Bethrothed - A Fanfiction by Nazen

Summary: Kai Hiwatari, due to years of family tradition, is betrothed to a girl who he has never met. But what will happen when Kai finds himself falling for her handsome escort, Rei, he also falls in love with his bride-to-be, and his entire family turns up at his doorstep only to complicate things even further?

Section: Beyblade

Genre: Romance

Rating: PG-13 ( Rating might go up )

Warnings: Language, violence, sexual themes, yaoi ( boyxboy relationship )

Chapter One: I'm WHAT?

Bethrothed. It's not a common word, one that is almost non-existant in today's society. And why should it be? No one is betrothed anymore. That sort of thing happened back in medevial times.

To most the word means nothing. Bethrothed. What a useless word, they might think. Let's just discard it from our vocabulary entirely, and pretend that it doesn't exist anymore.

But to those who are bethrothed, the word means everything and then some.

Some people don't even know what the word means, and most who don't know could care less. For those who are bethrothed, they would very much like to grab the people who turn a blind eye to the word, and give them a good shake.

Half of the dictionaries that you will find will not carry the word within their pages. If you ask a person in your classroom what the word bethrothed means, they will simply stare at you like you just asked if they are distantly related to Medusa.

Why do I care so much about a word that no one uses and no one cares about, you ask? What do I have to gain from this short rant?

Because I am bethrothed.

Tiny droplets of crystalized water hung from the rafters, rooftops and trees of the city, quivering violently whenever a strong breeze blew past, some torn off of their perch and plummeting towards the ground, instantly shattering into a million tiny shards of ice as soon as they hit the frozen cement.

It was rather eerie to watch a storm of them rain down upon the ground whenever a wind blew past, like somewhere, there was a sharp, pointy object with your name on it.

But there were much more amusing things to be entertained with, such as the newly fallen snow that covered the city like a freezing white blanket. Most of the snow had not been destroyed by hundreds of human feet and animals tramping through it yet, but some of the snow was being used to frolic happily in for some children who had risen early to play.

Numerous forts of snow littered a section of the snow in the local park, with about ten children throwing snowballs at each other, engaged in a harmless game of war. When one was hit, they simply wiped the melted snow off of their jackets and laughed. Not like in a real war, where very rarely the person who had been hit rose again.

Other children were making snow angels a little bit away from the snow war, and some were building a large snowman. The large balls of snow which had been used to build the snowman were rather flattened and lopsided, and looked like they would collapse if you poked one with a feather. The children didn't seem to mind, however. They were currently searching for carrots to put on the snowman's nose.

As if we all walk around with carrots that we drop in random places in hope that some child will find the organic vegetable and use it to complete a snowman.

A fair distance away from the park, on the very peak of a hilltop, stood an enormous, old, magnificant mansion. It was built of polished maple wood, and the snow clinging to the sides and rooftop gave it a rather gingerbread-house feel.

A few of the numerous windows that were scattered on the side of the house were decorated with steel bars. A few had chicken wire attached to them. Two were bolted shut. One was bolted and had numerous padlocks on it.

The enormous stretch of grounds surrounding the mansion were full of thick, gnarled trees - the kind that grabs your sleeve and tears it, or gets caught in your shirt collar, and practically chokes you when you start to walk. Some of the trees were so tightly pressed together, and so thick, that it was impossible to see though them, much less get past them.

None of the children who played around the mansion dared venture beyond the tall, steel gates that surrounded the boundaries of the grounds. Every child in that part of the city knew at least three stories about how children had decided to trespass in the grounds of the forbidding mansion, and none had ever come back.

If you asked anyone on the streets what they thought resided in the mansion, you would get a lot of varied responses. A vampire, some would say, because you never see anyone leaving the house in the daylight. A witch, others would respond. Perhaps she's brewing up some horrid concoction in there.

There would be a lot of suggestions, too many to write down, really. But a lot of people would say vampires, and just as many would be firmly decided that there was a witch in the mansion. But there were some who would say that there was a madman in the house, one that preyed on innocent children for delight.

And they wouldn't be too far off.

Kai Hiwatari's POV

Damn family tradition. Damn it to hell.

A family tradition is something that happens every year, usually when the whole family gets together to celebrate something, like Christmas or Thanksgiving. Most family traditions happen on a holiday.

You know what I'm talking about, right? You know, when your family gets together for Thanksgiving and your mother makes you wear that ridiculous turkey outfit and pretend to be scared and run away squawking when Uncle Bob comes into the room with a plastic hatchet every year?

Thought that would ring a bell. At least you have some clue what I'm trying to say here.

But my family tradition is not about celebrating. It doesn't even happen on a holiday. And for me, I would rather that it didn't happen at all.

