Balance Points [Tsuna; Vongola] [Reborn!]
Title :: Balance Points
Characters :: Tsuna; the Vongola
Rating :: PG
Wordcount :: 1,163
Summary :: If you asked, he’d still say that he hated it.
If you asked, he’d still say that he hated it. His shoulders may have broadened just enough to take on the weight of the name, to grow into the title of Tenth, but not enough to be impervious to the weight of uncertainty and guilt. He keeps the air in his office cold to disguise the shudder that runs through him at the news of every name, every person, down; to hide the way decisions can make him shake a little even now.
There is no suit he’s found that can stifle it.
Some things, however, he really can’t say he minds, and at least the air always feels just a tiny bit warmer with his Guardians’ reports fanned across his desk.
Chrome’s script is small and neat, more unobtrusive than outright delicate - as unobtrusive as she can make it while remaining readable and useful. Politely succinct, words hover just above the lines and inside the margins with an even amount of space between them. They never quite come into contact with anything, remaining somehow detached even through the reverence and duty, as though her hand is still unsure of how to reach out. But Tsuna can read it all with ease, holding onto the reports long enough to take in everything that is said and warm them beneath his hands, until his eyes adjust and the writing seems at least slightly more rounded and softer.
Even now, Tsuna has a difficult time convincing Lambo not to turn in reports scrawled on the backs of candy wrappers. He supposes it doesn’t really make that much difference in the end, as even regular paper will quickly become coated and impossibly sticky with sugar in the teen’s grip, but still - “Lambo, you can’t possibly expect me to file these! And Gokudera’s already threatened to blow you up five times for making things disorganised!” (Lambo always just cuts Tsuna off with a detailed description of the girl who gave him said candy and a subtle suggestion that maybe she could be brought into the family, because see, someone has to be doing this sort of public-relations work, and he’s really quite good at it, isn’t he? It’s certainly much preferable to the thought of fighting, after all.)
But if nothing else, at least they let Tsuna know that the bathrooms in their base are, indeed, clean.
Hibari’s writing is sharp, strokes flying off so viciously that the paper all but tears under their onslaught. (Tsuna’s never even harboured thoughts of perhaps suggesting he try and make things just a bit more readable, knowing full well that Hibari would simply never deign to write like a herbivore.) It almost hurts the eyes to read, which is likely the entire point - it isn’t as though Hibari could care any less about these reports to begin with, after all, and he makes it more than obvious. They only come in rarely and sporadically, never in anything close to resembling the proper format; and Tsuna suspects the only reason he bothers with them at all is simply to complain about the severe lack of discipline, or else as a means to document how many people he has bitten to death due to this lack.
Although it’s really just as well; often they will be rendered entirely incomprehensible due to a series of scratches and pinholes across the pages, as if Hibird had been moving over them for proofreading.
Even the shortest of Ryohei’s reports never fail to be at least five pages long, and almost completely devoid of useful information despite their length. The handwriting is huge and expansive - indeed, it is “extreme,” and predictably overflowing to the max with that phrase. And more often than not, the “reports” simply turn out to be requests to start a boxing club among the Vongola, or suggestions that they should settle any familial disputes within a ring. Any real nuggets of information tend not to be in the reports themselves, but rather on small, crumpled scraps of paper (that have obviously been shoved into the pocket of a very overeager man) paperclipped onto them. (“Ultimately, I have completely forgotten what this report was even supposed to be about, but not to worry, Sawada - I wrote it out to the max when I first thought of it!”)
Tsuna scans through them mainly for Kyoko’s sake - if her brother has been away for another “sumo tournament,” he supposes it would be best for him not to be caught off-guard so that he can continue to play along.
Yamamoto’s script is wandering, the words more often than not beginning with a “Heyyy Tsuna, what’s up?” and then sliding carelessly into margins with large gaps in between to accommodate the occasional smiley face or the completely random baseball score. (“Haha, since you’re cooped up in that office all day, I bet you didn’t even have time to watch TV and are bored with just paperwork by now!”) But for all that, there is a contradictory sort of consistency, the penmanship itself steady and straightforward and solid. The reports never shed much light on the situations at hand (“And then they got kinda pissed at us, haha, but I guess Gokudera was more pissed since I couldn’t see what happened next through all the smoke-”), but are surprisingly shrewd on the people involved in them.
When Tsuna needs clarity and facts, he knows this is not the best way to find them. But if he needs to know how his subordinates are feeling, how he might expect those involved in negotiations to react with them, Yamamoto’s reports are what he reaches for first. (And if nothing else, he can read them at the end of the day to help relieve stress, because they never fail to coax him into smiling too.)
Gokudera’s reports always smell faintly of ash and nicotine, scents that Tsuna has long ago learned to associate, perhaps oddly, with safety and warmth. (And no matter what the reports themselves say, no matter how stressful their news, he is grateful for the sense of comfort they provide.) They are exhaustively detailed - every pertinent bit of information noted, and every potential problem accompanied by a dozen suggestions of ways to solve it with explosives - and written in a surprisingly precise pianist’s hand. He has created several codes only for use between himself and his boss, which he painstakingly taught Tsuna to read and will sometimes incorporate smoothly into the reports, either to convey particularly sensitive information or simply private reassurances. Gokudera takes immense pride in all this, in both the fact his reports are so scrupulously detailed and useful, and that they would be utterly useless if they somehow fell into the wrong hands.
To Tsuna, nothing is ever more important than the fact they remind him the Vongola are exactly that: A family. His family. And he is grateful.
