#reborn

TROPE: “I suddenly died and just when I thought that everything has ended, I was reborn as the Princess of an empire! With my new overprotective family, will I be able to be happy in this life?”

MANHWAS:

• Who Made Me A Princess

• The Beloved Little Princess

• Once Again, Into the Light

• The Princess is Evil

• The Evil Princess Dreams of a Gingerbread House

• The Matchmaking Baby Princess

TROPE: “When I opened my eyes, I’m in a fantasy world! With my current powers and abilities, can I survive in this new world?”

MANHWAS:

• Daughter of the Spirit King

• The Heroine of Drayfox

• The Golden-Haired Summoner

She was reborn as something stronger☀️ *my Instagram above*

Booster seat for Bubba ‘cause leaning his head against the couch and shelf was messing up the back of his hair

rat child

Got sunglasses for my doll child

Summary: No matter how cold winter gets, it cannot freeze the warmth of rebirth.

Ratings/Tags:T (Post-Future Arc; Ten Years Later Universe; Foul Language; Death; Mourning; Loss of Family; Reunion; Childhood Friends; Love Epiphany; Blizzard Conditions; Christmas; Civilian!Reader; TakeSushi; Tsuyoshi Yamamoto & Takeshi Yamamoto; Squalo Superbi & Takeshi Yamamoto; Hana Kurokawa/Ryohei Sasagawa; Heavy Exposition)

Fic Trade Prompt:  “The weather outside is frightful, but the fire is so delightful.”

Notes: "However, after Tsuna defeated Byakuran, they were told that the future changed and all disasters caused by Byakuran and the Millefiore would be undone.”

1) I forgot about that detail until after I’d already written eight pages of this.

2) That’s a stupid-ass decision, and I’ve elected to ignore it.

Tag List: @imaginesfire​

Something Old and Something New

Byakuran was gone. No trace of the world’s former dictator remained, and so vanished the threat to the Vongola across the world. Winter started a new era for Tsuna’s family in particular, one of safety and warmth and comfort. After months of fear, the holiday season was a welcome change. Takeshi Yamamoto was free at last: free to return to his baseball career, free to return to his loved ones, free to go home. He chose the latter. There was too much for him to do to attempt either of the first.

He awoke one December morning in the bedroom of his childhood. Everything was just as he remembered it, save for all the dust and a handful of cobwebs dangling from the ceiling. Underneath it all, the old trophies glistened on the shelves and photographs of times gone by hung in their frames on the walls. Even to the last, Takeshi’s old man had tried to keep things at home perfect.

Groaning, Takeshi placed his feet on the frigid hard floor and pressed his palms into his eyes. Who was he kidding? His room was not just the way he’d left it because his dad liked things neat. His room was just the way he’d left it because his pop had hoped against hope that Takeshi would come home. In the end, it hadn’t mattered that Takeshi had. He’d still come home too late.

He looked neither at the clock nor at his phone. First things first, he would pick up the newspaper. Takeshi pocketed his cell, stood with a frown, and pushed open the door that led to the hallway. 

The rest of the house looked less lived-in even than his bedroom. Dust laid on the wood floor so thickly that it muffled his footsteps, leaving an obvious trail of prints in his wake. Most of all, it was cold. The closer he grew to the restaurant, the more the temperature dropped, until he could see his breath fogging before his eyes. Maybe he should have stopped to put on a robe.

As had become his habit since taking up residence in his dad’s place, Takeshi closed his eyes to pick through the empty seats and tables. He knew the route well enough by then that he didn’t trip. A few seconds later, he stood in front of the opened restaurant door—and found a blizzard blazing outside. 

Ice flew so fast through the air that he could barely make out the shape of the building across the street, and what he could make out was only because he knew it so well. If that morning’s newspaper had come, already it was buried underneath several feet of snow. He closed the door with a sigh. 

Wind continued to scream against it. The quiet tapping of flakes accompanied the sound. There would be no leaving the house that day. At last the task he had dreaded could no longer be avoided. When he turned, he saw the boxes, files, and paperwork stacked throughout TakeSushi’s once bustling sitting room. Takeshi had come to put everything in order before he sold the place. There was no putting it off any further.

Still, he tried. Takeshi took a long, hot shower. He shaved—his chin still looked strange to him, though the scar had been there nearly a year—and dressed warmly, started a fire in the front room’s fireplace, and ate a very slow breakfast of oatmeal. Hardly an hour of his time had gone before he sat down at the first table to begin.

Tsuyoshi Yamamoto had not left many details regarding what to do with his lifetime’s worth of belongings. Such a daunting task had got an offer of help even from Hayato of all people, but Takeshi had declined. He wanted to say goodbye to his old man on his own—or maybe he was disinclined to accept Vongola help when it was because of the Vongola that his father’s death had  occurred. 

Hopefully the former. It wouldn’t do for him to become so bitter after they all had come through so far.

Much of what remained was left to the family’s only child, of course. He sorted through container after container, removing things the will indicated were for people like Tsuna and Hayato, for favorite customers, and even for Tsuna’s father, whom Tsuyoshi had grown a close friendship with in the last three years or so. These would be easy to get to their new owners—Tsuna could be trusted to distribute his family’s gifts properly—but others, not so much.

