Mio Famiglia, Mio Scudo

Episode XX

"Mmmrgh" was the sound that perfectly described the situation Cain was witnessing in the living room at 8 am on one particular Sunday morning. The "Mmmrgh" came to be when none other than Heiji had casually walked into the house to talk with Naoki, only for the high schooler to quickly turn away from the middle schooler and proceed to ignore his very existence. This prompted the young Coal to assume his current position of sulking where he was resting his head on top of the coffee table and staring at the raven with eyes of a hurt puppy while Naoki was physically trembling in an attempt to not turn around to look.

This was.... Ninth day of Naoki being like this? And he'd again presumed to his silence. Which wasn't good at all if you asked from anyone.

Yesterday when Cain had been in the town, he'd run to the Allegri group, which had shed some light to the situation, though it hadn't really helped with solving it.

"Ah, well, remember when the oddities with your group being somewhat able to spectate what the Vongola in the future was doing?" Valentino had started as his Cloud, Tanaka Kyouya, snuggled to him while glaring daggers at the older man, "To put it shortly, Lady Nanami implied that Nao might have feelings towards Heihei and uhhh Nao might be having a crisis?". Valentino had also picked up a habit of coming up with rather odd nicknames. The one he'd decided to refer to Heiji with actually translated as Bye-bye if you knew how to Finnish, naturally both Naoki and Valentino knew this, but Heiji didn't. The two had shared some good laughs from it.

"It all boils down to the surrounding culture not being the most supportive towards homosexuality and with him knowing how the Catholic Sicily would react huh...", Cain mumbled as he kept staring at the rather troublesome sight, more than aware of about the misery it brought to the duo first hand experiencing it.

Well... He really shouldn't interfere with it, bonds were delicate things to be navigated through after all.

10 am, on the other side of the "High class" district, Haruka wasn't too happy for being back at the house of his father. The old geezer was once again staring down at him, over something as trivial as how he dressed. You'd think that he'd gotten over it by now.

The meeting was an important one, so Haruka had to take part in it himself instead of having Mammon attend in his stead. And it honestly stunk.

The teen's striking silvery blue eyes were glued onto the old man who was staring at him without blinking. Their facial expressions mirroring each other perfectly, distain, dislike, wish to not be forced to see one another. But neither of them had any choice. Haruka had turned 18 himself and thus he was to be presented with his inheritance left to him by his mother. Mother who had been an idol, a model, who'd shaped the previous generation with her appearance and actions.

"Haruka." Tenoh senior said as he kept his face straight. "Father." answered the gender fluid child, who'd taken more after their mother than the father. "Your mother left you quite a lot of things", the man said emotionlessly, "And you're supposed to be receiving them today". There was something there, a plot. Just like what Haruka had always been in his father's gaze, nothing more than a chess piece to be used in his games.

"Before I give them to you, I will ask you one more time. Stop wearing those clothes. I do not tolerate my son being some queer anomaly", Haruka stared at his father with unimpressed look, knowing fully well, that the community had long ago aimed that word, word that only meant one thing for him, "Out of the norm".
"No."
His father stared at him, obviously angered by his answer, but they both knew that to raise your voice or act out of the line would mean loosing.

"Why.", "You haven't suffered enough. You see, you may have lost a wife, but at least you knew her, I lost a mother and have never been given anything to remember her by, I know nothing of her. You treat me as if I was nothing of value. I am more than aware that my death wouldn't move you in the slightest, therefore I can only make you suffer by walking down the path my mother walked before me"