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Killua got an email. The subject line read: PARTY ON WHALE ISLAND!! 

It was from Gon, of course. Killua was, apparently, invited to a celebration at Gon’s home that seemed to function partially as a reunion for all the friends that had been spread across the world the past few years and partially as a celebration of Gon’s completion of his homeschooling and “Never having to do math homework again!” At the bottom of the email was a picture of Gon grinning with Mito and his great-grandmother.

Killua scrolled through everyone else on the recipient list and managed to decipher that Gon had also invited such age-old friends as Zushi, Wing, Biscuit, the old extermination team, and — bafflingly, in Killua’s opinion — Hanzo. Also Leorio, of course, and an email listed as <encrypted> that could only be Kurapika. Killua had to admit he was impressed that Gon had managed to get a hold of the latter.

Killua had scarcely finished reading when his phone buzzed and a notification popped up at the top of the screen.

Gon : Killua did you get my invitation??

Killua rolled his eyes fondly.

Killua: gon you literally just sent it

Gon: So you did get it??

Killua: yes idiot

Gon: So are you coming?

Killua paused.

He and Gon had had semi-regular communication in the three years since they’d separated via texts, calls, video calls, and emails, but they hadn’t met in person once. In some ways, it made sense. He and Alluka were constantly traveling, and they never planned too far in advance so that they would be harder to track. Gon was on Whale Island the whole time, and would have to travel quite a ways to meet them anywhere, and he was always busy with his homeschooling anyway.

Killua couldn’t say why they’d never visited him there. Maybe it had something to do with how strangely false their last meeting had felt, at the World Tree, when they’d gone in circles thanking each other and being aggressively cheerful and joking about things that deep down made Killua want to cry, and the only time it had felt real was when Gon had looked long at him and said This is no good, if we stay here any longer… and trailed off and Killua had just said Yeah because he knew Gon meant if I don’t leave now, then I never will.

It just … felt easier to talk to Gon through a screen. Easier to never talk about anything too … upsetting. 

Killua felt a smack to the back of his head.

“Answer him, onii-chan!” Alluka said from right behind him, where she had apparently been reading over his shoulder. 

“Alluka-”

“No no,” she said, and snatched the phone out of his hands. “We’re going. It’ll be fun! I’ve barely gotten to meet any of your friends.”

“I just don’t know if-”

“You’ve avoided seeing Gon for long enough, onii-chan,” she said, already typing.

Sometimes it surprised Killua how perceptive Alluka could be, but he didn’t protest any further.

It was strange to see Gon in person again. There were some things that selfies and video calls just couldn’t quite convey.

He was … taller. And the past few years spent in Whale Island’s near-constant sunshine had deepened and darkened the color of his skin a shade. He was stronger, too; the curves of his muscles stood out as he picked up both Killua and Alluka’s luggage bags as easily as if they were empty.

His eyes were the same. So was his big wide smile. But his face was a bit narrower, his chin a bit sharper.

Gon walked a few steps ahead of them all the way up the hill to the Freecss home, talking all the way: about his day, about all the people who had already arrived on the island, about what Mito was cooking for the celebration. At one point, he turned his head slightly to look back at Killua, and something — the angle of his jaw, maybe, or the certain slant of a shadow across his face, or a taut tendon in his neck — made Killua see the shape his face would settle into in just a few more years, a shape it had already been, once. It made him cold, for a moment, even in the relentless island sun.

Gon’s house was exactly as Killua remembered it, if a little bit smaller. Change was slow to come to Whale Island, it seemed; the village remained quaint, the forest stayed lush, the ocean swept in and out of the sea caves at the same pace it always had. Killua felt twelve again. Killua felt like at any moment, Gon might turn to him and say Killua, let’s go fishing, let’s go explore the woods, let’s go diving off the cliffs, I’ll race you there, and everything would be as easy and simple and good as it had been back then.

They’d arrived at the Freecss’ house hours early, since Gon had invited them to stay there. Mito had set up beds for him and Alluka in a spare room, and as soon as they set their things down Alluka ran back outside to look at the sea and pick wildflowers at the top of the hill.

Gon was a ball of energy ping-ponging around the house, helping Mito and his great-grandmother cook and tidy up and clear the main room out for dancing. Killua helped him take down tablecloths that had been drying on the clothesline outside. Yards and yards of clean white linen smelling of sunshine, and Gon in the middle of it, laughing.

Evening came, and people started to arrive. Whale Island villagers that were friends with the Freecss came on foot, mostly, except for the local band, which struggled up the hill in a tiny, rusty sky-blue car that backfired several times.

Others came in the island’s single taxi; Morel drove a group up in a van packed full. Gon personally greeted everyone with equal and undiminished enthusiasm, making introductions with full gusto and charm.

Gon wasn’t the only one there who Killua hadn’t seen in a long time. Most of the people Gon had invited did actually show up. Conspicuously absent, of course, was Kurapika. Both Gon and Leorio seemed noticeably put out, though not surprised, by this.

“Haven’t seen him since we got back from the Dark Continent,” Leorio said when Killua asked him about it later in the evening, taking a pull from his beer and looking into the middle distance. “Remind me to tell you about all that sometime … we got off the ship and he disappeared back into the underground. You know how he gets.”

The party went on late into the night, the alcohol flowing freely and the Whale Island band getting rowdier and rowdier. Killua was watching Knuckle and Mito dance some sort of high-energy jig to the frenetic pace of the fiddle and accordion and drums — Mito was clearly the more competent of the two — when he felt a touch to his sleeve. He turned, and Alluka was there, looking at him with some measure of apprehension.

“Onii-chan, can we talk?” 

Killua's stomach dropped a bit. “Yeah, what’s up?”

“Just — come over here,” she said, and pulled him into the kitchen. Bisky was in there too, perched on the countertop. She smiled at Killua, but he still couldn’t help but feel a little like he’d walked into an ambush.

“What’s up?” he repeated, nonchalantly, shoving his hands into his pockets.

“Well,” Alluka said. “Bisky and I have been talking, and she was just telling me about how she used to be your Nen master when you were younger.”

“Yeah, she was a real slave driver,” Killua said. Bisky narrowed her eyes threateningly at him, and Killua smirked back, despite the sinking realization of where this conversation was going.

“She said you were practically hopeless when she found you,” Alluka went on.

Killua’s brow furrowed. “I was not. You make me sound like some kind of lost puppy. I’d had plenty of real fights.”

“Please,” Bisky scoffed. “You couldn’t even do Ko .”

“She said by the time she was through with you, she was sure you could give a good fight to almost every Nen user she knew,” Alluka continued, unfazed.

Killua shrugged. “She’s not wrong. What about it?”

Alluka blew out a breath. “I want to go and train with her,” she said, all in a rush.

There it was. Killua had expected it, but still, the first thing out of his mouth was, “Why?”

Alluka frowned. “What do you mean, why? So I can protect myself, obviously.”

Killua forced his hands even deeper into his pockets. “You don’t need to, though. I can protect you.”

Alluka put her hands on her hips. “Don’t coddle me, onii-chan. You were much younger than I am now when you started learning Nen.”

“Well, I had to,” Killua said. “I had to survive. But you don’t need to learn, and anyway, it’s dangerous.”

“Of course it’s dangerous, that’s what training is for, to make it not dangerous!”

“Even with training.” Killua’s jaw clenched, involuntarily. “It can go wrong.” 

A flash, for a moment, of a hulking silhouette, of oily black aura snaking towards the sky, don’t think about that, don’t think about that now.

Maybe Alluka could sense the trajectory of his thoughts anyway, because her brow smoothed out and her hands dropped to her sides.

“I’ll be careful,” she said gently. “Onii-chan, you’re always saying we need to be prepared for anything, anytime. And we can’t always be together, all the time. If I do this, we can both be safe. We can have normal lives.”

That was Alluka, always dreaming of something better. But Killua wasn’t so sure. Killua couldn’t shake the dreaded certainty that as soon as they got complacent, Illumi was going to creep into the shadows of their bedroom while they were sleeping and slide his needles back into Killua’s head — worse, into Alluka’s head. 

“Killua,” Bisky spoke up. “I won’t let anything bad happen while she’s training. And once I’m through with her, she’ll probably be strong enough even to take on you, if she wanted.”

“Onii-chan, please,” Alluka said, eyes all wide and hopeful.

Killua wanted to keep her safe. Killua wanted to keep her from suffering. Killua just wanted her, to travel with her and to make her laugh and to show her the world she was deprived of for so long.

But Killua knew what it was like to feel trapped, to feel chained down, to feel obligated to family. And he couldn’t do that to her. He wouldn’t.

“Okay,” he mumbled. “All right. But don’t push yourself too hard, okay?”

“No slacking either!” Bisky exclaimed, but Killua barely heard her over Alluka whooping with delight and launching herself at him. Killua stumbled back a step as her arms wrapped around his neck.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you!” she shrieked. “Don’t worry, onii-chan, I won’t let you down, I’ll be amazing!”

“I know you will,” Killua said, hugging her tightly and meaning every word.

And with that, she pulled back and, grinning full force, pressed a kiss to his cheek before running back out to join the party.

