~Bonus: The Day Iemitsu Left~

Sawada Tsunahime was an average middle school girl. She had a best friend, another close friend, and a boy she liked. She generally got average scores in most of her subjects, though she struggled with more complicated mathematics. She liked to cook, and she was tidy because she didn't like cleaning.

She lived with her mother in their two-storey house in Namimori. Normally it was just the two of them, though for the past couple of days they had been hosting a man who insisted on Tsunahime calling him 'Otou-san', while Nana – Tsunahime's mother – called him 'Anata'. This man had visited before, and Tsuna understood that the man was her mother's husband, and (technically) her father, but she had no feelings for the man.

"Tsuna-chan," Nana called.

Tsunahime turned away from the window that had a view of the front yard. She had just seen the man pass his yellow hard-hat to someone in a black suit.

"Yes, Mama?" she asked as she came down the stairs.

"Tsuna-chan, your father has disappeared to become a star!" Nana cooed, stars in her eyes. "Isn't that romantic?"

Tsunahime blinked, and stared at her mother.

"Mama, your idea of romantic, and mine, are clearly quite different," Tsunahime informed her mother with a faint, amused smile.

~oOo~

"Oho? What is this?" Kurokawa Hana asked with a grin when Tsuna entered their classroom the next day. "That's quite the fancy hairstyle, Tsuna-chan. What is the occasion?"

"Mother's husband left yesterday," Tsuna answered with a smile. "He 'disappeared to become a star'."

"Eh?" Kyoko asked, her amber eyes large with concern. "Doesn't... doesn't that mean he's dead?" she asked softly.

"That is the usual meaning," Hana agreed slowly, cautiously, "unless he's going into the movie business, that is."

Tsuna shook her head. "Definitely dead," she affirmed brightly.

Tsuna, unlike other girls in her class, was not her daddy's little princess, whatever name she had been given when she was born. (The characters for her name spelled 'gang princess', truly, she worried about her parents' naming sense.) Or, perhaps he thought of her as such, but Tsuna certainly didn't harbour any warm feelings to her male progenitor. When he was around the house, which was rarely, he was a poor excuse for a human being, and an even worse father.

"We should go out for ice cream after school," Tsuna suggested to her friends. "And go shopping! There are some things that I want to buy."

"Tsuna-chan..." Kyoko said softly, concerned.

Hana, who was much more observant than Kyoko, took in all the details of her friend. The uniform was as it always was, and her nails were unpainted – that was school regulation, as was the lack of showy make-up, though Tsuna had put a little bit of light pink gloss on her lips. The hair though... the hair was a give-away to her feelings on the matter, even more than her bright, carefree smile was.

Tsuna had a habit of weaving flowers into her long brown hair, and her choice of flowers was significant. Hana's parents ran a flower shop, and her father was classically trained in the meaning and arrangement of flowers (in both the European and the Japanese schools), so she had learned the meanings of flowers at his knee – whether she'd wanted to or not. Being a truly charitable, unselfish friend, she had forced Tsuna and Kyoko to learn with her.

They, unlike Hana, had both enjoyed learning such things. Kyoko hadn't remembered much of it, but Tsuna did. Hana had endured, and then found it useful when Tsuna had started wearing flowers in her hair.

The school generally frowned on large hair pieces, but Tsuna got around the matter by turning the flowers into simple pins that she could slide in and out of the style she was wearing without upsetting anything – which meant that, as soon as the teachers showed up, the flowers vanished. If they made a reappearance during breaks, and (naturally) after school, then at least the teachers couldn't say anything. Hana wasn't quite sure how her friend actually turned the flowers into pins, but as she herself wasn't one for wearing flowers in her hair, she left the matter alone. Every girl needed a few secrets, even from her best friends.

(If she had ever reached out to touch one, something she will never do because she knows how easily flower petals bruise, then Hana would have learned that the flowers were actually made of silk. If she had ever pulled out one of those elaborate hairpins, she would have seen the maker's mark half-way down the shaft. Tsuna buys them from a store that Hana has never, and will never, go into, because Hana doesn't like putting pins and clips into her hair.)

Now...

Well, Hana had noticed the white poppy straight away, and that meant 'rejoice'. Now that she was looking closer though, she could see that there was also red spider lilies tucked in behind the larger single flower that was dominating the braided bun that Tsuna had done her hair up into. Red spider lilies meant 'never to meet again'.

Tsuna was happy that she was never going to see her father again, that he had abandoned them, and she would forget him happily.

