I was planning on typing up this fic alongside with Chapter Twenty of The Guardian Angel but for some reason I couldn't bring myself to write both chapters at the same time. Which is why now that I have finally finished that long, cumbersome chapter that would just not end I can get started on this one which will probably be half as long or more.

Anyways, hope you enjoy this!

Disclaimer: I don't own Katekyo Hitman Reborn or anything related to it. I do, however, own Yuuki, Tsubame and Suzume.

Chapter Six

This was the first time she had ever been in the music room.

Yuuki's fingers lightly brushed the keys of the piano but never actually pressed down on them. Ever since Tsubame had talked to her on the roof top, her curiosity about how she used to play the piano wouldn't stop bugging her until she finally got the courage to head to the music room and start playing the instrument that had been plaguing her mind for days.

So today she made up her mind to play the piano.

But after she sat down with her fingers lightly hovering over the keys, Yuuki realized that she had no idea what she was going to play. She didn't bring any sheets with her and even if she did used to play it, she certainly didn't know now.

'Or do I?' Yuuki thought as she finally pressed down on a key. The piano sang a clear note that the auburn haired girl found soothing.

She pressed a key and the same calm feeling washed over her. And then another and another until she was sure that she was finally playing a song just like when she was experimenting with her violin.

Even though her fingers burned and her heart was beating a mile per minute, she continued to play. Yuuki didn't want to stop playing and like every tune she played, it was sad mixed in with bitter sweet.

It was a song about three people; a boy and two girls. A sort of love triangle. The boy loved the two girls; one of them being his former lover but no longer within his reach while the other he had grown feelings for as he gradually spent time with her, having at first resented her because of the resemblance between her and his former lover.

The boy was conflicted between his past and present and within the conflict of his feelings, he inadvertently hurt the second girl.

When Yuuki finished playing she leaned back and sighed, satisfied with the result.

Shouting from the hallway made her look towards the door, wondering what was going on.

"Haru! Don't just barge into the class-!" The door slid open to reveal a chocolate haired brunette who bounded into room and looked around curiously.

"Hahi?" The girl said. "Who was playing that beautiful music?"

The brunette who Yuuki presumed was Haru scanned the room until her eyes landed on her. She should have been offended but Yuuki couldn't help but find the girl's reaction to her somewhat amusing as well as perplexing.

The other girl's brown eyes widened in surprise and maybe... pain? No, not pain. Or rather, pain mixed in with something else but it was hard to tell what it was exactly. Before Yuuki could ask the girl what she wanted in the first place, the latter turned her back towards her and quickly exited the room slamming the door shut behind her.

"Hey Haru! What was that all about?" The same voice that had scolded girl before she barged in unannounced was shouting.

Yuuki could hear footsteps moving away from the room. They got fainter and fainter until finally she could no longer hear them.

'What was that about?' Yuuki thought before turning her attention back to the piano. She continued playing the piano before the bell went off and she had to return to her classroom.

0000

"What's this?" Yuuki asked, taking the envelope from Shindou.

The green haired man gave her a strange look before deciding to answer the question for her. "It's your salary for the month."

Salary? Oh, right! You usually got paid at the end of month for working. How could Yuuki forget that?

But considering all the things that happened in the past few weeks, it probably couldn't be helped. Having someone who was your friend before you lost your memories come up to you and introduce herself, meeting up with people who you used to know but couldn't remember and then having that same friend knowing a lot more about your life than you did and telling you about what you wanted to know...

Would it be accurate for Yuuki to say that she had so much on her mind that she didn't have room to think about anything else?

"Oh, thanks!" Yuuki said quickly, her cheeks turning pink as she quickly placed the envelope into her bag.

She bowed to her boss in a respected manner just as Japanese culture adhered her to before turning on her heel to escape the awkward atmosphere.

Yuuki couldn't help sighing once she was outside. She just created awkward atmospheres everywhere she went, didn't she?

She felt drained, not just from working again but also because once again she was reminded of the mysteries she needed to figure out to try and determine who she was.

So far Yuuki discovered that:

She plays the violin and piano and possibly even more instruments.

Her two best friends were Suzume and Tsubame. And they were ninjas.

She also used to have a childhood friend named Tsunayoshi 'Tsuna' Sawada who was no longer her friend according to Tsubame.

She used to be a kind, caring compassionate person who was shy to all but her friends (Yuuki still had a hard time believing that she had been that kind of person).

And that was only the tip of the ice berg.

Yuuki knew there was so much more to her story than that, but where would she start? She still needed to look even more into the facts that she already knew and she didn't even know how to accomplish that much.

Not really thinking about what she was doing, Yuuki slammed her fist into the wall next to her out of frustration. She ignored the pain that shot up into her arm from the force and didn't care that the skin from her knuckles had become a bit raw or that they were bleeding.

