Part 2
Title: 100 Days part 2
Rating: I dunno, 14? Don't make me rate these things!!!!!!
Author: JiriayaWhitney
Characters/Pairing/s: D18, 18OC,
Warning/s: mention of the male genitalia...., OOC-ness on Kyouya's side.... Yep.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything. It's all Amano-sensei's....
Summary: He knew him for one-hundred days before he died.
[[[pause]]]
Thirty-one days
March Third.
Lavina Yuki Hibari slept soundlessly in the small carriage the hospital had issued for her. Her hands were curled as best they could be around her small, pink blanket. He was eighteen at her birth. He smiled, reached out and rolled her closer, watching her small chest rise and fall.
“You’re surprisingly domestic,” Fuuko mumbled, half asleep, half high on pain meds.
“It’s hard to believe we were all once this small.” He replied, brushing his finger on Lavina’s forehead. Fuuko giggled and reached out, doing the same. Lavina looked every bit to be his child, right down to the stunning lavender eyes he knew would darken, just like his and his mother’s had. He kissed both his daughter’s and Fuuko’s forehead happily.
[[[pause]]]
Twenty-eight days.
July twenty ninth.
“I hear you have a kid,” Cavallone said, smiling warmly. “Can I meet her sometime?”
“It depends on how overprotective her mother is today.” He shrugged one shoulder as his full hearted yes.
“I’m sure it’s nothing you can’t convince her otherwise of.”
“You want to go now, I take it?”
“The sooner the better, I always say.”
He sighed, but led him through the city, to his home, and introduced his family to Dino. The don nodded his salutations and made small talk while he attended to Lavina and finally brought her out. “Congratulations,” he said after she had grabbed hold of his pinky. “She looks every bit like you, Kyouya-san.”
He laughed, mirthfully, and none of them pointed out that it was the first time he had done so in front of Cavallone.
[[[pause]]]
Twenty-seven.
October first
“Happy early birthday,” he wished his wife and kissed her cheek. She smiled back, thanked him and kissed him in the same way. He ushered her to the door, where her date for the night was waiting, and smiled watching her do the same.
“Aren’t you two married?” Dino asked, hours later, as they stood side-by-side, talking near his bedroom so that he could hear Lavina if she cried.
“Open relationship.” He shrugged. “Since it was arranged, we agreed that so long as the other is fine with it, we can have relations. Children just stayed between the two of us, however.”
“And yet you had Lavina?”
“Wedding night consummation.”
Dino nodded as though that made absolute sense. He rested his hand on the back of his shoulder and he looked up, curious, meeting Dino’s gaze with the tired one of his own. “So, then, you wouldn’t mind if I…?” He trailed off, leaning in closer and closer until their lips just barely brushed. He lifted his hand to the back of his head and crossed that millimeter gap.
His heart fluttered in a way it never did around Fuuko and he found he liked it-as annoying as it was.
“I’ll take that as a no?” Dino asked after they leaned apart and opened their eyes.
“You’re an idiot.” He replied and pulled him close again.
(The day afterward, his mom and he got into a huge argument, but it was more than worth it.)
[[[pause]]]
Seventeen days.
April eighteenth
“Hibari-san?”
He stared at his phone, startled. “Romario? What are you calling me for?”
“There’s an event happening at the Cavallone estate in two weeks and Decimo wishes that you be there. Will you attend?”
“How many days, exactly?”
“Ah, eighteen.”
“When would I have to be there?”
“We have a plane that can fly out and pick you up tomorrow. I know it’s short notice, but Decimo insists.”
He met eyes with himself in the mirror and sighed as they shut. Eighteen, minus one, would give him seventeen days. This would be the last stand. “I’ll be there. Tomorrow. What time?” They choreographed it quickly and he hung up. He called Kusakabe, told him he wouldn’t be in, and went to find his mother to tell her the news. In the meantime, he got distracted and swooped Lavina up into his arms, smiling gently when she giggled, threw her hands in the air and cheered “papa!”
“Hey there, beautiful,” he said. “What are you doing?”
“Looking papa.” She smiled back, showing one of her many small teeth. She knew several words for a child so young-she couldn’t even walk more than four steps yet, but she could almost hold an entire conversation. He wasn’t sure how he could wrap his head around that. “Why papa sad?”
“I’m not sad,” he replied and kissed her forehead. “Let’s go find grandma, ok?”
“Kay,” she giggled, listening to his heartbeat. He found his mom in the library.
“What are you doing? Shouldn’t you be at school?”
“I got a call from Romario. Where’s Fuuko?”
“At the market. She won’t be home for a while. How many days do you have, again? Twenty?”