Takeshi idly sifted through a box of his pop’s old school things while he listened to the phone on the other end of the line ring and ring. The noise seemed far too loud in the chilly quiet. Not even those with cars could risk getting out in this weather, leaving the neighborhood unnaturally still.

“VOI! You know who the hell you called. Leave a message. Or don’t. I don’t give a shit!”

“Squalo,” Takeshi’s voice came out of his throat unusually flat, “it’s Takeshi. Dad—well, you know. He’s left you a few things. Mostly Shigure Soen stuff. Give me a call back. I need to know how to send it to you.”

His head hanging, he hung up. He knew very well that Squalo wouldn’t call him back—not until Takeshi called another ten times and annoyed him into a rage, at any rate. There was still so much to do, so many things to give away. Maybe he wasn’t as ready to sell the place as he had once believed.

Just as he was in real danger of falling into despair, something hit the front door in rapid succession. Takeshi didn’t jump, but his focus sharpened. Only more ice, he thought. It was really coming down out there.

Then the noise came again. Longer. Harder. 

Someone was outside.

The danger from the Millefiore’s leader might have passed, but Takeshi was not so foolish as to believe its members completely fine with Byakuran’s defeat. Stupidly, he had left his sword in the bedroom. Hayato would call him an idiot later, and he would deserve it.

Again, the visitor, whoever they were, knocked, and this time around they didn’t let up. Lucky for him that Squalo’s box sat so close by. He gripped one of the long objects inside and slipped it noiselessly into the air. It was only a training sword, but that didn’t matter. Anything could be turned into a deadly weapon in Takeshi’s hands.

Once he had crept to the door, he tried to peek out the window to get a better feel for what sort of threat he might be facing. He could see nothing through the blowing snow.

“I’m sorry,” he called, “but we’re closed. Permanently. You’ll have to find somewhere else to get lunch from.”

The knocking only hesitated for a second before it started up again.

“Fine,” Takeshi breathed, and threw the door open with all the force he could muster. 

Startled by the ensuing bang of door against wall, the person outside stopped their racket. 

He lowered his stick in surprise. “[Name]?”

Indeed his childhood friend stood there, knee deep in snow. Your face was dark behind the scarf wrapped around your neck. Frozen snot glistened on your upper lip. Most of your head and clothing was utterly indistinguishable through the ice plastered to your front. Clearly, you had walked into the wind the entire way there. Your violent shivering did nothing to distract from your scowl.

“Merry Christmas, asshole,” you snarled as you stalked past him into the building. 

So taken aback by your sudden appearance was Takeshi that he did nothing to prevent you from barreling right inside. He stepped back to allow you the space, then shut the door, all the while staring at you as though he’d seen a ghost. Only after a few seconds passed did he remember to set down Squalo’s training sword.

“[Name], what are you doing here?” he asked.

You didn’t answer his question. For a moment, you said nothing at all while you tore off the sodden hat that obscured your [color] locks. 

“When did you get back to Japan?” you asked him without looking in his direction.

He caught the real meaning of your question easily enough and felt color rising up the back of his cold neck. The warmth was welcome. The obviousness of his shame less so. 

“Who told you?” Takeshi wanted to know.

You narrowed your [color] eyes at him. “Bianchi.”

“Oh.”

That added up. Though Takeshi had been back in the country for some time now, he hadn’t got around to seeing you. He had known that he’d left you just when things between you were settling in. How could he reappear just to tell you that it was too dangerous for you to be seen with him? 

Though he had always intended to track you down eventually, he just didn’t know how to start. There had been all those messes: his younger self replacing him for several months; his father getting killed. It was Bianchi who he had planned to ask how best to approach you once he had the time. As usual, she was several steps ahead of him.

“Oh?” you repeated. “Is that all you can say for yourself? Oh?”

“I didn’t mean for you to find out through someone else.”

“Then how did you mean for me to find out? Were you ever going to tell me?”

“Yes, but—”

“All I know is, Tsuna told me I had to go into hiding. When I finally got the all clear, everyone I knew was dead or missing, and you want to pretend that didn’t happen and that I don’t exist!”

“I don’t want to pretend you don’t exist,” he protested.

‘Then why didn’t you come see me? Why didn’t you send me some sort of message?”

“I’ve been busy, [Name].” A flurry of desperation warred inside him against the deadened emptiness he felt over all those deaths you mentioned. “We had to put everything back together. And,” he swallowed, “and my old man died.”

Your eyes locked onto his. Seconds went by. Takeshi expected you to look around at the memories surrounding you, to realize that a man you both cared about was gone. 

Maybe you already knew, because you didn’t do any of that. What you did do was clap your hands to your face and let out a muffled shriek. When you resurfaced, your scowl had returned.

“I am too cold and sad to yell at you right now. I’ll come back when it’s warmer, but mark my words, Takeshi Yamamoto, you are on my shit list.”

Shit list? He’d never been on your shit list before. Almost everyone you knew had been at one point, but not Takeshi. That, however, was hardly his greatest concern. 

