Chapter Text
Biscuit is the first to notice that something is wrong with the boy.
It's a dark, cloudy night, which makes it the perfect time for running away. Not that running away is what Bisky is doing. Yes, she's packing her things as she moves about the hotel room (slowly, aimlessly, while humming a tune, so as not to arouse suspicion), and yes, she's slipping away at the time she thinks Palm will be most occupied (huddled in the corning of the adjoining room, scrawling ink across parchment and muttering under her breath), and yes, she's leaving to avoid the probable confrontation that will occur when Gon and Killua return from their fight empty-handed. But she's not running away. Bisky could beat Palm blindfolded and with both hands tied behind her back. That means it's not running away, it's just taking an opportunity to avoid a very uncomfortable situation.
It's not that Bisky thinks it's impossible for Gon and Killua to beat Morel's apprentices and win their way back into the NGL. Their talent is impressive. The progress they've made in the last month is ample proof of that (and she's not above giving herself a pat on the back for that, either). They just have so much less experience with facing unfamiliar Nen abilities in actual combat, and Morel's apprentices have years of training on them. She estimates there's a ninety percent chance at least one of the boys loses, and Bisky isn't going to be around to see how Palm reacts when they do.
In the hours since Gon and Killua left, the sound of a knife stabbing into fabric has echoed from the next room with frankly disturbing regularity.
Bisky pockets the last of her things and creeps for the door. She's passing by the window when a flicker of aura pings at the edge of her awareness, and, by habit, she looks outside.
It's the middle of the night, but a Hunter with sharp eyes can make out the four figures walking through the dark square below. Morel's apprentices walk in front - Knuckle, the pugnacious man Gon and Killua brought back that one time, and another that Bisky doesn't recognize, willowy and tall, who must be Shoot. Their shoulders are relaxed, and they talk quietly to each other as they move. A stray dog weaves between Knuckle's feet, nearly tripping him. He grumbles at it while the other man covers his mouth to hide his laughter.
Walking a few meters behind them are Gon and Killua. It doesn't take an expert to see the unhappy way they angle away from each other. Killua, as usual, slouches along with cool indifference, but his mouth is set in a thin, angry line. Compared to him Gon is an open book, his shoulders tense, his hands balled into fists, eyes glazed over with the look he gets when he's stuck on something particularly upsetting.
So, they both lost. Unfortunate for them, but Bisky can't say she's that surprised. A month to get them up to the standard of any of Morel's apprentices was always going to be a stretch, even for boys with as much sheer talent as them. It might do them good, in the end, to have lost. Gives them that extra step to push for. She knows there was some sort of wager riding on this, that this means they won't be able to return to the NGL, one of Morel's little games - but, well, that's not really her problem.
Bisky's job is done, and it's time for her to go.
It's by chance that she looks out the window one last time and sees the moment that Killua's mask slips.
It only lasts from one heartbeat to the next, while he crosses through the shadow between the street lamps, where he's sure no one is watching - a look of total desperation. He watches Gon like an animal cornered, like he's clinging to the sight of Gon for dear life. Bisky nearly steps back at the realization that she's invaded some deeply private moment. The polite thing to do would be to look away.
Bisky isn't polite.
Call it by luck, or nosiness, or simply good instinct - Bisky looks at his aura instead.
Killua's aura envelops him in a static hum, cold and electric. Gon's aura, strangely, is absent, as if he were in Zetsu, except there's the faint fingerprint of someone else's Nen blocking it out. Nothing so dramatic seems to have happened to Killua. He looks about the same as normal, except… there's the barest suggestion of something underneath, a discordance in the noise, so quiet that Bisky can't be sure it's really there.
If you can't defeat Shoot, she'd said, you must stay out of Gon's life.
She meant what she told Killua (she really did, she reassures herself - she's right, after all). Bisky's trained enough Hunters over the years to know what it takes. Whatever mental paralysis has infected Killua that makes him flee when a fight turns against him, it's a danger to himself and Gon. If he couldn't find a way past that tonight, it's better to separate the two of them now, before they get too dependent on each other. Yes, they'll be upset, but they're kids. What are kids if not resilient?
The discordant note shivers a fraction louder, and something in Bisky's stomach twists.
