KATEKYO HITMAN REBORN!: Direction
DIRECTION
Katekyo Hitman Reborn! ➝ Gokudera+Yamamoto ➝ PG ➝ 1615 words
Symbolism is an abstract concept, and the future is shrouded by smoke.
It’s not a hovel, where Gokudera lives, and it’s no high-rise apartment, either. It’s just some friend of a friend of a distant relative’s house, and because family is family -- no matter how estranged -- somebody was willing to take Gokudera in. That’s enough for him.
Gokudera doesn’t see the guy most of the time, anyway. He’s young, mid-twenties, got a girlfriend and a nice car. He’s probably working through college right now, gotta support your coming family, gotta make yourself a name.
Well, it doesn’t matter much, it’s just that --
in ten years, where’s Gokudera going to be?
-- but he doesn’t think about that often.
The backyard’s littered with spent dynamite shells. The relative’s friend’s friend -- Sato, was it, or Satoshi? can’t remember don’t care -- doesn’t ask him about them, only eyes Gokudera and asks politely that he clean up when he’s through. Sometimes he picks them up, sometimes he doesn’t. It’s practice, see, pitching firecrackers at Satoshi’s elegant tree until he can’t see through the smoke, and after that he throws some more and waits for it to clear so he can see if he’s hit the target. The target is everything. Aim is everything. Direction.
So caught up in practice is he that he can’t hear the doorbell ringing, so instead Yamamoto finds his way around to the back and stands watching. Gokudera doesn’t notice, at least not until he starts to laugh.
“What’s so funny, baseball freak?” Growling, Gokudera advances, dynamite appearing between each finger. Yamamoto simply keeps that stupid smile on, waves hello with one hand only. He’s got a wrapped package in the other.
“Haha, hey, I didn’t know how much you practice throwing your fireworks! You’d be a great pitcher!”
Of course it’s baseball. It always comes down to that. Gokudera’s lips twist: worthless, worthless.
“What are you doing here.” Don’t expect me to treat you nice because you’ve just hopped a stranger’s fence.
The boy’s shoulders stand straight, tall, all-American; only thing missing is the baseball bat. He waves the package, vaguely rectangular, brown and plain: “Got this cool foreign film in the mail today! My dad ordered it. Says mom used to like watching this guy’s movies. So I thought --”
Thought you could invade my time, waste the air I breathe with your insignificant input? Can’t stand you, can’t stand to be near you, go away. Just leave.
“-- so you have a TV?” Yamamoto’s turned toward the screen door, taps it a few times. “Hey, can I come in? Who else lives here -- or is it just you?”
“Where’d you --” Gokudera’s cursing himself for leaving that door open. Inside already, Yamamoto runs a hand along the plaster walls. His eyes light up: yes, there is a television.
“Wow, do you not have a regular address here or --” Why does he keep talking, he’s already overstepped himself and then some. Gokudera doesn’t need this.
“Hey, baseball freak. Since when is it okay to enter someone’s house without permission?”
“Haha, well, we know each other, don’t we? And you’re at Tsuna’s all the time, so --” He scratches the back of his head. “I figured you didn’t mind! Friends come around to each other’s homes whenever they like, right?”
“They are -- he’s -- we are not friends,” Gokudera spits. “Look, idiot, you’re not welcome here, just go, would you -- push off!”
He’s talking to empty air. Yamamoto kneels by the TV set, pulling the wrapping off the package: it’s a videocassette, a title he doesn’t recognize. Gokudera pauses, fuming, scowl darkening his face. Without his stupid sports-bred skills, no family would give him the time of day, but as it is -- trying to fight him out is a waste of time. Yamamoto sits right in front of the TV and Gokudera stands, arms folded; a cig’s already hanging from his mouth. The opening credits start up, and he’s still standing, ignoring the baseball idiot sitting cross-legged in the (not really his) living room.
But before he knows it his legs ache, and he pulls up a chair. Doesn’t bother to offer one to Yamamoto, who’s looking at him, like he wants to say something or wants him to say something, but neither of them do -- well, tough shit for him! -- so they both turn their eyes to the movie glowing from the screen.
