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The boy in Mito’s arms is not Ging Freecss, for several obvious reasons, but as she looks at his long sleepy eyelashes, his unruly spike of hair, his jagged hairline, she can’t brush off the familiarity. The boy is two years old and his head fits neatly against her shoulder and as he breathes it is warm and soft against her clothes. Mito’s heart clenches as she looks at him. She looks up at his father, eyes shadowed under the rim of his hat, rain soaking the shoulders of his shawl, lips pursed tensely. It’d been eight years since she’d seen Ging last, when he was twelve and she was eight and her parents had just been buried and his were lost at sea. He hadn’t written any letters, hadn’t visited, hadn’t been there to complain as she and Abe had thrown out anything that belonged to him. Now she couldn’t even see his face, she’s a little glad for that.
“You can’t come in.” She said, lightning rolling across the sky, it made his jacket seem very white. He didn’t look real.
“That’s all right, will you ask Grams to take care of the kid for me.” There was a simmering rage in Mito’s throat, right below her jaw, that hardened and made it hurt to swallow. She asked him the boy's name, Gon where his mother was, not in the picture how long he would be gone dunno, a while . She didn’t ask him why he left, why he left her, why he hadn’t written, why she hadn’t seen his face in years, why he’s hiding it from her now. She bounced Gon gently on her hip as he let out a little sigh. His breath against her skin brought a cool moment of calm. He was sweet and curled against her, there was that at least. She looked down at him and hoped his closed eyes weren’t the same deep brown as Ging’s.
“I don’t think you should come back to Whale Island.” She said, puffing her chest out as confidently as possible, careful not to disturb the child in her arms. Ging looked at her and there was a smirk on his lips that said he wasn’t planning on it anyway. He turned away and threw his hand up in a cursory wave and the storm accepted him into the downpour and just as quickly as he appeared he was gone. Mito closed the door and rubbed at her eyes, hard, they were damp. She pulled Gon close to her side and the movement jostled him awake. He, in a mirror of her, rubbed at his eyes, then turned them up at her. They are hazel, or no they’re not, they’re amber, bright with flecks of gold and brown. He smiles at her and it is wide and bright as the sun and a tear slips from her eyes and then another and more and suddenly she is crying and she hugs him close and he is bewildered and a little upset and she is holding him in her arms and she doesn’t want to put him down.
-
When Abe woke up from her nap, there were two things she loved to do during storms: nap and bake, she looked at Mito on the living room floor and Gon toddling along next to her, exploring his new home with stunning curiosity, and asked
“How long was I asleep?” Mito, still with bitter tears in her eyes, laughed and said
“He’s Ging’s.”
“He was here?”
“Barely.” Abe walks over to the boy, holding her hands out to him. He wraps his whole hand around two of her fingers and she lifts him up to her. “Gon,” Mito told her, watching Abe appraise his face: his large eyes, his upturned nose, and his low hairline. “His name is Gon.”
“That’s not bad.” Abe smiled at him and he returned one. “Are you ready for this Mito?” She set Gon down, he immediately began walking elsewhere, broad legged steps that were faster than they had any right to be.
“What do you mean?”
“Ready to take care of a child, of Ging’s child?”
“He’s not Ging’s child,” Mito had already decided Gon would never know Ging’s name if she had her way. “He’s a Freecss sure, but so are you and so am I and he’ll be ours.” Abe looked at her and there was something in her eyes that Mito couldn’t make out. She flicked her gaze between Mito and where Gon was waddling off into the kitchen and then she smiled, the same indiscernible smile she’d flash over the rim of a cup of tea whenever Mito said something amusing or feisty or cutting.
“You’d better go watch him then, he’s about to get into something he shouldn’t. Like you said, he’s a Freecss.”
