The home was a small hovel on the edge of the construction sight, as if someone long ago had decided that living within 40 yards of the mall was crucial to their survival but then had decided that it wasn't worth that much money. It was a simple, one-floor structure with only the barest essentials (i.e. bathroom, kitchen, bedroom, and a very small living room big enough for a couch and a coffee table).

Tsuna stared at the very comfortable-looking bed, a sunroof open above it (which looked recently configured), with a wooden frame and piled high blankets.

He was tired, but he couldn't even bring himself to blink. He wanted to fall into that bed, but he couldn't even take a step forward. He wanted to…

Maybe he just wanted to cry.

After Gokudera's question, Mukuro had tried to distract them with an array of insults, the ending one being calling Gokudera a gigolo. In the worst possible sense of the word.

Now, Tsuna knew what a gigolo was because of Reborn. Gokudera knew what a gigolo was because he was Italian. Both had been reasonably insulted, Tsuna enough to actually slap Mukuro and Gokudera enough that he dug into his school uniform, looking for a bomb, cheeks red with shame.

How Yamamoto knew what a gigolo was, Tsuna wasn't sure. Maybe Gokudera told him that a gigolo was an Italian male prostitute. Maybe he learned it some other way. No matter the explanation, it could be said that he was the most insulted of the lot.

Never before had Tsuna conceived of the moment where Gokudera would have to restrain Yamamoto. He also had never thought that Mukuro could bleed; but, apparently, he could. It was green and slimy looking, ominously streaking across the floor towards Tsuna as Mukuro stumbled back from the baseball player's fury and brought a hand to the broken vessels in the left side of his face. The green veins of his roots.

After that incident, Tsuna was almost 100 percent sure that something was going on between Yamamoto and Gokudera; because Yamamoto had definitely been the most pissed of the two, even though the insult had been directed at Gokudera.

And then, in the confusion of the moment, that sweet-smelling scent had flooded Tsuna's nostrils, fogging his mind and making his vision zoom in and out. The next thing he knew, Mukuro had been carrying through a busy construction sight here, to this very small home.

He wondered how long it would be before Gokudera and Yamamoto found him, as they always inevitably did, no matter how far away he was taken. He knew he wasn't in danger, but… well…

How did Mukuro know who Lambo was? How had he gotten Lambo's childish scrawl onto that paper? Why had he thought it so important to insult Gokudera instead of answer the question? Why did his hand hurt even though all he did was slap Mukuro? Yamamoto had shoved his fist into Mukuro's face and his hand hadn't been hurt! … Maybe… Tsuna didn't think it had been hurt.

That sweet scent came back. A hand trailed up his back to rest on his shoulder. "I missed you," purred an unmistakable voice. "And, look," a volume of Italian fairytales was placed inches from his face, "I brought this back with me. Now this brings back good memories!"

Tsuna looked over his shoulder at the grinning alien. The cheek his open palm had connected with looked unharmed. The cheek Yamamoto had split open had a green vein racing from the bridge of his nose to the ridge of his ear, arching just beneath his eye; suspiciously enough, that was the same area of flesh that had split open. It had sealed itself shut.

And into his mind raced the vision of the green blood edging its way toward him.

Mukuro cooed, obviously able to tell where Tsuna was so pointedly staring. "Oya~ do not worry about it, Tsuna; it will heal."

He shook his head, paused, and then amended, "I was wondering… your blood… why did it come after me?" And he couldn't say it was because of the spatter, or because he was downhill from him, since neither were true. He had been standing on the side of the cheek he had injured, almost behind Mukuro.

"Kufufufu, you do not know?"

"Know what?"

"You are my blood." Mukuro grasped his hand in his available one and placed it to his injured cheek. "You gave me your blood so I could have blood. When my blood spilled, it was only trying to return to its natural body."

"But that's not possible! You make it sound like the blood had the thought to come after me…"

"Not like a brain process, or even instinct. More like a homing beacon. Everything about me is alive, Tsuna. Everything. From spilled blood to pulled hair to a hanging nail. Watch." Just like that, Mukuro plucked a hair from his head and held it in his open palm for Tsuna to watch.

It swayed, as if caught by a breeze, and then began to wiggle, like a reluctant snake. Even as Tsuna gasped, the long blue length was changing, becoming… thicker? Were those leaves sprouting? Roots began evolving from one end, a closed bud at the other. And then it stopped.

Mukuro pressed his forehead to Tsuna's. "Breathe on it."

"W-what?" His voice was high with shock. And, wait, wasn't he supposed to be angry too? And something else…

"Breathe. On it."

He was about to say no, that he wasn't going to breathe on a hair that suddenly became a plant – and then paused. Hadn't he done more insane things in the past year?

So he blew softly on the flower. Beneath his wide gaze, the roots rustled, stretching like a hand, and the bloom shivered. And then it opened. A white lotus bloom opened, glowing iridescently.

"You gave that life too." Mukuro smiled at Tsuna's awestruck expression. His smile became sharper; fake. "You have more questions."