Bisky looked like she was about to say something to him, but Killua suddenly felt the need to get some fresh air, and turned on his heel out of the kitchen, through the main room and towards the front door.

Killua stepped outside into the warm night and stood leaning back against the outer wall of the house. He could feel the vibrations of the music and laughter and voices inside humming against his skull. 

Alluka was growing up. It was going to happen eventually. It had been happening all along. And she shouldn’t need Killua around all the time to protect her, that was true — it was safer if she could defend herself, Killua knew that. But she would never be as strong as Killua, that was just a fact, because Killua’s strength was born of torment and being forced to endure the unimaginable. Killua had been pushed to his limits time and time again, then been pushed past them, had been told it’s only pain, Kil, I know you can take more than this.

Alluka had never faced training like that. Alluka never would. Killua would die before letting even a fraction of that happen to her. But nonetheless — he was stronger for it.

Alluka had potential for great power of her own, and Killua would trust no one more than Bisky to help her harness it. 

Killua knew he couldn’t keep Alluka under the protection of his wing forever. It would be selfish, and cruel, to be as paranoid as his mother or possessive as Illumi. But without that drive, that devotion, that purpose … what was there left for Killua to do?

Killua looked up at the sky. He felt like a fishing boat drifting away from the dock. Unmoored.

And into Killua’s introspection crashed — as he was wont to do — Gon.

The door to the house burst open, and Gon emerged in a spill of color and sound. When he saw Killua, his face spread into a smile: a full-cheeked, bright-eyed smile, because Gon had never known how to do joy — or any other emotion — halfway.

“Killua!” he shouted.

Bam bam, went Killua’s heart, and he was smiling, softly, before he could even realize he was doing it. There was a flush in Gon’s cheeks, and his eyes were lit up with the sort of open-hearted enthusiasm Killua hadn’t seen in person since they were a couple of dumbass kids. Without really meaning to, he flicked his gaze away.

“Hey, Gon,” he said. “Boy, how much sake have you had, huh?”

Gon’s smile went wry. “Only one glass. I think. I’m just so happy to see everyone again!”

“Me too,” Killua said, and when he looked back Gon had moved a step closer.

“And I’m really glad to see you again, Killua,” he said, his smile gone softer. Killua blinked, taken aback by the surprisingly sedate tone of his voice. But before he could dwell on it, Gon brightened again, and reached out to touch him on the wrist, just briefly.

“Can I show you something? I promise it’s really cool!”

 “Okay,” Killua said instantly, because he had never once regretted letting Gon show him something about his home.

“Okay!” Gon echoed, then turned and started scaling the side of the house.

After a moment, Killua followed. When he reached the top, Gon was balancing on the tips of his toes at the peak of the house and looking towards the sea. “Look,” he said, pointing.

Killua followed his gaze and saw, in the water moving against the shore down on the other side of the hill, thousands of blue-green lights glowing gently under the moon.

“It’s a sort of bioluminescent algae,” Gon said, and sat with his legs angled down along the slope of the roof. Killua joined him, watching the lights undulate in the water. “It only grows every five years.”

“Cool,” Killua breathed.

“Last time was right before I left to take the Hunter Exam,” Gon went on. “It’s weird, seeing it happen again is like … hm. Full circle? Or the opening of something new, maybe. Especially since I’m gonna be leaving Whale Island again soon.”

Killua turned his head sharply. “You’re leaving? To go where?”

Gon hesitated, looking at him sideways. “Promise you won’t get mad.”

Killua lifted an eyebrow. “Not a very inspiring start, Gon.”

“I found someone who might be able to help me get my Nen back.”

Killua blinked. “I thought the doctors said that was impossible.”

“They did, but — well, they don’t know everything, I’ve been talking to people on some forums on the Hunter site about people with unusual Nen abilities and there’s this one woman in the wilderness of the Bergerossé Union who calls herself a Nen witch-”

“A Nen witch ?”

“I know how it sounds, Killua, but I talked to a whole bunch of people who have met her and one guy said he got into a battle where his opponent’s Nen beast just sort of devoured his Nen and he couldn’t use it anymore until he went to her.”

“A Nen beast is a whole different thing-”

“Another woman said she pushed herself too hard with her Hatsu once and felt completely drained and couldn’t muster the aura to do it again, for months, but then the Nen witch helped her back to normal.”

“Gon, do you really think this would work?”

Gon huffed out a frustrated breath. “I have to try.”

“You’re going to travel halfway across the world without your Nen for a chance that might or might not be real?” Killua said, incredulous.

Gon just shrugged. “Well, yeah.”

“Idiot,” Killua said, one fist clenching in the fabric of his pants. “What would you do if you ran into trouble? There’s … there’s a lot of Hisokas out there, you know.”

Gon made a face. “Hisoka wouldn’t care about me anymore.”

“That’s not the point,” Killua snapped. “I mean — people who want something from you. People who would take advantage of you.”

“I can take care of myself,” Gon said, his voice carefully level. 

“Not if they’re half-decent at Nen, you can’t!” 

Gon’s jaw was set. “I did alright before I learned Nen, didn’t I? I passed the exam without it. There are plenty of Hunters out there who get by without it.”

“Things are different now. People know you.” Killua swallowed. “Gon, you wouldn’t be safe.”

Gon was quiet for several long moments. Killua watched him watch the sea, uncharacteristically thoughtful in profile.

“I love Whale Island,” he said eventually. “It’s my home. But it’s small. I know all the best fishing spots. I’ve gone diving in all the sea caves. I could walk blindfolded from one end to the other.”

“Gon,” Killua said, but Gon was shaking his head.

“I couldn’t stay here forever,” he said. “I just couldn’t. I’d go crazy. This is a good place to come back to, but it’s not a place where I could- where I could … get old.”

Killua said nothing.

“I have to try,” Gon said again. “Even if it doesn’t work, I have to try. I came back here because I knew it was the safest thing to do, and Mito-san wanted me to finish school, but I still want to see the world. I still want to travel.”

After a moment, Killua said, “I get it.”

For someone like Gon, staying on Whale Island would be … a beautiful prison, but a prison nonetheless. He was bigger than the place that raised him. He was too vibrant to be constrained to a quiet life of fishing and sunbathing.

Gon brought his hands together, the thumb of one hand pressing gently into the palm of the other.

“There’s ... another thing,” he said. “In the past few years, I’ve had a lot of time to think about what happened. Everything that happened. And about what went wrong. I’ve talked to Mito-san, and even some people I met online, and fishermen in the pubs by the docks — Mito-san says I shouldn’t take them too seriously, but I think some of them have some really good advice —”

“Get to the point, Gon,” Killua interrupted.

Gon turned his head and looked at him. His eyes were deep in the dark, and serious. Killua wasn’t sure what to do with a Gon this solemn, this … careful.

“I expected too much from you,” he said. “All that time we were together, I … assumed no matter what I did, you’d be able to help me fix the fallout. I thought, no matter what selfish thing I decided to do, if you didn’t stop me, that meant it would be okay. We were just stupid kids, maybe we didn’t know any better, but it wasn’t fair. Killua,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

Killua felt his eyes go wide, felt the heat rise to his cheeks. The intense sincerity in Gon’s eyes burned him, and he had to look away, his hair falling over his eyes. 

A few moments passed.

“Killua,” Gon said, tone unsure. “What are you thinking?”

What Killua was thinking was: maybe it wasn’t fair, but I didn’t care. Maybe it hurt sometimes, but I didn’t mind. Maybe you were selfish, but most of the time it didn’t matter to me. I just wanted you to count on me. I wanted to be important to you.

Killua was thinking: I guess you kinda grew up without me, huh? Not sure how I feel about that.

What Killua said was: “Alluka’s going to train with Bisky for a while.”

A pause. “That’s cool,” Gon said, audibly a little confused. “I’m sure she’ll be great!”

“So I’ll be on my own for at least a few months,” Killua went on. “Not sure what I’m gonna do.”

“Oh,” Gon said, realization dawning.

For the space of several heartbeats, they were suspended like that, the only sound in the night the muffled shouts and music in the house below them.

Then Gon said, “Do you want to come with me?”

Yes, Killua thought immediately and fervently. Yes, I want to go with you, and hang out with you, and have fun with you, and sleep in the same room as you, and it can be like it used to, when everything was easy —

(there was another part of him that thought if you let him in too close again you might get hurt just like before — )

“Yeah,” Killua said, and smiled at him. “Okay.”

Gon beamed: a spotlight in the dark. He lunged toward Killua and hugged him for the briefest of seconds: there and then gone, barely a moment for Killua to register the warm strength of Gon’s arms around his shoulders, like he hadn’t really meant to do it but couldn’t help himself, either.

“It’ll be so fun, Killua, I can’t wait!”

Killua held up a hand. “You have to promise me something, though.”

Gon’s brow furrowed. “Okay. What?”

“Swear that if we get into any trouble, you won’t fight. Okay? If they’re using Nen, let me take care of it.”

Gon hesitated for a fraction of a second, and Killua tensed, ready to shout him down.

“Okay,” Gon said instead. “I swear.”

Killua breathed out. “And no going back on it.”

“Of course not!” Gon looked offended. Then he smiled. “You know, Killua, you’ve gotten a lot more cautious.”

