AN - Well, this is a much faster update than planned! Thanks so much for the amazing response I've had, especially to those who've reviewed! Anyway, this chapter takes place TYL, and I hope that you enjoy reading it as much as I've enjoyed writing it!

What You're Looking for May Be Right Under Your Nose

Oikawa Makoto was a patient person, by his own estimation. Unlike some of the other morons in his class at Namichuu Middle, he'd liked to think that he gave everyone the benefit of the doubt, and tried to see the best in people. But, looking back to a time almost 10 years ago now, there were some occasions where he cringed to think of his behaviour.

The case of Dame-Tsuna was one of those occasions.

….Really, it hadn't been his proudest moment. He didn't like to think of it.

But then, thinking of that time at all brought back rivers of bad memories. Makoto's childhood hadn't exactly been….. easy. His decidedly uncaring father was a yakuza leader, and an important one too.

Makoto had grown up with hazy memories of tattooed hulks crowded round his dimly lit kitchen table; with the knowledge that his father had killed, and would kill again. To start with, it had all been terribly exciting for him, giving him a sense of superiority to his various first school playmates. But that had all changed, one horrible day while he was at school. A drunk, angry, stupid member of the yakuza group, a true arrogant idiot, had come into his house, trying to kill his father, waving a gun around.

Makoto's rather delicate, waif like mother had been caught in the crossfire.

When he'd come home that day, Makoto had seen his father, hulking and impassive, standing over two corpses, that of the yakuza and his mother. The police were not called. Makoto's mother had died as she had lived, virtually unnoticed by all.

She was buried. The yakuza's body was discarded, and found a few weeks later by some first school students exploring the river bank.

That day, Makoto had seen the truly dark and dismal side of the underworld. Whereas before, he'd felt superior to his friends, now all he felt was the unfathomable pain that came from knowing that his life was already on an irreversibly different path from others his age. From that day, his stoic and unaffected father had involved him in yakuza matters as well. Petty feuds. Robberies. Inter gang arguments that escalated into gunfights.

So he had sunk, grief stricken, into an unwilling life of rather petty crime, for the yakuza were, in terms of underworld groups, rather low down.

He'd been in a state of quiet despair - sadness made him meek and withdrawn, not uncontrollable - when he'd heard of the mafia. Or more specifically, the Vongola Famiglia. The rulers of the criminal world, as Makoto always thought of them. The yakuza grew up with that term - mafia- in their heads. It hung on their shoulders as they went about from day to day. The mafia were the elite groups of the underworld. International, seemingly omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent, the secretive yet powerful families sat like gods in the more petty criminal minds. What's more, the Vongola were vigilantes as well, and, in a young Makoto's eyes, they were the guardians of the darker side of civilisation.

For a depressed young yakuza stuck in a life of pathetic criminal activity with no future to speak of, the mafia seemed like a way out. A chance to rise at least, to get above the degrading work he was currently doing. But Makoto knew that, to even be a mafia grunt, he'd need to be on a whole different level - of a wholly different mindset - to his current yakuza colleagues.

So he worked. He trained. He studied hard. Makoto had some natural intellect, and had taught himself Italian. He specialised in long range shooting, but also got his karate black belt, among other, dirtier types of fighting. He cultivated a calm, collected attitude to danger. He worked on taking orders without being sycophantic. And when his chance came, he took it. His father had gotten a little to big for his boots, and had tried to challenge the small Cesate Famiglia while Makoto was still in high school. Makoto had received his bullet ridden body the next day, along with a gilt edged calling card kindly requesting that such a distasteful occurrence not happen again. And so, after calling the number on the card, going through numerous trials, and virtually pushing himself to the brink of hell, here he was. In the mafia.

It hadn't been easy, Makoto reflected. He was proud of himself, where he was now, but it had been a wholly uphill struggle. But he was a respected member of the Cesate family, a small yet stable mafia Famiglia which was, importantly, looking into alliances with the Vongola. As Makoto had never given up on his middle school dream of joining the elite family, he was actually feeling pretty were looking up. More exactly, things were very, very busy.

So why, exactly, he questioned, was he thinking about Namichuu Middle and Dame-Tsuna?

Makoto sighed against the balcony he was leaning on. The cold night wind tried to gently tousle his close-cropped black hair, to no avail. It did, however, succeed in sending shivers round his body, forcing him to huddle further into his leather jacket and take another drag on his cigarette. As he watched the smoke twist slowly upwards to curl around the stars, he frowned. He'd left most of his old life behind after quitting school, and the memories had faded just as quickly. Yet this one wouldn't.

