Chapter Twelve. Lovely 2 C U.

Six years ago, after promises have been made.

He spent the whole night curled up in bed, trying to take up as little space as possible, as if doing that might clear up the noise in his head. Time crawled along for him at an agonizing pace until sometime after midnight, where between 12:53:35 and 12:53:36 he blinked and discovered that the light of the rising sun was creeping into his room. Gokudera Hayato lurched out of bed, numb from sleeping too little and angry at himself for succumbing to his exhaustion. He was the Storm Guardian of the Vongola Family, the Tenth's Right Hand Man. He was supposed to be made of tougher stuff.

After a cold shower, stale cigarettes and a half-burnt breakfast, Gokudera took a deep, self-steadying breath and stepped out of his apartment – he planned on taking his time on the way to the Sawada Residence, in order to make sure that he could face the Tenth with a bright smile and his trademark, overabounding enthusiasm. He had not factored in the possibility of nearly tripping over the huddled form of Yamamoto Takeshi: the other boy had apparently settled himself on the floor just outside of his door, camping out with spam musubi and a thermos full of barley tea.

"Wow! You're out earlier than usual."

"What the hell are you doing here?"

The question he really wanted to ask was why Yamamoto was back to their usual routine, as if they had not talked on the rooftop the other night, as if Gokudera had not just attempted to shut his fellow Guardian out of his life for the umpteenth time. Gokudera, however, had never been very good with dealing with Yamamoto's resilience (persistence), and it was often easier to give the other boy a piece of his mind and then back away as quickly as he could. Besides, Yamamoto's smooth honesty and stupid smile made him hurt in a way that he would not rather think about, and the best way to handle that was to lash out at the nearest target: the very source of his problems.

"I'm here every day," said Yamamoto, drawing Gokudera out of his thoughts. The silver-haired boy scoffed and brushed past Yamamoto, heading for the stairs and down to the streets. He didn't bother speeding up, at least not too much; Yamamoto always managed to catch up to him anyway, right before the first junction in the road.

"Ahaha, you look kinda dead. Did you sleep at all?"

"Shut up, idiot."

"Hey, hey, can you help me with our assignment for second period? I couldn't figure this one problem out, and…"

Yamamoto talked on and Gokudera pretended that he couldn't hear a thing, and it felt almost normal somehow. Almost right, except acknowledging that and falling right back into their routine was just going to make the next time harder, when there was no Tenth in sight and nothing but Yamamoto again, offering him something that he couldn't afford to take.

***

Present day. The Storm Guardian's office.

He was jolted awake by the sound of one out of his four cellular phones ringing and Uri stalking about, twitchy and hungry for his usual morning dose of Dying Will flame. Gokudera wasted one precious moment staring at the ceiling before his brain finally kicked into gear, and the Storm Guardian dove off the couch in order to snag his phone from the table. Samsung custom, gun metallic gray finish – the unit he used for the men under his command.

"Yeah. …Yeah, all right. Update me now."

He circled about as he listened to the voice on the other end of the line, rounding over to the corner in order to feed Uri (before the cat pounced on him and helped himself to breakfast) and trying to figure out exactly when he had ended up drifting off the other night. He could not, for the life of him, remember much beyond sitting on the couch with more reports, blinking, and suddenly finding himself awakened from a rest that he had not meant to take. Nevertheless, because he woke up wrapped up rather tightly in a blanket he was pretty much forced to conclude that he must have been lucid enough to have the good sense to cover himself up, because he couldn't think of anyone who would bother to check up on him and do it for him.

(Gokudera, of course, was very good at that thing they call denial.)

"I'll handle it myself. Have a team on standby at the site."

No goodbyes, of course, because the Storm Guardian of the Vongola did not do proper farewells with his subordinates; just a flick of his wrist to snap the unit shut and a whistle to Uri, summoning his box weapon to him. One quick detour to the wardrobe in the other room to fetch a better suit, and he was off and out the door, brisk walking to the car waiting for him at the gates of the estate.