-
Mito, at sixteen, was not prepared to have a baby, much less a two year old. She’d never held a child for more than a few minutes and she’d certainly never potty trained one. She found herself dreadfully ill equipped. She didn’t have clothes his size, or an extra bed, so she had fed him dinner and listened to him chat up a storm, though his vocabulary was not that well defined and, being a two year old, he mainly spoke in incomplete phrases. He was certainly boisterous and Mito wondered how quiet the house was before him when it was just she and Abe. Gon brought a cacophony: his words and his little feet trampling excitedly over the floor and his curious hands grabbing at things out of his reach and bringing them crashing to the ground. Afterwards they played in the living room, Mito brought out her old stuffed animal or games too difficult for him to do anything but fiddle with the pieces of or paper and pencils so he could draw. Gon seemed to enjoy all of it, he drew squiggly lines all over the paper and took the chess pieces to war with each other and proclaimed her stuffed animal a king and smiled as she played with him, as if he’d never had someone to play with before.
When it was bedtime Mito picked up a sleepy Gon and propped him up on her hip again. He was a little wiggly, he loved to run around and though he rubbed at his eyes and yawned he just didn’t want to stop playing. She surveyed her room: her bed, her drawers, her chair and lamp in the corner. She set Gon on her bed and he instantly sprawled out under the covers, little hands fisting the blanket up in his arms. Mito laughed and gave him a kiss on the head and left the door open a crack as she left.
In the living room Abe helped her gather up the mess of paper and pieces that Gon had left. After the floor was clean Mito spread out her oldest and most ill-fitting dress on the floor and cut the shape of a pants and a shirt for her new boy. Ging had brought nothing with him: no change of clothes, no diapers, nothing but the shadow of his eyes and a boy full of sunshine.
“Make them bigger than you think,” Abe said “he’ll grow.”
-
The word got around Whale Island quietly and quickly, the Freecss up on the hill had a baby boy. There were those who speculated, who remembered another Freecss boy a decade ago who’d disappeared out into the world. Neighbors were careful not to bring it up around Mito but couldn’t help but call Gon, with his spike of hair and his wide smile and his penchant for getting into far too much trouble: Ging’s boy.
Mito caught wind of it of course. When she went into town or into work and they would look at Gon and think just like Ging and she began to resent their nostalgic gazes.
One day, when Mito and Abe found Gon dangling from his knees at the top of the tree in their backyard Abe chuckled and said to Mito
“He’s just like you were.” And Mito’s throat went dry.
-
When Gon was three he found a way to climb on top of the kitchen cabinetry and Mito had to stand on tip toes on a chair to get him down. Gon had laughed and laughed as she grabbed him off the wood and she pinched his side and said
“This is not funny Gon! You could have gotten hurt” but there was a smile in her voice and Gon heard it and he laughed and she laughed and held him close close close as she stepped off the chair. “You’re a mess, do you want a sandwich, just ask me.”
“A peanut butter sandwich.”
“What do we say Gon?” As soon as her feet were on the ground Gon wiggled and wiggled to be free and every time Gon did this, attempted to get away from her, Mito’s heart broke a little more. She let him down, patting his back as he took off into whatever trouble he wanted to make, and he, with his back to her, said
“Please.” and she sighed and turned to grab the peanut butter.
-
Since there was only one other child on the Island that Gon could play with Gon quickly got used to playing alone. Or, more often than not, he would play with Mito. He would come up to her as she was hanging sheets up to dry in the warm summer wind and Gon would tug on her skirt and ask her
“Can we play hide and seek?” And she would smile down at him and brush an errant hair away from his forehead and say
“Yes.” and she would begin to count loudly as she strung up a pillow case. Gon was a difficult child to play hide and seek with in that his hiding places were both creative and difficult to spot. To counteract this, Mito cheated. She watched his blurred form dart behind the house and out towards where a large tree clung to the top of the cliff that defined Whale Island’s tail. As Mito reached the count of ten she let go of the pillowcase and watched it flap sleepily in the breeze. She slowly began to walk where she’d see him run off to, looping steps as she called out “where could Gon be?”
