Hello. Thanks for reading this story. This takes into account the normal run of the timeline. The timeskips and future jumps haven't happened yet. I hope you like.

Usual disclaimer: Takeshi ain't mine. Such a pity.

"Takeshi."

He looked up from the sink, his hands hidden in soapy water. It was midnight, and he was finishing the last of the dishes late-night customers left behind. "Yeah, dad."

"Leave the dishes and sit down for a while, my boy."

He did as he was told, washed his hands clean of the soap suds and wiped them dry. Then he sat down on the customer table in front of the sushi preparing area. The sushi restaurant was now closed for the night, darkened except for the light above the sushi table and kitchen, where they sat.

His father took out a teapot and two cups. He poured green tea into one of them and presented it to the young man. He then sat down on the sushi table.

"Takeshi, my boy. I'm grateful for all the help you're giving me at the restaurant nowadays, don't get me wrong."

Takeshi sighed. He had some idea where this conversation was going. "Dad, I've told you before. I do want to help you here..."

"I know, and I'm thankful for your help. Still, Takeshi, I feel that your heart is not here, in this kind of work."

"Dad...please..."

The father shook his head. "Stop ignoring what your heart is telling you, my boy. If I force you to work here for the rest of your life, you will hate me."

"DAD!"

"Takeshi. I've been out in the world, and I don't regret giving it all up to serve sushi. I love this shop, I love when people say they enjoyed the meal. I love it that I can raise you with this shop. But, my boy, I cannot force this life on you if you don't want it. You do what I tell you to do. You deliver the meals where I ask you to. But you don't seem to be interested in this work. I don't feel the energy you had a few years ago, when you asked me to teach you my sword technique."

"I'm sorry, dad. I'll try to be more involved in the shop..."

"Go to those tryouts again, Takeshi. Don't waste your life here."

Takeshi bowed his head. The draft results were still fresh in his mind, and still painful. He had potential, a lot of potential, but he had been told on the field what he was being told now: his heart was elsewhere.

"I don't want to, dad..."

Not if he was going to be told off again.

He managed to coast through high school without repeating any subjects, being an ace player of the varsity team, even reaching Koushien. He managed to get himself into a decent college that did not cost his father too much money. He managed to play ball there, too, and had won several games for the college. Throughout the last five years he had been told he had a chance to get into the major leagues, maybe even skip the lesser steps to get there. But when he finally tried, after spending so much time and effort, it came to nothing.

If it was not a baseball player, he did not know what he would be. But now he could not be a baseball player.

His father gulped down his tea. "There must be something else you could feel strongly about, my dear boy," his father continued. "Finish college..."

"I promise you that, dad." Takeshi's tea was still untouched, now cold.

"...keep playing for the college varsity, try again next year, try to be a coach, maybe..."

"I...don't know. I just don't know right now."

There was only one other thing that he felt strongly about: his friends. But his friends from junior high school were no longer around on a regular basis. Tsuna was always flying back and forth between Japan and Italy now, and so was Hayato. They once asked if they could get him a passport and a visa, but he declined, saying he had college and varsity baseball to deal with. Besides, they did not need him around. He spoke only Japanese, plus what little English they taught in school, and he did not know anything about guns. He did have friends and admirers in high school and college, but Tsuna and Hayato were different, and other friendships would never be the same as that.

With no baseball, with no close friends, Takeshi did not know what to be next.

Just then the front door slid open.

"Sorry, sir, but we're closed for the night, please come again tomorrow," Takeshi's father quickly said.

But the potential customer entered the shop and closed the door behind him. "Sorry for coming so late, sir. I just came in from a flight. I'd like to talk to Yamamoto, please?"

Takeshi turned to get a better look at the person. A smiling young man with spiky dark brown hair, wearing a dress shirt under a sweater and a trenchcoat. "Tsuna!" He stood up and ran to greet him with a ready whack on the back.

The father chuckled and set out some leftovers and more green tea. "I'm sorry I didn't recognize you immediately, Sawada-san, it's been a while. You two go on and chat. I'll be going to bed. Close the lights afterward, Takeshi, alright?"

Takeshi promised that he would, as he motioned for Tsuna to sit down with him at a booth. Tsuna waited for Takeshi to finish setting out the leftover sushi and tea, and to sit in front of him.

"I heard. I'm sorry you didn't get in," Tsuna said.

Hayato must have told him. "Yeah, it sucks." Takeshi looked away from him.

"But I came to ask you something else."

