A/N: My friends tell me I say the word a'assal a lot. In Arabic it means "honey", but in my dialect it sounds less like a term of endearment and more like a descriptor for something/someone so lovely and wholesome. What I'm trying to say is, all of you guys, all of you who read and review and recc and comment: you're all a'assal.

Since it's TLN's anniversary this month, I've poured some of my thoughts out in another author's note that you can read on my blog. If you don't mind, kindly check out this link before you start reading: beastied(.t)umbl(r.)com(/)andec2018 - without the brackets. This note is about feedback and the future of this fic, so I'd really appreciate it if you guys give it a quick read.

The story is now rated M for language and explicit adult content. I'd say the story is cautiously rated M, just to be safe and so I don't have to leave out a warning every time smut is included.

Power Over Me by Dermot Kennedy is the song behind the title for all of you music lovers.

54. Red: Power Over Me

Anticipation filled my bloodstream as Yuki turned her chair towards mine, crossed her legs, and leaned in. She laid her hand on top of her knee, palm up. Her aura pulsed beneath her skin like a second heartbeat. Heat emanated from her arm as power rippled through it and focused toward her hand.

A slow, sangria-tinged haze trailed up from her index finger. It curled in the air between us like a gentle upward stream of smoke coming off an idle cigarette.

I blinked over to her face. "You're transmuting smoke?"

"No," she answered, wiggling her fingers. "That's vapor. I transmute vapor and use it as my medium."

"Oh, okay." My eyes returned to the plume of red still arcing out of her finger, a living presence between us. "So that's why your ability could get dehydrated?"

"Yeah, well, you know how you sometimes have to charge to remember the sensation of electricity before you transmute it? It's the same for me, but instead I use my body water to help. Because I'm not a transmuter in nature, I compensate by manipulating my body to draw from its own water weight."

"I know I'm not one to talk, but isn't that risky?"

"It can be, if you lose control. And if you don't know your body's limits. But I do. I know that my body water percentage is 65%. Taking my weight, height, and age into consideration, I've estimated the volume of water in my body around thirty-two litres. As long as I don't lose 10% of it and keep up a healthy diet, I'll be fine."

I'd always noticed the diligence with which she took care of her body and her mental health, but it wouldn't have occurred to me that nen was one of the reasons for it.

The transmuted plume was still flowing steadily out of her finger, but it was beginning to change colors. It glazed from deep red into light red, the shade softening and fainting as it blended into the air. "Vapor as a medium—that's interesting. So you can spread it into mist and fog, right?" I said, distracted by the play of colors as I absently reached up with my hand to touch the now dusky pink haze against the tip of my finger. "But why is it changing colors—"

My thoughts screeched to a halt at once, as if my senses hit the buffers at the edge of a steep cliff. I froze, shocked out, locked in time, moment, and breath as everything in me seemed to go into a flatline. It lasted a second, a single heartbeat between my finger touching the plume and the next full breath I took, but it was enough to create a dizzying shift. A transition.

I pulled my finger away. It was fine. It didn't hurt. It didn't even sting. The touch was as harmless as it could be.

I exhaled that next breath and oriented myself, confused, momentarily overwhelmed as I started to feel it. The shift. A break in the flatline. A backtrack from the cliff. My senses came back to me, languid at first and then in a potent rush. They moved inexorably and with purpose, as if narrowing in on a target. There was an alertness in me—bright, enveloping, and all-consuming. It became the center of everything.

I looked at Yuki and the alertness changed into an urge, so intense it was almost a compulsion, wanting to burst through my expression, my hands and my body.

A smile lifted the corner of her mouth then.

Shit.

"What was that?" I asked, even though I knew. "What just happened?"

"You were compelled into a feeling."

"I was what?"

She looked down at her hand as she clenched it in an abrupt motion, and the plumes disappeared. She opened it again and they were back. This time, it was a singular color. A dulcet, vivid shade of pink. The one I'd let my finger touch. "This color is called cerise," she said. "It's the color of affection. Pretty, isn't it?"

I let the words in, staring at her until my heart slammed into my breastbone in realization. The colors were more than just colors. They were feelings, vital within the colors. "And you just compelled me into the feeling of affection?"

"Technically, you compelled yourself by touching the aura. Rule number one: don't touch the colors." She waved her hand in the air and the pink arcs breezed away from us. "I let you touch it because it'd help understand how it happens. Cerise is a harmless color though, so you're safe."

I tumbled through the revelation. "Wait. Ease up a little. How did you do that? Manipulate emotions into colors?"

"They're my emotions. Emotions I'd felt before. I taught myself how to channel them into my nen and keep them in my memory. And because my photographic memory responds best to visuals, I asigned the emotions to different shades of colors."

"And the vapor carries the colors," I said, still reeling.

"Yeah. It's based on whatever color I choose the vapor to be. Once someone is close enough and the vapor comes in contact with their aura, it conforms to whichever emotion that color represents."

"But how? How did you channel your emotions like that?"

"It took years of practice. I had to understand emotions first, study them, then I had to visualize them. I had to remember the feeling and confront it. Make sense of it. Locate it. Know where it centers in my body. Absorb it and let it all in. The final stage was training my nen into projecting the memory of that feeling into a shade of color."

"That sounds like a hell of a toll though," I told her. "Creating an ability that demands so much self reflection. I can barely stand being so much inside my own mind."

She smiled a little. "On the contrary, actually. It was a toll, sometimes, but Dorian's Decay has helped me in so many more ways."

"What kind of ways?"

She took in a deep breath as she leaned back in her chair, contemplating. "My whole life, my mind was pretty loud. That's the easiest way to describe it. Loud. And cruel. I've been living with it since I was nine, and I resented it for so long. I used to think my feelings were what made me weak or unstable, dictating my life. By crafting my abilities into Dorian's Decay, it helped me to no longer feel that shame. They don't weaken me; it's apart of who I am, and I have control of the reins. I took that vulnerability and I used it for strength instead. I weaponized it."

I smiled as pride swelled fast in my chest. "You called that color 'harmless'. What are the dangerous colors?"

"There are good emotions and bad emotions," she began to explain. "The good emotions in Dorian's Decay are all shades of rainbow colors. The bad emotions are the gray shades.

"Huh."

Wait—

Gray colors—

My eyes sprang wide. "My timberwolf shirt!"

Yuki laughed delightedly. "Caught that now, didn't you?"

I pointed a finger at her. "You didn't specify the color to be pretentious, it's your job to know the exact names of the shades."

With a smug face, she wiggled her fingers and released curls of gray vapor, entwining together to write the word YEP, in my handwriting, colored like my shirt.

I fought a smile and scoffed. "Show off."

"Oh, admit it. You're a little turned on right now."

"So that's it, huh? You can bend people's emotions, and therefore their entire selves, to your will."

A beautiful, deadly smile tugged at her mouth. "The human body is my canvas and I can color it however I want."

"How does that work in battle though?"

"Dorian's Decay is fun to see in action, but here. I'll try to paint you a picture." She adjusted her seat to face forward and motioned for me to mimick her, until we were directed at the bar's small dance floor as if it were a stage. She was going to literally paint a picture. "This is how it works."

With a wrist flick, tendrils of mist trailed out of her fingers and eddied toward the dance floor. Then, before my eyes, the mist began to take shape, drawing in a rough silhouette of a person. A silouette of a humanoid figure with no distinct clothing, hair or real body formation stood at the center of the stage.

"Let's say this is the target and I want them compelled by Dorian's Decay."

I rested back in my chair and crossed my arms, watching the figure. "You want to trap them inside the mist first."

"Usually, yes." She moved her hand in a circular motion, and true to form, a line of gray mist hooped around the figure. "I can't send the colors in just yet. The mist has to be colorless at first."

"Make it look real or else they'll suspect something," I agreed with a nod. "Build the illusion." I watched, entranced, as the weightless, noiseless mist swirled slowly around the figure like a veil, prowling in a lazy, near seductive patterns. "You also don't want them to see it coming from you."

"True, that's the Emission part." She lowered her arm and the mist separated from her body, commanded from a distance now. It continued to close in while the figure faded in and out of visibility.

The colors seeped in then. Greys and eggshell blues. Translucent green and rose red. And more. Pale orange. Lilac. Bubblegum pink. Magenta. They contrasted dramatically yet effortlessly, wrapping the figure in a psychedelic maze of mist. They were pleasing to look at it, playful and so harmless it was easy to forget they were nen-laced with feelings. Pure, unfiltered human emotions.

They closed in on the figure until they made contact and bingo. Flatline. Cliffedge.

"Usually that's where I start to gray the colors into negative emotions," Yuki said. "The mist works like a booby trap. The colors only have to touch the target once." She nodded at the dancing kaleidoscope of colored fog. "Those are the shades of rainbow colors. Dorian's Decay's rainbow colors all represent positive emotions. Technically they couldn't harm, but they could affect the target's emotional stability. They usually confuse the target and throw them for a loop, just for a minute."

"Yeah, but a critical minute; enough for you to attack them."

"Precisely."

"And did you say the grays are the negative colors?"

"They are." She opened her palm again. Ribbons of gray vapor arced from the tips of her fingernails, dull and monotonous, lacking the appeal and virility of the previous colors. They looked like the ghosts of colors. "Depending on the shade, the grays represent a range of negative emotions. Anxiety. Self-loathing. Self-doubt. Shame. Insecurity. Et cetera. You don't want those touching you."

I pushed down a shudder. Definitely not. "What exactly happens when they touch a person?"

"It depends on the person and how strong they are mentally. You'd be surprised by how some criminals can't even handle the briefest touch of anxiety. How they're easily depilitated by it, physically and emotionally. Some last longer after the compulsion, can fight through the worst emotions, but it affects their focus and performance. If I don't want the fight to last too long, I can always Enhance the colors a tad bit."

More power pushed into the wispy gray tendrils, causing the muscles in her arm to flex into twice their size with the surge of Enhanced aura, prominent veins growing viciously along her skin as the colors swelled and thickened, enriched until they hovered above our heads like a velvet black cloud. "Enhancing the color automatically strengthens the emotion. Makes it more, uh, dominating."

I exhaled in a rush. "Well, fuck."

That made her laugh, as she dismissed the colors again. "Killua the Invincible is a little spooked out?"

"Let's just say I'm happy that you're madly in love with me."

"You should." She stood off her chair and shuffled, casually settling onto my lap. "Is there anything else you want to know? Or can we start making out now?"

My mouth curved. "We'll do more than make out. But not yet, I still want to know more."

"Shoot."

"Is the mist/fog your only medium?"

"Well, no." She moved to sit on the table in front of me, and I brought my legs apart so she could rest her feet on the chair in between. "There are other ways to inflict Dorian's Decay on people. I could do it with my bare touch, of course. I could conjure it as water and serve it as a drink. And I can conjure Dorian's Decay bullets, but so far that's as big as my Conjuration abilities go."

"That's still pretty damn cool."

"What's not so fun is that there's a setback to each way. If I want to do it by touch, then I have to be within the target's personal space, which requires them to either trust me enough or for me to be fast enough. If I want to do it while they're in my En field, then me and the target will have to be alone or else I could damage other people around. If I want to create a fog, then it has to be perfectly timed with the target's arrival to the spot because my colors would fade in few minutes. And the drink thing obviously needs a level of stealth and trust, too."

It was fascinating to learn time and again how versatile and flexible nen was and how much work a person had to put into training it. No matter how skilled or cool it was, pitfalls were inevitable, yet there was always room to develop.

I thought of what I would do if I were her and I had all these challenges. I would find a way to work around them. I would try to make the best out of them. "That means you have to plan your missions very well to know the best way to attack."

She nodded. "Before every mission I have to gather as much information about the target as possible. Studying backgrounds, emotional and psychological and otherwise, their relationships, their primary emotions. Tracking down. Getting in disguise, if necessary. Then I choose the best and most suitable trap. One that fits best for their personality. Sometimes I lure them to remote places, sometimes I ambush them in their homes or hidden spots. One time I caught a criminal in a busy club. A smile, some drinks, some flirty talk, and he was mine. He didn't even notice that my hand was stroking his arm the whole time and messing with his emotional stability."

