Chapter 28: Red Camellia, "You Are a Flame in My Heart"

Or, Red Trio, Part I.

When Xanxus saw her again, he knew that beyond all form of doubt, she was irrevocably and completely his. She had held onto him for ages, crying and being generally weak, and he reveled in the power he had over her then, to reduce her to such a state.

And he was, for the first time, perhaps, in a long time, content.

But even so, he wanted more. He was content, yes, but her presence burned inside him, and his contentment melted rapidly away to a fervent sort of need that made the room grow warm and had him loosening his tie. And Miyu, at least, this time, of her own volition, with all her faculties in order, felt much the same.

And the urge, sudden and inexplicable, came upon her to kiss him.

She did not want to peck him on the cheek. She did not want to brush her lips against his. In fact, her desire to kiss him was so ardent, she was put in mind of a play by an Irish writer named Oscar Wilde. She was Salomé, and before her was John the Baptist. In a sudden, dizzying wave of heat, she leaned forward, still hesitant, and she knew that she would have done anything he asked of her, just so she could kiss him.

Because in her mind, if she kissed him, she would have the proof she needed to know that he was truly alive. And shaking off the last of her timidity, she leaned forward again.

And drew back. What if…what if it was all a dream, and when she awoke, it wouldn't be Xanxus before her, but some crushed, unrecognizable corpse. What if she woke up and he was dead, and all of this was a delusion her grief-maddened mind had conjured in guilt.

The kiss would tell her. It would. She swore, irrationally, that it would.

And she leaned forward and at last her mouth met his.

There was absolutely nothing of her crème dream in this kiss. There was no amber intoxication, no heady fragrance, no lush wines. There was no mist, no softness, but there was desperation and the gnawing sort of need that ate away at any defense.

He pushed her onto the bed, twining a hand in her hair, another exploring what was his.

She responded to this with her own shyly straying hand and a soft stroke of his scars.

And she shivered into it, feeling his hands-like fire on her skin-rough and coarse and so characteristically him all over her. They kissed until she couldn't breathe, and it seemed to Miyu that "kiss" was such an inadequate word to describe the passion the shared in that one, simple action, until at last he let her pull away.

In a haze of bliss, she murmured against his skin, "I have kissed your mouth, Xanxus. I have kissed your mouth."

His breath was then like open flame at her neck.

"That's not the quote."

And there, she sat up a little in interest.

"You've read Salomé?"

He growled, burying his face into her skin.

"Not now, Miyu."

Though she normally might have been disinclined to leave it, the heat of his mouth marking every bit of her skin in his reach changed her mind and she mumbled, "Xanxus, I missed you," into the air above her face, clutching him closer as if scared he would…disappear.

He didn't answer her with words, but with a searing kiss that rendered her unable to speak. He knew how she felt. It was sickening to him, true, but he understood. He had, after all, been missing her since the summer she hadn't come.

And now, no longer.

They lay together, quietly, on the bed, twined together for an age. All night, at least. Until Miyu fell asleep. And Xanxus, noiselessly and with the tenderness of one who has waited years to be, at last, where he then lay, trailed a finger along the curve of his sleeping woman's cheek and closed his eyes in a violent and grim satisfaction.

Ten fucking years. Nearing eleven, now. That was how long he had waited. How fucking long it took to bring her back into his life.

He would never, ever let her go again.

Far away, far from the woman he loved, and farther still, in that moment, from her heart, Hibari Kyoya was bound up in chains, sitting in a dim, high-security holding cell in the bowels of the hidden Vincere base, groggily awakening.

His hair was matted beyond belief, and there wasn't a patch of his skin visible that wasn't bruised or red-black with the blood of his victims. His clothes were in tatters, singed here, torn there, and redolent with the smell of smoke and an easily identified sharp, metallic reek. He hands were cuffed to the side of the chair, which was bolted to the ground.

His ring and box weapon were gone. He hadn't the slightest idea of where his tonfa were. And he was pissed beyond belief.

"Come out, Vincere."

There was a beat of silence and then a slow, clichéd clapping as a woman in an evening dress strolled out of the shadows behind him, the click of high heels and the rustle of satin.

"Ciao, Kyoya Hibari. You've cost us quite a few men, you know."

She was voluptuous, with raven-wing hair framing her perfect, porcelain face in gorgeous waves, her cunning, deceptively light blue eyes narrowed in playful consternation, her dazzling scarlet lips in a full and irresistible pout.

For a brief moment, Hibari wondered if it would be possible for him to break free of his restraints and strangle her with the chains that held him in place.

"Don't even think about it, bello." She purred, pausing then to look at him rather thoughtfully.

"We have proven that the rumors about you being undefeatable are false. I wonder what else they have exaggerated about you…"

The sly smile that had slipped over her features widened when he glared at her.

Oh, he was seething. To be captured by such ridiculous weaklings was preposterous enough, and now they have the nerve to send a prostitute in to interrogate him, no, to look him up and down, and question his masculinity?

