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The first time Gon leaves the seafront, right before the Hunter Exam, he knows he will miss it like a lost limb.
The distant crash of the waves rumble in sync with his stuttered breaths as he crosses the crest of the hill with a heavy heart, the horizon vanishing behind him, leaving only the steadiness of land to comfort him. Leorio and Kurapika don't seem too phased by it, but they don't know it as he does. They don't know how Gon's heart pumps saltwater and how his lungs were made for to hold, made to be submerged in violent depths.
When the Kiriko hoist them in their large claws, soaring at dizzying heights, Leorio shouts something about not looking down.
But Gon is only looking to the sea, always to the sea.
It's by pure blissful chance that during the exam he meets a boy whose eyes shimmer like the ocean, just as deep and twice as blue.
He decides, watching them ripple and dance as they walk, that it might not be so bad being ashore after all.
Aboard the airship, some time later during the exam, their noses are pressed against the window, watching the world float by them. He sees it then, winking in the sun like an old friend, and his smile tastes like seawater when he turns to point it out to Killua, fingers jabbing the glass.
Killua isn't as impressed, scoffing.
"What's so great about it anyway? It's just a big pool of water."
Gon thinks, privately, that he just doesn't get it. Wasn't raised in the warm cradle of nature as he was, doesn't understand that Gon's first words were lost to the wind whipped waves.
He sometimes thinks that something was taken from him long ago, a part of him forever lost to the soft underbelly of the sea, an anchored chain always tugging at his heart.
He doesn't say any of this, of course.
He turns back to Killua, turns away from the ocean, choosing instead to moor his aching soul in the depths of his eyes.
It's almost enough.
Later, he sits side by side with Killua on the rocky deck of a ship. The ocean has returned, whispering where it hugs the waterline, and Gon feels his soul settle at last.
Killua's shoulder is against his as they compare tags, the smooth plastic heavy in his hand, Hisoka's piercing glare fresh in his memory.
Killua looks at him with a smile as he talks, something like admiration drifting through the rivers of his irises. The warmth in his chest makes him think his draw wasn't so bad after all.
They stand as they dock, and the wind rushes to greet them, mussing Killua's pale hair and tickling his eyes.
He looks nice. Gon feels like it means something.
When he steps off the gangway, he lets himself slip, the sea catching him at his ankles.
He's back on an airship when he catches a glimpse of it then after that. Killua is gone and Gon's heart has gone with him.
The ocean is grey, dull, lifeless. He can't help but compare it to the forever blue spring of Killua's gaze.
He watches the crest of a wave, a spec in the distance, sink before it can kiss the surface of the water.
The sea looks sad.
Maybe it misses him too.
The ache in his chest threatens a drought. He shoves it down, pushing away from the window, alone this time, running to find Kurapika and Leorio.
Seeing Killua again is like seeing the sun peek over the horizon. Gon's heart is so full, arms full of Killua as he captures him in a hug.
He wriggles like a fish out of his grasp, a blush dusting his cheeks. He's looking away, embarrassed.
Gon misses his gaze like he misses the ocean.
He says something, anything, to pull his the tide of his eyes in. He's rewarded with laughter like a wave crashing against the shore, all crackle and violence.
Gon thinks, feeling himself move to stand closer as they leave this godforsaken place, that he is something he cannot lose. He needs to map him out, circle him in bright red. X marks the spot, there is treasure here.
Heaven's arena hurts Gon in more ways than one.
It hurts his soul all the way until the 100th floor when he gets his own room. The big window faces seaward, and even though they're far inland, he can still catch glimpses of it on clear days, a peek of deep indigo beckoning him homeward.
He's broken his arm this time, weaker than he should be and far too big for his boots. Killua had shouted, Wing had shouted, Zushi had even shouted, in his own quiet way. Stupid, reckless, stupid.
They all ring in his ears as he stares at his corner of paradise in the window, a quiet ocean tonight, all blue.
Killua is in his bed, on top of the covers and splayed like a starfish. He'd fallen asleep against Gon as they curled together to watch one of those terribly bad scary movies, one of many they'd seen this past month.
He didn't know why they kept picking them from the video store. Killua was never scared, and Gon was never paying attention, spending most of their runtimes playing with Killua's cold fingers. Sometimes Killua would even extend his claws for Gon to marvel at.
Tonight had been the same, but Killua was noticeably more grouchy, still upset. He'd tucked his lovely hands away, arms behind his head and hadn't been swayed by Gon's whinges and whines.
His arm aches and his chest aches with the pain of weakness. He has no regrets still. The sea reflects a sky full of stars.
Gon presses himself against the window. The want to summon nen is heavy, but the small thread on his finger is heavier.
He misses the ocean, a world away.
He misses Killua, a metre apart.
He wonders if Killua's anger is over, if it had crashed onto him like a wave, in and out, gone before it truly arrived. He hopes so.
A part of him, small and deep, is afraid that Killua is more boy than sea. Complex. Unencumbered by moon-spun rules. Free to do whatever he likes.
Free to disappear, leave Gon behind.
He tugs at his twine-wrapped finger. Boats aren't made for harbours.
But boats love them. They really love them.
Coming back to Whale Island is like coming up for air.
He can see the sea all around him, laughing as it jostles their homebound ship goodnaturedly.
He wants to get in, let the sea embrace him at last, a mothers warmth in how it peppers him with salt-stinging kisses.
Killua watches him with an unintelligible expression, sitting against the railing Gon is halfway to jumping over. He tugs at his arm, ever calm, ever his anchor.
"We'll be there in a little while. Don't do anything silly."