She put her hand on the trunk of the tree and looked up into its summer-green canopy, fat leaves with sage undersides that revealed the ridges of their veins. When she was sure her boy wasn’t up there she edged around to the other side of the tree, peering out over the cliff. She saw tanned ankles kicking out between the roots and swallowed hard. She climbed down and saw Gon nestled in among the rock and root, his smile wide as she perched uncomfortably in front of him. Or she didn’t see him, she saw herself, young and pig-tailed, and the hand she extended towards Gon wasn’t hers but was larger and belonged to her cousin, and she didn’t dare look in Gon’s eyes lest she see the same lonely rage she know Ging had seen in hers. She pulled Gon in close to her body, held him tighter then the situation required, and said
“Why don’t we play hide and seek inside instead.”
-
A five year old Gon got lost in the forest. Often. Mito’s only rule was that he not get hurt and be back by sunset. He bounded out into the greenery and would come back with berries and fish and eggs and all manor of things the forest had gifted him. Mito swore the tips of his hair were turning green, that she’d wake up one day and find him with roots in his shoes. Everyday when he got home for dinner she’d ask him
“Where’d you go today Gon, what’d you find?” and her inquisitive boy would smile and take a deep breath and tell her about the things she’d found when she was his age too.
-
At six years old Gon asked the first question about his father. It was after he’d come home bleeding and limping, clutching a foxbear cub to his chest. It was small and crying and scratched at deepening claw marks on Gon’s shoulder and Gon held it so close to him, rubbed its back like Mito did to an upset Gon, pet the top of its head sweetly. Mito asked three exasperated questions to amber bright eyes
“Are you alright? Where did you find that? What do you feed a foxbear cub?” Then she bandaged his wounds and listened to his story of foxbear territories and a tall stranger and a cub without parents. Gon was keeping something from her, Mito could tell, Mito swallowed so hard it hurt. She lined a shoebox with old linens and Gon set the foxbear cub in it and fed it with a milk soaked cotton ball. It settled down and it yawned and Gon smiled wide wide at it and Mito sighed and said “it can sleep in the kitchen” and Gon hugged her too briefly for her liking from his excitement.
Later, after Gon has bathed and his clothes were changed and the cub was scratching thick gouges into the wood of the coffee table, Gon found Mito in the kitchen and asked her:
“Aunt Mito, who’re my parents?” She was at the table and set her pen down from where she was writing the grocery list for the next week, stopped in the middle of the word ‘cabbage’. She looked at him, his blue jacket had a large grass stain on the left arm and his shorts were getting too small for his growing legs. His eyes were big and curious and he did not look like Ging and she had to keep telling herself this.
“Come sit with me,” she pulled out the chair next to her and Gon hopped up on the chair, kicking his legs where they still didn’t touch the ground. She looked at him, her boy, and lied, her lie. “Your parents were in a car crash when you were two.”
-
One day Mito brought Gon into town to shop with her, all the shopkeepers loved the boy and often gave him little treats and kind words, and when Gon asked
“Aunt Mito, can I go look at the other shops?” She blinked at him,
“Sure Gon, just don’t leave these few blocks okay, I’ll find you after I’m done.” He gave her a little wave as he bounced away and as she watched his receding form something stuck itself in her throat. She hated it every time, but if he wanted to go she’d let him and she’d pray he’d come back. Mito finished her shopping, workers smiled when she came in and made polite conversation but it was obvious they were a little disappointed Gon wasn’t with her. They’d ask about him and she’d let out a little laugh and relay his last adventure that almost gave her a heart attack. He went into the sea caves when the tide was coming in, that foxbear of his brought home a salmon as large as my coffee table, he climbed up the tree during a storm to get a closer look at the lightning.
When she was done she checked every store she expected a growing boy to be in: the game store, the candy store, the butcher who always gave him scraps to feed Kon, he was absent from all of them. She walked out into the streets and ran her eyes up and down the shop facades. An acquaintance, noticing her glances, tapped Mito on the shoulder, said
“I think your boy might be in there.” and pointed towards the pub. Mito looked over skeptically but her doubts were washed away when, from inside, she heard Gon’s laugh: loud as fireworks and just as bright. In the pub Gon was sat at a table full of burly sailors, flipping his attention between their stories. One was regaling him with tales of ghosts and spirits that stuck to the wood of the ships and clung to the ropes of the rigging, another was giving him life advice in common shipyard platitudes, and another explaining how to know if you’ve found true love, with some details Mito really hoped went right over her seven-year-old’s head.
