Racked my brains for a Grimm Bros application to KHR and my story and this is what I came up with. Pardon the uber-long delay.

Oh and just so you guys know, this was all set in the future before the TYL! arc.

Enjoy!

Rapunzel

It was no surprise that Squalo was late. Again. He'd never been much for annual meetings orchestrated by the Vongola anyway, and it was doubtful that Xanxus would send anyone else, not that anyone else in Varia would be interested or qualified. As the others waited inside the mansion, Dino chose to stay outside on the veranda. After all, spring at the Vongola Mansion was certainly a sight to behold. Green as far as the eye can see, dotted by flowers of all shapes and sizes. It didn't look like a place where Mafioso would gather, but he figured he had Tsuna's mom to thank for that. Sawada Nana saw just about every single one of them—even Hibari—as her children, and therefore she took it upon herself to make sure that they were nice and comfortable and had pretty things to look at whilst they carried on with their business.

The Cavallone Boss was admiring the view when a black sedan pulled up to the massive driveway and parked. Finally, he thought, getting up to collect the Varia swordsman. Reaching for the car door, Dino opened it and greeted him with a cheerful smile. "Yo, Squalo," he said upon seeing the shark's head emerging from within the sedan. "Long time no see. Say, did your hair get longer?"

However, his goodwill was met with an annoyed glare. "Fuck off, Cavallone. What are you doing out here anyway?"

"Enjoying the scenery, and—oh." He stopped short when he saw the door on the side open and close. "Well this is interesting. Who's our little guest?"

The white-haired swordsman need not say more. As the little guest stepped up to the curb next to Squalo, Dino couldn't help but smile. It's been so long since he'd last seen him. He's got to be about eight now, he thought, marveling at the little boy. Angelo may have inherited all his father's hard features but it was Mira's eyes that softened it all. Oh, the wonder of genetics…

The boy looked at him through scrutinizing eyes, probably determining whether he was a friend or foe. After a while, he reached up to tug at Squalo's jacket. "Is he one of mom's friends?" he whispered loudly.

At first, the question didn't seem to register with the swordsman. "What? Oh, yeah. He and your mom go way back."

Angelo nodded and fixed his gaze on Dino once again. Then a polite little smile bloomed on his face as he held out a hand to him. "Hello, sir. It's a pleasure to meet you. I'm Angelo, by the way."

"I know who you are," he said, chuckling slightly at the kid's politeness. It was just so endearing. One would think living in a house full of assassins would tarnish the idea of manners, but the boy seemed to have held on to them pretty well. "My name's Dino. But you can call me Uncle Dino too, if you want."

Beside him, Squalo looked like he was about to start slicing things to ribbons out of sheer impatience. "VOII, I'd hate to break up this little reunion, but don't we have a meeting to go to?" he said, glaring daggers at the Cavallone Boss. "I didn't drive all the way here just for a fucking meet-and-greet. C'mon, let's just get this over with."

The white-haired shark brushed past Dino and walked on inside while the other two remained standing at the curb of the driveway. Looking from Angelo to Squalo and back again, Dino finally made his decision. "Hey, you know what, could you please just tell Romario to sit in for me? I'll stay here and watch Angelo for you."

Squalo stopped in his tracks for a moment. Dino was expecting him to say no, but something completely different came from the Varia swordsman's mouth. "Do as you wish, Cavallone."

It was the best thing he'd heard all day. And by the time Squalo disappeared behind the mansion's door, he finally had Angelo all to himself.

He couldn't quite explain it, but for some reason, being around the blonde man named Dino made him feel…comfortable. The book that Lussuria had given him for his birthday served as something of a security blanket and always carried it with him whenever possible, but for that day, he felt like he didn't need it to serve that purpose.

As Squalo headed to the meeting, Angelo was left standing on the driveway with Dino. Almost instantly, the blonde man turned his attention to him. "That's an awfully big book you've got there, Angelo," he said with a hint of a smile. "What's it about?"

"Just a bunch of stories by the Grimm Brothers." Angelo stroked the red leather spine lovingly. "Uncle Lussuria gave it to me for by birthday about a week ago."

"Really, now? That's nice of him." Something akin to an apologetic expression crossed the blonde male's face as he knelt in front of Angelo, meeting him at eye-level. "If I'd known it was your birthday, I would've sent you something too. Maybe I can make it up to you. Hey, how about I read you a story?"

