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“Gon...”
“Hm?” The freckled teenager leans down to pick up another shell. He inspects it carefully with honey colored eyes and Killua watches him in turn.
“Isn’t it getting kind of late?” Killua asks.
“Is it?” Gon finally looks away from the shell to the orange and scarlet tinted sky. He blinks, as if surprised to see the sun dipping down low to graze the ocean’s horizon.
Killua snorts. Of course Gon hadn’t noticed the time. The human was surprisingly oblivious about the simplest of things. But Killua could feel his scales shifting and changing colors in reaction to the slowly dimming light. There's no way the setting sun could escape his attention.
“Yes, it is. The sun is setting—” ‘and the water is growing colder,’ he adds silently. Not good for vulnerable humans like Gon, “—and you should probably get back to the mainland soon. Won’t your aunt be worried?”
“Mm...probably.”
Killua groans out loud and Gon rushes to assure him, “It’s okay, Killua! Really! She’ll just assume I got held back with some lifeguard stuff.” He spots the skeptical expression on Killua’s face. “We can head back soon, I promise. I just need to get a few more of these.”
He holds up the shell, a hopeful grin gracing his lips. Some of the anxiety in Killua’s chest loosens at the sight and he sighs in defeat.
“Okay,” he says, dropping his head to lean on his crossed forearms. “Fine. Just a bit longer. But if you don’t hurry up, I’ll resort to threats.”
A whine from Gon. “Killuaaaaa—”
“Don’t ‘Killua’ me! You can’t get back to the beach without me, remember? You have to listen to me, you don’t have a choice.”
Gon sticks out his tongue, but the edges of his eyes crinkle with a smile. “Meanie!”
“Stupid,” Killua shoots back and Gon lets out a bark of laughter. Their banter is a part of their everyday conversations—had been, since the day they met months and months ago at the start of the summer, in the middle of the open sea—and it’s something Killua looks forward to every day.
Killua continues to lean up against the rocky edge of the tide pool, his inhuman eyes following Gon as he shuffles around the pools of water. Whenever Gon finds a shell to his liking, he makes a satisfied hum and puts it in the small pouch around his waist. The pouch must be nearly full by now. Gon had been at this shell-collecting thing all day.
“Why do you collect so many of the shells anyway?” Killua finally asks a few minutes later. He swishes his tail around behind him, just to keep it covered in the salty water and prevent it from drying out. “There’s a ton of shells all over the main beach. It’s not like they’re special or anything.”
“Me and my Aunt Mito collect them!” Gon says cheerfully. Killua’s heard bits and pieces about this ‘Aunt Mito’ over the past summer. She must be an amazing woman if Gon’s word are anything to go by. “We have jars of them around our house.”
“Yeah, but... why?” Killua asks again. At least the shells and shards beach glass woven in his own white locks have a purpose. Humans, though—they didn’t wear shells. They’re not considered a show of status, or clan ranking, or anything else. So why did Gon collect them, when no one else seemed to care?
“Because!” Gon says in that stubborn tone of his. “They’re pretty!”
Killua holds back another groan. That’s not an answer. It’s not even close to an answer—
Gon looks at him then, his gaze like molten gold under the light of the setting sun. It steals the breath from Killua’s lungs and his scales tingle with electric sparks. Gon can stir up all sorts of emotions inside Killua without even trying—without even blinking.
“You collect them, too,” Gon says and Killua looks at him blankly. “You wear them in your hair, and in your jewelry!”
Killua flushes. The blush paints his unnaturally pale skin a dark pink, traveling from the nape of his neck to his cheeks to the tips of his ears. “Th-That’s different.”
Because they were. Gon didn’t understand the importance of the moon shells hanging across the back of Killua’s skull, nor the purple sand glass shards that had been woven into a braid next to his bangs. He didn’t see how the shell was a symbol of his family. Nor that the sand glass from Alluka meant he had pledged himself to starting a new clan with her—and only her.
(Gon hadn’t fully understood the meaning of their underwater kiss, either. But Killua would sooner drown than explain that .)
Gon isn’t a mermaid, no matter how fascinating and utterly amazing Killua sees him. How can he possibly understand anything of the merpeople’s life?
“Why?”
Killua looks back up to see Gon frowning at him.
“How is me collecting the shells any different than what you do?” Gon asks him. “You think they’re pretty too, don’t you?”
