Title: A Fallen, Dead Petal

Summary: It was a bright and sunny day when Tsuna coughed up a single bloody yellow daffodil.

Disclaimer: Katekyo hitman Reborn! belongs to Akira Amano

Pairing: R27

Warning: Set post-canon, possible OoC-ness. Slight cursing, nothing too explicit.

Dedicated to Lightning515

Unbeta'd.

A Fallen, Dead Petal

Redux: From Jonquil

Something was wrong.

Unlike Vongola's long line of successors and heirs, Reborn didn't possess their (in)famous Hyper Intuition, but he has been a hitman for the better part of his life. He had a good gut instincts built up over the years—one that has saved his life several times, no less—and Reborn wasn't going to ignore it now.

Something was very wrong.

This was the third assassination Reborn had been assigned to in two weeks. That in itself was unusual to begin with, but the hitman was also well aware that the Guardians were simultaneously being dispatched to vastly different locations that were not Italy. Therefore, either something was coming—something that Reborn, as Vongola (un)official internal advisor, didn't see—and Tsuna was getting his family out of the way, or there was something wrong with Tsuna himself. And given that Lambo was, to Reborn's knowledge, still attending classes…

There was only one answer and Reborn didn't like it.

It was clear that he had to get back to Italy as soon as possible, which meant that he had a choice to make: abandon the mission, or complete the mission as soon as possible. Professionalism meant that Reborn was not going to abandon the mission, but it didn't mean that he couldn't speed things up. Pre-mature assassinations were risky and while taking such a risk wasn't something he preferred, Reborn went ahead with the job before he'd done enough reconnaissance to be satisfied. It went without a hitch, even with limited intel, and the Greatest hitman in the world slipped away as easily as he arrived.

And barely two hours later, Reborn was already on the first flight back to Italy.

A quick call to Tsuna's most trusted engineers confirmed two things: all the Guardians, apart from the youngest, were all out of Italy, and that Reborn wasn't expected to be back for another four days. Moreover, Tsuna had been spotted leaving the Vongola estate… alone. Frustratingly, no one in the estate could tell Reborn just where in the world did the Don Vongola go alone.

Just that fact alone was enough to make Reborn want to smack his student senseless. Not only that, if there was ever any doubts Reborn had that Tsuna planned this, there were definitely none left.

Reborn growled low in his throat. His gut has barely let up for the past few hours, a mantra of 'wrong, wrong, wrong…' repeating endlessly within him. He needed to find Tsuna, and he needed to find him hours ago. The hitman was just contemplating the idea of shaking up his informants in the city when his phone rang, as though blessed by the skies.

(It might as well have been.)

"Reborn-ojii-sama, is Tsunayoshi-san feeling alright? I just saw him and it seems like he was visiting Dr. Shamal's clinic…"

Shamal's clinic.

The Vongola estate was staffed with a perfectly capable medical unit, and even then, Vongola had at least two insider hospitals to use in the city, but Tsuna had chosen to go to Shamal.

Reborn didn't like the implications.

Shamal respected Tsuna to be professional, but he maintained the perfect distance from Vongola, which meant that whatever was wrong with Tsuna, it was severe enough to seek professional help, but it was something the Vongola Decimo couldn't let his Famiglia know.

Reborn wasn't one to worry unnecessarily, but as he breaks the speed limit on the way to the closest city, he thinks Tsuna will one day distress him into an early grave.

By the time Reborn reached Shamal's clinic, he had pulled himself into a mindset similar to when he was on a job—his mind was silenced, and his thoughts were calm. The only active thought he had was a simultaneous understanding and cursing of Shamal's office for being entirely soundproof to protect his patients' confidentially.

Standing outside Shamal's examination room, the hitman could hear what was undoubtedly the good doctor's voice along with Tsuna's, but the aforementioned soundproofing meant that Reborn couldn't hear what was said. The only thing he could gather from the muffled sounds was that Tsuna's voice was much louder than it normally was. Reborn frowned; he hadn't liked anything that happened thus far, and this only added to the long list of things that were 'not good'.

