Nana had been happy to see her husband after four years. He must have come back because their no-good son was gone.
Imagine how quickly her bliss had turned to hatred when he had tried to tell her that their son wasn't to blame, that they could still welcome him home and end their mourning. He actually smiled and tried to embrace her, ancient love in his eyes.
She had shoved him to the side, opened the door, and told him to get out. She would not share her bed with someone who would support the no-good bastard that had cost her so much.
He had left, his last murmured words haunting her. "If you change your mind, we'll come back." 'We', as if one wouldn't come back with the other.
Even though it was far past midnight, so early the sky outside was turning pale, she continued to sit at the kitchen table, brooding over what he had said; not his offer, but that their son was innocent. Obviously, he wasn't! If he had been there with Lambo, he could have protected him! Instead, he had been at a friend's house… A friend's house. Could friends be more important than family?
She turned and tossed the thoughts in her head, ice forming in her heart. And then his last words before he had tried to hold her: "It's time for us to move on." To move on? Never. Their son was dead. As long as he remained dead, she was never going to forgive that horrible boy or stop weeping for her lost baby.
Sometime towards late afternoon, someone knocked on her door. She stood from the stool and then nearly fell, her legs numb from how long she had been still, before recollecting herself. She smoothed out her skirt and hair, pushed back her shoulders, and then went to greet the visitor with the aura of a woman who had truly lost everything. Though she wore green and blue, she might as well have been dressed like a widow.
She opened the door a sliver, looking at the stranger before her with no particular welcome.
The man was tall, shoulders broad beneath a black trench coat with fringed shoulders. He had long blue hair fashioned with a partial sum of it sticking out from the top of his head and the rest flowing down his back. His skin was pale like alabaster, flawless. He wore a white shirt beneath his coat and leather pants with thigh-high boots. On his hands were black leather gloves.
Yet, despite his devilish handsomeness and oddly attractive attire, her eyes were immediately drawn to his duo-colored gaze, one orb a scarlet red and the opposing one cobalt blue.
The man smiled coldly down at her and she felt as if more than her heart was made of ice in that moment. "Kufufufu~ you wouldn't happen to know where Tsuna is, would you?"
It had hurt like a bitch, but at least he got it out of the way.
For the past few hours, he had been trying to hide from the prefect, unwilling to take the beatings for his unexcused absences. However, Hibari being a 'carnivore' and Tsuna a lowly 'herbivore', the skylark found him nonetheless.
Now he was crawling to the roof, pain throbbing throughout his entire body as he dragged himself up another flight of stairs that would eventually lead him to the highest level of the building.
He sighed in bliss as his foot touched the top of the last rise, shoulders shivering with the sheer energy it took to get so far. He lifted his gaze from his uncertain feet to the happenings around him. It being lunch, the hallways were mostly empty. 'Mostly' being the key word.
At the opposite end of the hall, another teen boy, most likely a year older than him, came to attention and met his gaze. For a full minute, Tsuna had no clue why the teen's eyes immediately filled with malicious anger upon sighting him.
And then his mind produced an image of a boy for him who had, four years ago, taken to beating him worse than Hibari had ever needed to. It hadn't been because Tsuna was supposedly the one to blame for his brother's death, but because he had kicked the guy's ass at his own sport, him being the captain of the Kendo club, a few months prior to his little brother's demise. Lambo's death had only been his excuse.
On the heels of that realization came the epiphany that he was so dead if he didn't start running… now. Because the other teen – Mochida, he distantly remembered his name to be – was closing in on him.
How he had avoided the teen for four years was beyond his understanding; maybe the presence of Ryohei and Yamamoto, both of them excellent at their own sports, (and most likely Gokudera because he was scary… well, all the time) had kept him at bay. Perhaps Tsuna had just been lucky in that he had never had any classes close to the other teen. Who knew how he had avoided the boy for so long.
All he knew was that his luck had officially run dry. For one, he was in too much pain to run. For two, Mochida had broken into a gallop, heading straight towards him with a demeaning sneer written out in his features.
"Hiiieee!" He stumbled backwards. It went to show how terrible his day was turning out to be that he was still standing at the head of the stairs as he lost his footing. "Gaaaah!"
Had he been aware of the whispered footsteps coming up behind him, maybe he wouldn't have flailed his arms wildly in hopes of somehow regaining balance. Maybe he wouldn't have simultaneously jerked his body backwards in the opposing hope of not getting caught by the fist flying straight towards his lean belly as Mochida snickered, the teen also seeming to notice his soon-to-occur fall.
Then again, 'maybes' never did cut it.
