Chapter: 43

"Score Settling."

I had always thought of myself as a fairly intelligent person. I had good judgment (most of the time), I provided good insights (if the conditions were favorable), and I had balanced reactions (sometimes). At least, this was the way I had known myself to be until Killua walked into my life.

I hadn't been much of a crier and I preferred listening over meaningless talking. I distinctly remember that one of the things that I'd pride myself over was that I always had some sort of upper-hand over situations, because I didn't allow myself to be that affected by them.

Now, every time my eyes pooled up on hearing the words 'I love you' from Killua, I realized I badly needed to update the itinerary of facts I had about myself. I was emotional (ridiculously so), I was sensitive, jealous, and my reactions to things were often mismatched.

I had theories— I was quite sure that it was the combined toll of last year that had cracked my resolve and rendered me this… undone. For one thing, my father's sudden passing was a massive catalyst, that followed by the insane way I found out about Killua's identity, his family's link to my father's death, and then the angst and back and forth with Killua— I figured this was bound to happen.

Objectively, I would say I was definitely better off than the absolute insanity I had tapped into those months in-between before the dust settled down. Judging on those parameters, the version of me from back then would have set something on fire on the revelations I'd come across in the past few months.

"Let's go somewhere," Killua suddenly suggested one day after one of my crying sessions following his confession. I was pretty sure the guy was desperate to cheer me up. I wasn't sure how to explain that this was me being happy.

"Somewhere?" I echoed, surprised by his sudden offer.

"Yes, anywhere," he said, lighting a cigarette and putting it between his lips. We were out on the balcony and I surprisingly liked how the smell of tobacco warmed my insides up on that particular chilly night. "Where would you like to go?"

"Any regional limitations?" I confirmed, rubbing my shoulders with my hands.

That little action did not go unnoticed by his sharp eyes. He immediately stepped inside and reappeared with the throw we had on the couch, wrapping it quickly around me. Mind you, he himself was in just a t-shirt. "None whatsoever."

"How long would we be staying? Who would be with us?" I interrogated further.

He gave me a deadpan look, not amused by my questions. "Just us, anything you want. Why is it so hard to get a decent answer out of you?" He wondered, exhaling a puff of smoke right after.

"Okay, I think I'm a bit sick of the rain and the cold, so I could see myself in a swimsuit on a beach somewhere."

He nodded, sounding appreciative of the picture I'd painted. "That's more like it. Now, clear whatever plans I already know you don't have for the entire next week."

I rolled my eyes at his uncreative dig. "I start classes in a few days," I reminded him, suddenly a little too aware of the way his lips were curling around that cigarette.

"Don't care," he dismissed without much thought. "The world isn't going to end with you missing a few classes." He withdrew his eyes from the city-scape below us and turned to give me a skeptical look. "Unless there's another reason you're so eager to get back."

I glared at him, not appreciating his sour implication one bit. "If I did the things you do out of jealousy, things would be insane here."

"Aren't they already?" He countered without a second's hesitation. "I mean, correct me if this is just me making up scenarios in my mind but… didn't you hit a girl I slept with on the face with a locker door?"

My face felt like someone had lit a fire in my cheeks. "That's not… why I did it," I sputtered, completely embarrassed. "And what's with this generous trip all of a sudden? Since when are you this nice?"

He gave me a side glance; he was clearly enjoying messing with me. "I'm always nice to you. You just make it very hard for me to continue being nice to you."

I didn't have much in the way of clever responses. "Right…" I muttered, pulling the throw around myself tighter. "Well, what's the agenda behind this whole thing?"

One of his eyebrows shot up at my question. "There has to be an agenda behind my wanting to spend time alone with my girlfriend?"

"I wouldn't put it past you," I carried on, but I was just being a bad sport at this point.

"Things have been a little too much around here," he recapped and his tone was serious now. As he spoke, he was hitting the cigarette's butt with his thumb. The way the ash dropped off and floated down the railing was almost hypnotic to watch. "Let me take you away, it will be good for us."

