A/N: What is this? Is this an update you see?! Yes, my friends! Your eyes do not deceive you! After a hiatus of nearly 6 months, we're back with another chapter. Rejoice!

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Chapter 5: The Vongola Heir

It was a slow day for the baseball club. The baseball club members had just finished their laps around the grounds and scattered to practice either individually or in small groups. Most of the 3rd years were coaching the 1st years' stances and giving advice on how to improve their pitches.

Yamamoto was also practicing his cannon-like pitches, inviting awe and admiration. There was no doubt that with Yamamoto on the team, Namimori's chances to go to Koshien* was greatly increased.

"With Yamamoto on the team, our school may actually take Koshien... must be what you are thinking, huh?" Enomoto, the coach asked from his seat besides Tsuna. Tsuna turned to the buff, older man who laughed loudly at the startled expression on Tsuna's face. "You have a very open face, Sawada! It's really easy to read you!" He laughed again.

"I - is that so...?" Tsuna said, rubbing the back of his neck. Was that how Reborn always seems to read his mind? (Reborn scoffed at this from wherever he was. As if his ability to read his dame student was from something so mediocre.)

"But I hope you don't think Yamamoto is our only shot. We have many good players on the team, other than Yamamoto!" Enomoto said seriously.

Tsuna looked back at the pitch and turned back to the practice with a small smile playing on his lips. The coach didn't play favorites when it came down to his team, huh? 'Ah... he really loves the team, doesn't he?'

"What? You don't believe me?" Enomoto challenged playfully, nudging Tsuna with his elbow.

"No no! I believe you, coach!" Tsuna said quickly, flailing his arms around. When Enomoto laughed again boisterously, Tsuna calmed down. "It's like you said, coach. Although Yamamoto is kind of like a genius player, with abilities handed down to him by the Gods of Baseball, our team is very capable."

Tsuna nodded towards the 2rd year standing on the pitcher's mound. "Hamasaki-senpai's skills as a pitcher may be weaker than Yamamoto's but he has great mental fortitude and is able to keep his cool against the strongest of opponents."

"Nishimura-san's strength in video gaming extends to his hand-eye coordination skills, making him an excellent infielder." Tsuna said watching the 2nd year who quickly reacted to a stray fast ball from a 3rd year pitcher. But instead of catching the ball, he moved out of the way calmly and pulled out a PSP from his pocket. Tsuna sweatdropped at this. "Although we may have to give him some incentive because he burns out quite quickly..."

"S-Sawada... you..." Enomoto choked out looking at the small, temporary manager. He didn't know that the student who was dubbed 'dame' by many of his teaching colleagues (especially Nezu-sensei) had such keen observation skills!

Ah! Wait, no!

Weren't there talks in the faulty room that Tsuna was actually improving rapidly from his terrible performances at Middle School? Oh! And even Enomoto himself noted that Tsuna's athletic skills during P.E were not as atrocious as when he was in Middle School!

"Hm... Does Toda-senpai normally batt right? I think he is more suited for batting left..." Tsuna mused to himself.

"What was that, Sawada?" Tsuna turned and Enomoto could swear that he saw intense amber eyes looking back at him but a blink later, Tsuna's eyes were back to soft honey brown.

Tsuna rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. "It's nothing really..." Enomoto made a gesture for Tsuna to continue. "I was just thinking that Toda-senpai's dominant eye seemed to be his right eye and that senpai's open stance had to do with him trying to get a better look at the field. Maybe if he batted from the left..." Tsuna trailed off; his strong start turning into a meek mumble as the coach's eyes widened. "Like I said, it's nothing rea-"

Enomoto blinked several times, wondering to himself where was the stumbling, bumbling dame student from 3 years ago because in front of him, stood a different young man (although Tsuna still stumbled and bumbled). He tore away his gaze and looked at the 2nd year batter Toda. Having trained him since 1st year, Enomoto knew that Toda was indeed right-handed and that he was not exactly the best batter on the team but...

'Yamamoto!" Enomoto called out, interrupting Tsuna's self-deprecating comments. The allstar happened to be rifling through his bag for his water bottle near them and Enomoto got up from the benches to where Yamamoto was. Tsuna watched as they exchanged words and a few times, Yamamoto turned back towards Tsuna (Tsuna could only duck his head in a pretense of checking his attendance clipboard in his embarrassment). Yamamoto grinned and nodded to whatever the coach said and jogged away to the pitcher's mound.

