A/N: Honestly all these flashbacks make feel like I'm writing some R27 fluff instead of this story hahaha oops. Pardon my incohesive babblings, brain not working as usual. Timeline a bit different as well? Lol so much for following canon, but still following, mostly.

Previously: Introduction of Hibari, Fon, and apparently Tsuna had a past with Ryohei too (he has it with almost everyone, honestly), and also a super, super fluffy part on Reborn's birthday.

Continuation of birthday celebration from before.

Disclaimer: Don't own KHR and lyrics of Heart rate #0822 that appears inside.

OOC? OOC.

Tsuna's birthday

—Past

"So what did you prepare for my birthday, may I ask?" Tsuna jumped in front of Reborn excitedly.

"Thought you asked me to surprise you? Couldn't wait anymore? I always like to torture my preys by making them wait," Reborn smirked.

Tsuna shot him a 'you-are-so-weird' look and pursed his lips. "I didn't know you do."

He shook his head and asked again, "So, so? Where are we going? What did you buy?"

"Tsuna… You said you would be happy with anything I do, right?"

"… I did…?" Tsuna tilted his head. "And?"

"So be happy with whatever I'm going to do for you."

"Oh." Tsuna looked down for a second, then met Reborn's gaze once more. "Is it that bad?"

Reborn gave a nonchalant shrug. "Just saying."

"But it's my birthday!"

"Have I ever told you that I never celebrated my – or anyone else's birthday – until I met you?"

Tsuna was speechless for a few moments. "No, you absolutely did not." His tone sounded a little… scandalised.

Reborn, on the other hand, looked as if he couldn't care less. "I thought you would have guessed. Anyway, it doesn't really matter. You just have to enjoy because I told you to."

Tsuna laughed. "Yes, yes, master Reborn. I'm sure I will."

Reborn's lips curled into a satisfied smirk. "Let's go."

Tsuna let Reborn lead him to wherever they were supposed to go, and it turned out that Reborn had reserved a private room at a Japanese restaurant. Tsuna's eyebrows rose. "Japanese?"

"You like Japanese, don't you? This restaurant is pretty popular too."

Tsuna nodded in agreement. "Japanese is nice, I guess."

"Come on in, then." Reborn said as he pulled Tsuna along.

The room had a comfortable atmosphere to it, and it seemed like one of those traditional Japanese-styled rooms.

Just like what Reborn had said, the food was fantastic, and Tsuna could see the reason why it was so popular. The sashimi, for one, felt as though it melts in your mouth.

"Ah~ I'm feeling so full right now," Tsuna commented as he rubbed his belly in contentment after they finished their lunch. "The food was delicious! Thanks for bringing me here."

Reborn smirked with satisfaction. "Of course. What I choose can never go wrong."

Tsuna sighed in his mind at Reborn's usual arrogance. Why did he always put up with him? "Are we going now?"

Reborn paused for a moment. "Wait."

"Hmm?" Tsuna questioned. "Are we missing something?"

Reborn didn't honour it with a response. Instead, he got up to call the waiter for something, while Tsuna watched him, puzzled with his actions.

There was some rustling and the door opened. Tsuna's eyes widened when a number of waiters and waitresses walked into the room.

"Buon Compleanno a te,

Buon Compleanno a te,

Buon Compleanno caro Tsuna,

Buon Compleanno a te!"

They were singing the birthday song, with the waiter in front carrying a what seemed like a black forest cake, with candles on top.

Reborn didn't sing along, but Tsuna obviously didn't expect him to. He did, however, take the cake from the waiter, put it on the table in front of Tsuna and reached out to ruffle Tsuna's hair.

"Buon compleanno, Tsuna."

Tsuna smiled. Was he touched? He shouldn't be, right, for this was supposed to be expected of a birthday celebration. Yet, he guessed it wasn't the cake nor the song he loved, but the slight smile on Reborn's face, the time and effort Reborn actually put into thinking and planning all these, and his expressive eyes that said everything, to the point that no words were needed to be exchanged between them.

That was what their relationship was like, wasn't it? In his memory, Tsuna couldn't recall any of them saying those three words, but sometimes, some things didn't need to be said. While Reborn pretty much had a gilded tongue, Tsuna still thought that he was more of an actions type of person, instead of a words kind of person.

And Tsuna liked it that way.

"Thank you."

This time round, Tsuna gave Reborn one of those smiles, the ones which meant much more than words could convey. Thank you for everything, thank you for doing this for me, thank you for giving me happiness, thank you for so many and so much.