His wrists strained at the sleek triple-reinforced shackles cuffing them to the chair. The woman wagged her finger at him in a manner more enticingly than reprovingly.

"Ah, ah, ah, play nicely now," she admonished, her silky, silver-clad form snaking forward, her hip jauntily thrust to the side, her lily-white hand running down her front to rest on it.

Gods, he didn't even know who she was and he was already itching to maim her.

"Hm, I'm actually very disappointed. For all that I'd heard of the great Cloud Guardian of the Vongola, the Kyoya Hibari…"

He hated the way his name sounded coming out of her lascivious mouth, hated her exaggerated Italian accent, and decided that though he had never before actually brought physical harm to a woman, the thing before him did not deserve such chivalry and his fists, in the absence of his tonfa, would suffice.

"Well, I simply expected a man, not a stubborn ragazzo who gets caught by Vincere grunts."

There was a double entendre at the end of that sentence and he caught it. She smiled at him, extending her small hand as if for him to kiss it, as if he would, her eyes alight with immodest mischief. He resisted the crude impulse to spit on it.

"Cecilia Rossetti, Signore Hibari."

He didn't mean to, but his irritation was so great that he strained against the chains holding him with a vicious jerk, a previously tightly leashed instinct loosed.

A soft, beguiling chuckle escaped her lips, and the woman had the audacity to come on to him, taking a hold of his chin, as if he were some child, swinging a leg over his own and invading a boundary of space very, very few that were living could claim to have crossed.

In fact, as he pondered that list to keep himself from tearing out her throat, or making a futile effort to, the only person he had ever been that close to was her.

Miyu.

Unconsciously, he made another sudden, mighty effort to break free of his bonds.

She laughed a little harder, covering the side of her mouth with tapering fingers in some show of false gentility, her free hand gliding up his chest.

"Signore Hibari, control yourself, please."

Her fingers toyed with his tie, loosening its tattered remains and tightening it more than was comfortable. To the point of trying to choke him, one might argue.

There was a look of delight on her features as he glowered up at her.

"I suppose you have…promise. But you're what, fifteen?"

Nineteen, you…bitch, Hibari, who rarely swore, wanted to say, nineteen.

She patted his cheek.

"You're a decade too young, boy, to think of getting a…hold of me."

There was nothing he wanted more in that moment than to get a hold of her, and it was most certainly not for the reason she was thinking.

She sighed, her bottom lip jutting forward just a little in a perfect pout.

"You're so…stiff, Signore Hibari. And not in a pleasing way. I had heard you were a man of discipline, but this…this is a bit excessive, no? Have you ever even wanted to lay with a woman? No, I do not think you have."

She forced his chin up and examined the pale skin of his throat, and Hibari, with a vindictive resoluteness that was surprising, even for him, did not swallow. No, he would die before he gave that whore the satisfaction of it.

She released him and he turned his loathing glare on her, filled with so sudden and bitter a resentment for her existence that it surprised even him for a moment.

What gave her the right to talk about such things with him? None. Absolutely none. And he would not suffer her to speak of such things in front of him, because she had no right to assume things about him, nor to taint his experience with Miyu with her filthy mind.

She leaned forward and did something that could not be called kissing, because it was too intrusive and too wrong to be called such. Her lips mashed viciously, mercilessly against his, and she licked his lips and pulled away, pouting when he did not permit her entrance.

"You're so cold, Signore Hibari. You'll never get a woman like that."

He couldn't care less. He really couldn't.

"And so rude. When a lady gives you advice, Signore Hibari, you thank her for it."

He wasn't one for speaking, not really, and he most certainly wasn't one for thanking, but all of that was irrelevant because there wasn't a lady in front of him, there was a fucking-again, he surprised himself-whore. With a petulant sigh, she got off him.

"You're no fun, Signore Hibari. As dry and tasteless as the reputation that precedes you. Still, I suppose you have potential for the future."

She blew him a disinterested kiss, and waved over her shoulder on her way out.

"Until later then, ragazzo."

Oh, how his fingers ached to wrap themselves around her pale, pretty neck. The door slammed shut with a heavy, leaden thud behind her and he was left in darkness once more.

"He did it for me, Xanxus. It was all because of me."

Xanxus turned away with a hardly suppressed growl, stalking over to the window.

"I don't give a shit about that trash, Miyu. And Squalo had already fucking taken you out of the way, so don't say that to me as if I owe the little shit something."

Miyu was a desperate woman. A truly desperate woman. And the intensity of what she felt in that moment began to slowly bring to the surface of her character some of that inner strength that had previously only been glimpsed at.

"Xanxus, please."

"No." He growled, some unfathomable look in his scarlet eyes as he turned, his ire more than simply evident. Miyu's hands began to clench into fists at her sides.

"D-Dammit, Xanxus, he did it for me. He risked his life for me. You're allies for kami's sake! He's a valuable asset to the Vongola, he-"

"I DON'T CARE," Xanxus roared, all but appearing in front of her in three, long strides and taking her by the shoulders, his chest heaving in indignant rage.