But the thing Gokudera doesn’t expect is Yamamoto frowning, pointing with the remote -- “Nah, this part’s boring” -- and skipping ahead. Gokudera yelps indignation, though he can’t make head or tails of the movie anyway. The subtitles are printed yellow on bright, washed-out backgrounds, and reading them from his chair makes his eyes hurt, so he watches the actors instead, see their lips move and recite lines that don’t carry as much feeling as the actions they perform. He settles back in his chair. Not worth getting upset about -- still, “crazy baseball nut,” he says under his breath.
Yamamoto’s a movie-goer’s nightmare: he comments on the acting, the lighting, the fight scenes; he reels out trivia facts in the middle of the important bits, and skips forward and backtracks until everything they watch seems like déjà vu. He’s trying to find the best part, he explains (not listening, Gokudera turns away) but he can’t seem to get a hold of the remote when he wants it to work.
They catch the ending, or what looks like an ending, about fifteen minutes in, when Yamamoto accidentally sits on the fast forward button. Two shots ring out, and a tall, scruffy man stumbles to his knees. The camera zooms in. A lady sobs. It’s the same old scene. Yamamoto presses buttons frantically, rewinds, rewinds.
And then they find it, the scene that baseball idiot was looking for. Despite himself, Gokudera leans in. It’s two men crouch-running through a dark thicket, an escape of some sort. The sound effects of sprinting, crushing foliage underfoot, panting breaths, are overlaid by static. They argue. They gesture, and Gokudera can see their hands are cuffed together, two shackles and a long thin chain.
Then they reach a clearing, a hill from which they can see bright moonrise. They fall to the ground, one after the other, and slump against each other, garble in ragged voices. The camera lingers on their haunted-wide eyes and chapped lips, and everything they say is punctuated by pregnant pauses, dropped like atom bombs into turbulent conversation -- they kill everything around.
Gokudera resists the urge to ask Yamamoto if he understands it at all.
This was filmed when movies still had professional, award-winning orchestral soundtracks. The music swells as the screen fades to black, and for a while Gokudera just slouches back in the chair, looking at the deadened TV. His arms cross themselves over his chest.
“That’s what you wanted to show me?” His eyes flare disbelief.
“Mom always liked a good action drama,” Yamamoto says simply. “Dad told me.”
Most felines only blink to signal surrender. Gokudera’s narrowed eyes start watering. “You’ve seen it before?”
“Nah, not really -- I remember some scenes, from a while ago, and Dad told me the rest.” He picks at the carpet fringe. “You didn’t think the two guys were -- ?”
“Were what?” Is there something he’s missed, some important plot point Yamamoto probably skipped over, and how does that baseball freak expect him to know -- expect him to care --
“Well, they were sort of like us, weren’t they?” Yamamoto replies.
Gokudera stares. Yamamoto’s kicked back in front of him, this kid stick-skinny at first glance but you can see he has strength, only now he’s trying to explain this symbolism to Gokudera. He honestly couldn’t care less about symbols. He’s not thinking about the movie, or meaningful anything, no, he doesn’t care about any of it. It’s just a little surprising, that’s all. That Yamamoto sees something --
a direction
-- something beyond what’s right there up front.
Gokudera shakes his head, I don’t get it, mumbles “Whatever.” But he’s thinking about it now, can’t stop himself. Two men, a chain, the escape -- it’s not clear in his head, all he sees is old fairy tales, and English essays scrawled upon with red pen, Little effort. See me after class. Maybe if he squints and looks sideways --
He turns to Yamamoto, whose head is tilted looking at him again. Then it’s Yamamoto who’s shaking his head instead, going, “Nah, I’m probably just making things up. It’s just -- well, maybe it’s just me. I’m never leaving you behind, anyway.”
So that’s it.
The tape slides out and Yamamoto exits through the front door, completing his circuit around the house he was never invited inside. And Gokudera goes back to dynamite tossing, hurling stick after stick, the smoke rising up so fast he can’t find his own hand in front of his face. It clears, eventually. He’s still thinking.
It’s not that he’s blind to patterns at all, connections. When you’re mafia, you have to keep alliances, feuds stored away in your head: know thine enemy. Only lately he doesn’t need to keep track of them all, not as much, because the Tenth fills up his world like the sun. It’s not that --
and he sort-of sees, just a little, in another time another place, how collapsing alone, nothing left, how flight can remind them a little of themselves
(well, wait and see) --
It’s just surprising, that’s all, Yamamoto of all people -- who would’ve thought it’d be him who ever saw through the surface.
thanks to ricordi and rebbe for reading this before I posted it!