"Kind of like what you did with Grimm?"

"Yes, but without the nen. Sometimes it's better to manipulate and catch a person in public. Crowds give a sense of security, community, or anxiety, depends on the person. Their focus wouldn't be solely on me. They'd be surrounded by noise and movement, enjoying themselves. Loosening up."

"So you could slip right under their guard when they're not looking," I finished. I knew that trick.

What she did was, for the most part, pretty standard assassin basics. Assassins and Blacklist Hunters were similar in a number of dimensions; however, there was a difference between her tactics and the ones I'd used in the past. I had to find the perfect time to go in for the kill without a moment's hesitation. On the other hand, Yuki had to know her targets well enough to finish them without having to kill them. End their life by making them wish they were actually dead. It was a challenge. An interesting, terrible, poetic challenge.

But then I remembered Quon's words. One of Yuki's targets did actually die. "What about the criminal who killed himself while he was with you?"

A tiny furrow formed between her eyebrows. "How did you know about that? I've sealed all public information about that mission myself."

I winced guiltily. "I asked Quon to dig up stuff about you a long time ago. I forgot about it until Christmas when he offered to tell me more details and I was too curious to pass it up."

"You know, there's this simple foreign concept called asking me. I guarantee that it works."

"I wanted to be this chill, unassuming boyfriend who isn't desperate to know every detail about his significant other."

With a shrug, she said, "That's unnecessary. I like telling you stuff. It's fun."

I smiled. "So tell me about that criminal."

It was her turn to wince, but not out of guilt; she simply didn't seem too proud with that mission. "His name was Marlo Posse. Sexual predator. Serial killer. Decent nen user. He slit his own throat during the mission. I was trying this new technique for the first time and it sort of backfired. Well, the technique didn't backfire per se since it worked. The plan to keep him alive was what backfired. It was a bummer—I wanted one of his victims to kill him instead."

"Was it a technique different from the one you've showed me?"

"Yes, It's a sub-ability to Dorian's Decay. I have three sub-abilities, but this one technique is where my good memory shines. Well, shines more. You see how I wrote with your handwriting few minutes ago? It was because your handwriting is saved in my memory now. This technique takes a similar approach."

"Show me."

She held up her hand to the side and the misty colors made a new appearance, as dazzling as I'd last seen them. This time, I was floored to see more than what I did before. The colors grayed, coming and twisting and embracing together in a whirlwind of precise movement, until they formed an image.

Of a woman.

She was a quiet, forlorn middle-aged woman. She was wearing a plain beige dress and standing next to our table, a cloudy but otherwise impeccably detailed hologram of a living person, manipulated from Yuki's hand like a projector. "This was Adelaide Posse. Marlo's mother. I got her photograph from the background check I did on him and I took it from his home."

I was aware that I was gaping, awed and admittedly a touch spooked. It wasn't like the humanoid figure from before. The woman looked so real, so animated and lifelike she seemed to be right here in the room with us. Standing, breathing, existing. Yuki was projecting the image of Marlo's mother from her photographic memory and into her nen. She used the colors to burn segments from her memory into active images for others to see.

"Adelaide died before Marlo's criminal activities," she intoned. "The two of them were very close when she was alive. She was the only person who mattered to Marlo. When I showed her to him"—the woman's hologram suddenly shuddered into life, moving in a tiny, startling increments, and smiled far into the distance before she opened her arms as if in a loving, maternal embrace—"he completely lost it. He broke down, crying and screaming. I guess it was the idea of seeing his mother again, of her seeing him as the person he'd become, that traumatized him to the point of losing all hope. He killed himself with his conjured weapon before I could stop it."

My wide eyes were still transfixed on the ghost of the woman with her outstretched arms frozen in place, still waiting for her son's embrace. "This is… really creepy."

"The story behind it makes it creepy." With a twist of Yuki's hand, the woman's wispy body flickered and grew fainter until it dissipated like mist by a morning breeze. "This sub-ability is called The Bell Ringer."

I nodded, understanding. A bell that jarred an emotional memory only faintly remembered, an inkling of a thought in the corner of mind, compelled and chimed forth.

Yuki then turned to me and gave me jovial look of mischief. "You look pretty discombobulated by Marlo's mother. Would you rather see someone you love instead?"

I was suspicious. Talk about alarm bells. "…Would I?"

Another hologram appeared, another photographed memory disclosed, this time with more blunt, lively colors. Pale green, sunflower yellow and the browns of autumn. They took shape and symmetry and life, coming together until I could easily recognize the burly build, the height, the features, and oh shit, the goddamned bootcut jeans…

Gon.

Fuck.

Wide eyed I stared at him—at it—and shook my head. "Nope. Nope. Still creepy."

Yuki laughed and messed with me even more. I flinched when Gon's hologram swiveled to look right into my direction, bent to fold his big arms on the table, and grinned at me with his hazy, filmy face. One of his hands extended forward to say hi.

Without thinking and nearly hypnotized by the colors again, I extended my own hand as well—and Yuki immediately swatted at it.

"What did I say about touching the colors again," she reprimanded, all the while looking like she was massively enjoying the dumbfounded expression on my face. The hologram disappeared like the one before it. "Like I said, it's all about finding the right trap that fits the target's persona. Those criminals might look all high and mighty and heartless, but at the end of the day they're all human. With emotions and frailties and stories. They all have vulnerable emotional spots, a bruise that they don't want anyone to press. My job as a Manipulator, and a Hunter, is to find it. That's it."

That's it. I already knew that only the puny bastards and pinheads dared to get on Yuki's bad side, but that knowledge had only solidified tonight.

"Would you tell me what emotion does each color represent?" I asked. "Or is it a trade secret?"

"Not to you."

The words warmed a spot through my chest. "What emotion is purple?"

"It depends on the shade. The purples are egotistical colors. Purple is satisfaction. Violet is serenity. Both are positive emotions. However, the closer any shade gets to gray, the more dangerous the emotion becomes. For example, heather is the name of a shade of purple, but it's a shade close to gray. It represents nostalgia, which isn't quite so positive because it's a past-oriented emotion that can affect your satisfaction with your current life and makes you feel like something is missing from you. The logistics are kinda important here."

"No kidding. What about green?"

"Green is the emotion of peace. Nature, harmony, renewal."

"And I'm assuming yellow is joy?"

"There you go. Joy, positivity, optimism. Again depending on the shade."

"Blue is…"

"Blue all in all represents stability and depth. The sky, the oceans. And with stability you get loyalty, trust, credence, confidence—the other shades. In fact." She hovered her hand between us again and wiggled her fingers. Vapor tendrils of a beautiful shade of sapphire glinted before my face. They made me think of starry skies. "Trust was the emotion that I'd sent into the cages of Cleave's imprisoned subjects in order to get them to come closer to me and my gun."

I pictured her do just that, standing in before the unforgiving bars of the scientists' cages, her fingers curving the color in a come-hither motion for the helpless criminals inside, like a siren luring them to their death. "So let's say you touched me with that right now, would I just… blindly trust you with everything?"

"You wouldn't trust me. I'm a Manipulator, not a hypnotist. Dorian's Decay doesn't work like that. It would trigger your feeling of trust. Calms you and lowers your inhibitions, makes you respond to commands with ease. The colors trigger emotions that already exist in all living beings. You wouldn't necessarily feel the emotion for me; it would merely provoke the emotion you already have inside. And that could be for anything depending on many factors, how your brain works through your mood through your personality. Then I could intensify the trigger with Enhancement if I want and make you feel more of it and bring it more powerfully."

I glanced at her mouth. "What about red?"

"Red is the color of life. Blood. Passion, excitement, desire. Lust."

"And the grays—they're all strictly bad emotions?"

"That's right."

"Based on what?"

Her shoulder lifted in a shrug. "Ashes. Prison walls. Zombie skin."

I laughed. "So if the grays are the shades representing the negative human emotions, does that make black the most 'negative color' of all?"

"No. The most negative emotion of all is still on the gray spectrum. This part is a bit tricky." Further, she explained, "You see, technically, black is the darkest shade of gray. But in the laws of physics, black and white aren't considered colors because they don't have specific wavelengths. They're not spectral colors. They're the two extremes of the color spectrum, the highest and lowest light values respectively. And since everything in life runs on contrasts, white and black are neither positive or negative. They're the most relative, the most neutral colors."

"Hmm." I smiled, taken by the depth of her passion and the emotional intelligence that had been woven intricately into her framework, the brilliant commitment to details. "What about the laws of Dorian's Decay?"

She nodded. "Yes. I still count white and black as emotional colors in my book, but I've made them to represent the two most neutral emotions a person can feel. In my personal opinion, at least."

My intrigue had driven into the highest speed. "What is black?"

"Power," she said. "Or let's say willpower. Black is the manifestation of power. It doesn't reflect. It absorbs. Takes the light all in. All that stuff. It's impenetrable. It's clear, uncompromising, it enshrouds. The emotion is relative because so much willpower could save a person from almost anything, but too much willpower—"

"—could corrupt them," I finished.

"Exactly. Depending on how it's directed."

"What about white? What is white?"

"White is hope."

The idea of hope being considered relative was hard to believe at first, the notion of something so good having the possibility of ever being equally bad. But it was an easy possibility. It was true. Hope could be devastating when left alone and passive. When it's not true, hope could be the loneliest, scariest thing. "And what is the worst emotion? The worst color?"

"The worst color is called predawn. It's a shade of gray. It represents fear." She clarified, "Fear is the baseline of every bad feeling. It's the root of negative emotions. Think of fear as the final boss. It's the one that controls every negative emotion, the one that feeds into them. When you're anxious, you're afraid of the unknown. When you're jealous, you're afraid of someone taking away what you have. When you're envious, you're afraid you're not being as good as you want. Avoidance, ignorance, shame, self-doubt. They all trace back to fear. It's the one emotion that sort of equalizes all humans. Everyone is afraid of something. We're either afraid of not getting what we want, or we're afraid of losing what we have.

"Predawn is usually the last color I use. The final touch. Once I make sure the target is effectively feeling whatever combination of self-loathing, despair, anxiety, and hopelessness, I let fear in to keep all the feelings in and make sure they're seated deep."

I sucked in a long, measured breath, recalling the information Quon had extracted about Yuki's targets. It made sense now.

Total emotional knock-down.

It's like they were still themselves, but they were emotionally screwed.

As good as dead.

She had imprisoned those criminals within a canvas of their own memories and mistakes. Dorian's Decay was their cruelest karma.

"So you literally strike fear into the hearts of men," I joked.

"I do."

"And they say emotions are a women's weakness."

Her lips curved out that deadly smile again. "Oh, yeah, they do."

She was a comforting presence beside me, but I felt as if I was back outside, standing in the crackling center of a storm. She was a tangible dark cloud, holding charge and power within.

I reached out to tuck an insane curl of hair behind her ear, and felt her shiver. "And once a person is compelled with fear, it's—what? A dead end for them?" I asked. "There's no turning back? No way to undo it all? Is there a way out of that emotional hell for the person?"

"Of course." She smiled. "Give them hope or willpower."

"Ah." My own smile broke free. Hope and willpower conquered fear. "Wow."

Dorian's Decay wasn't just an emotional, psychological ability. There was certain philosophy to it, equal parts intriguing and terrifying.

"It's cool in theory, but sadly, I can't do it. White and black are the two colors that take the most out of me to channel into my nen," she added, flexing out the fingers of her hand, palm up. Steam outlined her hand, following by a white halo that pulsed and vibrated around the shape of her hand, straining to be free. Her aura tainted by the effort. "I can't say I've felt enough of them in my lifetime. Not to mention that so much aura pool is needed for them, and I'm not powerful enough for them yet. It's another limitation that I'm not in control of."

"Oh, cut yourself some slack. You've been training your nen for what, ten years? And yet you still have plenty of stumbling blocks, but that means you're doing it the right way. You're taking it step by step instead of leaping forward with some drastic boost. After all, you can't rush greatness," I told her, smiling at her laugh. I looked at her, thinking about how from now on, I would be there to watch her take the next steps into getting what she wanted from life, how great it would feel to see her get even stronger. I was going to enjoy it up close.