He listens, always listens to Killua, forcing himself to pull back. He moves to sit next to him, hitting the worn floorboards with a thud.
The sea hums a quiet sadness, wind dulling in it's sulk.
In place of feeling, he tells Killua about the ocean surrounding the island. The tide pools and hidey-holes, the cliffside diving spots.
He wants to show him everything, parade him around the island, asking everything they see, isnt he wonderful? isn't he beautiful? can you see why i hold him so close? can you see the sea in his eyes like i can? can he see anything in mine?
Killua is smiling at him. Gon wonders what he's thinking about.
A while later, they finally dock. They leap off the gangway together, hands held. The sea holds them closer still.
When they surface, Killua looks happy, healthy, at home. It makes Gon happy.
He tries to tell him that, opening his mouth.
The only thing that comes out is seawater.
Killua laughs anyway.
It's hard to say goodbye to the ocean when they leave for Yorknew city.
The promise of Greed Island dulls the pain slightly, a smoothing wave against the jagged wound on his soul.
He wonders if Ging picked an island setting for the same reason Gon would, if Ging misses the ocean as much as Gon does.
He wonders if Ging misses Gon at all.
The thought makes him uncomfortable, a careful question he never wants the answer to.
Gon throws the thought far out to sea, a message in a bottle in the ocean of his mind.
He hopes it never comes ashore.
For an island, Gon barely sees the sea during his time on Greed Island. He has no time.
Training is brutal, Bisky is vicious.
Killua is beside him, growing alongside him.
He's happy, he's really truly happy.
Their nen types are developing. Killua coated in vibrant sparks most of the time. The electric light chases the ocean from his eyes, replacing it with a star's glow.
Gon tries not to think about the implications of that.
His own nen is blooming too. It's agressive, deterministic, powerful. He feels good about it.
He misses the ocean still, and some nights, before he takes his spot next to Killua in the shadow of a boulder, he hops to the top of a rock pillar, just to catch a glimpse. Sometimes he spends a while up there, watching it twinkle for him beneath the moon.
It's beautiful, as it always is, deepening blues and coarse purples dappling the water's surface.
It's so like Gon's own ocean that it's hard to believe it's just a game.
Maybe Ging does miss it, after all.
Kite shares Gon's love for the sea, pointing out how the currents move on their way to NGL, whispering secrets about strange tides that make no sense, about all the tricks the ocean pulls on them.
Gon thinks Kite is quite like him. He has a yearning for the wilderness that Gon shares, they were raised in the same cradle, cut from the same cloth.
They move through the strangeness of the NGL countryside, pausing to examine tracks in the sand.
Killua is minding their horses, and they leave, following the footprints down a windy path.
They reach the end, finding nothing, an empty seashell. Kite's hair moves like water when he talks, long legs crouching to meet Gon's eyeline. He asks a question, and Gon leaps to answer, a river of words rushing from his mouth.
Kite smiles, lips quirking upward. He ruffles Gon's hair, tousling it gently, just like the ocean does but with twice the fondness.
Gon beams under his touch, bright as anything.
East Gorteau brings it's own unique sea with it, at least from what Gon can discern with his limited exposure, peering out of a distant window.
It's so pure, undisturbed by man's influence. Creatures lurk within it's depths that Gon has never seen before, magical and alluring.
He desperately wants to ask Kite about it. Wants to hear him explain it in his cool, steady voice, patient and terribly kind.
The thought makes him want to cry. The feeling makes him violent.
The ocean within him is dangerously still. The calm before the storm.
Gon lets some of it spill from his eyes. His nails carve bloody crescents into his palms.
When they disembark their ship, he lifts his hands away from the sea's scrabbling, doesn't let the ocean soothe his wounds.
He hasn't earned it.
Maybe he never will.
When he sees the ocean while climbing the world tree, his first thought is about Killua.
He thinks about how beautiful the water looks under the sunlight. He thinks about how much more beautiful Killua's eyes would be, how they would twinkle as he took in the view. He thinks about being at sea. He thinks about being unmoored.
Some ships destroy their own harbours. Some ships do it to themselves.
Some need to feel the ocean to remember why they left it in the first place.
He can see a vast swathe of sea from his position, about three quarters up the trunk. It's mesmerizing, sunlight winking at him, their typical greeting.
He doesn't miss it half as much as he misses Killua.
Gon keeps going anyway, always keeps going. He wonders what Ging thinks of the ocean, all the secrets it must have told him.
He'll have to ask.
The same thought, message in a bottle floats ashore as he climbs, everpresent. He picks it off the sand and shatters the bottle in his grip, a question left clutched in his bloody palm. He knows the answer now.
When he asks him about the ocean, after all their reminscing, he gets a similar response.
He thinks then, that they're not so similar after all, Boy of ocean and man of land.
Ging had lifted anchor years ago.
Going back to Whale Island is less exciting without Killua, the sea duller. The wind has left them too, gone to mess up white curls on a continent a lifetime away.
He steps back onto the island, and feels his old self resurface in the worst way, sitting water and algae blooming in his heart.
It's weird, to be back home. It doesn't really fit him.
Nowhere really does, anymore.
It's a person he's chasing. The ocean's beauty poured into one boy.
He misses him, an ache that ebbs and flows like the tide. He knows he's lost a piece of himself to him, a part of his soul forever drowning in pale blue irises. He knows he doesn't fit in with him either, destroyed ports and sunken ships.
He can fix this, somehow. Can do better, do it right for Killua,
Ships aren't made for harbours.
They're not made for the ocean floor, either.
They're made for sailing.
So he’ll sail forward, always forward.
He'll sail home.