"I've kept you waiting for such a long time."
This is what Byakuran says as he takes a step outside the elevator and on towards the white smoke floor, on towards what the people that inhabit this place call 'Heaven's Gate.'
The person standing on the other side of the gate is a young man with orange hair and an old man at his side. The younger man is a bit shorter than Byakuran, he has worried eyes and occasionally moves his glasses with his index finger.
" More like forever…" Mumbled Shoichi under his breath. He bit hard on his nails, a sharp cut was directed to his thumb. He was impatient and he had no idea how to get the other man to listen to his concerns.
The white haired man smiled pleasantly at Shouichi as he handed a card to the elderly man. The elderly man nods and taps the steel bars.
"Thank you Saint Peter." Is all Byakuran says as the gates open.
Smoke appears in a haze revealing a beautifully constructed city made of white marble and purity. There were no cars and there were no lights, yet the city was brightly lit like a fluorescent bulb. The city had no horizon and no sky, but the place was filled with busy beings not concerned whether the non- existent sky would fall on them or if the sun would die. All of them had on different cuts and styles of clothing yet all of it were that same shade of white just like their city. And just like in every other city everyone is so busy that they aren't able to spare anyone else a glance other than the road that was in front of them. Mostly all of them carried white suitcases to carry paper and other office paraphernalia, it was a city filled with businessmen, office workers and secretaries. The office workers looked forward to sunshine the most. Sunshine Workers. Serious employees.
Byakuran found it boring.
His eyes shine as he looked at his old friend. " Shou-chan, how is your universe coming along? Does it still only have one inhabitable planet?"
The orange haired man yawned and the rings underneath his eyes become more pronounced. His glasses slipping slightly. " I initially made two inhabitable planets but I thought that my job would be much easier dealing with the lonely functions of the universe if I had just one planet with intelligent life. But humans are such a handful…"
Byakuran walked side by side his friend as they both made their way to City Hall.
"I made earth uninhabitable in my universe because I thought it would be fun! I wanted something different from yours." The papers fluttered in the wind while being tucked safely inside the white haired man's suitcase. " Speaking of fun, humans sure are strange don't you agree Shou-chan! They think I'm the true god, as if! Handling so many things…I'm not that amazing!"
"We're not gods, we're more like Kings." Shouichi opened the glass door in front of him, his reflection staring at him. "We're just a part of a galactic union where the 'King' of one world is connected to the next 'King' of another world. Humans live because we have been successful in creating them with the resources God has given us. We are just all a part of a high council. So meaning to say, Earth is my fiction but it is also a reality now. God has created us to be able to exist himself."
That's selfish isn't it?
The two men were inside the City hall building, even though it looked more like a bank hall. The other Kings and Queens were standing leisurely in line, looking at their folders adding a certain thing here and there. Rechecking if they printed that file or this document, that sort of thing. This is a place of office workers who love their job. This is a place where a King and Queen care about their children with their whole heart and that is love.
Shouichi extended his index finger to push his glasses forward. He sighed heavily and looked at his companion. His restrained annoyance showed no matter how much he tried to hide it behind his black rimmed glasses. His glasses were not a part of his face. " After this, I'd appreciate it if we talked for a while." He said after much debate, gulped and waited for the other's reaction in calm anticipation.
" Oh?" Byakuran's eyes shine a bit.
" It is about our gift exchange…."
Byakuran's eyes darkened but his calm demeanor stayed intact. Still pleasant.
" Of course, after all we must catch up." His lips moved, pronouncing all the syllables carefully. "After this would you like to go to my world or yours?" Papers are heard being shuffled around. "I'd prefer to go to your place Shouichi, it's been so long since I've been to your world. I want to see how far the humans have come along over there and how my gifts are doing as well."
The orange haired man nodded as if he were thinking of something else, thoughtful yet approving. His bangs under his eyes moved as he scanned the area until he arrived at the far end of the room where the light was completely cut off. Like someone forgot to change a dull light bulb, there was light in the other side of the room but it was very dim. The only other light that seemed to exist in that area is a single candle next to the receptionist window. There is a line there as well, but the attire that the people wore is quite different from the white clothed people. Their clothing were black as night, theirs were the darkness of a light coal. They seemed like cats in the shadows, the pearly whites in their eyes shining through. They spoke the same as the other workers did. After all they were one and the same. There are only Black and White jobs in this place but they both serve the same purpose.
Byakuran smiled nostalgically at the cloudy line. He was born with black wings yet he chose the white ones that he envied so. He smiled at the line until his eyes were caught with one of the workers who wore a fedora, who wore a suit that meant business.
"You." Mouthed Reborn from the distance. A calm anger on his face.
And at that, Byakuran knew it was in his best interest to hurry with his delayed paperwork. For a trickster never wants to be caught.
Hibari Kyouya fell asleep at a certain time on weekdays unless a situation called for his utmost attention. That was either work or family circumstances. Only those two. On weekdays he allowed himself to sleep at a much later time only on the exception that something interesting was taking place.
He is a morning rooster.
As usual Kyouya set his alarm clock before sleep, as well as made sure that Hibird was well taken care of for the night. He made sure to turn off every electrical appliance and took one last look in the mirror as he brushed his teeth and flossed. He checked the water taps twice.
What he had not planned for was to have a night of dreams, the static that disintegrated his life into nothing more than a fairy tale.
What will he and Tsunayoushi amount to in the end?
Kyouya closed his eyes as he laid down on his black sheets.
A film of tape comes across a blank canvas in which it is known as 'Kyouya's mind'.
Kyouya is in the middle of black nothingness and stands in his usual black suit, the films of tape are hovering horizontally and diagonally in rapid motion. It was a theater with only one guest in an amaranthine gloom. The man knows that it is time for another night of investigation, another night of dreams. He does not move from the spot he awoke in, but is on guard to what the strips of film tape present him.