For my family, our family tradition, which has been passed down among generations of Hiwataris for over three hundred years, is that every Hiwatari male, at the age of seventeen, has to marry the woman who he has been bethrothed to from birth.

Don't give me that what-the-hell-are-you-talking-about look. Didn't I already explain to you what bethrothing is?

I didn't?

Oh.

Well then, let's get started. We don't exactly have a lot of time here - dinner will be served in ten minutes.

To be betrothed is to be promised to someone at birth. Take my father, for example. He was promised to my mother when he was only a day old, and knew nothing of this arrangement until he was seventeen.

Then, at the age of seventeen, every Hiwatari male is forced to marry the woman whom they had been promised to since birth - even if they've never met them before, know nothing about them, don't like them, or love someone else.

To refuse a bethrothed marriage is like placing a WakkaxYuna pairing in a Final Fantasy X fanfiction. It simply isn't done.

So, as my grandfather has told me a countless amount of times, if I break this tradition, I will disgrace the entire family, and be cast out of the Hiwataris forever. Even as much as I hate my grandfather and this idiotic family tradition, my parents always wished for me to uphold the family, since 'my grandfather won't be around forever'.

I wonder who I am bethrothed to. I hope that the girl will be the one who refuses the marriage, because then she will be the one shamed forever. But if she doesn't refuse the marriage, I do hope that she is at least quite attractive. It would be horrendous if I was married to a wrinkled old hag.

Which makes me think of another thing. Suppose the girl is quite unattractive, and her idea of fun is to watch paint dry. Then what would I do?

Actually, I don't know what I would do. Perhaps it would be in order to run away. Yes. Running away seems like a good solution.

Bah. Who am I kidding? My grandfather has ways of finding runaways - I learned that a few years ago when my cousin Vanya ran away to Canada after learning that he was to be bethrothed. He already had a pretty girlfriend, and they were going steady. Actually, they were engaged, and were planning their wedding when my grandfather told Vanya that he was going to marry another woman who he had never met before in his life.

Horrified at the mere thought of losing his girlfriend, Yeva, Vanya hastily made plans to run away. Taking with him only half of his possessions, Vanya ran away with Yeva to Canada. Unfortunately, Vanya's bride-to-be had heard him discussing the plans to Yeva, and quickly told my grandfather.

But I have to give Vanya credit - he wasn't slow, that's for sure. He almost instantly learned that Grandfather had found out about the plans, and quickly switched his train ride from Scotland to Canada. He then bribed the train....er.....people.....to tell Grandfather ( because Vanya was most certain that he would call ) that Vanya had unfortunately been hit by a train in the night, having been unable to see it coming because the train's headlights had been broken in a rather unfortunate accident involving a chihuahua and an accountant.

Surprisingly, when my grandfather called the train station, he seemed to believe the outrageous lie. And while the train employees were sitting around and counting their money gleefully, Vanya and Yeva quickly hopped on a train headed for Canada, believing that they were home free.

Were they ever wrong.

Unbeknownst to them, Grandfather had managed to place a tracking device/bug on Vanya's favourite navy sweater, the one that he wore all of the time, so they would be sure to able to hear everything that Vanya said. Grandfather heard Vanya bribing the train station and the lie that he had told them to say, and pretended to believe it to catch Vanya off guard.

Vanya and Yeva were relaxing happily in the train, about halfway to Canada, when suddenly men in black suits and sunglasses burst into the car that they were in, pointing machine guns and rifles at Vanya and Yeva, and demanding that they come with them.

Vanya knew that the men had been hired by Grandfather, and refused to come with them. "I should be allowed to marry whomever I wish!" Vanya shouted in Russian, so that only the men in black and Yeva could understand. "Bethrothing is shit and I refuse to go along with it! Tell Voltaire that I shall be living happily in Canada with my wife by the time that he reccieves this message!"

Vanya never did know when to shut up.

His comments only infuriated the men in black, and four of them pounced on Yeva, dragging the shrieking girl upright and placing a gun to her head. They demanded that Vanya come with them, or else they would kill Yeva. Cursing in Russian, Vanya allowed his hands to be tied and he and Yeva were marched out of the car, with the other passengers looking visibly shaken, but knowing better than to interfere.

The two watched miserably as the train sped away, and they were left alone with Grandfather's hired hit men. Vanya instantly placed himself in front of Yeva protectively as the men approached them, but one pushed him roughly aside and another grabbed Yeva by her sleek black hair, dragging the girl towards him as she shrieked in pain.

"Voltaire only wants one to come back." The man sneered at Vanya, drawing his gun. "And orders are orders."

Freshly spilled crimson blood stained the snow like a blanket of red, with a long streak of blood leading towards the thick bushes where it looked like the bleeding object had been dragged. Only the following day would a six-year old girl and her mother find the lifeless body of Yeva, a large gunshot wound emblazened in the middle of the forehead that Vanya used to kiss and stroke so tenderly.

