(no subject)
Title: A Revised Map of the World
Fandom: Katekyo Hitman Reborn!
Characters: Gokudera, Yamamoto
Rating: PG-13 (violence, language)
Word Count: 7900
Notes: So. This started out as a kink meme prompt, 8059 speaking Italian. (Bless you, requesting anon. Foreign languages are HOT.) ...But then I sucked the smut and the pairing out of it. So, we have gen. (But my beta reader tells me it is almost as subtexty as canon. ^_~)
When Gokudera was a child, the biggest continent in the world was his father's house. Sprawling levels, vast and fragrant gardens, balconies that jutted out into sunrise, sunset. It was uncharted territory, filled with strange beasts, like the servants, his angry and distant father, his sister with her strange cooking smells, and that doctor whom Gokudera liked to follow around and ask questions. One time, the doctor left for a week. He came back bloodied and gaunt. Gokudera, four and brave and sad, asked, "Why did you leave me?" The doctor answered, "When you're older, kid."
***
"North is up, idiot," Gokudera said, pinching the bridge of his nose. Yamamoto stared down at the map in his hands, no doubt confounded by its symbols and foreign street names, Via this and Vicolo that.
"Yeah, but if I don't turn the map the way we're going, I can't follow it." Then he sighed, this breathy, hopeless thing like Gokudera had often heard him make in the throes of algebra exams and literature lectures. It was pathetic.
Gokudera wasn't entirely sure why they even needed a map. He knew the city. He'd wandered it for many months as a boy, stealing food and aggravating locals.
"It doesn't make any sense!" Yamamoto tacked a laugh onto the end, but he still sounded exasperated. "How are we supposed to find Tsuna like this?"
Gokudera flushed a bit; then he pulled a cigarette out of his pocket and shoved it between his lips. "Leave the Tenth to me." He didn't say that he had no intention of being seen by his boss while they were in Florence. He had no intention of the Tenth even knowing he and Yamamoto had been there. How to keep Yamamoto's mouth shut was a separate matter. "I don't see why you had to come along, anyway," he muttered around the cigarette barrel.
Yamamoto smiled and shrugged, hands in his pockets. "I thought we could bond." Gokudera glared at him. "...And I thought it would be a good way to celebrate graduation? I've never been to Italy!"
"You've never been to Antarctica either." Gokudera took a deep drag of his cigarette and exhaled the smoke in Yamamoto's general direction.
Yamamoto tilted his head as if he hadn't heard. "Huh?" And Gokudera scowled and walked up the street. This was no time to bicker with Yamamoto. This was serious.
The Tenth was trying to slow the eruption of a war, a weak governor for an out-of-control engine, head bent in counsel with the Ninth's, strategy, peace-keeping, back-up plans. Gokudera didn't understand who would dare challenge the Vongola; he didn't understand why. But they had suffered three attacks in the short span of two months: one of the Ninth's men in Italy, whom Gokudera had never met, is driven off a mountain road and his car crashes into the Mediterranean; the wedding of a distant Vongola daughter dissolves when a guest hears the ticking of a bomb beneath the band shell; and one of the Tenth's own, Kusakabe Tetsuya, receives in the mail an envelope heavy and moist with cherry blossoms. No one doubts the enemy's target: Hibari Kyouya--a grave mistake or a bold assertion, and the Vongola were not going to take their chances on which.
The Vongola men talked. How could they not? Generations had passed and the only challenge to the Family had come from one of its own misbegotten sons. Some blamed the recent acquisition of an ally, the Rossetti Family, influential in the south of Italy and skilled in weaponry. Some blamed the seemingly imperial ambitions of setting up connections in Japan, a far-flung military outpost by all accounts. It didn't matter. A good boss would cut off the oxygen to smother the flames, and the Tenth was nothing if not a good boss.
When he'd made the plans to meet with his predecessor, The Tenth had expressly asked his Guardians to stay behind. He would be with the Ninth--there was, indeed, no safer place for him to be. And he didn't want to send the message to their enemies in Italy that the Vongola was either afraid or on the offensive. Thus, he would go to Italy without his men. And Gokudera agreed completely. The Guardians should stay in Japan.
But he was the Right-Hand Man. A boss goes nowhere without his Right-Hand Man. So Gokudera bought tickets for the flight following the Tenth's and he would hang out in the city just in case anything went down. He would be there in the shadows, so to speak, unseen.
But he wasn't, as it turned out, as unseen as he would have liked. Yamamoto, as he always did, showed up at the worst possible time. Returning the last borrowed textbook of his academic career, he'd knocked on Gokudera's door, then pushed his way inside. The open suitcase, the plane tickets on the counter--they said all that needed to be said.
So, Gokudera found himself directing Yamamoto through the streets of Florence for the very first time. The last thing he wanted to do was lead a guided tour, not when the Tenth was in such a precarious position. But he didn't want to linger too close to Vongola headquarters where the boss might see him, so this would have to do.
The map crinkled behind him once more, and he stopped abruptly enough that Yamamoto ran into his back.
"Oof!"
"If you'd pull your face out of that map, you'd know where you were, and you'd realize that it is the most beautiful city in the world, you moron."
Yamamoto blinked at him, then looked around. "Whoa..."
***
When Gokudera was five, he learned that he is the ruler of his own world. He fell and scraped his knee bad for the first time, and the doctor told him to stop crying. He handed him a bottle of antiseptic, because little boys clean out their own wounds. They heal alone, and Gokudera learned to control his world.
***
"Hey, what's that?"
Gokudera never should have taken away the stupid map. For the last hour he'd followed Yamamoto through the winding brick streets of Florence, translating signs, filling in the spaces between the exotic characters. In his pocket, Yamamoto had a small stack of postcards for Haru and Ryohei and everyone else. One for Tsuna, even though Tsuna had seen it himself--but maybe he'd been too busy to really enjoy it, haha! He even had one for Hibari. Yamamoto figured he'd probably just slide it under his door or something. Gokudera figured he'd probably still get his ass kicked for it.
"A church," he said finally, "another one. Just like the one from five minutes ago." And even while he was annoyed with Yamamoto's enthusiasm, his chest swelled with pride. This was his home. His blood, the air that had wrapped around his skin for the first fourteen years of his life, and now again. Too many years had passed, but he still remembered the way it smelled, the way the sun felt on his face.
"Ohh," Yamamoto said, either ignoring or not noticing Gokudera's sarcasm. Whatever. "I mean, I go to the temple with my dad all the time, but this is..."
What, Gokudera wanted to ask. Lavish? Opulent? The church was towering, with steeples and saints portrayed in colorful stained glass. The doors were huge like castle doors, and they watched on as the large bell atop the structure began to sway back and forth, ringing out and marking the hour. In contrast, Japan was so bland, so quiet and simple. This must blow Yamamoto's zen little mind, a small detonation surrounded by stained glass and ancient crumbling steeples.
Gokudera knew about churches. His father had been deeply devout, head often bowed in prayer and Gokudera didn't dare ask for what he prayed. A less conspicuous suit hung in the deep cavern of his father's closet, reserved for Mass. Gokudera and Bianchi had always been dragged along--every week, every holy day. They were always told to beg forgiveness, though Gokudera never knew how they had sinned. When his head was bowed, he always nodded off. Bianchi, though not religious as far he could tell, had nevertheless savored the tradition, the ritual of church. Even as a girl, she would carefully select a dress, a hat. Gokudera used to hate the tiny suits his father's servants would wrestle him into, one writhing octopus-arm at a time.
Gokudera had never been inside this particular church that fascinated Yamamoto so much, but the weeping saint in the stained glass looked the same as the one in his old church. They all looked the same.
"Did you go to church, Gokudera?"
He scoffed. "No." Then, gentler: "Come on, let's eat."
Yamamoto's eyes widened. "Oh! Spaghetti! No--noh-chee!"
"Nyahk-ee. Gnocchi."
"Yeah, that. Wait--pizza!"
"Pizza," Gokudera agreed because it would take less explaining. "The kind without mayo."
Yamamoto looked a little crestfallen. "...aww."
So Gokudera wound them further into the city, down side streets which the tourists mostly avoided, past store fronts with crumbling exteriors and baskets of colorful flowers and deeply scented herbs. It was just like the movies and it would be a lie to say that Gokudera hadn't brought Yamamoto this way because he thought it would amuse him. He remembered being amazed himself when he first arrived in Florence as a boy, by himself.
Three side streets, one alleyway, and countless stonework storefronts later, Gokudera was unsurprised to find that his favorite pizzeria from childhood was still in operation. Nothing ever changed in places like this, nothing real anyway. The parts the tourists would see were constantly under renovation--constantly reconstructed anew. But the heart of Florence, of Sicily, of Venice, none of that ever changed.
***
And when Gokudera was eight years old, his world collapsed in on itself, shaken to rubble along its trembling fault line. And he fled the demolition, past his yelling father, past the servants and his sister, past the gentle doctor without a glance because no one gets to see Gokudera cry, ever. He burst through the doors, and his world swelled. His world, sudden and strange, was Italy and all of the vineyards and canals and coastlines that came along with it.
***
"You've seen open-air markets before. What's the big deal?"
"These aren't like the ones from home!"
Gokudera looked around him, taking in the sight of the crowded street undulating as much with locals as with tourists. On the other side of the street, a woman held a tomato in her hand, appraising its deep red color under the sun. Beside her, a man held up a green-and-yellow-streaked heirloom variety. A few tables down, a man argued animatedly in French-accented Italian with a merchant: These peaches are half this price back home! The merchant looked away and waved her arms at him as if he were a bothersome fly.
Nearer to him and Yamamoto, a little girl ran up to a table with her arms overflowing with blossoms: roses and daisies and calla lilies, an explosion of color and scent. Gokudera watched her pass them off to the vendor behind the table, take a small handful of coins in return, and run back down the alley.
