Chapter Text
The backpack is already full. It’s weird: Gon remembers it to be light, almost empty most of the time.
“Don’t you dare take out the books.” Aunt Mito is already gathering the sheets from the bed.
“I wasn’t going to!” Gon yelps back. He sighs and pushes the corner of his notebook a bit further down.
He packs some spare pencils. His new-ish camera is safely secured inside its knitted case, courtesy of Abe. He pats his pockets to feel the shape of the all-purpose knife—Leorio’s gift for his last birthday. Seems like everything’s in working order.
“Ready to go?” Mito asks, one hand on her side and lips clipped.
“I think I am,” Gon says, and he gets up. “I promise I’ll try to look at my homework.”
“You have to promise you’re doing it, Gon, not just look at it!”
Gon’s throat blurts a laugh.
Mito shakes his head as he steps closer; she’s gotten way smaller—or maybe he’s the one who has grown up at last.
“I promise I’ll do my best,” he says, as she hugs him tight. “And that I’ll come back safe.”
“You better keep your word, or I’ll have to stick a thousand needles in your eye, remember?”
Gon nods, beaming until he’s squeezed again, tighter and longer, against Mito’s small frame.
“Bring this to Killua for me, okay?”
*
Gon chews on the last bite of his roasted panda frog, eyes sharp, ears sharper. Zaban city is as crowded as usual, and so it’s the airport.
He can’t rely on smell to find the guys, so he’s trying to keep his eyes wide open, searching for… White hair like cotton, standing tall above anybody else.
“Mon!” he calls, hand up. Monta squints in his direction, eyes lighting up when he finally spots him.
“Gon! Guys, it’s Gon!”
Spin’s voice comes closer while Gon sprints toward them.
“You’ve grown up again,” she says, first thing first. “No way, you’re taller than me!”
“That’s how growing up works, Spin.” Stick pops up from behind. “For an animal expert sometimes you lose yourself when it’s about human specimens.”
They’re laughing and Gon is both relieved and startled. That’s the problem with relying only on his senses after nen: now it feels wrong, like there’s a mutilated organ he can’t use anymore, and he knows that his eyes and his ears and his nose are all sharp, but not as sharp as they were when he could control his aura.
Spin’s gum pops. “Oh shut up, you! I was just surprised… When he’ll become as tall as you, we’ll see.”
“Come on, if we miss the flight we’ll miss the connection too and no one want’s that, right?” Mon says, one hand patting on Gon’s shoulder so hard that maybe he was trying to fix that grow spurt problem all by himself.
His eyes twinkle at him and Gon grins back, grabbing at the straps of his backpack. Yeah, he sure wouldn’t want to lose that. And still, he can’t decide if what’s happening inside his stomach are butterflies or some kind of thunderstorm brewing.
*
There’s no signal on the blimp. Gon munches on one of Stick’s stick chips; he bought them so he could deliver the pun. Spin almost cracked his skull with a headlock.
It’s difficult to operate a smartphone with oily fingers, but Gon tries anyway. Still no notification on the tiny Squabble icon.
“New phone?” Stick asks, squinting above his shoulder.
Gon grins sheepishly. “Yep, Leorio helped me pick one up on the internet after—”
“Oh, right. The tragic departure of your old one. You were distraught over it, it was pretty hilarious.”
“Don’t be mean, Spin,” Mon says, but the corners of his mouth are up and Gon—well, he was distraught, kind of. He landed on his buttocks while they visited Marmoru’s Falls in Kukan’yu last year. The falls were gorgeous, but half of Gon’s brain spent the remaining week concerned over the lack of an internet connection.
He doesn’t know how he managed to survive as a kid when he uses to talk just with aunt Mito and Abe and the villagers all around. When his best friend was Kon.
Maybe it’s because he didn’t really understand loneliness, back then. He knew what it was and he could feel it, but loneliness has faces and voices now; it’s a vacant space between his stomach and his chest, cut-off sentences when he thinks about something funny and there’s no blue sparkle waiting for him at the other end of his sight, glued at his pupils like their thoughts where synchronized, but never exactly the same—never enough to get bored.
