"Listen here, young Ieharu."At the mentioning of his name, Ieharu's ears perked up, but he didn't turn to look at the source. He was too busy playing his video game, torso hunched to the side, shoulders scrunched in concentration, the clicks and clacks of his controller nearly as deafening as the sound of gunfire emanating from the massive flat screen before him. This wasn't the first time he had to multitask while an adult was talking.
"I probably shouldn't be telling you this–in fact I shouldn't be, but I believe honorable men like myself should show some good charity toward the families of their targets."Ieharu's eyes narrowed slightly, but his concentration on his game didn't falter for a second. Though he was only halfway paying attention, he did recognize the voice. Male. Upbeat. Sanguine, but with a hint of danger. It was Godot, though his twin brother Ieyoshi always called the man "their new nanny".
"You might not believe me–I get it, it's a little sudden–but I am an assassin sent by an anonymous payer of mine to knock off an heir of the Vongola family."From where he stood in the room, Godot took a few steps closer. Ieharu didn't notice, nor did he respond. On the TV, a rival's body exploded in a plume of blood and body parts. Presumably the boy's doing, because he snickered softly.
"Namely, that would be you, Ieharu Sawada." Outside, thunder boomed, ravaging the skies. It was several moments before Ieharu reacted, but then it was as if he'd been physically slapped. The clicking and clacking from the controller ceased immediately as he slowly turned his head, looking over his shoulder at the man who had just threatened his life in no uncertain terms. He was standing pretty close, too. Eyes wide, Ieharu moved his lips as if to form words, but nothing came out.
"Indeed," Godot continued, shrugging as if it were none of his business, his attitude cavalier.
"Your Daddy-o's quite an important guy, and there are certain people who are quite concerned as to who takes his nice leather-padded throne."Ieharu dropped the controller. The sound of an explosion erupted from the TV soon after, the flat screen flashing wildly before going black. There were only two words on the screen now: Game Over.
It was then that Ieharu found his voice, high pitched and wracked with incredulity.
"Wait... what?!""I don't think you'd be all too interested in the details, seeing as you're going to die anyway." Godot took another step closer. He was within arm's reach of the boy now.
"But just think of this as my diagnosis for you."While gaming, Ieharu had been seated on the edge of a particularly comfortable reclining chair. Having closed the distance between them, Godot leaned on the chair's back, causing it to shift and Ieharu to slide backwards. Slowly. They were practically face to face now.
"I've decided that it's going to happen tomorrow." He said, matter-of-factly.
"I can't delay it any further, please understand that I really wish I could."Ieharu simply stared in horror, the weight of Godot's words imprinting themselves onto his psyche. Could it be true? Is he serious? He sounded pretty serious. Looked dead serious, in fact. But his father would never put an assassin so close, right? ... but what if he didn't, or he made a mistake? What if it was all part of the plan? What if he was going to die?!
"I've grown to like you, young Ieharu, so this is about all I can do for you.""But—!""You've got one day to live, or at least until the next time I see you. I'm giving you the opportunity to clear up whatever remaining regrets you might have. It really hurts my conscience to think about good men dying with regrets..."As Godot spoke, Ieharu brought his hands to the sides of his face, a sound like that of a dying animal escaping his lips.
One day?! It wasn't fair! He had a math test tomorrow that he'd already studied for. He had so many people to meet... so many friends to make... all of it for nothing. His hands traversed his head, moving from the sides of his face to his forehead. Tears came to his eyes at his next thought.
I'm still a virgin!"Regardless, that doesn't stop me from doing what I'm paid to, I just like to get an extra minute of sleep later on. So, I suggest spending the night to give it some thought, just make sure you sleep good, alright?" Ieharu didn't respond, his hands still plastered to his forehead.
"... Oh, and make sure you don't tell anybody like your brother or something. You don't want to get your family involved, else I'll be forced to... Well, I'm sure your a smart kid–in fact, I know you are." Again, Ieharu didn't even respond. Didn't move. Didn't dare to. Never in his life was he so intimidated by the presence of another.
After a momentary silence, Godot turned, releasing the chair and nearly causing Ieharu to fly off it as it snapped forward.
"Guess I'll be seeing you tomorrow." Almost as an afterthought, he added:
"Oh, and good luck on the quadratics test.""Yoh, I'm not kidding. I'm serious." Ieharu threw his hands up, a gesture meant to implore.
"Didn't you hear me?! He's going to murder us all!"The boy was sitting atop his bed, covers wrapped around himself like a burrito. Only his face and hands were exposed. He looked like an Eskimo, wrapped in his layers. Standing across from him was literally his mirror image save for their hair color. It was his twin brother, the self-proclaimed "older brother" Ieyoshi, casually slipping on a T-shirt while laughing his head off. When it came to someone as eternally relaxed and laid back as Ieyoshi, "laughing your head off" meant a few soft, curt chuckles. If you weren't actively listening for it, you might even miss it.