“Come back?” He blinked, and then you were passing him toward the door. Unthinkingly, he grabbed your arm. “You can’t go back out there.”

His touching you had the immediate effect of causing you to stiffen and try to wrench yourself free. “Let me go!”

“It’s too cold.”

“I don’t care!”

Takeshi didn’t let go. The longer he waited, the less you struggled—although you never once lost the prominent frown. Was this really the same girl he’d got his first kiss from when he was sixteen? Yes, he mused, you’d always been like this. He’d missed it terribly. He just hadn’t noticed until now.

“Stay until the storm blows over,” he said imploringly. “You shouldn’t have walked in it to begin with. You’ll catch cold.”

“Bet you’d have liked it if I hadn’t shown up.”

“Actually, I’m glad you came by. I’m going through Pop’s stuff, and I’m sure he left you a few things. They’ll be around here somewhere. Maybe you can help me look for it?”

“Trapped or not, I’m not helping you with anything. I’m mad at you, remember?”

His shoulders slumped. Takeshi had really screwed up if your years of childhood together, of scrapes and bruises and t-ball games in the summer heat, meant so little now. But the more he looked at the familiar shape of you and smelled your comforting scent—the same perfume as always underneath the stench of wind and wet—the less he wanted to let you leave.

“Let me make you some tea at least,” he asid.

You lifted your head to regard him down the bridge of your nose. Then you ripped your arm out of his grip and said, “Fine. Least you could do.”

“Great.” He managed a small, relieved grin. “I’ll go get it. Make yourself at home.”

After waiting to see you settled into the booth closest to the fireplace, he ducked into the back of the kitchen. He found what he was looking for almost immediately. Tsuyoshi always liked you. It was he that had suggested Takeshi ask you to his first formal mafia ball, even if telling you the reason for the ball was not permitted. As such, he was not surprised at all to find a cabinet stocked with the tea that had long been your favorite.

He returned to the front sitting room ten minutes later with a mug and a kettle full of steaming hot tea.

“I’m back!” he said, smiling. “I made your favorite.”

To Takeshi’s surprise, you no longer sat at any of the tables. He found you instead hastily surfacing from one his father’s boxes. You acted as though nothing had happened.

“Don’t think you can soften me up, Takeshi,” you said.

“I don’t. I think I can warm you up, though.”

You eyed him suspiciously as you took the cup he offered you in one hand and the kettle in the other. After pouring yourself a cup, you left the kettle on the nearest flat surface—in this case, one of the boxes Takeshi hadn’t got to yet.

“What were you looking at?” he asked, watching you take a sip.

“Nothing.”

“Did you really walk all the way here just to yell at me?”

“You deserve it.”

“Yeah. I do.” His easy smile seemed to unnerve you, so he tried a different tactic: “I’m impressed you survived. I can’t imagine anyone getting out in that.”

“What about Ryohei?”

“Hana would have kept him inside on a day like today.”

You snorted in a way that gave Takeshi heart, but you said nothing further. He waited for something to happen, but nothing did. Eventually, you walked back to your table by the fire and sat down to trace shapes into the fogged window glass.

He got up and went back to work. His phone sat next to the most recently opened box. In all the commotion of your arrival, he hadn’t noticed Squalo had sent him a text message:

“You call me ONE MORE TIME on this phone, brat, and I SWEAR TO GOD I’m dumping it and getting a new one.”

Takeshi answered, “Come on, Squalo. Some of this stuff is valuable. I’m not asking you to come all the way here to pick it up.”

Only a second after he sent that message, he thought better of it, picked his cell up again, and added, “It’d be good to see you though. You spent all your time with little me. We didn’t get to visit.”

No response. As he put the phone away, he caught you looking at him from across the room. You looked away at once. Takeshi moved on to the next container.

Time seemed to blur while he worked. Nothing existed except himself, his old man’s things, the sound of gale-force winds blasting against the walls, and the constant, nagging suggestion that he needed to do more while he had you there. He had no idea how long he’d gone without stopping—three boxes, maybe four—when he suddenly found a different mug of tea shoved in his face.

“Huh?”

He looked up. You towered above him, still looking upset.

“You should have some tea, too,” you said. “It’s freezing in here.”

Was it? He’d hardly noticed. A glance at the fireplace showed him that the fire he’d started that morning was now hardly more than glowing embers. 

Takeshi twisted a grin in your direction. “Are you worried about me?” Because if you were, things might not be as dire as he’d suspected.

“Of course I’m worried about you. What?” you added defensively. “I can be pissed off at you and worried. It’s reallycold.”

He laughed, making his way over to stoke the flames back to life. “That’s a lot of things to feel at once.”

“Not all of us have the emotional range of a teaspoon. Now drink your damn tea.”

Takeshi did. It thawed his insides enough to give him the courage to ask, “Remember when we’d have tea parties as kids? We’d dress up in costumes and pretend our stuffed animals were alive. Beg our parents for biscuits and say it was for them.”

“Remember when Gokudera found a photo of the time you wore one of my dresses to a tea party?”

“It’s the happiest I’ve ever seen him.”