It had been while he was in his first year of high school. That year had been the hardest for him, as he'd been trying to train for the mafia while the pressures from his father had mounted up. The stress had made him unusually irritable, and he hadn't been in the mood for his year's set of bullies to drag their latest prey into his private lunch class one day.

He quickly recognised the bullies as Kotaro Seiko, Kaneda Osamu and Minoru Nara, and their miserable prey as Sawada Tsunayoshi. He'd scowled, as he'd had no love for any of them.

Seiko, Osamu and Nara had been friends throughout middle school, and they had not got any less obnoxious, in Makoto's opinion. They were weak, spineless morons who only picked on those they knew they'd win against, but who got by in school on sporting ability, and, in the case of the female population, their good looks. Makoto had had the misfortune of sharing a class with then all through middle school, and he despised them for their frivolous attitude.

But the hate he held for them was nothing compared to the distaste he felt for their victim, one Dame-Tsuna.

Now, ten years hence, Makoto felt no such anger towards his old classmate. He understood that he'd just been jealous ofTsuna's ability to live a normal life. Because that's exactly what had bothered him: that Sawada had the opportunity to live an unsullied life, not having to feel the darkness Makoto always carried around with him. And, in Makoto's eyes, that Dame-Tsuna was wasting it, paying no attention in class, letting himself get walked all over by pathetic idiots like the baka trio. Makoto didn't know if he could forgive the dame moron for not being more grateful.

At the time, he'd felt perfectly justified in what he did next. Almost ten years later, as a much more balanced adult, Makoto couldn't even begin to count the amount of times he'd regretted his behaviour that day.

The three bullies were ignoring Makoto, so intent they were on their prey, but Tsuna had noticed the antisocial boy steaming with anger in the corner. And his big brown eyes had pleaded for help. Many a time over the last few years had Makoto reckoned that the boy had actually refrained from calling for help from him then in order to keep Makoto out of trouble, and the thought made him feel worse. But anyway, as the three laid into Tsuna with all their might, yelling abuse at him, Makoto had quietly stood up, walked over, and silenced one if them (Seiko) with an efficient (if overenthusiastic) uppercut to the jaw.

Seiko's graceful collapse had had the effect of drawing attention to him instead of Tsuna, which suited Makoto fine. Instead of waiting for the rather shocked Nara or Osamu to speak, he growled a fierce, 'Shut the hell up,' before dispatching them with a roundhouse kick to the stomach and a chop to the back of the head.

He stood there for a second, still seething with anger, while a rather battered Tsuna pushed himself up from the floor and said, in such a pathetically weak voice it made Makoto's blood boil, 'A-a-arigatou.'

In a rage, Makoto whirled round. One arm ducked under the smaller boy's chin and pinned him to the wall while the other fist swung into Tsuna's stomach with a frightening ferocity, forcing to boy to twist and wretch while clamped by Makoto's forearm.

'Look, weakling,' Makoto hissed, his narrowed eyes staring into Tsuna's larger panicked ones, 'stay the hell out of my way. In fact, stay the hell out of everyone's way. You have no clue, no idea, what it's like to truly suffer, so quit mewling about petty things like this. You hear me? Stay away from me.'

And with Tsuna's uncomprehending eyes burned into his memory, he dropped the brunette and stalked out.

Now, standing on the third floor balcony of a hired mansion at 11:37 at night, Makoto felt familiar pangs of regret pulling at his chest, and he clutched at his heart. It had been nine years, one month and twenty three days since that event, but it was engraved on Makoto's memory as one of the most shameful days of his life.

He could still remember how fragile the boy had felt under his arm. True, he had been heavier than expected, but still…. So breakable. And Makoto had done more than enough breaking throughout his life. What if he'd broken his innocent classmate as well? He could still feel the sickening impact of his fist against Tsuna's stomach - it was a miracle that the boy had remained conscious, really. He must have had more guts than Makoto gave him credit for.

Now he thought about it, Tsuna actually hadn't normally been bullied that much. He'd had his own odd friendship circle, and the presence of Yamamoto Takeshi had made a rather effective shield against Tsuna and his tormentors. He guessed that even the best protection couldn't be there all the time though. For the ten thousandth time, he wondered where Tsuna was, and if he was OK. And if he'd forgiven him.

Trying to put these unwelcome thoughts out of his head, Makoto made an attempt to think forward. It was hardly difficult for him to be excited about the future, after all. The mansion he was in at the moment, a few miles away from Dubrovnik, in Croatia, had been hired as a non-biased communal meeting place for the Cesate and the Vongola Famiglias. If all went well, by the end of this weekend, he would be in an alliance with the world's most influential family. And after that, who knew? Makoto tried not to let himself think too far ahead, but various scenarios filled his head - being spotted by one of the Vongola guardians, meeting the infamous Decimo, joining the Vongola itself…. It seemed like a world of possibilities were opening up before him.

