Once again, thank you for reading and following this story, guys! It's hot like hell here right now and i feel my back can melt into sweat.

And also, when i first planned writing this fanfiction, i supposed the whole story wouldn't be longer than 14 chapters. Finally, i'll make maybe 20 or so.

Enjoy~


Xanxus was watching the town center being displayed behind the smoked window pane of the limousine. Outside, it was raining cats and dogs, the sky was darkly clouded and a violent wind was blowing wickedly on the passers-by. Japan was never a good place to stay by this time of the year. For the nth time of the day, the radio was warning the listeners of a typhoon that would soon reach the west coast of the main island. What a dull and boring weather. Moreover, no plane was allowed to take off until the weather forecast got better, that is, not before a least four days. Xanxus had to stay in Japan during the entire damn storm.

"We will hear more from our special correspondent …"

"Trash," Xanxus demanded to the chauffeur, finally exasperated by the never-ending weather report, "change channels. I'm fucking fed up of that shit."

"Yes, sir." The man complied with eagerness.

Now, a soft music was filling the car. It wasn't transcendent, but still it was better than the announcement of a near apocalypse coming straight above their heads. On the rear seat, the raven didn't particularly pay attention to the song and kept on looking outside.

That peculiar color of the clouds, it somehow reminded the tanned man orbs the same shade, and the lightning that would from time to time light it up the shallow glistening breaking the monotony every time a certain silverette would glare at him for a reason or another.

And at that memory, without his consent, his mind brought the raven back to what happened last night in that parking. The very same greyish eyes half-hidden by long and thick silvery eyelashes. The silver haired beauty had been able to look Xanxus in the face as he literally threw him out of his life:

The silver haired man was buttoning his shirt up, the tail of it only veiling his most intimate parts while bare legs were fully exposed to lazy ruby orbs. In the half-dimness of the place, only now and then interrupted by the flash of a car that was leaving the car parks, Squalo's skin looked fairer than usual, his silver mane glistening like a platinum river. He was quieter than usual, too, even after being that loud only few minutes ago.

"I'm going to go back home now." He said unceremoniously whilst slipping his boxer then his pants on. As he talked, never once did he look at the tanned man.

Xanxus took his phone and started dialing a number. "I'll give you a lift."

"It's okay. It's not that late. I'll just take a cab-"

"I'm fucking dropping you home." The raven insisted, his attention now entirely on the smaller man. What did that mean? It was as if the silver haired trash was trying to run away from him. Was he angry? Xanxus didn't give a flying fuck about that. On the contrary, he was the one who should feel irritated. After all, earlier in the restaurant, wasn't he with that shithead Cavallone again? No matter how the raven looked at it, that cheating scum was the guilty one. "I'll call you later. You'd better be free then."

Squalo remained silent, immobile next to the raven, but lips slightly parted as though he wanted to say something. His attention was lost somewhere between his shoes and the floor, his face blank, void of emotion.

"Xanxus…" He said after a while. "Let's stop this."

It was Xanxus' turn to be silent, then, "stop what?"

"This. What we're doing. It's going nowhere…"

"Everything seems fine by me, you dumb trash. If you're not happy, just put up with it."

"For Lord's sake, Xanxus, you're fucking getting married!"

"Aa." The raven was glaring defiantly. "So what? This has nothing to do with you."

"Vooi," Squalo knocked his fist against the back of the seat, greyish eyes so heavy one could tell they had witnessed the worst in this world, looking daggers at the taller man. His voice then raised, low and vicious. "What you're telling me to do is to wait for you like your motherfucking bitch for when you feel like getting your freak on?"

The raven huffed. Yeah, he wanted to reply, but said nothing. He knew what would be the silverette's reaction if he had dared. Squalo, though, understood it very clearly. "Screw you!" The silverette yelled at him. He got out of the car and brutally slammed the door behind him.

Back to that stormy morning.

"That goddamn trash…" Xanxus grunted as the image of Squalo's back was making itself more and more distant in his mind. Suddenly, his mind returned to the present, more exactly to a white smartphone that didn't belong to the tanned man. He just found it earlier when he got in the car, lying on the rear seat. "He even forgot his shitty phone."

"Yes?" The chauffeur asked, his reflection in the rear-view window looking at the raven. "Did you say something?"

"I didn't, you moron. Look at the damn road."

"My apologies, sir."