“Y-Yes, but...” Killua struggles to come up with a practical answer. It’s difficult, and he’s not sure if he wants to tell Gon the entire truth, so he settles on the simple version.
He points to the shells woven in his own silvery hair, saying, “I was given these. For a specific purpose.”
“To make you look pretty,” Gon says matter-of-factly, and Killua grits his teeth hard . He does his best to avoid thinking about the blush spreading across his face and scales. It would be too embarrassing to acknowledge the affect Gon’s words had on him.
So he swears instead, “Dammit, Gon.” And Gon laughs in kind. It’s a laugh of sunlight and warm air, the shine of the ocean on a bright, clear day.
“Killua,” Gon says, his smile as brilliant as his laugh. “Look, here—”
He squats next to where Killua is resting on the rocky edge of the tide pool, then gently takes Killua’s cold, scaly hand in his warm, calloused one. Killua lets him, scales and skin tingling alike, and watches numbly as Gon presses one of his shells into Killua’s palms.
“—to make you even more pretty!” Gon finished proudly.
Killua’s throat closes up. The shell is beautiful, almost a perfect circle with little ridges and valleys in even swirls. It’s a scarlet orange color; the color of the sun, of Gon’s eyes. It’s everything Killua has ever dreamed of, and nothing he can ever accept.
Because Gon isn’t a mermaid. He doesn’t understand.
“Gon. I...” Killua swallows thickly. “I can’t accept this.”
“Yes, you can! It’s a gift. And Aunt Mito says you always have to accept gifts, even if you don’t like them.”
Killua can feel his blush growing darker with each passing second. “It’s not that I don’t like it, stupid. I just can’t accept it.”
He tries to hold the shell out to Gon but Gon jumps away, sending a splash of saltwater into the air. Killua bites his cheek in frustration, then says through gritted teeth. “Gon, please. You don’t understand.”
For the first time that day, a frown darkens Gon’s face. He returns to kneel in front of Killua in the shallow water of the pool and takes the shell back, but it’s clear from the scowl tugging at his lips that he’s anything but happy about it. “Then help me to understand! You can’t just give my gift back then not explain, Killua!”
Killua groans. He knew that look on Gon’s face: it was pure, iconic stubbornness. Gon wasn’t going to give up until Killua gave him a straight answer. And, well...
Killua’s answer was anything but straight.
“These, uh, shells.” Killua gently touched the fragile pendants woven into his locks. “They’re a sight of my social class. Of my clan—the Zoldyck Family. And of my coming to age, and a bunch of o-other stuff...”
“Oh.” Gon blinks, like he understands even though Killua knows he doesn’t. “You mean kind of like a driver’s license?”
Now Killua is the one to blink. “A what?”
Gon’s lip twitches as if Killua had said something funny. “Never mind. Does that mean you can’t keep my shell unless it’s part of some social standing thing?”
He stares at Killua with his full attention. The intensity of his gaze is unnerving. It makes something flutter in Killua’s stomach, his heart to beat just a little bit faster. He splashes his tail in the water behind him to expand some of the nervous energy, stammering, “Y-Yeah. Exactly. I can only accept shells from elders, or other direct family members. If you gave me a shell...it would mean...”
“Would mean?” Gon presses.
Killua’s blush returns in full force, painting his cheeks the same color of the pink sky above their heads. “It would mean that you were c-courting me.”
Finally, Gon seems to understand. His eyebrows shoot up, mouth falling open in an ‘o’ . “Courting...you mean, like dating?”
Killua looks away, choosing instead to focus on the sunbeams pattern in the water. “Yeah. But more, uh, permanent. If you get what I mean.”
“Oh.”
A pause. Killua can hear his own heartbeat thumping away in his ears. Gon’s shell feels heavy in his palm, like it knew it shouldn’t be there. He wants to toss it back into the ocean, out of sight and out of mind, because never in a trillion years would Gon ever—
“I mean,” Gon says suddenly, causing Killua’s heart to twist sharply. “I wouldn’t mind that too much?”
Killua’s head snaps up. “What?!”
“I—I mean.” Gon finally blushes. Freckles pop out across his cheeks and nose as his bronze skin darkens, and Killua stares at him with fascination. He’s never seen Gon so flustered. Gon isn’t the kind to get embarrassed.
But he is now, apparently.