Hana lay a hand on Kyoko's shoulder. Kyoko was... softer than Tsuna. Kyoko was like fairy-floss, compared to Tsuna's chocolate. Tsuna could break, and melt, and go soft, but she wasn't as delicate as the easily torn-up fairy-floss Kyoko. Hana considered herself to be one of the hard-boiled sweets, the kind that people could break their teeth on, and the protective shell that stood between her two friends and all the many monkeys that were their classmates.

"If you want to go shopping, and buy ice cream, then we'll go with you," Hana agreed. "But I want to get some homework done before we go, okay?"

Tsuna smiled brightly in answer. "Study group, then shopping," she agreed happily.

~oOo~

"Nope, no good, I hereby declare myself defeated," Tsuna said as she pushed the worksheet away from herself and shoved her pencil into her stationary kit. "Who ever needs to know calculus, anyway?"

Hana and Kyoko, well and truly familiar with Tsuna's ongoing battle with mathematics, giggled at her theatrics. All of the girls were passing the class, but Tsuna only just. Kyoko was about ten points higher, and Hana (who had the best grasp of numbers) had an average score of ninety-something for the wretched class.

"Isn't it one of those 'pure maths' things? Only of interest to people who get their jollies off numbers?" Tsuna grumbled, and tucked her sheet away into her folder. "Can we please go shopping and get ice cream now?" she begged.

Her friends outright laughed, but agreeably packed up their own work sheets, and stood up from the park bench they had been working at. They might have used a class room to study in after school, but students who weren't part of a club of some kind were not permitted to remain on school grounds, so, on sunny days, they studied in the park. If the weather was uncooperative, then they generally went to the public library.

Nothing against any of their homes, but each girl had some small something that made studying at home irritating for them. For Hana, it was her father's obsession with his flowers. For Kyoko, her older brother is the reason they don't study at her house. (Actually, Kyoko didn't mind him at all, and Ryohei always gives one-hundred percent to anything he does. It is Hana who could barely tolerate the older boy.) For Tsuna, it was how her mother always just walked into her bedroom without knocking.

"So, what shops do you want to look at, Tsuna-chan?" Kyoko asked eagerly. "I've heard that there is a new cake shop that opened last week."

"I get enough cake at home, and I already said that I wanted ice cream," Tsuna protested with a smile. "I need to buy some card, and a silver pen."

"We could always go to a tea shop, or look at cute dresses," Hana suggested. "To only buy some card and a pen hardly counts for a shopping expedition."

~oOo~

The next day, Hana noticed that the flowers Tsuna was wearing in her hair were primarily, but not exclusively, gardenias. The other girl had worn them before, but never before had she worn them with violets. Periodically, Tsuna had worn all the different flowers that meant she was in love, that she would be faithful, that she was silently devoted, that the love was true, and she had worn the yellow tulip of one-sided love almost as many times as she had the gardenias.

Generally with the gardenias.

A love that was one-sided, because it was a secret love that she had not confessed.

That she was wearing the flower of secret love with the flower of honesty...

"Tsuna-chan, are you going to confess today?" Hana asked with a wide-eyed whisper before their first class of the day started.

Tsuna nodded once, firmly.

"... Do you want me to come?" Hana offered carefully.

"Iie," Tsuna denied. "I'd rather go on my own."

"Alright then. Will you do it at lunch time, or after school?"

"Lunch time."

"Then Kyoko and I will go to our usual spot and wait for you."

"Thank you."

~oOo~

Tsuna made herself not fidget, and stand tall – or, rather, as tall as she could – as she looked into his narrowed, suspicious eyes.

"I really like you, Sempai," she declared.

"..." His eyes widened in surprise.

Tsuna smiled shyly at that. It seemed that the boy she liked hadn't ever been confessed to before, and wasn't quite sure how to deal with it.

"A lot," she added, and held out the small gift she had prepared. It was wrapped in the card that she had bought yesterday, and decorated with careful drawings in silver pen. "Even if you don't accept my feelings, Sempai, please accept this."

Cautiously, and Tsuna had never seen him cautious of anything before, he extended his pale hands and took the carefully wrapped box from her.

"Thank you for listening to me, Sempai," Tsuna said, and gave a deep, sincere bow.

"... I will need time to think on this," he said at last.

Tsuna snapped up, eyes wide and hopeful as she looked at him. Honestly, she had expected to be rejected, but she was just feeling so wonderful, that she had felt she would burst with happiness if she didn't do something. Which was why she had decided to confess to her long-time crush.