In fact, he knew that the Vongola were actually already here. The two families had agreed not to meet until 10:30 the next morning, but the murmur was that some pretty elite members were here. Some even said the Tenth himself, but Makoto had to laughingly dismiss those rumours. As if the most powerful criminal in the world would be attending such a small alliance!

However, he couldn't deny that the reason he was here, on the neutral third floor (second was theirs, fourth was Vongola's) was in the rather infantile hope of speaking to one of them in a more informal setting. But, as he'd now been here for two hours without seeing anything of any of them, it seemed that the Vongola reputation for secrecy was well deserved.

Sighing again, he turned back to leaning on the balcony, straining in the darkness to see the odd light in the distance that showed the location of other villas. Then, he heard someone behind him. Or rather, he felt someone. The footsteps of the mystery person behind him were far too soft to alert him like this person did.

As a long-time criminal, Makoto had become rather attuned to other people. He found that people projected a sort of natural atmosphere - some screamed danger, others fear - and he prided himself on being adept at reading it. But he had never, never, felt an aura anything like that of the person behind him. He felt at once that they did not mean him harm, but he could also sense, by the hair rising on the back of his neck, that they were incredibly dangerous. They still, however, managed to come across as bizarrely gentle and unthreatening, leaving Makoto stranded as to where to categorise them.

As he frantically wondered whether of not to turn round - he seemed oddly frozen - the man, as he turned out to be, spoke. 'It's a beautiful night.' His voice was low, yet delicate, a bit like silk. Makoto realised how ridiculous he sounded, comparing a voice to fabric, but, in the still of a silent, starlit countryside, everything seemed to take on a more surreal feel.

The man stepped up to the balcony, and looked up at the stars, allowing Makoto to surreptitiously glance at him, though his face was still hidden by the large collar of his tailored black suit. He was short, Makoto thought, for such an imposing aura - the guy was under 6 foot, and had a lean frame, though the suit made it impossible to see whether he was toned or skinny, and a quick once over revealed no obvious firearms. His hair was brown, nothing special, just an even light brown, and it stuck up in bizarre places all over his head. His overall appearance, from his slim hands to his pale skin, when combined with the fact that he was being viewed in the dark and the moonlight, was one that had a slightly supernatural quality; but, Makoto's more logical side inserted, that was probably largely due to Makoto being rather overtired.

In actual fact, the man's appearance bore an immediate resemblance to that of a certain weakling of ten years ago. Makoto started when that thought crossed his mind; the build and hair colour were, after all, the only way in which this person resembled Sawada Tsunayoshi. The aura virtually eradicated all possible chance of this man being the kid he'd once punched in the stomach. The two figures, in his mind, logically had no connection.

So why, he wondered almost immediately, did he open his mouth and tentatively say, 'Sawada-san?'

He regretted saying those words. The rational part of him told him that it was just a stupid thing to say; that there was no way these two were one and the same, but deep down, a more honest part of him acknowledged that he was scared to find out. The truly nice part of Makoto - the part that had ensured that he'd never hurt an innocent before or since that dreadful day in high school - told him that he was too afraid, and had always been too afraid, to face up to his mistakes.

The man turned towards him, and looked him in the eye, and Makoto saw that it was indeed Sawada Tsunayoshi. Sure, it was an older, and far different version of the school loser to what anybody would have imagined, but those honest eyes could not be mistaken for anybody else. They pierced right through him, bringing up all his guilt, all his uncertainty, and yet they remained calm, still with that hint of innocence. And Makoto didn't know what to do or what to think, and his heart was pounding, and every excuse he'd ever thought of flew from the tip of his tongue right out of his head, so that, in the end, all he said was, 'I'm so, so sorry.'

He looked away, unable to see the disgust and hatred he was sure those open eyes would be displaying. His hands were clenched, clamped onto the balcony so hard his knuckles were white, and his stomach churned. And then Tsuna spoke. 'Makoto-san.' He said. Makoto nearly collapsed, and looked back at the small brunette. He knew that Tsuna, too, remembered that one day when Makoto snapped, and he could tell it was just as prominent in his mind as it so often had been in Makoto's. But that was not why he was shocked. He was shocked at the way Tsuna had addressed him.

For the tone Tsuna had used had held no malice, no resentment, no bitter pain - he had spoken almost kindly. And when Makoto made eye contact again, his face slack and gaping, Tsuna's eyes crinkled into a genuine, open, I'm-glad-to-see-you smile, and he said, 'It's been such a long time! How have you been?'

