a/n: Very excited that we've gotten this far!!

At around midnight, Alluka passed out on Gon's bed thinking it was Killua's, pulled the blankets over her head, and ceased to exist for the night. Not only that, but she raided Gon's clothes and, considering most of his old clothes were oversized to hide his body, they fit her swimmingly.

Killua and Gon stared in absolute dismay at Alluka completely passed out in Gon's bedroom before Killua reached over for the door handle and gently closed the door.

The moment it was closed, he closed his eyes and steadied himself against the doorframe. "I'm... so sorry about this," he said.

Gon crossed his arms with a smirk and said, "Did... Did you just apologize? To me? The Great Killua Zoldyck apologizing— "

As if Killua's stuffy head wasn't already throbbing , it abruptly rendered him useless. He couldn't speak, much less defend himself—not when he was this exhausted and fed up with life.

He went to his room and disappeared behind the door. Gon bit his lip and looked away, rubbing a hand beneath his chin as he wondered aloud, "Maybe that was a bit harsh..." in a hushed voice.

A moment later, though, Killua emerged again, this time with his arms full of blankets.

He dropped them next to the kotatsu, brushed his hands off, and said, "In case she wakes up, we should both sleep out here—since she doesn't know about my actual room."

"R-Right," Gon agreed. He blinked, speechless for a moment, before he realized what they were doing. He gasped. "Like a slumber party?!"

Killua frowned. "No—"

"I can't remember the last time I had a slumber party," Gon said, thrilled. He ran to get ready for bed, at which point, Killua gave up trying to fight it and instead set to work unfolding the blankets into makeshift sleeping bags.

When they were both ready for sleep, the two of them settled under the covers, their backs turned to one another. Gon, facing the window, and Killua, facing the kitchen. It was a dreadful period of silence, one that sent Gon's anxiety into overdrive.

How could he say something so hurtful, even to Killua? He had no excuses for treating Killua like that, no matter how rude Killua tended to be. Gon clenched his fists into the blanket and pulled his knees up, tense and frustrated with himself for always blurting out the first thing on his mind.

Gon heard the blankets rustle several feet away from him. He heard Killua turn onto his back before sighing, the covers pulled up to his chin. Still awake , Gon thought, hesitant to look over his shoulder.

After a moment of silence, Gon cleared his throat and said, quietly, "I thought you were working tonight."

"In a way," Killua whispered, eyes on the ceiling.

Intrigued, Gon really did look over his shoulder. Killua's face was enshrouded in moonlight. "What does that mean?" Gon asked. He really didn't understand the club business, and his imagination tended to run wild.

Killua glanced at Gon before looking away. Gon turned away. He wasn't sure why he expected Killua to answer him. Killua's work is off limits , Gon reminded himself, and he'd just have to be happy with knowing what, exactly, Killua's work even was .

But then, Killua said, "I've been hired to be an escort. For one of my regulars."

Gon's brow furrowed. He pushed up onto his elbow and turned back to Killua, an eyebrow raised. Killua looked at him out of the corner of his eyes and said, "You don't know what an escort is, do you."

"Not at all," Gon confessed, slumping with a sigh. He flopped back onto his pillow. "What do you do?"

He shrugged. "I'm basically... arm candy to a sugar daddy."

"Amazing. For how long?"

"Just a night. We're going to an event and that's it. My fitting was today."

"For, like... a suit?"

"Yeah."

"Wow."

"I guess."

"And it's all paid for?"

"Yeah."

"Do you get to keep the suit afterwards?"

"Yeah, I think so."

"Damn. That sounds nice."

They fell silent for as long as it took Gon's brain to wrap back around to Alluka. Gon turned to Killua and whispered, "Hey, you never mentioned that your sister was trans, too."

Killua scoffed. "You never asked," he said, borderline snickering like the devil he was. Gon wrestled his pillow out from under his head to swing it around to smack Killua. Killua punched it off to the side as Gon sat up, throwing the pillow down onto his lap.

"Your sister is incredible," Gon said. He looked down at his lap, pinching the hem on his pillow case. "I'm glad I got to meet her. And that she's okay with me."

