motherly.

Prologue

As a 23-year-old woman working at the Hunter Association, your choice of career seems to be treating you well.

You're not extremely wealthy but not too under the radar where you lack the basic necessities of your mundane routine. You were simply living comfortably in your little studio apartment and you were alright about your casual and average life.

You don't precisely know the exact concept of Nen itself, but you are fully aware that hunters have to take a special test right after they receive their official hunter licenses to awaken their nen pores.

You have the responsibility in the association to organize paperwork and job assignments to send to a unique type of hunter called 'Jackpot hunters' who are hunters known to receive money by completing jobs offered to them.

One day, while leaving work late in the afternoon, you stumble upon a crying child.
Curious but concerned for the kid, you cautiously walk up to her and ask her if she needs any help.
She explains in tears how she lost her big brother in the crowd this afternoon.
You can't help but cringe at that.
You get frequent afternoon rushes at that time around this area of the city so you couldn't help but feel like it was now your duty to help the poor kid.
You ask her to retrace her steps in order to know where was the last place she and her brother were last seen together and she tells you about this small cafe not far from the Hunter Association building you work at.

While waiting for her big brother to potentially show up again in hopes that he also might be retracing his steps to the cafe shop, you decided to initiate small conversations with the child, in hopes that she doesn't keep worrying about her current predicament.
Your method eventually works and you two end up having a good time with each other and buying sweets while waiting. Between your conversations and waves of laughter, you come to find out that the child's name is Alluka.

Eventually, Alluka's brother came back to the shop all huffed up. He scans the clients sitting outside of the coffee place in hopes of finding Alluka and luckily he finally finds his sister between the customers but instantly becomes skeptical of your presence.
While Alluka was doing all the talking by introducing you two to each other, the boy you now knew as Killua, thanks to Alluka, was looking you up and down, almost like he was examining you from head to toe just in case you might be a secret menace to him and his sister.

But unfortunately for him, he found nothing sticking out. Instead, all he did was nod to Alluka's talking, focusing his gaze solely on her and quickly forgetting your presence as if you weren't an issue to worry about anymore at least not for now anyway.

To be honest, you were a bit offended by his behaviour, which was a complete contrast to his younger sibling, but you managed to shrug his cautious attitude off in order to believe that he was only acting like this due to the fact that he had to rely on a complete stranger to have helped Alluka.
He made no sound while you and his sister were talking and did not attempt to join in on the conversation either.

Despite his lack of engagement to the chatter, you could tell by what was obvious from his body language that he was still pretty shaken up by what happened and seemed to look almost tense about anything you and Alluka were talking about.
You could tell that the boy's initial goal in mind was to quickly leave when he found his sister but as soon as he noticed how Alluka was getting along with you, he quickly understood that he wasn't going to get what he wanted.

Despite his reassurance that his sister did not get abducted and was safely returned to him, he was getting skeptical of your presence by the minute, wondering why you would've done such a thing for someone you barely knew.
Throughout the whole evening that you three were together, he only took that time to read every interaction between the both of you. You couldn't see it since your eyes were focused on Alluka but you could sense some of his sneaking glances were on you.

You eventually learned through one of your conversations with Alluka that she and Killua recently entered the country with the sole purpose in mind to take a look around and see what they can do here while they had the time.

They don't have a place to stay yet so you, not feeling comfortable with letting kids out on their own much less in a foreign country, suggest they live at your apartment for the time being. You could've helped them get into a hotel room but the result would've still been the same: they wouldn't have someone to guide them in this place.
Alluka accepts your offer right away but Killua immediately refuses.
He begrudgingly agrees a second later when he sees how Alluka won't let him change her mind about it. Even when he approved your proposal, he still kept his guard up whenever you were conversing with Alluka on your way back home.
But it's not like you were trying to ignore the silver-haired boy, even when you were talking with Alluka and liking her presence you still wanted to know a bit more about Killua.
Sure, she talked about him while you guys were going to your place but it still wasn't enough for you. Killua seemed like he was the one guiding his sister and himself around every place insinuating that he was the one in charge of their little duo group.

When you all arrived at your apartment, you wasted no time to loiter around and rushed for the cleaning tools. You quickly cleaned the place up as well as arranged the guest room since you hadn't been expecting anyone. Much less two underaged kids.

The apartment consisted of a kitchen, a bathroom, a bedroom, a small living room as well as a prepared guest room for Killua and Alluka.

Your home may be small, but it gives you a cozy feeling like a sense of belonging.
And it also looks like Alluka would agree with you, for she quickly got accustomed to the place after only two days.
Killua couldn't feel the same way however since he still didn't trust you.
Don't get him wrong he enjoyed the place just as much as you did.

He just didn't like you.

He couldn't quite comprehend why a random woman would immediately let two strangers in her house when they needed a place to stay.
The timing felt too perfect and convenient that it didn't seem real to him, almost like you were aware that they were looking for a place to crash in.
Also, who lets people inside their homes after talking to them for five hours???

He wasn't sure if you were completely stupid or simply an unstable individual.

And even if your intentions were innocent, he didn't know what you would gain from this.
He at least knew something about you that he had experience in.
You were working at the Hunter Association so that technically made him less wary about you since he was a hunter himself and your job was to technically help people like him.
But it still didn't convince him to let you go off the hook yet.

Even when you tried making friendly approaches towards him, he still had his guard up and would even flat-out insult your cooking from time to time just to get a reaction out of you.
Of course, Alluka would scold him for that right after but you tried not to complain about his behaviour even when you were on the verge of snapping.

Because you didn't give up.

In the past week and a half that you've been with them, you realized some small but still noticeable things about Killua.
Such as how he had a sweet tooth for candies and chocolate, how he would be extremely gentle with Alluka when it came to brushing her hair and taking care of her in general or how he would easily spend his pocket money on some lousy gambling ticket from that stall like that one time you three went grocery shopping together.

You knew he wasn't a bad kid.
And you were sure he didn't completely hate you.
But that did not mean he was trying to get to know you.

Although you were finally confirmed that you weren't an enemy, he was still keeping his distance.

This stubbornness of his didn't bother you at first since you were letting him get used to you at his own pace but you finally realized that he was never truly going to open up to you.
Not if he was the one taking the risk.

So one day, you decided to take matters into your own hands.

From this day forward, you were going to start spending some quality time with BOTH siblings whether the silver-haired zoldyck wants to or not!