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Perversion tastes like cheap toffee and cough syrup.
Kite thinks as he pokes at his wheat cereal with a fork. He’s been chided for not using a spoon in the past, but better to strain the milk before eating soggy pieces.
Kite wants to ignore him. He pretends he doesn’t keep glancing up at the boy, staring the moment Gon’s head dips back down to his own bowl; pretends his eyes haven’t been glued to Gon’s scalp and hair and neck since entering the kitchen. Yet the image of his scrunched nose from the scent of almond milk is still fresh on his mind; the way he scrapes and swirls a spoon around his dish to find stray squares eats at him; the friendly glint in his eyes, somehow in lieu of the night before… it’s like a malignant tumor, growing steadily, obscuring other rational thought.
Kite wonders if it’s appropriate to call a teenager an egotistical prick. Maybe not to his face… but in his head, quietly. He wonders if it would help obscure the palpations of guilt and fear that flutter up whenever Gon’s eyes catch his as he stares, up and down, between his bowl and his fork and this stupid fucking kid.
Kite curls his palms together, pressed under his chin.
“I called Mito this morning.”
Gon’s eyes flit up like little golden sparrows, round but vacant at the mention of his aunt. Kite’s teeth grit as that sharp nose hinges his vision, but he’s back to his cereal by the time the next sentence drips from his lips:
“Told her I’m taking you back on Thursday.”
Gon’s quiet.
“I didn’t really have time to take off for you.”
Still quiet.
“So the least you could do is –”
“Right. I’m really sorry, Kite.” He looks up again. “Thank you for driving me back.”
Fucking idiot.
He seethes. Maybe those words are for Gon. Maybe they’re for himself. Gon’s the one that drove up here. Gon’s the one that stole his aunt’s car to drive up here to see Kite. Why? Hell if he knows. Is he okay? Hell if he knows. Is Gon turning into a delinquent? Might be.
“You’re the only one who wouldn’t get angry,” he’d said.
Kite rubs his face, wondering if the lump in his stomach is guilt or not. When had he last visited? Not since the move, for sure. When was that, like, five years ago? And how the hell did Gon find his address?
The man’s fork clatters suddenly as he leaves his chair. Damn it. Damn it all.
Gon perks up again, energy sparking from his tangled black hair. Kite wills himself not to look back and instead stares at the tacky wallpaper; a remnant of when the house was owned by boomers. Stencils of birds along stripes of teal and white.
“Did Aunt Mito say anything?”
He frames it like idle curiosity, but Kite wonders if she knows something more about Gon’s sudden departure. He probably should’ve asked. It’d explain Gon’s idle misdirection whenever the topic arose last night.
God, it had poured. Big heavy storm clouds slunk in the moment the sun had gone down, and seemed to catch in a tangled web right above Kite’s house; a middle-of-nowhere mountain home with a thirty minute commute to work. At least the weather will give him an excuse to come in two hours late today; he’d needed the extra sleep.
Few things in life had shook him more than the moment Gon had shown up, dripping wet on his doorstep. Thunder shaking the house, rain slashing at the rafters, when the doorbell suddenly rang at 1 AM. Thankfully, somehow, Kite had been awake when he normally wouldn’t, plodding away on his phone.
He opened the door and… there he was. Gon Freecs. The entitled prodigal son of a reckless vagabond. The teen might’ve been crying – his eyes were red from too much rubbing and tired from a continual sneer, but maybe that all came from driving in the rain.
“…Gon.”
Gon tapped his foot and sniffed. Maybe he wasn’t done crying.
“Can I come in?”
Kite nodded, of course he did, who’d leave their nephew out in the cold? Well… maybe he wasn’t a real nephew, but a veritable one, and in any case Kite didn’t have nephews and wouldn’t have any if not for Gon. He prepared two towels for his hair and back, got him out of his sopping yellow raincoat, threw his socks and shorts in the laundry and led him to the couch.
“Why are you here?” Kite asked.
Gon bit his lip, wiped his nose again, and his eyelashes fluttered as he squinted at the floor.
“…Wanted to get out of the house, I guess.”
A brief pause.
“Aunt Mito’s just being unreasonable.”
How’d he get here? Her car. Did she know? Maybe, he hadn’t said he was going.
“So you just took her car and drove five hours in the middle of a storm?”
“I wanted to see you.”
Kite tensed. “The hell would you want to see me for?”
You’re the only one who wouldn’t get angry.
Kite sighs.
“No. No, Aunt Mito didn’t say anything else.”
Gon averts his eyes again.
“Just that she’s glad you’re okay.”
“He’ll never admit it, but he’s such a sensitive boy.”
“She was worried about the rain.”
“But maybe he’ll listen to you, being Ging’s friend and all that.”
He doesn’t add that last part.
“I need to shower,” Kite concludes quickly, taking his plate and dipping for the sink before Gon can get a word in. “I’m already late for work.” As he rounds the table, “I’ll leave the number for my cell on the table before I go. There’s stuff for sandwiches in the fridge drawer and pantry whenever you want lunch.”
Gon nonchalantly returns to his cereal. He mumbles an “okay” with a mouth full of wheat thins, knees steady as one arm drapes over them beneath the table.
Kite hesitates one last time before leaving the room, and it’s enough for Gon to look up at him again. If there’s pain in his eyes, or regret, he can’t see it; only the question of why his non-uncle hasn’t left the room yet.