"Couldn't you wait until tomorrow? You should've gone to bed first, you know!" Takeshi said. His friend looked tired and weary. "And where's Gokudera?"

"He's out talking to Ryohei. Tomorrow he'll find Hibari and Lambo." Tsuna brushed the discussion aside, with the authority Takeshi associated with the prime minister. "I need your answer as soon as possible."

"What about?"

Tsuna placed his elbows on the table, and went straight to the point. "I need you to be in the organization, as an active member."

Takeshi raised an eyebrow. "But Reborn-san said I'm an official player of the game, almost from the start, right?"

"Yamamoto. Stop kidding me. You know what I mean."

Takeshi was not sure he knew what Tsuna meant. It was just too crazy to accept at face value, even when things got very dangerous, even after five years. It was all just part of being friends with Sawada Tsunayoshi, who went out of his way to help him when there was no one else. But, at the back of his head, he knew he had a part in a serious thing, a small part in a big organization.

At the basic level, Takeshi understood what Tsuna wanted. For him to be involved, as much as Hayato was involved. To no longer be a spectator, an indifferent participant. To be an ace player, not a player in the dugout.

"We'll be developing an important base of operations here, Yamamoto. We'll have communication equipment, a medical bay, weapons storage, training areas...everything we'll need and more."

"You don't need me for that," Takeshi sighed. It was stuff he knew nothing about, after all.

"I'll have to keep going back and forth, talking to people and dealing with problems in the organization. We have to keep this base we're making top secret, and I don't know any other person who can help me better than you."

"Hibari?" The sullen young man was more than capable of handling that part.

"He prefers to remain in the sidelines, and he will be most effective that way. He's one of the main advisers. I need you to be the face of the organization."

"Gokudera?" Wasn't Hayato already the face of the organization, when it wasn't Tsuna?

"I need him to translate for me, even if my Italian has gotten better. Besides, you know how he is. He won't stay away from me for longer than a day."

Lambo was ten, still in elementary school and getting in all types of trouble, so he was out of the question. Bianchi was freelance. I-pin had school in her mind as well. Chrome was here and there. "Ryohei?"

"Kyoko and his family would get suspicious."

"As if my dad won't, if I join you?"

"I understand he has a...um...an open mind about the organization."

Takeshi would ask his father about that. But the question still remained. What good would he be to Tsuna? He was just a friend. An ordinary boy who was pretty good at baseball and some kendo, and only that. How could he possibly help in what he guessed was a big, important, powerful organization?

His father's words came back to mind. He needed to find something he felt strongly about, a reason to live his life to the fullest.

"Yamamoto?"

Takeshi poured himself some of the now-cold green tea and gulped it down. There were only two things he felt strongly about, maybe three: his father, baseball, and Tsuna.

If he could not play professional baseball, he could probably play professional bodyguard for his closest friend. He would die first than see either Tsuna or Hayato die in front of him, that much he knew. But it was a big move, and he was not sure he had what it would take.

"I promised to finish college, Tsuna."

"No problem. Just keep your lines open, and just be ready for action any time. Like back then."

Yeah, back then, when it was all just a big game to him. Now it was serious.

"I'm not very smart. Not as smart as Gokudera. Even you know that, No-good Tsuna."

Tsuna chuckled at the old school nickname. "But you have a way with people. They trust you, and they believe in you."

"That not me, that's YOU."

"That's you more than it is me, Yamamoto," Tsuna said. "I have to work on it. It comes naturally to you."

His father's voice rang in his head again. It was something he felt strongly about. It was something to live for and to die for.

He looked down at his teacup, and the sushi left uneaten. He looked up at Tsuna. The face of a young leader now, no longer the face of a boy who cowered at life. The face of a young man he would follow anywhere, to life, to death, to the criminal underworld, to glory.

Tsuna stood up and draped the trenchcoat over his shoulders. "I know I'm asking a lot, and it's a major change for you. But please think about it, and give me an answer by morning. If you decline, I'll find someone else, don't worry."

Takeshi looked at the two teacups, his and his friend's.

It was something he felt strongly about. His heart felt it. The thing he was thinking about during the tryouts, it was this. What would happen to Tsuna if he left to play pro ball?

He spoke without standing. He had made up his mind.

"Tsuna."

The young man in the trenchcoat turned around.

Takeshi clenched the hand in his pocket. He would not change his mind. He would not turn back. "I'm in."

"Are you sure, Yamamoto?"

"I'm sure."

It was the first time Takeshi was sure of anything.

Thank you so much for reading, and I hope you understood it. Completed in about two hours. I just needed something out of my head.