The scene truly was like nothing else on earth.
"Hey," Yamamoto said beside him, nudging him with his elbow, "what time are we going to meet Tsuna? Because I want to check out the...this..." Yamamoto turned the map around in his hands and pointed. "...This whatsit."
Gokudera smirked. "Ponte Vecchio. It's a bridge." How typical and touristy.
Yamamoto looked at him, his mouth open in delight. "Say it again."
A raised eyebrow. Repeated foreign words.
"That is so cool! I only get to hear you use Italian when you swear."
"Vaffanculo," Gokudera said with precision.
Yamamoto frowned at him. "Yeah. That's the one. Not as cool."
Gokudera breathed a soft laugh, and jutted his chin in the direction of the bridge. "It's this way," he said, "come on."
And there, amidst the melons and the street vendors, the energy in the air shifted.
There was a metallic click. It was faint. It was as faint as the tumble of pebbles down the street, but something inside of him--part mafia brat, part urchin--responded to it before others--mere mortals--would even hear it.
"Get down," he said, his chest suddenly tight.
And then the bullets flew. Everyone heard that. Explosive and loud at first, like a war zone; then high-pitched and whizzing. Yamamoto muttered a quick, "Huh?" before Gokudera scowled, hissed, "Christ, would you get down!" and yanked the hem of his coat until they were both squatting behind a merchant's fruit stand. It was like something in a movie; his heart raced like it always did when he was watching the screen, this shuddering thing against his ribs as if it was trying to get out.
He didn't get a clear look at the guy. Didn't get a look at all. He knew where the bullet came from and if he looked up, he knew he'd be able to see him, but looking up right then would probably be a very bad idea. Beside him, Yamamoto still looked confused and frightened, but at least he was hunched down with his knees to his chest and his arms crossed over his head. It was the Black Spell. Inside, Gokudera knew they both realized that. It was the Black Spell and they were too late. And if the Black Spell knew he and Yamamoto were in Sicily, then it must know about the boss...
Above their heads, a melon exploded. No, two of them. Pink and orange and green guts went flying, speckling their black suits, sticking in their hair. Yamamoto looked at him wide-eyed. He couldn't tell if Yamamoto was terrified, or loving it. Then, as Gokudera was appraising him, something shifted in Yamamoto's eyes, something like Gokudera saw when Yamamoto was fighting Squalo: this glinting excited thing like he was alive in the battle, some violent underbelly of his nature rearing up to strike. Gokudera smirked. Might as well put on a show for the kid. So he reached into his pocket for dynamite.
He found the first two sticks predictably in his hip pocket, and a third tucked between his back and the waistband of his pants. He held them up, gripped between his fingers, and smiled wickedly at Yamamoto. Show time. He would take this bastard out just like he did everyone else who'd ever threatened the Tenth, and then he would get to the Ninth's estate to warn them.
Yamamoto looked over at him, his eyes wide and his breath coming in quick, shallow heaves of his chest. "You can't," he whispered, his hand holding Gokudera's wrist in place, "what about the people?"
Gokudera grinned around the cigarette. This is what he trained for. "They already scattered--" Another bullet shot out of the alleyway and more fruit exploded above them. "--And I have good aim." Then he lit one, two, three sticks of dynamite on the end of his cigarette and he lunged out. The moment stretched out like the timeline of his life, long and thin and slow like a rubber band, kinetic, until his eyes caught his target, then snap. His arm shot out, quick like a trigger and he launched dynamite at the lone Black Spell grunt peering out from the opposite alleyway.
Gokudera watched the ascent of the explosives, then the first delayed charge that sent them shooting downward at the enemy. The descent was fast and frightening, and in his fascination Gokudera didn't see the man aim his gun and fire.
The bullet caught the meat of his left thigh. The force sent him backward, shoved a scream from his throat, and he crashed into Yamamoto. The flashing behind his eyelids matched the explosion in the alleyway, but he was screaming too loud to notice.
"Gokudera!"
Somewhere in the midst of his cries and the pain pulsing through his entire body and Yamamoto's hands holding him steady, Gokudera could only think one thing: The Tenth. The Tenth. We have to get to the Tenth!
Then he heard it again: "Gokudera! Hey, shh, come on. It's okay." And he had the sense that he was clawing at Yamamoto, that he was fighting, that blood soaked the leg of his pants even more with each painful kick of his wounded leg, but he didn't care because the Black Spell had found them. The Black Spell had found them and what the fuck kind of Right-Hand Man was he, anyway, if he got shot before he can protect his boss?
"Gokudera! It was just one guy. He's--he's gone. Come on. We have to get you to a hospital." Then, exasperated: "Fuck, I can't read the signs." Yamamoto's chest was rising and caving wildly against his back; he could feel it. One arm was curved around his side, a large hand on his chest, holding him down. And Gokudera thrashed against it. He had to get out of there. He had to get to the Tenth. The fingers of one of his hands tugged at the sleeve of Yamamoto's jacket. The fingers of the other hand gripped Yamamoto's hair. Gokudera wasn't sure, but he thought maybe he was trying to hurt Yamamoto enough to make him let go. It didn't seem to be working.
Then, from the alleyway: "Hayato?"
***
Then, at thirteen, there was Signora Sophia. "Signora" because she was widowed; "Sophia" and not "Vitrelli" because she was an entity all to herself. Gokudera thought she was the most beautiful thing in his vast, ugly world. Dark hair that swayed down past her shoulders, dark eyes, hands as soft as his mother's, and Gokudera's world shrank to the size of the tiny flower shop where she gave him his first honest work and a place to sleep, hot food to eat in the evenings if he's earned it. His hands learned the topography of soft rose petals and their thorns. His heart learned to flutter in excitement, too, and not just in fear.
***
"Hayato?" And Gokudera looked up. Signora Sophia. And somewhere between the endorphins and the adrenaline, between the panic and the pain, relief flooded his body. She was standing in the alleyway like he had seen her do so many times. Beautiful.
"Hurry," she whispered in Italian, "come in through the alleyway."
And before another pulse of pain shot through his leg, before he could spare another thought to the Tenth's safety, before he could fight back, Yamamoto had an arm around his waist and was hoisting him up off the ground. He felt himself hauled across the walkway, back toward the alleyway--felt it as if it was a different body. His right arm was pulled over Yamamoto's shoulders, gripped tight around the wrist. He felt his weight shifted to rest on his right leg, to the right side of his body which leaned against Yamamoto. And, one quick "It's all right," later, he felt Yamamoto begin to drag him to the alley entrance of Signora Sophia's flower shop.
Lights flashed in his periphery each time the wound in his leg pulsed around the bullet. He saw the table of flowers speed past his eyes, the tall brick buildings lining the alleyway, the worn and stained street, the wooden frame of the door into Sophia's shop. He saw it all as a blur, like the time his father took him and Bianchi to the fair and he rode on a quick, spinning ride until he was dizzy. It was like that, only a lot more painful. And as he was pulled across the threshold and into the small shop, he fought fiercely against Yamamoto's grip.
"The Tenth! We have to get to the Tenth!" Yamamoto still had one arm around his waist, still had one hand around his wrist to hold Gokudera's arm in place. His eyes held frightened sympathy that made Gokudera kicked harder.
"Hey," Yamamoto said softly, "settle down. Tsuna is fine."
Gokudera groaned and hissed against the pain--mostly his fault, mostly from the way his body writhed under Yamamoto's steadying grip.
"You are not going anywhere like this," Sophia said, her lips pursed in a frown. "Do not make this any worse on your body, Hayato."
From the corner of his eye, Gokudera saw Yamamoto look at her quizzically, understanding none of her language. Then Yamamoto's fingers were spread on the small of his back. The gesture was meant to be comforting, Gokudera realized somewhere between the pain and the fear.
"Hey, Tsuna's not in trouble," he said quietly, "it wasn't planned, right? We just stood out and the guy saw us. A coincidence. Besides--" He paused. "--I don't think he'll be making it back to tell anybody."
Gokudera clenched his eyes, then his teeth against the lightning pain shooting up his leg and struggled against Yamamoto's arm. Yamamoto tightened his grip.
"You can't do anything like this. Please. Tsuna's with the Ninth."
Mixed in with the pain, Gokudera was seething. He had screwed up. He was supposed to be in Florence to ensure the Tenth's safety. But he'd been foolish and had strayed and now the Tenth could be in danger because of his stupid mistake. He pushed away from Yamamoto's support and leaned against the wall. His heart raced; his vision blurred. He was losing a lot of blood, he knew it. He could die here.
Then Sophia crossed her arms and looked at him very sternly. Peeking behind her long skirt was a small girl. Her dark eyes were wide, framed with blunt brown bangs. She was the girl from earlier, the girl with her arms weighted down by flowers. And suddenly Gokudera was thirteen all over again, bread shoved in his pockets, running from the merchant victim of his thievery, bumping into Sophia out in front of her shop.
"Go upstairs where you can lie down and we can get you fixed up." Sophia had never been one to get the authorities unnecessarily involved.
Gokudera drew in a few sharp breaths, each one rocking his body and pulsing past the bullet in the tight canal of the wound. Finally, the pain overriding the panic, he swallowed, nodded, and muttered, "Okay."
***
Then when Gokudera was fourteen, the borders of his world settled and solidified, galvanized, and everything in his blood pulsed and rushed and spoke one name only: Sawada Tsunayoshi, tenth boss of the Vongola Family. It was home and world and life, at last, at last, and Gokudera would guard those borders until the day he died.
***
"What did she say," Yamamoto asked him quietly.
"She told me where to clean up," he answered, his breath strained because each intake of air made his leg hurt even more, and then he headed for the stairs. The first step sent agony shooting through his leg, his body, his bones. "Fuck," he hissed. And Yamamoto was there, one arm a sudden support around his waist, the other hand pressed against the wall to steady their ascent. "The pinch hitter has arrived," he said softly and winked.