'It's all trash', he thinks as his memories flash right before his eyes, he sees himself as a child with a broken arm looking serenely out a window, Namimori playground struggles, the forest he used to go with his grandfather on bird watching events. He chooses not to look at the past ( for he is not the type of man to do so) and searches for something in his present or future, for Kyouya believes that the past isn't doomed to repeat itself like so many people say. He believes that there won't be a third time for things that happen twice.
"I don't know what it is to win."
Kyouya looks up at the one he calls herbivore, his mate's lips are demonstrated on one of the film strips in his mind and says— "Everything is a competition or a fight to you Hibari-san."
Tsunayoushi's face is looking right up at the viewer. The pearly whites of his eyes glimmered, the same glimmer that his eyes had when he realized that Vongola's hands were soiled in a way he never knew. That he should have never known. A secret organization.
"As for me, I don't really know what it means to win or to lose Hibari-san .It's because I never even try..."
These words were said to Kyouya casually over tea, he remembers it to be one of those evenings when the sun wasn't getting any higher yet the stacks of papers on their office tables were.
The footage in the film tape around the dark haired man accelerated, as if someone were rewinding the tapes from the beginning. Kyouya closed his eyes and could only hear the rewinding take place followed by a great gust of wind near his ears. A tambourine begins to ring, a violin sings outward and a trumpet joins in harmony. A piercing symphony played with the same tune as the carousel followed by small sounds of paper crumbling, tinfoil crumbling around hot sweet potatoes—-they were the reels of tape catching on fire. If it were anyone else's eyes , Kyouya would doubt this incident had ever occurred, but they were his eyes, they were his, the ones that saw the grey clouds sway along in the breeze of his mind. He was on fire.
His fist tightened and the charcoal haired man replies to Tsunayoushi with the same remark as in the past.
"That's because you're a herbivore."
He takes a step forward and falls down in an endless hole as the world inside his head began to destroy itself.
'It's not just the ones who fall in love who are herbivores.' A voice says as he falls into the unknown but it sounded a bit sad.
Steel eyes open to hear someone calling him by his first name. As a reflex he opens his eyes and stands up.
" Kyouya-kun!"
He didn't wake up to a soft bed with black sheets that he picked out for himself at the local department store, no, he woke up to see the town square of Namimori. His hometown that he loved and protected even when he was far away. The town square that was right across the park that had ducks as their main attraction. Nothing could come close to those memories…yet, what was he doing here? Wasn't he in his apartment in the city?
"Kyouya-kun!" He turns his head to his mother, a much younger version of his mother. The wrinkles that he knew were to be hers were no longer present, her old age no longer visible. Her dark hair was kept tame in a bun, her clothes proper and kept. She smoothed her cream dress with her gloved hands.
She looked a bit nervous, exasperated. A limousine was parked behind her; a chauffeur was standing obediently to the side of the car, waiting for the madam to finish her business.
"Kyouya-kun! Please come here this instant."
Kyouya opened his mouth to say ' what are you spouting mother, I'm not a child', although he stopped and stared when he turned to look at her, for he saw a small little body making his way to the woman. A boy with dark raven hair went up to her. He seemed familiar, as if that little boy were a part of him. The cry of a crow was heard.
" Mother," The little boy called, "What is it?"
That little boy was none other than Hibari Kyouya.
Right when he saw his younger self and mother argue quietly, that was when he realized he wasn't supposed to be there. Here, at that time. No, at this time, his dreams were nothing but memories.
History and Biology were one of Kyouya's favorite subjects as a child. He did well in all subjects because he was prodigy(or so they told him), but as an adult he found it all useless. He enjoyed it nevertheless and would often recite in his head the geological periods going back millions of years ago beginning from the Cretaceous period. The Jurassic period was one of his favorites due to all the information scientists and his textbooks had on the marine and aquatic life as well as many bird species. He wanted them to regenerate and become reborn just for him in the small town of Namimori. Archaeopteryx could help the community in many ways, such as sending secret messages, working for the CIA, KGB, or FBI. Diplodocus could help with apple picking, but all in all, it was just a child's wish.
" Kyouya-kun, please met your new father!"
The Elder Kyouya was nothing but a ghost in his old home. He stayed firm in place and did not even question the change in surroundings, this was all becoming too familiar to him. Nothing fazed him. He knew that the ghosts of memories linger, he did not want to be here, but the dream wanted something to be known to him. Regardless of what it wanted him to learn, to know, he knew this one in particular, this one among his many ghosts was one of his most hated ones.
His mother was seated proudly on a luxurious sofa next to a man in a wooden chair. The man looked nothing like Kyouya, yet he demanded respect when he had not done a thing to deserve it. Kyouya's elder brother named Alaude was seated on a parallel sofa facing the young Kyouya, while the boy sat next to their mother. A picture perfect family.
The child's eyes were dark but had a shine of innocence to them. He looked at the unknown man up and down, sizing him up and as if making a firm decision. He knew his decision to be the right one, especially when he saw the look his elder brother had on his face; he was also not impressed over this man that their mother brought home.
"That is not yours, that is my father's chair." The little Kyouya said nonchalantly. His mother gasped at the boy's rudeness, stunned on what to reprimand him with.
The man obviously bewildered and a bit offended retained his composure and coughed, "— But I am your father, I married your mother." He offered.
The Elder Kyouya was a ghost, not being paid attention to in-between the not so happy family. He looked at his younger self as he opened his mouth and told his new stepfather with such cold eyes, as if he were looking at a Pterosaurs fossil from the Cretaceous period beneath a lens—
"You're my mother's husband but you will never be my father."
That night he was forbidden to eat supper and instead looked at birds in his encyclopedia his father had given him on his birthday. The present was received shortly before his father died of cancer. It was a disease that leaves you rotting from the inside; it was a disease that morphed his father into a different person. Cancer had made the pride of his father reduce itself into nothing more but ashes and strands of hair. The cure for cancer, he thought as a child would be found very shortly in his adulthood. But as time went by Kyouya in his adult age had not found one yet. It did not exist.
It reminded the elder Kyouya of a certain moment in class, a day that fell on Father's day. He had nothing much to do and went home on those days. Kusakabe Tetsuya would often join him, offering to go out and eat Nabe at his home or suggest a secret place that had no crowding allowed. Knowing it would be rude to decline Kyouya accepted those offers.