“Gon.” She said, and the sailors stopped their chiming to look over at her.
“Hi Aunt Mito, guys this is my Aunt Mito, she’s really nice so be nice to her too. You won’t believe what they were telling me about, Juri once saw a beast that had millions of eyes and a tongue like a woman!” Mito wished she could be more annoyed at him, but she was almost proud by how easily he attracted a crowd, equal measures scared and overjoyed by how many people loved her boy. Didn’t know if she could compete with stories of magical beasts and the open sea.
“That sounds incredible, you can ask them more about it another time okay, maybe down at the docks and not in places you’re not old enough to be.” He flushed at her gentle scolding but hopped out of his chair, waving with both hands at the sailors who returned his enthusiasm. She took a gentle hold on his hand and led him out of the pub. Though he followed her, he turned his head to look back at the bar, and Mito felt almost cruel pulling him away. She wasn’t delusional, she knew she and Abe weren’t the most interesting company for a young boy, and she knew what it was like to grow up on Whale Island: lonely. She squeezed his hand gently, prayed that even if she may never be enough she would be enough for him to stay. “You want hot chocolate when we get home?”
-
Gon sits on the floor in the living room, restlessly alternating which of his legs is propped up and which lays on the ground. His hands pull at the fibers of the carpet, eyes scanning the ceiling. He’s eight years old and he is already bored.
“What’s the matter?” Mito asks, setting down a cup of tea on the coffee table.
“I’ve explored every inch of Whale Island, I don’t know what to do anymore!” He flopped his limbs onto the carpet, star-fishing across the floor. Mito took a contemplative sip from her tea.
“Y’know Gon, the moment you think you know things is when you really start to learn about them. Like, did you know that if you go up to the whale spout you can see flies that live in the lava, and they only live there, they’re one of the only animals that can survive in it.” She takes another sip, remembering when she first saw them, their fat black bodies and silver-blue wings flitting over the cooling magma. Ging had shown them to her, told her about how flies were some of the most resilient animals in the world there’s a species that lay their eggs in tar pits, in Ochima, and their larvae eat the carcasses of other species of flies that can’t survive it. They’re only found in a four mile area in one of the largest deserts in the world. He looked at her, and out past her at the flies, and out past them to where he wanted to go. Mito had fisted her hand in his shirt sleeve, tried to bring him back to her. She frowned over the rim of her cup and changed her mind. “Maybe you can go find me some Leva root, should be growing this time of year.”
Gon turned his head to look at her and when he smiled so did she.
-
There are days Mito doesn’t see Gon from breakfast to dinner. She’s started packing a bento at night and leaving it in the fridge for him on his adventures. He doesn’t often take it, assures her that Whale Island always gives him enough to eat, but he thanks her every time he does. She likes it most when he is home, obviously, but the joyful look on his face when he comes home with a backpack full of berries or stories of his encounters with rare wild animals or the names of sailors and fisherman he met at the docks, is enough to sway her possessive heart. He’s always a little quieter when he comes home from those days at the docks, knows Mito doesn’t always approve of the sailor-wisdom he receives. The first time Gon says
“fucker” in front of her she was astonished and made him wash all of the dishes that night without any help. Gon’s idolization of sailors, his young urge to be free, reminded her of Ging and reminded her of her and made her want to hug him closer as she tucked him in at night and told him “no nine years old is not too old to be tucked in!” and kissed him on the forehead.
-
Gon had just had his first birthday in the double digits when he saw his first photo of Ging. After his birthday dinner Mito wrapped up the cake and rinsed the dishes and Abe curled up with Gon in the living room and brought out the photo album that usually collected dust in her bedroom. Gon was interested, or maybe he was just humoring her. He asked questions about each of the family members pictured, awed at how small Kon was just four years ago, told Abe how pretty she was when she was young and when Abe asked
“I’m still pretty now right?” Gon smiled and said
“Yes, of course!” and turned back to the page. He was interested in stories of those he hadn’t met: photos of Mito’s parents at their wedding with her mother’s long veil studded with real flowers, of Ging’s parents standing on the prow of their ship with baskets full of fish, of Mito and Ging: Mito with her short orange hair and pink vest, Ging in his slacks with hair Gon would surely recognize anywhere. “Who’s that?” He asked, and Abe scruffed a hand through his hair and said only
“My grandson, Mito’s cousin.” In the kitchen Mito poured herself a glass of water, she had suddenly come down with a nasty cough.