Now all of that lives squandered inside five inches of pixels that aren’t like the real thing, not in the slightest.
“I know kids live glued to their phones these days.” Spinner says it in a sigh as Stick wheezes in the crook of her elbow. “I thought you would have been spared from this tragic development.”
Gon musters up a sheepish grin, but he really can’t turn his pupils away from his phone, even if the window is lighting up with the prettiest sunset, flashing orange above a sea of clouds.
“It’s just… I was hoping to get a text.”
Mon nods wisely as he ruminates on the chips too. “There’s nothing wrong with using it to keep in contact with friends. Technology can be a blessing.”
“I don’t trust it,” Spin retorts. “It’s too much. We didn’t need to talk to each other every minute of the day before, and we were fine. Now if I go out without my phone half of you just freak out. Not to mention that my parents are starting to get a hang of video calls and my life has been a nightmare since.”
Gon laughs. “I think that’s cute. I mean… I’m really grateful for this kind of technology? I would have lost contact with everybody if it wasn’t for Squabble or Facebox, I’m happy when you share whatever you guys are doing! It’s a bit like being there.”
Mon looks at him with blatant fondness, but Spin is still bitter. “Well, some of us at least know how to avoid getting too caught up. I don’t think Kite even exists on the internet. And I never found Killua, too.”
“Bounty hunters would pester him otherwise.” They’re looking at him funny, so Gon tries to elaborate. “Because of his previous job. A photo of his face is worth a lot.” It’s a sad thought: Gon sends always a lot of photos, of both himself and Aunt Mito, sometimes Abe too, but what he receives back is always scarce. Text messages and sometimes voices, always buzzing, always too far.
“I haven’t heard from Kite either,” he says, following that same line of reasoning. “Will he catch the connection too?”
Mon shakes his head. “Kite’s already waiting for us. It’s pretty difficult for him to travel these days, he catches a lot of attention.”
“Because of his tail?” Gon asks, and Spin rolls her eyes.
“If only. It’s because of his koala.”
“I don’t get it. Mon looks like a bear too, but no one ever complained,” Podungo says, fond, and Mon blinks twice as everybody laughs.
They end up asking about school, which these days is apparently Gon’s main problem and they’re still caught up in an actual trigonometry problem when the blimp lands, soft on the ground as the light turns purple and blue where the skyline of Yorknew paints itself over an orangey shadow of smog.
Lingon airport is crowded in a different way than Zaban’s. People walk faster, wearing smart attires, and Gon’s ears rumble with the sound of small wheels rolling under weighty suitcases.
Podungo is letting Mon carry hers; it’s a trolley that towers above her head. “We should hurry, I have some chemicals on me and I’m pretty worried about the safety check…”
Stick pats both Gon’s shoulder and Podungo on her topknot. “That’s a no pro-blem, don’t forget we have a pro-Hunter with us!”
“Shouldn’t we have two of them, by the way?” Podungo looks to Gon. “Or did Killua—”
“He’s coming!” Gon says it fast, phone still in hand. “He had to leave his sister with our teacher first, but he told me he would have found me here so…”
“Well, call him,” Spinner yelps. “I swear, you guys are too relaxed, we’re going to lose the flight!”
But Gon is already scanning the crowd—the smell, he picks it up like a twinkle in the dark, like a deja-vu.
It’s clean and fresh, sometimes more the absence of it than an actual smell. Because Killua has always had a habit of making himself scarce by default, a habit of concealing—quiet reasoning and sharp eyes and Gon has always, always prided himself in making him pop out instead, poking at his shell until he snapped and laughed, getting loud; until he blushed, color flushing up to his neck and eyes like molten sky.
“Killua,” he says, when he’s already stepped forward. The impact is hard—all their newfound spiky edges trying to wedge in, like getting to know a new landscape.
Even his voice is deeper now, more than Gon could have bet while speaking on the phone.
Gon’s voice is deeper too.
