Speak of the Devil // COMPLETED ✔

WHAT IS LOVE !!!! BABY DON'T HURT ME !!!!

Killua's attention had recovered from the weekend by the time Thursday lectures started. He missed some of the context from the start of the week thanks to overanalyzing Gon in every capacity. He hadn't realized how much time he'd spent just thinking about Gon and reliving every interaction they had had in the hours prior to lecture.

But now he could turn off his Gon Radar except for when he couldn't—when he knew for a fact that he was crushing on Gon and couldn't stop it from happening.

He tried to write this off as an artifact of his breakdown, but he recognized elements of it from before the LSD when Gon had altered his brain chemistry.

Gon was, without a doubt, attractive in every sense of the word. If Killua didn't know any better, he'd call Gon's appearance calculated, but by observation, he knew that Gon wasn't. It was accidental, it was innate, and it never seemed to cross Gon's mind that he might be heart-stopping to observe even from a distance.

It was difficult for Killua to avoid the blinding glare of Gon's shine when they spent most of their time together. To Killua's great struggle, Gon had managed to memorize Killua's schedule during his lapse of conscience. With Gon determined to walk Killua to his classes, Killua wasn't all that inclined to disagree.

He secretly appreciated the company, if only because of the atmosphere Gon brought with him.

Whether he be invisible or avoided, Gon was the perfect storm to avoid socializing. Killua preferred this. Greedily, Killua absorbed Gon's attention for himself sans the impact of others. It was only on Friday that Killua was given a moment to be interrupted.

A shadow cast over Killua's readings. Gon had an afternoon class that didn't overlap with any of Killua's lectures, which gave him a brief stint of reclusion. Instead, he'd managed to be found by the subject of Hisoka's interest.

"Kurapika," Killua said.

"Hey," Kurapika said, and hesitated. Their eyes dropped to Killua's reading. "Sorry to interrupt you."

Killua flipped packet closed. "You aren't interrupting anything interesting, believe me."

After awkward smalltalk and establishing that Kurapika could, in fact, join Killua, they sat together in silence. For a moment, Killua distinctly felt like they were two kids stuck in the principle's office together, and it was only a matter of asking, " What got you here? "

Instead, Kurapika said, "I don't know how to ask this."

Killua's heart seized in his chest. He had forgotten about Machi until this moment, and the guilt of abandoning her discovery of Gon's demonic origins left him momentarily speechless.

Luckily, Kurapika didn't have the words to continue the conversation. Killua collected himself enough to say, "I know what you mean."

Kurapika gave a sharp laugh, shaking their head. Their eyes were on the table between them. "I don't think you do," he said. "You're friends with..."

"It's complicated," Killua said. "Gon's my roommate and Hisoka is his friend." And Gon also killed my brother and Hisoka helped bring him back to life, but I don't think you could handle that right now .

"They... really aren't your friends?" Kurapika clarified.

Killua hesitated. "It's... complicated. Gon's my friend."

"The freckled guy with dimples?"

"Yeah."

Kurapika took this information and spent a moment mulling it over. They shifted in their seat, a hand to the table. Their expression had twisted into something akin to distress . "I don't know how to tell you this," they said.