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The first time they kissed was an accident.
Tangled limbs slammed together as the pair rolled, the momentum of one body crashing into another sending them flying. Killua's hair covering his eyes so he couldn't react properly without fear of hitting Gon in a way that would actually hurt him.
In retrospect, they'd picked a poor place to spar. Killua only admitted it to himself when they'd collapsed in a heap of sweat and confusion after rolling down the slope together. Seconds passed as Gon rubbed at his mouth frantically, pressing his fingers to his teeth as if to confirm they were still in place. Blood dribbled down Killua's chin from his split lip.
In the moments before they'd collided, Killua had realized that it would happen. He'd misjudged the trajectory of Gon's tackle, and dodged the wrong way. Their faces had come together, teeth clacking against teeth a second before their foreheads cracked together.
He shouldn't have considered it a kiss. It wasn't, really; all logic dictated that it was an accidental collision that had nothing even resembling romance involved. It was just bloody mouths and bruised foreheads. Killua was sure Gon didn't even consider the possibility of it being a kiss.
That night, he'd held his fingers to his sore lips, running his tongue over the break in the skin there. He worried at the cut until it bled again, his face hot and stomach doing flips inside of him. It wasn't a kiss. Why did it make him so anxious? Killua slept fitfully, trying only to quash the terrifying thought that he wanted it to be from surfacing in his mind.
The second kiss was complicated.
Gon's lips against his cheek, arms around his neck and shoulders. Alluka's excited clapping. They'd run into one another by chance. A fleeting moment brought from overwhelmed emotion, the joy of seeing a friend after so long apart.
He didn't want to ruin such an important reunion by interjecting the nervous stirrings of his romantic urges towards Gon. Killua couldn't consider it to be a kiss, even as his face flushed and Gon's laughter drowned out Alluka's squeaking giggles. They hadn't had time to sit around and reminisce. A scant few hours later, Gon went his way, and Killua took Alluka to go the other.
When they'd clasped hands to say goodbye, Killua was sure that the momentary hesitation he thought he felt in Gon's touch was merely wishful thinking. He held it in his heart without words, hating the way his thoughts lingered on the feeling of Gon's lips against his skin, the way he tried to memorize the way that brief moment had felt. Maybe he was building it up even in his own mind – surely the sensations he was committing to memory were not what he'd actually felt.
Alluka had pinched his other cheek in the middle of the night, after his restlessness woke her from her slumber. If nothing else, it had snapped him back to reality a little. He had more important things to worry about than the queasy feeling in his stomach and the tightness of his throat.
It was years later that it changed.
He hadn't seen Gon in more than two years, and the sight of his friend – not significantly taller than he'd ever been, but somehow bigger – stunned him to silence. Gon wasn't been much better; over the time they'd been apart, Killua had gained at least three inches on him, and the other boy seemed to catch his breath for a second before looking up to meet his eyes.
For a moment, Killua despaired. Once they'd been so similar, and now they were not. Gon's body was thick and strong, where his was lean and willowy. His eyes lingered on Gon's hands, his feet, the way he stood. Everything about him was so different from what he remembered. But the look in Gon's eyes remained a familiar fire, even though there was something else in them now that Killua didn't know.
It was still Gon, after all. No matter what he looked like, that wouldn't change. Killua wanted to believe that. Even as his mind reeled, blocking out the last time he'd seen Gon looking so much like an adult. Fear, anxiety, and something else he hadn't felt in a long time, swirling together as his eyes locked onto Gon's arm, remembering the way he'd looked as that arm was ripped from his body.
But it wasn't the same. This Gon was the Gon that was supposed to be standing before him now, not the one that had stood before him years before looking so sad, in a country they didn't know, in a battle they shouldn't have had to fight.
This Gon smiled at him.
That night, they had finally been able to talk, face to face. Laughed together, for the first time in years, though underneath it something paced nervously. Eating dinner together, Gon kicked his leg, but in the second before his grin spread across his face to show it was a joke, Killua saw a flicker of shock on the other boy's face.
Or maybe it was just what he wanted to see.
Killua couldn't deny any longer that he was in love with Gon. All he could do was desperately smother the feeling, because Gon was the most important person in his life, and it didn't matter how he was with Gon as long as Gon was there. There was no point in changing things unnecessarily; this was all the happiness he needed.
That was what he told himself all through that day, and was still telling himself when they were sprawled out on the grass as the stars began to shine.
“Hey, Killua...” Gon said, his chin resting against a hand. He pointed at something in the other direction from where Killua was looking, and without thinking, the other boy followed the gesture with his eyes. He didn't see anything, though for a few seconds he squinted, used gyo, bit the inside of his cheek in confusion. Whatever Gon was pointing out, he wasn't seeing, and he turned to ask the question of what he was supposed to be looking at.