“I l-like you? Um. I like you a lot,” Gon confesses and a euphoric feeling rushes over Killua like a wave. He doesn’t dare to breathe as Gon continues his confession through stammered out sentences, “Killua, being with you made this summer the best months of my entire life. You’re amazing, I think. And beautiful, and incredible in lots of ways. I wouldn’t mind courting you if it meant we could spend more time together. And...I really liked k-kissing you earlier. I wouldn’t, um, mind it if we did it some more?”
Gon’s words, while hesitant and clumsy, mean more than the entire ocean to Killua. But it also makes him nervous, because he isn’t sure that Gon himself exactly understands what he is trying to say.
“Gon, that’s...” Killua groans, dragging a webbed hand down the side of his face. “That’s just it.”
“What?”
“The kiss!” Killua says, cheeks a flame and blush spreading all the way to the tips of his ear fins. “To you, the kiss was just a way to help you breathe underwater. So you could come here to this tide pool.”
In his mind, Killua hears their voices from just a few hours ago—
“I wanted more shells for Aunt Mito, but I don’t think she’d like these...”
“I know a place.”
“You do?”
“Yeah. But you would have to be able to breathe underwater to get there.”
“Oh...”
“I can help with that.”
Killua takes a deep, shaking breath. He remembers exactly how Gon’s lips had felt against his when Killua breathed air and magic into his mouth. He remembers how Gon’s short-lived gills wriggled into existence on Gon’s neck, under Killua’s fingers. He remembers how the deep blush on Gon’s freckles cheeks burned underwater.
Killua will remember how Gon looked in that moment for the rest of his life, he’s sure of it.
“K-Kissing at all, even if it was just to help you breathe underwater...that’s a big step in the courting process for my people,” Killua says. It’s mortifying to even admit this, to have to explain it. Merpeople only kissed those they expected to marry. They only kissed humans to toy with them before pulling them deep, deep down to be drowned.
“Does that mean we’re already courting, then?” Gon asks and the question is so jarring that it feels like ice water has just been dumped over Killua’s head. Gon continues innocently, “I mean. You kissed me a bunch of times so I could get here.”
“Gon…” Killua drops his head into the shallow water of the tide pool. Water splashes everywhere, his bangs getting soaked as they land directly into the pool. The movement hides his blazing red face. “You’re missing the point.”
“What point?”
Killua explodes, head snapping up to shout at Gon, “Merpeople mate for life, stupid! If—If you’re really serious about the courting thing, we would be together forever!”
Killua’s breathing heavy when he finishes his outburst. His breaths come out in short pants and sea water runs down his face from his wet bangs. He’s glaring at Gon with daggers for eyes—trying to mentally will him to understand just what is at stake here—but Gon just looks back at him curiously.
Why is he looking at Killua like that?!
Gon cocks his head at Killua. Then he says, “Is that a bad thing?”
Killua’s jaw drops. Because— what?!
“What?” he echoes aloud.
“I already said I like you, Killua!” Gon exclaims passionately. “I wouldn’t have said all that stuff if I didn’t mean it!”
“You...” Killua can hear the blood rushing through his ear-fins. “You’re crazy.”
“I am not!” Gon retorts hotly, seemingly offended. “I just.” His brow furrows and Killua’s heart does a strange little stutter. “I care about you. A lot. You’re my best friend. And I really would like it if we could be more.”
“W-We’re different species!”
“Does that bother you?”
Killua’s face is in flames again. “I’m...I mean...” He swallows thickly before admitting quietly, “No...”
“Okay, then.” Gon’s face glows with a giddy, flushed beam. “What’s the problem? You like me, and I like you!”
“I—I never said—!”
“Tell me I’m wrong, then,” Gon cuts him off sharply and Killua’s mouth shuts with a click. He wasn’t sure to be angry or horribly embarrassed at having his feelings been called out so bluntly by the very person of his affections—
Gon says quietly, “Sorry, I shouldn’t have pushed out like that.” He twiddles his thumbs, before glancing at Killua again. “Maybe I am wrong. Maybe you already have someone in mind that you’d rather be with?”
“I don’t.” The words spills out of Killua’s mouth before he can stop them. He feels himself flush even darker and inwardly curses. “We. We actually came here to find mates. My family, I mean. We make the same trip every year to try and find someone for all of my siblings. I’ve never found anyone. Until...Until I found you, at least.”
Gon grins broadly. He looks absolutely thrilled as he says, “Yeah?”
