Diclaimer: I don't own the characters or the series. Amano Akira does. I'm just playing with them for a bit.
WARNING: Deathfic.
Understanding
You're still not quite sure what happened. Or perhaps you know it all too well, it's just that your mind refuses to take it in, as though some protective spell had been placed over it to shield you from the grief. It's just too soon, too close, and really you still don't even want to believe it.
You don't know what to tell Tsuna, you're almost afraid to even try, there's no way you can stand up and face him and tell him the news. Someone has to tell him, though, someone has to tell him and you're the boss, the one responsible, you're the one who saw it all happen even if you still can't quite make sense of it.
It starts innocently enough, the little story, as far as Kyouya ever does anything in a manner that even resembles innocent. He just appears without a warning, as he so often does, demanding to fight you. His visits are often like this, perhaps they start amicably enough with some tea or perhaps a dinner, or maybe the food comes afterwards instead, but the fight is almost always a part of it. Kyouya's mood and the particulars of the fight shape the rest of the visit, sometimes in ways you could not even hope to predict, you could never know if you would be rewarded for your troubles with icy silence and the sight of a retreating back or a heated kiss and clothes torn off with no regard to whether Romario and Kusakabe are still there or not. You've long since given up even trying to understand, really, what use would that be when he always surprises you anyway. It's a part of him and you've come to accept it, love it even, and if sometimes you think you know what to expect you're probably wrong.
He wants to go to the same spot again. He's taken a liking to it, you've noticed, the little spot by the cliff and the sea, it seems he enjoys being there not that he'll ever admit it, and that means you enjoy going there as well. It's so rare you get to indulge him like that, he rarely wants something and when he does he usually just takes it, and if something as simple as the location of your latest fight makes him happy you see no reason to disagree.
He asks Romario to look after Hibird, such a simple request and nothing out of the ordinary, yet afterwards you will go over it time and time again and try to figure out the tone, the meaning, the purpose of it, and though you'll never know if he only meant it for the duration of the fight the bird will take a perch in your office and Romario will feed it twice a day and sometimes if you stare at it long enough it will say his name but the door will never open to show him again.
There's something off about him this time, you can't quite put a finger on it but there's something, something in the way he says your name, in the kiss he plants on your lips almost out of the blue. You almost question him but not quite, if he wants you to know he'll tell you eventually and if he doesn't you'll never find out anyway, he isn't exactly one to spill secrets. Perhaps you're just imagining it, whatever could bother Kyouya after all, and by the time the weapons come out you have already convinced yourself everything is all right.
He fights as usual far as you can tell, maybe there's a slight edge to it but then it's hardly the first time, he often does try to provoke you into fighting more seriously and sometimes he succeeds or not. This is one of the times he's successful and you find yourself attacking with everything you have, it's safe because you know he will return it all and more, it's been ages since you've been able to truly hurt him after all.
For years from now you'll try to think back to find signs but there are none, nothing you could notice anyway, not then and not now and never again. You don't even know exactly how it happens even at the moment, such a simple action shouldn't work like that. He should be able to avoid it or block it and then attack you in retaliation, he shouldn't go down for it, not him, not like that, and maybe he just makes his worst mistake in years or maybe he does it on purpose and perhaps you will never truly know.
Your whip wraps around his ankle and he shouldn't fall but he does, he steps back but there is no ground to bear him and he continues to fall in front of your eyes. He says something but you don't hear, the sea is crashing against the rocks underneath and you just see his lips moving, and you will never be quite sure if it was farewell or thanks or those three words he would never say aloud before.
You call for help immediately but it's too late, there are rocks at the foot of the cliff and crashing waves, and by the time they find him he's long since gone. You've never seen him quite so still, quite so silent, and as you see his lifeless body you whisper his name and it sounds almost like some broken plea or a prayer that will never be answered and you know it but you say it anyway.
You have to tell Tsuna, not like you first told him about Kyouya but officially, this time, this is not just some idle meeting or kissing and telling but an official announcement and an apology, a Vongola guardian has died by your hand after all and if Tsuna wanted to he'd have every reason to declare war. He doesn't, though, of course he doesn't, and you never even have to decide how to tell him because the second he sees your serious face he doesn't ask what but how.