After lunch, Reborn took Tsuna on a walk. "Where do you want to go now?"

"Anywhere is fine. I'm kind of full, so let's just walk around a bit," Tsuna replied.

"That's fine."

Reborn turned to Tsuna, who looked up to ask what was wrong, to which Reborn said, "Hand."

Tsuna gave him his hand, and Reborn grabbed and held it without saying anything else. Tsuna wanted to smile again, but repressed it a little, because he didn't want to look like a teenage girl who was on the first date with her crush or something.

Tsuna suggested a stroll in the park nearby, and Reborn agreed.

A sudden thought struck Tsuna. "Wait Reborn, did you prepare any presents?"

"Presents? Wasn't that meal enough?"

Tsuna frowned with a pout. "I cooked a meal and gave you two presents!"

"I would have cooked, but while the food I cooked is edible, I didn't think it was a good idea," Reborn said in a very deadpan way.

"…"

"Close your eyes."

Tsuna did.

There was some shuffling. "Open them now."

When Tsuna opened his eyes, he saw Reborn holding out a box of… rings. "What? Are you proposing?" Tsuna blurted out without thinking.

Reborn raised an eyebrow. "'Course not. They are promise rings."

"Promise rings? Never heard of them before."

Reborn smirked. "They are for promises."

That continued to pique Tsuna's curiosity, and he took a closer look at the rings. There were two in the box, and Tsuna assumed the bigger one was for Reborn and the smaller one for himself. They were silver in colour, and there seemed to have some words carved onto them.

"Can I take them out?"

"This one is yours, and this is mine." Reborn handed him the smaller of the two, then slipped his own ring onto his left middle finger.

Tsuna brought the ring to examine it. On it, it wrote, Il cielosenza il soleè buio.

How depressing.

"Let me see yours." Tsuna held out his hand and Reborn held out his too to let Tsuna examine the ring.

On Reborn's, it wrote, Il sole senza il cielo non ha una casa.

One side of Tsuna's lips lifted, and he asked, "What's with these lines?"

"To engrave them into our minds."

"And what's the promise?"

"It's a promise. My promise to you."

Tsuna looked at Reborn's serious face, and wanted to say something. He wanted to say he understood, he did, but in a way, he didn't.

He only nodded. "Thank you."

Without any warning, Reborn stepped forward and embraced Tsuna. The sudden movement placed Tsuna in an awkward position, but after a while Tsuna managed to relax and hug him back.

He could feel Reborn leaning down and whispering beside his ear, "No, thank you."

This 'thank you' had a slightly different meaning from before when Tsuna had said it with that smile of his, and Tsuna could finally understand the meaning behind Reborn's words.

Thank you for being here.

—Present

"Happy birthday, Tsuna." Reborn jumped over the wall surrounding Tsuna's house and greeted him.

"Thank you." Tsuna smiled, as if it was a daily occurrence that an one-year-old baby jumps over his wall and intrudes into his house.

"Aren't you going to tell the others that it's your birthday today?"

Tsuna shook his head. "Nah, didn't we just celebrate your birthday yesterday? I'm not one for birthdays anyway."

Reborn tilted his head. "Strange. Isn't that what I used to say in the past? Is there a reversal of roles now?"

Tsuna let out a laugh. "I didn't notice…"

"Here," Reborn suddenly said.

Tsuna looked up, only to see Reborn materialized a bouquet of flowers out of nowhere and handing it to him.

"Eh?" Tsuna blinked for a few seconds, slightly in shock. "Is this for me?"

"No, it's for Leon." Reborn rolled his eyes, and resisted the urge to add a 'duh', because it felt like it would somehow ruin his image.

Tsuna recovered his composure and blatantly ignored Reborn's sarcasm. "Well… I guess I did give you your birthday presents yesterday… Thank you then!" Tsuna took the bouquet from Reborn's tiny hands. The bouquet was as big as, if not bigger than, Reborn and it was made up of roses, with the colours orange, yellow and white alternating.

"Orange roses are my favourite. Thanks." Tsuna said as he fingered one of the orange roses, and he realised that the yellow and white roses really brought out the colour of the orange ones.

"I know."

Tsuna looked up and into Reborn's eyes, then gave him a smile so wide that his eyes can't be seen anymore, which seemed to say, I know that you know.

Reborn looked away for a second, then told Tsuna, "I'd better get back to Dame-Ietsu now, he's probably slacking again."