And he remembers just why it is worth it, and just how he keeps standing.
Characters :: Tsuna; the Vongola
Rating :: PG
Wordcount :: 1,163
Summary :: If you asked, he’d still say that he hated it.
If you asked, he’d still say that he hated it. His shoulders may have broadened just enough to take on the weight of the name, to grow into the title of Tenth, but not enough to be impervious to the weight of uncertainty and guilt. He keeps the air in his office cold to disguise the shudder that runs through him at the news of every name, every person, down; to hide the way decisions can make him shake a little even now.
There is no suit he’s found that can stifle it.
Some things, however, he really can’t say he minds, and at least the air always feels just a tiny bit warmer with his Guardians’ reports fanned across his desk.
Chrome’s script is small and neat, more unobtrusive than outright delicate - as unobtrusive as she can make it while remaining readable and useful. Politely succinct, words hover just above the lines and inside the margins with an even amount of space between them. They never quite come into contact with anything, remaining somehow detached even through the reverence and duty, as though her hand is still unsure of how to reach out. But Tsuna can read it all with ease, holding onto the reports long enough to take in everything that is said and warm them beneath his hands, until his eyes adjust and the writing seems at least slightly more rounded and softer.
Even now, Tsuna has a difficult time convincing Lambo not to turn in reports scrawled on the backs of candy wrappers. He supposes it doesn’t really make that much difference in the end, as even regular paper will quickly become coated and impossibly sticky with sugar in the teen’s grip, but still - “Lambo, you can’t possibly expect me to file these! And Gokudera’s already threatened to blow you up five times for making things disorganised!” (Lambo always just cuts Tsuna off with a detailed description of the girl who gave him said candy and a subtle suggestion that maybe she could be brought into the family, because see, someone has to be doing this sort of public-relations work, and he’s really quite good at it, isn’t he? It’s certainly much preferable to the thought of fighting, after all.)
But if nothing else, at least they let Tsuna know that the bathrooms in their base are, indeed, clean.
Hibari’s writing is sharp, strokes flying off so viciously that the paper all but tears under their onslaught. (Tsuna’s never even harboured thoughts of perhaps suggesting he try and make things just a bit more readable, knowing full well that Hibari would simply never deign to write like a herbivore.) It almost hurts the eyes to read, which is likely the entire point - it isn’t as though Hibari could care any less about these reports to begin with, after all, and he makes it more than obvious. They only come in rarely and sporadically, never in anything close to resembling the proper format; and Tsuna suspects the only reason he bothers with them at all is simply to complain about the severe lack of discipline, or else as a means to document how many people he has bitten to death due to this lack.
Although it’s really just as well; often they will be rendered entirely incomprehensible due to a series of scratches and pinholes across the pages, as if Hibird had been moving over them for proofreading.
Even the shortest of Ryohei’s reports never fail to be at least five pages long, and almost completely devoid of useful information despite their length. The handwriting is huge and expansive - indeed, it is “extreme,” and predictably overflowing to the max with that phrase. And more often than not, the “reports” simply turn out to be requests to start a boxing club among the Vongola, or suggestions that they should settle any familial disputes within a ring. Any real nuggets of information tend not to be in the reports themselves, but rather on small, crumpled scraps of paper (that have obviously been shoved into the pocket of a very overeager man) paperclipped onto them. (“Ultimately, I have completely forgotten what this report was even supposed to be about, but not to worry, Sawada - I wrote it out to the max when I first thought of it!”)
Tsuna scans through them mainly for Kyoko’s sake - if her brother has been away for another “sumo tournament,” he supposes it would be best for him not to be caught off-guard so that he can continue to play along.
Yamamoto’s script is wandering, the words more often than not beginning with a “Heyyy Tsuna, what’s up?” and then sliding carelessly into margins with large gaps in between to accommodate the occasional smiley face or the completely random baseball score. (“Haha, since you’re cooped up in that office all day, I bet you didn’t even have time to watch TV and are bored with just paperwork by now!”) But for all that, there is a contradictory sort of consistency, the penmanship itself steady and straightforward and solid. The reports never shed much light on the situations at hand (“And then they got kinda pissed at us, haha, but I guess Gokudera was more pissed since I couldn’t see what happened next through all the smoke-”), but are surprisingly shrewd on the people involved in them.
When Tsuna needs clarity and facts, he knows this is not the best way to find them. But if he needs to know how his subordinates are feeling, how he might expect those involved in negotiations to react with them, Yamamoto’s reports are what he reaches for first. (And if nothing else, he can read them at the end of the day to help relieve stress, because they never fail to coax him into smiling too.)
Gokudera’s reports always smell faintly of ash and nicotine, scents that Tsuna has long ago learned to associate, perhaps oddly, with safety and warmth. (And no matter what the reports themselves say, no matter how stressful their news, he is grateful for the sense of comfort they provide.) They are exhaustively detailed - every pertinent bit of information noted, and every potential problem accompanied by a dozen suggestions of ways to solve it with explosives - and written in a surprisingly precise pianist’s hand. He has created several codes only for use between himself and his boss, which he painstakingly taught Tsuna to read and will sometimes incorporate smoothly into the reports, either to convey particularly sensitive information or simply private reassurances. Gokudera takes immense pride in all this, in both the fact his reports are so scrupulously detailed and useful, and that they would be utterly useless if they somehow fell into the wrong hands.
To Tsuna, nothing is ever more important than the fact they remind him the Vongola are exactly that: A family. His family. And he is grateful.
And he remembers just why it is worth it, and just how he keeps standing.