His fist collided with a broad shoulder, the rest of his body soon following. He landed with a solid 'oof' against a strangely still chest. His luck was suddenly changing; neither he nor the person behind him fell down the remaining stairs, remaining standing. In front of him, Mochida's snickers turned into a dissatisfied growl. "Who're you?" He snapped at whoever Tsuna had impacted with.
Tsuna peeked open one eye, tilting his head slowly up to get a glimpse of his hero. The first thing he noticed were dark blue tresses tickling his cheek…
Both of his eyes snapped open, jaw going slack.
"Oya~ me? Oh, I am just a concerned acquaintance of Tsunayoshi~ you see, I have permission from the main office to take him home with me. And here I am, finding that my cute little Tsuna is being bullied…" The man tutted the teen, as if utterly disappointed with him.
"Mukuro?" The breathless whisper slipped from Tsuna's lips before he could even stop himself.
An arm wrapped around his waist and held securely. "Hello, Tsunayoshi." Duo-colored eyes met his teasingly, the cold smile that had twisted his features a moment ago softening immediately. "Did you miss me?"
Mochida took a careful step backwards. After a moment, he smirked. "Oh, so I see how it is…" He spoke with the tone of one who was about to say something very insulting. "You're no-good Tsuna's pimp!"
Whatever Tsuna had felt a moment ago – maybe anger at having been abandoned in the first place, relief at seeing Mukuro again, and perhaps happiness – died as shock overcame him. What?
"Oya~ his pimp? No, no…" Mukuro purred, smile sharp and deadly yet again as he slid his narrowed eyes back to the other boy. "He's my everything~" He reached out a leather-clad hand towards Mochida. "Which makes you absolutely nothing to me… well, maybe I could consider you food." With that last word uttered, the fingertips of his gloves were ripped, giving way to…
Tsuna mentally died as the roots reached out towards the now pale and stupefied teenager. What the hell was Mukuro thinking?
Mochida didn't have time to run away; his eyes rolled into the back of his head the moment one of the roots touched his cheek, body sagging as he sank almost in slow motion to the floor.
"Kufufufu~ I wander if he pissed his pants too." Mukuro withdrew his hand, glaring down at the still body.
Had Tsuna not known that Mochida had just fainted from cold terror, he would have thought that Mukuro had killed him.
"Now!" Mukuro turned Tsuna towards him, backing down a step so they were eye-to-eye. "You never did answer my question." He was smiling warmly again. His ability to change expressions so quickly made Tsuna pause as he tried to keep up with the situation. "Did you miss me?"
A thousand thoughts bombarded him at the same time in reply to that simple question. He wanted to start yelling a the man for leaving him, he wanted to start screaming about how broken and frustrated he had been to wake up alone, he wanted to maybe start crying for feeling like he had been abandoned all over again, he wanted to beat the plant black and blue for bothering to come back right when he started to feel like himself again, he wanted to ask a dozen or so questions on why Mukuro had left to begin with or why he was at his school or maybe even how he had found him to begin with, and he wanted to – …
Yeah, he was going to go with that because he can ask questions later and beat Mukuro up a little after that perhaps.
"Of course I did, you idiot!" He shouted, right before stupidly throwing himself at the man with intentions of squeezing the hell out of him. Of course, he forgot to take the staircase into account as he leaped.
Mukuro caught his weight and didn't make one complaint as they teetered backwards and then, with a pivot of Mukuro's heel, crashed into the floor at the bottom of the one set of stairs instead of painfully sliding down all the steps. There was no breaking of bones on contact or even the slightest 'thwak' that insinuated that something hard had hit the stone. There was only a soft landing, Mukuro not showing the slightest bit of discomfort as he wrapped both arms around Tsuna and smiled into his unruly hair.
Tsuna was far from questioning strange and unusual happenings when it came to the creature.
"So I'm an idiot now?" Mukuro cooed.
"Yeah!" He growled. "A huge one. And if you leave again, I'm going to – !" But what would he do? What could he do? He had never been one for making threats. Since he had nothing to say, he let himself trail off, hoping that his silence would be foreboding enough.
Mukuro laughed. "I understand, Tsunayoshi." He petted his spine. "I won't be leaving you anytime soon."
Gokudera was getting antsy. 15 minutes into lunch, there was no sign of his most beloved friend.
"Mah mah, Gokudera, you need to stop worrying so much. He can take care of himself!" Meanwhile, his not so beloved friend was laughing into his ear like the sick bastard he was.
He didn't care what kind of relationship they had; Yamamoto was not allowed to mock him when he was so clearly upset! With that said (or thought), he shoved his elbow into the baseball star's belly, sending the taller teen into the cement floor with a surprised gasp of pain. "Idiot! What if something bad happened to him? It's been 15 – no," he changed his story as he glanced at his watch "16 minutes! I knew I shouldn't have let him leave the classroom alone!" He paced the roof nervously.
