It doesn’t snow at Vongola HQ, southern Italy blessed with the Mediterranean climate, but winters are still cold enough that she feels it in the night.
Tetsuki has a room in Vongola HQ, elegantly decorated with classic furniture and soft green fabrics. She doesn’t like it.
She’s not ungrateful: It is a nice room, and she likes having a space that is designated hers–traveling so often and to so many different locales means that she spends most of the year in hotel rooms or makeshift bases in warehouses.
But she’s here so infrequently that it doesn’t feel like home. It doesn’t help that Tetsuya is in Namimori.
The bed is comfortable, with smooth linens that feel nice on her skin and a duvet heavy enough to feel grounded under.
But it’s so big and even with all the pillows and blankets piled around her in a nest, it feels… lonely. Cold. Empty.
She’s had enough of that feeling for a lifetime.
It’s a couple minutes passed one in the morning, but the beast that is Vongola HQ doesn’t really sleep, hallways lowly lit. One of the house staff glances at her oddly, a slouching mass of pillows and blankets, but they bow respectfully when she waves them away.
Ryohei’s room is only a few doors down from hers.
—
In the morning, she eases out from her cocoon, taking care not to rustle either of her bedmates.
Remaining bedmates, at least, when she takes count–finding only Hana’s dark tangle of bedhead and the very tips of Kyoko’s light brown hair poking out of her own blanket cocoon.
Ryohei must have woken up already; like her, still accustomed to early morning hours of high school athletes.
But unlike before, when she actually needed to prepare for her day, being one of Vongola’s elite Guardians means she doesn’t have to prepare meals for the day or clean up the house. But she’s awake and she’s not going to be able to go back to sleep any time soon.
She takes one of the multitude of blankets, wrapping it around herself, before excusing herself from the room in silence.
In the hallway, she meets Yamamoto and feels flat-footed.
—
In nearly a decade of being Guardians, Tetsuki and Yamamoto have maybe had seven conversations with just the two of them. Of those, she walked away from at most three of them without hating him just a little more.
She’d say it’s bizarre, except she knows exactly why she doesn’t like him. And she’s pretty sure she knows why he doesn’t like her.
It’s fine, she supposes. Not all Guardians get along. At least they’re not like Kyouya-senpai and fucking Mukuro, better off continents apart. She and Yamamoto are functional, if not friends, and so long as everything stays professional, they’re fine.
Barefoot in pajamas is not professional.
And of course Yamamoto is dressed for the day, suit and tie and sword on his back.
It’s not as if she’s threatened–no Guardian is ever truly unarmed–but between the two of them, she honestly doesn’t know which of them would win in a fight. They’ve never had a need to test it, and for her sparring has always been a more congenial activity: if they ever fight, it’ll be for real.
“Kaiza-senpai,” Yamamoto says, smile plastered on his face.
Tetsuki doesn’t even bother to pretend with one of her own, “Yamamoto-kun.”
She doesn’t bother with grandstanding, turns and walks away, more than happy to leave it at that.
Except, apparently, Yamamoto has more to say, tone light but words biting, “Does Kusakabe-senpai know that you sleep in another man’s bed?”
—
She doesn’t take joy in her work. It’s a part of life that she does as efficiently as possible and sets aside when she’s done.
It’s not a job to be proud of, either. Though she won’t go as far as to say it is completely dishonorable: there are some people who should die–she is the one who disposes of the trash.
She’s good at it–through practice and skill, not some bullshit natural talent–and apparently in the ranking of hitmen she’s somewhere near the top. Assassination doesn’t exactly put a song in her heart…
… but she will straight up murder Yamamoto, Rain Guardian or no.
Her fingertips spark, green flashing in her peripheral vision; her Flames have always been activated by anger.
“Repeat that,” Tetsuki says. I dare you, her glare adds.
Yamamoto’s head tilts, stupid smile still on his face. His hand hasn’t gone to his weapon, but he’s standing, poised to move, “Does Kusakabe-senpai know that you–”
“Yes,” she interrupts, answer thrown down like a gauntlet.
He looks honestly surprised.
“My fiancé does know I sleep in my best friend’s bed at night,” she continues, blood still thrumming with rage, “I get cold at night and I like falling asleep with other people in the same bed. Tetsuya knows because I told him. Because I tell him everything.
"And I’m not, as you seem to be poorly trying to imply here, cheating on Tetsuya. Because unlike you, I’m not afraid of my fucking emotions, or sharing them with the man I love,” the words shoot out of her like bullets, and are just as effective given the look on Yamamoto’s face.
Just to petty, she finishes it off with, “Hayato-kun had a very nice date last weekend, did you know?”
It’s her turn to be ready as Yamamoto’s eyes turn into frost.
~
A/N: I, personally, love Yamamoto as a character. For some reason, I do think that means my OC would hate him. ¯_(ツ)_/¯
JackSGreyson Says 