Disclaimer: I don't own Katekyo Hitman Reborn!
Antoine
Written November Twenty-Third, 2008
He's smoking a cigarette. Feet planted firmly on the browning, dying grass, fingers of one hand digging into the dirt, into roots and mud. The smoke wavers in front of his eyes (and it's almost like mist, almost like clouds) of a translucent, indecisive gray. Staring into the distance, a crumpled receipt in his pocket, change in the bottom of his shoe. The air is damp, and a slight wind catches his interest for a moment, and he watches the sky. He doesn't feel a thing.
There's sea slugs, in a place like this. Starfish and oysters. He's gotten cuts from broken shells and bits of glass, sharp rocks. Caught a crab on accident, by flipping over rocks for something to do. The music playing in his ears is piano, violin and cello, and with it cancels out the sound of waves, of ocean salt tingling on his lips. Gokudera scowls, examining a piece of sea glass, and checks his watch.
Don Tsunayoshi is late. Just, for a moment, he wonders what it'd be like to…
Lights another cigarette and makes a castle; sand packing firmly into a mound. Makes a moat around it, digging and digging with wrists slicked with mud, fingernails covered in grit. Swears as too many minutes pass, and the tide rises, and now it's halfway gone. Gokudera kicks off his shoes - they're sopping wet, coins spew out when the rubber hits the sand - and rolls up his pant legs, despite the cold. And, he won't understand why:
That Mist had been there, earlier, and not even Reborn had said anything. Well, he doesn't trust them - either of them. Never would, in fact: And that was that. He places shrimp, dead ones with flimsy shells. Around the castle as guards. Builds up a fence with stones, uses seaweed bulbs as heavy, monstrous flags. It's about to rain, and he hears footsteps, but he knows who they belong to. There's only one person -
"Buon giorno. Posso lasciare un messaggio?" Gokudera winces. That was rehearsed, he can tell - even so, it still sounds like the most awful Italian he's ever heard. He decides to reply in Japanese to save his ears, and the Tenth from embarrassment.
"Hi. What d'you want? I'm kinda busy." It's cold, so cold. But he's not going to stop until he's done - he has to rebuild this East wall, first. Maybe the Tenth should close his eyes for a few minutes, because at this point, he wasn't supposed to see this yet. See him, yet. He snorts in annoyance and reshapes part of the wall, digs the moat deeper around one corner.
"…Aren't you going to come back? We all, um, miss you." Not going to look up - that's a lie, isn't it. Probably, the only one who really wants him back is that idiot Yamamoto. Even if it's for Sawada, he's not going to return to that stupid…
"Just stay here. Look," Gokudera jabs a thumb at his misshapen castle and spits his cigarette into the water, demanding. "This is your present. Happy birthday."
Tsuna looks like he's trying not to laugh, and he frowns. There's nothing funny about it. He explains, painstakingly, that the trail from the moat to the ocean is so any water can drain out, if it gets inside. What type of shells those are; and what type of shrimp live in the water around here, from the colour of their bodies. And, he had to wade in that freezing sea forever to find the perfect lump of seaweed for that tower, thanks. With this comes:
A sudden realization. He thinks, he understands Tsuna a little more, now. The same kid who asked even that Mist to come to his party, also came to get Gokudera himself, afterwards. And, this is the kindness that he's held from the very beginning; and the (Tenth Don of the Vongola can't lose to anyone.)
Not now, and not ever.
xxxxxxxxx
For chesauroshin.
Prompt: Gokudera and Tsuna
"top of the world" or, alternately, one of those scavenger-hunt-type-things where you have to go from one place to the next to pick up clues to find a surprise. A happy ending.
A/N: Sea glass is, as I take it, glass that has been worn down completely smooth by the waves on all sides and corners. I have a piece somewhere that's a light, light blue. When you are on the beaches of my childhood, it is never warm - the water is freezing no matter what temperature it is that day, and frequently it will rain while you're there. Seaweed bulbs are like small, dark green, heavy balloons with long trails of seaweed attached to them, they are everywhere. When they dry out, I think they become brown. The smell of rotting seaweed in the summer is especially disgusting, and what hurts most is cutting your toes on rocks or shells and then getting the salt water all over your feet. Then by the time you get to the car, your feet are covered in sand and you have to wash them off again, and your cut is still bleeding.
The title is from François Truffaut's "The 400 Blows". Please watch it, it's a very good movie!