Title: X'mas Prayer
Disclaimer: Katekyo Hitman Reborn is Amano Akira's
Credit: immeasurable thanks to Death-Scimitar for high quality & speedy beta reading
Author's Note: This fanfic uses British English (some spelling and punctuation differences, such as single quotations for normal speech)
The Japanese did not celebrate Christmas Eve with drowned broccoli rabe, vermicelli, roasted eel, fish salad, baccalà or susamielli. Instead, their special cuisine was the so-called 'Christmas Cake', which turned out to be strawberry short cake with additional Santa Claus or holly and ivy ornaments. Dino did not mind, for how could food compare to a lover's embrace?
Around Christmas, the streets were bedecked with colourful tinsel and lights—a heaven for pedestrians. On the contrary, the crowd hater Hibari Kyouya would shut himself at home. And it was exactly for this reason the wooer found it easy to locate the counterintuitive skylark.
Or, at least, that was what he had assumed.
Fact had no intention of exempting its usual cruelty, holiday season or not. Hibari Kyouya was not at home, his mobile was out of reach, and no one knew his whereabouts. True, he did not make any appointment with the Vongola guardian that night, but that was because he strongly suspected the sociopath would turn him down. He had expected a better chance if he showed up unexpectedly at the skylark's door.
Heaving a sigh, Dino left the bottle of champagne and the box of Christmas Cake on the doorstep and returned to the street empty handed. The taxi that brought him had left, but he was in no mood to find another. Instead, he walked around the block, allowing the drift of snow to colour his flaxen locks white. It was then he noticed a crucifix on a roof yonder and headed to the church.
On the way, a pair of lovers caught his eyes. The girl complained about the cold, and her boyfriend took off his scarf to wrap it around their necks. He also admitted her into the overcoat he was wearing, enabling their two figures to snuggle up as they walked.
Kyouya wouldn't let me do that.
Dino looked up. The diamond-scattered sky stretched above, serenely rejoicing for the birth of Christ. Is the firmament always this vast?
Inserting his hands into his pockets, Dino continued walking towards the church.
Five years had passed since Dino first found Hibari on the rooftop of Namimori Middle School. There were times when the Italian wished the proud boy would treat him a little kinder — calling him by his given name, for instance. Yet, the more Don Cavallone X got to know the Vongola Cloud Guardian, the more he was convinced the day the solitary cloud blatantly confessed how he missed the Bucking Horse would be the day of Apocalypse.
It was well past midnight when Dino stepped inside the snowy enclosure surrounded by church's low stone fence. Bathed in the golden glow from the flanking streetlamps, the sepia masonry of the house of the Lord turned into sienna colour. Nevertheless, the building itself was deserted, save for the seraphim sculptures that eyed him unblinkingly from the eaves. Guided by the gentle shards of moonlight that perforated through the multi-coloured stained glass, Dino knelt at the middle pew in the transept.
In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti.
The decorated Christmas tree on the chancel became the last object Dino glimpsed before he closed his eyes in a prayer.
Heavenly Father, today I killed ten.
Earlier that evening, another Famiglia had targeted him. To think that they had tailed him to Japan…
One was wearing a locket. His blood spattered the picture of his wife and infant son.
Fifteen henchmen had been sent under Don Ristagno's order to take Don Cavallone's life. Planning for a quiet holiday, Dino had not brought his subordinates. Only Romario came along.
How much more blood should I spill?
Even though five had perished under his aged hands, one of the bullets had grazed the bespectacled man's forearm.
When I was a child, I always wanted to go to heaven, but with each passing year, it eludes farther and farther from my reach.
'Boss, I can manage by myself. Don't ruin your holiday plan on me.' The don had rushed to the hospital with his right-hand man nonetheless.
I had no intention of visiting Tsuna today. Maybe out of guilt, since he has become a fine Mafioso without dirtying his hands with blood, while I…
Dino interlocked his fingers tighter. These were the fingers that had plundered countless lives. These were also the fingers that had purchased the champagne from one of his favourite wine shops in Tuscany and acquired the cake from a local cake shop without even confirming whether Hibari liked sweets.
Lord, please protect the one I love wherever he may go.
More often than not, the golden-haired man saw his ex-student covered in bruises and blood, although the majority of them belonged to the fallen enemies.
Guide him to see the love burning inside of me.
The church door flung open, chilling wind and the feathery flakes of a snow-shower barging in.
Dino spun around, ready to pull out his whip in case it was another assassin coming to claim his life. Through the doorway, in stepped a man's silhouetting figure. Inky as the night was his attire and sooty as coal was his hair, as though the devil himself had descended upon earth. The unlit entrance disallowed Dino from inspecting the visitor's complexion. Yet, when the moonbeams from the lancet windows of the clerestory shone upon the walking figure, the prayer found his brown eyes drowning in the dark abyss that was his skylark's gaze.
'Kyouya, how did you know I was here?'
The raven-haired youth offered him no answer, only moved closer and closer still, the tap of his shoes echoing in the empty aisle. When he reached the blond's pew, he bent, grabbed his ex-tutor by the collar with one hand and landed his lips roughly on the astounded man's.
The younger man only broke the kiss to deliver his answer, 'In case it is not obvious enough, Cavallone, there are footprints in the snow leading from my door.'
Afterwards, he pushed the taller man to the bench, relentless with his pursuit, as though any moment without ravishing Dino Bronco had been a moment of waste. However, Dino was aware of the rustling sound other than the frictions of their clothes; a plastic bag bearing the brand of a nearby convenient store dangling from the raven's other hand.
The older man grinned. His Kyouya did not even put the shopping bag at home first, but searched for him right away with such a degree of urgency.
Ignoring the bruises he might get from the obdurate wooden seat, the Italian let the Japanese press his body lower and lower. No man, no woman had ever bitten the interior of his lip; yet, what Hibari claimed, Dino gave. The skylark's tepid breathing contrasted the wintry air and his every movement brought closer completion for the merging of their two bodies and―
'Kyouya, we're in a church on early Christmas morning.' The Bucking Horse gasped when he felt his captor's hardness against his groin; the tasting session must not develop into a complete feast.
'So?'
'The priests may come for the morning service preparation.'
'That's not what I'm talking about.'
Hibari drew back from Dino, and the taller man looked at his lover a crease between his brows, his head tilted to the side.
'What's keeping you from visiting my place now?'
A smile gracing his lips, the head of the Cavallone Famiglia stood up and followed the shorter man exiting the church.
Heavenly Father, thank you for such a wonderful Christmas present; I'll cherish him all my life.
OWARI