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They walked through the burned out hillside, kicking up ash and dust with their boots. It was a year out from the fire. Green shoots were coming up: new sagebrush, wildflowers here and there, stuff with spines that could hold up a hillside. Half of it invasive. The game was afoot, a hunt for rare fungus that was proving to be totally unsuccessful thus far. At a gnarled tree, half blackened on the back but still standing, bark spooling off it in loose coils, Gon stopped.
“Hey!” he said, mostly to himself, and cast a mournful eye to the scene before him. A pale blue bird’s egg. A gift, save for that it was broken and a fetal chick lay in the carnage, slimy and new. It was cartoonish in the black and white ash of the earth, perhaps the only blue for miles and miles.
“That’s so gross,” said Killua, coming up next to him to examine the egg, disproving his theory. They had been rambling on opposite sides of the dry creekbed. He had come back across before Gon even had time to blink.
“Someone dropped part of their lunch,” said Gon, absently. “Walk with me, now that you’re over here?”
Killua had his gaze fixed on the egg for a long time before he responded. “Yeah, there’s nothing interesting on that side anyways. Not a mushroom in sight.”
“I think it’s too dry,” said Gon, feeling a little put out by the weather’s total lack of cooperation.
They set out in comfortable silence, for all that there were hundreds of things to say, at least half of which should probably go unspoken. The land throbbed, the sun beat down. It was a breezy day. The wildfire last summer had been a particularly bad one, though the regrowth in a year was astonishing: the forest was still alive. All around them, vital signs: deer droppings, new underbrush in its limerence, songbirds darting from behind trees. Even in the land of the dead.
“Can we call this your birthday present?” said Killua, after a few more minutes of birdsong and dry, warm wind.
“What, you don’t like walking through the woods?”
“I like the woods just fine! But this isn’t woods. There’s no wood left,” said Killua, “Also, I don’t really like mushrooms. Which you know.”
Gon shot him a disapproving look. “You’d like these mushrooms. Anyways, no, because we’re not acknowledging my birthday. It’s not happening.” It had been stalking him, eighteen, for the last twelve months, through the winter faithfully. He didn’t like to think about it. He had spent so long now worried about what type of man he’d become, and now it was staring him in the face. He even looked like Ging—taller, but with the same features. It was a haunting prospect.
“You sound like a middle aged lady,” said Killua, “My mom used to always say shit like that.”
Gon wondered idly about Killua’s family—what that whole situation was like now, almost five years on from what had happened with Alluka. He didn’t ask. It would have been prying. And he didn’t spare it more than a moment’s thought. “Birthdays are kind of stupid,” he said instead.
“Says the guy who’s not above using them as an excuse to get me to come mushroom hunting with him—failed mushroom hunting, even.” Grinned. He was happier every subsequent time Gon saw him. Even miserable, he was happier. This, if nothing else, felt like a boon: Killua had become a good kind of man. Better than Gon by most metrics, including both faithfulness and height.
“Failed so far,” Gon reminded him. “Anyways, I wanted to hang out with you.”
“Yeah, me too,” said Killua, looking away momentarily, because he would always be like this. He turned back. “Alluka and Nanika both say happy birthday.”
“Aw, that’s so sweet. How is she?”
“Good,” said Killua. “You know, sixteen. She’s as tall as me and so beautiful and I’m trying to ignore the fact that I suspect she’s dating.” He looked lightly queasy at the prospect. “School is good for her, I think. Everyone kind of wants to have a normal life, or as close as you can get.”
Gon absorbed this. “God, she’s getting old.”
“Yeah, well, so are we, grandpa.”
“I’m three months older than you! Have some respect for your elders.”
Killua laughed. It was a clear, bright sound. So bright that it flushed some pheasants out from behind an unburnt bush. They continued on. The hills stretched on before them almost indefinitely. Somewhere above them was a lake: the planned destination, with or without morels in hand.
“Did she not wanna come?”
