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One perfect day
I’ll get your telegram
And you’ll be calling me, whoa oh
This perfect day
I can’t stop thinking
Are you over there?
Are you happy there?
“One Perfect Day” - Little Heroes
This is what he always wanted.
Finally, after wandering all over the continents, after everything he’s seen and done with all the people he met along the way, after everything he sacrificed for the sake of getting stronger, he’s joined his father at the very top of the world, so high it feels like he could reach out and touch the edge of the sky.
He did it - he found Ging.
They’re together at last.
So why, then?
Why does it feel so wrong?
Why does the space next to him feel so empty?
Why does his chest feel so tight?
Why does it feel like he’s missing something?
… or rather, if he’s being completely honest…
… someone.
The boy is older than he expected.
More grown up. The youthful light in his eyes is caged in a startling maturity that’s somewhat unnerving.
But then, time passes all too quickly, and he’s done his best to stay as far away as possible.
His ability to be absent is no less than an art form by now, certified yearly by the bitter-toned letters Mito sends to Beans, knowing they’ll eventually reach Ging. He’s not sure why she keeps on writing, whether she’s deliberately trying to be cruel with every status update on Gon or the poorly-printed photos of the island that she sends or the passive-aggressive reminders that Abe isn’t getting any younger.
It’s probably all she feels she can do.
He trapped her on Whale Island years ago when he showed up one rainy night, threw Gon into her arms and piss-bolted, and now his unassuming cousin will likely live out her entire life on that tiny island, and eventually die there.
He’d been well aware of just how much he was asking of her, and he thinks she understood it, too. But nonetheless, she raised Gon exactly the way he’d hoped - just as planned.
Back then, he guessed that Mito would love Gon as much as if he’d been her own, because that’s just who she is. He knew she was the only one who could play that part in Gon’s development.
She could be for Gon what Ging never could.
And hasn’t he developed interestingly, he muses, maintaining his indifferent facade as he subtly scans over Gon’s features.
By all accounts, the boy is now effectively Nenless, although his aura is still very faintly detectable. And from the report Ging read, it was quite the spectacular event, his showdown against one of the incredibly strong Royal Guard ants - one that Gon didn’t deserve to be walking away from.
One he didn’t walk away from.
And yet, exactly as anticipated, Gon’s made some powerful allies since his departure from Whale Island. He’s found a family of strong Hunters to belong to, one that he can rely on. People willing to risk their lives at his side and do whatever it takes to help him.
Good, Ging thinks.
He’s going to need them.
It’s been to his advantage for the world to believe he couldn’t care less about the boy. That had always been the intention from the beginning, at least partly due to the sheer amount of enemies Ging had out there. You can’t change the world without pissing a few people off along the way.
But those enemies can’t target people he doesn’t care about. And most of them are far too dumb to call his bluff on that. The rest, well, those he could take care of himself before they became a problem.
And yet, there’s one enemy he knows he will never win against. His darkest and most painful secret, the past he’s been running from for what feels like forever.
The reason why Gon has to grow up as strong as possible, so that there’s even a chance one day of things playing out differently to what has felt ill-fated from the start.
And why Ging has purposefully, even if he won’t often admit it to himself, distanced himself from getting attached to the boy. It’s easier to care less about someone you barely know. So when whatever happens happens, it won’t hurt as much, and he’ll be able to stay in one piece and move on afterwards.
Or that was the theory, anyway.
Did it still kind of grate on him to hear the desperate, panicked relief in Leorio’s cries when the freshly recovered Gon showed up at the election meeting? Or the pure, unadulterated joy in Gon’s exclamation as he launched himself into the air with outstretched arms, knowing Leorio would be there to catch him?
Not at all, he tells himself, but deception is something that comes naturally to Ging by now.
It was a necessary means to an end, after all, and it’s not like it could be any different, not when he knows where this is all heading one day.
Ging’s always used his acute sense of foresight to stay as far ahead of the crowd as he could, in ways that have baffled his peers and rivals alike. He can see the writing on the wall long before anyone else, and it’s served him well for many years.
But sometimes, he really wants to believe his instincts are wrong.
Sometimes he wants to err on the side of faith rather than rationality.
“Are you friends with the other Zodiacs?” Gon’s asking, his amber eyes wide with the naivete of the young.
Friends among the Zodiacs.
Ging tries not to laugh at the ridiculousness of the sentiment.
