Just read chapter 321 – I am really hating Julie/Daemon right now! Like, I seriously want to reach through the page and gouge his eyes out with toothpicks every time I see him (poor Chrome)! I am so sick of Adelheid's boobs. And Tsuna's kind of pissing me off right now. Aside from all that, Hibari looks sexy with his new VG, does he not? *angry sigh*, now I've vented. But you gotta love those little "What If" extras at the end, eh? I laughed out loud at every one, especially the Chrome one (Koyo's kind of freaked me out a little though. According to his super-vision, the fish died a painful death?)

Chapter four: "Rejection". I don't own KHR.

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Rejection

Gokudera's POV

Keep your eyes straight ahead, don't look any other way, or of course they will suspect something. Stay completely still.

Mafiosi are like wild cats. They will not see you if you just don't move.

"Sho, Shmokin' Bomb Hayato," the man said, a thick cigar poised between his yellowed teeth, "It'sh come to my attention that you've been going around, doing favorsh for other familiesh." He pulled the cigar out of his mouth and held it between his fat fingers, then jumped right in front of my face, his sweaty forehead touching mine.

I didn't move a muscle.

"I thought you pledged your loyalty to the Lucchesi family," he said roughly.

"A hit is not a pledge of loyalty," I said. I blinked slowly, deliberately, and calmly inched back. "I never said anything about being loyal to the Lucchesi organization. It was only a gig, nothing more."

The man's eyes widened. He plunged back away from me again, tapping ashes off the cigar and sticking it in his mouth once more. "You little brat," he said. "You think you've got what it takesh to be a lone wolf in thish big cat world?" He took a hurried drag, yanked the cigar away, coughed and set it back in. "Jusht why the hell, then, would you take any offer, eh? Don't you have any pride, boy, any shenshe of loyalty?"

"Well, I am exploring my options," I replied monotonously. "Currently, I'm looking for a family to take me in."

The Lucchesi family boss' skin instantly darkened to pure red. He blew on his cigar, sending ashes flying into the air around him, hacked for a minute, then charged at me. "You, a family to take you in? Don't make me laugh!"

My expression didn't change at all.

"No one would want you!" he boomed. "You're a mafia whore: can't make up your mind about which family you're a part of! Agh, ha-ha-ha! Plus, you're part oriental, and we all know that's just useless, and – stupid kid, you're a pianist! That's all you ever will be!"

He lumbered out of the room with his big, booming steps, laughing heartily to himself on the way out. "Oh-ho-ho, a family – to take him in – oh yeah, that's rich, ho-ho-ho…" He gave me one last sarcastic wink before slamming the door shut, leaving me alone in the small, wooden, smoky room. And I still stayed totally motionless. So the hunt continued for the family that I would feel upset about getting rejected by.

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Tsuna's POV

Rejection: it was a feeling I was used to, but it hurt every time all the same.

The white envelope contrasted bleakly against my black gloves, shivering in the wind. It had been torn open in the same careless manner that my heart had been torn apart.

What I found the worst was not the fact that I had known her for years, that she knew very well that I liked her a lot, or that she had told me before that she would indeed love to go out with me, but that she didn't even take the time to try and find me and reject me in person. She just lazily wrote a reply on the back of the letter and got one of her friends to hand it to me in the middle of class. If she had been decent about this at all, I wouldn't have felt nearly as down as I did right then.

My head hung low, I tried to take my mind off the letter by watching his and my boots trudge through the snow. Gokudera stayed in my shadow, perfectly matching my strides. We were walking rather slowly. He was awkwardly facing away from me, toward the iced-over creek that ran parallel to the pathway. When he sensed the intensity of my aura ebbing, he spoke.

"I'm sorry that Sasagawa rejected you, Tenth," he said solemnly.

I couldn't bear to look up at him. "It's okay, I guess," I sighed.

We turned a corner and stepped onto a bridge. We were generally alone now. The only sound around us was the crunching of snow beneath our feet.

A bare, pale, tremulous hand fell open in front of me. "May I see the note, Tenth?"

I slammed it into his palm. "Go ahead, take it," I said. "Take it away from me."

He took it away and pulled the letter out of the envelope. His mossy eyes quickly scanned the paper in its entirety, first reading my confession/offer on the front and then Kyoko's response on the back.

Tsuna – I'm afraid I cannot accept your feelings. You're really not the guy for me. In fact, you're horrible. I'm not the only one who thinks so, either. – Kyoko

Hands in my pockets, I slinked my head in the opposite direction. "See? She doesn't want me."

Half of the crunching stopped. Soon it stopped altogether. Curious, I looked up at Gokudera, only to see him looking down at the letter in his hands, biting his bottom lip.

I blinked. "…Gokudera… kun…?"

He rose his gaze to me. The note dropped to the ground, his hands now gripping my shoulders. Gokudera and I stared into each other's eyes, my expression one of shock, his one of desperation.

"Tenth," he muttered, "Do not listen to that letter.

"No matter what happens," he said, now faltering, "I want you to be able to promise me that at the end of the day, every single day, you can look in the mirror and say out loud, 'I am beautiful.' Because you are beautiful, Tenth. Don't you ever let anyone make you think otherwise."

The glints in both our eyes now fluttering wildly, Gokudera gulped, shuddered, tensed up and bit down on his lip again. Then suddenly, his grip on my shoulders weakened and his hands fell off back down to his sides.

"I have to go," he said hurriedly. Without another word to me, he was gone, running down the sidewalk, past the streetlight at the corner.

I clenched my teeth. "Gokudera-kun…" I whispered, my eyes wide in awe as I watched him disappear from my vision.

Just then, I heard some other crunching in the snow. "Tsuna-kun?" A timid and all-too-familiar voice drifted up to my ears.

Kyoko Sasagawa, the girl who rejected me, stood right there when I turned around. She had a sorry look on her face. "Tsuna-kun," she said, approaching me now, "I-I want to apologize, for that letter. It's just, some mean girls in PE took it from me, wrote the reply and dropped it at your desk and wouldn't let me have it or see it. You know them, right?"

I just stared.

"Um… but I would really love to go out with you, Tsuna-kun."

She clenched her hands together when she was right up in front of me and smiled. I smiled back in disbelief, a white cloud seeping through my exposed teeth; but my smile dissipated slowly.

She cocked her head. "Tsuna-kun?" she asked.

There was a pause. I tensed up a little, almost grabbed at her hands and then sighed.

"Kyoko-chan…" She looked up at me with hopeful eyes. "…I'll be right back."

I ran off in the direction of the streetlight.

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Dude, that ending SUCKED! Sorry *sweatdrop* It seems so rushed, right? Anyhoo, I'm going to try and post a new chapter of this over the (three day!) weekend.

On another note, this Saturday is my sweet 16th birthday partyyyy! (lol, like half a month after my actual birthday.) I'm so excited!