[Fic] Windshear [Part 4/?]
Heya! It's another Wednesday (on some side of the globe!), another chapter, and another little surprise in this one; this time there's a warning (well, depending on your preferences) ^_~ Hope you enjoy!
Oct. 11th, 2008 at 12:30 AM
Hi all! This is an updated version of the chapter we posted last Wednesday. Based on the constructive criticism that we received online and off, Dream and I edited this part paying particular attention to Gokudera's characterization and to how to blend our different writing styles more so as to improve flow, rather than simply rushing the editing process in order to meet the deadline that we set.
Apologies for posting something below our regular standard, and thank you so much for caring enough to give constructive criticism that our delicate stomachs could digest XD For those who haven't read this chapter before, yes, imagine how bad it must have been, and rest assured that this is better. I hope this is an enjoyable read, so please do tell us how well we did.
Now, without further adieu...
Windshear Part [4/?]
Authors: kagayachou and the-dw
Characters/Pairings: Yamamoto, Hibari, Gokudera, Reborn. Yamamoto/Gokudera in this chapter. Eventual Yamamoto/Hibari.
Rating: R
Words: 5835
Summary: Yamamoto’s to-do list: dinner with Hibari and... Gokudera. Hibari’s schedule: sleep, not that anyone gets much of it tonight.
The moment he left the Vongola Tenth's office, Hibari headed straight for his room in the Italian base to take a shower. He did like fighting, but the residue of a fight - blood drying in his hair, sweat making his clothes cling to his body - he disliked the feel of it.
Hibari had just finished and was reading through some of his men's latest reports when he heard a knock. Eyes narrowing, he uncrossed his legs and stepped towards it, swinging the door open. A flash of irritation crossed his face, for it was Yamamoto once again, as if it wasn't enough to be on the same mission with the Rain Guardian for the past few days.
The younger man had changed out of his bloodied garments and was now dressed in an old t-shirt with a loose pair of sweatpants, and his hair was slightly damp from what must have been a quick shower. There was still a towel around his shoulders after all.
"What," Hibari intoned.
Yamamoto, with faint faint relief and trepidation in his warm brown eyes, smiled upon seeing Hibari's face.
"Have you had dinner yet?" Hibari scowled at the question, but Yamamoto pressed on, his words sounding casual, almost off-hand. "The kiddo told me something interesting after you left the room..."
Letting a long breath escape his mouth, Hibari shook his head. It was almost a sigh. "No. Yamamoto Takeshi." But if it was from Reborn it had to be important; Hibari raised an eyebrow, the edges of his lips curving slightly into a smirk, "Are you offering to treat me?"
"Sure!" Yamamoto shrugged, grinning. "Or, I could make you something in the kitchen, since," he gestures between his clothes and the black yukata that hung beautifully on the Hibari’s smaller frame, "you know, we've both changed already. What do you feel up for?"
Hibari cocked his head to the side, considering. After a moment, he stepped back. "Sushi," he said decisively.
Then, he closed the door on the other man's face.
As he picked up a report again, he heard laughter from behind the door.
"Okay," Yamamoto said brightly, "I'll see ya downstairs in half an hour!"
***
Exactly half an hour later, Hibari finished the pile of reports he was reading and left the room, heading towards the kitchen. He was actually rather curious about the entire situation - about what Reborn had told Yamamoto, and about... Yamamoto cooking.
Hibari knew that the other man was a son of a sushi chef, but he had never eaten anything made by him before.
Leaning against the doorframe, he greeted Yamamoto with a curt, simple, "Yo."
Yamamoto was already grinning when he looked over his shoulder towards Hibari. "Come on, have a seat." From the freezer, he took out a bottle of sake, still chilled in a small bowl of ice, and set it on the table, removing the plastic covers on the plates - "Tada~!" - with a showman's flourish.
And it looked entirely natural coming from Yamamoto. Hibari looked down at the food.
Fluke, salmon, tuna, yellowtail, cucumber, avocado - be it due to Sawada Tsunayoshi's heritage, the rest of the guardians, or because Reborn knew someone in the base could make good sushi, there was no shortage of ingredients in the mansion when it came to Japanese cuisine. Hibari recalled that Yamamoto had always been vocally thankful... just not as loud about it as Sasagawa Ryohei and the baby cow.
Hibari swept into the room, pulled up a chair and sat down at the small table, his eyes following Yamamoto as the man still puttered about. Sometimes he still wondered what a man like Yamamoto - eternally cheerful and outgoing, and who, until recently, usually used the flat edge of his sword in fights - was doing in the Mafia.
But then he would see him in action, the sword cutting through bodies as if they were nothing more than straw dolls, and it became all too clear.
Hibari shook his head, looking from the plates of sushi on the table to the chef, almost amused. "You made a lot - did you invite anyone else?"
Yamamoto laughed merrily, slightly embarrassed as he admitted, "Nah, I just started making some. Then I realized I don't know what you'd like in particular, and didn't want to assume, so..." He shrugged. "Eat as much as you want."
Hibari shook his head again; it was a waste of food. But then he supposed that the Vongola Family could more than afford it. In any case, it wasn't his business to care. He picked up the chopsticks, and then realized that there was something missing from the table.
Eyes narrowing, he stood up, striding over to one of the cupboards. He pulled out a tin of loose green tea leaves, and a tea kettle, half filling it with mineral water from the fridge before placing it on the stove and turning the fire up.
When he first came to the base, he quickly realized that they used tea bags, and Italian tea bags at that. After a few words with the resident secretary however, they now imported genuine Japanese tea; no one ever refused Hibari Kyouya when he wanted something.
The tea set he removed from one of the lower cupboards, carrying it over to the table. Yamamoto still had a silly smile on his face, but as he said nothing, Hibari ignored him.
Once the water was boiling, he took the kettle off the stove, carrying it over to the table. He stared at the other man. Then, he raised an eyebrow, dry and almost derisive.
"Do you not know how to make tea, Yamamoto Takeshi?"
"Haha," Yamamoto gave him a typical boyish grin as he shrugged. "Ryohei says you make the best tea... And, like I said. I don't know what you'd like yet, but I know there aren't enough teapots to make every kind I find."
Hibari snorted, shaking his head, "What do you take with sushi besides green tea and sake?"
Yamamoto could have answered something such as pop, beer, water - milk even - but that would just have been cheeky, so he said nothing.
Hibari did not address the indirect compliment because he saw no need to. And he had let the boiling water cool for long enough.
Two flat teaspoonfuls of the loose leaf into the teapot, and he lifted his sleeve out of the way, pouring in the water until the teapot was a quarter full. As Hibari went through this makeshift ceremony, he let his mind sink into its usual meditative haze, feeling the ever-present pain in his chest fade to the back of his mind.
Yamamoto straightened up from a comfy half-slouch watching Hibari's preparations with avid interest. His father had shown him what a proper tea ceremony was supposed to be - even drilled it in him, but this... Well, they weren't kneeling on straw mats, and they weren't even in Japan, but Hibari... still looked damn good in his yukata. Idly, Yamamoto wondered if he should have worn one as well, instead of sweat pants. He grinned to himself, and then schooled his face into a polite smile.
Hibari simply focused on the cups that he had placed in front of Yamamoto and himself. Pulling his sleeve further back as he lifted the teapot, he poured the tea for the both of them, smiling slightly as the sweet aroma rose from the cups, filling the room.
