AN. It started off as something I planned, and ended off as something I did not plan.
Brief catch-up. I'm in Singapore, I got myself a fever which I have fixed up, I will not be writing anything for Dino or Fuuta's birthday, so it'll be ta-ta for the next two months, and I have started my first crappy Harry Potter fic, for I have made it a person mission to break both Harry and Draco to wipe both their arrogant and adventure-seeking smirks off their famous faces. Regardless on who their daddies were.
I got in contact with Nut and Idiot (two nut-headed idiots from our school). Remind me to skin them and roast them over a fire when I get back.
Title: Crappy, really. I was tempted to name it 'Untitled'.
Prompt: Cookies to Chocolate and Caramel, who gave me the original general idea. The rest I got in my head when I was bored and got insomnia. For Bel's birthday.
Timeline/setting: Eleven years later, in a clearing near the forest which is near wherever Bel's old mansion was.
Point of view: Bel and Fran.
Mistakes: I did notice that you can't keep a cake exposed in a forest for fear of bugs, but then again, they weren't actually going to eat it. Well, the mood kind of jumped too quickly, and the change of POV might have been out of place. I rather like the ending though…
Language/rating: K+ again.
If there's anything else wrong, feel free to tell me. Flames will be used to roast Nut and Idiot over. YOU HEAR THAT, YOU TWO?
DISCLAIMER: I do not own the characters of Katekyo Hitman Reborn. All belongs to Akira Amano apart from the plot.
PLAYING HIS LIFE
The sky was still dark when the blond stepped out from the trees, turning his bang-covered gaze upon the last lingering stars above, barely picking out the slivers of white among the vast indigo mass. The autumn wind was sharp against his cheek, weaving through his perfectly styled blond strands aside. A large medieval castle loomed behind him eerily, shadowed against the dark sky. Vines crawled up the old stone in thick clumps, restraining the gargoyles glaring at nothing in particular to their pedestals.
It had been his home, once upon a time, a long time ago, before he had murdered his brother, even before he had begun his early rivalry with Rasiel. Back in the old days, it had been a majestic thing, with curtains of silky velvet and silk, floors set with gleaming marble that felt cold as ice beneath bare feet, the gardens proud and colorful.
However, after the death of his mother, everything had changed.
Nothing had ever been the same again.
Up ahead, in the center of the clearing, stood a once-gleaming slab of white marble that had been overrun by weeds. Engraved in the stone, just barely visible from beneath the tangle of bramble, were two names – the names of his dead parents. The elaborately designed font used seemed off to his eyes.
Belphegor walked straight up to the slab, confident façade on and a fake cheerful spring in his step, the black case strapped loosely to his back slapping his spine. It was… unnerving to approach a grave, for the prince had never practiced any type of honorary ceremony before. Upon reaching the gravestone he knelt, opting to untangle the tendrils of ivy with his own hand.
"Hey." He started awkwardly, then cleared his throat, mentally smacked himself upside the head, and started again.
"I mean… hello. This is Bel, the brother-killing, genius, totally awesome heir to your throne." Here he paused, and his long, slender fingers stilled. "Actually, your throne is no more, because I plan not to have any descendants, nor do I plan to keep your usual 'throne' – horrifying heirloom, if you ask me. I don't care if it had once belonged to my great-great-great grandfather, nor the fact that it has once been yours. The estate is now abandoned, the furniture sold. Now I work under the most awesome boss the world would ever have the pleasure of seeing."
The tangles of green fell to the earth around the grave. "Rasiel came back from the dead and got re-killed, so I'm the last surviving member of our family."
"I work under Xanxus, the most awesome person the world would ever have the pleasure of seeing. He's boss of the Varia, who likes wine and killing. Then there's Squalo, the loud-mouthed swordsman with an ego the size of Italy. He makes heavy metal concerts sound like a lullaby. The greedy kid Mammon, the Mist Arcobaleno, who lived and died and lived again, keeps track of the income and outcome and any number with a euro sign."
He paused as he debated whether or not he should add the last part. Leaning in close, he whispered to the grave, "Don't tell anyone I said this, but I think he's blind." Then he shrugged and added quickly, "Just a possible theory."
