"After I graduate, I have to go away, Kyoya.
"And I can't take you with me."
"Why not?"
"Because, this is your territory."
"It's that baby's fault."
"It's not really a matter of fault, but I suppose you could say it's my father 's to blame."
"You're going back to Italy."
"Yeah. I am."
….
Kyouya stood behind the gates of his school watching the crowd with a critical eye, daring any of them to misbehave – and they didn't. His students were good students.
Most of them, at least.
He hated crowding but herbivores found safety in numbers and while he didn't get it, he found it permissible to a degree.
Most of his students didn't crowd loudly.
Most of his students didn't disappear for a week and come back wounded – it was that baby's fault his students were harmed.
Sawada had never been one for trouble until recently.
The problem started with the carnivorous baby and grew with the gaijin's transfer.
He hadn't known much more that what was in his file – he was a certifiable genius – and he knew, he knew it had been thoroughly redacted before it reached his hands.
He knew because just transfer students don't swear their lives to Sawada Tsunayoshis and just transfer students don't fling around dynamite and smoke like it was going out of style.
It reminded him of –
He shook his head.
The last of his students were trickling through the gates with Sawada's group rounding them out.
Yamamoto smiled at him when they passed him by. It seemed that after the Sakura Incident that he considered them friends? Acquaintances? At least he thought they were on amicable terms – which was not entirely false. He thought he was on amicable terms with all students providing they follow the rules and regulations and acted as befitting of students of his school.
He had known of Yamamoto because he knew his father – for whatever the reason – and had dragged Kyouya along when he ordered sushi. He inevitably met Yamamoto as it was, in fact, his father's restaurant.
He liked Tsuyoshi even if the man wasn't a proper carnivore he had tasted blood.
He liked Tsuyoshi even if he took the long way home to avoid his shop.
Yamamoto, on the other hand, infuriated him. He was always smiling and laughing even without reason. He would laugh and smile even when he came home covered in wounds. He'd say it was just training, that it was no big deal even when Kyouya knew the baby was abusing his trust in him. He would say he shouldn't worry because he could handle it – he knew he could Kyouya had seen him fight but he had also seen him fight alone. He had always been stronger with something to fight for.
Even the few stragglers had made their way into his school.
Kyouya stalked into his school stepping to the sound of the anthem.
Through the doors.
His school was a good school.
His school in his city.
It was his city like it was his mother's before him and her mother's before her.
His city was handed over to his mother when she was 16.
He was 16 and his mother was still present.
She said she wanted to give him a choice.
If he hadn't found another city but the time he was 20, she would leave.
But, it was still his city even if it wasn't entirely his, yet.
He had all but taken over his mother's duties and he failed to understand why she wouldn't just hand over the reins.
She never bothered explaining.
Did she honestly believe he would follow –
No. He would stay by his school in his Namimori.
….
He refused the ring.
He didn't want to play family with a bunch of herbivores. Herbivores can't sustain a pack. Herbivores will tuck in their tails and run when given the opportunity. Herbivores will run and not return for years and years and may never return. Herbivores –
No. He wanted nothing to do with them.
A traitorous part of him whispers that they are family, that they are pack. That part of him wants more than anything to join them, to be whole again.
He had thought he was pack. They fed together and they bled together. Family leaves. Like his mother would like his grandmother did. But pack, pack is strengthened through blood given and taken.
He knew Sawada's little group was a pack and he knew Sawada would accept him if he wanted to join.
But he refused.
The baby – that took him away – had taken it in stride, but Kyouya knew he would be back and he knew he wouldn't be able to refuse.
The next day, the ring met him on the roof.
The ring was not alone.
He could feel the baby watching and he just knew that this was the plan from the start.
The ring's bearer opened his mouth and Kyouya lunged.
How many years had it been?
He knew the answer without thinking.
Four years.
Four years ago that baby whisked him off to Italy never to return.
But he promised he would return.
Even as he swung his tonfa, he could feel the weight of the button in his pocket.
"I know this is supposed to be for a girl," he had said. "But I want you to have it."
"…why?" he had questioned but accepted the button pressed into his hand.
"It's a promise, fratellino." His tone had been light but his face was dark.
"…"
"A promise that we'll meet again."
….
He had been nine when he came to stay with him and his mother – his father had been killed two years prior.
That was the year Kyouya learned just how many possible threats lurked inside his mother's city.
Kyouya had been irate and he had been the one to calm him down enough to explain, in broken Japanese, that Namimori was neutral ground and that people much scarier that his mother would take them if they acted out.
He had always been good at calming Kyouya down – his mother just let him beat out his anger on the nearest target but never on furniture or those too weak to fight back.