Tsuna nodded in response. "Don't be too harsh on Ietsu, okay? He's just a child."

"Aren't we all." Reborn then smirked. "Right, I'll try my best not to let my inner demon show." Or, in other words, Reborn probably wouldn't even bother to try.

That earned a chuckle from Tsuna. "Yeah, you do that."

"Ciao ciao." Reborn bid Tsuna farewell, before jumping over the wall again to leave.

"I have a gate for a reason, you know!" Tsuna shouted after him, slightly amused by how adamant Reborn was to jumping over walls.

Reborn just raised a hand without turning back, as if saying goodbye, and also ignoring Tsuna's previous words.

Tsuna sighed and smiled a tad indulgently while he watched Reborn disappear into the distance.

He went back into his house and sat on the couch in his living room. The television was then turned on, but one could tell that Tsuna's heart wasn't in it. Now that he was alone, he was left in his own mind to think, and memories came flashing into his mind before he willed it to.

Tsuna didn't notice that he had subconsciously touched the ring from a long time ago, of which he had put a metal chain through and used it as a necklace.

He wondered if Reborn still had it.

Maybe he could ask him; perhaps try to run after him at this very moment and demand an answer from him, then dismiss it as some leftover sentiments later on.

Or maybe he could ask him when they next meet, which was probably tomorrow, and bring up all those years of hidden memories and feelings.

But he didn't.

And he wondered about the promise.

He didn't ask about that either.

Reborn didn't look back when he walked away from Tsuna's house.

He couldn't get Tsuna's smile out of his head, the one Tsuna gave him when he told him that he knew orange roses were his favourite.

"Tch."

He shook his head to clear his mind. Leon crawled down from his fedora at the sudden movement, and Reborn open up his right palm for Leon to land on. It nuzzled his hand, and Reborn's other hand went to pet it absentmindedly.

Leon looked up at him, then jerked suddenly to cough out... a ring.

Reborn sighed and picked up the ring. "Right. I gave it to you."

He stroked the ring and brought it closer to his face to take a better look, then flipped it into the air and catching it seconds later.

He played with it using his fingers for a few more minutes before stopping in front of Ietsu's house, and stayed there thinking for a while.

Reborn looked down at Leon on his palm and laid the ring in front on it.

"Come on, take care of it for me, won't you? It's a promise."

Leon simply acknowledged him by stepping forward and swallowing the ring.

Reborn petted Leon once more, then walked into the Sawada household and smirked. "Now, it's torture time."

Dino Chiavarone

When Dino first met Sawada Tsunayoshi, it was love at first sight.

It all started when Dino was planning to visit the Vongola Decimo in Namimori and his family. He had been wandering around in the park of Namimori alone, since his family wanted to eat and Dino wanted to walk around a bit more, and told them that he will catch up later. That was when he tripped over air and had a hard fall. It just so happened that there was unfortunately a fountain nearby and as usual, somehow Enzo ended in water again and…

When he laid his eyes on him, his heartbeat rate jumped from 70 to 100.

There he was, a brown-haired angel smiling down at him and extending a helping hand. He could practically see the sparkles and flowers when the angel smiled.

Dino stoned there for a moment, before realizing it was rude for him not to respond and took the offered hand.

"Th-thank you."

Dino was going to say something else more coherent and elegant, he swore, when he was interrupted by a loud roar. He paled in record speed. "OH SHIT! Enzo!"

"Huh?" The brunet blinked, unable to process the things happening around him at that particular millisecond.

Dino quickly took out his whip to protect the innocent-looking brunet, but without his subordinates in sight, he was basically an useless klutz. He ended up nearly slapping the angel in his face, to which the latter had nimbly jumped away to avoid the whip and surprised Dino, but his surprise was short-lived as he had somehow tripped over his whip himself.

"Wahh!"

How embarrassing. However, Dino did not have enough time to think much as he watched Enzo get bigger and stepped out of the fountain. "Uh oh."

Dino wanted to make another go at capturing Enzo. To his surprise, before he could swing his whip again, the brunet grabbed the whip from him (probably afraid of what Dino would do with the whip), and used it with practiced ease. The brunet had aimed at the turtle's legs and the whip had wrapped around them smoothly without tangling up. Dino's mouth dropped open at the sight.

He was supposed to be harmless?