If it had been anyone else, Makoto would have been sure that there was deep-seated hatred beneath a false façade of kindness, but while Tsuna had been many things, he had always been an open book. Makoto had always thought being easy to read was a terrible quality for a mafioso, but looking at this strange new Sawada Tsunayoshi, he could see how you could make it work.

It was with a dry mouth that Makoto replied, because while Tsuna obviously was not surprised to see him, words could not express Makoto's utter shock at seeing Tsuna. 'You…you're….in the mafia? Um…and…how, how….you're not surprised to see me?'

He winced at how nervous and stuttering he came out. He sounded just like Tsuna had in high school. But Tsuna just smiled again, and leant back against the balcony, looking up again. 'You were in the yakuza, weren't you, Makoto-san?', he said, more stating than asking. 'I checked,' he added, before Makoto could stutter out his next question. 'You seemed so angry…that day, so I looked into your records a bit. Gomennasai.' With his serene smile, he looked anything but sorry, but before he could continue, Makoto burst out, unable to contain himself, 'But I hurt you! Weren't you…annoyed?'

But Tsuna just screwed up his face in a long suffering grimace, and said, 'Actually, my tutor had a habit of hitting much harder than that. Don't worry, I was fine.' And before Makoto could begin to start processing the fact that Tsuna had cared more about Makoto's emotional well being than his own physical health, Tsuna continued, with his sunny smile back in place, 'So, anyway….I found out that you were in the yakuza.' He looked at Makoto again, compassion and understanding in his gaze. 'I'm sorry. That must have been difficult.' He obviously took Makoto's slack jawed expression as confirmation, as he continued, 'I hoped that Makoto-San would make it in to the mafia one day. I'm really glad you made it.'

Makoto had had enough touchy conversations to read between the lines when someone said something, and so he easily identified the fact that 'hoped' meant 'actively tried to help'. But instead of next asking, as he intended, 'What did you do?', what he come out with was, 'Who are you?'

And as Tsuna opened his mouth to speak, Makoto realised that he knew exactly what was coming, because there was only one possible person that this Tsuna could be, even though the very idea made Makoto reel in shock.

'Vongola Decimo,' Tsuna said, extending his hand to the frozen person opposite him. And as Makoto limply shook it, he felt in that hand all the trials and hard decisions and struggles that Tsuna had gone through, and marvelled at how blind he'd been back on high school; either that or how good Tsuna had been at maintaining his dame act.

'When did you change?' Makoto asked, because he suddenly found that he had the strength to speak. He'd felt the friendship and forgiveness radiating off the slight figure in front of him, and, on the face of it, the large weight on his chest that he didn't even know he'd been carrying had disappeared. It felt like his old dark life was finally behind him - he felt freer than he had done in years.

'It took a while,' Tsuna said. 'I clung to normalcy for ages.' So that was why he'd maintained the useless act. Well, he'd fooled Makoto. 'But eventually, I realised I couldn't run forever. But,' he added with a grin, 'I really was dame when I started middle school! I couldn't do anything!'

Tsuna smiled, a large, happy smile that made Makoto think the stars that the brunette had been fixated by were somehow caught in his eyes. And Makoto grinned back, a poor thing when compared with Tsuna's, but a happier smile than in a long time. 'Anyway,' Tsuna said, suddenly yawning and breaking the spell, 'I'd really better get to bed. I can guarantee that Kyoya will have broken something by tomorrow, and I'll need sleep before dealing with him.'

Makoto didn't really take in what Tsuna was saying; he just asked, 'Will you be at the negotiations?' Tsuna shook his head. 'No, Chrome's representing me. I just dropped by to tell her something. I'd better get going.' He turned, and started walking towards the door, then he stopped, and looked over his shoulder. Reaching into his inside jacket pocket, he pulled out a small white card, with one stark black number on it. He handed it to Makoto, who cradled it reverently. 'That'll take you to Collonello,' he said. 'I send most potential recruits to him.' He shrugged. 'Just something for you to think about. See you.' And with that, he stepped into the darkness of the corridor and vanished. But not before Makoto saw the small smile on his face, which matched the elated grin growing on his own. Clutching the card to his chest, he gazed back out over the balcony at the moonlit countryside, appreciating the beautiful view anew. And, a few minutes later, he thought he saw a flying orange blur in the distance, almost like a shooting star. Makoto smiled again, and, as the fiery orange dot shot into the horizon, Makoto felt that his spirit, too, was blazing in the sky.

Well? I hope you liked it! I'm planning on making the next one a little less deep - I want to include a range of genres. As for the three bullies, they'll get their own stories. Reviews are treated with awe, and if anyone has any ideas or suggestions for scenarios I'd love to hear them! Thank you for reading!