“Don’t choke me, moron,” Killua says. His laugh vibrates between Gon’s arm, ribs trembling under the cotton of a soft, oversized t-shirt he still loves to get bundled inside. He’s the first one to put some distance between them, grin mirroring Gon’s own. “Have you gotten taller?”
Gon flashes his tongue at him. “Why is that a question? I know I’m still shorter than you!” But It’s just a joke—that’s one of the things that never seems to change: Gon can try all he wants, but anytime they see each other, being it weeks or entire, endless months, Killua is always taller than him, and the difference in their height remains the same they’ve always had, like they’re growing at the exact same speed. Anytime they see each other time and space compress and something seems to mend inside Gon’s chest, something he didn’t even know was broken in the first place.
He grins as he grabs Killua's shoulders to squeeze even harder. “This one is from Aunt Mito!”
Killua’s face becomes a shade pinkier, ears red.
Gon doesn’t get what he mumbles—if it was a curse or a thank—but then Killua’s already stepped over to go greeting the rest of the group, head leaning up and down from Monta to Podungo, while Stick tries to get his attention so that he can pester him too with another pun about stick chips.
“Alluka packed me Pockys.” He pulls out an already opened box from the pocket of his baggy pants, and that explains the smell of chocolate that’s lingering around him. Gon accepts one to munch on—it’s milk chocolate and almond, way too sweet for his tastes, but Killua seems to always need a source of serotonin to nib on at any given time.
The woman that sends them off with tickets is feeling chatty, because she doesn’t stop talking as her fingers fly on the computer.
“Oh, lots of people going there these days. They said there’s a big natural reserve or something now, after that weird problem with those magical beasts. Are you scientists?”
“Researchers,” Mon says, with a smile, and Spin points a thumb at her back. “And these two are pro Hunters.”
Her face blanks in a heartbeat. Killua beams at her, one Pocky sticking out from his wide grin.
“We take the Hunters discount, thanks.”
*
“Man, I can’t wait to become a hunter myself.” Spin looks quite pissed, arms crossed and feet propped up on the opposite seat.
Killua too managed to put his shoe up on the windowsill while he insists on mindlessly decimating snacks. "Why haven't you guys taken the exam yet?"
Spin clips her lips and Stick is still smiling; it’s Monta who answers, Podungo looking at him like she too is trying to find the words.
“Kite told us to wait a bit more. I understand his concerns. Some of us aren’t exactly the combatant type.” She sighs at her own tiny hands. “But being a Hunter would be incredibly useful for our research.”
“But you guys are awesome!” Gon tells them. “I’m sure you’ll pass on the first try as fast as you put your minds on it. And if you can’t, you can always try again, right?”
Killua shrugs.
“Second time’s the charm, I guess,” he says, and Gon grins back at him.
*
Gon shakes his head and blinks at the rumpled reflections on the dark window. Killua’s eyes are wide awake under a lifted eyebrow.
“Sleep if you’re tired, moron.”
Is he, tired? His eyelids are heavy and he can’t stretch his legs without touching Stick’s.
He’s sleeping too, half-spread on Spin’s thigs. She’s resting with her cheek on the glass, gum dangerously close to falling off her mouth. Mon is snoring lightly and Podungo too has fallen asleep with the book in her lap at some point.
Gon rubs at his eye and steals one of Killua’s Pocky from his seemingly endless supply. Maybe that’s all there is inside his backpack; Gon wouldn’t be that surprised, to be honest.
The stick crunches under his teeth and the strong, sweet taste of chocolate wakes him up a bit. “I don’t want to sleep. You’re awake.”
“That’s because I’m not feeling sleepy.” Killua hasn’t moved from his spot, leg propped up on the windowsill despite the dirty looks of the flight attendants and fingers fidgeting—he couldn’t bring his yo-yos, too heavy to be embarked.
With the buzz of the blimp’s engine, the silence feels weirdly thick and Gon is stupidly nervous for reasons he doesn’t dare to dissect.
“So, how’s Alluka? Will she be okay with Bisky? I mean—” He doesn’t want to feel awkward and he tries—he tries always really hard not to be. But some things are anyway.