“Err,” he begins, wishing to dispel the vision of Pariston’s stupid, smarmy face that has instantly surfaced in his mind. “We get along as well as we have to.”
“Cheadle seems cool,” Gon offers. “Leorio said she’s really smart.”
“Often obnoxiously so,” Ging mutters.
“What about other friends?” Gon asks, and it’s painfully obvious that his question is not without some background context that he has yet to reveal. “Like the people you built Greed Island with? Razor seemed to like you a lot.”
“Razor owes me,” Ging shrugs. “He was repaying a debt.”
“Oh,” Gon says softly, his eyes falling as he pulls his knees to his chest, looking out over the golden shimmering water.
“What are you getting at, Gon?” Ging prompts, never one for patiently waiting. “Why does it matter if I have friends?”
He can kind of guess where this is going, though, because Gon doesn’t seem to have even the semblance of a poker face, and it’s been written all over his expression from the moment he arrived at the top of the World Tree.
There was a reason Gon got sent to Kite after completing Greed Island, after all - instead of directly to Ging.
Someone had ended up at his son’s side, someone he apparently liked enough to be willing to bring him along to meet a father he barely knew.
But Ging had guessed that might happen, which is why he worked in that exception in the first place. Not that he was scared of meeting Gon or his friends, or anything, despite what Elena liked to believe.
Couldn’t make it too easy for the kid.
Yeah, that was it, definitely.
Since Gon clearly still had a lot to learn if he hadn’t been ready to meet with Ging alone after clearing Greed Island. And he’d felt there was no one better to fill in those blanks than his student - to teach Gon what it meant to really be a Hunter and the sacrifices it would take.
It was a little unfortunate how it all played out from there, but of course Kite was too tough to go out that way, to some damn mutant ants. And he’d been pretty certain Gon would pull through too, though there was a moment where he’d briefly questioned it.
That night he snuck into the hospital undetected, determined to secretly see for himself exactly what state Gon had ended up in after fighting the Chimera Ants. Reports were one thing, but seeing Gon’s shrunken, almost mummified appearance close up, and sensing the dark, oppressive aura emanating from him, was something else.
It was all too familiar.
It was all of Ging’s mistakes coming home at once, a stark reminder of how exceptional his capacity for failure is.
And it affirmed what he’d hoped would eventually prove to be the case - that when faced with difficult, perhaps impossible choices, Gon would choose to sacrifice whatever it took for the sake of something bigger than himself. He was prepared to give everything up if it really came down to it.
The kid was gonna need that mentality one day. The world might depend on it.
But it’s also probably why there’s no longer someone at Gon’s side, and why he looks at such a loss about it.
There’s no small irony in that the two of them are, in the end, meeting one-on-one. Though he gets the feeling it came at quite a devastating personal cost, given Gon’s clearly conflicted state of mind.
But that was part of the point, really.
He needs to be able to survive this kind of loss, if he’s going to grow into the Hunter he needs to.
Still, Ging finds himself wondering, against his will, about Gon’s missing other half. He chastises himself internally, being careful not to let it show on his face.
It’s not his role to get involved. Or his right.
“I just… before, you said that the relationships you built ended up meaning more than the original goal you were pursuing.”
“Mm.”
“I think I understand that,” Gon admits, the hint of a sad smile playing at the edge of his lips. “But… I made some pretty bad mistakes along the way.”
You and me both, Ging thinks but does not say.
“Humans are nothing if not the experts in making mistakes,” he quips wryly instead. “It’s a strength, and a weakness. Because we can soar higher on the basis of learning from past errors, and yet… we can never fully stop making the same mistakes.”
A long silence stretches between them, Gon’s downcast eyes fixed on the clouds below. His dark eyelashes flutter against his cheek with every slow blink, and the setting sun illuminates the golden hue of his eyes and the emerald tints in his hair in a way that makes Ging’s throat feel unpleasantly constricted.
It hurts more than he expects, to notice these little details about Gon.
None of his best features came from Ging, after all.
“Will it really be enough to promise to do things differently next time?” Gon asks quietly.
Ging knows what he’s referring to, back when they were at the Association’s election gathering, and Gon was bawling his eyes out confessing about what happened to Kite.
But he doesn’t get the sense this is about Kite.
“Only if you live up to it,” Ging says pointedly. “Empty promises are worth nothing to anyone.”