"Okay," I agreed, quite sure there was something wrong with me since my boyfriend had to justify taking me away on a trip.

And that was how I had found myself sprawled out on a beach towel, warm sand creating an almost friction with my elbows, the sun bright and delicious on my bare legs.

I blissfully watched Killua stretch his body, standing right at the contour of where the water and the sand made contact. His lonesome shorts didn't leave much to the imagination, a fact I observed several other women around me were enjoying too.

I rolled my eyes. I was so used to it by now it hardly bothered me. I mean, it was only natural that he would be stared at. I found myself hyper-aware of how distracting the dip in his back was.

He made his way back to me after a while. I realized the front view was even worse. Everything from the V touching his waistband to those attention-seeking abs should have been illegal.

He lifted his sunglasses to the top of his head as he stooped over me, blocking the sun from my face. I had to put a hand over my eyes to make him out clearly.

"You look like you're doing good," he observed, crouching down closer to me.

"Clearly not as good as you," I remarked snidely. "That was quite a show you put on. I'm pretty sure I saw someone's grandma over there wipe drool off her face."

That got a cocky smile out of him. He touched the tip of my nose with his finger. "You're cute when you're jealous."

"And you're scary when you're jealous," I reminded him. I wasn't sure if I was just imagining the way his head was lowering closer and closer to mine.

"Is that so?" He asked rhetorically, shifting to his knees as he bent down.

I don't know how he did it, but I found my elbows and back straightening to accommodate him. "Yes, which makes zero sense since I hardly have any experience with anyone but you."

One of his hands was on my thigh now. "I don't think you know how those brain-dead idiots at your school talked about you when I first came along."

I swallowed, unsure of what response to provide to that piece of information. "How is that my fault? I mean, just look at what I have to endure with everyone's reactions to you." I managed to gesture vaguely around me, despite the compromising position he was putting me in.

"Their reactions hardly matter since I'm not interested," he reasoned, dipping even further until our lips were just a few inches apart.

"Well… you must have been… at some point," I argued weakly, not sure where I was gathering the mental capacity to verbalize this.

That seemed to cut through his calm. He leaned slightly away, arching a silver eyebrow at me. "You're never going to let that go, are you?"

"Might as well," I mumbled in defeat. "It's not like you're ever going to give anything up." The distance allowed me to rise back up, shifting my weight to my elbows.

He placed a hand under his chin, his expression a mixture of contemplation and surprise. "You really want to know?"

I was almost shocked by the fact that I was even close to breaking him. "Well, duh," I pressed, trying to not push too hard.

His eyes were still lost in thought. "Are you sure? We both know you're not the best with these details."

I grimaced at him. "Better than you, if we're speaking relatively."

He rolled his eyes, but any traces of hesitation were beyond gone from his face. "Okay," he agreed, raising a finger in warning. "I'll allow one question about this. Just the one, so think it through."

My eyes popped open at the opportunity he presented. "You're serious?"

"Yes," he confirmed, settling down on the sand right by my towel. He was in such a good mood despite the nature of his offer, it was very strange to me.

"Okay…" I quickly juggled through the assortment of questions I had about his past sex life. "How many people have you slept with?"

An unreadable expression twitched on his face. "You're sure you want to know?" He confirmed once again, it almost looked like he was biting back a grin, but I couldn't be too sure.

"Yes," I said, but my voice sounded weak, even to me.

He took a couple of seconds, probably doing the math in his head, and then leaned close to whisper the answer in my ear. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

"You okay?" He assessed after a couple of minutes and I wasn't sure what he saw on my face that prompted him to ask that.

"Umm-hmm," I responded, not sure I was in a good enough state to speak beyond that. I guess I couldn't even be mad at him really, since logically speaking I did bring this on myself.

"How does that make you feel?" He asked casually, like I wasn't dying on this inside.

