Yamamoto woke to the smell of bacon and eggs and the same hazelnut coffee that he could still taste on his lips. With a moan, the previous night came back to him in perfect clarity. Not that he'd done anything he might have regretted. After walking around with Matsu for a while, they'd come to realize that there wasn't a single damn coffee shop open within walking distance. Rather than letting Yamamoto go back home while he was still feeling out of sorts, Matsu had offered to make coffee at his condo with the purest of intentions.
They'd stayed up. They'd talked for what seemed like hours. Then Matsu had forced Yamamoto to take his bed before virtuously falling asleep on his couch. The very fact that Matsu hadn't tried to take advantage of his drunken and vulnerable state meant a lot to Yamamoto. Even though part of the swordsman wished that he had of.
"Good morning," Matsu called, able to see Yamamoto's state of wakefulness from his small kitchen. The layout of the condo was a simplistic one. As in, everything was just one huge room. It didn't leave much in the way of privacy, but that wasn't something to be worried about by a single man living alone.
"Good morning," Yamamoto smiled in return, while comfortably lounging in the bed. Content to just lie there, Yamamoto watched while Matsu expertly flipped his eggs before tossing them onto a plate. The bacon soon followed along with biscuits instead of rice. Then, to Yamamoto's surprise, Matsu tossed the plate onto a service tray along with a cup of coffee and brought the whole thing over to Yamamoto.
"Here you go," he said with a flourish while Yamamoto slowly sat up. "Breakfast in bed. A must for any morning after."
"Morning after what?" Yamamoto laughed with a small blush. "Nothing happened last night."
"Morning after getting drunk, I guess," Matsu chuckled with a matching shade of red on his face. "Whatever, just eat up." Yamamoto raised an eyebrow, but dug in with thanks. After a single bite, he fell back against Matsu's headboard in pure ecstasy.
"Now that's how you make eggs," he moaned, letting the taste roll over his tongue for a long moment before swallowing. Matsu grinned widely and settled down next to him with his own cup of coffee.
"I'm glad you like it," he replied in open pleasure that Yamamoto liked his cooking. Yamamoto blushed with his chopsticks still settled against his lips, suddenly understanding what all the girls had been trying to gain by getting him to take their bentos. Simply, the desire to eat it on a regular basis. "I'll make you some more to take to school with you, if you want," Matsu offered.
"I'd like that," he agreed honestly, while trying to hide exactly how much he liked it. Even so, he found himself blushing again when he looked up to see Matsu absently biting his lip while he intently watched Yamamoto take a second bite. For some reason, the expression seemed so incredibly...arousing. "Um..." Yamamoto mumbled sheepishly between bites. "Thank you for last night."
"Don't worry about it," he replied, forcing himself to tear his eyes away from the swordsman in his bed. "I might have done some things in prison that I'm not proud of, but I'm different now that I'm free. I wouldn't take advantage--"
"Not that," Yamamoto interrupted with another blush. "I meant what you did with Gokudera. Standing up to him like that for me. It could have been a lot worse if you hadn't been there."
"You really care about him, don't you," Matsu mumbled, turning the question into a statement. Yamamoto was forced to nod despite seeing how it made Matsu sigh unhappily.
"W-We weren't lovers for very long," Yamamoto blurted out of the need to make Matsu smile again. "It's more of a...brotherly...type of caring. Us fooling around was just...I don't know what it was, but it wasn't anything you could call a real relationship. He was there for me when I needed him and so I was there for him. It was supposed to be a no-strings-attached kind of thing, but--"
"Strings get attached anyway," Matsu finished for him. Yamamoto nodded unhappily again, unable to deny his own heart now that he understood it a little better. While it had stayed just a 'needs of the moment' situation for Gokudera, Yamamoto had allowed himself to feel more than he should have.
"I'm happy for him," he finally said in complete honesty. "He found someone that he can be with whole-heartedly. There's not many people that could get him to open up like that. I just don't know where that leaves me."
"Single, for one," the red-head supplied with a crooked smile.
"T-True," Yamamoto mused with another blush spreading across his face and a considering look at Matsu. "That's not such a bad thing."
"I hope not," came the soft reply. Yamamoto felt his ears turn red at the husky note in Matsu's voice. To cover how it sent shivers down his spine, he reached down for another bite of his breakfast, only to find that it was completely gone.