No. It's probably nothing. It's definitely nothing. They lost, they're not used to losing, and now they're upset. That's all there is to it. She can contemplate the exact nature of the changes to their auras later, in circumstances less likely to become stabby in the immediate future.
Bisky slips the door open and escapes into the hall.
She'll be on an airship by morning, heading somewhere far more comfortable than this miserably hot country, away from this mess of chimera ants and missing Hunters. She meant it when she said it wasn't her problem.
Out in the warm night, passing under the street lamps, she stops.
Crickets chirp around her. Bisky looks down the road, but the hum of the boy's aura has already faded. The ghost of it echoes in her mind. The harrowed look in his eyes.
She thinks, damn it.
Bisky is still leaving town, she really is, but maybe it can wait a little. It's not like she has anywhere else she needs to be. She can delay a bit, just to prove to herself that there's nothing wrong. Just for a few days. Just to make sure.
***
The second person to notice that something is wrong is, of all people, Knuckle.
It's mid-morning when Kite's crew drops them all off at the NGL border. The day is already starting to grow hot, and the prospect of spending the next few days in a country where air conditioning is literally outlawed isn't the most enticing to Knuckle, but hey, he and Shoot won, fair and square, so he feels good about it, even if the kids have come moping along after them like they think Morel is going to change his mind and let them in after all. They really should know better by now.
Still, Knuckle feels a little bad about it, just a little, seeing the look on Gon's face as he and Shoot wave goodbye.
"Don't worry," he tells Gon. "We're gonna get Kite back, safe and sound. It's a promise."
Gon looks down, hands shaking. There's no hiding what he's feeling, that's for sure. Knuckle huffs out a breath. Gon seems like a good kid - a bit too eager, maybe, but he'll be formidable once he gets a few more years under his belt. There's no shame in sitting this one out.
"Seriously," Knuckle says. "We'll beat up some chimeras and be back soon."
"Alright," Gon whispers. His voice wavers like he's going to cry.
Ah, come on, kid. It'll be fine. Knuckle averts his eyes. His gaze passes over the silver-haired kid instead, Gon's friend, who is watching them from back by the truck. The thought has crossed Knuckle's mind before, but something about him is uncannily cat-like - silent and still, never letting down his guard, claws at the ready.
The kid notices him watching and returns the look with a glare that could freeze water.
Alright then. Knuckle snorts and turns to follow Shoot up to the border checkpoint. A half-formed thought pokes at the edge of his brain. He almost looks back one last time, but stops himself.
"Hey, Shoot," he mutters as they walk. "You notice anything off about that kid you fought?"
"Hm?" Shoot gives him a curious look. "Like right now?"
"Yeah."
"Not really. What sort of off do you mean?"
What does he mean? "I don't know. I guess it's nothing."
It must be nothing. The thought isn't even related, really - he was just thinking about cats, and how it can be difficult, because they never let you know that they're in pain.
Doesn't matter, anyway. Knuckle puts it out of his mind. He has important work to do in the NGL, dangerous work that's going to require every ounce of focus. Morel and Knov are counting on him. Chairman Netero is counting on him. There's no time to spend on a couple of kids who are angry ‘cause they lost a fight.
He just can't shake the feeling that there's something he's missing.
***
The third person to notice is Killua.
It's stupid. He should have realized sooner that something was wrong. The problem is, everything feels wrong. Everything has been wrong since his fight with Shoot, when Killua stood frozen by Illumi's voice telling him to flee, when he lay defeated in the dirt and felt the world fall away beneath his feet. How was he supposed to know there was something even worse he should have been paying attention to?
The truck bounces on the rough dirt road leading back into town from the NGL border. Gon is uncharacteristically quiet, quaking with anger at his own failure, his head tucked into his arms. It makes Killua's heart ache. He's seen Gon lose fights before, sure, but it's never been like this. He wants to say something to make it better, to tell Gon they'll keep training and get strong enough to never have to run away again, except -
(if you can't defeat Shoot, you must stay out of Gon's life)
- except he's never going to see Gon again after this, is he?
Killua keeps forgetting Bisky's ultimatum and then remembering again, the knife of it digging in a little deeper each time. The pain of it takes his breath away. Gon, who came after Killua to free him from his family, who somehow found something worth saving in him, who is the only good thing in Killua's entire fucking life - Killua is never going to see him again.
