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“Do you know?” he asks Gon that night, white blankets pooling around his waist and trailing to cover Alluka’s slim figure. Do you know, Gon? Do you know how I feel?
“Know what?” Gon asks in turn, upside down on his bed as he looks-stares at Killua like he’s a decorated gift on display. The look is warm on his skin and it almost feels like he’s being touched, like he’s being wrapped up in a warm embrace that he isn’t sure he knows how to feel about.
It’s strange, loving someone so much that you feel sick because of it.
He says, voice in a whisper, “The story about the sun and the moon. How they couldn’t be together, because—”
“—it wasn’t meant to be?” Gon continues for him, confusion and wariness painting his brown eyes a dark black under fading sunlight. “I’ve heard a story like that on Whale Island, but I never liked it. It’s too sad.”
“Is it?” he says rather than asks, gaze dropping to Alluka as he gently strokes black locks. Is being unable to touch your important person sadder than having them almost die in your arms?
“Why’d you bring it up?” Gon asks instead of answering, though he never intended to get an answer anyway.
“How does it feel,” he begins, turning his head up, though with his gaze still on the space beside Gon’s head, “knowing that you’re someone’s sun?”
Gon is blinking in bemusement when he finally gets the courage to look up at him. Right into brown eyes, wavering with curiosity, he looks. “Am I your sun, Killua?” Gon asks, understanding having dawned on him the moment blue eyes set their gaze on him. He’s smiling when Killua looks at all of him, a light blush on his cheeks as he rolls over to lie on his stomach. “That makes me happy.”
“Figured you’d say that,” he huffs, sliding lower and lower on the bed until he’s lying supine beside Alluka.
“I’m really happy, though,” Gon says, hints of those words visible in the up-and-down swing of his feet on the bed. “Because me being your sun means that I make you feel warm, right?”
“Something like that,” he concedes, amused smile on his face as he turns on his side to fully face Gon. He tugs the covers up to his chest, but not before checking that Alluka’s portion of the sheet is enough for her. He looks back to Gon once that’s done, and says, “I’m…glad. That it makes you happy.”
Gon’s bright grin would’ve been enough to make him blush if he weren’t already blushing from his own words. Gon says, a little like he wants to burn Killua with embarrassment, “I’m glad that you’re glad. I’m,” he fumbles with his words, looking almost giddy with happiness when he says, “I’m glad that you’re my friend, Killua.”
“Geez,” he snaps weakly, kicking out a foot to hit Gon’s leg. “You don’t have to say that.”
“But you started it,” Gon points out, not at all bothered by the kick. His grin is wide and happy and beautiful, and Killua feels sick.
Gon has no idea.
“Gon,” he says, voice cracking, “can I ask you something?”
Gon nods nigh instantly, as though Killua couldn’t possibly ask for anything strange. What a load of shit, he thinks, though he hopes Gon can’t tell he’s thinking that from his face.
“Of course!” Gon says, confirming the effectiveness of his poker face. He’d sigh in relief if he weren’t trying to be discreet with what he wants to say.
“What if,” he says, stumbles over the next word when he pulls his arms close to his chest, “what if I told you I loved you? What would you do?”
Discreet. Right.
“I’d tell you that I love you too,” Gon answers without blinking, smile only growing wider as he scoots closer to Killua’s bed. “Because I do. Do you want to say it to me?” he asks, his still childish voice painted with excitement at the notion of a confession.
He wants to cry.
Don’t you see? You’re the sun, he thinks, wishes Gon could hear, and I’m the moon. This isn’t- this was never meant to work.
“Of course not, idiot,” he spits out the last word, trying to hold back his tears as he rolls over to face Alluka instead. “Saying that sort of thing would be stupid and sappy.”
“Ehhh.”
He covers his face with his arms and hopes Gon doesn’t hear the hiccup in his breath. His chest is tight and he feels a lot like he can’t breathe, what with his lungs caught under constricting bones and muscle. I’m one of many, he wants to say but doesn’t, not wanting to make Gon angry at him. You could live without me, Gon. You’re loved.
“Killua-”
“I love you,” he bites out, words tasting bitter on his tongue as he keeps his unseeing gaze on the wall beside his bed. “Okay?”
“Then I-”
“No.”
There’s a pause as Gon shifts in his bed. Killua doesn’t have to look back at him to know that he’s confused.
“…why not?”
It’s not the same.
“I…don’t feel like hearing it right now.”
“Ehh. But-”
“Tomorrow,” he cuts in, promises as he looks up to the sight of Gon’s furrowed brows and pursed lips. “Tomorrow, you can tell me.”
“I really can’t say it now?” Gon asks, hesitant and unsure. He’s not going ahead and ignoring Killua’s wishes even though it’s something he’d usually do, and it’s something that Killua feels grateful for. He wouldn’t have been able to keep calm had Gon started insisting for answers.
“Yes,” he says, turning back to face Alluka as he closes his eyes. “I’ll listen if it’s tomorrow.”
“Promise?”
He sighs when he feels Gon’s pinky finger nudging at his arm. He raises his less dominant hand to curl his own pinky around Gon’s, shaking it a bit, before he says, “Promise.”
It won’t matter once we’re gone, anyway.