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Being a Zoldyck meant existing in a fine line between sheltered and not-sheltered. Being used to the feeling of blood under his nails before maple syrup. Learning addition, subtraction, multiplication, in-between whipping sessions. Finding out there were many little bones in a hand after breaking most of them in someone else. Making shadow puppets against the wall with clawed fingers.
Killua knew darkness before he knew most other things. It was amazing how many things meant something, and he never knew.
Summer, Killua learned quickly, meant fruit.
“Killua,” Mito called. Killua’s head snapped down. The nectarine in his hand whipped behind his back. Not fast enough. Mito frowned up at him, face stern. The large wicker basket in her arms was barely half-full of fruit. “I saw that, young man! You and Gon are just the same, I swear— if you’re going to gorge yourself, at least pick some of them properly while you do!” She raised her arms.
Killua let out a little laugh, cautious and thin. When Mito huffed, only lifting the basket higher— oh, right, of course— he settled back into the neck of the tree. “Sorry,” he said, and even kind of meant it. He wiped a sticky hand off on his shorts. It didn’t work. The fruit juice was so soaked into his skin that his palm dragged against the fabric, doing little else. Wiping it off his face was a little more successful, though now the inside of his elbow was sticky too. “I’ll put the next ones in?”
Mito sighed. “Thank you, Killua.” She hiked the basket up, propping it against the bottom branches. Killua diligently plopped the next few nectarines in, lowering them carefully after being tsked at.
Her eyes were strangely soft, despite the scolding. They drifted past the orange stains on his shirt. Killua glanced back. Gon happily stuffed a peach into his mouth a tree over, juice dripping in golden trails down his forearms. He kicked his feet, humming so happily that Killua could hear him even several feet away.
“You’re both just kids.”
Killua’s eyes fell back to Gon’s Aunt. A strange shadow had cast over her eyes, thin and fragile as tissue paper. Her arms tightened around the basket. She didn’t even seem to notice as a nectarine rolled off the pile, tipping over the edge. It hit the dirt with a spray of sweetness, splattering orange up Mito’s ankle. She didn’t seem to care about the waste. Didn’t seem to notice at all, her attention fixed on Gon.
“…Mito?” Killua asked unsurely.
Mito blinked. At once, her expression lifted like clouds parting— and fell into a frown as she looked down. “Oh, no,” she murmured. Her foot gingerly prodded at the squished fruit and came away wet. She grimaced. “What a waste.”
She popped the basket onto her hip, sighing in exasperation. “At least when you and Gon eat all the fruit—” Gon startled, nearly falling out of his tree. A peach tumbled off its branch, full and heavy and sunset-orange. He yelped and dove to catch it, nearly sending himself right out of the branches and into the dirt. His knees hooked around a branch, leaving him swinging upside-down, the peach cradled between his sticky hands. Killua could hear the noise of relief he made through the leaves. He snickered. “—it gets eaten.”
“Sorry, Aunt Mito,” Gon called, grinning abashedly. His knees almost blended into the bark. If not for the fact that he was in a dirtied grey tank top and shorts ("my work clothes,” Gon said brightly, “Aunt Mito hates it when I get juice on my green clothes, it never washes out…” ) He would have been indecipherable from the tree itself. “I promise I’ll pick more and not eat them, this time!”
“You say that every summer, Gon.” Not a trace of heat colored her voice. She huffed without weight, skirts spinning around her ankles as she turned away. “I’m going to go and get another basket. A smaller one, since this one is clearly too big.”
She started back towards the Freecs’ house. If Killua squinted, he could see Gon’s grandma sit up from her chair on the porch. The paring knife in her hand glinted in the sunlight as she waved.
Killua wanted to do that. It looked so easy, the way she did it. Knives were easy, but fruit was so delicate. If Killua wasn’t really, really careful, it bruised immediately, and was so slippery in his hands.
Gon himself was forbidden from helping prep the fruit, apparently having dropped one too many peaches over the years.
