Paper Sakura
by MammonBZ
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In this story, Hibari is 24 and Mukuro is 23.
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It was two years that they would meet again. Snow had taken the place of the sakura petals, gently floating, covering the ground with white.
It was a cold, cold night, that Hibari was on his rounds around Namimori.
He could have stayed at home, near the heater, drinking tea and all, but the practice he had gotten used to when he was younger, of patrolling the neighbourhood persistently had never worn off.
Dino had just left not long ago. That man… his life seemed to revolve around him nowadays. Ever since the Kokuyo incident... there had been a heartbreak in that. Dino had managed, but not quite, to heal a portion of it… but the other… it remained more or less a memory.
And he was lonely already.
Nobody would be out tonight though. It was simply too cold. His were the only set of footprints that blemished the pale sheet of snow cloaking the place.
When he was younger… Those were the days when he had been slightly happier than he was now, when everyone had been much happier, in fact.
Hibari shook those unwanted thoughts from his head and turned the corner, pulling his jacket closer around his body. It was the coldest night in Japan yet, as of that winter. The sense of invulnerability had also worn off over the years. The snow was chilling him more than it would have fifteen years ago.
He turned and decided to head back. He needed the pleasure of being able to read a book quietly in the welcoming warmth of his own house.
It was then that he saw.
The single figure, lonely against the dark backdrop of city buildings sitting on the top of metal slide in the center of the playground. It was the only playground in the city that had not been demolished even after all these years.
The single street lamp that tardily attempted to illuminate the whole of the playground was not nearly enough. The illusionist's face was shadowed by lack of light.
Hibari stopped and stared. Why was he here? He had never, never left the haven-turned-hell he sought, Kokuyo, after that incident happened. He stood there for some time, snowflakes gently falling around both of them.
Mukuro hadn't noticed the prescence of the second man, or at least he hadn't shown any signs of noticing if he had realised. He remained in the same position, of tilting his head upwards, towards the sky, almost as though to find a single star in the clouded night sky.
A long sleeved shirt…jeans…not even a scarf…hardly enough to protect against the chill.
"Hey, isn't it cold?" Hibari had not shouted but there was no night wind tonight, and his words carried. He watched as the illusionist flinched at the words that shattered the silence that cloaked the place, and slowly, mechanically lower his gaze to Hibari's face.
"Well, is it?" The ex-prefect walked over and rocked himself gently on the swing. The swing was old. It was rusty. It creaked.
The illusionist hadn't smiled as he would have some years ago at seeing Hibari. He had merely shook his head slowly, as though in incomprehension of the ex-prefect's words.
And then he spoke, in perhaps nothing more than a hushed whisper. "It is…the anniversary…you know, I just thought…he lived…here…so…" He trailed off.
Hibari chided Mukuro silently. The eloquence that once stung him so badly was gone with the wind, like the wind.
Mukuro's words had reminded him of what exactly it was today. He briefly closed his eyes, in silent prayer? It was long over now. He had done his best, as the baby had instructed everyone, not to think about it. But since it was the day today…well…
I took up this mission knowing something would happen.
You can punish me for my stupidity, yes Reborn, but I can't live with the knowing that I could have done something and I didn't.
If you all are reading this now, then I can only safely assume that the something I feared has happened, and that I have truly, been forsaken by that sliver of hope I had retained at the start of this.
I'm sorry, I'm really sorry… but it seems that after all these years, Vongola will truly shatter into pieces and fall with this generation.
I only wish for no eleventh generation to be chosen. There will be no more who break under this burden.
No more.
May you all be blessed, and Lambo, please don't cry.
There had been a teardrop smudging the last word, cry.
Irony.
In the end, the threat had been exterminated. But at what cost? At what amount of tears might a dead soul be brought back?
Hibari knew he hadn't shed any tears at that time, but there would always be that feeling of grief and loss.
It had been the strongest he had felt in all his life.
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He looked up now. In that moment of silence that had taken over both the occupants of the playground, Mukuro had returned his mismatched gaze to the indifferent sky, which only churned out more snowflakes.
