Prelude: Inheritance X Change
Killua always knew that there would be a reckoning. He danced on the line between light and shadow, taking a secret, wicked pleasure in enjoying both worlds. He wasn't stupid: he knew eventually that the dance would have to end, that he would be forced to choose between family and freedom, duty and desire, assassin or Hunter. But he'd always thought he would have time.
When he'd re-united with Gon at fifteen, taller, stronger but no more able to look into those deep brown eyes without flushing, he'd told himself that there was no need to rush it. Things would come naturally, he told himself. They would travel the world together again and one day, Killua would just roll over and say it. Just like that, without a lot of fuss. It could be simple. Perfect and simple, as things between them had always been.
But it was only simple because Gon was simple and Killua was a coward.
The truth could have changed everything and so Killua buried it. He retreated from it like a fight that he was never certain he could win; he bowed to it the same way he'd bowed to Illumi's needle.
For five more years, Killua had told himself "tomorrow". He became such a consummate liar that he'd actually believed himself. It was never the right moment. When Gon smiled back at the hotel receptionist and said that they only needed a room with one bed, Killua said nothing. When Gon mumbled in his sleep and Killua propped up on one elbow just to watch, he said nothing. When Gon told perfect strangers that "this is my best friend, Killua", Killua looked away and never said that it was more than that and if Gon were smarter and Killua were braver, both of them would admit it.
Atop the World Tree, with Gon's head resting lightly against his shoulder, their hands touching ever so slightly and the sun setting, Killua said to himself that now it really was time. It was time now. They were nineteen, nearly twenty years old and they were boys no longer. They were past the innocence of childhood and the confusion of adolescence. Killua knew that this was no phase, that Gon was as much a part of him as his beating heart and that there was no escaping it. He had learned to be brave once before: he could do it again.
For Gon, there was nothing that he couldn't do.
Do it. Do it now.
He turned to look into Gon's tan face. The spiky haired boy's eyes were half closed and his breathing was slow.
"Gon," Killua started. He tried to remember his years of training to control his heartbeat but it fluttered out of his grasp. "Gon, I…"
Gon smiled, ready to receive whatever Killua had to say. The same as it had always been. "Hm?"
Killua seized onto it like a drowning man to a half second of air, flinging himself head first into the abyss.
"Gon, I…"
His phone buzzed. Now, of all moments, his cell phone was warming up his pocket.
Gon laughed. "Go ahead and answer."
Killlua pasted a smirk on his face, as if this phone call was nothing more than a mere inconvenience. He couldn't let his frustration show or it would ruin everything.
He answered the phone in a clipped, calm voice. "This is Killua. What is it?"
There was a sniffle on the other end of the line and then, as if from another life, his mother's voice. "Oh, Kil. It's really you, Kil."
Killua stiffened. He knew. In that moment he knew. There was only one reason she'd ignore his father's strict rule not to call or pester him, to leave him be in the hopes that one day he'd return on his own. He paused before answering and looked out at the setting sun, Gon's bright eyes and easy, patient smile. Then he looked away.
This was the price for his cowardice. The gods had gotten tired of waiting for him after all.
"Mother. What is it?"
His mother was always overdramatic. But Killua knew that this wasn't one of those times. The grief in her voice was genuine and it washed over him like a deep wave.
"It's papa. It's your father. He's…dying Killua. He'll be gone before the week is out. Kil…you have to come home. He's asking for you. It's time for you to come home."
Gon touched Killua's shoulder, sensing that something was wrong.
Killua shrugged away the touch. There was no point now, was there?
Time was up.