The sky is a crisp blue canvas, dotted here and there with wispy clouds, like white cotton candy spilt across the heavens.

The sun shines down with all its might, coaxing out the last few hesitant seeds of life from their long winter hibernation.

The air is thick and warm and, in the Vongola's private gardens at least, filled with the subtle scent of bright young blossoms.

Thirty-five-year-old Yamaguchi Yaiko swipes her brow as she stands up straight, stretching her arms above her and arching her back, to get the kinks out.

It's been almost a week now that she has been working at the Vongola Headquarters as a housekeeper and sometimes gardener, and she still can't quite believe her situation.

Just two weeks ago, she had been a recently widowed, stay-at-home-mother with no means of providing for herself or any of her three children.

Now, she has a comfortable job at the headquarters of the most powerful mob boss in all of Italy, who is paying her more than enough to pay her bills, afford good food and clothes for herself and her children, and put some aside for a rainy day.

The only possible down side to all of this?

She hates the mob.

Hates it with a passion.

Yaiko has had an extremely strong sense of justice since the day she was born, and if it had just been her life on the line, she would never have agreed to work for the Vongola.

But with three young mouths to feed, her morals come in second place.

In contemplating all this, she doesn't even realize that she has been watering the same bush of roses for the past three minutes until a gentle hand pulls the watering can out of the way.

Yaiko stares dazedly for a moment at the completely drenched red rose bush in front of her, before turning to see who has interrupted her musing, and coming face-to-face with a young man, approximately fifteen years younger than her, of distinctly Japanese descent.

The young man, who looks about twenty-two, has smiling brown eyes the colour of wet sand, and soft brown hair of the exact same shade, which refuses to lay flat.

He is wearing a worn old orange t-shirt, and a pair of grey khaki shorts that look comfortable, if not anywhere near new. The man's feet are completely bare and covered in dirt, which he doesn't seem to mind. All in all, he looks like a very strange young man.

Perhaps he is the head gardener.

Yaiko had heard that he was rather eccentric.

Bare feet counted as eccentric, right?

"Are you alright, onee-san?" he asks.

A wide smile then stretches across Yaiko's face, softening her features and making her look years younger. The young man decides he likes how she looks.

"I'm fine," says Yaiko, the words taking just the slightest bit too long to form in her mind.

This, more than anything, reminds her of how long it's been since she' last seen her home country. It's comforting however, to hear the familiar sounds of her mother tongue, and she almost cries of relief.

"I'm just a little tired," she tells the young man, though she has no idea why. "My children were being somewhat fussy last night."

The boy nods like he understands, and suddenly, Yaiko realizes just how old he looks.

Not physically, of course. But in his manner.

He has the air of one who has lived much longer and seen much more than those even twice his age.

"Have you got your own?" she asks, he interest spiked, and the young man smiles. The fond, exasperated, proud smile of a father.

"I have three wards," he says.

Then, he's quiet for a moment.

He runs a hand through his hair, an action which makes him seem even older, and laughs.

"It's exhausting, isn't it?" he asks, and Yaiko doesn't know how to answer.

"Having the weight of these lives resting solely on your shoulders," he says, and Yaiko knows immediately he doesn't just mean the lives of his wards.

"It is," she replies, understanding completely. "But it's worth it."

The young man looks almost shocked for a few seconds, before the largest grin spreads across his face.

"I like you," he says, completely without preamble, and Yaiko looks at him in confusion. "Would you like to be my personal assistant?" he asks.

Yaiko is unimpressed at this.

"Why would you need a personal assistant?" she asked, completely baffled. "Who even are you, anyways?"

The brunet looks startled, as if he had not been expecting that question.

And then he begins to laugh.

He laughs and laughs.

And when he's done laughing, he seems almost lighter somehow.

He opens his mouth, as if to answer, but is interrupted.

"JUUDAIME!" calls out a familiar voice, and both occupants of the garden turn to look at who is approaching.

Tall and imposing in his neatly pressed black suit, Hayato Gokudera comes to a stop immediatley in front of Yaiko's garden buddy, and throws his arms around her friend.

"Thank God you're alright," he is repeating over and over again to the young man in his arms. "You diseappeared without telling anyone where you were going and we were so worried, Tsunayoshi-san.

Yaiko takes a few steps back, her eyes widening as she realizes who she has been talkign to all this time.

She is both horrified for treating the young man like anybody else, but also because she may actually be starting to...like him?

The young man is somewhat differnet now that his second-in-command is here.

He stands straight, tall and proud, but at the same time, he looks suddenly so much...heavier than before.

And Yaiko can't blame him.

For a short time, he had simply been a boy/young man having fun in his garden.

But now that his Family has come, he must take up his mantle again.

And as she watches him walk off with his storm, he looks back once or twice, and Yaiko begins thinking that it may not be too bad, being Vongola Decimo's assistant.

At thirty-five, she has three lives depending on her, and already, it's exhausting for her.

Vongola Decimo, however, is just twenty-two, and already has hundreds of thousands of lives, each and every one of them depending on him in some way, and he's still so strong.

A lesser man would have been too paralyzed to try get anything done.

Thank God that Vongola Decimo isn't a lesser man.

SkyGem: The end! This fic was a chance for me to explore my writing style, and to try my hand at present tense writing, which is always a fun experience, so I'm sorry if it's plotless and random and not at all interesting. But please do leave me a review and let me know what you thought, yeah? Also, I'm like 75% asleep by the time I've finished writing this, so please excuse any errors you saw, yes? I'll go back and edit this tomorrow.