A/N: 1896 is a cherished ship of mine, and it was about time I wrote something for it. Also, in regards to my older, unfinished stories: I will either rewrite or drop them altogether because my writing style has changed, and I'm not satisfied with the stories I wrote before, so... maybe this coming summer you will see one of the stories rewritten.
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the dark side of the moon
because even the mighty fall
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He watches her silently, indifferently.
She's just another one of Mukuro's stray dogs, he knows as he watches her leave the school area after a hefty day at Namimori Middle. But even that owner abandoned her.
Sawada's voice rings in his mind — "what are we gonna do, Reborn, she can't, she can't possibly be okay all by herself" — and Hibari snorts, breaking the silence he had created for himself in the office room.
Strays always had their ways to survive; they know nothing but abandonment and of survival — Hibari could relate, though the thought of relating to any of Mukuro's mutts made his stomach reel and skin crawl until he thought he might get rashes again.
Disgusting — Rokudo and Dokuro both.
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She's firm when it comes to helping Sawada Tsunayoshi, who is but a small animal and not even above rats when it came to hierarchy, and Hibari finds himself annoyed as he watches Chrome trying to help the dim boy with biology, a subject she's unexpectedly decent at.
He's lying beneath a sakura tree, for a bit, and the irony tastes like metal — but he won't change his spot, not because of the bitter memory of a cheap trick of not-even-Japanese sakura trees.
He listens, because he's still the prefect, and he has to make sure nothing that harms the school would come to pass.
"—do you understand now, boss?"
Her voice is meek in every way — but it's not bothersome, and Hibari finds it almost soothing.
"…Yeah, yeah, I think I do. Thanks, Chrome."
Chrome Dokuro, he thinks as he opens his steely eyes once more and glances - and sees the smile on Chrome's face as she leans to peck Tsuna's cheek.
Revolting.
That flimsy little girl is nothing but trouble.
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She holds her trident with pride he's surprised to see — mutts aren't supposed to be so prideful, they're not supposed to have a backbone.
Yet, she clearly has one.
"Chrome Dokuro," he frowns at her, lips curling back in distaste. "You have no authority to stop me from punishing the rule breakers."
Her one visible eye stares at him with all the seriousness in the world. "They did nothing wrong," he murmurs, "Hibari-san."
It's just one moment, another harmless meeting, but something in her voice disturbs him enough to make him put his tonfas away, brows knitted with mild and ever-constant anger, before turning away.
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She, he mulls over it one day, might be more dangerous than Rokudo Mukuro.
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It's less about Mukuro, these days, and more about Dokuro herself, and that realization makes him recoil both physically and mentally because he's getting sidetracked.
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She's the moon the sun hides from view, but once the sun has set, the moon comes out, and there's a reason he likes the moon better.
The moon soothes the anger the sun ignites in him.
And the moon doesn't even know it.
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Yes, he thinks as he glares at the group where he can see Dokuro's dark violet-tinted hair, this was something people called having a crush on someone.
How does he destroy this feeling?