6. A Birthday between Generations.

Tweet by @GRE3NH0USE || Rei-chan

[Image ID: A POV shot of someone with their arms draped over the handles of a shopping trolley, holding a scribbled shopping list that never seems to end. There are vegetables and fruits and packaged meat laid about in a corner of the cart, the other half filled to the brim with a mountain of snacks, chips, and candy. I-pin is chasing after Lambo somewhere in the forefront of the cart, just barely out of focus.]

Currently babysitting on my own. If I get targeted while I'm here, RIP to me, thanks. —at Namimori Supermarket

Liked by @official_NamimoriDC, @boreensensei, and 10k others.

@MeganeSimulation || The Shouichi's Gambit replied to this tweet: "I-pin-chan just dispatched a shoplifter in the next aisle. I think you're okay."

@GRE3NH0USE || Rei-chan replied to this tweet: "she what"

-

It's his birthday, but Rei babysits.

He's not very spirited today, but Lambo and I-pin bounce enough energy off each other that he doesn't feel obligated to contribute.

His hands are cold, but that's normal. He gets cold easily, even in mild air conditioning, and he never goes anywhere without a jacket. It'd be nice if the rest of his body didn't try too hard to thermoregulate, though, because his neck and face are so warm right now it's like he's got a fever. Except he knows he doesn't, he'll be back to normal once he leaves the supermarket again.

But it still feels unpleasant.

After that horrible morning, he really wants to do nothing but lay around all day, but he supposes this isn't the worst possible option.

"Ah— Ninomiya Rei-san, right?"

Rei lifts his head to find Irie Shouichi. Well. He really shouldn't be surprised. The man commented on the tweet, after all.

What he's surprised to find is that Irie carrying a 20kg bag of rice, and I-pin is by his leg, cajoling him like a pack mule. Lambo, on the other leg, is hollering go faster, loyal steed!

Rei instantly understands what's going on.

"Oh no, I'm so sorry," he's flustered, "I can take that. I-pin, you should have just asked me to come over if you couldn't take it on your own—"

"No!" I-pin declares. "Rei-chan, rest required!"

"Rei, you're super weak!" Lambo says, and for someone in a kickable size that's a bold thing to announce in the middle of a supermarket, "no way we're asking you to do it! No waaaaay!"

"That doesn't mean you command a stranger to do it..." Rei is exhausted already.

Irie helps him get the bag into the trolley anyways, chuckling fondly at the sight. "It's fine, it's fine. I don't mind, anyways. Plus, most of us in town know these kids, anyways. Rather than me, you don't look a healthy colour today, so I'm glad they asked me to help."

And now Rei is mortified.

Is he that obviously out of it today? So much that not only Irie, but the kids as well, all noticed? Wow, he wished he could crawl into a hole and die.

"You'll be fine getting it back to your place later?" Irie asks. "I'm pretty sure whoever gave you this list intended to keep you out of the house as long as possible."

Yeah, maybe Rei should have looked at that better. Were they expecting him to carry a whole bag of rice home on foot? Not even counting all the snacks and drinks?

Then again, Rei had the tendency to just stare at grocery bags in misery like some kind of lost dog, all while sitting outside on the curb until someone pinged Yamamoto on twitter to come to his rescue, so maybe they figured he would do that this time too.

"Darn, I guess I'd better answer those expectations, then?" he grimaces. He also needs to pretend there obviously isn't a surprise party waiting for him at home.

Irie chuckles. "I have a bike?"

"No, please," Rei says, "the kids have troubled you enough."

"HEY!" Lambo calls, "Nerd! Get me that next!"

"Ah– right, right."

Rei makes the mistake of not stopping that laugh until he had to transform it into a cough, which in turn made him choke, and now that humour's gone because everyone's fretting over his sudden coughing fit.

One day he's going to laugh himself into an asthmatic attack and he would probably die trying to explain how funny it was. Kuma-sensei will kill him himself.

-

The day is warm.

Rei sits by the curb as Irie helps him with getting the groceries packed and past the cashier, and then out to meet him.

"We can take the cart with us?" Rei says, honestly bewildered by that.

"Sure," the part-timer gathering the trolleys chuckles. "I mean, we don't lock, tag, or count them or anything, you can even keep it as a souvenir if you want. I don't want you trying to take all your groceries home and collapsing or anything. Do you know trolleys like these are super convenient for transporting a whole bunch of kids from your home to the park without any of them wandering off?"

"Why is that so specific?" Irie wonders.

"Babysitting pays."

Rei glances at the 'Isogai' at his nametag and quietly files that information away for if I ever die and the rest of Vongola need a replacement babysitter.

Also, that name sounds startlingly familiar. Of course, it's not a one-and-only name, but what if? And what does it mean, if it's true? He already knows he's living in a world of fiction, but he hadn't yet considered the possibility of this not being the world he was vaguely familiar with.

And yet... This Isogai is an adult. Is this what happens, in a world beyond that of what's written in publicized canon?

(Will Tsuna, too, one day live in a world beyond that of publicized canon?)

(Will Rei be part of that, or will he remain here, in Namimori? Or will Rei's lungs have given in by then?)

