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drink the evening blue
unfolding in front of you
oh i loved you then
and i think you knew
but you faded
out of my sight
all i want is for us to share moonlight
it's like i waited
all of my life
for the way that you looked at me that night
- evening blue, ollie mn
The same moment kept playing over and over in his head, in some sort of a pitiful endless loop.
Killua’s brain had been reduced to a broken film projector, incapable of anything other than a familiar string of bright and familiar images. Somehow hard hitting and painful, but in a way that was almost assuaging.
No, that wasn’t the right word. The right word was buried somewhere deep inside.
The right word was forbidden. He wouldn’t allow himself the right word.
It wasn’t even about the hopeless jumble of words in his own head. This was about Gon’s words, and the tremendous weight they carried. Killua knew the other boy never said or did anything he didn’t mean, he was far too simple minded for that; but that didn’t make the implications of what had been said any less appalling.
In fact, it only heightened the shock factor. Gon was all about the thrill of the now, never sparing a moment’s thought for the consequence of tomorrow. Always chasing butterflies down boundless hills. Gon bore his heart wide open for the big bad world every time he opened that impulsive mouth of his; because he didn’t know any better or perhaps because he didn’t want to know any better. Either way, Killua knew that by now.
It was everything he’d been warned against, but it was everything he admired. Illogical, yes, but Gon was quite like magic in that regard. He knew how to make even the illogical bend to his favor; until it was warped enough to be confused for logic.
Incomprehensible, idiotic, beautiful, commendable Gon. Yet… It was still impossible to believe.
What Gon said… In the heat of the moment…In the midst of a dodgeball game from hell…
“I need Killua to hold the ball. He’s the only one who can do it. If Bisky or Hisoka held it, I probably couldn’t use my full strength. The only reason I can focus wholly on hitting the ball is because Killua’s holding it for me.”
Killua felt a shrill jolt havoc his chest. Get a grip, he chided himself. There was no time for mulling over useless things. They still had a game to clear. Killua sighed and stared out through the window at the world outside, drenched in the soft blue fluorescence of night.
The ocean, reflecting a sky swept in stars, gleamed as its waves lapped hungrily at the deserted shore. There was a biting tenseness in the wind. As if everything laid out before him was on high alert, awaiting something unspeakable. Bisky had given him strict orders to rest, now that they’d managed to collect Patch of Shore and Hisoka had scampered off to do whatever it was that he did when he wasn’t creeping on Gon. Retouch his makeup? Search for other people to terrorize? Practice his Bungee Gum?
Killua still felt highly concerned when it came to that wild card...
Hisoka was obviously hiding something; and even though he’d helped them win the game, Killua refused to believe it came as a humble favor borne out of the kindness of his nightmare circus heart. It made him angry. Not being able to predict an enemy’s next move. His ability to perceive and strategize were what had kept him alive this long.
Hitting a dead end on a potential lead was something that made him immensely uncomfortable.
Still… At least Hisoka was out of their hair…
For now, anyway.
Whatever.
He really didn’t want to be thinking about that clown freak right now.
Killua stared out at the ocean again. The night air felt weirdly like the fluttering wings of a dozen flighty birds against his face. It was certainly frigid enough that the hair on the back of his neck was standing on end, but it wasn’t like Killua was cold. His body adapted to extreme temperatures like a chameleon to the bark of a tree.
His thoughts circled back. Why couldn’t Gon have focused on hitting that ball if it had been anybody else? Then again, there was no way in hell Killua would’ve let that Grandpa take his place on the court in the first place, but it still made him wonder…
As if on cue, he felt everything inside of him tense.
He whirled around to find Gon standing just a few paces behind him. Killua felt his throat tighten, had he summoned Gon out of thin air just now? Is that what he got for spending way too much time thinking about him? Analyzing and re-analyzing his throwaway comments, the dark hints in his smiles, the careless touches.
Sometimes Killua wondered when he’d first allowed his best friend to sneak up on him like that. And why he now kept letting him do it, again and again, where he would have cut anyone else off at the knees for even trying.