Perhaps his soft, nostalgic smile was too much. You turned away from it and from him once again. Takeshi looked out the window. Unfortunately, the storm continued. He knew you’d rather not be stuck inside with him after he’d avoided you for so long. Keeping you here wasn’t exactly fair.

“Hey!” he heard your cry.

He rushed toward you, worried that you’d found something to make you angrier. You’d been digging around in one of the boxes he hadn’t touched yet, and there was no telling what his father had collected over the years. As soon as he got there, Takeshi saw the cause for your exclamation.

You held in your hands a framed picture, this one of you and him from middle school. He couldn’t remember why it was taken. Both of you wore your sports uniforms and beamed from inside one of TakeSushi’s many booths. A pile of empty plates nearly up to Takeshi’s head sat on the table. The way his younger self was looking at you in the photo made the present Takeshi realize he’d been in love with you long before he’d known he was in love with you.

“I didn’t realize you still had this,” you said softly, one hand stroking the glass front of the frame.

“I didn’t either,” he said. “Dad kept a lot of stuff I didn’t know about.”

“You think this is my box?”

“Maybe. If not, it should be close by. Why? Do you really want it?”

Your brusque demeanor immediately returned. “I want to get out of here as soon as possible. If I’ve got it packed when the snow stops, then I can leave without further ado.”

He understood by the wetness in your eyes that you were lying, but Takeshi decided to play along. If you didn’t want comfort, then he wouldn’t force any on you. He backed away and returned to his own assignment with only a quiet, 

“Suit yourself,” he said.

He had another message: “If it’s valuable, it should belong to the Prince.” A crowned smiley face punctuated the text. 

Takeshi wondered if Tsuna’s dad could get Squalo his things. It was going to take a long time to get them there himself if Squalo was in such a mood that he’d give his phone to Bel just to get rid of Takeshi’s messages.

More time passed. Ice smacked with increasing intensity against the windows. The sun set, plunging the room into darkness save for the crackling fire. Takeshi could hardly see, but still he kept going. He was afraid that if he stopped, he would never be able to start again. 

Memories crowded around him: artifacts from his father’s study of Shigure Soen; secret family recipes that Takeshi already knew by heart; album after album after album filled with pictures of him as a baby, toddling around a beautiful woman he couldn’t remember who must have been his mother.

A soft sobbing and sniffling slowly penetrated his clouded mind. In his defense, he thought at first the sounds were his own. Tears streamed down his cheeks, obscuring his vision further even than the lack of sunlight. But no. That wasn’t his crying that he heard. He looked up from the album. 

“[Name]?”

No reply but an increase in sobs. His vision took a few seconds to adjust to the blackness of the restaurant. Once it did, he worked out that the quivering shape by the dying flames was you.

“[Name]?” he said again.

“What?”

The word came out so soft and thick that he could hardly hear it, let alone understand it. Carefully, Takeshi picked his way to your side. This time, you didn’t glare at him or try to move father away. He crouched beside you, the better to see your tear-filled eyes.

“You okay?” he asked.

He knew you well enough to know that you wanted to shoo him off, to pretend that everything really was fine. He also knew you well enough to know you were more bothered by Tsuyoshi’s death than you pretended to be. After a minute or so of inner struggle, you shook your head and said in a watery voice:

“He wrote me a letter.”

“Who did?”

“Your—your dad.” That took Takeshi by surprise, but not as much as what you said next. “He said he hoped—hoped someday to call me his d-daughter.” With that, you dissolved fully into tears. 

His hand found your shoulder and squeezed. Heartened by you not shaking him off, he said, “Hey. It’s okay. He always said stuff like that.”

You shook your head a second time, shoving the crumpled, slightly moist paper into his hand.

“Are you sure?” he asked.

Still crying into your knees, you nodded. 

Takeshi shifted closer to the fire to read while keeping as near to you as you would allow. The sight of his pop’s handwriting shocked him like a punch to the gut, but if you thought he should read the letter, then he would read the letter. Anything to quiet your crying.

Dear [Name],

Before I begin, I must say that I hope you can forgive an old man’s meddling in affairs that are not his business. This letter should have been sent a long, long time ago. I suppose I thought I would talk to you in person about these matters, but you haven’t been by. Not since Takeshi left. I’m not surprised. Still, I feel that I should say all this while I still can.

Takeshi leaving is what I wanted to meddle in, actually. He loves you, even if he can’t tell you everything. The boy’s got secrets even from me. The ones I know about, I cannot share with you without his permission. That’s the way things are. But secret or not, he loves you. He always has.

I know it hurts that he left. It hurts me, too. I worry about him every day. I know he loves his old man, though. That’s what gets me through. Maybe knowing that Takeshi loves you will help you get through his absence, too.

I miss you at the shop. You’ve been around and underfoot since Takeshi could walk. Things aren’t the same without you two getting in the way. I understand why you haven’t come to see me—but I hope that you’ll be able to forgive him. I hope you will be underfoot again when he comes home. I hope he finally gets himself together and asks you to marry him. He’s only been talking about it since you both were five.

He’s dense. You know I adore the boy, but, again, that’s the way things are. It might be up to you. Either way, it’s this old man’s wish that he will one day call you his daughter.