"I DON'T FUCKING CARE ABOUT THAT LITTLE SHIT, MIYU, AND I DON'T WANT TO HEAR YOU FUCKING ASKING ME TO GO RESCUE HIM."

Miyu was quiet for a moment, looking fixedly ahead of her, over his shoulder, and not at his eyes. And then, it was as if something in her was suddenly released, years of being subdued, of ignoring what she felt, what she thought, what she dreamt of, what she feared, all of it rushing into her at once, and she realized, distantly, in some far away part of her mind, that she was strong, that she had been all along and that she would not yield.

And then, in her own, reserved way, she snapped.

"Would you rather I ask someone else?"

It came out of nowhere, completely out of left field, and it actually managed to make Xanxus pause. Oh, that wrath was still like acid in his bloodstream, and he was so angry, it was nearly unbearable. But this was Miyu, and where she normally would have tried to calm him, it was as if she was intentionally baiting him.

"What?"

Miyu turned her attention from the window behind him very gravely to his face, as if studying him. And honestly, she felt as if some little demon was egging her on, because she looked him right in the eye and repeated her question.

"Would you rather that I ask someone else? I could, you know. I could ask Iemitsu. Or Yoshi. I could ask Dino. I could-"

He cut her off with an animalistic snarl, vicious and unforgiving.

"Forget it, Miyu."

No, she wasn't going to forget it. No way.

"No, Xanxus."

If there was ever a time in Xanxus' life that he might have felt something similar to hurt, it was in that moment. Because she said no, a word he had never heard from her before. Hell, he hadn't even known it was in her fucking vocabulary. Her features were soft as she looked at him, briefly, and set her head on his shoulder.

"Xanxus…I…I'm sorry. But…Xanxus, Kyoya is a prisoner because of me. Because he wanted to protect me. And I…care for him, very much."

Gods, that was true.

"I can't forget him. I can't. I've lived with him for nearly three years. He's become such an important part of my life, and…Xanxus, he loves me."

How could the bastard fucking not? The little shit had been living out Xanxus' dreams since his snotty teenage years. That fucking piece of trash-

"Xanxus, I can't abandon him. You tell me to just…forget it. Forget him. Xanxus, I'm tired. I'm tired of people telling me what to do, where to go…Would you have done it, Xanxus? Would you have distracted the enemy so that Kusakabe could take me away, possibly to Kyoya?"

The very thought of doing that (which he knew very well he wouldn't do, because he wasn't some pussy incapable of protecting his woman) turned Xanxus' stomach and he was very suddenly reminded of an argument that he and Miyu hadn't had yet, and would never have, now that he had her within his grasp, at last.

"That little shit? He's a fucking kid! A fucking moron!"

"He's a good man!"

"YOU'RE A FUCKING HYPOCRITE! I KNOW WHAT HIBARI FUCKING KYOYA DOES. HOW THE FUCK IS HE ANY BETTER THAN ME?"

"HE-LOVES-ME-"

What he said in response he wouldn't even think of. But she had just said it again, hadn't she? She had fucking said it again, and somehow he felt, for a brief, wild moment, that he was no closer to her then than he had been in that moment.

"He loves me."

And he had blurted it out before he knew what he was doing, just as he had then.

"I LOVE YOU! WHY THE FUCK DIDN'T YOU WAIT FOR ME?"

"Damn it, Miyu, I love you. I fucking love you. Why the fuck does he matter?"

Miyu nearly stumbled as she stepped back, so shocked was she by his outburst, which he instantly regretted. He sounded like a fucking pansy, whining like a little shit himself. She knew he loved her. Of course she did. And here he was bitching about it like a pussy.

To Miyu, though, his admission was nothing of the sort. Gods, she couldn't even speak. Xanxus' crimson gaze met her dark, choking expression and he gritted his teeth in frustration. What could he say? That he hadn't fucked up with his fucking foot-in-mouth syndrome, that is.

"Fuck it, Miyu, just-"

Whatever he was going to say was forever lost, because with the sudden interruption of gunfire through the window went his brief, brief moment of…susceptibility. For once, thought they had inconvenienced him enough in their brief public existence to deserve their place on his personal eradication list, Xanxus was almost thankful for the existence of the Vincere.

"I don't give a shit if you're sick and tired of people telling you where to go. We're getting the fuck out of here, now."

A shaken Miyu let him grab her hand, her free one clamped over her mouth in shock. She nodded. Satisfied, he pulled her closer to him and slung an arm protectively over her shoulders, his gun in his right hand. He had drawn it, instinctively, the moment he had heard footsteps up the stairs.

"Do you trust me?"

Miyu glanced at him with surprise as he led her to the now broken window, glancing out it briefly as he shielded her with the wall in order to ascertain whether there were any snipers-there weren't-and when he looked back to her for her answer, he found her looking at him in what was almost amazement. Without any sort of hesitation, she nodded.

"Of course."

He muttered something unintelligible under his breath, and before she could ask him what he meant by it, he swept her up into his arms, and leapt out the window.

Red Camellia/End.