Tetsuya was the only one who sat next to him in class as well as the only one who was allowed to eat lunch with Kyouya. His family owned a grocery store in Namimori known for its fresh produce and decent prices. He was a boy with dark hair and tan skin from being out in the sun too long, a stern youth who lead a straight path. As his personality followed, Tetsuya didn't care how much Kyouya bit him to death, struck him, or pushed him around. He was set on following the other boy's ideals and believed him to be the most intelligent out of all his peers. After a few trials which lasted a few weeks, Kyouya had accepted him as one of his own. He accepted in calling Tetsuya his first friend.
"What about you Hibari-san? What sorts of things do you do on Father's day?" A teacher asked him out of curiosity. Tetsuya and Kyouya looked up from the backpack area toward their teacher with indifferent eyes.
"I don't do much on father's day."
"Ah, why is that Hibari-san?" The children around her continued to play with the toy blocks and painted pictures on construction paper. They were Father's day cards with wishes written in them and affectionate words, promises that only a child could make. A paper crane fluttered as it was taken outside by an intruding wind.
The little boy raised his head and replied "Because my father is dead."
An elder Kyouya does not understand why he is rummaging through his memories; he does not understand how come the past is keeping him tied. And that angered him immensely, because he had chosen to taste freedom on his own. Ever since he was a child he had decided that anyone who would tell him 'no' would be bitten to death. That was Hibari Kyouya.
The Elder Kyouya is suddenly taken in by a scene change; he is placed in front of the traditional gardens of the Hibari Estate and admires the koi fish swimming freely beneath his feet. He is standing on water and each step he took created a ripple on the water's surface. As he turns to the side of the garden he sees a younger Alaude walking through the hallways for fresh air. Both of their eyes collide, which is absurd, for in that time, Kyouya felt Aluade could see his true self. His instinct told him that Aluade could see what was beyond the senses. He could tell something was there that shouldn't be there.
A ghost.
A smaller Kyouya appears behind in his brother Alaude's footsteps, always two steps behind to see the platinum haired teenager's achievements. Alaude was Kyouya's elder brother, the first son of his father's first wife. Alaude's mother was a French woman who had the misfortune of being a car passenger one rainy day while Alaude was in her care. Both of them were to be present in a company party, but as luck would have it the driver could not keep his balance on the steering wheel through hail and storm. Alaude was the first one seen by the police after the crash, he sat at the side of the road with blood pouring down his platinum hair now becoming light hues of pinks and reds. His mother had died during the car crash due to the fact that the back of her head collided with the glass that shattered as the car had tipped over. After a few years, Alaude's father had married Kyouya's mother and gave birth to Kyouya as a treaty in between two powerful groups of Namimori, a business matter and nothing more.
'Not even Alaude acknowledges that man,' a voice echoes like a speaker but the elder Kyouya knows it's the younger one's thoughts. 'So why should I?'
" Alaude," Little Kyouya asks the other. "What is love?"
Alaude is still staring at the elder Hibari, thin air, nothing more.
"There are different kinds of love." The platinum haired teen blinks. " There is a love that only children know and there are multiple types of love that adults have."
"Do people love one another because they fear of being alone?" Kyouya looks at his elder brother, waiting for an answer. A challenge.
"Perhaps." Says the elder one as he began to feed the Koi fish from his hand. The younger of the two narrowed his eyes.
"Then Mother was alone, is that why she brought that man over?" The raven haired boy crouched toward the pond. How herbivorous of her, he thought to himself, If it wasn't his mother he'd bite her to death.
Alaude stopped feeding the fish for a split second, then resumed after some pause. "You will understand when you are older."
"I'm alone as well." The child says nonchalantly as he grabbed a handful of peas from the jar laid between them. "I do not have the need for anyone, what a shameful thing to do."
"You aren't alone." Alaude replied not looking up from the pond. "You just feel alone."
At that statement the child stood up in indignation, his eyebrows furrowed and filled with an infantile anger. Offended and irritated he turned to the elder boy in front of him and spat, attempting to prove his maturity to the other. "That is stupid. You're stupid to even suggest I can be weak like mother."
The platinum haired teen did not look up from the pond's ripples and instead stared straight to the elder Kyouya who felt like nothing more than a ghost in his memories. Alaude's eyes were calm but his eyes spoke millions of words, there was a strong glint in them. It was as if Aluade were informing the other male with his eyes 'This was who you were, this is what you came for.'
" When father died, mother cried for weeks in their bedroom." Kyouya looked at his elder brother with his tiny fists in a brutal grip. "Gross. Mother should behave like a carnivore, like father had. He told me not to cry and I obeyed. After all, only herbivores cry and feel alone. I do not feel alone Alaude," The child's voice grew louder in pitch, defiant and firm." I just want you to know that. I just want everyone to know that!"
Love, love, love, what is it good for? Absolutely nothing.
The child Kyouya could not fathom why his mother would behave like the girls from his class when that man greeted her. He did not understand what it meant to love and he did not understand what and how many types of love there could be. Love held nothing of merit to Kyouya for it was not something tangible, like mathematics where all you need is the formulas to find the radius of a sphere or the circumference. There is always an answer in mathematics while love is nothing but questions left unanswered.
"What a childish thing to say Kyouya." Is all Alaude says as he stares right at the ghost of an adult with stone eyes, they held something like disappointment in them. "You know nothing."
Nothing, Nothing, Nothing, Nothing,-Alaude's voice reflected through the garden, creating ripples of vibrations between the scenery. It was as if the landscape were nothing more than a watercolor painting disappearing, the color of everything slowly oozing out like the side effects of chemotherapy in cancer .Everything melted into something else, it morphed into a different place and a different time. It was Kyouya's bedroom when he was younger.
