an on-and-off couple," he refuted, sounding actually upset at my choice of words.

"Killua, I think the criteria for being on and off simply require breaking up and getting together once, and we're pretty much there," I explained, internally relishing how wound up he was getting over this.

"We are not an on-and-off couple," he repeated through his teeth, shutting his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose as he spoke, "we split up once, and it had nothing to do with how we felt about each other; those were all factors that were way bigger than us."

When Killua decided to spend more than twenty words clarifying a point, I knew it was serious and something that he had an aversion to for his own reasons.

I couldn't help the small smile that was slowly creeping on my face. "Alright, geez, I had no idea that was a sore spot," I mumbled, raising my hands in defeat.

He turned to look at me for a second before he spoke. "It's not. I just really dislike the concept of a back-and-forth for some reason," he confessed, leaning back to rest his weight on his palms. "I mean, you're either in or you're out."

I wanted so badly to point out how he had spent the majority of this very year doing exactly that where he and I were concerned, but I had learned that you had to pick your battles. It was pretty clear to me that this was a dead-end conversation on a topic that Killua already sported a lot of guilt about anyway. There really was no reason to make him feel worse over things he didn't necessarily do at his best.

"Anyway, the gist here is that we're not on-and-off because we're simply never breaking up again," he finalized, moving his hand in a slicing motion as to mark the end of that detour, but little did he know, I wasn't done with him quite yet.

"Hm, so if we're not breaking up ever, does that mean this thing is to go on indefinitely?" I asked, feigning cluelessness as I gestured between the two of us, but I was ready to pounce once he took the bait.

"Well, if that wasn't clear yet." Killua shrugged, making sure to show me how dumb he thought I was by pointing at his temple.

"Then, is there any point in time during that indefinite timeline that you're going to tell me you love me?" I bombarded in the sickliest sweet tone I could manage, which is what contributed to catching him so off-guard.

He froze in place at that, never quite being able to take his eyes off mine. Fortunately, I already knew him enough to anticipate that very reaction, which is why I continued my interrogation without hesitation.

"I mean, you already told Gon, and the rest of your friends I presume; why can't you tell me?" I was smart enough to know when to stop, and I also knew what a great effect injecting silence at the right moment would have on the exchange.

Eventually, Killua blinked and then took a couple more seconds to swallow. In my defense, seeing how vulnerable he was made me feel bad, and never in a million years had I thought I would resort to cornering him to confess his feelings to me, but for some unknown reason, I felt desperate to have him say those words. I figured, since I already knew in so many ways and through so many sources, that he did feel exactly that way, there was no harm in forcing it out of him.

"I-I—" he stuttered for a good minute, before managing to catch his breath. "It's not that simple." Wrong thing to say, and he figured that out the instant the words left his lips.

I couldn't see my own expression, but the alarm in his eyes gave me a pretty good idea, regardless. "It's not that simple for you to tell me you love me?" I paraphrased; the menace in my voice at previously unreached levels.

"No," he whipped before I had even gotten the entire sentence out. "—no, baby." He immediately moved to damage control because he was smart enough to realize what he had just done. "It's—it's um…" he attempted, but that was as far as words helped him out because he was completely out of them. The hand he was using to gesture scrunched up into a fist in unreleased frustration, and he groaned.

"Of course, it would be simple if you did feel that way, which means it's not simple because it isn't like that, is it?" I decoded, my voice thick from both emotion and the rapidly building sore throat I was trying to hide.

"Claire, no, it is simple," he rushed through the words, and I could tell he was still not sure how to handle this, but the way I looked right now was probably the strongest catalyst in chasing him to get there, and quick too. "What happened to me doing it at my own time?" he blabbered in confusion, realizing again, a moment too late, that he had said the wrong thing... again.

"Your own time?" I bellowed, exasperated. "Isn't a month enough time for you to reciprocate?"

"I didn't know there was a deadline," he admitted, the dread in his voice too evident not to spot.

"Oh, so this is like a chore for you," I deciphered, my hands flying all over the place.

Killua had now proceeded to rub his face in utmost aggravation. "Kill me, kill me, now," he mumbled in that state.

"So you'd rather die than tell me you love me?" I was somehow standing up on my knees while still on the premises of the bed.

