.x.
RED
.x.
Hibari ran into the room, leaning against the doorway. "Excuse my absence," he said between breaths. "Back to your persecution. What are you doing here on a Saturday—to paint, no less?"
Silence, of course, from Mukuro. Hibari tilted his head to the side, growling. "Did any one come this way?"
The smallest grin emerged on the painter's lips.
.x.
Ten minutes earlier…
He was the true artist, all alone in his dead still art area.
Just him and the art board, sprawled across the wall with tape.
Black, sure strokes over the white canvas. He would bow once in a while to grab a sheet of newspaper from the pile that was on the floor beside him; he would attach the article onto the wall, using the paint as glue.
He was covered in it, from the collar of his white shirt to the hem of his elegant dress pants, tainted with the dried ebony paint from his anomalous design.
A red eye observed as his hand seized the brush, smearing the paint in random directions.
Steady, sound strokes, all along the thin paper, abstract and generally irregular—he was almost painting the whole thing in black.
The large, bare ballet studio, he had only picked the corner of one wall to work on. From the window on the other side, the sun bared down directly across the floor, leaving him the smallest shade. The vertical blinds were pressed against the wall.
A blue eye caught something behind him.
His lips parted, curling into a smirk. A trickle of black had dried on the curve of his mouth.
"Just black? What an atrocious color to stand unaccompanied," another voice commented.
A bird outside looked on through the glass, perched on the towering branch of a tree pushed against the window, rubbing against it each time the wind blew substantially.
An impatient black boot kicked over one of the metal buckets, wasting the paint as it gradually spread across the blue tarp laid around the area. It didn't faze the artist in the least, who had still not turned to address the unwelcomed company.
"It is Saturday. Students are not welcomed on school grounds on weekends, especially this late in the afternoon."
The young, ebony-haired male stood behind the artist in silence, waiting for the reply; he still didn't say a word but continued to guide the brush over the wall. Hibari was hardly the one for patience, so he stepped forward towards this blue-haired stranger, the hairs on the back of his head oddly standing erect. However, as his grasp on his tonfas tightened, ready to tear into this intruder, a sound in the distance stopped him—glass had broken in another room of the school. It couldn't have been too far off; the sound had sounded awfully close, and, within a second, Hibari was out of the door, rushing off to where he had remembered the crash to be with his cape of sorts flying out behind him, leaving the threat "Stay here or I'll bite you to death" to hang in the air, although the artist oddly didn't hear it.
Rather, he wasn't concerned by it.
Mukuro's smirk had long been gone; his face held no emotion, although his eyes glared just barely an inch away from the canvas. All was back to normal. The monotonous chirps of birds played throughout the room like a lullaby, slightly stifled with the glass being a barrier.
Mukuro bent down to drown his dried brush into the remaining black pail, his foot carelessly landing in the puddle that the impolite visitor had created just a moment ago, and back to painting it was, squinting his eyes to some extent as he stood against the artwork. For a split second, he could have sworn he heard the sound of sirens blasting close by out on the street.
The oncoming noise of heavy footsteps echoing off of the marble floor rushed towards him from the hallway, and within a moment another visitor ran inside the spacious area, running directly into the wall on the other side of the room. The guest leaned on it, attempting to catch his heaving breath. Mukuro could hear him from his corner. The boy's casual clothes were wrinkled and untidy, as well as each brown spike on his pretty little head.
Although he saw Mukuro completely concentrating on his painting, he couldn't be too cautious—walking towards the blue-haired artist with care, one hand on his chest as he breathed heavily from his previous actions.
"Pardon?"
The fingers on the wooden handle of the brush loosened, the sound of the bristles becoming less evident to the ears of the artist.
"Excuse me, but… have you seen any of the school's security pass this way?"
Silence.
"I was being … well, that's not important, but I had no choice but to break in to the school, and I'm afraid that they'll be after me."
The artist bent over to drown the angled hairs of the brush in the paint, getting the tips of his fingers wet. The boy tilted on one foot to see out of the doorway behind him.
"Do you mind if I stay here for a bit? Maybe they won't look over here." Tsuna moved closer and sat down on the floor, just barely off of the tarp. "May I ask: what are you doing? I mean, I don't see how covering the entire paper in one color is considered art. It looks rather plain, if you ask me."
Tsuna stared at the hunched back of Mukuro. He squinted above the blue-haired male, just barely being able to read the headlines of the newspapers.
"Oh," Tsuna whispered under his breath, drumming his fingers against his knees. He became curious at the content of the articles the painter had chosen. He could see words standing out from under the paint that almost covered them completely, more so the titles.
Fooled Police
He had read that article a week ago.
More Crimes—More Deaths
His eyes widened.
Unexplained Events
His fingers stopped their rhythm.
"So… ummm..." Tsuna leaned over to the side in order to see the spot of the painting Mukuro was blocking. The newspaper was easier to see.
Mastermind?
The pages that Tsuna had read in the past rushed through his mind. His eyes immediately found the pile of unpainted newspaper sitting next to the paint buckets. He pushed himself onto his knees, stretching his arm forward, grabbing the first paper on top. A red eye stared at Tsuna behind the back of Mukuro's head.
"'Two dead found in the river in the morning…" Tsuna scanned the paper for the seemingly important details, reading aloud, "…who had broken in to a jewelry store nearby right before.'"
Tsuna bit his lip.
"'Police ruled it another suicide.' What's the point of robbing a jewelry store and not sticking round to enjoy the profits of it?"
Tsuna switched papers, taking another from the pile.
"Oh, look at this. This one's from today."
Mukuro stopped.
"'The Evil Eye'," he read aloud, "'says one witness—the brainwashing mastermind behind it all. The witness, who was the last one of to see one of the most recent victims an hour before their plunge into the river, has been recently ridiculed for her questionable sanity—"
"Do you think there's someone behind it all?" Mukuro asked coldly, making Tsuna jump and drop the paper.
"I don't… think so," Tsuna whispered, staring down at the floor. "Maybe it's whatever's in the water!" He smiled at his little joke.
He was the only one.
"Oh, but I do,"
.x.
Mukuro began to paint in the lower left of the black paper, drawing a curve in red paint with his finger.
Hibari looked closer, an eyebrow raised.
Mukuro painted another curve, a mirror image of the first, to create an outlined heart in dark red, a color that barely stood out from the black. Hibari stared at the shape peculiarly, scanning the buckets of paint for the one with the same color.
Black. Just black.
"How…? Where did you get the red from?"
Mukuro gave the heart a second coat. Hibari's wrist watch beeped repeatedly at the turn of the hour—he scowled.
"I must take my leave—I have more important matters to attend. Be gone before nightfall or you'll be locked inside."
Mukuro wasn't concerned about being trapped in. Hibari must've read his mind.
"You break any windows—I'll bite you to death," he growled, walking out of the room in that high-strong posture of his, swinging his arm slightly in an attempt to look rough.
He wasn't doing a bad job at it, either.
Before putting on a third coat, Mukuro dropped the stained brush and plopped down onto the floor, wiping his discolored hand on the tarp under his behind. He raised his head to look at the painting above him but closed his eyes, sighing serenely in front of it.
He then rolled over after a minute, crawling over to the corner of the wall nearest to him.
"Where did you get the red from?"
On the side of the wall was a large indent, one that was not able to be seen from the doorway. It was large like a closet, just without the door to cover it. And inside it on the floor was a mangled mass of limbs, body parts distorted and in every which direction.
"Nowhere... nowhere at all…"
Author's Note: Tsuna was being chased by bullies before breaking into the school. Yup. It could happen.
For Broken Vows, mah wifey, even though she deserves much more than this!