“It’s not like I trust anybody else to take care of her,” Killua answers, truthful. “And, anyway, she likes Bisky… she’s weird like that.” He rolls his eyes and Gon grins, because he knows that Killua likes Bisky too; they’re too similar to show it openly, maybe, but Gon knows that bantering is Killua’s first choice when he relates with someone he likes—he does the same with him, most of the time.
“Her nen is coming up nicely.” He balances one Pocky on the tip of his finger. “She’s very good at Zetsu, sometimes I can’t catch her if she sneaks up on me!”
Gon honestly doubts it, though it might be that Killua is the most relaxed when he’s with his sister; or not: Gon could see, the way Killua is both the most relaxed and the most nervous when he's with Alluka.
She has a calming presence, cheerful and light, and Gon likes her and Nanika a lot, at first because it was evident: Killua loves them both with such dedication it was just natural to love them too.
At the same time, he had the chance to look at Killua’s love from the perspective of an outsider, without being blinded by his own feelings.
Killua loves with all his being. Killua cares so much that he gets literally sick with worry and guilt and Gon feels so, so sorry every day because of that.
“And she wasn’t sad to be left behind?”
It’s just a flash, a stricken look on Killua’s face before he masks it with a shrug. “I’m not leaving her behind, you dummy. She was actually kinda happy. Bisky promised to help her build up her ren endurance. She doesn’t know what’s in store.”
“Ah, that was exhausting!”
“Sure was.”
Silence again and Gon breathes, awkwardness creeping up his throat. Is it just him, or does Killua feels it too? It prickles behind his eyes, it makes him want to scream himself hoarse.
He steals a Pocky instead and pokes at Killua’s leg with his boot. “So, has she decided what she wants to do when she finishes school?”
Killua’s eyebrows flip up, before falling into a pensive frown. “Well, she’s still… I don’t know. We haven’t talked about it yet.”
“She could take the hunter exam too! I mean, I bet she’s super talented, right? And with Nanika—”
“We haven’t talked about it, Gon!”
Everyone is still asleep and Killua didn’t exactly raise his voice, but there’s an edge to it, sharp. His eyes aren’t though: they’re surprised and ready to apologize.
“Sorry,” Gon comes first with what he hopes is a calming smile. “Of course it’s something you have to discuss between you two… I’m just excited! It’s really cool that Alluka is learning nen, I bet she’s super excited.”
Killua nods, cautious. “Learning nen seems to attract weird people, and with Nanika to take care of… I’m just wary over the prospect of them roaming around crazy guys like Hisoka, I guess.”
“That’s understandable,” Gon says, as light and easy as he can, and Killua returns him a smile, tentative like he’s asking for permission.
“But I’m excited she’s learning nen. It would be way better if she could fend for herself.”
Of course it would and Gon nods and smiles even more encouragingly, because that’s what he should be—happy that Alluka could defend herself. Only it wasn’t at all what he was thinking about.
He was thinking about how fun it was when he and Killua were the ones learning all the incredible possibilities spread wide in front of them, learning the basics and then developing their hatsu and then… But Killua has other concerns, these days. Concerns about safety and protection that Gon just doesn’t have—and doesn’t exactly get, even.
He has no idea how they end up talking about homework; that might just be how Gon’s life works at this point.
“Physics is the worst. Actually I don’t know, maybe it’s still better than math, because sometimes I can understand how stuff works. Oh—I know! You could help me with my homework, wait—”
“I told you, I don’t get it too—”
“But it’s about electricity! You get that .”
Killua gapes. He blinks at the notebook Gon is retrieving from his luggage. “I guess I do?”
“Right, so, there’s this circuit thing…”
Homework with Killua is fun. Gon knows it depends on Killua way more than on the homework; everything with Killua has always been fun and when it wasn’t fun it still felt right, like they were a well-oiled machine.
Killua’s handwriting is pretty neat but super small and compact; he’s grabbed the inside of his cheek between his teeth while he tries to make sense of some formula, so Gon sticks a Pocky inside his mouth.