"Oh, Lord," he breathed in desperation.

This hysteric to and fro continued for about five minutes before Killua decided he had had just about enough of it. He approached me head-on, changing his stance and taking both my hands, and keeping them there, despite my attempts at breaking free.

"It's simple," he repeated, freeing one of my hands to cup my face with his because I had resorted to turning away my gaze when no other opportunity for escape presented itself. I was hurt, embarrassed, and on the verge of a rain parade from hell when he turned me to face him.

When my eyes involuntarily met his, I could tell he had everything weighed out now, and I was going to have to listen. "Claire, this is the simplest, most intense, clear, and real thing I've felt in my life," he broke down each description clearly so I would know how much of his emotions went into them. "I have never felt this way about another person ever in my life; never this strongly, never even close."

"Then why can't you say it?" I demanded; warm and angry tears that I tried to blink back made their way to his fingers.

"Would you really want me to say it, right now, like this?" he asked sincerely, "because I think that would be an insult to what we have."

I just pursed my lips because I was way past the point of coherent conversation.

He used his thumb to smooth out my lips. "Every moment that you and I have had has been exceptionally special, spontaneous, just at the right time," he depicted, his stare so intense I couldn't look anywhere else. "—the first time we kissed, our first date, when we spent the night together," he recounted one by one.

I blinked, somehow understanding what he had been trying to put through for so long when he put it that way.

He moved his hand from my face to grab mine and brought it close to his lips. "When I tell you… what I feel, it has to be worth your time." He placed gentle kisses on my palm as he talked. "You already know... there's no one for me but you."

When he said that, I recalled how he had also once almost said these words to me before. I then felt the unreasonable demon in me deflate for good. I could already tell my mouth was trembling from the residue emotions, and Killua pulled me in for a hug before I had time to further process any of that.

The way he smelled succeeded in making me forget half of the demented thoughts that had prompted my reaction in the first place. The rest of them slowly trickled away in the way Killua slowly pushed me back on the bed and leaned over me.

The way his intense eyes were boring into mine and his silver hair was hanging quite like a halo around his face stripped me of the ability to speak. "I had to know that patience thing would only last so long," he revealed with a grin.

Still short of words, I just stared back, and he dipped his face to place a kiss on my bottom lip. "I love when you do that pouty lip."

"I don't pout," I mumbled back immediately because he teased me on that a lot.

"Of course, you don't," he said, pulling back and doing the most unexpected thing; rubbing our noses together. There was a tenderness and intimacy in that one little action that I couldn't quite explain.

Suddenly I was out of the haze that had taken me over; I could comprehend how as an intellectual being, asking my boyfriend to tell me he loved me at gunpoint after I explicitly told him he could say it in his own time was insane. Also, the fact that he hadn't run away and chosen to deal with my crazy had somehow stimulated me in ways I couldn't really describe.

I felt a strange kind of nerve in me, which is why I couldn't explain what was going through my brain when I rose to interchange our positions so that I was the one lying on top of him.

Killua looked surprised, but in a way where I could clearly tell he liked what he was seeing.

"Re-do on our 'could-be' anniversary?" I suggested, making sure my voice gave off the right amount of eagerness, and my hands explained what I wanted better than my mouth.

He exhaled, the semblance of a laugh leaving his lips. "Yes, ma'am." And that was pretty much all that he needed to say for the next foreseeable chunk of time.

It was a little later that I was in the kitchen pouring out some coffee for Killua, who had hopped in for a second shower. I was trying to redeem myself for the fresh doze of insanity I had greeted him with this morning. While I did that, I also took out one of the adorable refrigerator magnets Gon kept in the kitchen drawer and was in the midst of trying to prop a cute photo print of Killua and me on it (another gesture of amiability on my part to mitigate my prior actions).

"That picture's worth a million Jenny," Leorio said suddenly from behind me, and I say it was a miracle that the mug in my hand didn't go flying to the other side of the room with the way he made his unannounced appearance.

"Uh, thanks…" I remarked, turning back to look at the photograph; it was a sweet one my mom took the day before we left for York New. I especially liked it because Killua was on the verge of a smile in it, and heaven knows there aren't many photographs out there that can make the same claim.