You are welcome here any time. Takeshi doesn’t have to be there. You’re old enough now that we can crack open the sake and eat fatty tuna, on the house. Maybe we can talk about how much we want him to come back. The invitation is always open.

Best wishes,

Tsuyoshi Yamamoto

Takeshi’s eyes slid shut as they came to end of the letter. So his dad had known. Nothing much ever escaped him. If only Takeshi had got himself together in time. If only his old man had got his dying wish.

“He never sent it,” you croaked, breaking into Takeshi’s mournful thoughts and sounding even more miserable than he felt.

“He probably never got the chance,” Takeshi said. “I’m sure it’s not because of anything you did.”

“I should have come to see him.”

“It’s not your fault he died. Or that you didn’t get the letter. Or that neither of us gave him what he really wanted.” 

For a long time, he watched the fire, until his eyes grew sightless and all that he could think of was how much life he had still left to live without his father’s guidance. Then it hit him: there was still time left to give Tsuyoshi what he’d always wanted. 

“We still could do that last one, though,” Takeshi mused aloud.

You paused in rubbing the tears from your cheeks to shoot him a sharp sort of look. “What?”

“There’s still time to fulfill his dream,” he said slowly. He slid onto the ground to kneel in front of you. “[Name], will you—”

Every speck of color drained from your face as you lurched into a standing position. “You better not be about to propose to me, Takeshi, or I swear I’ll—I’ll…I don’t know what I’ll do, but neither of us will like it!”

Takeshi hesitated before he let out an embarrassed chuckle. “No. I haven’t got a ring, do I? Besides, you’re mad at me.”

“Damn right I am.”

He awkwardly stood up and went to sit again next to the fireplace. “What I was going to say was…would you stay the night with me?” At the look on your face, he quickly added, “not like that! I just…” scratching his cheek in characteristic thought, he peered up at you, “I miss my best friend. Maybe you don’t love me anymore. That’s okay. But you still love Dad, right?”

For a moment, you were quiet. Then: “Yeah. He was a good man.”

“Right. And by the sound of this, it’d break his heart to know we won’t even talk to each other anymore. So stay the night. Help me go through his stuff. Let’s see if there’s anything left of…us.”

A longer moment passed. Takeshi’s heart pounded. What he would do if you refused, he didn’t know. He could not keep you there against your will.

His worry was for naught. You sat next to him, embarrassment evident even in the low firelight, and said, “One night.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I miss my best friend, too.”

Takeshi beamed.

“Don’t let it go to your head,” you said, and tipped your cheek onto his shoulder.

“You know,” he said, “maybe we a don’t have to sell the place. We could keep it. Reopen the shop.”

“I don’t know how we’re gonna do that. You’re always busy with whatever Tsuna’s up to, and I’m not exactly housewife material. We don’t even know if we’re going to wind up together like that. You’d have to run the place all alone.“

“True. Guess I don’t have all the answers.”

You settled your chin onto his shoulder to regard him wordlessly. A second later, you had kissed him softly on the lips. “You don’t have to. Now shut up so I can keep being angry with you.”

It took all his strength not to grin. “Yes, ma’am.”

A smile almost graced your lips as you turned away. You did not, however, leave his side. 

Warm by the fire, Takeshi listened to the blizzard blowing outside where it could not touch him. For the time being, he felt like nothing could. He was grateful for the fire, grateful for your company, and most of all grateful for his pop looking out for him even from beyond the grave. Something new stirred inside him—something he wished his father could see. But it was because of Tsuyoshi that Takeshi could feel it himself:

No matter how cold life got, there was always hope, always warmth to be found. No matter how lonely Takeshi felt, he would always have you.

Summary:They say the older you get, the more you regret those things you never did.

Fic Trade Prompt: "Who am I to stand in your way?“

Rating/Warnings/Tag: T (Implied Physical Abuse; Implied Abusive Marriage; Original TYL! Canon; Mild Language; Smoking!Gokudera; Sun Flame!Reader; Abusive!Xanxus; TYL!Xanxus/Reader; Tsuna/Kyoko; Lussuria & Reader; Tsuna & Gokudera; Childhood!Gokudera/Reader)

Tangled Strings

Hayato Gokudera never had been good with people. He didn’t like most people. Try as he might, that friendly, doting, foppish aspect of the business didn’t fit him. Now that he was well into his twenties, he seemed unlikely to ever change. Meetings were punishments, parties torture, and weddings? Weddings were the worst of all. All those people wheedling and gallivanting for hours on end typically had him itching to leave, but tonight he felt as though he were burning from the inside out.

It was in such a state that Hayato’s companions—the two that had joined him there—found him in one of the Vongola Mansion’s halls. He stood alone, fidgeting, mussing his hair, muttering to himself. His presence had not been required, and he knew it. Tsuna had even halfheartedly ordered him to stay in Japan. But even in one of the rare cases that his right hand man disobeyed him, Tsuna did not choose to remind Hayato that he had told him so. No, instead pity welled his warm brown eyes—pity that Hayato did not want to see.

“I think it would be all right for us to leave now.” Tsuna’s voice echoed in the emptiness. 

