1 - HOME
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Summer, 1969
Rome, Italy
"Pat yourself on the back," Romario offered with a wry smile. "Stocks are up, management sacked some scheming wiseguys, and Ivan won a bottle of Chianti Classico."
The sprawling sunset cast the room in a warm bronze light, alleviating the man's pallor. A shroud of intimacy cloaked the Mafiosi, whose tales and times were littered about the room in various forms of disarray. A tower of empty cigarette packs formed a precarious pyramid, built from manifold brands—the Chiavarone boss had embarked on a search for "the golden smoke." Thus far, none had made the cut. A streak of deep black ran diagonally across a round coffee table, telling of a broken pen and a graceless boss. A deck of cards lay strewn about the table and mahogany wood paneling, several sticking straight up in-between the floorboards. The heart pine, weary with decades of harried exits and entrances, clenched the nails fast, creaking under heavy footfalls.
Dino flicked an errant strand of dirty blond out of his sight, smiling as he shook out a Marlboro Red, catching it between his teeth. He threw a mischievous glance at the older man as he lit up. "Chianti wine and Marlboro cigs—a match made in heaven. How'd Ivan snag the wine this time?"
The Chiavarone underboss chuckled hoarsely, his hair and laughter streaked with age. "Basil should've known better than to bet against Ivan in poker. His Mohawk was at stake, after all. Kid's got a brain, but he's pretty damn selective as to when to use it."
Every time Dino nudged the pack in Romario's direction, and every time Romario refused.
Pocketing the pack, Dino sighed. "CEDEF still going for Ivan's bait? Thought Lal would've beat some sense into the poor kid by now. Basil's got other uses for his talent, but gambling's all Ivan has." Glancing down at a card on the table, the boss scrutinized the king of hearts with some bitterness, squinting at the line of his apathetic mouth. He set the card back down and slid it under a phonebook, leaving a white corner exposed.
"We're all we have," Romario commented, his words swallowed by a plume of smoke wafting slowly from Dino's mouth. His wise nature had been a handy counterpoint to the blond's clumsy start, steering the young boss clear of muddy waters. The boss clearly respected his successor, and that none of their fortune had gone to refurnishing the antiquated furniture was intentional.
Dino exhaled, pausing to savor the flavor on his tongue. "No tree forgets its roots."
"How long as it been...?"
"Romario," Dino intercepted, a tint of grim resolve coloring his tone. "It's alright. You're alright."
"Am I?" the forty-eight year-old chuckled. "Sometimes I wonder. Is it better to be caught in cuffs or by a bullet? The latter's a little messy, but far cleaner in the long-run."
"Neither are ideal," Dino deadpanned, saving the moment with a quirk of his mouth. "But remember what you live for. That'll determine how you go."
After a reflective silence, Romario strode over to the sink.
"Hell's broken out in here. I'm surprised the flies haven't hit this jackpot."
Dino laughed, standing and buttoning the cuffs of his sleeves. "Guess Ivan's rubbing off on me. Send Brutus for some dish soap on his way back. I'll be out for a bit."
Summer, 1969
Palermo, Sicily (Italy)
"Lavina—"
"You promised, Clemente. Put off the Mafia grooming until he's ten; he deserves a proper childhood."
The armchair scuffed the floor as the Mafioso stood suddenly, his back to his mistress. "You don't seem to understand what we are, Lavina. I'm not raising a normal boy."
"But—"
"Enough!" He whipped around with a grimace. Sighing, he reached forward to grasp her chin tenderly, maintaining enough pressure to be dangerous if necessary. "Enough," he murmured, quieter, stroking her cheek. "You have pampered him plenty. He will fill your cabinets with trophies and certificates; none of the other musicians will compare."
The reassurance seemed to have an adverse effect on the woman, who twisted her face away in irritation. "How can I pamper him when I barely see him?"
"Don't start," the Mafioso warned, catching her wrist. "Do you know how much I spent on that grand? The boy's not even playing Prokofiev, and you demanded a Fazioli."
"He's playing Liszt, which is hardly easy," Lavina retorted calmly, knowing better than to squirm in his unyielding grip. "And you bought it without a second thought when I agreed to our arrangement." She lowered her gaze from the severity of his, fighting the sting of fruitless anger.
Guiltily, desperately, he pressed a kiss to the inside of her palm. "I know you are suffering, cara mia, but this is the best I can do. If you would only have me..."