His old bedroom was a traditional room with a futon placed in the middle, the room was black and for the most part clean for a boy his age. The only thing that could be taken as an adornment would be a scrapbook filled with bird's feathers on top of his work desk. The book had a wooden cover while the pages were thick as wool, each of the pages had a see through plastic compartment inside to showcase his collection. He had collected the feathers with his grandfather and father for many years and among his collection were feathers of Blue jays, Turacos and Peacocks. The elder Kyouya looked at them fondly and turned to see his child form sleeping on the bed. The child began to fret in his sleep, slowly waking up from his slumber. A glint of sweat shown from his forehead, his mouth in a flat line. The boy sat still on his bed for a minute, looking into the darkness and with a moment passing he quietly ran into the hallway.
Alaude clicked the silver pen in his hand twice.
" Kyouya, you are supposed to be sleeping."
"I had a dream."
Alaude's room was decorated in ultra-modern furnishings. The room was mostly decorated in blacks, whites and silvers yet it still retained a youthfulness that only a teenager would have. There were a few things that gave it away, such as a bulletin board with dozens of papers tacked on toward each other, a handful of movie tickets stacked in a jar, those kinds of things. Alaude's desk was filled with dozens of books and papers filled with formulas and tree maps, a French calendar lingered above the other's desk gifted to him by his late father. His room was a contradiction because it was personal yet private at the same time.
"I had a dream that I died and came back to life."
The platinum haired teen shifted the papers he had on his desk.
"I see."
The elder Kyouya remained outside of the room near the door, listening to the interaction of the siblings as the lustrous moon continued to cast down shadows over the Hibari estate.
"Am I immortal?"
The Elder Kyouya turned toward the open door looking for the teen's reaction, not knowing that what he would see would surprise him. Alaude's face looked like he was struggling to say something, like there were words physically unable to leave his mouth. He clicked his pen feverishly, something that the elder Kyouya does not remember to be a habit of his brother. For as long as Kyouya had lived with Alaude he knew the other had never faltered when he spoke, the other was firm of his words and his ideals, like how he woke up every day at 6 am or how he walked toward his school by foot when he could have taken the limousine. He always did things with a strong desire. So it was peculiar to Kyouya that this childish question in particular seemed to shake Alaude from his core.
A filter of red tint swallowed the room whole.
"In reality you wouldn't be able to." The platinum haired teen regained his composure quickly. The way he spoke these words were essential. "You don't exist to become immortal. What you believe to be yourself is nothing more than an elaborate web of concepts firing between neurons in your brain."
The elder Kyouya realized the teen to be saying this for himself and no one else. It was for Alaude's sake, not for the now sleeping child in front of him.
"The body obeys nature and nature is in constant decay."
Kyouya is struck by those words and hovers over the desk of Alaude, all of those papers, each and every one of them had to do with Quantum Physics, equations of time and space, the Theory of Relativity. There were books on religion, especially on the thought of reincarnation, the science of dreams, dozens, millions of them. What on earth was Alaude doing with all of these? How could these possibly be of use to him?
"How much do you know, have you always known?" Kyouya says powerfully with his feet firmly on the ground and for the first time since the dream has started Alaude acknowledges him. The pen in his hand impacts on the ground with a loud 'clack'.
"Immortality is impossible, Kyouya." Alaude spoke with eyes that showed lonely nights of perturbed sleep. " It would be absurd… if we have all already died, but our existence is stuck in an infinite loop, don't you agree?"
And at this Alaude's blue eyes turn very slowly to the moon who had begun a solar eclipse.
Alaude suddenly becomes farther and farther away, the room begins to stretch away from the dark haired male, as if it were running away from the way he had clenched his fists. He will bite any obstacle to death, he will conquer whatever is thrown at him he says to himself as he begins to run. He runs toward Alaude, but the more the older man ran the farther away the other seemed. Kyouya does not know for how long he continued to run; the only noticeable change that he noticed was the rainfall that had begun to envelop the never-ending room.
There was a continuous white flash in his eyes leaving him blind but even so, Kyouya continues to go on.
It took only one step, but that one step transported him into a different place, a different scene. He does not stop to take in the new change of scenery; he merely continues to run as fast as he can. He does not look back , he does not allow himself to, he continues to run through the droplets of water drenching him to his bones, his insides.
As he ran, a feeling he could not put into words developed inside him. He could not find a word for it, not even when he began to run endlessly past Namimori High, Kusakabe's grocery store, the Namimori cemetery. His heartbeat pulse accelerated, he could hear his heartbeat right next to his ear, he began to hear voices ruminating all around him, saying things that he remembers, hearing things he wants to forget.
His foot lands on a puddle and soon his whole body falls along inside of it. Not only did he step in a puddle he fell inside the puddle, what an absurd situation he thinks to himself. Skeleton fish swam around the dark haired man, their skin gnawed off, the oxygen bubbles escaping Kyouya like the sand in an hourglass. He closes his eyes as the oxygen in his lungs gives out in the compact sea, but not before he could see a small film of tape darting across aqua. He could see his dreams played like a movie, he being the only spectator.
A feminine voice is heard.
" Kyouya your grandfather's time has come to pass away…"
The sound of a cat meowing comes from outside.
"Like father?"
It was on a rainy day when Kyouya's grandfather died.
The dark haired boy with intelligent eyes sits next to his grandfather's lifeless body, the boy does not say a thing just keeps his hands on his lap with a neat posture. He looks at his mother's sobbing form, the way she gripped his grandfather's blankets tightly to her chest. He saw the way his elder brother looked at the man who was alive just a few seconds ago silently; his eyes cloudy like the sky before rain.
After a lengthy pause and after much consideration, Alaude places his hands on the dead man's eyes closing them one last time.
"Thank you very much Grandfather." Is all Alaude said as he bowed respectfully, making sure his nose touched the ground. He remained in that position for quite some time, leaving behind a thoughtful younger Kyouya who had only ever seen Alaude react in such a manner in their father's death.
On his grandfather's death bed Kyouya slowly began to feel a strong pain in his chest. An emotion filled the boy's heart that he could not explain in words, it was a horrid feeling that felt like being choked by the putrid smell of a freshly rotting corpse. Soon , surely, it would turn into dust.
It was stillness.
