Compared to what was probably the most horrifying incident of Killua's life, the majority of the week goes by pretty smoothly. And there's only one reason for that: Gon.
After coming to Gon yet again after the whole exposing-his-vibrator-to-the-love-of-his-life fiasco, Killua decides enough is enough and vows to shove any dirty thought as far to the back of his mind as possible. It's easier said than done, and on more than one occasion Killua bites his lip nearly to the point of bleeding in an attempt to focus on something that isn't related to how attractive Gon is. It's difficult but necessary, and it means he can just… enjoy hanging out with his best friend.
With inappropriate thoughts banished from his mind, he takes Gon to the park, laughs at him for still not being able to skateboard properly, gets made fun of in return when they go fishing and he can't fish properly, and they hang out with Alluka. Not once does Gon seem to realise any of Killua's untoward feelings from him, and Killua's cheeks hurt from how much he's been smiling. Seeing Gon—his smile, his laugh, his warmth—settles something anxious in Killua's gut that had been brewing for so long. Now everything feels right.
One morning, two days before Gon stops living with him, Killua wakes up super early to surprise him. He tries not to make a single noise as he gets dressed and leaves the house, hoping Gon doesn't wake up before he comes back. He's going to buy body paint. It's probably a dumb and childish idea, but it's something that Killua can't get out of his head—the two of them covered in badly applied paint, trying to be creative but mainly just making a mess. It will be chaos, but it's something that Killua thinks Gon will enjoy, and that's really all he wants.
Hands full of paint filled bags, it takes Killua a few tries to get the keys through the lock and open the door when he gets home. "Stupid, freaking lock," Killua mumbles under his breath when he finally pushes it open.
He expects to find an empty living room, but instead encounters a red-faced and slightly sweaty Gon coming out from his bedroom.
Gon's body stiffens at the sight of him. "Oh—hey Killua! You're back already!"
Killua's squints his eyes at Gon and the red of his cheeks. He's being weird, why is he being weird? "Yeah, sorry. Just wanted to buy some fun stuff for us to do today." Killua smirks. "You better be ready for it."
At Killua's challenge, Gon frigid posture falls away slightly and his shoulders loosen, a small smirk making its way onto his own face. "Of course I will be, what do you take me for?"
"Hm, well, make me breakfast and I might think of going easy on you."
Gon grins. "Not a chance you will."
Killua grins back. "How could you tell?"
"Just a whole childhood's worth of evidence that proves you would never let someone beat you willingly."
"That's a fair judgement." Killua dumps the paint near the front door when he realises, he's still carrying it making a loud thunk noise on the ground. It grabs Gon's attention who now peers at it with curiosity.
"So what are we getting up to today? Sounds like something heavy," Gon says.
"How do you feel about getting paint all over you?"
Gon's eyes widen in surprise for a second. "I'm not opposed to it."
"Great, because I've bought a shit load of body paint and we're going to turn ourselves into works of art. Just no getting any paint on any of the walls or furniture. I will kill you if you do."
"Wouldn't think of it," Gon says with a smile that Killua swears makes the room brighter. "Now what would you like for breakfast?"
"I thought you already figured out I'm not going to go easy on you."
"I did. I want to make it for you anyway."
That makes Killua's heart do a series of somersaults that are definitely not good for his health. Gon making him breakfast covers at least ten of Killua's Gon-related fantasies. Killua bites his lip. This is just because Gon is a good friend, not because he likes you, remember?
"Fried eggs would be fine, thanks," Killua says, trying to keep his voice as even as possible.
"Order up then!" Gon says, and for something so cheesy it has no right to make Killua's heart beat this fast.
Instead of obsessing over Gon while he cooks and how cute he looks in an apron, Killua decides to do something more productive. Besides the body paint, he bought a few sheets of plastic to cover the floor because the shop assistant told him to. And judging from Gon's extremely messy cooking (is that butter in his hair?) Killua has to say it was a good decision to buy something to protect his floors from Gon's wrath.
