I don't own KHR.
Chrome sighed as she pondered what she should do next. After she woke up again, Knuckle tried asking her about her and Hayato's parents but stopped when it was clear that Chrome wasn't going to talk. Chrome was kind of afraid that he was going to get mad but luckily, he didn't. If anything, Knuckle seemed...kind of sad.
Even with the knowledge that Vongola was a mafia family, Chrome had to remind herself that Knuckle was a bad man like the Estraneo members who experimented on her and Mukuro.
In any case, Knuckle left shortly after his failed attempt to extract information from her. As soon as he did, Chrome contacted Mukuro and gave him a full update on the situation, including a detailed description on Knuckle, G, and Asari. When she told him that the three men looked just like their brothers, Mukuro could hardly believe her. Not that Chrome blamed him. She could still hardly believe it herself. And she's seen them!
Chrome looked over to Hayato, who was still sleeping. And from what she gathered, he didn't wake up while she herself was sleeping either. But Chrome wasn't too worried. Hayato did get shot in the chest, so it made sense that he hasn't waken up yet. And besides, Chrome thought that he looked better than he did before.
"Oh good, you're still awake." Startled, Chrome jumped a bit as she turned her attention to the door. Her violet eye immediately widened in shock. Closing the door behind him, was unquestionably Mukuro's adult doppelganger (Mukuro-sama taught her that word). He even had a very similar, if not the same, hairstyle!
Do the rest of her family have doppelgangers in this famiglia?! Does she have a doppelganger?! Or...is this man her doppelganger too?
Once, while they still lived in the orphanage, Chrome did her hair exactly like Mukuro just because she wanted to. The result was her looking like she could be blood-related to Mukuro and Kyoya pratically ordering her put her purple hair back down (much to Mukuro's disappointment. He thought it was cute).
"Hey, how does getting out of bed and going to a tea party sound?" Chrome tilted her head.
What?
"I'll take that a yes," Mukuro's doppelganger said before pulling out her I.V. Chrome only had time to wince from the twinge of pain before the man gently lifted her out of bed, bridal style.
"Man you are so light...are girls this age supposed to be this light?" the man asked as he carried her out of the room. "Do you know?"
Even if Chrome hadn't promised Mukuro that she would keep up the silent act, she wouldn't have answered anyway. Not just because she honestly didn't know, but also because she was just too bewildered to speak.
What...what was going on here?
"You don't know? That's okay, maybe Elena knows. Oh where are my manners, my name is Daemon. What is your name?"
Chrome kept silent, not willing to break her promise for something as simple as her name. When he didn't receive an answer, Daemon just sighed.
"Still not able to talk huh? That's okay too, I prefer silence any day over G's squawking and Knuckle's 'ultimate' yelling. Seriously, I'm kind of surprised I haven't gotten deaf yet what with all noise that goes on in this mansion."
The word mansion caused Chrome's eye to widen in recollection. That's right, Mukuro asked her to tell him about the layout of the mansion! She was so wrapped up in the fact that Daemon was holding her like she was a baby deer that she forgot!
Eager and anxious to not mess up any further, Chrome roamed her eye around her surroundings. She and Daemon were currently in a long hallway that was furnished with golden wallpaper (it had swirl patterns on it), paintings, and many doors that were all closed. As Chrome noted all of this in her mind, she couldn't help but marvel at the beauty of this single hallway.
Though Vongola might be a mafia family, they at least had good taste in interior decorating.
"Here we are," Daemon stated as he stopped in front of a door. Without hesitation, he opened it to reveal a room with light-blue wallpaper and a round table (which had a pink, lacey tablecloth on it) in the center of it.
But what caught Chrome's attention was the woman messing with the tea kettle. She had long, wavy blonde hair and large eyes that were the color of the sky.
All in all, she was the most beautiful woman Chrome had ever seen.
"Here is the little girl Elena," Daemon introduced as the woman turned to face them. Elena instantly placed her fingers over her mouth and...and cooed.
"Aww...she is just too cute!" Chrome's eye widened and her mouth dropped open slightly in slight shock and bewilderment.
No adult...has ever called her cute before. Even before she lost her eye, no one ever called her cute.
If anything, Chrome was considered a waste of space.
"I know right?" Daemon agreed. "She is super light though...are girls her age supposed to be this small and light?"
"Well, everyone's body type is different so it really just depends," Elena explained as she walked over to them. "However, I imagined that she has lost some weight during her and her poor friend's ordeal...that's nothing we can't fix though."