No time to think, no time for dreams. The Family had its business, and Gokudera Hayato intended to be on top of it all, always and ever, no matter what.

Six years ago, after promises have been made.

He spent a long time on that rooftop afterward, long enough to watch the sun fall out of the sky and evening take hold on Namimori City. He could have moved – it would have been a smart idea to and all, because loitering on campus past the end of classes was against the rules and Hibari Kyouya valued school rules more than he valued human life. Yamamoto rather liked the life he was living, and often did everything he could in order to keep it.

Odd, then, how hours passed before he managed to muster up enough strength to push himself up off the floor and leave. The sushi boxes, he dumped those in the trash bin on his way out – some stray was going to get real lucky with them. Gokudera had not eaten much, and Yamamoto himself had lost his appetite somewhere between waiting for Gokudera to come around and later watching Gokudera leave him behind.

His phone rang while he was crossing the bridge connecting the city proper with the district where he has lived in since he was born – he had taken the long way home, the really long way, rather than zip over to the interchange and snag a ride all the way to the station two streets behind his house.

"Hello…? Oh! Hey there, Tsuna!"

Yamamoto cradled the phone between his ear and the crook of his shoulder in order to free up his hands as he walked. He listened to his friend's stammered apologies, waved him off with another easy laugh and warm assurances as he fixed his backpack.

"Yeah, yeah, don't sweat it. Sure, you can copy my notes. I think I got some good ones."

It was that quiet period in the district between the last batch of folks leaving and the next one coming in, and there were no cars or bikes on the streets, no one else out and about on the sidewalks except him. Yamamoto stopped over at the street corner two blocks away from his house, to check on the stray dog that lived in a box by the bus station. He squatted down and mouthed his greeting to the little guy, scratching it under the chin and later between the ears.

"…What I'm doing now? Ahaha, nothing much. Just in my room, y'know. Kicking around."

He did not even realize that he had lied until after the fact, and by then, there wasn't anything he could do about it.

They talked a little more, right up until Tsuna finally remembered the time and flailed through his goodbye: Kyoko was due to call his house very soon.

Yamamoto took that as a sign to go home.

The rest of the hours passed Yamamoto by in a vague blur of evening rituals, failing to study and lying on his side in bed, staring at the wall. He dragged himself out of the slump by three in the morning, prepared for school and snuck into the restaurant kitchen, to prepare a meal for two. He deposited himself, properly dressed and armed with a packed lunch box, at the foot of Gokudera's apartment an hour and a half after that. Gokudera himself stepped out a little earlier than usual, at a quarter to six.

"Wow! You're out earlier than usual."

"What the hell are you doing here?"

"I'm here every day."

After a shake up, it was all about re-establishing the routine, about rolling with the regular punches and going through all the motions that were expected of a baseball idiot like himself. Yamamoto, of course, applied himself to the task without really thinking about it. Thinking was a dangerous business, and besides: Gokudera needed the normalcy. That was all there was to it.

Later, when they were three blocks away from Tsuna's house, it occurred to Yamamoto that it would have been easy – so painfully easy – to reach out, take Gokudera's hand and never let go. He knew, though, that the inches between their palms was a distance he could not cross.

***

Present day. The Vongola Mansion, Sicily.

Yamamoto was not used to waking up in a bed big enough for five people, in a room with a bathroom that was thrice the size of his apartment, in a mansion full of people whose only purpose in life was to keep their heads low when the firefights started and cater to his every need when there weren't any bullets to dodge or people to kill. He had not lived poorly, but he certainly hadn't had things easy, at least until he had signed on with the Tigers. That did not, however, stop him from gawking a little at all the luxuries that having a generally invisible battalion of servants at one's beck and call provided one with. Frankly, he wondered now just as much as before how Tsuna and the rest of his friends managed to make it through the day without going a little crazy. They had been small-town boys way before they had ever joined the mafia game, and small-town boys were used to doing things on their own.