“I told you I’d help you, not that you could play around while I work.”
“I know, I know! It’s just that it’s difficult—”
Killua erases some calculations and gets back to flipping the pages of the book. “This doesn’t make any sense, it shouldn’t be a negative number, what the heck—”
He’s so close—his hair is so fluffy, and his eyelashes are long and thick, and when they flutter Gon’s stomach fills with bubbles.
“Thanks, Killua,” he blurts, unable to just sit still and shut up.
Killua waves a hand, distracted. “Why the hell are you thanking me now? We’re friends, you don’t need to.”
“Yeah, you told me, but… I like when we do stuff together like this. I really do.”
Killua turns violent every time he’s embarrassed, so Gon accepts the kick on his knee as a fact of life.
“Don’t be embarrassing—There’s a whole month of that ahead, right? So maybe thank me later or something.”
A whole month ahead. The night is still dark, even at that height, cities scattered down like constellations. A whole month ahead, and yet Gon feels like a whole month isn’t enough—time is never enough. He’ll stay awake as much as he can; he doesn’t want to waste not even a second with Killua.
*
Over the horizon, NGL is just as green as always, with its splotches of glinting green popping from the desert.
Gon puts his head back inside, coughing a bit of dust.
“We can keep the truck, now. That’s a relief, to be honest.” Monta is driving with one hairy arm outside the window and the other almost limp on the steering wheel despite the bumpiness of the road.
In the end, Gon fell asleep on Killua’s shoulder while Killua was still intent on decimating Pockys and muttering expletives at physics homework. When he woke up, Killua had solved too many problems but he was still battling with operators because “I don’t get math, I just don’t”.
Gon bought him a giant hot chocolate for breakfast as fast as they put foot on the ground in the small airport right outside Quen City, in the Rokario Republic.
Maybe Killua is truly fueled by chocolate: his eyes are half-lidded but not sleepy at all. He smiles back at Gon when Gon grins at him and Podungo has a sudden burst of little, jumpy laughter right between them in the backseat.
She shakes her head, topknot bouncing. “Nothing. I just really like romcoms, that’s all.” She’s reading a pretty sturdy manual about sample conservation’s methodology, so it’s a comment that doesn’t make any sense.
“How can you read in the car,” Spin tries, chewing with a fiery passion.
Stick pats her on the hat. “She’s groundsick, poor thing.”
“What’s groundsick?” Gon asks even if Killua and Mon have already growled in unison.
Stick sticks a finger up and turns toward him with an extremely serious face. “It’s the seasickness but on the ground, of course!”
Gon isn’t the only one who laughs, mostly at the sheer absurdity, which is Stick’s actual brand anyway.
Summer is gleaming over the horizon, scalding the air from the ground up. The first speckles of greenery look like aunt Mito’s stir-fried broccoli, swaying right above the end of the desert.
Gon can’t remember if it was this hot the first time—he’s almost sure not, but his body feels detached for a second and he finds himself drying sweaty palms on his cargo shorts. He catches Killua’s eye by accident; they exchange a look and Gon forgets how to form words as he opens his mouth to say something only to find his brain blank.
“Water?” Podungo asks, pulling a giant flask off her even more giant bag.
Gon smiles, thanks her, and the world starts moving again.
When the truck slows down, trees finally emerging at their full height, the air feels way cooler and Gon’s head with it, especially when he sticks it out of the window to look at the river.
“What are you, a dog?” he hears Killua saying.
“But look, we’re there!”
They’re there: you can’t miss the gigantic twin trees extending their roots over the water like a couple of contorted stilt houses, their crown so big that when the truck enters their shadow the air cools down suddenly, and Gon sighs in contentment.
Monta parks just as smoothly as he drives, right beside the stairs that led inside the tree.
“And the people who used to work here?” Killua asks, as fast as they’re hopped down.
He’s magical, that’s the only possible explanation for him to still look composed, no patch of sweat to be found. At these temperatures, Gon is used to spending all his waking time dipped inside the ocean, back home.
