Party was awesome. I found the time to update (I should probably be doing my homework but I can't concentrate when I have a story idea like this in my head). Please enjoy. Thanks to reviewers & I don't own KHR.

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Therapy

My decline into semi-insanity was so subtle, even I didn't notice it until someone pointed it out to me. I denied it, too, when the subject came up. Either way, whether I accepted my… well, whatever it was, exactly, or not, I didn't expect to be here on this brown half-couch, surrounded by gray blah walls, staring up at a ceiling that was surprisingly filthy while smoking my fifth cigarette and talking to an old hobo-looking man wearing a monocle. Spewing forth my deepest, darkest secrets wasn't exactly in my nature, so I felt quite uncomfortable doing so in front of this complete stranger. Those diplomas on the back wall didn't mean shit to me.

I inhaled the smoke sharply and coughed it out. It hurt to look straight upward at the arm of the sofa. Scowling one-sidedly, I flicked the ashes off the end of the cigarette and into the ashtray.

"I don't know, I just –" I stuttered out unconfidently, quickly, "– I guess I'm just conflicted, is all."

"How so?" the 'doctor' asked.

He crossed his legs and wrote a little something down while I shoved the stub of a cigarette into the ashtray and prepared another.

"Well… if I say what I want to say, then I can't do what I promised to do, and I would hate myself. But on the other hand, if I don't say anything, I don't think I'll ever" – I took my first drag on the new cigarette – "be happy."

I ran my fingers through my bangs, and the man looked at his clipboard like he wanted to write it all down, but couldn't help but pause.

"Say what? To whom?" he said. Is ask questions all he can do? Shouldn't therapists talk a little more than this, actually help me figure out what I'm saying instead of just making me say more? Or maybe my expectations aren't right.

The standing lamp behind the couch dimmed slightly, and I flopped my head on its side and looked at him. With a jolt, I managed to sit up while taking a drag again and releasing a rising cloud of gray. I set my elbows on my knees, slouching. Laughed a little. Took another drag. Flicked the ashes.

"You wouldn't understand." I shook my head.

His bushy mustache drooped as he scribbled down more notes than I thought anyone would get out of just that. He spoke while he wrote. "Young man, I'm a therapist – you're paying me to understand."

The thumb and index finger of my free hand shoved themselves into the soft skin around my eyes. I felt almost tired. I realized I was shaking.

"I'm not paying you," I sighed. "The only reason I'm here is because my sister signed me up unwillingly, thought something was wrong with me."

He raised an eyebrow. "Is something wrong with you?"

I smirked, a small amount of leftover smoke escaping through my open lips. "How the hell should I know? I'm the one in therapy." If this man didn't have such a lack of personality, he'd probably be rolling his eyes – or at least, I prided myself in thinking I'd make him do that.

My head spun during the silence that followed. I hunched my shoulders and shuddered.

His voice faded out of the quiet. "You still haven't answered my question."

I looked up and met his hard brown eyes, sucked on my bottom lip and tensed up, rocking slightly to and fro.

At the uttering of these words, I then looked away. "His name is Tsuna." I took a drag on the cigarette again. "And in a perfect world, I would have told him a long time ago that I love him."

He watched me for a little longer, nodded and wrote down my response, along with some other observations.

In my head, I was reaching out all around me, wildly grabbing at the words that just came out of my mouth, wanting to catch them and swallow them back up. Maybe this is what therapy is supposed to feel like. I awkwardly laid back down.

"If I give you five bucks, would you end this meeting right now?" I asked.

"I'm afraid not," he responded without looking up at me.

"What about twenty to shoot me in the head?"

"No."

I flicked the ashes off the end of the cigarette. "…Dammit."

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While writing this, I pictured regular Gokudera, though I guess it could possibly be TYL, too. Depends.