SOUR CANDY | killua z. ✔

35 | cherry

tw: discussion of past child prostitution; be careful in the 1st part of the chapter. there is nothing graphic, but there are strong implications. 

"WOW, YOUR aura is so scary, Sen-chan!" Gon gaped. "It's like Hisoka's!"

Killua watched her intently, which was hard for Sen to ignore.

Sen's eyebrow twitched. She hadn't meant to let that much bloodlust slip into her Ren, but she couldn't help it. She got this way sometimes, about her family.

"'Let's talk' he says," Sen grinned. "I remember when you wouldn't tell me a damn thing."

"I know," Kotaro said seriously. "And I'm sorry."

She blinked up at him, stumbling past another weed in a vain attempt to see his face. 

"You don't..." Sen hesitated. Telling her older brother what to do? The looks the aunties would give her. "... You don't have to talk about it, if you don't want to. It's not my business."

"No, I do," he sighed. "I can't keep it from you forever. I just— I didn't want you to think any differently of me."

Maybe training with Gon and Killua hadn't been the best idea, not when she was feeling so vulnerable. Kotaro had trusted her with a secret so big, and her whole soul shifted around to accommodate it.

"Hey," Killua had come closer without Sen realizing it. "Can we play our game?"

Her brother's secret was a soft, bruised thing. She placed a protective hand on her chest as if Killua would somehow pry it out like he did with that one guy's heart.

"Not today," Sen told him, shutting her eyes and cleansing her Ren.

"I started working for Crystal Blue when I was eight," Kotaro said. "Clients would pay millions of dollars for images of collectible ceramics, decorative plates, those sort of things."

"What's bad about that?" Sen asked, something dreadful unfurling deep in her gut. 

"Those pictures... each one contained thousands of hidden... images... of children. Not in a good way. I was one of their models."

Above them, the moon screamed, unheard by anyone except Sen and Kotaro.

Sen cracked an eye open. Killua was still there.

With a pained look on his face, he twined their fingers together, pressing his left palm against her right. 

"Fine, you fox," he said, with no real animosity. "Keep your secrets."

Killua's hand was warm around hers. 

She changed her mind. It was better that she went to see her friends. 

If Sen stayed with Kotaro at the hotel that day, she would've decided to stay at his side forever. That would mean never seeing Killua or Gon or Leorio or Kurapika again. And she would've been fine with it.

"Crystal Blue favored its prettiest, most popular models," her brother continued. "They kept them close. I wasn't one of the favorites, so they paid me remotely and let me stay at home as long as I came back when they called. I stopped working for them when I became a Hunter."

Sen felt numb. 

"So... whenever you left the island, on a job for Okaasama..." She trailed off.