STRESS RELIEF IS A BEAUTIFUL THING.
It was for the sake of unity, for the sake two families' better financial safety, for the sake of better relationships, for the sake of less casualties. For the sake of politics, basically; a don's daughter married off to a don's son, when one wasn't intended to inherit an entire fiasco. Hayato didn't really care, regardless of the reasoning; honestly, an arranged marriage would save him the trouble of having to pretend he liked a woman further than he could throw her (which was admittedly a far shorter distance than Gokudera would like to admit).
And when he'd first met her, the girl had been perfectly pleasant. She was a bit too smily, a bit too noisy, but she wasn't obnoxious or whiny, so it could have been a lot worse. She had good poise, and a decent enough face that it didn't hurt to look at her, and all in all it was a fair enough first meeting.
"Diana," she'd called herself. "Diana Cavallone."
It wouldn't be too awful a marriage, he figured.
--
They met again about a week later, by total accident, in the middle of the day. He'd been reading when he noticed a commotion in the forest outside his window, and when he went to look he found her tripping over tree roots every three steps, in a once-expensive, once-designer outfit that had been covered in mud and ripped too many times to count.
She saw him when he called, and beamed like he was a savior from above, come to rescue her. She waved, called back, ran over and promptly fell.
On him.
Somehow in such a manner that they got tangled in the damn whip she had on her.
This was roughly the moment when he realized just how wrong he'd been.
"I got lost," she explained.
"Oh my god," he replied, and then spent the next ten or fifteen minutes or so trying to free himself from the leather weapon and convince her that no, you fucking retard, it won't help if you pull on it like that!
--
"You got lost," repeated his father as he stared blankly at his son and daughter-in-law-to-be, apparently demonstrating both sides of the spectrum in the area of 'What One Might Look Like if He or She Got Run Over by a Forest.' Hayato stared blankly back, torn somewhere between "don't worry, Father, you're not old enough for your ears to start failing yet," and "well damn, if YOU think she's crazy..." (The latter because, obviously, Hayato thought his father crazy. This was partially because most teenagers find their parents crazy, partially because Hayato thought nearly everyone crazy, and mostly because his father was the one who taught his older sister how to cook.)
Luckily, his father wasn't addressing Hayato, and hence didn't have to try to muddle his way through a conversation half-consisting of baleful looks and indignant huffing. Diana was a much more eager conversationalist, and promptly replied with actual speech. "Well, see, I was going to go eat out at a restaurant-- with my men around, of course-- except then someone started shooting at us, so Romario kind of shoved me out of the way and told me to run. He sent Gasparo to follow me, but I lost sight of him and then I sort of fell down a cliff. As fate would have it, it looks like I feel in your backyard!"
And then there was staring.
"Someone tell me we can call this marriage shit off."
"No, we can't."
--
I'm sorry if this was a godawful place to end it, but it was intended just to torment Gokudera a bit for stress relief; it was starting to get away from me and develop an actual plot, which would have been a) hideous (don't give me that look, Ama), and b) completely contradictory to the point of stress RELIEF, because then it would give me MORE stress about how to lead the story in the right direction. SO HAVE A PIECE OF CRAP, IT'S FREE.
And when he'd first met her, the girl had been perfectly pleasant. She was a bit too smily, a bit too noisy, but she wasn't obnoxious or whiny, so it could have been a lot worse. She had good poise, and a decent enough face that it didn't hurt to look at her, and all in all it was a fair enough first meeting.
"Diana," she'd called herself. "Diana Cavallone."
It wouldn't be too awful a marriage, he figured.
--
They met again about a week later, by total accident, in the middle of the day. He'd been reading when he noticed a commotion in the forest outside his window, and when he went to look he found her tripping over tree roots every three steps, in a once-expensive, once-designer outfit that had been covered in mud and ripped too many times to count.
She saw him when he called, and beamed like he was a savior from above, come to rescue her. She waved, called back, ran over and promptly fell.
On him.
Somehow in such a manner that they got tangled in the damn whip she had on her.
This was roughly the moment when he realized just how wrong he'd been.
"I got lost," she explained.
"Oh my god," he replied, and then spent the next ten or fifteen minutes or so trying to free himself from the leather weapon and convince her that no, you fucking retard, it won't help if you pull on it like that!
--
"You got lost," repeated his father as he stared blankly at his son and daughter-in-law-to-be, apparently demonstrating both sides of the spectrum in the area of 'What One Might Look Like if He or She Got Run Over by a Forest.' Hayato stared blankly back, torn somewhere between "don't worry, Father, you're not old enough for your ears to start failing yet," and "well damn, if YOU think she's crazy..." (The latter because, obviously, Hayato thought his father crazy. This was partially because most teenagers find their parents crazy, partially because Hayato thought nearly everyone crazy, and mostly because his father was the one who taught his older sister how to cook.)
Luckily, his father wasn't addressing Hayato, and hence didn't have to try to muddle his way through a conversation half-consisting of baleful looks and indignant huffing. Diana was a much more eager conversationalist, and promptly replied with actual speech. "Well, see, I was going to go eat out at a restaurant-- with my men around, of course-- except then someone started shooting at us, so Romario kind of shoved me out of the way and told me to run. He sent Gasparo to follow me, but I lost sight of him and then I sort of fell down a cliff. As fate would have it, it looks like I feel in your backyard!"
And then there was staring.
"Someone tell me we can call this marriage shit off."
"No, we can't."
--
I'm sorry if this was a godawful place to end it, but it was intended just to torment Gokudera a bit for stress relief; it was starting to get away from me and develop an actual plot, which would have been a) hideous (don't give me that look, Ama), and b) completely contradictory to the point of stress RELIEF, because then it would give me MORE stress about how to lead the story in the right direction. SO HAVE A PIECE OF CRAP, IT'S FREE.