Chapter 1 : Arranged Engagement
Black hair and a naked female body went inside the water. Her body was frail and her skin was pale, her eyes were small and brown. The water was warm and it smelled like rose. The tub was big, and white, and modern. She wasn't expecting a huge tub, she expected an onsen but not a tub. But, it was nice afterall. She dipped her body inside the warm water.
It was her first bath at the Zoldyck mansion. She was required to stay at the mansion before her marriage to her betrothed, Illumi Zoldyck.
Hidako was young, but old enough to bear a child. She was raised by an Azian old man, frail, rich, with affinity towards old literature, especially the erotic ones which he shared with Zeno Zoldyck. An old friend of Zeno Zoldyck. The man was an assassin when he was young but he retired will all the fortune he owned, he had an underground business.
Hidako was adopted, the man was barren. He had no child and then he was diagnosed with deadly disease. He thought he was indebted to Zeno for his fortune was mostly because of Zeno's help and he gave Hidako to Zeno as a gift, to marry Zeno's eldest grandchild, Illumi. Zeno fancied Hidako a lot, the perfect obedient Azian beauty, with voice so soothing when she read the stories inside those classic literature and displaying them using her nen.
When Hidako first saw him, it was like she saw a doll. His eyes were black, like there was nothing in it. He was slightly paler than Hidako and his hair was black with purple sheen, slightly lighter than Hidako's jet black hair. He was taller than Hidako and he was stoic, expressionless. Hidako could see Silva's pale skin in Illumi and Lady Kikyo's face feature in him. Sometimes Illumi radiated eerie horror aura which sometimes startled Hidako but it was nothing she wasn't familiar with.
She met older men with even stronger nen users coming to her reading, just to witness her reading including those cursed nen-books from the ancient times. She was a nen user herself, whose nen was mostly used because she would be the only person who could deliver the stories like a movie using her nen. She was projector of those books. A specialist indeed. Sometimes she manipulates people using the projection of memory, creating hallucination that no one wanted to see or to create multiple copies of her so she could escape a dire situation.
A knock at the door followed by a young girl with curly afro hair and dark skin from African descent. She asked if she needed any help with the bathe but Hidako refused and chose to clean up herself and prepared to dry herself. She powdered her face with the color a little fairer than her skin, put on soft pink hue on her cheeks and lips. The black girl helped her putting on her soft pink colored furisode that matches her cheeks and lips. She let her hair up, with a hair accessory on her bun, with soft tresses framing her small delicate features.
The black girl then accompanied her to the dining room. Contrast to the japanese style counterpart where she was staying, the dining room was very European, with French style furniture and chandelier hanging. The room was not as bright as she though. There were windows but the curtains were closed. Probably the room would look beautiful in the morning. There were plates and forks and chopsticks on the table and the way they served the utensils was like one of those expensive European restaurant where they had mat for the plates and few forks and spoons and so on.
There was only few people sitting. There was the corpulent young man, busy playing with his red-colored gaming console, Milluki, she recalled his name. Kalluto, the youngest of them all, wearing a black female furisode. Kikyou, her soon-to-be mother in law dressed in french rococo outfit that looked incredibly uncomfortable. It wasn't the first time Hidako met her in person. Kikyo and Silva came to one of her reading session. Kikyo always caught her eyes prolly because of her visor which she never took off her frantic personality and how incredibly fake she sounded like when she praised her.
Hidako excused herself to sit on the chair. "I guess it is the first time you met my children, Lady Hidako. Well, not all of them. Here's my second eldest child, Milluki and here's my youngest born, Kalluto" Hidako smiled and introduced herself. She was a lady because the man who adopted him was a royalty in the country but she had no idea how come Illumi's mother got the "Lady" in her name. But, like a lady Hidako was, she spoke softly, full of grace towards Kikyou and her children.
"So, is this Illumi's future wife?tch ... boring" The obese one mocked her, possibly because of her appearance that had nothing striking in her look. Hidako always had this idea that men like Milluki would prefer someone bouncier than frail women like her. Kalluto was a decent one. She heard that Zoldyck had no girl in the family but Kalluto was dressed as a girl, with female furisode. She didn't want to offense her or him, she wasn't sure, she kept on being quiet.
"Is Killua coming?" Kalluto asked his mother. "He will come. He's in the mansion somewhere" Milluki replied. Hidako stayed silent. She knew it's better not to say anything during the dinner. She preferred to not make any mess with this family. She knew how strong they were, literally and figuratively. She knew that even that young boy could snap her neck in a second.
The next 10 minutes, she saw a young boy with silver hair entered the room and sat down. He had distinct features compared to the other kids. His skin was pale, his eyes were purple and his hair was silver to the root. He was staring at Hidako, observing her from top to toe.
