SOUR CANDY | killua z. ✔

9 | bare

KILLUA LED Sen back to the benches they'd been sitting at earlier. The glowing city from before was long gone; there was nothing but dark stretches of land below. 

The only thing the windows offered them now was their reflections cast in shadow. Their eyes looked like black holes and their faces were blurred. Monsters.

Killua sat first, setting his discarded shirts to the side. The rosy tint on his neck from the earlier exercise was just about faded. He was so pale; Sen hardly ever saw a flush on her own coppery skin.

Sen stood awkwardly. Was she supposed to stand or sit for this? 

Killua patted the bench next to him.

She sat.

In the span of one day, Sen was reduced to a bumbling pre-adolescent girl (fine, she was twelve, but that's not important). She should've told Kotaro 'no' to this bullshit.

"What do you want to know?" She asked.

"You and Gon were both raised on islands," he rested an elbow on his knee, chin in hand. "But you two are completely different. I think you're more like me. Am I wrong?"

She supposed they were similar. Killua was raised by a family of die-hard assassins. Sen was raised in a kitsune clan where murder wasn't exactly taboo.

"You're right," she said. "I've killed people before. Mostly under my brother's guidance."

"But you're not an assassin."

"No."

"I'm guessing you can't elaborate on that?" 

Sen shook her head, grinning ruefully. "Ask something else."

Killua sighed, slipping his royal blue turtleneck back on. 

"It's like pulling teeth with you," he complained.

"I did warn you it would be like this, asshole," Sen tucked her legs onto the bench.

She figured this conversation wasn't ending anytime soon. Might as well get comfortable. 

Sen would later blame the late hour or the bickering, but she instinctively reached for one of her sisters to brush their hair for the night. Her hand met thin air.

Her sisters weren't here. Sen hadn't even packed a hairbrush. 

"What was that, just now?" Killua's gaze flicked between Sen's hand and her face. "I've seen you zone out before. What are you thinking about?"

She pulled her sleeve over her hand.

"I do not zone out," she lied, unconvincingly. It sounded more like a confirmation.

"Is it your family?" He pushed. "You said something earlier, about them. To me and Gon."

In a Pavlovian response to the word 'family', each of her siblings' faces, favorite movies, and most-hated smoothie flavors flashed in her head like a grocery list. She had an urge to go lay the futons out.

"I brush my little sisters' hair at night," Sen looked down. "We all have long hair, I don't want theirs to get tangled."

She started combing her fingers through her hair.

"Big family," Killua noted. "We are alike."

Sen desperately latched onto the opportunity to change the subject. 

"So, you have siblings, too?"

He snickered, staring at her pointedly. Killua already knew what she was trying to do. Fuck. Foiled by a fellow twelve-year-old.