Nice story, isn't it? Anyways, when the men in black returned with Vanya to Russia, Grandfather let him have it. He would have killed him if it had not been for the fact that it would have shamed the family name. Grandfather believed that being forced to marry the woman that he was bethrothed to would be punishment enough.

So Vanya was married - against his will - but married, nevertheless, and he still is today. Did I mention that also once you're married, you can't divorce your wife? It bites, I know. That's what I was planning to do until I found out that you can't divorce.

I can't believe I wasted ten perfectly good minutes telling you about my family history. I'll bet that you didn't even listen to half of it. And I don't blame you - I usually zone out myself whenever Grandfather gets it into his head to threaten me with this story.

But that's not the point. The point is that I am betrothed, I have no idea who the person that I am going to marry is, I can't run away because the men in black would find me and gun me down, I can't divorce my wife, and my bride-to-be is coming tomorrow.

Could things get any worse?

Well, since I have nothing better to do, I'm going to tell you exactly how I found myself to be bethrothed.

The Previous Day, Thursday Dinner, 6:13 PM

Cursing in Russian, I fished around for my black shoes undeneath my bed, which I knew were hiding somewhere, taunting me. I gritted my teeth as I heard my grandfather yelling in an irritated way from downstairs. Was he incapable of being quiet for one second?

I glanced at the black sneakers that were lying on top of the pile of shoes that had been pulled out from underneath my bed, wondering if I could possibly get away with wearing those to dinner. Unless my grandfather looked very closely at my dinner attire, he probably wouldn't notice that they weren't my dinner shoes.

I quickly began searching underneath the bed again as I heard the tapping of his metal-tipped cane making it's way up the spiralling staircase. I wouldn't stand a snowball's chance in hell wearing those to dinner. My grandfather had eyes like a hawk, and could pick out the smallest little details, such as black cat hair on my black pants. It was rather unearthly.

Breathing a sigh of relief as I yanked one of the dinner shoes out from undeneath a turtleneck, I quickly pulled it on with one hand and groped around undeneath the bed with my free hand. Finding it without difficulty, I pulled it on and quickly kicked the pile of shoes underneath the bed, making sure that my floor looked neat and tidy before leaving the bedroom. If there was one thing that Grandfather despised, it was a messy room.

I met him halfway down the stairs, knowing better than to slide down the banister like I usually do. Grandfather gave me a sharp rap on the head with his cane for tardiness, then began to make his way down the stairs. I followed, being sure to keep close behind him. I was never allowed to pass my grandfather while walking.

I quickly adjusted my tie, and pulled a loose strand of dark blue hair behind my ear when Grandfather wasn't looking. No sense in digging my own grave.

Along the way, I noticed that my grandfather looked distracted, the evil glint in his eyes replaced by one of wondering. It was a side of my grandfather that I had never seen before. But I knew better than to ask, and kept my mouth shut during the walk down the stairs.

Once we reached the bottom of the stairway, I noticed that all of the servants were casting odd glances at me. Some of them looked sympathetic, and others seemed to be trying to hold in laughter. I had no clue as to what they were up to, but shot death glares at them all the same. As we entered the dining room, one of the servants who was cleaning the table patted me on the shoulder as she departed the room.

I looked quizzically at my grandfather, expecting some sort of explanation to the servant's strange behaviour, but reccieved none. My grandfather sat down in his seat, which resembled a throne, and waved a hand towards the other end of the table. Still confused, I sat down and unfolded my napkin, trying to ignore the servants serving the food, who all looked at me sympathetically.

Finally, halfway through the dinner, I decided to finally ask Grandfather what was going on, convinced that a conspiracy must be afoot by the way the servant girl serving the filet mignon was snickering behind it. I placed my fork on my plate and looked across the table at my grandfather, who was taking a sip of wine.

"Grandfather..." I started, waiting for him to acnowledge me. However, he simply finished sipping at his wine and placed the glass on the table, taking a bite of his filet mignon.

"Grandfather..." I tried again, a bit louder this time. Grandfather swallowed his piece of meat and glared across the table at me. I know that he hates being disturbed at mealtimes, but I really couldn't stand it anymore.

"Is something going on here? All of the servants - they're constantly looking oddly at me." While saying this, I threw a dirty look at the filet mignon girl, who was trying to look inconspicious cleaning behind Grandfather's chair, but who I knew was listening in on our conversation. The girl got the hint and quickly scuttled out of the room, leaving us alone.

"Whatever do you mean, Kai? The servants are as normal as ever. Now eat your filet mignon." Grandfather said, taking another sip of his wine. I noticed that he didn't meet my gaze as he spoke, though.

