Damn it. Yamamoto managed to stay his wide, foppish grin as the sleek machine he rode upon purred hungrily beneath him and raced around the bend of the mountain. The motorcycle just barely kept to the side of the rocks, front wheel beginning to tremble everywhere but straight.

He was going too fast.

"OI, baseball-idiot!" The arms around his waist tightened to attract his attention. "Slow down! You're going to throw us off the cliff if you don't get control of the damn speed!"

Yes, he knew that.

He played it off with a laugh that was captured by the wind and swept right past the ears of the silverette clinging to his back. Not really clinging because that would insinuate that Gokudera would need to cling; no, he was just 'holding on to make sure he didn't die from his stupidity'. Gokudera's earlier words when they had straddled the motorcycle with plans of returning to Namimori after their not (but it so was) date to the beach.

"Mah mah, Hayayto," he used his boyfriend's name sweetly, knowing that the other teen preferred not to be called as such, "Aren't you having fun?" He howled through his face shield.

Such of which Gokudera didn't have. He had vehemently assured Yamamoto that he was too 'experienced' for helmets. Yamamoto had decidedly worn his own even as Gokudera had used his dynamite to smash the offered one to bits, absolutely offended by the insinuation that he needed protection.

"NO!" Gokudera snapped at him. "Slow down!"

They were rounding another bend. Yamamoto just barely managed to hug the cliff instead of sailing them straight off the railing. "Not unless you give me a hug~" He cooed just loud enough for Gokudera to hear.

The silverette sputtered. Though the seizing winds must have bitten his face cold, his cheeks still tinted red. Yamamoto knew that because he could see the adorable hue in his mind's eye.

"GO TO HELL!"

"I'm not gonna slow down unless you do!" His hands were slipping; they were damp from sweat and weak from strain as he maneuvered the bike as best he could.

Gokudera remained in stubborn silence behind him for a minute or two. And then he growled something along the lines of 'because Tenth would… if you died… stupidity' right before his embrace became different. His palms were pressed flat to Yamamoto's chest, head resting between his shoulder blades as his body curved nicely around the driver.

Yamamoto's smile widened.

Gokudera was quick to let go (his hug, not his body; he didn't want to fly off the back for shit's sake!) and yelp into his ear, "now slow the FUCK down!"

"Nope! Not yet!"

"You b-"

"Gotta say you love me!" Yamamoto interrupted him.

"FUCK YOU!"

He dissected Gokudera's tone of voice, trying to detect a weakness or vulnerable spot that could assure him of Gokudera following out with his wish. When he found none, he laughed again. Mirthless. "Yeah, I thought that was a stretch…"

"WHAT?" Gokudera obviously hadn't heard him.

"Love you, Gokudera!" Yamamoto crooned. Behind him, the silverette cursed a few different languages, every word uttered sounding quite colorful. "Mah mah, could you take my helmet off for me? The shield's getting misty!"

"Idiot! What do you want me to do with it?"

Just what he had hoped he would ask. "Wear it till we come to a stop, kay?"

A few more minutes of cajoling went by before Gokudera reluctantly agreed and slipped the helmet off of Yamamoto's head, thighs squeezing Yamamoto's waist to make sure he didn't fly off in the process. He put the helmet on and quickly rewrapped himself around the driver. "You're going faster than before!" He cried out. "STOP!"

Yamamoto smiled sadly, Gokudera unable to see the expression with his head ducked behind his back as such.

"Gokudera!"

"What?"

"I mean it."

"What?"

"I really, really love you!" He couldn't hold on much longer.

The bike was nearing the rail and no matter how harshly he pulled on the beast, his trembling hands could no longer complete the twist.

Because Gokudera was right. They were going too fast.

Gokudera's cry of surprise went through one ear and then the other as the rubber of the front tire met with the metallic siderail, throwing both of the bike's occupants over the ledge to an admittedly close ground (they had been near the bottom anyhow).

Despite that small stroke of luck, momentum was still their worst enemy.

… iIi …

Tsuna cried when Gokudera first opened his eyes. Had his mouth not felt as if a wad of cotton balls currently inhabited it and his limbs not felt like lead, he would have tried to comfort his boss.

Nonetheless, Tsuna smiled and murmured how great it was for him to finally wake up. He had been unconscious for nearly two weeks!