“She was champing at the bit to get me to leave her alone for a week, honestly. Her cringe brother going out of town is like a dream come true, I imagine. It’s too bad, I kind of wanted her to come.”
Gon put his hand to his chest and a mock wounded expression on. “I’m offended! She didn’t want to see me! So cruel.”
“Yeah, I was bummed as well.” There was a pause, so Gon just kept talking.
“Why, because it’s kind of tense when it’s just the two of us?”
Killua did visibly twitch at this, which was funny and made the whole thing worth it. “She is kind of a buffer, isn’t she?” he said. Gon was surprised each and every time Killua was honest and plain spoken. It felt like such a rare gift, something he didn’t even know how he had earned.
“Look,” said Gon, launching into the Thing He Wanted To Say but hadn’t planned on saying until tonight, minimum, when they were already camping for the night and Killua wouldn’t want to escape. Possibly tomorrow. Also possibly never. “I’ve been thinking.”
“That’s very out of character,” said Killua. “What, are you dying?”
“Ha ha,” said Gon. “No. Listen.”
Killua looked at him curiously, but kept walking.
“You’re still my best friend,” Gon began, cracking a piece of charcoal with his boot. “And I miss you, and I hate that it’s tense.”
“Ok, well, don’t miss me when I’m standing right here.”
“I want to—”
“I want you not to say anything you can’t take back,” said Killua, and then, apropos of nothing, “Did you know I had a massive crush on you when we were thirteen?”
“Not back then,” said Gon, ignoring his heart rate and focusing on the path (or lack thereof) ahead. “We were busy. But, you know, I’ve had a lot of time to think since then.”
“Me neither,” said Killua. “I mean, back then. Yeah. It wasn’t priority number one, I guess, and there was always so much other stuff going on, and I was so... But yeah. Now—anyways.” It was a series of disconnected phrases, and Gon didn’t have it in him to put them together right now.
“It’s,” said Gon, “I think, you know, we were so close. We were living like. You know, for all that time. It was the most important thing that had ever happened to me.”
“There wasn’t a full sentence to speak of there.” Killua said, which was not true! And also very rude. But if he wanted to change the subject, so be it.
Gon made an offensive hand gesture in Killua’s general direction and acquiesced. “Let’s race,” he said.
“Where to?”
“The abandoned mine up there,” said Gon, with a gesture up to the entrance, just barely visible.
Killua smiled wildly. “Obviously,” he said. “How about we put some money on it? 2500? Nothing major.” That was more than Gon wanted to lose, but he was feeling confident, even in the unfamiliar land.
“Fine, but no cheating,” said Gon, “I know your ways.”
“What do we define as cheating here?” He said it so lightly, like they were still kids making rules, like they were still equals in this way.
“No nen abilities! Run normally.”
“Doesn’t matter, I don’t need it to beat you,” said Killua, who was a solid three inches taller than Gon these days as well as still powerful for real. Damn his long legs. Damn genetics. Damn actions having consequences. “Let’s go.”
They took off, the pair of them, neck and neck. It wasn’t straightforward through the wood and up the hillside like this. The creekbed was deeply eroded on both sides and the forest was stocked with widowmakers. Nevertheless, they stepped lightly, Gon with a tracker’s instinct, Killua with a slayer’s.
Killua won, which in retrospect seemed like the obvious outcome. Gon knew this immediately from his crowing from the top of the hundred year old ore bin, upon which he balanced with precision.
“You cheated,” said Gon, without hesitation. Indeed, Killua had been only a hair ahead of him. It could’ve been the breeze. It could’ve been loose waste rock. Either way, it was a fluke. As usual, he straddled the line between admiring and jealous. That was familiar, at least, even if the breadth of his jealousy had grown. Each passing year of normal life increased it. “That means the bet’s off.”
“You’re such a sore loser,” said Killua, balancing on one foot like a large, carnivorous wading bird. The sun on his snowy head, hunting from his perch on rickety wood. “You should be glad you didn’t break a hip.”