"Pfft. Murder you, maybe." Ieyoshi's voice was gruff, his tone sober, his face stoic. It was as if someone had turned his "energy" dial way down and then broke it off.
"He did say only one of us would be offed, right?" He turned from sizing himself up in the mirror to look at his brother, who hadn't yet responded.
"Right, Haku?"Ieharu sighed, his big brunette bushel of hair poking out from under the covers.
"Right," he mumbled, dejected. He cast his eyes downward before speaking again, this time in a hushed whisper.
"You'd save me, right?"The response was immediate.
SLAP!Almost instantly, Ieharu brought both hands to his left cheek, where Ieyoshi has unceremoniously slapped him, a look of surprise and anger fresh upon his face.
"Yoh! What the fuck?!"Ieyoshi took a stance, leaning to the side, hand gripping lightly the base of his skull, a somewhat exasperated expression overcoming his otherwise neutral countenance. Ieharu recognized it as his brother's lecturing pose. He'd seen it a million times before.
"Look," his brother began, pointing at Ieharu's face.
"He's obviously not going to kill you. Think about it." Ieyoshi brought his hands together, marking off his points by counting his fingers.
"A, that no-good Tsuna might be stupid, but do you think he's stupid enough to bring a killer into the house? To sleep in our beds? Eat our food?""Hey!" Ieharu interrupted, his voice shrill.
"Dad's not no-good!" He said, referring to their father, Tsunayoshi.
Ieyoshi shrugged, continuing, his voice as low and monotonous as a boring college professor's.
"Whatever. B, the guy's been here for, like, two weeks already. If he wanted to kill you, why not get it over with quickly? Why play buddy buddy with us for nearly a month? C, we don't have time for this. Get up. We have that math test, remember?"Though he nodded at a couple of his brother's well-articulated points, when Ieyoshi told him to get up, he responded by pulling the covers over his head and rolling back into bed.
"I think I'm gonna be sick..." He mumbled, peeking out from under the sheets after a moment.
Ieyoshi sighed, grabbing his backpack by the strap and swinging it onto his shoulder in one smooth fluid motion. He then sauntered out of the room as if the universe owed him a favor. Sauntering seemed to be his natural form of locomotion. From his mannerisms and personality to the way he picked up his bag and walked out of a room, in Ieharu's eyes, his brother was the pinnacle of cool.
After hearing the customary slam of the downstairs door, there were several moments of blissful uninterrupted peace, with Ieharu nearly falling back asleep. Before he could drift fully into unconsciousness, however, he heard someone at the window. He could tell without looking that it was Ieyoshi. Reluctantly, Ieharu rolled out of bed, the frigid air biting into his exposed skin. Slowly but surely he made his way to the window. After a moment, he opened it.
"Ieharu." Ieyoshi was standing on the grass outside of their home, looking up at their shared bedroom window. Their bedroom was on the second floor.
"What? I said I'm not going.""Yeah, I know. I just remembered something."Ieharu raised an eyebrow. Ieyoshi had that look on his face again. The one he always got several dozen turns before he won at Monopoly.
Ieyoshi's lips morphed into a slight grin. In response, Ieharu gulped involuntarily. That grin was never a good sign.
"I know something you think I don't know. And it'll make you come to class, too."Ieharu ducked down so that only his eyes shown over the windowsill, as if his brother were going to start hurling rocks.
"Wh... what are you talking about?!"There was a moment of silence before Ieyoshi responded, but when he did, his brother's eyes grew wide with fright.
"I know who Ieharu likes."Ieharu shot up, his upper body practically leaning out the window at this point.
"W-What are you talking about?! I don't l-like anyone!""Yes you do.""No I don't!""Then you should have nothing to worry about when I confess to them on your behalf... unless you can catch me, of course."And with that, Ieyoshi turned and began walking away with that slow measured pace of his.
"Wait! Yoh! Don't! Stop!" Ieharu pleaded, but if his brother heard his protests, he didn't act like it. His fears of being assassinated evaporated instantaneously, replaced instead by the terror of complete social doom at the hands of his brother. Ieharu brought his hands to his face. Unlike his brother, he didn't think of himself as very cool, or smart, or anything. He didn't have many friends. No one respected him, but at least they left him alone. If Ieyoshi was serious about telling, and he's always serious...
Well, he'd never be able to show his face at that school again.
Like a hurricane, Ieharu threw on whatever clothes were lying around. He and his brother shared a room, and they were the same in size and height, so they shared apparel too. In roughly eight minutes time, Ieharu had gone from half naked to mostly ready for school. Brushing his teeth would have only slowed him down anyway. As he rushed towards the door, open book bag swinging off his shoulder, it began to dawn on him that, even if he were to run his very hardest, his brother had an insurmountable lead. Immediately, he began to regret not stopping his brother while he had the chance. Still, maybe there was hop—
Upon bursting through his front door, Ieharu tripped over his own feet and face-planted on the stairs outside. Slowly but surely, he raised himself up off the ground, propping himself up with one arm and holding his injured face with the other. He was trying his very hardest to resist the urge to cry, but it was yet another fight he just wasn't winning. That same bitter thought that always hobbled him reared its ugly head once more: the loser Ieharu has failed.