"I do have a limitation on Dorian's Decay that I am in control of though," Yuki said. When my eyes immediately went wide and my brows pulled down in horror, she laughed again, quickly amending, "No, it's not the kind of limitation that comes with a boost and some sacrifice. I'm not into that existential angst."

"What kind of limitation is it then?"

"It's a bit of an idiosyncratic one."

"Well, color me surprised," I drawled, smirking when she shot me a blank look, possibly for the sarcasm more than the (brilliant) pun. After all the stories and the nen logistics I'd heard in the last hour, it was clear that she put her own unique spin on everything that she did. "What is the limitation?"

"Well. The limitation is that I can only use Dorian's Decay when I'm wearing black clothes."

"You…" That was one limitation I would have never ever have guessed. "You have a goddamn dress code for your ability?"

"I love how you make it sound so geeky, but yes. It's less a dress code and more an incentive to keep me in check."

"What? Why?"

"After Marlo's suicide, I'd made the decision to only use Dorian's Decay when I'm on a specific mission. I wasn't supposed to show him his mother; I did that because I was getting spiteful and frustrated with him during the mission and I lashed out. I wasn't supposed to lose control like that. And it scared me, the thought of letting my mood get the best of me like that. That's why I had to teach myself some self-discipline, so I created that limitation. Also black is cool."

My brows furrowed. "But you just showed it to me and you're not wearing black right now." In fact, I'd never seen Yuki wear all black clothes except for rare occasions, like the masquerade party we crashed into last weekend. "How's that?"

"I can activate Dorian's Decay when I'm not in black. I can use its sub-abilities. I can show my colors, I just have to avoid having them touch anyone and be effective. The limitation comes with a backlash—a penalty. If I'm not wearing black all over and my colors make contact with a person, the penalty will be activated as well. If I inflict a person with a range of emotions when I'm not met with the black dress code, then I will be a victim of my colors as well. I will feel the same emotions as my target."

Anxiety gripped me in a fist. "Like recoil damage?"

"Yes. Exactly like recoil damage."

"Are you saying that when I was compelled with affection earlier, you felt it as well?"

"I did. You only touched the color briefly and with your finger so the compulsion wasn't too strong, but it was enough to give me the urge to touch you."

That was what I'd felt too. "So if you're wearing all black, then your target will be the only party compelled by the colors. But if you're not wearing all black, then both you and your target will be compelled by the colors and feel the same emotions," I concluded, frowning harder as dread continued to coil in my gut. "As poetic as that is, it's also a pretty damn harsh limitation to put on yourself."

"It is, but it ensures that I stay in control. I'm a Manipulator, Killua; we strive on control, and if we don't exercise it ourselves, things can get ugly. This way, I can't abuse my power anytime I feel like it. This way I don't get addicted to it, because I know I'll be punished, and that keeps me in check. I can only do it when I make the conscious decision to take on a mission, and putting certain clothes on is an aware, conscious decision."

I could see the smart angle of the limitation; the logical angle, and her deep sense of integrity that differentiated her from my brothers and other trigger-happy Manipulators who abused their power of control and possession. Yuki wouldn't sacrifice empathy for ferocity. But still. "Yeah, but it's risky. What if you were attacked and you weren't met with the right dress code? The attacker isn't going to be like, 'Would you like to change before you fuck me over, miss?'"

She narrowed her eyes playfully and glanced at my own clothes. "Then I'll kindly ask you to strip. Two birds in one stone and all."

"I'm serious, Yuki."

She shrugged. "Then I won't use my ability."

"But…it's amazing."

A delighted smile crept into her face, the way it did with each praise I'd used tonight. "I'm more than my nen ability. I can still kick glorious ass without it. I never needed to use Dorian's Decay for myself once in the whole last four months I wasn't officially taking Blacklist missions, and here I am. Besides, just because I can't have the colors touch anyone doesn't mean I can't put the mist and the clouds to good use. I have other useful sub-abilities you'll see in time."

I sighed, still a tad bit unconvinced. "You also didn't need that limitation."

"True, I didn't. But I like it, Killua. It keeps me reined in. I'm disciplined."

"I think the term you're looking for is 'control freak'."

She shrugged again and hopped off the table. "I am that, too."

I watched her gather up the empty water bottles and take them with her to the trash. "Y'know, I bet you've never even been drunk before."

She blinked over at me quizzically, amusement flicking her eyebrow. "What does that have to do with my risky—albeit badass—dress code?"

"Have you ever been drunk?"

She came back to the table, her hands on her hips as she pondered the question. "Well, I have been buzzed before—"

"Hah."

"—but I have good tolerance. Seriously, what kinda question is that? Was I supposed to be drunk at least once? Is there some kind of cool badge for it?"

I shook my head with a chuckle. "No, it's one of the least cool things ever. But you like stiff drinks like tequila. You like to do shots. You love that nice thrill of abandon. And yet you're still that person who makes sure her drunk friends are put into cabs. You're that disciplined and that's cool. You know when to stop, sex with me aside"—she snorted—"I'm just saying, I don't think you ever needed that limitation on your ability to keep you in check. You do just fine without it."

Yuki went quiet. Then, she looked away at the table somberly, thinking. "Maybe."

That was when it dawned on me. I didn't know how I hadn't noticed it before. She didn't put that limitation on herself just because she was that much of a control freak. It was because she was that distrustful—of herself, of her own judgement, of her ability to fix what needs to be fixed after all the hurt and the betrayal she'd been through. "You don't trust yourself enough. You don't really believe you're good enough on your own."

She just swiveled her eyes toward me, quiet again, before she echoed, "Maybe?"

And there it was. The last piece of her.

I scoffed lightly to myself and looked away, irritation sneaking its way back with a vengeance into my chest. That explained her shiftiness and wary distrust of those around her. Having an uncle that made you feel like you weren't good enough for his approval on every step, and a best friend that made you feel like your love wasn't enough would do the simple trick. "Pricks," I muttered under my breath.

"Who?"

"Rae and Gary."

"Pshh." She came up behind my chair and squeezed my shoulders. "What did I say about not blaming one person for—"

Before she could argue again, I stood and grasped both her hands in mine. "You can argue that it's the whole system that's toxic, and it'll be true. But you can also argue that it's a domino's effect. Sometimes it's all about that one honest mistake." I paused, memories wafting through my head, of everything I'd lost and nearly lost because of one wrong, leading misstep. "But it doesn't matter the cause or the reason. You fuck up, you own up to it. It's as simple as that. You took the blame for Cleave getting a hold of your criminals and you almost died trying to fix a mistake that wasn't yours to begin with. If you could do that, then Gary and Rae should take the blame for the shit they did and the hurt they've caused others." I exhaled, ending the impassioned ramble. "To sum up… Pricks."

She laughed down at our hands, a sound that I would walk through fire to preserve and keep. "They are."

"Yes." My eyes dipped to her lips once, and in turn, hers wandered my face, my eyes, my jaw, trying to read my mood. "You're enough just the way you are. You're more than enough, and I'll never let anyone make you feel like you're not again."

She smiled one of my favorite smiles—the rare happy, unguarded kind. "I know," she said simply. "I heard what you told Gary at his office. That you make me the happiest I've ever been."

"I know you did. I found your other tracking chip."

Her smile was unapologetic now, freaking shameless. "You telling Gary that was the sexiest thing I've ever heard."

I drew her close. "Are you that happy right now?"

"I am. Being in this bar tonight, with you, it's like…"

She didn't finish immediately. Instead, she stepped in closer, her hands holding onto my waistband, and let her eyes take in my face once more. "I used to be so unsure of my direction in life, thinking that my feet would never stay on one ground because I hadn't found my place in the world yet. The place that invigorates me, inspires me, and makes me feel like I truly and simply… belong.""

I ran my thumb across her cheek. "Do you feel like you've found that place here?"

"You are that place."

I swallowed down the sudden lump of emotions rising in my throat, too stunned to speak. My eyes closed and I leaned into her, resting my forehead against hers. With slightly shaking hands, I grabbed her face for something to steady me, feeling a sharp pulse in my chest, like all the jagged pieces of my heart came back into place together until it was achingly, tightly full. My world reaffirmed itself with those words. I knew they would be there for me when I needed them. They would find me in every dark moment, a single good memory bringing me back to myself.

I barely heard it when she said a bunch of jumbled words about cleaning up the main bar, the storm having passed, the mess we'd made. And then she stepped away, unaware of the storm roaring inside me.

My hand shot out on its own, gripped her wrist. "I love you."

A hush fell over the room as Yuki went still, then slowly, very slowly, she turned her head to look at me. It was only when her wide eyes met my wide eyes that I realized what I'd said. She was looking at me and I could see each single emotion that passed through her face that second—shock, thrill, disbelief, tenderness, relief—all at once.

She didn't say a word. She just broke into an enormous smile. I smiled back, and for a moment we just looked at each other, matching grins overtaking our faces.

"I'm sorry, what did you just say?"

I yanked her to me, still smiling, nearly laughing as I took her face in my hands. "I love you. I fucking love you."

She looked nowhere but into my eyes. Her eyes were shining. "I love you, too."

The words had rolled off my tongue even more effortlessly the second time. I closed my eyes and slid my lips over hers, swallowing her gasp and tasting the words in my mouth again, overcome by how saying them out loud was making me feel. Like I was on top of the world. Like I could burst out of this bar and change lives. I was so deep lost in her, and at the same time, I'd never been more aware and centered unto myself, more empowered and free to be.

Her hands came up to my chest and curled into fists around my shirt. She pressed up and tilted her head, covering my mouth with hers. Her tongue traced my lower lip and then eased inside with a low, hungry sound. A moan rattled through my chest, longing exploding low in my body at the taste of her, the rhythmic clench of her fingers in my shirt.

It was my undoing, a chain that cut in my control. I seized her waist and deepened the kiss, tilting her head and dipping mine in, feeling a little wild, a little unhinged after being deprived of her for too many hours.

I was made of nothing but relief, and the need to feel more, and deeper. I reached between us, loosening the front knot of her shirt before working off the tiny buttons. She braced her hands on my forearms as I pushed her shirt open and broke the kiss to look down at her, out of breath and dazed by flashes of golden skin and deep emerald lace.

I slipped inside her shirt and found the bare skin of her waist, watching her skin tighten beneath my touch. "You know this view is my favorite part about the city."

She breathed out a laugh that came out a little shaky. "Why are you getting me naked? You're on a sex embargo."

"I know."

"You're not allowed to fuck tonight."

"No, I'm not allowed to fuck," I agreed, shifting my eyes from my hands to her face with a flick of my eyebrows. "But you are."

Her lips turned up at the corners. "And here I was thinking I'd be going home to my vibrator tonight."

"I wouldn't be so cruel." I bent down to run my nose behind her jaw, hear her breath picking up. "I'm much better at making you feel good and I last twice as long. No charge required."

All at once, she forewent words and filled the small distance between us again, her mouth crashing into mine with a deep kiss. My senses, so inundated with her warm thrumming body and quickening breaths, left me blind me to the fact she was pushing me back. The kiss broke on a gasp as she pinned me against a table, the wooden edge of it hitting the back of my thighs.

I was eagerly at her mercy, undone when her lips left mine and found my neck. My knees begged to buckle with every peck and lick she gave on her way to my pulse point. My hands reached out desperately, gripping the table behind me. She pressed harder into me then, her thigh thrusting between my legs, rubbing upward.

"Yes." I gripped her upper arms, my nails digging into muscle. "More. Harder."

She grazed her teeth sharply across my pulse point, pressing, pressing, pressing until I felt the delicious sting of pain. My entire body buzzed to life, unwired, gone off, pleasure flooding hot and wild in my veins. My hips bucked into hers once, grinding against her thigh. I heard her moan in answer, encouraging. She kissed along every inch of the side of my neck, her mouth sucking and pulling before going back to trail sweet, deluging kisses over the bite marks. The sting melted into heat and insatiable hunger underneath my skin.