Squashing down the urge to barge into the room to demand for answers, Reborn raised a hand to knock on the door, only for said door to swing open before contact could be made.

On the other side of the door stood Sawada Tsunayoshi, one hand on the doorknob, while the other was clenched in a fist and covered in a burning amber flame. As soon as the sight of his tutor registered, however, Reborn saw the sky flames dying away, as Tsuna uttered his name in shock…

…then proceeded to slam the door shut.

Reborn barely managed to stick a foot out before the door fully closed, and for a brief moment, all he could feel was the pain bursting in his foot and shooting up his leg. Instinctively, his training kicked in and Reborn pushed down the pain in favour of taking a good long look at the brunet who, apart from looking rather worryingly like a skittish little cub at the moment, seemed to look physically fine. Shamal, on the other hand, looked carefully nonchalant, but the hitman could detect the slightest hint of relief in his features.

Slowly and very gently, Reborn carefully pried Tsuna's white-knuckled grip off the doorknob, stepped into the office himself, then shut the door quietly behind him. The soft click of the door shutting sounded almost like a guillotine falling, and for a briefest of moments, Reborn was afraid Tsuna would snap and fly out of the window, but the Vongola Decimo only looked frustrated and defeated all at the same time. A quick glance at Shamal confirmed that the windows were locked and with Reborn blocking the only door into the examination room, unless Tsuna flew into a frenzy and attempted to break said windows, all escape routes have been sufficiently blocked.

Then, Reborn spoke.

"What's going on here?"

A simple question, but the moment the words left his mouth, Reborn could see the expression on Tsuna's face start to crumble and, whether his student was aware of it or not, his fist started to clench, and a small spark of flame flickered. Reborn frowned at the obvious struggle Tsuna was currently having with his Dying Will flames but seeing as the Vongola Decimo was not liable to answering the question anytime soon, he turned to Shamal instead.

"Vongola is, as you've guessed, ill." Shamal answered, and Reborn resisted the urge to roll his eyes, but the doctor's eyes hardened then, and, against his will, the hitman instantly prepared himself for the worst. "It's—"

"—No. No!" Tsuna cut in before Shamal could finish, screaming as his eyes blazed golden at Reborn.

(It was not much of a relief, Reborn noted, that there were no flames in sight.)

The brunet's hands were clenched so hard his knuckles were white and shaking, but Reborn forced himself to stand still because—as much as he didn't want to admit it—he was afraid that one touch and Tsuna would shatter, and Reborn didn't want to be the cause.

"You're not supposed to be here! You're not even supposed to be in Italy!"

Tsuna's voice was still rising, almost reaching levels of hysteria and Reborn needed to stop him because Tsuna was clearly starting to hyperventilate but his body just wouldn't move because this was Tsuna—his gentle, kind-hearted student with the patience of a saint, who Reborn cared about much, much more than he already should—and he was screaming in pain and panic and it was terrifying Reborn.

"I'm fine!" Tsuna insisted. "I'm perfectly fi—"

He was not.

Reborn's eyes widened at the sight of Tsuna breaking into coughs so violent the brunet collapsed. His body jerked forward, and Reborn was by Tsuna's side in a flash. The coughs were not only violent; judging by how Tsuna was clutching at his chest, it was painful too. Reborn helped his student into a vaguely sitting position, supporting him with a hand, and rubbing circles on his back with another. He was about to question Shamal again when a flash of colour caught his eye.

Flowers… and blood.

Tsuna was coughing out flowers—yellow acacias, cyclamens and daffodils, Reborn noted—and they were all stained with blood. There was only one disease Reborn knew could cause this, but…

"It's hanahaki." Shamal confirmed from the side.

There were a lot of things Reborn could say to that, but the only thing that left his lips was, "…I thought it was fictional."

"You two really are teacher-and-student, aren't you." Shamal retorted dryly. "Vongola's close to the critical stage; he has to cure it now or he'll die. Since you know about the disease, I'm sure you know the only two ways of curing. And since you know Vongola… I'm sure you know which he chose."