I cleared my throat before answering. I needed the time to gather my wits. "I guess… I'm not surprised."

"Really," he mused, the almost teasing element to his voice unmissed by me. He was enjoying this.

"Just to be clear, how many years are we spanning this number out in?" I followed up, trying to recuperate from his honesty.

"No way," he denied immediately with a shake of his finger. "I said one question, you took your pick."

I guess I wasn't really taken aback by the fact that it was impossible to be sneaky with him. "I have to say, I am surprised that I got anything out of you though," I shifted the subject matter of the conversation before I started speaking nonsense.

"You shouldn't be," he said with a good-natured shrug.

"Why's that?" I asked, my eyes narrowing from suspicion.

"We're up for some score settling," he informed, turning to me with an unguarded smile. "I happen to know everything about you, I did say I'd return the favor when that happened."

My eyes widened in complete shock over that realization. "That's right…" The thrill from that was unexplainable. Did this mean what I thought it meant?

"So… I can ask you anything and you'll tell me?" I reiterated, not being over the whole ordeal.

"Pretty much, yeah," he affirmed and I just started noticing how open and off-his-guard he was.

"Tell me everything," I pleaded, the excitement in my chest was palpable.

And so Killua and I spent the totality of our vacation going through anything and everything about him, his life, and his adventures.

He spoke calmly, in detail, and was surprisingly a very skilled storyteller. He told me about his upbringing, the training, the tortures, the strange expectations— which ultimately ended up being what had him walking out the door.

He told me about his impromptu decision to take the Hunter Exam, meeting Gon, their other friends. I noticed how clipped his voice got when he talked about his older brother ambushing him there. I also noticed the reserved sparkle in his eyes when he detailed how Gon and the rest of the gang came all the way to his home to retrieve him.

We would walk on the beach, have lunch on the resort, sit by the pool, all the while I'd keep pestering him to continue. He didn't sound bothered at all, if anything, he looked rather amused at the intensity of my interest in every detail.

Even back in our room, when he was clearly in particular moods, a sudden question would pop in my head and I couldn't help but put it across.

"That's seriously what you're thinking about now?!" He demanded, clearly frustrated as he was right in the middle of kissing my neck.

"Last question for the night, I promise," I pleaded, suddenly finding myself plagued with uncovering the mystery of this and that particular incident he'd described.

He sighed impatiently, crossing his arms as drew back and leaned his head against the headboard. "Alright, well about that…"

And then the story would go on and on and on.

He told me about the first time they came across nen, that there was a Secret Hunter Exam, how he discovered his nen type, how he developed his ability. Then he went on to detail the whole saga behind the Spiders' attack on the auction, years back. It was fascinating to learn that Killua and Gon were there, part of it all even.

He described the game Gon's father had created, how they managed to complete it, where it led them. It was also clear when things took a darker turn— Ging's disciple Kite's death and subsequent reincarnation, Gon's emotional close-off as a result of it, the time and patience it took to get him out of it.

I could tell these memories were painful for him, despite the fact that he'd never admit it. I could also understand Gon and his dynamic better through the accounts of their shared experiences. It wasn't a friendship as much as it was almost a sacred brotherhood at this point. The boys had seen it all— each other's good, bad, ugly, and come out of it on the other side.

He told me about the excitement and disappointment that was the quest to find Ging. How he'd be sure they were both close to giving up at multiple points in time, how he wasn't sure what they'd do and where they'd go if they had given up.

I think the hardest thing for him to talk about was his family. It was clear in both his voice and the way his eyes lost a bit of dimension when he spoke of them. His mother's manic protectiveness, his father's unwavering expectations, his grandfather's silent compliance, his brothers' insane agendas.

"Your brother put a needle in your head?" I asked in complete shock, when he recounted that whole ordeal.

He nodded, hardly sounding bothered. "It was clever, a clever way to reaffirm everything they had tried to drill in my head for so long."

That detail almost made a bile rise to my throat. I could hardly wrap my head around this disturbed brand of love that his family seemed to have for him.