The worst part is, he knows Bisky is right. With Illumi's slithery voice in Killua's head, one day there's going to be a fight where Gon will be relying on him but he'll be too paralyzed with fear to move. It could've happened with Neferpitou, if the chimera hadn't been too fixated on Kite to chase after them. Gon could've died right there, right then, and Killua wouldn't have been able to take a single step closer to Pitou to do anything about it.
Killua would rather die himself than let that happen.
He still hasn't told Gon what Bisky said. How is he supposed to? The only thing I needed to go to stay with you was not be a coward and I couldn't. Pathetic. I can't fight my brother's conditioning no matter how much I want to. Useless. You're the only anchor I have in the entire world, the only one, and I have no idea what I'm going to do without you.
He digs his fingernails into his palms and wishes the pain was enough to distract him.
"Hey, Killua," Gon says as the truck turns down the road to the hotel. "Palm's going to be upset with us, isn't she?"
"Yeah."
"I don't think she'll really try to hurt us, but… I can't use Nen if she does."
"Yeah."
"If she does do something, you'll be okay, right?" His expression is so goddamned innocent.
"Yeah," Killua says miserably. "Don't worry about me."
The truck pulls up to the hotel. Kite's apprentices wave to them as they jump out. Killua shoves his hands in his pockets so none of them will see the raw marks his nails left behind.
The curdled stain of Palm's aura is tangible all the way from the street. Killua stares at the hotel door, grimacing, as the truck pulls away. "Maybe we should just leave instead."
"But we have to take responsibility for messing up."
Killua scowls. "No, we don't. If getting into the NGL was so important to Palm, she could've done something useful the past month."
"She did. She brought Bisky here to train us." Gon frowns at him. "You can't just run away from the things you don't like."
You definitely can - but Gon, being Gon, is already going inside. Killua hurries in down the hall after him, hissing, "If you go in there without being able to use Nen, she's going to rip you apart!"
"No, she won't," Gon says. He turns back to smile at Killua, his hand on the doorknob to Palm's room. "Because you're here."
Something soft and awful twinges deep in Killua's chest.
Then Gon opens the door and a wave of furious aura washes over them.
Palm sits, her back to them, in the center of the room. The curtains have been drawn over the windows, leaving it dark. She turns, slowly, wild eyes on the two of them, and Killua takes an involuntary step back.
"You lost," she growls. "You lost, you lost, you lost. When you promised me you wouldn't."
"I'm sorry," Gon says, which in Killua's opinion is far more than Palm deserves.
"Do you have any idea how important it was for me to get into the NGL? And you two idiots ruined it!"
Killua thinks that Knov probably left her behind for a very good reason, but while Palm is clutching a knife he's going to be keeping that particular thought to himself.
"I can make up for it." Gon takes a step forward. Killua grabs at him to pull him back to the relative safety of the hallway, but Gon shakes him off. "What can I do?"
"If you want to make up for this, you have to do anything I say."
"Do you have any idea how Gon is feeling right now?" Killua snaps. He can't help himself, even with Palm's hands dancing over the edge of the blade. "He's lost Kite, and he's trying to get back to him, and -"
"Fine," Gon says. "Anything."
"You don't have to listen to her!"
Palm grins, rising to her full height, her eyes flashing triumphantly. "Then you have to go on a date. With me."
It's so absurd that Killua doesn't even think he's heard correctly at first - it would make more sense if she were trying to kill them, but instead she's standing there, smiling, and his pulse is in his ears, so loud he can barely hear past it. It shouldn't matter, he doesn't know why it does, or why his limbs are slow and heavy like he's in a dream, standing at the edge of a precipice and willing himself not to fall.
Then Gon says, "Okay," and Killua is tumbling down into the void.
He thinks: This is the last time we'll ever get to see each other and you're going to waste it on her?
He thinks: Why would you do this when you don't even like her?
He thinks: Do you?
Then all the wrong in Killua's chest bubbles up and all at once he can't breathe.
He loses precious seconds to confusion. Instinct tells him this is an enemy attack - Illumi, or the chimeras, or someone worse - but there's no attackers that he can see. He would almost think he's been poisoned, but Killua's built up so much immunity over the years that that shouldn't even be possible. He grasps at the doorframe, one hand rising to his neck.