(Rei isn't sure how to feel about it at all.)

"You kids be careful on the way home now," Isogai says, waving off as he heads off with the train of trolleys. "And Happy Birthday, kid."

"Does the entire town know that?!" Rei balks.

And Irie says, "we absolutely do."

Luckily, Rei doesn't get to have an existential crisis for too long today, because right then, multiple things happen at once.

One, I-pin and Lambo, who had been inside choosing out ice creams, finally exit with the slow whirr of the supermarket's automatic doors. Except, Lambo has seized more than he was allowed to, and I-pin is yelling at him to return them. The cashier is looking their way very longsufferingly.

Two, I-pin launches herself at Lambo footfirst, successfully liberating ice cream from Lambo's grubby hands. This results in a magnificent faceplant and rough skid across the pavement for Lambo, but I-pin is more interested in going back to the store with the ice cream and assuring the poor cashier she can pay for it.

And three, when Rei approaches the boy to comfort him as he starts bawling, Tsuna, Yamamoto, and Gokudera show up over the horizon, calling out to him.

Four, the previous sequence of events distract Rei just long enough to not notice the bazooka being extracted from the world's most spacious afro.

Five, Irie, not knowing what the bazooka is, absolutely freaks out. He lunges at Rei, trying to get him out of the way.

Six, boom.

-

Side: 20XX + 10

It's quite a strange experience to be sprawled all over Irie as they land unceremoniously into each other and various overturned items. Irie has something looped over his head— headphones— and it's connected to a laptop which has been dragged down between both of them. The chair is jabbing painfully into Rei's arm, and the croissant is on the ground. They're also absolutely littered with chess pieces.

"Ow..."

"Ouch. Ouch—" Rei jerks upwards, and hits the back of his head on the underside of the cafe table. "OUCH!"

They're in a rather uncompromising position, but nothing's more embarrassing than the amount of people staring at them.

"You guys okay?" the barista asks, coming by to clean up. "Looks like something you were wearing got caught on his headphone wire when you walked by... huh? Where'd your coffee go, Shouichi?"

Clearly, this rando knows Irie. If 'something got caught and they magnificently tripped' was the way the people of the future chose to interpret this situation, then Rei knew he had to take advantage of it. Irie didn't know about the ten-year bazooka yet, and time paradoxes were much more annoying than isekai situations.

Rei looks up and sucks in a surprised breath.

Because the name on this Starbucks worker's tag is Isogai.

"Uhm— huh?" Irie looks around, frantic and confused, "what just— where are—"

Rei puts a stop to it all with a hand to his mouth and a sharp "shhh!!" before turning up to Isogai with a smile. "We're fine! Sorry about the mess!"

Isogai's brows only furrow further into a concerned frown.

"Are you okay, sir? You look a little pale. Are you injured?"

Rei feels the nausea coming to him, but he holds it back. Why couldn't he have been in this situation when they were surrounded by people who already knew of the happenings here? He didn't know anything— his future personality, his relation to Irie in this timeline, what he even walked into this cafe to do—

"Oh dear, I saved the chessboard, but all the pieces fell off..."

Now, Rei's blood truly runs cold.

Irie slowly gets up, still trying to keep Rei on him. They're all tangled up in the laptop charger and headphone wires, so they try to get that off first before saying anything.

Clearly, Irie got the hint that he shouldn't speak now.

"I guess that match was a draw huh, Shou-chan?"

Rei finally turns around, trembling, breath shaky.

Byakuran sat on the opposite side of the table. His side of the table wasn't abruptly swept to the ground, which is a small mercy, but he seems rather amused by everything.

"Huh? I could swear your hair and jacket were different..." Byakuran seems genuinely confused as he glances at Rei, then, confusion dawns on him once more as he gets a better look at Irie, "huh... are you younger, Shou-chan?"

Rei's breath holds.

The next thing Byakuran murmurs under his breath makes his stomach sink.

"That's weird. The ten year bazooka, now? But this never happens in other worlds..."

-

Side: 20XX (Present)

Gokudera is halfway through strangling Lambo when the pink smoke fades and Tsuna's entire heart fills with dread.

"You've got to be joking... you shot Rei-kun with the bazooka..."

"Who was the other guy?" Yamamoto asks, "wait, there was another guy too, right? Was I the only one that saw him?"

"You got an innocent civilian caught up in this too?!"

There's a startled yelp and the smoke clears to two people falling into each other. An undignified squawk followed by the toppling of trinkets and body parts and—

"--I saved the coffee!" one of them calls.

"Ooh, nice," the other chuckles. "That wouldn't have been pretty."

The smoke clears.

Gokudera lets out the most disgraceful shriek when the two men are in a rather uncompromising position, a paper cup of coffee held away from them with a sigh of relief. The one they assume to be an older Rei straddling the other guy, though both of them clearly didn't really intend to be in that position and they parted very quickly without even looking concerned by it.

"Oh, aren't you Sui's older brother?" the other boy says, "what a coincidence. I'm Irie Shouichi. I haven't heard of you since you went off to Italy—"

And TYL!Rei beams, "nice seeing you again!" while taking a sip of his coffee, "though, we'll have to catch up some other time. Looks like Bovino tech just sent us into the past."

