#51100

Title: His Afterimage 📸👻

Author: Nama from @na-nossa

Fandom: Katekyō Hitman Reborn!

Relationship: Byakuran/Irie Shōichi

Characters: Irie Shōichi, Byakuran, Spanner, Cervello, Leonardo Lippi, Rokudou Mukuro

Rating: Mature

Category: M/M

Words: 22k+

Prompt: Day 1 - Disguise | Ritual @khrrarepairweek

Summary: Modern Day AU. In the Gesso archives, while working on a paper for his optical engineering program, college student Irie Shōichi stumbles upon a logical impossibility: a man with white hair who appears in photographs spanning a century, always unchanged. When he tries to chase down the answers to the mystery, it begins to quite literally haunt Shōichi in the form of one very peculiar hallucination, or possibly a ghost—though ghosts, of course, don’t exist. Right?

Or: how Shōichi’s worldview collapses, how love blooms in the midst of paradoxes, and whether it can outweigh paranoia. A Halloween tragicomedy in 6 acts and a postscript.

Continuation in Part 2.

*🎃*🦇* Excerpt *🦇*🎃*

When Shōichi finally gets home, it’s long past his usual bedtime. He kicks off his shoes by the door, changes into pajamas, brushes his teeth, and gets ready to collapse into bed. Before he does, an irresistible urge pushes him to dig into his folder and pull out the photocopies and the rest of his materials for a quick look. His eyes skim over the photos of the mysterious man in white and—

“…Huh. That’s odd.” The smudge across the man’s face seems lighter now, his features a touch more defined.

Shōichi takes off his glasses, blinking down at them. Had they been dirty before? He gives them an extra wipe with his pajama shirt, and pointedly turns his back on the photographs. 

It’s… probably nothing. An impression—a misplaced impression, surely. Nothing to worry about, Shōichi tells himself, and anyway, he really doesn’t want to think about it.

Right now, Shōichi just wants to sleep.

*👻*🕷️* Read on Ao3 *🕷️*👻*

Chapter 1 - Anticipation

Chapter 2 - Encounter

When you still got feelings for your ex even though it’s the worst idea ever

ON A MORE SERIOUS NOTE, I find this conversation- where Shoichi has just revealed his true allegiances and Byakuran offers the Choice challenge- to be intensely interesting.... and it’s all because of the interactions between these two men. 

The first thing to note, although it wasn’t capped (and the subtitles didn’t reflect it), is that Byakuran almost entirely addresses Shoichi despite the fact that he’s being broadcasted to both the Varia and the Vongola infiltration group. Trust me, when you start paying attention to it, the “Sho-chan”s are everywhere. 

Defeating the Vongola and acquiring the 7(3) Policy is Byakuran’s ultimate goal, and yet the way he goes about addressing this- mostly to his former best friend, his right hand man in public up until this point- makes this all almost seem personal. 

Second, for all that he didn’t expect Shoichi to team up with the enemy, Byakuran was expecting him to turn against him. Partially because he knows Shoichi kicked all this off in the first place, partially because there are probably universes where Shoichi tries, and partially, well... They were friends. And Shoichi has never really wanted the world to end up in this state. 

And yet, even as Byakuran says that, we get to our third point, which is that Shoichi denies that. I don’t understand Japanese, so I can only guess at what the exact translation might reveal, but using the subtitles, Shoichi is denying either that he would have become his enemy inevitably or that he disapproved of his actions. 

He’s denying that he ever stopped seeing Byakuran as a friend. 

Title: His Afterimage 📸👻

Author: Nama from @na-nossa

Fandom: Katekyō Hitman Reborn!

Relationship: Byakuran/Irie Shōichi

Characters: Irie Shōichi, Byakuran, Spanner, Cervello, Leonardo Lippi, Rokudou Mukuro

Rating: Mature

Category: M/M

Words: 30k+

Prompt: Day 1 - Disguise | Ritual @khrrarepairweek

Summary: Modern Day AU. In the Gesso archives, while working on a paper for his optical engineering program, college student Irie Shōichi stumbles upon a logical impossibility: a man with white hair who appears in photographs spanning a century, always unchanged. When he tries to chase down the answers to the mystery, it begins to quite literally haunt Shōichi in the form of one very peculiar hallucination, or possibly a ghost—though ghosts, of course, don’t exist. Right?

Or: how Shōichi’s worldview collapses, how love blooms in the midst of paradoxes, and whether it can outweigh paranoia. A Halloween tragicomedy in 6 acts and an epilogue.

Continuation of Part 1

*🎃*🦇* Excerpt *🦇*🎃*

“You’re right, Shō-chan,” Byakuran murmurs, some of his usual playfulness gone. “But what if I’m not a good person?” His violet eyes flick toward Shōichi, searching—sharp, even as his voice stays mild. “What if I’m bad? Will you hate me?”

Shōichi considers this. He’s felt ambivalent toward Byakuran from the start, as if the ghost’s charm might be covering something unpleasant. And indeed, what will he do if they find out something they’d rather not know?

Blissful ignorance isn’t really an option. More than anything, they need to know. And despite everything, Shōichi has found it hard to dislike Byakuran; in fact, over their two days of forced coexistence, he’s grown, reluctantly, to like him quite a lot.

Because of that, he owes the ghost honesty.

“I don’t know,” Shōichi admits. “I can’t guarantee what I’ll do or how I’ll feel about you. It’ll depend on a lot of things.”

Byakuran’s gaze slides away. “I see,” he says softly. “I do hope you won’t come to hate me, Shō-chan.” He turns to the window, watching the light pass over his reflection. “I hope my bad feeling is wrong.”

*👻*🕷️* Read on Ao3 *🕷️*👻*

Chapter 4 - Revelation

Chapter 5 - Reflection

Chapter 6 - Afterimage

“Ironically, that was the most fun I ever had in my life.”