DADDY

( 31: The End of the Long Hunter Exam II )

Y/N knocks on the massive mahogany door before hearing the old voice of the chairman allowing her to come in. She steps inside to be welcomed by familiar faces which she encountered during the hunter exam. Including her favorite long-haired Zoldyck: Illumi. 

"Illumi-nii!" She skipped towards where Illumi sat at and hugged his torso. Given that he was sitting down, the small seven-year-old could reach his torso and attempted to wrap her small limbs around the slender body. 

Illumi notices her discomfort and picks her up to let her wrap her arms around his neck instead. She smiles at him and settles her head in the crook between Illumi's neck and shoulder blade. 

"You passed! Congratulations! We're both hunters now!" She was acting childishly, which was actually approriate to her age rather than her usual calm and mature disposition. "Yes N/n, and you did well winning your fight too." He answered back with a small smile almost appearing on his face before he realized that there were other people in the room. 

"Well... I wouldn't say I did too well... Look what state I'm in..." She looked down and hid her face in the crook of his shoulder. "Papa is definitely upset with me..." 

Hisoka had sat a few rows away from Illumi and was fuming in annoyance when his precious doll approached the lanky male instead on himself. However, unknown to him, Y/N was thinking that the jester had finally come to hate her after showing such a weak side of her to him. But it couldn't be farther from the truth. Hisoka was incredibly proud of Y/N for beating a much older and bigger opponent. Though of course, his "proudness" had exuded an aura of malice instead of something much lighter which lead to Y/N's assumption that Hisoka hated her. 

"That couldn't be N/N-chan... I'm sure Hisoka's happy that you did so well." Illumi tried to comfort the almost crying Y/N. 

"But look at him! He can't even hide how upset he is with me! I can practically see a black aura exuding from him!" 

Illumi turned to look at Hisoka and realized that the bastard jester had been projecting some scarily dark aura. Though he immediately knew that he did not hate Y/N and on the contrary was actually really proud and excited for her growth. 

'It's just how he expresses happiness... That fucking creep.' Illumi thought. He did not want to explain Hisoka's weird way of showing "appreciation"  to a seven-year-old so he opted to just slowly pat Y/N's back to soothe her. 

That was until the large doors burst open and an obviously pissed Gon came in. He slowly walked down to where Illumi was sitting at and was ominously approaching him. Illumi sensing this tension decided to put Y/N out of the way and sat her where she was hidden behind his tall figure. 

"Apologize to Killua!" 

Illumi's expression returns to its usual blank and his head turns to face the young Gon. 

"Apologize? For what?"

Gon looked appalled at his oblivious question. "You don't even know what you did wrong?" 
This made Y/N try to peek from behind Illumi, curious on what Illumi had done to upset the usually all sunshine and smiles boy. 

"Nope." Illumi replies innocently which seemed to only piss off Gon further. 

His hand curls into a fist as his eyes became more fueled with anger. "You don't deserve to be his brother." 

"Must I earn the right to be his brother?" Illumi answers as he averted his gaze from the small figure. He was getting irritated with how dumb the question Gon had thrown at him. 

But that seemed to only piss off Gon further as his hands clutched onto Illumi's wrist harshly and pulling his whole body up above him before settling to the ground. Illumi purposely shifted his body so he fell back in front of Y/N. He did not want her to get involved with the brat's fit of rage towards him. 

"He doesn't need to earn the right to be my friend either!" His hold on Illumi''s wrist just tightens to the point of breaking it and Illumi finally saw the young boy as a miniscule but growing threat. 

Y/N's eyes widen as she caught a glimpse at what was happening; specifically seeing how Illumi's wrist snapped out of place. She took a step forward to try and pacify Gon's anger but she was stopped  by Illumi's pale hand which blocked her. 

"Don't bother apologizing. Just take me to see Killua." 

"You make it sound as though I kidnapped him... He walked away on his own." 

Y/N could feel the argument about to come out of Gon's mouth almost instantly. She finally pushes through Illumi's hand to intervene. 

"Gon, can you please release Illu-nii? I can take you to Killua."