I’ve had more to protect, Killua thought, and said, “Yeah, maybe. And you’ve … grown.”

Gon leaned back on his hands and sighed. “Not as much as I’d like. I’m still not taller than Mito-san. I think Ging cursed me with short genes.”

Killua shook his head, smiling. He wondered if Gon was deliberately misunderstanding him.

Below, Killua heard the sound of the front door banging open again, shortly followed by the unmistakable sound of Leorio’s voice.

“Gon! Killua! Where did you go?”

Gon scrambled over to the edge of the roof and stuck his head over. “Up here!”

“Get down here!” Leorio yelled. “We’re doing a toast!”

“Ok, be right there!” Gon shouted back, waving. He looked back over his shoulder. “Killua, let’s go!”

With that, he hopped over the edge of the roof.

And Killua followed.

Two days later, they were down at the docks, and the ferry to the mainland was minutes away from departing. Since Whale Island was an outpost, it was pretty far out to sea; it would take a couple of days to get to the closest mainland port. From there, they would have to catch a train to the nearest big city and then take an airship to the Bergerossé Union. After that, they’d have to venture into the wilderness on foot.

Alluka would take the next day’s ferry with Bisky, but she came down with Mito to see them off anyway.

“Promise me you’ll call when you get there,” Killua told her.

“I promise.”

“And promise to check in all the time. Let me know how it’s going.”

“I promise, onii-chan.”

“And if anything happens that makes you feel uncomfortable, or like you’re being watched, or if you see anyone who looks suspicious, trust your gut, and promise you’ll call me right away-”

“Onii-chan!” Alluka slapped her hand over his mouth. “I promise. I’ll be fine, okay? I’ll be with Bisky. And I’ll send you so many updates you’ll get sick of me.”

Killua pulled her hand away. “Never,” he said.

Alluka rolled her eyes, but she was smiling. “You’re such a sap. You be careful too, okay? And have fun!”

“Yeah, alright,” Killua said, and opened his arms. “Come here.”

She did, and Killua held on tight.

“Killua, I love you,” said his sister’s voice, pitched higher. Killua pulled back, his smile softening.

“I love you too, Nanika,” he said. 

Nanika’s wide black eyes were angled in delight, her mouth curved upwards. “I’ll miss Killua,” she said.

“I know, I’ll miss you too,” Killua said, and took her hand. Nanika seemed to mature at a slower rate than Alluka, and still loved any and all physical signs of affection Killua gave her, no matter how childish. “Look after each other, okay?”

“Always,” Nanika giggled, and leaned forward to press a kiss to his cheek. “Bye-bye, Killua!”

Killua squeezed her hand, and smoothed his other hand down her hair. “Bye, Nanika.”

They parted, and Killua looked over to where Gon was saying goodbye to Mito, a few yards down the dock. They were hugging fiercely; Gon had his face downturned into Mito’s neck, and one of Mito’s hands was resting in his hair. When they separated, Mito’s hands went up to hold Gon’s face, and she said something to him, looking serious. He covered one of her hands with his own and nodded. Mito leaned in to kiss his cheek and let him go.

Gon slung his backpack over his shoulders and walked Killua’s way. When he noticed Killua had been watching, he smiled wryly.

“Mito-san’s gotten sentimental with age,” he joked, but his eyes were watery. “Ready, Killua?”

“Yeah,” Killua said, hefting up the weight of his own bag. “Let’s go.”

Once again, it seemed like half the island had come to see Gon off, waving and cheering as the boat pulled away from the dock. Killua wondered, just as he had last time, how it was possible for Gon to so easily consider so many people friends.

Killua waved with one hand and clutched the rail of the boat with the other until Alluka’s silhouette became indistinguishable from all the others.

And just like that, he was traveling with Gon again.

Two days on the boat: during the day they climbed the masts and watched for whales and dolphins in the water. Gon chatted with the captain, who he had apparently met before, and charmed the other passengers. Killua played cards with the crew until they grew tired of him winning. Gon tried to get him to join him in singing a sea shanty that he knew, which seemed to have a thousand repetitive verses that wouldn’t end until Killua slapped a hand over Gon’s mouth, and felt him smile against his palm.

At night, Gon pointed out constellations that you could only see at sea, where there was no light pollution to speak of, until they grew tired enough to go below decks and climb into their hammocks, which, in the crowded space, were strung up so close together that the rocking motion of the boat swayed them gently into each other as they drifted off.

One sleepy day in the mainland port town while they waited for their train to arrive: they meandered through the outdoor market, and Killua bought a little silver fish charm that Alluka could put in her hair. She’d always liked to collect trinkets from every place they visited. Gon stood barefoot in the surf washing up on the beach and searched for pieces of sea glass rolling in with the waves while Killua traced idle shapes in the sand and tried not to burn in the insistent sun.

The train pulled into the town’s single-platform station around dusk and would go throughout the night. Gon and Killua’s booth was also occupied by a young woman just a bit older than them. She and Killua eyed each other for a few moments before deciding the other was not a threat — a decision she probably mostly made because Gon had cheerily introduced them to her and made innocent conversation for a while.

Killua awoke in the night to the blaring of the train whistle, made distant by the veil of sleep, to see the girl had put on headphones and was staring pensively out the window. He and Gon, he realized, had shifted in their sleep to sit slumped against each other. He could feel Gon’s hair tickle his cheek with every breath Gon took. They’d slept like this once before, Killua remembered: when they were twelve, on the train to Battera’s castle, just before Greed Island. His heart ached a little as he slipped back under into sleep.

One more day in the city: flights to the Bergerossé Union were rare enough that they only happened every few days, and anyway Gon wanted to sightsee.

“You and Alluka have been traveling all this time, but I haven’t gotten to see anything ,” Gon sighed, head and shoulders obscured by an unfolded city map he’d picked up at the train station. “Oh, look, Killua, they have a zoo!”

So, of course, they went to the zoo, and next to the zoo was an aquarium, and a few blocks away there was a giant Ferris Wheel, and just a few streets over from that some sort of street festival was going on. 

At one point later in the evening while they were perusing the artisan stalls at the festival, a brawl broke out nearby, near the entrance of the beer tent. Killua saw Gon turn towards it, saw him tense instinctually, and reached out to grab his wrist.

“Don’t,” he said.

Gon blinked at him. “I wasn’t going to,” he said.

“Good,” Killua said, and turned and walked away.

The silence between them was strained after that, until Killua bought a funnel cake and split it with him.

It was the only thing, Killua thought, that was imperfect about all this. Being with Gon, traveling with him, having fun with him, having him close whenever Killua wanted to tell him something interesting or funny or ask him a question — that was something Killua had missed more deeply than he’d even realized. But knowing Gon was without his strongest defense kept Killua from ever relaxing fully. 

Gon was strong even without Nen, Killua knew. He was fast and agile and could both take and throw a punch like nobody’s business. But without Ten, even the most basic focused Nen attack could take him out with a single blow. Killua was forcibly reminded of the weeks after Gon had lost his fight to Knuckle and had his Nen locked, and Killua had woken every morning with the constant low-grade fear of something happening, had been driven by the need to protect him, the strongest he’d ever known. It was like that now, but there was no 30-day limit this time around; either Gon would get his Nen back with the help of this witch, or he wouldn’t, and Killua would have to worry for every day of his life.

Unintentionally or not, though, Gon made it easy to forget about that, most of the time. Like when he made a joke, or when he pointed out an interesting tree that was apparently lethal if you swallowed its sap, or when Killua realized Gon had tied a bow into the back of his hair somehow without Killua noticing and let him walk around the festival with it for an hour and Killua had to chase him for a block and a half and put him in a headlock.

By the end of the week, they landed in the tiny airport of the Bergerossé Union’s main city. The union was, geographically, a mid-sized island nation, but compared to other V6 countries it was sparsely populated and technologically underdeveloped. Most of its inhabitants lived spread thinly out along the coastlines; any more than a few dozen kilometers inland was practically untouched wilderness. If someone wanted to project a shroud of mystery, as this Nen witch apparently did, it was the perfect place to do it.

It also meant that there weren’t many places to stay that weren’t the ambassadorial hotel, which Killua wanted to avoid — too conspicuous — so after asking around what passed for a downtown in this city, they ended up renting someone’s spare apartment for the night, just a block away from the sea.

“You boys Treasure Hunters?” said the man who was renting to them as he unlocked the door.

“Just regular Hunters,” Gon said, and tilted his head. “Why do you ask?”

The man shrugged. “Most visitors are; we don’t get too many tourists here.”

“Is there treasure around here?” Killua asked.

“Lots of people seem to think so,” the man said. “And there’s certainly plenty of legends about the kinds of things hidden in the wilderness. Not too many people who go looking end up coming back, though. There’s a reason we leave those woods mostly untouched.”

He opened the door, dropped the key into Gon’s hand, and stepped aside. “Anyway, enjoy your stay,” he said, and meandered back down the hallway.

The apartment was small: two beds, a bathroom, a kitchenette and a balcony. They dropped their bags down on the beds and, settling in concluded, Gon went out to find them some food while Killua stepped out on the balcony to call Alluka. She’d called him the other day when she’d arrived at Bisky’s, as promised, but he hadn’t heard from her since then.

