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one.
There are rules that come with being a Zoldyck, all of which Killua has committed to memory. He doesn’t like most of them, so he strikes out sometimes on a whim, just to show that he can. He doesn’t have much else to do anyway, at least anything that isn’t solely dictated by his family.
When he runs away from Kukuroo Mountain, the shriek from his mother still ringing in his ears, he does so knowing full well the punishment which awaits him upon his return. He hopes the mystery of the Hunter exam will be worth that, but even if it’s not, at least there’s a bit of excitement in the unknown, the challenging.
It doesn’t end the way Killua wanted, a friendship snatched from him; it does so abruptly, in a vortex of bottomless inky eyes and his disqualification. Before he realizes it, Killua was presenting himself for discipline and taking each beating in stride. He comes to accept it as retribution for relapsing without a reason, lets Milluki sink his whips in, holds still, and takes it.
Killua shatters one chain when Milluki mentions his friends, as if that’s the trigger it took for him to burst from his restraints. It surprises him how easily he lets go of his pretense, since he’s been playing at this game for years. He’s never cared to break out of the expectations shackling him, because while he didn’t want his life mapped out for him, every other possibility has always remained in the form of capped bottles and blurry sketches. He probably could’ve done this years ago.
But until he met Gon, he didn’t have a reason to.
Gon knew Killua didn’t need rescuing, but he wanted to do it anyway. After all, he’d been fine without Ging all these years, but that didn’t mean he liked feeling left behind.
two.
Killua is his best friend and the most amazing person he’s ever met. Gon’s said this repeatedly, stands by it everyday. If he says it enough, maybe one day Killua will say it back, instead of letting his hands fall flustered by his side, brushing off Gon’s heartfelt confessions like they’re dirty.
It’s not Killua’s fault he can’t return Gon’s affection so easily. Killua treats certain emotions like they’re sacred, keeps it all tight under wraps like he’s afraid. And Gon, well, he can’t read Killua’s mind. Even so, Killua’s stuck by him for so long, he must like Gon too, right?
When Killua leaves with Alluka, Gon understands that it’s the last straw. Killua still keeps quiet, keeps it cool in his collected, infuriating way. Even as Gon says we’ll always be friends like it’s a goddamn farewell and looks into Killua’s full, affirmative eyes, he has a tinge of doubt, wondering if Killua’s never wanted this at all. Maybe it was just Gon, projecting all this time, wanting Killua, strong, smart, amazing, beautiful Killua to want him too.
Killua can’t say any of these feelings out loud, these agonizing, earth-shattering feelings. He doesn’t know how.
three.
Killua folds up all his strategies like origami and tosses them out the side door. He waits for his pulse to calm for the first time where the stakes are real, but all he gets are currents of fear seeping into his heels, grounding him.
It would be okay, if he could fight this branded instinct to flee for even a second, long enough to get Gon out of the Troupe’s hands.
The rest of the times come easily in turn, never even a question to Killua until Bisky shoots him with it point blank, and Killua has to come alive with Illumi’s poison. He forcibly expels it, pulls it from his bloodstream because he can’t let this ruin him, he can’t fail, he’s not done yet –
The next time, he’s rushing into the palace and he senses the fear snaking up his calves. Killua surges through it with wild exhilaration and danger coursing through his veins, lit up with hitched oxygen when he chooses to fight it. It should be so ironic that Killua feels so alive when he’s rushing in to die.
In that room staring opposite Nobunaga, Gon doesn’t let Killua, doesn’t even consider it. The two of them are a team, all or nothing, and Gon never takes nothing as an answer.
On the dodgeball court, he knows what he’s sacrificing, and Killua selflessly lets him. They don’t say a word before, during, and after, just acts. Gon regrets it, pinpoints it as the moment their communication broke down, when they became a singular pronoun.
He didn’t think of it like leaving Killua behind, forgets that they’re a team because Killua didn’t know Kite, isn’t responsible, can’t possibly feel the damp tears sewn under his skin, how weak his fists feel by his side. He almost forgets about Killua altogether, until he sees Killua so small, glowing electric white with nothing but open-eyed terror. That’s when it registers that oh, Killua’s frightened of him.
(for him? of him? it feels the same)
four.