"Chances are she's just thrilled at the prospect of me dating," Killua said as he turned onto his side. Gon frowned as Killua said, "I'm going to sleep."

"'Kay," Gon whispered, dejectedly, and returned to his padded mound of blankets for the night. It would take an hour before he was able to fully fall asleep, but he felt content knowing that in the morning, he'd get to talk to Alluka one last time.

______

Wednesday came swiftly after a weekend of writing papers and practicing for his date with destiny (the coffee shop). That previous Sunday, he had treated Kurapika to a chai there and as the two of them sat together at the window, Gon explained that he would be playing there that week.

Kurapika had leant against the counter, propped his chin on his fist, and smiled at Gon as he said, "Tell me what time and I'll be there." It made Gon almost too flustered to answer, but he did, and now he had to expect that Kurapika would follow through. He'd be performing for everyone in San Francisco that mattered to him—Kurapika, Zushi, Knuckle, and Uvogin.

He considered asking Killua to come as well, but the chances of that happening were slim to none. Little did he know, however, that Kurapika had already asked Killua on his behalf.

"I'm gonna be in the Design District on Wednesday," Kurapika said off-handedly that same Sunday night at The Phantom .

Killua squinted at him. It was a slow night, and so the two of them decided to share the first stage in the club—a long stretch that connected two poles by a walkway. Beneath them, the tiles on the stage glowed in bubbles of pinks and blues.

"Why the Design District?" Killua asked. Kurapika had no reason to suspect that Killua even lived near there.

"There's this coffee shop Freecss is performing at. I didn't realize he played guitar," Kurapika explained. Killua's brain left the station, only to arrive once again as Kurapika concluded, "You should come with me."

"No. No way," Killua said, shaking his head.

Kurapika groaned, slumping down the pole like Killua's rejection was too much to bear. "He knows though. About the club and shit. Are you really still mad at me?" Kurapika whined, but Killua was already halfway back to his own pole. "Come on! I don't want to go alone!"

Kurapika continued to badger him from that moment onwards at every opportunity he could. From the bar to the VIP rooms to the goddamn bathroom, Kurapika was there begging Killua to come with him. His reasoning: That Gon was worth Killua's time, if only for half an hour at the puniest café on the block.

By the end of the night, Killua was too tipsy and tired to bother arguing. " Fine . Alright, fuck it. I'll go or whatever," he said, pouting off to the side as Kurapika threw his fists in the air and yelled, " FUCK YEAH! "

"What's going on?" Leorio prompted from behind the bar, a hand on his hip and the other on the bar top.

Killua took a seat and started with, "You, getting me a drink, that's what's going on—" while Kurapika said, "Silver's coming with me to see the guy I'm gonna fuck."

The way in which Killua's brain and heart stopped.

Killua looked, bewildered, over at Kurapika. Kurapika was shimmying in a little premature-celebratory jive while Killua's brain revolved around " they guy he's gonna fuck—the guy he's gonna fuck—the guy he's— "

"Wait, hold up, you never mentioned that," Killua said, acutely aware that his voice nearly cracked just like his patience. He cleared his throat before that could happen.

"You know how Kurapika works, dude," Leorio said, gesturing to the state of Kurapika in all his sexy glory.

Kurapika jabbed a finger in Killua's face, a smug grin on his lips as he said, " Suck it . I get dibs."

"I—I never asked for dibs," Killua said, alarmed. "I just think—I mean, he seems like the long-term type of guy—" He didn't want to say it out loud, but he had his suspicions about the "energy " Freecss excuded, and it all read in fine print: " virgin ".

And while Killua didn't care one way or the other about virginity as a social construct, he did care— very, very little —about Kurapika's preferences. Something told him that handcuffs and the like weren't on Freecss' radar.

"He seems kinda vanilla, dude," Killua tried uselessly, but Kurapika said, "They're all vanilla before I bring the chocolate, you know what I'm saying?"

Killua slapped a hand over his forehead. He accepted the drink Leorio passed him and blindly took a sip of it.

