When Mukuro got home on the day he first met the boy who attended Nami Elementary, the first thing he did was to ask his parents if they had any sticky notes at home.
His parents had looked at him quizzically then, but when he had mentioned that it was so he could make a friend in Namimori, they had been only too happy to oblige, albeit still rather confused.
Taking the little yellow squares happily, he went up to his room, and neatly wrote a quick message to give to the little brunet the next time they saw each other.
Which, coincidentally, happened to be the very next day.
Mukuro could see the boy coming from all the way down the street, saw the way his shoulders stiffened when they made eye contact, as if he were worried that Mukuro would yell at him.
His arms and legs moved robotically as he took slow steps forward, his eyes trained on the ground.
Rolling his eyes in exasperation, Mukuro picked up his pace.
And when he was only a few steps away from the other boy, he took out the note he had written the night before, reached out, and promptly stuck it to the other boy's forehead.
He didn't stop to see the other boy's reaction, but was amuse to hear a startled squeak from behind him.
The boy stood where he was a for a while, staring in shock at the little yellow post-it in his hand.
I forgive you.
They didn't always see each other in the morning.
And they didn't always see each other in the afternoon.
Which was why they never were quite able to keep up a conversation.
And something about their little exchange of notes made both boys reluctant to venture into the realm of spoken communication.
They did, however, exchange notes every time they saw each other after their firs meeting.
At seven years old, after a year of exchanging notes with the weird but surprisingly funny Kokuyo boy, Tsuna's mother took him with her to the hundred yen shop to stock up on post-it notes.
Tsuna, who had until then only known of the standard yellow square post-it notes, was absolutely enthralled by the many different types of sticky notes that were sold there.
Nana, feeling indulgent upon seeing how happy her son was, ended up buying him three different packets of sticky notes.
His favorite were the pair of lucky cat notes he had gotten, with one stack of orange marked lucky cats, and another stack of black marked ones.
He decided to use them the very next day, pressing the note to his friend's left cheek, and having the favor returned with a sticky note on his own left cheek.
They had long ago stopped handing the notes over – now they stuck their notes on whichever body part they felt like that day. The forehead, nose, and cheek were favorites. But they also sometimes chose shoulders and elbows and even once, memorably, on Tsuna's right knee.
It had become somewhat of a game to them.
On this day, as Tsuna walked away reading the note he had gotten from his friend, he could hear the boy laughing when he saw the sticky note Tsuna had given him, and the message on it.
Nyan.
Mukuro was nine the first time he saw his post-it friend walking to school with scratches on his arms and legs, and a bandaid on his cheek.
Startled and more than a little worried, he was about to ask him what had happened, but the boy smiled brightly back at him, and gave a minuscule shake of the head.
Feeling a little relieved, Mukuro bit his tongue and didn't say anything.
Maybe the boy had fallen over while riding his bike.
Shaking the worries out of his head, he took out the sticky note he had prepared, and stuck it to his friend's chin like a little purple goatee, eliciting a laugh from the younger boy.
In return, he got a sticky note on his ear.
As soon as he had turned away, the other young boy's reassuring smile fell from his face as he was remembering what his classmates had said and done to him the previous day.
When he read the note he had been given however, the corners of his lips twitched up a bit.
You're almost as awesome as I am.
Tsuna was nine when he finally learned his friend's name. And vice versa.
It had been a particularly hard day at school, as the bullying had been increasing in the past few months and making it harder for him to pay attention to class, causing his marks to drop more than they already had.
This, in turn, made the bullying even worse, and it all continued in a vicious cycle.
He hadn't been expecting to see his Kokuyo friend that day, so it had been quite the pleasant surprise to turn the corner, and see that familiar head of blue coming towards him.
Except that today, he wasn't alone.
There was a girl with him, and she looked to be Tsuna's age.
She was smiling at her companion, and they seemed to be talking about something funny, going by the smiles on their faces.
Smiles which disappeared as soon as they saw Tsuna.
Tsuna knew that his friend worried about the new injuries he had every week, but thankfully, he never brought them up.
Tsuna didn't know what he would do if his friend found out how pathetic and useless he was, and decided to stop talking to him.
Tsuna tried to smile reassuringly to his friend, but it did nothing to allay the expression of worry on his face.
Hoping to at least distract them, Tsuna quickened his pace a bit, and when he was finally close enough, he turned and stuck the note on the girl's forehead with an impish smile.
This elicited a startled squeak from the girl, and a loud, amused guffaw from his Kokuyo friend.
The other boy was so busy laughing, he almost forgot to give Tsuna his note.
As he was passing though, the boy turned and stuck a note on Tsuna's back.
"M-Mukuro-kun," said the girl in a pleading tone, tugging at the boy's sleeve and looking at him questioningly, the note still on her forehead.
Snorting in amusement, Mukuro plucked the note off her forehead and read it.
Your new hairstyle looks like a pineapple.
Mukuro was eleven when he and Tsunayoshi parted ways.
It had already been a week since he had seen his tuna fishie, and he was starting to worry.
Just before spring break had started, the bullying had taken a vicious turn, and Mukuro had heard from his mom that the Sawada boy from a few streets down had been excused from the last week of school due to an incident with some upperclassmen.
Berating himself for not having said anything to anyone sooner, Mukuro had been unable to do anything except worry about the boy and feel useless.
On his way to Nagi's house to celebrate the end of the year, Mukuro bumped into little Tsunayoshi, and a silver-haired-boy he had ever seen before.
The boy, who had shoulder-length hair and angry grey-green eyes, was walking rather close to Tsuna, glaring around at everybody they passed.
It was obvious from the relaxed set of Tsuna's shoulders and his happy smile that he was comfortable around this boy, and Mukuro felt himself relax a little, knowing that he had someone now to look after him.
As they got closer, both Tsuna and the stranger boy noticed Mukuro's presence.
The stranger boy turned the full force of his glare on Mukuro, as if daring him to try anything, and Mukuro smiled. Their relationship almost reminded him of his relationship with Nagi.
The stranger boy seemed to have misinterpreted the smile though, because he looked as if he were about to attack.
At the last second however, Tsuna was able to stop him, whispering something in his ear.
The boy backed down then, and his expression when he next looked at Mukuro wasn't angry anymore, but curious. And maybe even a little grateful?
When they were finally close enough to exchange notes, Tsuna stopped in front of him, forcing Mukuro to stop walking as well.
He looked down at the younger boy, more than a little confused.
Reaching out, Tsuna took one of his hands, and pressed his note into it, a sad little smile on his face.
Mukuro, not having expected to see him today, didn't have a note to give to him, but he didn't seem to mind.
Instead, he grabbed his friend by the arm and began pulling him away, waving goodbye to Mukuro as he went.
Mukuro stood rooted to his spot, staring in confusion at his friend, wondering what on Earth could have happened.
Then, the two boys turned the corner, and he could no longer see them.
He stared for a few seconds more before looking down at the note in his hand.
I'm moving to Italy.
SkyGem: The END! Lol, just kidding. There's going to be one more chapter coming out tomorrow, and I promise it will be fluffy as hell to make up for...this. Heh. I do really love how this chapter came out though. It was so much fun and it practically wrote itself. Please do leave a review y'all, and lemme know what you thought, yeah? Ciao!
P.S. Just to clarify, each of the sections in this chapter are a year apart. Remember, Tsuna is a year younger than Mukuro.