Why was everything so frustrating? She just wanted to get her memories back or at least try and discover who she was. But ever since she came to Namimori, Yuuki found herself running around in endless circles.

"Yuuki-chan?"

The girl in question blinked as she was brought back to the world of reality. She found herself looking down onto to the asphalt sidewalk with her arm extended above her punching the wall. She became aware of the stinging pain in her hand as she slowly pulled it away from the rough surface of the wall and exposed it to fresh air.

Hissing, she cradled her self-inflicted injury. She was vaguely aware of the first time she had punched the wall but as she examined her hand, she saw that she had probably hit her fist against it more than once.

"Yuuki-chan?" The same voice that snapped her out of her thoughts asked again.

Slowly Yuuki turned to face the owner of the voice and saw the worried face of her co-worker Uru Takamura peering at her in concern.

"Uru?" She blinked. Why was she here? Didn't they live in opposite directions?

"This isn't the way to your house, is it?" She asked. "I've seen you walk in the other direction."

Ugh, so it was her who went the wrong way.

Great.

Yuuki sighed as she ran her hand through her hair. Why was all of this bothering her right now? Did it have to do with that girl during lunch who ran off just as soon as she had seen her face? She had probably known the other girl in the past, but judging by the brunette's reaction to her they probably hadn't been very good friends.

"Well then, I guess I'll see you tomorrow at work again." Yuuki finally said as she turned in the right direction to her apartment.

But instead of just waving good bye and continuing to where she lived, Uru caught up with her in a few seconds and was soon walking beside the older girl. Yuuki would have pointed out that now Uru was going the wrong way but she didn't feel like addressing a fact they both knew.

"Yuuki-chan...?" Uru's voice was quiet and hesitant.

She looked flustered as she directed her gaze at Yuuki then looked away again with her face slightly pink.

"I was wondering and so was Ichirou-kun..." She continued. "...why is that you never talk about yourself? You're always so quiet and even though Shindou says that you're the hardest worker out of all of us, you seem pretty lonely."

Yuuki wanted to say that it was none of Uru's business but kept her mouth shut. She was only concerned about Yuuki's lack of social interaction with others outside of Tsubame.

Actually... Tsubame was the only person she had talked to in Namimori not counting the fact she had to ask several students in her class what she had to do. Thanks to her incomplete knowledge of how the system in Japan worked, many of her classmates thought she was a Nisei: a full-blooded japanese person who was not born in Japan.

She might as well have been considering that she only knew how things in America worked.

Finally she shrugged, looking Uru straight in the eye. "There never really was anything to talk about."

Other than that she didn't have much to talk about.

"Oh..." Uru sounded so downhearted that Yuuki felt the sudden urge to kick herself.

They didn't say anything after that, but Uru continued to walk with her. Just as they turned the corner she realized too late that someone else was about to turn as well. So for the second time in a month, Yuuki found herself walk right into someone and falling backwards right on to her butt.

"Ow..." She grumbled, clenching her eyes and rubbing her now numb rear end.

"You!"

'Oh for the love of...' Even though she hadn't heard that voice in a while, she was still able to recognize it. 'I am so not in the mood to be dealing with this...'

Grabbing onto Uru's extended arm, she allowed the smaller girl to haul her up. She was a bit surprised about how easily Uru could get her back onto her feet, but she remembered when the girl pulled Ichirou up when he had fallen asleep on her on her first day of work. There was also the numerous dishes Uru broke when she helped with clearing up the store.

Shindou didn't find that part as funny as Yuuki did, complaining about the bills the broken dishes wracked up.

"Hello to you too..." Yuuki paused as she tried to recall his name. "...Gokudera Hayato?"

The silver haired boy scowled. "Yeah, that's me."

She then turned to the taller, darker skinned boy. "Yamamoto Takeshi then, right?"

Gokudera's tall companion grinned and nodded at her getting his name right.

"Why did you come back?" The animosity in Gokudera's voice had her turning towards him in both surprise and curiosity. From Tsubame's stories, Gokudera was a short tempered guy who had a penchant of throwing dynamite at everyone except for Tsuna who he literally worshiped the ground he walked on. But at the moment, Yuuki got the feeling that he didn't like her in particular for some reason.

"The Tenth already has enough problems to deal with and then you come along to make things even worse!" He was down right snarling.

"Oi, Gokudera..." Yamamoto was no longer grinning awkwardly as he frowned at his friend's words.

Hazel eyes flashed as Yuuki's mouth opened to give her former acquaintance a good tongue lashing. She couldn't help the fact that she had come to Namimori any more than the fact that her appearance caused this 'Tenth' problems.