She picked up on the second ring. “Hi, onii-chan,” she said.

“Hi,” he said. Down a couple floors, Gon emerged from the building’s front door. He waved up at Killua. Killua waved back and watched him head off down the street. “You sound tired.”

“You can say that again,” Alluka huffed. Killua heard her thump full force onto her bed. “But I’m not going to tell you what Bisky has me doing because I’m sure you’ll insist you had it much worse.”

“Yeah, probably,” Killua smirked. “I just wanted to check in with you one more time before we go into the woods tomorrow. I don’t think there will be any cell reception out there. We’ll probably be out of range for at least a few days.”

“Okay,” Alluka said, yawning. “Good to know. So how have things been going? How are you and Gon?”

Killua looked down the direction Gon had disappeared. “Good,” he said, feeling warm. “Really good.”

Killua had been worried, deep down, that things would be awkward, that sporadic virtual correspondence was not enough for them to really know each other anymore, that Gon would do something dumb and Killua would have to stop him. But instead, it was easy; Gon made it easy, just like he always used to.

“Have you talked to him yet?”

Killua frowned. “About what?”

“I don’t know, onii-chan, you tell me. Whatever it is you two have been tip-toeing around for three years.”

Killua put his other hand in his pocket. “We haven’t been tip-toeing around anything.”

Alluka scoffed. “Yeah, right. You might not tell me everything, onii-chan, but I’m not stupid. Gon was in that hospital for a reason, and you’ve never mentioned why to him or me or anyone.”

Killua turned on his heel and paced back into the apartment. “Well, it’s in the past,” he said. He could feel his voice tightening but couldn’t stop it. “I don’t see why we would need to talk about it.”

There was a long pause, and then Alluka sighed and just said, “Okay, onii-chan.”

Killua waited for her to say more, and when she didn’t, said, “Does Nanika want to talk at all?”

Another pause. “She’s also tired,” Alluka said. “Bisky has been working with her, too.”

Killua blinked. “Really?”

“Yeah,” Alluka said. “We’ll tell you more about it when we see you again. It’s been … quite the learning experience.”

“Oh,” Killua said. “Alright. Well … sounds like you both need some rest. I guess I’ll let you go.”

“Okay.”

“I’m sorry for snapping,” Killua said, a little desperately.

“It’s okay,” Alluka said, voice a little warmer. “Stay safe, alright?”

“I will. You too.”

“Love you, onii-chan.”

“Love you too.”

Killua hung up and, in the immediate following dead-air silence, felt strangely hollow.

Not for long, though. A few minutes later there was a loud bang low down on the door, like someone had kicked it.

“Killua!” Killua heard, slightly muffled. “Open the door! My hands are full!”

When Killua did so, there was Gon, one arm laden down with paper bags that smelled spicy and savory and the other with several boxes of Chocobots.

“I thought we could have a big meal since it’s our last night in civilization,” Gon said when he walked in. “Also, I remembered how much you loved these things! You still have a sweet tooth, right Killua?”

Boy, did he. Killua had already torn one open before Gon set the food down.

The table in the kitchenette was missing a leg, so they sat cross-legged in the space between their beds to dig into the food. There was no TV in the apartment, so afterwards, to keep themselves entertained, they sat on their beds and tossed chocolate into each other’s mouths from the opposite sides of the room and took turns telling each other stories from their years apart, until the sun went down.

Killua had always been a light sleeper, so when the door leading to the apartment’s balcony opened that night, so did his eyes.

It took a half-second for his vision to adjust to the darkness. Another half-second to realize that Gon’s bed was empty, his blankets tangled and thrown back, and to see his silhouette out on the balcony. 

Killua hesitated for a moment and then pushed back his own blankets and stood, his feet not making a sound against the cool wooden floor. He moved to the doorway and stepped out into the night, the skin of his arms raising goosebumps in the chill breeze coming off the sea.

Gon was sitting on one of the deck chairs with his feet up and his chin resting on his knees, like a little kid. His eyes were blank, gazing out in the direction of the shore. It was too dark to see the water, but Killua could still hear the waves, washing rhythmically up on the sand. Gon was breathing rhythmically too: in for a few seconds, held for a few more, let out slowly.

“Gon,” Killua said, and it came out more quietly than he intended. “Are you okay?”

Gon was silent. His eyes fluttered closed. Killua lingered, unsure, in the doorway. It wasn’t like Gon to be quiet. It wasn’t like him to keep things inside. Killua didn’t know what else to do but to wait for Gon to say something, anything, for him to give Killua something to hold on to.

He listened to the ocean move. He felt the fine grit of sand beneath his bare toes.

“I don’t remember a lot about that night, you know,” Gon said, finally. 

What night, Killua didn’t say, because deep in his stomach he already knew. His heart beat faster.

“But sometimes I have dreams where I get pieces of it,” Gon went on. “Blue blood. Bone breaking. Anger.”

Killua wanted to say something, felt like he had to say something, but he couldn’t move and his throat was closed.

“And in these dreams, I’m not me. I’m inside of me, and the rage is a rope tied around my ankles, and my wrists, and my chest, and my throat.”

Gon would never say any of this in the daylight, would never say it unless he had just come out of a dream, and Killua would never be able to bear hearing it were it not for the darkness, and the quiet of the world, and the steady shush of the sea. Things weren’t as real in the depths of the night.

Gon’s eyes opened. In the low light, they were very dark. For the first time, he looked at Killua. 

“Sometimes I see you. And you’re very far away. And you look really, really scared. Of me.”

Finally, Killua forced something out of his mouth. “I wasn’t,” he whispered. “Not of you.”

It might have been a lie. Killua didn’t really know. As much as possible, Killua didn’t think about that night. All he knew was that it felt like the only thing to say with Gon looking so blank and broken.

Gon shook his head, a little, and pressed his face into his knees.

“Back then, I didn’t care about anything beyond my anger. I didn’t care what happened to me. What I became. I never want to feel like that again. Killua,” he said, voice wavering, “I’m sorry you had to see me be that.”

Gon was trembling now. Killua stared at him, his mind a whirl of misplaced nightmare images and flashes of old fear and the memory of looking at Gon and feeling small.

Killua turned and went back into the apartment. He pulled the soft blanket from Gon’s bed, went back outside, and draped it around his shoulders. It felt like a useless gesture of comfort, but his head was full of white noise and all he could think about the situation at hand was that Gon was shaking, Gon was cold, and that was something Killua could fix, that was the one thing Killua could fix. 

Killua sat on the ground, his back against the chair Gon was on. He leaned his head back so that it was resting against Gon’s legs. He could hear Gon’s breath hitching. His own chest was tight.

“I forgive you,” he said, instead of what he was really thinking, which was, idiot, you’re always apologizing for the wrong things.

Gon was quiet the next morning, which made Killua anxious. He got up, showered and packed up his stuff without saying much or even smiling, really, which was so unnerving that, as they left, Killua was working up to saying something about the previous night, even though he really, really didn’t want to.

But it was a sunny day, and as they were walking down the street Gon turned his face up to receive its warmth. He took a deep breath, and when he looked at Killua again his eyes were bright and clear and, finally, there was his smile. Killua’s resolve dissipated as easily as sugar in water.

“It’ll be good to get back into nature again,” Gon said. “Based on the map, we should have a couple nights of camping before we get to the Nen witch.”

It was good to see Gon in nature again, too; he’d always been the most vibrant in sunlight filtered through the trees. The clinging darkness of the nightmare seemed to lift off him as easily as evaporating water. He led them effortlessly over streams, through dense patches of thicket, down sheer cliff sides. Often he would stop to examine a unique toadstool, or a jewel-bright spider perched in the center of its web, or a strangely shaped flower. At nightfall, they set up camp around a fire and sat on blankets while they ate some of the food they’d brought with them. Sometimes Killua would sense some sort of creature prowling around the perimeters of the firelight and send a warning shot of lightning to scare it off; Gon pouted, because he wanted to see what kind of animal it was.

On the third day, they paused for a while to examine the map Gon had gotten from one of the hunters who had visited the Nen witch. Gon climbed the tallest tree he could find; Killua stood below with his head tilted back and watched him spring from branch to branch and disappear above the canopy. When he came back down there were leaves in his hair.

“Looks like we might have underestimated these woods,” Gon said, cheerfully.

“Does that mean we’re lost?” Killua asked.

“Hmm … not exactly,” Gon said. “I could probably get us back to town no problem, but this witch is more well-hidden than I expected. Also, I think some of the trees are moving.”

Killua’s eyebrows rose. “Can they do that?”

Gon shrugged. “Well, we’ve seen stranger things, haven’t we? And it would explain why it looks like we’ve gone in a circle.”

“Maybe we’ve just gone in a circle,” Killua suggested.

Gon laughed. “Killua,” he said with mock offense, “Are you doubting my sense of direction?”

Killua rolled his eyes. “Doubting your sanity, more like.”

Gon punched him in the arm, good-naturedly. It still kinda hurt, though.

“Well, moving trees or not, what do we do now?” Killua asked.