Yamamoto good-naturedly said nothing as he sat back up and patiently let Gokudera fret.
After a few more minutes, Gokudera's expression proved to darken only more as the small brunette remained missing. "… What if we went looking for him?" Yamamoto waited to see how the question was taken.
"Idiot!" Gokudera slapped him upside the head.
"Gokudera, what was that for?" The taller of the two rubbed the injured spot, giving the other a kicked-puppy expression. Gokudera's features drew together in an inwardly-directed scowl that Yamamoto had come to understand, over time, as the look the silverette wore when he was silently berating himself for nothing thinking of an idea first.
"You don't need to know! Just get your lazy ass up and let's look for him!"
Yamamoto smartly refrained from pointing out how that sounded a lot like what he had said. "Gotcha!"
"I'll check in the building and you look outside." Gokudera growled. "You can take the shortcut." He pointed over the ledge of the building.
"Hah hah! You're funny, Gokudera." Yamamoto patted his lover's head and walked for the safer way to exit the building. "Oh, and Gokudera?"
"What?"
"Have I told you today how much I love you?"
"W-what? Keep that stuff to yourself!" The silverette's cheeks became defiantly pink, even as he glared malignantly at the taller boy.
Yamamoto laughed and left ahead of him, disappearing down the staircase.
Gokudera stayed behind another moment, getting over the small moment of embarrassment. Yamamoto had the habit of catching him off guard, always saying silly, girly things like love. He considered himself lucky to get away without a farewell kiss.
Had Tsuna been there, Yamamoto wouldn't have bothered to assault him with his affections, Gokudera reminded himself. Thinking that, he very quickly remembered what he was supposed to be doing. "Damn that idiot!" He ran off the roof, leaping down the stairs and then racing down the hall at top speed. "TEEENNTH!" Whatever classes were in session be damned. He had to find his best friend!
He went to the closest staircase there was (he stepped on an unconscious body, uncaring for the familiar boy) – only to stop suddenly and with great surprise. His surprise morphed instantly into boiling hatred.
At the bottom of the last flight of stairs, Yamamoto had taken a seat across from Tsuna and someone who Gokudera would not have known the identity to… if not for those damnable duo-colored eyes.
Those fucking eyes that he wanted to rip out and throw on the ground. What the hell was that creature doing near his Tenth after hurting him so badly?
He growled, the sound carrying down to the small party.
Yamamoto was the first to look up at him, realization dawning in his eyes without even having to follow the direction of Gokudera's glare. "Mah mah, Gokudera, don't get angry yet!" He got to his feet and stood protectively in front of the man and the gawking brunette.
"Idiot! Get out of my way! Don't you remember how we found Tenth after that bastard left him?" Gokudera stormed down the steps, going right up to Yamamoto and trying to shove him aside.
He wasn't weak by any standard – Gokudera, that was. He wasn't sports-oriented either. Yamamoto, who spent hours a day training for his damnable game of baseball, could not be shoved aside no matter how much the silverette tried.
"Wait, Gokudera. Mukuro was just telling me why he left! He had a good reason." Yamamoto tried to placate him. He was wise not to lay a hand on the silverette, knowing all too well what that would cause.
"There is no good enough reason for leaving Tenth! You were there when we found him, he was half dead! That wouldn't have happened if he had just stayed." He hated that he actually had to make a hypocrite of himself, taking the grounds that the creature should have never left while he had not too long ago demanded that he die. But his presence had made Tsuna happy; his absence had nearly killed him. There wasn't much of a fight he could put up against that logic.
"G-Gokudera!" Tsuna was quick to get to his feet, running to Yamamoto's side and placing a gentle hand on his arm. His touch, unlike Yamamoto's, was welcomed in the situation. "I was angry too. And I'm still angry! I hated feeling abandoned all over again…"
The brunette's admission made Gokudera's heart melt into a pulverized puddle of pain. "Tenth…"
"But he was just telling us why he left… and it is a decent excuse…"
"Yeah, an excuse!" He flinched at the snappy tone he had taken with his best friend. Tsuna paled as well.
Yamamoto was frighteningly serious in the background.
"Oya~ if my presence is going to cause that much trouble with you, then I suppose I will just kidnap Tsunayoshi now and save myself the trouble of explaining my actions to you."
"What?"
"Mukuro, please don't bait Gokudera…" Tsuna whined.
Yamamoto's hands twitched, fingers curling in Gokudera's direction but falling short of grabbing him.