It was the first time that Yamamoto ever saw Hibari smile at something that did not involve blood being spilt. And it was pretty incredible.
Pretty. And Incredible.
Hibari picked up his cup, sipped it gently, and found it perfect, as always. He liked tea - by itself, it was calming, and the little ritual that was simple and yet complex, with many little details that he had to pay attention to. It honed his focus and cleared his mind, and was a challenge, akin to fighting, except that it was far more peaceful and did not get any herbivores maimed or killed.
Swirling the tea slightly, he took another sip before placing it down on the table and picking up his chopsticks. When he spoke again, it was business-like, "What did the baby tell you?"
Yamamoto scrambled to get his wits together at the abrupt change, but the question's answer was sobering enough. His brows creased. "I'd prefer we enjoy our meal first."
He picked up his cup and closed his eyes, taking a slow sip. Then, he smiled vaguely as he looked at Hibari again, to soften his words. "You're not going to like the answer at any rate. Why let it spoil the food?"
Hibari just eyed him for a moment.
Yamamoto's refusal only made him more intrigued by what the baby had said. But the years had taught him patience, and also how... well, not to compromise, but to wait instead of pushing and pushing for things he wanted.
"Alright then," he murmured.
And that garnered another grin from Yamamoto, who then ducked his head down and took another sip of tea.
Yamamoto swallowed - yes, good, rich green tea, he noted - and put the cup down just as someone with a familiar gait entered his peripheral vision.
Gokudera paused at the kitchen entrance. He looked from Yamamoto to Hibari, the two of them sitting across from each other at the table with an inviting assortment of sushi on the plates between them, and hot tea wafting cosily all around them.
He opened his mouth. Confusion crossed his face, but his question was cut off when his stomach growled.
"Haha, back for a late night snack?"
Yamamoto broke the sudden silence that followed with a typical, vacuous laugh, and while Hibari remained outwardly unmoved, Gokudera visibly bristled, having spent far too many years listening to that laugh not to respond.
Blushing faintly, Gokudera crossed his arms. "I just got back." It wasn't as though he had dinner earlier, so of course he was hungry.
Hibari popped a cucumber maki into his mouth as he watched the two, faintly amused but otherwise annoyed. Gokudera was really like the cat he owned - the real one, not the one from a box that didn't exist in this future - far too quick to bristle and hiss and claw. He was also too loud.
Putting down his chopsticks with a soft 'clink', Hibari turned to the Storm Guardian. "Gokudera Hayato," he said. "Either be quiet if you intend to sit down and eat, or leave."
Gokudera turned to glare at Hibari, but it bounced off the bastard; some things never changed. He was about to reply, lips curling into a sneer, when Yamamoto beat him to it, standing with a disarming smile.
"Hey, why don't you grab a shower and a change of clothes first? I'll bring you food later."
Hibari turned away from the two, already disinterested in their conversation. His chest had started hurting again- or, rather, his control over himself had slipped enough that he was now noticing the pain. Taking a long, slow breath, he put down his chopsticks and picked up the cup of tea, hiding his lips - pressed into a tight white line - behind the cup.
Damn if he was going to slip up again in front of another of this bunch of busybodies.
Meanwhile, Gokudera turned a glower on Yamamoto. "A shower. And a change of clothes." He walked towards him calmly and evenly, the softened tone of his voice like a warning, clear as crystal, before he growled, "Do I smell?"
It was a habit, being argumentative, and out of habit, Yamamoto laughed and walked over. Except he leaned forward this time, and made a show of smelling Gokudera's hair.
"Yeah. You smell like gunpowder... and sweat," Yamamoto declared, then leaned back, a pleasant smile on his face. No, a smirk. "Come on, there'll be enough food for you by the time you smell like baby powder."
Hibari did not need to know what Gokudera smelled like.
"Wha-" And Gokudera was pink again, jaw dropped and eyes wide, darting from Yamamoto to Hibari and back again. It occurred then to Gokudera that Yamamoto wanted him to leave.
Hibari... may or may not have cared as long as he was quiet - which was a tall order on its own. But if he didn't leave, Yamamoto, that baseball idiot, was probably going to spew out more things Hibari didn't need to hear; Gokudera just knew it.
"My room," Gokudera stepped back with a look that said Yamamoto was going to get it later. "Half an hour." He spun on his heel and left.
Meanwhile, Hibari had been ignoring the room around him in favour of holding on to his porcelain cup and making sure that his hand didn't tremble. The pain hit him suddenly like a ton of bricks to broken ribs, but his only visible reactions were the narrowing of his eyes and the whitening of his knuckles and fingertips.
He put down his cup and closed his eyes, letting his fingers slip down to hold onto the edge of the table. The noise subsided - it seemed that Gokudera had left - but Hibari could barely notice anything beyond the roaring in his ears. A wave of nausea crashed upon him, and he gritted his teeth at the feel of bile at the back of his throat and the white sparks behind his eyelids.
He wouldn't let little things like his betraying body stop him from getting information out of Yamamoto. He simply wouldn't allow it.
Through sheer stubbornness, Hibari pushed the pain back to the corner of his mind, ignoring it the best he could. He relaxed his fingers, his shoulders, his jaw, and opened his eyes.
Serenely, as though nothing at all had happened, Hibari picked up his cup once more and took another sip.
Yamamoto was looking towards the exit with that fond smile upon his lips, the one he wore around people he particularly liked. When he turned around however, Hibari still has his eyes closed. Yamamoto noted the slightly creased eyebrows and the tenseness around his jaw, and watched it fade away when Hibari opened his eyes. If he hadn't been concerned, he might have been awed at the transformation.
He decided against calling attention to that however, and sat down again, frowning subconsciously as he did so.
Leaning his head against the back of his hand, Hibari watched with passing interest as Yamamoto's frown seemed to deepen. But he didn't question it or take further notice, because it simply wasn't in his nature to do so. Reborn once called him self-centred, and he agreed, in his own way. Why should he pay attention to lowly, crowding, noisy herbivores whose blood wasn't even worthy even to stain his suit, after all? Those who caught his attention were few, and even those he rarely noticed outside of battle.
As for Yamamoto... He struck Hibari as something of an anomaly. Hibari picked up another piece of sushi and popped it into his mouth.
Yamamoto knew better than to attempt at small talk with the traditional man during dinner. They ate quietly. Hibari wasn't eating as much as what Yamamoto would have considered healthy, but according to Reborn and with what he'd seen, the man was far from healthy. When Hibari announced that he was finished, Yamamoto quickly cleared things up. True to his word, he began picking out a selection of sushi for Gokudera using the clean end of his chopsticks to set the pieces aside on another plate.
"I'm going to put the rest in the fridge. They'll be good until tomorrow afternoon or so." Or gone by then, if the rest of the famiglia had anything to say about it. But that wasn't the main point. Rather, it was just that the food wasn't bad, Yamamoto knew, and Hibari... hadn't eaten enough. "Feel free if you're up for more later, okay?"
Hibari only shrugged, turning away to look out of the kitchen's small window. The sky had darkened a long time ago, but the clouds - heavy and purple and sparking slightly - stood out clearly in the night sky. Not even the rows upon rows of Italian buildings could hide thunderclouds when they were moving into the city.
He turned towards Yamamoto, leaned forward and rested his chin over the back of a hand. "What did the baby tell you?"
Yamamoto looked at him then. A pause. He settled into his seat again and took a shallow breath before he began.
