BLD16
(A/N: sorry for the wait I'm just running out of steam. School's kicking my butt. And I lose this laptop in a month so… better get some stuff done before I have to go to Europe. And then if I'm gonna write it'll be on a crappy old computer that I hate writing on. I think the Microsoft word is older than I am.
Also I've been looking back and I really like how I made Feitan's speech progress. It's sincerely easier to write him now too.)
Kalluto turned the bag upside down, letting a smooth stone fall out into his hand. It was covered in little gold writing. Kalluto couldn't read it, but it was pretty.
"Feitan… what does this say?" he asks, his eyes rising to meet the others.
"It's my mother and father's marriage vows. It was a family tradition to engrave them." Feitan replies, fingers brushing over the stone, "this is the only thing I have left of them. It was also tradition to use them in proposals, instead of a ring."
The stone sat cold in his hand, gold flecks glinting in the light of the lamp on the bedside table. This was basically his engagement ring.
Kalluto's eyes welled up with tears, all sorts of emotions flooding from behind a wall he never knew he had up.
"Family, marriage vows, mother and father… my father won't even be at the wedding. Or if he is, he'll be there to put a stop to it. I'll never be able to have that perfect wedding, he won't even be there to walk me down the aisle. Killua can but… it won't be the same."
The memories came flowing back piece by piece. Family dinners, playing together. Silva would often tell storied of past battle s at the dinner table, to Kikyo's chagrin. The older boys would get rambunctious and excited, and beg for more stories until Silva was tired. But he could never ever refuse when Kalluto tugged on the hem of his shirt and asked him for one more story. They were so happy back then, Kalluto knew his parents loved him, they reminded him every day. Sure the training was tough, but he knew it was for the best; they were only trying to help.
Tears welled up in Kalluto's eyes as he traced over the words. The Zoldycks had no such proposal tradition. In fact, the whole idea of getting married was rather foreign to the children. Everyone always assumed Killua would just come home with a girlfriend one day, she'd join the business, and everything would work out fine.
But no, it's all shattered. The baby of the family was getting married, and only half of his family would be there. Not because they were dead, but because they no longer cared about him enough to respect his decisions. There's nothing stopping them from coming, other than themselves. And that hurt so much more than any death could.
The tears pooled and rolled down his cheeks, and he clutched Feitan close.
"m-my family is shattered…" Kalluto sobs, "They're a-alive b-but they don't l-love me anymore! My d-dad doesn't love me enough t-to come to my wedding! I don't h-have a family!"
Feitan wraps Kalluto in his arms and strokes his hair, "you have a family. Those four aren't it anymore. You have me, the Spiders, Killua and the green child. You have the chain-user, and doctor-man, and the girls. We're all here for you. Family is not blood, family is love. The moment they stopped loving you is the moment they stopped being your family. We are your family now, and we all love you."
Kalluto's sobs only grew louder, and his grip in Feitan got tighter. The stone was completely forgotten now, as the two lay there in bed. Feitan let Kalluto cry until he fell asleep, but stayed there holding him all night.
But across the continent sat a rather obese teenager in front of a pile of computers. He was watching a camera set up in Feitan and Kalluto's bedroom by Illumi's goons. His eyes were rimmed with red ad his hands were a little bit shaky.
"That damn Illumi! How dare he rip our family apart! He's gone too far this time, and I'm sure father will agree."
Millluki got out of his chair for once and headed to his father's office. He entered without knocking and shoved a laptop in Silva's face.
"You should think twice before listening to Illumi father." He says surely, "Whatever he told you about Kalluto it's lies."
"Milluki what is this all abo-"
Milluki presses play on the tape and quiet voice spill from the speakers. The scene is two figures sitting in a dimly lit room on a bed, one seems to be holding a rock.
"Feitan… what does this say?"
"It's my mother and father's marriage vows. It was a family tradition to engrave them, this is the only thing I have left of them. It was also tradition to use them in proposals, instead of a ring"
Kalluto stares blankly, as if he's looking far away. His free hand comes to rest over his mouth, and in a few moments a choked sob echoes through the room,
"m-my family is shattered… They're a-alive b-but they don't l-love me anymore! My d-dad doesn't love me enough t-to come to my wedding! I don't h-have a family!"
Kalluto falls into the man's arms, crying and choking on his own screams. The man holds him close and begins whispering in his eyes, so quiet the camera only picks up murmurs.
"That just happened Father. I've been watching the tapes all day."
Silva shakes his head, "if you're trying to persuade me to go to that mansion, it won't work. I'm not welcome there, and I never will be. I'm not going to be helping Illumi, if that's what you thought. I'm not much of a father, I know, but I'll never choose between my children. And don't you dare call me heatless, because this hurts me more than you could ever understand. I want nothing more than to be at that wedding, but with the past I have with those people, it'd never work. I admit defeat here."
He stands, and walks toward a window, "You're all Zoldycks, and that doesn't just mean you're assassins. In fact, Milluki, you taught me that. I wish I had known it when training Illumi, but that's not the point. Our name is synonymous not with assassins, but with strength. Just as your strength lies with technology, Kalluto's lies in working with others. He has a remarkable ability to draw a group together, unify them. But in that same way, it only takes a single word to tear the strongest team of his apart. He's proud, and so is Illumi. And it only took the word "wedding" to tear our family to shreds. It isn't up to me to fix it; that's not my role. If he truly wants us back, it'll happen."
Alluka peeked in the door, and tiptoed into the dimly lit bedroom. She sat two daisy crowns down under the lamp on the bedside table and planted a kiss on her brother and soon-to-be brother-in-law's foreheads.
Soft footsteps patter on the stairs as Alluka headed to Leorio's room. She gently knocked on the door, and he let her in. it was three days before she'd meet the doctor. 28 days before the operation. A month before the wedding. She and Nanika had been counting the hours since they got the letter.
Leorio sat her down on the bed and began poking, prodding, and looking. He needed to make sure she was in complete health for the operation. And also, he was checking to make sure she didn't need any medication for whatever reason arose. A bit over-cautious, given her age, but he wanted to make sure everything went well for the next couple years, since they were going to be very significant.
"It's not too late to back out of any of this," Leorio reminds her, "It is dangerous."
Alluka nods, "I know. This isn't about me."
The man nods, pushing his glasses up on his nose, "yeah, I know."
He writes something down on a piece of paper and hands her a paper, "here's some information on the medication. I wanna get you started on small doses early, as in right after the operation, so you're already used to it when you start getting the bigger doses. That would be six months from now at earliest, but I want to wait a year if we can. From then on it'll be at least five years before anything else major can be done, but it'll take longer most likely."
Alluka nods and heads back to her own room to read the information. It was a little scary, since this medicine would be literally shutting down some of her bodily functions, but she trusted Leorio. Thousands of other kids are taking this medicine, so it must be safe.
"I feel kind of guilty about going behind everyone's backs like this, but I feel like if I told Mom or Killua, they'd try to stop me. They can be mad all they like afterwards, but what's done is done. Sometimes we have to make sacrifice for the greater good. And besides, what sort of autobiography would THAT make? –I wanted to do something risky and change my life and Nanika's for the better but my mom said no, the end- yeah how about no."