book of secrets 6: On a sunny Tuesday afternoon, the late sunlight glowing in your hair
notes: the best part about this write-a-day thing is how I just generally ignore the actual prompt half the time in favor of doing what I want. anyways, felt like actually moving the plot on this one--none of these are in order, but there is a general order in my head. killugon, T (killua uses the fuck word once), 1460 words.
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It takes Gon four months and six days to figure out where Killua went after he gave the Book his Secret. Not for lack of trying—Gon does everything he can short of tracking down Kite to beg for help. Every Door he could find, every spell the Book had, anything to try to find his best friend. Illumi Zoldyck has shown up at the Freecss house every week like clockwork, his threats culminating when he used family connections to try to lock Gon in jail for a night on accusations of kidnapping. The only reason Gon hadn’t gotten in even more trouble was that he’d opened a Door in the back of the policewoman’s car and vanished. Aunt Mito’s yelled at him more than once, has grounded him for life for skipping classes. But she hasn’t found the Book, so Gon can keep opening Doors.
Killua was supposed to be the one who took the Book. That had been the deal. Or so Gon had thought. The Book didn’t lie. The Books can’t lie, except for the Book of Promises. But Gon’s Book of Secrets hid something in the bargain of Killua’s first Door, and it refused to let Gon follow directly.
He should have asked Kite. The real Kite. But that’s a secret he can’t even tell the Book.
So Gon had searched, high and low, in underwater worlds and kingdoms nestled on clouds, in worlds impossible to comprehend and worlds achingly similar to Gon’s own. Every Door is a little easier to open, but the mark circling his arm becomes thicker and darker, until it’s a band of black dark as the space between worlds. Gon can feel it seeping through his skin sometimes, even when he’s not opening Doors. Worse are the whispers that follow him, ghostly echoes that sound like windchimes and breaking glass, scattering from every open Door and vanishing when they close. The others, those with the Books, have noticed it too, mentioning it in whispers when they think Gon’s not listening, as though he’s too young to know when there are ghosts traveling in the spaces between.
It should worry him. It doesn’t, though. It’s the price for what he did, and it lets him find Killua. Gon doesn’t care what happens to himself after that.
The last Door, a tip from a strange colorful man with a malicious twinkle in his eyes who looked at Gon’s arm and knew, opens on a tiny farm nestled in a mountain valley. It’s so green, greener than Whale Island, dirt roads sketching spiderweb paths through endless fields speckled with flowers in every color imaginable. The farmhouse is an eye-burning shade of yellow, brighter than the sun glittering above in a pale orange sky. Here and there, the fields thin out, revealing pens full of animals that look like sheep, if sheep could be purple and the size of cows. When Gon takes a step towards them, he thinks he sees fangs.
“You really don’t want to do that,” a familiar voice calls, and Gon nearly drops the Book. “They look cute, but they really don’t like new people. Took me days to—"
“Killua?” he says, the name sticking in his throat.
His best friend leans on the other side of the fence, one hand ruffling the fur of a fanged purple sheep. His white hair is longer, curling out from beneath a wide-brimmed black hat that covers the rest of his face. Woven into the hat are a strange golden script, the letters struggling to become readable as Gon stares.
And stares.
And then breaks into a sprint.
Killua barely has time to look up before Gon barrels into him, sending them both flying. The sheep baa out of the way as Killua’s hat goes flying away, landing somewhere. Gon doesn’t pay attention. He’s too busy laughing, and crying, and listening to Killua’s sobs of laughter in his ears.
“Took you long enough,” is the first thing his best friend says once they both can breathe, and that sets Gon off again.
It takes them both awhile to calm down, long enough that a few of the sheep start gnawing at Killua’s hat. Killua waves them away as best he can. “I’m helping out,” he says. “Kacho and Fugetsu, they’re the sisters who own the farm, but they gave me a place to stay when I fell out of the Door.”
At the mention of a Door, Gon swallows. “Were you okay?”
Killua gestures at himself, at the sturdy jeans and boots that look more like Gon’s sort of clothing than Killua’s. “You didn’t tell me that opening a Door meant opening all of them,” he says. “The first Door took me where you said it would, the broken castle with the chocolate clocks. I waited for you for…I don’t know, Gon. When you didn’t show up, I got really angry. And I tried to open more Doors, but that only landed me—other places.” He shudders, and Gon has a feeling he understands. “So I’m here. Have been for a month or so. I think I’m getting better at magic, but time’s weird here.”
“Are you still angry?” Gon asks. He had looked everywhere he could, had tried every Door, but that almost wasn’t enough.
A flicker of sorrow ripples across Killua’s face, before it’s replaced with bemused resignation. “You tried to find me, right?” he says. “And you did. So I can’t be angry with you.”
Gon relaxes. “I’m happy to see you, Killua. I missed you a lot.”
His friend doesn’t even bother to scowl, even though he blushes furiously. “Yeah. Me too. I…it’s been a long time. I didn’t know if—well, it was hard to figure out where I was, and where you were, and…”
I think I love you.
Gon’s grip on the Book tightens. He’s fifteen now, and those words have been locked in his ears as surely as they’re stuck to the pages of the Book of Secrets. A Secret so big that it could be used to open Doors to other words, as long as it stays trapped in the pages. A Secret so big that Gon doesn’t know what will happen if he mentions it. And here’s Killua, standing with sunlight in his hair and blue eyes clear, skin a little burnt from the foreign skies, and Gon doesn’t know how to ask if he still feels the same way.
If Gon feels the same way.
“—your arm?”
Gon blinks, and turns slightly, keeping his arm out of sight. “My arm?”
“Yeah, there’s something…” Killua doesn’t quite manage to grab onto Gon’s arm, but he snags a wrist, keeping him stuck long enough to push the edge of his sleeves up to his elbow. Killua’s blue eyes grow round. “What the fuck, Gon?”
He yanks himself out of Killua’s grip. “It’s nothing.”
“It’s not nothing! That’s dark magic, Gon, I’ve seen it. It’s not safe. It’s not—”
“I’m fine,” Gon says, and smiles. He knew what he was doing when he went into this. It had been his choice to make, and he made it willingly. He just didn’t expect Killua to find out so soon.
But the reassurance only makes Killua’s eyes narrow dangerously. “My brother does that to other people. You can’t bind yourself like that. It’s not right.”
“I’m fine,” Gon says again, insistently. “I would never do this to anyone else. It was for a Door.”
“Then how did you get that from opening a Door?”
“I found it in the Book.”
Killua stares at him for a long, uncomfortable moment, and it’s hard to forget that this is a Killua who has seen worlds Gon hasn’t, who has been lost for months on his own. He can open Doors now, even if he can’t yet control them. Gon wonders what else he’s seen, what adventures he’s gone on. Where he’ll go next. If he’ll let Gon join him.
Or if he’ll give up Gon as soon as he finds out what Secret the Book holds from Gon.
Killua blows out a frustrated breath. “Fine,” he says. “But promise me you’ll tell me if you want help? I owe you for finding me.”
“You don’t owe me anything, Killua.” If anything, Gon owes him. Owes him for friendship, despite all of Gon’s screw-ups. For not giving up while Gon did nothing but look.
Anger passes across Killua’s face again like a summer breeze, hot and dense. But it’s gone before Gon can say anything else. “Let me tell the sisters I’m leaving. And then… ” Killua stares for a long moment at the sky, relief loosening the tension from his shoulders. “Let’s go home.”
He doesn’t comment on how Gon’s arm turns black nearly to the wrist when the Door opens.
