Chapter 12

In the morning, I walked out of my room and into the dining room, where Gon was sitting at the table. He looked like he slept like a baby last night. How was it that he was able to? Without his presence in the same room, I can barely lay still. But when I'm not in the same room as him, he sleeps like a baby! Sometimes, I don't think I can ever understand that kid.

I walked up behind him, put my arms around his shoulders and rested my head on his back. I was so comfortable that I thought I could sleep like that. I was just about to do just that when Gon asked me how I slept. I just grumbled. Gon laughed a little.

"What's so funny?" I asked him.

"Oh nothing." Gon said.

I knew Gon well enough to know that he was lying. I threatened to raise my arms up to his neck if he didn't tell me what was so funny. He laughed some more. Again, I threatened him. After a few minutes of him not telling me and me threatening, I gave up trying to make him tell me.

"Don't ever leave me alone again." I whispered in his ear. Then I sat down next to him.

Jin entered the dining room with three plates of eggs. I'm not sure how long it was since I had eggs last. I'm not even sure if I even had eggs before. But one thing I know for sure is the eggs were so good, I wanted more. However, Jin said that there weren't anymore eggs.

After breakfast, Jin led us to the edge of town because we said that we were on a journey to find a hidden place. He wished us good luck and he gave us some of his antiques to try and sell. I argued that we didn't have any sales experience, but he just stated 'You'll be fine!' and ended the conversation.

"Here. Take this, too. It may come be useful later on." Jin said handing me a knife. The handle was made of gold with fine jewels embedded in it, same with the sheath. The blade was made of stainless steel and was shaped with a curve.

"So, what does this do?" I inquired. I had thought it, too, held some magical properties.

"It's a knife, you cut things with it." He said belittling me.

"I KNOW THAT!" I shouted back at him, rather insulted. "What I meant was, what kind of magic does it have?"

"It doesn't have any magic in it at all. However, there is a trick to it." He said mysteriously. Gon and I leaned in to hear the trick. "You can only unsheathe the knife when true friendship is shown. You'll know when the time to unsheathe it is when it comes."

That was it? That was the trick to Jin's mysterious knife? What a laugh! Gon and I show true friendship all the time, what could stop me from unsheathing that knife right now?

Jin looked at me and said, "You look rather confident, Killua. What's on your mind?"

"If showing true friendship is what it takes to unsheathe this knife, then I could unsheathe it at any time! Gon and I show true friendship all the time. Right, Gon?" Gon nodded. "See? What would stop me from unsheathing it right now?"

Jin looked at me, his eyes appeared to be smiling. He said, "If you're so confident that you can unsheathe the knife then go right ahead and unsheathe it."

"I think I will." I said in a smug tone of voice. I pulled the handle of the knife expecting it to come out. Nothing happened. I pulled again. Nothing. After a few more pulls I said, "Gon, help me out here." Gon put his hands on top of mine and we pulled. Again, there was nothing. I looked at Jin, who was smiling, and said, "Maybe I'll do it later. I wouldn't want to hurt anybody with the knife or it sheath."

Jin chuckled, "Okay, whatever. I'll see you boys some other time, I guess."

As we were walking away, someone ran up to Jin and said, "Jin, do you know who that was?"

Jin replied, "Of course I know who it was. Killua Zoldyck."

The man said, "If you knew who he was, then why didn't you take revenge for your friend?"

"Because, even if I did, his friend would've taken revenge for him and somebody else would've taken revenge for me and so on and so forth." Jin replied with a serious tone of voice.

The man was confused. "I don't get it." He said.

I looked in the corner of my eye and saw Jin place a hand on the other man's shoulder. "Don't you see, my friend? Revenge gets you nowhere. It's just a continuous cycle with no end."

I was amazed at Jin's knowledge. He knew who I was and yet, he restrained himself from killing me. 'Revenge is a continuous cycle with no end.' I kept saying those words in my mind. I guess I hurt Gon's foot for nothing.

"Killua…" Gon complained, "It's been five hours since we left Jin's town, we've been walking without stopping for a break and my feet are hurting! Killua!"

Gon kept saying my name and it became rather annoying. I tried to block it out, but it was still there. It was just pounding away at my head. Again, I tried to block it out, but it was just pounding and pounding and pounding!

"Killua!" Gon cried.

"ALRIGHT!" I turned around and yelled right in his face.

I sat down on the grass. Gon sat down also, but it wasn't near me. It was near a tree that was a fair distance away from me. I didn't blame him for not wanting to sit by me. After all, I probably scared him. I never yelled right in his face before. To be honest, I probably scared myself more than I scared him. I got up and slowly walked over to him.

"Gon," I said meekly, "Gon, I'm sorry for scaring you, if I did scare you." Gon didn't answer me. "Gon," I said again, "Gon, if you want, you can kiss me. You can jump on me and kiss me to your little heart's content." Again, he didn't answer.