"Ah, but he gets angry so easily…" The creature came to his feet, unbothered by the chaos his presence had caused. "You see, Gokudera, I did not leave on a whim. I had a formulated plan when I left and a goal to return."
"And you couldn't tell Tenth that why?" Gokudera was unwilling to drop the subject. Then again, the bastard deserved to have his every action questioned till he ran out of answers and fumbled around like a fool.
"Oya~" Mukuro purred, "why I didn't tell him was because I wanted him to miss me!" He grinned like pure innocence.
Tsuna sighed, shoulders sagging in exhaustion. Yamamoto laughed awkwardly. Gokudera snarled.
"I'm going to stuff a stick of dynamite up your ass and light it."
"Gokudera…" Tsuna squeezed his wrist, eyebrows drawing together.
"Listen to him, octopus~" Mukuro taunted.
"You son of a bi-"
"Gokudera!"
"But, Tenth! He started it!"
"Yeah, well I'm going to finish it! I understand that you're mad, but please… I don't want anyone to fight today."
Gokudera's hands clenched at his sides. His lips curled in a scowl and he was more than tempted to continue assaulting the fucking plant. But Tsuna was looking up at him with so much hope in his caramel gaze, lips even wordlessly forming the plea for him to keep his cool…
He looked behind Tsuna to where Yamamoto stood. The baseball player met his gaze squarely, copper brown eyes telling the silverette that, yes, it was time to put down his weapons and just be there for Tsuna instead of being his shield.
"… What were your reasons for leaving?" The words left him in one low growl.
Tsuna relaxed next to him, relief obvious in his expression. Yamamoto grinned like the idiot he was and moved closer to Gokudera's side, taking a position just inches in front of him so he could counter him if he decided to attack the creature after all.
Mukuro smirked. "Kufufufu~ I guess you can control yourself… somewhat." Before Gokudera could snap back at him, Mukuro continued on. "I left so I could make a living for Tsunayoshi and me. There was no chance of my leaving him to live with that unworthy woman."
"Really?" Gokudera drawled. He left it unsaid that that was exactly what he had done.
Yamamoto shifted closer and, hidden by the closeness of their bodies, caressed his hand over Gokudera's lower back. The silverette tensed, unable to react with Tsuna so closely watching him for his reaction and yet also instantly finding himself wanting to relax… which only made him more pissed.
Mukuro's eyes narrowed on them, as if he knew exactly what was going on. Instead of commenting, he ignored them. "I read every book I could get my hands on and, while at the… what is it called? Ah, the library, I came across an old man who offered me a ticket to Italy if I would do some things for him." The way he said 'old man' and 'do some things' instantly made Gokudera's stomach clench in foreboding. "Of course, being new to this world, I accepted without actually thinking of what things these would be." Tsuna's face was ghostly pale. Yamamoto was waiting. "I remember my promise of not harming anyone unless provoked, so please forgive me," there wasn't the slightest note of guilt in his voice as he tilted his head towards Tsuna "when I say that I reacted strongly when I finally figured out what he was speaking of."
"Did you kill him?" Gokudera hissed.
"I didn't kill him… he just hasn't woken up yet. In the meantime, I used his money and the ticket to make a small business in Italy. Soon, I realized that humans enjoyed the trinkets that I made. It wasn't long after that my business began to grow at an alarming rate, becoming one of the top 10 manufacturers of my branch." He offered a moment for that to sink in.
Tsuna was most likely still caught at the part where the old man hadn't woken up yet, not seeming at all impressed with Mukuro's progress as he gawked. Yamamoto appeared more interested, nodding and grinning along.
Gokudera glared at him. "And what 'trinkets' were you making that were so god damned popular?" At the top of the stairs, he swore he heard the unconscious boy moan.
Mukuro smirked. "Toys."
"Toys, huh?" Yamamoto cocked his head curiously. "What kind of toys?"
The man only grinned wider. He took off one glove – Gokudera took note of the ripped fingertips – and spread his fingers wide.
Gokudera cursed while Yamamoto and Tsuna offered no reaction to the roots that stretched out from the man's hand. One by one, Mukuro plucked them off and then placed them in his closed palms. Minutes later, he opened his hands to let them see the thumb-sized toy he had created, looking more like a voodoo doll with how simplistic its design was.
Gokudera snorted; people paid for shit like that?
"Kufufufu~ would you like to dance for me?"
Simultaneously, Tsuna, Gokudera, and Yamamoto jerked backwards away from the man with varying sounds of surprise as the doll in Mukuro's hands trembled and then got to its toeless feet, kicking its shapeless legs and swinging its handless arms as if caught in the throes of a song. Its hairless head bobbed.