"Killua?" Gon says, hesitantly.
"I - I'm fine," Killua chokes out. "Just -"
He sprints for the bathroom.
The lock engages mercifully behind him. Killua doubles over in front of the sink, his throat burning like it's full of smoke. A crushing pressure builds in his chest, an oncoming collision he can't avoid, only stare at in horror, filling his ribs up with razor blades, making him gasp, except he can't get enough air even for that, and it's going to continue on and on and on until his body can't take it until he bursts open until -
He coughs up a slick mass into the sink.
It's my heart, Killua thinks, dizzy, incoherently. But it's not - it's a clot of flower petals, spattered with blood.
His heads spins with the impossibility of this (but no, not impossible, is it, really, if he stops lying to himself?) and air rushes back into his lungs. He gulps it in, collapsing to his knees. Someone outside who sounds a lot like Gon is knocking at the door, asking if he's okay. He tries to choke out yes, but his voice is a rasp that can't form sounds.
There's a tickle in the back of his throat and Killua coughs again. A single petal falls into his lap.
He stares at it in disbelief, a slow, awful dread creeping into his gut.
Killua curls on the tiled floor, eyes squeezed shut, palms pressed to his face. No sound escapes him as he shakes.
He thinks: I'm completely fucked.
***
Of all the numerous ways Killua Zoldyck has thought he might die, he has never in his life imagined this.
There are plenty of deaths that would make sense. Killed by rival assassins. Hollowed out and puppeted by Illumi. Torn apart by raging chimera ants. He's had plenty of time to linger on them in the dark morning hours when he can't sleep. But the ends he dreams for himself are always violent, sudden, sharp. Never once has Killua entertained the idea that he might die simply because he cares.
He's a weapon, and weapons don't care.
The panic of the immediate asphyxiation has started to fade, leaving behind the low and churning horror in his stomach. He can't let it take him over. Killua was always better at evaluating things from a safe remove, taking the pieces of a problem apart and putting them back together in the most rational pattern. He needs to distance himself, to wait and watch and turn over the situation in his mind as calmly as he would observe a target in the hunt before the killing blow.
He knows what the flowers mean. He knows, and still he's too ashamed to admit it. It's too alluring, too sensational - Hanahaki is the plot device in bad TV shows to write off a character, the tragic twist in movies to make the audience cry, the old joke that gets tossed around when people break up. That it exists in real life too, Killua knows, but though everyone has heard a rumor of a friend of a cousin who died of Hanahaki, hardly anyone has ever actually seen it. It's rare, elusive - and in Killua's mind, weak, a death of miserable, lovesick fools with nothing better to do. Which just makes Killua angry all over again - probably millions of people get their hearts broken every single day, and none of them end up spitting up blood in a bathroom while their best friend in the world runs off with some creep.
He shoves that anger back down before it can bring him out of that carefully constructed distance. Just lie here, think through the impersonal facts, fit the pieces of the puzzle where they need to go.
Fact: Killua is going to die.
The thing that's taken root in his lungs will grow, and it will keep on growing until it chokes him from the inside. The possibility of curing it doesn't cross Killua's mind. Even if it really is true that the reciprocation of one's feelings is enough to get rid of it… Gon cares about him, Gon is his friend, but what Killua knows - what he's always known, even in those first days where they promised to stay together, back on Whale Island - is that Gon doesn't need him in the same desperate, all-consuming way that Killua does.
Gon needs Killua to keep him from doing stupid things, and Killua needs Gon like he's the only lifeboat in the fucking ocean.
Which means this is going to kill Killua well, truly, and inexorably dead. But death has always been a constant in Killua's life. He's always known the life expectancy of his family's profession isn't exactly long. It shouldn't be so terrible now that it's coming for him.
If he tells himself that enough, he might almost believe it.
Fact: Killua is not going to die right now.
He doesn't know how long it's going to take. In fictional depictions of Hanahaki there's lots of time for heartsick pining, its victims slowly withering away, all bedridden confessions and dying breaths. Whether the disease's real-life counterpart is anything like that, Killua doesn't know, but it's a fair bet that he has at least a couple of weeks before the flowers get so dense they suffocate him. Which means it would be wasteful of him to give up now and lie on the bathroom floor until they destroy him from the inside out.