"I'll go make more," Matsu offered at Yamamoto's open expression of disappointment. He set down his coffee on the side table and started to get up, but Yamamoto's hand darted out to stop him. Yamamoto blushed when Matsu looked down at him in surprise, but didn't pull the hand of restraint away. He wasn't drunk anymore. He knew what he wanted. The only thing holding him back was his own hidden lack of self-confidence in this area.
Not that Matsu seemed to mind. Even in his surprise, he responded like Yamamoto had hoped. Knocking the tray of empty dishes to the side, Yamamoto hesitantly pulled the man down to him. Giving a small moan of open desire, Matsu let the swordsman lick his lips before pressing his own to them out of pure want. Then began the nibbling and the licking and the hesitant caresses. Slowly, they both gave into the very thing they wanted.
"Yama-chan," Matsu breathed huskily in his ear, showing both his desire and the level of arrousal. Yamamoto moaned at the sound and shifted so that he could pin Matsu on the bed with another passionate kiss instead of a hesitant one.
"I'm going to make you scream that name," Yamamoto whispered in promise before slipping his hands under Matsu's shirt.
And he did.
"So..."
"So..."
"So..."
Tsuna, Gokudera, and Yamamoto traded matching grins, making people wonder what they all thinking. None of them needed to say anything, though. The blush on Yamamoto's face when he arrived late to school, along with the barely noticeable love bite under the edge of Yamamoto's collar, had silently told his friends what had happened. If that hadn't, the way that Yamamoto turned down every bento offer with claim that he already had one was a very noticeable clue.
"If he breaks your heart, I'm going to kill him," Tsuna warned with a small smile.
"Tsuna!" Yamamoto goggled. "Even for a joke, that's a little--"
"I'm not joking," Tsuna corrected with the small smile turning into a sad one. The serious glint in Tsuna's eyes made Yamamoto forget how to breathe for a long moment. He wasn't joking. Yamamoto's heart was more important than Matsu's life. The swordsman stared at Tsuna for a long moment in disbelief. He might have even collapsed over such an obviously gross miscalculation of value, but was saved by Gokudera.
"Forgive me for being presumptuous," the silver-haired man mumbled sheepishly. "But you wouldn't kill a woman over the same thing. I think that Yamamoto's relationship is his business unless he comes to us about it, Boss. Threatening Matsu for--"
"Everything is my business," Tsuna interjected lazily. Both Yamamoto and Gokudera froze at the statement, but Tsuna merely sighed. "Fine, I won't threaten him since it makes you two so unhappy. I just don't want to see Yamamoto get hurt."
"Pain is a part of life, Tsuna," Yamamoto said carefully. "I'll chance the pain because I'm happy right--"
"PAPA!"
Tsuna's head snapped in the direction of Hotaru's voice, as did everyone else's. The little boy never interrupted Tsuna's school. It was one of the places that was off-limits for him during the daytime. The fact that he was standing outside the courtyard gates, yelling in hopes that he didn't have to go inside and break the rules, was a complete shock.
Almost as big a shock as the fact that there was only one person with him...and it wasn't an adult.
"Hotaru!" Tsuna shouted in worry, getting both his and Orinato's attention while he ran up to them. "What are you doing here? No, more importantly, where's your guards?"
"Hotaru's sorry!" He cried. "But Hotaru was worried about Hayakeshi First. Chirp chirp said that there had been an accident when he flew over Hayakeshi's House, so Hotaru went by himself to check because he's faster. Mommy was still sleeping and--"
"She took him, Tenth," Orinato interjected in a panicked rush. "A lady came and took Kiyoshi while we were walking to school. She had these three big guys with her and we couldn't stop them."
"Are you alright?" Tsuna asked worriedly.
"I'm fine, Tenth," he replied with a pale face. "But Nori's arm is broken and Marco got hurt really bad. T-They kept the men from hitting me, even though I told them to run away. A-And they still took Kiyoshi, Tenth."
"Calm down," Tsuna soothed, pulling the boy into his arms so that he could cry out his heartache. "It's okay. Your friends are going to be alright and I'll get Kiyoshi back."
"I couldn't protect them, Tenth," Orinato sobbed. "All this time, I thought I was protecting them as leader, but they were protecting me, Tenth!"
"Baka," Tsuna admonished gently while the boy continued to cry. "Because of you, they were all working together. They're safer that way but safer doesn't mean safe. No protection is going to last forever. Sometimes there are just those out there who are stronger. Everyone did their best to take care of each other. That's good enough. Just leave the rest to me."
"W-What are you going to do, Tenth?" Orinato asked in a temporary lull of tears.
"Papa's going to use his secret, isn't he?" Hotaru asked with an wide grin.