"What's going on here?!" Gokudera demands.

"Oh no! It's the Ten Years Later versions!" Tsuna yelps, "okay, calm down, calm down, calm d— Rei-kun??? Is that a tattoo??"

"Woah, Rei, your hair's long!" Yamamoto's very bright and confused, "how'd you do that?"

If the long hair pulled back— without his hair clips, notably— wasn't already an indication of just how distant this guy was from what they knew of Ninomiya Rei, the black leather coat certainly gave a foreboding impression.

He crunched a lollipop in his mouth, observing the three younger Vongola before him with interest. He smiles assuringly, brushing back some hair over his ear.

"Reiiii!!" Lambo wails, leaping onto him, "I-pin was being a big ugly meanie!"

To which I-pin screeches, "BROCCOLI MONSTER!"

TYL!Rei doesn't even falter, chuckling at the action. "Don't fight, you two. What happened?"

Hayato gawks at the row of earring studs, but not any less dramatic than the way Tsuna's eyes blow wide at the sight of the rings.

There were a whopping three of those on his hands. One gaudy, large and intricate, Tsuna gasps at the Vongola logo— while the other two, a sleek metal ring, and one studded with tricoloured gemstones— Tsuna didn't peg Rei as a fashionable or punk kind of person, so this is very jarring.

His right wrist— the one usually emblemed with a birthmark resembling a little white bangle— is sprawled over with a tattoo of lilies, the flowers and its leaves gently wrapping around his wrist as if it were a delicate corsage. A silver bangle is slung casually against the pattern, a rim of sharp blue reflecting in the light.

"The ten-year bazooka, huh..." Irie sighs. "I thought I stayed enough away from you guys in my youth to not have to deal with it... apparently not."

TYL!Rei giggles at that. "Personally, I think you were always destined to get involved with us."

"That's a horrible prophecy, thanks," Irie groans.

"R- Rei-kun!" Tsuna yelps, "wha— what's with you? Are you really the Adult Rei? Why are you dressed like tha— are you in the mafia?!"

TYL!Rei calmly sips on his coffee, patting Tsuna on the head.

"Yes, yes," he deems, "I'm the Rei everyone knows and loves. Probably. Twenty-four years old, professional hitman, Vongola Lightning Guardian. Nice to meet you."

"What?"

"What??"

"What do you mean, Guardian?"

"And," TYL!Rei turns to Yamamoto and loops an arm around his shoulder, "looks like time travel's real, Takeshi! I'm taller than you now!"

This makes Yamamoto flustered, "what? that's — not fair!" he gawks, realizing Rei's not lying, "I bet I'm taller than you in ten years anyways, right?"

"Yes, but now you're tinyyyy," he teases, and luxuriates in the way Yamamoto clearly grows miffed.

"Holy shit, what's all that," Gokudera is now three inches from his face, something that even takes Rei by surprise, "you were supposed to be a Relatively Harmless Green thing! You can't stop being a Relatively Harmless Green thing!"

"Hayato, I've been meaning to ask for years, but like, what does 'relatively harmless' even mean to you?"

"You call me HAYATO??"

"Do I still call you Dera? Damn, I forgot."

"It's over..." Tsuna sobs into his hands, "we've corrupted Rei-kun."

To which Irie finally pipes up with, "Tsuna-kun, you're misunderstanding something. Rei was always the one corrupting you guys, it was absolutely not the other way around. The entire town of Namimori can testify to this."

Tsuna wails, "I don't even know who you are but I hate that you're probably right!"

"I'm Irie Shouichi. Have I fixed your bike before?"

-

Side: 20XX + 10

"We time travelled?"

In Rei's defense, he panicked big time. So now he's on Irie's back, and they're scampering through the streets of oh hey, this is Japan. It's actually a town quite close to Namimori, but it's modernized so much in ten years— they're both utterly lost and confused.

They stop by an alley, catching their breath.

"Are you sure it was fine to just ditch that guy, though?" Irie's taking this surprisingly well, "my uhm, future self, seemed to be sitting with him."

"Your future self can handle the consequences," Rei hisses, clutching his chest, trying his hardest to survive his next coughing fit. "Sorry, you really shouldn't have been caught up in that... Lambo's always throwing that bazooka around like they're not first world tech or anything..."

Irie can't help but awkwardly laugh.

"What on earth have I gotten myself into... ah, my stomach hurts," he murmurs, "how long does this last again?"

"Five minutes."

"Thank god."

It's fine. Their future selves can deal with the consequences after this. For now, though, they have to be careful not to interact too much with Byakuran. He's the universal anomaly for absolute-DNI-in-the-future. Rei knows a death flag when he sees one, okay?

"Are you sure you're okay, Rei-kun?" Irie asks, turning away from the bustling city, "you haven't looked good all day and you're just getting worse... I wonder if there's anywhere we can sit down without drawing too much attention."

Rei wants to deny it, but Irie's right.