There would be a snowstorm later.
It was Mukuro who broke the silence. "You were thinking about…that?"
"What else might it have been." Hibari said, softly, after a short hesitation.
Mukuro looked down now, and smiled, slight mirth dancing in his eyes. "You know, you were the only one who didn't… bring any flowers." He didn't look half as cold when he smiled.
"I didn't see the point. It's simply quixotic."
"It's symbolic."
"…I know that." Hibari felt a tinge of guilt as he muttered those words. Why hadn't he brought any flowers?
But it would be too late now. It would always be too late.
Hibari raised his head, meeting Mukuro's gaze. "Aren't you lonely there?" Kokuyo had been abandoned by all but one person. The rest had left, not just the place but the world itself.
He knew it was the other thing in which there was much to be grieved for as the years went by (they flew!), but to him, not nearly as much as the first. But the illusionist would be different though. They had always been different from each other. Polar opposites.
He knew better than to talk to Mukuro about that though. The latter had never stopped blaming himself.
It seemed that tonight was a night for obituaries.
The illusionist had made no reply. But it was clear that he had to be lonely, had he not?
Even Hibari had Hibird, the one and only forever beside him. It was one of the comforts in his life which he had taken for granted before. And he had faith that Dino might, just might be the second.
The man before him, had after all deserted him, choosing instead to find respite in the dark corner of self-pity.
Hibari stood up now, brushing the snowflakes that had gathered on his jacket onto the ground. Still, Mukuro made no movement. Like a porcelain doll, he sat perfectly still, blue hair whipping in the wind that had just picked up.
Hibari made as if to say something, then hesitated, and turned, walking away, his footprints leaving deep indents on the white white snow.
"Wait…"
He looked back, a little surprised.
Mukuro's eyes had been pleading here. Not the whiny tone he had used, so long ago, to beg Hibari for little favours, but this was really… There was despair and desperation in it, like someone belting out his last wishes.
"What." It hadn't been a question.
"Will you…will you not come with me?" The frantic note had been so obvious. His voice was almost one octave higher than usual.
Hibari realised he had been staring at Mukuro's face. He turned away now.
He thought of his home in Namimori: big, beautiful, warm, comfortable, safe, furnished.
And then of Kokuyo: cold, draughty, dilapidated, lonely… haunted with the ghosts of three who had died in a sudden raid.
And he thought of Dino.
And slowly, with a queer, unexpected sadness, he shook his head. He bit back the guilt that momentarily ambushed him at the flash of hurt that passed between Mukuro's eyes. But the illusionist suppressed it soon enough.
Mukuro only then nodded curtly, silent. But the disappointment was still there in that mismatched gaze which he returned to the sky.
Hibari observed for a few moments longer, then sighed and spun around.
Twenty steps away, he turned back again, as though unable to tear his eyes away from the illusionist and said, "I'm sorry."
The apology had not been heard, blown away by the howling wind now. Or if it had been heard, there would be no reaction.
Mukuro sat, on the metal slide, leaning backwards, propped up by his hands, to look at the winter sky.
In oblivion.
In his own reverie, wrapped and cocooned from the pain of the world outside.
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And the twinkling light usually granted by the stars which surrounded this world would have been greedily shielded by the clouds tonight.
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It was a summer night two years after this meeting that Hibari would spend a night reminiscing about the encounter.
It had been a long time since he had seen the illusionist and would probably be another long period of time, even longer, perhaps that he would see the illusionist again. He closed his eyes.
And thought.
He'd been shot in the head, or so they said. Murder? Couldn't tell. Because his body was never found. Suicide? Not apparent. "Because he doesn't seem like the suicidal kind of person," someone had said.
Kokuyo would be even lonelier now.
His death. One less competitor to aspirers of world domination. And one less threat the world had to worry about.
His death. It had simply been taken as a fact among the remaining five members. No. Four members. Hibari hadn't been there when he died. It would be three months after it had happened that he would know.
No one would have wept over this, he had thought bitterly. What had irritated him more than anything else was the dense atmosphere of apprehension had had surrounded the rest of the Vongola.