He knew, it turns out, of course Tsuna knew, Tsuna is becoming a good little Don and always knows everything about everyone, he knew even though you didn't know and you're not even sure about Reborn. It's not something Kyouya would have told you, anyway, not something he would have told anyone, and you suspect he only told Tsuna so he wouldn't be surprised when you brought the news because Kyouya always did think of things like that. He never told you about the doctors, about all the tests and examinations and treatments, he never told you that when he disappeared last it wasn't to hole up somewhere but to have his head poked and prodded only to be told nothing could be done.
It sounds so absurd, of course something could be done, it's not like there's any adversary Kyouya couldn't fight and triumph over, but apparently even he is vulnerable to attacks from within and really only he could have kept anyone from knowing for so long. Brain tumour, they tell you, unresponsive to treatment and inoperable for all they wished otherwise, and every time he sought new hope they just gave him a shorter time to live until finally he decided to stop trying.
It's his escape, you hear Tsuna telling you even if the words won't register for hours or perhaps days yet, he would have never wanted to go outside battle and besides soon he might not have been able to fight anymore, and really Dino-san you're the one he would have wanted to do it and even though you don't hear him properly that is when you start crying.
He is buried in Namimori, it's not like he could ever be at rest anywhere else, he has no relatives you'd know of but Kusakabe takes care of everything and even though you want to help you wouldn't even know how. He gets a proper wake and a Buddhist funeral, you know very little about either but then this is how you learn isn't it, one of the things you wish you'd never need to know but you hardly have a choice. The core of the Vongola family is there, Vongola and you and not many others, though some of his followers do show up and in all your years in the mafia you've never seen such intimidating men looking quite so grief-stricken.
You want to cry but you know he would never want that, he'd probably sneer at you if he saw, and since you made sure to set a pair of wooden tonfas by his side in the casket you really don't want to take any chances because if anyone could make it back it would be Kyouya. He doesn't, though, and in the end you can't help yourself, you do make it through the wake and the funeral but then you're picking his bones from the ashes, just the guardians and you, and you'll probably never even touch chopsticks again and suddenly you realize your face is wet.
Nobody asks you anything, they all know even if you haven't told them in as many words, they may not have understood or always even believed but they do know and so they don't ask anything, and as Gokudera briefly sets his hand on your shoulder you know they miss him too even if some of them will never admit it.
You feel like choking afterwards and so you need some fresh air, it's still so incredibly easy to get to Namimori Middle School and really they should be glad you're the more benevolent kind of Mafiosi, and the roof hasn't changed much at all and as you close your eyes you can almost imagine Kyouya is lying right there and glaring at you for disturbing his nap. There is no snapped remark, though, nobody asking what you're doing here, nobody calling you Cavallone in that special tone that makes it almost sound more intimate than Dino ever did. Your fingers grip on the fence and for a fleeting moment you consider following him, surely he can't have gone far enough that you couldn't catch up with him wherever he's going, but you know he'd just sneer at you and call you a weak herbivore and really if you're just strong enough to wait Kyouya will find you no matter when your time comes.
It still hasn't quite sunk in, one would think you'd at least be clear on that much after picking his bones from his ashes but it just doesn't work quite like that, and there are so many things you should have said but never did but then you suspect he heard them anyway. He always did know you, better than you yourself did as you suspect, and maybe just maybe he chose to crash down from the cliff at your strike because he knew you'd be strong enough for it even if right now it feels like everything is falling apart without him.
It will get better, though, it hurts so much now but it will get better, and one day you will look at the tonfas they managed to fish up from the sea with a fond little smile instead of tears, and maybe one day yet you'll understand why and what and how and maybe his choice will feel less like a punishment and more like a final honour to the one opponent he could never quite bring himself to strike down for good.
And when it's finally your turn, perhaps an end less glorious than his but just as valid and final and permanent, maybe then the sea will finally stop crashing so loudly and let you hear his words and maybe then you will be able to respond even though he already knows what you're going to say because of course you love him too.