Disclaimer: Not mine.

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"Choco, choco, chocoboo~!"

Then the gruff and buff engineer behind the main desk bowed down to Tsuna's clapping even as the last lilting notes of the song faded away on the radio. His voice really was suited for it, deep and gravelly. The guy grinned at him and patted him on the head and called him a baby doll for listening. Then he extended a meaty arm carved with a dragon tattoo around his biceps and gave the flustered Tsuna the keys to warehouse 021A.

That tattoo was listed on the Number Circus registration. It was good to know that this particular ex-convict was settling in well after his previous incarceration.

Even as Tsuna clambered up one of the steel staircases, he was mindful of adding his psych evaluation of dragon engineer's profile on the mainframe bureaucratic processes of Numbers on his cellphone. Found legal occupation. Behavior well-adjusted and friendly to customers. Dragon guy didn't know he was a (worried) Number checking up on him, after all.

He stopped at floor fifteen and found warehouse 021A right next to the stairs. This was Haru's home, more than any apartment or hotel room ever could be.

It was the air transport docks of Spiral City since the city was, while being an isolated archipelago from the rest of the world, was also used as a main stopping point in global trading routes. Consequently, over thirty-five floors of hangars and warehouses were built in two parallel lines for the incoming and outgoing traffic rush. The space in between, the airzone, hummed with small zeppelin planes and mechanical biplanes like dragonflies over the port piers stacked on top of each other connected to the hangars.

Here, high up here, there was vertigo.

Tsuna took comfort in that feeling even as he leaned over the balcony of hangar 021A. It was…familiar. The disquieting sense of balancing on a tightrope…the lightheaded sensation of calling for his pyrokinetic abilities. Vertigo. To be honest, he'd done a runner on Number business and escaped here high in the hold of air-pilots and clouds. Something bothered him about the rumors he and Yama-pi had collected yesterday.

It was just odd, he thought as he tracked down a zeppelin with a trademark lion symbol dock above him. It was a King Industries transport.

Then the lion turned its head and looked directly at him and snorted. It said, "Denial, much? You're ignoring the real issue. The Yama-pi issue. As in, the fact that he pretended to be your boyfriend and then practically okay'ed your boyfriend-resume."

Tsuna spluttered and then glared at it. "I-it wasn't like that! It, well, it was just for the sake of the mission, okay? He just did that to run off the pervert."

The lion gave him a deadpan stare then licked its claws delicately while it said, "It sounds as if you're trying to convince yourself, not me."

"Wh-wha—well, um, what do you…Shit." Tsuna groaned and sat down on the balconey, dangling his legs through the spaces in between the bars. He tugged at his hair and wondered. "…It's just…I mean, guys like Yama-pi don't…look my way. I mean, I'm a mess. It's…just odd that he would—"

"If I could, I would beat you up with my tail," the lion grumbled, picking at its incisors with a claw. "You like him. He likes you. End of story. No 'I don't deserve him' bullcrap. I hate that kind of thing, you know? It's pathetic."

"Yeah, that's me. That's my middle name. Pathetic." Tsuna swung his legs absent-mindedly even as he grinned self-deprecatingly at the lion. "I get it, I get it. Don't start a pity-party. Something really was odd about yesterday though."

"Tell me more of your mundane problems," trawled the lion. "I'll lend an ear."

Tsuna ignored him and said, "First off, it was the ridiculous amount of rumors we found about the owners of King Industries. It could mean they were just trying to drum up popularity for the game," Tsuna thought out loud, while tapping a finger against his cheek.

The lion added grimly, "Or it could mean they were misdirecting people from looking in the right direction."

"Only the Varia were allowed to investigate them personally. This cube technology of theirs…Could it hack into a person's mind? I mean, it connects to your body, right?" He mimicked the wires sticking in his neck with his fingers to the bemused lion. "I should talk to Spanner. He has first-hand experience about what happened with him and that Anansi cube monster."

"Well, just don't let beefcakes Yama-pi catch you talking with Spanner alone," the lion sighed as if put-upon. "Men can be irrationally jealous, you know?"

"Spanner's my friend! And how do you know that, anyway? You're just a—poster of a lion…" Tsuna slapped a hand on his forehead. That was it. It was official. He was going crazy. All those road-side stall foods were finally working their poison on him.

