Diclaimer: I don't own the characters or the series. Amano Akira does. I'm just playing with them for a bit.

A/N: Companion piece to The Affair Without Rumours.

The Rumoured Affair

It was in the nature of a herbivore to chew on anything it found even remotely interesting over and over again.

This came as little surprise to Hibari; despite his very clear preferences he'd been forced to deal with such weaklings time and time again. They would grasp on something and then turn it in their hands like a child would a toy, twisting and turning and tossing it from hand to hand until it no more even remotely resembled whatever it had been in the beginning, and this new visage they then called a discovery and told it on to the other weaklings in their useless little flocks. He was used to being the subject of many such rumours, used to fearful whispers and half swallowed murmurs, to gazes filled with dread from people he was yet to correct personally just because they had heard of him. It didn't bother him, never really had. To be feared was to have power, and though he would have had no qualms about putting that fear in their hearts with his own two hands it was yet faster to simply rely on them already knowing it was best to avoid angering him.

Sometimes they spoke of things he had never done. He rarely minded, as long as they were afraid; occasionally he even let them give him ideas. Fear was respect, after all.

This time, however, he found himself oddly irritated by the rumours circulating about him. Of course, this was mainly because of the nature of the rumours, and the people whispering them. This wasn't a fearful murmur in the school corridor. This was Vongola, the entire damn tenth generation, and the content of the whispers was downright enfuriating.

As though he would be so weak as to let himself be trapped by some crowd-minded herbivore.

Despite the ridiculousness of such claims, they seemed to persist. He kept hearing his name in connection with Cavallone's, in tones of scandal and disbelief and amusement, saw the children snickering at things they couldn't even hope to understand yet. He wouldn't beat the children, though, not even when they laughed and called him Cavallone's wife; it was simply much more satisfying to beat the ones who had taught them to say such things. It was their own fault anyway for spouting such nonsense where young and impressionable ears could hear.

Vongola said someone needed to go to Italy to get a message for him. He volunteered, if only to get a momentary break from their smirks and glances, to go among people who knew to fear his gaze and step away, not having grown stupidly brave through some imagined illusion of closeness.

"To visit Dino-san?" asked Vongola, his eyes annoyingly sincere.

"You said you needed someone to go," he replied, his gaze icy. "I wasn't aware Cavallone was the only object of interest in all of Italy."

Just to spite the idiots, he went nowhere near Cavallone during his trip. There was time for that later, sent way on a new mission nobody but the baby knew about, the only one who knew not to read too much into it.

Cavallone smiled and greeted him cheerfully. He silenced the idiot with his mouth, completely ignoring the presence of another, black-clad man in the room. It wasn't like Romario didn't know everything that happened to Cavallone, anyway.

Cavallone sent Romario away, though, reading his intent in the bruising kiss and gripping fingers. He wasn't about to wait until the bedroom, had no interest in soft sheets and gentle love-making. The sex was rough and vicious in its intensity, leaving them both deliciously breathless, angry bite marks tainting Cavallone's smooth skin. He wouldn't let himself be held afterwards, he wasn't some woman in need of cuddles and reassurance, and he'd be damned if he let Cavallone think otherwise.

They weren't dating, whatever the Vongola famiglia seemed to think, they weren't dating and they weren't in a relationship and they most certainly were not in love. He didn't love anyone but himself, never had, never would, and if he had claimed Cavallone as his mate that was simply a matter of lust and possession and physical need.

They moved to the bedroom in the end, after making themselves presentable and calling Romario back and eating the dinner Cavallone insisted on, it wasn't a date but simple hospitality befitting an ally as vident in the far too numerous Cavallone's men present, and somehow he managed not to kill anyone however tempted he was to do so even at the risk of starting a war. As the bedroom door closed after them, he attacked again, it had been a while and would be another while before he came here again, no he didn't miss the idiot but he did want to make his stake on the man clear.

He lay quietly in bed afterwards, worn out though unwilling to admit it, looking up to the ceiling. Cavallone lay beside him, wisely not even trying to move any closer.

"Kyouya," Cavallone said, and he didn't answer. He also didn't move away.

As he woke up just before dawn, he found an arm slung over himself. He would have hit the idiotic herbivore for daring to do such a thing, but that would have woken the man up and meant more trouble in slipping away. He left quietly instead, leaving Cavallone alone, and if he was spotted on his way out into the breaking morning nobody dared to say a word.

Nobody but the baby was supposed to know where he had gone, yet somehow they still seemed to know, somehow he still heard the comments and chuckles and all the usual idiocy, and Vongola really had no right to complain about the bruises on his so-called right-hand man when the idiot had practically begged to be beaten up. Somehow the idiots still didn't seem to take the hint, and he even heard some remark on how he wouldn't have been so fierce in his denial if there hadn't been some modicum of truth he didn't want out, there.

Some form of truth? Of course there was some. He was sleeping with Cavallone on occasion, yes. However, it wasn't a relationship or dating or a love affair, gods forbid, and that seemed to be the main point of their argument. And in any case, it was hardly any of their business whom he chose to claim as his, as long as they weren't foolish enough to try to interfere.

The simple truth was, Cavallone was his, and really the idiots should have just stopped talking about it when they would never arrive at the truth anyway, simply coming to the same false conclusions time and time again.

And if he ever woke up to feel the dream of an arm reached over himself fleeting out into the darkness again, that wasn't something they had any right to know or question.