"Clemente," Lavina began warily, her hand squeezing his, "let me see him more often. That's all I ask."
That's all I care about, he heard. The silence that greeted her was cold. He froze, trembling slightly on the pastel blue settee. "Him," he spat resentfully, tearing his hand from hers. "It's always about him. Do you take me for granted? What more do you want from me?"
Lavina flinched, fisting the light cotton of her white dress. "Y—you know I love you... So let me love our son, as he ought to be." She recoiled when he advanced, cursing her flighty limbs for moving instinctively. The pianist forced herself to hold his gaze, to stand her ground while she still could.
"My son is not to be a coward," he hissed. "He's already the laughing stock of the famiglia. The son of a ruthless boss: a scrawny pianist. Do you know what he had the nerve to ask me the other day?" he scoffed, "Whether he could skip training to practice. Thanks to your 'love', he'll be killed off first."
The fair-haired woman started, leaping to her feet. "That's outrageous—"
"So are you!" he burst, slapping her across the face.
Gokudera pulled back from the other side of the door.
He jumped when the doorknob twisted, and made a hasty exit through the antechamber several doors down. Panting laboriously, he clutched both sides of his head and leaned forward, breathing shakily. The boy started counting off prime numbers in his head, reaching one hundred seventy-three before the red door opened.
"Get up. You're late for defense training." His father slammed a sheet of paper onto the glass table. "And where's your work? All you wrote down were the final answers. Think you're being clever, don't you? So smart you can just skip the process?"
He leaned closer, reeking of cigar smoke. "Let me tell you something: tutors don't grow on trees. I've had to replace all the ones who couldn't deal with your attitude. Don't get cocky because your collectibles are stacking up. Do you think a piece of scrap metal will validate your existence?" He procured a particularly imposing trophy from behind his back, placing it tauntingly before the boy. Gokudera had won it recently. "This doesn't mean a fucking thing. Ten years from now you'll be dodging bullets. If you pull this out in a gunfight, the killer will laugh in your face and take you out.
"Are we clear?"
The eight year-old folded his arms in front of his chest, glaring viciously at a blood stain in the carpet.
"Are we clear?"
"Yes sir."
When he was certain his father was out of earshot, he muttered, "Fuck you."
The red door swung ajar.
"What was that?"
Pulse spiking, the boy swallowed. "Nothing."
Father and son made eye-contact as Clemente crouched to the boy's eye-level, voice lethally soft. "You sure 'bout that?"
Gritting his teeth, the boy spat, "I said 'fuck you.'"
He braced himself for the worst.
To his utter surprise, Clemente broke into a grin. "Watch your tongue, boy. You're starting to sound like a mobster. Now scram. Get to your lessons." Ruffling his hair in an act of rare affection, the man pushed off from his knees before pivoting sharply and closing the door behind him.
Gokudera glanced down at his test, at the "100" mark in red, at everything that made him who he was.
Drops of wetness plunked dark spots on his olive green socks.
"But I don't want to sound like you."
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Clemente rather liked the idea of being a father.
He polished the title and wore it as one wears a fedora: as an adornment and often out of the expectation that a Mafioso ought to wear one.
He treated his daughter like a princess. She walked unreservedly on the edge of the sidewalk, because all who knew her kept a respectable distance. No driver or biker would dare impinge on her space, sullying the folds of her dress as it fluttered in the breeze. She painted a pretty picture, but she also had the guts to go with the glamor.
The first man to leer at her long lashes and milky complexion soon found himself beaten to death.
Forty-seven kicks, to be exact.
She had not voiced a complaint to her father since.
If Bianchi was aware of the price at which she maintained her free-spirited ways, she never showed it. It was simple to overlook, after all. It was what she would often tell herself at dinner, glancing at the seared salmon fillet and considering how pink the flesh was. That this fish had been swimming hours earlier was of no concern to her. It had been foolish enough to be caught, or mindless to begin with. She had few qualms about admitting the truth, and even fewer about saying "I don't care."
She did care, however, about her brother.
He was an odd little thing, skinny and awkward with a formidable temper and pride to match. She was less concerned for his wellbeing as she was curious about his persona. Discovering new trivia about his pet peeves and misdemeanors amused her to no end.