"How are they okay with letting you go like this?" I couldn't help but ask, having heard all the tales of their might and reach for years now.

"There's not much they can do about it," he dismissed with a shrug.

But couldn't they? I wondered in quiet reservation. I didn't want to accidentally risk pissing him off so I didn't say anything.

It was in the evening, when we sat on the window-facing stairs of our little suite, feet out on the terrace, watching the strange and magnificent colors of another sunset, that I caught the lost look in Killua's eyes.

I couldn't explain it, but it felt like for a moment, he wasn't there at all. "Hey," I nudged gently, feeling afraid because he suddenly looked breakable for the very first time. "Everything okay?"

He drew in a quick breath, like he was slightly startled. "Sorry- I was-" But it didn't take him long to recover his usual composure. "I guess I was just thinking about how to tell you the rest."

"You don't have to right now, if you're not ready," I comforted, putting my hand on his.

"No, I need to," he confessed, the vulnerable look on his face was making my heart ache. "Some… hard truths to follow." He sounded uncomfortable and it was hard to see.

I nodded, not sure how else I could encourage him because it was clear he needed to go through this.

"I did lie to you way back when, among other things about… my siblings." His preamble was both strange and intriguing. I didn't remember him telling me much about his family at all. "Not as much a lie as it was an omission."

"Okay," I said, waiting for him to carry on.

"I did have a sister," he began, it was more whispered than said. If the draft blew just a tad more forcefully, I wouldn't have heard him at all. "Special, quite like yours."

I couldn't understand the way my skin went cold from the inside on hearing those words. I couldn't speak even if I wanted to in that moment.

"She was different and my family always had a hard time with accepting that. Anything that's uncertain and unpredictable is dangerous in their books," he explained, palm under his chin and eyes hundreds of miles away. "But that was the farthest thing from what she could ever have been, she just needed to be… understood and loved."

"—I loved her," he added weakly and for a moment it was like everything had gone absolutely still. "But maybe I was too caught up in my own selfishness to… look out for her the way I should have."

Listening to Killua refer to himself as selfish did something to my core. Words still failed me, even though I knew I should have afforded him some comfort.

"So, I left, not thinking much about in the midst of what I was leaving her in. I thought they were family after all, they could hate her… but they wouldn't hurt her." Suddenly, it looked like Killua had shrunk back to that very age, like he was back there and was trying to stop himself from setting foot out the door. "Well, I was wrong."

It was terrifying to witness, the shadow of self-hatred was so clear on his face. He looked so much like… Luca in that moment. "—and it took me over a year to finally even bother giving her some thought. I went back and it was like they were waiting with that ludicrous story about how she passed away from- an illness." It was like he was choking on those words by the end.

Killua's teeth were clenched, body trembling furiously, and all of a sudden the light bulb just above our heads furiously blinked, shot-circuited, and blew up in a million glass shards. He was light-quick to put his body around me to shield me from any impact.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, when drew back after a few minutes. "Did it-"

"I'm not hurt, Killua," I reassured immediately, not wanting to add even a little speck more to the immense pain he was already carrying inside him.

I just put my arms around him, not knowing how else I could help. My hands were shaking, I had no idea the most composed person I knew was so deeply wounded. "It's not your fault," I promised, feeling his body stiffen.

"Wouldn't I like to think that?" He mocked himself, the self-deprecation in his voice was haunting. "I did offer myself some excuses… like how maybe it was Illumi's needle that kept me from thinking clearly, remembering. But that's just a load of shit and nothing more."

I shook my head, unable to stand what I was witnessing. "For all we know it could very well have been-"

"I was the only thing standing between Alluka and my family," he declared, cutting me off without an instance's hesitation. "And I took myself out of that equation. I traded her life for my own freedom."

"Killua, how could you have known? You can't put something like that on yourself." I wanted to beg him to set himself free from something so sinister. I understood, I knew, because all those years I lived with that same guilt. Sadly, even knowing differently didn't make any of it better.

