His Favorite Color

It was another cloudless, starry night when Gon suddenly stopped talking about comets and constellations and asked him what his favorite color was.

Maybe it was because it was so sudden and Gon was the one who asked him—and because, well, no one had ever asked him that before—that made Killua Zoldyck blurt out, "Well, it's not white."

Silence as opaque as the night sky hung between them and he swallowed the air caught in his throat. Out of the corner of his eye, Gon shifted beside him and sat up. Killua braved a sidelong glance and saw that the light from the campfire made the tips of the other boy's spiked hair glow.

Killua's heart thumped as he waited for what he inevitably saw coming: "Why?" But not just the question Why? but the way Gon would ask it, the way he asked anything and made Killua want to answer.

But he was still sitting quietly next to him, and Killua was left to think about all the ways he was irreparably tied to the color.

Like the day his sparring session with his father had ended with his father's massive hands gripping him by the roots of his silver-white hair and tossing him away.

And the first time his ivory fingers had pressed against the vein of a white throat and parted the skin to reveal pools of still-warm blood.

Or the times his mother gently cupped his cheeks and murmured how he, so alabaster and perfect, was the ideal heir of the Zoldyck Family bloodline as she fed him another spoonful of poison.

Or the curious way he used to watch all the cuts and welts from Milluki's whips and knives and cattle prods faded from stark black and blue to dull, rusty brown and white again on his skin.

And even now, when he felt his vision swim and the world turn white and heard

RunAWAYrunAWAYrunAWAYrunAWAYrunAWAYrunAWAYrunAWAYrunAWAYRunAWAYrunAWAYrunAWAYrunAWAYrunAWAYrunAWAYrunAWAYrunAWAY

and

killkillkillkillkillkillkillkillkillkillkillkillkillkillkillkillkillkillkillkillkillkillkillkillkillkillkillkillkillkillkillkillkillkillkillkillkillkillkillkillkillkillkillkillkillkillkillkillkillkillkillkillkillkill—

All of a sudden, the night sky and its tiny pinpricks of white stars were obscured by Gon's curious, searching face.

Killua had come to know that nothing in the sky compared to the brightness in Gon's eyes—not the smattering of stars above head or the sun itself—and being so out of it, he hadn't been expecting it to be so close. He felt the same way he always did when Gon was very close to him, like the air was leaving his lungs at the same time he was being pushed down into a pool of water and a warm oven.

He inhaled sharply, and very calmly spoke: "What."

"Sooo, Killua," Gon began, unaware that Killua could smell him and it was a nice smell, like a mix of air-dried laundry and cedar, "if white is your least favorite color, then what's your favorite? I can't figure it out."

"…You've been trying to figure it out this whole time?"

"Yes. It's been kinda hard." Sure enough, Killua could tell that for the other boy, trying to figure out his favorite color was like figuring out a math problem.

"What does it matter?" Killua felt the small rush of heat to his cheeks and looked away.

"Because. It matters because you matter. And friends should know what each other's favorite color is."

Killua's glance snapped back to Gon, and he readied himself to tell the other boy that he should've been embarrassed to say that. But then he saw the light from the campfire across his face. Gon's skin shined as brightly as ever, like a glowing ember of yellow and red. Those shining eyes of his had become honey-brown.

"Gold." He had been looking at boy hovering inches above him, it took a minute to realize that he had been the one speaking.

"Gold?"

Killua heard a piece of wood crackle and break behind him. The rush of heat and light that came made all the shadows across Gon's face fade for a brief moment. "Gold."

A smile that Killua couldn't decipher came across Gon's lips. The other boy pulled away and stared at the sky once more. "Gold's a nice color."

Thanks for reading. Fun fact: Gon and I make the same face whenever someone makes up a math problem. Math's the worst.