Disclaimer: Nope, not mine.
AN: Semi-AU with the recent chapters.

Left Unspoken

-coffee dreams

"My dad drinks coffee a lot. It's like his…drug or something. Mom said he probably loves it more than he loves her."

Haru doesn't think she's ever seen a person quite as pale as Yamamoto. It's like she'll breathe, blink, and he'll have faded into the sheets. Like he was never there to begin with.

(Because it's odd, it's the same as when Lambo was hurt—the others never came to visit, did they? Not after the beginning.)

"…You know, talking to a sleeping person isn't fun. There's so much I could say, but what if you remember it? Like on those weirdo movies someone says I love you to their brother's comatose wife and there's all this drama." She pauses, nails digging into soft hands, and stares at the window where the sky is a glossy blue. "But you're not a girl and I love Tsuna-san."

The walls need decorating, she decides after a moment. They're stripped of all color, like their life had faded the moment this pale boy had been wheeled in, and Haru thinks it makes for a very sad story.

"I think me and Kyouko-chan could get some baseball posters in here… I don't know your favorite team though—will you mind if I ask my dad? He's a coffee addict and all, but he does watch sports sometimes. Says it's because he's a manly man and manly men should watch sports." Haru pretends his hand moves in agreement and she nods, hair swinging back and forth (she wonders, absently, if a cut is necessary). "We can ask your teammates too, if they're not busy—nah, I'll make them tell. Haru is convincing."

She slips in and out of first and third person and she's not quite sure why.

"But baseball is just one thing… What else do you like? You're not really helping, sleeping like that—and you're getting completely investigated after this. I have to know my future husband's best friends, after all. Make sure you're not some serial killer."

The thought makes her laugh and Haru kicks her legs to and fro, her blocky sneakers glancing off her chair's legs. She won't lie—she's more than a bit bored because there's only so much a person can do, all alone in a humming hospital room where she feels like one wrong move will send all those machines screaming.

"Mm…I want a cake." Haru sets her elbow on her drawn up knee and props her chin in her hand. Her brow is furrowed and she swears she can smell the scent of a chocolate mousse cake drifting in from the open door. "It kinda sucks though—my gym teacher said I should watch what I eat, because she wants me in perfect condition for next year…" Haru blinks. "Oh yeah, we're both athletes aren't we? Though you're more obsessed than I am." She imagines him protesting and continues with a rush of, "It's true; I heard about that jump you almost did because your arm was broken—"

And what will you do if you can't walk?

Haru is usually very good about not crying. It comes from having hard-working parents who weren't around much and learning that sometimes she had to put on band aids herself. But this time she really can't help it—her eyes tear up and the blanched room blurs.

"Haru-chan, sorry I'm late—oh, Haru…"

Kyouko is there in a flurry of green skirts and what smells like flowers and Haru tries to turn a sob into a laugh. She rubs at her eyes and sees Kyouko in a mess of bright hair and worried eyes.

"It's the room," says Haru, wiping wet fingers on her jeans. "It's so—we should decorate it, Kyouko-chan, like we did for Lambo-chan."

When Kyouko just nods, a sad smile on her face, Haru can see why Tsuna loves her.

-yellow rats

"So you remember nothing. Nothing. I talked for hours and hours thinking you'd remember something, but you practically have amnesia."

The doctors proclaim it a miracle (Haru thinks it has more to do with the calls Reborn made on the sly) and soon Yamamoto experiences the joys of physical rehab. Haru's job hasn't changed much; her and Kyouko (and sometimes the kids, too) switch off, making sure Yamamoto isn't on the hospital's roof or trying to do something stupid like check himself out. Again.

Yamamoto laughs, his hand already scratching his head like he's always done (and she wonders why she'd expected that to change). "I got hurt pretty bad," he reminds her, and Haru makes a face.

"But that's why you should remember something. Movies say you're supposed to." Haru pretends to swoon and does an imitation of the latest drama she'd seen: "'Oh Tsuki, I love you too, we'll get married even though I told your sister I loved her.'"

He does that laugh again. "I think I saw that one a while back with my dad. The cable was out!" he says hastily as Haru shrieks with laughter of her own.

"I would've thought you had some Pokémon movie or something to watch," she says between giggles.

"I had that yellow Pikachu game," he remembers, a faint grin on his face. "I think one of my friends stole it. My dad laughed so hard because I was crying. No movies, though."

Haru's eyes widen and in a second she's got her hands on the mattress, her face impossibly close and irate. "But the movies are the best part! You're missing out, Yamamoto-san," and then she starts mumbling to herself to find those old videos somewhere in her closet.

He watches her for a second (thankfully she's back in her seat that's practically got her name written on it by now) and then takes in the various decorations plastered on his walls. There's that one poster from his room right across from him, his jersey pinned up beside it, and a banner-sized paper with 'get well!' and 'we miss you!' scrawled a hundred times taped near the ceiling. There had been plans for more, he knows, but the doctors had averted those, claiming fire-hazards and whatnot.

(Haru had thought they were jealous but left it alone.)