As Killua places down the plastic, he sneaks a look at Gon. He doesn't look as flustered as he did when Killua returned, but his hair is sticking up a fair bit, and not because of hair product. Killua would pin it down to the fact that Gon's just woken up, except that can't be true. Why would he be so breathless if it was?
"So what got you so sweaty this morning?" Killua asks, curiosity getting the better of him.
Gon freezes midway through cracking an egg into the pan, and a flush crawls its way up his neck as the yolk oozes out of a partially cracked shell. Interesting reaction.
"Oh that," Gon says with a laugh. "Just did some yoga. Surprisingly, it can get pretty intense sometimes."
Killua stares disbelievingly. "You do yoga?"
"Sure! Well, just got into it recently."
"Huh."
Gon seems happy to drop the conversation at that, cracking the egg properly this time, so Killua decides to let it go too.
"How'd you come up with the idea of body paint?" Gon asks, when he serves Killua his eggs, his very delicious looking eggs.
"You're a mess. I'm a mess. It just made sense, and it seemed fun."
Gon's eyes crease at the corners. "I see."
"Did you know you have butter in your hair?" Killua asks through a mouthful of food.
"Yes," Gon says evenly, but Killua can see through him and smirks.
"You had no idea."
"I so did."
"Then why are you checking?"
Gon has his hand raised to his head, obviously testing to see if Killua was telling the truth.
Caught in his lie, Gon simply rolls his eyes playfully. "Just eat your damn eggs and be grateful."
"Oh I am, trust me," Killua says, tucking in.
When their plates are cleaned and washed, and their stomachs are full and satisfied, they move to the paint.
"Holy shit," Gon says. "How many colours did you buy?"
Killua shrugs. "Essentially all of them. I didn't know which colours you would want to use."
"Okay, well then I think I might just go for all of them. Make a rainbow perhaps?" Gon says with a smile that dimples his cheeks.
"Very creative, Gon."
"Hey, I don't appreciate that sarcasm," Gon replies in a tone that indicates he very much does.
"Well, I think I'm just going for lightning."
Gon's eyes light up. "Reminiscing on the one time you touched the electric fence at the farm?"
Killua groans. "Fuck no, that hurt like hell."
Gon just laughs at him because he's not as innocent and nice as he looks, before he goes about opening the paint.
They work quietly for a few minutes, but it's when Gon goes to pull off his shirt that Killua realises yet another mistake he's made while with Gon. Killua had the impression they'd be working with their exposed faces, legs, and arms, but Gon obviously had a different idea. For Gon, the chest was a completely available canvas, and Killua felt like dying.
Killua isn't a painter, but he does know the basics of drawing, so he focuses intently on creating fine blue lines up his arms instead of Gon and the horrible interpretation of a rainbow on his chest.
Still, Killua's eyes wander. Hey, he's a starving man in a desert and Gon is a cool glass of water. His shoulders are broad, and yoga had clearly worked wonders for him because everything is so defined… Killua allows himself two more seconds of staring before he wrenches his eyes away and back to his own arms.
"Woah, looking good Killua."
For a second Killua thinks he's talking about him in his entirety, but then he sees Gon eyeing his arms and curses himself for hoping for even a second.
"Thanks. Yours…" Killua examines Gon's chest, because he's allowed to this time, and Gon has surprisingly made a pretty nice rainbow pattern, "looks good too," he finishes lamely.
"Thanks!"
It takes another fifteen minutes before their paintings and bodies are deemed finished, and Killua, exhausted from the effort of not looking at Gon, decides to just dunk a complete tub of red paint on Gon's head to distract himself. He also does it to make Gon whine, which is a wish that is instantly fulfilled.
"Hey!" Gon cries out.
A paint war ensues, and although the paint was expensive and a tiny bit of blue gets on his couch, Killua can't find it in himself to regret it.
