Title: Meeting
Rating: T to be sure for the future; you'll never know what will come :)
Pairing: Lampin
Summary: I-Pin hasn't meet Lambo since she was ten. When will she see him again?
Author Note: Well, it has become more text then I thought it would, so this will definitely be a longer project. Thanks goes - as always - to Renren as my wonderful beta x3. And don't worry, I'm only getting started, so the next chapters will have more action in them :). I hope you enjoy reading and be so nice to leave a comment so that I know your opinions on this story.
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The last time she had seen him had been five years ago, when they were still inexperienced and innocent – well, as innocent as an Italian mafia boy and a Chinese assassin girl could be.
Since then he had to leave for his home country to start his training to become a real Mafioso. She on the other hand had quit as a demanded assassin to start a life as a normal high school girl.
They had departed like they were best friends to begin with.
Like he never had annoyed her in his entire life and like she had never lectured him each time he was again close to trouble or beaten him up for his stupidity.
I-Pin had cried a bit when the family had watched until his airplane was only a little dot in the bright blue sky. He had been the only child her age which she knew since five. He had become something close to a brother for her over the years they spend together.
And now he was going home to be educated, but what would she do in the future?
Both Haru and Kyoko had hugged her gently and assured her that he would eventually come back, like he had never gone away.
And she had believed them, like all children do when adults promised them something.
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Over the years she slowly got used to the now silent house in which only she and Mrs. Sawada lived, after Tsuna-nii-san had to leave for Italy half a month later, too.
She got busy with studying for her exams because she planned on going to a good college.
And even though she often cried silently in her room and wished everything would go back to the time before his departure, the years eased her pain until she didn't think too much about her companion out of her childhood days anymore.
Only letters or cards which arrived on important holidays in the Sawada residence reminded her of a boy in a far away country who was still in training to become a great hit man someday.
Sometimes she would spot his name on the cards where all guardians signed next to their boss signature, but other than that she mostly forgot that she had been waiting for him.
Occupied with the mornings at school, the afternoons working as a deliverer for a Chinese restaurant and the evenings more asleep than awake in her coaching school, she just didn't find time to think about people who where in Italy and not next door or in her close proximity.
I-Pin had just as much fun living her new live as much as she had trouble dealing with it.
It was something new, something exciting to work hard for your own happiness and not to perform mission after mission where everybody told you what to do or whom to eliminate.
Each day, I-Pin found that she didn't regret her decision to drop out of the mafia business.
A normal life suited her much, much better than the control she had been under until the age of ten.
This freedom was so refreshing and sometimes she still thought that it was a very nice dream from which she could wake up anytime soon.
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But the calm, bright days continued, only interrupted when Tsuna-nii-san came over for a visit to see how his mother and she were doing.
He would never talk about his current job; he strictly separated work and vacation.
It wasn't that she didn't ask him on his first visit half a year later after he had left how Lambo was doing, but Tsuna-nii-san could only look sorrowful at her and tell her that he didn't know because the Bovino family had taken his education in their hands and nobody got information about his condition.
First, she had planned to go to Italy herself and force them to tell her how Lambo was doing, but Tsuna-nii-san had came the next day and handed her a letter over, smiling like only he could.
And she had known in an instance that he had guessed her intentions and used his position to gain information.
The letter had been very short and hastily written, saying in short sentences that everything was alright and that she didn't have to worry.
After this, I-Pin had never asked Tsuna-nii-san again about Lambo because she knew it must have caused him quite a bit difficulty to get such a fast and still not very satisfying answer.
Instead, she started to write letters to Lambo about her life, how she was doing in school, about her new friends, what she liked to do on vacations and how Mrs. Sawada was doing until she was almost thirteen.
But because of the unspoken rejection she had experienced while asking after Lambo, she never found out how to send her letters to him.
Still, she kept them all, hidden in a box under her bed.
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With fourteen she got her first love declaration from a boy whom she had never even notice once at school. Naturally, she had turned him down, in a friendly but resolute way.
After that came a short talk with Mrs. Sawada and later a longer one with Kyoko and Haru, the next day in school I-Pin had been suddenly extremely aware of the looks she got from boys.
It frightened her how she could have ignored those guys who would wave or whistle at her, trying to buy her lunch or asking her to go to the cinema with them.
She had always felt confident around boys, but now she preferred to spend her time with her female friends. Her many admirers just plainly disturbed her.
Her long neglected abilities as assassin helped her to escape once or twice when she felt caged in between too many boys and her combat skills send the more persistent fans far away from their prey.
But still, I-Pin was as friendly as ever and always apologized when she had hurt somebody or simply underestimated her opponent.
So, her popularity stayed the same although less and less boys were interested in her as a girlfriend.
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Half a year before her fifteen's birthday, she didn't felt uncomfortable anymore when a boy asked for her help or simply wanted to talk to her.
She passed all her tests with high marks and the money she saved for her future had become a save basis for her college days.
Sometimes, when she tidied up her room, she would stumble over her letter box.
Smiling, she would look through the pieces she wrote and tried to imagine how much Lambo had grown up over the years he had been away.
But it was impossible to picture an adult or simply more matured Lambo in her mind and so she would always end up laughing, thinking that he still ran around in his cow pyjamas.
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