"That kiddo... He told me about how Tsuna died in the future that we all averted: a bullet to the lung, a wound that was treated and thought to be healed." Yamamoto's tone was business-like as he went through the facts, but his eyes were sad. "That same lung started breaking down afterwards for no apparent reason, and... it hurt so much that... that Tsuna turned to... that Hibari for euthanasia.
"He knew that the Millefiore were behind it somehow, so he told that Hibari how to change things, and... I guess you can figure out the rest."
Hibari listened to him in silence. A wry, rather bitter smirk curved his lips at the end of the speech, and he let his hands fall to his lap, turning away from Yamamoto to stare at a spot on the wall.
The more things changed, the more they seemed to stay the same. They had certainly changed the future: boxes didn't exist anymore, the Vongola rings still existed - his weighed heavily on the necklace on his neck, a size too big for his fingers - Sawada was now followed practically everywhere by Gokudera and three other hidden bodyguards, the Giglionero family had been assimilated into the Alliance and was in debt to the Cavallone.
Irie Shouichi was a friend of Tsuna's... and on his side.
But it seemed that there'd always be Gesso, and Byakuran. He had simply gone after a different target this time.
Hibari let out a long breath, turning back to face Yamamoto. "That Sawada..." he murmured, "Was he shot here?" He pointed to a spot on the left side of his chest where, beneath the yukata, a bullet wound stood clear and stark against his pale skin.
Yamamoto stared at the spot Hibari so casually revealed, about three inches down from his collarbone on the left side of his otherwise pale and unblemished chest.
"... I don't know," he finally responded. "The kiddo only told me what I just told you, and then he walked off."
He looked into Hibari's eyes and searched his face. "We'll track down Byakuran."
Hibari pushed his chair back, quickly standing up. The world swayed for a moment, fog and blackness creeping on the edges of his vision. He blinked hard, biting down on his lip. The sudden pain cleared his vision, and he shifted slightly, leaning his hip against the table as he looked at Yamamoto.
"I don't need you to interfere, Yamamoto Takeshi," he stated calmly.
Yamamoto, predictably, laughed, because even if Hibari was practically dying, he was still so very, well, him.
"It's too late, Hibari Kyouya." He stood again, and picked up Gokudera's plate. "I'll be there whenever I can, if you need me. And even if you don't, I'll try."
Hibari raised an eyebrow, lips curling into what was half a smirk and half a sneer. "You really are a busybody, poking your nose into business what was not yours," he said flatly. Pushing himself off the table, he started for the door. Then, he stopped short, a hand at the doorframe as he turned back, eyes impassive as he looked at Yamamoto.
"Do whatever you want."
***
Yamamoto was beaming to himself when he knocked on Gokudera's door. Technically, Hibari just gave him permission to interfere, and although he didn't actually need permission, it was good to receive nonetheless.
Inside, Gokudera was lounging on his couch, flipping through a dog-eared novel when he heard the knock. Removing the cigarette from his mouth, he crushed it in the glass ashtray on the table - better not let the Tenth know that he was smoking again. Gokudera knew that it was bad for him, but he had cut down to a pack a week and withdrawal was a bitch.
He looked down on himself - striped blue pyjamas bottoms and nothing else - then at the door. Come to think of it, there could only be one person who was supposed to be at his door this time of the night, and that person had seen him in far less. He put down the book and stalked over to the door, pulling it open with a, "What took you so long?"
"Ahahaha, aren't we impatient tonight?" Yamamoto lifted the plate out of the way as he stepped inside, brushing his chest against Gokudera's when the other man barely budged. He took the opportunity to duck his head down, and grinned amusedly when he smelled the baby powder.
Gokudera shut the door, locking it before shoving his thumbs into the pockets of his pyjamas pants, his shoulders hunching. "I was hungry, idiot," he grumbled, but there was no real heat in his words, not even when he noticed the amusement in Yamamoto's eyes. He liked his shower gels - so what if it made him smell of talcum powder? Yamamoto could go screw himself if he didn't like it.
Or someone else.
Gokudera plopped himself down to a couch, taking a piece of sushi with his bare hands and popping it into his mouth. As he chewed, his thoughts strayed back to the mental Rubix cube that was Hibari and Yamamoto, and the little coloured squares were not sliding into place right.
"So," Gokudera asked after he swallowed. "Why were you talking with Hibari?"
"Hm?" Yamamoto sat down beside him, popped another piece of salmon sushi in his mouth to buy time.
"We finished a mission together today. He left the meeting room first, and then the kiddo told me to pass on a message." That was true enough he figured. He shrugged. "How about you? How was your day?"
Gokudera's eyes narrowed. Crossing his arms over his chest, he glared at Yamamoto. They'd gone to school together, grown up together, sometimes slept together, and he had known that idiot for long enough to tell when he was lying or, in this case, omitting the truth.
"My day was perfectly fine; the mission was successful and the Tenth was safe. It was simply peachy until someone chased me out of the kitchen so he could be alone with someone else, and is badly evading a simple question," he stated flatly.
Yamamoto chuckled, feeling skewered. "Ahh," he held up his hands in surrender. "It's not my place to say why I was talking with Hibari. You'd have to ask him, and the kiddo," he grinned. "Why would you need a play by play?"
He leaned forward, staring into Gokudera's green eyes. With a straight face, he asked, "Could it be that you're jealous?"
Gokudera scowled fiercely at him, his hands clenching into tights fists on his thighs. That baseball freak always seemed to light his fuse with everything he did. He took a long, deep breath. "Who the fuck would be crazy enough to be jealous of that freak?!" he gritted out.
If he was ten years younger, he would have gone on in this vein and started shouting until he ran out of breath. But he had mellowed out enough, grown up enough, to know when Yamamoto was baiting him with another diversion tactic. Not enough to not take up the bait - at least a little bit - but enough to calm down rather than get even more heated up.
He sighed, and his hands relaxed again. "Wipe that stupid smile off your face. I'm just wondering if you've gone crazy and suicidal, 'cause you certainly seem to be, what with trying to pursue him."
"I'm not," Yamamoto replied automatically, his mind going blank. There were plenty of other things he could think of to say, but anything that would make Gokudera understand consisted of... Hibari's illness, which Hibari did not want to be shared around like grapevine gossip. So he just shrugged, "It's not like that."
He reached over for another piece of sushi instead. Heck, he was still hungry after all. And concerned for Hibari. Perfectly understandable concern, if- No.
"You're not going to tell me at all, are you," Gokudera stated blandly. He'd seen the brief flicker of tension in his brow and seriousness in his brown eyes.
Yamamoto seemed to be adamant in keeping it all a secret, and when the idiot got like that, Gokudera knew from experience that it was impossible to try to get anything from him. He would either act dumb or oblivious, or just give that stupid laugh and a non-sequitor.
It was just... odd that he was doing it for Hibari, though, because as far as Gokudera was concerned, Hibari was as lovable as a reverse pincushion and anyone who tried to go near the psycho would be tonfa'd to death.
He sighed, throwing his hands up in the air. "Fine, fine, keep your secrets. Just don't come running to me later when you get beaten up by him." Rolling his eyes, he grabbed a piece of sushi and chewed on it.
"Ah, well," Yamamoto leaned back, still smiling, "If he does that then I was probably asking for it." He winked. Gokudera never let him get over the fact that he had once tried to commit suicide, but the reminder was a good thing. It showed that the jerk actually cared, and reminded Yamamoto not to consider such an idiotic thing again.