I gave up trying to talk to Gon. I walked away slowly, looking behind me every few steps to see if he would jump on me from behind and say 'Haha! I tricked you Killua!' That's what I was expecting, but it didn't happen. When I got to where my tree was, I layed down on the ground and closed my eyes, hoping that when I opened them, Gon would be right beside me.

An hour passed. I opened my eyes expecting to see Gon laying beside me. My eyes were fully open and Gon was not beside me like I had hoped. I propped myself up onto my elbows and looked around. I saw Gon in the exact same spot and position he was in when I had closed my eyes. I got up and walked over to him again.

"Gon," again, I was meek, "Gon, are you listening to me? I just wanted to let you know that I'm sorry if I scared you. And I was hoping that we could go back to being friends again. Come on. Whaddya say?" There was no answer. I started to cry. "Gon, I'm sorry. I'm really, really sorry. Please forgive me! I didn't mean to yell at you! Please, Gon. I can't go on without you-I won't go on without you. Please! I'm sorry!"

As I was crying I had put my head in my hands. I felt a hand on my shoulder. It was soft and gentle. I looked up to see Gon's smiling face looking down at me.

"I know you're sorry, Killua. I'm sorry, too." He said gently, calming me.

Tears were still rolling down my cheeks. "F-for what?" I said through deep breaths.

"I'm sorry for annoying you." He looked away. "If I hadn't been so annoying, you wouldn't have yelled at me. I realised that while you were sleeping."

"Oh, Gon." I embraced him with my tears still rolling from my eyes to his shirt.

He returned my embrace and patted me on the back. This sort of comforting was new to me. Usually when I was sad, I would just kill something and then I would feel a lot better. But this was something different from what I normally would've done. This was… Real comfort.

I pulled back a little, making sure not to break Gon's embrace. "Gon," I said, "Where did you learn to comfort people like that?"

"Well, when I was really sad, Mito-san would always hug me and pat me on the back saying 'There, there, Gon. It's alright, now.' And everything just felt better."

"Mito-san's remedy really works," I said, "I'm feeling better every second."

My tears had dried up and Gon had pressed his lips against mine. It was so fast that I didn't know how to react. I was just shocked for a second when I returned the kiss and put my tongue in his mouth. He did the same.

When we neared the end of the forest, we saw another town. I was beginning to wonder if we were going in the right direction. It's just been town after town after town. When are we gonna reach the fountain? When are we gonna see where that Kari girl fell down in the crevasse? I sat down and Gon sat beside me.

"Hand me the book, Gon." I said.

"Huh? What book?" He replied.

"Gon, you've pulled that before and I didn't fall for it. What makes you think I'm gonna fall for it now?"

"Because I have no idea what book you're talking about, Killua."

"The book about the fountain!" I was getting slightly annoyed by Gon's act.

"What fountain?" Gon said looking right at me.

I could tell in his eyes that he seriously didn't know what I was talking about! How was it that he forgot what we were looking for? The whole reason we left Kitakura-san's house was to find the fountain. When I said to Jin we were looking for a hidden place, I meant where the fountain was. How was it that he did not know what I was talking about!?

"The fountain of eternal youth, Gon. That fountain." I said.

"Oh! That fountain!" Gon said beamingly. "I thought you meant a regular fountain."

I hit my face while Gon looked in his backpack for the book. Sometimes he can get on my nerves. But I guess that's what I really like about him- besides the other reason why I like him. A few of those reasons being: he's cute, he's funny, he's comforting, and most of all he's just so innocent.

"Here you go, Killua." He handed me the book.

I looked on the page where it had directions. Wait. Directions? I never noticed that before. The only thing I remember about directions was a badly drawn map of the towns and cities on the back cover.

I turned the book to the back cover. The map was gone. This book just keeps getting weirder every time I look at it. Again, I went to the directions page. It had every place we've been so far on our journey and in lighter colours it had where we need to go.

"Killua, what is it? Do you see something?" Gon asked.

I couldn't tell him that the book was tracking where we've been, so I decided to lie to him and hoped he believed me. "I- I found nothing, Gon. Just everything that was there before." I didn't like lying to Gon, but I couldn't tell him the truth. "Let's rest here a little bit and head into town.'

"Okay." Gon said stretching. He then laid on his back and I went down right after him.

The sun had gone down while we were in the forest and the sky was clear. We were lying on the hill next to the town looking up at the stars. I asked him if he had learned about the constellations that the stars make. He just looked at me with a blank stare.

"Constellations? What are those?" He asked.

I told him that constellations are shapes that groups of stars make up. He insisted that the moon was a constellation as well. I just laughed and told him that the moon was not a constellation. I then told him of the constellations we could see. After a few constellations, I looked over at Gon, who was sleeping. I smiled, snuggled in close to him and fell asleep.