Chapter Text
He'd already told himself it was useless. Still, he found himself drifting to the room Yamamoto Takeshi was about to vacate - if he had not vacated it already. His flight to Japan was in an hour. There was hardly any time left to linger.
Already, the Vongola mansion had started feeling grim, anticipating his absence. Gokudera had also told himself was it was strange to think so.
The first to leave, Hibari Kyouya, had never really come home here. There was always a room for him, the highest in the house, that he almost never used, preferring to go his own way.
But when he disappeared, it felt like the house suddenly had one cold, empty room.
Now it was Yamamoto. There was no telling when he was coming back. The Millefiore's forces had already overrun Japan; going in meant there might be no coming out.
It meant another empty room in this grimly silent house.
Gokudera had yelled himself sore over the last few days, trying to get Yamamoto to see reason. He wasn't sure he still had a voice to use to try and get him to stay this time around.
Yamamoto's flight was in an hour and he might already be gone.
But the door was ajar, and the light was on. Gokudera pushed the door open and found Yamamoto standing by the open window, fully dressed, his suitcase and his trusty sword lying on the only bed in the room.
Yamamoto looked back at him warily. They had not been in the best of terms the past few days. And it must have been weird, that Gokudera would be the only one to see him off.
"So you're not changing your mind?"
This was a ridiculous thing to say, and it didn't warrant a reply. Making a decision meant Yamamoto Takeshi gave his word to himself, and he never went back on his word.
He scowled, and picked up his sword sheath, slung the strap over one shoulder.
"If you're in trouble," Gokudera continued nonetheless, "you know how to reach our operatives there. Don't do anything stupid."
Yamamoto picked up his suitcase and headed for the door.
"And in case you don't find him..."
He brushed past Gokudera on the way to the hall.
Gokudera contemplated letting him go. He knew he didn't need to strain their relationship any more than he already had... but he couldn't stand idly by and watch his childhood friend walk into what might be the jaws of death alone, for the sake of something he could barely understand.
"Just remember," Gokudera said after him. "You can be stubborn to the point of despair."
Yamamoto stopped walking for a moment. Gokudera braced himself for Yamamoto turning, striding back to deliver a punch on the face, or something else that made a strong point without relying on words.
But Yamamoto just walked on.
When he was out of sight, Gokudera turned to close the door to Yamamoto's bedroom, and saw that the wristwatch that all the Guardians used to communicate with each other had been left on the dresser.
There was no use running after Yamamoto with it. It was clear enough he had left it on purpose.
The only thing belonging to Hibari Kyouya that was pulled out of the wreckage of the Venice base was his smashed-up wristwatch, too.
There was no body.
This was the one thought that sustained Yamamoto Takeshi. Through the numbness, the noise in his head, there was that one small fact.
Several weeks ago, the Vongole's Venice military research base was ambushed. Civilians, gunmen, scientists and technicians fell in droves before the Millefiore assault. For some reason they were caught off-guard. For some reason, it was as if the rival family read their minds and knew their every step.
And as the Venice base was under the direct jurisdiction of the Foundation, the Vongola's secretive research arm, Hibari Kyouya was present to defend it. As far as anyone knew, he had made no misstep, had applied the best of his strategic knowledge to overcome.
And above all, he fought fiercely. The few surviving witnesses all say the last thing they saw was the Cloud Guardian's flames burning into the ranks of the enemy.
They had set three illusionists on Hibari Kyouya. Three.
After the entire base was laid to waste, the Millefiore gloated. They made sure Hibari Kyouya's family knew what happened - the strongest warrior they had, failing to defend their primary research area, falling under the Millefiore's might. A giant smiling face in the sky made it clear to everyone who listened that they would've sent Hibari Kyouya's head back to his family, if they could.
But there was no body.
It was the Vongole's death knell. Their research base was finished. Without Hibari Kyouya to help them, and without the power of the Vongole rings, the Vongole had little left to survive.
All those who witnessed the assault said Hibari Kyouya could not have lived through it. He was in the front line, and the entire front line fell. No prisoners were taken. Nothing was left standing.
But if he was still alive, if he was still standing, Yamamoto knew there was really only one place he would go.
Still, it wasn't easy coming back.
Before Yamamoto Takeshi left Japan, he had attended his father's funeral. The last thing he did before he returned to another country, pulled along by the rest of his mafia family, was say "I'm sorry."
I'm sorry for not being around to save you. I'm sorry for not being able to do anything. I'm sorry I can't stay.
Yamamoto had to travel incognito; taking the usual Vongole routes would not do. He had to be just another guy in just another suit, traveling home to see his family. At least that was his official statement, if anyone asked.
He wasn't about to drag Tsuna into this. Tsuna had his small hands full trying his best to control the damage the Millefiore was wreaking on everything they all held dear. If he was thinking clearly, he should be with Tsuna now, the way Gokudera was and would always be, setting aside his personal feelings in order to be functional.
But that didn't matter here. This was Namimori. Everything here was personal.
He had to avoid certain places. His father's sushi shop and their old home, for example, was off-limits.