Gon was anything but subtle, unlike Killua, who was light as a feline on his feet, Gon announced his every move. There was a time when Killua used to think it was out of naivety, but now he knew better. Gon was loud on purpose. His footsteps were warnings, an open call to arms for anyone who dared to get in his way.
Killua hadn’t decided whether it was bravely stupid or stupidly brave. Probably both.
Either way, Killua discerned he’d been so preoccupied in his own thoughts he hadn’t heard Gon come up behind him. Gon’s big, aureate eyes were tinged with worry. When their gazes met, he managed a lopsided grin that made Killua’s chest go all warm, as if it were slick with honey.
“Are we off?” Killua asked, his gaze returning to the ocean because looking at Gon was making him baffled and hot and careless.
This was even worse than he was used to.
This felt like a cosmic shift.
“Not just yet,” Gon replied, crossing the distance to him. Before Killua could say anything in response, Gon took a step further, so that there were only a few inches of space left in between their faces. Now he was furrowing his eyebrows and staring down at Killua’s hands like the mere sight of them bothered him. Then, to Killua’s utter surprise, Gon extended his own hand and gently tugged at Killua’s bandaged wrists.
Killua had to bite down hard on his tongue to keep from yelping out in mindless pain.
God… The pain. He’d almost forgotten about the pain. There was a part of him that wondered when pain had become such a practiced feeling. To a point where even a sharp, encompassing thronging; felt like nothing but a dull percussion.
Gon’s power was truly mind blowing… The way he’d lit up like a firecracker. Easily becoming the brightest thing in the room (as if he wasn't already).
There was a moment when Killua had been grimly positive that his hands would be totally unsalvageable once the match was over.
After all… It had been like cradling a missile.
Then almost immediately, he’d decided that it didn’t matter.
Not as long as they won. Not as long as Gon could see the true extent of his own aura. The true beauty of his very being. He would never admit it to anyone, least of all to Gon; but sometimes, Killua had to hold his breath when he was around his best friend. Just to keep himself from being completely undone by the sheer immensity of his potential.
It was what happened when you stood under the sun for too long, right? You got heat stroke.
This was a normal feeling, right? People felt this way about their friends, right?
Lungs swelling a tsunami.
Not that he had much experience in the ‘friend’ department...
“Killua…” Gon’s voice cut through his thoughts like they were butter, and then he was staring down at his own hands, where Gon was making another futile attempt to reach for his wrists.
“Hey! What are you doing?” he snapped, taking a quick, faltering step backwards. His tone was skeptical despite the stuttering in his heart.
This didn’t seem to hinder Gon’s resolve one bit.
Unsurprising. The stubborn idiot.
Gon didn’t take another step forward, but his eyes were boring into Killua’s, making him feel like peeling out of his own skin.
“Can I see?” Gon asked, weirdly urgent. “Please?”
His mouth was a thin line. Killua hated that intense look on his face with every fibre of his being.
It didn’t suit his sweet, childish semblance. It was something he’d noted the first time he’d watched Gon fight. Sometimes he got this dangerous look in his eyes… It was the sort of look that made Killua’s spine curl because it was the very same look he often caught in the mirror.
On Gon, it looked terrible and out of place. He was still just a kid after all. One could argue that Killua was a kid himself, but that argument would run the risk of going null and void pretty quick.
Killua was ruined.
His family had made sure of that.
Gon on the other hand… Gon was still not ruined, and if Killua had any say in it, he would make sure he remained that way. Forever. Pristine as a teacup.
Not a tarnish, nor a crack.
Just this… Purity.
It was a comforting reminder of all the things Killua could have been had he received a normal childhood. Though in hindsight, it was just another thing that didn’t matter. He’d rather watch Gon live out his fantasy of normality, it suited him better anyway… Even if in reality, Gon was the farthest thing from normal. Maybe they were excavating their own normal.
“It’s nothing,” he muttered, between gritted teeth.
Gon narrowed his eyes. “How stupid do you think I am, Killua? You’re hurt. I can see it.”
“Well - I’ll be fine,” Killua argued, uselessly.