My body finally succumbed, and I half-slumped down to sit on the edge of the table.

My eyes opened, as heavy and slow as everything in my mind. I tilted my head down to see her and found her gaze there waiting for me. Her eyes on my face were tender and proud and obsessed, watching me feel everything she was doing to me, watching me give in to every sensation she was pulling.

Grabbing her hips in my hands, I turned her around and switched us so she was pinned against the table edge. My body pressed all alongside hers; legs, hips, chests. "When you look at me like that," I whispered between tiny biting kisses, "it makes me want to fuck you right here on the floor. Have you looking down at me like that while you ride my cock the way I want you to."

"Killua," she moaned quietly at the blunt, crude words, meeting my hips with a thrust.

I smiled, my fingers moving to her waistband. "But since we can't do that tonight…" I unzipped her pants, my eyes on her heaving breasts, the curved muscles in her stomach fluttering and tightening the with each one of her breaths. "We'll have to find another way to make you come hard for me. Would you like that?"

She groaned, fingers rough and desperate in my hair, and pushed up, kissing me so full, so good I had to pull back after a minute to breathe. I moved one hand to her chest, over the lace of her bra, wanting to feel how hard she was for me, my palm feeling her nipple through the delicate fabric. A small whine escaped her lips. Her hand covered mine, squeezing it around her breast.

"There's a bed upstairs in the attic," she panted. "Take me there."

I nodded, taking her hand and tugging her across the room. I made a quick turn toward the bar's fridge to grab a water bottle with my free hand before we strode down the end of a hall for the spiral stairs leading to the attic. The assent was dark, blessedly quiet except for our shuffling feet and ragged breathing.

There was more just than just a bed upstairs. The attic turned out to be a full room. It was nearly abandoned, drowned in moonlight, drafty and empty but for a low full-size bed that was neatly made, an old writing desk and a few cardboard boxes in a corner. A skylight window lined up the triangle roof with a clear view of the sky and river outside.

It was quite the change of scenery from the bar downstairs, darker and airy, definitively more secluded. This room was an extension to the room downstairs; heavy with presence and quirky in its own way, but still distinct from each other. Faint music still played out in the bar downstairs but the sound was too faraway here, indistinct and fading into another background, making it easy to forget what was said there. Here it was just us, our story, our memories. And nothing else.

"This okay?" Yuki asked.

"Yes." I lifted our joined hands and kissed hers, then I stepped towards the radiator in the corner of the room, hoping it wasn't broken. But it worked fine. I turned it on, set the water bottle on the bedside table along with my watch. It sat there with a light clink of steel and wood, a sound that echoed through the room, making me more conscious to how quiet and secluded the attic was, and how abandoned we were in it.

Yuki was oddly noncommittal behind me. Her silence was too rare and too loud. When I turned to face her, I found her standing in the same spot by the foot of the bed, still dressed. Her shirt was open but not off, her arms by her sides.

She was waiting. Not just for me; it was something else.

"Killua."

Everything seemed to shudder to a stop. "Yeah?"

"Tell me," she demanded. "Tell me what to do."

An rush of warmth spread across my shoulders and down to my chest at the words, the sound of her voice and the covert shift in her aura. There was something new in her eyes when she said that—a desperation I'd never seen on her before. She was waiting on me to make all the first steps, to direct her and guide her into it, putting it all in my hands. She could take charge of anything with effortless and undeniable ease. But right now, right here in the seclusion of this attic room, she wanted to relinquish that control. She wanted to be free of it the only way she felt safe.

I had been with others who wanted me in control, in missions, in decisions and in bed. But it had never been this personal, this connected or this empowering. Right now, her trust was everything.

We were looking directly at each other, and here it was—a moment charged with something indescribable, felt, known but unspoken. Something beautiful. There were very few things in the world that could make me look away from her right now. I had this mystery of a girl in front of me, wanting me to unravel her and make it all better. To make her my only focus for a while.

I took just one step closer to her, and stopped. Without taking my eyes off her, I toed off my shoes and reached behind me to pull my shirt over my head, tossing it away. Working to unfasten my belt, I lifted my chin for her to do the same. "Take it all off."

A thready breath escaped her at the command. She blinked down to my body and began doing what I asked, first by sliding her shirt off her shoulder. Her movements were absent and distracted from where her eyes fixed on my naked skin. A curl of power and possessive heat surged down my blood, just from that look of wild attraction in her eyes alone.

Urging her on, I placed my hand flat against my stomach, my nails scratching skin. "You want me?" I asked, enjoying the gasp it'd provoked.

Her tongue darted out to lick her lips. "Yes."

"You know what to do, beastie. Strip faster."

With a devious smile, she kicked her shoes off, shimmied her leggings down her hips and stepped out of them. She didn't look away from me while she undressed, slowly in front of me, catching every second of my eyes moving on every inch of her body she was baring. Every golden, curved, defined inch. I licked my lips as she reached behind her to unlatch her bra. She slipped it away, stepped out of her panties, then pulled at the elastic tie of her ponytail and shook her hair free. It fell in dark, luscious waves across her back and shoulders, framing her face.

I exhaled a jagged breath. The sight of her perfect naked skin, her body pliable and waiting for more instructions, sent a thrill down my spine I'd never known before.

Her eyes gleamed. "Should I keep going?"

She looked right at me and made a show of taking off her rings and bracelets as well, taunting now, as if I would wait that long.

"Yeah, I don't think so," I snapped out of my haze, shoving my jeans down and off until they were a puddle of black at my feet, but keeping my boxer briefs on.

Yuki was staring again, her eyes wandering from my mouth, to my neck, and lower. Her entire body was tense, muscles poised and waiting.

She held her breath while I walked to her, closing the distance between us. I stopped in front of her, close but not too close, and otherwise did nothing else. It was to provoke her further, perhaps, to see how long she was willing to wait. How far her patience would run before her bossy, commanding side threw down and came out winning.

But she surprised me—she didn't do anything I didn't ask her to do. She didn't close the inch of space between her chest and mine. Her hands stayed by her side instead of anywhere and everywhere on me. Instead, she tilted her face towards mine, her gaze calm, earnest and trusting. The way she was looking at me… like I was more than just me. Like I was her everything.

She wanted me in control but she wasn't making it any easy.

"You're so beautiful." I moved a hand to the back of her head and weaved my fingers in the loose, rich silk of her hair, closing a fistful around it. Her pupils dilated with the tug, darkened until only a thin ring of blue left. Her lips were wet and fuller in the light, causing my thoughts to turn darker. I could see her pulse throb in her throat, her breaths like tiny, excited puffs on the skin of my chest. "You have no idea what seeing you like this does to me."

She closed her eyes and leaned her head back into my grip, craving more. "You can show me."

"Tell what you were you thinking about just then. When you were taking your clothes off for me."

Her stance softened, and it was all I could do to keep from kissing her again. She opened her eyes and held my gaze. "I was thinking that you're mine."

I'd barely touched her, but I was breathing as hard as she was, just from being this close alone. "Do you want me to let go? Or do you want me to tease you first?"

She shook her head. "Tease me." Her answer came out so quick, I felt a spike of pride down my spine.

"Okay." I stepped in. "Start by kissing me."

Obediently, she moved closer, her hands braced on my hips as she stretched up to my mouth.

I tightened my fist in her hair just before her lips touched mine, and smiled down at her. "Lower."

Her eyes flamed and the word bounced around the space between us. I stood completely still as she lowered her head and pressed her mouth to the side of my neck, leaving a wake of shivers.

She brought her head back to look at me.

"Keep going," I whispered.

She leaned forward again, finding and teasing the hollow of my collarbones. I swallowed and she tracked the movement with her tongue. She kissed lower, just above my heart, her lips feather light and unhurried. I caught the shadow of her smile at the impatience in my slow exhale.

Finally, she bent, kissing over the top of my stomach.

Her lips were everywhere then. The world melted away until there was nothing but the ten points of her fingers on my skin and the downward trails of her mouth, latching, kissing. Teeth bared and glided a circuit from my stomach to my hips. They followed every scar and dip and bone and shiver. Leisurely, tantalizingly dragging.

Lower and lower she moved until she sat on the footboard of the bed. Her teeth tugged at the elastic band of my boxer briefs, her fingers toying with it.

"Stop." I sounded like I'd been sparring for hours.

Yuki stopped at once, and lifted her head, her eyes blazing and hungry. I held back a smile at the way her jaw ticced with frustration. For a second, she looked like she was about to take her Tease me answer back and have it her way. But instead, she stared as I removed my hand from her hair and brought it under her chin until she stood upright. "You want to keep going, don't you? You want to suck me off."

"Is it that obvious?"

I gave in to the smile. My thumb brushed the soft swell of her lower lip. "Just the thought makes you want to beg. You want it more than you want me going down on you."

She licked the pad of my thumb, kissing. "I'll beg now if you want."

"Two days, and I'll let you play with me all you want." Stepping back, I moved around the bed and lowered onto the end of the mattress. "Come over here."

Naked, she walked over to me and stepped between my open knees. Long, strong legs shook slightly when I smoothed my palms over the outside of her thighs. As I leaned in to kiss the firm skin of her lower abs, I realized, then and there, that this was what was keeping me sane throughout the whole week. The thought of coming back to her at the end of the day—coming back to this.

Her hands slipped into my hair and she whimpered, a plaintive amazing sound of longing. It prompted me to look at her. As if reading my mind, she said, "I've been thinking about this all day. Your hands on me. I was going a little crazy."

The way she was looking at me now was too intense; I looked away and nuzzled around her belly button. "It's the same for me, too. You're all I can think about anymore."

"But when you do things… like shutting out for hours and making business deals with some men without telling anybody, it hurts. It makes me feel like I don't even cross your mind."

I drew her in, my lips back on her stomach. "That's not possible. I do everything with you on my mind. I just need to stop thinking by myself."

"Thinking and planning."

I kissed her pubic bone. My words pressed into her skin. "I'll work on that."

She put her hand under my jaw and made me look back at her face before I could kiss any lower. "You talk to me about these things. You talk with me. We talk about everything. Promise me."

"I promise." I pushed her back to bring my legs together, then pulled her forward and down onto my lap. The bare, warm friction of her hips pressing down against mine was a twist of pleasure and pain. She shivered and rocked her hips once, feeling me. I grasped them in my hands to steady her and buried my face in her throat to distract myself. "That was so sneaky. Getting me to promise you something mid foreplay when you know that I barely have any blood in my head right now."

She laughed hoarsely into my hair and the sound caught in a moan when my mouth found the creamy expanse of her chest. Her thighs tensed over mine as I kissed from her collarbones to the wild beat of her heart. I'd been wanting to do that for hours. On her hips, my hands were impatient, possessive and kneading. I ran them up her waist and higher, cupping her breasts. A shaky sound vibrated in the air; I wasn't sure who it belonged to. Her body arched towards mine, chasing my touch, and I followed, bending to suck a nipple into my mouth.

Her gasps shuddered and hurried, filling the room. In my hair her hands clenched, twisting hard as my teeth teased the full curve below her nipple.

"Please," she breathed out as I turned to her other breast and lavished similar attention on it. "Please, Killua."

"Get on the bed."

She got off and climbed on the bed, stretched on her back. Her hair fanned out on the pillow around her head, eyes alight with need as she watched me join her and align my body above hers. Her legs fell open, knees bent to my sides. Her lips were unbelievably pliant and supple beneath mine, parting with a silent gasp when my hips settled between her thighs. I hissed at the bare feel of her where I was hard and desperate—my hips pushed forward.

She pressed up into me and her nails scraped into my sides, her legs spreading wider for the roll of my hips. She was so wet, so ready I could pull myself out and slide deep inside her in a single, long stroke, fuck until neither of us could stand.

But then she let out a languid, sweet moan into the kiss, her tongue sliding over mine in the same slow, lazy rhythm of our hips. And I knew I could do nothing but this all night.

The trembling tips of her fingers brushed my chest, just feeling. "Remember that night on the island?" she asked, her voice out of breath and rough with desire.

Mine wasn't any different. "Which one?"