There was also the Vongola Mansion itself to deal with – if the size of the place wasn't enough of a problem, there was also the fact that each succeeding generation had the propensity to renovate areas and add expansions to the estate, turning wings upside down or switching areas around according to their needs (or whims). Tsuna was not nearly as radical as some of his predecessors had been when it came to fussing over the estate, but that did not make him a proper exception to the rule. If for anything, Yamamoto could be grateful for the fact that certain parts had never been moved since the time of the First, and those were often the places that he had to go to. The most permanent fixture was, of course, the wing reserved for the Vongola Boss himself.

Yamamoto was making his way towards that wing at the moment, ambling along, smiling at everything and nothing in particular, occasionally stopping to blink confusedly at unfamiliar junctions ("unfamiliar" meaning that it either looked like the last one he had just passed through or had slightly different décor from the one a few turns back from his current position) or stop one of the help to ask for directions. He had spent the last hour and a half en-route to his destination, but he was not bothered by that too much: it was a marked improvement from how long it used to take him to get anywhere.

Interestingly enough, he heard the office before he actually saw it. Two familiar voices started echoing back to Yamamoto during the last few turns, and the sound of the conversation they were carrying out was deafening by the time the swordsman found himself standing in front of the door, which banged open before he could even reach for the doorknob.

"—AND WE DON'T NEED YOUR FUCKING CHARITY, BRAT."

Squalo Superbi brushed past Yamamoto in a flurry of unchecked rage and ridiculously long silver hair: the Varia commander did not greet the other swordsman, although he did spare him a disdainful look before disappearing down the hallway. Yamamoto turned to watch Squalo leave, and then stuck his head in through the doorway.

"…Did I come at a bad time?"

"Of course not! Squalo's always like that."

Sawada Tsunayoshi was slumped over his desk, wearing the sort of expression carried by a man who had just pulled a whole day at work and sat through hour upon hour of traffic in the pouring rain only to crawl into bed and discover that there was a leak over his pillow, dripping down with pinpoint precision to the spot right between his eyes. The brunette, however, smiled at Yamamoto, lifted his hand in a half-hearted gesture, and beckoned the other man into his office.

"What was that about?"

"Ah… all the usual stuff, really. Funding, support… the Varia hasn't exactly been cooperative since the Ninth retired."

Yamamoto was not surprised to hear that. The Varia had been the Vongola None's elite squadron of assassins, headed by Xanxus, the adopted son of the Ninth and once Tsuna's biggest contender for the seat of the boss in the family. Tsuna and his Guardians, however, had imprisoned Xanxus once again after his coup d'etat attempt when they were in middle school. Since then, Squalo – the Sword Emperor of the underworld, and Xanxus' right hand man – was the leader of the group in his commander's place.

Because they firmly believed that Xanxus was the real Tenth of the Vongola, Squalo and the other members of the Varia moved independently from the rest of the family, insisting on Tsuna's illegitimacy as boss and taking no missions beyond whatever they happened to find interesting. That did not, however, stop Tsuna from attempting to stay in contact with them, and offering them missions that benefited both the Varia and the Vongola. Due to his close correspondence with Lussuria, Ryohei was the family's official liaison with the group. Back when he was still gunrunning with the family, however, Yamamoto had occasionally been called upon to talk to the Varia in Ryohei's place. Squalo appeared to be more receptive to Yamamoto, especially when it came to delicate (Xanxus-related) issues.

"Anyway, let's forgot about that for now… I mean, you just got back!" Tsuna was smiling at Yamamoto as he hastily cleared his desk. "How are you? I'm sorry I wasn't able to greet you the night you came around. It's been crazy down here!"

"Well, you are getting married, boss," Yamamoto returned with a smile. "How's that been treating you?"

"Um… to be honest, I really don't know. I guess it'll hit me later."