Katekyo Hitman Reborn! ➝ Gokudera+Yamamoto ➝ PG ➝ 1615 words
Symbolism is an abstract concept, and the future is shrouded by smoke.
It’s not a hovel, where Gokudera lives, and it’s no high-rise apartment, either. It’s just some friend of a friend of a distant relative’s house, and because family is family -- no matter how estranged -- somebody was willing to take Gokudera in. That’s enough for him.
Gokudera doesn’t see the guy most of the time, anyway. He’s young, mid-twenties, got a girlfriend and a nice car. He’s probably working through college right now, gotta support your coming family, gotta make yourself a name.
Well, it doesn’t matter much, it’s just that --
in ten years, where’s Gokudera going to be?
-- but he doesn’t think about that often.
The backyard’s littered with spent dynamite shells. The relative’s friend’s friend -- Sato, was it, or Satoshi? can’t remember don’t care -- doesn’t ask him about them, only eyes Gokudera and asks politely that he clean up when he’s through. Sometimes he picks them up, sometimes he doesn’t. It’s practice, see, pitching firecrackers at Satoshi’s elegant tree until he can’t see through the smoke, and after that he throws some more and waits for it to clear so he can see if he’s hit the target. The target is everything. Aim is everything. Direction.
So caught up in practice is he that he can’t hear the doorbell ringing, so instead Yamamoto finds his way around to the back and stands watching. Gokudera doesn’t notice, at least not until he starts to laugh.
“What’s so funny, baseball freak?” Growling, Gokudera advances, dynamite appearing between each finger. Yamamoto simply keeps that stupid smile on, waves hello with one hand only. He’s got a wrapped package in the other.
“Haha, hey, I didn’t know how much you practice throwing your fireworks! You’d be a great pitcher!”
Of course it’s baseball. It always comes down to that. Gokudera’s lips twist: worthless, worthless.
“What are you doing here.” Don’t expect me to treat you nice because you’ve just hopped a stranger’s fence.
The boy’s shoulders stand straight, tall, all-American; only thing missing is the baseball bat. He waves the package, vaguely rectangular, brown and plain: “Got this cool foreign film in the mail today! My dad ordered it. Says mom used to like watching this guy’s movies. So I thought --”
Thought you could invade my time, waste the air I breathe with your insignificant input? Can’t stand you, can’t stand to be near you, go away. Just leave.
“-- so you have a TV?” Yamamoto’s turned toward the screen door, taps it a few times. “Hey, can I come in? Who else lives here -- or is it just you?”
“Where’d you --” Gokudera’s cursing himself for leaving that door open. Inside already, Yamamoto runs a hand along the plaster walls. His eyes light up: yes, there is a television.
“Wow, do you not have a regular address here or --” Why does he keep talking, he’s already overstepped himself and then some. Gokudera doesn’t need this.
“Hey, baseball freak. Since when is it okay to enter someone’s house without permission?”
“Haha, well, we know each other, don’t we? And you’re at Tsuna’s all the time, so --” He scratches the back of his head. “I figured you didn’t mind! Friends come around to each other’s homes whenever they like, right?”
“They are -- he’s -- we are not friends,” Gokudera spits. “Look, idiot, you’re not welcome here, just go, would you -- push off!”
He’s talking to empty air. Yamamoto kneels by the TV set, pulling the wrapping off the package: it’s a videocassette, a title he doesn’t recognize. Gokudera pauses, fuming, scowl darkening his face. Without his stupid sports-bred skills, no family would give him the time of day, but as it is -- trying to fight him out is a waste of time. Yamamoto sits right in front of the TV and Gokudera stands, arms folded; a cig’s already hanging from his mouth. The opening credits start up, and he’s still standing, ignoring the baseball idiot sitting cross-legged in the (not really his) living room.
But before he knows it his legs ache, and he pulls up a chair. Doesn’t bother to offer one to Yamamoto, who’s looking at him, like he wants to say something or wants him to say something, but neither of them do -- well, tough shit for him! -- so they both turn their eyes to the movie glowing from the screen.