The car became silent again. Only the song on the radio was playing softly, like a hush. Xanxus, who was not be a mood to think about work for once, but in the same time didn't want to think about his messy sentimental life, started listening to it, though only half of it. However, the more he was listening, the more the words were forming coherent sentences in his brain.

and everything about you.

Baby, come back

You can blame it all on me

I was wrong and I just can't live without you

"Change that goddamn channel right now, you dickhead!" Xanxus roared at the speechless driver, then stomped irately on the car floor. It was going to be a very long trip to the head office, for both of them.

That night, Squalo just disappeared from Dino's sight, taken away by a raging tanned man who left a real mess in the restaurant where they had been tranquilly having dinner, only ten minutes sooner. The waiters were panicked and trying – with difficulty, that was an understatement – to keep the other customers from making a ruckus on their own but also from leaving the restaurant for a little while (Dino could understand why: Xanxus was surely making a scene outside). Gokudera Jouji was fuming about his son-in-law being undiscoverable and unreachable. He blamed Dino for ruining their dinner and Dino, on the other hand, didn't even try to clear himself of.

Of course, he had nothing to do with that crap. If the blond had known Xanxus would be at that restaurant that night, he would have never invited Squalo there, absolutely no way in Hell.

But the fact was the rendezvous he had planned with his beloved silverette was totally spoiled. And still, this time, he had put all his courage in inviting Squalo. Just how many days and how many nights had he spent dreaming about only a night with the silver haired beauty? It wasn't as though it was a passion that had popped up overnight, that was sure.

Yet everything happened in the twinkling of an eye, everything ignited weeks ago by only a 'what if?'

Yes, what if, back then, at the graduation ceremony, he had waited for Squalo's answer? Would it still be a no? And that answer he gave, 'I can't'… Squalo actually never said no, so what if the situation hadn't been the same?…If Xanxus hadn't been there, did that mean he would have a chance, too?

How stupid! Everything was a jumble of regrets and incertitude in the young Cavallone heir's head. And that was in that state of mind – even more accented by a good bottle of vodka – that Dino called Squalo up on the phone in the middle of the night to invite the latter for a very simple and casual lunch the day after, all of this in a gibberish and a stammering that would have put a high school tsundere girl to shame. If there was something Dino had learnt from being Squalo's friend, that was, no matter what may happen, never ever treat him like a woman. That is, no stupid things such as cinema, romantic ride on a lake, nothing; which, indeed, left the blond with very few options.

Nevertheless, the stuttering became all the more pitiful when Squalo hurriedly agreed on that lunch with Dino (it hadn't been a miracle, but let's just say that Cavallone had been pretty blessed that night since the call had been passed precisely few minutes after the silverette felt 'lonely' in his bed). Dino was so happy he didn't even notice the faint awkwardness in Squalo's voice before he hung up.

The next day, Dino got his 'date', the day after, too, and also the day after it. Soon, though, the blond realized where his unexpected luck had come from. But somehow, knowing that he was a replacement didn't disturb him that much. Of course, he felt a little pang in his heart when Squalo declared as nonchalantly as he could, one day they were sitting in a garden café not far from Namimori U, that Xanxus wasn't living in the apartment anymore, that it happened already few weeks ago. Dino felt sort of sad, but let none of his sorrow filter on his face. He had already lost years and years in hesitation and pity for himself, he wasn't going to repeat the same mistakes again.

At their next lunch and for the very first time, Dino was inviting him for diner, as churl as the implication of them spending a whole night together might sound. We're not going back to the fiasco that had occurred after.

Annoyed with Jouji's never-ending haranguing, Dino went to look for Squalo. To tell the truth, the blond already had little hope finding the silverette after seeing how the raven was angry and all. Nonetheless, he was worried: none could predict what Xanxus could do if he was truly irate. To reassure himself, he called Squalo up, but the silverette didn't pick up. So, what could the blond do? In point of fact, Dino wasn't used to this kind of situation, that is, having to fight for something he really wanted.

Like a dog that had lost his owner, he decided to go wait for Squalo at the entrance of the restaurant. Maybe he would come back there after he's… done with Xanxus? Dino waited one hour, two hours. All the customers finally left the office building, the cars in the streets were decreasing in numbers, and the air was starting to get cold. At long last, rain began to fall on the blond mane.

"That's the best…" He groaned and looked at the night sky. "I hate this!"

What should he do now? Going back home? Impossible. He didn't want to see in the next morning's news 'cadaver of a young professor found strangled to death in the gutters of a famous restaurant'…

"Like hell!" Dino exclaimed in panic, his mind suddenly rising from gloom. "This can't happen, right?"

