Chapter 19: Chapter XIX
Reborn was finally moving out of Ietsu's house.
Ietsu was of course glad when Reborn first told him that, because he didn't have to have a Spartan tutor breathe down his neck every day anymore.
He wasn't as glad, however, when Reborn informed him that he was just moving next door.
"You're moving into Tsuna's house?" Ietsu moaned.
Reborn raised an eyebrow, "You have a problem with that?"
"..." Ietsu shook his head and wisely shut his mouth.
"Don't worry," Reborn gave Ietsu a smile that could send chills down Ietsu's spine, "I'll come over to monitor you every day."
Ietsu groaned. That's exactly what he didn't want!
"Stop making those noises and take out these boxes," Reborn commanded, before muttering, "I really don't understand why an amazing tutor like me will have a student like you."
"Reborn!" Ietsu protested. "I'm not your servant!"
"Yeah, yeah." Reborn waved his hand dismissively, "Remember to take out the trash too."
Ietsu pouted, but he had no power to do anything against Reborn.
"Wait, before you go out, here's the wedding invitation." Reborn called Ietsu, passing him a white envelope embossed with golden words and decorations.
Ietsu took the envelope, and asked before flipping it over, "Oh, is this for Lal and Colonnello's wedding?"
"No, they actually got into a fight recently and postponed their wedding," Reborn explained.
"Huh? Who else are getting married?" Ietsu did not know of any other people that had similar news.
"I haven't told you?" Reborn folded his arms across his chest and smiled, "Tsuna and I are getting married."
"What? When?" Ietsu was so in shock he lost grip of the box he was holding and it fell onto the ground.
Reborn pointed to the envelope Ietsu was still clutching tightly, "The date and other details are in that envelope."
"No!" Ietsu flailed his arms around, "It's not about this envelope! When did this even happen? Why are you two suddenly getting married?"
Reborn shrugged, "I proposed, he said yes, and so we are getting married."
Ietsu stared at Reborn, and he was not even sure where to start. "You proposed? He said yes?"
"Yes." Reborn nodded, starting to get impatient, "Which part of this do you not understand? I don't need you to repeat this to me again."
"When did you propose?" Ietsu asked, before stopping himself, "Never mind, when were you two even dating?"
Reborn looked at Ietsu like he was an alien, "Weren't we always dating?"
"Huh?" Ietsu was getting more and more confused by the minute.
"Why do you have so many questions? I'm telling you we are getting married, that's all." Reborn reached into his pockets and took out more envelopes. "Just hand them out to your guardians too, won't you?"
Ietsu stared at the stack of envelopes. "Why don't you pass them yourself?"
"I didn't really want them to attend the wedding at first, but since Tsuna thought it is only polite to invite them..." Reborn shrugged.
Ietsu couldn't say anything else as Reborn shoved the rest of the invitations cards into his hand and shooed him out of the room.
When Ietsu got downstairs, he saw Tsuna who was also helping to move things. Ietsu was still shocked, so the moment he saw Reborn he just blurted out, "Tsuna, why did you agree to marrying a baby?"
"?" Tsuna only blinked at the sudden question and did not reply as he didn't quite understand what Ietsu was trying to say.
A shoe landed on Ietsu's head, thrown by one obvious culprit Reborn.
"Ow!" Ietsu did not manage to avoid the sudden attack, despite being one of the most powerful Mafioso alive. "When did you appear, Reborn?" Ietsu could swear Reborn wasn't downstairs when he asked the question.
"Lesson number 172, don't say things you are afraid of being heard, Ietsu."
"What even..." Ietsu grumbled as he rubbed his head.
Tsuna looked at Ietsu and then at Reborn then back again, finally understanding Ietsu's question. "Ah! You mean him?" Tsuna asked Ietsu as he pointed at Reborn. "Well, he's an adult now, isn't he?"
"Yeah, but..." Ietsu peeked sideways, then whispered to Tsuna, "He was a baby just a few months ago! How is this growth even healthy? Will he be an old man by the time you two got married?"
