Chapter Text
For Killua, time only started when he met Gon.
Before Gon, every year blended together. There were birthdays, of course. Important milestones. The changing of seasons. But the first day they’d met, it felt like time had just begun, counting the days they spent in each other's company. Time was a trusted friend. Time meant spending all his hours with Gon, tracked only by the happiness that filled his chest and the rise and fall of the sun.
But now he realizes that Time is a hungry, fickle thing—it consumes each remaining moment spent with Gon without remorse.
Killua glances at the doors lining the walls. In less than half an hour, those doors will open and lead them to their doom. A few measly minutes is all he has left.
Time is running out.
Killua rises to his feet.
“Gon. I need to talk to you.”
Every pair of eyes in the room flickers over at the sound of his voice. It’s deathly quiet—dread filled anticipation had sucked all the air out of the atmosphere ages ago. Everyone is waiting for their call to war.
“Hm?” Gon hums. “Sure, Killua.”
Killua’s stomach flips.
“Alone.”
He nods his head towards a desolate corner. There's not much privacy here, with their small brigade crammed into a single room inside Knov’s dimension. But Killua doesn’t have much of a choice.
He has to get it out in the open, here and now, or he might never get the chance.
“Oh. Alright.”
Gon stands up, side by side with Killua as they walk away.
When they’re settled beside the wall, Killua spares a glance over to the rest of the Extermination Team. To his relief, nobody looks in their direction. At least he gets to keep a bit of his dignity.
Gon follows his gaze for a moment. His arms cross over his chest, a confused expression painted across his face. He turns to Killua. There’s that strange look in his eyes again, unfamiliar and frighteningly dull. “Why did you—”
“We might die, you know,” Killua interrupts.
He’s finally said it out loud.
We might die.
Killua’s words ring cold and hollow before they’re swallowed by the blank white walls around them. The finality of it weighs on his shoulders like a mountain of bricks.
It’s not just a possibility—it’s an almost certain outcome. Killua would bet money on it. Not that it matters, anyway. What good is money when you’re dead?
Gon looks at him with a blank stare, mouth pressing into a thin line.
He looks so lifeless— a corpse walking amongst the living.
Killua misses the Gon who would’ve asked him what was wrong. The Gon who giggled at his dry jokes. The Gon who comforted him in times like this, when Killua is hopelessly lost with no path to follow except his footsteps.
But right now, the Gon in front of him doesn’t seem to care at all.
It’s not the Gon he’s used to.
“What’s your point?”
Killua’s eyes fall to the floor, tucking his hands in his pockets.
Death doesn’t scare him—Killua accepted the fact he would die at an early age years ago. But the idea of Gon being gone before he really truly understands how much Killua cares for him…
Well. It’s a burden too heavy to bear.
“I’ve been thinking about how everybody has things they want to do,” Killua shuffles nervously, rocking on the balls of his feet. “Before they die, I mean.”
Gon stays silent.
Killua misses the Gon who would’ve pestered him for answers. He misses the Gon who would’ve begged Killua to tell him his secrets, the Gon who would’ve poked and prodded before Killua finally gave in.
But this Gon says… nothing. He doesn't even seem interested in what Killua has to say; his arms are crossed over his chest, an apathetic scowl carved on his face.
Every second seeps through Killua’s fingers in streams of sand.
All he can do is watch it slip away.
Killua sucks in a bated breath. “When I was an assassin, sometimes people begged me to make an exception for them. Kind of cliche, but nobody wants to die, not really. Most of them talked about unfinished business. Missed opportunities, unfulfilled dreams, that sort of thing.”
He swallows around the words in his throat.
“I keep wondering what I’d do if I knew I'd die soon.”
Killua aches at all the unspoken what-ifs —the things Killua will miss the most, even though he might never see them come to pass.
The shared memories left unlived if they don’t survive.
The adventures they could’ve spent together if they’d never gone to NGL.
The extra years it would’ve taken for Killua to admit the way he’s felt since he first laid eyes on Gon.
The two of them don’t have such luxuries.
Killua wills himself to breathe.
“I guess… I guess I’m saying I don’t want to die with regrets,” Killua finally says.
He has plenty of regrets, enough to last him a few lifetimes. He won’t let this be one of them.
Killua won’t die before telling Gon how he feels.