Who was next? The unasked question.
Sawada could have made a fortune teller.
Vongola would fall. It would be an eventual defeat.
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And another even more bitter memory.
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"I'm getting married, Kyouya."
Hibari had stopped what he was doing and stared at the man before him. He raised an eyebrow.
"I'm not joking. I had been thinking about this…through the entire month. I know I've been with you for quite some time… but… I've been advised about this…you know, here in Italy… being seen with another man…and especially as a Boss too."
Hibari had stood up and gaped at the blonde man now standing in the doorframe, preparing to leave his house, to leave him, for good.
After two years.
He had reached forward and grasped, desperately, the end of Dino's sleeve. With his other hand, he grabbed Dino's tie and pulled him closer until his face was only centimeters away from his own.
He could have punched him, kicked him. Anything.
But all Hibari had ended up doing was to slowly let go, the first tears forming, and collapse to the floor.
"D—dino…"
It briefly occurred to him that something like this had happened long ago, with another man, in another world.
He had looked up then, into Dino's eyes, through a vision just a little blurred. The usually warm, perpetually happy golden eyes were emotionless.
And they looked down at him, not comprising apology but only a sense of pity, of sympathy. Hibari would remember that. He hated and hated and hated feeling weak. Even then.
As though being pulled through a round of BDSM, without the B, of course, a card, cherry-blossom-scented,, pink and lovely had been dropped into his mailbox and read, a week later.
"Invited to the happy marriage of Dino Cavallone and…"
Happy.
He had read that card three times, each with a growing sense of agony and jealousy at that word.
It seemed that everyone would get their happily-ever-after except him.
He had loved, and lost.
Twice.
He ripped the card apart and thrown it away. But the pain lingered, just like the scent of the sakura in his living room.
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Now that he thought about it, almost a year later, his mind was strangely, blank.
No judgment passed, only memories. And it was the first time, he had allowed that particular memory to flow freely.
He wondered (this he did often) what would have happened if he had accepted the careless offer made to him one snowy night at the now-destroyed Namimori playground. If the road walked since then would have held less storms, less blizzards.
And if he would have been happier than he was now.
Two past lovers.
One shot in the head and another stabbed in the chest.
Two same fates.
Emptily, he sat up and looked around his room. It suddenly came to him, just how much memories his room held, of his very first love, and next to none, of his second.
A pineapple shaped magnet.
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"Haha! Now I'll always stick to your room right?"
IDIOT.
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Neoprints.
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"Say CHEESE~!"
"…cheese…"
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And two ugly hand-drawn pictures, one of them both, pinned onto the board with the pineapple magnet. They both had several holes in them.
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"Your eye!"
"Your nose…"
"Damn, I missed!"
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Hibari almost smirked at that. They had seemed so childish at that time… But there had been laughter then…and joy… which would both be missing now.
Then, something hit him. Something which had been said on that snowy night.
You were the only one who didn't bring any flowers…
Yet again, he hadn't. Not for the one who had said that.
He knew what he would do now.
He got up, grabbed a piece of white paper, and sat on his bed, carefully cutting out, a crude shape of a cherry blossom. After it was more or less in the shape of a cherry blossom, he held it up.
My artistic talent hasn't improved much, he thought wryly.
Gently placing it on the table beneath the two distorted, holey pictures, he glared at one of them.
You'll like it too much.
The next week, there was another paper sakura, roughly cut, placed on top of the first.
And the next, and the next.
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One autumn and one winter later, there would be real sakuras.
It was a chilly yet sunny morning, in which the sakura tree, next to the slightly open window of the house, would allow one of its flowers to float into the room on the second floor.
The room was empty. Of everything.
The sakura flower came to rest on the wooden boards of the slightly dusty floor.
And then, almost hesitantly, the wind blew again, more gently this time, through the slight gap the window made.
And it swept the sakura gently under the bed.
Where it came to rest, smoothly, slowly, on top of an age-old hand-drawn child-like picture of a certain blue-haired illusionist whose presence had trespassed the mind of the one who had last walked into the now void, void of everything, house.