Death's Door // COMPLETED ✔

So Totally Sugaring

"So anyway I might be going insane. What do you think?" Killua said, elbow hooked over the host's pedestal where his coworker, Kurapika, stared at him in utter horror.

    "Uh, yeah, going insane sounds about right," Kurapika said, eyes wide. He was the only host that night and he was lucky it was only Thursday. While still busy, he'd save the heart attack for the Friday night rush.

    Though Killua's story was giving his heart a run for its money.

    After returning from seating a reservation, Kurapika returned to Killua still lamenting the situation. "You know, if Alluka ever finds out the only reason I moved out was 'cause of this publishing deal..."

    "She'll never find out," Kurapika reassured. "I mean... you write hetero shit. Isn't Alluka gay?"

    Killua sighed. He propped his chin on his hand. "Yeah, I think she is. She's never admitted it to me. Maybe to our other brother."

    "Illumi?"

    "No. The other gay one."

    "Oh."

    "Yeah."

    "Have you met his boyfriend yet? Boy toy? What is he again?"

    Killua scoffed. "Hell no. Apparently Illumi's met him. Apparently he's insane. And only visits on the weekend. What if he's, like, some grimy old Wall Street guy? Only weekends?"

    "Yeah, that kind of sounds like an affair to me."

    "Exactly my point."

    They both fell quiet as a couple left. Kurapika bid them farewell, cheery, before dropping the act to glower at Killua. "Your brother better be getting paid well."

    Killua scoffed, rolled his eyes, and drifted off down the bar to tend to their guests.

    He'd spent the entirety of his adult life in their parents' basement until a year ago when all that time he'd invested online paid off. The internet was still a confusing mess of neon colors and bright lights, and maybe that was why New York called to him. That was something they all had in common.   

    After being ignored for years by literary agents, he'd given up the hope of seriously investing in his manuscripts. He posted them for free. And now he had a thirty grand contract with the Hunter Publishing House. It was the best luck he'd ever struck, and it got him out of his parents' basement and his shitty grade school friend group.

    But thirty grand could only get him so far in the city, and despite what his family thought, he actually had a plan now.

    And no, it didn't involve selling drugs.

    It started with head-turning, bodice-ripping, pulp fiction and now he had an in. The people liked his books, and now they were hooked. The sequel was already in the hands of his editor and the check would be arriving any day now.

    Until then, Killua was working weekends as a bartender at a hot new venue south of Central Park and not far at all from his flat. He'd gotten his apartment before he ever scored a gig as a bartender—the convenience of the location was just as much of a surprise to him as it was to Kurapika's envy.

    When they reconvened nearly an hour after the rush, Kurapika sidled up to the bar with an exhausted sigh and said, "So some hot, conveniently-the-same-age guy breaks into your apartment."

    Killua grimaced. He'd failed to detail how, exactly, Gon had broken in beyond alluding vaguely to the fire escape being involved. "Yeah."

    "Sounds like the psuedo-plot to a porno."