Gokudera rolled his eyes, leaning back against the couch.
But he was pouting. And Yamamoto knew from experience that his best buddy wasn't going to drop an argument that easily. With his smile easily turning into a teasing smirk, he leaned over, closer.
"Aw, look at that pout. Now you're just asking for it."
Gokudera opened his mouth to ask what the hell he was on about when Yamamoto dipped down and covered his lips with a kiss.
Now who was the impatient one, he thought, half-amused and half-grumpy. Closing his eyes, his hands reached up to tighten around Yamamoto's shirt. Not to be outdone, by his best friend and rival, he deepened the kiss as the man pulled him closer.
Yamamoto crawled over Gokudera on the couch, wasting no time to turn the kiss French when the fair-haired man all but invited him to do so. It'd been weeks, nearly a month since they last touched base together, what with separate missions of varying lengths.
"Mm..." Yamamoto pulled back momentarily to lick his lips, tasting salad dressing from the California roll Gokudera had eaten earlier.
"Hey, you taste good with sushi!"
Gokudera stared at him for a moment, incredulous, and thinking, what the- Why is this baseball freak so crazy and idiotic even after ten years? And why do I even tolerate him?!
He pulled away, breaking the kiss as he growled from the base of his throat, thoughts of Hibari slipping away to the back of his mind. "Oi," he whacked Yamamoto upside the head with the heel of his hand, mock-glaring. "If you don't have anything intelligent to say, shut up and just kiss me."
"Haha," Yamamoto kissed Gokudera again, quickly, on the nose, as if to placate him. But for what Yamamoto lacked in intelligence however, he made up for in surprises. "Say," he glanced at the plate which was still quite full. "Ever had sex and dinner at the same time?"
Gokudera stared at him again. "You really are suicidal," he said dryly. Ridiculous non-sequitors... he had already grown to be used to such things from Yamamoto, but still, the inanity annoyed him. "Do you want to choke to death?"
The other man just chuckled in response, reaching over his supine partner towards the plate. "We can go slow... Oh, and don't move." He transferred a couple of pieces onto Gokudera's abs, essentially using him as a plate.
Gokudera rolled his eyes again, eyeing the pieces of sushi on his stomach. Then he looked back to Yamamoto, wryly smirking as he asked, "Is this some sort of weird Japanese fetish that I don't know about?"
"I guess so," came a bright response. "Heard of it before. Just never found the chance to try, ya know?" Yamamoto paused in the middle of moving down, a hand coming to rest against Gokudera's thigh. "I'll stop if it gets too weird for you," he once again reminded his friend. Then, he ducked down and kissed Gokudera's chest.
A fleeting thought: the bullet wound over Hibari's chest...
Yamamoto shoved it out of his head as soon as he registered it, and wrapped his lips around a small cucumber roll, sucking on Gokudera's skin lightly.
Gokudera threw his head back and hissed at the contact, drawing a lip into his mouth and biting down on it. His eyes did not leave Yamamoto, however, and thus did not miss the slight hesitation, or the hitch in Yamamoto's breath against his skin.
"Oi!" He slid his hand into the other man's hair, tugging on it so that Yamamoto would face him. "Who are you thinking about?"
Yamamoto gave him a doe-eyed stare, then chewed his food so he could swallow and answer properly. "... Where did that come from," he managed to ask when he was done.
Of course, he couldn't help but think of Hibari again. He shook his head - just a little, because Gokudera had a nice, firm grip on it - and laughed, "It's not like that!"
"Then focus. On the fuck buddy."
***
The room was soundproofed; the door shut and locked; the windows' shut tight; the stereo on. There was no chance that anyone outside could hear him even if he shouted.
Hibari closed his eyes and sat his bed, leaning back against the headboard. He placed a tissue over his mouth and took a long, deep breath through it. He hand curled in slightly, crumpling the sheets beneath him. This was almost a ritual, almost calming. Almost-
He finally loosened his control over himself and let the coughs bubble up from his chest and they ripped out of his mouth. He doubled over, the hand not over his mouth clenching white-knuckled tight, eyes squeezed shut.
No one would hear him, much less see him, in this moment of weakness.
No one, but a certain person he still calling 'baby' regardless of the fact that the man was actually older than him.
"If this is your idea of being fine, I'd hate to know your definition of wounded, Hibari."
Reborn dropped down from the ceiling, landing on his feet like a cat.
Hibari barely heard the remark, but he ignored it anyway, concentrating on stopping the coughs now that yet another busybody had seen it fit to intrude into his space. It took him a few moments to succeed, and when he pulled away his hand, it was almost entirely covered with blood.
He wiped the corners of his mouth with the back of his hand and threw the tissue away, entirely calm and seemingly unconcerned. He closed his eyes. "Shut up, baby," he murmured. "What do you want?"
Reborn barely lifted an eyebrow at the bloody tissue so 'casually' tossed aside. "An interesting report on your last mission just came in," he began. He had a customarily condescending smirk upon his lips, and although his tone was mocking as well, his eyes were serious. "For once, Yamamoto finished with a higher body count than you. Tsuna is even more concerned now with what happened."
Which meant Reborn wanted an explanation.
"Aside from that... how long do you think this charade can go on before someone else finds out, Hibari? Yamamoto is not the only one of my idiot students who would trip over his own two feet for you."
Hibari drew his legs up to his chest, resting an arm on top of his knee. He shrugged, his tone nearly acidic when he replied, "There is no need for them to know. They would simply try to crowd around me and behave as if I am an herbivore in need of protection, especially Sawada Tsunayoshi. I do not need such fussing over, baby."
He closed his eyes and dropped his head onto his arm. There was the slightest hint of a growl, "Yamamoto Takeshi had done exactly that with the mission. He presumed that I would be unable to take out the men on the upper floors and decided to eliminate them without informing me of the change in our plans."
Reborn smirked. "Is that what he told you?" Yamamoto's behaviour towards Hibari had definitely taken a turn for the interesting. "... But I wasn't asking whether there was a need for others to know. They'll find out when you collapse one day, or if they catch you coughing, like Yamamoto did. Why hide it? They'd only help."
"No," Hibari replied shortly. "That was what happened."
He frowned at the baby's words, lifting his head to look at him in the eyes. "I'm not as weak as that," he stated tonelessly. "It is troublesome enough that you and Yamamoto Takeshi both know now. I do not need their help - they would only be a hindrance." He was not going to show his weakness to anyone else. He could deal with this alone - he always had, and he always would.
Neither a bird nor a cloud needed anyone else. Hibari was the personification of the proverbial free bird - he refused to be caged, even when it meant healing a broken wing. He turned his eyes away, and sighed.
"Is that all that you've came for?"
"You needed dinner, didn't you?" A rhetorical question. Reborn smirked dryly. "You're one -of the guardians of the Vongola, Hibari. Yamamoto is just doing what is natural - taking care of the famiglia. It's just not the way you would go about it."
After all, if Kusakabe was severely wounded, it was a given that Hibari would avenge his own right hand man and look out for the wife and children, even if he didn't do it directly.
"Baby," Hibari's voice was droll, flat. "You're making me repeat myself. I don't need them, much less their help." He brushed his hair out of his eyes, tilting his head and smirking right back. "I'm strong. I can overcome this on my own. I dislike crowds, and herbivores crowding around me even less."
He covered his mouth as he yawned, "I need a nap. Get out."
Reborn simply stared at him, expressionless. "Don't kid yourself, stupid. You're dying." He turned around then, melting into the shadows. "Because you're the strongest."