“Seventeen.”
“And when do you leave?”
“Tomorrow.”
“Oh, darling,” she whispered. She came forward, kissed his forehead and said. “On your birthday? That’s not fair.”
“Life’s not fair. When she’s old enough, will you explain it to Lavina?”
“As best I can, darling. As best I can.”
[[[pause]]]
Three days
May second.
He kicked his feet gently, scuffing the bottom of his dress shoes without care. He felt a hand on the back of his neck and he glanced up, briefly. “Romario said that you accepted the invitation rather quickly.” Dino said, massaging his fingers in. He shifted, giving him more room to continue his ministrations. “Any particular reason why?”
“No,” he lied, still leaning over the balustrade on his room’s balcony, watching the forest. “I was told you grew up here.”
“Yes, I did. I’ve spent my whole life in this place and I’ll spend the rest of it here, too, I hope.”
“The scenery is calming,” he explained, trying to find the end of it. He looked out, but the closest he got was a mountain several kilometers away. He had learned already that at the other side of the estate was the ocean, much like it looked when he was at his beach home, back in Japan.
“Yeah.” Dino hummed, leaned down and pulled him in for a quick kiss. He turned around, dug his nails into his neck and held him there. Dino’s hands landed at his hips, his thumbs lightly tracing his muscles. The buttons on his shirt popped open. One- two- three-
He pushed him away, unable for the first time in his life to meet his eyes. “We should stop here.” He explained, regaining what little breath he had lost as he stepped around him, fixing up the same amount of buttons, each one counting on the days he would have left to live. If he was going to die, he might as well have sex with the one man he’s ever been interested in, truly, but-but he couldn’t. As herbivorish, as idiotic, as it sounded, his heart wouldn’t let him hurt Dino like that.
Dino’s hands wrapped around him from behind and their lips met again, this time less obtrusively, more gentle, more loving than before. “Of course. I could never push you into that, Kyouya.”
“Sap.”
“It’s gotten me this far,” he chuckled, kissing him again. “I don’t see why I should stop now.”
“It’s annoying.”
Dino chuckled. “Can I at least sleep beside you?”
“No.”
(He did.)
[[[pause]]]
Last Day
May fifth
He smiled, staring down at his picture as he listened to his phone ring, the suit he wore now relaxed and natural against his frame. The picture held the date it had been taken beneath it, but it was of a large, well-kept-for-its-twenty-years-of-age couch. On it sat his mother and him. Lavina was in his arms, leaning back tiredly but smiling with all the warmth of the Yokomira clan and, subsequently, the Sawada. On the couch arm, Fuuko sat, but her arms were draped over him and her head rested on top of his. On the back, he knew he had the date rewritten and the caption:
Lavina’s first birthday with mom and the missus.
The voicemail machine beeped on and he started, having momentarily forgotten. “Hey. I was hoping to get this to you before you got home. There’s a hit planned for just ten minutes from now. I just wanted to say a quick goodbye. I love you, I do. Be strong, mom, Fuuko. Tell Lavina I love her every day, ok? Each and every one.” He pulled the phone from his mouth, took a deep breath to steady himself and continued on. “I think, after all this time, I’m finally ready, you know? I mean, I’ve lived three years knowing I will die. It’s about damn time. I love you.”
He disconnected the call, waited, and started another one, leaving just the message “I love you” on the last one.
He pressed the picture to his lips, took one last final steadying breath, and laid both it and his phone on the bedside table. He made sure his tonfas were easily accessible and hurried down the stairs. In the ballroom, the large crowd stood about, mingling. Dino was talking to Tsuna, Gokudera and the rest of the tenth generation. He was greeted, quickly, by the younger Sky, but he was a man on a mission.
“Romario!”
The man turned around, brow furrowed, and he took him by the upper arm, pulling him away. “You need to get the non-fighters out of here.”
“Non-fighters? Hibari, this is a mafia function.”
“You know what I damn well mean, Romario.”
“Under whose orders?”
“Mine.”
“Hibari- I can’t-“
“Remind me who it was that revealed to my father the curse on the Hibari clan.”
Romario opened his mouth, stopped, and clicked it shut twice before he spoke. “Are you sure?”
“I’ve spent the last three years counting my days, Romario. I’m positive.”
“But, you just said, three years! The curse only spans one hundred days. It’s broken.”
“It’s one hundred days spent together. Today is the one-hundredth day Cavallone and I have spent together.”
Romario frowned. “Happy birthday,” he wished. He was the only one to wish him that, today. Dino would have, he knew, but he didn’t know what day his birthday was. It was fitting: same day in, same day out.