The lion didn't budge from its sarcastic stare at him even as Tsuna imagined what it was thinking. At least I'm not talking with myself. Like a crazy person.

Tsuna pinched himself. Annoyed, he stretched outwards, hands and fingers outlined by a blue sky interspersed with cottony clouds as large as any island.

And then there it was, a vapor trail streaking from Haru's deep red plane in between his fingers. Piaggio P-136 piloted by the ever-excitable Haru who ran a supply line for a mutual friend of theirs. Not a psychic though and certainly not part of Numbers.

He stood up and began flipping the green stop-light signal of hangar number 021A.

Haru's plane looped in the air, weaving through the incoming traffic. Once then twice, spiraling closer. There was a burst of clapping from the engineers hanging around on the next hangar port. Tsuna groaned. Then her plane zoomed straight through the landing airzone, missing several crossing transport boxes by a hairs-breadth (eliciting a small shriek from Tsuna) and perched on the metallic strips of the port as neat as she pleased.

She killed the engine then launched out of the cockpit, screeching his name, "Shrimpy Tsuna! Still as un-manly as EVER," even as she pounced on him.

"Whatever skittle-tits!" said Tsuna as he scrabbled out from under her weight, feeling his lungs being squished.

Haru cracked up again, slamming her fist against the floor repeatedly.

God, she was weird, Tsuna thought faintly with a trace of fondness. After helping her back up and pounding on her back as she started to choke, they began unloading the wooden boxes with labels and postage marks in Cantonese. Tsuna dealt with the official documents from a pimply government official while Haru waved over a transport cart from a line of them to deliver the boxes to I-pin. They both locked up the hangar and went down one of the stairs marked with a red exit sign on the gravel steps.

Veering off of one of the main stairs, they followed along a public fire escape that branched from the hangars to several districts close by. Rapid-fire chatter from Haru left Tsuna to manage navigating the labyrinthine passageways of Spiral City's center. Old lamps and neon signs and fluorescent bars started to light their way as the skies dimmed down. Other commuters walked along laughing and chatting on several staircases and roofed bridges hanging in between buildings like an architectural cat's cradle. It was easy to see why a tourist would get lost here.

After going through one last back-alley bridge, they reached I-pin's Chinese restaurant in front of a courtyard of red lanterns on ground floor. As usual, it was jam-packed with customers and pots of lucky bamboo. I-pin, with hands on her hips, greeted them at the door. "Why is my shipment of heaven pool tea so overdue that I've had to apologize to several important customers of mine?"

Haru waved the transport receipt at her, crying she'd had it sent already and any impertinent tardiness was no longer any fault of hers.

Tsuna nodded frantically and said, "What she said, what she said!"

I-pin grabbed at the receipt, squinted at it, cussed all local postal workers, then glared at her two fidgeting friends. Then in a flash, her face straightened out into a less feral and more polite businessman's smile. "Come on in then. Guess I don't have to be a murderer tonight, huh?"

Haru and Tsuna cringed together.

I-pin hustled them to the bistro bar at the back and where she slipped to the cooking side of the bar. She swept her braids into a neat pile behind a white head-kerchief and took their orders. Then she picked up bundles of vegetables from a bowl on the sink and began a high-speed chopping technique that Tsuna suspected was more for show. I-pin leaned forward to her two friends seated in front of the restaurant island and with the buzz of customers' Cantonese chatter masking her words, murmured mildly, "What's this I hear about Tsuna having a new boyfriend?"

Tsuna immediately thought of a dirty expletive.

Haru gaped at her then at Tsuna. Then she pinched Tsuna's arm (ow—that really hurts!) and loomed over her diminutive brunet friend and demanded why the hell she wasn't informed and that her friend in accounting was so going to be disappointed to hear that and—

"He's not my boyfriend," said Tsuna. Oh, the vim and vigor of all gossip-denied girls everywhere, he thought. sardonically. "And anyway, can't a guy hang around another guy for some manly bonding without you guys jumping to conclusions?"

I-pin shook her head and said, "Not when you look that star-struck, sweetheart." She even leaned forward and pinched Tsuna's nose and said, "—also not when I can practically smell love-me love-me pheromones all over you," and then she sniffed the air as if to demonstrate how she could smell it.