He can feel his breaths getting shorter, and his breath just isn't easing back into a comfortable pace. He had his inhaler, but he wasn't sure if he had the strength to reach for it. His hands were shaking, and his vision spins—

—Irie takes his hands quickly.

"Oh no, you're getting cold!"

Five minutes sounds short, but often it can feel like forever.

The door beside them in the alley opens, and an older woman steps out with a bag of trash, surprised to see the boys there.

"Oh, dear," she begins. "Are you okay? Do you need to come in and sit down?"

Ms Sakurai owned a florists', and Rei and Irie found themselves settling comfortably in what looked to be a sitting area behind the shopfront.

"Don't worry and take your time," she assures, brewing them up some tea as Rei lay down on the couch, trying to get some rest for the rest of the three minutes they were to be stuck here. "My son used to be sickly like you too, so I don't mind at all."

Irie couldn't help but gawk around everywhere. It's a florist, so of course there are flowers everywhere even in the back, packaging materials, soil— strangely enough, in the middle of the tea table there was a single teddy bear.

Rei glances over as Irie approaches it curiously.

It may not be too unusual for a flower shop to have toys around— they're often used decoratively, after all— but something about this one stood out. The bear's brown, well-stitched, with a blue scarf stitched into its neck. There's a flower embroidered on its chest, and it was clearly well-cared for.

"Huh..." Rei sits up, leaning over Irie's shoulder to get a better look. "That scarf..."

A strange detail to the bear's blue scarf was a much smaller, barely visible embroidery of a bear at the end.

Rei isn't wearing his scarf today, since it's already spring— but he knew, instinctively, that this and that scarf called home to the exact same thing.

"You were wearing this scarf in winter, right?" Irie asks, "or, something that looks like it, at least? Yours was a little darker."

"Yeah... but, why is Kuma-sensei's scarf on this thing?" Rei wonders.

The door opens and Ms Sakurai's eyes are wide.

Rei and Irie freeze, as if they were caught red-handed despite there being no crime present. Irie quickly hustles the bear back onto the desk, bumbling out an apology.

"Oh! W- We're sorry! We didn't mean to just take it, we were curious— sorry!" he yelps.

Ms Sakurai's face eases quickly. "No, that's alright. Is your friend feeling better now?"

Irie glances at Rei, earning a stuttered series of nods.

"That's a relief!"

And she brushes it all aside to step in with a bouquet. She sets it aside to crouch down and rest a hand against Rei's forehead, an action that absolutely petrifies him. She then rests a hand on Irie's hand, earning a squeak.

"You should rest well once you get home," she says, unable to hide the amused smile from the sound Irie made. Irie looks like he's going to die of embarrassment. "Is your home far from here? Should I call someone to pick you two up?"

"Ah— no, thanks, we're—" Irie falters.

"We'll be going soon," Rei says.

He doesn't quite understand how his voice is so even. He's flustered— her hand's nice and cold, and she's such a kindly lady that he didn't know how to handle the idea of someone being so motherly to him.

He couldn't help the feeling of disconnection.

Like this affection doesn't belong to him. It's a confusing warmth. Just as confusing as the scarf Kuma-sensei wound around his neck in winter.

"I see," she says, reaching for the bouquet of orchids.

(Ah— orchids. That's the flower stitched onto the bear's belly.)

They're an assortment of colours, yellow and pure white, framed by the rich green of the leaves and shrouded by the purple frills of the paper packaging.

"Take these, then," she says, "for the road."

Who gives flowers to someone for a journey's well wishes? It just doesn't seem to make too much sense. But she's smiling so sweetly, it didn't seem right to refuse.

She looks at him like he's something so precious.

Rei couldn't help the feeling that this isn't right.

(That look isn't meant for me.)

"Hey—" he tries to bring it up, but there's a ring of the bell at the door, and Ms Sakurai turns quickly.

"Oh dear, there's a customer," she turns to Rei, "what is it you were saying, dear?"

Rei stutters, "n- nothing."

"Then, I'll be right back."

When she leaves, there's a pit in Rei's stomach he can't handle. Irie glances up at him worriedly, and Rei simply sighs, bringing a smile back onto his face.

"She's a nice person," Irie says.

Rei nods. He cradles the flowers, and wonders if these flowers truly weren't meant for him, either. That would be appropriate. That would be right.

Everything Rei had in life was given to him by another. Maybe all the love in his life was just someone making up for what they thought of him, rather than what he truly is.

The pink smoke engulfs them right then.

-

Side: 20XX (Present)

TYL!Rei chuckles at the sight of the banter. "Man, it's so nostalgic seeing you guys like this again," he cradles Lambo in his arms, "I was just on my way to visit you guys, too."

"Wait, if you're from the future—" Yamamoto is clearly taking this whole future news in stride, "are there flying cars?!"

"Nope."

Yamamoto deflates immediately.

"Wait, how the Vongola in the future?" Gokudera has his priorities sorted, "Is the Tenth the best boss in the world?! You're still loyal to the Tenth, right?!"

Tsuna explodes, "PLEASE don't answer that! I'm not becoming a Mafia Boss!"

TYL!Rei chuckles, "oh, I'm absolutely loyal to Tsuna-kun. So loyal, I gave him a stroke last week from how much money I spent at my last show. Does that count?"