“Wha-” was all he managed to say before Gon was kissing him. His lips were chapped, like he'd been chewing on them in anxiety, and the hand that touched his was cold with nervousness. No matter where he looked, Gon was there, leaning over him. He didn't want to look away even as Gon pulled back, rolling over to sit up suddenly.
Killua thought his heart would leap out of his chest. His mouth was dry, and he had to swallow painfully before his lips would even move to form a word, not that his mind would allow any to surface. He didn't move, laying on his back and staring straight up at the night sky as his cheeks flushed and his fingers trembled.
But Gon wouldn't look him in the eyes to notice that. He stared at the ground, mouth working soundlessly as he always had when he tried to sort his thoughts out. When he finally spoke, it was a simple “I'm sorry,” followed by “I just felt like... sort of... like you were going somewhere away from me. And I thought that, maybe, if I didn't do this now, you would leave and I would never get a chance to kiss you again.”
That was when Killua's overworked mind gave up, and he put his hands over his eyes, shaking with suppressed laughter. It was no use in the end, the sound bubbling out of him in giddy spurts. Though it wasn't what he wanted to say, hopefully the intention and acceptance was clear from his words. “You call that a kiss? What, have you never kissed anyone before?”
Somehow, it was the right thing to say to defuse the tense situation. Gon made a noise that would be more expected to come from a petulant toddler, and he swung himself in one fluid motion to face Killua again, his hands next to the other boy's face, blocking out the sky. “I have too!”
“Oh yeah? With who? You're making it up!” Killua pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes, even as his cheeks hurt from smiling. Even though he had always been more clumsy than Gon in these types of situations, it was clear that the other boy was just as inexperienced in this as he was.
“That's not fair, Killua! We did it before, didn't we? Remember, that time back then! I even chipped my tooth, it really happened!” As if to prove it, Gon's lips parted and his tongue slid out to run across his teeth, though he seemed to realize a second later that it wasn't like Killua could tell from that. He didn't pull away though, leaning over Killua and keeping the spirit of confining him in place even if it wasn't something that was actually happening.
It only served to make Killua laugh harder, tears streaming down his face. “You thought that was a kiss! You're joking! You're not serious, are you? Why would that have been a kiss, two kids rolling down a hill and smacking their faces together!” He finally moved his hands from his eyes, wiping away the overwhelmed tears. When he saw Gon's expression, though, it was like being drenched in cold water. His cheeks were heated, eyebrows knitted together, and the barest hint of embarrassed tears caught the faint starlight.
“Well maybe I wanted it to be,” Gon said, and there was something in his tone that filled Killua with flustered regret. He had been taking this seriously, and been laughed at for it. Of course he'd feel hurt to have his determination shrugged off so easily.
Killua reached to brush his fingers across Gon's, finding the hand that was planted next to his head to support the other boy. Gon flinched ever-so-slightly, and for the first time since he'd pulled his lips from Killua's, their eyes met.
For a few seconds, all Killua did was breathe. Slowly, he breathed in and out, three times, never letting his gaze shift from Gon's face. When he let the last breath out in a sigh, with it came a sort of quiet understanding. He said what he was thinking anyway – Gon deserved to hear it from him at the very least, even if the message was already relayed.
“I wanted it to be a kiss.” Killua closed his eyes then, and grinned wryly. “Not just that time either. There was that time we ran into each other in Dolle Harbor with Alluka, do you remember?” His thumb rubbed over Gon's knuckles, feeling the warmth that had come back into the other boy's hands.
“Yeah,” Gon said with a choked laugh. “I wanted to kiss you even though it was in front of your sister, and I only realized at the last second that it was a bad idea so I kissed your cheek instead. I thought maybe it wasn't clear enough and that it was my fault for being stupid about it.”
“And we didn't even have time to talk about it, because our boat was leaving,” Killua let his eyes open again, and there was something soft in Gon's expression. Some sort of calm that had descended on him at the lack of utter rejection, the growing realizations of reciprocation. “I didn't sleep at all that night because I couldn't stop over-thinking it. Alluka got really upset because all my tossing and turning woke her up.”
“So you... You like me too?”
“Do you think I would spend hours dwelling over it if I didn't? I thought I was being a moron about the whole thing, projecting what I wanted it to have been over what I thought it really was. But maybe you're the moron.”
Gon laughed at that, finally rolling back onto his side. “I think maybe we're both morons.”
“Oi, oi, are you calling me a moron? You can't call me a moron, moron.”
“Yeah, but right now, you're being a moron!”
“Well-” Killua turned his head, letting the grass tickle his cheek as he glanced to Gon. Whatever he'd planned on saying was lost immediately, precious seconds ticking by as they merely looked at each other, almost nose to nose. “Well, maybe I just... wanted...”
“Really just wanted to... kiss you...” Gon trailed off. Killua could feel his breath against his skin. He wanted to lick his lips, but didn't dare move.
“Yeah...” he whispered, in the instant before their lips met again.
In that moment, all the previous kisses didn't matter.