Reborn ignored the pang in his heart as he turned back to Tsuna. Given a choice between confession and surgery? There was no doubt as to which his silly little idiota would choose. It was only then that hitman and doctor noticed the wheezes accompanying the coughs and they both cursed, because Tsuna was not only coughing up flowers and blood, judging by the wetness of the coughs, he can't breathe either.

"Your flames." Shamal instructed urgently. "Use them to seek out the flowers in Vongola's respiratory system. Focus on your flames as fire first and burn the flowers out. Help Vongola breathe first before healing his lungs."

Reborn nodded, and shifted Tsuna against him more comfortably. The brunet's eyes were squeezed shut in pain. It was likely that he was not aware of what was happening around him at the moment, and Reborn was thankful for that. He pried Tsuna's hand away from his chest and replaced it with his own. Then, carefully, Reborn let his hand light up with Sun flames as he directed them to search out for the foreign bodies within Tsuna. Reborn nearly recoiled when he found the flowers; though his lungs were not completely flooded with flowers yet, it was well on its way, and Tsuna's throat was nearly completely blocked. He focused on the throat first, burning away the flowers as efficiently as he could while sparing some Sun flames to heal the thorn-scratched trachea.

"Keep this up," Shamal spoke gruffly, breaking Reborn out of his concentration (and reminding the hitman that he was still there). "And Vongola will be fine. For now." The implications lingered in the air, but Shamal vocalised them anyway. "Vongola is—"

"Of course I know!" Reborn snapped in irritation.

"Well, clearly he doesn't, otherwise we wouldn't be dealing with this right now." Shamal retorted.

"Out."

"Wha— This is my office." Shamal protested. "And that," he gestured to the still-coughing-and-unaware Tsuna. "Is my patient."

"Out." Reborn repeated with a piercing glare.

Shamal made a sharp noise of irritation, but gave in anyway and headed for the door. "Just one thing," the doctor spoke up, already out of door with a hand on the doorknob. Since he did just kick the good doctor out of his own office, Reborn did him the courtesy of turning to look at him, meeting Shamal's serious, but soft, gaze head on. "I really don't want to perform surgery on Vongola, so fix this."

Fix this.

For once in this life, Reborn was doubting he could.

After all, Tsuna had not uttered a single word about his condition to anyone, choosing instead to push all his family away to deal with it alone quietly. Given that his condition had reached a critical point, Tsuna must have known for at least a week, if not two. And, while Shamal never explicitly confirmed it, Reborn was certain that Tsuna must have chosen surgery without a second thought. It all pointed to the same thing; that Tsuna didn't want this, didn't want to push for something more, but…

Hanahaki is a disease born of unrequited love.

The fact that Reborn is already here, had already seen Tsuna coughing up the bloodied flowers meant that it was already too late for either of them to brush this off and go back pretending nothing was wrong. That said, Reborn had been content to love his silly idiot in his own wordless way—partly because it was how he did things, and partly because he never had proof—but now he had proof. (Albeit in the form of literal bloody flowers.)

Somewhere in the back of his mind, Reborn noted that he had almost completely cleared the trachea of the invading flowers, which meant that Tsuna was breathing and was likely to 'wake' up soon—and that meant that Reborn had to make a decision right here and now: To pretend that he didn't know the implications of what was happening, or to not give into Tsuna's bullshit and push on. Even as he thought that, Reborn knew the delicate status quo had already been broken, and, well, he was never one to take the easy way out.

With his mind made up, Reborn returned his focus on the flowers in Tsuna's chest as he patiently waited for the moment to come.

Reborn knew Tsuna was gradually back to full-awareness when his breathing hitched, then shuddered as he gulped down air. Reborn knew Tsuna was completely aware of him when the brunet froze for a single moment, then returned to getting his breathing back in order. For the longest time, neither of them spoke—Tsuna because anything he said would feel (and probably was) an excuse; Reborn because he had no idea where to even begin.