Tsuna slunked into his seat, trying to pretend he didn't know either of the two girls who burst out laughing. "You're crazy. I don't have pheromones."

Then I-pin and Haru wore him down into confessing the whole sordid affair (excluding certain Number matters). Not that there was a whole lot of sordidness about it. It being that their shift had been entirely without incident. All they had done, after gathering rumors, was talk. Playing watchguard tended to have that effect. Talking about their favorite foreign snacks. About the upcoming scifi series, Confessions of a Greek God. About stupid things, normal ordinary things. Safe things, in fact, which Tsuna was both eternally gratefully for and slightly suspicious of. Because it had been disconcerting how easily Yama-pi had led the conversation the entire time. It made Tsuna nervous.

Then again, it could have been those broad shoulders under a thin school uniform. Tsuna took a moment to sigh in appreciation even as I-pin and Haru sighed in sync with him.

Haru cleared her throat afterwards and continued, "—So, then what? You just dumped your boytoy student at a co-worker's feet for external training?" Haru quoted at him with her fingers, both eyebrows raised. "And now, you're here skipping your work and stuffing your face." She shook her chopsticks at him. "When has the law ever stopped us from fresh meat?"

There was another moment of silence as Tsuna and I-pin contemplated the idiocy of Haru's statement.

I-pin sighed as she threw the vegetables into a large frying wok with some sesame oil. "What he's trying to say is that he's discomfited at how…experienced Yama-pi is at the dating scene." She paused as the oil hissed and she was forced to flip the vegetables to prevent burning. She proceeded carefully, to prevent a different kind of burning for Tsuna, "…Especially at his age."

Tsuna groaned and tried to take comfort from the spicy egg dumpling speared on his fork. "It's not as if…Well, I wasn't skipping. I'm just…taking a break. Stress is bad for my health. And food helps me relax." The white steamy paste of the dumpling soothed like a balm for his yellowy cowardice. And then that aroma of crackling pepper and sunny eggs went right up his sinuses and burned like judgment.

"Doesn't that just mean you're a pig?" Haru said while she clicked her chopsticks like castanets, clucking at him. "Or should I say…chicken? Bawk, bawk, bawk-aa!" She dissolved into another fit of choked laughter.

Tsuna colored and glared at I-pin who had bit her lip from laughing. "I hope both of you will hit your elbows on something hard and unforgiving." He chewed on a second dumpling. "…I just don't want to be a pedo."

Haru rolled her eyes as she picked a shanghai shrimp from her plate and dumped it onto Tsuna's. "Stop whining. Be a man. Go and pick him up from his training. If you leave him alone now, he'll think you abandoned him and then slit his wrists from unrequited love."

The shanghai shrimp went down the wrong air-pipe as Tsuna coughed.

I-pin nodded along serenely. "Teenagers are like that. They have this sea of raging hormones inside, ready to explode. All you have to do is wait until he becomes legal. Or dies from frustration, whichever comes first." She dropped a hand-woven basket of cookie fortunes in between Haru and Tsuna, ignoring the hacking coughs of the latter and the sniggers of the former. "Don't go avoiding him just because you're worried. Nowadays, at his age, it's normal to be that experienced. And I'm sure whatever happens it'll all be consensual."

Then Haru and I-pin began betting on how soon it would happen.

Tsuna scrunched his nose and dearly wished the solid earth would swallow him right now. Betting on somebody's nonexistent love-life shouldn't be allowed, he thought. He picked up a random fortune cookie while listening to the girls' rapidly-growing explicit scenes starring him and Yama-pi.

He was slightly offended that all those scenarios involved him on the bottom.

And then his fortune cookie from the basket told him, The Tower Crumbles XVI.

He stared at the crumpled strip of paper.