Enomoto slumped back down on the benches next to Tsuna before he bellowed, "Todaaa!"

Toda looked around and pointed at himself. Enomoto nodded and Toda shrugged before he started jogging up to him and Tsuna, who was staring at the coach with a confused expression. "Yes coach?"

"Try batting from your left." Enomoto said. Tsuna let out a small, characteristic squeal of 'Hieee!' as his expression became identical to the one in 'The Scream' painting. Toda had a questioning look but nonetheless, nodded and jogged back to the batter's box.

"C-Coach! W-What are you-" Tsuna stuttered, flailing his arms again. Enomoto ignored him and instead focused his attention on Toda who quickly got into the batter's position. Toda switched hands from his right to his left and exchanged meaningful nods with Yamamoto.

Yamamoto took a deep steadying breath where he stood and immediately, his eyes glinted with determination. He pulled his arm back and threw one of his deadly fast ball (the improved version of the fast ball that accidentally knocked Tsuna out cold once upon a time in Middle school).

Strike!

Toda's jaw tightened as the ball landed squarely in the catcher's mitt. Yamamoto looked back at Coach Enomoto who gave a nod and once Toda was ready again, Yamamoto served out another fast ball.

Strike! Toda missed this one as well but he found that his swing did not feel as awkward as before. He got back into position. Yamamoto flashed him a good natured smile before he got serious again. And another fast ball was thrown at Toda-

THUNK!

Nobody went to catch the ball that landed right next to a stunned shortstop because what the hell?! Toda had never in the history of playing managed to hit one of Yamamoto's pitches. Heck, most of the team could not boast hitting Yamamoto's monstrous pitching at all but out of the 3 pitches Yamamoto threw, Toda somehow managed to hit 1 of them?

"WHOA! TODA!"
"What the heck was that?!"

Toda stuttered, overwhelmed by the team crowding around him. "I... I don't know too. Coach Enomoto told me to batt with my left and-"

Heads turned to the coach who finally uncrossed his arms and landed a hard slap on Tsuna's back which forced him to step forward. "It was an observation our temporary manager made!" Enomoto shouted proudly before laughing.

Tsuna went red and shook his hands in front of his face quickly to deny the credits. Yamamoto chuckled to himself at his classmate's modesty.

"Dame-Tsuna did?!"
"No way!"

Despite coach Enomoto trying to convince the team, they didn't believe him. Tsuna tugged the brawny man's shirt to say, 'it was alright and that he should let it go'. Enomoto sighed and agreed but now, seeing Tsuna in a different light, started asking him what he thought could improve the team dynamics.

27

Reborn, who was watching the interaction from the rooftop of the school building, smirked. Having gone through Reborn's Spartan training for nearly 2 months, Tsuna was steadily becoming a very capable candidate for Vongola Decimo. And it seems his dame student's Hyper Vongola Intuition had blossomed quicker than he expected.

Reborn tugged at the knot of his tie, sliding it down a little to give him more breathing space. "So. What do you think," Reborn asked, turning to the half Italian next to him. "Smoking bomb?"

Gokudera just watched as the small brunette grew flustered under the buff coach's attention but nonetheless, Tsuna shyly gave his opinions which the coach started to note down on a notepad he produced out of nowhere. So, Sawada really was the Vongola Decimo?

But... how could it be? Sawada had absolutely zero bloodlust. He scared too easily and in the rarer moments that he laughed or smile, he did it too freely. It was impossible for Sawada to be the Vongola Decimo. He'd be killed off brutally as soon as he stepped onto the playing field of the mafia world.

Gokudera shook his head lightly. This was no time to sympathize with Sawada! "Is it true? If I kill Sawada, I'll inherit the Decimo title?" Gokudera asked Reborn.

Reborn's fedora tipped forward to cast shadows over his eyes and nodded. Gokudera clenched his jaw. What the hell? How could Reborn so easily agree to his question like that? Didn't he keep Sawada under his wing for 2 whole months? Gokudera gritted his teeth together as he turned away from the World's Best Hitman. So, this was the mafia that he wanted so desperately to join.

'No hard feelings Sawada.' Gokudera thought, taking out a cigarette from his pack and placing it between his lips. He lit up the cig and breathed in the nicotine deeply. "It's just business."