I knew what night she meant, but I wanted to hear her voice like that some more. It made the words sound so sweet but so dirty at the same time, and I was obsessed.

"The second night. After our first time." Her breath hitched in tightly when I ground against her once, just right. "When we kissed like this. For hours." Her lips curved a smile against mine at the memory. "We'd already had sex. We had been doing nothing else for like twelve hours straight. But you kissed me that night like it was still enough. Like it was just as good as the sex."

"It was." I inched back with my forehead against hers, catching my breath. "It is."

She dug her fingers into my biceps as her hips gave an impatient upward arch, seeking more friction. Searching for me. I gave her what she asked for, meeting her hips with mine in a tight grind, and her entire body shook.

"Oh, shit. Do that again," she managed, her nails scouring hard, her fingers trembling and restless.

I found her hands and pinned her wrists down by her head, restraining her arms. The tension in her body loosened up a fraction and she closed her eyes, as if it was a relief. With her wrists secure in my hands, I kissed her again and began to rock more steadily against her.

She moved back with me, our bodies working together with a pressing, grinding rhythm. Sweat pooled in the hollow of her collarbones as she panted, fast and humid breaths against my throat, writhing beneath me with the need to let go. It coiled with each roll of her hips, inflamed by each push of mine. A flush deepened the tops of her cheeks, spreading down her chest. I changed the tempo of my movement, back and upward, faster and tighter until she was where she needed, jerking against me. Arching up, she sank her teeth into my chest, her sharp sounds of pleasure echoing liquid and silvery into my skin.

I broke the kiss as she dissolved into the mattress with a long sigh. I let go of her wrists then, rubbing my thumbs over her pulse points before kissing each one. "One down."

She laughed, a low, breathless sound. "So greedy."

"You can tell me to stop if it gets too much." I placed a kiss to the middle of her chest, right between her breasts, breathing her in. She lifted a weak arm up, running her hand through my hair as I kissed her stomach, sliding lower. "Right now I can't stop. I have to taste you."

I shifted all the way down, kneeling between her legs. My palms splayed from her hips to her inner thighs, spreading her for me. She propped on her elbows to watch me kiss the insides of each thigh. Her gaze on me was soft and heavy, almost riveted in their study.

With my eyes pinned up the length of her body, I smiled and leaned in, opening my mouth directly between her legs.

She tensed up slightly, the air leaving her body in a rush.

My hands on her thighs rubbed and pinned, holding her open for the next long swipe of my tongue. Her head fell back, eyes closed and lips parted, relief washing over her expression. One of her hands came up to tug into my hair, guiding me in bold but desperate coaxing.

"Ah, fuck," she whispered under her breath as I complied, mouth open and covering her, sucking gently. She laid back on the bed and her hands reached for the headboard. Her back bowed off the mattress, her legs spreading wider. "Yes. Don't stop."

A groan scraped out of my throat and I closed my eyes, giving into the pleasure and power in the act, the intimacy and the connection and the vulnerability of it that was just for me. She strained above me, muscles clenching with the build of pleasure. I gripped her hips firmly in my hands and let go, losing myself.

It was so intoxicating, to discover which whimper or moan or grunt would come next with every lave and suck of my mouth between her thighs, that I would have been happy to keep it up until morning. An ache, tender and relentless, seared across my skin as I felt myself consumed by the taste of wet and heat melting on my tongue. Her body twisted and tightened everywhere with the first pulses and she tipped over, crying out as pleasure burst through her, rolling on and on, trying to arch her hips away when it got too much.

I seized them again and brought her back to my mouth.

Her hands left the headboard and clutched my hair instead, rocking mindlessly against my face. Her fingers pulled, holding me down. She was close again, too close, hovered back on the verge. I moved with her through it, sucking and pulling her with my lips and tongue and pushing her with the urgent vibrations of my voice. As she started to come again, I looked up, finding her eyes with mine, and that did it. She pushed into my mouth one last time, her head falling back into the pillow and her entire body curling with pleasure. I didn't let up, prolonging the intensity of her orgasm until she was tugging my head up, weightless and shaking above me as she came down.

The mattress dipped as I staggered to my knees between her legs. I wiped my forearm across my face, relishing the pounding pulse in my head and within every inch in my body, the warm flush of blood in my face all the way to my chest. I looked at her, naked and boneless and catching her breath on the bed, with the deep-set blush and the sweat lining the carved dips of her body. I'd never seen anything more beautiful.

She sat up with slight effort, kissing over my hip bones as if she couldn't stay away from my skin for even a minute. Her hair was a soft fall of curls on my skin, her lips softer. "You make me feel crazy."

"I think I just noticed that."

She pushed her hair off her face and smiled hazily up at me. "I'd give you a standing ovation but I don't think I'm capable of any standing after that."

I grinned and climbed back on top of her, falling back into each other again. Our smiles mingled and slipped as they caught on skin. I kissed her thigh, her waist, her ribs, all the way to her arching neck, loving the feel of her overheated, overstimulated body under my lips and her sublime aftershock shivers with each glancing kiss.

"God, Killua."

"I can't fucking get enough of you."

My mouth hovered over hers and she opened for me, letting me take her mouth and taste her soft pants and whimpers. So soft she was, all over. Laying there, all open and mine. I didn't want it to stop. I wanted to keep her like this. The way she'd pulled at my hair, lost all control and went reckless around the end, moving and taking and giving and holding onto me… I wanted to capture it one last time, more and up close. I wanted to find all the other ways for us to to move and fit together.

There were so many ways.

Bracing one hand on the mattress, I let my other hand wander, getting her ready for more. I waited for distraction in her kiss and the twitch of her hips asking me to keep going. My palm across her stomach skimmed her navel, my fingertips drifting through the slickness between her legs. I kissed down her neck, my fingers parting and sliding in between, down and lower, dipping inside.

She felt like fire beneath me. Her body pulsed with heat, against my lips and fingers from the friction of my kisses. I reveled in it—the frustrated look on her face when I pulled my hand away to reach for the pillow and position it underneath her backside so I could get the best angle, the gasp of relief when I brought my hand on her again and pushed two fingers back inside her, deeper. Thrusting in and out. Her hands were free this time, roaming my body with the same satisfied reverence as my touch. Her breathy moaned words pushed into my skin, in my ear then on my lips, begging for faster and harder. I pulled back to see her face, and her eyes were there, wide and dazed and looking into mine until my heart felt like it might claw out of my chest and into hers. I curled my fingers inside just as I pressed the heel of my palm outside, capturing the moment it happened: her eyes squeezed closed with a sharp cry, her body rippling along my fingers. I came back to kiss my name just as it fell from her lips.

I slowed my hand and she caught her breath, her arm bent by her head, her fingers twined in her hair. Carefully, I pulled my fingers out and smoothed them back and forth, stroking slowly. She shivered but didn't move away.

I kissed the tip of her nose. "You good, beastie?"

She gave a lazy nod, panting. "Fuck. Yeah."

"You want to rest?"

"Yeah."

"You sure? No encore?"

Her lips curled into a faint smile. "No. I'm sure I'd pass out."

Hooking my arm gingerly around her waist, I lifted her off the mattress and rolled back with her straddling my hips. A sound between a sigh and an exhale left her. The shape of her was blacklit from the city lights through the wide windows around us. I let my hands feel her quivering body like this, soothing and claiming.

I sat up and brushed her hair behind her shoulders to see her face. Her eyes were glazed and overwhelmed, bright with so much raw emotion it made my heart clench again with everything I was feeling. She ran her hands up my chest and settled them on my neck, her eyes fluttering closed as she pulled my face to hers, her lips seeking. It was just as perfect, kissing after sex. I was consumed with the feel of her above me, warm and pliable in my arms, coming down, my lips full of hers and every part of her full in my hands. The world felt softer in a moment, younger and smoother around the edges. It seemed so contained now, so small compared to this, to her and everything she made me feel.

That was until I felt the pressure of her hips over mine, making me realize just how much I'd been holding back this entire time. I was suddenly too aware of the beads of sweat at my hairline and rolling at the back of my neck, and the reflexive force of my grip on her, the echo of her on my fingers and my tongue.

I moaned and she broke the kiss with her forehead against mine, still fighting to steady her breathing. "Are you okay?"

"I'll be fine." I touched the fading blotchy marks on her chest. "Are you?"

"I'm perfect."

"Here." I reached for the water I'd left on the table and unscrewed it open. "Drink."

She took the bottle and drank, then handed it back to me. I emptied the rest of the water down my dry throat while she traced small, tired kisses on my neck. "Do we have time to sleep before going back to the city? I can barely move."

"We've got"—I placed the empty bottle back on the table and checked my watch there—"exactly five hours before I have to be at Leorio's gym. What time does Lev open the bar?"

"Afternoon. Normally not before five."

"Good. Let's have some rest then. You miss sleeping with me?"

She nuzzled into my chest. "Yes."

"C'mere." I shifted back and sideways, taking her down with me until we were lying side-by-side. Yanking the light blanket from the foot of the bed, I unfolded it to cover our bodies from the waist down. I schooched to made room for her beside me so we'd share a pillow, one hand palming her ass to tuck her close. "An overdue question, but why is there a bedroom in the attic of this bar?"

Yuki yawned, wriggling away to take off her rings and bracelets. "Lev lived here for a while when he first arrived to the city. Before he eventually moved in with his man. We keep this room now just in case any of the bar's regulars got too drunk and needed a quick catnap before they could drive again."

I made a face as I took the jewelry she handed me to put away on the bedside table. "So you're saying we just had sex on a seedy motel bed. Lovely."

She laughed. "We had sex on my apartment's floor before it was sanded and refinished. Obviously we can do a lot worse than a seedy motel bed."

"Ahh, yeah. That was one great time, even though my ass was sore for two days after."

She opened one eye. "Your ass? It wasn't you who was banged hoarse against that tragic floor."

"I was talking about your claw marks, sunshine."

"Oh. Yeah. Oops. You know… I like how 'sunshine' is your sweet way of saying 'dumbass'."

"What can I say? I'm a gentleman."

She hummed happily and curled up alongside me, all curves and muscles and delicious body heat. That sexy, peaceful smile spread across her face as she tangled her legs with mine. A rough sound of content rumbled inside my chest.

I'd missed this.

Her eyes opened fully then. She got that look in them that I knew so well: a bunch of crazy words that I couldn't wait to hear was about to come out of her. "Do you still like me?"

I propped my head on my elbow and raised my eyebrows at her. Skimming her body under the blanket, I joked, "How can I not after that?"

"I know you like sex with me, and you like to give me orgasms. And I know you love me. But do you like like me, still? After everything you've found out about me this week, and tonight?"

I looked at her skeptically. "How do you say you know I love you, but ask me if I like you?"

"You can love someone and not like them," she replied, her lips twisted wryly as I understood. It was a reference to Gary—the prick—and his feelings towards her.

She was so strong, so self-reliant all the time, it was easy to forget she needed reassurance just like anybody else. Most especially from me.

"I like you," I told her earnestly. "I like you a lot. I like you more every day. You're the person I like most in the world. Fuck, there's nothing easier than liking you. My life, probably, if I could like you less—"

She covered my mouth with her fingers, chuckling harder when I tried to nip at them. "A 'yes' would have sufficed. Jeez." Her mouth became small, softening her dopey smile. "I like you, too."

"Yeah? You like me with all my asshole lies and baggage and shortcomings?"

"Yes. Especially because of all your shortcomings."

I squinted. "That's goth. How very Morticia Addams of you."

She smiled and it was her most roguish. "It was an orgasm joke, sunshine."

"Ah. Ahhh, short comings." Her grin widened and matched mine as I dove into her and dug my knuckles into her waist, making squeal and buck wildly against me with laughter. "Oh, but there's nothing short about that."

She wrestled against my tickling hands for the span of several bubbly laughs. Squirming free, she caught my wrist and stilled it, pinning my hand fast on her stomach. "Stop it, that might accidentally turn me on. I'm already a little sore and shaky and in five hours I'll have to ride a bike home. As in mount a bike."