Gokudera freezes. And then he whips out dynamite, "YOU MUTINOUS BASTARD!" he starts chucking them, to Tsuna's devastation and TYL!Rei's uproarious laughter.

Initially, Tsuna gawks at the way TYL!Rei moves— a fluid swing to the telephone pole, clambering up just enough to swing him over to the shopping cart— he rides it like a skateboard for all of three seconds before Gokudera throws another dynamite that way. To save the groceries, he kicks the dynamite into the sky with a somersault— and then he lands smoothly on the ground.

Not a single drop of his coffee was spilled.

Lambo and I-pin make noises of absolute awe.

And TYL!Rei chuckles, "that's dangerous!"

TYL!Irie sighs deeply. Tsuna has no idea when Lambo and I-pin was passed onto the other man, but he's taking this in such stride, Tsuna dreads the understanding that he's used to this.

Tsuna realizes he's not the only one gawking when Yamamoto speaks up, clearly breathless.

"Rei... your lungs..."

TYL!Rei beams, "oh, they're fine now!" he assures, and Gokudera seems to take a moment to remember Rei's lung condition before wisely keeping away his cigarette. "Some doctors came up with a cure a while ago... it's not perfect, and I'm still a bit of an asthmatic time bomb, but I can jump around as much as I want now."

It's the most hopeful thing they've ever heard from him.

Tsuna can see, in the way he smiles, the way he talks— it's as if a weight's been lifted from his shoulders. His entire demeanor is so much lighter. So much lighter, Tsuna only now realizes that the Rei they usually know is weighed down by so much.

(Did anyone ever notice that weight in the present? Tsuna doesn't know.)

"I see..." Yamamoto smiles up at him, "that's awesome, then!"

"There's no way the Tenth isn't the Boss of the Vongola in the future!" Gokudera snaps at him, "hurry up and tell us already!"

"Shh! Gokudera-kun!" Tsuna hisses, pointing at Irie.

"Ah, don't worry," Irie says, "I got scammed into the Vongola around this era."

"Noo!" Tsuna despairs.

"What? What are you even good for?!" Gokudera barks.

TYL!Rei pats him on the head, "Tsuna's doing really, really well." Gokudera slaps his hand away but he's undeterred, "it just happens that I spend most of my time in Italy now, and I'm the only one in our generation there while you guys are in Japan base. Technically, Tsuna's my superior, but it hardly matters when I'm my own boss most of the time."

"But the Tenth is still the boss boss, right?!"

"Let's not confuse them," TYL!Irie cuts in, "Rei-kun, we've got about two minutes. Let's not cause any time paradoxes, okay? I'm a little worried about our past selves back there, I was doing something quite important..."

"You were playing chess with my uncle's stepmother's adopted son," TYL!Rei says.

And Irie bursts into absolute bright red, "that's just a very maddening coincidence!" he's hysterical, "come on, Sui already gave me enough flak about that!"

Meanwhile, Gokudera does the math in his head and sincerely asks, "isn't that just an uncle?"

"Uncle?" Yamamoto asks, "isn't that just Kuma-sensei?"

Tsuna balks, "Kuma-sensei is Rei-kun's uncle??"

TYL!Rei indulges in that conversation, "yes, but I'm talking about my other uncle here."

"You have other uncles?!"

"I wish I knew that too..." Rei nods sagely, "can you believe Kuma-sensei kept that from me for so long? Can you tell my younger self that I have multiple sugar daddies and none of them are my fault?"

"What even?"

"It was a very important chess match!" TYL!Irie says, insistently. "And you were stalking him too, don't even try to deny it."

"Well, Shouichi, when you see your megalomaniac stepuncle walk into Starbucks, it's the law of the universe to watch what happens next."

"Don't phrase it like that!"

TYL!Irie sighs longsufferingly, and TYL!Rei grins, victorious. He turns to see Yamamoto, Gokudera, and Tsuna all looking at him utterly bewildered, and he can't help but laugh at the sight.

"Well, then, that's it," TYL!Rei says, "I gotta head back. I'll need to meet you guys at TakeSushi."

"Ah—" Tsuna's so baffled, he doesn't even know what to say. "Uhm— okay. Uh— Happy Birthday?"

TYL!Rei blinks, surprised. Then, "right, it's today, isn't it?"

Yamamoto freezes. Do they not celebrate it in the future?

"No wonder you guys wanted me home today," Rei pouts.

Yamamoto's shoulders ease, just a little, at that.

"Oh, how am I going to explain this when I get back..." TYL!Irie groans, "I'm supposed to act like I don't know what the bazooka is, and you just had to come ruin it all for me."

TYL!Rei giggles, "you'll be fine."

Gokudera's scrutinizing them both at this point, noting the presence of rings on both of them, but the distinct lack of emblems anywhere else. If they were in Japan, that's understandable, but it's quite jarring for a Mafia on duty to not at least make themselves presentable in public. Especially if Rei's going to be flaunting a tattoo in such a visible extremity.

"Ah, that's right."