He’s going to tell Killua, only he’s stopped in the motion of picking up his backpack, car door still open. Gon follows his gaze, but it’s fixed at the base of the tree, right where the roots meet the ground.
“Killua?”
He startles and for a split second he looks so lost and scared Gon is jumping to go and—well, he isn’t sure, really. Sometimes he feels like he should protect Killua from the stuff that lives inside his head.
Killua shakes it instead and lets out a snort. “It’s weird being back here, isn’t it?”
Gon takes a sharp inhale. He too looks at the trees, and over, where the overwhelming green starts and doesn’t stop.
“What are you dumbasses doing? Pick stuff up!” Spinner yells at them, hands on both sides.
Killua answers by picking up half the baggage with one hand and Gon tries not to laugh too hard. He’s still grinning when he catches a swift blink of red at the edge of his vision.
Up to the ladder, Kite is just slightly taller than his Koala-shaped shadow. They’re both wearing black like the temperature doesn’t mean a thing.
Gon jumps on the last step and brakes right before knocking them off. “Kite!”
Koala rolls his eyes, but Kite is smiling—that crooked, tight-lipped smile that’s still the most similar thing to his old self.
“Welcome back,” he says, and Gon beams.
*
Spin points at the map with the clean stick of her popsicle and taps on a spot of brown surrounded by overwhelming green. “The base of operation is right here and we’re going to reach it via airship—”
“What do you mean via airship, why are we here then?” Killua uses his popsicle to gesture at the wooden walls of the facility, a bit too dark even under the midday sun.
They’ve spread the map on the table. It’s a bit uncanny, the way everything is just the same as it was and so different—empty, desks abandoned and machinery silent and asleep. The central room is crowded with boxes now, and Kite’s roosted over a tall stool, both elbows on the table to spy over the map.
“There are still too many regulations to come and go from the NGL and most of the equipment is too fragile to risk carrying it by hands,” he explains. “Banana has a flying license, she and Lin have rented a blimp and they’re going to be back here tomorrow morning. Until then, we’ll have to pack all up.”
Killua frowns. “I don’t exactly have a license, but I can fly an airship. You could have told me beforehand.”
Of course Killua would know how to fly an airship. Gon gapes and Killua’s face turns pink. “It’s not that difficult,” he mumbles.
Podungo hums a lighthearted tune and Kite sighs.
“Anyway, you two remember the place. Some of the ants used it as a nest, but before that—”
“It was the shadow king’s base.” Every time Koala talks it feels like they’ve fallen into a noir movie. His claws are fidgeting with an unlit cigarette. “You know, that Gyro person who ruled the NGL criminal activities. He employed my expertise sometimes.”
“And what would that be?” Killua asks, curious.
Koala lifts his gaze to look him dead in the eyes. “I used to be a hitman.”
Killua considers him for a moment. “A colleague,” he says, neutral, and then he shakes his head, as if to shoo a fly. “So, you mean that stinky maze that reeked of blood? I hope you cleaned it up properly.”
“It’s still pretty dark,” Kite concedes. “But we employed the locals to help clean it up. It’s spacious, it already has an autonomous power system and even some tech we could reuse.”
Gon looks at his hands, the way they feel a bit detached from his own body.
He remembers the darkness and the stink—blood and pee, fear and abject misery. He had been furious even back then, before anything even happened to Kite. And he killed—
Killua’s elbow brushes his forearm. Gon blinks and the map comes back into focus.
“How about all those weapons,” he ends up saying and the table turns silent for a second. “I mean, there were entire trunks full of weapons back then.”
“The association took care of those,” Kite says.
“What about the people, though?” Podungo asks, thoughtful. “I mean, having them involved sounds like a viable solution to weaken possible conflict, but some of them are still pretty rooted into the NGL original ideology, as far as I know.”
“Ah, rooted! Like plants! I see what you did there,” Stick says, and Spin pinches him hard on the nose.
Kite ignores them, arms crossed. “Some of them aren’t happy about this arrangement. There are still people who don’t want the association to meddle with their territory… but with the restriction of a class A natural reserve, I think that we’ve managed to smooth things over. It helps that with how tricky communication is inside the country, it’s really difficult for groups to organize and be consistently aggressive.”