27

"Great job today, Sawada!" Enomoto grinned, ruffling the hair of the temporary club manager. "The little observation you made really helped improve Toda's swing."

"N-no, it was n-nothing rea-really..." Tsuna stuttered but his modest little comment was drowned out by the coach's loud laughter.

"Man! If only the team can give up the dream of a female manager, you'd be great for the role!" Enomoto said before a thoughtful look appeared on his face. "Sawada, do you think you can dress up in a girl's uniform?"

"C-coach!" Tsuna's face proceeded to turn into a beetroot. Enomoto only laughed again before he dismissed the team with a loud 'Otsukare!'.

"Otsukaresama!" Tsuna chorused at the baseball club members as they packed up to leave. Coach Enomoto had to cut the practice short since he had to supervise the practice match that the boys volleyball team was having. Plus, it had started to rain as well.

"Sorry Tsuna. I'd stay and help but I need to go help out at my dad's restaurant." Yamamoto said with a sigh as he tugged his messenger bag's strap over one shoulder.

"D-don't worry about it." Tsuna said quickly. "You go help your dad. I can handle cleaning up on my own." There wasn't too much to do anyways. He just needed to sort out and put away the equipment.

Yamamoto nodded. "Okay then. I'll see you tomorrow!" Yamamoto said, running off before he looked back behind his shoulder with a large grin. "Oh and good work with helping Toda-senpai!" Yamamoto waved and laughed as Tsuna tried to deny it again.

Tsuna sighed affectionately at Yamamoto's retreating back before he started to clean up. Shielding himself poorly from the rain with his hand over his head, Tsuna dragged the equipment back to the equipment shed. Like always, a blue dog shaped origami awaited him. A smile bloomed on Tsuna's face as he unfolded the origami.

"Hello again my origami friend! Today's baseball practice was good! Coach was at tip top form and dished out many tips and advices today. But I think the real strategist was our manager!" Tsuna read out. A pleasant heat crept into his cheeks at the recognition. "He was the friend I told you about! Aha! But he and the transfer student seems to have made up now! I'm so glad!"

Then at the next few lines, Tsuna's lips pursed. "But... recently, I feel like I haven't been doing so well at baseball. What do you think I should do, my origami friend?" Tsuna finished reading. He wondered what advice he could give. He didn't know who this friend of his was so he couldn't exactly offer advice... Tsuna sighed and after much thinking, he wrote down a reply on a square of origami paper he started carrying. Soon, there was a white crane origami that sat on the shelf of the cleaning equipment locker.

Tsuna let out a sigh and looked up at the ceiling of the equipment shed. The rain was beating down on the roof hard and outside the small window next to the cleaning cupboard, the sky had taken on a dark, almost steel color. Tsuna hoped it wasn't a storm brewing outside because he didn't have his umbrella or his raincoat with him. Tsuna flinched at a sudden pressure directed at the back of his head. It was oppressing and dark...

'Bloodlust!'

Tsuna quickly whirled around and inhaled sharply at the sight of Gokudera standing just a few feet away from him. However, at the recognition of a familiar face, Tsuna calmed. "Gokudera-san," Tsuna heaved a sigh of relief, patting his chest softly as if that would help slow down his heart. "You surprised me there."

Gokudera said nothing and just stood at the mouth of the shed with his head tipped down. If it weren't for the small ember descending down the cancer stick, Tsuna would've thought that Gokudera was frozen in time. His eyes were shadowed by his hair but Tsuna only needed to read his posture and frowning mouth to know something was off. "Ano... Gokudera-san, are you alright?" Tsuna asked, inching forward. The tense atmosphere still held and despite mentally reassuring himself that Gokudera was a friend and that he (probably) wouldn't hurt him, Tsuna continued to feel the urge to run away.

Gokudera slowly pulled out his dynamites from the pockets of his pants. "Ah! Could it be that Gokudera-san has a migraine?" Tsuna asked before he shoved both hands into his pant pockets to take out his tuna patterned wallet.