"Wait... Tenth?" Yuuki's said as she remembered the first time she had bumped into them albeit with one more person. "Is Tenth referring to Sawada Tsunayoshi?"

When she had fell onto the boy she could recall him being addressed Tenth at the same time someone called him the shortened version of his name.

"Yeah." Yamamoto said. He sounded melancholy. "He's... that's another title for him, I guess you can say."

Her former friend had multiple titles?

"He's your childhood friend!" Gokudera sounded outraged. "How can you address him so casually?"

That was it. "Last time I checked, we were no longer friends!" Yuuki snapped. "And he apparently made it pretty clear too so why do I have to act as if we were even friends!"

"Are you stupid?" Gokudera and Yuuki were now right in each other's faces. "He had a good reason for it!"

"So there are good reasons for being a complete ass to break up a friendship are there?"

"What the hell do you know? You can't remember a fucking thing!"

"Yeah, well even from an outsider's view breaking friendships by being an asshole seems callous to me!"

Gokudera looked as if was about to whip out his dynamite and throw them at her when suddenly the back of his head met the pavement.

"Stop yelling at Yuuki-chan!" Uru glared, her arms still extended even after she had pushed him.

Both Yamamoto and Yuuki could only stare in impressed shock at the fact that a small girl who barely came up to his chest had managed to send the silver haired boy flying with one simple shove.

"Er..." Yamamoto said slowly as he broke the silence. "...are you hungry? My dad owns a sushi place. It'll be my treat."

Yuuki got the meaning behind his words.

We need to talk.

0000

"Mmm! This is so good!" Uru said as she devoured piece after piece of sushi that Yamamoto's father made.

As Yuuki watched her co-worker go at it, she frantically hoped that she had enough money to pay for it all. There was no way that she was going to let the boy put this on the house. If they didn't have enough money, hopefully they let people have tabs.

If not, this was going to be a pretty long night.

"Glad you think so! Though should a little girl your age be eating so much?"

Yuuki had been drinking a glass of coke when the man had said that. She choked on her drink, but quickly thumped her hand against her chest to clear her airway again.

"She's older than she looks." She told the three males since Uru was too busy despairing over the fact that yet another person had mistook her for being an elementary age student.

"Oh?" Yamamoto's father blinked. "How old is she?"

"Sixteen." Yuuki said at the same time Uru replied, "Second year high school."

There was complete silence as the other three digested information while looking at Uru incredulously. Yamamoto and his father had the decency to try and not look too surprised while Gokudera just outright gaped at her.

"What." Gokudera finally said, his eyes crinkling as he glared at Uru. "You're a year younger than me?"

He was still a little bitter over the fact that Uru had knocked him down earlier.

"I told you that she was older than she looked." Yuuki shrugged.

Not much was said between any of them after that with the exception of Uru cheerfully talking with Yamamoto's father.

Even though Gokudera was against it, Yuuki was firm that Uru stay with her. What she didn't say out loud to them was that she felt uncomfortable being alone in their presence for some silent, nagging reason hence why she brought Uru with her.

When they were finished, Yamamoto said that they should head up to his room so that no one would be able to over hear their conversation.

"So how much do you know?" The dark haired boy had disappeared into his kitchen earlier to grab some drinks. He gave Uru and Yuuki a drink each that they accepted gratefully while Gokudera refused his.

"Why did you even bring her in the first place then?" Gokudera grumbled, jerking his head in Uru's direction.

"Because she's my friend and I didn't feel like being alone with you two."

They heard a gasp and all three looked over at the second year high school student who looked like she was still in elementary school. Her face was pink as she stared at Yuuki with a look akin to idol worship. Seconds later, Uru was still staring at her and Yuuki was beginning to feel really uncomfortable.

"Urm..." Yamamoto rubbed the back of his head, looking nervous. "Well the reason we're here is because we-"

"Who is this 'we' you are talking about?" Gokudera glared at him.

"-'We'," Yamamoto continued as if he hadn't heard his friend, "wanted to talk to you."

'I figured out that much,' Yuuki thought but didn't say out loud.

Instead, she said, "What is it?"

The boy crookedly smiled at her. "It's about, um, Tsuna."

"Your third friend?" Yuuki raised an eyebrow at him, her expression nonchalant. Inwardly though, she wanted to know more about the boy whose face would not leave her mind. It had been annoying her for a while but whenever she tried to ask Tsubame about it she would always clamp up and Yuuki was reluctant to go to the school Suzume attended to ask her about it.

"...yes." Yamamoto sighed. "That's him. That's Tsuna."

"Alright then." Yuuki set down her drink and looked the boy straight in the eye. "What about him?"

