Killua must BEEF UP mentally and physically to prepare his body for the experience of a lifetime.

______

illua dropped his forehead on the note table attached to his lecture hall seat. An entire two days had passed and Killua was back in OChem with a Freecss Complex the size of Canada. He really couldn't fathom a reality in which Wednesday was real, and that he, Killua Zoldyck, agreed to become "Gym Buddies" with Yorknew's star running back.

As if he could even keep up with a Yorknew University athlete. Yorknew was a nationally accredited Division I university with the stats to prove their worth. Their athletes were the best in the game, and the fact that they were known to put exclusively seniors on the field made Freecss' all the more of a celebrity. A freshmen on the team holding his own against massive, beefy, hulking biceps and thighs. The lead quarterback, Knuckle Bine, had a pair of thighs that caused earthquakes in San Francisco and tsunamis in the Indian Ocean.

And Killua certainly didn't know this because he had fantasized about having his head annihilated by them.

Just as Killua brought his head up to hit against the desk for a third time, someone's knuckle rapped on the surface. Killua stared vacantly at closed notebook. Out of the corner of his eye, Zushi leant over into his vision.

"Hey... big guy... how're you holdin' up?" Zushi said as he took his seat. He sat on the edge of it, though, all of his attention and energy seeping into Killua's direction like the tendrils of a vicious beast, grinning smugly at him from the shadows.

He glowered at Zushi.

Zushi (bless his heart) offered an almost-pitiful grimace as he nodded in "understanding" and said, "That bad, huh?"

"I haven't slept in two days," Killua said. It was an exaggeration, but it was a direct reference to how he felt as a human being, existing in a bag of flesh, at that very moment.

Zushi gestured to his eyes and said, "I can... I can tell. You've got, uh, bags under your eyes today."

"It's my immune system rejecting this situation," Killua said, slumping back in his seat. He put his fingers to the bridge of his nose and sighed. "He's your roommate."

"We would have known this sooner had you just told me his name—" Zushi said.

Just past Zushi, Killua caught sight of Kurapika climbing the stairs. Once again, Kurapika stopped at the sight of them, and then at what they had managed to overhear from the situation. Kurapika hurried over, backpack swinging off of their shoulders and onto the floor behind Killua's chair.

"What happened? Why does Killua look like death incarnate?" Kurapika demanded.

Zushi cleared his throat as he prepared for the delivery of the best punchline of Killua's joke of a life. "Mystery Starbucks guy?"

"Yeah?"

"My roommate."

Kurapika fell back into their seat. They stared at Zushi, completely stunned. They put a hand to their heart and said, "You've done it. You've officially killed me."

"You're tellin' me," Killua huffed. "I've been dead for two days. This is just my ghost talking."

Kurapika leant forward to hiss, "Your roommate's Gon Freecss. As in, thee guy. The Guy who made the field as a freshmen. Didn't he get, like, a full-ride scholarship to Ohio State?"

Zushi nodded eagerly. "Yeah. Uh-huh, that's the guy. That is thee guy that sleeps three feet away from me every night."

"Wow," Kurapika said.

"I hate everything about this," Killua droned. "Kill me now or forever hold your knives, fellas, because I might just beat you to the chase."

"Well, you will if you stay awake any longer. Have you even been eating? Look at your face," Zushi said. He straightened with a gasp, snapping his fingers as he said, "Gon said you gotta eat carbs today. Like, a fuck ton of them. Like, grab yourself some Noods after this 'cause it all starts tomorrow."

"What starts tomorrow?" Kurapika asked. "Also, I never understood why everyone calls Noodles & Company 'Noods'."

"Because it's cool? I don't know," Zushi said. "But our boy Killua has a date with destiny. And by destiny I mean the gym. Gon has pledged to make Killua ripped by Christmas so he can take on Jesus in a fisticuffs battle of the century."

"Wow," Kurapika breathed, shaking their head in disbelief.

"My arms are the size of twigs," Killua whispered, barely holding himself up against the armrest. He looked to Zushi, eyes bleary with sleep. "Does cool whip count as carbs?"

Class went on, and once again, Killua was effectively distracted enough not to think about his eminent downfall set to commence in less than twenty-four hours. His phone weighed heavily in his pocket with all of four texts he had shared with Gon Freecss over the topic of their schedules and how incredibly well they crashed. Still, they would make it work (somehow, if Killua's lack of self-control had anything to say about it).

Freecss ran on a different clock. His days rotated between classes, practice, meals, and personal gym time. It was a religious schedule that, when Killua took a closer look at, now existed in his very hands. He had Gon's entire life in his fingertips, and he wondered how much it would sell for on the Yorknew University Black Market. How many girls would tear his innards out just to get their hands on Freecss' class schedule like this? The guy had even included the room numbers. If Killua wanted, he could sit in the window of every lecture hall just to stare at Gon.

Which he seriously... wasn't considering doing. It was just a vague, hardly defined visual in his head.

Killua shook his head as class ended. No, definitely not thinking about that.

Killua had made sure to block out time on his calendar for studying and schoolwork, which left far less time on his clock than he initially thought. He supposed it made sense. When he wasn't at school, studying, or eating Ben and Jerry's, he was at Starbucks. It made his nights long but manageable, and it certainly diminished the cost of classes.