-
Mito could see Gon yearning to leave Whale Island. He swam out farther in the waves each day, spent more of his time away from the forest of his youth or the hilltop of his home at the docks and the pubs. There were several times Mito had to go down into the town after dark and drag him out of the stories of sailors.
“I told you to be back by nightfall” she told him. He gently scratched the back of his head in remorse but there was a subtle chuckle under it and a signature bounce to his step. As they climbed the hill to their home Mito spoke up. “A coworker of mine is a fisherman, I could ask him to let you go out on the water for a day,” Mito wasn’t too keen on sailing herself, neither was Abe, not after Ging’s parents had
“That would be awesome!” And he jogged up a few steps ahead of her, turning to walk backwards and face her as they talked. “Will you teach me how to cook the fish I catch?”
“Of course, maybe you can catch a whole feast and we’ll invite my coworker to it” There was little more Gon loved than having guests, though the occasions were always rare.
She saw him off in the morning, shaking hands with her coworker and making Gon promise he’d be good and not any trouble and that he’d catch enough for at least the four of them. He hugged her and promised and she hugged him and hugged him and as she waved to her excited boy floating away on that little boat she struggled to breathe properly. She worried the whole time, tried to read and tried to sew and tried to weed the garden until Abe put her hand on her shoulder and said.
“Breathe Mito, he’ll be back, he’ll be safe” and Mito held her breath and let it out shakily.
“I just worry about him.”
“He’s not Ging.” The way Abe said it, with her eyes looking out over the curve of the Island, didn’t convince her. Mito held back the doubts that rattled her how do you know, how can I know, how will I ever be enough for him, how do I keep him from being Ging, how do I keep him from being me? What did convince her, just a little, quelled her fears, was the sight of Gon bobbing back over the harbor, a cooler full of fish at his feet and a smile on his face.
“Did you catch enough?” She said as she held him close “did you have fun?”
“I did!” he said “I did!”
-
Mito remembers the day like it was yesterday, the day she decided she’d let Gon leave, she decided she couldn’t be selfish with him, a boy as big and as bright as hers deserved more than Whale Island, or she, could give him. She had been in the backyard, picking lemons from the citrus tree that made the whole backyard smell spiced like summer. Gon walked up to her, a piece of paper in his hands fluttered in the breeze.
“Aunt Mito,” he started, waiting for her to pull her limbs back to her body, a nicely sized lemon in her hands. “Can I take the hunter exam?” The words hit Mito’s chest like a wall, stole all of the breath from her lungs, her nails dug into the peel of the lemon and the scent was bitter in her nose. She didn’t ask how do you know what a hunter is she didn’t ask why do you want to be one she didn’t ask who told you about him she didn’t ask do you want to leave me too? She just clutched her lemon and thought of how not to deny him, how to look into the eyes that shined back her own with so much love, and how to keep him close without smothering. She inhaled.
“Gon,” she said, “catch the master of the swamp, then you can.” A pre-test, something impossible, a legend talked about on Whale Island like a secret. He smiled wide at the challenge, said
“I’ll do it!” and bounded back into the house to get his gear. Mito turned back to the lemon tree, breathlessly gathering lemons in a basket her aunt had made her until it was full to the top. Gon darted out of the house and waved briskly at her. “See you soon Aunt Mito, with the master of the swamp!” His pole draped over his shoulder like a rifle.
“Be careful Gon!” He gave the same smile his father used to, the one that said where’s the fun in that?”
He was gone for a day and a half and Mito couldn’t settle the entire time. She folded laundry restlessly and dusted every surface in the house. Abe sat with a book in the kitchen and chuckled at Mito’s pacing.