The child would never admit it, but it frightened him. Stillness, to Kyouya was the feeling that he had hit a dead end. There were no opportunities, there were no escape routes, and for someone like Kyouya , who when hit with a dead end tore the obstacle into shreds and created a new path for himself, something like that was out of the question. He did not want to find the secret to eternity through stillness; he did not want to die.
Among the stillness that surrounded his dead grandfather, Kyouya wanted his own heart to pound most of all.
Stillness to Kyouya, brought feelings of nostalgia filled with pain, so he decided that it was something he never wanted to feel again for the rest of his life. After the funeral service of his grandfather the feelings in his chest remained the same, no matter how much medicine he took or how many doctor referrals were switched it wouldn't go away. So he decided to do the only thing he could do, and that was to crush those feelings inside of him. He made them minuscule as if they never existed in the first place.
If I do that, the child thought to himself, no one will know I am afraid.
Unfortunately for the boy with the ash colored eyes, he began to crush other things that were important in a person, he decided to make everything that frightened him small, by doing so he grew to be detached.
And all of these things would come to create a hole that continued to consume Kyouya even in adulthood.
Kyouya heard Tsunayoushi's voice over the chirps of birds. He felt a gust of wind on the back of his neck; it was everywhere, all around him. His black hair swayed in different directions managing to cover his eyes. He sees the figure of the brown haired man in the distance, but was abruptly cut off by the flock of crows crossing his peripheral vision, what were they called again ah,—a murder.
"I can't find you."
He hears Tsunayoushi's voice call out to him yet he can only see the darkness of the birds and the warmth of the other's eyes peeking through the black feathers.
It was Tsunayoushi, yet it wasn't him. It was someone different. Kyouya can hear the voice of the other echoing throughout the canvas that was his mind.
"You will become a liar in the end."
Kyouya's eyes darted in between the candles that surrounded him. They all floated and illuminated the unknown zero space in between them. He stood with his feet firmly on the ground, like a tree that has sustained itself for thousands of years.
The crows disappear and show before him another version of himself, a knight. This Kyouya wore metallic armor and a cape that resembled the night sky, a hole in his chest dyed his clothes with a tint of rouge. He was breathing with difficulty and his eyes closed in pain, his arm maintaining the side of his neck.
"The hole in your chest is going to get bigger." The Hibari with blood on his chest said as he looks at the other with dead fish eyes. "Because at that time, I couldn't make it there."
" Make it where?" The ' real' Kyouya stares as blood impacts on the tip of the other's armor.
" To the village." Said the other. " There was a massacre and he stood by my side that day."
Once upon a time- a voice echoed in the distance—there was a Knight that lived in a village that knew nothing of pain or hatred.
The Knight began to cough uncontrollably, having a frantic fit, he laid down on the floor as he wheezed out blood that created a puddle beneath him. The 'real' Kyouya looks at the other with distant eyes and puts a hand to his mouth for he feels something strange. He lightly touches his lips and looks down at his hands.
It was nothing but blood and blood clots.
A piece of film appears before his eyes showing off distant memories, like how his father coughed those exact same things on occasion, the face of his father in pain flashes through those little images, the face of his younger self and the way his eyes filled with confusion and fear at his father's fits.
The 'real Kyouya' began to cough alongside his other self while he hears a voice envelope him once more in a blanket of ember, the candle wax dropping on the ground like spilled milk.
"You had become analytical at a young age." Tsunayoushi's voice ringed outwards. "But that was the only way you could stay true to yourself."
Kyouya could feel his eyes becoming unfocused as he coughed on the glittering ground, the whole area beneath his feet, right to left, start to end ,was the twinkling of the cosmos. He could only hear Tsunayoushi's voice, but the elder man knew that the other was not around, only the herbivore's voice existed at the moment.
"The world lost its brightness to you didn't it? It wasn't nice to you was it, Kyouya?"
The dark man could no longer breathe and began to gasp for air, he could feel his lungs tightening, his heartbeat trembling inside of him. In the corner of his vision he sees a film strip showing his younger self walking to his father's grave. The young boy had on a yellow raincoat ( the one Alaude forced him to wear) and dropped a bouquet of hydrangea on the grass.
'From now on I'm going to live with what's there.' The child's had said that day.
"When everything around you is impure, you have no choice but to become impure yourself."
Kyouya begins to melt slowly mixing in within the wax, a fluttering evaporation took place. His fingertips becoming one like a mixture of milk and butter, he did not feel a thing.
"That sort of thinking, you always have rejected it haven't you? You didn't want to become someone impure. That's why you set rules for yourself."
Kyouya cannot be easily molded into something he does not want because he fights, and bites and snarls. He defies logic if he does not like it. Kyouya continues to melt away, his fingers becoming nonexistent, his hair becoming a mixture like the clay of his dinosaur kits as a young boy.
"Hibari-san you are a victim by the rules you live by. Life isn't all about rules, it's about having fun. You have forgotten something important. Have you remembered what it was Kyouya? "
We had a promise made.
Kyouya is now nothing. He has become nothing but wax, choosing to remain as a mold, choosing to not be constructed into a shape that people want him to be.
The world does not change, and I, I do not change. Never change, never change, never change.
Nothing. You know nothing.
"If it makes you less sad I will die by your hand."
The future, past, and present Kyouya at that time collided.
"I swear to you that I'll change this world!"
Tsunayoushi and Kyouya both awoke from their dreams and as promised the two men ran to meet each other in the apartment's hallway. Tsunayoushi ran past a table filled with crepes and freshly squeezed orange juice while Kyouya ran past Hibird and his living room that felt like an office, his books all aligned in alphabetical order. The destination was the same, how they got there differed.
The two men both opened the doors at the same time, making contact with their eyes. As soon as Tsunayoushi saw Hibari in his black pajamas he felt a sudden wave of relief. They were both safe, they were both here.
" Hibari-san," Breathed in Tsunayoushi, becoming brave he pulled the dark haired man closer to him, touching the sleeves of his pajamas. "What did you see?"
"See?"
Kyouya closed his eyes.
