SOUR CANDY | killua z. ✔

15 | bite

tw: mc gets attacked by a dog; attack isn't graphic, but there are mentions of blood and gore; animal death, also not graphic. these all happen in the third flashback sequence.

SEN WAS not a perfect baby. Not in the slightest.

Kotaro hadn't been working long enough to secure them a place in the apartments, so they still slept in the woods with the other kids. And his first little sibling seemed intent on making his life as difficult as possible.

When Kotaro cut her hair for the first time, she kept trying to bite him. 

It's not like he wanted to torture her; long hair was hard to maintain in their situation. 

But that's not where it ended.

There was a tree Sen liked to play by while Kotaro was spearing fish in the river. If she didn't get to pat the tree five times before they left, she threw a fit. A wailing, hair-pulling fit. Sen claimed if she didn't pat the tree, something bad would happen. She never said what the 'something' was.

"Her brain's just wired a little different, that's all," one of the older kids told him. "She'll probably be super smart or something when she's bigger."

Every time Kotaro finished fishing, he waited patiently for baby Sen to finish patting her tree. And then she would follow him obediently back to their sleeping spot for her nap.

Little weirdo.

▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁

Agon, number 281, was unlucky. 

"Hello," came a sweet voice.

He turned and was instantly on guard. 

Leaning against a tree, casually, was that little girl. Number 297. She was smiling, but it was not friendly. A glittery seahorse winked at Agon from her garish sweatshirt. It was speckled with blood.

By all logic and statistics, the girl should've been weeded out in Phase One. The other applicants already wrote her off as weak, they thought someone would kill her eventually. 

But Agon and a few others kept their eyes on her; they were all taking the same Exam, after all. It was no fluke that she made it this far.

"What do you want?" Agon asked. 

It was a stupid question.

297's face changed then. The smile became girlish and her brows furrowed, eyes narrowing. As if Agon were a child doing something confusing but cute.

The long black ponytail, hanging over her shoulder like a snake, was the last Agon saw of her. It flared out behind her as she moved, then she vanished.

Agon stiffened. Where did she go?

He drew his rapier.

The girl was quicker.

Agon felt a sharp chop to the back of his neck, and he was out.

When he woke again, his number badge was missing from his body. 

Mystifyingly, there was a pink bobby pin tucked onto the collar of Agon's tunic.