Let me tell you a story...

Now, I did not intend to make a story out of these pictures, but look what I got out of putting them in a certain order! So I commissioned the excellent Realms to screenwrite with a bit of editing by yours truly:

It is the most important day of her life. She has not expected to be surrounded by criminals.

This marriage scores second place as the likeliest ceremony to end in bloodshed. Still, Fuuta has faith.

“This morning I will show you how to lead a wedding ceremony. Watch carefully, young Basil."

It could have been first place.

Mukuro babbles about feudal Japan, making doodles as he explains the development of Yamamoto's family sword techniques. Now and then, he adds side comments of how Yamamoto's ancestors were a bunch of crazy losers with a bad case of attention deficit, but not in a completely mean way - or so he says.

"Also" informs Mukuro with a mild smile. "There will be a shooting in seven seconds."

Yamamato laughs. "I've never played this game before!"

And in seven seconds he will not laugh anymore.

Reborn believes that the best way of keeping something secret is not hiding it at all.

He has warned Tsuna he would kill him, hasn’t he?

“Excuse me for a sec, officer.”

And then he enjoys his Focaccetta Brioche.

"L-let's get out of here!"

"Pick a card? Any card," says Ryohei, playing with the mysterious deck, the cards going back and forth between his sore hands. Bianchi ponders for a long, long while. Love readings should be taken seriously. He continues: "See how lucky you ar-"

Bianchi jumps where she sits.

"Ah, good old Abramo is at it again - just listen to his fireworks go!"

Chrome doesn't remember what she was up to last night. It is almost as if she shared her body with somebody else. Sometimes she wonders if that is the closest she can get to happiness.

She is not looking at the door which has just been closed when she says "Gunshots...?"

Dino has been surrounding the confessionary like a shark for hours, bumping into old ladies on his route. It is useless and embarrassing. It's just like when he was a boy. What he really wants to tell the priest is that he would like to be good at being selfish, good for his own sake and nobody else's.

He wants to be able to go on dates without setting things on fire. He wants to be able to eat with sharp utensils. He wants to-- Seriously, it's not asking much. But no luck there. There won't be any confessions. Today is like any other day.

"BAD NEWS, BOSS."

Vongola Tenth sees, in no specific order: two children running away, two guys talking at a table, a man with two skills, two outcomes in love and a body with two souls. When the shooting starts his last thoughts are: It's the most important day of her life. Why does she have to die surrounded by criminals?

But, of course, there is only one answer to that.

Nobody needs to tell Hibari that most mafiosi are nothing but well-protected herbivores. They also use guns and bullets, the cowards. Too pity that Sawada Tsunayoshi never learned to dogde them.

"In any case, Kyou-san," mutters Kusakabe watching Hibari take a drag of his cigarrete. "Shall we pay the Godfather a visit?"

He can sense Hibari's aura by the expensive shit he smokes. Gokudera knows that his boss never liked to see him pick a fight right under his watch. Still, he can only be himself and that is something the Tenth had always understood.

With a melancholic sigh, he kneels down, sets down the flowers on the quiet gravestone, then stands up and crushes his cigarette under his heel.

"Put out your cancer stick, Hibari. This is holy ground."

A few graves away, an old lady smiles tiredly and whispers to the fading picture of her husband:

"A very warm day, love. A nice, warm day in Sicily."

-Fin-

Credit due where it is due:

1. Thank you, Realms, for putting up with my sketchy directions! You've been very, very good on MSN XDDD.

2. And it's been a pleasant hand-and-memory exercise of sorts since I tried my best not to reference the characters, except the unpretties since that's... inevitable. Also, I would like to credit the actual fashion photography book ("Shot In Sicily" by Michael Roberts) for three concepts - Gokudera, Tsuna & Fuuta and Fuuta & Basil.

3. Thanks, in no small part, to Flickr and Gettyimages XDDD.