Disclaimer: I do not own Katekyo Hitman Reborn.
Characters: Gokudera, Tsuna
Pairings: Slight 5927
Words: 1401

A/N: This was originally meant to be a collection of drabbles, kind of like a collage, on how everyone is waiting for something...but my plot overworked itself, and now Gokudera has about 6 times the amount I was planning to write for him. I have ideas for Hibari and Mukuro at least, so this oneshot might actually turn into a collection of oneshots. But then again, it might not.

Also as a note, I am a dedicated 1859 fan and did not intend for the 5927 to happen at all……I actually think Tsuna should be seme, hence 2759…but the rarity of both pairings (2759 and 1859) has lead me to desolation/despair.

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He would sit in the office, staring relentlessly at the clock, watching the seconds ticking away as if it will make it faster. His hair would glint as a tired hand raked through the silver locks.His eyes would look away for a moment, scanning the first two lines of a document, darting here and there around the room, looking, but not really seeing.

His porcelain-pale face would crease impatiently, and then his eyes would stray back to the clock. For a while, they would stay there, green orbs examining every curve of the device and the surrounding wall, before flicking back to the moving second hand.

The process repeated itself.

Every time the Vongola Decimo left on a business trip, Gokudera Hayato would check the times for when the precious boss was due to return. Then he would wait, sometimes placing himself in the well-visited office hours before the due time. He did not know why. Regardless, he would wait. Wait for the moment the door glided open, and Decimo walked in with smooth, confident strides.

The door would close behind Decimo and the coldness, the professionalism, the whole mafia business would be dropped like a heavy coat, and he would come floundering inside, laughing clumsily and stuttering out excuses and apologies for his (not unusual) lateness. Decimo would remove the huge black coat which shrouded his thin form, shove all the documents on his desk aside, and make himself comfortable in the padded leather chair.

He would scrunch up his small, round face as he discovered more documents under the documents shoved aside. He would play with his brown hair absent-mindedly while assessing the amount of work. Hayato would watch him, keeping his face carefully blank, with nothing but silence passing his lips.

A thin, short boy with not enough fat or muscles stretched across his frame – this boy was the Vongola Decimo, the boy to whom Hayato gave his stubborn loyalty. A mere boy. He had chosen for himself to act under the command of this boy, to dirty his hands should his boss (master?) order it. But even if his hands were covered in blood, they would just be washed, until all the red, all the sin, has flowed away –

Because, against the odds, the boy in Gokudera Hayato had not died either.

It was this boy that waited for Decimo, to be the one to welcome him home. As soon as Decimo entered the door, Hayato would stand up, bow, and declare in the nostalgically loud voice, "Okaerinasai! Decimo!", as according to Japanese tradition…rather, a tradition between the two involved, and it did not matter where they were, be it Italy or Japan or any other.

The brown-haired boy would look up at him with his brown eyes, and smile, even if it was forced and took some effort.

And Hayato, in turn, would smile back – even if that smile too, was forced. Then, both would retire to their respective rooms and sleep, the younger sound, the other restless.

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(Tsuna, the restless dream reminded him. He is not Decimo. He is Tsuna.

There is no difference between the two.

You were there. When he was Tsuna, and not the Vongola Decimo.

He has always been the Decimo.

You know who Tsuna is, and you know who the Decimo is. What was the name you called him by? Juudaime, was it?

It means the same as Decimo, in Japanese, his home language. There is no difference.

So why do you call him Decimo, and not Juudaime?

The foreign, echoing dream ended, and Hayato was alone in his room.

"Juu…Juudaime." He murmured, drowning in the nostalgia as the word left his lips.)

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The next day, with a flurry of fleeting, wistful smiles, Decimo would go again, leaving Hayato to enter the dark, empty office, sometimes weeks later, a few hours before the arrival time. He would flick the lights on and sit down at his customary chair, sometimes with a bundle of papers, sometimes with a cup of coffee. He would sit down, push his glasses back up the bridge of his nose, and begin the meaningless wait.

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(What am I waiting for?)

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Hayato found the answer to the question several years later.

It had occurred to him that perhaps, yes, Juudaime and Decimo were two different people.

Decimo was the boss to the Vongola family. He cared for the family, and did what he thought was best for the Vongola. Combat AND management skills were high, higher than anyone would ever have expected – Decimo was a drastically late bloomer. But Decimo was not Hayato's boss, Juudaime was – to the point where if Hayato had not been able to see Juudaime in Decimo, he would not have followed the path of the being Decimo's right hand man any further.

Yes, in becoming stronger, and more suited to be a boss, Juudaime became Decimo. Hayato had nothing against Decimo. In fact, he stood proudly beside Decimo, knowing the difference between Decimo and Juudaime, and how far Decimo had come from his teenage years.

In all truth, Vongola Decimo was a brilliant man.

But it was not Decimo who Hayato decided to follow.

So he waited. He waited for the moment Decimo stepped through the door, shrugged off the coat, and smiled. The moment when he let exhaustion and stress and weakness wash over him – the moment that Decimo could afford to seem weak. The moment when he would lie back in the chair and actually look his age, the moment when Decimo would disappear and Tsuna would be there.

Juudaime would be there.

The ice would break, Decimo would be gone, and they would be friends again, classmates in their second year of middle school. They would smile, regardless of trouble, or pain, or doubt. The next day, it would be Decimo again, but it did not matter, Hayato would just wait, wait for the next time that Juudaime could talk freely, without the weight of Vongola Decimo shackled to his wrists.

The day would come, so he would wait.

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("Dead men tell no lies" – one of the mottos which the mafia lived with. A dead body was honest – no more to hide, no more lies to tell.

Before the lacquered black coffin lid had covered him eternally, the boy's face – colour mercilessly taken by death – seemed inappropriately calm. His blank face looked as if it had been set in stone.

He must have been in pain as the bullets ripped into flesh and through, but his expression showed none of it.

What was that peaceful expression? What was he trying to convey?

Reassuring the family? Telling the family he would be fine? That he was not dying of pain, feeling his heart faintly beat, working on pushing the blood out of the torn flesh?

It was not Juudaime who was lying in the Vongola-crested coffin, it was Decimo. But Decimo was just a lie, a cloak which Juudaime donned to conceal his own weakness.

How long did he intend to continue lying?

How long could Juudaime's frail body keep up the disguise? And how long would Hayato be able to bear with seeing the boy, hiding behind the disguise prepared by others, but put up by himself?

He had been forced to become Decimo his whole life. He should not have to maintain the guise in death.

"Dead men tell no lies" was a grand motto of the mafia world, yet Hayato felt that the body of the 10th boss of Vongola was spider-webbed with an eternal deceit.)

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The briefcase he held slipped from his hand as the boy appeared before him, younger and more naïve than he had ever remembered him. Every small detail brought back vivid memories, of Decimo, of the Guardians, of himself, from ten long years ago. He fell to his knees, the breath hitching in his throat, the words stuck behind it.

Here he was. The boy who did not have to link his actions to the family, the boy who was not weighed down by responsibilities, the boy who he had decided to follow a long time ago.

Vongola Decimo was gone, and standing there was just Juudaime.

(Okaerinasai, Juudaime.)

The moment he was waiting for had finally come, but the words gagged in his throat and he could not bring himself to speak.

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