Gokudera had been awed by that. And then the small brunette nervously went on to tell him about his injuries; a broken arm, three fractured limbs, and what would have been fatal head trauma… had he not been wearing a helmet.

It wasn't until that last word that the silverette even remembered what accident had supposedly caused all aforementioned harm. Quick to mind was Yamamoto. The name tumbled from his mouth where even the Tenth's title hadn't been able to.

Tsuna cried again. But it wasn't for joy.

Yamamoto… Yamamoto died on contact with the ground. Both of them had been thrown headfirst towards the ground and so, naturally, their craniums had been the first to be tested by the ground. Yamamoto (for whatever reason, because Tsuna couldn't understand why there would only be one helmet when Yamamoto was usually always so careful) hadn't had the same shield Gokudera had had from the unforgiving crash.

In Gokudera's numb silence, he had gone on to ramble that the reason the bike had crashed in the first place was because of brake failure.

The motorcycle hadn't been able to stop. And at such an increasing decline down the mountain with such twisting roads, it must have taken a lot of Yamamoto's will power to keep the bike going safely for so long. Because, apparently, (they had somehow been able to estimate just where the brakes first defected; call it mafia power or modern technology) the brakes had broken towards the midpoint of the cliffy highway.

Gokudera listened with half an ear to everything his beloved Tenth said. He was remembering all of those strange demands that he had found so damned annoying at the time Yamamoto had spoken them.

"Gotta say you love me!" His hands clenched in his lap as hot tears fluttered down his ashen cheeks.

Yamamoto had known. He had known that there had been no chance of stopping the bike, that at least one of them was going to die the moment he couldn't hold out any longer. None of their power as guardians could have stopped such a fate, really.

But he hadn't said a word about it. He had kept on being his stupid self even as he had asked for such silly and stupid things as a hug and a –

"I really, really love you!"

Confession…

Which he hadn't given. Because who the hell thought that all the time in the world would disappear in less than the blink of an eye? He knew it was less than a blink because his eyes had been wide open as they had both catapulted over gravel and dirt before everything became black.

He had always told himself that… he hadn't loved the bastard. And when he would minutely admit to himself that maybe he cared for the idiot, he always assured himself that there would be years in which he could solidify his resolve. Idiots weren't supposed to die easily, after all.

Yamamoto had been, until that last curve in the road, immortal, as far as Gokudera was concerned. Nearly untouchable.

And here that chance was gone. Dust in the wind much like their voices had been on that fucking lonesome street.

He sobbed into his clenched fists, determined to remind himself that he hadn't known. He hadn't known that Yamamoto understood that he was about to die. He hadn't known that all of those calculated chances were gone.

He hadn't known that the helmet he had so relished in destroying at the beach would come back to haunt him and actually make a point.

In that moment, he had an epiphany. He hadn't known, that much was true.

But it was also true that it was still his fault. Completely so. Because now that he thought about it, he remembered that tiny, tiny ember that had been dragged by the salty breeze towards the motorcycle and its brake rotors… Oh god.

He screamed into his knees, nails digging into his scalp, while Tsuna tried to talk to him, tried to get him to tell him what's wrong?

The brakes! They had… and then Yamamoto! That fucking helmet!

… All his fault. As if he had been subconsciously out to make sure that Yamamoto never got home.

But that didn't make sense! Because he –

… He had… wanted to spend his life with that idiot.

He cried into Tsuna's small chest, screaming and howling like an animal in pain as the full reality of the situation became crystal clear to him.

Takeshi Yamamoto died for him. Because of him.

What cruel irony.

… iIi …

He had been lucky to wake up at the time he did. Yamamoto's funeral was scheduled for the next day.

Gokudera stood, in the mockingly warm and sunny weather, between Tsuna and Tsuyoshi as the black cherry wood coffin was lowered into the ground. The gravestone at its head was already engraved with the athlete's name, boldly and beautifully done. Far too expansive for it to have been from Tsuyoshi's wages.

Reborn was standing next to a surprisingly (and yet all the more heart breaking) quiet Lambo, eyes, nose, and puffy cheeks red from the crying he had done earlier. Now he just held a baseball in his arms that really looked too big for his small hands.

