SOUR CANDY | killua z. ✔

22 | dig

tw: mentions of gore, blood & self-harm

5 YEARS AGO

Sen spent her free time obsessively researching dogs.

Most people didn't understand it. Masochistic, they called her. A creepy child, if they were being nice. Foxes and dogs were natural enemies. There wasn't supposed to be any 'making sense of things'. 

But Sen was a puzzle master. There was a solution for everything. 

Because what was the point of crying every time she saw her new scars? Even tricky Odysseus had a goddess to guide him through all that bullshit.

There had to be an answer.

Once, she spent eight hours studying canine teeth shapes at the library. The images were tucked behind the dirty screen of an old computer, but they made her break out into a panicked sweat. 

The yellow afternoon sun scorched her cheekbone.

Sen was jealous. Gut-burningly jealous. Of people who crouched and smiled next to those floppy-eared things. Of her kitsune kinsmen, who thought dogs were scary stories to tell kids. Not something that could actually get you. Never. Not if you were careful. 

When Sen woke up from a nightmare, she went out to the veranda so her sisters wouldn't have to see what came next. Biting back screams and pulling her hair until the last phantom bites faded from her skin. 

She was preparing one of the inn rooms for check-in and found a stuffed dog some vacationer's kid left behind. Sen couldn't stop herself from throwing up.

She wasn't the King of Ithaca. Athena wasn't going to come down from the clouds and ease her suffering.

▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁

THE TESTING GATES, PRESENT DAY

Sen would've ran back to the bus with the screaming tourists, but she couldn't move. Her legs were stuck.

The pair of skeletons (the not-tourists) sat in a gruesome heap outside the smaller gates. What an auspicious welcoming party.

"Don't blame the extra pounds on me, Mike!" The old guard called out.

Floating. Sen was floating. Her body was there, but she was far away. It was nighttime and her blood was splattered on the bushes. It was morning and the tour bus was driving away behind her.

And then, a gentle pressure on her collarbones. If she wasn't completely out of it, she would've clawed at whatever was touching her. 

Someone was pushing her back, away from the gates. Bright blue clouded her vision.

"Sen," Kurapika said firmly, concernedly. "I read something once, about kitsunes and dogs. Is this going to be a problem for you?"

"No," she lied. Her voice cracked.

Sen wanted her brother.