"Hanahaki…" Was what he eventually settled on, letting the word fall from his lips when it seemed like Tsuna was breathing somewhat regularly again. The brunet tensed minutely in his arms, but said nothing and, trying his best to keep his tone free of accusation, Reborn continued, "So that's the reason for the influx of missions, I presume?"

Silence again, and Reborn hated how accustomed he was to it already, but he knew better than to push the quiet brunet in his arms, and so he waited.

"To be fair…" Tsuna spoke, minutes later, voice hoarse but steady. (Reborn quietly directed Sun flames towards his throat.) "Those were all valid mission… I did plan for those investigations… I just… moved the timeline up… a lot more…" Tsuna's voice hitched then, but Reborn continued to force himself to stay completely still. "I… wanted to deal with this… before you had a chance to find out… before anyone had a chance to find out…"

And there it was.

The confession. The truth.

Tsuna was never going to tell him. The stupid, selfless idiot was going to give up his own feelings forever without ever giving Reborn a choice. This was the most cruel thing Tsuna could have done, and the worse thing was… Reborn couldn't even blame him. After all, Reborn had loved the brunet for so long, but he never uttered a single word about it either. That was hypocritical of him, was it not? And yet…

While Reborn never gave Tsuna the choice, he never took away the possibility permanentlyeither.

There wasn't a right or wrong in this shitstorm they caught themselves in—no, there was no right, only wrong. The realisation hit Reborn like a splash of cold water and all he could manage in his last shreds of denial was a short, bitter laugh, and a hollow accusation. "You weren't even going to tell me."

"You're… you." Tsuna answered simply, his tone resigned and defeated and matter-of-factly, and Reborn resisted the urge to laugh again.

In the end… they were, very simply, both idiots.

"Idiota." Reborn sighed softly, letting a tinge of fondness seep into his voice. (Whether that was directed to himself or Tsuna, he didn't know.) "You've been my student for five years now, and still you don't seem to understand that I prefer actions over words." There was no more need for Sun flames, not at this moment, so Reborn let the flames die away, but he kept his hand where it was. "That, and…" A small, wry grin lifted the corner of his lips. "…I never do things conventionally."

Tsuna's breath shuddered. "That's… no… you're lying…"

(Reborn could see it now; the only solution to this entire scenario—and the one thing he should have done a long time ago—)

"You're—"

"If I were truly lying, Tsuna, this wouldn't have worked." He answered, letting his sight trail down to the hand still pressed against Tsuna's chest. The even, steady heartbeat he felt under his hand calmed him and, cliché as it sounds, gave Reborn the strength to push on. (He had seen too much death, lost too much already; was he really going to let this slip away too?) "Hanahaki is a disease born of feelings. It cannot be lied to, or tricked out of. Only a truthful answer or cold, hard surgery can cure it." Tsuna was looking at him now, eyes wide with hesitant hope, and Reborn sighed. "I'm going to say this once, so listen closely."

(—He confessed.)

"I love you, Tsuna, and I've suspected you felt the same." (Tsuna didn't attempt to lie or deny and Reborn was absolutely lying if he said he didn't feel a weight lift off a chest.) "I've not explicitly mentioned it because I don't like words. We are Mafia; words are lies and deceit more than they are truths. I'm not ashamed to admit that I've used words in my own line of work, and I have, in face, taught you the same." (How many times had Reborn seduced information out of an unsuspecting informant? How many times have Reborn cleverly side-stepped a question? How long has he been teaching Tsuna to play the Mafia Game?) "Actions are real; they mean something and have a tangible effect. You've once put everything on the line, defying me directly and risking your life to save me." (Reborn had been ready to give up. He had been ready to die if it meant Tsuna would live, because Reborn's life wasn't worth Tsuna's. Even if it was something he had hoped for for the longest time, breaking the Arcobaleno's Curse meant nothing if that was what he had to give up.) "That day, Tsuna, your actions gave me something I've lost a long time ago—hope."