The silver-haired bomber's grip on the hidden dynamites tightened but before he could lit up the dynamites, Tsuna held out a strip of Aspirin that he produced from his wallet at Gokudera. "I heard too much coffee can be pretty dehydrating and cause migraines sometimes. Although I think Reborn is an exception to-"

Gokudera's head snapped up, startling Tsuna with the sudden movement and Tsuna was confronted with a pair of conflicted jade eyes. "I..." Tsuna blinked. Instead of the intense and uncomfortable aura that Gokudera had been giving off, Tsuna's senses were now receiving a very hesitant and burdened aura. Gokudera was having some kind of internal conflict, Tsuna realized. "I-it's... it's alright, Gokudera-san." Tsuna blurted out. He didn't know why he said that. Only that... it felt right to say it.

Gokudera's eyes widened. And like a dog with its tail between its legs, Gokudera ran off, ignoring Tsuna's confused and concerned shouts. The raindrops that pelted down on him felt like bullets, wetting his hair, his clothes and his body. Gokudera gritted his teeth together as he ran, fingers still gripping his dynamites tightly. Cazzo*! He shouldn't have looked at Sawada. If he hadn't, he wouldn't have seen those trusting eyes that would now haunt his dreams. If he hadn't, he would've pulled off the job and lived as Vongola Decimo.

Cazzo! Cazzo! Cazz-

Gokudera's body collided with another body. Because of the fast pace at which he was sprinting, there was a large impact on collision but despite this, neither Gokudera nor the other person fell to the floor. "Ugh! What the hell?! Watch where you're going you little bastard!"

Gokudera side stepped the stranger and continued walking. "Are you ignoring me you little twerp?!" A meaty hand slammed down on Gokudera's shoulders and pulled him back.

3 faces, scarred and rough, glared menacingly at Gokudera. Gokudera recognized their pine green school uniforms as the uniforms of Kokukyo High School. The high school had the infamous reputation as a delinquent school where misfits and hoodlums gathered. Gokudera smirked. What great timing.

Later, when a certain leader of the disciplinary committee patrol the town to investigate the sounds of explosions that seemed to be becoming quite frequent, he found 3 knocked out Kokukyo students lying injured on the ground with little burn marks and dark soot powdering their features. The soot was probably from the explosions he heard go off. But seeing as any trouble had resolved itself already and the culprit nowhere to be seen, Hibari Kyoya simply turned and returned to the disciplinary committee's office in Namimori High school.

27

Tsuna was worried, to say the least. Gokudera seemed to be avoiding him after what happened yesterday. Even though Tsuna was sure that Gokudera would be working the evening shift at the 7-11 yesterday (since Gokudera had told Tsuna that he worked pretty much every day except for Mondays and Wednesdays), Gokudera was nowhere to be seen. Instead the grumpy store manager was manning the register and grumbled about 'irresponsible teenagers' when Tsuna asked about Gokudera.

And today, Gokudera had been ignoring Tsuna's hello's and attempts at polite conversation all morning. 'Is he feeling ill?' Tsuna wondered as he attempted the chemical formula that Nezu-sensei had him do in front of the whole class.

Fortunately, he had gone through the material with Reborn several times and understood the concept of it (being electrocuted for every wrong answer was a very good motivator for learning quickly) so his answer was correct. Nezu-sensei was none too pleased with it.

"Tell me Sawada, who's giving you all the answers huh? Because you can't possibly have worked that out on your own." Nezu hissed, pointing an accusatory finger at Tsuna.

"Eh? But I-" Tsuna started to say but was cut off quickly by the science teacher.

"What? Are you trying to talk back against your teacher?" Nezu snarled before smirking as Tsuna visibly deflated.

"Ah, sensei. Is there something wrong with Tsuna's work?" Tsuna and Nezu both turned to see Yamamoto whose eyebrows were scrunched up as he squinted at the black board. "I don't know but that looks pretty solid to me." Yamamoto said with a confused expression.

Nezu-sensei looked back at the black board. The answer was correct and the working out proved Tsuna knew what he was doing. But for this no-good student, who in Middle School consistently got shit grades... For that Tsunayoshi to suddenly become a student who now got above average grades just because of some homeschooling tutor that started just 2 months ago? Preposterous! It also bruised his pride as a teacher that some random tutor achieved in making Tsunayoshi actually learn, something that Nezu had given up on doing since middle school.

Nezu looked back at the class and saw the questioning looks on his students. Normally, they would not doubt Nezu's tactics in humiliating Tsuna since Tsuna was ostracized by them but having the popular Yamamoto question him, the students were shaken.

"What? So Takeshi is right? Dame-Tsuna actually answered correctly?"