Gokudera wanted desperately to spit at him, to tell him to get lost, but he was subdued by the sweet relief of having a steady body to lean on. Yamamoto counted to three, hoisted Gokudera, and together they climbed the stairs.
Sophia's shop was as he remembered it. Old and crumbling but beautiful, like those quaint movie-versions of Italy, all stucco and exposed wooden beams. Sophia's place really was like that. From inside, when the street was quiet, Gokudera could hear the rushing water of Florence's fountains. Inside, it smelled so green. When she had first pulled him in off the street, rescuing him from the angry merchant, he'd thought a flower shop would smell like flowers. It didn't. It smelled like leaves.
The stairwell still creaked like it always had, but more now with the clumsy weight of two. And upstairs a narrow landing revealed three doorways leading to rooms that looked no different than when Gokudera had left this place four years ago: Sophia's bedroom, a bathroom, and the room in which he himself had lived for a year, his first real home since he was eight years old. "To the right," he said, and Yamamoto walked them into the room.
It seemed so much smaller than it had before, back when he was thirteen and small. The bed was shorter and narrower, the ceiling was lower, and the window revealed a much more constricted view of the Florence cityscape than he had imprinted in his memory before he had left. In his memories, Florence stretched on forever.
"The bed," he said, his voice hoarse, "then go to the next room and get some towels. I don't want to bleed on her blankets." So Yamamoto lowered him to the edge of the bed and slipped out of the room.
Gokudera rested against the pillows, the pain in his leg lessened only slightly with the relief of sitting. In his head, he calculated the time, recalled the Tenth's flight schedule, and realized they were too late to call him. If he was all right. Gokudera grimaced against the thought. If the Tenth was hurt because he'd fucked up...
When he looked up, the little girl was gazing around the edge of the door, her tiny hands gripping the frame. She looked frightened. Gokudera couldn't blame her--he was a strange man, covered in blood, laying in what was likely her bed. He met her eyes for a moment and tried to smile at her. It's okay, he wanted to say. But then he heard footsteps coming up the stairs. She made a small noise and disappeared down the hall. A moment later, Signora Sophia came inside with a basin of warm water.
"Hayato," she said with a frown, the way she had admonished him the first time he had spoken rudely to a customer. "What's going on?"
He looked away, his eyes on the floor. He heard her step across the room; he felt the mattress shift under her weight. His wound throbbed with the movement, but he refused to let it show in his face. She cupped the back of his head with her hand, like his mother used to do; then she slid her palm down to rest on his cheek.
"You look so grown up now," she said with that wise, playful smile he remembered, "but you still protect your eyes like a child. Tell me what I'm hiding you from."
Before he could answer, Yamamoto stepped back into the room, his eyes wide and frightened, panic still lingering though they were now safe. "This is all I could find," he said, holding out an armful of towels.
Sophia rose from the bed, "I'll leave this to the two of you," she said over her shoulder, and disappeared back downstairs.
"What did she say?"
"Will you quit asking that? She said she'd let me take care of this."
Yamamoto frowned. "I don't think you should do it yourself."
Gokudera narrowed his eyes. "Do you know how to field dress a bullet wound?" His voice was sarcastic.
"No. Do you?"
Gokudera scowled at him, then busied his hands with his belt buckle. Of course he'd never done this before. He'd never been shot, and neither had any of the other Vongola. But he'd seen wounded men staggering in and out of his father's home when he was a child. He'd seen the procedure. Besides, he was smart. He could figure it out. So he undid his belt and lifted his hips to slide the pants off.
The pain slashed through his leg as if he'd just been shot all over again. Yamamoto stepped forward. "Let me."
"Fuck off," he answered. "If you hadn't come along--"
"You would have died in the alleyway." And Yamamoto lowered himself to his knees and gently untied Gokudera's shoes and slipped them off his feet.
Gokudera didn't know what to say. Yamamoto had a point. It was sheer dumb luck that the Black Spell had seen and attacked him in front of Signora Sophia's flower shop, dumb luck that the Black Spell was not yet involving civilians in its attacks. So Gokudera said nothing at all.
"Come on," Yamamoto said with a soft smile, an acceptance of Gokudera's unspoken apology, "lift up so I can get these off. It'll hurt, I know, but bear with it for a second."
Gokudera obeyed and one swift tug later, Yamamoto had his pants pulled down past the bullet wound in his thigh. Gokudera hissed through the pain. When he looked down, his stomach lurched. The wound looked much worse than he'd thought, blood spread out over a several-centimeter radius from the source. Probably all that moving.
"The rest of the way?" Yamamoto was trying not to throw up; Gokudera could tell.
He nodded. "Yeah. It'll be easier to clean it."
So Yamamoto slid the pants off all the way, pausing only once when Gokudera breathed a sharp, angry intake of air, regret on his frightened face. Gokudera watched him appraise the wound, the torn flesh, the blood that was becoming sticky and thick.
"What next?"
Gokudera frowned against the throbbing ache. "Antiseptic. Then we'll have to get it out somehow."
Yamamoto nodded firmly. "Right." Gokudera snorted a laugh. Yamamoto didn't have the stomach for this. He had no problem getting sliced up in a sword fight, but when it came to dealing with the injuries of another, he became unnecessarily gentle and cautious.
"In the bathroom," he said, taking pity, giving guidance, "in the cabinet. At least, it used to be."
When Yamamoto returned, he doused a cloth with antiseptic and wiped down the wound. Gokudera watched on, helpless and aching, as the blood was cleared from the area surrounding site of the bullet impact. With the heavy scent of copper in the air, with the mess of blood swabbed from his leg, the injury looked surprisingly neat. Just a small entrance would circled with already-darkening purple bruises.
He looked up when Yamamoto swallowed, then sighed. "So, how are we getting it out?"
Gokudera blinked at him. In the preceding frenetic moments, he hadn't thought this far ahead. Mentally, he reeled through the catalog of stories he'd heard--wasn't there a man in the Family who'd lived out his life filled with bullets that had failed in their mission to kill him?
Then, from the doorway, he heard Signora Sophia clear her throat. She leaned against the doorframe, one arm crossed over her chest and one arm extended to offer a long pair of medical forceps.
Gokudera gazed over Yamamoto's shoulder, one eyebrow up in question.
"You have your secrets," she said, smiling, "I have mine."
Gokudera thought about saying Thank you, but those words had never passed between them. When she took him in, when he worked long hours for her, never taking time for a break--it was all out of moral responsibility. No affection needed to be admitted, no maternal feelings she may have harbored, no orphan loneliness. Once, she had said to him, I may not look like it, but I raised five boys. I know more about you than you ever will. He'd believed her.
When Yamamoto reached for the forceps, Gokudera swatted his hand away.
"Gokudera..."
"I can get it."
"No." Yamamoto's fingertips were pressed against Gokudera's chest, holding him back into the pillows. "You can't. Stop being so stubborn."
Sophia chuckled softly and handed the forceps to Yamamoto. "Listen to your friend," she said.
Gokudera rolled his eyes. "Friend," he repeated sarcastically, but he didn't resist when Yamamoto pulled the lamp closer and peered down at the wound. The contrast of light and shadow deepened his frown.
"Should you have something to bite on? That's what I see them do in movies."
Gokudera glared at him. "It'll be your face if you don't hurry up."
Yamamoto nodded soberly. "Right. Okay."
Sophia put a hand on his shoulder. "Sterilize it," she said and handed him a lighter. Yamamoto may not have understood her words, but he knew what he should do. He flicked the lighter and Gokudera watched him slide the flame along the length of the forceps. Back and forth, slow and cautious, the tongue of flame licking rhythmically. Then he extinguished it and looked at Gokudera. He'd never looked so serious before. "Ready?"
Gokudera clenched his teeth and nodded.
And Yamamoto went in. Careful at first, little prods of uncertainty. Then, at the first hiss from Gokudera's mouth, Yamamoto swallowed and moved the forceps inside, scraping over nerves and raw flesh. Blotches of red exploded behind Gokudera's eyelids like dynamite. Being shot hadn't hurt as much as this. He'd vomit if he could do it anywhere but on Yamamoto's head.
"I'm sorry," Yamamoto said quietly, "but I think I--" They both heard the clink of metal on metal. "I found it!"
"Then get it out," he growled, "hurry up."
Yamamoto nodded, and Gokudera felt the forceps open inside his leg, sharp tips pressing against the tender flesh. His vision swam. But then Yamamoto was pulling the instrument out, slowly, too slowly and Gokudera would have screamed at him if he could have breathed.
"Got it!" Yamamoto held the bloody thing up like a prize. "Wow," he said, "it's so small!"
Gokudera dragged in a few rough breaths. "Let's shove it in your leg and see how small you think it is."
Yamamoto laughed nervously, then dropped the bullet into the basin of water. He kept trying to meet Gokudera's eyes, but Gokudera wouldn't let him. Sophia passed him the bottle of antiseptic again, along with a roll of bandages. "Wrap him up, baby," she said. Gokudera rolled his eyes; they were all babies to her. Yamamoto looked at him questioningly.
"She said, wrap it up," he offered. And he didn't protest when Yamamoto refused his help.
He was surprised at how gentle Yamamoto was. Not that he expected carelessness; he'd seen the precision and the grace with which Yamamoto trained. But he had expected a certain amount of fumbling, at least, in this new thing. Instead, Yamamoto's large hands were feather-light against his skin as he wrapped the tight bandage. He found himself intently watching the procedure, as if it was being done to someone else.
Washed and disinfected and wrapped in clean, white bandages, Gokudera hardly looked injured at all. This was how he had wrapped himself when he'd battled Belphegor for the Ring of Storm, a conflict that seemed almost comical and arbitrary now. This new world was a frightening one.