"What the fuck did you do to it?" Gokudera finally growled.
Yamamoto was quick to hide his shock, instead replacing it with happy curiosity. Nonetheless, he stayed in front of the silverette. "Hah hah! That looks neat!"
Tsuna gulped, eyes glued to the small thing.
Mukuro ignored both of the other teens as he turned to the brunette. "Would you like to play with it? It won't hurt you, I swear." He waited.
They all waited.
Tsuna hesitantly reached out to the small doll, fingers twitching just slightly. With his hand hovering over Mukuro's, the living toy suddenly leaped and attached itself to his thumb. "Hiiieee!"
"Bastard! Get that thing off of Tenth!"
"Mah mah, Gokudera, I don't think it's doing anything bad."
True to Yamamoto's words, the toy only contently held onto the brunette, doing nothing more and nothing less. Tsuna blinked in awe and then looked up at Mukuro.
"Kufufufufu~ I suppose it likes you, Tsunayoshi." Mukuro tickled the toy's back. With the slight touch, the tiny mass of roots reverted back to its original strands, falling motionlessly into the man's palm. "People like my toys because they… come alive." Mukuro spread his hands apart in a gesture of 'magic'. "Though what I manufacture isn't so crude in shape."
"Hah hah! That's cool." Yamamoto grinned airily at him.
"Well, if you were getting rich so fucking fast, why didn't you come back sooner?" Gokudera fought.
"Because I am a CEO of my own company. A newly born company at that. Had I left and never returned, my goals to support Tsunayoshi would have been for naught, am I correct? No, I had to wait until I could branch out here."
Yamamoto snapped his fingers and then slammed his fist into his open palm, a light dawning in his eyes. "Kokuyo land!"
"Huh?" Gokudera sneered questioningly at him.
"It was in the newspaper."
"You mean the old mall area?" Tsuna tilted his head.
"Yes." Mukuro purred. "That is where I'm building my new factory. Of course, I will have to remain here to oversee construction… and then I will stay here afterwards, seeing as how I am also having a house built near the factory for my convenience." He brushed a hand through Tsuna's hair. "I would be happy if you decided to live with me."
"Go fuck yourself!" Gokudera snapped. "Tenth's staying with me and he's happy where he is, right, Tenth?" He swung his gaze to the brunette, eyes melting as they landed on the smaller teen.
Tsuna looked from Gokudera to Mukuro. Nervously, he nibbled his bottom lip. "Well… I am staying with Gokudera right now…" He stared at his fiddling hands, situated in his lap.
Yamamoto pouted at Gokudera. Mukuro was staring at Gokudera too, but the expression on his face couldn't quite be defined as a pout… more like he was trying to kill the silverette with just his narrowed eyes and dangerously pursed smirk.
Tsuna stared at his feet, hands folded in his lap, and nearly broke Gokudera's heart when he hunched his shoulders forward and mumbled something incoherent beneath his breath.
"What was that?"
Tsuna, his savior, his best friend, his loveable Tenth, looked at the creature from the corner of his eyes and murmured just a little louder, "'M sorry…"
Yamamoto was still pouting at Gokudera. Even though Mukuro wasn't looking at him anymore, he could tell that the thing was still death glaring him… somehow. But it was Tsuna's downcast appearance that made him bite his tongue. And he bit it till it bled because he did not like what he was about to say.
"But… if the Tenth would be h-happy… with you," he pronounced 'you' as if it were the worst curse imaginable, "then I suppose he can stay with you… on the weekends! Only the weekends." He narrowed his eyes threateningly. "I don't trust you."
"Kufufu~ I know you don't. I don't trust you either."
He gnashed his teeth together. "What?"
"Well, you did try to kill me when I wasn't even old enough to defend myself."
Tension ran high between them. Agreeable dislike.
Yamamoto was beaming, still staring at Gokudera. Tsuna looked painfully hopeful.
And then Gokudera's glare magnified. "I have one question left for you… one. Can you answer it?"
"I wouldn't know; I may have many skills, but telepathy isn't one of them."
He growled but then let the anger drain till it was only the clenching of his hands. He had that bastard cornered.
"How did you meet Lambo?"
Author's Note: Sorry for the late update! I know I said I would update soon, but then when I went to look at my draft, I realized I had caught up with myself… Because, like I had been saying all along, I had had most of this story prewritten before posting it. Well, from now on, I think my updates are going to be further apart… and I'm a little scared because I haven't winged it like this for a long time.
Anywho! Next chapter's going to be a challenge for me… however! Mukuro is BACK! And Gokudera asks the thousand dollar question… Oooh.