"No, that picture is actually worth that much," Leorio clarified, dipping his glasses further down the bridge of his nose to scan the display better. "Any picture of Killua, or his family for that matter, can be sold for an insane amount of money."

My eyes popped open at that information. "What? I mean, okay, they're probably all good-looking but isn't that a bit of a stretch?"

"It's the mystery around them; not a lot of people know much about the family, and even what they look like," he explained, drawing back to help himself to the coffee machine. "Would you believe there are actual tour buses that go up to his family's mansion?"

"Mansion?" I echoed, feeling a little stupid that I barely knew anything below the surface about the man I was living with, breathing with— sleeping with, for crying out loud.

"Yeah, I've never been there per se, but I've seen the premises, and they're huge," he detailed, putting an annoying emphasis on the last word.

"Right," I responded, suddenly feeling the urge to be a good girlfriend evaporate from me very quickly. I idly took a sip from the mug in my hand before realizing that I hated coffee. Great, this just contributed to the bitterness I was already building up.

When Leorio left with his coffee in hand, I turned around and snatched the picture up from the fridge. I folded it haphazardly and stuffed it into the pocket of my jeans; then, I proceeded to empty out every last drop of coffee from the mug and the coffee machine, too, while I was at it. Satan had nothing on me.

I decided I didn't really feel up to seeing Killua again for a couple of hours and stormed right out for work, knowing very well that I had already accepted a ride from him for it. Well, tough luck.

I had officially set myself up to be miserable for the rest of the day, which I realized when I found myself looking over the same paragraph from a security report for the past half an hour without being able to take anything in. It was annoying, and ridiculous even, how the state of my relationship with Killua determined how the rest of my day and life turned out.

When countless eye rubs didn't magically help me out of my trance, I decided to take a lunch break at eleven in the morning. I almost wanted someone to question me for it so I could pick a fight with them. I had already utilized my fight coupons with Killua for the rest of the month, probably, so I wasn't about to go all ninja on him, not today at least… or right now.

I made a beeline for a little bagel stand at a five-minute walk from my office. They always put extra cream cheese in my sandwiches without me asking, and I was hoping that would serve as my dose of dopamine for the day.

I also ordered myself a piping hot cup of tea which I planned to nurse in order to burn the beginnings of my sore throat away. If I was going to be pissed off at Killua, I planned on not giving him any ammunition in the form of my sickness, and then having the conversation somehow circle back to my lack of self-control.

As Killua had said on multiple occasions, I was an idiot, and I realized that when my train of thought ended, and I suddenly found myself in the middle of the busiest street in the city, both hands occupied with food and beverage, as a fast-approaching car made a beeline for me. I was an idiot, of course, but despite that, I could tell that there was no way I could move out of the vehicle's trajectory, given its speed and distance.

Instead of thinking it over in any other way, I just shut my eyes. Cue the ostrich reference Killua had made for me a couple of days ago.

The universe, however, had plans to save my butt because out of nowhere, I felt a firm hand on my shoulder and forearm, and even without opening my eyes, I knew I was on safe ground.

My past experiences had conditioned me to expect that it would be Killua's angry figure that would materialize itself before me as soon as I opened my eyelids, but to my utter surprise, the man standing in front of me had dark hair and dark eyes that matched mine to a fault.

"Still as single-minded as always," he assessed, looking down at me.

Look, here's the thing. I tended not to dwell on my past a lot, and this wasn't big of me; it was just a very unhealthy coping mechanism that sounded easier than the trauma the alternative option promised. This is why to keep myself in peace (or in some semblance of it), I had mixed facts with my own version of events.

In my version of events, my previous (deranged) family had just simply ceased to exist. Dead, gone, swept out of existence — even though I had already seen a fair amount of evidence to prove otherwise (running into both Luca and Ingrid just weeks prior at the auction house, yadda yadda yadda). This is why I felt this was a séance of some sort when my brother stood there speaking to me.

"Luca," I breathed, not sure if the way my head felt was because of the adrenaline rush from what just happened or simply the fact that one of my siblings had just appeared out of thin air after a lack of any significant contact for eight, maybe nine, years. "I'm going to pass out," I informed him calmly with my hand on my chest, and he would have done better to believe me because that's exactly what happened a few seconds later.

A peculiar practice like dusting off memories from a shelf,

An odd little ritual like a séance with death itself.