"Hey Haru." She looks up at him, all big eyes and innocence and everything they had once been. "…Thank you."

She smiles easily, says, "Of course," and Yamamoto thinks it would be a very good time for something Important to happen—so naturally he laughs and ruins the moment because he's a kid and not ready for that kind of Important just yet.

-hollywood sunsets

"This is kind of…disgusting."

Haru lifts her foot up and grimaces at the muck coating it. "Why," she continues, plugging her nose with one hand, "are we here?"

"Because you lost your keys. And we're backtracking."

"But I didn't go to a dumpster!"

Yamamoto stares at the goliath before him: puke green with a few inches on him and probably enough stench to knock out an entire army. He treads around it, searching the glistening concrete below it with a flashlight, and says, "All movies start with dumpsters. And whatever the people looking for are usually find something in the dumpster."

"…Haru just completely revaluated your stupidity levels."

He trips over a random screw, almost doing a face plant against the dumpster (he's had enough of making out with solid objects, thank you), and turns around to find Haru gaping at him. "…What?"

"Just…let's go, okay?" She drags him through the sludge before he can get another word out and soon they're back in the fresh air of the Namimori shopping district. Haru bemoans her ruined shoes and points a very deadly, very pointed finger at Yamamoto's face. "I am going home. To wait for my parents. So we don't go almost-jumping around in dumpsters again. You are going to sit with me because you ruined my shoes and because some serial killer might attack me."

"You have a fixation with serial killers," he notes, grinning even as Haru swings half-heartedly at him.

Her nose is in the air and she sniffs, arms crossed and marching in the general direction of her house and leaving a nauseating trail of footprints behind. Yamamoto takes a look at it and figures he does owe her for the shoes (though she had been the one to drag him all around town in the first place for her keys).

He waits for three seconds, counting each one, and then asks, "Have you decided yet?" The wind blows at them, a perfect demonstration of fall at its finest and Haru has to tilt her head back to see him silhouetted in the setting sun, not a hint of confusion on her face.

"Not yet, no." She digs her hands into her pockets, feeling rather cold all of a sudden and thinks that he does too if his almost stony-expression is a clue. "Have you?"

They—meaning the six who encircle Tsuna like a royal guard—will follow their boss to the very end. Haru knows that, she does—but she thinks she's entitled to being a little selfish, to want this dream to go on for forever and a day, and after this last year all she has is college. They…have something else. Something she's not a part of and she's still wondering if she really wants to be.

"I haven't really thought about it." Yamamoto breaks into a grin like he always has. "Wherever Tsuna goes, I guess. Fun things always happen around him."

The pattering of their feet comes to a stop as Haru swings open the gate to her home. She collapses on the stone steps leading to the door—her legs are long compared to the last time she'd had to wait like this—and after a second Yamamoto sits beside her. The cold seeps into her, clutches at her insides and squeezes, and she stares at the cascade of colors above her. Oranges and reds; fiery, like the sun's last attempt to go out with a bang.

Haru stares and remembers beeping machines and dried out walls.

"…Your definition of fun is a bit messed up."

"Haha, I guess so. Must be all the baseballs to the head."

"I've heard that's very bad for you." She manages to keep a straight face until he bursts out laughing and then she's snickering too with all thoughts of goodbyes whisked away.

-high montages

Haru is aware that she's in love.

It's not something she really thinks about—love is everywhere, not in the words. The words are just that: words, weightless. The actions are the things that matter, and she drowns her actions with all of her thoughts. She is in love and has been for so many years.

"You look…thinking-ish."

Yamamoto crashes beside her on the sofa, looking red around the cheeks. She can smell a hint of champagne around him and rolls her eyes; these boys, always so…reckless. They're still the same idiots they've always been; only now they're legal age. She would rather they be fifteen again.

"I'm sober," she tells him, breaking into a smile when he laughs and spreads the alcohol breath. His arm goes around her shoulders and drags her to him and Haru rolls her eyes again. So reckless, this boy is; Reborn is probably going around with a camera taking incriminating pictures, and they prefer to stay on the low profile side of things. She lets it slide, though: today is this reckless boy's birthday and it isn't a day for fighting.

But she does pull away from him slightly when he starts humming and stares at his droopy eyes. "How much did you drink?"

"Too much," he replies cheerfully. And then he stands, tottering on his two feet like he thinks he should have five. Haru hopes he doesn't fall over—she worries for the number of concussions he's had—and all but yelps when he drags her up too. She's face-to-face with his blinding grin when he says, "We should dance."

"…Why?"

"Because," he leaves one hand in hers and raises the other somewhere to the left, "because…it's my birthday. And I'm drunk."

She'll laugh at him in the morning when he has raccoon eyes, but for now Haru just shakes her head and kicks him when he steps on her toes. He's a horrific dancer and nearly knocks the coffee table over and stubs his toe on a nearby chair. Haru laughs when he hops around, lost and confused, and then he starts too. The red on his cheeks is more from laughter than alcohol now and this is how Reborn finds them: on the floor, holding their sides, and completely engrossed in something Important.