"Oi," Tsuna laughed. "Someone has been watching me work again. I'm going to have to start plugging up the vents better."
"Secret?" Yamamoto inquired curiously. Tsuna shook his head sadly and stood. Leading the group over to where they'd left their lunches and bags, Tsuna pulled out his laptop.
"Looks like it's time for me to actually use Pandora's Box instead of just peeking into it," Tsuna murmured while he took a seat in the corner of the school's restraining wall so that no one could see what was on his screen.
"What is that, Boss?" Gokudera asked with narrowed eyes. "You've been carrying that for over a week now, but it doesn't seem any different than--"
"You don't need to know," he interrupted absently. "I'm glad that I put in an order for Kiyoshi's aunt to be checked out, though..." he mumbled while his hands flew across the keyboard. "Alright, there's three possible locations that she might have went into hiding at. The problem is that we don't know anything about the three men that she hired. Orinato, was there anything I could use to identify them? A tattoo? A scar?"
"The one that broke Nori's arm had blue hair and a butterfly wing on both hands and--"
"Is this him?" Tsuna asked, flipping his laptop around to show a picture of someone fitting the description.
"That's him, Tenth!" Orinato exclaimed with wide eyes. Tsuna pressed his lips together in unhappiness and turned the computer back around to continue diving for information. Absently, Tsuna reached into his pocket and pulled out a cigarette, smoking merely to keep calm in front of the flood of knowledge at his fingertips. He had to keep focused, else he'd spend all day digging into superficial information that he didn't need.
"Shit," Tsuna mumbled after a few minutes. While his friends watched in open curiosity, he reached for his phone and started dialing. Then he started speaking. "Hello. You know who this is, don't you? That's right, this is Vongola the Tenth. Indeed I do. Three of your men have been very naughty. I'm afraid I can't wait. No. No. Yes. No. Very well, I'll limit it and send them back to you. What's the frequency? Good to know. Oh, that would be very appreciated. Alright. I'll visit when I can. Have a good one." Tsuna sighed and hung up the phone before turning to his friends. "Okay. I've got carte blanche for any punishment I want, as long as I leave them alive. These three are working off the clock and their boss isn't pleased. He gave me the frequency to the tracking devices in their cells in trade for their lives."
"Do you want me to go get him?" Yamamoto asked while trying not to be bothered with everything Tsuna had achieved in less than five minutes. More than anything, the calm and collected manner he was going about everything was so unlike the old Tsuna. The old Tsuna would have panicked, ran down to see the 'crime scene' himself, then started questioning anyone and everyone in hopes to get a lead to the perpetrator's hideout. Instead, the new him had looked up some stuff up on his laptop while he smoked a cigarette. Then he'd made a call and now he had everything he needed to get Kiyoshi back.
"One second," Tsuna murmured lazily. "I'm waiting on a reply from the Ninth to see if he can let me borrow Moretti."
"Moretti?" Gokudera asked in confusion. Tsuna nodded with a sad smile and looked up from his laptop for the first time in several minutes.
"My threat aside, I don't want to kill Kiyoshi's aunt unless it's absolutely necessary," he said firmly. "She's too dangerous to leave alone, though. I need some way to put her in jail for safe keeping so that Kiyoshi isn't traumatized and he also won't be scared of this happening again. I wish I could put her in jail for kidnapping, but the truth is that I kidnapped him first."
"So you're going to have Moretti fake his death and put her away for murder," Yamamoto finished in understanding. "I'll get in touch with one of my contacts in the morgue and have them ready to switch his body out."
"You have contacts in the morgue?" Tsuna asked in surprise.
"Ah," Yamamoto confirmed sadly. "When you died, I had to--"
"Never mind," Tsuna interrupted with a pale face. "I don't really want to know." A beep from his laptop brought his attention back downward and Tsuna smiled widely. "Alright, we're in business. Yamamoto, I'm sending the tracking information to your cell phone right now. Take a few of the men's fingers for touching what they shouldn't and send them back to their boss. Knock the woman out and leave her there. I'll deal with her when Moretti gets in town. We'll keep Kiyoshi in the estate until then, along with Orinato. Gokudera--"
"I'll go let the other kids know and check on the two injured, Boss," Gokudera offered, already sensing his train of thought. Tsuna smiled widely at him and nodded in agreement. Ensuring the kids were safe and taken care of was more important than anything.