Romario hurried away, working quickly. He made to seem normal, finding his post on a wall, watching the windows.
Exactly ten minutes after predicted, the windows shattered and blood covered the floor and walls. Last minute, he pushed Dino out of the way and took the bullet to the heart.
[[[pause]]]
Two days later
“I- I’m here to- to reclaim something important to me.” A woman said. Her black hair was let down and her lavender eyes were bright and she was probably middle-aged. She wore a delicate black shirt and suit jacket along with a pair of loose slacks, more than appropriate for this place. The woman beside her wore the same, but her hair was pulled into a tight bun and her brown eyes weren’t nearly as red. In her arms, a curious baby, sucking on a binky that wavered between Cloud-lavender and Lightning-green, lay, looking around the room. The younger woman asked if the door could be shut and the moment it was she let the year-old down.
“Cavallone Decimo,” the older greeted, bowing to him. Fuuko did the same before the two of them bowed to Tsuna as well, Gokudera and Yamamoto loped in with his.
“Welcome to my home,” Dino greeted. “I assure you, though, that it in no way surpasses your own abode.”
Fuuko snorted and muttered something about idiots and humbleness, though nothing concrete.
“Thank you for allowing us here, however short the visit.” Shiki said, bowing her head again.
“I welcome you here more often,” he replied.
Lavina giggled, cheering from where she had disappeared to. Fuuko arched her brow, but didn’t ask about it until a man’s voice grunted. “Ah, no, no, Lavina, let that go. Lavina. Hibari Lavina Yuki, release that.”
“Who do you think you are, ordering my daughter around?” Fuuko demanded, walking away. Dino chuckled, briefly, as he came around, holding Lavina in the arm he currently had strung up by white gauze and his free hand trying to keep the sling out of her hand. Lavina pouted, staring up at her with those wide, puppy-dog eyes that he would lose to. Eventually. Not now.
Not now.
Damn it. Where did she learn that from?
“It hurts papa when you grab it.”
She leaned back, as if burned and gasped. “Ah! Papa! I’m sorry! Gomennasai! Gomennasai!” Considering none of them ever apologized, he wondered briefly where she learned that word, but decided it wasn’t worth hurting his brain over. He kissed her forehead, smiling when she scrunched her face up in return. “Papa, grandmamma said that I wouldn’t see you for a while. Why?”
“Because grandma likes to lie about that, but she’s only joking.”
“Oh!” She laughed, nodding. “I get it now!”
He readjusted her on his arm, smiling down at her as Shiki asked “Ky-Kyouya?” He looked up and smiled at her, nodding. Tears streaming down her face, she ran forward, bypassed Fuuko and wrapped her arms around him. He hissed briefly, Lavina swatted the back of her head, and she readjusted her arms, her face still in his chest. He wrapped his free and good arm around her shoulders, holding her gently. “You’re making a fool of yourself, mom.”
“Then a fool I shall make!” She sobbed, her fingers digging into his back. “Kyouya, oh, darling, Kyouya, you’re alive! How- but, h-how?”
“Later,” he answered. “I’ll explain later.”
“Don’t feel like that,” Dino said, suddenly, and clapped his hand on his shoulder, leaning in close. “We still need to talk.”
He nodded back and turned to Shiki and Fuuko as the door closed, excusing everyone but the four of them.
D18
He sat in a chair in the library between his room and Dino’s, holding Lavina’s hands with his one good one as he bounced her on his knees. She wailed with laughter, bouncing up and down as often as possible. The door opened and he looked up from his ministrations, only to see Dino walk in. Tsuna, who had until this point been silently watching him, smiled up at the other man and greeted him. Dino rubbed his hair as he greeted him back and sat in a desk chair, looking at himself, Shiki and Fuuko, who were on the sofa beside him.
“Hi, Lavina,” he said, rubbing her head, too.
“Ci”-she struggled, trying to form the word-“ciao, uncle Dino!”
“Very good,” he chuckled.
“Up, up.” She ordered, lifting her arms. Dino looked to him and he shrugged uncaringly, happily handing her over. She snuggled into his stomach, hugging him as she slowly began to nod off.
“Alright. Someone want to explain?”
“I nominate”-Fuuko started, looking between the two of them. At his glare, she stopped and looked at Shiki-“Shiki! Because I really have no idea what’s going on with this whole-thing, either.”
His mom glared at her, almost as intimidating as his own. She made a noise, but stood strong. “Fine,” she grumbled, turned to Dino, and said “twelve generations ago now, your ancestor cursed Kyouya’s own so that every male in his line is destined to die protecting one of your line because your great-by-some-odd-number-uncle died while Kyouya’s stood by, watching him be tortured for one hundred days. His brother cursed him to this fate.”