Killua bites his lip. His stomach is twisting and churning—he can’t ever remember feeling felt this anxious before. “Y-Yeah. And, knowing you...you’ve made this summer the best time of my life.”
Gon lights up at Killua’s words. It’s almost hard to look at him with the pure joy he’s radiating. It eases Killua’s nerves a bit, because Gon wouldn’t react that way if he didn’t care, if...if he didn’t want the same thing that Killua did.
“So...?” Gon prompts, gently, like he knows Killua well enough that he shouldn’t push him too far.
“S-So,” Killua stammers out. He can’t believe he’s saying this—that Gon said all of that. It all feels like some sort of dream. “So I wouldn’t, uh. Mind it. Being with you. But, Gon, it would be...really, really difficult for there to be, well, anything between us. It would be next to impossible, actually—”
“So?” Gon repeats and Killua makes an incredulous noise at the back of his throat.
“So, Gon, I don’t want to tie you to a mermaid for the rest of your life! You’d have to stay close to the water, always, and I don’t want to force you to—”
“I don’t mind staying close to the water!” Gon interrupts loudly, leaning in close to Killua with a determined look in his gold eyes. “And you’re not anyone—you’re Killua! My best friend. Nothing is impossible as long as we’re together!”
Killua gawks at him. Again. He’d always known Gon was crazy but...
But this was just totally and completely insane.
“I don’t mind it, Killua,” Gon insists and edges closer to the mermaid. “Really. I don’t care as long as I’m with you.”
Killua blushes. He can’t believe he’s hearing this. Of all the things he expected to happen when he met Gon Freecss, this was probably the very last thing on a list Gon continues to cross off.
“...as long as you don’t mind being tied down to a mermaid,” Killua finally relents, weakly.
“As long as you don’t mind being tied to a human,” Gon teases right back and Killua makes a sound that’s a cross between a huff and a laugh.
“I wouldn’t.” Killua hesitates, before steeling his will and grabbing Gon’s sticky, salt-covered hand. Killua holds on tight, squeezing. “Not ever.”
Gon squeezes his webbed and pale hand back immediately. “I’m the same.” He holds out his free hand, eyes soft and impossibly warm. In his palm is the same shell he’d offered to Killua not even five minutes ago.
Killua stares at the shell. His heart is thudding erratically and it’s hard to breathe around the adrenaline rushing through his veins. This is it. There’s no turning back after this.
He glances up at Gon, who looks back expectantly. Killua asks, one last time, “Are you sure?” Everything is happening so fast that he feels winded, dizzy, high off of the intense emotions coursing through him.
“Absolutely, Killua.” There’s not an ounce of doubt in Gon’s voice. “As long as we get to stay together, that’s all that matters to me. As long as I get to stay with you.”
Killua smiles so widely that his cheeks ache. He can’t remember the last time he smiled so much, and so hard. And it’s all because of Gon.
So. He takes the shell from Gon, pale and long fingers curling around the fragile ridges until he can feel every bump and curve. He recognizes it now as a sundial shell, small but beautiful and bold.
‘This shell is mine,’ Killua thinks, before looking up at Gon. ‘This human—Gon Freecss—is mine.’
The grin Gon gives him in turn is blinding. He quickly shuffles backwards to make room as Killua lets go of his hand and pulls himself out of the water. Rivers of the ocean drip off his scales as he plops down next to Gon in the shallows. He can feel Gon’s heavy gaze on him while he carefully works the shell into his silver hair, and it makes him feel hot and tingling all over. Gon is staring at him like he’s entranced, like Killua is all of his dreams come true.
“H-How’s this?” Killua asks Gon, trying not to feel self conscious at the way Gon’s golden brown eyes are raking over him. He turns his head to show off the new braid that encased the orange-scarlet shell Gon had given him.
“It’s beautiful,” Gon breathes, voice soft enough to be a prayer, and Killua turns redder than the setting sun behind them.
“I—I’m supposed to give you one, too. Like a trade. Here.” He digs into his pouch embedded in his scales and pulls out a blue-purple shell. He’d found it ages ago, only a week or two after he first met Gon, and had been carrying it around ever since. It’s a gorgeous triton shell shell, with a delicate curl as in curves into itself. Killua had gone so far as to string a thin strand of silvery thread through the shell’s small opening at one end and make it into a necklace for Gon to wear.