Back: Part 3
Next: Part 5
Oct. 11th, 2008 at 12:30 AM
Hi all! This is an updated version of the chapter we posted last Wednesday. Based on the constructive criticism that we received online and off, Dream and I edited this part paying particular attention to Gokudera's characterization and to how to blend our different writing styles more so as to improve flow, rather than simply rushing the editing process in order to meet the deadline that we set.
Apologies for posting something below our regular standard, and thank you so much for caring enough to give constructive criticism that our delicate stomachs could digest XD For those who haven't read this chapter before, yes, imagine how bad it must have been, and rest assured that this is better. I hope this is an enjoyable read, so please do tell us how well we did.
Now, without further adieu...
Windshear Part [4/?]
Authors: kagayachou and the-dw
Characters/Pairings: Yamamoto, Hibari, Gokudera, Reborn. Yamamoto/Gokudera in this chapter. Eventual Yamamoto/Hibari.
Rating: R
Words: 5835
Summary: Yamamoto’s to-do list: dinner with Hibari and... Gokudera. Hibari’s schedule: sleep, not that anyone gets much of it tonight.
The moment he left the Vongola Tenth's office, Hibari headed straight for his room in the Italian base to take a shower. He did like fighting, but the residue of a fight - blood drying in his hair, sweat making his clothes cling to his body - he disliked the feel of it.
Hibari had just finished and was reading through some of his men's latest reports when he heard a knock. Eyes narrowing, he uncrossed his legs and stepped towards it, swinging the door open. A flash of irritation crossed his face, for it was Yamamoto once again, as if it wasn't enough to be on the same mission with the Rain Guardian for the past few days.
The younger man had changed out of his bloodied garments and was now dressed in an old t-shirt with a loose pair of sweatpants, and his hair was slightly damp from what must have been a quick shower. There was still a towel around his shoulders after all.
"What," Hibari intoned.
Yamamoto, with faint faint relief and trepidation in his warm brown eyes, smiled upon seeing Hibari's face.
"Have you had dinner yet?" Hibari scowled at the question, but Yamamoto pressed on, his words sounding casual, almost off-hand. "The kiddo told me something interesting after you left the room..."
Letting a long breath escape his mouth, Hibari shook his head. It was almost a sigh. "No. Yamamoto Takeshi." But if it was from Reborn it had to be important; Hibari raised an eyebrow, the edges of his lips curving slightly into a smirk, "Are you offering to treat me?"
"Sure!" Yamamoto shrugged, grinning. "Or, I could make you something in the kitchen, since," he gestures between his clothes and the black yukata that hung beautifully on the Hibari’s smaller frame, "you know, we've both changed already. What do you feel up for?"
Hibari cocked his head to the side, considering. After a moment, he stepped back. "Sushi," he said decisively.
Then, he closed the door on the other man's face.
As he picked up a report again, he heard laughter from behind the door.
"Okay," Yamamoto said brightly, "I'll see ya downstairs in half an hour!"
***
Exactly half an hour later, Hibari finished the pile of reports he was reading and left the room, heading towards the kitchen. He was actually rather curious about the entire situation - about what Reborn had told Yamamoto, and about... Yamamoto cooking.
Hibari knew that the other man was a son of a sushi chef, but he had never eaten anything made by him before.
Leaning against the doorframe, he greeted Yamamoto with a curt, simple, "Yo."
Yamamoto was already grinning when he looked over his shoulder towards Hibari. "Come on, have a seat." From the freezer, he took out a bottle of sake, still chilled in a small bowl of ice, and set it on the table, removing the plastic covers on the plates - "Tada~!" - with a showman's flourish.
And it looked entirely natural coming from Yamamoto. Hibari looked down at the food.
Fluke, salmon, tuna, yellowtail, cucumber, avocado - be it due to Sawada Tsunayoshi's heritage, the rest of the guardians, or because Reborn knew someone in the base could make good sushi, there was no shortage of ingredients in the mansion when it came to Japanese cuisine. Hibari recalled that Yamamoto had always been vocally thankful... just not as loud about it as Sasagawa Ryohei and the baby cow.
Hibari swept into the room, pulled up a chair and sat down at the small table, his eyes following Yamamoto as the man still puttered about. Sometimes he still wondered what a man like Yamamoto - eternally cheerful and outgoing, and who, until recently, usually used the flat edge of his sword in fights - was doing in the Mafia.
But then he would see him in action, the sword cutting through bodies as if they were nothing more than straw dolls, and it became all too clear.
Hibari shook his head, looking from the plates of sushi on the table to the chef, almost amused. "You made a lot - did you invite anyone else?"
Yamamoto laughed merrily, slightly embarrassed as he admitted, "Nah, I just started making some. Then I realized I don't know what you'd like in particular, and didn't want to assume, so..." He shrugged. "Eat as much as you want."
Hibari shook his head again; it was a waste of food. But then he supposed that the Vongola Family could more than afford it. In any case, it wasn't his business to care. He picked up the chopsticks, and then realized that there was something missing from the table.
Eyes narrowing, he stood up, striding over to one of the cupboards. He pulled out a tin of loose green tea leaves, and a tea kettle, half filling it with mineral water from the fridge before placing it on the stove and turning the fire up.
When he first came to the base, he quickly realized that they used tea bags, and Italian tea bags at that. After a few words with the resident secretary however, they now imported genuine Japanese tea; no one ever refused Hibari Kyouya when he wanted something.
The tea set he removed from one of the lower cupboards, carrying it over to the table. Yamamoto still had a silly smile on his face, but as he said nothing, Hibari ignored him.
Once the water was boiling, he took the kettle off the stove, carrying it over to the table. He stared at the other man. Then, he raised an eyebrow, dry and almost derisive.
"Do you not know how to make tea, Yamamoto Takeshi?"
"Haha," Yamamoto gave him a typical boyish grin as he shrugged. "Ryohei says you make the best tea... And, like I said. I don't know what you'd like yet, but I know there aren't enough teapots to make every kind I find."
Hibari snorted, shaking his head, "What do you take with sushi besides green tea and sake?"
Yamamoto could have answered something such as pop, beer, water - milk even - but that would just have been cheeky, so he said nothing.
Hibari did not address the indirect compliment because he saw no need to. And he had let the boiling water cool for long enough.
Two flat teaspoonfuls of the loose leaf into the teapot, and he lifted his sleeve out of the way, pouring in the water until the teapot was a quarter full. As Hibari went through this makeshift ceremony, he let his mind sink into its usual meditative haze, feeling the ever-present pain in his chest fade to the back of his mind.
Yamamoto straightened up from a comfy half-slouch watching Hibari's preparations with avid interest. His father had shown him what a proper tea ceremony was supposed to be - even drilled it in him, but this... Well, they weren't kneeling on straw mats, and they weren't even in Japan, but Hibari... still looked damn good in his yukata. Idly, Yamamoto wondered if he should have worn one as well, instead of sweat pants. He grinned to himself, and then schooled his face into a polite smile.
Hibari simply focused on the cups that he had placed in front of Yamamoto and himself. Pulling his sleeve further back as he lifted the teapot, he poured the tea for the both of them, smiling slightly as the sweet aroma rose from the cups, filling the room.
It was the first time that Yamamoto ever saw Hibari smile at something that did not involve blood being spilt. And it was pretty incredible.
Pretty. And Incredible.