Fact: Because of Knuckle's stupid ability, Gon can't use his Nen for thirty days, and there's an army of murderous chimera ants out there waiting to tear him apart.
Okay, that's two facts, but the outcome is the same.
Killua is going to have to protect Gon for the thirty days until he gets his Nen back, and then Killua can run away to die.
It's fucking awful. It's not fair. And yet there's something about it that feels inevitable. Maybe this is where they were always going to end up - Killua running after Gon to Yorknew City, to Greed Island, to Kite, doing whatever it takes to stay in Gon's light just a little while longer. Always chasing, turning himself into whatever Gon needs, burning himself up to keep Gon warm, because he's terrified of the day when his usefulness runs out and Gon realizes that Killua is not worth so very much after all.
A small sob shakes his body, so quick he can't suppress it. Of course this is how it ends. Illumi was right - Killua is a thing, a tool to be used. He can't believe he'd ever dared to imagine a future for himself where he wasn't.
He pulls himself back up onto his knees. The knocking stopped a while ago, but a scrap of paper has been slipped under the door. The absolute mess that is Gon's handwriting is scratched across it. Let me know that you're okay! It nearly breaks Killua all over again.
There's no way in hell that Gon can find out. He'd torment himself about it. He'd tie himself in knots trying to make it right where there's nothing he can do. Whatever Gon feels for him, it's not the same. It's not, because deep in his heart Killua knows that Gon will be just fine without him.
He gets up. The petals in the sink glint sickeningly up at him. He flushes them down the toilet, the slippery feel of them lingering on his fingertips as he scrubs the blood from the sink. He splashes his face with cold water to hide any evidence of tears.
Killua looks at his reflection in the mirror. Its expression is perfect and cold. He smiles. It smiles. He shakes his hair out of his eyes and opens the bathroom door.
"I'm fine, Gon," he says. "I told you not to worry about me."
Gon jumps up from the couch. "You sounded sick, though!"
"I'm not."
"But you were in there so long, and you were coughing a bunch…"
On the other side of the room, Palm snaps around to fix Killua with a piercing stare. He shivers. "It's nothing, I told you. Come on, aren't we supposed to train today?"
"Yeah. I wish Bisky was still here. Now that we know Knuckle and Shoot's abilities I bet she could help us figure out how to beat them." Gon stops mid-step, thinking, then turns to Palm. "Palm, you know Nen. Maybe you could help us with our training? We were working on our Ren endurance before, but Bisky left, and -"
He has to be fucking joking. "You can't even use Nen right now, remember?"
"Yeah, but -"
"So we'll just do basic weight training," Killua snaps. "Unless you've gotten so reliant on Nen that you don't think you can handle it."
"Of course not!" Thankfully a direct challenge is still the easiest way to get Gon to do what you want. He grabs Killua's arm and pulls him toward the door (a small, mutinous part of Killua's heart flutters at this, and he crushes it immediately). "I bet I can lift more than you if neither of us are using Nen."
"You couldn't even open my family's testing gate!"
"Yeah, but that was ages ago. I could definitely do it now!"
Killua sputters, but lets himself be dragged out the door. Gon waves back to Palm, calling, "Killua and I have to train today, but we can do our date tomorrow, okay?"
Her eyes narrow, still fixed on Killua. "Fine."
Killua hurries into the hall to get away from that stare. Gon bounces along beside him, oblivious. An impish look flits across his face. "Killua, race you to the gym!"
He's gone before the words are out of his mouth. Killua leaps down the hall after him, shouting, "That's not fair, you idiot, you have to say go!"
The sight of Gon's back receding ahead of him brings a sudden stab of anguish. This is how it is, Gon running away and Killua trailing in his wake, breathless and dazzled, like a moth to the flame. It's going to kill him. It's going to kill him. It's going to burn his body up until there's nothing left.
But not today. Not for the next thirty days. Gon still needs him. Killua is just going to have to make it until then.
***
Stalking a target who can't use Nen is so easy it's unfair. True, Palm can still use Nen, but she's not attuned to Killua's aura and she's not bothering to surveil the area (the assassin in Killua trembles with rage at this lack of oversight - Gon is vulnerable, at least one of the two of them should be paying attention). Gon would recognize Killua's aura, but of course he can't sense anything with Knuckle's Nen construct perched on his shoulder, blocking out the world. It's far too easy to follow them around town, and if Killua can do it someone else could. Someone with far worse intentions.