So did Hayato’s reply of, “Huh.”

“I should be getting back to Kyoko. Did you want to…?”

Being treated gently, as though he were a child, only stoked the flames inside Hayato’s stomach. He turned toward the nearest painting and resisted the urge to hold himself as he’d used to whenever he’d seen his sister’s face. Bianchi had tried to keep Hayato away as well when she’d heard his plans. Probably had mentioned her concerns to Tsuna, too. God, how pathetic Hayato must have looked to his boss in that moment.

“Go on, Tenth,” he said. “I’m not ready to leave just yet.”

“Gokudera…”

Hayato spun back to him with a grin. “It’s a party, right? Haven’t had a good excuse for one of those in a while. Don’t make Kyoko worry. I’ll catch up with you later.”

Despite the force of Hayato’s smile, Tsuna did not appear convinced. He opened his mouth as though to argue his point, but just as he did, Ryohei got off the phone with his wife and blundered with typical delicacy into someone else’s conversation. Without so much as an observation that he might be interrupting, he clapped a meaty hand to Hayato’s shoulder before leaning in. His breath reeked of the wine the reception had provided that day.

“What an EXTREMELY great ceremony, right?” he said much too loudly. “Good to see [Name] again, though. She looks happy to the EXTREME!”

At once, Hayato’s forced smile vanished as he stepped out of Ryohei’s grip. “Don’t talk to me when you’re drunk, Turf Top,” he snapped. 

Ryohei’s genial manner vanished, too. “Hey! Who you calling Turf Top, Octopus Head?”

“Ryohei.” 

The name came out of Tsuna’s mouth sternly enough to shut Ryohei up. He stepped away from Hayato, though not without a dirty look in his direction. While this went on, Tsuna took Ryohei by the elbow and led him toward the entrance hall. Tsuna’s eyes met Hayato’s a second time with less pity than before. 

“I’ll send the car to pick you up in an hour, okay?” he said.

It was not a suggestion. His message was clear: Hayato needed to get his affairs in order sooner rather than later. He had decided to be here; he had decided to stay. Tsuna had offered him every out available. Now Hayato was on his own and representing the burgeoning Japanese Vongola branch by himself. 

Wordlessly, Hayato gave him a single nod, then watched until the other two stumbled out of sight around a distant corner. Only after they vanished did he shift his attention back to the ballroom down the hall.

A square of bright light fell across the dimmer hallway that he strode through. All the sound in the building issued from that open door. Laughter, the clanking of forks against plates, and music all clattered painfully against his tired ears. The toes of his dress shoes had barely touched the carpet outside this chamber when more noises joined those: a stream of curses; several shattering glasses; screams; and a single high, girlish protest.

He froze where he stood. Going back inside was an option…

…But on second thought, he needed a cigarette.

Under cover of the brawl now underway in what had once been a wedding reception, Hayato went back the way he’d come from. If he remembered this house right—and he ought to; he had spent more than enough time here in his youth—there was a backdoor to the gardens in one of the studies. 

Before the fight had time to really get going, he was outside in the fresh air. He filled his lungs with the heady smell of flowers, dug his box of cigarettes and his lighter out of his pocket, and lit up. His head cleared as soon as the stick touched his lips.

God, what was he doing here?

He should have listened to Tsuna. That was his job, after all. Tsuna had known what all of this would do to him. The Vongola’s right hand man refusing to make an appearance at such a high profile event surely would have set them back years in terms of alliances, and yet Tsuna had been willing to make that sacrifice for Hayato’s sake. Leave it to Hayato to throw that all back in his best friend’s face. 

As he released a long stream of smoke from his mouth and stepped onto the garden path, he remembered his own assurances that he’d be fine: “No, Tenth! I’ll go. This is important to you, so it’s important to me. We can’t afford to pass this up.” 

Bullshit. Tsuna would have come; Ryohei would have come; no one wanted Hayato here. Now he was stuck there until the driver returned—not that lingering around his failures was out of the ordinary for him. The trick was to avoid them for the rest of the night.

As soon as Hayato thought it, he should have known that doing so would be impossible. A figure stood at the edge of the garden pond, just outside the glow of the lanterns that lit the path. He didn’t need less ambiance to recognize you—and you him. Just as he was about to turn tail, you looked in his direction, then looked swiftly away. 

Hayato looked behind him to see nothing between himself and the door back inside. It would be easier on both of you if he just walked away.

He grit his teeth. No. Why had he insisted on letting Tsuna and Ryohei leave without him if he wasn’t going to do anything? Hayato had been called many things by the family here in Italy, not all of them unfounded, but a coward? No one ever dared to call him that.

“Hey,” he said as he stepped into the space next to you. 

You could have walked away then. That would have been acceptable. Expected, even. Instead, you answered him. “Hello.”

Neither of you looked at the other. Each stared across the still surface of the water out into the inky night of the mansion’s grounds. Only crickets made themselves known out here. No sign of the raucous gathering inside came through. It was just Hayato, you, and the hundreds of things he never said. Things such as, “I didn’t get a chance to congratulate you earlier.”

“That’s all right. I didn’t think you would.”