When Gon merely blinked at him, he cursed under his breath and reluctantly brandished his hands. Immediately, Gon’s eyes widened. The lightest feather-touch. Then warm, barely-there fingers were wrapping ever-so-loosely around Killua’s upper wrists. Gon was even more cautious to keep from hurting him this time, which in turn, made Killua wonder if he’d done a poor job of veiling the flinch earlier.
The second that there was skin to skin contact, Killua’s stomach bottomed out from underneath him, his breath hitched, and he had to dig his toes deeper into the soles of his shoes to keep himself grounded. Would he never get used to this? Why was it that everytime they touched, it derailed him so completely? He’d taken spears to the bare chest, been whipped and lashed at.
Hell... He’d plucked kitchen knives from his own side; dealt with them like mere splinters and yet here he was… Trembling - for what?
Of course.
He knew for what.
He was trembling for the light.
“I’m so sorry, Killua,” Gon began.
Another tremor tore through his chest. It was in the way that he said his name. Whenever Gon said his name, Killua was convinced he’d never heard anybody else say it before.
The way he lingered on every syllable, like he was taking his time to get to know his name, get the feel of the way it shaped his mouth. Nobody else had ever said his name like that.
Nobody else ever would.
No, no, no. Cage those thoughts right now!
“Don’t be stupid,” Killua scolded. “I’m fine.”
Gon stared down at where their hands were still awkwardly entwined, and then up at Killua.
“What?” Killua couldn’t help sounding a bit irked. “You should be happy, idiot! We won.”
“I know, I know,” he replied. “And so I wanted to thank you, y’anno?”
Killua flushed and stared down at the ground. “Don’t be lame. There’s no need for that.”
“No, but hear me out. I wouldn’t have been able to defeat Razor if it wasn’t for you. And - And that got me thinking. That there’s a lot I wouldn’t have been able to do without you, Killua.”
Ugh. Why is he saying all this right now?
Killua’s cheeks felt hot. His heart had practically evaporated behind his ribcage, and now this idiot had broken into a smile so blinding Killua actually had to look away.
He wasn’t quite sure what to say, so he shuffled from foot to foot, and then, without bothering to meet the other boy’s gaze, replied. “You still don’t get it. Do you, stupid?”
“Huh?” Gon seemed thrown off as he quirked his head to the side, not unlike a confused puppy.
It was endearing enough to make the sheen of ice Killua’d been putting up thaw a little.
“I should be the one thanking you.”
Killua didn’t want to explain any further because he was afraid that if he started pouring it all out, he wouldn’t be able to stop, not until he’d bled his own lungs dry. He didn’t want to tell him how he’d introduced him to a world so far beyond his own that in these brief months of knowing him Killua truly felt like a changed person. To a point where there were days he’d wake up, look in the mirror, and for one blissful moment… Forget that he’d been bred a weapon fashioned to inflict death.
He didn’t want to tell him about how he always smelled like island flowers and made his insides disintegrate at the briefest touch and widened his every horizon. He didn’t want to tell him about this feeling he kept quiet inside him, burning a noiseless riot. This feeling he would never name. Never fully acknowledge. Never make real.
He didn’t want to explain - but maybe he didn’t have to, because a deep understanding seemed to flash like a falling star behind Gon’s eyes. To Killua’s utter surprise, he said nothing for a moment, and the silence would have been discomfiting if he hadn’t felt Gon’s thumb softly brush over the pulse point on his left wrist, right where the bandage met his pale skin.
Goddamnit… Now Gon was surely going to feel the way Killua’s heart was galloping feverishly through his every artery, but no.
Gon was frowning.
“Your bandages… They’re loose,”
“Huh?” Killua was still too caught up in the way Gon’s skin felt against his own to register anything else. “Oh.”
It was strange, they were best friends… Physical contact wasn’t an abnormal thing in between them, but this felt different somehow. Heightened. It didn’t make a lick of sense. Maybe it was because Killua wasn’t used to this… These sorts of… Gentle, mindless touches.