But that just meant his early morning Starbucks shifts were all the more difficult to get up for. However, Gon's name was slotted in bold immediately after, just before Calculus on Tuesdays and Thursdays. And, on every other weekday, Gon Freecss slipped in immediately after OChem with the promise of dinner at Ren Hall immediately after.

Zushi walked with Killua to Noods, where they stood in line and determined the cheapest option on the menu. They sat at a booth as they waited for their togo bags, and Killua propped his chin on his hand and sighed. Zushi smiled from across the table and asked, "So I take it you don't come from a rich and famous family with a limitless credit card."

"Nah, I do," Killua said, so deadpanned that Zushi's fond smile faltered. Zushi raised an eyebrow at him and Killua sighed, "Disowned."

"Wait, are you serious? Shit, I was just kidding—"

"Nah," Killua said, eyes traveling across the line of costumers before landing sharply on Zushi to say, "I'm serious."

"Wha—? How?"

Killua shrugged and, by some stroke of luck, his order was called. He didn't mind talking about his family, really, but he'd never talked about it before. Before Zushi, Killua was socially brain-dead. He thought he'd pulled the plug on hopes of an average teenage life, and what with his shit schedule (as Freecss now knew as "lame") he didn't expect to have a social life.

As Zushi got his meal, Killua popped open the top of his togo container and walked out to the front of the building. He waited on the sidewalk as Zushi jogged up to him and said, "You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to. I mean, that's gotta be rough."

"They're assholes anyway," Killua said, mouth full of noodles and oh-so-yummy spicy pasta sauce. He waved his fork idly as he said, "I just don't know what to say about 'em, you know? It's like... so many kids here wish they had a family to pay for it all. I have one, but it's just not in my moral code."

"What code?" Zushi scoffed.

"Precisely," Killua said. "You'd think it's all just common sense shit. 'Be good, do good,' that sort of thing. My family—they aren't like that."

Zushi hummed, lips pursed. He swallowed down his noodles before shaking his head and saying, "Nah, I really don't get it. What are they, in the mafia or something?"

"Worse. They're lawyers," he said. "I originally came here enrolled in Yorknew Law."

"Shut the fuck up. You were not."

Killua grinned, a cheeky smile on his lips as Zushi went on to stare at him in awe. Yorknew Law was the most difficult college at Yorknew University to get into. They had an acceptance rate of 12%, and if that wasn't impressive enough, every member of the Zoldyck line who went to college attended the same exact college. Killua was a fourth generation alumni, and his family was beyond pissed that he switched colleges after his freshmen year tuition was settled and signed off.

They were at the gym doors then, and before Zushi could inquire further, Freecss' was pushing open the door for them from where he was waiting at the windows. Zushi held up his pasta for Gon to see, as if to say, "I've done your bidding."

Gon smiled at them and said, "Nice Noods. Can I have some?"

Killua almost dropped his Noods all over the floor. On some faraway plane of existence, there lived a Killua who had been asked for nudes by Gon Freecss, and somehow, he had been dealt the wrong plane of existence.

Instead, he was just inquiring about pasta.

"It's just mac and cheese, you nerd," Zushi said. "Killua got something exciting. You should try his."

"It's spicy," Killua blurted out before Gon even made eye contact.

Gon glanced down at the bowl of pasta in Killua's hands as he held open the second door. It wasn't fair, truly, for Gon to be able to lean against the door like that and say, "I have a good tolerance for spice."

Killua held the pasta out like a sacrificial offering and Gon, one 'D' away from God, took the fork between his fingers. Killua transcended. He wondered if there'd be Renaissance-styled paintings, some day, of this interaction.

Killua swallowed hard as Gon put every tong of that goddamn fork in his mouth and pulled the noodle off with his teeth.

"Tasty," he said.

"Fuck," Killua said.

"What?" Zushi said.

Gon stuck the fork back onto the plate and walked on. Killua realized then that the choir of angels was just in his head, and it faded fast. He hurried to keep up. "I'll show you around the gym, but I have to say, I don't believe a word you said about never having set foot in here," Gon said, glancing sparingly at Killua.

"I've never set foot in a gym. I swear on my life," Killua said.

"We're already changing the world then since you're here standing in a gym," Gon said.

"Yeah, and you didn't burst into flames like a demon stepping foot into a church, so I'll give you points for that," Zushi said.

Killua rolled his eyes. There was a checkpoint just before the gym area that required their student cards. Gon went first, then Zushi, and then Killua. Killua slotted his card up with the sensor, only to have it blare angrily at him. He threw his arms up and said, "Well, nice knowing you guys. I'm just gonna leave now—"

He barely turned around before Gon was grabbing him by the wrist and dragging him back. He plucked Killua's card out of his hand, and Killua told himself that it was only possible because Killua was distracted and holding a bowl of Noods. "You have to give it a second," Gon told him, shaking the card in his direction.

He leant over the machine and put Killua's card back down. He held it still for a solid second before the green light blinked on, and the half-door opened. Gon stuck the card back into Killua's grasp and gave his hand a pat.

As if the heat in Killua's cheeks wasn't already intolerable.