Hanging around such places would attract attention, especially with all the Millefiore patrolmen in the area. He had to make a beeline for his destination, or risk getting fatally distracted.
So he found himself, suitcase and all, standing in front of the locked gates of an old school.
He couldn't stand there too long, clearly, because that would catch attention, too. There was no reason for a tall, finely-dressed young man to be taking his time staring out at an abandoned school. There wasn't even anything special about it; schools were abandoned everywhere in these hard times.
When he was sure there was no one there to see, he threw his suitcase over the gate, and climbed in.
It was a long walk to the baseball diamond, beside which was a small club room. He was almost disappointed to find it unlocked, all the trophies and medals gone.
But this was exactly what he needed. There were mattresses for emergency use, and there wasn't much dust, which was always welcome. He set down his suitcase here.
The boys' showers were nearby. If it still had running water, it was going to be useful. Yamamoto made a note to visit it as soon as he could; it could help him relax back into an old familiar setting.
There was just something he had to do first.
Using one's box animals typically involved a great deal of flash and fireworks.
Yamamoto had to be careful.
There was one place in the whole school that was closed in and open to the sky at the same time - a walkway between buildings that formed a small atrium. He made his way here, and was mildly surprised by how quickly he got there from the baseball club room.
Used to be, it felt like it took forever to get to the baseball diamond to any other part of the school.
Funny how things seemed so much smaller after just ten short years.
He took the small box from his breast pocket, and held it out to someone invisible.
He closed his eyes.
Almost immediately a translucent blue flame left his hand and transferred itself to the box. The top of the box opened, and a blue light shone.
A ghostly figure emerged from the opening, and slowly took shape as it moved swiftly through the air - a swallow. When it had taken shape, it settled on Yamamoto's outstretched arm.
"Koujirou," he said softly to the illusion, "if he's here, find him."
The bird gave a small nod, and leapt into the air. It spread its wings, and seemed to vanish.
There was no one else in this school, at least not that the human senses could detect. Well, one shouldn't assume it was going to be easy to find Hibari, if he didn't want to be found. Yamamoto needed one box animal to help ferret out his target.
And it would take a swallow to call out the skylark.
One might argue that it was better to use Jirou, his other box animal, to track down Hibari... but Jirou moved too slowly if he wasn't on attack mode, and would have difficulty reaching high places. The accidental sighting of a ghost dog going around the school would cause more to-do than the accidental sighting of a fast-moving ghost bird.
He had to wait until Koujirou came back to him with results. For now, he had time to kill.
This was where they shared their first kiss -
- or, more appropriately, where Hibari's first kiss was stolen.
Getting beaten to within an inch of his life after the experience was totally worth it.
Tsuna and the baby found his grinning half-corpse in this dumpster right here... luckily before the tennis club came by.
This was where he and Tsuna first met. This was where Gokudera finally said a word in response to his pestering (for the record, it was "Get out of my face") and this was where he said he told the baby it might be fun to play the mafia game.
It was strange. It was as if it all happened just yesterday, and at the same time, a lifetime ago. Ten years ago was so far away... yet if he closed his eyes and reached out, he could touch it. He could be 15 years old again.
This was where Mishima Seiri told him she liked him. And where he shyly, awkwardly turned her down and said he liked somebody else. She tried to smile, but fled in tears, not knowing or caring at that point in time that she was merely the first of many who would do exactly this.
...And this was where Hibari finally agreed to meet with him, after months and months of being asked out. The untouchable head of the disciplinary committee had demanded a duel from his hardheaded suitor - the official reason was because he refused to even give the time of day to anyone weaker than himself - and, of course, won.
(Of course, "winning" was a relative term, because they started making out at one point during the duel - speeding through first, second, and third bases and hitting homerun even faster than Yamamoto could make sense of what was going on. Since this was closer to Yamamoto's goal to begin with, it could be argued that he won, though he ended up with more bruises, cuts and teeth marks.)
Stepping out of such fond memories made him feel old. These empty, run-down buildings held far more of his past than he even cared to admit to himself.
Hibari never talked about his past, and Yamamoto wondered how many more memories he might have had within these walls. When they were still growing up, this school was the only thing Yamamoto knew Hibari to hold dear to himself in some fashion. He never really knew the reason, and - in spite of all the inane things that escaped his lips in the course of their ten-year pseudo-relationship - never thought to ask.
It was nearing nightfall, and still no sign. If Koujirou came back without even the metaphorical olive branch - a scrap of his clothing, perhaps, or a message he'd left behind - Yamamoto would have to believe that Gokudera was right after all... and it was pointless for him to have come here.
Hope was a child's game; he wasn't a child anymore. He had to prepare himself for the worst.
But if he didn't find Hibari here, there were not a lot of other places he had lined up for looking into.
If he never found Hibari again, he didn't know what to do.
He needed to go back to the Vongole stronghold in Naples. He needed to help. But he wasn't sure he could bring himself to be useful. The situation already seemed hopeless as it was.
Without Hibari, he might as well lay down his sword, or his life.
He still believed in the Vongole. In Tsuna. But he had already lost too much. There was nothing left to give up, even if anyone asked.