It had almost become commonplace at this point. Sometimes they’d fall asleep against one another’s shoulders on long train rides to places far away from everything they called home, other times they’d brush thighs at pit stops while chowing down on rice bowls and cakes together. There was even the occasional hug. When Gon was feeling especially excitable, when they made it through something they weren’t sure they were going to come out of completely unscathed or even alive, and other times for no reason at all… Hugging. For no reason at all. Except maybe because Gon wanted to wrap his arms around him as a gesture of… What? Gratitude? Concern? Friendship? Something more…? No. Scratch that last part.
Sometimes, Killua felt comfortable enough with Gon to initiate the touching, which wasn’t like him at all and yet… Everytime they did make contact, Killua felt like his heart was going to explode into a million bullets. It was a little bit ridiculous, really. He was immune to electricity, poison; but this was what did him in…? Made his insides constrict?
Then again, maybe he was starting to like being a little ridiculous.
The fact that Gon was looking at him now like he was something breakable in itself was fascinating, if a little bit hilarious.
Didn’t he know Killua from head to toe by now?
When you’d been broken a billion times over, you learned to become unbreakable.
That was just how Gon was, though. Thoughtful, thoughtless Gon. For all his bravery and defensiveness, he never quite bothered to guard his heart. It was idiotic. It was damning.
Everything he was feeling at any given time was plastered all over his face like a terribly advertised billboard. It was funny because Killua himself was the sheer opposite. Killua had grown up being taught that emotions were meant to be repressed, not displayed for the world to point at and exploit. Gon was the kind of person who was proud of the extent of his own emotional vulnerability and that was something that Killua both didn’t understand yet somehow deeply craved.
“I’ll fix them up for you! Okay?” He muttered, breaking into his sugary grin.
“You don’t have to -” Killua started, in a futile attempt to challenge Gon’s stubbornness.
“Quit complaining already! It’s the least I can do for you. Now, don’t move, alright? I’ll be back in a jiffy. Promise!”
Before Killua could even dispute, Gon lightly dropped his hands and skipped off. Lightning quick on his feet as usual. Killua felt his cheeks burn again. Why did he feel so complicated?
True to his word, Gon was back in pretty much an instinct, and he was bearing a fresh pair of bandages. He plopped down in front of where Killua was leaning against the pillar before gawking at him. “Sit down,” he instructed. “Come on! We haven’t got all day.”
“Gon…”
“Nuh, uh uh. No arguments.”
Killua arched an eyebrow. “Do you even know how to apply a bandage, silly?”
“Of course I do!” He replied, as Killua relented and joined him on the ground, crossing his legs and resting his bruised hands over either knee. “My Aunt Mito taught me how because I used to come home with cuts and bruises all the time from exploring the island. She’d always get so mad at me after. Kept chiding me to stop being so reckless,” he giggled. “I miss her.”
Killua smiled despite himself. “Yeah,” he said. “She’s pretty awesome.”
Just like you.
Sometimes Killua got envious of Gon’s paracosm of an island. All those beautiful trees and the sea and the clifftops… All that freedom… How he would have died for even the smallest imaginable fraction of such a thing.
Then again, when Killua turned to look at Gon again, all that envy just ebbed away, transformed into a dreamy head rush. He couldn’t imagine a Gon that hadn’t grown up on Whale Island. The island was a part of him, and he was a part of the island. Those rivers ran through his bloodstream, and sunlight caught tangled within his skin.
Gon too, after all, was large and beautiful and full of surprises. He held oceans and mountains in him too… Killua looked up into Gon’s eyes, only to realize Gon was staring back at him.
“Where do you space out to sometimes?” he asked, doing that cute little head-tilt of his.
“Uh… Nowhere. Let’s just get this over with.”
“Right!” Gon nodded, determination glittering gold in his gaze. “Give me one of your hands.”
Killua did as he was told. Carefully, Gon took Killua’s right hand in his before softly placing it onto his thigh. Killua swallowed hard, trying not to think about the warmth radiating off his skin from beneath the worn layer of his shorts. Trying not to think at all.