Hibari picked up his cup, sipped it gently, and found it perfect, as always. He liked tea - by itself, it was calming, and the little ritual that was simple and yet complex, with many little details that he had to pay attention to. It honed his focus and cleared his mind, and was a challenge, akin to fighting, except that it was far more peaceful and did not get any herbivores maimed or killed.
Swirling the tea slightly, he took another sip before placing it down on the table and picking up his chopsticks. When he spoke again, it was business-like, "What did the baby tell you?"
Yamamoto scrambled to get his wits together at the abrupt change, but the question's answer was sobering enough. His brows creased. "I'd prefer we enjoy our meal first."
He picked up his cup and closed his eyes, taking a slow sip. Then, he smiled vaguely as he looked at Hibari again, to soften his words. "You're not going to like the answer at any rate. Why let it spoil the food?"
Hibari just eyed him for a moment.
Yamamoto's refusal only made him more intrigued by what the baby had said. But the years had taught him patience, and also how... well, not to compromise, but to wait instead of pushing and pushing for things he wanted.
"Alright then," he murmured.
And that garnered another grin from Yamamoto, who then ducked his head down and took another sip of tea.
Yamamoto swallowed - yes, good, rich green tea, he noted - and put the cup down just as someone with a familiar gait entered his peripheral vision.
Gokudera paused at the kitchen entrance. He looked from Yamamoto to Hibari, the two of them sitting across from each other at the table with an inviting assortment of sushi on the plates between them, and hot tea wafting cosily all around them.
He opened his mouth. Confusion crossed his face, but his question was cut off when his stomach growled.
"Haha, back for a late night snack?"
Yamamoto broke the sudden silence that followed with a typical, vacuous laugh, and while Hibari remained outwardly unmoved, Gokudera visibly bristled, having spent far too many years listening to that laugh not to respond.
Blushing faintly, Gokudera crossed his arms. "I just got back." It wasn't as though he had dinner earlier, so of course he was hungry.
Hibari popped a cucumber maki into his mouth as he watched the two, faintly amused but otherwise annoyed. Gokudera was really like the cat he owned - the real one, not the one from a box that didn't exist in this future - far too quick to bristle and hiss and claw. He was also too loud.
Putting down his chopsticks with a soft 'clink', Hibari turned to the Storm Guardian. "Gokudera Hayato," he said. "Either be quiet if you intend to sit down and eat, or leave."
Gokudera turned to glare at Hibari, but it bounced off the bastard; some things never changed. He was about to reply, lips curling into a sneer, when Yamamoto beat him to it, standing with a disarming smile.
"Hey, why don't you grab a shower and a change of clothes first? I'll bring you food later."
Hibari turned away from the two, already disinterested in their conversation. His chest had started hurting again- or, rather, his control over himself had slipped enough that he was now noticing the pain. Taking a long, slow breath, he put down his chopsticks and picked up the cup of tea, hiding his lips - pressed into a tight white line - behind the cup.
Damn if he was going to slip up again in front of another of this bunch of busybodies.
Meanwhile, Gokudera turned a glower on Yamamoto. "A shower. And a change of clothes." He walked towards him calmly and evenly, the softened tone of his voice like a warning, clear as crystal, before he growled, "Do I smell?"
It was a habit, being argumentative, and out of habit, Yamamoto laughed and walked over. Except he leaned forward this time, and made a show of smelling Gokudera's hair.
"Yeah. You smell like gunpowder... and sweat," Yamamoto declared, then leaned back, a pleasant smile on his face. No, a smirk. "Come on, there'll be enough food for you by the time you smell like baby powder."
Hibari did not need to know what Gokudera smelled like.
"Wha-" And Gokudera was pink again, jaw dropped and eyes wide, darting from Yamamoto to Hibari and back again. It occurred then to Gokudera that Yamamoto wanted him to leave.
Hibari... may or may not have cared as long as he was quiet - which was a tall order on its own. But if he didn't leave, Yamamoto, that baseball idiot, was probably going to spew out more things Hibari didn't need to hear; Gokudera just knew it.
"My room," Gokudera stepped back with a look that said Yamamoto was going to get it later. "Half an hour." He spun on his heel and left.
Meanwhile, Hibari had been ignoring the room around him in favour of holding on to his porcelain cup and making sure that his hand didn't tremble. The pain hit him suddenly like a ton of bricks to broken ribs, but his only visible reactions were the narrowing of his eyes and the whitening of his knuckles and fingertips.
He put down his cup and closed his eyes, letting his fingers slip down to hold onto the edge of the table. The noise subsided - it seemed that Gokudera had left - but Hibari could barely notice anything beyond the roaring in his ears. A wave of nausea crashed upon him, and he gritted his teeth at the feel of bile at the back of his throat and the white sparks behind his eyelids.
He wouldn't let little things like his betraying body stop him from getting information out of Yamamoto. He simply wouldn't allow it.
Through sheer stubbornness, Hibari pushed the pain back to the corner of his mind, ignoring it the best he could. He relaxed his fingers, his shoulders, his jaw, and opened his eyes.
Serenely, as though nothing at all had happened, Hibari picked up his cup once more and took another sip.
Yamamoto was looking towards the exit with that fond smile upon his lips, the one he wore around people he particularly liked. When he turned around however, Hibari still has his eyes closed. Yamamoto noted the slightly creased eyebrows and the tenseness around his jaw, and watched it fade away when Hibari opened his eyes. If he hadn't been concerned, he might have been awed at the transformation.
He decided against calling attention to that however, and sat down again, frowning subconsciously as he did so.
Leaning his head against the back of his hand, Hibari watched with passing interest as Yamamoto's frown seemed to deepen. But he didn't question it or take further notice, because it simply wasn't in his nature to do so. Reborn once called him self-centred, and he agreed, in his own way. Why should he pay attention to lowly, crowding, noisy herbivores whose blood wasn't even worthy even to stain his suit, after all? Those who caught his attention were few, and even those he rarely noticed outside of battle.
As for Yamamoto... He struck Hibari as something of an anomaly. Hibari picked up another piece of sushi and popped it into his mouth.
Yamamoto knew better than to attempt at small talk with the traditional man during dinner. They ate quietly. Hibari wasn't eating as much as what Yamamoto would have considered healthy, but according to Reborn and with what he'd seen, the man was far from healthy. When Hibari announced that he was finished, Yamamoto quickly cleared things up. True to his word, he began picking out a selection of sushi for Gokudera using the clean end of his chopsticks to set the pieces aside on another plate.
"I'm going to put the rest in the fridge. They'll be good until tomorrow afternoon or so." Or gone by then, if the rest of the famiglia had anything to say about it. But that wasn't the main point. Rather, it was just that the food wasn't bad, Yamamoto knew, and Hibari... hadn't eaten enough. "Feel free if you're up for more later, okay?"
Hibari only shrugged, turning away to look out of the kitchen's small window. The sky had darkened a long time ago, but the clouds - heavy and purple and sparking slightly - stood out clearly in the night sky. Not even the rows upon rows of Italian buildings could hide thunderclouds when they were moving into the city.
He turned towards Yamamoto, leaned forward and rested his chin over the back of a hand. "What did the baby tell you?"
Yamamoto looked at him then. A pause. He settled into his seat again and took a shallow breath before he began.