Killua runs his thumb over the smooth edge, heart hammering against his ribs. He doesn’t know what humans exchange when promising something as important and meaningful as this. But he hopes— prays —Gon will cherish it anyway.
‘Please let Gon like it,’ he says silently. ‘Please.’
“H-Here.” He quickly turns to face Gon and lifts the necklace over the human’s head. He’d made sure to make it a long necklace, and when Killua released the thread, the shell bounced against the center of Gon’s bare chest just like he’d hoped it would.
Gon looks down at the shell curiously, lightly touching it with the tips of his fingers. Killua watches with baited breath. There’s a sort of swelling feeling inside him at seeing Gon with his shell. This is it, for him. Gon is it, and the knowledge of what that means makes is face grow warmer than the brightest sun.
After a pause, Gon looks back up at him. There’s an elated smile growing across his cheeks, a redness in his skin that could only be a blush. “How does it look?” he asks Killua, sounding almost breathless.
Killua bites his lip. “It’s...beautiful.”
Gon is so much more than beautiful. But right now Killua is feeling so overwhelmed that ‘beautiful’ is the best adjective he can come up with.
Gon’s gaze softens. “You’re the beautiful one, Killua.”
Killua’s breath catches in his throat. He can feel his fins flapping in the air, trying to expel some of the nervous giddiness that always comes with Gon and his blunt compliments. “St-Stupid...”
Gon laughs lightly. He brings one warm and calloused hand to brush against Killua’s pale skin. The touch is so gentle Killua almost doesn’t feel it, but he leans in towards Gon all the same. Their foreheads meet, and the pair simply stare at each other for a long moment. Bright blue clashes with glowing golden-brown. Killua thinks he could drown in Gon’s eyes, if he really wanted to. He could fall right in and never come back.
“Hey...Killua?” Gon murmurs.
“Yeah?” Killua says, just as quiet.
“Can we try kissing again?”
Killua’s heart twists. Figures. Now Gon wants to return to the main beach. “You want to go back home?” he asks, unable to keep the trace of disappointment from lacing into his words.
Gon laughs again—a chuckle under his breath. “No,” he says, kindly, patiently. “I want to kiss you. For real, this time. Y’know, how couples do.”
“Oh.” Killua is so embarrassed he has to break Gon’s intense gaze. He feels incredibly stupid for mistaking something so obvious, but his mortification melts away when Gon’s hand moves from his cheek to grasp his chin.
He doesn’t breathe as Gon angles his head back towards him. Gon smiles and his eyes drift downward ever so slightly. He uses his thumb to graze Killua’s lower lip, and every nerve in Killua comes alive with metaphorical sparks.
He can feel everything. The setting sun’s rays warming his skin, water dripping off his hair and falling onto his tail, the subtle shading of his scales to match the blues and purples in the sky over their heads.
And Gon. His warm skin and warmer eyes. His breath as it brushes Killua’s lips, his calloused hands on Killua’s chin and neck. His freckled face as he grows closer and closer and closer—
Until finally, their lips meet. It’s gentle, soft. Tender enough to make Killua’s fins flap and his tail to twist against the rocky bottom of the tide pool. He sighs through his nose as Gon’s fingers dig into his skin and presses even further against the human. Gon’s lips are warm, a layer of salt coating everything Killua tastes. It sends a shiver down his spine and a strange twist in his gut.
He likes it, kissing Gon. It makes him want to be even closer to Gon than he is now because he can never, ever get close enough to Gon. He wants to make himself the center of Gon’s universe, just as Gon has become the center of his.
One of Gon’s hands slide upwards to twist into wet silvery-hair and Killua makes a quiet noise into Gon’s mouth. There’s a low responding rumble in Gon’s chest, deep enough to make Killua shudder. He wraps his arms around Gon’s tanned, fin-less torso as tight as he can without hurting him. Gon’s free hand is running down the scales on his neck and it feels so incredibly good, it makes Killua wonder how good they’d feel in other places—
And they break apart, Gon taking a huge gulp of air and Killua’s gills quivering. They stare at each other, both panting, both red-cheeked and eyes-glazed, and Killua’s heart swells like a wave at the look of lust and adoration in Gon’s gaze.
“Wow,” Gon says and Killua laughs quietly.
“Yeah,” he says and leans his forehead against Gon’s, a broad smile stretching across his face. “Wow.”
Because, really, what else was there to say?