It was also explained that he was sent to Namimori in order for him to train and finish school away from the skirmishes his family was involved in and their house was chosen because apparently his father had owed his family a favor and his mother had taken it in stride. Even though he was married into the family, his father was still a Hibari and Hibari's bared debts with honor.
It was about a two later that Kyouya first saw the baby – saw because his mother refused to let him into the house. By then his Japanese was fluent and Kyouya's Italian was passible.
The baby was supposed to be training him.
He didn't like it.
He followed them once, listened to the baby teach his brother about mafia politics and watched him beat his brother when he made even simple mistakes.
Kyouya knew it was wrong and he knew there was nothing he could do.
For as long as he could remember, his mother taught him that hurting the weak wouldn't make them stronger. While he was still weak – his mother spent evenings training him alongside Kyouya – he was trying and he was improving.
The baby was abusing his power.
And Kyouya wanted blood.
They met eyes once. A whisper you will never defeat me.
Kyouya vowed to grow stronger to protect his city and his brother.
Someday, he would defeat the baby.
But until then, he would wait with clinched teeth and white knuckles.
The day he returned home triumphant with clothes bloody and torn – carrying a whip of all things – he explained it to Kyouya, that he was important back in Italy and one day he would have to return. The words mafia and Familglia were never mentioned and that frustrated him.
For once, his mother stopped him from going out to work out his frustrations. She told him that he was protecting him.
You're pack she said. Pack protect their own.
He gripped his tonfa – his first set, bamboo – and bared his teeth at his mother.
He was not weak.
She just smiled at him.
To Dino, you are his fratellino, his outoto. His world is made of scarier and more powerful people than the thugs of our city. He wishes to keep you from them. But, he will tell you when he thinks you're ready and not a moment before.
Kyouya was offended by the insinuation that he needed to be coddled but he could not argue with his mother, especially when she smiled like that.
When his mother found out that the baby wasn't actually training him to use his knew weapon, she had gone out for several hours.
The next morning found Tetsuya's father and a small woman – whose name he never learned – demonstrating proper arm and wrist movements and making him repeat them over and over.
Kyouya watched. Tetsuya's father had no training with whips and neither did the woman. After asking his mother, he learned that she was a silk dancer. He didn't understand, but his movements grew steadily more accurate.
In the year before his departure, there were great changes in their household. He spoke mainly in Italian and he spent less and less time home – if he wasn't at school or training, he was with the baby.
A week before the graduation ceremony, Kyouya woke to a gun in his face.
I have no qualms against pulling this trigger. The face he wore should have never been seen on a baby.
Kyouya said nothing.
Dino has obligations in Italy that cannot be ignored.
If you ask it of him, he will stay. The gun was pressed against his forehead, the baby's finger hovering over the trigger.
You will let him leave. He does not belong here.
Kyouya practically growled.
Namimori is his home.
And Italy is his birthright. He countered.
Kyouya's eyes widened marginally. Birthright. They weren't blood related. He had no right to keep him.
I see you understand. The baby's gun transformed into a lizard.
Wao… He couldn't help but wonder.
The baby looked at him for a moment, scrutinizing.
Kyouya didn't want to just bite him to death, he wanted to maul him.
The baby left.
He never told his mother.
They fought. With the button safely in his pocket, Kyouya deflected the whip only diving in for calculated risks.
He still left.
Kyouya's tonfa was cracked.
…
In the years coming, Kyouya wishes he had stayed. Tetsuya was his second but he was his –
Most days those thoughts are easily abated with whispers.
Birthright.
Birthright.
Birthright.
Other days he feels as though his heart was ripped from his chest.
He deals with both of these feelings in a typical Hibari fashion.
He still had the stupid whip.
Kyouya hated it.
He hated him.
Him and his stupid parka and his stupid weapon and his blond hair and his and the devastated look on his face.
Kyouya hated him.
"Kyouya!" he cried.
Kyouya could feel the baby watching.
He hated him to.
Him and his fedora and his magic lizard.
He hated him for –
He had grown stronger.
Someone was screaming.
His moves grew erratic and maybe he was being reckless.
But he was angry and hurt and betrayed.
All it took was a misstep and his tonfa were torn away and the stupid whip was wrapped around his arms.
Kyouya hated the whip, hated what it represented. Hated how it made the herbivorous man a master.
A master of himself.
A master of his people.
A master of him.
It was all his fault.
He stood before him with a frown.
Kyouya tasted salt.
He expected a blow.
"I'm sorry I couldn't come home sooner, fratellino."
Arms were wrapped around him.
He should have known. He had always been an herbivore. Gentle and weak.
He was warm and his stupid parka was soft.
Kyouya felt like a child, weak and vulnerable.
But then, it didn't matter.
Dino was pack.