"That kiddo... He told me about how Tsuna died in the future that we all averted: a bullet to the lung, a wound that was treated and thought to be healed." Yamamoto's tone was business-like as he went through the facts, but his eyes were sad. "That same lung started breaking down afterwards for no apparent reason, and... it hurt so much that... that Tsuna turned to... that Hibari for euthanasia.
"He knew that the Millefiore were behind it somehow, so he told that Hibari how to change things, and... I guess you can figure out the rest."
Hibari listened to him in silence. A wry, rather bitter smirk curved his lips at the end of the speech, and he let his hands fall to his lap, turning away from Yamamoto to stare at a spot on the wall.
The more things changed, the more they seemed to stay the same. They had certainly changed the future: boxes didn't exist anymore, the Vongola rings still existed - his weighed heavily on the necklace on his neck, a size too big for his fingers - Sawada was now followed practically everywhere by Gokudera and three other hidden bodyguards, the Giglionero family had been assimilated into the Alliance and was in debt to the Cavallone.
Irie Shouichi was a friend of Tsuna's... and on his side.
But it seemed that there'd always be Gesso, and Byakuran. He had simply gone after a different target this time.
Hibari let out a long breath, turning back to face Yamamoto. "That Sawada..." he murmured, "Was he shot here?" He pointed to a spot on the left side of his chest where, beneath the yukata, a bullet wound stood clear and stark against his pale skin.
Yamamoto stared at the spot Hibari so casually revealed, about three inches down from his collarbone on the left side of his otherwise pale and unblemished chest.
"... I don't know," he finally responded. "The kiddo only told me what I just told you, and then he walked off."
He looked into Hibari's eyes and searched his face. "We'll track down Byakuran."
Hibari pushed his chair back, quickly standing up. The world swayed for a moment, fog and blackness creeping on the edges of his vision. He blinked hard, biting down on his lip. The sudden pain cleared his vision, and he shifted slightly, leaning his hip against the table as he looked at Yamamoto.
"I don't need you to interfere, Yamamoto Takeshi," he stated calmly.
Yamamoto, predictably, laughed, because even if Hibari was practically dying, he was still so very, well, him.
"It's too late, Hibari Kyouya." He stood again, and picked up Gokudera's plate. "I'll be there whenever I can, if you need me. And even if you don't, I'll try."
Hibari raised an eyebrow, lips curling into what was half a smirk and half a sneer. "You really are a busybody, poking your nose into business what was not yours," he said flatly. Pushing himself off the table, he started for the door. Then, he stopped short, a hand at the doorframe as he turned back, eyes impassive as he looked at Yamamoto.
"Do whatever you want."
***
Yamamoto was beaming to himself when he knocked on Gokudera's door. Technically, Hibari just gave him permission to interfere, and although he didn't actually need permission, it was good to receive nonetheless.
Inside, Gokudera was lounging on his couch, flipping through a dog-eared novel when he heard the knock. Removing the cigarette from his mouth, he crushed it in the glass ashtray on the table - better not let the Tenth know that he was smoking again. Gokudera knew that it was bad for him, but he had cut down to a pack a week and withdrawal was a bitch.
He looked down on himself - striped blue pyjamas bottoms and nothing else - then at the door. Come to think of it, there could only be one person who was supposed to be at his door this time of the night, and that person had seen him in far less. He put down the book and stalked over to the door, pulling it open with a, "What took you so long?"
"Ahahaha, aren't we impatient tonight?" Yamamoto lifted the plate out of the way as he stepped inside, brushing his chest against Gokudera's when the other man barely budged. He took the opportunity to duck his head down, and grinned amusedly when he smelled the baby powder.
Gokudera shut the door, locking it before shoving his thumbs into the pockets of his pyjamas pants, his shoulders hunching. "I was hungry, idiot," he grumbled, but there was no real heat in his words, not even when he noticed the amusement in Yamamoto's eyes. He liked his shower gels - so what if it made him smell of talcum powder? Yamamoto could go screw himself if he didn't like it.
Or someone else.
Gokudera plopped himself down to a couch, taking a piece of sushi with his bare hands and popping it into his mouth. As he chewed, his thoughts strayed back to the mental Rubix cube that was Hibari and Yamamoto, and the little coloured squares were not sliding into place right.
"So," Gokudera asked after he swallowed. "Why were you talking with Hibari?"
"Hm?" Yamamoto sat down beside him, popped another piece of salmon sushi in his mouth to buy time.
"We finished a mission together today. He left the meeting room first, and then the kiddo told me to pass on a message." That was true enough he figured. He shrugged. "How about you? How was your day?"
Gokudera's eyes narrowed. Crossing his arms over his chest, he glared at Yamamoto. They'd gone to school together, grown up together, sometimes slept together, and he had known that idiot for long enough to tell when he was lying or, in this case, omitting the truth.
"My day was perfectly fine; the mission was successful and the Tenth was safe. It was simply peachy until someone chased me out of the kitchen so he could be alone with someone else, and is badly evading a simple question," he stated flatly.
Yamamoto chuckled, feeling skewered. "Ahh," he held up his hands in surrender. "It's not my place to say why I was talking with Hibari. You'd have to ask him, and the kiddo," he grinned. "Why would you need a play by play?"
He leaned forward, staring into Gokudera's green eyes. With a straight face, he asked, "Could it be that you're jealous?"
Gokudera scowled fiercely at him, his hands clenching into tights fists on his thighs. That baseball freak always seemed to light his fuse with everything he did. He took a long, deep breath. "Who the fuck would be crazy enough to be jealous of that freak?!" he gritted out.
If he was ten years younger, he would have gone on in this vein and started shouting until he ran out of breath. But he had mellowed out enough, grown up enough, to know when Yamamoto was baiting him with another diversion tactic. Not enough to not take up the bait - at least a little bit - but enough to calm down rather than get even more heated up.
He sighed, and his hands relaxed again. "Wipe that stupid smile off your face. I'm just wondering if you've gone crazy and suicidal, 'cause you certainly seem to be, what with trying to pursue him."
"I'm not," Yamamoto replied automatically, his mind going blank. There were plenty of other things he could think of to say, but anything that would make Gokudera understand consisted of... Hibari's illness, which Hibari did not want to be shared around like grapevine gossip. So he just shrugged, "It's not like that."
He reached over for another piece of sushi instead. Heck, he was still hungry after all. And concerned for Hibari. Perfectly understandable concern, if- No.
"You're not going to tell me at all, are you," Gokudera stated blandly. He'd seen the brief flicker of tension in his brow and seriousness in his brown eyes.
Yamamoto seemed to be adamant in keeping it all a secret, and when the idiot got like that, Gokudera knew from experience that it was impossible to try to get anything from him. He would either act dumb or oblivious, or just give that stupid laugh and a non-sequitor.
It was just... odd that he was doing it for Hibari, though, because as far as Gokudera was concerned, Hibari was as lovable as a reverse pincushion and anyone who tried to go near the psycho would be tonfa'd to death.
He sighed, throwing his hands up in the air. "Fine, fine, keep your secrets. Just don't come running to me later when you get beaten up by him." Rolling his eyes, he grabbed a piece of sushi and chewed on it.
"Ah, well," Yamamoto leaned back, still smiling, "If he does that then I was probably asking for it." He winked. Gokudera never let him get over the fact that he had once tried to commit suicide, but the reminder was a good thing. It showed that the jerk actually cared, and reminded Yamamoto not to consider such an idiotic thing again.
Gokudera rolled his eyes, leaning back against the couch.