What shocked him even more was how the brunet flipped the turtle with one hand like he was flipping a goddamn pancake. Yes, Enzo hadn't grown that big yet - the fountain was pretty small, thank god - but what the hell? Was he Reborn in disguise?

Enzo landed on his back and Dino knew the ordeal was pretty much over, as Enzo still hadn't learnt how to flip back over himself. Great, now he just had to wait for Enzo to dry up as soon as possible.

"Ah, I'm sorry! I didn't mean to grab your whip like that." The brunet smiled sheepishly at him while handing him the whip.

Blood rushed to Dino's face as he tried to make a reply, but failed. He only had one thought.

Fate. At this moment, Dino believed in fate, which had brought the two of them together.

He didn't care whether the brunet was dangerous or not. He had a feeling that he was surely involved in mafia in some kind or another despite his innocent looks, but he just had this urge to protect him, to protect his beautiful smiles forever. The feeling only grew progressively stronger with time, and it had only been a few minutes but Dino was sure he was in love, and the level of protectiveness he felt for the brunet was almost the same as that for his subordinates.

He could only smile awkwardly back. "No, it's fine! It's fine! Thank you for helping me! I'm the one who should be sorry for all the trouble!"

The brunet was like an enigma to him. He didn't really know what to think of him, but he seemed to carry a mysterious air around him that attracted people to him.

"Do you… do you want to eat lunch with me? To thank you, of course." Dino stuttered out.

The brunet shook his head and gave him a warm smile. "No, it's okay. I'm in a bit of a rush for time, and it's a small thing anyway, so there's no need to thank me."

"No, I- !" Dino wanted to protest and say something else, but the other had already waved and ran off and disappeared. At that very second, Dino realized with horror that...

I didn't even ask for your name.

Fuuta de la Stella

"Wah!"

Tsuna skipped away from a sudden attack from behind and kicked the man away on instinct. "What are you doing? Who are you and what do you want?"

The man only lay on the ground, unresponsive and seemingly unconscious.

Well, perhaps he shouldn't have kicked so hard.

"Are you an idiot? Can't you tell that he has brown hair, not blond? And there's no kid!" Other men came shortly after, and Tsuna knew at once that they were from the mafia.

From what Tsuna gathered, they were searching for a blond haired boy that looked like him, and the only other mafia people in this town would be... Ietsu and Reborn. It wasn't that hard to guess, and this was probably another scheme of Reborn.

Tsuna sighed internally. Was Reborn trying to turn Namimori into a mafia town or something? And why was he always dragged into everything?

"There they are!" One guy with spiky hair pointed out. Everyone turned to where he was pointing, including Tsuna, and as he had expected, he saw Ietsu running away from them with a small, young boy. Who was that now? Another new family member whom Reborn recruited? He looked no older than ten! Granted, Reborn looked like an one-year-old, but this boy seemed as though he was really a child.

On closer inspection, Tsuna realized his face looked familiar. Wasn't it Fuuta de la Stella, the Ranking Prince?

Tsuna bit his lip, and wondered if he should help. He wouldn't want Fuuta to fall in the hands of the other mafia families, though, and he didn't like people bullying kids.

As the men in gray suits ran past him, Tsuna discretely stuck out one of his legs to trip the leader.

"Ow! What the hell!" The leader cried out as his face hit the ground.

"Boss! Are you okay?" All the other men ran to help the boss while Ietsu took Fuuta's hand and managed to escape.

Meanwhile, Tsuna tried his best to disappear into the background and run away without other people noticing him.

However, Ietsu and Fuuta were not as lucky. The Mafiosi caught up with them in the end, but thankfully Ietsu fought them off with a Dying Will Bullet. On their way home, they happened to see Tsuna nearby, in a conversation with Reborn.

"Ah! Sawada Tsunayoshi-san! Thank you for helping us earlier!" Fuuta went up to them and said, with Ietsu trailing behind.

Tsuna turned his attention to them. "Oh, just now? No, I didn't do much, you two are the ones who fought them off."

"Tsuna-nii is top ten for being the kindest mafioso! I can call you Tsuna-nii, right?"

Tsuna blinked as he processed the sudden information, then smiled warmly. "Sure, why not." He paused for a moment. "I'm not that kind."

"I have always said you are way too soft-hearted, Tsuna." Reborn butted in.

Tsuna shot a glare at Reborn to shut him up.

"Do you want to come to my house, Tsuna? Since we are all going there." Ietsu asked.

"Okay."