“Is that even fair, though?” Mon says “This is their place.”
Kite frowns, pensive. “I feel like it’s kinda mine too, in a way. And yours too, don’t you think?”
Koala shrugs but doesn’t contradict him.
Kite sounds solemn, hat casting a shade on his reddish eyes. “Maybe we’re claiming rights that aren’t ours, but I think intentions should matter something. The Association is super partes and we’re researchers, not conquerors. Our objective is to preserve this place in its natural state, study it, and nothing more.” He looks everybody in the eyes as if to test their resolution, and Gon feels a bit mended every time, because Kite is still Kite, and even if he’s changed, even if Gon changed too, there’s always that promise between them, and Gon is sure going to keep it with everything he has.
They end up splitting as Spin instructs them about the enormous amount of packing up that they still have to do.
Gon drags his backpack around like an annoying reminder of all the homework he should be doing while he stretches strips of duct tape around boxes big and small. Killua cuts it with his claws because there aren’t enough scissors around, while Gon tells him all about how stuck he is in the middle of his final quest in Legend of Hilda . These days he’s the one who plays video games the most, but Killua still remembers all the tricks.
“Oh wait I didn’t tell you? How didn’t I tell you! You know, to jump levels—”
“But I don’t want to just jump levels!”
They’re wrapping up small parts of a tripod; every leg must be bundled up individually before they can put it all back inside a bigger box.
“You should at least try because there’s this bug, and Lunch just explodes if you don’t do it right.”
“What do you mean ‘explodes’,” Gon asks, worried, and Killua grins.
“Explodes. Literally, there’s an explosion sound—I’m not sure it’s a bug, actually, probably just something fun they did…”
“How is Lunch exploding fun, I don’t want him to explode!”
“You are always too attached. It’s a character—”
“But I like him!”
Killua rolls his eyes. “It’s not a him, it’s a character!”
“So, you’re still that kind of friends,” Spin says, an eyebrow raised and Gon doesn’t know when she appeared between their boxes, out of nowhere, Podungo in tow.
Killua growls, pink crawling up his neck. “What kind of—”
“The bantering, lovely kind,” Podungo says, but she shields herself with two big cups of instant ramen. “Choose your dinner. Spicy shrimps and boring chicken.”
“How’s the chicken boring?” Spin comments, but Gon has already stuck his hand out to grab the closest cup.
“I’ll get the shrimp one and Killua, you can get the other! That way we can try them both!”
Killua snorts. “It’s just instant ramen, don’t get so enthusiastic. I’ll take the boring chicken one, then.”
Podungo nods and smiles again as she turns to Spin.
“See? The bantering, lovely kind.”
Gon grins even harder when he catches the red on Killua’s cheeks.
*
They’re still packing things up, smaller and smaller cameras and their extremely fragile accessories, lenses, microphones, and cables.
To be fair, Killua is the only one who's helping, while Gon has to cry over math homework—it’s really, really unfair.
The instant ramen was pretty filling, but Killua is still nibbling onto tostones, since apparently that’s half the content of the pantry. That and salted fish.
Stick’s head comes out bouncing from the trapdoor. “Hey guys, here’s a couple of sleep bags for the couple!” He deposits two forest green heaps on the floor and Killua’s bloodlust smells dangerous but Stick blinks, unaffected.
“Because you always go around in a pair, so you’re a couple? That’s good work, Killua, just remember to write what’s inside on the side!”
Killua nods, still busy applying duct tape and restraining himself from squeezing the bubble wrap.
“Spin says ‘don’t stay up late’, but Kite already reminded her that you’re not kids anymore, so no need to look at me like that!” And he disappears back down.
Killua munches on a plantain chip with his eyebrows furrowed. “Next time he throws a pun I’m going to ruin my no-killing streak and just strangle him,” he says, extremely serious as he looks at the empty trapdoor.
Half of Gon’s brain is trying to decide what to do with an exponent, pen's cap chewed beyond salvation. “You’re on a no-killing streak?”
