Happy Birthday Yamamoto. :3
On the night of the 23rd, Yamamoto was ducking through the alleys of Venice, trying to avoid crossing a canal in plain sight (and failing, the city was essentially a floating bastion) and praying that the Barassi henchmen who were scouring the roads for him wouldn’t find what they were looking for. The way he’d completed the mission was stupid and reckless - Gokudera would laugh so hard he’d piss himself once he heard how Yamamoto offed the Barassi Right Hand Man in the middle of a roomful of enemies - but the point was made. Vongola would not tolerate traitors, and the Don was next if he didn’t repent. Besides, dropping through the glass skylight and slicing through a man like the motherfucking god of death was pretty cool and something Yamamoto probably wouldn’t experience again.
In fact, he could basically guarantee that he wasn’t going to experience that again if he didn’t find the right motorboat (small, white with a red stripe on the side, named Bianchi after a girl who wasn’t the Poison Scorpion) to take him out of Venice.
Yamamoto hurtled down a street, keeping to the shadows as best as he could but he didn’t know what difference it made with his pounding footsteps and heart. The tail end of his sheathed katana smacked against his back and tailbone with every other step - at least he had a set rhythm to his stride.
He spotted the right watercraft out of a corner of his eye, docked only meters away but on the wrong side of the canal. Yamamoto could hear other footsteps on a parallel road, shouts of warning and attention. His legs knew his decision before he did; they changed direction, gathered potential energy and leaped off the dock with a coiling and release of muscle and adrenaline. He barely made it in, knocking the wind out of himself with the side of the boat and scrambling over hurriedly. The Barassi had heard his faulty landing and was onto his location, but the allied boat captain was ready - he revved the motorboat and cleaved a line through the water, the backwash spilling out of the canal in heady waves.
Yamamoto crawled into a corner at the back of the boat, curling up to nurse ribs that had probably fractured or at least bruised with the impact. Still, he drifted off into uneasy sleep, the knowledge that he was safe the best sedative in the entire world.
His cellphone chirped a few hours later, waking Yamamoto briefly. He cracked an eye open to see the stars (they traveled in a white band across the sky, the tantalizing dance of the Milky Way) and thought about checking who it was. He moved a hand to his jacket pocket, but then his ribs started protesting and he relaxed again. He’d check it later. They were speeding back to the main house now, and if it was big news, Tsuna or Gokudera would’ve called, not texted.
The next morning, after he’d woken up and a couple minutes before they docked in the private bay on Vongola property, Yamamoto flipped his phone open and checked his unread texts. At 12:01 on April 24th, Gokudera had sent him two words.
“Happy Birthday.”
Yamamoto smiled.