A low-grade, irrational anxiety began to set in. We were going in two different paths tomorrow morning. Because her home was no longer my home.

I groaned, flopping off her and onto my back. "Right."

Yuki rolled back on her side and slung her leg over my hip, repositioning my arm under her. "How long are you going to be pouty and bitter over my new apartment?"

"I haven't decided yet, but probably a long time." I turned my head, resting my chin on top of her hair, and closed my eyes when she snuggled her face into my chest. "I hate it. You're going home to your dog and your pretty new apartment and I'm going to my empty, lonely hotel room—"

"Where there's no one to leave shoes for you to trip on every night when you come home?" she finished.

I played along. "And no one to keep dirty dishes in my sink."

"For ten whole minutes. The horror," she added, making me grin over her head. "No one to leave makeup all over your room."

"No one to clog my drain with hair."

"Or wear your fancy designer sweaters while cooking things that spatter."

I shuddered. "Or splash water all over my bathroom floor."

"Or keep the bedside lamp on all night after deciding to start reading a book at ten p.m. and accidentally finish it."

I paused with my lips to the top of her head and listened to her steady breathing and the sounds of wind rustling through the trees outside. "Or tell me all about that book the next morning while I get ready for work," I said, and immediately heard her smile. "Or read me her favorite passages later at night when we're chilling on my couch together over wine. Or kick Gon and Leorio's asses at pictionary with me. Or cook a post-coital meal from scratch at midnight because we're so hungry. Or go on a night walk around the city with me at three in the morning and chase after the working churro guy without scaring him." She was full on laughing at that point. Her head tipped up to see my face, also smiling. "Or wake me up in the morning with her face in my lap."

She rolled her eyes. "You couldn't keep it cute and classy, could you?"

"I think you should worry when I do."

Stretching up, she brushed her lips to mine, lightly. "I miss all of those things, too," she whispered, pulling an inch away with a smirk. "But especially the last one."

I brought a hand to the back of her head and let her kiss me some more.

The night was ending but it remained a presence between us, a loop of images and laughs and words, telling and feeling and knowing. It felt like another first date. But not a last. With her, there would always be more to know and more to tell and more to feel. There would always be more firsts. I wanted that more already. I wanted more of this night and her and her smile next to me and my laugh because of her.

I didn't believe in luck. I didn't believe in destiny or cosmic order or even coincidences. I didn't believe that people were born to carryout a specific mission in life. But I did believe that people were born for moments. And in wild, completely inexplicable ways than one, I felt like I was born for this moment. I tried to remember what my life was like before this, what my world was without this. What it could have been if I'd ever only had one night with her and nothing more. If she had only been no more than a passing charming stranger in my life like she had been in others'. No more than a stop in my way, me a stop in hers.

The possibility was too out of place. Like a blank page in a book, a chapter title with no words underneath. A life where she wasn't in my world or a part of my story.

As if somehow reading my thoughts, unsurprisingly, Yuki turned her head and kissed my bicep under her neck. "I want more nights like this for us," she said, her voice barely carrying on outside the inches between our faces, causing me to open my eyes. Our bodies were cooling down and a quietness had long since claimed the space. Behind the slanted skylight, the purple pine trees stood tall and imposing, but the moonlight still managed to break through in bright shards across the bed.

"Like what?" I circled a fingertip around her nipple. "Naked? Hot as sin? Stupid in love? We have that nearly every night."

Her own eyes were shut; she was drifting away. "I meant away from everything. Just us."

My finger stilled, for a moment, before it resumed, reaching up to tuck a stray hair behind her ear. "It won't be like this for long. We won't always have to escape everything."

"No?"

"No." I found her right hand with my left and brought it to my chest. "One day," I promised, "it'll just be us."

She smiled a small, drowsy smile with her eyes closed. "Good. I can't wait."

I tugged her close until my lips touched her forehead. "Sleep now."

I was settled here. I belonged here. She was That Place for me, too, and more. She was also my checkpoint, and she was my bookmark. Even if I got lost in the blanks and the tangents of my mind, hit a roadblock and lost my way, I knew there would be somewhere I could always return to.

And start again.

I didn't make it for five hours.

I was stirring awake a couple hours later, barely, right when the sun was on the cusp of rising. I was in the same position I was when I fell asleep—on my side with Yuki's bare legs curled along mine and the sleeping weight of her in my arms.

At first I thought it was her that woke me, but no. She was in deep sleep for once, steady breaths and smooth worry lines. Then I thought it was the returning patter of rain against the skylight directly over the bed. Or the soft rumble of thunder in the distance.

But then I felt it; the cold sweat coating my skin along with the tension in my shoulders from the dream I'd had.

Right on time.

Thirty minutes and several failed attempts to go back to sleep later, I knew I was in need for a change of scenery. I kissed Yuki's forehead, untangled myself from her limbs and the sheets, and soundlessly left the bed.

The next minute I found myself standing in the mess of the bar downstairs. Dejunking the hell out of it.

I started with washing the glasses that Yuki and I had used, drying them off and placing them away on the shelves, before organizing the same shelves. I scrubbed off the drink rings and hand prints off every surface to gleaming perfection. I repositioned the chairs that were haphazardly strewn about from the frenzy of our entrance and foreplay. I threw away the scorched rubble of the one chair I'd wrecked with electricity. I did some minimal tidying of the half-destroyed porch outside. I didn't have to tools to fix it, but at least I could put the broken chunks of wood out of harm's way.

It was a good thing the bar was in the middle of a remote city hill and there were no neighbors or passersby to see me anxiously trashing wreckage of wood at five on a rainy December morning, barefoot in my underwear.

The sun was shy above the river water by the time I was done. Once the mess was cleared out of my sight and the bar was in a better shape than my head, I relaxed. Marginally. I shut off the lights, grabbed a seat on a random chair, and sat down with my bag dragged in hand. I pushed past the messy pile inside, from toothbrush to flash drives to dirty tank top to first-aid supplies until I found it: the snack stash.

I slumped into the table and bit into nearly half of the Hershey's bar, squeezing my eyes shut and taking a deep breath. And another. And several others.

A heavy, choking sense of dread had my pulse racing, the memory of the dream now clutching and inescapable without any easy distractions. It was drifting; I could never remember all of it, only bits and pieces, enough to paint a feeling than a picture. The ruthless stirring of the panic was back. It crept in, hovering in the close distance and taunting me like a loose hand around my heart.

I focused on breathing, taking in the warm air in the room and the presence of Yuki just few feet away. Reminding myself that I was here. That I was in this room, in this townhouse of a bar, and not in that room of my dreams. It was always that same room. Always the same fragments of it: walls, shadow, ceiling, ground, smell.

Walls: narrowed and tilted.

Shadow: tall and falling overhead.

Ceiling: rising too high.

Ground: coarse beneath layers of blood and ash.

Smell: musty and putrid, charcoal and charred flesh and death.

My heart pounded harder. Disgust and longing roiled in my gut. It wasn't real. I was here. In this room. I couldn't be there.

I was never there.

Not when it mattered.

"Uh-oh."

A tingle of recognition raced down my back. I canted my head and saw Yuki standing in the hallway, naked and rumpled, her hair a messy tangle down her shoulders.

"You're breaking into the Almonds Hershey's?" She padded over, looking around the bar. "And you cleaned? Well, shit." She stopped in front of where I was sitting. "So it's that bad, huh?"

I rested my cheek on my fist and rolled my eyes in misery. "Just a smidge."

She stroked her thumb over my brow. "Are you okay?"

I nodded, then angled the chair towards her. She let me pull her onto my lap, straddling my thighs, her limbs heavy and sleep-warm. "I was just about to come back to bed."

Her fingers massaged my scalp when I buried my face in her bare chest, repeating the words in my head again: I was here. Her scent was here, hers alone. Floral and zetsy. Beneath it was the smell of sex; it made my blood stir. I focused on it.

"Was it the same dream?" she asked into my hair. "With your family's house?"

I nodded again, appreciating her careful choice of words and lack of specifics. It wasn't the first time I'd dreamed of the room where Alluka died while I was in bed with her. "I woke up barely remembering it, but I know it was the same dream."

"You haven't had it in a while. Almost a month."

"This is the second time I've had it this week."

She rested her cheek against the top of my head. "It's the stress, baby," she murmured. "Stress from the recent mission and the training and all the changes." Her hold on me tightened. She pressed a kiss to my temple, lingered there. "I'm here. Is there something I can do?"

Warmth pooled in my chest from her words and her voice. I felt my shoulders unclench, my brow soften. I wrapped my arms around her, soaking her in. "No. This is enough. You asking that. And being here."

"You sure?"

"Yeah. This feels amazing."

"Hmm." Shifting back slightly, she turned to the chocolate bar on the table, broke a square off, and stuck the end of it in between my teeth. I raised my eyebrow at her. She just smiled, right before she leaned in and chewed the other end of the square piece, nibbling until her lips were on mine. I felt her grin around it, seeping into my skin until the smile was mine. She giggled with her lips full on my lips, little breathless vibrations and melted chocolate between her mouth and mine.

"You're always so frisky when you wake up," I teased.

She licked the remnants of chocolate off her fingers. "Can we play with this sometime? It's definitely on my list of dirty fantasies that you asked for."

"I'll schedule it in." I straightened up and she let out a small squeak when I stood off the chair with her in my arms, holding her thighs tight around me. "Let's go back to sleep."

"Okay." Her arms looped around my shoulders, loose in their trust, but solid enough to let me know she had me.

Carrying us back to bed, I looked up at her face, her eyes, her nose, her lips. "I love you."

She smiled, put a soft hand on my cheek and touched her forehead to mine in answer, a wordless promise.

I'm okay, I thought.

I will be okay.

The sun was high in the sky and streaming across the bed when I came to. Despite being in a foreign bed and on scratchy sheets, I woke up more well-rested than I'd been in a week and with the same sense of peace I'd fallen asleep with.

There was a shift in the mattress, and the warmth of a body right next to me. Without opening my eyes and still half-asleep, I rolled on my side with a smile, now more than ready to start the day.

I reached out to pull her close… and frowned when my hand came across rough fabric instead of naked softness. A torso that was a lot broader than Yuki's, a frame that was a lot sturdier.

Blindly, my hand moved to check if my foggy brain was playing any tricks on me. Did she expand in her sleep or did my hand shrink? I heard a silent laugh as I continued the exploring Little Red Riding Hood body pat-up. When I reached a round-ish face with a hint of a stubble, I palmed it lightly with my hand and felt the puffs of restrained nose-laughter on my skin.

I opened up drowsy eyes and found Gon on the other pillow, with his hands behind his head and grinning down at me. "Morning, Killua, sweetheart. Are you looking for a morning snuggle?"

"Jesusmotherfuckingfuck—!" I nearly jumped out of my skin, practically springing up, bolted wide awake. "Gon."

Gon burst out laughing, loud and booming, doubling over so hard he nearly fell off the bed.

"Holy shit." I sat up, cursing and groaning, my hand on my pounding heart. It was especially freaky to wake up to that exact shit-eating grin today when the last time I'd seen it was through Yuki's spooky nen holograms. "Think I just aged ten years. Gon, you dick."

The dick was still laughing his ass off. "I wish I'd captured your reaction on camera, Killua. It would have made the most hysterical vine."

"What the hell are you even doing here? Besides trying to give me a stroke."

With a few more snickers, Gon swung his sweats-clad legs off the bed. "I was at the park on my morning run and Leorio had just finished his shift at the hospital when Yuki texted us and invited us over the bar for breakfast. She picked me up from the park and Leorio followed us over. He's downstairs with her. We just got here. Here, thought you'd probably want this." He picked up my bag from the floor, which he'd brought with him from downstairs, and placed it on the bed.

"Yuki went to the city just to drive you here?" I asked, still trying to process.

"No, she was there partly to check on Cobalt and feed him. Me and Leorio just happened to be free," he said, still way too amused for my groggy, startled state. "She suggested that I should wake you up by just laying down in her spot next to you to see if you'd start cuddling me or not."

Much to my absolute delight, Gon was always ready to participate in whatever Give Killua Epic Shit plan that Yuki came up with. "Why have I let you two become friends?"

