Return on Investment Chapter 14 [Reborn!]
KATEKYO HITMAN REBORN!: Return on Investment
Chapter: Take these verbs and enjoy them.
Theme Song: To follow!
Other Chapter Links: Prologue | Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 11 | Chapter 12 | Chapter 13 | Chapter 15 | Chapter 16
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Yamamoto & Gokudera, mentions of the others
Summary: And they talk for the first time since the end of them.
Notes:
+ This longfic was my NaNoWriMo project for 2008, although I've actually been itching to write it ever since I returned to the fandom early on this year. It's meant to take place ten years into the new future created by Tsuna and his crew after the TYL arc, and is pretty much very AU now, given how the manga has ended up progressing (point of departure from the canon is around Chapter 215, although I've tried to incorporate bits and pieces from the chapters after that).
Take these verbs and enjoy them.
Six years ago.
He was not exactly sure how they had gotten there in the first place. What he did remember was the lot of them going up to the school rooftop to celebrate the sudden cancellation of classes (something about two mad child things running loose around the neighborhood, both of which were armed and dangerous - likely Lambo and Reborn stirring up another storm). There was talking and laughing and the boss looking painfully handsome as always and Kyoko being there and the sight of Kyoko laughing along with them while she sat at the Tenth’s side causing this strange little hitch in his voice when he asked them if they wanted something from the cafeteria.
Then there was Yamamoto. Yamamoto noticing the hitch, even though he was a complete idiot who wasn’t supposed to notice anything. Yamamoto volunteering to go down, and saying hey hey Gokudera why don’t you join me? Yamamoto not bothering to wait for his response, just taking him by the hand and dragging him off and not noticing the Tenth calling out to him, which was kind of really funny, since he noticed the hitch a minute back and the hitch should have been harder to notice for an idiot like him. Yamamoto stopping at the second floor and not at the first, dragging him into the bathroom, picking out the nearest stall.
“What the… damn it, stop!”
“No.”
And there was a hand on undoing his belt, tugging down his pants, brushing back his underwear. There was a hand stroking his cheek, threading fingers through his hair and pressing against his scalp. There was a hand on his cock, pulling it out; a mouth on his mouth, tongue slipping in. He wanted to protest, but he found himself kissing back instead.
Somewhere down the line, probably when they were tangled together and getting off for the first time in a week, Yamamoto accidentally stepped on the flush pedal of the toilet they were straddling around. Neither of them cared.
It was wet and hot and uncomfortable and he liked it, but that wasn’t enough to stop him from socking Yamamoto in the face when they were finally done.
“The hell was that for?!”
“You look like you needed it.”
And it’s annoying - really fucking annoying - how Yamamoto can still straighten up and laugh and smile even if he’s got a cut lip and something that will likely be a nasty bruise at the side of his mouth for the next couple of days.
“So! Let’s go and get those drinks, eh? Can’t keep them waiting, ahaha.”
Gokudera punched him again on the way out, just for good measure.
Present day. En-route to town.
“Hayato?”
He was aware of the hand on his shoulder before anything else, and when he finally managed to wake up he found himself staring into a pair of brown eyes very much like the one he used to dream about, only ten years older and even warmer than they used to be.
“Hey there.”
“…Shit. I fell asleep?”
“Yep. Somewhere on the highway, I think.”
Yamamoto smiled. Gokudera uttered an oath and shoved him away. “Give me some room, damn it,” he grumbled, as he turned about and looked for his cigarettes. A light tap on the back of his palm drew his attention, rather reluctantly, back to his companion, who had apparently pre-empted him twice over by finding the pack first.
“I kept it for you. So that it wouldn’t fall down somewhere.”
He snatched it with an irritated gesture, and cast about for the lighter, which his fellow Guardian eventually produced with another indulgent smile. He snatched that as well, lit up with an annoyed sound. Yamamoto, in the meantime, simply took it into stride, drawing back with a small chuckle, an apologetic gesture of his hands.
Stupid fucking Rain Guardian. Bastard had the nerve not to change, not even a little, in spite of everything.
