“You’re good at this,” Gon compliments, after a while. He moves to take a seat by Killua, at the lip of the river. “Catching fish, I mean.” There’s a pause. “Killing fish,” Killua corrects, quietly. For the first time all morning, Killua puts down his fishing rod, faces Gon completely. “You meant to say ‘killing’.”

In a sun-drowned field, Alina reaches for you with kohl-smudged hands, and the world in her eyes. Somewhere, she’s long since sketched the shape of you enough to commit it to muscle memory. Somewhere, she’s long since pressed you in between the two heaviest books she could find; breathless. There’s blood dripping from her palms.