“Calm down,” she said, “come sit with me. Ging did the same thing when he was his age.” Mito thought she meant the Hunter Exam but a memory came back to her: a young Ging Freecss, the master of the swamp held over his head, a mischievous smile on his face, a glint in his eyes check it out Mito, he’d said I did it. Mito turned back to the living room and resumed her pacing, faster footfalls across the floor.
Gon came back, the master of the swamp in his arms, it was bigger than when Ging caught it. Mito kept her promise and signed the form that allowed Gon to take the exam, her hand numb as she traced her signature over the paper. Gon’s smile blinding as ever. Mito felt sick.
-
Mito stood on the docks after Gon left for at least half an hour. Her arm hurt from waving. Her chest was tight, like her lungs were wrapped in constricting layers of bandages. The fishermen and townspeople who recognized her gave her empathetic glances, the whole town loved (and missed) Gon but he was hers, her son, and they would never know how much it hurt to see him go. Her legs moved without her permission, mindlessly back up to the house, quiet and empty now without his spirit. Abe looked at her with pity.
The first few days were the easiest: there were all of the remainders of Gon to fixate on. She had his mud stains on the welcome mat and his laundry to do and his dishes to clean. As she restlessly cleaned and organized soon it felt like he was gone, really gone, and Mito had to dig out that old sweater he was given to her in. As she held it to her chest she could still feel his sleeping form against her shoulders, the rain on his skin, the initial look into those eyes. Mito held the sweater close close close until it was flat against her and she tried to hold it closer still. Worried tears stung at her eyes and she felt like she couldn’t breathe.
Abe watched her pick at her dinner without interest and spoke up. She was one of the only people who could comprehend after all, Ging and Mito were her grandchildren, her children, their fathers, were just as bad.
“You need a hobby.” She said. “I picked up knitting after my boys left.”
“I don’t know if knitting’s for me.” Abe sighed.
“I know you haven’t had much time in your life for yourself” She had had Gon for nearly half of her life, got him when she was sixteen, a child herself, it’d been him ever since. “But, if I know Gon, you’re going to have a lot now. You need a hobby.” She said it with certainty. Mito moved her meatballs around with her fork.
“Like what?”
“You like to garden?”
“I do.”
“I’ve got a sister who can send us some seeds.”
-
So Mito gardened, the hunter exam started at the end of winter and as the spring broke Mito planted plot after plot of seeds and saplings and buds. The flowers began to sprout around May, around Gon’s birthday. Mito woke up on the fifth and was struck with the realization that her boy was thirteen now and her boy was not here to celebrate and that her boy was somewhere else without her. She and Abe made a cake anyway, a small one with jam between the layers, and sat around talking about him.
“Remember when he was four and he got onto the roof and when I told him to come down he jumped into my arms.”
“Remember when he came back with a basket full of southberries instead of blintzberries because he didn’t know the difference yet. Thank g-d he didn’t eat any.”
“Remember how often he used to fall asleep in my bed, even after I got him his own.”
“Remember his laugh”
“Remember his smile”
“Remember his eyes”
-
Mito didn’t hear from Gon for months. The townspeople asked about him every week, no one forgot him, no one didn’t miss him. Mito heard whispers of Ging’s name, people wondering if he’d be like his dad and never return, another Freecss went out to sea, another Freecss swept up in adventure. Sometimes, while he was gone, she would have nightmares of twelve year old boys, two of them, their backs slowly fading from her view.
-
There was a letter: battered from the post and bearing familiar messy handwriting that just said Freecss, Whale Island.
“Hi Aunt Mito, hi Great-Grandma” it started, “I passed the Hunter Exam!!!!” It went on to talk about the Hunter Exam: the running, the cooking, the fighting, Abe had to read the account of Hanzo and Gon’s fight alone, relaying sparse details to Mito as the cup of tea between her hands trembled. When it got to Hisoka and the need to fight him, to train harder until he could best him, the cold frustration the Mito had known too well before, Mito clutched the table until her fingers creaked with how tight she was holding it. But between all that, the connective tissue that held together Gon’s narrative as a whole: his boy named Killua.