Angelo brightened up almost immediately. Other than Lussuria, people back at the Varia mansion rarely offered to read to him, so this kind of attention was more than welcome. Wasting no time at all, he nodded vigorously, eliciting an amused laugh from the blonde man.

"Alright, kid, you got it. C'mon, let's go over there."

Dino led him to a garden nearby towards a wooden bench sitting under a canopy made of the branches of a willow tree. As soon as they sat down, Angelo situated himself close to the Cavallone Boss, quickly scanning the book for a story he wanted to hear. A few minutes later and the sound of pages flipping stopped and his finger pointed at an elaborate watercolor picture of the girl with flowing golden tresses locked inside a tower. "This one, please."

"Ah, Rapunzel." The blonde man smiled, nodding approvingly at the child's decision. Clearing his throat, he began his story. "Once upon a time, there lived a couple in a far away land, a husband and a wife, who wanted a baby more than anything in the world, but they just couldn't have one. Behind their house was a—"

"Hey, Uncle Dino?" Angelo tilted his head slightly, looking rather confused. With all the time he spent flipping through the Grimm's stories, they all seemed to have one thing in common—someone, somewhere, wanted to have a baby. However, a much bigger question was at hand. "Where do babies come from?"

"…pardon me?"

Angelo sighed and rolled his eyes. For some reason, adults say that a lot, especially when he starts asking questions. It's as if they weren't quite sure of how to answer; either that or they just weren't paying attention. Like that one time he asked Lussuria why he had tons of male mannequins in his closet. Or that time when he asked Levi why his facial hair stood up at odd ends. Neither one gave him straight answers (Lussuria banned him from exploring his room and Levi apparently "heard" the boss calling for him to do something); if it weren't for the guidance of his Uncle Bel, he probably would have never gotten any decent answers. Sure, the knife-throwing assassin's theories weren't all that credible, but it was certainly a start. Anything was better than nothing at all.

The child then repeated his question. He really did want an answer and not just some twisted Bel theory to stand in as a substitute. Besides, he wondered where he came from too. "I mean, they have to come from somewhere, right?"

At that point, Dino began shifting uncomfortably in his seat. After a while or so of clearing his throat profusely, he chuckled nervously, loosening his tie just a bit. "You know what? You should probably let your dad explain that to you when you get home."

That was actually…not a bad idea. At least now he and his father can have something interesting to talk about, right? Angelo nodded happily towards Dino. "I think I will. Thanks! Oh, and please continue with the story," he said, grinning as he tapped expectantly at the page.

The blonde man nodded, continuing where he left off. "So behind that couple's house was a garden with the finest rampion in the land…but there's a catch. You see, that garden was owned by an evil and powerful witch. One day, the wife was looking out of her window and she saw the rampion, looking so fresh and delicious, and she suddenly wanted to have some—so badly that she told her husband that if she could not have them, she would die."

When Dino paused for dramatic measure, Angelo's blue eyes widened in anticipation. "Well, what happened then? Did the wife get what she want?"

"Yes, but it was at a price. After the husband, climbed over the wall the first time and got some rampion, his wife made him go back a second time because she wanted more. But as he was climbing back over the wall, the witch caught him. The man begged for his life as well as some of the rampion he had already stolen. However, the witch wanted something in return. Can you guess what it is?"

Angelo pursed his lips for a moment and came up with an answer. "His house? It would make for good collateral until he can pay off the witch."

Dino regarded the kid with an amused expression. "Where'd you learn about that?"

"Uncle Mammon talks a lot about money and how to get it." The boy shrugged, unaware of how the blonde man was looking at him at the moment. "So was I right?"

The Cavallone Boss chuckled but shook his head. "Close enough though. What the witch wanted was the baby that the wife was going to have. Sure enough, a beautiful baby girl was born to the couple. The husband and wife had just enough time to name the baby Rapunzel before the witch took her away from them forever."

Angelo stared at the painted girl in the picture with her lovely locks of gold. In one night, she lost both her mother and father. He considered himself lucky to at least have one living parent, even if that one was always so preoccupied with work and was too busy to deal with him. For a moment, he wondered about his mother, about her parents, his grandparents. "Hey, Uncle Dino?"

"Yes?"

"Uncle Squalo said you and my Mom were old friends. What happened to her parents? Er…my grandparents? Are they still alive?"