Little did he know, a shadow slowly crept up behind his unprotected back.
"Buongiorno, young Ieharu," his terrifying home tutor greeted him as casually as ever, his hands buried in the pockets of his jacket,
"I didn't think you'd be so eager to go to school today, especially on such a terrible day like this." Godot looked up toward the sky, of which was blanketed in thick clouds. The air was moist from the remains of the previous night's downpour, and water glistened on the soaked grass and wet concrete. For his part, Ieharu yelped audibly at the sound of his name being called. Godot's pleasant demeanor would have eased the boy, had their last conversation not ended so terribly. Instead, his stomach did a backflip and his chest turned to ice. Gradually, he turned his head, once again looking over his shoulder. The feeling of deja vu was practically nauseating. The man always seemed to approach from his blind spot.
"M-mi-uh-G-g-g-godot... h-hi..." He managed to stutter his tutor's name, eyes wide with fear as he suddenly remembered: he was going to die today.
"Oh, by the way, about our little agreement last night... I got word from my client that there's been a change of plans." Again, there was that peaceful smile, as if all was right in the world.
"It's sort of exciting, I suppose."Iehari inhaled sharply. Deep in the recesses of his gut sparked the faintest glimmer of hope.
"A change?" The pitch of his voice inflected as he spoke, making his question come out as more of a plea.
Godot nodded.
"Yes," he replied,
"a pretty big change. You see, I'm not going to kill you later." At that very statement, in one swift motion, Godot brought his hand out of his pocket, a black pistol in hand. All so suddenly, Ieharu found himself staring down the barrel of Godot's Beretta. That flicker of hope in his gut disappeared just as swiftly. Too scared to move, too scared to even think, Ieharu did what came natural.
He screwed his eyes shut.
There was a delay, however. Godot hesitated, although he smirked when he did so.
"Seeing as you've accepted your fate already," he said,
"I guess that must mean you don't have any more regrets. There's no special person in your life? No unfinished business with somebody close, not even your family? Nothing, eh?"After several moments of silence devoid of a bullet to the face, Ieharu gathered that the question hadn't been rhetorical. Still, he didn't dare open his eyes. Maybe this way, he still had the chance to wake up from this nightmare.
From under his breath, the boy mumbled something.
"Speak up, boy," Godot demanded,
"You're only getting one chance to say it, so spit it out!"Somewhat startled at the command, Ieharu repeated himself, this time with a bit more volume. His kept his eyes closed.
"W-why do you care about what I regret, M-mr. Godot?" Ieharu could almost swear he heard Godot chuckle.
"You'll understand if you die." With that cryptic statement, Godot rotated his wrist sideways and squeezed the pistol's trigger.
And that was it. A loud
pop!. A flash of pain. Pressure around his forehead. And then nothing. Ieharu Sawada, son of Tsunayoshi Sawada and Kyoko Sawada, brother to Ieyoshi, friend to few, and most of all, still a virgin, died at that moment.
However, while dying, Ieharu regretted. He regretted parting with the world. He regretted what a waste his life had been. He regretted spending the time studying for a math test he'd never take. But there was one thing he regretted more than anything else. One thing that, even as the bullet pierced his skull and robbed him of life, he wished he had accomplished with all his heart.
I should have stopped Ieharu from confessing for me... from saying something stupid... I could have stopped him...His body was cold before it even hit the ground.
... with a dying will.On the other side of the street, several passersby screamed in horror. One was even so bold as to yell, finger pointing in violent accusation: "That thug just shot that kid!"
Ieharu's body slumped on the ground, blood pooling under his head. One second, he was certainly dead. But then in the next...
"REBORN!!!"Ieharu literally exploded, most of his clothes burning away to ashes, his then-dead body springing to life like round two in any good video game's boss battle. Though he was still scrawny and mostly naked, he sported a look that'd never crossed his face before. His eyes were wide and full of determination, his pupils dilated, his irises practically glowing. He was grinding his teeth in seething rage. Most noticeable was the massive orange flame located smack dab in the middle of his forehead, the blaze shifting and pulsing to some unknown rhythm.
His sudden re-emergence from death and accompanying roar of rebirth startled everyone in the area, excluding Godot. One of them—an old woman—fainted where she stood.
"I'M GOING TO STOP IEYOSHI FROM SAYING SOMETHING STUPID!" He shouted at the air.
"WITH MY DYING WILL!"And with that, Ieharu sped off, his feet carrying him as fast as an Olympic athlete as he raced with all his might towards Ieyoshi and Namimori High.
Godot watched as the half-naked boy sped off like hell on wheels, and so did the rest of the neighborhood. People looked at Godot, flabbergasted at what they had just witnessed. Godot smiled at them affably.
"Things are going to be a lot more interesting around here from now on."
