Had he grown soft?

Hibari Kyouya was not a herbivore. He lacked the ability to care for herbivores, or anyone else for that matter. He was meant to be alone—had, in fact, been alone all his life.

And yet, here he stood, in the empty halls of Namimoir, alone as usual…And he caught himself wishing he wasn't. It wasn't something so deceptively simple as wanting the halls to be filled with herbivorous students going about their daily school life. No, there was a certain not-quite-herbivore he had grown used to dealing with, a certain bronco that had often invaded his time alone. At the time, he had always been annoyed by the intrusion, or so he kept insisting, though by the end Dino had been asking with a smile just who he was trying to convince.

He had never admitted he hadn't hated having the man around, but instead he provided small allowances, so the other would always have at least the slightest bit of optimism—not that he was lacking in it to begin with, but at times he would get slightly downtrodden from rejection after rejection from the prickly skylark. And it was these times, when even Dino seemed to be giving up, that Hibari would offer a small allowance, a silent approval of advances that would cause the Italian to light up and redouble his efforts. It took the idiot several such occasions to finally figure out that sometimes a blatant "no, go away herbivore," could just as easily mean "try harder and we'll see," but once he did figure it out he had made quick work of breaking down as many of the skylark's walls as he could manage.

Though he certainly hadn't been the first to do so, time and time again Dino had made a point of bringing up the fact that Namimori was just a building, that loving a school was a one-sided love that could never be returned, and thus was completely pointless. And yet, Hibari still loved it, in much the same way that Dino still insisted constantly that he was in love with Hibari. He had only had to bring up this comparison once to shut the man up, but as time went on Dino had done his best to get him away from the school as often as possible, and the Vongola had sent him on an unorthodox number of missions out of the country, most likely at the bronco's request. Hibari knew it was an attempt to make him slowly but surely sever his bond with the school, but that bond was unbreakable.

Even now, when the building was worn down and desolate, abandoned by all others for years, that bond was unbreakable. He had kept it perfect for as long as he could, but eventually time had simply taken its toll on the school. It had been scheduled for demolition several times, but of course he had never allowed it to happen.

He had allowed himself to make a single connection otherwise, to have one more thing in the world that truly mattered to him, and that connection had been forcefully cut by mortality itself.

No matter what, Namimori could not be allowed to die.