It was the same baseball Yamamoto had struck him in the face with the first time the athlete had tried to play catch with him. Ever since that first time, Lambo had kept the ball in his monstrous afro. Not only for his own safety, but for safe keeping.

A memory precious to him.

Reborn was oddly without comment despite all of the distraught people around him, a fair number of them crying (Kyoko and Haru are holding onto each other while Ryohei stood stonily next to them).

Hibari was a good distance away from the burial, though present nonetheless. He watched with regretful (not sadly so but in a way that said he was never going to achieve a good fight with the now deceased guardian) eyes as the swordsman disappeared beneath the ground. The moment the priest began his sermon, he spun on his heel and left.

He was done honoring the dead. Those who died were weak anyway. Only the strong survived.

The number of people present stretched into the dozens, most of them Vongola (including Varia) and all others from school or family.

The passing of a Vongola guardian, especially for the life of another guardian (as well as loved one), was something to be honored. And so it was the Ninth boss of the family who wore the priest robes and spoke in a whispery, yet commanding, voice to the gathered crowds.

Hundreds more would have most likely showed up. Except the Ninth's guardians had thought the crowd was too diluted (family was family, and common classmates as well as concerned neighbors did not classify as the bond they so defined) as it was and had begun clearing out strangers. The entire town was in an uproar, those not present at the burial sending some small token or another.

Because Takeshi Yamamoto had been the sweetest, most gentle, most giving, caring, ambitious soul to wander Namimori in quite some time. To have him die was like having the spirit of the town be torn to bits.

It was merely a horrible fate.

Even ater the Ninth finished his sermon, long after the crowd had begun to clear out until all that had been left was the Tenth generation plus Tsuyoshi and Reborn, and even later than that into the night where he finally stood alone after a solemn stare from Reborn, the sleepy mumble of a passed out Lambo, and the tearful look of his Tenth, Gokudera never once moved a muscle.

He had felt the cramps earlier but now he merely felt nothing. He was without feeling. He was without sensation.

Above him, the weather finally became acceptable to his tastes. Heavy, oppressive clouds were abroad. They clapped as they ripped apart and a torrent of rain fell on him as well as the freshly made resting place of his once boyfriend.

He was instantly soaked.

For the first time in hours, he moved. He shut his eyes because staring at the mound of dirt shrouding the haunting coffin made him sick to his stomach.

He heard something like laughter in his ears. "Really… really… love you…"

"I… l-love you too… you big idiot!" Why hadn't he been able to say that earlier? Earlier when it had mattered? "You bastard! You ASSHOLE!" He demolished some gifts and flowers with his flailing limbs. "You should have let me die!"

His still-healing body heavily protested his actions. He couldn't care less.

And then that laughter again. This time his eyes were open. "Really… really… love you…" he realized that the laughter was really the rain pinging off of each individual blade of grass, the sensation of heat radiating against his front actually a warm shower interrupting the freezing storm, "… too…"

That laughter again. As if everything was right in the world.

"And I will love you… forever."

The rain tickled his lips in an oddly targeting way, a touch so familiar he wanted to cry out and yet so foreign he kept himself still.

One sweetly murmured word, "goodbye", and the rain came to a gradual stop. The storm moved on.

Gokudera remained. Was he losing his mind or did that… really just happen?

His answer came a moment later when a shaft of light (but it was nighttime! The nearest lamppost was out of sight) illuminated the moist dirt atop of Yamamoto's grave.

He stared in awe at what had not been there a moment ago. Gingerly, he picked the object up and stared at it, already knowing what it was, what it meant, and where it had been taken.

He had been there, after all. In that photo booth with an excited Yamamoto who had stolen a kiss and then had had his nose painfully broken for it. He had still taken the pictures and had enlarged his favorite copy, signing it in the corner.

There they were in the black-and-white photo (yeah, one of those cheap booths) with lips pressed together and Yamamoto's hand gesture of 'peace' directed at the camera in such a way that the kiss could still be seen but not the fist Gokudera had been clenching in preparation of attacking the taller teenager.

In Yamamoto's chicken scratch kanji was a small message: Yamamoto + Gokudera, Valentines Day. A space.

My very special person.

Author's Note: inspired by the short, (I hope) true story that is posted at the bottom of my profile. The aforementioned story was not written by me, so the plot of this story is unoriginal.

If you would die for someone you loved, please tell me why.