And yes, Killua is following them on their date, but he's following them because Gon can't use Nen, Gon needs protecting, and definitely not for any other reasons, and he's definitely not paying attention to them trying to figure out why Gon is doing this and what it means when he laughs at Palm's jokes and if he's just being nice or whether he maybe, actually, likes being around Palm for real. Killua isn't doing any of that. He's not, okay? He's not.
He crouches on a rooftop and watches the two of them walk down the street below. It makes his stomach twist seeing them out like it's any normal day. They're talking. They're smiling.
They're holding fucking ice cream.
"What an interesting place to find you, Killua. Out enjoying the weather?"
Killua jumps out of his skin, spinning around. "I - uh - Bisky?"
Bisky stands on the other end of the roof, smiling (the smile is a trick, Killua knows; she's furious). "Lapsing on your Nen practice, I take it? You should have noticed me two whole minutes ago."
"Ah, uh - you're right! I'm sorry!"
She should grin her evil grin at him and order him to do a thousand pushups. Instead, her smile drops, replaced with a look of consternation that makes warning sirens go off in Killua's mind. "Tell me what's wrong with you. Now."
Killua opens his mouth to say, nothing, and she points at him. "And don't even think about lying to me. I'm the expert liar here, not you."
He hesitates. Calculates the odds of fooling her. Verdict: poor. He clenches his fists and lets out a frustrated breath. "How can you tell?"
"Your aura," she says. And then when he looks down at the faint haze of aura over his hands, she adds, "It's still too subtle for most people to notice, but luckily for you I'm very skilled and smart, and I know what your aura is supposed to be like. Something's wrong, and you need to tell me what it is so we can deal with it. Okay?"
He can't tell her. It's so unbelievably embarrassing that he'd rather have her punch him into the sun than let the word Hanahaki cross his lips.
Run, Illumi whispers in his ear. Killua's muscles are already coiling, ready to carry him away across the rooftops. Run. Never let anyone see your weakness. Run.
He wants to. If he runs now, Bisky won't follow him, he's certain of that. This is a one-time thing, a solitary lifeline thrown into the sea he's sinking in while she waits to see whether or not he chooses to drown.
Run, Illumi says. Run. RUN.
Killua digs his fingernails into his arm so deep it draws blood.
He gasps, but it's enough to bring the world crashing back, his brother's voice fizzling back into static. The thing in his chest shudders, making him choke. He has time to think, mortified, not here, not now, and then his body heaves, once, twice, and he coughs out a handful of petals. They fall through the air in front of him for a moment like a ghost - then a breeze catches them and they're up and gone.
He looks up at Bisky, his face burning.
She's stricken. But not surprised. Shame floods Killua's chest at the realization that his most private emotions could be so transparent.
"So now you know," he snarls. "Anything else you want to find out about me?"
"Killua…"
"What? It's my problem, not yours. Weren't you supposed to be leaving town anyway? Running off since we weren't good enough?"
"It's Gon, right?"
He buries his face in his hands.
He doesn't hear Bisky's footsteps on the roof tile, but he can feel the thrum of her aura as it grows closer. She kneels in front of where he's crouched, making a hesitant motion like she wants to put a hand on his shoulder but doesn't quite know how. "I'm sorry."
"I really don't want to talk about it."
"You need to see a doctor. They can -"
"Do what? Kill me sooner?"
"You don't have to die!"
That gets him to look up again. Killua's eyes sting with tears (weak, Illumi says out of the static, emotion your enemy can manipulate) and he wipes them away. "I thought Hanahaki was fatal unless the other person, you know…" He can't even say it. He can't even say it, he's that pathetic.
"It is if it's left to grow," Bisky says. "But it can be removed."
"That isn't in -" Killua claps his mouth shut before he says the movies or something equally inane. He glances helplessly back down at the street, but of course Gon and Palm and their miserable ice cream are long gone. The thing in his chest shifts again, and a tendril of pain creeps between his ribs.
Instead, he says, "How do they remove it?"
***
They stand outside the town hospital. Killua can only hope that Gon and Palm don't meet with any danger on their stupid date, because he's not finding them again, not under Bisky's ever-watchful eye. She frowns as he looks up at the hospital sign. "What? You need me to come in with you?"