Gon did his utmost not to whine, but failed miserably. “Killua! Are you gonna call me old all day?”
“For the rest of your life,” said Killua. He was examining the mine entrance with great concentration. This whole province had been a silver mining area back in the day. This was what the caretaker had told them, an old dude who lived two kilometers from here. It hadn’t been a planned meeting, but he would accost anyone he saw in the area. At least he was friendly once he realized they weren’t vandals or thieves, a guy who looked like a cartoon in an oversized brimmed hat and a white beard that reached literally down to his kneecaps.
If it made Gon’s heart swell to hear the words ‘rest of your life’, he didn’t say anything. Kept a lid on it as best he could. Cold air rushed at them from the darkness. “We’re going in, right?” he said.
Killua looked at him, mortally offended. “Stupid question,” he said, hopping down. “What do you think’s in there?”
“Dead brush wolves,” said Gon, without hesitation. “Old mining stuff. Maybe dynamite! Buried treasure?” He began to fish a flashlight from his pack. He had secretly hoped they’d get up to the mine. They both had good night vision, but there was no ambient light in a deep mine.
“Wouldn’t anything in a mine technically be buried treasure?” Killua wondered aloud as they entered the abyss. Abandoned mines like this one weren’t very exciting, unless you were a history buff, rock hound, or teenage boy entranced by the possibility of dangerous mine shafts and old dynamite that might go off if you breathed on it wrong.
Here, the walls were rough and dusty, no surveying marks to be seen. Were ruins in Gon’s blood? He wondered at this as he stared at the stratification in the rock walls, a world of muted color. A wind current passed through the tunnel. It must have another entrance, another way to extract precious metals from the earth.
The truth about abandoned mines was that they were mostly filled with a whole lot of nothing: rocks, ore cart tracks, old rusted machinery. Chutes that went to nowhere, or maybe just other levels. The irony of this mine being so undisturbed for so long was that it was, well, undisturbed. There wouldn’t be modern trash, or graffiti. They rounded a corner, a long tunnel, and Gon shone his light on a shaft that led down, bracketed by ore cart tracks that made for a climbable ladder. He looked back at Killua. In the darkness, Gon could almost swear his eyes shone like a cat’s.
Killua jumped down first, without waiting, like he was a mind reader. Gon followed suit. The recklessness was refreshing. Just like old times. They hadn’t bothered with mapping, but the shaft led to what looked like multiple different levels. Around them on the first level was more of the same: decaying retaining walls just barely holding back torrents of stones, a maze of twisty little passageways, all alike. On they walked, Gon barely attempting to conceal his disappointment at the total lack of catastrophe. Just an old mine after all.
Still, there was cool old stuff littered around, enough to look at, enough to make it worth their wandering.
In the darkness, Killua said, from somewhere beside him, “Bisky called me last week and talked at me about crystals for an hour. She says hi.”
“She talked about crystals for an hour?” Gon didn’t think he could listen to anyone talk about rocks for that long. Even half that long. He thought of himself as a naturally curious person, but honestly. Bisky never called him just to talk about crystals, but she had always preferred Killua anyways.
“Alluka encouraged her,” he said glumly. “She’s been carrying rose quartz or something around. Bisky begged for an address to send us some. She’s convinced they have magical properties, or something. I think she’s gone completely nuts now that she’s in her sixties.”
“Or girls just like crystals,” said Gon, unhelpfully.
“That’s exactly what Alluka told me. I still think it’s stupid.” In the distance, a faint, strange noise, a howling. Could’ve been the wind. Killua put out a hand, as if to stop Gon from walking off a precipice. Yet there was none.
“Did you hear it too?” said Gon, deciding not to be offended by the hand thing. And there it was again, closer this time. “It wouldn’t be a cave-in. Dynamite?”
“Are we alone in here?” That seemed a little dramatic.
“Sometimes there are miner’s cats that live in these old abandoned mines,” said Gon.
“Wow. Miner’s cats? In a mine?”