“Just keep going, I guess,” Gon answered. “If other Hunters found her, then we definitely can.”

Unless, Killua couldn’t help but think, She doesn’t exist at all. Unless this is a wild goose chase. A cruel joke.

He didn’t say it, though. It would only upset Gon, and he would be too stubborn to give up, anyway.

Over the next couple of days, their food stores began to run low. Gon fashioned a fishing pole out of a stick and a spool of wire he kept in his backpack, and caught a few unfamiliar-looking fish from one of the creeks. Gon determined they didn’t have any of the typical signifiers of toxicity, and Killua didn’t taste any poison in them, so they roasted them over the fire that night with sprigs of wild herbs Gon had gathered. They were delicious.

Even though they were (sort of) lost and even though Killua was beginning to wonder if Alluka was starting to worry about him, there was something about being in the wilderness that made Killua feel at peace. It was probably something to do with Gon: out here, he was more focused, more centered, so secure in his competence that Killua hadn’t once felt worried even as their time in the woods dragged on. There was a confidence about him Killua realized he hadn’t seen in some time. 

Things were simpler out here, too; every day was about survival and navigation, which left no room for anything too complicated between them. And in the vast woods, under the vast sky, talking about strange things was easier.

“What’s the scariest thing you’ve done in the last three years?” Gon asked one night.

Once again, they were lying on their backs by the fire, listening to eerie animal sounds coming from far away. Killua turned to look at Gon, watched the firelight make dancing shadows across his face.

“Why do you ask?”

Gon shoulders moved up and down, making a soft rustling sound against the grass. “Just wondering.”

Killua turned his gaze skyward and lay there in thoughtful silence for a while.

Finally he said, “We went back to Padokea.”

Gon sat up. “Isn’t that the country where your family lives?”

“Yeah.”

Gon’s mouth was open. “When? And why?”

“A few months ago,” Killua said. “Alluka said… we shouldn’t let it become our bogeyman, basically. She wanted to prove that we could, I think.”

Specifically, she’d said, The only way to face fear is head-on, and, We can’t be terrified forever. Personally, Killua disagreed on both counts, but, well, he wasn’t very good at denying her things. Even this, though he’d fought her pretty hard on it.

“What was it like?” Gon asked.

Killua brought his arms up behind his head. “It was … weird. We used disguises and fake names, of course, but every second we were there I was so tense and paranoid. We could see Kukuroo Mountain from our hotel.”

Gon was still gaping at him. “Was it … fun?”

Killua laughed. “Not exactly.”

Every moment, Killua was afraid they would accidentally run into another Zoldyck on the street; an absurd thought, of course, since no one ever left that house unless they were going on a job, and they certainly didn’t take an afternoon stroll into town. But nonetheless — any glimpse of long black hair or a tall and slender figure made him freeze. He knew his family wasn’t actively trying to bring him and Alluka back, at the moment, but he didn’t trust Illumi not to take matters into his own hands.

“It was kind of funny, though,” Killua said. “I never knew we were such a tourist attraction.”

Gon laughed. “We took a tour bus to get to your house that one time.”

“They have whole gift shops full of cheesy stuff with our name on it,” Killua said. “Alluka bought a button that says in this bright red dripping font, ‘I SURVIVED THE ZOLDYCK MANOR.’”

“Did she really?” Gon gasped, laughing harder.

Killua grimaced. “Yeah, I think it’s pretty grim humor too, but she keeps it pinned to her backpack.”

But Killua kind of understood it. Alluka was the sort of person to laugh away the bad things. And when they left Padokea in an airship, Killua looked down at Kukuroo Mountain and thought, they are powerful and they are wealthy and they are very, very dangerous, but right now they are small and shut up in that cold and lonely house, and for a moment (but only a moment) he felt pity instead of fear.

“What about you?” Killua asked.

Gon looked thoughtful for so long that Killua’s mind began to drift, thinking that maybe he didn’t intend to answer. Then Gon laid back down in the grass and said:

“There aren’t that many dangerous things on Whale Island. But one thing the sailors always say, is never expect the sea to be kind. Thank her when she is, but never expect it.”

Killua watched the side of his face. His gaze was distant.

“There was this one sea cave I always liked to go to when I wanted to … think about things, I guess. It was in pretty far; you could only get to it when the tide was low, by wading through a mile of tunnel and then diving for a few minutes to get to this air pocket where, far above, there was a hole that let the light in. So I’d just lie there and float for a while and watch leaves come down through the hole.”

Killua tried to imagine it: Gon floating motionlessly, pensive, in a dark cavern with a single shaft of light. Eyes and mind both focused on something far away. It seemed a strange picture. It didn’t suit him.

“One day I got careless and let my mind wander for too long. When I dove back under to swim out, the tide had come in and the whole tunnel was full of water. By the time I realized it, it was too late to go back, so I just kept going. But everything was dark and I didn’t know how close I was to the end.”

Gon turned his head towards Killua. When he saw the expression on Killua’s face, he smiled reassuringly.

“I made it, obviously. But it was kind of close. My vision was going all fuzzy and my lungs hurt so bad and I inhaled a little bit of water. And then when I was sitting on the cave floor throwing up saltwater, I just wished, all of a sudden … that someone was there with me.”

It had already happened; the danger had come and gone, and Gon was clearly fine. But the idea of Gon struggling desperately through dark water and hunched over alone and sick on cold, damp stone made Killua’s heart hurt. 

And because they were in the woods, miles and miles away from the real world, Killua had the courage to ask,

“What were you thinking about that made you lose track of time?”

Gon closed his eyes. “Lots of things,” he said. “But mostly, you.”

Killua’s cheeks burned. “Embarrassing,” he muttered. “What about me?”

“I thought about how much I missed you,” Gon said, in true straightforward unabashed Gon fashion. “I thought about why you left. I thought about how I let you down, and the terrible things I said to you. I thought about how I was sorry.”

Killua turned his face away. “You’ve been saying that a lot lately,” he murmured, through a lump in his throat. “What else are you sorry for?”

Killua didn’t really mean it as a question he expected an answer to, but Gon took a long time to mull it over anyway. And if Gon ever did give an answer, Killua didn’t hear it. He fell asleep to the crackle of the firewood and the long, mournful call of some animal, out there in the woods.

Late the next day, as the sunlight was going all deep and golden, Gon said, “I think we might be getting close.”

“How close?” Killua asked, as Gon pushed aside a thick curtain of vines from a cliffside and revealed a rough-hewn tunnel through the rock.

“Cool,” Gon said instead of answering, and strode into the tunnel. Killua ducked in after him as the vines swung back into place.

The air was cool and damp in the tunnel, like a cave, but Killua could feel the faintest of breezes coming from the darkness ahead and knew that it would lead back to the outside world eventually. It was a narrow space, forcing them to walk single file the whole long way. Eventually, the space ahead lightened, and they emerged from the mouth of the tunnel to see that the sun had gone the rest of the way down, and the sky was purple with dusk. And in front of them, there were ruins.

It was probably some kind of temple at one point, Killua surmised. But the large outer stone structure was mostly crumbled, and what was still standing was covered with ivy and vines and overgrown with big-trunked trees. The arched entrance to the inside of the structure was cleared of vegetation, but it was too dark to see anything within.

“Is this … where the Nen witch lives?” Killua said.

“Hm,” Gon said, looking down at his map. “Maybe that was the wrong tunnel. But it doesn’t really matter, if we head north from here we should run right into —”

He took a step forward, onto the cracked stone paving surrounding the structure, and something changed.

A wave of energy rippled out from within the ruins’ inner sanctum; Killua activated Gyo on instinct and saw flares of aura appear from — strangely — within the vines and the trunks of the trees. A moment later it became clear why: an arm ripped out of the vines near the temple entrance and was followed by a hulking beast of a man; other people, of various shapes and sizes, burst out of other patches of vines and the hollow trunks of the trees. They were all draped with gold necklaces, their fingers adorned with rings, their wrists jangled with jeweled bracelets; each piece of jewelry emitted a sickly green aura that reflected in the eyes of their wearers.

They all stood staring towards Gon and Killua. The hulking man stepped forward and, with a twist of his wrist, conjured a long and wicked-looking blade.

“Here for the treasure, are you?” he growled, eyes over-bright and wild. “We won’t let you have it. It’s ours, it’s ours.”

“Gon,” Killua said lowly, focusing his aura. “Run.”

“Killua-” Gon began, but stopped when he saw the look Killua was leveling his way.

“You promised,” Killua said.

Gon swallowed. His jaw clenched and unclenched, and then he nodded, and sprinted light-footed into the woods, skirting around the ruins. Killua saw several of the ruin-people start to move his way, and he let electricity crackle between his fingertips.

“That’s right!” he said loudly. “I’m taking your treasure. What are you gonna do about it?”

All the enemies roared at once and rushed towards him.

It had been a while since Killua had been in full combat like this, but he found himself falling back into the rhythm of it easily. Punch, dodge, swing, kick, Lightning Palm; be aware of what’s in front and behind and coming from above. His opponents were hardier and more skilled at Nen than he expected, though; several of them had conjured weapons, some of them had enhanced their weapons and a few even emitted bursts of power at him. Killua figured that they must be Hunters who had come to this country in search of riches and stumbled upon some sort of cursed treasure here. 