Tsuna had fallen in love with the older boy back when she was in her very first year of elementary school.

"Hai, Sempai."

~oOo~

When Tsuna came to school the next day with a white camellia pin holding her bun in place, Hana and Kyoko both gave their friend a tight hug each. She hadn't said anything about how her confession had gone, so neither girl had pushed. The flower was an explanation in and of itself though.

Waiting, it said. Hana knew at once, and whispered it quickly into Kyoko's ear. Neither girl took too long to figure out what that must mean.

Tsuna's confession hadn't been answered.

She wore that same flower for the rest of the week, and the looks her friends sent her each day became slowly more pitying. She kept her spine straight though, and didn't let the weight of uncertainty bow her head.

Not when she changed the camellia for forget-me-nots and daisies the week after, not when she threaded lavender through her braid the week after that (real lavender, even, as that was a flower that kept extremely well, no matter the abuse it suffered), not even when she replaced it with a yellow camellia or a white rose or a zinnia.

True Love and faith, then faithfulness. Longing, devotion, loyalty.

Not even when the white camellia was once more placed in her hair two months later, did Tsuna let her shoulders fall in hopelessness or her back be bowed with regret.

Hana worried when there was suddenly a red camellia in her friend's hair though.

"Perishing," Hana said in a demanding tone that morning. "Over a monkey. Tsuna-chan, I thought you had better sense than that, especially the number of times I've heard you complain about how your own mother is in regards to that man."

"He hasn't answered me, Hana-chan," Tsuna countered softly, a tiny little smile still on her face, despite everything. "So I feel like I am torn between hopeful and heartbroken. He said he needed to think about it, and from his expression, I don't think he'd ever been confessed to before, so I accepted that. I do accept that. It's just... getting harder. Maybe I am more like my mother than I thought. Maybe it's genetic, that when we give our hearts, that's just it for us."

"Then I suggest you take that flower out of your hair," Hana said, and jabbed her finger at the offending bloom, "and go and confront him again. If you won't, then I demand you tell me which monkey it is, and then I will go and beat an answer out of him."

For all that Tsuna had been best friends with Hana since their first week of elementary school, her crush was one secret that she had never, never shared. Not with anybody.

"..."

"Sawada Tsunahime."

"I suppose he is the sort of boy that I would need to prove myself to," Tsuna said slowly, "that words would not be enough."

~oOo~

"Sempai."

"..."

~oOo~

The next day, Tsuna floated into the classroom with a smile on her face and a bright, blood-red rose in full bloom sitting in pride of place on top of her chignon.

Hana and Kyoko both tackled their friend in shared joy.

"He said yes?" Kyoko said, double-checking, just to hear the confirmation of what they were sure was the case.

"He accepted my feelings," Tsuna confirmed happily.

"Now will you tell us who it is?" Hana demanded.

Tsuna giggled. "I thought I was being very obvious today, actually," she admitted, and pulled the rose out of her hair, in preparation for when the teacher came in.

That was when Hana registered the small brown feathers, disguised among the fly-away brown hair, that were also attached to a smaller hair pin. At first, she had thought they were browned leaves attached to the rose, but she could see them more clearly now. They were actually almost impossible to see, now that the pressure of the rose wasn't making them rise at a stiff angle compared to the rest of Tsuna's hair, but now that Hana's attention had been drawn to them specifically...

"No," she breathed, eyes wide. "That violent monkey?" she asked in an almost scandalised whisper.

"He's not a monkey, Hana-chan," Tsuna censured her friend gently. "He's a bird. Maybe that's why I was willing to wait so long as well," she added, her honey eyes solemn and thoughtful. "You don't win the loyalty of a bird by caging it, after all."

Hana snorted, not at all amused. She would have said something more, but the teacher arrived just then, so everybody had to hurry to their seats.

~oOo~

"It had better not be because of his looks," Hana said as soon as it was just the two of them. Neither Hana or Tsuna wanted to worry Kyoko with the knowledge of exactly who Tsuna had given her heart to. "I never took you for a shallow person, Tsuna-chan, but I honestly have no idea what you could see in him beyond his looks."

"He is handsome," Tsuna agreed happily with a smile, a hand raised to her cheek to hide a little of her blush. "Even beautiful, but that isn't what made me fall in love with him."

"Please Tsuna-chan," Hana begged. "I need you to explain this to me. He's a violent monkey and I will worry that you're setting yourself up to be in an abusive relationship if you don't!"