"I'm sure it will be fine. What's this meetup about, though? Can't be serious enough for you to start introducing friends," Leorio commented, and Killua thought the same.

"Silver already knows the guy," Kurapika said, cautious to use Killua's stage name since they were within earshot of customers chatting down the bar.

"Really?" Leorio said, and Killua spared a second to peer between his fingers at the guy. Killua grumbled to himself furiously, looking off to the side. "Is this the guy from the theater?"

" Hell yes," Kurapika said.

"I'm just saying ," Killua started again, and the instant he did, he heard the alcohol slurring his voice. He couldn't stop, though. "That you shouldn't be seeing Freecss if you're just looking to fuck, bro. That's all I'm saying."

"Oh, right, because you two are such great friends ," Kurapika teased. "You barely know the guy ."

"But can't you tell!" Killua cried, exasperated. "He's too—too—"

"Is he a prude?" Leorio suggested with a grimace. "He's a prude, huh."

" No , he's just too—too—wholesome," Killua finished anticlimactically and with a tired, sad pout on his face. It was too early in the morning for him to talk about this, or even think about Freecss' voice through the studio door. He couldn't stop thinking about it, no matter how much he convinced himself that the Daily Grind would banish it from his brain.

Drunk Killua wondered if Freecss would be singing at the café down the street.

Thankfully, Kurapika was too wound up to read into it. Instead, he declared that his mind wouldn't be changed, and that Killua would just have to suck it up. When Killua looked hopelessly at Leorio to intervene, Leorio shrugged and said, "Sorry, dude. No changing his mind."

______

By Wednesday, Killua grew more and more suspicious of Freecss and Kurapika. It was to the point where Killua wanted to know what, specifically, Kurapika did on his phone. Was the guy still on Tinder? Was he talking to other guys aside from Freecss? He wondered if Freecss knew. What if Freecss thought they were exclusive while Kurapika was out fucking around?

The bottom line was this: that Kurapika couldn't be trusted.

Meanwhile, on the rare occasion that Killua didn't work, he came home early and found Freecss in the living room practicing his guitar. He could hear it faintly out in the hall, and when he entered, the music paused for a moment as Gon tipped back and into view of the foyer hallway.

"Welcome home!" Gon called out as Killua was slipping off his sneakers.

He wandered up the hallway and, lingering at the foyer archway, studied the state of the kotatsu. Gon had his laptop out with music sheets on it, and his tuner was left among the entrails of his backpack on the ground.

"I can take this to my room if you want," Gon said, about to close his laptop.

"No," Killua said, waving a dismissive hand. "It's fine. Keep playing."

Killua went to his room to put away his things and, after he disappeared behind his door, Gon picked up his guitar again and began with a flurry of bright notes that cascaded into broad, rich chords. Killua paused just inside of his room, his backpack strap in hand, and his attention still consumed by Gon's perfectly accented vibratos peppered among quick finger-plucking and the sensual taps of his nails against the pickguard.

The guy's a whole one-man band , Killua thought, silently impressed by the makeshift percussion sprinkled throughout Gon's acoustic cover. Or was it a cover? He had never heard the tune, the closer he listened to it, and it didn't occur to him until he was in the kitchen making a protein shake that Gon might have actually composed this song all on his own.

He thought about the lyrics from the studio in the lecture hall basement and wondered if Gon was a lyricist, too.

With nothing but his hand on the neck of the guitar, Gon plucked the keys while coordinating the heel of his other palm against the wooden body of his guitar. He drummed his fingers against the underside of the body while his other hand remained nimble and free against the fretboard.

Killua lowered himself silently across the kotatsu from Gon, his smoothie all but abandoned in his hand as he watched and wondered why the hell Gon was in music theory school when he could have started his own career by now. He could already picture Gon with an electric guitar engaging in solo battles on a rock concert stage against a fellow bassist.

I wonder if Kurapika's heard this , Killua wondered, taking a sip of his smoothie.

Gon paused to jot something down on the note sheet on his computer, and only then did he realize that Killua was sitting there watching the entire goddamn show.

Killua had never seen Gon's cheeks turn so red so fast.