Killua had to admit, he was used to hand-to-hand combat, not armed, and some of these weapons could be difficult to predict. Keeping track of the weapons and the locations of all the enemies was a challenge. He punched one woman in the face, spun, dodged an Emitter blast, narrowly flipped backwards away from the arc of an axe, landed on one hand and spring-launched himself to the top of a stone pillar. He crouched there for a moment, catching his breath and watching a couple of the enemies start to climb the pillar.

Killua noticed something moving in the treeline along the outskirts of the ruins. His eyes widened; even in the semi-darkness, that spiky shock of dark hair was unmistakable. Why had Gon come back? Or had he never really left in the first place? What was he planning on doing? The idiot!

The momentary distraction cost him. Out of the roiling mass of people below, an arrow flew with unnatural swiftness straight into his shoulder. The force of it knocked him off the pillar. Killua cried out, more from surprise than pain.

“Killua!” he heard.

Killua sat up. The arrow in his shoulder disappeared — it must have been made of Nen — and he felt hot blood trickle down from the wound. But it wasn’t serious, and he sprung to his feet instantly, blasting an opponent that got too close into another pillar with Lightning Palm and turning frantically towards Gon.

Gon had emerged from the treeline, and his shout had drawn the attention of several enemies. One of them took a swing at him with a curved blade; he ducked easily and turned the motion into a low spinning kick that knocked the man’s feet out from under him. A stomp of Gon’s foot onto the man’s wrist made him drop the blade. Gon turned to face an attack from a woman with a longstaff, grabbing the staff with his bare hands mid-swing and struggling to push back. But as he was wrestling with her —

“Gon, behind you!” Killua shouted.

With a shout, Gon summoned a burst of strength to finally force the woman back a few steps. He turned, but not fast enough. The hulking man who had first emerged from the ruins plunged his Nen blade into Gon’s stomach.

A choking noise punched out of Gon’s mouth at the impact, and he bent instinctually over the sword. The man yanked the blade back out in one brutal motion, bringing a splatter of blood with it.

“GON!” Killua cried.

In an instant, Killua was there, and caught Gon as he fell. The front of his shirt was blossoming with blood. Killua felt a tremor go through his body, and released, all at once, a great surge of Nen: a dozen bolts of electricity hit every enemy at once and sent them flying, their bodies convulsing, and Killua hitched Gon on his back and activated Godspeed and ran.

He was running, and Gon was on his back, bleeding; he’d been here before and he couldn’t stop himself from remembering it all so clearly: the terror, the pain, the begging please, please, let him live, he was thinking it now.

Killua ran until he couldn’t anymore; the final attack had drained much of his aura and this had done the rest. He came to a stop, chest heaving, eyes burning. Gon’s head was lolling against his shoulder; one of his hands was wrapped up in Killua’s shirt.

“You screamed for me,” Gon murmured, distantly. “I remember now … you screamed for me…”

“Shut up,” Killua said harshly, and set him down gently against a tree, and that was familiar too. “Shut up.”

Gon’s hands went to his wound, and he felt around it, grimacing. “It’s okay, Killua,” he said. “It’s not that bad, I’m fine, I’m pretty sure it missed the important things-”

“Stop talking ,” Killua snapped, and ripped open his pack to grab bandages out of it. He tore Gon’s shirt away and started wrapping the bandages around his torso. Gon was right, it wasn’t a fatal wound, and he’d had worse, he’d certainly had worse. But Killua’s hands wouldn’t stop shaking. His breaths were coming short, and with difficulty.

“You’re so stupid,” Killua hissed. He heard the anger in his voice as if from a distance. “Why didn’t you run? You promised me you wouldn’t fight!”

“You got hurt,” Gon said, reaching up to touch Killua’s wound. Killua smacked his hand away.

“I could handle myself,” Killua growled.

“I didn’t want to let you fight alone,” Gon said.

“Why not?” Killua said. His head was filled with a ringing sound. “You certainly had no problem doing it.”

Gon’s brow furrowed. “What are you talking about?”

“You know what I’m talking about.” Killua’s heart was racing. “You had no problem fighting alone, when it meant nothing to me, apparently.”

Gon was frowning now. “I know I shouldn’t have said that. Killua, I apologized for saying that.”

“That’s not even what I’m upset about!” Killua’s fists clenched in the fabric of Gon’s jacket. “That’s not what — I forgave you for that before you even apologized, that’s not what matters .”

“Then what matters, Killua?” The frustration in Gon’s voice was growing. “How am I supposed to know? You never tell me what’s on your mind!”

“And you never think !” Killua shouted, shaking him a little. “You’re reckless, and you run ahead and you leave me behind and you won’t let me help you and then I, I have to clean up your mess and carry you away-”

( when Killua could see again, when the light of that final explosion had faded, Gon was motionless on the ground — small, scrawny Gon, the boy Killua knew, the boy he recognized — he was lying on his side away from Killua and his hair was a black river and

Killua stumbled over to him, crying his name, Gon, Gon, please be alive — rolled him onto his back and his skin was pale and dry like paper, and he didn’t react to Killua’s tears dropping onto his cheeks, and Killua pressed two fingers to his frail vulnerable neck and felt nothing, nothing

No. No. This couldn’t happen. Killua wouldn’t let it. He pressed his palms to Gon’s chest, over his heart, and brought his aura crackling to life, and shocked him, and felt nothing — so he did it again, and he did it again, and he did it again, and he did it again

And finally, something — a beat of life within, and Gon’s chest rose, and blood spurt from his stump of an arm, and Killua let his head rest on that beloved shoulder and broke for a minute

And then he used more electricity to cauterize Gon’s arm and didn’t flinch at the smell of burning flesh. He lifted Gon up to drape him over his back and tried not to think about how brittle and breakable he felt in Killua’s arms. He carried him away, and there was not enough in him left for Godspeed so he had to walk one step at a time with Gon’s breath wafting weakly against his throat and Killua could feel him growing lighter and weaker and he felt like he was wasting away and Killua was afraid to look back and see why

Illumi had told him once, Kil, if the pain is too much, just choose not to feel it — so Killua put it all away. Outwardly, his steps were even, his face blank, inwardly he was thinking, this isn’t happening, this isn’t happening. He’ll be fine, he’ll be fine, I’ve carried him before, I’ll do it again, please just let him live, let me have the chance to carry him again)

“Killua,” Gon’s voice brought him back to the present. His eyes were wide. “You’re crying.”

Killua stood abruptly and turned away, put his hands to the back of his head and began to pace.

“You had to do it all on your own, and I still don’t even know why,”  Killua turned back to Gon, dashing hastily at his cheeks. “So you could be, what, noble? Powerful? Suicidal ?”

A brief stiff blankness passed over Gon’s face at that last suggestion, and Killua didn’t like that, not at all.

“That fight wasn’t meant for you,” Gon said, and Killua’s fists clenched involuntarily.

“Not meant for me?” he repeated, voice low and dangerous.

“Yes!” Gon said, and moved to stand; he winced, his hand going to his middle where fresh blood was spotting through the bandages. 

Killua moved over to him in two strides, put his hands on his shoulders, and forced him to sit back down. Gon’s own hands wrapped around Killua’s wrists and he looked up at Killua fiercely, amber eyes blazing.

“It was my fault Kite died, I was too weak to help him, so I had to avenge him, I had to pay the price!”

“Idiot,” Killua whispered, then said it again, louder: “Idiot! What happened to Kite was not your fault! None of us could have stopped it. We were supposed to take down Pitou together , Gon!”

Gon’s gaze was unwavering. “You would have died.”

“Then we would have done that together too!” Killua shouted, trying to ground himself in the solidity of Gon’s shoulders beneath his hands.

“No,” Gon said, his own grip tightening. “I wouldn’t have let you!”

“So how could you expect me to let you die?”

“Because- because-” Gon made a frustrated noise. “Because it was right! I had to— redeem myself! It’s different!”

Killua stared at him, open-mouthed in disbelief. “You — you’re so-”

He pulled away then, and turned and walked a few steps, remembering all of a sudden, with strange precise clarity, when they’d been captured by the Phantom Troupe and locked in a room with Nobunaga and Killua had been willing to sacrifice himself to give Gon a chance to run and Gon had hit him on the head and said Don’t talk about dying like it’s nothing , had said I’m allowed to do it but you aren’t!

“You just don’t get it,” Killua said hollowly. “You never have.”

For long, heavy moments, Gon said nothing, and the urge to cry again welled up brief and brutal inside him. 

You were my light in the dark, he thought. When you were in the dark, why couldn’t I be yours?

“Killua-”

“You should get some rest,” Killua said, still not facing him. “You need to heal.”

Killua patched his own wound up in stony silence as Gon placed his bag on the ground for a pillow and gingerly laid down flat on his back. They didn’t light a fire that night. It wasn’t the only reason Killua, lying in the grass with his back curved towards Gon, felt cold.

Fortuitously, Killua’s panicked flight had actually taken them in the right direction, albeit quite a ways past where they needed to be. It took most of the day to hike there. They didn’t say much.

