1.
"I don't know if this is a good idea," Killua said, staring down at his hands.
"What do you mean?" Gon sounded genuinely curious, as if he didn't know.
"I mean, it'll be dangerous. And the way we are right now, I don't think we'll be strong enough to handle it. I know you want to go after Pitou, but…" Killua trailed off, half afraid to say what logically came next.
"Tell me," Gon said, his voice soft.
"I don't want this to end badly. That's all."
Gon looked at him, then shrugged, his fingers weaving in a strange complex pattern. "I don't want anything to happen either." He smiled. "Don't worry. I'm sure everything will be okay."
It won't, Killua wanted to scream. "If you say so."
Gon turned his eyes back down to his lap. Killua was tempted to go over there or at least crane his neck to see what Gon was doing. Was he writing something, invisible words in the air? Tracing a familiar shape or person, the vestige of a memory? There was always the possibility that he was just fidgeting, but that didn't seem like him. It was too nervous of a gesture for someone whose every action was deliberate.
Killua contented himself with watching the threads that had woven themselves around Gon, scintillating in the light. Few of them had changed color, disappeared or even moved in the years since they had met, which was unusual. Always they stayed in a web that was neither too tense nor too slack, their soft shades of green immutable and comforting.
"I didn't want to give you any trouble," Gon said suddenly. "But you're coming along, and I didn't even have to ask."
Killua frowned, unsure of what he was getting at. "That makes sense. We're friends, after all." He waited, with a familiar dread that Gon might challenge that statement.
Gon smiled. "That's good," he said, as if Killua had just told him something pleasant about the weather. After that his attention returned to his fingers, lined with faint scars from a hundred fights and a dozen so-called accidents.
Still, Killua couldn't let this go, not yet. "Gon," he said, straightening from the headboard of the scratchy twin bed.
"What?" Gon's voice was bright and vaguely pleasant, but distant.
"I…" What was he supposed to say, right now? "I really don't think this is a good idea. I…"
"If you don't want to go, you don't have to." The words might have been meant to be kind, but they knocked the breath out of Killua. "You're right. It'll be dangerous. So I—"
"That's not it," Killua murmured, only half conscious of what he was saying. "I'm not scared, or anything. That's not—"
"You are."
Somehow, Gon always knew these things, even though he wasn't the one who could see the threads that ran from one life to another. "Maybe." Despite that, he didn't understand at all.
"Then don't go."
If only it was as simple as that. "I'll go, for sure. That's not what I meant."
Gon accepted that as easily as he had accepted everything else. "Okay."
The light from the window was intense now with the midafternoon sun. Killua shivered, faint prickles running along his skin, and got up to untie the curtains. His steps were quiet, almost silent, but all the noise in the world might not be enough to disrupt Gon's concentration.
This conversation had been exactly what Killua hadn't wanted, but exactly what he'd predicted. Not once had Gon mentioned them going or leaving, together. It seemed Killua wasn't needed, after all.
"If you want to go," he said, the words hollow, "we'll go."
"Okay," Gon repeated brightly. All around him, the threads tying into his heart glowed a cheerful green.
2.
One of Killua's earliest lessons in training to become an assassin had been to sleep lightly. When you were a Zoldyck, nowhere was safe for you, and any change in your surroundings could herald death.
Which was why Killua started awake now, his heart hammering in the darkness of the hotel room. It took only a moment to slow his pulse, and he was about to fall back asleep when someone moved.
Gon leaned over to pick up the picture lying on the carpet before pushing off his covers and sitting up. There was no telling how long he had been awake, but he seemed to have given up on sleeping by now.
Another ability cultivated early in all Zoldyck children was near-perfect sight even in darkness. From here, Killua could make out the three familiar figures in the picture, himself among them. On his other side was Gon, and on the far left…
To the sound of faint murmuring, a hundred threads began to shift. They looked darker than green now, devoid of what light the night still held.
The murmuring grew louder, a string of words that repeated over and over. The wood of the picture frame cracked, and faults appeared in the glass. When moonlight streamed in from the window, Killua finally saw.
The bright green threads of this evening had veered into black and white and hateful red, snakes that writhed and hissed. The glass covering the picture was nothing more than a mess of cracks now, blood crawling sluggishly through them.
"It's not fair." The hands on the picture frame trembled, to the sharp sound of another crack. "It's not fair. It's not fair. It's not fair at all."
3.
Green, again.
"Good morning," Gon said cheerfully.
Killua looked away. "Good morning."
For the rest of the day, Gon didn't bring up the cuts on his hands. Neither did Killua.
4.
"Let's stop," Killua said, holding on even though everything inside him was screaming to let go. "I know you're angry. Let's just stop, already."
Gon looked at him. "Stop what?"
"This!" Killua didn't know how else to describe it, but he had to try. "What's the point? This can only end badly. You already know that. If we give up, then at least maybe, maybe we can—"
"You're not making any sense," Gon said, shaking him off. "We have to save Kite."
"But he's—"
"Killua." The tone of Gon's voice made him stop short. "If Kite's dead, it doesn't really matter anymore."
The next few seconds were a blur. All Killua knew was that Gon was turning away, and if Killua let him take another step he'd be gone forever. The skin pressed to his cheek burned with heat, but he didn't let go.
"Don't," Killua whispered, breathing in the smell of sweat and tears and blood. "Just walk away. Save yourself. I don't care about any of this. Just stop. Please."
Through the river of interwoven black and white threads came a glimmer of green. The thousand red ropes that kept leading Gon farther and farther away strained for a moment, before wrapping back around him.
"Sorry," Gon said, disentangling himself from Killua almost gently. "But it wouldn't be fair if I abandoned Kite. After all, isn't it because of me that he's like this?"
What did Gon want him to say to that? "I'm asking you. I—"
"It's fine," Gon said, stepping back. "I told you it'll be fine. You worry too much." The threads of green that remained melted into a sickly yellow.
"But, Neferpitou—"
"Pitou will fix Kite. And then it'll be okay again."
"And if it can't?" Killua asked dully, putting the words out in the open for the first time. Like this, they seemed naked, too vulnerable.
The bindings pulled Gon another step away, blood red. "That's impossible. Kite will make it, for sure. The world doesn't work that way. It wouldn't do something like let Kite die and let Neferpitou live. Kite is good. So he'll be fixed. That's how it is. It has to be."
5.
Please, was all Killua could think as he tore through the forest. Branches sliced through his arms and legs, dark thin blades, but he could barely feel the pain. Please, be okay. Be okay. Wait for me. Please. If the world has any sense of justice, or even mercy…
Wait for me.
6.
Red, everywhere. Still, that had been better, compared to this. No matter how bad it got, something was always better than nothing.
"You idiot," Killua said, hands clenched around the white sheet of the hospital bed. "You didn't have any idea what you were doing. You broke your promise."
The heart monitor beeped, replying in place of the living corpse before him. Now there was no red or black or even white anywhere, just faint slivers of a life that bled out with every breath it took.
Gon's worst mistake had been in assuming there was some sort of kindness to the way things worked, or even a rule. That was why these kinds of things happened to people like him. Still, Killua should have known better. Illumi had been right. There was no use trusting someone who couldn't even save himself.
Killua let go of the sheet and took a deep breath. He felt cold all over. There was a dry prickling in his eyes, not unlike that of a needle. For the first time in his life, he wished he could cry.