"We're totally lost."

Killua was trying to keep his tone even, to sound impatient rather than anxious. But it was getting increasingly to difficult to keep his cool when Gon didn't at all aware of the looming inevitablity of their watery deaths. Killua put down his oar and cautiously turned to face him, trying not to make the situation any worse by tipping them over.

"Hm? No we're not."

Gon, of course, had no such worries, and was hanging over the side of the boat in a way that Killua couldn't imagine was safe. Not that he was especially up on his boat safety, or anything, aside from the talk they had been given by Razor, the guy in charge of the athletic stuff, at the beginning of this stupid outing. They had been given a map dotted with multi-colored stickers and each assigned a color to navigate towards. All they had to do was get there and bring back a cone that proved they had succeeded. Killua was certain that by himself, he could get his assigned color in no time, and probably collect all the other ones too. But he had been informed that not only were canoes a two-person deal, you couldn't even get bonus points for stealing other people's cones. There weren't any points at all. If you didn't find your cone nothing even happened, which made the whole excursion less than pointless. Mega super ultra pointless. And now they were lost because he had to have a partner, and that partner was Gon, who insisted on navigating and had left their compass onshore.

"We're lost and you're going to fall off the canoe and by the time they find my body I'll have already starved to death in the middle of this stupid fricking lake!"

Gon was completely unaffected by Killua's outburst, poking at a jellyfish with what Razor had referred to as the "blade" of the oar, though it didn't look like any blade Killua had ever seen.

"You could at least pretend to be listening to me, jerk ass." Killua huffed, squinting with a hand cupped over his eyes as he scanned the horizon. No sign of any of the other campers. Great.

"I've been listening!" Gon protested, "This is an estuary, not a lake. And you curse a lot, Killua."

"I do not! All I said was- FUCK!" Killua was interrupted by a sharp blow to the head- a projectile? His fingers flew to the site of the attack, only to pull them away covered in- slime?

"What was THAT!" screeched Killua, wiping desperately at the sticky, disgusting something that now coated the side of his head.

All of a sudden Gon wasn't so quiet, wheezing breathlessly with laughter, clutching his sides in what Killua judged to be a decidedly exaggerated fashion.

"It w-was just a, a- "Gon broke off again, doubled over in giggles.

Killua's stomach sunk, as he making an unhappy connection. No. It was too horrifying, too gross

"Do not tell me… was that the jellyfish you were-"

Okay. It totally was not that funny. Gon was such a… a-

"JERK!"

All concerns for the canoe's balance cast aside in the pursuit of justice, Killua came at Gon, retaliating with a chokehold. Without missing a beat, Gon turned his head, slipping out from Killua's grip and pinning one of his arms. With his other hand, Killua dug his nails into Gon's leg, causing Gon's grip to falter for just long enough for Killua to shake him off. But not hard enough, apparently, to get Gon to stop laughing for one fricking second.

"Would you shut up already! I could be dead! This is MY FACE!"

Gon climbed up from the bottom of the canoe back to his seat, covering his smile with both hands. If he was trying to look remorseful, it was so not working.

"Oh nooooo, Killua! I knew it wouldn't sting!"

Despite Gon's valiant attempt to compose himself, his shoulders still shook with the aftershock of giggles. Killua huffed, clamored back to his own seat, and looked away pointedly.

"Look," Gon entreated, touching his shoulder lightly, "these are all moon jellies. Harmless. I made suuuuuure."

Hmph. Well, maybe Gon hadn't been trying to kill him and dispose of his body in the lake- or estuary, whatever. But it had still been totally gross. Not to mention, he was still pretty sure they were lost, no matter what Gon said. As if he hadn't done enough, Gon was now punching his arm. While it was presumably some baffling show of affection, it was certainly not helping him feel any better.

"Stop touching me with your gross jellyfish hands."

"I didn't touch it with my hands!" Gon protested, for some reason indignant.

"Oh, so it's too gross for your hands but not my fa- would you stop leaning off the boat like that?"

Gon, of course, ignored him, reaching out with the oar like he had been before. But now, since he was paying attention, Killua could see he was balancing a jellyfish on the flat face of the blade. It was just a big, fat see-through blob thing. But Gon was looking at it like it was the coolest damn thing since- and then Gon looked up, staring at him with those same wide-eyes. God, that kid was weird.

"Are you hungry?"

"I don't care how harmless it is, Gon. I am not eating a jellyfish."

Gon's shoulders were bouncing again, though he was taking care to keep his giggles under wraps. "Not what I meant, silly. There's some food in my bag, if you want."

"I'm not… not really hungry." Killua lied, the words sounding unnatural coming out of his mouth. Not that Gon should know that. They spent a fair amount of time together, being in the same group at all, but it had still only been a couple of days.

Gon raised an eyebrow. "What happened to being soooo worried about starving to death?"

"But we have to find the- "

"You asked Razor yourself, remember? We don't reaaaally have to do anything. We can pull in the canoe overrrr," Gon paused, looking around for a second before he found a spot, "there! To the right. There's a cool spot nearby, but you have to walk there. And we can eat while we walk."

