Dear Book full of Paper,

I thought "diary" sounded too stupid. So yeah. :]

Anyways. I'm just trying this out, and my guess is that I'll probably drop it, stop it, and give it up soon, because writing in you is just too annoying and time-eating. It's not the first time I've tried to keep a journal. Or diary. Whatever.

But for now, I'll just go ahead and do what every single journal-keeping idiot seems to like to do. I'll introduce myself. Hi, I'm Lauhnn Rosanne Mariah Carlson Ghirlanda. But no sane idiot would say something like that. My parents just thought it was the most amazing joke ever. Maybe they just really like Mary-Sue names.

I think that they need to be ambulanced to the nearest asylum as soon as possible.

Just call me Lirah, 'kay? I've got plenty of other nicknames you could use, but maybe I'll list them out later when I'm bored. Gotta save some stuff to talk about, right?

Right?

Oh darn. You're a sheet of paper. You can't talk. It doesn't matter anyways. Gah.

So. I'm currently 19…and a half. My birthday is on February 28th. I know, close call. Very close call.

I work for…the mafia.

Shock? Probably not much, since you probably think that I'm an insane lunatic already. No matter. But well, I'm Italian. I live in Italy. Italy has mafias. Mafias are cool. I like mafias. Therefore, I should join the mafia.

Plenty of premises and a solid conclusion. My philosophy teacher would be proud.

So hey, I joined the mafia. It wasn't that easy, though.

See, what I'd tried to do was to get them to catch me, and if they didn't kill me, then I'd catch a chance to tell them of my ambitions. It didn't exactly work out that way though. One day, I was wandering the city looking for trouble (again), and along comes a weird white-haired dude with a weird tattoo and a weird hairstyle and a generally weird expression on his face.

His expression was weird because he was smiling, and that face looked like it would be a crime to let a face like that smile, 'cause all ladies in the nearby areas would simply die of adoration.

So, basically, I crashed into him, and he looked down at me, his head tilted adorably to the side. Bending down a little, he lowered himself until he was on my eye level.

I was still 16 then. And short. –ER. Haha. Short-ER. That looks kinda funny.

Alright, lunacies aside, back to the story. So he does the head tilt, bends down, and asks gently, "Well, what do we have here?"

I was tired. And bored. And my head was really fuzzled-up 'cause of this guy's damned beauty and perfection. It hurt my eyes.

It dazzled me. And I guess that's when I first fell for him.

And because of my dazzled-ness, the only idea my brain could come up with was to run.

So I ran, as fast as I could, back home, where I hid for a few days.

But soon, I was out again, once more wandering the city. And instead of the mafia, what I now sought was the white-haired man.

And then it happened. I was wandering down a narrow, old, stinky alley, probably subconsciously searching for the mafia again, and had just paused to examine a curiously perverse and repulsive piece of graffiti art. Then, I felt the touch of a hand on my head, and extremely frightened, turned around to see who it belonged to.

My oh my, it was my white-haired-man-person-thingymajigger! This time, he was gazing down at me, no longer smiling, but a kind look….in his eyes? I don't know. I'm not the type who believes in all that crap about "looking into his beautiful eyes, and falling into its mysterious depths blahblahblah…", but those eyes, or maybe the face, but definitely something about him, expressed gentleness. He was being gentle the same way one would be gentle to a wild animal you didn't want to scare, so it wouldn't run away.

Oh geez, I leave really bad first impressions.

But, well, he was looking down at me, and he's all "Hello", and I'm all "Hey, mister, what's your name," and he's all "Call me Byakuran," and I'm all "Oh that's an interesting name, I've never heard it before, is it Italian?" and he's all "No, it's Japanese. It means white chrysanthemum," and I'm all, "Oh, that's pretty," and he's all, "What's your name?" and I'm all "Lirah, L-I-R-A-H, pronounced LEE-rah" and he's all "Oh, that's an interesting name too."

And we stop for a bit. A short pause. And then he does the head tilt again, and asks, "So, what are you doing in a place like this?"

Interestingly, my mind failed me, and my mouth just blurted out, without any thought or intention whatsoever, "Looking for the mafia."

I was about to facepalm myself for such a stupid answer, but was stopped short when I saw him tilt his head back a little and laugh lightly. It was a beautiful laugh—soft, trilling, lyrical…it made my heart sing with joy. Yum.

And so, I'm really surprised, right? So I say, "Pardon?"

"Oh, nothing. Just a question though—were you serious about that? Why would you be looking for the mafia?"