“Let’s get this over with,” he said after a third cigarette, because he did not trust himself until he had smoked up enough to keep him low and buzzed. “What’s your friend looking for, anyway?”
“A David apron.”
“…What the fuck is that.”
“I was hoping you’d know, actually.”
His hands twitched; still had a couple of sticks of dynamite on him, had forgotten to take them off when he had gotten home earlier. There was also the gun holstered under his arm, the one he brought with him everywhere and placed under his pillow at night.
There was dinner, though, and there was the Tenth and there were Family Duties, and in as much as it was tempting to blow Yamamoto to kingdom come, the boss probably wouldn’t like that.
“Right. Since you have to be so bloody VAGUE, we’ll do my errands first.”
“Sure! Lead the way.”
The smile, it never wavered.
Fuck that shit.
Fuck everything.
Fuck it all with a foot-long pole.
“Hayato?”
“Just shut the fuck up.”
And oddly, it pissed him off more how Yamamoto only shrugged and remained dutifully silent and just at his shoulder as he took the car keys and stalked away.
They did always own every square inch of town. Reborn had, in fact, glossed over a very minor but important detail with regard to the Vongola Family when he had appeared on Sawada Tsunayoshi’s doorstep ten years back and declared himself the boy’s new home tutor in the Way of the Mafia. Yes, the Vongola were famous. Yes, they were an old and well-established group with a long and proud history dating back to the centuries before the word “mafia” even existed. That thing, though, about the Vongola being the crème de la crème of the Italian underworld? About two generations too late for that. Internal conflict, a gradual decline in the competence of the family heads and the rapid change taking place in the criminal world in general had taken their toll on the Vongola, whittling down whatever was left of Giotto’s proud legacy at every turn.
Although the sheer brilliance of the Vongola Settimo and Vongola Ottavo coupled with the entrance of a new group to bear the cursed rings of the Arcobaleno had improved things immensely, the fact remained that the Vongola was yesterday’s news: they had given up a lot of their territory to the younger, quicker generations of mafioso by default. They were the kings of the hill, all right, but a good, hard nudge to the right place could bring everything down. The None, of course, had been very much aware of that, and had therefore taken pains to be a peacemaker, putting an end to the strife that threatened to tear the family asunder while reaching out to groups that the Vongola had originally, in their arrogance, either ignored or outright alienated.
Upon his entrance as the Vongola Decimo, Tsuna eventually pushed things three steps further by maintaining what the Ninth had managed to preserve, regaining whatever the family had already lost, and expanding the influence of the family in Italy, then in Europe, and, more recently, around the rest of the world.
It hadn’t been easy, and in some ways many of them had been forced to give up more than they could have ever afforded to on an individual level, but if it meant that their people and their own loved ones could sleep at night without the very real possibility of having grenades tossed through their bedroom windows or being able to drive through a street without the threat of a car full of “friends” turned worst enemies armed to the teeth pulling up beside their vehicles, then it balanced out.
Of course, the upkeep was more than just a little demanding, and it was not exclusive of doing daily door-to-door checkups on all the little guys who made every family operation possible or the folks who were, for whatever reason, associated with the family.
Although he was the Vongola Tenth’s Right Hand Man and noted for his amazing managerial skills, Gokudera Hayato was not exactly good with people. He was excellent at delegation and logistics, at knowing what resources to allocate and who to order around, he could not, for the life of him, chat up the grocer for a discount on the next shipment of food to the estate, or politely tell the general store manager that he really needed to pay his rent tomorrow, or listen through the woes of the laundrywoman who had to wash and iron all the clothes of every single member of the family’s private army. He simply didn’t do empathy, because to a guy as quick-witted as he was, everyone else was simply moving and working in slow motion, and he did not have the patience to put up with that. He eventually came to learn to at least be civil, however, when he started substituting for Tsuna himself, who was no longer at liberty to continue personally checking up on all of the people he was taking care of. Yamamoto moved on to become the new liaison as the Rain Guardian, relieving Gokudera of the trouble of socializing once again.