It could only be Killua, Gon realizes, means much more to him now, applies to everything from the mundane to the extraordinary. He was much smarter in his youth, saying out loud all these words he’s never had to think twice about, words that burst from his chest like cannons of starlight. Gon learns that this kind of love isn’t so different. It’s not something he needs to think about; it just is, even when it isn’t said in as many words.
Killua’s probably loved Gon a lot longer than he would like to admit. It still flusters him to whisper the word out loud, love, like a trembling rose about to explode.
five.
Killua doesn’t dream – he sleeps in fleeting pauses and fragments, his mind just barely alert enough to not slip. He knows Gon dreams from the mumbles from their Heaven’s Arena days, sprawled out so open and carelessly. Then Bisky added the rope and boulder to their routines, and Killua listened as Gon’s dreams whittled away. The night before the showdown, Bisky had told them to get a real good night’s rest, and Killua watched in amazement as Gon curled into a medley of snores, sighs, and names. He caught Ging’s a few times, and then his own – his heart skipped a beat, wired heavily with envy that Gon was like a tap, could turn it on and off.
Months later, the names morphed to Kite and Pitou and Killua trembled from the dark tinges settling in Gon’s bated breath with nowhere else to go.
Killua has nightmares while wide awake – the flashes come in the shapes of bulky strangers, tingles in Godspeed, the pixels in his text messages. They contort into rippling muscles and shadows for eyes, black willowy hair that shoot to the sky and an aura too ugly for Killua to bear. That version of Gon is terrifying, the embodiment of recklessness and rage, an unrestrained child in the body of an adult.
Killua always forgets that he’s not an adult either and some days he questions if he’s ever been a child at all, the way he’s been trained to be better than that by bypassing it altogether.
(He flies through memories of teaching Gon how to skateboard in the Trick Tower, how they had disintegrated into pillow fights and Gon had not once, shied away from him – as if they were just two kids laughing over pointless games while scratches of blood dried beneath Killua’s nails, where a heart once hollowly beat.
He recalls the wild aquamarine waters of Whale Island, the bristling grass beneath his fingers, the smell of a mother’s love, and thinks perhaps he was a child once, just exploring the world with his friend.)
Gon doesn’t want to remember that night, except his conscience won’t let it go, drags in stray pieces as penance. He dreams of wrung-out blue blood spatters, the wild all-encompassing blaze of jajanken, and the howling, frantic, heartbreaking cry of his name.
But it is the sound of Killua’s footsteps haunt him. How is it that he’s never paid attention to it before? Killua’s always been excellent at zetsu, and Gon’s never had to look back to sense in his core that Killua’s not far behind, light on ghostly steps and glancing a few more ahead.
But Killua’s not here anymore, and the silence around Gon is deafening.
six.
Ging said the way to apologize to a friend is to promise to do things differently next time, and to keep that promise no matter what. Gon first blubbered all over himself when he apologized to Killua, the emotion welling and spilling way over the kind of apology Killua deserves. He wanted to promise Killua he’s sorry, that he’d do things differently, that he’d never be so careless again. He does exactly that weeks later over a call because the guilt was eating him alive, how could they have departed after leaving it at that?
It strikes Gon later that Ging had never apologized to him. He isn’t Ging’s friend, and Ging had never indicated he’d want to do things differently given the chance. So is that the kind of apology he really wanted to emulate? Every word of it was true – but Ging is Ging, and Gon is Gon. And to Gon, this apology was never supposed to be about him – it’s supposed to be about Killua.
The first time they meet up in person, a year and a half later on Whale Island, what he says to Killua is this: I’m sorry I didn’t count on you when I should have the most, that I left you to clean up my mess. I should have trusted you to be there with me, we were supposed to be a team, and I’m so sorry I hurt you and pushed you aside.
Killua smacks him, but his smile is bashful and kind, glowing with the glimmer of something rare and true.
It wasn’t hard to forgive Gon. Killua would have probably forgiven Gon for almost anything, because that’s the kind of leeway you give to the person who gave your life meaning. And when that person apologizes for his faults, genuine and shaking as if the words were a fragile, wavering bridge between you, you forgive him so he can cross onto the other side.
After all, Gon’s the one who never looked at him differently despite death laced in his genes, who looked at him like he was amazing instead of appalling, who forgave him for his crimes before he knew what they were.
seven.
Alcohol is a poison, so naturally Killua is immune to it. A shame really, since he finally reached an age where he could consume this one poison at least legally.