Fortunately, his Bentley wasn't parked that far. He drove at full speed to the silverette's building then, once there, leapt up the stairs to the sixth floor. His heart leapt in his mouth as he saw light filtering from under the apartment's door. Still anxious, Dino knocked frantically on it. Imagine his relief when a half-naked silver haired man opened up, a towel still covering his hair, a larger one draping his waist. He just got out of the shower.

"Voi, stupid Cavallone!" Squalo shouted crossly. "What the hell is wrong with you?"

But Dino felt too relieved to answer. He just heaved a deep sigh and wrapped his arms around a flustered silverette. "I was so worried, Squalo! I waited outside the restaurant but you didn't come back. I thought something might have happened to you!"

The silver haired man strived to free himself from the blond's grip. "Voooi, I'm alright, so get off!"

Dino finally let go, and as he slowly moved away, he saw blood dripping on the silver haired man's chin. "Squalo, your jaw!"

Said man unconsciously pressed a thumb on the wound. "Ah, it's nothing. I was going to put alcohol on it anyway." He paused and frowned at Dino. "Voi, you're staying or you're leaving, do as you please, but close that damn door."

"Oh, my bad." The blond came in. "I called you but no one picked up."

"Um, really? I didn't hear anything." The silverette lay, his cheek slightly rosy. "But you, you look horrible." He was talking about the drenched hair and clothes and that tired look on the Cavallone's face.

"It's… nothing, too." Dino smiled, laughed lightly. "It suddenly started to rain and I just stayed outside like an idiot… But as long as you're fine, everything is alright."

The wrinkle between the silverette's eyebrows deepened. His thin lips contracted into a rictus that funnily looked a lot like a pout Dino was very well acquainted with – the guilty pout. It made his smile brightened, which made Squalo's furrowing worsen. "Don't fucking laugh at me!"

"I'm not laughing at you."

"Yes, you are!" He barked, yet went to fetch a dry towel in the laundry room, tossed it at the blond before entering his bedroom. "I've always hated that shitty side of you."

"Come on, I swear I'm not laughing at you!" Dino maintained, still beaming like a little boy in Disneyland as Squalo appeared again, this time in pajamas, hair combed and a compress on his jaw.

Soon after, red wine was served to the irregular guest. When Dino joked about Squalo wanting to make him drunk, the latter plainly replied that lately he hadn't time to go to the grocery to buy tea or coffee. But then, when Dino joked about his friend starting to lose his housekeeper's instincts, the latter told him to go fuck himself. Dino burst out laughing.

Half an hour later, they were at their third bottle. As a matter of fact, Squalo had never really lost his 'housekeeper's instincts'. However, Dino forgot that the silverette had been with a drunkard for nearly two months, so it wasn't astonishing that wine and tequila and whisky had little by little replaced tea and coffee in his kitchen. But this isn't a detail an outsider like Cavallone ought to know.

At the fifth bottle, they were soused. Dino now was laughing out loud at a Squalo who couldn't distinctly say anymore how that idiot could cram anything at all. How they ended up reciting diction courses, none could tell anymore. Everything the young Cavallone knew was that he felt warm and at ease with the silverette. It's been so long… the last time they had been drinking and talking to each other like true friends.

"Squalo…" Dino mumbled to him.

Dino was sitting right on the floor, back resting against the couch where the silverette was lying half-drunk, half-drowsy. He had never seen Squalo as beautiful as that night, with his perfect features relaxed, with heavy eyelids and glossy lips matching the rest of the face, and narrow bony shoulders extended to arms the blond knew could be deadly when a sword was involved. And then the curvaceous body, the nicely shaped hips and legs. And that sweet scent that never leaves his soft skin, even more softened by the shower he just took.

At that moment Dino thought: that was Superbi Squalo, his only friend, the only one he knew in the world he could entirely trust in.

"Hey, Squalo, do you hate me?" He had to tilt his head backward to see the blush spreading vividly on Squalo's face.

"I don't … Sometimes, you're damn annoying, but I've seen worse."

Dino raised a little so that his chocolate eyes were at the same level as Squalo's. "That's not quite this, you know. I mean, you don't hate me and I'm glad you don't. But what I really wanted to ask you was different. I don't know how to put it… Geez, am I stupid? I've already asked you, but you know, your answer… I… didn't quite…"

A kiss hushed up Dino's blabbering.

TBC