Tsuna snapped out of his shocked state. "Y-yeah… doesn't that need water?"

"That is not what I meant."

"…" Tsuna could no longer see the flower, though he was pretty sure he was staring right at it. "… My brother… h-how did you know him?"

Mukuro sighed noisily, casting the lotus over his shoulder as he melodramatically spun on his heel and landed on the bed, dragging Tsuna down with him. Said brunette victim released a yelp of surprise.

The lotus's roots touched the ground. In the moment of a foreboding crack, the roots bore into the wooden floor and reached around the pipes, through the minute fractures of the concrete base, and then finally into moist soil far, far below…

"Oya~ how did we come back to this?"

"Because you didn't answer it the first time!" He gritted his teeth and his eyes fastened shut, nails biting into Mukuro's shirt. "It might not be important to you, a five-year old human boy, but that boy was my little brother!"

"That never mattered to you until the octopus brought it up." He had a point. He made an excellent point.

And Tsuna knew instantly why he had never asked. Because what if Gokudera's earlier suspicions were correct? What if Lambo's signature had been forged? What if they had never met Lambo? What if… What if that childish scrawl he so desperately believed in was not the childish scrawl of a five-year old human boy?

But now… well, only two days ago, he and his father had made amends. Gokudera and Yamamoto would never abandon him, even after put to a few ultimate tests. Kyoko, Haru, Ryohei, Dino, those two guys who became a couple after coming to his party… he wasn't alone.

He didn't need to be afraid of a signature any longer.

"Just tell me, Mukuro. Where did it come from?"

"From your little brother, of course." He could all but hear Mukuro's eyes rolling with his words. "Oya~ you speak as if you think we forged some kid's words onto a letter just so we could target you specifically. You know, he gave us your address. Well, he gave my bud and her genus your address, then they came back and picked me up, threw me at your doorstep… See? There's the whole story. Was it really worth telling?"

Tsuna stared at him as if he had gone insane. "That can't be all of it. I-I mean, how did he give you – err, I mean your bud, my address if he's dead?"

"Oh, he wasn't dead when my bud crashed into his room. Hhhmm… I guess it does take a descent amount of time to get from Earth to my home planet… and then back again."

"So, wait, your 'bud' just emergency landed in my brother's room, walked up to him, asked him for his home address, and then came back to where you were before sending you out?" It sounded too stupid to be true. Like there should have been some huge, unbelievable tale that began in the beginning of time and ended somewhere towards the end, like some huge extragalactic story that touched all the stars.

Nope, it was just like mediocre postal service.

"Well, I suppose there was more to it than that… I believe paper was involved."

Tsuna's head thumped against Mukuro's shoulder. How anticlimactic…

And yet, he started laughing. Because that would happen to Lambo, his baby brother. Aliens coming up to him with no sense of danger and asking him where he lived so they could send an insane plant to his doorstep. Paper somehow involved.

He began crying, because that made Lambo's words true. That meant that Lambo had been aware, on some level, that Tsuna was about to receive a package from the stars.

Maek a wIsh, bIg brOther! Like on shooting stars…

"Oya~ I knew it wasn't worth telling. This was why. I knew it would make you cry, you fragile humans and your tear ducts." But Mukuro petted him softly nonetheless, gloved fingers moving through Tsuna's tossed copper locks. "Kufufufu~ well, I suppose I also wanted to piss the octopus off too… I should have taken the other one into account too. And you, maybe."

Tsuna tried to make a sound of disdain, but it sounded closer to a choked-off laugh. "Y-you just wanna piss e-everyone off t-today…"

"Not just today! Always~"

Mukuro's hand drifted between their bodies, so very close together, and rested against his wayward heart. "Now will you read to me? I have an entire closet dedicated to fairytales all over the world, just so you can drift me off to sleep."

He wanted to say no; because, honestly? This was all too much to take in at one time. Mukuro coming back, the reason why he had left in the first place, the attack(s) on the staircase (both of them), the conclusive explanation to how his little brother played a part in this, possibly the smallest and simultaneously the biggest part. He had a headache coming on, maybe a heartache too. To finish it off, he wasn't even sure if he could read past the sheen of salt water casted on his eyes.

There was a moment of wordlessly broken silence. And then Mukuro sighed, a moment before decidedly shifting their bodies around. When he was done, they were lying with Tsuna's head on the pillows, Mukuro's head on his chest, directly over his heartbeat.

"I suppose the books aren't going anywhere, however… your heartbeat on the other hand… it will only beat for so long…" His voice, towards the end of his small speech, was already slurring.

Tsuna's heart apparently still had the ability to lull him to sleep.

"Good night, Tsuna."

He couldn't even reply. His voice was just… gone. Like 'poof', there goes the rabbit from the hat, just vanished. He dug his fingers into Mukuro's scalp (though subconsciously trying not to rip out any hairs), and held on as if his world was disappearing.

And, maybe, it just was. And, perhaps…

Perhaps, in years to come, such would be a good thing.

Author's Note: I've reverted back to short chapters… Damn.