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Prelude
It starts with Japan and the Tenth and his undying devotion for a boy he's just barely met. It doesn't matter because now he has a sense of belonging, something he had never been rewarded of before. He holds onto the threads of this relationship like it's his last salvation and to be honest, it probably is.
Then another boy comes along and ruins everything. Threatens his position, threatens his friendship and threatens his very existence. Gokudera Hayato isn't one to play games and even at the ripe age of fourteen, he's been through more strife than most people go through in a lifetime so he knows to take this life seriously. He is going to be the Vongola Decimo's right hand man and he isn't going to let some good-for-nothing scatterbrain take it and everything else for granted.
He hates Yamamoto, he really does. Can't stand anything that guy stands for. He's weak and naive and what's worse is he's fake. Gokudera can see right through that cheery facade he puts on for everyone else and to be honest, it makes him sick. He's not to be trusted.
The future is disheartening, it slaps Gokudera in the face and reminds him of just who he actually is. A failure.
You fail at being Italian
You fail at being Japanese
You fail at being the prodigious son
You fail at playing piano
You fail at being mafiosi
You fail at being a friend
You fail at being a right hand man
You fail at saving his life
You fail at saving your own
You fail at everything.
Gokudera knows -- he knows -- this is his fault, what the fuck was he doing but what's worse is why has everyone else failed the Tenth? That smug bastard shows up with a scar on his chin and a pitiful look in his eyes while he smiles and chimes, "You were amazing these last ten years, Tsuna!" Then, too soft, too familiar -- too sadly nostalgic, he says, "You too, Gokudera."
Gokudera isn't sure what that longing look in his eyes is supposed to mean.
He becomes increasingly furious and decks the bastard square in the jaw. He's meant to do that all along but really it's just projection. He wants someone, mainly the Tenth, to just lay one on him and scream at him, "You're a fucking useless failure, Gokudera-kun! You've done nothing and ten years down the road you still amount to nothing!"
It hurts but that's the truth and if anything, Gokudera finds solace in truth because it's the one constant that's never let him down.
So he's more pissed off that usual when he gets stuck with Yamamoto, wants to deem himself worthy again and show everyone he's worth something.
This is what he tells himself when the volts of electricity are searing his skin and boiling his blood and near god damned killing him again-- fuck, shit, why can't I do anything right?
And it's Yamamoto to the rescue and if that doesn't make Gokudera want to kick and scream and throw a tantrum, blow shit up and fuck, why does he have to be right about everything? He isn't just some harebrained idiot. Underneath that flaky surface, Gokudera sees something darker; Gokudera sees someone real and within that Gokudera sees a truth. It's the most frightening, most horrible truth he's had to face since learning of his mother's death but it's truth. And Gokudera believes in the truth.
Yamamoto, he finds, is really honest with his feelings and more honest with him. He doesn't know why but what he does know is he's somehow fallen for the idiot, so far down that there's no way back up. He didn't even know he liked people, let alone guys and especially Yamamoto. But that's just the thing, isn't it? It isn't anyone else he feels this way for; it's just Yamamoto. It's different from the way Gokudera feels about Tsuna, because that is respect and devotion and admiration. It's different from the way he feels about Bianchi and Shamal. That's a love-hate or hate-love because they're fucked up several different ways from Sunday and more criminally insane than Mukuro but he has to love them. They're his only family.
The feelings he has for Yamamoto are almost indescribable, Gokudera can't put a name to the emotion because he just doesn't know. It's something like his heart beating so hard against his chest; like his stomach fluttering as if there were a colony of butterflies invading and his mind gets all hazy, like there are nothing but thick silky cobwebs spread across each cortex. Gokudera doesn't like it, doesn't like to feel like he isn't in control; doesn't like that he has to feel this way about Yamamoto, that stupid fucking idiot of all people and he especially doesn't like it when his sister tells him it's love.
But it's a truth and Gokudera knows it and he can try to run from it, but even he knows that's futile. All truths are inevitable, you have to face them at some point.
And he does, when he's seventeen and can't take seeing Yamamoto go through heaps of girlfriends and nothing lasts because well, "I'm sorry, Yamamoto-kun but you just seem... More interested in Gokudera-kun and this game that you play. I think we should break up."
And it gets Gokudera to thinking, sets the cogwheels in mind rotating and finally he concludes that maybe the baseball idiot has a truth he himself doesn't want to face. Maybe that truth involves him. Maybe...
And I was right, he thinks -- almost victoriously, as he slams Yamamoto against the fire door to their high school roof and kisses him. He doesn't know the first thing about what he's doing but the kiss is mad and frenzied with too much tongue and too much teeth but Yamamoto grips his shoulders so tightly (they'll leave a reminder of Gokudera's trip down the rabbit hole) like he's securing Gokudera into place; like he's keeping him there (his and only his) forever because he knows what it means to love and let go too.
And so there begins of secret meetings in the dead of night and darkened corners and it doesn't remain just lust and passion. Gokudera needs Yamamoto as much as Yamamoto needs him and there's no rules, no commitment but Yamamoto belongs to him and it's not spoken out loud but he knows Yamamoto sees him the same way. He makes Gokudera feel different; like being grounded and zero gravity all at the same time. He loves and he loves and he knows that it's love because it is unlike anything he's ever felt before. His sister has told him and he believes it. When Yamamoto tells him, he feels it. Seeing is believing but so is feeling and Gokudera may never have trusted him before, but Yamamoto is the epitome of honesty; he is all the truth Gokudera needs.