A rustle right next to his head.
“Killua!” Gon shouted, all but in his ear, and the half-eaten nectarine in Killua’s hand was suddenly pulp.
Gon yelped, falling out of the tree. “Killua—! My eyes!” He whined. He slapped his hands to his face. He succeeded in getting more fruit juice in his eyes. The other boy writhed, shrieking dramatically. His bare feet kicked dirt so high in the air it almost hit Killua. “Ahh, Killua!!”
Killua braced a dripping hand against a branch. His claws dug into the bark. It was just an extra grip. Just to keep him a little extra stable on his perch. “You idiot,” he said. At the sound of his voice Gon stopped his theatrics as if they had never happened. The boy flopped all his limbs out like a starfish, grinning widely. Killua felt the summer heat on his cheeks and against the nape of his neck. He ignored it. “What was that for?”
Gon jumped to his feet. “I wanna trade with Killua!” He shouted. A second later he was scrambling up the tree at rapid speed, barely shaking the leaves. Killua didn’t have space to scoot over, but it didn’t matter. Gon settled against him, hip tight to his, arm pressed up all against Killua’s. He was sticky. Every part of him that touched Killua was sticky. Every part of him Killua could see was visibly sticky. There was a glistening handprint over the curl of Gon’s shoulder and on his right thigh, barely brushing the bottom hem of his shorts. There was fruit juice in his hair.
“How did you get fruit juice in your eyebrows? ” Killua blurted out. He blinked. “Trade what?”
Gon grinned with all of his teeth, eyes glittering like he had a secret. He thrust his hand out under Killua’s nose.
The smell hit him before anything else. Sweet, so impossibly honey-sweet it was heady with it. It hit Killua like a truck, his startling intake of breath in weighted with the smell of peaches. The soft fuzz tickled his lips, warm from the sun.
He had eaten at least four nectarines, already. His mouth filled with saliva anyway.
“Woah,” Killua said at least, pulling back a little. He had to grab onto Gon’s wrist to stop the other boy from following after him, offering the fruit so intently he was practically trying to shove it into Killua’s mouth. His fingers stuck fast to Gon’s tan skin. Juice dripped out between his fingers as he squeezed lightly, trailing down Gon’s forearm and dripping off his elbow into his lap. “That’s a really good one.”
Perfect, even. Totally unbruised, the thin fur barely even ruffled. The body of the fruit was so full it looked impossibly heavy , dwarfing Gon’s hand like a sweet little sun barely caged in his fingers. The plump top was unmarked, skin unbroken even from twisting it off its original branch. It must have been so ready to fall, so bursting at the seams, that Gon hadn’t even needed to pick it so much as breathe on it.
Killua shot Gon a look. “Your Aunt said to save ones like this for cobbler,” he said warningly.
Gon’s face was summer-warm, cheeks dark as bark and eyes golden as peaches. “It’s for Killua!” He crowed proudly. “I picked plenty of really nice peaches for cobbler. This one is for Killua.”
Summer on his cheeks, his ears, his nape, in his nose. Summer in his blood and his bones. Killua’s heart hiccuped in his chest and he resolved to get a nice big glass of cold water when they went in for the day. “O-okay. Thanks, I guess. You can— take whatever nectarine you want… It’s your tree, already, though, so…”
Gon pouted. “I want to trade with Killua,” he stated.
Killua raised a brow. “You literally own these trees, you’d know which ones are the best a lot more than I would!”
“Killua has to trade with me!”
He knew that look. Killua threw up his hands. “Ugh, fine ! I’ll pick a stupid fruit for you! Just— sit there, I guess.”
