She enlists the advice of Dokuro Chrome three days before she is to follow Yamamoto and the others to investigate the going-ons of Milan. Three days before she will first point her firearm at breathing flesh, not flabby cardboard. Three days and she will understand Gokudera's sneer and Ryohei's frown and Hibari's tolerance. She has to know what will happen, what to do, what to expect, how to use the bump of her buttoned shirt and curve of her waist to her advantage.
But Chrome shakes her head and smiles in timid apology when she tells Haru that 'you cannot learn from my words, you have to feel it for yourself'. Haru sulks and shows her disappointment, but she takes Chrome's elbow in the end, and they stroll around the manor like Kyoko would have done in such a blank situation.
The young lady quietly accepts to play substitute for the absent Kyoko. She is still very little and of very few words, and holds closeted secrets. She is unlike Kyoko is many ways, with elaborate lace covering a hollow eye socket and scars that embroider her skin. But she is a simple girl with modest desires and unselfish words, and Haru wishes she could be more like her as well.
Haru wishes she could be anything more than what she is.
After being turned down by Chrome, Haru asks Bianchi for advice on the legend that is the battlefront. (Somewhere, not as deep down as it should be, Haru does not believe that there is a place in Italy where bearing the crest of the Vongola qualifies you a bullet through the heart.) But Bianchi gives her the same reply, she sits Haru down and they share English tea, and she tells her with careful thought to her words, that it is not wise to discuss the issue of fighting and killing.
"It gives you frightening expectations, or it makes you too cautious, too wary," she says before sipping her drink.
"It is better for you to experience it firsthand. Perhaps Gokudera will be willing to watch out for you," Biachi suggests as she sets the teacup down on the fine dinner table. Her hair falls over the cream of her skin, and when she says her brother's name, Haru can sense the trust of family in her words.
"Gokudera? Are you sure?" she laughs, because she does not see him as anything other than a loud, brash man with a poor habit of smoking.
"With all my heart." Bianchi adds a spoonful of sugar to Haru's cup, and that is the end of the conversation.
So that dusty midnight in Milan, Haru learns what she needs to know through practical means. She comes to understand the fear screaming in her veins and the adrenaline pounding in her chest with every step her boots grind the pavement with. She is between Yamamoto, Ryohei and the walls of an alley, struggling to keep pace with their footsteps, large and mannish and so experienced. It is not the first time she has heard gunshots and foreign curses soaring over their heads, but it is the first time she is running towards the source of danger instead of scooting far, far away.
The gun trembles in her palm, and she is unable to aim clearly for the entirety of the mission. She does manage to bullet someone's calf and use the butt of the revolver to smash the head of a man preparing to ambush Ryohei from behind, and it makes her feel the rare sensation of accomplishment.
Suddenly, someone takes her by the waist and she is being dragged back and down behind a barricade of trash cans. She smells nicotine and feels Gokudera's fingers dig into the skin under the belt of her skirt before she can catch his face.
"Stupid woman, don't stand there in clear shot, they'll get you and I don't want to clean up any messes," the man informs her quite pointedly. She huffs a little in response, and half-shouts half-explains: "Well it's my first time, give me a break!"
Gokudera snorts, it is a demeaning sound and it makes her want to kick him in the shins.
Then bullets, blood – crash, bang, boom – the ambush is over.
They return to the Vongola stronghold. Haru does not call it home because it far defies her meaning of home.
There is no little tulip garden, only elaborate vineyards furnished with fountains. There are no creative costumes in her closet, only glittery gowns that are worth five trips to Japan and back. And instead of a golden ring on her dresser, she has a jewellery box full of necklaces and earrings that she never wears. Tsuna's business partners seem to speak in Diamond, for everytime they attend a meeting with the Family, they produce yet another accessory for Tsuna to reluctantly present to one of the girls.
In the drawer, next to her hairbrush is a spare cartridge of bullets.
And at times she wonders why she is still in Italy, but when she sees Tsuna and the rest of her friends bustling through their lives, she thinks she might understand her heart a little bit. It is just enough to keep her sleeping under silk blankets for one more week each time.
Haru shudders to herself at night, in the middle of her big empty room, when the moon is up and the night's silence gives her the sympathy to think.
It scares her that she has grown used to this lifestyle.