Signora Sophia had excused herself downstairs to make dinner, and Yamamoto sat on a bench beside the bed, his palm resting against the bandages around Gokudera's leg. "Do you need anything?"
Gokudera closed his eyes. "For you to be quiet."
"Oh. Okay."
Gokudera scoffed. "Hey," he said, "thanks." When he opened one eye to look at him, Yamamoto was smiling.
"No worries," he said, then settled into silence.
Gokudera knew that he should sleep, that his body really wanted that, but he was too keyed up, too flowing with adrenaline to relax. So he reached into the pocket of the coat which he still wore and slid a cigarette from the half-empty pack. He slipped it between his lips.
Yamamoto frowned at him.
"What? It calms me," Gokudera said, teeth clenched around the barrel of the cigarette.
Yamamoto stared at him for a moment, then shrugged out of his jacket and balled it up for a pillow. The smoking debate was decidedly not worth having at this point. Instead, he curled up around Gokudera's feet like a cat, his long legs folded up. He looked so tired, like the stress was finally catching up to him, the fear wearing him out as much as physical battles or training ever did. And somewhere inside the embarrassment and the pain, Gokudera was grateful that Yamamoto had been with him. As painful as it was to admit, Yamamoto was an asset to the Family.
So, "What next," Gokudera asked, "now that school's done?"
Yamamoto's eyes were closed, but he smiled. "There were scouts at my last game, you know." His voice was quiet in the dim light of the single table lamp. It was slow, too, like he was letting himself drift closer and closer to sleep. Gokudera wasn't positive that he was even awake at all right now.
Gokudera watched his closed his eyes, watched his relaxed mouth. "Nn." He didn't know how to respond. Of course he'd heard about the scouts. He and the Tenth and Ryohei had all gone to the last game along with the girls, the kids, and various Vongola associates. Yamamoto had a cheering section which was bigger than the entire visiting team. Rumors had circulated around the stands--Gokudera wasn't deaf. And the Tenth had looked so proud of Yamamoto's performance. All Yamamoto had to do was say he wanted to join the minors and Tsuna would give his okay and then Yamamoto would be gone.
Yamamoto yawned lazily and nuzzled his face deeper into the folds of his jacket. "They want to talk to me and my dad. What about you?"
"Family business," Gokudera answered. What else could he possibly want to do? He wouldn't leave Tsuna.
"Mm," Yamamoto mumbled and nodded faintly. "Hey, when you're better, we should go to Rome, too." Then, after a moment, he didn't say anything more.
Gokudera laid there, the pain in his leg throbbing but bearable, the adrenaline wearing off. The quiet helped. Yamamoto's breath came in small, airy bursts down at the foot of the tiny bed, and Gokudera could feel his own heartbeat slowing down, his blood going to sleep. He'd been such an idiot. How was he supposed to protect the Tenth when they were so far apart? He shouldn't have been wandering around Florence. He should have been at the Ninth's estate, at the Tenth's side. His miscalculation of the danger had been a serious one. If he'd died, if the Black Spell asshole had lived and made it back to base to inform them that the Vongola's tenth boss was in the country...
A knock at the door startled him and he looked up. "Sorry," Sophia whispered though it sounded more like small talk than a sincere apology, and she walked toward the bed with two plates of steaming food. She handed one to Gokudera and set the other down on the bench. "For your friend," she said. Then she stood up straight and put her hands on her hips. "You both should eat, even if you feel tired."
Gokudera agreed to wake Yamamoto in a moment. Then he watched Signora Sophia for the first time since he'd come inside her shop. She moved slower now than he remembered, five years as long a time for her as it was for Gokudera. But, where his life was speeding up on its steady course, hers was slowing down. She had silver now in that mass of thick, dark hair, sparks of age at the temples. But her movements, her eyes, her smile still had that determined purpose that he remembered.
Sophia smiled at him. "I must look so old to you," she whispered, "but you look old to me, too. So tall! You used to be such a small boy."
Gokudera felt his face flush. He thought of Yamamoto Tsuyoshi grinning proudly at his son from behind the counter of Take Sushi, recounting for patrons the most dramatic moments of recent baseball games. He thought of the way parents and guardians held the power to make grown men feel like children. Still, it was uncomfortable to be complimented on his maturity when he felt like such a child there, a screw-up and immobilized, watched after.
Sophia lowered herself onto the edge of the bed, into the nook between Gokudera's wounded leg and Yamamoto's curled-up knees. "Hayato," she said sadly, one hand on his arm, "I don't know why you can't stay out of trouble."
He struggled to meet her gaze. He'd been such a troubled boy when he first met her, only a year younger than when he challenged the Tenth for his position, but less sure of himself, hungrier. Signora Sophia met him as a troublemaker, a child fleeing the scene where he had pilfered food, shoved it into his pockets so he could fill his belly when he needed it most. He had been dirty; his clothes had been tattered. He was even fuller of discontent and anger then--angry with his father, frightened of his sister, rejected by every mafia family whose path he'd crossed, whose good graces he'd begged for. He carried dynamite then, though less of it. Still, he made sure the rumors spread, the rumors of his skill and his storehouse of explosives stashed all over his body. When Signora Sophia had found him, he was a different boy.
Finally, "I'm sorry," he said. He meant it.
Sophia made a regretful noise with her tongue, then gathered him into a hug. "Come home sometime, yes? Sometime when you're not bleeding."
He closed his eyes and rested his forehead against her shoulder. He didn't tell her that this wasn't his home anymore. Really, it would have been a lie. Italy, and Signora Sophia's shop especially, would always be a home for him. But now he had the Vongola, the Tenth, a Family. And that was where he would serve. Instead, he said, "Sure."
Sophia pulled out of the embrace, her hands on his shoulders. "You lie," she said, "but that's okay. At least write me. I worry."
Gokudera forced a small smile. "I know." And he pressed a kiss to her cheek. When he'd met her, he was a boy without a mother. As far as temporary substitutes go, he could have done much worse.
When he pulled away, Sophia's eyes were wet. It made him anxious. As far as he could remember, he'd never made a woman cry. So, "Who's the girl?"
Sophia smiled through the thin mist of tears. "Carlotta. She's my granddaughter. Pietro, my oldest, passed away. Now, she lives with me."
Gokudera smirked. "More orphans? You're quite the saint, Signora." He hoped it didn't sound sarcastic.
But Signora Sophia frowned at him. "Watch your mouth." Then:"Why did you run away from here, Hayato? I could have helped you."
And Gokudera's gut felt like a fist. He couldn't tell her about the Tenth, about why he'd left. He couldn't tell her then and the thought of telling her now made him nervous.
"There are people who love you. And I don't care how tough you act--I know you have a good heart. You can't hide that. But you need to start letting people love you and help you. You are not an orphan anymore, baby."
Gokudera swallowed and looked down at his hands.
"I know you think the world is full of people who don't care and in a lot of ways, you're right. But not everyone. Then she sighed and stood up. "Your friend," she said, "what's his name?"
"Takeshi."
"Good. Let Takeshi help you tonight. I'm sure you won't have to ask him. And no being stubborn!" Then she thumped her fingertips on his forehead, ran a hand maternally over Yamamoto's sleeping head, and stood to make her way toward the door.
When she reached it, she paused there, her hand on its frame, her shawl hanging loosely down her back. She looked over her shoulder. "I will contact the Ninth," she said, "you will be safer there while you recover."
And Gokudera's face flushed. It felt something like the way other kids must feel when their mothers find that first stashed pack of cigarettes, only more so because nothing related to the mafia is like anything else at all. "How did you know," he asked softly.
Sophia smiled. She was beautiful. "Signor Vitrelli was Cavallone twice removed." Then she winked and slipped out the door. And Gokudera leaned back against the pillows and snorted a small laugh.
Yamamoto stirred a little, pulling the wadded-up pillow of his jacket tighter against the curve of his neck. Normally, Gokudera would have told him to go find another place to sleep. He blamed the exhaustion for his sudden surge of generosity. He wouldn't say that it had anything to do with the way Yamamoto had just saved his life. And it had nothing to do with the way Gokudera had allowed himself to accept the offered help. Doctor Shamal would probably be very disappointed with the both of them. Gokudera couldn't find the energy in his chest to care.
In the dark, the mobile phone in Yamamoto's pocket rang and vibrated against the mattress. His sleep must not have been very deep; he awoke instantly, shifting around carefully--always mindful of Gokudera's wound--and he plucked the cell phone from his pocket.
"Tsuna!" He looked so delighted when he answered. "Well, we're in Florence. We were coming to see you, but then Gokudera got shot--No! No no! It's okay. Everything's fine! Once he gets better, we're coming back and--"
And Yamamoto fell quiet. Gokudera could hear the Tenth's disembodied voice speaking deeply through the phone, grave and defeated. He couldn't quite make out the words, but the look on Yamamoto's face conveyed enough. This was not good news.
"Yes," Yamamoto said, his voice low, his smile gone, "I understand."
Gokudera looked at him questioningly, but a quick shake of Yamamoto's head dismissed him. "Yes. We'll leave tomorrow." And Yamamoto hung up the phone.
When he met Gokudera's eyes, the concern was apparent. The furrow between his eyebrows was deepened by the flickering lamplight. "Tsuna says we don't have a choice. We'll have to resort to the Boxes."
Gokudera blinked. "But I thought he already decided!"
Yamamoto shrugged. "Things have changed," he said.
Gokudera's stomach twisted in on itself. Once again, his map ripped in two, and his entire world--his father's home, Italy, Japan, Tsuna--compressed to fit inside a tiny hope, just small enough to tuck into the Ring Box in his pants pocket.
"We'll do what we have to do," he said, his voice hoarse.
Yamamoto nodded. The Guardians were in agreement.