For a few breathless seconds, he merely watched Gon in awe as he gently undid the flimsy wrapping. When he’d gotten rid of all of it, he paused. His expression troubled.
“What?”
“It’s really bad,” Gon sounded dejected. “It must have hurt so much...”
“Stop being so embarrassing,” Killua stated, at once, despite the knot germinating in the pit of his stomach. “You know I can handle anything.”
“Yes,” Gon agreed. “You’re the strongest person I know.”
“Oh. Shut up,”
“I really mean it!” he insisted.
Killua gulped. Of course he meant it. His cheeks burned hotter. “Well,” He began. “You’re strong too. That’s why I like hanging around you, I guess.”
This earned him a full blown grin. “I hope that’s not the only reason why. But you’re right. I am pretty strong. If I wanted to, I bet I could take you on.”
“Ha,” Killua scoffed. “Dream on, loser.”
Gon chuckled, but then he was staring down at Killua’s hands again.
“I won’t ever want to though,”
“Hmm?”
“Fight you. I wouldn’t be able to bring myself to do it.”
“Not even if I slammed you to the ground and crushed your face beneath my foot?” Killua challenged.
Not even if I… Someday, took after my brother’s taunting words and… And…
He couldn’t even bring himself to think it.
“Not even then! Nup!” Gon grinned from ear-to-ear.
“You’re crazy.” Killua remarked.
“I - I know I’m not the best at all that intellectual stuff, but I’m not stupid. I think I’m lucky enough to have a lot of people who believe in me, but nobody believes in me like you do, Killua. I’m never gonna forget all the things you’ve done for me. How far you were willing to go… I mean, what if you’d blown off your hands…? What if I’d let you?”
Without warning, he reached out and ran a lingering thumb in slow, soothing circles over the black-blue mess of swollen, bleeding welts that’d wrecked Killua’s skin. It stung a little less beneath Gon’s tender touch and Killua pretty much forgot how to breathe, his body rendered rigid, rendered gold. “I’m not entirely myself when I get all charged up.” Gon added, almost as an afterthought.
This boy really was going to be the end of him…
“I’ve survived a lot worse.” He reassured. “This really is nothing.”
“Well,” Gon said, his voice surprisingly thick with some constrained emotion.
“It’s not nothing to me.”
For a single, trance-like moment, Killua felt heat bleed over every square inch of his body, like he was standing in direct sunlight.
Sometimes that’s what looking at Gon felt like, too. Like staring into the sun. It couldn’t possibly be healthy for him and yet…
And yet he couldn’t help himself.
He’d passed the point of no return a long time ago. He may not have figured out what he truly wanted out of his life, since demanding anything from the world had felt like a foreign concept ever since he could comprehend it; but from here on out, if there was one thing he was sure about, it was that he’d follow Gon to the ends of the earth. He didn’t even have to say the word. He’d just do it. Be right by his side. Watching out for him. Basking in his warmth. This is how he wanted it to be always, for as long as he was allowed to keep this.
Killua met Gon’s gaze again, his heartbeat accelerating behind his ribcage. Gon’s expression was driven; resolute. It was the expression he wore when he decided he was going to be a pro hunter no matter what it took. It was the expression he wore when he made himself the promise of tracking his impossible father down.
It was the expression that had won Killua over in an electric instant.
“You’re not nothing to me, you know that, don’t you? Killua?”
Killua felt the urge to look away again, but this time, he didn’t allow his gaze to waver.
He took in everything.
The honey-tinged hinges of Gon’s irises, his steady posture, the thin line of his lips…
“Seriously. Why are you saying this right now?”
Gon scratched his cheek. “I… I don’t know? Do I have to have a reason?”
“Yes,”
“Fine! Well…” Gon looked conflicted a moment, then shrugged, like the thought had been there all along, and he’d just needed to catch ahold of it.
“It's simple! It's because I need you to know.”
Breathing was getting harder by the second, but Killua managed a shaky breath.
“I know.” Killua replied, voice barely a whisper.
Gon’s kinetic expression melted, to be replaced by his signature giddy smile.