The child was a bit hopeful, but upon seeing the blonde man sadly shake his head, he knew he had to abandon it. "They died in a fire. Mira was just a little girl, probably around your age, maybe a year or two younger."

So he had no grandparents either. Well, that was fine. He had a bunch of people to call uncles and aunts and he was rather sure that none of them were directly related to him. He looked up at Dino, saw the sadness that now clouded his brown eyes and the child thought that he might have done something to offend his new friend. "Um…so what happened to Rapunzel after the witch took her?"

Changing the subject seemed to help because Dino began to get on with the story again. "By the time Rapunzel was twelve, she'd grown so beautiful that the witch feared that someone might steal her away. So the witch built a tower that had neither steps nor a door, just a small window, and locked little Rapunzel in it. Every night, the witch would visit her and yell, 'Rapunzel, Rapunzel! Let down your hair!' And from that little window, Rapunzel would let down her beautiful, long hair so the witch could climb up to the tower."

Angelo winced slightly at the idea of a grown woman clinging on a young girl's hair. "That sounds painful. But I bet Uncle Squalo could do it. He's stronger. And he never cuts his hair."

The comment got a laugh from the Cavallone Boss. "I guess so. Then again, he isn't half as pretty as Rapunzel. Now, where were we?"

"Old witch climbing up a hair rope."

"Ah, yes. So that was how Rapunzel lived for a long, long time, until one day, the King's son went riding in the woods. It was daytime then, a time when the witch wasn't around because she only came at night, and it just so happened that the prince came upon the tower and heard Rapunzel singing. He wanted to know her so bad that he stood by, hiding in the woods, waiting to her hear voice again. That was when the witch came by again, yelling the same command. As the witch came and went, the prince realized that that was his only ticket to meet the source of that lovely voice. And so the next day, he stood at the foot of the tower, yelling out the same command he'd heard the witch utter when she was there the other night. And did you know what happened next?"

Angelo nodded gleefully. "Rapunzel helped him get up the tower!"

Dino nodded approvingly. "Exactly. Now Rapunzel, who had never seen a man before, was enchanted with the prince, and him with her. Almost instantly, the two fell in love and they devised a plan to get her out of the tower. Every day, he was to bring her a piece of silk rope so that she can make a ladder out of it, climb her way to freedom, and marry the prince."

"The prince had no problem fulfilling his part of the plan. However, Rapunzel never got a chance to fulfill hers. She had accidentally mentioned the King's son to the witch, you see, and she became furious. In her anger, the old witch cut Rapunzel's beautiful hair and cast her into a desert. But she wasn't done yet. Oh, no…"

Angelo drank in every word he said, his blue eyes wide with expectation. "She's horrible, that witch. If she took a pair of scissors to Uncle Squalo's hair, he would've made sushi out of her!"

The Cavallone Boss laughed at the boy's quip. "You're still on that?"

The sapphire-eyed boy shrugged his small shoulders. "His is the longest I've ever seen."

Shaking his head in amusement, Dino nonetheless continued with the story. "That night, the prince came to the tower in search for his beloved, planning to finally take her away with him. He called for Rapunzel to let down her hair; golden tresses fell from the window. But when he climbed up, he found someone else in her place—the old witch. She told him that Rapunzel was in a faraway place, somewhere he could never reach her or see her again. Distraught, the prince threw himself from the tower and landed on the thorn bushes below, putting out his eyes. Blind and broken-hearted, the prince wandered for years until he came upon the desert. That was where he heard a familiar voice singing…"

What a curious little boy, he thought, smiling as he watched Mira's son walk away. When Dino finished the story, the two didn't have much to talk about other than Mira. The Cavallone Boss was only too happy to recount every fond memory he had of her, which was plenty. However, he didn't have get to tell all of them since they'd run out of time; the meeting was over and Squalo came back to collect him. "Next time we see each other again, I'll tell you more about her," he said just as the boy got up from the bench.

Angelo smiled and nodded, then ran to the Varia swordsman who then led him back into the car they came in. As he watched the shiny black sedan speed out of the driveway, the boy's words echoed inside his head. "I think I'd be like Rapunzel's dad. Or the prince. I'd do anything to get my mom back. I…miss her."

Dino sighed, looking up at the willow canopy overhead. The branches looked sturdy, good for climbing. Mira would've loved them. After all, she did love climbing trees when they were children.

"Me too, kid," he whispered to no one but himself. "Me too."