Tsuna laughed.

Hana pouted, that her perfectly legitimate concerns were being laughed at.

"Sempai wouldn't hurt me," she assured her friend. "Now that he's decided that I'm his, the only harm that he will allow will be training bruises."

"Training bruises?" Hana repeated, her tone worried and angry all at once.

"He's going to teach me how to defend myself," Tsuna explained. "Not that I'm likely to need that knowledge. He's so protective of what he's claimed as his..."

"Tsuna-chan... are you content to be a claimed thing?" Hana asked cautiously.

"Of course not," Tsuna denied, "but I'm not a thing to him. I'm a person. Not an ideal, a distant concept, or a simple creature that exists solely to provide comfort on the occasion that he feels like deigning to accept some."

Hana's entire face pinched slightly, aware that Tsuna was talking about the relationship – if it could be called that – between her parents.

"He's so... present, Hana-chan," Tsuna explained, a blissful little smile on her face. "Protective, yes and maybe more than a little possessive, but he's not restrictive. I'm his now, but that doesn't mean that I'm not also still my own person, and that goes both ways too."

"What?!" Hana yelped in surprise. "He... accepts that?" she asked delicately.

"He does," Tsuna confirmed, then thought about how she could better explain it to her best friend, because it was clear that Hana still didn't get it. "It's... you compare people, boys our age in particular, to monkeys, Hana-chan. I've described him as a bird -"

Hana snorted again at the description. "And you're a fluffy little bunny," Hana interrupted her friend. "Birds and bunnies don't pair up. In fact, if he's a bird, then he's the kind that would eat fluffy little bunnies for breakfast. Tsuna-chan -!"

Tsuna sighed. At least Kyoko wasn't prying into who, how, or why, content simply that Tsuna was happy. The other girl did occasionally ask what Tsuna and her boyfriend got up to though.

~oOo~

Hana caught Tsuna muttering to herself between classes – but not in Japanese.

"He's teaching me Mandarin, so that I'll be able to speak with his relatives if they visit him suddenly."

Kyoko asked what sort of dates they went on.

"We're going to a movie tomorrow night. I think he booked out the whole cinema, just so that he wouldn't have to put up with anybody talking during the film."

Hana demanded to know why Tsuna had bruises all over her arms and legs.

"His uncle came to visit for a week to check on Sempai, and while he was here, Sempai got his uncle to teach me more about how to defend myself better. Those lessons in Mandarin came in useful sooner than expected! Though, Sempai's uncle does speak excellent Japanese as well..."

Kyoko asked what Tsuna and her boyfriend would be doing for New Year.

"We're going to sit on his roof and watch the New Year fireworks together. Just the two of us."

Hana asked, wryly, if Tsuna would be making Valentine chocolates for her sweet-hating boyfriend.

"Of course I'm making him chocolate for Valentine's Day! He actually has a sweet-tooth, but so many people just throw the wrappers away willy-nilly, it really annoys him, so he comes across as hating sweets because of that."

Kyoko cooed in awe over a recipe that Tsuna had chosen for their Home Economics class.

"Eh? Oh, I guess it is a complicated recipe, but it's Sempai's favourite, so I'll make it and box it up for him, rather than just whatever sort and giving it to one of the boys in our class."

~Bonus: Extreme Measures~

The day that Tsuna caught the attention of Sasagawa Ryohei was... not a good day. He had taken it into his head that Tsuna should join his boxing club. His reasoning was not known, and his enthusiasm and determination to achieve his desire – that of getting Tsuna into his club – was not appreciated.

Tsuna went to Kyoko, who tried talking to her brother. Normally, this was an effective tactic concerning the boxing-obsessed boy. In this case, it was not.

After a week of harassment, and a week of refusals of every sort, Tsunahime sat down with Hana and Kyoko, and declared a pre-emptive apology.

"I'm sorry, Kyoko-chan, but I cannot and will not take this any more," Tsuna said. "He's just not getting it, no matter what I say or how I slap him."

Kyoko smiled weakly in understanding.

"What are you going to do?" Hana asked, morbidly curious.

"I'm going to use... extreme measures," Tsuna answered.

After school that day, Ryohei charged up to Tsunahime again and requested/demanded that she join his club.

Tsuna raised her knee sharply, and when he fell, she stomped down hard.

"Sasagawa-sempai, when a girl says 'no', she means 'no', always," Tsuna informed him as she ground her heel in. "Stop asking me to join your stupid club!"

~The End~