The red lanterns flickered. On and off and on and off. His headphones clicked in sequence as the customers around him froze in the middle of talking and eating and gesturing impatiently at the waiter, a tableau of living statues. Tsuna stood up quickly, checking on the two stock-still girls who'd also been affected by the immobilizing pulse. Static broke through his headphones on Channel X and Fuuta came in, "—district 54, district 54! Red alert! Number 25 and Number 68 on patrol for district 54, the Cube has attacked a fellow psychic on the train graveyard. Engage and capture the Cube but rescue the civilian psychic—"

Tsuna bit his lip. That was exactly two blocks from here. But Fuuta had said two Numbers were already on the case. They didn't need him. If he went now, he'd just get in the way. He tapped his fingers restlessly on the table even as Fuuta began directing Numbers to arrive for damage control around the area. They didn't need him. Tsuna bit his lip and squeezed his eyes. That stupid fortune cookie.

Then Fuuta's voice became frantic, "—Number 25 down and Number 68 wounded—"

Tsuna was up and running.

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"What the fuck do you think you're doing here, loser?"

Tsuna flinched even as Number 68 dragged an unconscious Number 25 behind a lone railcar. He was limping, blood trailing down his pant legs. Number 68 just rolled his eyes and gestured at him impatiently to help drag 25 to safety. Tsuna grabbed hold of 25's lapels and heaved, even as he surveyed the cement lot littered with broken-down trains. District 54 was one of those wasteland zones. He whispered to 68, "Where is it?"

"Shut up," 68 said. "It's up there."

He saw the Cube then. It had sprouted a sick mockery of dragonfly wings buzzing and dragging the psychic's body by his head clamped in the insect's spindly legs like a death-noose. The lattice-work cuts on the man's neck began to bleed. Tsuna didn't know the man but the monster he did recognize. They had been given a list of the monsters in the Urban Legend game and this—this was the monster in the upper floors called the Troll's Spindle. It was killing him.

68 rapidly whispered to Fuuta on his wristwatch, demanding more back-up and a medic for 25.

Tsuna clicked the wheel on his headphones and asked, "Fuuta, how long does the victim have?"

"27? We don't know, last time—"

"You can't fight it. It's too fast. 25 and me barely got a scratch on it," said the other Number. "What makes you think you'll do any better, no-good Tsuna?"

Tsuna recoiled. Fuuta reprimanded 68, citing regulation procedures but 68 only looked angry and bitter. His partner 25 wasn't waking up at all.

A faint high pitch keened through the air and both Numbers darted a look up. The Troll's Spindle had found them as its round black eyes fluttered like camera shutters for several times. If it attacked, as Tsuna looked frantically at the unmoving 25 and 68 who was raising a fist rippling with gold fur. Animal possession. 68 hadn't let go of his death-hold on 25 and his twisted leg…They couldn't dodge. And the victim, he could die...

No use for it. Tsuna ran straight towards the Troll Spindle even as 68 gave a surprised shout. He lowered down the volume on Channel X as Fuuta's voice had become distracting, yelling at him to stand down, that he was in no position to be fighting especially after his burns had just healed, that they were sending back-up in five minutes—

Five minutes were too long.

He heard the clink of chain dragging and instinct made him jump as a hook lodged into the place where he'd been, spreading cracks in the cement. Tsuna looked up, stunned. It was coming from the Troll Spindle's tail, a long chain ending in a wicked iron hook. Then suddenly there were five of the Cubes connected to that chain and like mirror images of each other, they swung the chain again. He heard 68's shout that the psychic victim was an illusionist even as the arc of those swinging chains came down on his head.

He dodged three, rolling, his palms scraping gravel until the fourth cut him and he found it wasn't real. The Cube was using the psychic in its hold. Tsuna focused on the fifth chain coming. He opened his palms wide open and caught—air. The damn illusions switched!

The real hook plunged into his arm as Tsuna screamed and grabbed onto the chain. And he yanked it down, blood soaking his sleeve. The monster, its mirror images disappearing, plummeted down as its wings cut the air like helicopter blades whirring.

Tsuna counted, one two three—

Work, please oh please don't be another failure, Tsuna thought as he raised his right arm for an explosion—

What the fuck do you think you're doing here, loser?

Shit, shit, he mistimed it even as he felt the fire running down his veins die into nothing. It was happening again. Again. His fire was dying.

God, he was useless.

loser—

The Spindle and victim crashed into him and they tumbled, rolling backwards, the Cube's wings whirring erratically and opening small wounds on Tsuna's arms. They hit pavement even as Tsuna curled up to protect his head. And then the spindle flew off of him, buzzing like an angry hornet. It split off into five spindles again.