And Gon laughed, predictably. They moved on. The mine was extensive, here on these lower levels. They rounded a bend. To the left, another series of ladders heading deeper into the earth.
To the right, a shrine, strange, small, littered with some religious imagery but too faded to really make out. It was simple looking: propped against the wall was a wooden marker with words on it in a language neither of them spoke. An unfamiliar symbol painted in black against the white marker, just barely visible. At its feet, a pair of boots, rotting into the ground, some broken green glass.
“Oh, it’s a memorial,” said Gon.
“I bet miners died all the time down here.” Killua was looking at the memorial, squinting at the text like he could read it if he thought about it hard enough. There wasn’t a chance. A hundred years ago here, people spoke a totally different language, no lingua franca to speak of. Especially in such an isolated region that they’d actually had to drive hours to get to.
“We saw this totally caved in mine last summer,” said Gon, “And no one in the area would go near it because it was supposed to be haunted. A ton of miners died in there in a cave-in, like, fifty years ago or something.”
“People are so stupid,” said Killua, who was picking up pieces of broken glass and examining them in the weak light of the flashlight. Gon aimed it so he could see better. “Who actually believes in ghosts?”
Gon shrugged. “I think they kind of wanted to believe in ghosts. I don’t know, I didn’t want to ask a bunch of weird questions. Maybe some people like that.”
“If you’re afraid of the dead, you’re completely fucking braindead,” said Killua, putting the pieces of broken glass back where they’d lain. End of discussion. “They’re dead, that’s the whole point.”
On an impulse, Gon leaned forward to ruffle his hair, which was very soft, and was rewarded with an absolutely over the top reaction: Killua jumped a little in shock and smacked Gon’s hand off. Killua shivered like it had thrown his nervous system totally out of whack. “Weirdo,” he said, and stood up like none of it had happened at all.
Gon bared his teeth in an approximation of a smile, but which he knew looked more like a chimpanzee grimacing, ready to draw blood.
“Hang on,” said Killua, like he was warning Gon about something dangerous, but only grabbed at his arm with his sweaty, charcoal covered hand and pushed him back up against the wall. And kissed him on the mouth. It was very forceful and all-too brief. Gon dropped the flashlight in his hand in his shock. Killua stepped back and wiped his mouth off with the back of his hand. “Ok, let’s go,” he said.
“You can do better than that,” said Gon, in the darkness, picking up the flashlight from where it had fallen. When he turned it back on, he watched Killua’s pupils contract.
“Are you critiquing me?”
“It’s constructive criticism,” he said. “I’ll give you a demonstration later.”
Killua threw his hands up. “You’re worse than ever,” he said. “I’ve seen enough of this mine unless you spotted an undisturbed stack of silver bullion somewhere in a corner.” Gon took this as a good sign.
“We can go to the lake,” said Gon, into the hollow darkness. “It’s already late afternoon.”
The lake, after the second half of the hike, was a welcome respite, choked with reeds and marshy save for what passed for a beach in this country: rocks and slightly smaller rocks. But the breeze that came off it was second to none. They watched grebes float and dive in the water, red eyed and long necked and imperious. The month of May at this latitude meant the sun would hang in the sky for hours yet. Even so, the light was the honeyed color of afternoon. The heat of the day, which still wasn’t that warm all the way up here. They had collapsed side by side, toes aimed towards the water.
“Did you know these are edible?” Gon pointed at one of the newest entrants to the loamy soil just to his left: hundreds of shoots of holly-grape, leaves shiny and barbed. “The young leaves and the berries. If there were berries. They eat them here. They probably have these where you’re from, actually—”
“Cool,” said Killua, who clearly did not recognize the plant, peering over him. He reached to pull off a spiky leaf and popped it in his mouth. “That’s really not very good,” he said. “It’s bitter. Also, it has spines.”
“It’s supposed to be better with other stuff. Or maybe cooked? I’ve never been here before,” he admitted. “But Kite was telling me about it, and said it was beautiful country.”