Killua’s eyes widen; the tape makes a squeaky sound of agony. “What do you mean, of course I’ve been on a no-killing streak. I haven’t killed a human in five years. And any other living thing since...” He gestures vaguely at the wooden wall, the whole of NGL. “You know I don’t kill people anymore.”
“Yeah, sure.” Gon really can’t say anything without stepping on a booby trap these days, can he? “I just didn’t know you were keeping track of that. I guess I didn’t think it was so important to you… I’m happy it is.”
Wrong too; Killua’s face looks genuinely pained. “What the hell, Gon. You mean you wouldn’t mind if I was, like, walking around killing people?”
Gon is trying; only Killua’s thought process is so different from his own that he gets lost. He blinks.
“It’s not like I wouldn’t like you anyway—ah, but!” he adds, because Killua’s eyes got even larger all of the sudden. “I mean, I guess that I like you because you’re you , and you don’t like killing people! So it’s not even a problem to begin with!”
Killua’s eyes are still open wide; he ends up slouching on the box, like he’s lost control of his own body, until he shakes his head, hard, and grabs at his phone, hair covering his eyes.
“Honestly, sometimes you’re exhausting… I’m going out to make a call, might take a while. Don’t wait up!”
He leaps over him and pats him on the head, fingers carding lightly through Gon’s spiky hair—such a natural move that for a second they both end up looking at each other, mouths agape.
“Sorry I—I just always do it with Alluka and she’s the one stressing over homework usually, and I was thinking about her because I wanted to call and—”
“It’s fine, it’s—” Gon laughs because it’s funny, but there’s also a weird pulling inside his stomach; he doesn’t know what it is, but it stings. “Don’t worry about it. Aunt Mito does that a lot too… Oh, and Leorio?”
Killua fakes a gag. “Ew, don’t compare me to Riolao!”
“But it’s true!”
Killua groans, but they’re both laughing until he steps out of the structure from the window, jumping down from the branches of the giant mangrove. And Gon sighs, shaking his head.
It’s always kinda funny, Killua getting all riled up about being compared to Leorio but not at all by being compared to Aunt Mito—well, Aunt Mito is awesome. Only Leorio is too, so Gon doesn’t quite get it.
His hand raises to touch his own hair, the sensation of Killua’s fingers still lingering on his scalp. He pulls at it and the pen falls, dry sound on the floorboards.
He likes it when Leorio pats his head but when the one who does it is Killua… Gon is pretty sure he doesn’t like to be treated like Killua’s little sisters. That’s not… that’s not the kind of friends they are, right? Gon doesn’t have any siblings, but he never thought of Killua as such?
He looks at the pair of sleep bags, the two empty cups of instant ramen. Gon got to eat the whole spicy one alone because Killua just couldn’t stand it; he’s always so picky with his food, and he wrinkled his nose like a displeased cat, just to hum with happiness when Gon found him a bag of tostones to nibble on instead.
Maybe those are all stuff friends and siblings do, so there’s really nothing different from what goes on between himself and Killua, not anymore.
They’re just two very close friends, now, and they aren’t exactly that much close even, since the long-distance thing has been going on for ages now. Gon didn’t even know that the no-killing streak was an actual thing with a name.
He can hear Killua’s voice from there, lively and soft as he speaks on the phone with Alluka—or Nanika maybe: he’s even extra softer when he talks to her, who still speaks like a child. He’s laughing, and asking and maybe nagging a bit: it’s earlier when they are, did they have lunch? Is Bisky treating them well? Do they need anything at all?
Gon lowers his gaze to the book. The solution to the exercise is sprinkled with splotches of water.
He blinks the tears away and he doesn’t even know why he feels like that—sad, and a bit broken.
It’s not the first time it happened; it’s a side effect of math homework.
Back on Whale Island, he usually calls Killua and his voice is always able to brush away this stupid kind of sadness, this feeling of being lost, because if he isn’t Gon-and-Killua, or even Ging’s son, sometimes Gon isn’t sure he likes to be just Gon at all.