Sometime after that, Yamamoto’s withdrawal from active duty had pushed Gokudera to take over the job completely.
“I didn’t know he had a daughter.”
“Of course you don’t, idiot. His wife gave birth just last year.”
They were walking up the hill en-route to the souvenir store, occasionally waving off greetings and well-wishes from the locals lounging around on the streets - their last stop had been at the gunsmith’s workshop, where they had spent an extra thirty minutes drinking chamomile tea and listening to the smithy gloat about his darling baby girl. Some skillful maneuvering on Yamamoto’s part had eventually steered the conversation away from adorable pigtails to business, and, as a reward, they now knew where to secure that apron that Yamamoto kept prattling on about.
“Should we drop in on Olga? Since we’re in the area.”
“She’s not around.”
As he rounded a corner and caught a glimpse of Yamamoto under the shadow of the trees behind him, hands in his pockets/eyes on the cityscape/smile in place, Gokudera found himself thinking on how perfectly unfair it was, how Yamamoto still remembered the route, still remembered all the names of all the people on the unwritten list, still remembered who to speak to and what to say and how to act. There had been precious little of him left in Italy after his departure, little else beyond the occasional split screen image on the television or the rare article in the sports section of the dailies - his room back in the estate had been a hollowed out cell, empty even of the ghost of its former owner’s presence. In light of that, the ridiculous ease in which Yamamoto stepped back into the shoes of his position at present was jarring. He wore the suit again like he had been born in it; he ambled down the cobblestone streets like he had been made for no other purpose.
“Ah, that must be the place! I’ll go and take a look,” Yamamoto said, as he passed Gokudera.
“Why don’t you wait for me outside?”
“Don’t tell me what to do.”
But he was already sitting down at the nearest bench, pulling out his cigarettes again. If Yamamoto noticed that fact, he didn’t call Gokudera on it: he only grinned again, promised that he wouldn’t be long, and jogged off to that quaint-looking stall on the other end of the street.
Annoying, really, how Yamamoto could carry himself like he had never left in the first place.
“…But that’s seriously what he asked for!”
“And you’re OKAY with buying it anyway?”
“I didn’t know what it was until now! Really!”
They were heading back to the car together - or more like, Gokudera was stalking off and Yamamoto was back to chasing after him, waving around a plastic bag with that ludicrous souvenir stuffed in it. Gokudera was now thoroughly convinced that Yamamoto had been pulling the Idiot Card that whole time just to spite him, because that apron was disgusting.
“If the Tenth sees that thing,” he declared over his shoulder, “you are a dead man.”
“Come on! He might find it funny, you know.”
“…You are a dead man.”
“Okay, okay~ I won’t!”
Yamamoto’s voice was closer all of a sudden, and Gokudera turned just in time to see his fellow Guardian come up right on his peripheral, stretching his arms out above his head, matching him stride for stride. How the hell could the guy move so fast? (How the hell had he not noticed?)
“At least he didn’t ask for a David keychain,” Yamamoto remarked, amused as always. Gokudera turned his attentions back to his cigarette. He should have had a retort somewhere, sharp and perfectly calibrated towards their particular situation, but the only thing he can think about is the sound of their feet together on the same pavement, and the two inches of air and cobblestone between their hands.
“Should I drive us back too? I know you said that we ought to take turns and all, but you look really tired.”
There was a hand on his head now, brushing the hair out of his eyes. He’s much older now, banged up from fighting too much and walking too long but stuck doing all of it anyway for the sake of building that new future and maintaining it; he liked to think that they both were, and as such, they should have outgrown the need to touch, or to hold, or to want what they weren’t allowed to have.
Yamamoto, he was ignoring all of that. Bending the rules again, just like he always did, except now he was ten years too late.
“…Don’t.”
They were in a quieter section of town, just a foot away from their car. No one around but them, nowhere else to look save into each other’s eyes. One full second, and Yamamoto removed his hand. He brought it up to the back of his neck instead, and smiled.
“Sorry,” he said. “I got carried away.”
Gokudera turned away, moving towards the car first.