"I had a dream that I was running through the town of Namimori." The soft chirps of birds were heard over the morning rays of the sun peeking through the hallway's windows. "There were puddles everywhere and I ran as far as I could and as fast as I could." At this Hibari opened his eyes, his grey eyes became lighter as the sun hit them. "I thought that if I stopped running, I'd lose something very important to me."
Tsunayoushi blinked.
" And what was it Hibari-san?"
Kyouya looked at the Tsunayoushi he knew to be the ' real' one. Just a couple of months ago the herbivore was not present in his life, but now Kyouya could not imagine Tsunayoushi anywhere but at his side. Kyouya knew since he was a child, that if you truly wanted something, the only way to keep them was to grip them tightly with your bare hands and you had to be prepared to fight for them. This applied to everything he had ever worked for, his grades at school work, his status, his apartment, his car, everything in his life that he owned he had fought for.
"My life."
Tsunayoushi could only remain still processing the words said to him.
Kyouya was not sure if anything was worth fighting for sometimes, like the time he thought that by praying five times at the local shrine everyday his father would become better, or that one time that he bit his stepfather to death for his useless comments, those kinds of things. But when he saw Tsunayoushi and the way he looked attentively at him whenever he spoke, or the way he knocked on his door exactly three times, the way he puts down his golden pen when he does paper work and sets his breakfast, Kyouya knew, he knew he was ready for war.
"I know what stillness is Tsunayoushi, and I never want to feel like that ever again in any life."
Tsunayoushi nodded " I think I understand what you mean Hibari-san, If it is possible…I want to.." The man lowers his eyes as if embarrassed. " I want to make sure you never feel like that again."
At this Kyouya smirked, " It's Kyouya, you have permission to address me as Kyouya."
The brown haired man's face reddens. " Sorry, but Hibari-san is Hibari-san."
"It's gone, almost."
"Eh?"
Kyouya pats his chest in the area that his 'dream self' bled from. He remembers the old lady, his neighbor Mrs. Yamazaki and the words she left him with that day, 'I can see…you have something much more heavier than a broken wing'. He now realized what was missing, there was a hole in his chest that kept becoming bigger and bigger as each day passed. It needed it to be filled.
Kyouya patted his chest once again and looked at Tsunayoushi's confused face.
" It is you who's making it go away."
Kyouya looks very satisfied while the other male becomes more confused by the second. Tsunayoushi does not understand half of what Kyouya tells him, but at the same time he understands that it's not what he tells him, it's the feelings behind them. When Kyouya spoke it was like water, you can't grab water with your hands, it just seeps through your fingers. You can't. That 10 percent that you have remaining in your hands, the dampness, at first that is the only thing you get out of it. That's how Tsunayoushi would describe Kyouya. With water, and like Kyouya, you had to dive into it and feel it around you ,you had to change your way of thinking just a little bit to understand a person like him. Tsunayoushi had no idea what he meant half of the time, but the feeling behind the words just said to him had a foreign warmth.
"Thank you." Tsunayoushi smiles at the other, unsure of how to react yet nonetheless grateful.
At this, Kyouya looks to the wall, almost mechanically. He stares at it for some moment until Tsunayoushi stops smiling, then, stares back. The brown haired man becomes nervous and sweat drops, he does not understand Kyouya, not even 10 percent! What a strange man, Tsunayoushi cries in his mind.
"Eh, Hibari-san…why did you just look away…" A light bulb appeared over the younger man's head. " Ah, did you see something strange? Is it the static?"
Hibari's eyes looked softly at the other, and if it were any other person Tsunayoushi would feel relaxed, but with Hibari-san he thought, it just made him feel gross.
"Because," Hibari said "I don't want to get lost in your eyes."
Silence.
Tsunayoushi was unsure how to react and was not sure whether he should laugh or cry, so he chose to just stare blankly at the other. In the inside of his mind, A little Tsunayoushi jumped up and down laughing in a small bed.
"Don't you like what I said?" The dark haired man asked in annoyance, the 'Kyouya' that Tsunayoushi knew came back as if he were ever gone in the first place. "Kusukabe gave me a book on the protocol of courting and one of the chapters focused on saying those sorts of things to your partner." He glared at the other. " You should thank me for that display of affection or I will bite you to death."
" T-thank you Hibari-san" The other stuttered. " I-it was very nice…" I guess, he added as an afterthought but would never say.
Kyouya returned back to his apartment, muttering words such as ' Bite Kusukabe to death for giving me a book filled with lies,' and ' no good book, I did it correctly, that measly herbivore is at fault, such a rude little animal.'
Tsunayoushi now realized that Kyouya was trying to be romantic. He wasn't trying to be romantic because he wanted to or it was in his nature, he wanted to be romantic because it was the 'proper' way to court someone. For Kyouya he was one of those people who thought ' if you don't do it completely, if you don't do it correctly, don't do it at all.' And the moment Tsunayoushi stepped into his apartment he could not stop laughing because he would never have imagined Kyouya doing such a silly thing. For him, of all people and for that, he was grateful.
Giotto was sitting in the kitchen table by himself eating breakfast. The utensils in his hands move as he cuts the strawberry cream cheese crepe in front of him. He had offered Dino breakfast but unfortunately he was called in for an emergency meeting that would begin at 12 in the afternoon. Dino was the sort that always had emergencies, at the last seconds and right before moments. Reborn wasn't around and even if he were, Giotto would have preferred to eat alone.
There was just one person in the house.
"Good Morning," Tsunayoushi told his elder brother, "You made crepes today?"
Giotto nodded. "It's about the only thing I can manage. Even when we were children this was the most I could do. To think," he looked at the other gently, "You taught me this recipe."
Tsunayoushi smiled, unsure of how to react. To say the very least it was very awkward with just the two of them there. The pain from yesterday remained and both of the brothers had things ruminating in their minds, words that couldn't be unsaid.
Giotto is the first to cut the air in half. " Tsunayoushi—" He stops in mid sentence and changes what he wanted to say. Coward, he says to himself. "How are your bruises?"