It takes an hour for them to clean up and shower. By the end of the paint fight, they'd both been dumped with at least two tubs of paint, and the paint they'd taken the time to properly apply on themselves was smudged or replaced by another layer of paint. They hadn't even taken photos of their art before it was ruined.
But that wasn't their biggest problem.
Their biggest problem is that the shower can't remove everything. When Gon comes out of the shower, Killua laughs, which is a pleasant change to simply gawking as usual, because Gon's hair is red. And when Killua looks in the mirror after his own shower, the blue paint Gon had dumped on him isn't completely washed out of his hair either, giving it a blue tinge.
Turns out body paint and hair do not mix well together.
Killua doesn't even mind. Blue looks good on him, and while Gon's… doesn't suit him—the red clashing with the tinges of green still in his hair—Gon doesn't seem to mind the change, he even embraces it.
"Hey! Christmas has come early, Killua!" Gon beams after they're both showered and dry, pointing at his hair enthusiastically. Killua can't help but let out a snort. Gon's hair really does look like a Christmas decoration.
"You're ridiculous."
"No, I'm not. I'm Gon!"
Killua groans loudly at that one.
They eat out for lunch and are just about to go home to play Mario Kart when Killua gets a message from Alluka. He reads it and then looks up to Gon.
"Hey, do you want to come with me to Alluka's? She's panicking about a date apparently and wants my help."
Killua expects Gon to agree as always, but instead he says, "Oh no, that's okay. I'm actually feeling a bit tired. Can I just go back to your apartment instead?"
"Oh…" Killua says, quiet. "Sure thing. Here are the keys."
Killua hands them over and Gon grabs them with a smile.
"I guess I'll see you tonight then?" Killua asks, hoping for some normalcy.
"Yeah!"
Gon looks happy enough, but then he turns around and Killua can't read him at all.
Weird, Killua thinks, before heading to Alluka's.
Crisis averted. After a few hours of stressing and two meltdowns, Alluka is officially confident and ready for her date, and Killua has stalked the guy's social media to make sure he's not a psychopath. Everything is going to be fine. Now all he has to do is get home and make sure Gon's okay. Gon said he was just tired, but Killua has a feeling it's more than that.
Although, when he gets home Gon is… perfectly fine. He doesn't look tired, or sick, or sweaty. He's happy and all smiles, and even makes them dinner. They play an hour of Mario Kart before Killua accepts that nothing is amiss with him. Huh, perhaps Killua's gut was wrong this time.
And maybe Gon goes to bed slightly earlier than he normally does but that's not too unusual. After all, Gon did say he was tired before.
Deciding not to think about Gon's weirdness anymore, Killua turns to something much more beneficial to him. Gon's early bedtime gives Killua time to watch Hunter's new post. Hunter hasn't posted something new in a while, so ever since Killua got the notification for the video a few hours ago his body has been thrumming with excitement.
He does the usual—he checks Gon is actually asleep, he puts in his headphones, and he opens the video, fingers shaking slightly in anticipation and half hard already.
The video loads and Killua takes it in. Hunter isn't in the shot straight away, instead the camera focuses on an empty bed. A very familiar looking bed. Killua can barely process what he's seeing when Hunter's voice sounds through.
"Sorry for not posting in ages, guys. I tried to get something up earlier for you today, but I was interrupted by a roommate."
Wait. That voice is familiar too.
"And sorry for the crazy hair. Had a bit of an accident before," Hunter says with a chuckle, before settling down on the bed and showing off his naked body.
No.
Hunter's face isn't in the shot. It never is in his videos. But the hair Killua can see is red. It wasn't like that before. No, his hair was always—green.
No way.
Everything slots together at once—the bed that looks exactly like Killua's, the voice that sounds exactly like Gon's, and the hair that has changed to the exact same colour as Gon's has today. Killua's heart blasts through his chest as he stares, eyes locked on the screen, unable to look away. He should look away, he really fucking should look away. If what he's thinking is true then he has no right to look and watch.
But he can't stop looking.
Because Hunter is Gon.