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“Do we have a backup plan?”
It’s Killua who says it. Also, it is a sentence that sounds like dying string pulled from the back of his mouth. Words that come from the gag reflex. A twig breaks under Gon’s boot while he walks, broadcasting their location like a signal flare only to all of the goddamn squirrels and chipmunks in a 2 mile radius of their location, and yet Killua still flinches involuntarily.
“A backup plan for what?” Gon asks.
For if we realize we aren’t going to make it out of this alive. You, at least, deserve as painless a death as possible, and that’s the one thing I’m sure I can give you if you need it. I can make sure you go peacefully, then me. I can at least do that. I know I’m useless at protecting people for real, that I can’t even protect one stupid teenage boy, but I can at least— I can do this. I don’t want you tortured to death and eaten by ants. I don’t want you to—
to forget—
Gon has developed a habit lately of talking to Killua but looking straight ahead. Killua hates it.
“Like, worst case scenario... if one of us realizes we have to kill the other.” Killua says.
It takes Killua a second to register that the whisper of tree branches rustling against each other that he just heard was actually Gon faking a laugh. “That kind of thing won’t happen.” He says.
Killua forces a laugh too, though his sounds a little more authentic since he’s had plenty of practice. He loses his nerve. “Right. Sorry, that was kind of a creepy idea. Didn’t mean to...”
That ugly breathing sound, in Killua’s head, over and over, like a tape recorder.
“... bring the mood down.”
Gon doesn’t answer,
The sound Gon made earlier was mirthless, hollow, a D-shaped door to an empty house, a false reassurance. It is completely unlike the laugh Killua is used to hearing from Gon.
Killua doesn’t say anything else. Cicadas are speaking. And what other insects?
Gon and Killua made a suicide pact that night, Killua thinks, even if Killua’s the only one who knows about it.