“Right,” Gon says, and his eyes are so, so sad.
Ging wrinkles his nose, recalling how utterly uncomfortable it had been when Gon burst into teary, uncontrollable sobs during their first meeting. He had been at a complete loss of what to do then, because in his experience, children were far more baffling than any monster to be slain, ruins to be unearthed, or labyrinth to be solved.
Gon is living confirmation of that conclusion.
And now this same child next to him is clearly starting to drown in the weight of a melancholy that seems like it might consume him if he lets it.
Mito would know what to do, he thinks resentfully. Because she’s spent half her life cleaning up Ging’s messes.
Well, maybe longer, if he’s honest.
“So, how’s Mito?” he decides on, wondering if distraction might be a suitable technique to try on Gon. It certainly works on many of the Magical Creatures he’s tamed into not killing him.
“Ah… I think she’s fine,” Gon says a little sheepishly, wiping his sleeve hastily across his face. “I haven’t seen her for a while. Or Grammy Abe. But I try to write to them as often as I can, and keep them updated on where I am.”
“She still mad at me?”
“Uh…”
Gon’s almost cute in his hesitance to be honest about what they both know to be true.
“I’ll take that as a yes.”
He pauses.
“And… Abe is doing well?”
God, being around Gon is making him uselessly sentimental.
He needs to move on from this whole situation as quickly as possible. He shouldn’t have listened to Beans or those annoying Hunters chastising him for being a bad father. He shouldn’t have stayed.
They don’t understand at all.
How could they?
“Yeah!” Gon says, his expression brightening. “She was great, still involved in so many different activities on the island, when we… uh, when I last saw her.”
There’s a lot to unpack in the way Gon says we.
This damn kid, his heart is dangling like a liability off his sleeve.
And he just can’t help himself.
“We?” he repeats.
“Oh,” Gon says in the same way as before, his face falling a little. “Yeah. The last time I was back on Whale Island was with Killua.”
Killua.
Ging runs the name through his head. He’d never admit it in a thousand years, to anyone, but… yes. He has kept tabs on the people surrounding Gon.
It’s only to ensure that Gon doesn’t become an easy way for people to get to Ging, really. It’s not like he actually cares about Gon, not like that.
Of course not like that.
“The Zoldyck kid?”
Gon blinks at him in surprise.
“You know his last name?”
Crap.
“He was one of the absentee voters. It’s not such a common name.”
Gon nods in understanding, readily accepting his lie.
Well… curiosity might have killed the cat and all, but it’s never done Ging in thus far. He decides to push a little further.
“So where’s Killua now?”
Gon’s mouth is drawn in a thin line, his eyes dropping back to the direction of the town below.
“I don’t know,” he says. “Probably not that far away yet. He and his sister travelled with me to the base of the tree, but then they had to go.”
“I see.”
“He says he really wants to meet you one day, but he couldn’t leave her behind to come with me.”
“Good luck catching up to me again,” Ging says shortly. And he means that, because he’s let his guard down far too much recently.
Being around Gon - it’s unsettling.
The kid has a knack for breaking down walls, it seems. And if this Killua is the one that’s been by his son’s side most of this time, if he was involved in breaking the Nen covenant that Gon set on himself in exchange for the power to defeat that Chimera Ant…
He’s probably just as terrifying.
Ging’s half-tempted to jump off the World Tree right now and extract himself from all this, but the boy next to him feels fragile, somehow.
He’s fully healed, about as healthy as can be despite his missing Nen, and yet simultaneously appears on the verge of breaking into pieces. He wears a bright smile like a protective coating, something practiced over years that’s now being used to hide the depths of what he might truly be feeling.
Like maybe a part of him got left behind in NGL.
Ging sighs.
He probably owes him at least this much.
“So kid,” he says gruffly. “Tell me about your adventures so far. You got any good stories?”
And Gon’s eyes are so wide, sparkling with eagerness to tell Ging absolutely everything, it’s almost too much all at once.
But it’s okay, he can spend one night like this, with Gon.
He can give him that much, after a lifetime of avoidance. He’s not really sure why the boy doesn’t seem to bear even a tiny hint of resentment towards him, honestly. But there’s nothing in his adoring gaze to suggest he’s anything but grateful for this time together.
Sure, it won’t change anything in the long run, and it can’t undo the past.
It won’t stop what’s coming.