He goads Gon into taking liquor shots with him, one after another, because Gon is stubborn and doesn’t shy away from a challenge, even one that he’s certain to lose on paper. And with Killua, it’s all but a sealed affair. His mouth curls into a feline-like grin when Gon slams the table down with another empty shot glass, his hand shaky but already reaching for another. How is sheer stubbornness so alluring, even when it is so damn stupid?
Gon falls, chest heaving, cheeks flushed, eyes hazy, and remembers: ah, Killua’s immune to this isn’t he?
eight.
He graciously thanks Alluka and Nanika when Killua introduces them to him. There’s a million questions he should have asked then, because Gon definitely doesn’t miss the way Killua looks at Alluka – that’s not someone you just forget to talk about, so why hasn’t Killua?
At the back of his mind, Gon knows how banged up he must have been in that makeshift hospital. Yet this young, energetic girl could have made that all go away in ways no doctor or nen exorcist could; she must be something quite special. Killua doesn’t elaborate though, so it must be for a reason. He doesn’t want to push or badger Killua on it, especially when Killua’s the one who did him this favour of infinite proportions.
So instead, Gon waits, absorbs Killua’s love for his sister in sprinkles of texts and calls that feel like daydreams. When he learns about Nanika, the full truth of Nanika, fresh from feeling whole again with Killua, his jaw drops. No wonder Killua didn’t want to talk about it, when it could have put her in danger (but Killua could have trusted him, right?)
He’s eternally thankful for them, literally owes them his life, and yet he’s oddly, irrationally jealous. If not for his rash decisions, would Killua have stayed with him, just for a moment longer? He knows better now than to ask that of Killua, but isn’t it selfish that he thinks of it at all?
Killua had never meant to leave home for so long. He got pulled into Gon’s gravity so furiously that it felt a little too late to talk about Alluka, the sister he left behind. Every minute with Gon was enough to put Alluka off for another minute, just until he was strong enough to bust her free, but that’s not the only reason. If he told Gon about Alluka earlier, he thinks that could’ve changed their trajectory, could’ve changed everything.
But Killua’s dreams didn’t shine as bright as Gon’s, not until they intertwined at the intersection of Gon’s death and Killua’s family, and Killua finally made his choice.
nine.
Killua was always very perceptive. It makes things easy, when he’s in a tough spot in a fight to digest his surroundings, to make contingencies for every situation. It’s a gift, how he can take everything in all at once and absorb it in a split moment.
Killua didn’t expect that trait to backfire on him when he sees Gon again at seventeen: the way the sun kisses and cascades down his skin, dances across his toned muscles and chiseled jaw, catches the caramel of his eyes just right with light, still so full of warmth and sincerity. The joy in Gon’s eyes magnifies tenfold when his gaze meets Killua’s, and Gon’s vivaciously leaping towards him before Killua can feel his breath return to him, still dazed.
He can’t unsee how damn attractive his best friend is, adding a thick, sticky, complicated layer to their relationship. Killua swallows, hugs Gon back and tries to not lose himself in the scent of earth and home.
Every time Gon meets Killua again, his heart expands to make room for the endless list of reasons why Killua is the most incredible person he’s ever met.
How Killua can manage to become more beautiful each time they meet, Gon will never know. Aunt Mito tells him that absence makes the heart grow fonder, but this is so much beyond that. This time, Killua’s gotten taller again, his body lean and graceful and strong, his skin positively glowing under the sunlight. It’s really him, that pair of whimsical sapphire eyes, that distinguishable mop of much-too-fluffy white hair, that set of wise-cracking, sarcastic, gorgeous lips that Gon longs to touch with his own.
Gon’s dashing towards Killua before he realizes he’s in motion; he needs to be closer, so he can truly breathe Killua in.
ten.
At eighteen, Gon officially becomes an adult, but it feels surreal. The things that were entrusted to him as a hunter as a child feel much heavier than anything he’s done recently, which is wholly a good thing. He doesn’t wish the Chimera Ants or anything of that degree upon the world again for anything, and that burning desire of adventure that used to torment through his veins is much fainter now that he’s lived through the flip side, the consequences of hurting those close to him having done something beyond him.
Aunt Mito had let him go to the Hunter exam because she knew eventually she couldn’t hold him back from what was so important to him. When he came back, she asked him if finding Ging had been everything he expected. Gon thought about it, and explained Ging was right on one thing: the little detours were the best moments, not the destination. Aunt Mito laughed and said good, because life experiences are never what you imagine, and as you get older, you absorb those experiences and truly realize what’s important to you. People grow out of childhood dreams, meet those who change their worldview, decide who they want to be.
