Disclaimer: I do not own KHR.

Chapter 1: Eye of the Beholder

Lately, Yamamoto noticed, he was starting to see the beauty behind a lot of things. At first, it was just some small things, like the sunrise and sunset, or the little peonies blooming in the middle of spring, or the way the waves hit the shoreline. Maybe it was the way nature seemed to smile at you, even when you thought everything was dark and rainy, that he found beautiful. It was like nature had a rough plan laid out, with a disorganized time table for everything to happen. Despite all of its savage, haphazard organization, it was beautiful. And so he responded in his own beautiful way; he smiled.

This notion of beauty had quickly grown to encompass the little things people did. Things like the hot cup of tea Yamamoto found placed neatly on his desk when he first stepped into his office, or the way Hibari walked around the mansion on his feather-light feet, or even the way Gokudera would sour his expression just the tiniest bit when he noticed Kyoko's thumbnail-sized reminders stuck on every corner of Tsuna's desk; they were all beautiful in their own way. The way you could see their bonds was glorious, magnificent. The pain, the hurt, the love, the unity; all of it together made for a beautiful portrait. And just as always, he would smile.

Yamamoto, however, did not expect this sort of appreciation for everything to continue to further expand. He supposed he'd been spending too much time with the Varia, lately. Maybe more specifically, Lussuria, since he was the only one in the team willing to sit down and talk. The man would call it their own little tea party, gushing about the latest scandal or rumor or something. At some point, Yamamoto had even picked up a rumor about his "sinful trysts" with a certain flamboyant man. Of course, a few carefully placed cold smiles and "absentmindedly" brandished katanas later, that soon ended. Regardless, he didn't expect to discover the beauty in so many different things so quickly, and the world just seemed to be getting better and better.

Yamamoto couldn't help the smile that stretched across his face as he stood in the shadows of the corner of the room. The setting sun had flushed the ornate castle with a deep orange hue, casting large, ominous shadows through the room. The man before him was pacing back and forth nervously, stopping every so often to look outside the room, jumping every so often at the loud booms and bangs coming from outside the castle, taking no notice of the dark-haired man. He was fairly young, probably not more than five years older than Yamamoto himself, was decently built, had strong, bold features, and a crisp, clean suit.

He was, in a word, quite beautiful.

And at this realization, Yamamoto couldn't help but smile just a little bit wider and lick his lips. He could feel himself salivating in anticipation, imagining the look of pure shock soon to paint the poor man's face. At the next loud crack of what he assumed was the castle's outer wall being hammered, Yamamoto took a few quick strides towards the man, pulled a thin, strong line of wire from his sleeve, stepped behind him, and wrapped it around the unfortunate victim's neck before pulling it tight.

The man gasped and struggled with all his might, pulling and grasping and trying to break free. But it was a futile effort and Yamamoto was unrelenting, pulling the wire tighter with every little give of his throat, his arms managing the wire and one leg pushing against the man's back. After the initial struggle had subsided, the expected miserable, wordless attempt at begging for his life had occurred, quickly followed by the man's sudden limpness, as his body crumpled to the floor.

The assassin withdrew the wire and returned it to the little spool hidden on the inside of his suit jacket. In a quick movement, he had turned the dead man over on his back, staring at the man's face, his eyes running over his shoes, his pants, his shirt, and finally, to his face. It was contorted in pain, eyes blank and empty. The man must have started to cry in his last moments, his last tears running down his face before disappearing beneath his hair. His mouth was wide open, as if still trying to gulp down some precious air, frozen, with a thin line of saliva running down his chin and neck, which probably occurred when he'd started losing control of his senses. Yamamoto couldn't help but chuckle to himself at the sight.

It was beautiful.

The way the man's last moments were frozen in time, the way his thoughts and regrets were etched into his features, the stillness of it all; it was beautiful. What was beautiful in life, he surmised, must also be beautiful in death. And so he smiled again at the dead man before him, feeling the familiar warmth gathering in his gut, feeling the way his pants stretched tight against his groin. He let out one last, quick laugh in memory of the man, before turning away from the body and taking a deep breath to calm down.

He was at work. Getting a stiff one on the job was hardly professional. And with that thought, he left the room, making his way down the hall, smiling at the blood painted on the walls.

A little bit of last-minute cleanup and an extra few minutes later, Yamamoto had found himself in front of the team leader of this job. He threw a lazy salute at the man and opened his mouth to speak before he felt his salivary glands start acting up again.

The man was bruised and battered. The expensive suit that he had been wearing was torn apart, his muscular chest bared and the pant legs ripped and torn. He shifted his weight onto one leg, gingerly resting the other on the tip of his toes. There were cuts and bruises all over him, with a bigger gash across his chest, and what Yamamoto assumed were bullet wounds on his arms, his left hanging broken and limp. The man had opted to tie his necktie around his forehead for some reason he could not understand and noticed the numerous cuts and spots where it had begun to fray. His head had been bleeding, but it was, for the most part, stemmed. His silver hair was chopped unevenly and partly singed, he noticed, probably from some storm-element dying will flames.

He was beautiful, too.

"Glad you were here to help," he grunted, smiling, before grabbing the noticeably unharmed baseball player in a one-armed hug, and snapping him out of his stupor.

"Not a problem, Ryohei," he smiled, allowing the man to rest his weight on him a little too eagerly, not minding the way he felt the blood on his arm smear against his neck, "Things went well, as usual."

Yamamoto helped him to a group of medics and healers, resting him against a piece of wall that had landed there. He left him there before things started getting out of hand, before he would be roped into the post-combat cleanup, and, more importantly, before anyone noticed the awkward tenting of his pants and the flush of his cheeks.

Once he was far enough for no one to be able to notice him, he paused, staring at a trail of his friend's blood on his hand. He recalled the way Ryohei had looked in the dying sunlight, the way his broken body had looked, the way the blood ran down his face and arms, and that rough, boyish smile on his face. The images were so strong, so vivid, so fresh in his mind, and all he could do was smile and grin and chuckle to himself, before he licked his hand clean, savoring the taste of his friend's coppery blood.

He smiled.

It was troubling, but he had to agree with Lussuria. Ryohei did look absolutely sexy when his body was broken and bruised.

END

So, I'm back! I had a bit of a brainchild, I suppose, so this is what I'll be working on for now. I don't know what quite got me thinking about this, probably that line where Reborn says Yamamoto is a natural-born hitman or something, but here it is! It's a bit twisted and perverse, but I swear, I think I've got something.

Not sure if I want this to be an actual story with plot and continuity, but meh, we'll see how it goes. As usual, please read, review, and leave me any comments (or prompts! I like prompts!) you feel are necessary!