"Um…I want to join them…"

At this, he laughed again, and I was delighted to find that I had managed to coax such a beautiful sound out of him. He eye-smiled, and said, "Which famiglia were you thinking about?"

"I'm sorry…?"

"You see, the mafia are divided into separate famiglia. You might want to do a little bit of research, pick a famiglia, and then go look for that specific one, instead of wandering around aimlessly like this."

"Oh…well, I knew that, it's just that…I figured that I'd join any mafia famiglia that would take me."

"But did you have any preferences?"

"Um…sort of…I mean, I just thought that if the Millefiore would take me, I'd be really honored…but I was sure they wouldn't, so…"

"Hmm, Millefiore. Interesting. Did you have a second choice?"

"Um, the Vongola? Because, well, I thought that since they were the best, they'd probably lose out and fall soon, and the Millefiore was rising. But I heard that…" and I stopped, blushing. I vaguely wondered why I was spilling my guts to a total stranger.

Byakuran poked my nose. "Go on…?"

"Well, I heard that they had really…good…hitmen."

"Oh come on, that can't be it."

"Well, good probably isn't the right word. Let's try…dashing."

Byakuran tilted his head backward and laughed again, this time with genuine amusement. I was a little annoyed and embarrassed now. "Hey, don't laugh! It's not like any of them could possibly be better looking than—"

Byakuran was eye-smiling at me, noticing my abrupt stop. I'd stopped because I realized that the next word I would have said was "you." That would never do, nuh-uh. But Byakuran already figured out what I was about to say, and lightly swiped me over the head. "It's okay, I'm sure that you're just flattering me. Come on."

He took my wrist and started leading me down the alley, and I obediently followed, until I suddenly stopped short and pulled free. "Where are you taking me?"

"To the mafia, of course."

"…Wait, what? I'm afraid I didn't catch that."

Another delicious laugh. "Oh, you caught that all right. Come on!" And he once more grabbed my wrist and pulled me down, down that alley, around many turns and smaller trails and weird cracks in the wall, until we came out into the light.

I'd missed the light. I was glad Byakuran had brought me out, because it would have taken me days to find my way out.

Surprised that we had stopped, I looked up at him, and saw that he was looking into the distance with a thoughtful look. The respite lasted only a minute, and then we were off again, dashing down the city's streets, around corners, through many little crooks, and crowds of people. We then arrived at a modest-looking door opening onto a rather impressive building. At this point, I was close to collapsing on my feet. Byakuran picked me up and carried me in, commenting that he'd "have to work on her strength and endurance a bit." Harrumph. I'd always prided myself on my strength and endurance.

He carried me up the elevator into what looked like an office, and then set me down on the couch, squatting down in front of me. "So, little missy, do you know what's going on?"

"Er…" I hazarded a crazy guess, just for the fun of it. "I'm in the Millefiore building, and you're the Millefiore boss, and you're going to accept me into your mafia group because you're going to use me to help take over the Vongola Famiglia, because you'll discover awesome superpowers in me, and, and—"

Byakuran placed a finger on my lips to shush me, causing me to blush bright red. He crossed his arms in mock rage. "Where are you getting all this inside information?"

I stared, and stared, and stared at him until I realized that the crazy guess I was making had been true. And then I cackled maniacally and fell over.

Byakuran tells me that he had to hand me over to his staff to get me cleaned up and put in the hospital, because when I blacked out, I hit myself on the corner of his glass coffee table, and his gun. And the gun was set off, and he himself got shot too.

Which explained why, the next day, I woke up in bandages on a hospital bed, and Byakuran was on the bed next to me getting his bandage replaced. It was a pretty funky experience.

I still have perfect memory of this whole thing. :D Even what we said, to the word.

It's pretty late, and I have a report due to Byakuran tomorrow that I need to proofread. So goodnight and maybe I'll tell you more tomorrow.

Maybe.

Lirah Ghirlanda

(who feels like a lame idiot for telling her life story to an inanimate object.)

Oh, and by the way…my mood seems to be affected by the people I'm around.

But it works both ways, in the way that the people I'm around are affected too.

Well, let's just put it this way. When I'm around serious and depressed and sad and generally emo people, I get really hyper and crack-ish and…and….crazy. Yah. But when I'm around really crack-ish and crazy people, I get more serious. And you could see that I act more normal and think more normal.

Of course, there are in-betweens.

And the thing is that it's almost like I give off stuff that the people take in, because after hanging around with me for a while, emo people turn more crack-ish and crack-ish people turn more emo.

So I'm either a subconscious mind controller or just…weird.

I think I'm siding more with the second option.