Bel pulled back immediately after that, hoping no one had caught him. The prince, talking to the dead! Wouldn't that make the front lines!
"And there's Lussuria, the gender-challenged boxer. He – well, we all assume he's a male – had recently added a new color to his Mohawk – neon yellow – to celebrate the Vongola Sun Guardian's marriage to Flower girl – Hana. That particular area of his hair can glow in the dark, though only on weekends or before a party." The prince chuckled. "Honestly, any sane person would know of the chemicals they put in glow-in-the-dark paint, even if it is high-class glow-in-the-dark paint."
The prince unslung the black case from his back and set it in the bed of vines. "And Levi – the idiot. I keep on forgetting him. All you have to know about him is that he's an idiot and he uses umbrellas and he's Xanxus-obsessed."
Inside the case, nestled snugly in black velvet, was his mother's violin. He unclipped the bow and tightened it, all the while musing. "Finally, there's Froggy."
-KHR-
Fran stood in the trees that surrounded the clearing. The prince is visiting a grave? Now that's something new. He'd found Bel just when he was finishing his rant on Lussuria and starting on Levi's.
"And there's Froggy."
Said Froggy froze in the trees, watching as Bel started tuning the badly off-tune strings with a professional ear. It was several anxious minutes of fixing, adjusting, and playing scales before he spoke again. What came out of his mouth nearly made Fran drop the… present he was holding.
"He's about the only person I could probably call a friend. Don't tell him I said that, though. He'll probably gloat."
Fran probably will… if the comment on him had not been so personal. A friend? That's new.
"He wears a funny frog hat and never seems to lose its stuffing – I gave him that as a present, you know. He also never gets hurt and likes to annoy me, so usually he serves as target practice for my knives. And… yeah."
'And yeah' he says. Honestly, it's getting weirder and weirder by the second.
More scales. Do re me fa so la ti do. Re me fa so la ti do re. Me fa so la ti do re me. Don't they ever get boring?
"I think you recall, mom, that you used to sing me a song when I was two, which I said sounded like a funeral march, but you said was actually your own song that you called 'born at dawn'? It took me twenty or so years, but I think I finally got what you mean."
And he began to play.
Fran recognized the piece; it was one Bel had written recently with twenty-five movements and one extra note at the end. It started off awkward, then steadied and climbed onto higher notes and faster melodies. It wasn't any type of lullaby – quite to opposite, in fact. It was fast and unpredictable, the boy flying from string to string with enough force to break normal wires.
The final movement approached, the notes going impossibly high and then dropping so abruptly it would be enough to startle, then climbing again. Fran waited for the final note – an off-tune one that made ears ring for several minutes afterwards that Xanxus banned it from the mansion.
It never came.
The note blended into several others, and the new, twenty-sixth movement flew by, with a slow and eerie melody, then speeding up again and finally dropping into something that sounded suspiciously like a fragment of the G-minor scale Bel somehow favored.
To the East, the sky had been steadily lightening; and now, from the horizon, burst several rays of blinding light that made Fran almost wince and look away. Almost. He was Fran, after all, so he just averted his eyes from the reflective surface of the old piece of wood Bel was still holding.
And the final note fell, a short, abrupt one that left the piece unfinished, and Fran realized that it wasn't just one of Bel's songs with an impromptu extra movement. Belphegor had been playing his life. He had finished the twenty-sixth year and started the twenty-seventh, which was the extra note at the end.
So he was born at dawn. Bel is officially twenty-seven now.
Fran felt a smile on his lips as he stepped out from the trees, the birthday present in his hand. "I didn't know you thought about me that highly, Prince-sempai. Was that an offer of friendship?"
Said prince-sempai dropped his bow in an un-princely manner, wretched his violin violently from under his chin, and spun around with a look of shock and partial embarrassment in the visible half of his face. Fran would have laughed out loud at the flabbergasted look, but allowed the smile to turn into a smirk.
"Happy birthday, prince-sempai." He said, then promptly threw the present, a disastrous-looking leaf-and-twig-and-icing covered cake, into a stunned prince's face.