--The World of Illusions--

[Semi-private to self:]
Yet another year has passed. It has been a little over six months since I began teaching here, and before that I was a student. I never imagined myself to be teaching mafiosi the skills they would need to become mafiosi when I set out to destroy the Vongola. Now look at me, about to marry the don of an enemy famiglia. Do I love him? I wonder about that. I no longer hate him though I loathe what he represents. Are humans always so easily swayed by the touch of flesh? I thought my only attraction to him would be brief passion, something which fades away over time. I do not know why he is drawn to me in other worlds, so much so he sought me in this one as well. Love is something our future selves thought him incapable of. Yet he loves me.

It's not loneliness. No, not at all. I've not taken a lover for decades, centuries even. I am not shying away from this marriage though it frightens me. The concept, however, is foreign after the time I have spent alone. I've never had children before. I still feel sick I do not believe I could feel at ease in any sort of hospital or laboratory. But Byakuran's mind is quite set.

I'll be twenty-one come the ninth of this month. In Japan, they consider that age to be the age one reaches adulthood. In Italy, I will have been an adult for three years. How time flies. I wonder what Chrome and that bastard are planning...


(Edit: The age one reaches adulthood is 21 in Japan, 18 in Italy. A minor change has been made to reflect that.)