"Send a few of my guys over to watch out for them in case that woman returns in the meantime," Tsuna added. He paused and looked at the two men who were still starting at him in awe despite having been able to respond. "Go," he ordered sharply, snapping them into action. Yamamoto darted off with a small detour to snatch up his Shigure Kintoki while Gokudera started making calls and headed for the entrance of the school.
"Come on," Tsuna murmured to the two kids while he slipped his laptop back into his bag. With Orinato and Hotaru's help, they packed up all the half-eaten Bento boxes and headed back inside. "You two are staying with me until they return," he told them with a smile in effort to distract them from their worry. Orinato nodded softly without smiling and latched onto Tsuna's free hand.
"Papa will save Kiyo-kun," Hotaru promised with a look of concern at his friend. Orinato nodded again, but still didn't seem any happier. Not that Tsuna could blame him. His friends had been beaten up by adults and he'd seen a friend kidnapped right in front of him. Of course he wasn't going to immediately start smiling again.
Tsuna sighed and let him toward his classroom while continuing to talk in effort to distract him. Rather than be amused, Tsuna became grateful over how few people had come to school on the day after his wedding celebration. It had turned into a day full of self-study with attendance being the only point in coming. The only reason Tsuna had come had been so that he could have an excuse to work around people rather than be stuffed into his office. He had numerous favors to grant now, after all. Although they all came second to Orinato's problem.
"Sawada!" Tereshi-sensei called when he finally reached Tsuna's class. Tsuna wanted to groan, since the man was still obviously upset over the scene that Tsuna had made the previous day. His lack of students probably wasn't helping any. "This isn't a daycare!"
"Then I'll just skip class today, too," Tsuna replied. "I'm sure I could use the time to help out on the school newspaper."
"The school newspaper--?"
"Ribbit," Tsuna interrupted with a raised eyebrow. Tereshi-sensei turned pale and fell back into his seat, understanding the threat behind the single imitation. While it was merely laughable to Tsuna, the pictures of Tereshi-sensei being kinky in a frog costume while his wife played the princess wasn't something that he'd particularly like to get out. It was private. It was embarrassing. It would ruin his reputation as a teacher if those pictures were printed and passed out around the school.
"J-Just this once," Tereshi-sensei permitted. "I-It's not like we're doing anything anyway."
"Wonderful," Tsuna praised. His two other classmates who'd actually come to school both looked from Tsuna to the teacher and back again without understanding anything other than Tsuna had gotten his way with only three sentences. Ignoring them like always, Tsuna let Orinato sit in Gokudera's desk while trying to think of some way to distract him. Hotaru crawled up on the other side into his own desk while looking around in curiosity.
"What does Papa do in school?" He finally asked, having never been inside the building.
"I learn things," Tsuna answered while his classmates listened curiously. "I sit in that desk and listen while Tereshi-sensei teaches us History and Math and all kinds of things."
"Sawada..." Tereshi-sensei interjected cautiously. Tsuna turned to look at him, hoping he'd provide some distraction to Orinato who was still sitting listlessly. "Do you not have your son in school yet?"
"We're home-schooling him," Tsuna replied with a small blush. "He's got several people tutoring him throughout the day normally."
"Hotaru learns all kinds of things!" Hotaru exclaimed. "Hotaru learns Piano from Goku--"
"He learns too fast for normal schools," Tsuna interjected before the little boy could get started on his extensive lists of 'who teaches what'. "He can already teach me a thing or two about biology and ecology."
"Hotaru is teaching Papa Greek!" He giggled, making the teacher's eyes go round. Tsuna blushed, but couldn't disagree. Hotaru had helped him several times when even Gokudera was stumped.
"He found out I was learning it and taught it to himself in only a day," Tsuna mumbled. "I'm still just trying to get just the basics down."
"Amazing..."
"Hotaru wants to go to school like Papa," Hotaru exclaimed. Tsuna looked down at him in worry and tried not to let it show how much he disliked the idea.
"We'll talk about it later, Hotaru," Tsuna promised, ruffling the little boy's hair. "Maybe if I can find--"
"Can Hotaru go to school with Hayakeshi First?" His son interjected in sudden inspiration. "It doesn't matter if the teacher can't answer all of Hotaru's questions. Hotaru will be happy learning with everyone else!"
"Hotaru..."
"I can't protect you, Hotaru," Orinato sniffed in his chair. "You should stay with the Tenth."
"That's enough, Hayakeshi First!" Tsuna snapped. Orinato stiffened in his chair, expecting to finally be punished for his failure as leader. Instead, Tsuna's eyes immediately softened and he placed a hand gently on the young man's head. "We'll get him back," Tsuna promised. "You protected him by being willing to accept help. No one else could have done that. You need to be happy doing what you can do rather than be upset with what you can't."