TYL!Rei flicks something up from his finger, and Gokudera reacts first, catching it between his hands in a clap, before opening it to reveal a sleek metal ring.

Tsuna glances over.

"Give it to my younger self," he says.

That earns another series of gawks. Including from Irie.

"Wha— can you do that? Just leave your stuff in this era?" Tsuna asks, "won't that cause problems or something?"

"They will!" TYL!Irie says, "unless you're a Bovino, but come on, Rei-kun, don't do that. If you have it, your younger self will get it too the same way you did."

TYL! Rei gives a good-natured laugh, "nah! It's not like we can get it by normal means, anyways. Plus... it's not fair that only one of us ever gets birthday presents, right?"

That rhetorical question confuses everyone.

But TYL!Rei doesn't elaborate further. When he slides his hair over his ear, the primary earrings dangle with red and blue gemstones.

"There are two emeralds in this set, you know."

The pink smoke engulfs him before they can pursue that bewildering statement.

-

Side: 20XX + 10

Returning to their right timeline is jarring, but not as jarring as Byakuran walking in through the doors to the back of the florist, looking equally as surprised to see them here as they are to see him.

"B-Byakuran-san!" Irie's surprised. "So sorry for the interruption, uhm, you wouldn't happen to know where we are now...?"

Rei nods out a nondescript greeting.

Byakuran smiles, easing into friendliness.

"Oh, the normal Shou-chan is back," he says. "But what a coincidence! You've somehow ended up at my place. How about we have a chess rematch here, then?"

"Huh?" Irie's face is red, "we're in Ms Sakurai's shop??"

Rei balks at that, "crap! I'm leaving, then," he gets up quickly, opening the back door while taking a sip of his coffee. "Bye!"

"You don't have to run so quickly—"

The door shuts.

"Awh, he left," Byakuran chuckles. "As usual, he just can't stay here, huh?"

"Huh?" Irie's now surprised, "Byakuran-san, you know Rei-kun?"

Rei's been in Italy since he was sixteen. He keeps away from anyone here, and while he knows who Byakuran is for the convoluted reason of his uncle's stepmother being Byakuran's current legal guardian, it's bizarre to know the recognition is mutual. Could Byakuran already have pinged down Rei's involvement through parallel worlds?

"Of course I do," Byakuran says, "the Ninomiya Family has been sending care packages to my mom for decades now. It'd be stranger if I didn't know him."

Now, that, Irie had absolutely no idea.

"But how do you know the acting Vongola Lightning Guardian, Shou-chan?" Byakuran asks.

Irie freezes.

Desperately, he plays it off.

"Oh! I uh, well, you know my assistant, Sui-chan? She's his younger sister."

The acting Vongola Lightning Guardian. Vongola is famous enough in the general business field, and guardianship is common knowledge in any part of the underworld. Everyone knows that Rei has been holding the fort of Vongola's Italy branch for the past ten years all on his own.

Very little know he's just holding onto the title as the acting representative.

Only the closest aides of the Vongola know about Bovino Lambo, the one that's truly worthy of the Vongola Lightning ring. And even less know that Rei is only holding onto the ring until Lambo comes of age to inherit it himself.

Byakuran already knows that much. Even though Rei is one of the few factors that could allow them an advantage against Byakuran in this world...

Irie isn't sure if they can win in this timeline anymore.

(Maybe Rei knew that.)

(Maybe that's why he gave his younger self that ring, so the world may split into yet another parallel timeline.)

But Irie can do nothing now but play along, and hope for the best.

-

Side: 20XX (Present)

Returning to the present is jarring. Rei's cradling a bouquet of orchids, and Irie is so done with his quota of strangeness for today that he bids them goodbye very quickly before excusing himself.

(Gokudera does level him with a skeptical glance the whole way, though, which is not assuring.)

Rei gives him one of the yellow orchids before leaving.

"What's all that, anyways?" Yamamoto finally drops the question when he gets Rei on his back for Tsuna to hold the orchids and Gokudera to push the cart of groceries. Surprisingly, Lambo and I-pin are well-behaved on the way home.

"This really nice lady in the future gave them to me."

"Well, that was kind of her."

There's been some delays, but now, they're truly on the way home to Rei's birthday party. All Rei truly wants to do is knock out on the couch until dad's willing to wake him up for supper, but he supposes this is an obligation he has to accept.

"Hey, Takeshi."

He rests his head on Yamamoto's shoulder, clinging firmly.

"You like me, right?"

Yamamoto blinks, confused by the question.

"Of course I do."

And Rei clings tighter. "Okay."

He says nothing else.

But the uneasiness doesn't leave Yamamoto for the rest of the night. And that's fine— Rei wants that to happen. He just wants to ask, he wants it to be a question that lingers.

The flowers Ms Sakurai gave— they aren't for him. He knows that. The warmth of that scarf Kuma-sensei gave him— it's not love toward him. He understands that, too. The attention and admiration people have for him in Namimori— they admire his talents. Drew's talents. They don't actually care for who he is, without it all.

He knows that.

He has so much love, but does he truly deserve it?

(He doesn't.)