Gon takes his step into adulthood as a confirmation that if by now nothing has changed, then he’s lucky to have found his life pillars by the time he was twelve. So much has changed, and yet nothing has changed at all. Thus, Gon stands before Killua on his 18th birthday, his resolve steadfast and true. There’s a courage that swells in him, because he doesn’t want it to be too late, he’s lost so much time already.
I love you, please don’t go.
Killua stops in his tracks: and stays.
eleven.
Killua loves chocolate. He likes how sweet it is, how it melts on his tongue like nectar, a drug he’s happy to fall subject to over and over again.
Kisses are said to be sweet too, like chocolate. Killua disagrees vehemently, because kissing Gon is nothing like that. Gon doesn’t taste sweet at all, definitely not as sweet as the richness of chocolate, and if Killua doesn’t pay attention, he’d say Gon doesn’t taste like anything at all. But Gon also doesn’t go away the way sugar disappears on his tongue, because when they kiss Gon always pushes further, lapping at Killua like he’s as good as chocolate.
That doesn’t mean kisses are bad: they’re warm and send butterflies up and down Killua’s spine, they’re soft and hard and everything at once, they’re a vulnerability made whole.
Kisses can be as stable as filling in a missing puzzle piece, or a flare-up of fireworks in the midnight sky, but they’re not as sweet as chocolate, and Killua will never understand why people even bother comparing the two.
Gon cannot believe he gets to kiss Killua like this, be so close, fit neatly together.
He laughs when Killua tells him about the chocolate thing and offers to eat some before they kiss if Killua’s so inclined.
(afterwards, over a pout and a sigh, he’s told it really isn’t the same)
twelve.
The emails come, and Gon treasures each one. Places so secluded and beautiful, snippets of Killua and Alluka’s smiling faces, reminding Gon of how vast and gorgeous this world stretches on wide.
But there’s something beautiful to be said about Whale Island too. The calm and roar of the sea, the gentility of the villagers, the endless call of the sky. It’s home, no matter how many other wondrous sights exist out there, it’ll always be home.
Home rings at the core of Gon’s bones because the dirt of the forest remembers, as does each patch of the night sky. It is the soundness of the foundations of their family home, the footsteps of the past and all those who’ve come before them, the warmest embrace from those who love him. And while the calls of the wild will lure Gon away once in a while, the adventures calling his name, they will also always sing him home.
There’s no home for him and Alluka to go back to now, and that’s okay. They have each other, an entire world filled with welcoming arms and beauties to absorb. Home isn’t a static place, and Killua’s perfectly happy with that.
So why does his heart erupt with so much with happiness when Gon opens his home to them, time and time again, as if that’s where they belong?
thirteen.
His upbringing, his family, they’re a part of who he is, stamped and smouldered into the dark shadows of his soul, like an old movie playing on loop on the back of his eyelids. But he tells himself it’s in the past, and Killua bathes in sunlight now. It isn’t enough to cure the demons, but it’s a constant reminder that these cursed footsteps led him to somewhere better.
In his next life, Killua thinks he would like to be himself too, and meet Gon again. If he ends up here, the scars, the loneliness, the nightmares…he believes it would be worth the payoff for that brilliant, magnetic light of a man that makes his soul sing.
After how he’s lived through, how is Killua able to smile like that? Gon knows Killua is strong, but they all have their monsters, and they all have times when they’ll need to fall apart. Killua’s a good pretender, doesn’t burden others with things he doesn’t consider relevant.
Killua’s never considered his own pain relevant.
Gon wants to change that, wants Killua to treat himself like he’s the sun, not for anyone else’s sake but his own.
fourteen.
The first time Gon takes out someone on a date, he barely knows what he’s doing. But he’s young, and endearing, and he supposes that was enough for him to gain a reputation for it. Through listening and trial and error, he learns what girls like and he’s happy to make them smile. Years later, he combines all of those dates together and it culminates in Palm. That didn’t end in the greatest of ways, but Gon was quite proud of everything else before that, the actions he took to make her feel seen and special.
The first time Gon takes out Killua on a date, he realizes he had it all wrong. There are universal things that girls liked on a date with a guy they barely knew, things that don’t really apply to Killua. Because, well, Killua definitely is not just some girl and it’ll take a lot more than fireflies to convey how special Killua really is.