But the thing Gokudera doesn’t expect is Yamamoto frowning, pointing with the remote -- “Nah, this part’s boring” -- and skipping ahead. Gokudera yelps indignation, though he can’t make head or tails of the movie anyway. The subtitles are printed yellow on bright, washed-out backgrounds, and reading them from his chair makes his eyes hurt, so he watches the actors instead, see their lips move and recite lines that don’t carry as much feeling as the actions they perform. He settles back in his chair. Not worth getting upset about -- still, “crazy baseball nut,” he says under his breath.
Yamamoto’s a movie-goer’s nightmare: he comments on the acting, the lighting, the fight scenes; he reels out trivia facts in the middle of the important bits, and skips forward and backtracks until everything they watch seems like déjà vu. He’s trying to find the best part, he explains (not listening, Gokudera turns away) but he can’t seem to get a hold of the remote when he wants it to work.
They catch the ending, or what looks like an ending, about fifteen minutes in, when Yamamoto accidentally sits on the fast forward button. Two shots ring out, and a tall, scruffy man stumbles to his knees. The camera zooms in. A lady sobs. It’s the same old scene. Yamamoto presses buttons frantically, rewinds, rewinds.
And then they find it, the scene that baseball idiot was looking for. Despite himself, Gokudera leans in. It’s two men crouch-running through a dark thicket, an escape of some sort. The sound effects of sprinting, crushing foliage underfoot, panting breaths, are overlaid by static. They argue. They gesture, and Gokudera can see their hands are cuffed together, two shackles and a long thin chain.
Then they reach a clearing, a hill from which they can see bright moonrise. They fall to the ground, one after the other, and slump against each other, garble in ragged voices. The camera lingers on their haunted-wide eyes and chapped lips, and everything they say is punctuated by pregnant pauses, dropped like atom bombs into turbulent conversation -- they kill everything around.
Gokudera resists the urge to ask Yamamoto if he understands it at all.
This was filmed when movies still had professional, award-winning orchestral soundtracks. The music swells as the screen fades to black, and for a while Gokudera just slouches back in the chair, looking at the deadened TV. His arms cross themselves over his chest.
“That’s what you wanted to show me?” His eyes flare disbelief.
“Mom always liked a good action drama,” Yamamoto says simply. “Dad told me.”
Most felines only blink to signal surrender. Gokudera’s narrowed eyes start watering. “You’ve seen it before?”
“Nah, not really -- I remember some scenes, from a while ago, and Dad told me the rest.” He picks at the carpet fringe. “You didn’t think the two guys were -- ?”
“Were what?” Is there something he’s missed, some important plot point Yamamoto probably skipped over, and how does that baseball freak expect him to know -- expect him to care --
“Well, they were sort of like us, weren’t they?” Yamamoto replies.
Gokudera stares. Yamamoto’s kicked back in front of him, this kid stick-skinny at first glance but you can see he has strength, only now he’s trying to explain this symbolism to Gokudera. He honestly couldn’t care less about symbols. He’s not thinking about the movie, or meaningful anything, no, he doesn’t care about any of it. It’s just a little surprising, that’s all. That Yamamoto sees something --
a direction
-- something beyond what’s right there up front.
Gokudera shakes his head, I don’t get it, mumbles “Whatever.” But he’s thinking about it now, can’t stop himself. Two men, a chain, the escape -- it’s not clear in his head, all he sees is old fairy tales, and English essays scrawled upon with red pen, Little effort. See me after class. Maybe if he squints and looks sideways --
He turns to Yamamoto, whose head is tilted looking at him again. Then it’s Yamamoto who’s shaking his head instead, going, “Nah, I’m probably just making things up. It’s just -- well, maybe it’s just me. I’m never leaving you behind, anyway.”
So that’s it.
The tape slides out and Yamamoto exits through the front door, completing his circuit around the house he was never invited inside. And Gokudera goes back to dynamite tossing, hurling stick after stick, the smoke rising up so fast he can’t find his own hand in front of his face. It clears, eventually. He’s still thinking.
It’s not that he’s blind to patterns at all, connections. When you’re mafia, you have to keep alliances, feuds stored away in your head: know thine enemy. Only lately he doesn’t need to keep track of them all, not as much, because the Tenth fills up his world like the sun. It’s not that --
and he sort-of sees, just a little, in another time another place, how collapsing alone, nothing left, how flight can remind them a little of themselves
(well, wait and see) --
It’s just surprising, that’s all, Yamamoto of all people -- who would’ve thought it’d be him who ever saw through the surface.
thanks to ricordi and rebbe for reading this before I posted it!