USEFUL ➴ Illumi x Reader

Ⅴ. The Zoldycks

Nervous laughter bubbled out of me as I took two steps back. "Illumi... what a weird coincidence... finding you here." Oh hell, what was I saying? My sense had decided to run away from me...

His response consisted of a mere head tilt as he approached. It didn't matter that I was backing away at the same pace, his steps were larger than mine, and he was soon violating my personal space. How was it that Illumi was still scary after I had spent three whole months with Feitan? Well... his emotionless face didn't help. What was happening on that pretty head of his?

I gulped, my nails dug into my palms as I fisted my hands. "So... what are you doing here?" I forced the corners of my mouth to inch upwards, into a polite smile... I hoped.

Was he here because he had been looking for me? Was I that unlucky that faith had simply made us cross paths?

"Just finished a job." Well, I could certainly tell, he was, after all, dripping in blood. "Talking about work, it seems that people enjoy ordering me to kill people in social events. It makes them fell like they look less guilty.

I found myself nodding along. It made sense. If you hired someone to kill a person at a party, even if you were particularly close with the victim, there'd be more potential culprits. More culprits meant less attention to each...

"You've been invited to a party... It'll be hosted tomorrow. I had planned to pick different parties, since I had more things to do... but you're here, so I think I'll manage to complete it."

"Oh my... what good luck you seem to have." I heard the words leave my lips as I considered the penalty for finding Feitan with a few days of delay. Illumi's good luck was my bad luck... What a fucking joke of a life!

Illumi didn't seem to catch my sarcastic tone and simply nodded, before turning around and walking away. It took him three steps to notice that I was still frozen in place. "Why are you not following me?"

Ah, right. Of course. That was totally the next logical step. A heartfelt sigh left me as I rushed to his side. "Tomorrow, was it? I have some things I need to do beforehand... Can't we meet later near the venue?"

It took him a whole minute to answer me. I had already accepted that he had simply ignored my question... "No. You don't have time to go back to your house and travel to the site. It is impossible." Really? Fuck me. Of course, going back home would take more than a day... I had been travelling for so long, I had completely forgotten about it-

I couldn't mention my plans to Illumi, so I simply accepted that there was no way around it and followed him in complete silence. We embarked a sole private airship and landed at an airport a few hours later. Curiously, Illumi handed me a ticket and entered a tour bus.

My mouth opened to ask if he had his mental capacities in order when the cheerful guide interrupted me. All my questions were answered seconds later, once the guide started by explaining that the destination of the bus was Kukuroo Mountain, the home of the Zoldycks, the famous assassin family.

Well... Fuck.

I listened to the guide attentively, not because I was particularly interested in Illumi... but because learning about his family and the jobs they did could prove useful. It was not until I saw the greatness of the Zoldyck estate from the window that my clueless self managed to understand what was about to happen. I was about to enter the fucking estate! With a Zoldyck beside me, no less!

"Aaah..." I whispered, much to my doom I was in too deep to back out, so I'd simply have to go with the flow. "Much work during these last three months?"

Illumi simply nodded. He was obviously not the conversational type.

"Do you enjoy it?" I wondered out loud, and held back a grin once I noticed his small shrug of an answer. Typical... Did he even know what else to do? Did he have a choice? From what the guide had said, it didn't seem like the Zoldycks could stray from assassination...