Tsuna was getting That Look again, the one that crept unto his face whenever something Kyoko-related or Kyoko herself came up. Briefly, Yamamoto remembered Gokudera. He was not, however, given much time to dwell on it, for Tsuna was already moving on.

"Have you seen the others yet?"

Have you seen Gokudera?

Tsuna did not have to say the words. Yamamoto had known his boss long enough to be able to figure out what the other man was REALLY asking about, just by studying the look in his eyes. Yamamoto ran a hand through his hair and down and scratched the back of his neck, putting on a sheepish look. He could play the idiot a little longer, he figured, because he knew that Tsuna was not going to push him.

"Just Ryohei and Kyouya, actually."

"I see. Well," Tsuna declared, just a tad louder than necessary, "there's still a lot of time for that sort of thing! Have you showed yourself to Reborn yet? He's been asking about you lately."

"I was going to, but then he found me first… came to my room and dragged me out and all, before I had the chance to wander around."

"I should have known," Tsuna sighed. "I hope he didn't beat you up?"

"Nope! Got out of it totally unharmed~"

"Really?" The shock was plain in Tsuna's voice. "Huh. That's… oddly nice of him." a pause, and then an amused snort. "He must be feeling his age these days—"

The loud crash of Tsuna's door blowing wide open made the young mafioso freeze, and Yamamoto noted, with some amusement, the split second of pure terror in Tsuna's eyes before they realized that the one who had barged in WASN'T Reborn.

"Little brother I need to talk to you about stu OH HEY THERE YAMAMOTO DIDN'T KNOW YOU WERE HERE."

Ryohei was the same bundle of energy that he had been when Yamamoto had first spotted him at the airport, all laughs and loudness and back-thumping. It did not last for very long, though, not while it was clear that the boxer had come around on business.

"Did the Varia come around as scheduled, boss?"

"Yeah…"

Tsuna trailed off, his gaze shifting from Ryohei's suddenly serious face to Yamamoto – he was hesitating, unsure of whether he could afford to push business back in order to entertain his friend or if he ought to get right down to things, the way he used to before Yamamoto's temporary departure from their world. Yamamoto knew what he was thinking, of course: he had not spent the a good part of the last ten years of his life close to his boss, and even closer to the one who walked where Tsuna walked, breathed when Tsuna breathed.

"Should I leave?"

"No, no!" Tsuna wrung his hands, looking frantic and more than a little embarrassed; it looked as though Yamamoto wasn't the only one who needed to readjust to having the Rain Guardian back in the game. "You should know about this just as much as Ryohei and I do, I think."

"Superbi and the rest of the Varia have been more difficult than usual for good reason lately," Ryohei explained, drawing Yamamoto's attention towards him. "Little brother has started talks with the Vendicare, and the other members of the Big Five. The Family intends to release Xanxus from his prison by next summer."

The Rose Garden.

Since the Family had started their operation to set the future right and ended up permanently relocating to Italy to see it through, it had become a habit of hers to visit the gardens upon waking, to wander barefoot across the grassy fields, among the manicured bushes and the flower beds, under the shade of ancient trees. Although she was the Mist Guardian of the Vongola, and the woman closest to the Tenth beyond his Consigliore and his very own fiancé, she knew that she was ultimately an outsider: she was naturally associated with Rokudo Mukuro, and there wasn't a soul in the mafia game who was unaware of the things that he had done in the past. Her morning walks, though, made her feel like she belonged, almost. While she was content, for the most part, with remaining in limbo, perpetually on call in a neither-here-nor-there sort of place, there were always times when she needed to anchor down and retreat to before the burden of being nobody became too much for her to bear.

In the recent years, however, Chrome did much more than haunt the gardens with her presence. At least once a week, in fact, the young woman rose with the sun, dressed into something light and easy to move around in, and, after fetching a pair of heavy gloves and other tools from the gardener's shed, took it upon herself to tend to the flowers.