“Give me the keys.”
They don’t talk the whole way back.
Chapter: Take these verbs and enjoy them.
Theme Song: To follow!
Other Chapter Links: Prologue | Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 11 | Chapter 12 | Chapter 13 | Chapter 15 | Chapter 16
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Yamamoto & Gokudera, mentions of the others
Summary: And they talk for the first time since the end of them.
Notes:
+ This longfic was my NaNoWriMo project for 2008, although I've actually been itching to write it ever since I returned to the fandom early on this year. It's meant to take place ten years into the new future created by Tsuna and his crew after the TYL arc, and is pretty much very AU now, given how the manga has ended up progressing (point of departure from the canon is around Chapter 215, although I've tried to incorporate bits and pieces from the chapters after that).
Take these verbs and enjoy them.
Six years ago.
He was not exactly sure how they had gotten there in the first place. What he did remember was the lot of them going up to the school rooftop to celebrate the sudden cancellation of classes (something about two mad child things running loose around the neighborhood, both of which were armed and dangerous - likely Lambo and Reborn stirring up another storm). There was talking and laughing and the boss looking painfully handsome as always and Kyoko being there and the sight of Kyoko laughing along with them while she sat at the Tenth’s side causing this strange little hitch in his voice when he asked them if they wanted something from the cafeteria.
Then there was Yamamoto. Yamamoto noticing the hitch, even though he was a complete idiot who wasn’t supposed to notice anything. Yamamoto volunteering to go down, and saying hey hey Gokudera why don’t you join me? Yamamoto not bothering to wait for his response, just taking him by the hand and dragging him off and not noticing the Tenth calling out to him, which was kind of really funny, since he noticed the hitch a minute back and the hitch should have been harder to notice for an idiot like him. Yamamoto stopping at the second floor and not at the first, dragging him into the bathroom, picking out the nearest stall.
“What the… damn it, stop!”
“No.”
And there was a hand on undoing his belt, tugging down his pants, brushing back his underwear. There was a hand stroking his cheek, threading fingers through his hair and pressing against his scalp. There was a hand on his cock, pulling it out; a mouth on his mouth, tongue slipping in. He wanted to protest, but he found himself kissing back instead.
Somewhere down the line, probably when they were tangled together and getting off for the first time in a week, Yamamoto accidentally stepped on the flush pedal of the toilet they were straddling around. Neither of them cared.
It was wet and hot and uncomfortable and he liked it, but that wasn’t enough to stop him from socking Yamamoto in the face when they were finally done.
“The hell was that for?!”
“You look like you needed it.”
And it’s annoying - really fucking annoying - how Yamamoto can still straighten up and laugh and smile even if he’s got a cut lip and something that will likely be a nasty bruise at the side of his mouth for the next couple of days.
“So! Let’s go and get those drinks, eh? Can’t keep them waiting, ahaha.”
Gokudera punched him again on the way out, just for good measure.
Present day. En-route to town.
“Hayato?”
He was aware of the hand on his shoulder before anything else, and when he finally managed to wake up he found himself staring into a pair of brown eyes very much like the one he used to dream about, only ten years older and even warmer than they used to be.
“Hey there.”
“…Shit. I fell asleep?”
“Yep. Somewhere on the highway, I think.”
Yamamoto smiled. Gokudera uttered an oath and shoved him away. “Give me some room, damn it,” he grumbled, as he turned about and looked for his cigarettes. A light tap on the back of his palm drew his attention, rather reluctantly, back to his companion, who had apparently pre-empted him twice over by finding the pack first.
“I kept it for you. So that it wouldn’t fall down somewhere.”
He snatched it with an irritated gesture, and cast about for the lighter, which his fellow Guardian eventually produced with another indulgent smile. He snatched that as well, lit up with an annoyed sound. Yamamoto, in the meantime, simply took it into stride, drawing back with a small chuckle, an apologetic gesture of his hands.
Stupid fucking Rain Guardian. Bastard had the nerve not to change, not even a little, in spite of everything.