"And what if I do? It's not like it's keeping me from living my life. Alluka was the only one who suffered the consequences, I'm still here, she isn't." He freed himself from my embrace, it wasn't harsh but it was distant.

"Is this how you're going to punish yourself for taking a decision that wasn't for anyone else, just for once?" I asked him, gently touching his face with my hand.

"When the outcome was what it was, I'd say that's about right," he countered, looking impatient now.

I just stared at him, not sure how I could make things even a tad easier for him.

"Don't look at me like that," he said quietly, turning completely away from me. "With pity, because you're going to be hating me in a moment."

"What?" I asked, confused and flustered by his words. "I don't pity you, you're the more resolute person I know- and why would I hate you?"

"Because of what I'm about to tell you," he prefaced, moving to stand up and walk out onto the terrace.

The scene was achingly beautiful, the outlines of twilight around this angel-like man. But the dilemma inside him was one of stark ugliness.

"Nothing could ever make me hate you, Killua," I laid down firmly. "I love you."

"I met with one of my brothers a few weeks ago," he confessed, face still turned away to the sky. "I had to find some leads for that flash drive."

The news was unexpected, but didn't hit me as nastily as I thought it would. It did take me a handful of minutes to offer a measured response. "Okay, you did what you had to." I walked to him and hugged his back.

He unlocked my embrace and turned to look down at me. "That's it? I'm supposed to believe this reaction isn't out of pity?" He was mad and it was clear in his eyes.

"I don't know what you want to hear, Killua. Was this my favorite news in the world? No. But am I going to leave you because of it? Also no," I confessed, forcing myself to retain eye contact with him. "Weren't you doing essentially what I was doing? Meeting your brother behind my back?"

His eyebrows raised at the parallel I had just drawn. "I think it differs because of my family's involvement in…"

I knew he didn't want to say the words and I understood why. "It's a difficult thing," I admitted with a sigh. "But I won't hold it against you, that is your family at the end of the day."

And I knew it took some sort of super-human level of patience to say that, but I also knew that it was the truth.

He blinked for a moment, in confusion, but then shook his head. "They mean nothing to me," he promised, the resentment blatant in his voice. "It was just a last resort type of thing, I only did it for Gon… and he doesn't even know."

"You're human, Killua," I reminded him, standing on my tip-toes to place a kiss on his cheek. "It's time you start making peace with that."

We quietly watched the waves merge and crash for a bit, Killua's chin rested peacefully at the top of my head. "I love you," he said quietly, I felt the movement of the words across my body.

"And I love you," I responded, lacing our fingers with one another.

"You didn't cry when I said that, that's progress," he noted, a real smile in his voice.

"There's a first time for everything," I mumbled, lost in thought. I raised my hand to cup his chin, turning his face to me. "Can I say something?"

"Has my saying no ever stopped you?" He wondered, but the fondness in his voice was unmistakable.

I couldn't help but smile a little at that. "I don't know your circumstances and I didn't know your sister, but I do know what it feels like to be loved by you. And it's the safest, best thing one could ever feel. I would trade everything in the world for just this little bracket of time where I got to be loved by you… regardless of whatever the future might hold, and I can't help but feel… that Alluka must have felt the same."

I don't know what made me so brave in that moment, but for once my words were right and they were in time.

His eyebrows went up as he registered what I said, but no words followed that reaction. The blue of his eyes was accommodating so many colors and emotions, it did feel like words wouldn't be able to keep up.

"Is that okay to say?" I asked, feeling a tad bit conscious at his silence, though it was in no way uncomfortable.

"Absolutely," he concurred softly, inching forward to kiss me in a way I didn't know was even possible.

I remember thinking that in that quiet moment in time, we were at peace. There was simply no other way to describe it.

If I knew what awaited us then, I would have lost my sanity in that very moment even though… I had just promised otherwise.