Tsuna scrambled upwards, blood dripping down his cheek, vaguely aware of his dizziness.

Those five circled around him like vultures, their chains dragging behind them.

Come on, he thought. Give me another chance. Come on. This time he would use both hands. Even if the fire didn't come, he could loosen the hold long enough. It was fast but once its hook had sunk in, Tsuna could haul it back to the ground.

The spindles dove. An excruciating pain spiked through Tsuna's right shoulder. He stared at it, the hook that had lodged into his back, even as the five spindles ghosted right through him. He hadn't noticed. There were six spindles now. Not five. The last one behind him righted its flight vector and was accelerating upwards.

Tsuna could only wish that somehow he'd become more powerful in the next few seconds to save his life. But by then the Troll Spindle had yanked back on its tail, wings screeching and sawing through the air. Tsuna's feet lifted off the ground, his body being dragged by the hook and uprooted off the surface of the world like a fish on a line and Tsuna could only think stupid thoughts like this must be how it feels like to fly as the blue horizon curved around him. Tsuna's eyes dilated as he watched the spindle jerk violently around to swing the chain to smash the poor useless Tsuna against the ground and—met a katsbalger blade amputating the chain.

Yama-pi, Tsuna thought muzzily. That reliable guy. With his blades.

Tsuna was falling again. Falling down on his face like last time. Like so many other times in the past. A blur of black jumped and swiped him from the air and it was Yamamoto who caught him, jarring the wounds and spurring on the flecks of darkness on the edges of Tsuna's vision. They landed, Yama-pi swerving him around so it was Yama-pi's back that hit gravel. They skidded only for a few seconds before Yamamoto had gotten up and stowed Tsuna in the shade of one of the traincarts.

"Try to stay alive, eh?" Yamamoto said.

Then he faced forward. Several short blades fell like a hail of blades against the zig-zagging spindles avoiding them by the skin of their teeth—and there, there was Yama-pi, face eerily grinning, fists clenched, his telekinesis moving the swords with a lethal speed and spectacular control that managed to avoid a single scratch against the victim. And Yamamoto's eyes were blank gold discs of bloodlust, his grin stretching wide as several of his short swords thudded one after the other, pinning the chain to the ground, dissipating the five other illusions, the Cube and victim plunging down—and he was running with a katana in hand—

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Tsuna dreamt. Dreamt of Reborn. And his fingers gripping Tsuna's thin arms with a strange desperation. Dreamt of fractured words breaking briefly through the haze. These were those muffled words.

"- - you treat yourself like - - affect people around you - - what if you push - - too much - - your father - -"

(and a stab of grief went through Tsuna, caustic in its bite, because even in his dreams Reborn—)

"- - wouldn't have wanted this - -"

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Gold. That would be the only physical aspect he would remember about his father, Iemitsu Sawada, in his dusty memories. A color of gold. Aurulent tones in his skin and hair and eyes, as if he'd been gilded in the precious metal. It was only fitting. He'd been the pride of the Number Circus, the only one to be on par with the formidable Reborn himself. The golden standard of any psychic alive. He'd even been called the Young Lion of the Numbers. Brave and noble and powerful, he had worked tirelessly to bring down several dangerous criminal rings.

It would cost him the death of his wife and his tenuous hold on sanity as he destroyed the entire building her body had been found in.

His consequent disappearance would herald the day of genesis of Tsuna's pyrokinesis as he lay on his bed, teetering between sanity and insanity. And then a lick of fire had burst on Tsuna's fingertips as he slipped. Burn. Burning everything away.

By then Reborn had found him, shook him awake, screaming at him to control his pyrokinesis. It had smelled like chemicals and ashes and grim smoke. Hell on earth itself. He remembered that smell particularly. How the flames had burned everything away. Salvation, he'd thought. A baptism of fire. Reborn had said that he had gone out of control, had slipped over the paper-thin edge. And it had felt like that…that he'd spilled so much, over spilled so much. He was practically empty.

But there were flames all around them, beautiful in their passion and their perversity in eating everything away. There'd be no stopping them.

Reborn cursed as the fires roared higher then slammed a fist down Tsuna's head. And just like that, Tsuna went out like a light. And the fires screamed their death throes.