Dating is not formulaic, but the art of getting to know the object of your affections, catering to their form and not checking boxes of clichés. But still, Gon has a soft spot for clichés because Killua’s the only one who gets the date sealed with a kiss, and he quite likes how Killua’s cheeks glow rosy pink for him afterwards, shy but content.
Killua doesn’t really care for dates. The effort is high for such a low payoff for two people like them, two people who’ve been through more than enough to ever need to use flowers and chocolate as proxies to confirm their feelings. He always indulges Gon though, because Gon likes spoiling him with silly things like that, cherishes the label and their special moments. And who is Killua to deny that?
Every moment with Gon is something he treasures, date or not.
fifteen.
He tells Gon when Gon asks him about the story of Godspeed. It comes out because they’ve promised to be better at this, to not leave truths unturned. Killua tells Gon sheepishly, the story of how he and Ikalgo became friends so close at death’s door. He doesn’t mince the words when it comes to it, but he didn’t tell Gon for a reason back then, and it doesn’t make it easier for him to tell him now.
Initially, Gon doesn’t believe it. Then he retraces the call, sending the money, not hearing more on the subject, him having not asked. It isn’t just because of trust, but the thought didn’t even register in his blind hazy mind, how dangerous it all was.
He could’ve lost Killua. He could’ve lost Killua and not even known it until he was already gone. He could’ve died not knowing Killua went first. He’s not even sure how much more anger his body could’ve withstood, if there was any coming back from that. That’s why Killua didn’t say anything, Gon knows, but he should have. They both should’ve said so much.
Gon collapses and cries in Killua’s embrace, just cries and cries and holds Killua like he’s the most precious thing in the world.
sixteen.
Night is when everything comes to a reset. Sometimes he curls around Killua, heart to spine by still moonlight. Sometimes Killua turns around, huddles into a ball and fits into the curve of Gon’s neck, closes the space between their hearts. Sometimes, they’re just side to side, waiting for the other to fall to the allure of sleep first after a long day. They’ve had some of Gon’s favourite conversations like that, opening up their souls like spilled ink.
They’ve held each other through nightmares, dry screams and throaty denials, tracing each other’s physical and mental scars like a map route. They’ve fallen asleep without the covers on, with sweat still clinging to their skin, limbs overlapping together like a promise. Gon’s fallen asleep mid-sentence more than once, and Killua never lets him forget it.
Nights used to be so lonely and cold, so predictable.
Now, Gon is a freaking furnace in bed. It’s oftentimes a discomfort, makes Killua wake up in a pool of sweat from a loveable idiot instead of a chilling afterimage. It’s also a welcomed presence, a reassuring presence, like the waxing of an eternal candle, like the sun never sets.
seventeen.
There were so many times when Killua’s looked at Gon’s back, his side profile, snuck glances because he’s been trained to be aware of all his surroundings, and he’s always been just close to Gon.
Gon was the one who always looked ahead, and Killua follows – he has Gon’s back. That’s all it was, despite how he hung his head in avoidance so quick when Gon looked back with a shining smile, face hot but not knowing why.
He was most likely, definitely, in love then.
But it’s a hard habit to kick. Being with Gon doesn’t stop him from staring longingly and it sure doesn’t stop him from blushing either when he gets caught like a lovesick puppy. It’s embarrassing to the highest degree, but Gon says it’s charming, and then he stares back.
Killua’s done enough gazing into his back, off to his side, places all without sight. It’s utterly ridiculous how he sneaks glances like it’s a tranquil moment he’d otherwise not be privileged to. Even after Gon’s won the right to kiss Killua in public and steal his breath away, Killua falls back into old habits, can’t wipe off that soft, lonesome look in Gon’s direction when he thinks Gon isn’t looking.
So now Gon makes it his mission to catch Killua every time, take him by the hand and spin him around so their eyes can meet, so Killua can be reminded when he absorbs Gon’s smile and true up his own.
Don’t walk behind me anymore.
It’s you and me, side by side, the only place I ever want to be.
eighteen.
He remembers the weakness in his hands, the despair that rained all over him. Gon’s always been very hands on in a fight, so it’s no wonder that he feels it ring true throughout his body when his own hands let him down, like the tremor of an earthquake. It brings him to tears, how he hadn’t been strong enough. And when he gained the strength he needed, it brought tears to those around him.