“Let’s get this over with,” he said after a third cigarette, because he did not trust himself until he had smoked up enough to keep him low and buzzed. “What’s your friend looking for, anyway?”
“A David apron.”
“…What the fuck is that.”
“I was hoping you’d know, actually.”
His hands twitched; still had a couple of sticks of dynamite on him, had forgotten to take them off when he had gotten home earlier. There was also the gun holstered under his arm, the one he brought with him everywhere and placed under his pillow at night.
There was dinner, though, and there was the Tenth and there were Family Duties, and in as much as it was tempting to blow Yamamoto to kingdom come, the boss probably wouldn’t like that.
“Right. Since you have to be so bloody VAGUE, we’ll do my errands first.”
“Sure! Lead the way.”
The smile, it never wavered.
Fuck that shit.
Fuck everything.
Fuck it all with a foot-long pole.
“Hayato?”
“Just shut the fuck up.”
And oddly, it pissed him off more how Yamamoto only shrugged and remained dutifully silent and just at his shoulder as he took the car keys and stalked away.
They did always own every square inch of town. Reborn had, in fact, glossed over a very minor but important detail with regard to the Vongola Family when he had appeared on Sawada Tsunayoshi’s doorstep ten years back and declared himself the boy’s new home tutor in the Way of the Mafia. Yes, the Vongola were famous. Yes, they were an old and well-established group with a long and proud history dating back to the centuries before the word “mafia” even existed. That thing, though, about the Vongola being the crème de la crème of the Italian underworld? About two generations too late for that. Internal conflict, a gradual decline in the competence of the family heads and the rapid change taking place in the criminal world in general had taken their toll on the Vongola, whittling down whatever was left of Giotto’s proud legacy at every turn.
Although the sheer brilliance of the Vongola Settimo and Vongola Ottavo coupled with the entrance of a new group to bear the cursed rings of the Arcobaleno had improved things immensely, the fact remained that the Vongola was yesterday’s news: they had given up a lot of their territory to the younger, quicker generations of mafioso by default. They were the kings of the hill, all right, but a good, hard nudge to the right place could bring everything down. The None, of course, had been very much aware of that, and had therefore taken pains to be a peacemaker, putting an end to the strife that threatened to tear the family asunder while reaching out to groups that the Vongola had originally, in their arrogance, either ignored or outright alienated.
Upon his entrance as the Vongola Decimo, Tsuna eventually pushed things three steps further by maintaining what the Ninth had managed to preserve, regaining whatever the family had already lost, and expanding the influence of the family in Italy, then in Europe, and, more recently, around the rest of the world.
It hadn’t been easy, and in some ways many of them had been forced to give up more than they could have ever afforded to on an individual level, but if it meant that their people and their own loved ones could sleep at night without the very real possibility of having grenades tossed through their bedroom windows or being able to drive through a street without the threat of a car full of “friends” turned worst enemies armed to the teeth pulling up beside their vehicles, then it balanced out.
Of course, the upkeep was more than just a little demanding, and it was not exclusive of doing daily door-to-door checkups on all the little guys who made every family operation possible or the folks who were, for whatever reason, associated with the family.
Although he was the Vongola Tenth’s Right Hand Man and noted for his amazing managerial skills, Gokudera Hayato was not exactly good with people. He was excellent at delegation and logistics, at knowing what resources to allocate and who to order around, he could not, for the life of him, chat up the grocer for a discount on the next shipment of food to the estate, or politely tell the general store manager that he really needed to pay his rent tomorrow, or listen through the woes of the laundrywoman who had to wash and iron all the clothes of every single member of the family’s private army. He simply didn’t do empathy, because to a guy as quick-witted as he was, everyone else was simply moving and working in slow motion, and he did not have the patience to put up with that. He eventually came to learn to at least be civil, however, when he started substituting for Tsuna himself, who was no longer at liberty to continue personally checking up on all of the people he was taking care of. Yamamoto moved on to become the new liaison as the Rain Guardian, relieving Gokudera of the trouble of socializing once again.
Sometime after that, Yamamoto’s withdrawal from active duty had pushed Gokudera to take over the job completely.