Killua knew that, as fast as Gon typically healed, there was still no way he wasn’t in pain when climbing over boulders or sliding down steep inclines, but he didn’t show it. 

The Nen witch’s house was in a hollow at the base of the cliff they’d taken the tunnel through. It was small, but not as mystical-looking as Killua had expected. It didn’t look like an ancient hut or a misty cavern or a magical tower. Mostly, it just looked like a house.

Undeterred, Gon strode right up to the front door and knocked, firmly, three times. Killua trailed behind him. There were a few moments of silence from inside, then the sound of footsteps, and then the door cracked open.

“What do you want?” said a woman’s voice, younger than Killua expected.

“Are you the Nen witch?” Gon asked.

There was a pause, then the door opened a little wider, and they could partially see the woman inside. Killua’s first thought was of Palm; this woman was the same height as her, and just as pale, and her hair was the same color, and she was around the same age. But on second glance — she was heavier set than Palm, her hair was short and curly, and the one eye Killua could see was green.

“Do you have an appointment?” she said.

“Um,” Gon said. “I didn’t know I needed one?”

Her eye narrowed. “How did you find me?”

“We’re Hunters,” Gon said, digging around in his pocket and producing his license. “Pro Hunters, see?”

The woman’s gaze went to Killua and, rolling his eyes, he pulled out his own license and held it up.

“You’re pretty young for Pro Hunters,” she said.

Gon laughed wryly. “We get that a lot. Less these days, though. But I promise, we are! And I have a Nen problem that I heard you could help with.”

“Maybe so,” she said. “But I doubt you kids could pay for it.”

“Money won’t be a problem,” Gon said confidently.

The woman’s suspicious glance went to Killua again. He nodded, trying to look sage. Gon certainly wasn’t lying. Every member of the Ant extermination team had been very well compensated for their … troubles.

The woman sighed, and opened the door the rest of the way. “Well, a consultation is free anyway,” she said. “Come on in.”

“I’m Gon,” Gon said as they followed her down a short hallway and into a modestly furnished sitting room. “And this is Killua. What’s your name?”

“Mei,” the woman said, settling into a round wicker chair with a poofy cushion and gesturing to two others facing it, on the other side of a low coffee table. “But don’t go spreading that around. ‘Nen witch’ is better for business.”

Gon and Killua sat. “Why is it better for business?” Gon asked.

“It’s more mysterious,” she said, and picked up a steaming pot from a tray on the coffee table. “People are drawn to that. Tea?”

Gon politely declined. When Mei offered the teapot Killua’s way, he said shortly, “No thanks. Why bother with being mysterious if you’re not going to keep up appearances?”

Mei poured herself a cup of tea and settled back in her chair. Out of the corner of his eye, a motion caught Killua’s eye. He turned his head to see a short-haired white cat come into the room from the hallway and make a beeline for Mei, winding between her legs. She reached down to idly scritch between its ears.

“Once people get here, there’s no need to pretend,” she said. “I’m the real deal. Appearances are for frauds.”

“Are you really a witch?” Gon asked.

Mei smiled. “Technically, I’m a Nen Exorcist, but I’ve always found that term misleading,” she said. “I can do much more with other people’s Nen than dispel it.”

“Like bring it back?” Gon said, voice lifting in hope.

“Like bring it back,” Mei agreed, leaning forward. “Why don’t you tell me what exactly brings you to me, Gon?”

“Alright,” Gon said. He glanced towards Killua, then looked back at Mei. “Well, a few years ago, I got into a battle with a — a monster. And it was really, really strong. So I figured, the only way to beat it was to … use everything I had. So I did. And I haven’t been able to use any Nen since then.”

“What kind of monster?”

Mei’s cat jumped up on the coffee table and walked across it before hopping down on the other side and moving into a different room. Killua watched Gon watching it. He didn’t try to pet it.

“Does it matter?” Killua answered for him.

“It might, if it was some sort of Nen-devouring beast,” Mei said.

“It wasn’t,” Gon said, still looking towards where the cat had gone. “It was just … really powerful.”

“Are you an Enhancer?” Mei asked.

Gon’s gaze snapped back towards her. “Yeah,” he said. “How did you know?”

Mei set her teacup back down on the table. “I see this a lot with Enhancers,” she said. “They push themselves too hard, and sometimes their aura nodes close back up as a sort of self-defense mechanism.” She held out her hands, palms up. “May I?”

“Okay,” Gon said, and placed his hands in hers.

Killua watched her closely with Gyo as she closed her eyes and her aura began to move, slowly enveloping Gon’s body and hovering there for a moment before withdrawing. When she opened her eyes she was frowning.

“Did you make some sort of covenant?” she asked. There was confusion in her voice.

“Yes,” Gon replied. “Like I said. I used everything.”

The furrow in Mei’s brow deepened. “What do you mean by everything ? Tell me exactly the terms of this covenant.”

Gon looked at Killua again, and Killua’s gaze skittered down to his shoes so he wouldn’t have to see Gon’s face as he said:

“I decided … I didn’t care about what happened to me. I would do anything to kill P— the monster. I asked for everything: all the power I would ever have. I had to become the strongest I could ever be, even if there was no coming back from it.”

Mei was staring at him with open shock. “A kamikaze covenant. But that’s impossible.” She snatched her hands back and leaned away, her eyes frightened. “You shouldn’t be alive.”

Gon just looked back at her with a broken open expression, still frozen there with his hands hovering and open.

“Well, he is alive,” Killua snapped at Mei, his shoulders tense. “So can you help him or not?”

“Your aura nodes aren’t closed,” Mei said, shaking her head. “They’re — I don’t even know how to describe it — they’re … empty. Burnt out. Nothing I could do would be able to change that.”

Gon looked down at his hands. Closed them slowly.

“A covenant like that would have taken you at your word,” Mei continued. “It wouldn’t have stopped until it took everything, slowly but surely. There wouldn’t have been anything left of you. You … you can’t be alive.”

Killua stood abruptly. His shins banged against the coffee table, and the tea tray rattled. “Stop it,” he snarled at Mei. “If you’re useless, you should have just said so. Gon, let’s go.”

He didn’t wait for a response, just grabbed Gon by the wrist and tugged him out of the chair and out of the room and out of the house. At first, he seemed to just follow in a daze, but when they left the house the fresh cool air seemed to spark something in him; he stumbled ahead, pulled his arm out of Killua’s grip and kept going until his legs seemed to give out and he sank to his knees in the grass and the leaves and the dirt. His head bowed low.

“She’s right,” he said, voice barely above a whisper. “I should have died.”

“Don’t say that,” Killua said. He meant it to be a reprimand, but it came out more like a plea. His eyes were burning. “Gon, don’t say that.”

“I haven’t used Nen in three years,” Gon said. “But even during all that time, I didn’t really believe it was gone, not for good.”

Killua walked over to him and knelt facing him, trying to see his face, but Gon was bent over in a gesture of such pain as if the wound on his abdomen had just been opened. 

“That night … I was so stupid,” Gon said, and Killua didn’t like the venom in his voice. “So stupid, and so selfish, and so brutal and so- so weak-”

“That’s not fair,” Killua said. “None of it was fair. We were kids. And that was war.”

“We didn’t really win, did we Killua?” Gon looked up at him then. His eyes were shining. “The Ants are dead, but we didn’t win. This- this weakness is permanent. And you… you look at me differently.”

“Gon,” Killua said, anguished, and found he didn’t know what else to say, so he said it again. “Gon.”

“I ruined myself. And…” Gon’s face crumpled. His voice shook. “I ruined us, didn’t I?”

Killua couldn’t stand it anymore. Couldn’t stand watching Gon fall apart, couldn’t hear him hate himself. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t Gon. He should never feel like this. Should never hurt like this. Killua was tired of seeing it happen, was tired of not being able to do anything about it. So he did what he’d never done back then, but wanted to; did what three years around soft-hearted affectionate Alluka had trained him to do.

He reached out and wrapped his arms around Gon’s shoulders and pulled him close and hugged him and hugged him and hugged him.

Gon’s breath hitched once in surprise, then hitched again, then devolved into a sob. His arms came up around Killua and he pressed his face into Killua’s shoulder and he cried.

Killua’s own vision was going blurry. “We’re not ruined,” he said, with a fervent sort of desperation. “We’re just changed.”

Gon was trembling apart in his arms and Killua wanted to put him back together, somehow, and he couldn’t do that, but he could do this much: he held on, tight tight tight.

It took a while for Gon to cry himself out and a little while after that for Mei to come out of her house and find them like that on her front lawn. Looking guilty, she apologized for her reaction and for not being able to help, and offered them a place to stay for the night and the use of her Internet connection if they needed to get in contact with anybody. Killua didn’t particularly want the former but he did need the latter, and anyway it might be good for Gon to sleep in a real, soft bed tonight. Gon hummed noncommittally when Killua asked what he thought, so they stayed.

Mei had a guest room where clients stayed when they needed extended or repeated treatments. Sorry, she said, that there was only one bed; most Hunters who came to visit her came alone. Neither of them cared, though. It was a big bed, and they’d slept in tighter quarters, when they were smaller.

