After his mother died Yamamoto Takeshi's father moved the TV out of the sitting room, moved to the corner of the restaurant, facing out into the tables. He never really understood why, but being so young he never asked questions. So after the restaurant would close for the night, and the chairs had been flipped up on the tables, after his father had mopped the floor, they'd sit behind the bar, eating the leftovers or orders that hadn't picked up, watching whatever baseball game they could find on the television.

Unfortunately the antenna on top of the restaurant was held upright with a couple sticks and half a roll of tape and it wasn't often they got a reception that wasn't static punctuated by wavy pink images accompanied by garbled audio. So out of the storage room came a VCR Takeshi had no idea his father owned. It then became Takeshi's job to find films to play in the restaurant during serving hours. Being hardly 10 years old he'd only seen some cartoon films and any movie about baseball his father would let him rent. And as much as he'd be happy to share those with the patrons of the restaurant, he knew that not everyone liked baseball as much as he and his father did.

So come the weekend it was his responsibility (responsibility was the word he gave it, when he was older he knew it was simply his father wanting him to feel involved in the family business – when really, the television hardly worked and no one ever watched it except the two of them after hours) to find a new movie for the restaurant to play. The store was only a block or so away, but during that short walk he had made himself a list of criteria that the movie must have. Certainly no horror films, nothing with monsters – who wanted to look at a slime dripping monster while they were trying to eat? And nothing childish, none of the cartoons he enjoyed – he didn't want to seem immature. Though when the time came to make the decision, he was too overwhelmed with the boxes lining the walls, the actors from each film staring down at him, as though daring him to bring their movie back to the restaurant.

So he shuffled over to the counter, where a girl with her hair pulled back and big coke bottle glasses sat, cracking a piece of gum and flipping through a thick text book. He stood there for a moment awkwardly, not saying anything as the girl turned a few pages before looking up at him. She gave him a smile, that sort of smile that old ladies give babies, despite the fact that Takeshi was good foot taller than the average 10 year old.

"Can I help you?" she said, her gum cracking as though punctuating the sentence.

"I need a movie." He said, with the a look that he hoped impressed upon her how important this movie must be.

"Well we have a bunch of those, what kind of movie do you want?" she said with a laugh, closing her book.

"I need a movie lots of people will want to watch. And watch while they eat."

She paused for a moment, tapping her fingers on the cover of her book thoughtfully.

"I have just what you need. But you have to promise you won't tell, okay?" she said, leaning over the counter and whispering to him, despite the store being entirely empty.

Feeling as though he was being entrusted with some great and terrible secret he nodded feverently, hoping the vigor in which he was nodding would assure her how seriously he was taking this.

From under the counter she pulled a video, sliding it across the counter towards him, it was still wrapped in plastic, covered in manufactures stickers.

"I'm not supposed to put this on the shelves until next week, but I think it's just what you need. But remember, you have to promise not to tell."

"Promise."

And he left the store, hiding the video in his jacket, as though random strangers would know what secret pact he had just made, and would certainly tell on him. He returned to the restaurant putting the film on the counter, where his father was scooping large gobs of rice onto the wooden surface, with an extremely self satisfied look on his face. With a grin his father nodded towards the television, silently encouraging him to play the film.

Peeling off the plastic, he finally got a look at the cover of the film, a man and a woman faced each other on a grey sky, the word "Sukida" between them.

From the moment the first person spoke, he couldn't pull his eyes away, he didn't help wash the dishes that night, he didn't help flip the chairs up onto the tables, he didn't even want to change the station to see if they could pick up a baseball game, all he could do was stare in wonder at the film. Two people so in love with each other, but couldn't tell each other how they felt, but in the end loved each other like they couldn't before.

He knew he shouldn't enjoy this movie, he knew the movie was for girls and if any of his friends from school knew he'd watched this movie (twice that day), he'd surely be made fun of. But he couldn't stop thinking about it, even when he lay down to bed after the shop had been closed up for the night, he wondered if his parents loved each other like they did, if he'd ever love someone like that. If he'd have the strength to tell that person that he loved them. Being 10 years old and considering the rest of his life was almost frightening, even then, he hoped he could have that happy ending like they did. He wanted to be in love like the movies.

A week later the movie was returned to the shop, and while he never watched it again, it always lingered in the back of his mind. But then came high school, and the baseball team, and the girls that flocked around him. Then came Tsuna, telling him he was meant to join the mafia and protect him? Who was to blame him when he didn't take it seriously, it was all so bizarre.