Killua was dumbstruck. "You got us lost on purpose."

"I told you, we aren't lost. You should start rowing again, by the way."

"Okay, whatever," said Killua, plunging the oar back into the water, "but you took us to the wrong place on purpose. Why didn't you just tell me we were going somewhere else?"

Gon hummed thoughtfully. "Well, what if you had said no? I mean, it is pretty cool. Didn't wanna risk it."

Killua shook his head, hands stilling for a second. "You know you're really bossy, right?"

"But I'm gonna feed you, so I'm forgiven, right? Keep rowing."

Killua huffed indignantly, at the implication as well as the command.

"Depends," he said, slicing his oar back into the water, rough enough to make the boat go crooked, "on what food you got. Like, if it's something crappy like trail mix? I don't know if that could win me over."

The only response was the sound of Gon's oar, meeting the water in time with his own. Not an encouraging sign.

"Don't tell me you brought trail mix," Killua said, dragging out the word with disgust.

"There's nothing wrong with trail mix!" Gon said defensively.

"Maybe if it has chocolate in it or something. But other than that?" Here, Killua inserted an exaggerated retching noise. He considered it among the strongest in his repertoire of gross sounds, not that Gon seemed overly impressed.

"Protein is what you need for hikes," he said giggling, but matter-of-fact.

Killua made a noise of disbelief, but didn't protest any further, focusing instead on pulling in. He rowed in large strides, thinking they needed some momentum to plunge the boat onto land. They were silent all through the process of getting the canoe onto the little stretch of sand Gon had picked out, until Killua had a moment of clarity as they collapsed onto the earth.

"So you left the compass purposefully, too? Unless you've been holding out on me."

"Hmpf! Compasses are for amateurs. It's easy enough to tell direction from sun. See?" Gon pointed up at the sky, "It's almost setting, so it's all the way in the west."

Something about that was off, Killua was sure. That nervous feeling swelled into him again, making him feel as shaky even though they were back on solid ground. But Gon was right, right? If the sun was setting… wait.

"Do you even hear yourself? If the sun's setting, how do we get back?"

Gon's gaze didn't shift from the sky for a even a moment before answering, "The stars, Killua. North star. Not so hard."

From anyone else that would have sounded unbearably arrogant, but Gon wasn't… he wasn't really like other people. Everything he said was… well he knew all this stuff, but he said it all kind of with a shrug and a smile. Like he really wanted you to know, too. It should have been off-putting, but it somehow really wasn't.

"You're really…uh," Killua felt flushed, suddenly unsure of what he meant to say, "into this… hiking stuff, huh?" he finished lamely. "How do you even know where this place is, by the way?"

"Oh!" Gon said, sounding surprised, like he should already know, or something, "I'm from here. Around here."

"This island? I didn't think people really lived here."

"They don't, not really. It's a port, so there's trade and stuff. Lots of people make their living fishing, too. But the biggest thing is summer homes, daytrippers. Most stores aren't even open for the locals in the winter. Whole town comes to life for the summer. Stores, and stuff, like this camp. People have to make enough to last the rest of the year, so it's big business. At the end of the summer they have this whole carnival, you know, Ferris wheel, games, fireworks- they go pretty all out. The fireworks- that's my favorite part of the whole thing."

Gon paused for a second, still looking off. Killua felt a little embarrassed, the way he was staring at the silhouette Gon made against the sun, which had, in fact, begun to set. His voice had gone dreamy, and Killua felt on edge, like he was trespassing into something private. Until Gon turned, looked at him. Then, Killua stayed quiet, waited for Gon to pick up again.

"There's not enough kids for them to put in a school or anything. My aunt homeschools me. Eventually I figured out I could get out of doing boring stuff, like math, if I could convince Aunt Mito I was learning stuff outside on my own. I never get to show anyone, though."

"Me, too."

Gon cocked his head, questioning. Killua felt heat rising on his neck. He had kind of forgot he was speaking at all. Dumb.

"Homeschool, I mean. Me and all my siblings. So I get to see their annoying faces all day."

"But other kids! That sounds like so much fun!"

Killua's stomach tightened. He dug his fingers into the sand, trying to calm the warning signs going off like crazy in his head. This was so not something he wanted to talk about in any capacity. Not stuff he wanted to think about, now that he was here.

"Uh, I guess? Me and my sister get along. My older brothers… I don't know, my parents are just kind of…"

He trailed off, trying to look nonplussed, but it must not have worked. That, or Gon was getting uncomfortably close to knowing him, because he backpedaled right away.

"I mean, I guess I wouldn't know. Being an only child. But I know I like being here." Gon stood up, walking to the canoe to get his backpack. "And I'm glad I have someone to show stuff to now. You ready to go?"

He inhaled sharply, feeling a whole other kind of knot in his stomach.

"It's about to get dark, Gon. I think they're supposed to go looking for us if we're not back by sundown."

"We'll be quick! Besides," Gon grinned impishly, "they're getting paid for this, right? Might as well make 'em work for it."

Killua shook his head, following Gon as he darted between trees. He was glad, too. Glad he was the one that Gon wanted to show things to. And glad that he felt a little less lost.