Tsuna couldn't contain his laughter, and he nodded and agreed, "You know what, you actually got a pretty good point there."
"Ietsu." Reborn gritted out, his glares like daggers as he turned to Ietsu, "You know I can still hear you when you whisper right."
"Um..." Ietsu sneaked a glance at Tsuna, and gave him an innocent wide-eyed look.
Tsuna just shook his head and smiled, "Stop abusing your student, Reborn."
"Well, someone needs to be stopping him when he spouts nonsense."
"You've got to admit though, it's quite funny." Tsuna laughed.
"What, about how oblivious he is?" Reborn replied snarkily.
Tsuna made a face at him, "You are really going to become a grumpy old man at this rate."
Reborn glared at him, "I said, don't listen to the nonsense he says!"
Ietsu, the topic at hand, stood there with a box in his hand, completely disregarded: "..."
Everyone wasn't as happy as they were supposed to be when Ietsu relayed them the message.
"Oh, they are getting married? That's quite sudden." Yamamoto commented.
"I know, right? I got a shock too." Ietsu eagerly agreed.
"Thanks for passing me this, Ietsu." Ietsu could tell that Yamamoto was obviously fake-smiling again, but he shrugged it off, "No problem. See you later."
Gokudera was as grumpy as ever. "What! They are getting married?"
"Yes, Gokudera-kun..." Ietsu didn't expect the reaction from Gokudera.
"How can they get married?" Gokudera continued, "The great Reborn-san, why would he marry-?" Gokudera swallowed his words again, his face red.
Ietsu didn't understand what Gokudera was lamenting about, so he left as soon as possible.
Ryohei was still pretty normal, as in, as normal as he usually was, except for the huge increase in the number of 'extremes' he was using.
"What an extreme time to have an extreme wedding!" Ryohei exclaimed.
"I'm not sure how extreme a wedding can be, but okay." Ietsu replied.
Ietsu didn't think Lambo would really understand what was happening, but Lambo did throw a tantrum and tore the card into pieces before throwing them on the ground.
"Tsuna-nii! No Reborn!" Lambo was so upset he wasn't even talking in sentences anymore.
Ietsu looked at the shreds of paper on the floor, and felt like there was too much happening today that he didn't want to clean it up.
Mukuro was having many kufufus coming out of his mouth, and Chrome was just giving Ietsu a small smile, to which Ietsu smiled back.
"Kufufu, I can't believe Tsunayoshi-kun would be so foolish to walk into the shackles of marriage so young."
Ietsu wondered too, "How old is he anyway?"
"I will have to convince him then. Marriage to such a man only brings misery." Mukuro stated.
"Wait, what?" Ietsu jumped, "You want to stop the wedding?"
Mukuro smiled, "I am merely going to advise Tsunayoshi-kun on how marriage would only hinder him."
"Um." Ietsu was stunned. Imagine how Reborn would rage if Tsuna suddenly backed out of the marriage, but Ietsu couldn't stop Mukuro from doing anything, so Ietsu guessed everything was Reborn's problem then.
Ietsu unfortunately, left the most difficult to the last. Standing in front of his Cloud Guardian with the envelope in his hand, he could feel himself trembling.
"Hi- Hibari-san." Ietsu stuttered.
"What, herbivore?" Hibari asked.
Hibari looked like he growled, but maybe it was just his usual face, Ietsu reassured himself, "There's something Reborn and Tsuna asked me to pass to you."
Ietsu shakily held out his hand, his fingers grabbing onto the envelope tightly and only loosened his grip when Hibari gave it a glance and took it.
"What is this?" Hibari still looked annoyed.
"They... they are getting married..." Ietsu explained slowly.
Hibari, who had already opened the envelope and was in the middle of reading the card, stilled.
The silence was palpable and Ietsu found it even more intimidating when Hibari didn't talk or move.
Hibari moved his wrist, and let the papers fall onto the ground, not saying anything.
HIIIEEEE! This is so scary! Why didn't Reborn just send them invitations through mails or something?