On a Sunday afternoon, in taking refuge from the dry summer heat, she came across him in his study. The curtains were drawn, but the sunlight filtered through the regal red, dyeing the room a rosy hue. He was scribbling as furiously as he erased, ripping the paper and swearing up a storm. Calculations bled down the page, accompanied by various geometric shapes and diagrams. His legs hung loosely over the chair, stock still.
"What are you doing?"
The boy covered his work immediately, eyeing her with distaste. "Leave me alone."
Venturing closer, she peeked at his work from various angles as he moved to block her each time. "You look awfully busy. Why don't you take a break?"
"You said it yourself: I'm busy. Go away."
"Hmmm." She plopped onto a leather armchair and propped her chin up with one hand. "For someone so thorough, you sure aren't that observant."
Clenching the pencil with white knuckles, he bit out, "What are you talking about?"
"Well, you know." Bianchi rolled her eyes, swinging her legs back and forth over the lofty chair.
No, I don't know, Gokudera thought petulantly.
"Mamma's been sick for a long time now. At least, papà says she is. She's been holed up in her room all day. I barely get to see her. What do you think's going on?"
"You have this annoying habit," he began while sharpening his pencil, "of answering your own questions." He blew lightly on the tip. "She's ill. You said so already."
"Don't you miss her?"
Gokudera considered the question. "I don't know."
"How can you not know?" Bianchi pestered. "It's a 'yes or no' question." At his uncooperative silence, she continued, "I think they had a spat, and mamma's giving him the silent treatment - you know how she is. Did you hear shouting in the hall earlier?"
"You girls like to dramatize everything, don't you?" he snorted. "The simplest solution is usually correct. For all we know, she's just unwell."
Bianchi worried her lower lip, shifting restlessly. "Papà won't tell me anything when I ask."
"Then don't ask," he said, arching an aristocratic brow. "Find out yourself."
Bianchi hmphed and left him to his own devices. But he couldn't concentrate; the roseate teen had successfully derailed his train of thought. He had indeed heard his father shouting earlier, and at a woman. It crossed his mind that his father could have taken his financial and emotional anxiety out on a housemaid, blaming his wife's illness on someone else's incompetence. He had been losing men recently. Waves of them returned unemployed, so the famiglia's profits had taken a blow.
But their mother cherished attention; she sought it from her children in excess. It was unlikely for her to voluntarily close her door to them. She was not so vain as to be ashamed of her sickliness in front of her family. So why had she remained absent at mealtimes? Today would mark her eighth absence.
He put down his pencil in defeat, pushing back from his desk and heading towards his mother's chamber.
Supposing Bianchi was on the right track... who was the other woman, if not a housemaid?
Summer, 1969
Sapporo, Hokkaido (Japan)
Uneven bars were her absolute favorite.
She had always been the sort to color outside the lines—not out of carelessness, but out of caring differently. The brunette had an element of wildness in her; this was observable to even the most obtuse of people. Securing the straps of the grips around her hands, Haru shook her wrists loosely, then mounted the low bar.
The chalk on her palms and fingers ground securely against the bar, and she completed a series of front hip circles, reveling in the whip of her ponytail on her back and the heady momentum of her swing. She transitioned to the high bar from a handstand. Haru stood on the high bar, preparing for a backflip when the coach intervened.
"Haru! Get off the high bar—what do you think you're doing? A Korbut Flip? Dismount!"
The brunette reluctantly obeyed, sticking the landing on the red mat.
Adults had a way of phrasing questions—they had to add the "what do you think" before the "doing", as though you never actually knew what it was you were doing. Haru wondered at what age the adults would drop the prefix and get to the point, saving their time and honoring her status as a sentient being.
Granted, she had no idea if what happened would align with what she was attempting, but at the very least, she knew what she was doing.
Even if others didn't.
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"And I was getting ready for a backflip," Haru raved, hands waving. She was prone to gesticulation when she spoke; her hands made all sorts of emphatic motions her one-track mind couldn't explain. It was as if her entire being struggled to speak when she had something to say.
"Haru," her father interrupted somewhat uneasily. "I know summer vacation starts soon, but I'm curious as to what you learned in school today."
Crestfallen at being diverted in the midst of her grand retelling, the brunette mumbled, "Started learning algebra. It was boring." She kicked a rock out of her path, watching it tumble into another, sending both a little ways off the sidewalk. Rocks can't move out of the way, because they're not alive. But I'm stuck, too. Am I not alive?