"Eh," A blink. "You mean…the bruises that Reborn gave me?"
The light buzzing of the refrigerator was the only thing heard in the kitchen.
"So, it was him." Giotto's eyes soften in recognition; he takes a sip of his freshly boiled black tea and places it lightly on the table. Tsunayoushi does not like to lie, so he only nods and begins to eat his breakfast, his crepe still warm.
"These crepes are the best big brother Giotto, I remember when you used to make them for me almost every day." Tsunayoushi continued to eat. "It became so frequent that Mom told you not to make them anymore because I gained so much weight. They were good so, I didn't mi—"
" Tsunayoushi?"
Tsunayoushi became alarmed at the tone of his elder brother's voice. He had only heard that voice a couple of times in his life, like the day grandfather Nonno had died, or the day Giotto attended his best friend's funeral, or those few times Giotto and Tsunayoushi shared a secret that no one else knew.
The younger man sees his elder brother covering his face with his hands, how his shoulder shook a bit, how he breathed in heavily.
" Do you hate me Tsunayoushi?"
Tsunayoushi's face became pained, Why would his elder brother ever ask him that question? Did he treat him so bad? Did he hurt him in some way?
" Of course no—"
"TSUNAYOUSHI!" Giotto raised his voice, his hands still covering his face. " Be truthful, say what you mean. If you hate me just say so, if you want me out of your apartment just say so, but don't—" He takes his hands off his face, his eyes filled with pain, his eyes swollen. "Don't act as if you couldn't care less."
Tsunayoushi is stunned. He just sits still and continues to look at his elder brother for he has never seen him act this way. It was foreign to him, and truth be told it scared him. That such an untouchable person such as Giotto, someone he always viewed as strong and graceful could be so vulnerable. Had he hurt Giotto this badly?
" Giotto, big brother, I don't— I-I have never— I will never hate you. I just, I just—"
" Then why have you changed Tsunayoushi? This change happened slowly, but surely. Now, I can't even talk to you without you becoming silent. I can't even touch you, the moment I put my hand on you you curl away as if I disgust you."
Tsunayoushi is silent and decides to look at the table as if it were a book. He places his utensils at his side and speaks quietly." What about you big brother Giotto?" His voice rises. "It's none of your business."
Giotto looks at the other as if Tsunayoushi had slapped him. His heart beated slowly, his eyes downcast. After a second ,Tsunayoushi barely realizes what he had just said and as life goes, he knows some things can never be taken back.
Tears form on the corner of the brown haired man's eyes, yet he continues to speak " Why have you always belittled me for everything? Did you know how proud I was of myself that day when I did all the paperwork by myself, the day I chose my own college? And all of you, all of you what you did to me, all of you belittled me."
Giotto looked at the other with sad eyes.
" I passed my classes with average grades, I never had much friends, but the friends I had I cherished them. And yet, no matter what I did you could never approve of it."
" That's not true Tsunayoushi—"
" It IS true big brother. You were always ashamed of me, you and everyone else, Reborn, you, father, mother, Dino. You're nothing like me Giotto, you would never understand, you're a real prince… You're a king." Tsunayoushi began to cry his eyes out, like a little child. His sobs sounded like that day when he stood on a stool reaching for a box of crackers. "You were born for greatness, just like brother Dino and, and, I-I am not part of that world. The two of you are Blonde with piercing eyes, the two of you look like nobility. But look at me," He blubbered as he spoke "I'm not a loud person, but I'm not a soft-spoken one either. I'm just a normal guy… Why can't you understand that? You're special while I...while I…"
Loud bells began to chime, they warned of a revolution that was to come.
"Don't speak!" Giotto interrupted, he wanted his voice to be heard and understood. He was angry. "Is this what you truly think of yourself?" He paused. "You aren't worthless. Tsunayoushi you are...of infinite worth."
The both of them now stood in the midst of a grand dining hall. There was a large banquet table with beautifully adorned plates and silverware. The dining hall seemed as if it were uninhabited for millions of years, moss covered the chairs, gold turned into rust. Trees and vines encircled the ceiling, vines and thorns seeped throughout the ground. Giotto remained on the head of the table while Tsunayoushi remained on the other end, both were standing unphased of what was occurring around them.
The two of them had only eyes for the other at the moment, their conversation was more important than some dream that they could awake from.
"I have always hated how they've treated you Tsunayoushi. I wanted to try to advert the unwanted attention from you and as a child the only way I thought of doing so was to place the attention on to me. That's why this situation makes me so angry, I am angry that they belittled you in the past like that and I'm frustrated with you and how you cannot see how important you are in other people's lives. Why can't you take care of yourself better?! If something were to happen to you, if something were to take you away do you know what kind of situation that would cause?!"
"It would be the end of the world!"
Tsunayoushi looks at the scene in front of him and notices the plates on the table and how all of them had raw meat placed on top of them. The meat remained untouched, the blood dripped and there were no guests.
"Tsunayoushi, whatever I have done, whatever I have said to you, whatever I have failed you in, I want you to know something." Giotto began to walk to the other side of the dining room table toward Tsunayoushi. The ceiling of the grand dining hall had begun to form white clouds of smoke as the earth beneath their feet slowly shook like a cradle.
Giotto's expression was a kind, forgiving smile.
"I want you to know that I am truly sorry."
Tsunayoushi looked at his elder brother and could not form any words.
"I'm sorry Tsunayoushi, that I couldn't protect you all those times when we were children. I'm sorry that as a younger child I couldn't tell you how much I loved your cooking or the way you grew the best plants in the house ,I'm sorry that when I knew you were getting bullied really badly to the point they broke your arm in middle school, I did nothing and told you to bare it."
The brown hared man remembers what happened to those boys afterword and he chooses not want to remember what Mukuro had done to them.
Giottos tears came out of him as if he were holding on to them for years.
"You were always a kind hearted child but you know there are some things you just can't solve with all the kindness in the world." Tsunayoushi is tearful and he feels like such an idiot. "I really wanted to help you understand that a person needs to have some amount of selfishness to continue living, Tsunayoushi—"
Giotto places his younger brother's face is in both of his palms,their faces were close enough to be able to see their reflections in the other's eyes.