It was also how he met Gokudera Hayato. His social skills left something to be desired, and he was almost manic about his responsibility to Tsuna. He was foul mouthed and almost impossible to get along with. And yet Takeshi found himself fascinated by the boy. Maybe because he didn't want to believe that someone could be so ill tempered, and so anti social – maybe he just wanted to break down that wall. Maybe he couldn't really explain it. But it seemed like all he really wanted, was for Gokudera to like him too.

Eventually there came a point where he realized this wasn't a game, that people were going to get hurt, even killed. While he still tried to keep a sense of humor about the whole thing, for the sake of keeping his spirits up while there was blood and death surrounding him.

Eventually they lost Tsuna. Eventually he lost his father.

And maybe it was all of that that caused him to find that film again, hoping that even for a short period of time, it could make him feel as hopeful as it did nearly 15 years ago. It was a long shot, he'd tried far too many things, he'd tried drinking it away (so many of them had), tried taking so many missions he couldn't think long enough to miss them. None of it really worked.

So he sat alone in the control room, Sukida pulled up on all the screen, his tie hanging loosely around his neck (it was times like this, the morbidity of it all hit him, how much it was like tying that noose around your neck – how cliché), his sleeves rolled up, leaning back in the rolling chair, his hands buried in his hair.

It wasn't like he was watching the movie, all the screens were out of focus in his mind, the voices didn't sound like they were saying words, it was just blurs of colors moving in and out of one another merging and separating and fading away. The only thing he really noticed was the sudden smell of nicotine and gunpowder floating into the room behind him. No matter how silent he was, Gokudera always made something of an entrance for himself.

"You're watching this?" he said, taking a drag from the cigarette hanging between his fingers, ash falling into the carpet.

"Yeah." Was all he could respond, not turning to face Gokudera, who at this point was standing right behind him – he could see the smoke curling around his peripheral vision.

"Didn't peg you for the romantic movie type."

"My dad and I watched it together once."

Gokudera said nothing, pulling up another chair – the arm of his chair crashing into Yamamoto's, leaning back casually as his cigarette ashed into the carpet again.

"I always wished my life could be like a movie." Yamamoto continued, totally unprompted by anything Gokudera had done

"What? 2 hours long and full of people pretending?" Gokudera scoffed, putting out his cigarette out on the heel of his shoe.

Touché.

"Not like that. I mean, they end up together at the end and everyone gets a happy ending." He said, finally turning to look at his companion, who looked extremely unconvinced.

"Happy endings aren't real, idiot."

It certainly didn't seem that way anymore. He hated being upset, he hated showing the rest of the family how upset he was – he wanted to be there for them, to be that pillar of strength to move on for the sake of those they'd lost. But once his father was one, it had just gone too far.

His hand brushed against Gokudera's briefly, he tensed and returned to staring at the screen. Maybe it had been intentional, or maybe it hadn't. Maybe he had been implying something he was too much of a coward to follow through on. Maybe he was just so upset that anything at all would have been a proper distraction.

"Will you stay with me?" Yamamoto asked, still looking straight ahead, the screen still out of focus, feeling for the first time ever, truly embarrassed.

There was a pause, a pause where Gokudera's cold hand wrapped around his own, fingers lacing with his.

"Yeah."

Neither of them said a thing, not acknowledging their hands wrapped around each other's, staring straight ahead at the film, the actors embracing each other after finding each other again after 17 years, finally able to admit what they couldn't say to each other all those years before.

He found himself looking at Gokudera instead of the movie, looking at his thin stained fingers wrapped around his own.

"I'd take two hours of pretending." He said, more to his lap than anything else, Gokudera looked at him, his eyebrow cocked in a look of disbelief, that somewhat softened when he realized the sincerity in Takeshi's voice.

The thing about real life was that no one said the right words at the right time, the right song was never playing at the right time. The lights were never perfect, softly lighting the touching moment that was so contrived. The ending always had a resolution, but Gokudera was right, real life was more than 2 hours long. The thing was, was the in the movies, no one was ever really in love, they just said their lines when they were supposed to. Gave each other right looks when they were supposed to, swept someone off their feet at the right time, just like they were supposed to. Love was nothing like the movies.

He didn't want to think about why this all came about, he hoped it was because he was suddenly feeling so alone. But of all people, why Gokudera, someone who regularly showed him nothing but disdain. But now, sitting alone in the darkened control room, Gokudera's hand held in his own – maybe this was the 2 hours of pretending. Pretending it wasn't confusing and that he knew what he was doing and why more than anything he didn't want Gokudera to leave him.