Fandom: Katekyo Hitman Reborn!
Characters: Gokudera, Yamamoto
Rating: PG-13 (violence, language)
Word Count: 7900
Notes: So. This started out as a kink meme prompt, 8059 speaking Italian. (Bless you, requesting anon. Foreign languages are HOT.) ...But then I sucked the smut and the pairing out of it. So, we have gen. (But my beta reader tells me it is almost as subtexty as canon. ^_~)
When Gokudera was a child, the biggest continent in the world was his father's house. Sprawling levels, vast and fragrant gardens, balconies that jutted out into sunrise, sunset. It was uncharted territory, filled with strange beasts, like the servants, his angry and distant father, his sister with her strange cooking smells, and that doctor whom Gokudera liked to follow around and ask questions. One time, the doctor left for a week. He came back bloodied and gaunt. Gokudera, four and brave and sad, asked, "Why did you leave me?" The doctor answered, "When you're older, kid."
***
"North is up, idiot," Gokudera said, pinching the bridge of his nose. Yamamoto stared down at the map in his hands, no doubt confounded by its symbols and foreign street names, Via this and Vicolo that.
"Yeah, but if I don't turn the map the way we're going, I can't follow it." Then he sighed, this breathy, hopeless thing like Gokudera had often heard him make in the throes of algebra exams and literature lectures. It was pathetic.
Gokudera wasn't entirely sure why they even needed a map. He knew the city. He'd wandered it for many months as a boy, stealing food and aggravating locals.
"It doesn't make any sense!" Yamamoto tacked a laugh onto the end, but he still sounded exasperated. "How are we supposed to find Tsuna like this?"
Gokudera flushed a bit; then he pulled a cigarette out of his pocket and shoved it between his lips. "Leave the Tenth to me." He didn't say that he had no intention of being seen by his boss while they were in Florence. He had no intention of the Tenth even knowing he and Yamamoto had been there. How to keep Yamamoto's mouth shut was a separate matter. "I don't see why you had to come along, anyway," he muttered around the cigarette barrel.
Yamamoto smiled and shrugged, hands in his pockets. "I thought we could bond." Gokudera glared at him. "...And I thought it would be a good way to celebrate graduation? I've never been to Italy!"
"You've never been to Antarctica either." Gokudera took a deep drag of his cigarette and exhaled the smoke in Yamamoto's general direction.
Yamamoto tilted his head as if he hadn't heard. "Huh?" And Gokudera scowled and walked up the street. This was no time to bicker with Yamamoto. This was serious.
The Tenth was trying to slow the eruption of a war, a weak governor for an out-of-control engine, head bent in counsel with the Ninth's, strategy, peace-keeping, back-up plans. Gokudera didn't understand who would dare challenge the Vongola; he didn't understand why. But they had suffered three attacks in the short span of two months: one of the Ninth's men in Italy, whom Gokudera had never met, is driven off a mountain road and his car crashes into the Mediterranean; the wedding of a distant Vongola daughter dissolves when a guest hears the ticking of a bomb beneath the band shell; and one of the Tenth's own, Kusakabe Tetsuya, receives in the mail an envelope heavy and moist with cherry blossoms. No one doubts the enemy's target: Hibari Kyouya--a grave mistake or a bold assertion, and the Vongola were not going to take their chances on which.
The Vongola men talked. How could they not? Generations had passed and the only challenge to the Family had come from one of its own misbegotten sons. Some blamed the recent acquisition of an ally, the Rossetti Family, influential in the south of Italy and skilled in weaponry. Some blamed the seemingly imperial ambitions of setting up connections in Japan, a far-flung military outpost by all accounts. It didn't matter. A good boss would cut off the oxygen to smother the flames, and the Tenth was nothing if not a good boss.
When he'd made the plans to meet with his predecessor, The Tenth had expressly asked his Guardians to stay behind. He would be with the Ninth--there was, indeed, no safer place for him to be. And he didn't want to send the message to their enemies in Italy that the Vongola was either afraid or on the offensive. Thus, he would go to Italy without his men. And Gokudera agreed completely. The Guardians should stay in Japan.
But he was the Right-Hand Man. A boss goes nowhere without his Right-Hand Man. So Gokudera bought tickets for the flight following the Tenth's and he would hang out in the city just in case anything went down. He would be there in the shadows, so to speak, unseen.
But he wasn't, as it turned out, as unseen as he would have liked. Yamamoto, as he always did, showed up at the worst possible time. Returning the last borrowed textbook of his academic career, he'd knocked on Gokudera's door, then pushed his way inside. The open suitcase, the plane tickets on the counter--they said all that needed to be said.
So, Gokudera found himself directing Yamamoto through the streets of Florence for the very first time. The last thing he wanted to do was lead a guided tour, not when the Tenth was in such a precarious position. But he didn't want to linger too close to Vongola headquarters where the boss might see him, so this would have to do.
The map crinkled behind him once more, and he stopped abruptly enough that Yamamoto ran into his back.
"Oof!"
"If you'd pull your face out of that map, you'd know where you were, and you'd realize that it is the most beautiful city in the world, you moron."
Yamamoto blinked at him, then looked around. "Whoa..."
***
When Gokudera was five, he learned that he is the ruler of his own world. He fell and scraped his knee bad for the first time, and the doctor told him to stop crying. He handed him a bottle of antiseptic, because little boys clean out their own wounds. They heal alone, and Gokudera learned to control his world.
***
"Hey, what's that?"
Gokudera never should have taken away the stupid map. For the last hour he'd followed Yamamoto through the winding brick streets of Florence, translating signs, filling in the spaces between the exotic characters. In his pocket, Yamamoto had a small stack of postcards for Haru and Ryohei and everyone else. One for Tsuna, even though Tsuna had seen it himself--but maybe he'd been too busy to really enjoy it, haha! He even had one for Hibari. Yamamoto figured he'd probably just slide it under his door or something. Gokudera figured he'd probably still get his ass kicked for it.
"A church," he said finally, "another one. Just like the one from five minutes ago." And even while he was annoyed with Yamamoto's enthusiasm, his chest swelled with pride. This was his home. His blood, the air that had wrapped around his skin for the first fourteen years of his life, and now again. Too many years had passed, but he still remembered the way it smelled, the way the sun felt on his face.
"Ohh," Yamamoto said, either ignoring or not noticing Gokudera's sarcasm. Whatever. "I mean, I go to the temple with my dad all the time, but this is..."
What, Gokudera wanted to ask. Lavish? Opulent? The church was towering, with steeples and saints portrayed in colorful stained glass. The doors were huge like castle doors, and they watched on as the large bell atop the structure began to sway back and forth, ringing out and marking the hour. In contrast, Japan was so bland, so quiet and simple. This must blow Yamamoto's zen little mind, a small detonation surrounded by stained glass and ancient crumbling steeples.
Gokudera knew about churches. His father had been deeply devout, head often bowed in prayer and Gokudera didn't dare ask for what he prayed. A less conspicuous suit hung in the deep cavern of his father's closet, reserved for Mass. Gokudera and Bianchi had always been dragged along--every week, every holy day. They were always told to beg forgiveness, though Gokudera never knew how they had sinned. When his head was bowed, he always nodded off. Bianchi, though not religious as far he could tell, had nevertheless savored the tradition, the ritual of church. Even as a girl, she would carefully select a dress, a hat. Gokudera used to hate the tiny suits his father's servants would wrestle him into, one writhing octopus-arm at a time.
Gokudera had never been inside this particular church that fascinated Yamamoto so much, but the weeping saint in the stained glass looked the same as the one in his old church. They all looked the same.
"Did you go to church, Gokudera?"
He scoffed. "No." Then, gentler: "Come on, let's eat."
Yamamoto's eyes widened. "Oh! Spaghetti! No--noh-chee!"
"Nyahk-ee. Gnocchi."
"Yeah, that. Wait--pizza!"
"Pizza," Gokudera agreed because it would take less explaining. "The kind without mayo."
Yamamoto looked a little crestfallen. "...aww."
So Gokudera wound them further into the city, down side streets which the tourists mostly avoided, past store fronts with crumbling exteriors and baskets of colorful flowers and deeply scented herbs. It was just like the movies and it would be a lie to say that Gokudera hadn't brought Yamamoto this way because he thought it would amuse him. He remembered being amazed himself when he first arrived in Florence as a boy, by himself.
Three side streets, one alleyway, and countless stonework storefronts later, Gokudera was unsurprised to find that his favorite pizzeria from childhood was still in operation. Nothing ever changed in places like this, nothing real anyway. The parts the tourists would see were constantly under renovation--constantly reconstructed anew. But the heart of Florence, of Sicily, of Venice, none of that ever changed.
***
And when Gokudera was eight years old, his world collapsed in on itself, shaken to rubble along its trembling fault line. And he fled the demolition, past his yelling father, past the servants and his sister, past the gentle doctor without a glance because no one gets to see Gokudera cry, ever. He burst through the doors, and his world swelled. His world, sudden and strange, was Italy and all of the vineyards and canals and coastlines that came along with it.
***
"You've seen open-air markets before. What's the big deal?"
"These aren't like the ones from home!"
Gokudera looked around him, taking in the sight of the crowded street undulating as much with locals as with tourists. On the other side of the street, a woman held a tomato in her hand, appraising its deep red color under the sun. Beside her, a man held up a green-and-yellow-streaked heirloom variety. A few tables down, a man argued animatedly in French-accented Italian with a merchant: These peaches are half this price back home! The merchant looked away and waved her arms at him as if he were a bothersome fly.
Nearer to him and Yamamoto, a little girl ran up to a table with her arms overflowing with blossoms: roses and daisies and calla lilies, an explosion of color and scent. Gokudera watched her pass them off to the vendor behind the table, take a small handful of coins in return, and run back down the alley.