"Ehhh. What's Nezu's deal then?"

Flustered by the student's muttering and judging glances, Nezu snapped back to the black board and hastily said, "Sawada! Return to your seat!"

"H-hai." Tsuna said, quietly returning to his seat. As he slided into his seat, he saw Yamamoto giving him a 'thumbs up'. Tsuna gave a small smile in return and mouthed 'thank you'. Yamamoto just grinned widely which Gokudera scoffed at. This pulled Tsuna's attention to the half-Italian bomber who caught Tsuna's eyes and quickly looked away, resting his chin on a propped up palm. 'Oh no! Did I do something to offend him?!' Tsuna cried in his mind as he sat down. 'But what?'

While Tsuna frantically tried to remember the things he could've done to piss off the bomber, Gokudera was thinking about how he was going to have to kill Tsuna. Despite blowing off some steam, in the most literal sense via the Kokukyo students, Gokudera had spent the whole day yesterday thinking about killing Tsuna with conflicted feelings. He didn't even turn up for work yesterday which the manager did not take too kindly on and sacked him right away.

Killing Tsuna would mean that he would finally be accepted into a famiglia. And not only would he be accepted into a famiglia, he would become the boss of the most powerful famiglia of all of Italy's mafia: the Vongola. Gokudera would finally be able to take revenge on his father. Tsuna was just a stepping stone. He could do it. If he had thrown away the piano, the most important link he had to his mother, then what was one Jap?

That's right. Gokudera will do it and inherit the Vongola name. All he needed was the opportunity to get Tsuna alone so he could make his move.

27

That opportunity came unexpectedly quick, in the form of 'releasing the creative soul' or whatever hippie notion the art teacher had. And the mafia gods seemed to be smiling down at Gokudera because it just so happened that Ama-sensei paired Gokudera with our cute little protagonist and sent them off to the Gardening club's area with disposable cameras.

Gokudera discreetly glanced over at Tsuna who was taking a photo of one of the many pots of flowers that the gardening club members were nurturing. And while Gokudera was relieved that Tsuna had his guards down (which would make killing him that much easier), he cursed the brunette. 'What self-respecting mafiaso would be so careless in the presence of another man?!'

As if sensing his irritation, Tsuna jolted and turned to look over his shoulder at Gokudera who quickly snapped a random photo of the garden hose that was lying a few feet away before walking away. 'Cazzo! He sensed my killing intent?!' Gokudera brought the camera up to his face again, taking yet another random photo. 'Let's play it safe. Make sure his guard is truly lowered.'

"Ne Sawada, what kind of a person is your mother?" Gokudera asked casually. Tsuna blinked a couple of times at Gokudera, surprised that Gokudera was suddenly talking to him when he was avoiding him all morning.

"Kaa-san?" Tsuna thought for a moment. "She's... kind. I'd say almost to a fault but when she gets angry, she can become very scary." Tsuna chuckled and Gokudera stopped his pretense to look at Tsuna who carefully took a photo of the graffiti carved into the trunk of a Sakura tree. "She's kind of gullible as well and sees the best in people and despite having such a no good son, Kaa-san always says she is proud of the person I am and that she is blessed." Tsuna's eyes glazed over with a layer of tears. "Kaa-san is a truly wonderful person." Tsuna smiled. Gokudera was struck by the sincerity of the brunet's smile and couldn't help returning a small one himself. "What about you Gokudera-san? What kind of person is your mother?"

Gokudera looked away from Tsuna again. His mother, huh? How long has it been? Since he last saw her? Heard her voice? Gokudera gave a non-committed shrug. "I guess she was a lot like your mom. I... never really got to know her. She was a mistress, you see and I am from a mafia background." Gokudera waited for the shriek of fear that was trademark to Tsuna but instead he found Tsuna listening to him intently. "Did you know that the Mafia are really strict with their rules? Because my mother was a mistress, she was limited to seeing me, her own flesh and blood only thrice a year but she was always very cheerful when we met even though I did not know that she was actually my mother until... she was gone."

Tsuna did not reach out to comfort him, instinctively knowing that Gokudera would see such a gesture as pity and would react negatively to it. Tsuna simply listened, letting him speak and Gokudera found that he appreciated this gesture. "I... I kinda wanted to become a pianist like her when I was a kid. She once said these hands were good for playing piano." Gokudera said, holding up his left hand with an exasperated smile. "It's kind of a strange thing to say, right?"

