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The first time Gon has sex is when he is 17 with a girl named Saya that he meets on way to a small seaside port after a hunt. He helps her retrieve a bag that falls overboard their ship, and after she finds out that he is only in town until tomorrow morning, she insists on showing him around the area in thanks.
They tour the sights as promised, and the day goes pleasantly, but by no means romantic. Well, at least, not to Gon. However, by the end of the day Saya asks Gon with a smile if he is interested in a one night stand, no strings attached.
“Just for fun”, she says and looks hopefully at him.
The question is surprising to Gon, to say the least. He had never had interest in sleeping with anyone before, though he was well aware of what sex was already since Mito-san had given him the ‘talk’ when he was younger. He had thought about it, sure, but they were always quickly replaced by thoughts of more exciting things that really got his blood pumping, like going on a new hunt or becoming even stronger than before.
He considers saying no, since he remembers how the women on Whale Island he sometimes helped often talked about love and sex going hand in hand (and he is certainly not in love with this girl) but in the end curiosity gets the better of him and he agrees just to see what the fuss was all about.
The night ends up ending... alright. Somewhat boring if he has to be honest. Though it had been his first time, he learned fast from Saya, but in the end he doesn’t feel the sparking energy of sex like he had heard about so many times before in dingy bars and various other shady areas he frequented.
Despite his lack of enjoyment, Gon leaves on amicable terms with the girl, and though that is the last time he ever sees her, every once in a while they still send each other emails.
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The second time Gon has sex is with Killua when they are both 20, meeting again after a year apart.
It starts as a stroll through the forests of Whale Island, catching up on each other’s lives, but as is expected when the two of are together, it derails after Killua confesses to Gon.
Or, rather, Gon asks Killua with a serious yet thoughtful expression, “Killua... are you in love with me?”
Killua splutters in response, nearly choking on his own spit in shock, and is unable to form a coherent sentence for a good 5 minutes.
Eventually Killua finally confirms that, “Yes, I do…. have romantic feelings for you, Gon, but! But if you, you know, don’t feel that way, that’s fine”, before ending on an awkward pause.
For a moment Gon is silent, face scrunched up in thought which only makes Killua nervous.
Gon finally replies slowly, “I… do love Killua very much, but… I don’t think I love you the same way you love me.” There is a small frown on his face as he speaks, and he looks at Killua, brows furrowed slightly in what appeared to be nervousness.
Killua looks down briefly, a wave of disappointment and sadness overpowering him before recovering a second later. He looks at Gon and smiles, “Hey, I said it was fine, don’t look so worried, dummy”.
Gon still frowns, and responds, suddenly rushed, “No, I mean! I’ve just… never felt that kind of love before!” He hesitates for a moment, trying to find the right words.
“The women who came by Whale Island, who used to take me on dates, they used to tell me all about the romances that they loved, and how wonderful it was to fall in love. That you would know when it happened, that you would feel butterflies in your stomach, and that your heart would race at the thought of being with the one you loved.” Gon stops again and looks directly at Killua.
“And I’ve never felt any of those before, and I never really cared, but… when I heard that Killua liked me like that, I thought for the first time that I wished I felt those things too.”
Killua stares at him stunned, and feels the beginning of tears prickling his eyes as the words register in his mind.
“Stupid!” Killua cries out, trying to hide his tears as he presses a hand to his face in feigned annoyance. “There’s nothing wrong with never falling in love with anyone! Plenty of people are like that! You have so many friends that you love and who love you back, you don’t need more than that!”
Arms encircle Killua tightly as Gon responds with a ferocious hug, which only serve to make even more tears fall much to Killua’s distant annoyance. The love that he thinks is about to make his heart burst overshadows most of that though as he slings an arm across Gon’s shoulder and the two share a moment of quiet, warm silence.
“Thank you Killua,” Gon tells him, a joyous smile evident in his voice. “I’m so happy that I met you!” He pulls out from the hug and holds Killua away at arm’s length to stare straight in his face. “I love you!” Gon declares loudly, and Killua notices the tears that have spilled over his eyes as well.
Killua lets out a bark of laughter in response, and tells him, “I love you too, dummy.”
The two of them laugh brightly, and after wiping away their tears, make their way to the lake where they had first hung out all those years ago as children.
The day goes fairly normal after that, though perhaps slightly more exuberantly after the redeclaration of their friendship, but when they finally turn in for the night, Gon surprises Killua with another question.
“Hey Killua…. do you want to have sex?”