"But Nori and Marco..." Orinato sobbed. Tsuna sighed and knelt down next to him, never having expected to have to teach this lesson so early.
"They didn't get hurt because you were weak," Tsuna soothed while Orinato's tears calmed in effort to listen. "They got hurt because there are bad people out there. Bad things happen sometimes and nothing will change that. You need to know that even if your friends got hurt, it was because you made them strong enough to want to fight back. Don't cry because they're strong, Orinato. Don't cry because they wanted to use that strength to protect you. If you're going to cry, cry over the fact that bad people exist. Cry over the fact that you can't always make everyone strong."
"I don't understand..." Orinato admitted with a sniff.
"What is strength?" Tsuna asked in effort to let him see it for himself. "Do you remember what I taught you a long time ago about strength?"
"As long as we stick to what we believe and remember how it feels to want to protect someone, we're strong," Orinato replied.
"It's more than that," Tsuna corrected. "It's about caring more for others than yourself. That's the feeling you get when you want to protect each other, right? You forget about your own needs and try to put the other person first."
"So if everyone cared about others more than themselves, people wouldn't be bad?" Orinato asked in curiousity.
"That's what I believe," he agreed with a nod. "But the world doesn't work that way, no matter how much I or anyone else wishes for it. There are people out there who care more about themselves than how they're hurting others. So don't cry about your friends being strong for your sake, even if they got hurt. Cry because not everyone is strong and those people will end up hurting even more in the end."
Orinato fell silent to think about Tsuna's words and Tsuna reached for his ringing cell phone in his bag. Pulling it out, he noticed it was Yamamoto. Tsuna slipped out into the hallway to answer it, trusting Tereshi-sensei to care for the two kids for a minute.
"What's wrong?" Tsuna snapped in greeting, knowing that Yamamoto wouldn't call him unless absolutely neccessary.
"Requesting permission to execute," Yamamoto replied quietly into the phone. Tsuna froze in sudden understanding for the call, since Tsuna's orders had been to let the woman go for now.
"What's the situation?"
"Kiyoshi is alive, but he's catatonic," Yamamoto answered with an almost too-calm voice. "I took arms instead of fingers, but the three scumbags are already on their way to the hospital. The woman, though... I can't forgive this, Tsuna."
"What happened?!" Tsuna shouted.
"Kiyoshi is a budding illusionist, Tsuna," Yamamoto replied through clenched teeth. "She made him... Please, don't make me say it."
"Execute," Tsuna permitted, suddenly understanding so much more of what Kiyoshi had told him before. "Screw clean-up and get Kiyoshi into some care." Tsuna clenched his eyes against the sound of a female scream followed by the wail of steel. Then silence.
"I'll call you from the hospital," Yamamoto promised coldly. Tsuna didn't bother replying. Instead, he hung up the phone and turned back to the classroom, wondering how he was going to explain this to the twelve year old Boss-in-training sitting inside.
V9TIM: You can't protect everyone
TSUNAFISH27: I know that
TSUNAFISH27: but it still hurts
V9TIM: What are your plans now?
TSUNAFISH27: I have Chrome standing by for Kiyoshi
TSUNAFISH27: Her and Mukuro promised to take care of him
TSUNAFISH27: Once he's ready to be around people again
V9TIM: Are you sure that she is the best choice?
TSUNAFISH27: Yes
TSUNAFISH27: She doesn't have urges like that since her organs aren't real
TSUNAFISH27: I'm hoping that he realizes that and then Chrome can cure him of his fear of women just by being near
TSUNAFISH27: Mukuro can train him to use his illusions to protect himself
TSUNAFISH27: I have his sworn word that he'll do his best to heal instead of twist
V9TIM: It's probably an amusing diversion for one such as he
TSUNAFISH27: Probably
V9TIM: I'll recall Moretti, then
V9TIM: I'm glad to see that you were able put the Key to good use
TSUNAFISH27: I've been calling it Pandora's Box
V9TIM: LOL
V9TIM: Such a fitting name
TSUNAFISH27: I thought so
TSUNAFISH27: Once opened, misery and disease is unleashed on the world
V9TIM: Indeed
V9TIM: But when all is said and done, hope is still left hidden within
TSUNAFISH27: The question is if that hope will ever be realized
V9TIM: I ask myself that every day
TSUNAFISH27: And?
V9TIM: I continue to hope
TSUNAFISH27: Then so will I