"Of course not! Don't go pretending to be all maternal now."
"I could be maternal if I wanted to be, you little brat!"
Bisky fuming at him is settling, in a strange way, like things are almost back to normal. It's way better than the pitying looks she's been giving him since she saw him cough up the petals. Killua smirks at her and slips through the doors.
The staff give him strange looks until he slaps his Hunter's license down in front of them. Then they make him do about a million X-rays. Then they dump him in an examination room for the better part of two hours, where there's nothing to do but stare at the bland white ceiling and the medical pamphlets on the walls. With all that time there's more than enough to spend on worrying about what they're going to tell him - Bisky was vague, a little too vague, and Killua is afraid that that's because there's something so terrible about it that she doesn't want him to know. Or because, worse, it might turn out not to be real at all.
(He still hasn't let himself hope that it might be real.)
"I apologize for the delay," the doctor says when she finally comes in. "We've never dealt with a case of Hanahaki here before, and I'm the only staff member familiar with Nen. We thought it was best for me to take a look." She sounds a little awestruck at encountering something so rare, and also like for the sake of professionalism she's trying very hard not to show it.
She takes a while to pour over the X-rays. Then she sits up. "It's better if I can examine it for myself," she says. "Can I?"
Killua nods. The doctor's hands flare with aura as she touches a stethoscope to his chest. The feeling of a stranger's Nen so close to him is awful, like sandpaper grating his skin. Every instinct urges Killua to rip out her throat before she can get under his armor to the vulnerable pieces beneath. Instead, he grips the examination table and wills his muscles to be still.
After a minute she leans back. "Your normal breathing isn't constricted yet. That's good. How often are you expelling petals?"
"Just a couple times so far."
"So it's pretty early, then. Do you have an idea when it started?"
Killua's cheeks flush with humiliation. "I - just tell me what I have to do to get rid of it."
The doctor looks like she wants to press the issue, but she doesn't. "Hanahaki - I mean, the real thing, not what you see on TV - it's a corruption of Nen, with a physical manifestation. You need a Nen exorcist, preferably one also trained to perform the necessary surgical components. If you can't find that, you need an exorcist and a skilled surgeon working in tandem. Either sort of expertise is rare, and we don't have anyone like that here." Her gaze shifts down to his Hunter's license. "I'm certain the Hunter's Association can find someone to help you."
Killua stares at his license. It gleams up at him from the counter. "If it's a Nen exorcism," he says slowly, "that means there's a price, isn't there?"
"Yes."
The doctor's face hardens. Killua knows this look, the look you give someone you don't want to hurt in the moment before dealing them a terrible blow. His flinches away from it instinctively, his pulse quickening.
"The price," she says, "is everything you feel for that person, and everything you'll ever feel for them again."
The slow, creeping feeling from the bathroom is back, the edges of the world gone soft and funny. It's not even that high of a price, really, in the grand scheme of things. It's not his blood or bone or body. Right?
Like he's moving through a dream, he asks, "How long until it's too late for an exorcism?"
She takes a breath, and she tells him.
***
Bisky sits in the park outside the hospital and tries not to worry. That's the problem with taking on apprentices - you get wrapped up in their lives, and then you have to pay attention and feel bad when they get hurt. And then you end up waiting on a bench for them as pigeons coo around your feet, while you think about all the ways you should have been able to stop them.
It's funny, in a horrible way - in the whole time she's known Gon and Killua, she's always thought Gon would be the one to charge off and get himself nearly killed. He trusts far too easily, and he's stubborn and reckless besides. Killua is the one she's never had to worry about, too careful and clear-headed to get himself into danger. He carries that thick shell from his family around him, his armor against the world. She forgot that something that strong can be brittle enough to break under the right kind of pressure.
What a mess.
(An image in Bisky's mind: the three of them back on Greed Island, during the months training in the canyons - Killua smiling as Gon shows him a card, a real smile that lights up his whole face like the moon. Has he ever smiled like that for anyone else? Damn, but the poor boy doesn't deserve this.)
She sits up. "Killua. What did they say?"
The boy in question drops down from the tree above her, making the pigeons scatter. "Hah. I thought you didn't notice me."
