#5969

Gokudera slams his fist down, vehemently rejecting Mukuro's suggestion for a covert infiltration. “Hell no,” he growls. “Tenth, the Malombra family’s trouble. Real trouble. Let’s keep this simple, clean—not whatever sneaky bullshit this creep’s cooking up.”

Lounging back in his seat, Mukuro meets Gokudera’s glare head-on, a venomous smirk tugging at his lips. “Really,” Mukuro drawls, managing to sound amused, bored, and sinister all at once. “I’m surprised you’re not used to my plans by now. If you prefer, I could always resume my original goal of taking over Sawada Tsunayoshi’s body.”

With fists braced against the mahogany table, Gokudera tilts forward. “Watch yourself, Rokudo,” he says, using the surname on purpose to keep it extra icy. “You’ll have to go through me to get to the Tenth.”

Mukuro chuckles unpleasantly. “Ah, your loyalty is touching, and rather predictable. Perhaps you fear I'll steal him away from you?”

“You bastard—” Gokudera hisses.

“Hayato. Mukuro,” Tsuna intervenes, sweeping a tired glance from one to the other. “I need both of you, so it’d mean a lot if you could at least try not to kill each other. For my sake?”

There’s a pause where Yamamoto lets out that familiar, good-natured laugh, trying for peace with a casual, “Hey hey, guys, let’s calm down, yeah?" Chrome hovers nearby, wringing her hands, a hesitant “Mukuro-sama…” slipping out like she’s not sure whether to scold or soothe. Ryohei crosses his arms with an exaggerated huff, declaring their bickering “annoying to the extreme.” Hibari, eyes closed, looks like he’d rather be unconscious in his own bed than stuck here for any of this.

Amid the rising background noise, Gokudera whirls toward Tsuna with an overcompensating smile. “Ah—Tenth, sorry!” he blurts out. “I—I got carried away. I swear it won’t happen again!”

Across from him, Mukuro tilts his head, smiling faintly. “Ah, an apology,” he says smoothly. “Very well. I, too, regret my part in our... lively exchange. Please, Tsunayoshi, do go on.”

As the room gradually settles and the meeting creaks back into motion, Gokudera feels Mukuro’s stare prodding at him like a persistent finger. He has the sinking suspicion that this isn’t nearly over yet.

*~*🌸*~*🌸*~*🌸*~*

Still fuming from the meeting, Gokudera takes out his frustration on target practice. Alone in the training room, he launches discus-shaped targets into the air, aiming to blast them mid-flight with precisely timed explosions.

“Focus,” Gokudera mutters to himself, narrowing his eyes.

As he initiates another round, a familiar, infuriating voice drifts lazily from behind him. “Careful now. Anger makes for sloppy mistakes.”

Gokudera whirls around, startled. “Mukuro! What the hell are you doing here?”

The shrug Mukuro gives is suspiciously casual. “Oh, I was merely concerned about your emotional stability after our little discussion earlier.”

“I don’t need your damned—” Gokudera snaps but cuts off abruptly as a loud whizzing sound fills the air. His eyes widen as an activated discus target whips toward his head, catching him completely off guard in his moment of distraction.

With a flick of his wrist, Mukuro gestures, and the air distorts in a shimmering illusion, bending space itself. The discus, as if nudged by an invisible force, veers off course at the last second, missing Gokudera’s head by mere inches before embedding itself into the wall with an unsettling thunk.

Gokudera, crouched in a defensive stance, glares up at Mukuro, who merely smiles innocently. “Oh dear.”

“You—!” Gokudera lurches to his feet. His fists are curled in so tight he’s pretty sure his knuckles have gone white.

“See? Sloppy,” Mukuro murmurs, that infuriatingly smooth voice winding around Gokudera’s temper like silk noose. He tilts his head, unbothered, studying Gokudera’s scowl with a contemplative glint in his heterochromatic eyes. “You know,” he goes on, idly inspecting his nails, “this reminds me of a rather tragic tale. A young Spartan prince named Hyacinthus, beloved by Apollo, met his unfortunate end when a discus shattered his skull. Not a mere accident, I’m afraid, but the work of Zephyrus’s jealousy.”

Gaping at Mukuro, Gokudera is momentarily thrown off by the ridiculous comparison. “What, you’re Zephyrus now?! If you’re jealous that I’m the Tenth’s right-hand man, that’s your problem,” Gokudera bites out the words as he straightens, feeling himself getting meaner by the second. Mukuro, with his stupid perfect hair, tall-ass height, and attitude, could go choke. So he throws in, just to twist the metaphorical knife, “Like I’d ever I’d ever feel anything but disgust for someone who spends half their time messing with people’s heads and the other half doing whatever weird, perverted crap you get up to when you are not skulking around the Vongola base!”

Mukuro blinks, then releases a long, theatrical sigh. “Dramatic as ever…” he murmurs. “Honestly, I’ve been practically a model subordinate lately.” A smile, too sweet. “I’m doing this for your beloved Tenth, aren’t I? A little appreciation wouldn’t hurt. Instead, you snap at me the second I so much as breathe near you.”

There’s no good reason for Gokudera to even try to untangle Mukuro’s feelings, so he goes with the safest option that isn’t punching the smirk off the illusionist’s face and growls, “Shut up—”

Mukuro hushes him with a single finger. “If it’s any consolation,” he says, stepping closer to Gokudera, “I did, for a moment, consider letting that discus hit you. Would’ve made a poetic scene, wouldn’t it?”

God help him, because Gokudera is one breath away from either taking a swing at Muluro or launching himself out the nearest window. “I swear, Mukuro—”

The smile on Mukuro's face doesn’t waver, but his right eye shifts, its kanji morphing into 一, the symbol of the first realm of Hell. The air thickens as a flicker of fog curls between them and clears to reveal Mukuro holding a bouquet of deep purple hyacinths, tied with an ostentatious satin bow. “Jealousy’s only half the story, Gokudera Hayato,” he says, measured, though Gokudera swears he catches his amusement falter for a second. “In the language of flowers, hyacinths also signify regret, and a desire to make amends.”

Before Gokudera can scoff, Mukuro takes his hand and presses the bouquet into his palm, the warmth of his touch lingering long enough to make it impossible to ignore.

The sheer absurdity of Mukuro's speech and of him standing there with a ridiculous, tacky bouquet makes Gokudera's mind short-circuit. “What are you—”

Tilting his head, Mukuro smirks. “A truce.” His red and blue eyes soften as he watches Gokudera’s grip tighten around the bouquet. “Friends?”

Gokudera yanks his hand back, gripping the flowers despite himself. “Not in a million years,” he snaps. “You insufferable, self-satisfied bastard, I’ll blow you to hell.”

Entirely unbothered, Mukuro chuckles. “Flowers for explosives?” He hums, pretending to consider it. “That sounds far too fun... Though, really, how could I resist pushing a few buttons when you look so cute all riled up?”

Cu—how dare he. Exactly as Gokudera expected, there’s no way smug bastard, illusionist, liar Rokudo Mukuro was being sincere. Of course he’s messing with him, like always, getting a kick out of poking at his temper. Gokudera’s fingers twitch around the stupid magical bouquet. As if he’d fall for that crap.

“Oya~” comes the teasing lilt as Mukuro turns translucent, slipping into illusion and disappearing just in time to avoid the bouquet hurtling toward him. His laughter dissolves into the air, leaving Gokudera alone with the flowers at his feet and his face burning with a furious blush.