The scene truly was like nothing else on earth.
"Hey," Yamamoto said beside him, nudging him with his elbow, "what time are we going to meet Tsuna? Because I want to check out the...this..." Yamamoto turned the map around in his hands and pointed. "...This whatsit."
Gokudera smirked. "Ponte Vecchio. It's a bridge." How typical and touristy.
Yamamoto looked at him, his mouth open in delight. "Say it again."
A raised eyebrow. Repeated foreign words.
"That is so cool! I only get to hear you use Italian when you swear."
"Vaffanculo," Gokudera said with precision.
Yamamoto frowned at him. "Yeah. That's the one. Not as cool."
Gokudera breathed a soft laugh, and jutted his chin in the direction of the bridge. "It's this way," he said, "come on."
And there, amidst the melons and the street vendors, the energy in the air shifted.
There was a metallic click. It was faint. It was as faint as the tumble of pebbles down the street, but something inside of him--part mafia brat, part urchin--responded to it before others--mere mortals--would even hear it.
"Get down," he said, his chest suddenly tight.
And then the bullets flew. Everyone heard that. Explosive and loud at first, like a war zone; then high-pitched and whizzing. Yamamoto muttered a quick, "Huh?" before Gokudera scowled, hissed, "Christ, would you get down!" and yanked the hem of his coat until they were both squatting behind a merchant's fruit stand. It was like something in a movie; his heart raced like it always did when he was watching the screen, this shuddering thing against his ribs as if it was trying to get out.
He didn't get a clear look at the guy. Didn't get a look at all. He knew where the bullet came from and if he looked up, he knew he'd be able to see him, but looking up right then would probably be a very bad idea. Beside him, Yamamoto still looked confused and frightened, but at least he was hunched down with his knees to his chest and his arms crossed over his head. It was the Black Spell. Inside, Gokudera knew they both realized that. It was the Black Spell and they were too late. And if the Black Spell knew he and Yamamoto were in Sicily, then it must know about the boss...
Above their heads, a melon exploded. No, two of them. Pink and orange and green guts went flying, speckling their black suits, sticking in their hair. Yamamoto looked at him wide-eyed. He couldn't tell if Yamamoto was terrified, or loving it. Then, as Gokudera was appraising him, something shifted in Yamamoto's eyes, something like Gokudera saw when Yamamoto was fighting Squalo: this glinting excited thing like he was alive in the battle, some violent underbelly of his nature rearing up to strike. Gokudera smirked. Might as well put on a show for the kid. So he reached into his pocket for dynamite.
He found the first two sticks predictably in his hip pocket, and a third tucked between his back and the waistband of his pants. He held them up, gripped between his fingers, and smiled wickedly at Yamamoto. Show time. He would take this bastard out just like he did everyone else who'd ever threatened the Tenth, and then he would get to the Ninth's estate to warn them.
Yamamoto looked over at him, his eyes wide and his breath coming in quick, shallow heaves of his chest. "You can't," he whispered, his hand holding Gokudera's wrist in place, "what about the people?"
Gokudera grinned around the cigarette. This is what he trained for. "They already scattered--" Another bullet shot out of the alleyway and more fruit exploded above them. "--And I have good aim." Then he lit one, two, three sticks of dynamite on the end of his cigarette and he lunged out. The moment stretched out like the timeline of his life, long and thin and slow like a rubber band, kinetic, until his eyes caught his target, then snap. His arm shot out, quick like a trigger and he launched dynamite at the lone Black Spell grunt peering out from the opposite alleyway.
Gokudera watched the ascent of the explosives, then the first delayed charge that sent them shooting downward at the enemy. The descent was fast and frightening, and in his fascination Gokudera didn't see the man aim his gun and fire.
The bullet caught the meat of his left thigh. The force sent him backward, shoved a scream from his throat, and he crashed into Yamamoto. The flashing behind his eyelids matched the explosion in the alleyway, but he was screaming too loud to notice.
"Gokudera!"
Somewhere in the midst of his cries and the pain pulsing through his entire body and Yamamoto's hands holding him steady, Gokudera could only think one thing: The Tenth. The Tenth. We have to get to the Tenth!
Then he heard it again: "Gokudera! Hey, shh, come on. It's okay." And he had the sense that he was clawing at Yamamoto, that he was fighting, that blood soaked the leg of his pants even more with each painful kick of his wounded leg, but he didn't care because the Black Spell had found them. The Black Spell had found them and what the fuck kind of Right-Hand Man was he, anyway, if he got shot before he can protect his boss?
"Gokudera! It was just one guy. He's--he's gone. Come on. We have to get you to a hospital." Then, exasperated: "Fuck, I can't read the signs." Yamamoto's chest was rising and caving wildly against his back; he could feel it. One arm was curved around his side, a large hand on his chest, holding him down. And Gokudera thrashed against it. He had to get out of there. He had to get to the Tenth. The fingers of one of his hands tugged at the sleeve of Yamamoto's jacket. The fingers of the other hand gripped Yamamoto's hair. Gokudera wasn't sure, but he thought maybe he was trying to hurt Yamamoto enough to make him let go. It didn't seem to be working.
Then, from the alleyway: "Hayato?"
***
Then, at thirteen, there was Signora Sophia. "Signora" because she was widowed; "Sophia" and not "Vitrelli" because she was an entity all to herself. Gokudera thought she was the most beautiful thing in his vast, ugly world. Dark hair that swayed down past her shoulders, dark eyes, hands as soft as his mother's, and Gokudera's world shrank to the size of the tiny flower shop where she gave him his first honest work and a place to sleep, hot food to eat in the evenings if he's earned it. His hands learned the topography of soft rose petals and their thorns. His heart learned to flutter in excitement, too, and not just in fear.
***
"Hayato?" And Gokudera looked up. Signora Sophia. And somewhere between the endorphins and the adrenaline, between the panic and the pain, relief flooded his body. She was standing in the alleyway like he had seen her do so many times. Beautiful.
"Hurry," she whispered in Italian, "come in through the alleyway."
And before another pulse of pain shot through his leg, before he could spare another thought to the Tenth's safety, before he could fight back, Yamamoto had an arm around his waist and was hoisting him up off the ground. He felt himself hauled across the walkway, back toward the alleyway--felt it as if it was a different body. His right arm was pulled over Yamamoto's shoulders, gripped tight around the wrist. He felt his weight shifted to rest on his right leg, to the right side of his body which leaned against Yamamoto. And, one quick "It's all right," later, he felt Yamamoto begin to drag him to the alley entrance of Signora Sophia's flower shop.
Lights flashed in his periphery each time the wound in his leg pulsed around the bullet. He saw the table of flowers speed past his eyes, the tall brick buildings lining the alleyway, the worn and stained street, the wooden frame of the door into Sophia's shop. He saw it all as a blur, like the time his father took him and Bianchi to the fair and he rode on a quick, spinning ride until he was dizzy. It was like that, only a lot more painful. And as he was pulled across the threshold and into the small shop, he fought fiercely against Yamamoto's grip.
"The Tenth! We have to get to the Tenth!" Yamamoto still had one arm around his waist, still had one hand around his wrist to hold Gokudera's arm in place. His eyes held frightened sympathy that made Gokudera kicked harder.
"Hey," Yamamoto said softly, "settle down. Tsuna is fine."
Gokudera groaned and hissed against the pain--mostly his fault, mostly from the way his body writhed under Yamamoto's steadying grip.
"You are not going anywhere like this," Sophia said, her lips pursed in a frown. "Do not make this any worse on your body, Hayato."
From the corner of his eye, Gokudera saw Yamamoto look at her quizzically, understanding none of her language. Then Yamamoto's fingers were spread on the small of his back. The gesture was meant to be comforting, Gokudera realized somewhere between the pain and the fear.
"Hey, Tsuna's not in trouble," he said quietly, "it wasn't planned, right? We just stood out and the guy saw us. A coincidence. Besides--" He paused. "--I don't think he'll be making it back to tell anybody."
Gokudera clenched his eyes, then his teeth against the lightning pain shooting up his leg and struggled against Yamamoto's arm. Yamamoto tightened his grip.
"You can't do anything like this. Please. Tsuna's with the Ninth."
Mixed in with the pain, Gokudera was seething. He had screwed up. He was supposed to be in Florence to ensure the Tenth's safety. But he'd been foolish and had strayed and now the Tenth could be in danger because of his stupid mistake. He pushed away from Yamamoto's support and leaned against the wall. His heart raced; his vision blurred. He was losing a lot of blood, he knew it. He could die here.
Then Sophia crossed her arms and looked at him very sternly. Peeking behind her long skirt was a small girl. Her dark eyes were wide, framed with blunt brown bangs. She was the girl from earlier, the girl with her arms weighted down by flowers. And suddenly Gokudera was thirteen all over again, bread shoved in his pockets, running from the merchant victim of his thievery, bumping into Sophia out in front of her shop.
"Go upstairs where you can lie down and we can get you fixed up." Sophia had never been one to get the authorities unnecessarily involved.
Gokudera drew in a few sharp breaths, each one rocking his body and pulsing past the bullet in the tight canal of the wound. Finally, the pain overriding the panic, he swallowed, nodded, and muttered, "Okay."
***
Then when Gokudera was fourteen, the borders of his world settled and solidified, galvanized, and everything in his blood pulsed and rushed and spoke one name only: Sawada Tsunayoshi, tenth boss of the Vongola Family. It was home and world and life, at last, at last, and Gokudera would guard those borders until the day he died.
***
"What did she say," Yamamoto asked him quietly.
"She told me where to clean up," he answered, his breath strained because each intake of air made his leg hurt even more, and then he headed for the stairs. The first step sent agony shooting through his leg, his body, his bones. "Fuck," he hissed. And Yamamoto was there, one arm a sudden support around his waist, the other hand pressed against the wall to steady their ascent. "The pinch hitter has arrived," he said softly and winked.