Gokudera was surprised when Tsuna gently took Gokudera's hands in his own. Tsuna's smaller hands instantly warmed the cool of the rings on Gokudera's fingers. "These are beautiful, dependable hands. I think your mother is right, Gokudera-san. You have the hands of an artist. I'd like to hear you play someday." Tsuna said with a sincere smile and Gokudera felt his cheeks flush. He quickly pulled his hands away from the smaller male, making Tsuna think he had offended Gokudera with his words and apologized quickly.

Cazzo! He forgot that he had only brought up the topic of family to distract Tsuna and lower his guard! Gokudera glanced at Tsuna who was still apologizing and slowly pulled out his dynamites. This was the perfect opportunity to-

"You!" Gokudera and Tsuna looked up to see a group of Kokukyo students walking towards them. "That's the fucker that bombed us yesterday!" Gokudera saw one of the delinquents from yesterday pointing an accusatory finger at him and scowled. A fist was thrown without any warning but Gokudera wasn't a mafiaso for nothing; he dodged the fist with ease and jumped away from the group, creating a distance between them before dynamites were thrown at them.

"G-gokudera-san!"

The small voice coughed through the thick layer of smoke which reminded Gokudera of Tsuna's presence. Cazzo! Gokudera saw the small silhouette of Tsuna through the curtain of smoke and grabbed the boy, pulling him out of the smoke. "Run you idiot!" Gokudera barked, shoving the boy away. Tsuna gave Gokudera a terrified look but obeyed and ran away, stumbling on his steps as he did.

"Oh now you did it!" The angry and wounded delinquents roared as the smoke cleared. Before Gokudera could throw his dynamites, two of them tackled him to the floor. Gokudera snarled, struggling furiously in their hold and got rewarded with a heavy kick to the stomach. He gritted his teeth together from the pain, refusing to give these assholes the satisfaction of crying out. A dynamite rolled near his hands and Gokudera bucked wildly, throwing one of them off and punched the other one away to make a grab for the dynamite stick. Before he reached it, a booted foot slammed down on his hand.

"Gah!"

"You're not so tough without your explosives, are you?" The delinquent laughed, grinding the boot into Gokudera's hand as his underlings kicked at Gokudera until the silver haired Italian was coughing up a little blood.

"S-STOP!" The kicks paused. Gokudera looked up to see Tsuna, his soft feature pulled into a fierce glare when he saw that Gokudera's foot was being stepped on. "GET YOUR FOOT OFF HIS HANDS!" Tsuna yelled, charging towards the delinquent that was stepping on Gokudera's hand. Nobody was really expecting retaliation from such a small, effeminate boy (Were those amber flames coming out of his forhead?) and thus the delinquent fell off Gokudera's hand. Immediately Gokudera grabbed his dynamite and attacked.

Several explosions went off quickly, dousing the area with dark smoke. "What the-?! Where did they go?!" One of them growled, squinting into the smoke when he saw a silhouette and smirked triumphantly. There! He swung his metal pipe, throwing his shoulder into it so there would be a bigger impact when-

Thud!

"For disrupting Namimori's peace, I'll bite you all to death." Several gasps combined into one collective gasp of fear. Because that catchphrase was very well known across all of Namimori. The smoke finally cleared to show Hibari Kyoya with his tonfas that had blocked the metal pipe. Out of sheer horror, the metal pipe slipped from the hand of the Kokukyo student and Hibari gave a light smirk as his defensive stance changed into one of offense.

If anyone heard the screams that echoed throughout Namimori High, they'd think that there was a genocide happening... and to be honest, they wouldn't be completely wrong.

27

"Are you alright, Gokudera-san?" Tsuna asked immediately after he closed the door to the sports equipment shed where he'd dragged Gokudera to.

Gokudera weakly hit Tsuna on the head and grunted as intimidatingly as he could, "What were you thinking? Didn't I tell you to run?!"

Tsuna panicked. "Y-you did but I was worried! And when I saw them stepping on you like that, I-I just got really angry and! And! If I let you fend for yourself in that situation, I would never be able to forgive myself since your hands-! Hands are very important to pianists' right? And Gokudera-san, you want to become a pianist like your mother right?"