Gon has to know how Killua’s heart flutters whenever Gon walks into a room. The way Gon always manages to see him—the real Killua, the one with all his dark and shadowed edges—and accept him without hesitation. The pure giddiness that flows in his veins whenever Gon gives him that private, warm smile; one meant for him and him alone. Gon has to know about all the late nights spent staring at his slumbering face, wondering what it would mean to be loved by him—to hold him, to kiss him, to run his hands over his freckled skin in a way that says I love you. I love you so much it aches. I’ll never be quite whole without you by my side. So please. Stay.
“Regrets?” Gon echoes. His face washes over in a glazed, confused expression.
Killua nods.
“Regrets.”
He says it like it’s simple, like he’s not laying it all out on the table in the face of losing everything, despite every part of him telling him it’s not too late to turn back.
Gon’s mouth sinks into a frown.
“I don’t know what you mean, Killua.”
Killua thinks of all the things he wants to say—all the things he needs to say.
He opens his mouth to say something, anything, but nothing comes out. So he does the only thing he can think of.
Killua leans forward and presses their lips together, pushed by the tsunami crashing inside his chest. He cups the back of Gon’s neck like he’s made of glass, terrified he might shatter him. His hands were made to harm, not to hold—but touching Gon, after years of restraint, feels like rebirth. Killua is being remade from the inside out, bathed in a glow of white light that reshapes his very soul.
Killua kisses him as if it’s the last thing he’ll ever do. Desperation pours out of him in raging rapid, clawing against every part of him that’s been aching for release all this time.
Can’t you see how much I love you?
Can’t you tell that the last and final regret I have before we both die is that I didn’t tell you sooner?
Can’t you tell the thing I mourn most is that I never got to show you the love you deserve?
Gon pushes Killua away in a frantic shove.
Killua waits for him to say something, anything —but Gon just stands in front of him, rigid and stiff. He holds Killua at arm’s length, a puzzled look dawning on his face.
This Gon—riddled with grief and pain—is one Killua can’t decipher. He has no idea what Gon is thinking. And that difference terrifies him.
The silence between them deepens, a freshly dug grave, desolate and deathly still.
Every empty second sends Killua deeper underground.
“We should go back and sit with the others,” Gon says. His expression is stoic, hardened like stone and just as cold. There's no light in his eyes, no warm smile. Gon seems so painfully empty. “We’re leaving soon.”
Nothing could've prepared him for Gon’s complete and utter apathy.
Gon simply doesn’t care.
He doesn't care, not like Killua. He doesn't want to kiss him or hold him, doesn't get goosebumps whenever he catches Killua gazing at him like he put all the stars in the sky, doesn't daydream about intertwining their fingers, doesn't overthink every lingering touch that goes on for a beat too long.
Killua kissed him, and Gon hadn’t said anything of substance at all. He hadn’t kissed Killua back—worse still, he pushed him away.
Gon only has one piece of unfinished business he wants to fix before he dies. One last request before he burns everything to the ground. His regret isn’t that he hadn’t told Killua how he felt soon enough. It’s not that he had so little time left to love Killua, to travel the world with him, to spend their lives together like they’d promised. The two of them are knocking at Death’s door, hand in hand, and Gon doesn’t care.
Gon’s final wish is entirely different.
His final mission is to heal Kite, no matter the cost.
Gon is ready to abandon all hope, all chances at survival for even the possibility of ensuring Kite’s recovery. Even if it means leaving Killua hopelessly abandoned and alone.
Even if it means Gon abandoning himself.
Killua’s heart splinters into a million tiny pieces, each shard shredding his insides like an angry, swirling storm.
“...right. Yeah, of course.”
Of course you want to go back to the mission.
Of course the only thing you care about is saving Kite.
Of course you don’t feel the same way.
It had been nothing but a stupidly foolish fantasy. Killua knows that. He’d known all along. But some part of him had secretly hoped Gon wanted him back—and now, that part of him is suffocating, embers smothered into ash and smoke.
“Go without me. I’ll be there in a minute,” Killua murmurs. White hot tears sting at his eyes.
Gon stares right through him, long and unwavering—and then he turns, slowly walking away.
He never asks Killua to follow.
He doesn't even bother to look back.
Killua breaks.