After all was said and done, Dino instantly began to regret his words, mentally whacking himself. Idiot! What did you say all of that for! The man could probably wring my neck and stuff me six feet under—alive!—if he wanted to! The smirk that grew on the man's face was far from pleasant. Worse, the man began to lean towards him, hand raising, fingers reaching for him, and Dino was sure he was going to get it. Frozen where he stood, he could not breathe, could not move, could not think, could do nothing but stare wide-eyed into dark, glittering eyes that loomed nearer and nearer.
"Ow!" Two fingers latched onto a cheek, giving it a cruel pinch, and it had hurt, but probably not as much as his little yelp had indicated. Dino had been bracing himself for a painful death, after all. A thumb soothed over the stinging flesh, oddly gentle, but Dino was not about to be deceived. There was something beneath that touch. Though it was not malice, it was something equally terrifying and incalculable that Dino was sure the man was holding back.
Soon, the man left with a few chilling words that had yet to register completely in Dino's mind. The young heir was frightened, angry, and above all else, confused. What did the man mean that he was going to bully Dino? What had he done for this man to exert his efforts on him? He was certain he had never seen him before. Where the heck did he go? Does he even know his way around?
And amidst the thickening swarm of questions, who is he?
Thin legs carried him through the dimmed, empty hallways of the Cavallone residency, but not a sign of the stranger was to be found. It was quiet, eerily so, and no one was around to have possibly borne witness to a dark-haired man wandering the mansion. Dino began to wonder if perhaps he had met an apparition, or if the man had been conjured up by his own troubled mind. He was not about to wake his father over a ghost, or something. And if it was a ghost, it would not have been a surprising thing, for the family had walked and bled in these halls for generations. Violence was but the nature of a crime family, and Dino didn't doubt there were dark stains in Cavallone history.
Feeling sufficiently spooked, Dino made a dash for his own room and and flew beneath his covers. Tonight would be a restless night for the youth, dreams haunted by a watchful, piercing gaze.
There was someone calling him, tones unfamiliar. In his dream, this voice was smooth and even, carrying a hint of warning as if to say 'Don't push your luck.' In the body that he was in, he was taller, stronger, his own voice unrecognizable as he spoke. 'But Kyouya—.' His dream-self protested.
Cavallone, impatient, this time without the velvet coating.
Sheets were flung wildly to the ground, as pain exploded in Dino's side. He made no effort to assess the situation, only able to focus on the sharp sensation in his ribs as he curled into fetal position. Then came the command that seemed to numb all pain and pause the flow of time. That voice. I've heard it somewhere...right, in my dream!
Eyes snapped open, and instantly Dino felt his stomach sink. Am I...Am I still dreaming?
Last night's ghost...hadn't been a ghost. He was a man in a fitted suit, very much solid and real, and glowering down at him. Dino scrambled to his knees, scooting to the opposite edge of the bed as he stared at the man, slack-jawed.
He eyed the weapons the man wielded and wondered if he had finally come back to kidnap or assassinate him. He flinched as the demand was repeated, tolerance clearly wearing thin by the sounds and looks of it. Dino scrambled to rise from the bed, only managing to successfully crash unceremoniously over the edge into a heap of sheets. "O-okay, okay! Just, don't look!" The youth yelped from the ground.
To be Dino's age was perhaps one of the most awkward moments in a boy's life. It was when one became fully aware of his own transitioning body, and how it compared to that of a grown man's. Dino was not particularly secure about his scrawny self, evident in the way he quickly attempted to shield his body with a stretch of fabric. He had slept without a shirt, after all—a habit that would follow him well into adulthood. If Dino were somehow to be shown an image of the body that he would acquire, complete with swirls of colorful ink, he would have thought it to be the world's cruelest prank.
"W-who are you?" He finally dared to ask, have gained a sliver of confidence now that he was wearing a shirt. "Are you...part of the family?"
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