Visiting Old Friends

Hamasake Asuka

I have two finished chapters aside from this one, and I'll post them tomorrow and the day after, then updates will be slower.

This takes place 8-10 years later.

**I don't own Katekyo Hitman Reborn, I only own the plot and my OC's**  

Hamasake Asuka, Kimura Ayame, and Yamada Etsuko, dressed in casual clothes and comfortable shoes, walked through the streets of Rome, drinking in the sights the city had to offer. Being flight attendants was exhausting at times, but seeing all kinds of new and exotic places, meeting exciting people from all manners of life, it was truly and utterly intoxicating.

Asuka was a bit absent-minded when they weren't working during the last couple of weeks, often getting lost in thoughts and ends up with this far away look on her face, sometimes she got distracted when they were working!

The three women worked the same flights more often than not, that plus their similar personalities and being close in age helped the young women forge a good friendship. Asuka, being the youngest of the three, sometimes caused the older two to worry about her and be overprotective. Her recent change in mood was not lost on her friends, and since they were not able to get her to talk about it, they figured that a sightseeing trip in one of the most beautiful cities they've ever been to might help get whatever's bothering her out of her mind for a bit.

To their utmost relief, it seemed to be working; Asuka was laughing and enjoying herself, taking pictures and looking at the sights with childlike wonder.

Asuka knew what her friends were doing, so she tried her hardest to -at least for today- have fun and not think of the person who had occupied much of her thoughts during the last two weeks; Sawada Tsunayoshi.

It had started when she met her old friends from middle school on one of the rare occasions she was home in Namimori, they had been catching up with each others lives and talking about trivial things when the subject of their old classmates was somehow brought up. They spent some time trying to remember their old classmates' names and speculating on what they were doing now, and of course Gokudera and Yamamoto were brought up (being two of the most popular boys in their class) which led to the mention of Sawada, or as her friends called him Dame-Tsuna.

Asuka was reminded of how horrible their classmates, other students, and even the teachers had treated Sawada, and although she never participated in the bullying herself, she had not done much to stop it, and she felt bad about her actions in middle school.

She tried to defend Sawada when her friends started trashing him (you'd think that they've matured at least a bit since middle school), stating that if he was such a useless person then why would Gokudera and Yamamoto be friends with him, not to mention Sasagawa Kyoko and her brother, Chrome, that brown haired girl from Midori Middle, and even Hibari seemed to somehow respect him, plus a lot of weird and quite frankly strong and attractive people that they occasionally saw around Namimori seemed to have some sort of relation to Swada.

Needles to say that she had failed to defend her former classmate, and guilt has been eating away at her ever since.

She was laughing at something Ayame said when a man caught her attention. He didn't stand out in the crowd so it was weird that she noticed him, he was dressed in dark jeans and sneakers and jacket with the hood pulled up so that his face was hidden, his height was slightly above average and seemed to be lean, with his body leaning more towards an androgynous appearance.

The man was looking at the window of an antique shop, seemingly unaware of his surroundings, and Asuka didn't know why she was approaching this stranger when he could be very dangerous for all she knows, but her gut feeling was telling her that she had nothing to fear from him and that he'll help ease her guilt regarding one Sawada Tsunayoshi.