Title: Rendezvous after Heartbreak

Summary: She never knew that sitting on a bench could actually lead to a hysterical confession… he never knew either.

Prompt 6: Rebound

Pairing: Slight Yamamoto/Haru [8086]

The woman chuckled slightly as she brushed off the tears of her moistened eyes with her left arm. It was strange, crazy maybe, as she found herself laughing at her own misery.

There had never been a single moment she doubted her undying love for Tsuna. For years, Haru had always believed and constantly proclaimed that she would be no one else's bride but his. And all along she was expecting that the feeling was mutual.

But she realized that assuming everything without even asking the boy was really … idiotic. She thought that because there were no protests coming from him (well, a clear indication maybe) she blindly believed that it had been the perfect romance. So maybe she heard one, two or even three objections, but what could she have done? Was it so bad to love someone?

"Haru's really sad," she sniffed when she heard the stranger laughed as well.

Why she was talking and blurting all her love problems to someone unknown was beyond her way of thinking. It was even more bizarre that she hadn't even thought of turning around to know who on earth that person was. Oddly though, the stranger was contented as well just to sit right behind her and listen to her heartaches.

"So what's the problem?" he asked with excruciating innocence.

"Haru told you, she likes him and he…likes somebody else," she replied with the hope of forgetting the pain as soon as the words left her mouth and with the slightest prayer that the stranger would finally figure out that she was heart broken.

"Ah…I see," he answered with a thoughtful tone.

'That's it?' she thought, her brows twitching in annoyance. She couldn't help it, after spending the whole thirty minutes crying her heart out, she at least expected some good advice.

"So what do you think?" she really was tempted to turn around and find out who this clueless individual was but resisted the urge to do so as she found it comforting – kind of thrilling in a way – to confess her secrets to someone she didn't know.

It was a spur-in-a-moment decision. After finally realizing that Tsuna didn't really consider her as someone he could spend his entire lifetime with, better known as wife, she forced a smile on her face and stepped back only to rush outside unable to hold back the tears that she held on for not so long.

She knew it was wrong; she should have congratulated Tsuna for finding the person he loves. She knew she should be happy that the man she devoted her love for the past ten years had been happy with his decision of asking the hand of the girl he truly cared for, one of her best female friends, Kyoko-chan.

But instead, she ran, selfishly on her own, just because she was too overwhelmed to even utter 'Cheers for the newlyweds!' Her only defense was the thought that she was not once informed that being rejected could be that painful. It was annoyingly anguishing that she wanted to bang her head just to distract herself from the piercing torture.

Genuinely dramatic but still the truth none the less.

Not so long walk and mulling brought her accidentally to a park. It was almost midnight that she didn't wonder that it was deserted…except for one place, a bench, which was currently occupied by a lone figure staring through the starless skies. She squinted through the darkness hoping to recognize who the person was but failed. Instead of losing her mind over the matter though, she was too tired to think anyway, she opted to continue her walk and settled herself on the bench behind the stranger. He seemed unperturbed at the set-up so she assumed that it was all right for her to be there.

"Get going," he finally said.

"A very novel way to say an advice," Haru, even though unimpressed at his comment, smile despite herself.

"Thank you," the stranger chuckled. "It's just like baseball; forget about the loss but not the lesson."

Haru couldn't help but feel that the strange analogy was some sort of familiar. "Thanks for the advice," she shrugged and brushed the thought off. "Haru needs to go. She still needs to congratulate her friend."

"Sure," he replied after a moment of pause.

With a sigh, she stood up with a silent plea to meet the mysterious man someday.

-End-