"Come on, our whole dynamic is all about us giving you shit, you hating it, and then hating how much you love it."

It was true, but I was too grumpy and under-caffeinated to appreciate it. And too hungover. The minute I tossed the sheets away and my bare feet touched the floor, I started practically hearing my head. Hunching on the edge of the bed, I pinched the bridge of my nose with a long groan.

"All that tequila is finally catching up with you, huh?" Gon chuckled at my garbled noises of pain. "At least be glad that unlike the rest of us, you can only get away with a little hangover and no bad decisions."

I left the bed to reach for my clothes. "Like a rubber ducky tattoo?"

"Hey. That wasn't the tequila, that was you," he argued, making me smile as I yanked up my pants. "You made me get that." He stared down at the rubber ducky tattoo on the inside of his arm with fond frustration. "I only had two shots. The corruption was all you."

"Oh, simmer down. You're the one who gets all dare-happy until you lose the bet and then bitch about paying the mutually agreed-upon price." I looked around the way too-bright room. "Shit, where's my shirt?"

"Bitching is your speciality. Here." Gon snatched my shirt off his side of the floor and threw it at my face. "Don't let Leorio see any of that or he wouldn't believe that you followed his instructions and kept it in your pants last night," he said, a scandalized grin on his face as he gestured at the marks of red on my skin—the light scratches and bites and smudges of lipstick—that began at my neck and moved downward, across my chest and lower.

I turned away from him and pulled the shirt on. "Leorio is always assuming I've broken some rule or another. Why stop now?"

"You still lost the bet though. Sex without a finale is still sex." Gon opened up his palm. "It saddens me to take your money."

"Ugh." I pulled a bill out of my pocket, slapping it into his hand. "I can't believe I took that bet."

"I can't believe it either to be honest. You brag all the time about being a good gambler but aren't you good gamblers supposed to be smarter?" he taunted. "And know the lengths of what you can endure?"

"You want to put my endurance to test?"

He stepped past the innuendo with a dramatic head shake. "Stop flirting with me, Killua. Your girlfriend is downstairs."

Laughing, I sat on the bed to put my sneakers on. "Is there any coffee downstairs?"

"There's more than just coffee, don't worry." Gon stood over me and went on to catch me up on his day after exchanging the routinely what's up look we'd somewhat silently honed through the years. He responded with a familiar look that said not here, not now and switched gears to more sugar-coated news instead. "I bought Aunt Mito a new suitcase online. Hers isn't going to fit in all the new things she got on her visit. I still can't believe she's leaving in a few days."

"Me neither. I'm going to miss having her here as a buffer to your crazy. You've been so well-behaved in her presence."

He ignored that, saying wistfully, "I'm going to miss the food. It's been so nice to have all her island dishes here in the city."

"She taught me some recipes. I could recreate them."

He grimaced with only a bit of guilt. "No offense to the three months you spent being a Gourmet Hunter, but your cooking wouldn't be the same as hers."

"No," I agreed. "It wouldn't. But I could try. It would be Aunt Mito's food à la me."

Gon smiled. "She'd be happy to know that. I know she wouldn't leave before making sure we're taking things slow and having semi-regular young lives. Not working every minute of every day and eating out every night."

I snickered as I pushed to my feet, dusting off my pants.

Gon's brows furrowed at me for a moment until he figured out what I found so funny, and then his face blanked. "Surely you wouldn't have a problem with that, Killua."

"What? Eating out a lot? I never will. I love it. In fact, if this bed right here could tell stories—"

He tossed a pillow to smack me in the face and I ducked, catching it with a grin.

"You always overshare the wrong type of information, Killua you shit."

"That should pay you back for the wake-up scare," I said, arranging the pillow back on the bed and walking to retrieve my watch from the bedside table.

"You don't think I've been paid back enough by catching you two all over the place for two months?"

"That's not our fault. You should really learn how to knock on doors, Gon."

"In the suite where I live? On the door of the pantry?" he asked incredulously.

I clipped my watch on. "Did you forget the trip to Monteva last year? I stayed in the adjacent hotel room of yours during your little adventure night with Orian. I think we're even."

Gon remained on the other side of the bed, a lingering smile overtaking his face. I knew that fond smile wasn't just at the mention of Orian, his short time ex boyfriend and my good friend. It was the ease of conversation. He and I hadn't had this easy, private-time ribbing in a long time.

Perhaps we all needed to get out of the city for a while.

He made a show of fluffing out the pillows, but his attention was still with me. "So, anyway… how are you feeling today?"

I stopped to glance sideways at him. I saw the undercurrents of the casual question in his ever-so-unreadable expressions. The question meant to encompass my mood overall. He knew I hadn't been sleeping well since Yuki moved out. He saw me through my worst days. He knew about the mess inside my head better than anyone, oftentimes without me having to talk much about it.

"I'm good. Better." I adjusted the watch around my wrist, remembering the night before with Yuki. All the ways it'd made me reflect and kept me guessing. "A lot better," I added.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. I'm happy."

Gon stopped and stared back at me. His face was splitting with a surprised, eyebrow-raised-high smile. And I knew why. I'd always been an effusive person, and I'd gotten over the boyish restraint in expressing feelings years ago. But I'd admittedly never been a bare admission kind of a person. At least not voluntarily. It was as surprising to me as it was to him to hear me admit that. Yet since I was still the kind of person to take things as they come, I wasn't interested in psychoanalyzing this transition. I felt different. New. Light. It felt good. I'd just leave it at that.

But Gon wouldn't. He surprised me right back; he stepped forward and pulled me into a firm hug, his enormous body crashing into mine. I was usually the tactile one in this friendship while he initiated better with words. This transition of his was one of gratitude.

I smiled, rubbing his back. "You're making me feel like I just came from war."

"It feels like you did sometimes." He was smiling as he pulled back, though it was more a sad wince. "It's just that…" He hesitated for a beat. "These past few years since our reunion, you'd always been so…"

"Winsome? A joy to be around?"

His smile quieted down a notch and he looked away to where his hand was squeezing my shoulder. "You know what I mean."

I nodded with a sigh, letting the weight of the past sink in for a moment. "Yeah."

"Even when you were out taking on jobs for all different types of Hunting and figuring out what you like most, enjoying yourself and making a lot of friends the way you've always wanted, I knew you weren't happy. I told myself it would take time and that you were dealing with something that none of us could begin to understand," he said, wincing apologetically for going there. "And it sucked. Knowing I couldn't help you through it, accepting that I didn't know how. Sometimes I used to think that nothing would ever be enough to help you feel anything more powerfully than the grief."

I breathed through the familiar twinge of discomfort and panic. "I used to think that, too," I admitted. "I'll always feel it. I just have to learn how to feel it in more healthy ways."

"Yeah. I guess we all have to learn healthy ways to feel things." As if that seemed to remind him, he grimaced. "I'm sorry for punching you on Christmas."

I laughed. "If it's any consolation, I would have punched me, too."

"So last night was fun?"

"Last night was hot." I moved around the bed to turn the radiator off, throwing him a tight smirk. "I was looking forward to more hot minutes in heaven with my gorgeous girlfriend before starting the day, but hey. Waking up to you fucking with me was obviously way better."

Ignoring the sarcasm, Gon looked even more pleased with himself. "Actually, you wouldn't have had the time for any hot minutes. It's ten a.m. right now so if Leorio and I hadn't come you would have had only five minutes to spare in this place before your training session with him."

"Five minutes is all you need if you know what you're doing."

"Wow."

I patted his cheek before walking to the stairs. "You can start making amends by folding the blanket on the bed, thanks."

I snatched my bag and headed towards the bathroom downstairs for a quick wash up.

The voices coming from the bar were getting louder in spirit when I came out of the bathroom, freshened with soap and toothpaste. The air was full of decadent scents of coffee and fresh bagels and cinnamon rolls that I could smell from the hall, making my stomach growl.

Behind the bar, Yuki and Leorio faced each other with a buffet of food on the bar between them. She was talking and gesticulating wildly with her hands for him. She'd changed her clothes from last night, wearing a cream sweater over dark jeans and not a trace of makeup. Leorio was in his navy surgical scrubs with their cartoonish animal patches, laughing with her at whatever story she was telling him.

As soon as I walked into the room Cobalt was there to greet me first, ricocheting across the floor so fast he barreled into my feet. I grinned and crouched to say hi, scratching his ears as he panted his excitement. His paws outstretched against my shoulders and his tail wagged happily. "Alright, alright, I missed you too."

"Oh, hey! Good morning, sleepyhead," Leorio greeted me next, breaking into a sardonic grin. "I heard someone other than Cobie has been a good boy and followed orders."

"Only for you, Leorio."

"I'm proud. Think I'll go easy on you today."

I flashed him a fake smile on my way to the main bar. "Bite me."

He laughed and picked up his coffee. "By the way, Yuki, this place is amazing. It's very homey. And that view? My God. I feel rejuvenated."

"It really is," Gon said somewhere from behind as he joined us. "My favorite part is this wall. I've never seen anything like it before."

Yuki beamed proudly. "You're all welcome."

"It's my favorite, too," I said while rounding over to where she was behind the bar. She smiled back as I reached her and cupped her jaw with both hands, my heart immediately taking off in a sprint by her proximity. I spared a quick glance around the room at Gon and Leorio and warned them, "Look away," before tilting my head and kissing her. Her lips were soft and swollen and tasting of cinnamon. They moved with mine through smiling kisses and tiny licks. Her fingers ghosted over my chest, reminding me of the marks I was carrying from her and the way she looked last night underneath me. She smelled even better today, still like before, but also like me and sex and coffee.

I pulled back with a shaky breath and a few small kisses, nudging her nose with mine. "Hi."

She licked her lips, still smiling, her fingers curling around my wrists. "Hi."

I brushed my mouth against her temple. "Why didn't you wait for me? You know how I hate waking up without you."

"I know, but I had to leave early to check on Cobie and take my morning pills on schedule. I thought you could use that extra time to sleep." Her head tilted slightly toward mine, her lips near my ear. "It was well-deserved. You did all the work last night. I feel amazing."

"Those words are better than coffee."

I'd barely broken an inch out of our passionate embrace. Looking around, I saw that Gon had looked away, too occupied with the wall, but Leorio hadn't. Not even a little. Across the bar top he was quite shamelessly staring at us. His chin was perched on his fist and he was wearing the sappiest fucking expression I'd ever seen.

I narrowed my eyes at him. "Wanna join us?"

He smirked. "You know, on second thought," he said, sliding smug eyes over at me. "We should prolong your training, Killua, and make you cute love birds wait more."

I frowned. "You can't do that."

"Sure I can, I'm the doctor."

"Forget it, Leorio," Yuki ordered idly, her gaze still on me, getting me a little more heated.

Leorio gave her a simpering face. "Okay," he said, just like that. When it came to pretty girls who could kick his ass, Leorio wouldn't know resolve even if it kicked him in the nuts.

But he could never be as bad as Quon, the ultimate woman worshipper.

I let go of her face but didn't move away; wrapping my arms around her from behind, and looked down at the divine sight of food on the bar. "I'm starving. Who brought all this?" I asked as Gon came over to sit next to Leorio, and they both grinned silly at Yuki through mouthfuls of food.

"I borrowed your pretty car to drive back to the city, got the food, then called these boys." She dusted her hands before handing me my large Styrofoam cup of mocha. "Oh and I made sure to take the shortcut back to the bar and park right outside."

The first sip of coffee was so good I groaned and almost missed what she'd said. "Wait, what? Are you saying that I don't have to hike all the way down the damned muddy hill to get to my car now?"

She reached a hand up behind her to lightly pat my cheek. "Nope."

"Y'know, this might be the most romantic thing you've ever done to me."

She slid the gooey cinnamon rolls closer to me, along with a bowl of freshly rinsed and sliced fruits. On the lower counter by the sink there was a closed brown sack labeled for Lev. She'd brought Leorio his favorite egg cheese roll and driven several blocks to pick Gon up from the park. Love for her settled heavily in my chest and tightened my arms around her.