"So you're Illumi's fiancee? Tch ... you look like mom" Killua commented on Hidako. She had the same frail figure and long black hair. He probably thought that they had the same tiger mother personality as well. "You have a beautiful mother. I take that as a compliment. Thank you" Hidako smiled, even though she knew that from the way Killua talked, it was never because it was a good thing but she was always a people pleaser and she knew that by buying Kikyo's favor would secure her position in the family. Kikyo smiled back at Hidako.
It took few more minutes before she could see an old man walking towards the room. She knew exactly that it was Maha and Zeno Zoldcyk. The ones she met often during the reading.
"Good evening, Mr. Maha and Mr. Zeno. I'm pleased to see you again" Hidako stood up and bowed a little, slowly while smiling towards Zeno. Zeno touched her shoulder and told her not to worry and she should call her grandfather instead of the usual Mr. Zoldyck. Behind her there was her adopted father, a small with short stature, with grayish pale skin and slanted eyes, wearing a traditional Japanese outfit.
They were all seated while waiting for the groom to be to appear with his father.
"Good evening, father" Hidako bowed. Everyone was seated while Illumi and Silva hadn't came out yet.
"You have a beautiful daughter, Mr. Taka," Kikyo said. To break the silence.
"I would have proposed to you if i were as young as Illumi" Zeno chuckled. She realized that they had affinity for oriental Azian women.
She could feel that aura she used to feel during Illumi's presence. Hidako stopped drinking her tea and looked to that side. She could also smell the stench of blood. The thing that this family was probably used to.
There was the father, with silver blond hair and blue eyes and caucasian features, wearing a traditional kimono in blue and her bethroted, wearing purple outfits which looked like as if he came from the circus. He looked exactly like how she remembered him, tall, slender but built with long silky black hair and dead doll eyes.
"Good evening, Mister Silva and Mister Illumi" she stood up again and bowed her head once more.
Illumi was seated next to her. He smelled blood. He must have killed with bare hands, it was clear he tried washing it since she smelled the lavender scent. But, it did not completely erase the smell of blood from him. He was really pale, even paler than her. Hidako tried smiling to him but he didn't flinch.
The waiters started to bring foods to the table. From the appetizer, main course to the dessert. They had Japanese foods on the table and the kids ate silently.
"Mrs. Kikyou, it was a delicious experience. Thank you" Hidako expressing her gratitude to the lady of the house.
Killua looked at Hidako with suspicion and confusion at how "perfect" Hidako was. Or at least how she projected such a "perfect" image in front of his family.
"How's job today, Illumi?" Kikyo asked, with her high pitch voice that could sound incredibly annoying. "It's okay. I murdered a mafia family. The father was a nen user, he put up a fight" he flatly answered it while eating his mochi dessert.
Homicide.
Hidako was not exactly unfamiliar with such matter but it reminded her of her very first attempt.
Her memory travelled again to the back of her mind. When she stabbed a knife towards those men who tried to rape her when she was a child. It's necessary to prevent unwanted things happening to her.
The Zoldycks were not a typical family. She knew who they were and she had her own expectations of how the family would be. They're monsters. But, she wasn't an angel and was definitely not a typical woman.
"Let's get to the point now that we've done eating" Silva wiped his mouth and stood up. It alerted Hidako to pay attention to the patriarch of the family. He gave sign to the butlers to show up the engagement exchange items. There were a set of princess Kakin's kimono, a pair of beautifully diamond embellished heels, a pair of jade earrings and necklace surrounded by diamonds which was owned by Queen of Padokia the third and a simple diamond ring in the middle there was a legendary book from East Gorteau "The Beasts of the East". All served on a red table. Nothing attracted her more than the Nen Beasts book, she never read that before.
"We would like to propose to Mr. Taka to give his daughter to marry our son, Illumi Zoldyck" Silva said.
In turn, a butler pushed a table, also in red, on top of it there were books with nen embellished in them, those were Zeno's favorites and a ring with diamond and amethyst, which was owned by a prince from a yordian contient.
The red tables were decorated with origamis.
"Proposal accepted. Proceed" Taka replied.
Illumi and Hidako stood and exchanging the rings. He wore the amethyst-diamond ring and she wore the simple diamond ring. Hidako was expecting Nen in that ritual. But, apparently the family didn't even insinuated any nen ritual for the engagement.
The kids were bored except Kalluto. But, Kikyo and Zeno smiled and Silva was indifferent. Killua kept on looking at his watch, expecting the engagement to end soon.
"The wedding will be in 1 month from now" Silva closed the engagement ceremony.
Author's Note :
First of all, English is not my first language and it's my first time writing a fiction in English. I would like to apologize if i wrote some vocabulary/grammatical mistakes.
I always have this headcanon that despite having white/silver hair and blue eyes, the Zoldycks pay a lot of attention to their Asian side, that's why i made the engagement to loosely follow the Asian culture in engagement.