“I didn’t know he had a daughter.”
“Of course you don’t, idiot. His wife gave birth just last year.”
They were walking up the hill en-route to the souvenir store, occasionally waving off greetings and well-wishes from the locals lounging around on the streets - their last stop had been at the gunsmith’s workshop, where they had spent an extra thirty minutes drinking chamomile tea and listening to the smithy gloat about his darling baby girl. Some skillful maneuvering on Yamamoto’s part had eventually steered the conversation away from adorable pigtails to business, and, as a reward, they now knew where to secure that apron that Yamamoto kept prattling on about.
“Should we drop in on Olga? Since we’re in the area.”
“She’s not around.”
As he rounded a corner and caught a glimpse of Yamamoto under the shadow of the trees behind him, hands in his pockets/eyes on the cityscape/smile in place, Gokudera found himself thinking on how perfectly unfair it was, how Yamamoto still remembered the route, still remembered all the names of all the people on the unwritten list, still remembered who to speak to and what to say and how to act. There had been precious little of him left in Italy after his departure, little else beyond the occasional split screen image on the television or the rare article in the sports section of the dailies - his room back in the estate had been a hollowed out cell, empty even of the ghost of its former owner’s presence. In light of that, the ridiculous ease in which Yamamoto stepped back into the shoes of his position at present was jarring. He wore the suit again like he had been born in it; he ambled down the cobblestone streets like he had been made for no other purpose.
“Ah, that must be the place! I’ll go and take a look,” Yamamoto said, as he passed Gokudera.
“Why don’t you wait for me outside?”
“Don’t tell me what to do.”
But he was already sitting down at the nearest bench, pulling out his cigarettes again. If Yamamoto noticed that fact, he didn’t call Gokudera on it: he only grinned again, promised that he wouldn’t be long, and jogged off to that quaint-looking stall on the other end of the street.
Annoying, really, how Yamamoto could carry himself like he had never left in the first place.
“…But that’s seriously what he asked for!”
“And you’re OKAY with buying it anyway?”
“I didn’t know what it was until now! Really!”
They were heading back to the car together - or more like, Gokudera was stalking off and Yamamoto was back to chasing after him, waving around a plastic bag with that ludicrous souvenir stuffed in it. Gokudera was now thoroughly convinced that Yamamoto had been pulling the Idiot Card that whole time just to spite him, because that apron was disgusting.
“If the Tenth sees that thing,” he declared over his shoulder, “you are a dead man.”
“Come on! He might find it funny, you know.”
“…You are a dead man.”
“Okay, okay~ I won’t!”
Yamamoto’s voice was closer all of a sudden, and Gokudera turned just in time to see his fellow Guardian come up right on his peripheral, stretching his arms out above his head, matching him stride for stride. How the hell could the guy move so fast? (How the hell had he not noticed?)
“At least he didn’t ask for a David keychain,” Yamamoto remarked, amused as always. Gokudera turned his attentions back to his cigarette. He should have had a retort somewhere, sharp and perfectly calibrated towards their particular situation, but the only thing he can think about is the sound of their feet together on the same pavement, and the two inches of air and cobblestone between their hands.
“Should I drive us back too? I know you said that we ought to take turns and all, but you look really tired.”
There was a hand on his head now, brushing the hair out of his eyes. He’s much older now, banged up from fighting too much and walking too long but stuck doing all of it anyway for the sake of building that new future and maintaining it; he liked to think that they both were, and as such, they should have outgrown the need to touch, or to hold, or to want what they weren’t allowed to have.
Yamamoto, he was ignoring all of that. Bending the rules again, just like he always did, except now he was ten years too late.
“…Don’t.”
They were in a quieter section of town, just a foot away from their car. No one around but them, nowhere else to look save into each other’s eyes. One full second, and Yamamoto removed his hand. He brought it up to the back of his neck instead, and smiled.
“Sorry,” he said. “I got carried away.”
Gokudera turned away, moving towards the car first.
“Give me the keys.”
They don’t talk the whole way back.