“Didn’t think I would come either.”

“No.”

“You still sent an invitation.”

“We sent Tsuna an invitation,” you said. “It was the polite thing to do.”

Hayato snorted as he tossed his cigarette onto the pond shore and ground the embers out with his heel. “Something tells me your husband doesn’t really believe in those sorts of formalities.”

You didn’t argue. For the second time, you looked at him and looked away again, as though filling your eyes with his visage physically pained you. Seeing you didn’t really make him feel better either. 

“I suppose I should thank you for bothering to come,” you said stiffly.

“The Tenth had to come, so I had to come.”

“I should have figured that was the only way I’d ever get to see you again.”

Twenty years from then, a hundred, a thousand, Hayato would never be able to explain what came over him in that moment. He had every intention of leaving you there in the garden, but he happened to look at you, really look at you, and happened to catch a whiff of the same perfume you’d worn since your youth, and he just couldn’t walk away. 

His hand reached out without his telling it to and brushed against your upper arm. Your muscles there were still those of an experienced fighter, whether or not they were hidden underneath the frilliest wedding getup that Hayato had ever laid eyes on, including Haru’s.

“That’s not the only way,” he said quietly.

You leveled a glare at him and forcefully removed yourself from his grip. It was the first time that he had seen you from the front all day. His first thought, ridiculously, was that he had never imagined you could look so beautiful in a dress like that. Not that he’d imagined you in a wedding dress all that often. Maybe once or twice. He’d imagined you without a dress on at all a lot more often than that. Now there you stood before him, tall and proud, the wife of a powerful man that was not him, and wearing…

…wearing the unmistakable purple marks of a hand across the side of your neck. They had been carefully slathered with makeup, but the long day had seen much of that rubbed off along the collar of your grown. From a distance, no doubt the job was convincing enough. Hayato, however, had sharp eyes, far too sharp to be blind to the bruises when they were so close.

“What are you looking at?” you asked, your tone defiant. 

His eyes locked onto your face in an effort to keep himself grounded. “Who did it?” 

“Who did what?”

“You know exactly what.”

You lifted your chin. It only threw the shadows into higher relief. Already they were fading yellow at the edges, but to be so dark now meant the wounds were fresh. Must have only been made that morning.

“Why do you care?” you said. 

So angry was he that all he could do was answer with an indistinguishable choking noise. 

“They’ll be gone in the morning,” you went on. “Don’t worry your pretty little head about it.”

Only by holding himself very, very still did Hayato resist grabbing you by the shoulders. You were a grown woman; he was a grown man. Both of you were long past the ages where you could rough each other up—and now you didn’t need further roughing. 

“Is that why he settled for you?” Settled’ was the wrong word. He knew it as soon as it was out of his mouth. But on he pressed, feeling himself tremble subtly from head to foot. If he did not keep going, worse would come out, worse that Tsuna’s family could not afford. “You’ve got sun flames, so you’ll fix yourself right up eventually? So he’s finally found himself a toy that won’t stay broken?”

Bianchi would have stuffed a whole mound of poisonous food in his mouth had she been there to hear him. She need not have worried, though. You could handle yourself.

“Unlikesome people, he picked me. Unlike some people, he cares—”

“Don’t you dare say that I don’t care. I’ve never—I’d never—”

“No word for two years. I’m supposed to believe you give a damn now?” Your voice was hard and sharp-edged. As you turned your face back toward the water, he caught the unmistakable sight of tears sparkling in your eyes. “I told Tsuna not to bring you along. I told him that I didn’t want to see your face.”

Whatever appetizers Hayato had managed to swallow during the reception curdled inside him. He stared at you as though he were seeing you for the first time. Maybe he was. The [Name] he’d known growing up—before Japan, before Tsuna, before the Ring Wars, before it all—would not have sat back and let a man like Xanxus put his hand on her. 

“What happened to you?” he murmured.

Another mistake. You looked at him again and the tears were gone. “You happened, Hayato.”

“What? This isn’t myfault.”

“You left. It was me, or it was Tsuna, and you picked Tsuna, just like I always knew you would.”

He ran his fingers through his hair. The fight was as familiar as the color flooding your cheeks. Why have it again? Again and again, night after night, he thought about the night he’d left you in Italy. There was a time you’d tried to make it work, but there were loyalties neither of you could give up. If he could choose again, would he have chosen differently? Who could say? All the same:

“You didn’t have to marry an asshole like Xanxus.”

You straightened your back as tall as it would go. “I’m Varia, Hayato. I’ve always been. His father wanted it. My family is gone. I didn’t have any other options.”

“You had me.”

“Did I?” you asked. 

Hayato stopped playing with his hair. “You’ve always had me. I loved you.”

The past tense was brushed off as easily as the tree leaf rustling against your shoulder. “You didn’t exactly make that clear, did you?”

“It wasn’t exactly a mystery! Jesus, figure it out!" 

Had all that kissing and fooling around, all those semi-secret meetings in foreign countries, really meant so little? Maybe he’d never said all this, but he’d alluded to it a hell of a lot. Apparently that was notenough, because you took all this with a completely passive expression.