Then, steadily – and he wouldn’t have noticed had he not been so confounded by him already – Kite sees the teen’s leg nudge his direction, lips briefly open as if to say something.
That’s when he finally walks off.
Kite lives in a cheap, single story mountain home. There’s no private shower for a master bedroom, and Kite instead sleeps in a single that’s too small for his tangled legs, pressed in the corner of a room half occupied by the bed, an old bookshelf, and nightstand.
When he prepares for work, he leaves the bath tap on for a bit before getting in, as he’s sensitive to cold, and the water takes a solid two minutes to stop feeling like ice. This time, he steps in immediately; and even though his joints scrunch and skin screams, he bares it out, because at least it gives him something different to fixate on.
As the temperature eases up, he rubs at his shoulders – his neck, his brow – before remembering the soap and doing the whole motion again. He wants to forget. He wants to forget, but the scrubbing isn’t working and the water’s gotten too warm. Kite twists the faucet knob left as hard as he can so it can scald. His ample hair soaks and pulls heavy down his back.
Kite had been in the bonus room, holding a bottle of ginger ale in one hand and clasping his chin with the other. His eyes left the house through a window. He’d positioned himself, cross-legged, on an old couch that stunk of mold; when Gon walked back in, an hour after being put to bed on a pullout mattress in the living room.
“Kite –”
“Go to bed, Gon.”
He didn’t. Rubbing his neck, the teen cast a look at the floor, scanning the wood for minute imperfections.
“I said go to –”
“Are you mad at me?”
Yes.
But things stayed quiet, Kite pressing his knuckle to his forehead and clenching his eyes shut.
Gon had chased. He’d crossed the hardwood, sat on the opposite end of the couch, knees wobbling idly as he shook them with his hands. He looked up at Kite, face dark in the lightless room, rain rolling down the window.
Why are you here?
Gon bit his lip, moved sideways, hips shifting so he was closer. Kite, old and tired, didn’t move. A hand tapped the couch. Reached over, touched his knee. Gon was looking at his sweatpants. The older of them, suddenly self-conscious, pinned both feet to the floor, set down his drink on a side counter, and turned to face this veritable nephew.
“If you have something to tell me…” He hesitated. “If this is about Ging –”
“It’s not,” Gon promised, his voice terribly soft. Strange, not his voice.
“Haven’t spoken to him in a while anyway,” Kite had mused. “He doesn’t answer when I call.”
“It’s not about him.”
“Then why are you here?”
Gon lingered, for a minute, on those words in silence. Kite stared intently through the haze of dark blue night. So old and tired. Why weren’t they both in bed? He’d forgotten how late it was.
Gon remembered first, and he shivered anxiously as he twisted in place, lifting his knees onto the couch and looking the man to his front over. Kite was a thin creature who looked frail enough to snap with a strong enough grip, and Gon was studying him like a cat would before lunging at a bird.
He moved in, head first, then shoulders; shuffled his feet and knees, reared back up on them and steadied his body with his hands. Gon stared down at the couch, then back up at Kite, burning with sudden resolve that the man could only feel vacantly in air void of light.
A word of caution danced on Kite’s tongue. Sudden apprehension crept upon him, but he kept quiet, trusting of Gon and quelled by the patter of rain and slowness of night.
Gon reached up and gently clasped his cheeks. His hands were chafed, the nails dirty and serrated from chewing. Kite’s cheeks were soft, smooth, and warm.
“Gon.”
A name pushed out due to discomfort and confusion. Kite’s fingers twitched, but he didn’t move. The child leaned in, his eyes pleading now, guilty from his own resignation.
“Gon –”
Then he kissed him.
The water on Kite’s back burns and his fingers scrape his scalp. He wants to tear deeper. He wants his flesh seared clean from his body, to be ravaged by the water. He wants to drown in this heavy steam.
Gon had kissed him.
Why?
For hours now, his mind has glazed over their time together, when Gon was young, every second to ensure this wasn’t his own doing. That maybe at some point, Kite had given the false impression that he was desirable to Gon, or that Gon was to him.
When Gon’s mouth touched his, there was an upheaval in the boy’s throat. His lips were so warm, his breath quiet and controlled. Kite didn’t know when he’d last kissed someone, nonetheless been kissed. He couldn’t tell whether it felt nauseating or invigorating or both.
Gon’s hands clutched harder, and he sobbed into Kite’s mouth. The man only then felt the weight of everything tumble over him. Oh fuck. Oh god. Oh god this is sick.
Yet he stayed petrified until Gon suddenly pulled back, wiping at his mouth and eyes with his sleeve and mumbling a “sorry” under his breath.
Kite just stared, horrified.
What did you do.
He asked himself, because it’s the only thing he could. How could you let this happen?
“Are you angry?”
Gon bit his lip, hands pulled between his legs like he was expecting a scolding. And Kite probably should’ve scolded him for everything.
God. Fuck.
“Go to bed, Gon.”
The child lifted himself to his feet, took one look back, and left the room.
Kite clasped his mouth with his hand, realizing his lips were chapped, but still warm. What a miserable kiss. He wonders if that was his first. And prays it wasn’t, that someone else had stolen that at least, so it wouldn’t be his responsibility.
Kite still senses him there. It’s a phantom touch that’ll linger for a week.
And he thinks:
Perversion tastes like cheap toffee and cough syrup.