But he was pouting. And Yamamoto knew from experience that his best buddy wasn't going to drop an argument that easily. With his smile easily turning into a teasing smirk, he leaned over, closer.
"Aw, look at that pout. Now you're just asking for it."
Gokudera opened his mouth to ask what the hell he was on about when Yamamoto dipped down and covered his lips with a kiss.
Now who was the impatient one, he thought, half-amused and half-grumpy. Closing his eyes, his hands reached up to tighten around Yamamoto's shirt. Not to be outdone, by his best friend and rival, he deepened the kiss as the man pulled him closer.
Yamamoto crawled over Gokudera on the couch, wasting no time to turn the kiss French when the fair-haired man all but invited him to do so. It'd been weeks, nearly a month since they last touched base together, what with separate missions of varying lengths.
"Mm..." Yamamoto pulled back momentarily to lick his lips, tasting salad dressing from the California roll Gokudera had eaten earlier.
"Hey, you taste good with sushi!"
Gokudera stared at him for a moment, incredulous, and thinking, what the- Why is this baseball freak so crazy and idiotic even after ten years? And why do I even tolerate him?!
He pulled away, breaking the kiss as he growled from the base of his throat, thoughts of Hibari slipping away to the back of his mind. "Oi," he whacked Yamamoto upside the head with the heel of his hand, mock-glaring. "If you don't have anything intelligent to say, shut up and just kiss me."
"Haha," Yamamoto kissed Gokudera again, quickly, on the nose, as if to placate him. But for what Yamamoto lacked in intelligence however, he made up for in surprises. "Say," he glanced at the plate which was still quite full. "Ever had sex and dinner at the same time?"
Gokudera stared at him again. "You really are suicidal," he said dryly. Ridiculous non-sequitors... he had already grown to be used to such things from Yamamoto, but still, the inanity annoyed him. "Do you want to choke to death?"
The other man just chuckled in response, reaching over his supine partner towards the plate. "We can go slow... Oh, and don't move." He transferred a couple of pieces onto Gokudera's abs, essentially using him as a plate.
Gokudera rolled his eyes again, eyeing the pieces of sushi on his stomach. Then he looked back to Yamamoto, wryly smirking as he asked, "Is this some sort of weird Japanese fetish that I don't know about?"
"I guess so," came a bright response. "Heard of it before. Just never found the chance to try, ya know?" Yamamoto paused in the middle of moving down, a hand coming to rest against Gokudera's thigh. "I'll stop if it gets too weird for you," he once again reminded his friend. Then, he ducked down and kissed Gokudera's chest.
A fleeting thought: the bullet wound over Hibari's chest...
Yamamoto shoved it out of his head as soon as he registered it, and wrapped his lips around a small cucumber roll, sucking on Gokudera's skin lightly.
Gokudera threw his head back and hissed at the contact, drawing a lip into his mouth and biting down on it. His eyes did not leave Yamamoto, however, and thus did not miss the slight hesitation, or the hitch in Yamamoto's breath against his skin.
"Oi!" He slid his hand into the other man's hair, tugging on it so that Yamamoto would face him. "Who are you thinking about?"
Yamamoto gave him a doe-eyed stare, then chewed his food so he could swallow and answer properly. "... Where did that come from," he managed to ask when he was done.
Of course, he couldn't help but think of Hibari again. He shook his head - just a little, because Gokudera had a nice, firm grip on it - and laughed, "It's not like that!"
"Then focus. On the fuck buddy."
***
The room was soundproofed; the door shut and locked; the windows' shut tight; the stereo on. There was no chance that anyone outside could hear him even if he shouted.
Hibari closed his eyes and sat his bed, leaning back against the headboard. He placed a tissue over his mouth and took a long, deep breath through it. He hand curled in slightly, crumpling the sheets beneath him. This was almost a ritual, almost calming. Almost-
He finally loosened his control over himself and let the coughs bubble up from his chest and they ripped out of his mouth. He doubled over, the hand not over his mouth clenching white-knuckled tight, eyes squeezed shut.
No one would hear him, much less see him, in this moment of weakness.
No one, but a certain person he still calling 'baby' regardless of the fact that the man was actually older than him.
"If this is your idea of being fine, I'd hate to know your definition of wounded, Hibari."
Reborn dropped down from the ceiling, landing on his feet like a cat.
Hibari barely heard the remark, but he ignored it anyway, concentrating on stopping the coughs now that yet another busybody had seen it fit to intrude into his space. It took him a few moments to succeed, and when he pulled away his hand, it was almost entirely covered with blood.
He wiped the corners of his mouth with the back of his hand and threw the tissue away, entirely calm and seemingly unconcerned. He closed his eyes. "Shut up, baby," he murmured. "What do you want?"
Reborn barely lifted an eyebrow at the bloody tissue so 'casually' tossed aside. "An interesting report on your last mission just came in," he began. He had a customarily condescending smirk upon his lips, and although his tone was mocking as well, his eyes were serious. "For once, Yamamoto finished with a higher body count than you. Tsuna is even more concerned now with what happened."
Which meant Reborn wanted an explanation.
"Aside from that... how long do you think this charade can go on before someone else finds out, Hibari? Yamamoto is not the only one of my idiot students who would trip over his own two feet for you."
Hibari drew his legs up to his chest, resting an arm on top of his knee. He shrugged, his tone nearly acidic when he replied, "There is no need for them to know. They would simply try to crowd around me and behave as if I am an herbivore in need of protection, especially Sawada Tsunayoshi. I do not need such fussing over, baby."
He closed his eyes and dropped his head onto his arm. There was the slightest hint of a growl, "Yamamoto Takeshi had done exactly that with the mission. He presumed that I would be unable to take out the men on the upper floors and decided to eliminate them without informing me of the change in our plans."
Reborn smirked. "Is that what he told you?" Yamamoto's behaviour towards Hibari had definitely taken a turn for the interesting. "... But I wasn't asking whether there was a need for others to know. They'll find out when you collapse one day, or if they catch you coughing, like Yamamoto did. Why hide it? They'd only help."
"No," Hibari replied shortly. "That was what happened."
He frowned at the baby's words, lifting his head to look at him in the eyes. "I'm not as weak as that," he stated tonelessly. "It is troublesome enough that you and Yamamoto Takeshi both know now. I do not need their help - they would only be a hindrance." He was not going to show his weakness to anyone else. He could deal with this alone - he always had, and he always would.
Neither a bird nor a cloud needed anyone else. Hibari was the personification of the proverbial free bird - he refused to be caged, even when it meant healing a broken wing. He turned his eyes away, and sighed.
"Is that all that you've came for?"
"You needed dinner, didn't you?" A rhetorical question. Reborn smirked dryly. "You're one -of the guardians of the Vongola, Hibari. Yamamoto is just doing what is natural - taking care of the famiglia. It's just not the way you would go about it."
After all, if Kusakabe was severely wounded, it was a given that Hibari would avenge his own right hand man and look out for the wife and children, even if he didn't do it directly.
"Baby," Hibari's voice was droll, flat. "You're making me repeat myself. I don't need them, much less their help." He brushed his hair out of his eyes, tilting his head and smirking right back. "I'm strong. I can overcome this on my own. I dislike crowds, and herbivores crowding around me even less."
He covered his mouth as he yawned, "I need a nap. Get out."
Reborn simply stared at him, expressionless. "Don't kid yourself, stupid. You're dying." He turned around then, melting into the shadows. "Because you're the strongest."
Back: Part 3
Next: Part 5