Gokudera was stunned into silence. Sawada was thinking of him so much? Of his safety? Of his abandoned dreams? Gokudera's head slowly ducked into his chest and his body trembled which made Tsuna shut up at once.

"Gokudera-san?" Tsuna said hesitantly as the trembling intensified. But Gokudera's head lifted to reveal an enormous grin on his face. Tsuna realized that Gokudera's body was trembling in an effort to control his chuckles. "Gokudera-san?" Tsuna started again, his concern for his half-Italian friend growing. Did the delinquents hit him too hard? Maybe they should go to the infirmary.

"I lost." Gokudera chuckled, his laughter subsiding. He turned to Tsuna and a smile slowly grew on his face as Tsuna blinked rapidly. "I lost." He repeated, before he patted Tsuna's head, silently marveling at the softness of it. "You are worthy."

Tsuna did not understand what Gokudera was talking about at all but he felt comforted by what he was seeing. The lack of tension between Gokudera's eyebrows, the absence of steel in his eyes and the easy, gentle smile made Gokudera look quite handsome. Tsuna felt himself blush and quickly reprimanded himself at being distracted from Gokudera's wounded state. "I'll g-go and get some first-aid supplies!" Tsuna said, scrambling out of the equipment's shed with graceless speed.

Gokudera rolled his eyes affectionately at Tsuna and wiped away the crusting line of blood he'd coughed up. He hissed when a bit of sweat got onto one of the small scabs on his knuckles from where his hand was stomped on and looked down at them. His hands were dirtied and covered in familiar dark soot, burn scars from years of perfecting his technique, blood specks that he'd wiped away and new cuts he'd earned today.

'These are beautiful, dependable hands.'

Gokudera snickered. "Beautiful? What a joke!" He laughed again, running his less injured hand through his hair. "Sawada really can't differentiate between what's ugly and what's beautiful, huh?"

'I think your mother is right, Gokudera-san.'

"He's totally not going to survive. Yup." Gokudera nodded to himself, crossing his arms over his chest and winced lightly at the tenderness of his ribs. This sobered him. He looked up at the roof of the equipment's shed and sighed. "He's totally not cut out for the mafia world, Reborn."

The wall next to Gokudera opened to show Reborn sitting in a throne-like chair, sipping coffee. "He is the rightful heir of Vongola. You know what is expected of him." Reborned said, gently putting the coffee cup down onto the saucer. "The question is what are you going to do, Smoking Bomb?"

'You have the hands of an artist.'

Gokudera chuckled. "Someone's gotta keep the Vongola Decimo alive, right?" Gokudera said, looking at Reborn lazily through the corner of his eyes.

Reborn's smirk was hidden by the cup as he took another sip of his coffee. Despite the relaxed body language of Gokudera's body, his jade eyes are drilling holes into Reborn. They were full of determination and possessed a wild look, as if daring Reborn to just try and keep him away from Tsuna. "He is perfect as Tsuna's storm guardian." Reborn muttered to himself as the wall closed.

Just as the wall disintegrated into nothingness, Tsuna came running in with a small first aid kit and heavy pants. Gokudera grinned at the boy before a coughing fit hit him, making Tsuna do an odd wiggling dance of panic. Gokudera laughed through the uncomfortable pinching sensation at his sides as Tsuna all but dumped the contents of the first aid kit on the floor and hastily began to administer first-aid to Gokudera.

'I'd like to hear you play someday.'

Tsuna disinfected and dressed his wounds with practiced ease, completely missing the fond smile on Gokudera's face.

"I'd like to play for you someday... Juudaime."

Koshien*: Hanshin Koshien stadium is the stadium where high school baseball tournaments are held. So basically, Koshien is the high school Baseball championship.

Cazzo*: The swear word, fuck.

Okay. So, as you may know, we're in uni right now and there is an unexpected amount of workload and stress, which is why progress has been down in the dumps a lot (despite the fact that we have a pretty solid idea about how the plot and characters are going to be). That and the kinda disappointing amount of reviews have us wondering if we should continue. We'd hate to abandon Lost Stars or leave it on a hiatus (like most of our other fics) and we even hate writing this right now because it feels like we're guilt-tripping you guys but we're seriously debating if we should keep writing. To those who favorites, follows and most importantly, leaves reviews, thank you so much, and please know that you guys are the pillar of our motivation and the reason why we haven't given up on Lost Stars completely.