Gon kicked off his shoes and peeled off his jacket and dropped onto one side of the bed without ceremony or another word. Killua hovered in the middle of the room for a moment before following suit, taking the other side of the bed and flicking off the light. He laid on his side watching Gon’s shape come together out of the darkness as his eyes adjusted. After a few moments he reached out towards Gon's back, but paused with his pale fingers less than an inch away from touching him and withdrew, slowly. He watched Gon take one breath, then another, then closed his eyes, heavy from exhaustion and tears, and let sleep come.

In the morning, Killua woke again to a room without Gon in it. When he poked his head out in the hallway, he could hear Gon and Mei speaking quietly in the sitting room. Mei had made tea again, he could smell it: black spice and nutmeg and cloves. By the low tone of their voices, he could tell they were discussing something serious, or sensitive. Killua tried without much success to quell the sharp twist he felt somewhere in his stomach at the realization — why would Gon confide in this woman he’d just met rather than Killua? — and retreated back into the room.

He called Alluka, who was perfectly fine, onii-chan, and had been starting to wonder where he’d got off too but of course she wasn’t worried, onii-chan, this is you we’re talking about after all. He told her what had happened.

“I want to help him,” he told her, confessing with some desperation: “But I don’t know how.”

There was a long and thoughtful pause on the other end.

“You know, onii-chan,” Alluka said finally, “You can’t fix everything.”

“I know that,” Killua said.

Alluka sighed. “Honestly, I’m not sure you do. How many times have I yelled at you for being overprotective?”

“That’s different,” Killua protested.

“Not that different. Especially when it comes to Gon, hm? Wasn’t he the whole reason you broke me out of Kukuroo Mountain?”

Killua began hotly, “Not the whole reason-”

“No, I know, I didn’t mean it like that,” Alluka interrupted. “But I mean — well-” she let out an exasperated laugh. “Really, onii-chan, you would expect the one of us with the miraculous healing abilities to be the one with the savior complex.”

“I do not have a savior complex!”

“The point,” Alluka said, “Is that Gon has to figure some things out for himself. And sometimes you just have to figure out how to be his friend, not his fixer.”

Killua opened his mouth to retort but decided, instead, to change the subject. “Well, anyway. How’s training going?” he said, as Alluka’s words twisted around in his gut.

Alluka paused, presumably considering whether or not to pursue the previous line of conversation, but ultimately she said, “It’s getting better. By which I mean, it’s getting harder, but we’re getting stronger.”

“That’s good.”

“Bisky says I should expect at least four more months here. Maybe more. And after… “

Killua felt a twist of anxiety. “After?”

“Well, after, I thought… maybe I could take the Hunter Exam.”

Killua blinked. “Oh.”

His immediate thought was you’re not ready, it’s too dangerous, his second thought was, you’re growing up and I have to let you, his third thought was, the exam means a license means independence means leaving me.

“Guess you won’t need me anymore, huh?” he said, pitching it like a joke.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Alluka said, seeing right through him, as usual. “You’re my big brother. My only family. I’ll always need you.”

“Oh,” Killua said, dumbly. It came out as a whisper.

“Onii-chan, I want us to be free,” Alluka said. “Both of us. I want us to be able to do what we want, without fear.”

“I know,” Killua said hoarsely. “I want that too.”

“So trust me on this, okay?”

“Okay.” Killua swallowed hard. “How did you get so wise, huh?”

“You mean since I definitely didn’t get it from you?” He could practically hear Alluka’s smile. “I actually watched all those dramatic movies you fell asleep in the middle of.”

Killua smiled in spite of himself. “Oh. Should’ve known.”

Alluka laughed, then her voice sobered. “Onii-chan,” she said. “We’ll be okay. And why don’t you … why don’t you think of yourself for once, hm?”

Killua closed his eyes. The voice on the other end of the line came through high and sweet.

“Killua,” Nanika said. “Be happy.”

They left Mei’s house in the early afternoon. Gon thanked her for her hospitality, though Killua thought there really wasn’t that much to thank her for. However, it seemed that during their little tea time that morning, Gon had, unsurprisingly, managed to charm her completely. She shook his hand and smiled at him and wished him luck with utter sincerity.

Gon seemed oddly contemplative as they began their journey out of the wilderness, walking mostly without saying much. It was different from the heavy tense silence of yesterday, though; something about him seemed … calmer, more centered. And he had started pointing out interesting plants and animals again. 

Later in the afternoon, they stopped to eat lunch on a cliff overlooking a vast swath of wilderness. If Killua squinted, he could almost see the coast far off in the distance. They were out of fish, so they ate berries and some flowers Gon insisted were great in salads and a kind of starchy root Gon had dug up along the riverside. When they had finished, Gon didn’t move to get going again right away. 

“Killua,” he said. “There’s something I want to say to you.”

Uh oh, Killua thought, but he kept his face nonchalant and leaned back on his hands. “Okay,” he said.

Gon looked thoughtfully out over the wilderness, took a breath, and began:

“One time, when I was really little, I fell out of a tree and broke my leg. A bad break, like, in two. I screamed and cried a lot and while Mito-san was carrying me into town to see the doctor, she was crying too. After they fixed me up and she took me home, I asked her why she cried when she wasn’t the one who got hurt, and she said, when you love someone, their pain is your pain too.”

Killua’s heart twisted.

Gon looked over at him. “I forget that a lot, I think. I forgot it ... then. It didn’t matter to me if I hurt myself, but I should have remembered … that it would hurt you too.”

Killua’s cheeks burned and he sat up straighter, no longer casually sprawled. “Do we have to keep talking about this,” he said.

“I just wanted to tell you,” Gon said, “That I get it now.”

Killua swallowed. “I just want you to be safe.”

“I know,” Gon said. “But no one is ever really safe, you know? I mean, it wouldn’t be much of a life otherwise. And Killua, I can still defend myself better than most, you know, normal people.”

“Only you could say that with a sword wound in your gut,” Killua said.

Gon grimaced. “Yeah, that wasn’t my best fight. But I was talking to Mei today and she told me about how some Hunters get by without Nen. They do special training and some of them have protective talismans or weapons that simulate Ten and things like that. They’re not helpless.”

“It’s not the same,” Killua mumbled.

“Killua.” Gon’s voice was serious; when Killua looked up, so were his eyes. “The first time I met Ging, he said, when you apologize to a friend, there’s a rule: you promise to do things differently next time. And you keep that promise, no matter what.”

He smiled, lopsided. “I’ve kind of realized the past couple years that maybe Ging’s not the best role model in the world, but he was right about that much. Killua, I’m sorry for leaving you behind. I promise that … if you want to keep traveling together … I won’t do it again. I’ll be less reckless and I’ll clean up my own messes and I’ll look out for you and we can do things together, this time.”

That was Gon, endlessly optimistic, saying things so confidently as if that was all it took for them to be true. Killua’s throat felt like it was closing. “I want to believe you,” he managed, sounding plaintive.

Gon reached out and grabbed Killua’s hand where it was resting in the grass between them. Killua startled but didn’t pull away.

“I don’t want you to believe me,” he said. “I want you to trust me. I want to be a better friend to you.”

Killua wanted to protest, wanted to say, I always trusted you, you were the best friend I ever had, I never stopped loving you even for a moment, but he couldn’t, he couldn’t.

“You’re always taking care of me,” Gon said. “Let me take care of you too.”

Killua remembered, abruptly, that Gon had carried him once. 

In Greed Island, when he’d exhausted himself from gambling too much and Bisky had to knock him out to take him away. He’d been half-conscious, thoughts unguarded as Gon draped Killua’s arms over his shoulders and hooked his arms under Killua’s legs and carried him away, easily, as if he’d done it a thousand times, as if he’d do it a thousand times more. Killua’s face had rested naturally in the hollow between Gon’s neck and shoulder and when Gon laughed, he could feel it there, and he’d been overcome suddenly, totally, terrifyingly by how much he loved this boy, his best friend.

Some things hadn’t changed.

Killua swallowed again. Tightened his own grip around Gon’s. “I’ll try,” he said.

Gon’s smile was more subdued than his usual, but just as real. “So will I. The best I can. That’s all we can ask of each other, I guess, huh?” Another fierce squeeze of his hand, and then he let go.

Killua cleared his throat, his face still burning. He’d gotten better at receiving affection than he used to be, but it was still overwhelming to be in the direct line of fire of Gon’s openness and sincerity.

“What are you gonna do now?” he asked Gon.

“Well…” Gon said. “For the first time in a long time, I don’t really know.”

“Yeah?” Killua looked up at the sky. “Me neither.”

When he turned his gaze on Gon, Gon was looking back with tenderness in his big brown eyes, and something unspoken passed between them.

This time, it would be different. This wasn’t Killua following Gon haplessly, trying to find something he wanted more than to be in the warm circle of Gon’s light. This wasn’t Gon rushing ahead, eyes on a prize that would ultimately disappoint him without much regard for what he left in his wake. This was something new. Searching for something unknown, together.

“But you know,” Killua said after a moment, chest full of something colorful, “I never did get to climb the World Tree.”

Gon’s smile burst out in full force: as big as it had ever been, and as bright, and as overwhelming, and Killua loved it as much as he ever had, from the very first time.