"I-I didn't realize you were listening," Gon stammered as his fingers resumed their positions.

Killua looked away pointedly, took a sip of his smoothie and, after smacking his lips, said, "I'm not."

Gon frowned at him, and Killua caught it in the corner of his eye. "You are, too," he said through a pout.

Killua stretched his legs out under the kotatsu since Gon had his legs folded beneath him, which gave Killua plenty of room to relax, drink his smoothie, and listen to the iterations Gon went through. As Gon polished up his set, Killua pictured it all flowing in a mosaic of color on a foggy, clear limited edition vinyl that he could play on repeat in a Northern Cali beach house, or on a static-y cassette player surrounded by redwoods, sitting on a lawn chair propped up atop a VW.

He could see himself at a bonfire surrounded by nothing but the great outdoors and a collection of faceless people that didn't annoy the shit out of him. Kurapika was there, as was Leorio, and strangely enough, Chrollo and Machi. They probably wouldn't understand it, but there were people out there who would , and they would listen to Gon's cassettes on a road trip one autumn weekend and every year after that they would find it amidst their collection and say, " This throws me back to fall of 2019 ."

It would be an obscure release, one that would involve word-of-mouth, hand-me-downs, chill house parties and café afternoons. A limited number of cassettes would be made, and an even smaller number of records, and Gon would hand them out in basement parties when it's so late at night that everyone is either high, drunk, or asleep. A calm atmosphere to close out the night in a way Closing Time couldn't. He'd make friends with his small audience in exchange for their pocket, where Gon would slip a limited edition cassette and say, " To remember me by ."

" I want to market you ," was almost what Killua said, but instead, he said, "You should sing."

Gon had been shifting notes on his program when Killua suddenly spoke after nearly half an hour of silence. Gon blinked, startled, and shook his head with a bashful laugh. "Oh, no, I couldn't," he said, shaking his head again. He put his attention back on the screen as he said, "I don't like how I sound."

Killua shrugged, indifferent, even though internally, he was screaming with frustration. It wasn't his place. "Your loss," Killua sighed.

As Monday passed them by, Tuesday was fast approaching and Killua came to dread going to work. Exhaustion was hot on his heels and lulling him to sleep in the middle of class, even as Retz called, once again, for a group meeting to decide when they would be watching the movies discussed in their essay prompt.

While Killua half-drifted off, Gon covered for him by saying a Saturday afternoon would work well. It was the safest bet Gon could think of, given that Killua tended to work weekend nights.

"I'll be there bright and early!" Zushi promised that same day after class, bounding off of a stone hedge outside of their lecture hall.

Knuckle rolled his eyes and said, "We all know you sleep 'till eleven most days."

Zushi spun to him with a scowl and a threatening fist shaking in the air. Knuckle ducked away from it as Gon giggled behind his hand.

"You guys don't have to get to the café straight away," he insisted, still smiling. "I'll be there until ten-ish."

"First ones there or nothing ," Zushi said, to which Knuckle added, "He's kidding."

And, while they weren't the first ones by any means, they were the first witnesses to what could have been an uneventful, but successful, gig. They arrived just in time to see the status quo before it was broken.

Before it broke, Zushi, Knuckle and Uvogin arrived to a nearly full-house. The café was stationed in one half of the building which was divided into two by a narrow hallway where the outer door was propped open, and the café door was swung open wide. There were people milling about in that small cooridor outside of the café, out on the sidewalk at the tables, and most of all, the café was packed .

It was like any other weekday morning, but this time, people lingered a while longer on their morning routine before heading off to work. They lingered as they sipped their coffee and let the caffeine seep in with the hypnotic music Gon was playing on a small platform at the back corner of the café, perched on a stool, and sporting a loose floral button down tucked into a pair of slacks. His floral shirt was unbuttoned halfway down, revealing a plain white tee behind the wooden body of Melvin 2.0.

Zushi peered into the café, at first hesitant, before leading the trio through a gap in the line. They shimmied down the narrow stretch of wood flooring to the back, where they could stand among customers watching the calm, instinctual way Gon's fingers flew across the fretboard.