One person Ietsu could be glad he didn't have to give the invitations personally to them would be Xanxus, because when Xanxus received the invitation in the mail, he burned the whole card along with the envelope into ashes.
"Wait boss, I haven't seen it yet!" Lussuria complained, but shut up when Xanxus grabbed a paperweight on his table and threw it at him.
"VOIII, how are we going to attend it when we don't have the details boss!" Squalo shouted.
"Who said that we are going, trash?" Xanxus grumbled.
"How can we not go? It's Tsuna's–" Lussuria started saying, until Xanxus threw a glass cup at him.
Mammon kept quiet at the side while the Varia once again descended into chaos, and would not say that all the Arcobaleno had an individual invitation.
Another person would be Byakuran. Reborn didn't even bother to send anything to him, so Tsuna was the one who had to send him an invitation card.
"Why are we even inviting him?" Reborn asked Tsuna.
"He did help us a lot during the Arcobaleno's representatives battle, didn't he?" Tsuna asked back.
Reborn didn't reply, and just let Tsuna do whatever he wanted, so Tsuna sent out an invitation to Byakuran.
When Byakuran opened the envelope, the sides of his lips twitched up to form his usual foxy grin, but this time it seemed more forced than usual.
"How interesting," Byakuran said to himself, "Of course I would be there. How can my dear Tsunayoshi get married without me?"
Tsuna wanted a simple wedding, and Reborn would not disagree – he did want to get married as soon as possible.
They did not bother with many formalities, and it was as casual as a wedding could be.
It was an outdoor wedding, but the venue was not very big, since they just invited some friends and both of them had no family. To be honest, Reborn couldn't care less with who was coming. After all, it was Tsuna's and his wedding, as long as the both of them were there, who cares about who were the other people present?
There were tables and chairs set up, and the venue was decorated with flowers and ribbons, and the guests could even sit anywhere they want.
The both of them were saying hi to the guests as they slowly streamed in before the ceremony started.
"It's about time, kora!" Colonnello went up to Reborn and hit him on his back.
Colonnello then sighed, "Can't believe you got married before me."
"Of course." Reborn said matter-of-factly, "I win in everything, Colonnello." Including in height, Reborn thought as he looked Colonnello up and down. Colonnello was still not fully grown, so he was much shorter than Reborn.
"Oi, I was the one who thought of getting married first, kora!"
"Tut-tut." Reborn shook his head, "That's what you think."
Dino was tearing up when Reborn saw him, and no one knew whether he was crying tears of joy or tears of betrayal.
"You two are together?" Dino sniffed.
Reborn raised an eyebrow, "Are you really asking that now?"
"I don't know, maybe this could be a joke?" Dino replied.
Reborn folded his arms, "No, this is not a joke."
Dino walked off, possibly to try and regain his composure in another place, alone. If he wanted, he could write a book called 'My tutor snatched my love interest'.
Xanxus' and Hibari's faces were equally black, as if they were not attending a wedding but were preparing for a duel with a long-standing arch-enemy.
Xanxus was sitting on a chair shaking his leg and drinking as much alcohol as there was available, while Hibari was quietly standing there emitting such an intimidating aura that no one dared to stand close to him.
Byakuran was happily chatting with Tsuna, donning a white suit that seemed oddly compatible with Tsuna's black one. He even had a bouquet of flowers that he handed to Tsuna.
Tsuna smiled when he took the bouquet from Byakuran's hand, "You really don't need to, but thank you, this is beautiful."
"As long as it makes you happy." Byakuran replied, his arm reaching over Tsuna's shoulder and dragged him closer, "I'm happy as long as you are, Tsunayoshi."
Tsuna looked into Byakuran's eyes which were glistening like purple crystals in the sunlight, with the usual playful glint in his eyes gone and only seriousness left in them.
"Thank you, Byakuran." Tsuna said.
Tsuna used his other hand that was not holding the bouquet to pull Byakuran into a hug, "I'm happy. I'm very happy today. Thanks for coming."