"Fair enough," Daemon commented as Elena combed her fingers through Chrome's purple hair gently.
"Your hair is so pretty," Elena complimented with a wide and serene smile. "And now that I know what color your eye is, I can buy something that will suit you perfectly. We can't hand you back to your parents in only a nightgown after all. And your other clothes were unfortunately passed saving."
"Where did you get the nightgown anyway?" Daemon asked.
"Oh when Reborn brought them here, I quickly went to town and bought nightwear for both her and the boy. We apparently don't have hospital gowns for children here. We need to fix that."
Upon this realization, Chrome looked down at her nightgown, which was white with a dark purple ribbon tied in a bow at the top. It was very pretty and soft...and Elena bought it for her when she barely knew her.
And Elena still barely knows her, but she wants to buy some more clothes for her. Chrome looked back up at Elena's gentle eyes and Daemon's kind smile.
They have been so kind and gentle to her...is this...what parents are supposed to be like?
Chrome doesn't remember her birth father, though considering that he ran out on them for a minor T.V. star (according to her mother), he obviously wasn't that much of a father. Her mother wasn't much better, if not worse. For as long as she could remember, her mother will scold her for the smallest thing and ridiculed her harshly. She did her best to not be seen with Chrome in public (she was too ashamed to be seen with such a pathetic girl) but whenever she had to, she hardly ever spoke a word to Chrome and pretty much ignored her.
Chrome also wasn't allowed to touch her. Chrome remembers the one time she tried to take her mother's hand only to have it harshly slapped away while her mother screamed at her. She stopped trying after that, and resorted to holding hands with the one doll she owned whenever she felt the need for physical contact.
When her mother remarried, Chrome blindly hoped for a short time that things would get better. It didn't. Her stepfather ignored her entirely and her mother kept threatening to stop ruining their marriage or else. While ruining their marriage hadn't even enter Chrome's mind, she stopped trying to spend quality time with the man.
Then one day, two men in black suits came to her house. The next thing she knew, the two men were taking her away forcibly and harshly, while her parents just stood there. While she begged for them to help her, her father just looked into the suitcase he got from one of the men. But the thing Chrome remembers with the most clarity is her mother's smile.
If only because it was the only time her mother ever smiled directly at her. And it was full of glee.
When Chrome wouldn't stop struggling (she may not have known exactly what was going on, but she knew it was very bad), one of the men struck her with a needle and she blacked out. When she came to, she found herself in a barren cell in a building of that she would later find out was the home of the Estraneo.
When Chrome found out that she was now a test subject in Italy, far away from her home country of Japan, she cried. It hurt that her parents sold her, but deep down, she wasn't surprised.
After all, it was clear from the beginning that they never loved her.
But these two adults, who didn't even know her name, were treating her way better than they ever did.
And...Chrome honestly couldn't find anything fake about it.
"Well, the tea is going to get cold if we just stand here," Elena declared as she walked back to the table. "So let this secret tea party commence!"
"Hear hear, those cookies looked positively scrumptious! I think you've outdone yourself, my dear," Daemon complimented as he walked to the nearest chair and set Chrome down gently on it.
"Oh Daemon, you haven't even tried them yet!" Elena responded with a wide grin as Daemon pushed her chair forward, like Chrome was a lady.
"I don't need to taste them to know that they must be delicious, right little lady?" Daemon asked her with a wide grin. Chrome glanced at the cookies, which were small with a drop of jam in the middle, and couldn't help but nod.
"See? Even she agrees," Daemon pointed out as he pulled out Elena's chair.
Chrome looked at them and found herself wishing that this was real. That she wasn't in the home of the strongest mafia family and that Daemon and Elena really were this nice. Maybe they were but...Chrome knew she couldn't count on it. Even if this all wasn't some trick, Chrome couldn't stay. She and Hayato had to go back to their family.
But maybe...just this once...Chrome could pretend. Pretend that she was just attending an innocent tea party with two people that really were kinder than her parents.
As long as she didn't talk, it should be fine...right?
Poor Chrome...she may or may not be wishing that Elena and Daemon were her real parents. Elena and Daemon for their part 'kidnapped' her so that one: Elena can have girl time with their cute little visitor and two: they hoped that some friendly interaction like this could help Chrome overcome her trauma and get her to talk again.
So what did you think of the chapter? How was Chrome's backstory, did the story flow nicely, and how was Elena? Please leave a review and I will update by February at the latest. See ya later!