“Good!” He said, before unfurling the bandage and beginning to heedfully coil it around Killua’s blistered hand. “You’d better.” A pause. “You know… You really shouldn’t disregard your own pain like that.” Killua blinked. “That’s awfully wise, coming from you.”
“I can be wise!” Gon argued, voice too playful to be offended. Then, a beat. “Okay! It’s something people keep telling me but I keep noticing that you do the same thing and so I just thought I ought to tell you.”
He had to ask it. The question that’d been prodding vehemently at his mind.
“Gon?” he said.
“Mm?” Gon was laser-focused on his task again, as he finished bandaging one hand and began to unwrap the second bandage.
“What did you mean on court? When you said that thing about not being able to use your full strength had it been anybody else?”
“Just the truth.” Gon shrugged. “I could only focus because it was you. It had to be you. You make me strong, Killua. You make me confident in my abilities. I needed to see you to be able to muster what it took to create that much aura. Thought you woulda known that already. ”
You make me strong, Killua.
In that moment, the whole world seemed to resize so that it only contained the two of them and there was that inexplicable feeling again, in his chest, like an atomic bomb but so unbearably warm. Except this time, it wasn’t just his chest. He felt it everywhere. He was drenched in light, in Gon’s light. Gon’s expression remained solid, earnest. That boyish, naive answer… But then again, what else did he expect? This was the truth of Gon. This was the truth of their friendship. They were only half an entity without the other. He was just relieved Gon felt it too. It was so atypical… To be needed and appreciated in this way that he was left at an utter loss for words and with the weirdest urge to wrap his arms around Gon and hold onto him as tightly as possible. For as long as possible.
As if maybe… Just maybe… If he didn’t have that human anchor, he might lose him forever. That he might someday disappear just like that and leave Killua with this giant hole inside of him. No… He wouldn’t let his mind go there. He wouldn’t be able to bear it. Not yet. Not today.
Gon chuckled softly. “What is it?” he mumbled. “Why are you making that face?”
Killua bit his lip. “What face?”
“I don’t know but your eyes get all bulgy and big, kinda like the moon, and you start to stare at me like you’ve never seen me before.”
“It’s called disbelief. Look it up in the dictionary sometime.”
Gon laughed again. “Who needs a dictionary when I have you? You’re smarter.”
“I’m smarter than a dictionary?”
“Of course you are!”
“You’re such a moron, Gon,” Killua muttered, but he couldn’t help but break into a little smile of his own.
His heart was drowning in honey.
“Don’t you believe me? You gotta!” Gon said, and then dropped Killua’s left hand.
“There we go,” Gon was grinning like crazy now, as he finished up the bandages. “All patched up! I hope you heal fast.”
“I feel perfectly alright but I guess I’m obligated to thank you now,”
“Guess you gotta give me a thank-you hug!”
“Not a hugger.”
“Don’t care!”
Before Killua could protest, Gon was leaping at him. The other boy crashed into him so hard that Killua actually doubled backwards. Gon was so much stronger than he realized, even when he wasn’t using his full strength, and Killua had been so caught off-guard he’d actually managed to knock the air right from his lungs.
Instead of the gesture feeling aggressive though, it felt like an overspilling of warmth.
The sturdiest thing he had ever felt in his entire life.
Gon pressed his face into Killua’s neck and suddenly he could feel Gon’s breath against his collarbone and now there was this sudden, enticed pang at the bottom of his stomach.
It felt like swallowing a clenched fist.
It didn’t feel real.
Then again, nothing did these days.
Human beings were so much warmer than he’d thought they would be when they were alive and sane. It was probably saying something that ninety nine point nine percent of all his previous human contact had pretty much been reserved for a bunch of corpses and the arms of his psychotic mother.
Slowly… He allowed for the barest touch, his freshly bandaged hands resting half an inch off Gon’s lower back.
Killua closed his eyes. Just for a moment. Just allowing himself to be caught up in the feel of Gon’s body against his. Something solid and whole and unrepentant.
Something awake.
Something alive.