(Because everything he has, from his life right now, to his passions, to his environment— someone gave that to him. It's not his own. So many people look at him and see someone else— if it isn't Drew, then it must be the person Kuma-sensei's hands can never reach again.)

He thought back to the dream this morning.

(Rei has so much love, but none of it belongs to him. Maybe that's his curse.)

The ring in his hands, the gift from his future self, is warm and confusing, and just a little, it numbs away the pain in his lungs. He closes his eyes and allows himself to last a little longer.

(Does anyone truly see Ninomiya Rei as who he is? How could they, when Rei doesn't know for sure who he truly is either?)

-

Rei doesn't have to pretend to be surprised by the party at home, because he's genuinely surprised.

How did they manage to stuff so many people into this house?

He can't suppress the full-chested laughter that comes out of him. Sae and Sui barrel into him just as Yamamoto puts him down, and he bowls over in even more laughter.

Haru and Kyoko pulls him in to see the crazy five-tiered cake Dad managed to make in the span of a day, and Haru even proudly declares how much of the decorations she made. Nana takes credit for the amazing dinner spread, and Fuuta gallantly reported his accomplished mission of keeping Bianchi away from the dining area all day.

The decorations were all hazardous, and a lot of the party poppers were duds, but by the time Rei is ushered to the couch by his sisters, he had a party hat hastily looped over his head and he could care less about anything else.

"Thank you for being born, Rei."

When his father kisses him on the forehead and his sisters fight for one cheek each, he can't help but feel all his worries were stupid.

He's surrounded by so much, how could he be anything but happy?

It's all so silly.

He doesn't want anything more in the world than what he has right now, in the present.

-

Cards are strewn over the table once more as Rei wins the entire table.

He grins, cheekily, as Reborn throws down his losing hand. "You got me," a rare admission of defeat. "I couldn't see you cheating at all, I'll give you that."

Rei winks, "I may have one foot in the grave, but my hands never fail me."

He displays his winning hand pridefully, and the crowd ooohs in amazement. I-pin's eyes are diverted to Rei's wrist, however, and the white mark wound around it like a white bangle.

"It's a birthmark," he says.

Just then, the hand gets snatched up by Kuma-sensei, who seems to have literally only stopped by to take some cake before leaving. He sits on the back of the couch and inspects his watch.

"You're overexerted already," he says, letting go of the wrist to smack Rei over the head. "Another hour and party's over, everyone. Don't want birthday boy dying on us at the strike of midnight."

"Alright," comes the echo from the entire house.

"You're overdramatic!" Rei protests.

"And who gave him orchids? Giving you an early grave visit?" Kuma-sensei hollers as he walks away. "I didn't know anyone hated you that much."

Rei feels the annoyance bubble up, but it's normal with Kuma-sensei. "It's not like that!" he snaps, "this nice older lady called Ms Sakurai gave them to me because they were pretty! That's all!"

If Rei had blinked, he'd have missed it.

He'd have missed the way Kuma-sensei froze, and his Father did, too.

"They're so pretty!" Sae interrupts that stilted moment to reach for the flowers. "Hey, Rei-chan, can we grow flowers in the backyard, too?"

And Dad immediately snaps out of his stupor to hum, "I'm not sure how that would interact with your vegetables. Orchids are very hard to grow, after all," he says. "But since they're so pretty, whoever raised them must have tended to them so well."

Rei hums in interest. He wasn't too well-versed in flowers aside from the basics and some floriography, but the thought that Ms Sakurai gave him orchids of all flowers now struck kindly in his chest.

"I'm leaving," Kuma-sensei says, his voice low.

"Huh? Already?"

"Here, your present," Kuma-sensei tosses a teddy bear at him, and Rei's eyes barely have time to widen in surprise before it hits him right in the face. It's very expensive-looking, fresh and well-stitched, green buttons sewn into its eyes.

But Rei's breath holds.

This is it.

This is the bear that was on Ms Sakurai's table. The exact same one. In the future, there's a scarf sewn into it and it's significantly more worn, but he knows these are the exact same ones. Call it instinct.

He doesn't understand. But it's warm, and he can't hate it. There's the smell of cigarettes, and he chuckles, holding it out.

"It stinks!" he whines, and Sae and Sui make a show of jerking back in disgust.

Kuma-sensei leaves the party early, to no fanfare at all. And Rei makes no big deal out of it, either.

-

He receives a strange deal of presents. Bianchi offers a Poison Cooking cookbook, and there were of course an array of common gifts like snacks and household items.

Kyoko gets him a Kanzashi hair pin she cites to be for self-defense. Ryohei got him gloves, mostly sports gloves and winter gloves, but there's a boxing love in the mix too— for a similar reason.

Fuuta offers him an enamel bag pin that plucks away to the world's most chaotic panic alarm, because according to his rankings, Rei needs one. Just in case.

Rei's honestly very impressed by the gothic choker Gokudera gives him. It's definitely not Rei's style, but it looks cool, and Gokudera looks like the kind to give people his possessions rather than buy gifts for them, so Rei can tell these are mildly sentimental.

Tsuna plays it safe and gives him a hoodie. And Rei has to admit, if there's anything Tsuna very inevitably has and never acknowledges, it's a decent taste in fashion. As expected of a shounen protagonist, he knows how to serve when he needs to.