" Tsunayoushi can't you see that I adore you?!"
The tree branches begin to grow plentiful of leaves, the tips at the end of the branches growing small cherries in them.
" I've always tried to make you see how much you mean to me, but I hated myself for not being able to convey my feelings properly. I always gave you a much bigger portion of the meat in the nabe pot, I always tried to win for you the best prize at the fairs, I always made sure to bring you along with my friends—"
Tsunayoushi realized that the person to apologize was not Giotto, it was Tsunayoushi because he was ignorant of just how much Giotto had always cared for him.
" I always wanted to be an elder brother you could be proud of because I know how our father was in our childhood." He continued to speak looking into Tsunayoushi's eyes, it was as if he wanted to release everything that he had ever wanted to say. " Our father, I know you resent him for the things he's done, he was never there for you was he Tsunayoushi? I tried to be the father and the man of the house, do you know how hard that was? When I knew father cheated on our mother back then?"
Tsunayoushi's eyes widened and never spoke of that, it was an unspoken rule to never mention that ever again.
" Giotto, I'm sorry."
" What? Tsunayoushi what are you saying I'm the –"
" Giotto you are really kind. I'm sorry, I should have never doubted you, big brother Giotto—"
The ground beneath them started to rumble loudly, like a tiger after a rude awakening. The ground lifted them above the ceiling into a field that stretched out towards oblivion into a bright blue sky.
" Big brother Giotto," an intake of breath. "I love you!"
As Tsunayoushi said these words both Giotto and his eyesight faded in small seconds, they couldn't see a thing and as if nothing had ever happened both appeared right again in their respected places on the diner table of Tsunayoushi's apartment.
Tsunayoushi laid lazily by Giotto's side, both of them exhausted after the 'static' took place. It seemed as if it took a great deal of physical energy, for when they returned to the present they couldn't even walk correctly, their knees gave up . Seeing as both of them could not function properly they both decided to take a nap in the same bed together, just like when they were children.
"I'm just glad," Giotto breathed in his pillow, his golden hair adorning his carefree face. "That I'm not insane."
"How is this your only reaction to this 'Carousel' situation!?"
A smile formed on the elder's lips.
" After seeing a tree grow inside a mansion and experiencing an earthquake this is quite pleasant."
Tsunayoushi smiled and relaxed by placing his shoulder on his brother's chest. He had never noticed it until now, but he felt at ease in his elder brother's arms since he was a child. I wonder, Tsunayoushi thought to himself, if Hibari-san's arms are like this too.
" Tsunayoushi, about your plan to stop the Carousel," The golden haired man's eyes turned into fire. "If that is what you want to do," said Giotto after moment's pause. "I will support you wholeheartedly."
" Big brother…"
The sheets on the bed shifted.
"You've been carrying this burden all by yourself, the least I can do is try to help you as much as I can."
The brown haired man pulled Giotto in for a much needed embrace.
"At the time I learned about Carousel, I couldn't understand everything and I was in such a bad place. I'm glad you're not reacting badly to this."Tsunayoushi closed his eyes as he relaxed." When we wake up, I will tell you everything that I know so far.I hope we can both stop this, I hope Dino doesn't have to be pulled into this as well."
"With Dino, I think we should make sure he's aware and let him know as soon as possible." Golden eyes looked at the ceiling." Everything will be fine Tsunayoushi, just as long as you believed in me, I think I would be alright with it all."
At this statement the younger of the two blushed and shoved a pillow in the other's face.
"You're such a playboy! You know just the right things to say don't you!"
Giotto grinned at the other, feeling the happiest he had in a long time.
" There is only a few things I want to talk about right now before we go to sleep." Giotto's eyes lit up, curious on what could it be. "When I chose the previous apartment right before I moved to the city, why did you and Dino never visit me, sure you visited me outside my home but why never directly?"
"But, Tsunayoushi " Giotto furrowed his eyebrows, his eyes staring at his younger brother carefully. " I have tried to find you numerous of times."
Silence.
" Have you not received the gifts I've sent you over the past few years? Each and every time I went to visit you the tenants told me you weren't there, that there was no such person as Tsunayoushi Sawada living there." Giotto had a bewildered look on his face. " I even went to your job looking for you."
"They told me Tsunayoushi Sawada did not work there."
Tsunayoushi feels like something snapped inside of him and remembers bits and pieces of the days he was not the leader of the Vongola. Those days seemed so far away now to him, as if they never existed in the first place.
Tsunayoushi asked if Giotto remembered the addresses he searched for him in or at least the name of the building and school. When Giotto told him the names of the buildings Tsunayoushi's face became blank.
" But Giotto, that isn't where I worked. That wasn't even in my apartment building. Who gave you such addresses?"
And at this Giotto's face becomes like a fierce lion, proud and baring his fangs.
"Reborn."
Both of the brother's hands were intertwined and laid out in front of them as some proof to the whole world. They slept on the bed and they both didn't care if a strange dim place would swallow them whole, the static where the things they could see didn't exist and where the things they could see didn't exist either.
" I love you." Tsunayoushi murmured as he drifted off to sleep, his head on his elder brother's chest. At this, Giotto encircled his arms over the other in a protective stance because he now he had a way of becoming of use to his younger brother, now he realized his purpose and what he must do. He would become a knight.
The lovey dovey brother duo has been born and with Dino added it will be the lovey dovey brother trio. I can't wait to write more interactions and Dino and Giotto's character after this, ahah.
I have come to the end of my journey, so that's why I have returned to keep on writing fanfiction. I think that while writing this, I can try to also become the happiest I've been in months. This journey that I took was long, painful but I would not mind repeating it. I hope all of you have taken care of yourselves and are doing fine .Also, kind of off topic but my birthday was on the 13th of June! I had a red velvet cake, so happy birthday to me!
Eat Me Drink Me will be updated next. Thank you.
Also this chapter is dedicated to Sweetnaitomea. Gracias nena!