"Ta jie!"

Chrome looked up from the rose she had been inspecting in time to see I-pin running towards her; the girl paused a moment to catch her breath the moment she was close enough, and then bounced right back up on her heels to flash the Mist Guardian with a brilliant smile. There were grass stains on her cheeks, and the white cotton of her pants.

"Good morning, ta jie."

"Good morning. Were you training by the lagoon?"

"Yes! I was unable to the other day." I-pin leaned in, studying the rose that was cupped gently within Chrome's palm. "How is it now?"

"Much better. Changing the soil helped this bush a lot, I think." Chrome lifted the pair of clippers she held in her other hand and snipped off a rotten leaf before moving on to another rose. "I shall have to remember to ask the gardeners to take note of the mix."

"Mm!" Gardening was, beyond cooking food, one of the hobbies that Chrome now had in common with I-pin: the two of them tended to the flowers growing on the Vongola Estate together, whenever they had the chance to. "I'll go in and change so that I can help—"

I-Pin's cut off with a startled squeak; the girl had flushed beet red, and was now rooted to the spot, staring, wide-eyed, off into the distance. Chrome blinked and considered asking her what was wrong, but she soon discovered for herself, the moment she turned and followed the other's gaze.

A black car emblazoned with the seal of the Foundation had pulled up at the curb: Kusakabe had stepped out of the front seat, and was moving around to open the door for none other than Hibari Kyouya himself. The man was conversing with someone over his mobile in quick, irritated Chinese: a language that Chrome only understood bits and pieces of for the moment. She knew enough, though, to figure out that her fellow Guardian was closing a deal.

Kusakabe greeted them at that moment, drawing Chrome's attention away from Hibari – the man had moved forward to see them, after sending the driver off with new orders.

"Dokuro-san, I-pin. It is good to see the both of you again."

"When did you return?"

"Three days ago, actually. Kyo-san had some business to attend to in Venice, though, so… here we are again."

"Need you be so familiar with them?" Hibari snapped, as he came around – the cellular phone was gone, replaced by a box weapon that the man was now tossing about with one hand, catching with rhythmic, lazy twists of his wrist. A nervous – or more like, restless twitch. "What I do with my time is no business of theirs."

"Of course," Kusakabe acquiesced, indulgent as always. Hibari flashed him a narrow-eyed, displeased look before turning his ire towards Chrome.

"Dokuro Chrome."

"Cloud."

His gaze sliced over her like a knife, and she inclined her head, returning his gaze without flinching. Another terse pause, and he turned away. That was that. Just eight years ago, their exchange might have ended in a fight.

Briefly, Rokudo Mukuro came to mind.

"Dismissed, Tetsu." Hibari was moving away, having lost all interest in the crowd gathered before him. "Do not dawdle for too long."

"Yes, Kyo-san. Were you able to compile the records that I asked for last week?" Kusakabe asked of I-pin, turning to the girl as soon as Hibari was gone. "I'll be needing that info very soon."

"Y-y-yes!" I-pin had apparently managed to regain enough control of herself to dip down into a low bow, but not enough to keep from stammering. Hibari's presence, Chrome had realized over the years, had a rather peculiar effect on her. Kusakabe did not appear to notice.

"Excellent. Can you show me what you've done so far?"

"O… of course!" I-pin then turned and bowed low to Chrome. "My deepest apologies, ta jie. I-it seems as though I have work to do now."

"It's all right. We'll see each other at dinner anyway."

I-pin beamed, relieved at the easy dismissal. "I'll go ahead!" the girl announced, before turning about and rounding off. Chrome watched her go before turning back to Kusakabe.

"Will Hibari-san be joining us?"

(She was asking, of course, out of courtesy and not out of any real interest.)

"I believe he is," Kusakabe thoughtfully returned. "It'll be the first with all of the Guardians complete in the past three years, to my understanding." The look in his eyes was different now, as he regarded Chrome. She, of course, knew exactly why, and answered the question that she knew Kusakabe would never voice out loud.

