No Filter x Serial Dating

The Man, The Myth, The Legend

CHAPTER SUMMARY:
Zushi: "Killua, you coward! Tell me who's won over your cold, dead heart!"
Killua: "Over MY. DEAD. BODY."

_____

It was the fifth consecutive date Killua had witnessed in the five days he worked that week. If they were all different couples it wouldn't have been odd at all—this was Starbucks, dammit, otherwise known as the epicenter of campus interactions. He took the orders of hundreds of students every day he worked.

What was odd about it, though, was the fact that they were all dates with the same guy, just different partners. Killua wouldn't have thought anything of it if the guy wasn't already a regular, and if Killua didn't already get flustered at the very sight of him.

Gon Freecss, better known as the university's star running back and local heartthrob.

Killua wasn't one to frequent frat row, by any means, but the few times he went he once witnessed Freecss' shirtless and screaming at the top of his lungs from the second story balcony of a frat house before leaping into a bouncy house to the tune of every guy and girl on the lawn shouting his name. Killua had been so alarmed, along with every other student on the sidewalk with him, that when Freecss's head emerged from the bouncy house ball pit, fists in the air, a breath of relief echoed from him to every passing stranger. Freecss' was, practically, the face of their football team. If he broke a leg over a stupid dare at frat parties, it'd be over for their season.

He also just didn't want to picture Freecss' rolling through the Starbucks line in a brace and crutches.

Killua really had no reason to be irked as he pushed out two drinks onto the counter and called out Gon's name for the order, and a preppy, skinny guy came to get it.

"Thanks," the guy said, smiling wide with that perfect blonde hair and cute round glasses.

"No problem," Killua said, frozen in place. He stared after the kid as he went to the bar top in front of the store window where a familiar, black-haired running back sat with his feet perched on the stool spokes. His broad back, that charming, charismatic smile. None of it was fair.

It wasn't that Gon exuded straightness or anything, but coming to terms with the fact that Freecss' was bi was enough to send Killua into a spiraling pit of despair. It was easier to convince himself that he didn't have a shot because of Freecss' sexuality, but now?

He just didn't have a shot because he had the social backbone of a squirrel.

Killua slumped as he returned to the cash register. As if my self-confidence wasn't already down the drain, he mused miserably.

That same day no more than an hour later, Killua could be found slumping in one of the OChem lecture hall seats in the far back of the auditorium. Arms crossed and radiating a brooding, eerie atmosphere—this was precisely how his lab partner Zushi found him.

The kids in their class gave them a wide birth, which left the seat in front of Killua open for the taking. He had his feet kicked up on the seat as Zushi strategically stepped over them as he said, "Is it that guy again?"

"The situation has progressed at an alarming rate," Killua reported, slumping even further. "And not for the better."

"Oh no. What happened?" Zushi whispered. There was a constant murmur in the auditorium, both from the echo, and also from the fact that they were in a lecture hall of approximately three hundred students. Those two factors combined made for a noisy start to the class.

Killua glared at the stairs where a familiar blonde TA was hiking up to reach them. The TAs tended to claim the back row of the lecture hall, near the back corner where Killua and Zushi sat, so they had become friendly with their lab TA, Kurapika. It was because they were friendly that Kurapika paused a few steps away, alarmed by the murder written on Killua's face.