They would find no trace of Iemitsu Sawada, later on. Nana was dead after all. What else was there to keep Iemitsu? These things would be the only thoughts in Tsuna's mind for several days as he recovered from his burnt flesh. But that was okay. His burn marks would disappear only after a few days. It was a hallmark of a pyrokinetic-user.

Iemitsu, the Golden Lion, had gone over the edge.

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Tsuna woke up and immediately felt sick. He clapped a hand to his mouth as he sat up and was breathing evenly through his nose to lessen the nausea. Yamamoto, who'd been reading a textbook, hurried forward to put a glass of water in Tsuna's hands. "Ah. The healer said the concussion wouldn't last long as it was only mild. Lucky too that the hook had missed all your major organs."

The bile receded peacefully and Tsuna was able to drink. Bliss.

"That's twice now," Yama-pi said as he nodded towards Tsuna. "Twice I've saved your life. I think I should get a reward."

Tsuna choked as nasty nasty mental images ran through his mind faster than lightning. The good kind of nasty. Illegal, damn it, Tsuna thought desperately.

Yamamoto laughed. "Hey, hey! I'm just kidding, you know? I'm not that kind of guy to take advantage." Then he loomed over Tsuna, fists thudding heavily on the wall behind the brunet's head, arms trembling around Tsuna's shocked face. "Still…I'm kind of pissed. That's twice. Twice you were injured in front of me." Yamamoto's eyes were shadowed by his bangs but his mouth was a thin icy line. "…That speaks badly about me, you know?" Then he leaned back, easy-going smile back on. "It's not gonna happen a third time." He turned and left without waiting to hear Tsuna's response.

Tsuna tried not to think how extremely inappropriate it was to be aroused by that.

Because he was.

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Number 68 came at gunpoint from Number 25 and grudgingly apologized for his rude behavior. Number 25 clapped a hand on Tsuna's shoulder and said they had a life debt to him. They both gave him a box of chocolate liqueurs and Tsuna had gained two new friends. Ken and Chikusa.

Then Spanner came by and was stuffing his face with Tsuna's chocolates again. Obnoxiously eating the chocolates was Spanner's subtle way of saying You're an idiot. Then Spanner opened his mouth (while still chewing chocolate, Tsuna noted disgustedly) and said, "You're an idiot."

Guess that was his not-subtle way of saying it.

Spanner rolled the chocolate bon bon around his palm. "Human flesh…It's not easy to replace. Not like mecha parts. You get me?" He sniffed disdainfully. "That kind of technology hasn't been invented yet."

"I know," said Tsuna. "Where's Reborn anyway? He's usually the first one here."

"Reborn's gone underground." Spanner held up another piece and waved at Tsuna. Tsuna opened his mouth. Spanner closed one eye and with a tongue sticking out, aimed. "The attack with the Troll Spindle wasn't the only one. There were four other incidents around Spiral City. Attacks on civilian psychics. During the commotion, the whole of Varia disappeared. Gone. MIA."

Tsuna's jaws snapped shut and the chocolate bounced off of him. Damn it. He picked it up off his hospital bed and chewed on it. "What? Just…what?"

"I mean, none of the telepaths can trace them." Spanner inspected a decorated piece of chocolate. "That's why half of the upper echelon of Numbers have gone underground on a search and destroy mission." There was a seventy percent chance it had cream liqueur in it. He ate it. Correct. "It's not even red alert anymore. It's off the fucking-charts alert."

"Shit," said Tsuna.

"Standing orders were to keep the circus running and to keep patrol on the city. Of the five incidents, only two Cubes were recovered whole. The four victims died." Spanner began dividing the box into the chocolates he liked and disliked. Tsuna could have the ones he didn't like. "Last one is in a coma, the Troll Spindle's guy."

Tsuna reached and patted Spanner's shoulder. "Hey…Are you okay?"

The blond blew a breath. "Yeah. Don't worry. I have my way of coping with it. It's just messed up. Technology being used like this?" He shook his head. "And I still get nightmares about spiders."

"What…" Tsuna asked, "what was it like? Being connected to the mutated Cube?"

Spanner stopped fiddling with the chocolates. "…I don't remember."

He left soon after, not even finishing the pile of chocolates he'd labeled his.