Gokudera wanted desperately to spit at him, to tell him to get lost, but he was subdued by the sweet relief of having a steady body to lean on. Yamamoto counted to three, hoisted Gokudera, and together they climbed the stairs.
Sophia's shop was as he remembered it. Old and crumbling but beautiful, like those quaint movie-versions of Italy, all stucco and exposed wooden beams. Sophia's place really was like that. From inside, when the street was quiet, Gokudera could hear the rushing water of Florence's fountains. Inside, it smelled so green. When she had first pulled him in off the street, rescuing him from the angry merchant, he'd thought a flower shop would smell like flowers. It didn't. It smelled like leaves.
The stairwell still creaked like it always had, but more now with the clumsy weight of two. And upstairs a narrow landing revealed three doorways leading to rooms that looked no different than when Gokudera had left this place four years ago: Sophia's bedroom, a bathroom, and the room in which he himself had lived for a year, his first real home since he was eight years old. "To the right," he said, and Yamamoto walked them into the room.
It seemed so much smaller than it had before, back when he was thirteen and small. The bed was shorter and narrower, the ceiling was lower, and the window revealed a much more constricted view of the Florence cityscape than he had imprinted in his memory before he had left. In his memories, Florence stretched on forever.
"The bed," he said, his voice hoarse, "then go to the next room and get some towels. I don't want to bleed on her blankets." So Yamamoto lowered him to the edge of the bed and slipped out of the room.
Gokudera rested against the pillows, the pain in his leg lessened only slightly with the relief of sitting. In his head, he calculated the time, recalled the Tenth's flight schedule, and realized they were too late to call him. If he was all right. Gokudera grimaced against the thought. If the Tenth was hurt because he'd fucked up...
When he looked up, the little girl was gazing around the edge of the door, her tiny hands gripping the frame. She looked frightened. Gokudera couldn't blame her--he was a strange man, covered in blood, laying in what was likely her bed. He met her eyes for a moment and tried to smile at her. It's okay, he wanted to say. But then he heard footsteps coming up the stairs. She made a small noise and disappeared down the hall. A moment later, Signora Sophia came inside with a basin of warm water.
"Hayato," she said with a frown, the way she had admonished him the first time he had spoken rudely to a customer. "What's going on?"
He looked away, his eyes on the floor. He heard her step across the room; he felt the mattress shift under her weight. His wound throbbed with the movement, but he refused to let it show in his face. She cupped the back of his head with her hand, like his mother used to do; then she slid her palm down to rest on his cheek.
"You look so grown up now," she said with that wise, playful smile he remembered, "but you still protect your eyes like a child. Tell me what I'm hiding you from."
Before he could answer, Yamamoto stepped back into the room, his eyes wide and frightened, panic still lingering though they were now safe. "This is all I could find," he said, holding out an armful of towels.
Sophia rose from the bed, "I'll leave this to the two of you," she said over her shoulder, and disappeared back downstairs.
"What did she say?"
"Will you quit asking that? She said she'd let me take care of this."
Yamamoto frowned. "I don't think you should do it yourself."
Gokudera narrowed his eyes. "Do you know how to field dress a bullet wound?" His voice was sarcastic.
"No. Do you?"
Gokudera scowled at him, then busied his hands with his belt buckle. Of course he'd never done this before. He'd never been shot, and neither had any of the other Vongola. But he'd seen wounded men staggering in and out of his father's home when he was a child. He'd seen the procedure. Besides, he was smart. He could figure it out. So he undid his belt and lifted his hips to slide the pants off.
The pain slashed through his leg as if he'd just been shot all over again. Yamamoto stepped forward. "Let me."
"Fuck off," he answered. "If you hadn't come along--"
"You would have died in the alleyway." And Yamamoto lowered himself to his knees and gently untied Gokudera's shoes and slipped them off his feet.
Gokudera didn't know what to say. Yamamoto had a point. It was sheer dumb luck that the Black Spell had seen and attacked him in front of Signora Sophia's flower shop, dumb luck that the Black Spell was not yet involving civilians in its attacks. So Gokudera said nothing at all.
"Come on," Yamamoto said with a soft smile, an acceptance of Gokudera's unspoken apology, "lift up so I can get these off. It'll hurt, I know, but bear with it for a second."
Gokudera obeyed and one swift tug later, Yamamoto had his pants pulled down past the bullet wound in his thigh. Gokudera hissed through the pain. When he looked down, his stomach lurched. The wound looked much worse than he'd thought, blood spread out over a several-centimeter radius from the source. Probably all that moving.
"The rest of the way?" Yamamoto was trying not to throw up; Gokudera could tell.
He nodded. "Yeah. It'll be easier to clean it."
So Yamamoto slid the pants off all the way, pausing only once when Gokudera breathed a sharp, angry intake of air, regret on his frightened face. Gokudera watched him appraise the wound, the torn flesh, the blood that was becoming sticky and thick.
"What next?"
Gokudera frowned against the throbbing ache. "Antiseptic. Then we'll have to get it out somehow."
Yamamoto nodded firmly. "Right." Gokudera snorted a laugh. Yamamoto didn't have the stomach for this. He had no problem getting sliced up in a sword fight, but when it came to dealing with the injuries of another, he became unnecessarily gentle and cautious.
"In the bathroom," he said, taking pity, giving guidance, "in the cabinet. At least, it used to be."
When Yamamoto returned, he doused a cloth with antiseptic and wiped down the wound. Gokudera watched on, helpless and aching, as the blood was cleared from the area surrounding site of the bullet impact. With the heavy scent of copper in the air, with the mess of blood swabbed from his leg, the injury looked surprisingly neat. Just a small entrance would circled with already-darkening purple bruises.
He looked up when Yamamoto swallowed, then sighed. "So, how are we getting it out?"
Gokudera blinked at him. In the preceding frenetic moments, he hadn't thought this far ahead. Mentally, he reeled through the catalog of stories he'd heard--wasn't there a man in the Family who'd lived out his life filled with bullets that had failed in their mission to kill him?
Then, from the doorway, he heard Signora Sophia clear her throat. She leaned against the doorframe, one arm crossed over her chest and one arm extended to offer a long pair of medical forceps.
Gokudera gazed over Yamamoto's shoulder, one eyebrow up in question.
"You have your secrets," she said, smiling, "I have mine."
Gokudera thought about saying Thank you, but those words had never passed between them. When she took him in, when he worked long hours for her, never taking time for a break--it was all out of moral responsibility. No affection needed to be admitted, no maternal feelings she may have harbored, no orphan loneliness. Once, she had said to him, I may not look like it, but I raised five boys. I know more about you than you ever will. He'd believed her.
When Yamamoto reached for the forceps, Gokudera swatted his hand away.
"Gokudera..."
"I can get it."
"No." Yamamoto's fingertips were pressed against Gokudera's chest, holding him back into the pillows. "You can't. Stop being so stubborn."
Sophia chuckled softly and handed the forceps to Yamamoto. "Listen to your friend," she said.
Gokudera rolled his eyes. "Friend," he repeated sarcastically, but he didn't resist when Yamamoto pulled the lamp closer and peered down at the wound. The contrast of light and shadow deepened his frown.
"Should you have something to bite on? That's what I see them do in movies."
Gokudera glared at him. "It'll be your face if you don't hurry up."
Yamamoto nodded soberly. "Right. Okay."
Sophia put a hand on his shoulder. "Sterilize it," she said and handed him a lighter. Yamamoto may not have understood her words, but he knew what he should do. He flicked the lighter and Gokudera watched him slide the flame along the length of the forceps. Back and forth, slow and cautious, the tongue of flame licking rhythmically. Then he extinguished it and looked at Gokudera. He'd never looked so serious before. "Ready?"
Gokudera clenched his teeth and nodded.
And Yamamoto went in. Careful at first, little prods of uncertainty. Then, at the first hiss from Gokudera's mouth, Yamamoto swallowed and moved the forceps inside, scraping over nerves and raw flesh. Blotches of red exploded behind Gokudera's eyelids like dynamite. Being shot hadn't hurt as much as this. He'd vomit if he could do it anywhere but on Yamamoto's head.
"I'm sorry," Yamamoto said quietly, "but I think I--" They both heard the clink of metal on metal. "I found it!"
"Then get it out," he growled, "hurry up."
Yamamoto nodded, and Gokudera felt the forceps open inside his leg, sharp tips pressing against the tender flesh. His vision swam. But then Yamamoto was pulling the instrument out, slowly, too slowly and Gokudera would have screamed at him if he could have breathed.
"Got it!" Yamamoto held the bloody thing up like a prize. "Wow," he said, "it's so small!"
Gokudera dragged in a few rough breaths. "Let's shove it in your leg and see how small you think it is."
Yamamoto laughed nervously, then dropped the bullet into the basin of water. He kept trying to meet Gokudera's eyes, but Gokudera wouldn't let him. Sophia passed him the bottle of antiseptic again, along with a roll of bandages. "Wrap him up, baby," she said. Gokudera rolled his eyes; they were all babies to her. Yamamoto looked at him questioningly.
"She said, wrap it up," he offered. And he didn't protest when Yamamoto refused his help.
He was surprised at how gentle Yamamoto was. Not that he expected carelessness; he'd seen the precision and the grace with which Yamamoto trained. But he had expected a certain amount of fumbling, at least, in this new thing. Instead, Yamamoto's large hands were feather-light against his skin as he wrapped the tight bandage. He found himself intently watching the procedure, as if it was being done to someone else.
Washed and disinfected and wrapped in clean, white bandages, Gokudera hardly looked injured at all. This was how he had wrapped himself when he'd battled Belphegor for the Ring of Storm, a conflict that seemed almost comical and arbitrary now. This new world was a frightening one.
