Chapter Text
In a small antique store in Naminori, Kawahira let out a contemplative hum as he was deep in thought. He sat at the counter of his shop as he stared at the calendar hanging across the room.
His fourth year marriage anniversary was tomorrow and he still hadn’t found a suitable gift. He let out a sigh, finding an expensive gift was a piece of cake but a meaningful gift was a whole different story.
Before meeting his husband, Kawahira had never been the type to give gifts, and now it was their fifth year together he was running out of worthy options.
He would have tried to make some food as well if not for the fact that the last time he tried to make something other than ramen, both of them ended up in the hospital with a severe case of food poisoning. After that incident, the role of cooking anything aside from ramen in the house fell upon his husband’s shoulders.
But despite all the trouble he went through every time he needed to think of a gift, Kawahira didn’t mind if it made his husband happy. Maybe he could find something interesting among the relics left behind by the Earthlings.
Earthlings were the species that populated the earth before humans and it had been their mission to protect the planet by maintaining the Tri-ni-sette. They were incredibly powerful and were immortal as well. But unfortunately, Earthlings died off due to mysterious circumstances until Kawahira was the only one left.
Because he alone couldn’t handle the burden of the Tri-ni-sette, he had no choice but to borrow the power of the “New Earthlings”, humans. By dividing the Tri-ni-sette into the Arcobaleno Pacifiers, the Vongola Rings, and the Mare Rings, the planet was stable once more.
Kawahira had resigned himself to his duty as the last Earthling and role as Checkerface, sacrificing the strongest humans of each generation to maintain the balance of the world. After all, a sacrifice of seven people every generation was a small price to pay in order to save the humans and planet that Sepira loved so much. He had even accepted his fate to be alone forever after the loss of his sky. But everything changed when he met his husband.
They had first met five years ago. Five years was but a small fraction in his thousands of years of life, but it felt so long as well. Their time together felt like an eternity squeezed into a ramen bowl.
Kawahira met him at his favorite ramen stand, the one he had Wonomichi run, because despite that man’s terrible memory he made quality ramen. Kawahira had only paid attention to him because Namimori rarely had foreigners. The man’s European features made him stick out like a sore thumb.
The man was of average height and spoke with a British accent when he ordered ramen. He had messy black hair almost reaching his shoulders and emerald green eyes that were covered with a pair of round glasses.
After relaying his order of tonkotsu ramen to Wonomichi- Kawahira noted the man had excellent taste in ramen- the man turned to Kawahira, clearly noticing his curious gaze.
In that moment, time had froze. Kawahira felt a warmth he hadn’t felt in centuries, the potent feeling of home washed over his mist flames and warmed the flames that had been along for too long.
‘Ah’, Kawahira had noted absentmindedly at the time, ‘He’s a sky’. Kawahira didn’t believe he would ever meet another sky compatible with him after Sepira.
“Hello, my name is Harry.” The man stated with a small smile, as if he hadn’t just shattered Kawahira’s entire worldview.
In response to the tentative brush of sky flames, Kawahira’s mist unconsciously reached out as well. Kawahira couldn’t even muster the will to fight such instincts, he had been cold for so long that he had forgotten what the feeling of being bonded felt like. The two flames touched and in that instant, a fledgling bond was formed. For the first time in centuries, Kawahira let himself become drunk on the sensation of sky flames.
“My name is Kawahira. May I have the pleasure of courting you?” The words came out of his mouth before he even had time to register what he was saying.
In the back of his mind, he noticed Wonomichi drop the bowl of ramen he was holding. And an even smaller part of his brain commented, ‘I’m doomed, aren’t I.’
Kawahira chuckled in amusement as he thought back to their first meeting. The start of their relationship was a trainwreck, a beautiful disaster. In his flame drunken stupor he hadn’t recognized that Harry was a civilian and therefore wouldn’t interpret the word “courting” like mafia men did.
It had taken Karahira almost half a year to realize that Harry interpreted courting in a romantic fashion. But by then, he was in too deep to let go of the warmth.
Somehow by a turn of fate, things ended up working out for the two of them. Although they did meet a few hurdles along the way, there was nothing that couldn’t be solved with a healthy dose of mist flames.
While he was busy reminiscing about the past, Kawahira suddenly realized an important fact. He was an Earthling, an urban legend known in the underworld by the name of Checkerface. He was an immortal tasked with maintaining the stability of the entire planet Earth. And Harry was a mortal, and a normal civilian with no involvement with the underworld as well!
Kawahira didn’t think he was able to find another sky after the death of Sepira, much less love again. But life always found ways to prove him wrong.
He, an immortal, fell in love with a mortal. The love between a mortal and an immortal, there was no way that this would end well. Their love was like a moth flying towards a fire, innate, ephemeral, and most importantly, impossible to stop.There was no way Kawahira could give up on this relationship, no matter how much the flames would burn in the end. Harry meant too much to him.
To Kawahira, Harry wasn’t just a sky who was strong enough to hold his mist. He was living proof that Kawahira could still be loved, and more importantly, Harry showed that Kawahira was still capable of loving someone.
Kawahira didn’t want to think about one day when Harry was no longer in this world.
Kawahira sighed once more as he let his forehead hit the counter. There was still the matter of preparing an anniversary gift as well. The fact that their time together was limited just made finding a meaningful gift all the more important. Afterall, how many anniversaries would they have in the end? He needed to make every one of them count.
At this moment, Kawahira knew he was doomed.