“So now you’re saying all of this is my fault,” you said.

“It sure as hell isn’t mine! [Name], anybody would be better than that guy. If Tsuna knew what he was doing to you—”

“He doesn’t,” you interrupted, “and he isn’t going to find out.”

“You think I’m not going to tell him about this?”

You considered Hayato for a long time. Too long. His anger turned cold in the time it took you to speak again. 

“You owe me,” you said in a shaking voice. “I’m not your responsibility. You wanted Tsuna. Who was I to stand in your way?”

Distantly, he heard the door back inside click open behind him. 

“[Name]?” sang a familiar voice. Hayato closed his eyes. Lussuria was coming. “[Name], are you out here? Your honey bun is looking for you!”

“I have to go,” you said.

“Wait,” said Hayato.

“I can’t.”

Before you could run, before you could shout, before you could tell him off some more, he closed the gap between you and held you in his arms. He kept his grip loose in case you did walk away, but instead you melted. You rested your head against his shoulder where you had always fit right in. He felt the wetness of tears seep into his jacket.

“It doesn’t have to be this way,” he whispered urgently. Already he could hear Lussuria searching for you deeper in the grounds. “Come with me. Tsuna has the plane. We could be in Japan before he even realized you were gone.”

“Don’t be stupid, Hayato,” you said with a watery sniff. “He’ll kill me if I do something like that.”

“Tsuna can protect you.”

“And I can’t protect myself? No, I can’t ask Tsuna for that. He’s worked too hard to get the Varia on his side.”

“He wouldn’t want his allies to do something like this.”

You shuddered against him, sniffled once more, then pushed away from his chest. “Tsuna needs this alliance. With the Millefiore, he needs everyone he can get. You need everyone you can get.”

Balling his hands into fists did not entirely distract Hayato from wanting to pull you back against him. The coldness inside him seemed to seep outward, numbing his skin and draining the flowers of color. “I don’t need to get people like this.”

“Silly. When are you going to learn the mafia isn’t the place to have moral qualms?” 

Before he could retort, you had pressed a single kiss to his cheek. That he did not get to respond to either, because your next act was to shove him in the nearest bush. 

Just in time. Lussuria spotted the movement and appeared in a flash. 

“There you are,” he said as you finished wiping your face. “Didn’t you hear me calling?”

“No, sorry. I was thinking. Did you need me?”

“Honey, I think it’s you that needs me! Xanxus wants to call it a night, but you need a makeup refresh before you go anywhere near him. Ready to go back inside?”

“Sure, Luss. Let’s go.”

The sound of voices—Lussuria’s joyful and yours subdued—faded back up the path until at last they disappeared into the waiting house. It was a long time before the car Tsuna promised arrived. Hayato was alone until then and for a long time after. 

He’d never been good with people, and all he could think was you were one person that he never could be good with ever again.

This Tumblr page has been…

The only place where I’ve been able to be who I am. The me behind the forced smile. The me who truly expresses myself and takes time to figure out how I feel. Ngl, sometimes realizing this makes me sad. Other times, it makes me so happy to see how many people have decided to follow this page that I on the spur of the moment decided to create one day. Desperate to see if anyone else felt as alone. If anyone else was as confused about why they were so different…We were made to be different.

We are the healers. We aren’t 1 percent to be like everyone else. We are the shamans and sages that live at the top of the mountain, where all the village people come to with the questions they know only a wise person will carry and openly share. Higher perspective. In this modern day, technology fueled world, this has just turned into people texting you for advice, consistently dumping and venting onto you, and only talking to you to receive what they need.

It doesn’t feel as good as it probably did back then, when a sage would sit in a cave at the top of a tree filled mountain. Where you could feel the breeze, listen to the silence, find joy in the sound of a singing bird, and hear your own voice and feelings enough to know that they matter just as much. It was probably exciting to see someone taking form upon the hill. Someone who was willing to walk up the mountain to receive your advice, and even more, valued it enough to work their way to it.

Its officially been 2 months since I broke down and just packed up my car and left without telling any of my family. I have been living out of my car, just traveling. Recording my experiences on YT. Life is so blissful from this moving mountain I now travel in. No contact, no dumping, no drain. Just PEACE. It does exist.

Thank you for supporting this page. Essentially validating that my emotions exist. I would love for you peek into my travels on YT. A collective I would be happy to live chat with and comment to on my videos. This INFJ is working hard to get to 1k. There are 5k following here so I’m hopeful if you’re the one who’s made it to the end of this post that you’ll be excited to follow me there like it led you to here.

I’m forcing myself to be brave and not be afraid, to ask for help, and show myself and travels. I hope it inspires you to do whatever protects your peace and fills your heart. If you do subscribe, please let me know so I can extend a personal thank you. From one INFJ to you. Possibly someone like me, who went on tumblr trying to find relation and understanding. Protect your energy. Protect your peace. I’ll always support you, I hope you’ll support me. Peace and Love

YT- Lucid Lunix

❤️ i love my storm guardian ❤️

I miss Hitman Reborn so bad..I hope that they will continue the anime. 

More at: http://manyfacesofdecay.tumblr.com

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