Reborn let out a deep breath as the last words left his lips. He had never felt as bare as he did at that moment, and yet, instead of the regret he was expecting, Reborn felt unexpectedly light. His heart was racing ever so slightly, and if the tremble he felt beneath his fingers— Onyx eyes flicked down, then softened at the sight of the silent tears falling from Tsuna's eyes.

This time, Reborn didn't attempt to hide the fondness in his voice as he murmured, "Silly idiota." He lifted the arm wrapped around Tsuna and gently wiped the falling tears. Then, with just the barest hint of hesitation, he slowly tilted Tsuna's head up by his chin as he himself leaned down until they were so close that their breaths mingled, and Reborn could make out all the tiniest details about Tsuna's eyes and cheeks. It was cruel of Reborn to stop right there, but he couldn't make the first contact; Reborn had to know.

It had been an entire minute, during which Reborn could practically see the cogs turning in the other's head, and the hitman was honestly starting to consider pulling away when Tsuna finally moved and—

Oh.

As cliché as it sounded, while Reborn had many, many kisses in his lifetime, none of them had felt like this. It was nowhere even near 'perfect'; Tsuna was still too uncertain, too hesitant to be bold, and the kiss was way more clumsy than suave. There could be time to be suave later, Reborn decided and he poured in all the remnants of his confession into the kiss—and if the way Tsuna was returning the kiss with increasing fervour were any indication, then Reborn's words had finally, finally gotten through.

When they finally broke apart, breathless but sated, Tsuna was the first to speak, the barest tinge of redness colouring his cheeks. "I… I love you, Reborn." (His heart didn't skip a beat. He lied.) Then, looking away with shame seeping into his voice, "And I… I'm sorry I hid it from you. And that… I tried to remove them instead of facing it."

There were many things Reborn could say to that, but at this point, he was keener to count the small victories, and so instead, the only thing Reborn said was, "We will have a nice long discussion on that, trust me." Tsuna flinched, but accepted it nevertheless, and Reborn pushed on, "For now… we should probably get that perverted doctor back in to check on you."

(Reborn could admit this; the confused look on Tsuna's face was adorable.)

"Where did Dr. Shamal…?"

"I kicked him out." Reborn replied, gleefully ignoring the the flabbergasted look Tsuna shot him. "I've not had a chance to properly look it up, but as far as I'm aware, it'll take a while longer to completely remove the flowers and its roots from your system." ('Not to mention healing the scarred throat and lungs', Reborn added to himself, as the plan slowly formed in his head.) "I'll check Gokudera to clear your schedule for the rest of the week; after Shamal clears you, we're going somewhere."

"Wait." Tsuna blinked slowly. "For the rest of the week?"

"Your respiratory system took quite a bit of damage from the disease. Even after the roots are removed, it'll take some time for your system to recover back to normal." Reborn replied honestly, but left out the fact that they also had a long, difficult talk ahead of them—a fact that had already slipped Tsuna's mind. "Don't worry." He reassured, because he already knew what his silly student was worrying about. "Your Guardians are more competent than they look—" (Reborn resisted the urge to laugh at the face Tsuna had made at that.) "—Vongola won't fall just because you have to rest for a few days."

Tsuna nodded, and Reborn called for the disgruntled doctor to return to his office. He was aware of the brunet shifting slightly in his arms, and Reborn turned his sights to follow Tsuna's, and landed on the yellow, tube-shaped leaves peaking from beneath the scattered pile of flowers.

"Jonquil..." Reborn's mind immediately supplied, and right after, 'Affection returned'. "It seems your body knew even before you did, Tsuna."

"With a disease born from feelings," Tsuna replied, a wry smile lifting his lips. "I'm not surprised."

'And neither am I.'

A/N: Holy this was way longer than I expected it to be and I honestly hope this came out okay. This chapter is dedicated to Lightning515, because it was her birthday a week ago and I instead of writing her crack like I planned, I wrote more angst and Reborn's Feelings instead. Oops. *cough* HAPPY BIRTHDAY, LIGHTNING~ 3

Thanks for the awesome responses on the first chapter! I'm glad I did the hanahaki-AU and R27 ship justice! Thanks for reading as always~ Ciao ciao~