When they reached Ietsu's house, they all went up to Ietsu's room. Before they could do anything, however, Gokudera and Yamamoto came rushing into the house.

"Jyuudaime! I heard Fuuta de la Stella is here!"

"Hahaha, I met Gokudera on the way, and thought I should come along too."

"Shut up, baseball freak!"

"Hello... Guys..." Ietsu looked as if he was overwhelmed all of a sudden.

"Can you rank me?" Gokudera asked with huge excitement.

Ietsu looked to Fuuta, and the latter nodded. "Since you're all Ietsu-nii's friends, I don't mind ranking. And I'll help rank Tsuna-nii too."

Everything started to float around them, including themselves. Gokudera was amazed, Yamamoto was laughing, Ietsu shrieked, Reborn smirked a little, and Tsuna raised one of his eyebrows.

"Tsuna-nii is ranked the most powerful out of all mafia."

"HIE?" Ietsu squeaked in surprise.

"Reborn is the world's greatest hitman." Ietsu fainted due to shock.

"Hahaha, this guy is so funny." Ietsu sweatdropped as he heard Yamamoto. He must have thought that this was some kind of game again!

"Hayato-nii is ranked 54 for being the most hot-headed mafioso."

Ietsu was inclined to agree, and Gokudera proved that point by rushing forward to Fuuta but was thankfully held back by Yamamoto. "Let go of me, baseball freak! I'm not freaking hot-headed!"

Fuuta continued. "Takeshi-nii is best to become a mathematician."

"Hah?" Everyone in the room blinked.

"And… Tsuna-nii's most important person is Hibird."

"Eh?!" Tsuna exclaimed. "It is?"

There was an awkward silence. "I didn't know that..."

Did he secretly subconsciously like Hibird or something? Yeah, Hibird was very cute and all... But what is this?! He didn't understand himself anymore!

"Oh, it's raining. I don't feel very well." Fuuta suddenly stumbled, and Tsuna reached forward to catch him. "My rankings go wrong when it rains too."

"Eh? That means all of the rankings were wrong?" Ietsu asked in shock.

Reborn smirked. "But they were right for the first few."

"So when did it start to rain?" Gokudera asked the most important question, but no one had the answer.

—A few weeks later

"Fuuta is missing! I can't find him anywhere!" Ietsu exclaimed with worry. Fuuta had been staying at Ietsu's house for a while, much like I-pin, Lambo and Bianchi. However, he had not come home for a few days, and Ietsu was filled with anxiety.

He had thus gathered Tsuna, Yamamoto and Gokudera to ask them about Fuuta's whereabouts, as they were the ones most familiar with Fuuta.

Tsuna frowned. "He didn't come to my house for quite some time." Fuuta sometimes popped by Tsuna's house to visit him, and Tsuna would give him some treats.

"Don't worry, Jyuudaime, I'm sure you will find him soon!"

"Yeah, Ietsu, maybe he just went to visit his relatives," Yamamoto continued.

Ietsu gave him an odd look, but nodded nonetheless. "But we still have to find him, right?"

Gokudera and Yamamoto agreed, and they commenced their search for Fuuta.

Tsuna trailed behind them, deep in thought. He had been feeling a little unsettled due to the dark power that has gathered around Namimori, but Reborn probably knew what was going on around here, so he didn't want to worry too much.

Still, Tsuna was sure that something was going to happen, and his intuition was never wrong.

A/N: Cliff-hanger? :OO LOL NO everyone knows what's gonna happen.

Ietsu's birthday date remains unknown and unimportant. ((Rubbish author))

Buon Compleanno a te: Happy birthday song in Italian, assuming that they were in Italy, and even in Japanese restaurants I think they still speak Italian, so.

*cries* I wanted to write this before Christmas and have a Christmas special but no time! :( Pardon my Italian I don't even learn Italian please blame google translate instead.

Read too much KuroFay lately that I seem to be turning Tsuna into Fai… ?! And basing Dino on Kise Ryota?! But I enjoyed writing D27 LOL this is the first time I'm writing Dino um haha. Dino and Tsuna are going to meet again of course but I'll save it for next time.

Next chapter would be Mukuro's, finally! And probably not as much flashbacks. But I don't even know when I'll be free to update, cause school started again and I doubt I'll have much time. Don't worry though, I probably won't abandon this. I wrote a bit of Future Arc already, and am very excited about it.

I have a Tumblr account, so you can follow me at adriana-espan. :) I haven't posted much, but I probably would in the future.