If I could just have this, even just for half a minute…
As if reading his mind, Gon wrapped his arms around Killua’s neck just a little bit tighter.
“You’re not cold, are you? Your skin feels cold,” his voice was muffled against Killua’s skin.
“Dunno. Why’s yours so warm?”
“Oh, I’m normal!” Gon muttered, into Killua’s hair.
“Okay,” Killua said. Gon smelled like a candy that’d been left out in the sun and the saltwater body beyond them, hefty with moonlight. “You can get off me now.”
“What’s the hurry?” Gon asked, innocently.
“What if someone sees us?” Killua hissed.
“So? We’re just hugging! Isn’t that what friends do?” Gon asked, pulling himself up onto his elbows and blinking at Killua curiously from beneath a haze of dark lashes.
“I’m not really the expert.” Killua replied, his cheeks still warm.
“Okay!” Gon pushed himself up and off of Killua, and Killua couldn’t help but feel the abrupt loss of Gon’s body heat so completely that it made his heart sink. “If it made you uncomfortable,”
“No,” Killua remedied, immediately. “It’s not that - It’s just. I…” He let out a frustrated puff of air.
“It’s okay,” Gon was smiling again. How was it that smiling seemed to come so easily to him when all the world around him did was give him reasons not to? It was something else he admired about his best friend: that relentless optimism. Bright as the galaxy.
Killua shoved his bandaged hands into his pockets and pulled his knees up to his chest. Gon turned to stare out at the ocean. “We really should get a move on,” Killua murmured.
If we don’t, I’m going to want to stay imprisoned in this moment with you forever. And that’s not okay. That’s crossing the unspeakable…
“Yeah,” Gon replied, unmoving.
Killua nudged his best friend’s shoulder.
“I’m serious!”
“Yeah,”
“Gon,”
“It reminds me of home,” Gon said, softly.
Killua blinked, then turned to watch the beach beyond them. It did sort of remind him of Whale Island. There was this glistering implosion of stars in the sky that you were never privy to in the city. There was the coalesced silver-blue of the moon painting shadows along the gentle midnight waters. There was the fresh scent of wildflowers abuzz in the air like hope reimagined… And there was Gon. Fitting into it all like the puzzle piece the picture was missing.
Of course, Gon made everywhere bigger.
Everything around Gon grew and inched towards him like sunflowers to the sun. He belonged to the world, and the world belonged to him.
How liberating that must be… The fact that you’ve let me be a part of this, a part of you… If I could just tell you… If I could just… Killua swallowed hard.
“Do you miss it?” he asked.
“Of course I do. So much!” Gon nodded.
For some reason, Killua’s stomach shrunk. Just a little bit.
“But I feel less homesick when I’m with you,” Gon continued, before giving a short, almost surprised laugh. “You’re like if home was a person.”
“Quit it,” Killua insisted.
At this rate, he’d forgotten all about the pain, but there was a different sort of underlying pain, glimmering beneath his chest, just underneath his heart. It was a pain of quiet waters and overcast evenings. It wasn’t as hurtful as it was peaceful. It made him feel something.
“Nope,” Gon turned to Killua and nudged his shoulder. “You like hearing it.”
Killua turned away, wishing someone could pull theatre curtains over his face to hide the hot pink flush that graced his cheeks. “Do not!”
“You lie about as well as I avoid trouble.” Gon mumbled.
“You couldn’t avoid trouble if you faked your own death and moved to Antarctica.” Killua pointed out.
“Exactly!” Gon said.
Killua groaned, softly, but Gon just shot him a small, reassuring smile.
Full of teasing and warmth and just pure stardust and everything felt like it was going to be alright again.
Maybe Gon really was just playing stupid. Maybe he knew. Maybe he would never know.
It didn’t matter. In this moment, Killua was with his best friend, and nothing else in the world mattered.
So they sat there for a few more silent, moon-bathed minutes, their elbows touching, their eyes grazing the star-bitten horizon, their faces aglow.
Yup, Killua thought again. Chest heavy and light at the same time. Nothing else in the world mattered.
They looked out into the ocean together.