When the hug finished, Tsuna turned around to find that Reborn was already standing there.
"How nice of you to get flowers," Reborn said. "No worries though, we already ordered quite a lot, so I'm sure we have enough."
Before Tsuna could say anything, Reborn took the bouquet from Tsuna's arms, "I will put it in the reception room first, you can grab it later after the wedding."
Tsuna could only nod, "Thanks, Reborn."
Reborn took one last glance at them, before reminding Tsuna, "The ceremony is starting soon, the guests should be getting seated now."
"Okay," Tsuna acknowledged it, then turning to Byakuran, "Sorry about that, but I have some more things to do, we can talk later if you want."
Byakuran said he understands and took a seat with the rest of his guardians.
Fifteen minutes later, all the guests have managed to settle down.
Short greetings were made since the people invited all knew each other already. Tsuna and Reborn proceeded to stand at the wedding altar, and there was also a marriage officiant who was asked to officiate the wedding.
The officiant started out with some greetings and introductions. He then congratulated the couple, and the guests all applauded and gave them their blessings.
Reborn couldn't care less about what the officiant was saying. They had previously run through rehearsals and he knew how unimportant the words were. These words were just pleasantries which he found them to be not a necessity but they were just there for politeness.
To be honest, he would be happy to just go to a random officiant and then say their vows in a minute, so that they could be married as soon as possible.
He just looked at Tsuna, who was smiling at him, and Reborn instantly felt like he would want Tsuna to smile like this forever.
He completely was not listening to what the officiant, until the officiant said, "If there are any objections, speak now or forever hold your peace."
Reborn frowned when he heard that. He had told the officiant not to include that line, because he feeling many people present would object with the first chance they got. Yet, he still heard the officiant say those words. Was it a slip of the tongue, or a plot of someone else?
What he didn't know was that Byakuran bribed (forced) the officiant into continuing to say it.
"I..." Byakuran stood up. Reborn's face blackened.
"I would like to..." Byakuran purposefully gave a long pause, the smirk on his face gleeful.
Reborn's hand was reaching for his pockets, and he was probably ready for any unexpected events. Well, nothing can't be solved with violence, right? One shot and everyone would be dead quiet. Even if someone voiced their opinions, Reborn was prepared to do anything for the wedding to proceed till the end.
Byakuran just laughed. "Just kidding. I just want to say, if one day you guys don't want to be married anymore, ring me up. I'm always happy to take Tsuna in."
Reborn narrowed his eyes, but he took his hand out from his pocket, and said, "Don't worry, that day won't come."
Reborn then turned to the officiant to signal him to carry on.
The officiant looked slightly nervous, but he continued on while trying not to stutter, his sweat dripping down his face even though it was not a hot day.
"Do you, Reborn, take Sawada Tsunayoshi as your lawful husband, to have and to hold, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and cherish for as long as you both shall live?"
The sides of Reborn's lips twitched up as he nodded. "I do."
"Do you, Sawada Tsunayoshi, take Reborn as your lawful husband, to have and to hold, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and cherish for as long as you both shall live?"
Tsuna blinked and smiled even wider, if that was possible. "I do."
"You may now exchange rings."
Tsuna took the larger ring from the box and slid it onto Reborn's ring finger.
"With this ring, I thee wed." Tsuna's eyes twinkled as he said that.
Reborn looked down at his finger and nodded, before reaching for the remaining ring.
Reborn grabbed Tsuna's left hand, and slid the platinum band onto his ring finger. After he was done, he watched as the sunlight bounced off the ring and the ring glistened on Tsuna's hand – a perfect fit on his finger like it was always meant to be there.
Reborn's gaze wandered up and landed on Tsuna's smiling face, before looking back down his hand and bringing it to his lips and let them brush again the ring. With his hand still holding Tsuna's hand, he gripped it tighter and pulled Tsuna closer.
He opened his mouth, his words slow and heavy, as if trying to etch them into stone.
"With this ring, shall we never part."
-- Gift
received