"Yes… it will be."

Meanwhile, back inside the Estate.

Ryohei was the last out of the two to leave, and that was mostly because he had wanted to talk a whole lot about how lovely Hana was lately and Tsuna was more than happy to indulge him. Reborn had spent the last decade and then some attempting to make a man out of his student, and his definition of "being a man" included the disregard of useless frivolities, but that never stopped Tsuna from going behind his old mentor's back at every opportunity and listening to the silly nothings of his Guardians. They were, after all, his friends long before they had ever been his comrades-in-arms, "family" long before they had ever become "Family".

Of course, another "useless frivolity" was the cumulative set of quiet little nothings that he managed to snag in his office, whenever he was lounging about between one ginormous stack of things-to-sign and the next with nothing to keep him company beyond a sunlight streaming through his windows and a cup of perfectly brewed coffee. Tsuna leaned back and sipped from the cup at his leisure, tired but oddly content. He was the Tenth, the one and only "boss" around those parts – something or someone was bound to come around soon enough and demand his attention. Before that, though…

"Wasting time by acting like an herbivore again, Sawada?"

Well. Tsuna chuckled, unshaken by the cutting words. He set the cup down, and squared his gaze up, to meet with Hibari Kyouya's steel gray eyes.

"Welcome back, Hibari-san. I wasn't expecting you back so soon."

A light scoff from the shadowed corner by the door. Tsuna only smiled again.

Some things never changed.

Tsuna stood up, smoothed his coat and pants out, shuffled towards the snack table at the far end of the room. He was perfectly at home with the fact that the gaze of his most mercurial Guardian and harshest critic was on him, watching his every move.

"Care for a cup of coffee?"

***

The conversation had not lasted very long, but it had been enough to leave Yamamoto with the very sudden urge to walk around and think about absolutely nothing heavy for the rest of the day. He had known, of course, long before Reborn had ever called him right before the last game of the season, that things were picking up in the mafia game, and if he didn't scramble back and return to being on top of things soon he'd likely drown the moment he came back home, to Italy. He had thought that he was ready before he had left Japan, because the past three years had been busy in a good way, filled with the sort of quiet that only normal people had the privilege of experiencing.

It hurt him just a little, realizing that he wasn't as ready as he thought he was, and that in spite of the fact that he wasn't rusty in the least on the battlefield and hadn't forgotten how to be a good and proper mafioso off of it, he was still walking back into a lot of other things blind.

He didn't really mean to end up in the library – his feet had sort of just taken him wherever they had wanted, following, in real time, the flow of his thoughts. As such, Yamamoto blinked at his surroundings in a sort of dull daze for a few moments before figuring what the heck, it's been a while, maybe he could find something decent to read? The Rain Guardian immediately made a beeline for the shelves that contained the fiction titles in the family's collection, accompanied by nothing else but the sound of his own footsteps against the varnished wood floor. He was likely alone in the place, he figured, because it was late in the morning: most of the big readers in the estate were likely out on jobs, and the maids only came around to clean at dawn. As such, he wasn't entirely prepared for the moment he turned the corner and looked up, to the sight of Gokudera Hayato in front of a book case three times his height with a stack of books cradled under one arm, returning them, one title at a time, to their rightful place on the shelves.

Three years of distance, of walking away, of staying everywhere except exactly where he belonged, and seeing all the tiny little somethings that made up the only person who mattered more than life itself never failed to take his breath away.

"Hayato."

"…Yamamoto."

Three years, and those green eyes still looked the way they did on the rooftop of their school: sharp and raw and shuttered, keeping everything out, keeping Yamamoto miles apart from where he wanted to be. Distance, however, had taught him how to take everything in, bury the bad things deep, and show the good things to whoever came his way, like there was absolutely nothing wrong at all.

"Long time, no see."