Dino dishes out the entire collection of expensive shoes and hats. And Rei has to stop opening them so he can demand the rich bastard to take half of them away before he dies of extended exposure to luxury.

"Is that the last of it?"

"No—"

There's a squirrel toy. A small, keychain-sized little plush, and Rei can't help but marvel at it. There's a bright green ribbon wound around its neck like a collar.

He wonders, for a moment, who it could be from— but the question is answered quickly. The ribbon had a red pin at its center, the words Discipline written on it.

"It's from Hibari-san?!" Rei's genuinely baffled, and so are just about the entire house. "No way, it's so cute!"

Rei is about ready to laugh himself to unconsciousness by the end of it all.

-

As everyone eventually left toward their homes in the dark cloak of the crescent moonlight, Rei watches as his father puts his sisters— already asleep— into bed. He sees the last of them off, ready to go sleep, too.

"See you tomorrow, then, Rei," Yamamoto lingers as the last to go.

His hands are in his pockets, and he fidgets, looking around, wary for Rei's father's sudden appearance.

"And well... here," Yamamoto finally picks out his gift from his pocket. "I mean... I swear I got this a really long time ago. I just... thought it'd be embarrassing to give it to you in front of the others, especially after what happened today."

Rei's confused at first.

The bangle— a bangle, a sheer silver, with a thin line of metallic blue running through it. It's sleek and elegant, but once it clasped into his wrist, it rested comfortably against his hand. It's a strange accompaniment to the birthmark, but he didn't hate it at all. It may get in the way of his magic tricks, though.

"Why would it be embarrassing?" Rei asks.

Yamamoto looks away, cheeks a little red as he chuckles, awkwardly. "Because well, we saw your future self today and... he was still wearing it."

Now Rei's face heats up. "No way!"

The future him is— huh? Now that he thought about it, he never truly confirmed what his future self even did as a profession. And Tsuna hadn't quite deigned to reveal any details too. Gokudera insinuated he was still in the Vongola, but he insisted Rei didn't seem to work under Tsuna anymore. Maybe he'd been demoted to a desk job?

But then again...

(If Rei continued to wear this for so long...)

He fiddled with the ring around his middle finger. This ring was delivered to Drew— it's, just like the red and blue pins holding up his hair— it means something to rei, surely, but it's truly for Drew.

But this— this bangle— it's for Rei. All the gifts he got today— they're for Rei. Not for whoever it was that Kuma-sensei saw in him, not for Drew— they're for the existence known as Ninomiya Rei, it's the proof he exists as his own entity.

(It may also be proof of just how much he's taking from Drew.)

(But he won't think about that.)

He held it dearly.

"Thanks, Takeshi," he says. "I guess you already know, but I"m treasuring this forever now."

Yamamoto huffs, "I knew you'd be embarrassing about it, sheesh."

Rei grins. "You understand me well!"

-

There's a ring at his bedside.

It's identical to the ring already on his middle finger, and Rei understands why. His future self had thrown this to him as a sign.

As a sign to change.

For his own sake, for Drew's sake— today is where all the doubt ends. He's mourned enough of her, and she's cried enough— there is no one that will understand himself and her better than themselves.

Maybe they don't need to be understood.

Everyone deserves to be loved for who they are, and it's just too tragic that no one will ever see Drew as who she is ever again. If Rei is blessed with love, then he is also blessed to love. So, Rei will take all the love he's given, and give it back to her in return for this second chance at life she's given him.

If no one will love Drew, then Rei will love her unconditionally.

(After all, they are two in one.)

"See?"

He slips the ring on the opposing middle finger.

He turns to mirror, resting his chin in his hands, endeared. In the dim lighting of his room, his green eyes shine, just a little eerie against the orange light. On the table, the red and blue pins shine back in response. And the rings on his middle fingers glint just right.

"There are two emeralds in this set, you know?"

And that's perfectly fine.

"I can go on because you live in me. So please watch over me, alright?" he whispers, "we're outsiders in this world, but I'll make sure we both have a place in this world that belongs to us. Something that truly belongs to us, and not given to us in place of anyone else."

(He picks up the bear that Kuma-sensei had given him, and tucks it away in his closet.)

(The future he saw today no longer matters. Because he'll be doing whatever he wants from now on.)

-

Tweet by @GRE3NH0USE || Rei-chan

[Image ID: A huge group selfie of the Ninomiya living room. Everyone is gathered around Rei in the center, posing freely, smiling bright. Gifts and decorations are strewn around the place, including the orchids being split up so everyone could take one home. Rei is hugging a teddy bear and a squirrel plushie, tucked into Yamamoto's side while Sae and Sui fight for their laps. Tsuna, concerned, is trying to get them to settle down to no avail. In the background, Lambo can be seen diving into what's left of the cake.]

Thanks for the best birthday ever.

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@MeganeSimulation || The Shouichi's Gambit replied to this tweet: "Happy Birthday!"

@K-yoko_chan || S.Kyoko replied to this tweet: "Happy Birthdayyyy <3"