"Silence is one of the hardest arguments to refute."
~Josh Billings
His hair was as red as the wine he was drinking.
Xanxus leaned back into his throne like chair, thinking back on the confrontation he had with the shitty brats and the CEDEF bastard. He had looked over all of the shitty brats while the bastard was laying out the battle plans. They were younger than expected; weaker.
He had assumed that the shitty brats were at least in their late teens when he first heard about there being an heir in Japan. Apparently, they needed to kill their informant. He was sure Squalo had already taken care of it.
It made his job easier, but it put him in the position of killing brats. Not that he cared about the brats shitty lives, but other Families will undoubtedly talk when he took over the Vongola. He knew there'd be talk of how the Varia had grown weak. Killing barely trained kids wasn't that hard, after all. They'd start to think the Vongola was weak and he couldn't allow that. He'd just have to beat it into their skulls that they were still the best, regardless of weak opponents.
He took another sip of wine as his mind drifted back to red.
He swirled his drink slowly, trying to understand how this piece fit into the puzzle.
Hair red as blood.
Eyes a vivid green.
First born son of the bastard.
Yet, not the heir.
He had seen pictures of the bastard's wife. The redhead took after neither of them with his coloring, though he had seen traces of similar features in the mother. He had seen the blank almost hostile look the bastard had given Red and he wondered…
His own bastard had put on the facade of fatherhood, but many of the other members of the Family never bothered putting on an act for what they thought was a bastard child. A house, no matter how large, can become stifling when the people in it look at you as if you are the dirt behind their shoes. He couldn't wait to smash their faces into the dirt when he became the boss.
He wondered if Red felt just as stifled.
Did Red hold the same all-consuming anger that boiled inside him, even now, when he was alone and content?
He supposed it didn't matter in the end.
He took another sip of wine.
If he got in the way, Xanxus would kill him.
He threw the glass at the opposite wall and watched as the red liquid dripped to the floor.
Xanxus is hard to write. :/ Don't know if I did him justice (he is one of my favorite characters). I figured he'd be slightly interested, though, since his situation is similar to Kurama's. As far as Xanxus knows right now, they both don't fit with their family (in physical appearance) and were passed over as heirs.
*The full-length story is now posted.