Killua stares at him, eyes wide and mouth agape and decidedly shocked into silence, leaving Gon to fill up the space.
“I just tried it once before but I didn’t really get it it… But maybe if I did it with you it would be better? Since I like Killua and Killua likes me!”
It takes another moment before Killua’s brain jumpstarts again, and he lets out a loud, frustrated groan at Gon’s typical bluntness. He wonders briefly if he can run back to the lake and sink to the bottom to pretend Gon never asked him anything, but then Gon continues, “but if you don’t want to that’s fine too,” and Killua’s arm shoots out, palm facing Gon and silencing him.
“Wait,” he starts, “wait…. wait.” Killua frowns, brain catching up and finally realizing Gon’s implication that sex was not something he enjoyed. “You better not be asking me to make me feel better. Because if you know you don’t like having sex….” He trails off with an annoyed expression.
Gon frowns fiercely at him in return, clearly offended at Killua’s implication that Gon would do that to him and also be naive enough to do something he did not actually want to do. “I wouldn’t do that!” Gon scowls. “We don’t have to do it, I was just wondering.”
“No! No, no, hold on….” Killua’s voice lowers to an embarrassed mumble. “I never said I didn’t want to do it…. We can try.” After all, who is he to deny Gon’s desire to experiment with sex again (and maybe a teeny tiny part of him that he doesn’t want to acknowledge hopes that this will make Gon more attracted to him).
Gon cheers up immediately. “Okay! Let’s go home then! Or,” he pauses, “maybe we should go to the inn since Mito-san is home and it’d be kinda rude,” he says thoughtfully.
Killua thinks his head is going to set on fire with how casual Gon is being, but really he should not have expected anything else.
“The inn sounds good,” Killua mumbles, face burning.
So that night, they go to the inn after calling Mito-san that they’ll be staying out and it goes…. averagely once more. Gon can’t bring himself to feel the passion nor lust associated with sex, and Killua finds that he doesn’t particularly enjoy it either because of Gon’s obvious lack of excitement despite how much he had been looking forward to it before.
In the end they lie together naked on the bed, staring at the ceiling in thought. Gon is the one who breaks the silence.
“I think…. sex just isn’t for me.” He turns to look at Killua. “Especially if I still don’t get it after trying with the person I love most in the world,” he says unabashedly.
Killua blushes and snorts. “It’s okay, I won’t take it personally that you had such mediocre time sleeping with me.”
Gon laughs in response, grateful for Killua’s understanding.
“Well! I’m glad we tried!” Gon grinned. “Now I know for sure!”
Killua can only chuckle in amusement in reply.
They lapse into companionable silence again, but before they can go to sleep, Killua turns to Gon.
“Hey,” he starts as a light blush begins forming across his face. “I just want you to know that I’ll always be there for you, okay? No matter what.”
Gon looks at him and smiles even wider and brighter than before (Killua thinks if it gets any bigger it’ll split his head in half), and reaches out to hold Killua’s hand in his.
“I’ll always be there for you too, Killua! No matter what! Even if you call me from the other side of the world, I’ll be there!”
Killua wonders for a second if he’s going to end up crying twice in a single day, but he manages to hold it in and let out a huff of laughter instead.
“Good,” Killua says, “that’s good.”
Together they sleep like this, and Killua thinks it’s probably weird that they fell asleep naked holding hands after declaring an eternal friendship, but that was what happened when you were in love with Gon Freecss.
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Killua is on the verge of sleep when he suddenly remembers something that Gon said earlier in the day.
“Gon,” he says loudly, startling Gon out of his own sleep.
“Huh? Wha?”
“How did you find out?” Killua looks at him with a frown. “You said you heard that I loved you.”
Gon blinks once before smiling sheepishly. “Oh… well… it was just a stranger at first, who said I was lucky I had someone who was clearly in love with me….”
Killua feels himself blushing immediately. Had he been that obvious?
“And then I asked Leorio about it and he said that it would make sense if you were.”
Killua scowls now, and murmurs, “shitty old man,” under his breath.
“And then Kurapika said the same thing, and I asked Bisky and Kite and Ging and Knuckle and Palm and Shoot and a lot of other people and they all agreed…..” Gon trails off, looking actually embarrassed for once.
Killua stares at him and feels a shriek bubbling its way up his throat. He smothers it before it can escape, and instead starts planning furiously in his head on how he’ll visit about a dozen or so people to have a ‘talk’ for gossiping so much about his love life.