"Of course I did. Your Zetsu is atrocious."
"No, it's not." He slides onto the bench and shakes his hair from his eyes. "You just have a thousand years of practice ‘cause you're ancient."
She gives him a look. "You're not baiting me into changing the subject."
"Yeah, I know," he says. "Worth a shot, though."
He holds himself casually, but there are cracks in that careful facade - the way his eyes flit nervously down the sidewalk at each person passing by, the downward tilt of his head. If Bisky looks hard at his aura she can find that dissonant chord again, a faint note of decay that unsettles her more than she'd like to admit. "What did they tell you? They can't treat it here, right? I wouldn't think so."
"No. But I wouldn't have done it yet, anyway." Killua turns to meet her gaze, and his eyes are full and angry. "You knew about the price, didn't you? Why didn't you tell me?"
"Would you have gone if I did?"
He glowers at Bisky. She snaps, "This isn't something to mess around with. Feelings aren't worth your life, even if it feels like it right now. You need to get it removed as soon as possible. We could get you on an airship to Swardani tonight, and the Association's exorcist can -"
"I can't yet."
"Of course you can!"
"I can't." Killua tucks his knees up to his chest, his face angled away where Bisky can't see it. The golden light of the setting sun scatters through the leaves of the trees to speckle his arms. She waits to see if he'll say anything else. He doesn't.
Frustration burns in the back of her skull. Just be nice, Bisky, the boy is suffering. With all the minimal patience Bisky is capable of, she grits out, "Tell me why, then."
Killua mumbles into his arms, "Gon can't use Nen."
"What?"
"Not for thirty days. It's Knuckle's ability. The jerk."
So there had been something off about Gon's aura last night. Morel always did have a nose for interesting apprentices - but that isn't the primary matter at hand. "So… you want to protect him while he's vulnerable? That's why you're out skulking after him on rooftops?"
"He's too nice. And eager. He'll get into danger and forget he can't use Nen. For all we know there are already chimeras here, and he's off getting ice cream without a care in the world. The idiot's going to get himself killed." Killua grips the edge of the bench so hard it starts to splinter. "I don't have time to run off somewhere for an exorcism, not when we don't even know when those guys are coming back with Kite, or when the chimera king is going to hatch, or -"
"Right," Bisky says slowly. "But that can't be all of it, because there are other people around to protect Gon, so why don't you leave that to the rest of us and go make sure you don't die?"
Killua looks like he might bolt again, the way he did on the rooftop earlier, the way he does when the paralysis overtakes him in a fight. Some immense struggle takes place under the surface of his face.
"Because," he says at last. "If you knew that you were never going to see the sun again, you'd want to make sure that your last glimpse lasts as long as possible."
The birdsong around them fades as the sun sets over buildings, casting shadows over the two of them. Killua's shoulders shake like he might be crying. Bisky is at a loss when people are crying. She wrings her hands together, helpless. "Just because you'll lose what you feel for Gon, that doesn't mean you can't be around him."
"Really? ‘Cause I thought I was supposed to stay out of his life forever, just like you said."
"Stop, just - listen. You can still be happy. You can make other friends. You're young, there will be other people who -"
"Bisky, please, shut up."
Bisky bites back the flash of anger, strangling the retort that springs to her lips.
Killua tilts her face toward her. "You must really be worried about me if you're not even going to yell at me for that."
"I can yell at you once you're not dying, little brat."
He smiles weakly, but it's vacant. They lapse into silence again.
"I can't force you to go right now," Bisky says. "But, please, get the exorcism as soon as you can. If you love him, you can't make him watch you die for him."
Killua shrinks away at that, like she's touched on some deep and tender wound.
It will be alright. This is Killua. If Gon came down with Hanahaki, he seems like the type who would die charging headlong into the unyielding belief of his own love. But Killua is smart. He'll get it removed, even if he's upset about it.
Killua straightens up. He's schooled his expression back into something cold and quiet, none of the misery cracking through. Not for the first time, Bisky thinks on the life he's had to be able to don this mask so effectively. "I'm protecting Gon 'til the end of the thirty days," he says. "Then I'll go. I promise."
Bisky squints at him. "Thirty days? How long do you have before it kills you?"
"Longer than that."
He says this so sure, so guilelessly, that even Bisky doesn't realize it's a lie.