"Grandfather...." I said warningly, narrowing my eyes. This time, my grandfather met my glare with one of his own. We must have looked like peas in a pod, glaring at one another over the filet mignon. Finally, Grandfather gave an irritated sigh and settled back in his chair. "If you really must know."

I cut a piece of filet mignon off and chewed on it, waiting for him to speak. Grandfather took another sip of his wine before continuing. "Kai, I assume that you have noticed the women who have been joining our company at dinner these previous nights."

"It was hard not to." I muttered, staring at the marble table edge. For the past few nights, beautiful women about my age had been eating dinner with us. I had no idea who they were, but knew that my grandfather was trying to set me up with one of them, and therefore had shown no interest in them, ignoring them completely.

Grandfather stabbed his fork in my direction. "How many times have I told you not to mutter, Kai? A Hiwatari never slouches and mutters, but stands up boldly and talks to a person's face."

I simply rolled my eyes, and waited for Grandfather to continue. Fortunately, he didn't see this rude action, and continued on. "Well, I see that you have shown no interest in them. Which is really quite a pity, seeing as how they are the most attractive and eligible women your age in this city."
"Grandfather, I've told you before. I don't wish to marry. Having a useless woman clinging to me constantly is not something that I look forward to." I took a swig of my wine and stared at Grandfather over the rim of the glass.

But, to my surprise, my grandfather smiled and settled back into his chair. "Actually, it's a good thing that you are not attracted to those women, Kai. Because you are not going to marry any of them."

I breathed an audible sigh of relief, chewing on another piece of filet mignon. But Grandfather continued. "Look at this woman, Kai. Tell me what you think of her." Digging a photo out of his pocket, Grandfather slid it across the smooth marble table to me.

I stopped it with my fingertip and glanced at the woman who was in it. She was a very attractive Chinese girl, with unusual pink hair which cascaded down her shoulders and sides like a waterfall, and amber coloured eyes that made her look like a cat. She was wearing a dark pink chinese dress with gold trimming, and she had a very slender body. I thought that she looked very pretty - prettier than the other women who had come to dinner, anyway.

I glanced at Grandfather, who was waiting for my reaction. "She's beautiful. But if you're planning to set me up with her, I have to decline." I took another sip of my wine.

Grandfather smirked at me, stabbing his fork at me. "It's a good thing that you are attracted to her, Kai. Because you're going to wind up with her eventually - you have been bethrothed to her since your birth."

I choked on my wine and spat it out across the marble table, staring at my grandfather in shock. "You are NOT serious."

Grandfather wrinkled his nose at my vulgar display of wine-spitting and wiped his lips daintily with his napkin. "I am quite serious, Kai. You have been bethrothed to that woman since the day that you were born, and she will be coming all the way from her home country to visit us." Grandfather glared at me. "I trust that you will treat her with a proper amount of respect, Kai."

I was too stunned to say anything. My mouth simply flopped open and closed like a fish. I couldn't believe it. This couldn't be happening.

Grandfather took another sip of his wine. "Now that that's over with, eat your filet mignon. You have to look healthy for your bride-to-be."

And that was it. Nothing I did or said could convince my grandfather that I didn't want to get married. Besides, it's not like I had a choice in the matter. You don't refuse a betrothed marriage.

Well, things couldn't get any worse than this.

Hmm? Someone's knocking at the door. Goddamnit. Whoever's knocking must not be very familiar at me - you don't knock at my door anytime after ten o'clock if you want to see tomorrow. It had better be something important.

Reluctantly, I got up off of my bed and unlocked my bedroom door. I was rather curious to see who had the nerve to knock on my door after ten at night. This person must have guts.

Oh, it's the filet mignon girl. What the hell does she want at this time of night?

She hands me a picture, curtsies, and practically trips over her own two feet as she hastily runs off. I raise an eyebrow as I watch her race down the stairs like the devil's on her heels. What's her problem? I glance at the photo.

Oh, it's the picture of that Chinese girl again. My bride-to-be. Come to think of it, Grandfather never did tell me her name. I suppose that it will be something beautiful, like her.

As I look at the photo, I begin to notice how truly beautiful this girl is. Thankfully, this girl has real beauty, not the fake prettiness of the other women who joined us for dinner. They were all so fake. I can't stand that.

Heck, this might not be so bad after all.

Wait a minute. What the hell am I thinking? I am never going to get betrothed.

Never.

Ever.

Ever.

Damnit, someone else is knocking at my door. It had better not be that filet mignon girl again.

Oh. Well, this is certainly unexpected.

End Of Chapter One

xD I really like how I portrayed Voltaire here. I believe that I really captured his personality.

Any guesses as to who Kai's bride-to-be is? Well, you'll find out soon enough, I suppose. Please review.