I kissed her cheek. "You're the best girlfriend."

"I know." She simpered around the lip of her mimosa—her hangover elixir—and gestured with her hand. "But go on."

I ducked to whisper in her ear. "And the best friend, the best bar buddy, the best lay. And if those guys weren't here right now, I'd bend you over this counter and have you for breakfast—"

She discreetly elbowed me in the stomach. Hard.

"Aagh!"

That snapped all attention back to us. Very predictably, Leorio smirked. "Are you okay, Killua? Abs still sore?"

"He's fine," Yuki told him as she poured more orange juice for herself. "Lay off him, Leorio. I'm the only one allowed to give Killua sore abs.

The four of us moved our breakfast to a booth, with the windows letting the winter sun in from all around and the shimmering blue of the river outside. The boys ribbed and teased me with no mercy for the whole hiking aversion thing. Gon was tickled to tell every diva story he could remember. As for Leorio, he brainstormed out loud about the genius nen techniques he was using in our sessions. And bragged again about his revolutionary research on becoming a Medical Nen Exorcist.

I'd planned to start my morning in a more steamy way but this was perfect all the same. Just friends, food, and her.

Afterward, we cleaned away the breakfast mess, packed up, and left the bar. I helped Gon leash Cobalt up as me and the guys waited in the cool, damp air for Yuki to lock the bar shut. When she joined us, Leorio stepped forth to engulf her in a big hug, and then thanked her for the breakfast invite. "I needed that," he was saying. "And thank you, again, for keeping this one on track." He pointed in my direction. "And for helping me set him straight."

Yuki patted his arm as they broke the hug. "Aw, don't say that, Leorio. Killua is still bi."

Gon barked out a laugh as Leorio's soul seemed to have left his body. "Seriously?" He glared at me. "I thought we were finally free of your annoying bi puns. Now she's saying them for you?"

I shrugged. "How is that my fault? I'm innocent. I didn't do anything. I'm just here. Being quiet. Standing bi."

More laughter ensued, but not from Leorio, who started rubbing at his face to muffle a groan. "Fucking unreal."

"Killua is unreal," Yuki agreed. "He's bi-sextraterrestrial."

I grinned over at her. "Thanks, but I think you might be a little bi-ased."

"Oh come on, you know a guy like you is very hard to bi-pass."

"Alright, alright, shut up already," Leorio growled.

"Yeah, let's stop. Leorio looks like can't sip on this bisexuali-tea," she said.

"Odd since he's all bi himself," I seconded.

"Shut up, Killua."

"Okay, okay. Stopping now. Sorry, Leorio, we were just being silly. But no more." I offered him a pacifist handshake. "Bi-gones?"

He smacked my hand away, speaking over the increasingly howling fits of laughter, "You're such a fucker. Is it an endless source? Where do you even get it all from?"

To everyone's surprise, Gon chimed in, "He could've gotten it from either way, Leorio."

Yuki burst out laughing. "Yoo!"

Highly impressed as well, I held up my free hand for him. "That one deserves the best high-five."

"A bi-five," Yuki amended.

"Dear Lord." Leorio threw his hands up in defeat as he turned on his heels. "I'm leaving."

The three of us simultaneously yelled out, "Bi, Leorio!" and grinned like the complacent, obnoxious idiots we were when he gave us the highest middle finger from over his shoulder.

"My, did we sure deserve that," Yuki intoned.

I nudged her, jerking my thumb at Gon. "What did I tell you about him?"

"I believe it."

Gon poked his head toward us. "Tell her what?"

"Killua had been telling me last night about your superb wit."

Gon chuckled. "I thought I was an idiot to you, Killua."

"You'll always be." I reached up to affectionately squish his cheeks with one hand while he tried to smile through it.

When he reached his car, Leorio checked his pager and then pointed it at me, barking out across the hill, "Killua! My gym! Thirty minutes!"

I smiled despite myself, feeling the clench of gratitude for him. All week he'd had to schedule his surgeries around finding a time to medically train me out of a nen curse. And that was on top of juggling the holiday pressure, his research, and his newlywed life. Yet he still found it in him to do it all with passion and diligence. That was who Leorio was. He loved us all very loudly, with gusto and every bit of his huge heart.

Gon threw the thick band of his arm over Yuki's slender shoulders on our way to my car. The two of them started gushing within each other over the view around us and everything Cobalt. Suddenly it didn't matter that it turned their knacks to give me shit. I wouldn't trade this for anything. I must have done something incredibly right in my past life to deserve this.

"Next time just call us," Yuki was saying to Gon as we reached the car. She looked at me. "On the ride over he told me about his bad night. He'd been blowing off steam at the park for hours when I called him."

Gon self-consciously lowered his arm off her shoulders and used it to rub at his own. "It's no big deal, really."

"Yeah, we'll deal with it when I get my good nen back." I slammed the backseat door after tossing my bag inside. "Our grounding techniques work like a charm."

Yuki leaned back against the car and crossed her arms thoughtfully. "Hmm. Tell you what," she said to Gon. "How about you have Killua drop you at my place now, then I'll send Pasha, my uncle's driver, to pick up Aunt Mito, and the three of us can have a full self-care day. Food, family movies, board games. I can tell you about my own favorite grounding techniques for PTSD. I won't guarantee seeing any exotic creatures or sparring for hours"—she nodded to me—"but I have a cute pup and nice battle stories for you. With access to the most exquisite spa and chef home service. What'd you say?"

Gon smiled wide and giddy, then looked my way—so I prompted, "Sounds like an irresistible offer to me."

"It is." He bent to kiss Yuki's cheek. "I'd really love to. Let's do it."

"Hell yeah. Us earth signs gotta stick together, y'know."

Cobalt chose that moment to frantically yank at his own leash, Gon's arm along with it, as he spotted a rabbit in the bushes. Gon followed him through curses and laughs.

I squeezed Yuki's hand in mine and mouthed, "Thank you."

Waiting until Gon was off with Cobalt and out of earshot, she said, "Just don't worry about him, okay? He'll be fine with me." She rested a hand on my chest. "You just focus on yourself for today. And let other people shoulder the worries for once."

"Yeah, I'm good at the shouldering part. The handling part, on the other hand…" I trailed off, putting my thumb and index finger together to give a prime sarcastic "OK" gesture.

"Stop it. You're good at that, too, but you can always ask for some help anyway. At least ask me," she stressed. "I'll be there when you need it. I mean, you have me wrapped around your little finger. You should take advantage of that."

"You don't want to give me that much power, beastie."

"I do. I can handle it. And it looks hot on you."

"Yeah but he'll go crazy with it," Gon pointed out as he returned with Cobalt now held in his arms. "And he'll keep wanting more and more and it'll be destructive. If Killua was a deadly sin, Yuki, he'd be greed."

"I know. His bedroom habits would definitely support that."

"I know," Gon shot back. "I shared a suite with you."

"Shared," I lamented with an exaggerated sigh.

"Oh, my god," Yuki complained to Gon. "He still acts like I moved out across the oceans."

"Well…it is a subway stop away," Gon mumbled.

Yuki mock gasped in betrayal. "You, too?" She glared at my satisfied grin. "You put him up to this."

I snorted. "Like anyone could put Gon up to anything. He hates you moving, too. He's a sad sack at night now that he has no one to kick his ass at CoD BO3." I backhanded Gon's chest for back-up. "Tell her, Gon."

Immediately, a little too mechanically, Gon nodded. "It's true, I am. A sad sack," he said, having my back like a true friend, as Yuki's lips twitched, amused by this. "To be honest the suite feels empty without you."

"Oh, jezz." She rolled her eyes and went to Gon, taking his face in her hands and kissing his cheek. "You boys are making me all soft."

Gon gave her a one-armed embrace. "Yeah, we have that effect."

"Oh, by the way, before I forget. You guys wanna go to a rock concert this weekend?" she asked. "This Thursday, the day that marks the end of Leorio's sessions. Gary manages the band so I could get you the best seats there is, and the band goes to the best VIP clubs after their concerts. We should celebrate the return of Killua's healthy nen. What do you say?"

"I'd celebrate anything me-related."

Gon smiled in small apology. "I don't know if I can. Aunt Mito leaves this weekend too and I want to spend most of the remaining time with her those last days. I might stop by the club, but it might be late."

I looked at my watch. "Speaking of late, Leorio's waiting for me." I reached out to take Yuki's wrist and bring her back to my side, looking at Gon. "Get in the driver's seat, alright? I'll be in the car in a minute."

After a brief goodbye, Gon took Cobalt with him to the car, moving around the hood to climb inside the passenger's seat.

Yuki took my jacket tucked under my arm and held it out for me to slip my arms into. "Are you going to make it to the concert?"

"Yes. I'll drag Quon with me." I turned to face her again and she fastened the front zipper."It'll be a chance for you two to finally meet."

"You would drag him?"

"Quon needs to be dragged to places because he's a certified, high-functioning hermit. You'll understand when you see him." As she zipped me up, I fingered her hair behind her ear and brushed the line of her earrings with my thumb, a habit I couldn't remember developing.

"Awesome. I'll see you on Thursday then." There was a glint of anticipation in her eye as she said that. I knew her well enough to know what that look meant. Her idea of celebration only included the two of us, locked in her apartment, and a second marathon sex. "I'll send you the tickets. The concert starts at eight."

I returned her smile and said, "I'll make sure to come around then."

"Oh, you'll come alright."

"You'll make sure of that."

She gave a proud lift of her chin. "I will."

"Hold that thought." I went to open the driver's seat and leaned in to retrieve my phone from the glove compartment where it'd been all night, and returned to her. I ignored the handful of notifications waiting for me to catch up with and accessed my chat logs. "I've got something for you to do before Thursday."

"On your phone?" Her eyebrows twitched. "Is it your list of dirty fantasies?"

I smirked. "Better. An ambush. You remember the name Kent?"

"The guy Calinda Cash was sending info to while she ambushed me? Yeah. I did a quick background check on him," she said and I looked up from my phone at her with arched eyebrows. "What? You're the only one allowed to do work on the side?"

"Fair enough. Anyway, I've asked Quon to hack into him and find out what the Cashs wanted from you. But he's working on three missions at once for some big names and he's got deadlines, so he won't be able to get us what we want until next week. He was only able to know where Kent is hiding at the moment. I thought you could pay him a visit."

Yuki nodded sagely. "Extract information the old-fashioned way. Confronation and threats of violence."

"Precisely." I tapped out the location on my phone and showed her the screen. "This is the penthouse he's holed up in."

She eyed the map for three seconds, enough to screenshot the exact location into her memory, before she nodded again. "Got it."

"One more thing," I added, pocketing my phone. "Quon says Kent is a nen user, but we don't know anything of what he can do, so be careful."

"Should be fun. How far should I go to get the information out of him?"

I shrugged. "Just be yourself."

"Wow. That far?" she joked.

That made me laugh. Taking her hand in my own, I pulled her in, and pressed my lips against hers hard and fast. "You'll tell me how it goes. I have to go now."

"Okay." Pushing off me, she opened the driver's door and held it open for me with a cheeky little smile, making it extra hard to let her go.

I slipped on my sunglasses, leaned in one last time for her to kiss me on the cheek, and climbed into the seat. "Message me when you get home."

"I will. Bye."

"Bye. Love you."

"Love you, too." She closed my door and bent at the waist by the window to tell Gon she'd see him in a bit. He ducked down to say his own grinning goodbye to her and I watched as she walked away, making her way down the path.

A/N: Killua: I don't know how to say those three words

Also Killua: *says 'I love you' 17 times in one chapter*

We're going back to Yuki's pov next, where the action picks up with a set of plot reveals, friendships, and astronomical levels of sass. Do you want to see Yuki ruin a man's day and then rock the drums on stage? Did you miss Maddie? Do you want to finally meet Quon? All coming up next.

As always, the story's blog beastied is available on tumblr if you're interested in visuals, answered questions, extras, and my sweet random writer musings.

Let me know what you thought of this chapter if you get the chance. Or tell me your favorite Christmas tree color scheme. And as always, thank you for reading and being awesome.