“It is,” said Killua, admiring the view, which was of velvety hills and valleys, green and gold, under a blue sky. They had passed apple orchard after apple orchard on the way out. “It’s too bad it’s burned.”
“Hey, that aspen grove back there was intact!”
“I’m kidding, it’s not bad. It’s interesting. It’s the life cycle, I get it. Fire happens, it clears things out.”
“I didn’t realize it was that deep.”
“Fuck off,” said Killua, “God, you’re honestly the worst.” And yet, with such joy in his voice, laughing. “Alright. I don’t love the burned land. It’s depressing. But I’m glad we came.”
“Success,” said Gon. And felt that it truly was, even without a morel to show for it.
“And I’m glad Alluka decided to pass,” he said, “But don’t tell her I said that.”
“Wow, you've betrayed her. I’ll be texting her the second we get back to the land of phone reception.”
“She’ll never believe you,” he said smugly. Gon examined him in the light for the hundredth time. It was weird how the bones of someone’s face through their teenage years would shift over time, become more prominent, change. Gon didn’t notice it in himself, or anyone he saw regularly, because you saw your own face every day, but Killua’s beloved face was often a yearly sight, and each time was a surprise.
“Oh, right,” said Gon, out loud, and remembered to kiss Killua back, revenge for earlier as well as a tutorial. Killua wasn’t as shocked as Gon must have been earlier, though the angle took maneuvering, as they were seated side by side. The first time for anything was always weird. It went on for significantly longer than it had the first time around. Gon wasn’t thinking much during it. The body was so easily overwhelmed by sensation, smells, any real physicality. It was astonishing. He’d wanted this for years. It made him a little dizzy. Gon really was the better kisser of the two of them, a thought he’d never speak aloud. Who said he wasn’t generous?
After mutually disentangling themselves, Killua, who actually was generous, allowed Gon to take his hand and examine it with a practiced eye. He had dirt under his nails and a cut from a rusty nail on the back of his hand. Gon still healed fast, but Killua didn’t even have to worry about things like tetanus.
Killua spoke up after a moment, but didn’t yet take his hand back. “I sometimes think that the only way we’re going to stay friends is for us to just never talk about some things,” he said. It was a sad thought, though Killua didn’t sound sad about it. Just matter of fact. “I think that’s how it has to be for people you’ve known for so long.”
“That’s pretty restrictive,” said Gon, “So, what if I bring up an off limits topic? How will I know?”
“You’re a moron,” said Killua. “That’s when I’ll tell you to fuck off.”
“I think you should tell me ahead of time. I wouldn’t want to step on your toes, or, like, ruin your carefully planned safe conversation topics.”
“You’re making this sound worse than it is.”
“It seems kind of messed up.”
“It’s not messed up, it’s something adults have to make peace with.” He said this like they were still twelve and Killua was oh-so-worldly and explaining the harsh reality of life to some sheltered kid. After a beat, he went on. “Like how I made my peace with the fact that you’re going to break my heart over and over again probably forever.” He scowled at a wood duck that had come too close, and it flew away in a blur of color and iridescence.
It was horrible to hear, even though it had been a long time coming. Gon took a deep breath. “I don’t want to do that to you.”
“Tough, I’ll feel what I want to feel. It’s fine anyways, I’m not mad about it. It’s just who you are.” He shrugged like it was just a foregone conclusion.
Gon sat with this for just a moment, decided this small horror in is magnitude was something to be dealt with later, filed it away, and then forged ahead. “So what I wanted to say earlier—”
“Don’t tell me something weird and corny, I’m begging you,” said Killua.
“I’m trying to tell you I love you,” said Gon, crabby and displeased, “But you’re making it really difficult.”
“I’m a difficult person,” said Killua, so visibly overcome that he had to stand up and stretch to avoid eye contact, looking off at something—the landscape, the clouds, the sun, the wildlife, the future. “You should know that by now. You’re the same.”