So Gon knows he needs to conquer that weakness, but he needs to do that the right way. He’s not going to waste the second chance Killua, Alluka, and Nanika gave him.
That needle. That voice. That promise, to never betray his friends.
Killua’s always felt so angry that only under threat of death and abandonment of his first true friend, was he able to kill that instinct to flee. Gon – Gon brought him out of that, the memory of him at least, resting still as the very last image on his mind. It allowed me to become stronger; it set him free.
nineteen.
Never once would Killua have thought he’d end up here. He was ambivalent about a lot of things in life, yes, but he never assumed he’d fall in love with his best friend and somehow end up being so happy. He tries to think about his childhood and figures he really didn’t have a great benchmark to measure happiness against anyway.
(but regardless, he’s truly, unbelievably, happy)
And Gon? Well, a lot of people thought his default mood was happy, with his sun-splitting smile and all. It wasn’t always true, because there were times when he lost that cheery demeanour and times where he felt like he lost himself. He’s had to do a lot of soul searching to find something to ground himself after revenge, after meeting Ging. Those events didn’t really make him happy, just filled a void in his chest with a sense of ghostly air.
Happiness is more like this: chasing sunsets together with no destination, working side by side on a job, waking up each morning next to the person he loves most.
twenty.
They had met in a dark seemingly unending tunnel, and Gon remember being excited at meeting another boy his age. Everything about him was fascinating: the stark white of his hair, the ease of his run, that crazy cool skateboard trick. That only grows when he sees Killua’s claws, his rhythm echo, the graceful way he moves – and when Killua looked out to the sky with a contemplative, bored look, Gon could only ponder why. Killua could definitely do anything he wanted to.
(later he learns it is because Killua doesn’t know what he wants, and well, Gon’s happy to keep him until that day comes)
So somewhere along the way, Killua’s presence morphs into something challenging, grounding, unforgettable. Killua is unbelievable, Gon thinks each time, when he sees him withstand electricity, when he explains the plan on Greed Island. Killua also deserves so much better, Gon thinks, when he hears Killua offhandedly mention his agonizing training from his childhood like it’s no big deal, when he sees the fresh marks on Killua’s wrists after they come for him – and then when he wakes up and Killua isn’t there. Killua deserved better then too.
And Gon wanted to give it to him, be better for him, hold on to him and point out to Killua every way that he’s amazing: how he sticks by Gon through his stupid antics, patiently explains to him things like internet security and math, the love in his eyes for his sister. That list keeps growing silently, until Gon realizes the theme is changing, that he’s counting the number of soft smiles Killua’s given him, and how nice it’d feel if Killua held his hand, how cute it is when Killua blushes.
Now Gon has a new list. He counts the number of smiles Killua throws in his direction, and the number of eye-rolls too. He loves the way Killua’s hands fit with his own, marred with their history, and how that tinge of pink never manages to disappear even in age. He thinks it’s amazing when Killua puts on a date just to surprise him, and he thinks it’s amazing when they spar together, the outcome’s never a sure thing.
He was right all along: it could only be Killua.
There was something that drew Killua to the boy clad in green, something that told him hey, this is someone similar to you. The fact that Gon was twelve was all he needed to seal the deal.
But then Killua learned Gon isn’t similar to him at all in almost all dimensions, and that friendship actually works best that way. After all, isn’t it terribly boring to talk to a carbon copy of yourself?
Gon could keep up with him without trouble, and he thought in strange, sometimes idiotic ways. He speaks too loudly, too fast, too honestly. He’s stubborn and fights Killua on things that should be non-issues. Gon competed with him in speed eating, strength training, video games (albeit a poor attempt) – and then he competed with him in best birthday gifts, scariest ghost story, and who could grow taller. Gon held his hand until Killua didn’t automatically pull away from the touch anymore, kissed him for every occasion from non-existent to their anniversary. Gon made him laugh, made him think, made him feel normal – liked, loved.
And now, even with the promise of an unending future stretched before them, hand in hand, Killua still thinks to the Hunter Exam, how a decision made on a whim had led him to Gon Freecs, and never allowed Killua to let him go. They’re not similar at all, and that’s perfect because they can grow together, learn together. If anything, they stand as equals, in all the ways that matter, and it’s probably true that if Killua deserved to end up with anyone, that it would be someone exactly like Gon.