Aghast, her father responded, "If math comes across as boring, it is the fault of bad presentation, and not the subject itself. It is every bit as beautiful as—"
"I meant," Haru clarified, arms akimbo, "that there wasn't any point to it. We were given stupid word problems filled with imaginary people to help them settle silly problems. Who cares if one person got eighteen melons while the other only got three?"
Laughing, Shin Miura eyed his daughter patronizingly. "They're exercises, Haru. Don't you have to do drills in gymnastics as well? It's the same concept."
"It's not the same," the girl insisted, visibly offended. "I decide what routine I want to do on the bars. But the math problem is already decided, and all it tells me is how many melons someone gets." She stopped in her tracks, eyes zeroing in on a window display across the street. Tugging on her father's sleeve, she pointed. "Let's have cake!"
"There will come a time," he spoke, adjusting his glasses, "when cake shops and backflips will thrill you no longer, and you will be worried over bigger and better things."
"I hope such a time never comes," Haru replied casually, ignoring the unsettling atmosphere and pulling her father towards the shop. "It closes in an hour..."
Grasping her petite hand firmly in his, Shin dragged his daughter back onto the sidewalk, whistling a folk tune. They passed a lush bush of periwinkle hydrangeas. Haru distanced herself from the flowers, wary of bees. Her father kept a safe distance from the curb, however, and she had little room to maneuver. She pushed outwards discreetly, but he took it as a sign of playfulness and simply pushed her back. "You'll be excited to hear what I have to tell you," he remarked brightly. "The three students I tutored in the past have been admitted to Midori! Dinner tonight will be special."
They passed a row of mailboxes.
Haru groused, "Oyaji, your cooking is terrible..."
"You don't mean that," her father jested, nudging her slightly, oblivious to her frightened cringe as she ducked under an overreaching flower.
"We've lived off of my cooking for quite some time now, and you've never complained."
Because you never take me seriously.
"I was kidding," she confessed, upping the watts of her smile to blind him to the truth. "But can we have miso ramen at the new place? You said we'd try it sometime."
"Ah, but 'sometime' isn't 'today'," he reasoned good-naturedly. He patted her cheek in the manner of a judge awarding a participant a ribbon for good effort. "Tell you what—I'll give you some new problems tonight. They should challenge you more than the word problems at school."
The brunette perked up. "What problems?"
He beamed. "We'll see how you do at basic trigonometry."
Oyaji, when we don't talk about math, we don't talk, Haru observed. But she placed a bounce in her step anyway, because it made him laugh, and when her father was happy, he was easily distracted. The tactic became useful when he (invariably) returned to the topic of Midori Middle, and how marvelous it would be if she were to be attend the school in the future.
A future that appeared as fixed as the melon problem.
Summer, 1969
Rome, Italy
Alonzo Brioschi had clocked out of his prison guard shift and was reaching for his car keys when he heard a man approach him from behind. The young guard immediately reached for the stun gun at his side, turning to see a silver-haired man smiling, looming several inches above.
"Can I help you, sir?"
Katsuo Kawahira coughed mildly into his fist before stating, still smiling, "You might not have a choice; but it's nice of you to be so polite." He watched impassively as the man crumpled to the ground. Checking his wristwatch, he nodded appreciatively. "Not bad. Faster than I'd thought."
After frisking the man and procuring photo identification, he proceeded to a back entrance of the Vendicare Prison.
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A/N: Feel free to ask clarifying plot questions. There will be time-skips, but they will all be labeled as they were in this chapter (date + location).
Haru and Gokudera are both eight years old in 1969. This is not primarily a coming-of-age story, but it does feature several in the process of telling a larger story. And because this is a work of AU fiction, the year 1969 is not intended to have any historical connection to the real world. It just serves as a benchmark for later time skips and sets the general atmosphere. I do, however, intend to stay true to a portrayal of historically accurate/plausible Mafia life.
And just to throw this out there: Haru's mother will be in this story. Surprise!
Feedback would be very welcome. I hope you've enjoyed it so far. Thank you for reading.
Note: There are OCs, but only where necessary. (In this chapter, Alonzo is the only one. He will become crucial much later.) The first names of some known characters are subject to my artistic license, because they were not provided by the manga/anime.
Going forward, some of the views expressed by the characters are not to be mistaken for mine. That said, please keep in mind the M rating.