He told Gon that what he wanted most was what he couldn’t see in front of him right now. And there are many layers in which that’s the truth of it.
When he looks at Gon and sees what his son has grown into, he can see how far he’s come. But it’s not enough, nowhere close. There are only the very faintest hints of what Gon might become one day, especially now that he’s been reset back to almost square one.
So no, he can’t see it yet. He’s not sure Gon will ever get there.
But he wants to hope he will.
He wants to believe in Gon the way those who know him seem to.
There’s a part of him that wishes he could tell Gon everything, the things he’s kept locked up deep inside for over a decade - the dark, gnawing guilt that rots away at his very core. The real reason he drew himself away from everyone and everything, when he changed from being simply aloof and single-minded to deliberately and intentionally isolated.
Why he showed up on Whale Island with a baby only to abruptly turn around and leave again.
But Gon’s too young, and it’s not fair on him.
None of this was ever fair.
So tonight, he’ll play along and be what Gon wants. And he’ll pretend as if it’s not what he wants, too.
The hardest thing about doing what’s necessary is that it’s not often what you actually want.
Before Gon knows it, the early morning rays of the sun are lighting up the dusk sky, and it’s the most surreal feeling.
He honestly never expected to find himself sitting next to his father on the edge of a giant nest perched high above the ground, doubled over in laughter after spending all night trading tales of their adventures, not even the slightest bit tired as he rides the adrenaline high.
There was a part of him that wondered if he’d chase Ging’s shadow his entire life and never catch up. So to be here with him already, less than two years after leaving Whale Island, is kind of strange.
And then there’s that part of him that always believed that whenever he finally found Ging, he’d be doing it with his best friend at his side.
In his daydreams, he’d been showing off the amazing person he spent so much time with since leaving the island, slinging his arm around Killua’s shoulders and proudly introducing him to his father.
This is my very best friend in the entire world, Killua!
But all he has now are stories to tell, and as great as they are, they’re not the same as Killua himself.
Nothing is, really.
“It’s about time, huh,” Gon says, sensing the growing edginess in the scruffily dressed man next to him.
“Yeah,” Ging agrees with a slight drawl. “Got places to be, you know.”
Gon follows his father in getting to his feet, stretching to quell the protest from his too-long-stationary muscles. Ging just tilts his neck from side to side as if releasing a crick, but otherwise appears unbothered by the length of time they’ve been sitting.
“Ging?” Gon begins, shrinking a little as his father’s intelligently shrewd gaze settles on him.
“Mm?”
“Thank you,” he says, feeling stupid even as the words come out of his mouth.
Ging makes a face.
“What on earth for?”
Gon pauses, trying to find the right phrasing.
“For this,” he says, gesturing around them. “For spending the time with me.”
Because they both know that Ging has been resisting the urge to run away the entire time, even if Gon still doesn’t really understand why.
There’s that quiet little voice inside him that threatens to surface sometimes - why doesn’t he want me, why doesn’t anyone want me - but he’s too scared to give it agency, so he pushes it down as far as it can go.
He can’t let the darkness in again.
“I’m really glad we could finally meet like this,” Gon continues, wishing he were better at giving words to his emotions. “This day, being here together… it means a lot to me.”
“Sure,” Ging mutters, then shifts uncomfortably. “... me, too.”
Gon can’t stop the flush of happiness spreading across his cheeks, and he beams at Ging.
The joy of being so close to his father is bursting inside him, and he’s nearly overcome by the desire to make it last, to pinpoint the next time they can be together again, even though the logical part of him recognises this is hardly what Ging wants.
“Hey, Ging…”
Maybe he can ask for something small, even if he knows it’s unlikely.
“... could we exchange numbers?”
Ging blanches predictably, his lip curling back a little.
“Oh, umm…”
But then something in him seems to deflate, and he tilts his head as if to clear it.
“... yeah,” he says instead, his expression unreadable. “Let’s do that, Gon.”
It feels like a precious treasure to have Ging’s number stored in his phone, and he suspects his father can tell this from the look on Gon’s face.
“Don’t subscribe me to any dumb mailing lists,” Ging grumbles, avoiding eye contact.
“I won’t!”
He puts his phone back in his backpack, and peeks over the side of the nest. Getting down from the World Tree looks like it’ll be a fair bit more challenging than getting up.
He hears a snort behind him, and turns to see his father smirking at him, arms crossed.
“What?”
