For your birthday...? [ Excuse a soon-battered horse the drunken installment of evening bitterness. Or maybe it's the creeping hole in his cup, born of grasping the thing too keenly and not letting the recipient's rings relax back to form. ] No. I'm doing too many favours, of late.

[ And the scant drops of whiskey he's earning for it in between the juggling act of balancing his stool after Xanxus' kick — they're barely worth it. He sighs (again; with feeling; shut up; it's habit) and rights himself in his seat once more, downing his liquor with an ugly look at Xanxus' leg, then throwing the cap at an impolite distance behind him. Some Varia out there's playing housekeeper - Dino's got to keep him in business.

After, he's down to thug mores again, pointedly lifting his hand and rolling down his sleeve for the display of a long strip of spoil-bruises bluing his arm to the elbow. ]

Here's a favour. This is Vongola's new Cloud. [ A calling card, really, and Dino stuck trafficking it back to Rome. ] I'm not sure just what Japan feeds them.

[ Middle-schoolers really shouldn't come out like this, and hapless Cavallone shouldn't be tricked about their gentleness to babysit them, for fuck and hell and Dino's collective sake. ]