Gokudera growled but Yamamoto shot him a stern look before answering Yuuki's question.

"Well I'm sure you've already heard this from Tsubame but you know Tsuna is your childhood friend, right?"

"Yes."

"Has... Tsubame said anything about him?" Translation: was Tsubame being biased whenever she described him to her? The correct answer would be yes, but Yuuki didn't want to set off the silver haired boy's temper by saying that. Instead, she decided to go with the most neutral answer she had.

"Only that our friendship ended on a sour note."

"I see." Yamamoto said. "Er... do you hold that against Tsuna?"

Yuuki shook her head. "I don't. Or rather, my current self doesn't."

Silence settled in as Yamamoto tried to figure out what to say next. Gokudera was trying to burn a hole in the wall with his glare alone while Uru looked somewhat confused and intrigued by the conversation.

Finally, Yamamoto sighed. "I know it sounds selfish to ask this but... can you forgive Tsuna? He didn't mean to hurt you the way he did and he's missed you. He acts like his old self most of the time but there are times that he seems so sad."

"No."

Yuuki's voice was devoid of emotion but it wasn't cold when she replied.

Gokudera whirled his head in her direction, the furious look in his gaze startling Yuuki so much that she instinctively scooted back to put more distant between them.

"How can you say that? Do you know how much the Tenth has suffered because of you?"

"Well I'm sorry about that, but there isn't anything I can do about it." Annoyance crept into Yuuki's voice. "Besides, I'm not the one who should be forgiving him."

She was suddenly jerked forward when Gokudera reached over table and grabbed the collar of her shirt. She found herself staring at fury filled green eyes and while she was intimidated by how close their faces were and how much anger there was in his eyes, Yuuki didn't show any signs of being afraid.

"Then who?"

"My past-self. The one who remembers it all." The grip on her loosened. "I maybe 'Yuuki' in name and appearance, but I'm not really her. At least the one you all know."

That was the sad truth. Her present self was the stranger, a second persona filling in for the original Yuuki who was buried deep within the recesses of her mind.

Hazel eyes met green. "I could forgive him if he were to come up to me and apologize, but it wouldn't be the same. It wouldn't really be his friend doing the forgiving, but a stranger who just looks like the person he knows."

Yuuki must have gotten pretty used to the silences that followed her wherever she went since she hardly noticed the one that ensued after she had said that.

After what felt like an eternity, Gokudera finally released her.

"Do you know why the Tenth ended your friendship?"

Yuuki shook her head, giving him a dry look that suggested she didn't.

Yamamoto suddenly found his empty glass interesting while the silver haired boy rubbed his head tiredly, suddenly looking exhausted and ten years older.

"It's because you nearly died."

0000

All Tsuna could remember were the gun shots ringing through out the air and then smelling the strong metallic scent of blood. But the pain that was supposed to be there didn't come. Instead, he heard a heavy thud that sent his heart racing and had his hyper intuition going haywire. Turning around he saw something that made his heart stop beating and his blood freeze.

Lying by his feet was someone who looked an awful lot like Yuuki with a pool of blood forming around her that soaked the ground and her clothes in dark crimson red.

"Tenth!" He heard Gokudera yell in the distance, soon followed by an explosion and someone's scream of terror.

The boy didn't hear him as he dropped on to his knees and turned the person over, hoping that it wasn't really his childhood friend lying on the ground. His trembling hand moved towards her, gently shifting her body towards him.

It couldn't be Yuuki, it couldn't be...

But it was.

"Dame Tsuna, she's still alive." It was Reborn and he was examining the person as well. "But barely. If you don't act now, she'll die."

His mind was sent reeling and the next thing he knew, he was carrying the girl in his arms and racing towards the hospital using his Hyper Dying Will flames to beat the clock.

Otherwise Yuuki was going to die.

Tsuna flung his blankets off of him as he sat up completely covered in cold sweat. His heart beat erratically within his chest as he tried to regain his breath. When his heart rate and breathing returned to normal, Tsuna leaned against the wall and looked around to make sure that he was definitely in his room and that it had all been a dream.

But it hadn't been just a dream.

It was a memory. It was his worst memory ever since he became involved with the mafia.

It was the day that Yuuki had nearly lost her life and when he realized just how much she had meant to him as more than a friend.

And it was the prelude to the end of their friendship.

It took me forever to get this chapter out so you better appreciate it. Hopefully, this was more exciting than the last chapter not to mention that it revealed the reason as to why Tsuna decided to break off being friends with Yuuki.

And yes, to all you Happy Cafe fans Uru makes an important appearance. I hope I got her in character, though...

The song that Yuuki played at the beginning is 'To love's end' from the Inu Yasha soundtrack.

Anyways, until then, I guess I'll see you!