You can be stubborn to the point of despair.
Yamamoto smiled emptily.
He was just about falling asleep on the mattress he'd laid out in the baseball club room, when he heard the ghost swallow's call.
He sat up, fully awake, and reached for his sword.
His box animal was beckoning to him.
Yamamoto found himself running. Never easy with sheathed katana in hand, but there was no time to even drop it, much less sling it over his shoulder.
It would be the staircase to the main building, of course... fifty-nine steps, he knew them all by heart. He'd climbed these steps more times than he could count.
But his legs were longer now, they gave him longer strides, and he could take the steps two, three at a time. It was strange, reconciling his anticipation now with the one he used to have - the one that occurred to him at the end of a hard day in school, or the victorious end of a long-anticipated baseball tournament, or the end of a fight with another strong swordsman, when every fiber of his painfully young body cried out for a secret and all-too familiar release.
The rooftop of the main building was always where he went to first. It would always be sunset, or close to nighttime, when the skylark folded his wings and laid down to rest.
He hurried to open the door to the rooftop. The rusty hinges complained and the wood made a loud "bang".
The person on the other side did not act at all surprised.
He sat against the wire fence, back to the rest of the world, facing only Yamamoto and the door he had just come through.
Koujirou sat perched on his shoulder, serene and looking rather proud of himself - as smug as an ethereal fraction of Yamamoto's soul could get. At the sight of his master, Koujirou considered his mission accomplished, and disappeared in mid-air again.
"You've come a long way, haven't you," he said casually.
Hibari Kyouya, the strongest Guardian of the Vongole family, formerly feared dead, wasn't wearing his black suit, the streamlined and cleverly disguised Vongole armor that had been tailored uniquely for his lithe frame... but Yamamoto figured it must have taken too much damage. Its owner had taken much damage, as well.
He wore plain denim jeans, the kind you could just pick up or steal anywhere. On his arms and torso, it seemed he wore nothing but bandages.
Yamamoto bit down the impulse to run to his side, fall to his knees beside his sitting friend, and inspect those bandages. He wasn't sure yet at this point what would make Hibari disappear again. It was safest to let him approach.
"Sorry for the wait. What have you been doing all this time?"
"Having fun making you all believe I was dead."
A corner of Yamamoto's lips rose. "So I spoiled it for you?"
"Doesn't matter." Hibari shrugged. "If anyone was going to find me, I knew it was going to be you."
Hibari got to his feet. Started walking toward Yamamoto. Yamamoto noted that Hibari walked with the balance of a completely unhurt person, and in fact with the light, extremely light sway in his hips that...
...Yamamoto dared not think it, but his body had different ways of processing what it perceived.
"Well, now that you've found me," Hibari said to him in a voice that was only too familiar - low, dangerous, sultry. "what are you going to do with me?"
Yamamoto was suddenly sharply reminded that they had not been together in a while. Close to a year, in fact.
He tried to brush the thought from his mind. Bandages wrapped all around his lover's body were not exactly meant to be sexy. And that tone of voice might as well have been reserved for someone Hibari meant to bite to death.
"This is what's going to happen." He held out the sheathed sword that for some reason, he still held in one hand, like a barrier between him and the inevitable. "You're going to stop hiding from us. You're coming back to Italy with me. You're going to report back to Tsuna, and we're going to fix everything."
Without hurry or any kind of force, Hibari reached out and pushed down the sword, making room for himself.
It was safest to let him approach. Yamamoto did not move.
As he pressed his body up close to Yamamoto's, Hibari declared, "This is what's going to happen."
He snaked one hand behind Yamamoto's neck. Lean fingers pressed firmly, drawing the taller man close and downwards.
It occurred to Yamamoto that they should be somewhere warmer, more sheltered from faces in the sky and other unpleasant interruptions.
But before he could seriously think about this, Hibari's bandages and Yamamoto's shirt had already been torn off (the Vongole armor-suit was supposed to be harder to rip off just with nails and teeth, but if the owner himself helped in the ripping, the process was considerably easier) and deep wounds that were still healing had already reopened in some parts of Hibari's body.
Ignoring the pain - or using it to fuel him - Hibari moved with the viciousness of someone who was celebrating just narrowly avoiding death. Yamamoto recognized this, he had felt it in Hibari many times... and he knew there were times when Hibari felt it in him, as well.
And there were many, many times when their sense of urgency met halfway. When need was a driving force that demanded them to burrow in deep, deeper, not caring about what each other felt, not caring about anything else.
This was one of those times.
They burned into each other, flames seeping like fever through their skin, canceling out the cold of the rooftop concrete and the night air. It was close to impossible to be rational when they were this close together, and slowing down meant giving in, and the taste of blood and each other's sweat filled both their mouths.
The look in Hibari's eyes was a mocking, challenging impenetrability - fiercely guarded, even while open and focused on Yamamoto's face.
Yamamoto's eyes, in turn, radiated anger, How could you do this to me, how could you make me believe you were never coming back, don't shut me out, don't pretend it was nothing.
Hibari drank in his lover's rage.