Signora Sophia had excused herself downstairs to make dinner, and Yamamoto sat on a bench beside the bed, his palm resting against the bandages around Gokudera's leg. "Do you need anything?"
Gokudera closed his eyes. "For you to be quiet."
"Oh. Okay."
Gokudera scoffed. "Hey," he said, "thanks." When he opened one eye to look at him, Yamamoto was smiling.
"No worries," he said, then settled into silence.
Gokudera knew that he should sleep, that his body really wanted that, but he was too keyed up, too flowing with adrenaline to relax. So he reached into the pocket of the coat which he still wore and slid a cigarette from the half-empty pack. He slipped it between his lips.
Yamamoto frowned at him.
"What? It calms me," Gokudera said, teeth clenched around the barrel of the cigarette.
Yamamoto stared at him for a moment, then shrugged out of his jacket and balled it up for a pillow. The smoking debate was decidedly not worth having at this point. Instead, he curled up around Gokudera's feet like a cat, his long legs folded up. He looked so tired, like the stress was finally catching up to him, the fear wearing him out as much as physical battles or training ever did. And somewhere inside the embarrassment and the pain, Gokudera was grateful that Yamamoto had been with him. As painful as it was to admit, Yamamoto was an asset to the Family.
So, "What next," Gokudera asked, "now that school's done?"
Yamamoto's eyes were closed, but he smiled. "There were scouts at my last game, you know." His voice was quiet in the dim light of the single table lamp. It was slow, too, like he was letting himself drift closer and closer to sleep. Gokudera wasn't positive that he was even awake at all right now.
Gokudera watched his closed his eyes, watched his relaxed mouth. "Nn." He didn't know how to respond. Of course he'd heard about the scouts. He and the Tenth and Ryohei had all gone to the last game along with the girls, the kids, and various Vongola associates. Yamamoto had a cheering section which was bigger than the entire visiting team. Rumors had circulated around the stands--Gokudera wasn't deaf. And the Tenth had looked so proud of Yamamoto's performance. All Yamamoto had to do was say he wanted to join the minors and Tsuna would give his okay and then Yamamoto would be gone.
Yamamoto yawned lazily and nuzzled his face deeper into the folds of his jacket. "They want to talk to me and my dad. What about you?"
"Family business," Gokudera answered. What else could he possibly want to do? He wouldn't leave Tsuna.
"Mm," Yamamoto mumbled and nodded faintly. "Hey, when you're better, we should go to Rome, too." Then, after a moment, he didn't say anything more.
Gokudera laid there, the pain in his leg throbbing but bearable, the adrenaline wearing off. The quiet helped. Yamamoto's breath came in small, airy bursts down at the foot of the tiny bed, and Gokudera could feel his own heartbeat slowing down, his blood going to sleep. He'd been such an idiot. How was he supposed to protect the Tenth when they were so far apart? He shouldn't have been wandering around Florence. He should have been at the Ninth's estate, at the Tenth's side. His miscalculation of the danger had been a serious one. If he'd died, if the Black Spell asshole had lived and made it back to base to inform them that the Vongola's tenth boss was in the country...
A knock at the door startled him and he looked up. "Sorry," Sophia whispered though it sounded more like small talk than a sincere apology, and she walked toward the bed with two plates of steaming food. She handed one to Gokudera and set the other down on the bench. "For your friend," she said. Then she stood up straight and put her hands on her hips. "You both should eat, even if you feel tired."
Gokudera agreed to wake Yamamoto in a moment. Then he watched Signora Sophia for the first time since he'd come inside her shop. She moved slower now than he remembered, five years as long a time for her as it was for Gokudera. But, where his life was speeding up on its steady course, hers was slowing down. She had silver now in that mass of thick, dark hair, sparks of age at the temples. But her movements, her eyes, her smile still had that determined purpose that he remembered.
Sophia smiled at him. "I must look so old to you," she whispered, "but you look old to me, too. So tall! You used to be such a small boy."
Gokudera felt his face flush. He thought of Yamamoto Tsuyoshi grinning proudly at his son from behind the counter of Take Sushi, recounting for patrons the most dramatic moments of recent baseball games. He thought of the way parents and guardians held the power to make grown men feel like children. Still, it was uncomfortable to be complimented on his maturity when he felt like such a child there, a screw-up and immobilized, watched after.
Sophia lowered herself onto the edge of the bed, into the nook between Gokudera's wounded leg and Yamamoto's curled-up knees. "Hayato," she said sadly, one hand on his arm, "I don't know why you can't stay out of trouble."
He struggled to meet her gaze. He'd been such a troubled boy when he first met her, only a year younger than when he challenged the Tenth for his position, but less sure of himself, hungrier. Signora Sophia met him as a troublemaker, a child fleeing the scene where he had pilfered food, shoved it into his pockets so he could fill his belly when he needed it most. He had been dirty; his clothes had been tattered. He was even fuller of discontent and anger then--angry with his father, frightened of his sister, rejected by every mafia family whose path he'd crossed, whose good graces he'd begged for. He carried dynamite then, though less of it. Still, he made sure the rumors spread, the rumors of his skill and his storehouse of explosives stashed all over his body. When Signora Sophia had found him, he was a different boy.
Finally, "I'm sorry," he said. He meant it.
Sophia made a regretful noise with her tongue, then gathered him into a hug. "Come home sometime, yes? Sometime when you're not bleeding."
He closed his eyes and rested his forehead against her shoulder. He didn't tell her that this wasn't his home anymore. Really, it would have been a lie. Italy, and Signora Sophia's shop especially, would always be a home for him. But now he had the Vongola, the Tenth, a Family. And that was where he would serve. Instead, he said, "Sure."
Sophia pulled out of the embrace, her hands on his shoulders. "You lie," she said, "but that's okay. At least write me. I worry."
Gokudera forced a small smile. "I know." And he pressed a kiss to her cheek. When he'd met her, he was a boy without a mother. As far as temporary substitutes go, he could have done much worse.
When he pulled away, Sophia's eyes were wet. It made him anxious. As far as he could remember, he'd never made a woman cry. So, "Who's the girl?"
Sophia smiled through the thin mist of tears. "Carlotta. She's my granddaughter. Pietro, my oldest, passed away. Now, she lives with me."
Gokudera smirked. "More orphans? You're quite the saint, Signora." He hoped it didn't sound sarcastic.
But Signora Sophia frowned at him. "Watch your mouth." Then:"Why did you run away from here, Hayato? I could have helped you."
And Gokudera's gut felt like a fist. He couldn't tell her about the Tenth, about why he'd left. He couldn't tell her then and the thought of telling her now made him nervous.
"There are people who love you. And I don't care how tough you act--I know you have a good heart. You can't hide that. But you need to start letting people love you and help you. You are not an orphan anymore, baby."
Gokudera swallowed and looked down at his hands.
"I know you think the world is full of people who don't care and in a lot of ways, you're right. But not everyone. Then she sighed and stood up. "Your friend," she said, "what's his name?"
"Takeshi."
"Good. Let Takeshi help you tonight. I'm sure you won't have to ask him. And no being stubborn!" Then she thumped her fingertips on his forehead, ran a hand maternally over Yamamoto's sleeping head, and stood to make her way toward the door.
When she reached it, she paused there, her hand on its frame, her shawl hanging loosely down her back. She looked over her shoulder. "I will contact the Ninth," she said, "you will be safer there while you recover."
And Gokudera's face flushed. It felt something like the way other kids must feel when their mothers find that first stashed pack of cigarettes, only more so because nothing related to the mafia is like anything else at all. "How did you know," he asked softly.
Sophia smiled. She was beautiful. "Signor Vitrelli was Cavallone twice removed." Then she winked and slipped out the door. And Gokudera leaned back against the pillows and snorted a small laugh.
Yamamoto stirred a little, pulling the wadded-up pillow of his jacket tighter against the curve of his neck. Normally, Gokudera would have told him to go find another place to sleep. He blamed the exhaustion for his sudden surge of generosity. He wouldn't say that it had anything to do with the way Yamamoto had just saved his life. And it had nothing to do with the way Gokudera had allowed himself to accept the offered help. Doctor Shamal would probably be very disappointed with the both of them. Gokudera couldn't find the energy in his chest to care.
In the dark, the mobile phone in Yamamoto's pocket rang and vibrated against the mattress. His sleep must not have been very deep; he awoke instantly, shifting around carefully--always mindful of Gokudera's wound--and he plucked the cell phone from his pocket.
"Tsuna!" He looked so delighted when he answered. "Well, we're in Florence. We were coming to see you, but then Gokudera got shot--No! No no! It's okay. Everything's fine! Once he gets better, we're coming back and--"
And Yamamoto fell quiet. Gokudera could hear the Tenth's disembodied voice speaking deeply through the phone, grave and defeated. He couldn't quite make out the words, but the look on Yamamoto's face conveyed enough. This was not good news.
"Yes," Yamamoto said, his voice low, his smile gone, "I understand."
Gokudera looked at him questioningly, but a quick shake of Yamamoto's head dismissed him. "Yes. We'll leave tomorrow." And Yamamoto hung up the phone.
When he met Gokudera's eyes, the concern was apparent. The furrow between his eyebrows was deepened by the flickering lamplight. "Tsuna says we don't have a choice. We'll have to resort to the Boxes."
Gokudera blinked. "But I thought he already decided!"
Yamamoto shrugged. "Things have changed," he said.
Gokudera's stomach twisted in on itself. Once again, his map ripped in two, and his entire world--his father's home, Italy, Japan, Tsuna--compressed to fit inside a tiny hope, just small enough to tuck into the Ring Box in his pants pocket.
"We'll do what we have to do," he said, his voice hoarse.
Yamamoto nodded. The Guardians were in agreement.