“Killua!” Gon wrote “did the coolest trick on a skateboard! Killua can make his fingernails all sharp like claws! Killua’s whole family is super dangerous and we’re gonna go rescue him! Killua was so happy to see me, his face was all cut up but he gave me a real smile! Killua, Killua, Killua, Killua and I are going to Heaven’s Arena, I’m going to introduce Killua to my dad, Killua and I are going to travel together until we meet Kurapika and Leorio in Yorknew!” Mito smiled, so wide her eyes pushed little tiny tears to the front of her lashes. “If we have time, I want to show Killua Whale Island.” and that made Mito cry for real.
Gon had attached a photo: Him, thankfully safe, a blond boy with a serious sort of smile, a tall man with similar spiky hair and a look of pride, and a white-haired boy with bright blue eyes and an arm around Gon. Gon looked elated, surrounded by his friends, and the smile is one Mito knows well but it is bigger and it hurts her heart even through a photo. Her boy, happy, no longer alone, it was bittersweet. On the back Gon had written Killua, Leorio, Kurapika and I. We’re gonna meet up again in Yorknew, September 1st.
Mito hung the photo on the fridge and looked at it every day, the image of her boy happy and safe and surrounded by love, just as it should be, if only he were home.
Abe looked at the photo and laughed.
“He really is your son isn’t he.” Mito was proud of that.
-
The day Gon returned Mito wasn’t expecting it. She had learned not to expect it, the uncomfortable hope of wanting him hurt so much she ignored it, told herself he was out on glorious adventures and would be back when he was ready. It was summer and she was outside, stringing laundry up on the lines. It’d been almost six months and as she heard a familiar voice cry
“Aunt Mito!” from the hill she turned around quickly as possible and opened her arms for the boy running to her. “Aunt Mito I’m home!” He fit so neatly into her. He was taller and heavier and his backpack was a little ripped and there was a dark red stain on his jacket that made her hold him tight tight tighter.
“Gon” She sighed happily, releasing him a little, holding him at arms length so she could get a good look at him. She couldn’t resist though, she pulled him back in for another hug. “Welcome home Gon.” As she held him close she saw a little head of white hair make its way over the crest of the hill: a boy slightly taller than her own with his hands in his pockets and a turtleneck that he must be sweltering in. Gon wriggled out of her arms and the other boy raised his hand.
“Yo.” he said and Mito smiled
“You must be Killua.” The boy my boy wrote so much about, the one he wanted to show me, his best friend. She turned to Gon, exercising the mom voice she hadn’t been able to use in so long. “You should have told me you were coming! I had no time to prepare.”
“It’s not a big deal.” he smiled that charming smile he knows gets him out of trouble and Killua reiterated
“Yeah, it’s fine really.”
“Killua you’re our guest! It’s been so long since we’ve had company, much less a friend of Gon’s, you boys go wash up while I make us something to eat, I’m sure you stink from travelling.” And the boys chuckled and Gon led him inside and the knowledge alone that her boy was in her house, that her boy came back for her, wanted to show her the friend he’d made, that she was still an important part in his life, that she hadn’t raised a Ging, that she hadn’t messed it all up, well it made her want to cry.
As she cooked she hummed happily and Abe chuckled as they set the table.
“He’s still your boy alright, and that friend of his isn’t too bad.” Mito smiled.
“I know right, I think we did okay.”
“You did.”
-
Having Gon home, and for a whole month, was bliss. Mito listened to all of his stories about nen and about Heaven’s Arena and about Kurapika and Leorio and Killua and Killua and Killua, whose blush rose higher and higher as he protested the embellishment and praise. Abe taught Killua how to cheat at cards and the four of them sat around the table for hours after dinner and in the mornings Mito would wave the boys off into the forest as they went to explore.
“Y’know Mito,” Gon told her one night “I don’t think you really know somewhere until you show it to somebody else.” and Mito smiled and Mito said
“I think you’re right Gon.” and that night, the two of them and Abe sitting at the table, when Gon asked outright about his father, Mito looked at her boy and looked at his eyes and the reluctance and fear she’d carried for so long snapped away inside of her and she said “Let me tell you about Ging.”