He wiped the drying pulpy remains off his palm onto the bark and stood up, skin unsticking audibly from Gon’s. The fruit up higher was a little smaller than the lower branches. It was hard for Gon’s Aunt or Grandmother to reach them. Apparently, without Gon around to “thin” the high fruit, they were too crowded to get very big, like a bunch of siblings fighting over dinner. But after a day or two of Killua and Gon sweeping over them, taking all the weird ripe-unripe ones out for drying, what was left plumped up to an insane degree. It was like, unhidden by the leaves, the nectarines there ate up the sunlight and turned it into liquid nectar. Some stayed small, so little they looked underripe, but they sank under the softest press of Killua’s fingertips and dribbled sunset gold down onto his face.
It was one of those small, deceptive little fruits that Killua reached for now. His pointer finger forged into a delicate little claw, snkting through the stem. The nectarine fell gently into his waiting hand. It lolled across his palm, red as a garnet, warm as fresh blood.
Killua cradled it between his fingers like a beating heart and settled back down beside Gon, pressing tightly to his side to avoid falling off. Gon hadn’t moved a bit, even when Killua got up. He found he didn’t mind, even if the dried juice left him itchy. It was easier to ignore, when Gon was hot like a furnace against him.
“Here,” he said, and didn’t look as he shoved the fruit at Gon.
Gon’s bright eyes beamed right through him despite his efforts. The other boy was practically vibrating as he delicately took the tiny nectarine from Killua, pressing the peach he had held (still warm, so warm) in its place.
“Thank you, Killua,” Gon said warmly, “this looks really yummy!”
Killua kept his eyes dutifully down. The peach sat innocently in his hand, like a sleeping baby bird, like a miniature sun, like a beating heart.
He pressed his teeth to baby-soft skin and bit down. Sunlight sweetness spilled down his chin. It flooded his taste buds, drowned his tongue, rushed warm and thick down his throat. Stickiness smeared across his lips. It splattered up his cheek and he had to squeeze one eye shut as juice burst across his eyelashes.
It melted in his mouth, dissolving under his tongue. Killua barely needed to chew with how soft and sweet and juicy it was. He sucked at the tangy skin, tongue lolling it against his inner cheek. He swallowed. Took another bite, so deep into the fruit his teeth clicked against the pit. He stuffed his dripping fingers into his mouth, suckling nectar off his fingerprints, laving his tongue into the little creases between skin and nail where sweetness was trapped, dragged his lips over the glistening pool collecting his palm.
Sweet, sweet, sunny summer. Absolute divine with it, warm like melted candy. So unlike chocolate and yet so delicious still, leaving Killua’s mind in a daze as he chased every lick of sweetness off his fingers, the back of his hand, down his forearm.
He was mid-bite when he realized Gon was staring at him.
The sweet haze sharpened into instant clarity. “What?” Killua pulled away, instantly wary. Gon’s eyes were wide. His bronze cheeks were flushed dark, hiding even the freckles the summer had given him. The nectarine was gone— had he already eaten it? “Gon? Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Ki—“ A pit tumbled out of Gon’s mouth. He flushed impossibly darker, slapping a palm over his mouth.
Killua blinked. Then, he laughed. He laughed hard, long, loud, raucous with the look on Gon’s face. “Did you just— just shove the whole thing in your mouth at once? You’re so i-impatient, you could have choked—“
Gon pouted, skin patchy with his blush. Man, if he got sunburned that badly, then Killua was going to be dead. He couldn’t find it in himself to care. His mouth was full of the taste of peaches and his chin was sticky and there was a steadily worsening itchiness spreading all over his skin. They were both going to need baths. They were going to need double baths.
“Stop laughing,” Gon said petulantly, and Killua laughed harder.
Even trying to pout, Gon clearly wasn’t actually hurt. His eyes were bright and alive. He smiled so big that it made his nose crinkle, eyes squinting half-closed. He smiled at Killua like he was the most incredible thing he had ever seen, and Killua had to laugh because otherwise he would start to scream.
“It’s not my fault,” Gon finally said with purpose, louder than even Killua’s cackling. “If anything, it’s Killua’s fault for being so, so beautiful.”
Killua choked on the peach pit, and proceeded to fall out of the tree.