“That’s ridiculous. A curse? Besides, Kyouya, your father didn’t die for mine, so it’s obvious that it broke long ago!”
“Actually,” he muttered, looking away. “Father was attending some sort of small formal event with you and your father when you came under attack. Father was kidnapped and tortured for a week before he was declared dead. We only found his body after a raid on a rival yakuza base.”
“Then… then why don’t we know about his death?”
“We didn’t tell anyone. If yakuza had found out, our land would have been in danger and after such a blow we couldn’t possibly keep it under our control. And then, there was no correspondence between your father and our family again, so it never came out to the mafia. Nine years later, we met.”
“But, one hundred days, right? I’ve known you for three years, Kyouya.”
“But we only spent one hundred days together before I was shot.”
“We spent seventeen together before that.”
“Yes. We did.”
“You kept count? All these years?”
“When you know you’re going to die, you tend to do ridiculous things. Like create a count down.”
“Then… five nights ago, you stopped me because… you knew?”
He looked away, refusing to acknowledge the blush on his face. He heard Lavina make a noise and watched to see her be rested in Tsuna’s lap. She hummed, sleepily, smiled and said “hiya… m’Lavina. Hi-bar-i La-vi-na Yu-ki. But papa only calls me Yuki when I’m in trouble. Wha’s y’ur name?”
“Tsuna. Sawada Tsunayoshi. But all my friends call me ‘Tsuna’.”
“Can I call you Tsu-Tsu?”
“Sure.” She thanked him, yawned, and settled against his chest, sleeping. Fuuko cursed Tsuna, grumbling about how Lavina was her own flesh and blood but hated her whole-heartedly. Lavina retracted it, saying that she didn’t hate her, she was just scary. Fuuko peeked through her fingers “and papa isn’t?”
“Course he is, but he doesn’t get angry often enough for me to be a-scared.” Tsuna bit his finger to keep from laughing as Lavina looked up at him. “You’re pretty.”
“Thank you?”
“Just like papa is!”
“She doesn’t know the word for handsome yet.” Dino explained.
“Yes I do! Like, like uncle Dino is handsome! But papa and Tsu-Tsu are pretty!”
He buried his face in his hand to hide his blush as he growled “I am going to kill you, herbivore.”
“What’d I do?!” Dino shouted.
“Did you not hear what you taught my daughter?”
“And that’s automatically my fault?”
“Who else would be so stupid as to call me pretty enough to teach her that!”
Dino opened his mouth, closed it and shook his head. “That’s not what we’re talking about, Kyouya. We’re talking about how fucking stupid you are that you would think that a couple of generations old words would dictate your life and when it ends. When you are obviously right here.”
“Because you used your sun flame to heal the majority of my wound!” He flinched, holding where he hadn’t been able to heal. He felt the sticky touch of blood on his hand before he put pressure on it, focusing on the conversation instead. “I would be dead right now otherwise! That bullet went through my heart!”
“You really are an idiot, Kyouya!” By now he was leering over him, so close that he could smell him. “Your- this stupid curse says you die protecting me, right? Did you ever think, maybe just once, that your death would hurt me more than any stupid old bullet ever could?”
He stopped, mid-thought, and closed his mouth with a click. “What?”
“If you died, I would be hurt way more than you can imagine.”
“I....” He sighed, but pushed him back. “I’m going for a walk.”
“Can I come with you, papa?”
“I’ll meet you in the garden in an hour,” he replied, his hand still against his chest as he kissed her head. “Then we’ll take a walk, ok? Right now, papa needs to talk to uncle Dino alone, ok?”
“Ok! Is there a lot of garden?”
“Yes. I’ll show you all around it. Just meet me at the front, ok?”
“Kay!”
He left quickly. Dino’s footsteps caught up with his in time to catch him as his knees gave out. “Come on,” he whispered. “Let’s get you back to the infirmary.”
He nodded and let him help him for now.
Lying on the table, his shirt off and the sling that kept his arm close to him beside it, his chest bare to Dino’s secondary flame, he stared up at the ceiling, thinking. One of Dino’s hands was on his forehead and the other against his chest, doing the actual work.
“Did you mean it?”
Dino didn’t need the clarification.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I love you.”
He rolled his head over to see him and stated “You’re an idiot.”
“Can’t choose who the heart loves,” Dino replied, “just whether or not you’ll pursue it. And, if you let me, I definitely will.”
“No more huge formal events, though.”
Dino nodded, smile blinding him for the moment. “Take a quick nap. I’ll wake you up in time for your walk.”
He smirked and shut his eyes.