“That’s not the best way down, kiddo,” Ging says, his smirk widening. “Can’t you think of any other way?”
Gon glances to the side, where the chicks in the nest are resting quietly. The sun hasn’t risen enough for them to be up yet, but it probably won’t be too long before they are awake and squawking for food once more.
“I don’t think they can fly yet…”
Ging laughs merrily, leaping nimbly down to where the chicks are sleeping and disappearing from view. He resurfaces moments later, brandishing two giant feathers as he makes his way back up to the edge of the nest.
He offers the smaller one to Gon.
“Ah,” Gon says. “That makes sense.”
The feathers are so large that they’ll easily carry the weight of a human, and it’s obvious what Ging’s intention is.
He probably should have thought of that, and given enough time, he might have. But Ging feels like he’s light-years ahead of where Gon is in everything he says and does, and he wonders if he’ll ever be able to catch up.
Especially now.
He sucks in a breath to distract himself from the unwanted feelings.
“Yo, Gon,” Ging says, breaking into his thoughts.
He’s standing at the edge of the nest, feather in hand, looking ready for flight. But what’s odd is his tone, much more serious and sombre than he’s heard Ging be since they met. His dark brown eyes are filled with a strange emotion that Gon has trouble placing, something foreign and seemingly atypical of the man before him.
He meets his father’s steady gaze, his fingers tightening on the feather and his stomach twisting nervously. Ging’s eyes soften a little, and he suddenly looks a lot older than his years, weary and worn out and weighed down by regrets Gon knows he’s not going to share out loud.
“You turned out great,” Ging says, the ghost of a smile crossing his features. “Don’t expect me to say this often, but… I’m proud of you, kid.”
He almost looks like he wants to add something else, but then just nods brusquely instead.
Gon stares at Ging in shock, hot tears pricking at the corners of his eyes against his will. He knows his mouth is hanging slightly open, but he can’t bring himself to close it.
“Uhh, geez,” Ging grimaces awkwardly, clearly keen to move on from his moment of uncharacteristic parenthood. “… come on, let’s do this, I’ll show you how to hold the feather.”
His chest warmly aglow, Gon eagerly clambers to join his father at the edge of the nest, unable to control the grin plastered on his face.
As they sail down from the top of the World Tree, the wind whipping their clothes around them and the cool morning air stinging their faces, Gon can’t help but marvel at it all, feeling the happiness bubble up inside him as just how freaking cool what they’re doing right now is.
The elation of finding his father, of finally accomplishing what he set out to do, of spending the time together at such a crazy and awe-inspiring location, swells within him.
It’s been an amazing yet bizarre day, one whose memory he’ll hold on to for a long time.
It was almost perfect.
There was just one thing missing, he realises, as Ging shoots a smug look at him while zooming past, having tilted the feather in such a way to lower the air resistance almost dangerously.
One thing that would have made this the most perfect day ever.
What was really important came to me long before what I thought I wanted.
One person.
His biggest mistake of all too many.
The guilty feelings are starting to surface again, but Gon doesn’t want to face them now. Maybe not ever, he thinks childishly.
He forces himself to focus instead on their plummet through the clouds, tilting his own feather to the maximum extent he dares so that he can try to catch up to Ging.
He understands why it has to be this way, why Killua and Alluka have to be on the run to stay ahead of their family. And he knows he can’t really do much to help them, as much as that frustrates him.
Killua didn’t ask, though.
He didn’t ask Gon to come with him, as if it hadn’t even occurred to him. More likely it did, and he ruled it out for all of the logical reasons Gon knows his friend will have identified.
But Gon kind of wishes he had asked, anyway.
Even if he doesn’t really feel like he deserves to be at Killua’s side anymore, after everything he’s done to hurt his friend.
It’s only for now, he tells himself, drawing in another breath, the cold air burning his lungs as they descend ever closer to the ground below.
It’s not as final as it seemed back then.
He feels it, though - the aching void stretched between them. The moment they turned away from each other, the moment they truly committed to leaving each other’s side, he felt it.
Killua was gone before he’d even had time to realise what he was losing.
You should enjoy the little detours.
It was easy back then to take it all for granted.
He’d thought their adventures would continue forever.
Because that’s where you’ll find the things more important than what you want.
He hopes one day he gets a chance to make it up to Killua.
That he can make everything right between them somehow.
And he hopes they can be together again, like they promised.
One perfect day.