[fic] Center of the Universe [2786 KHR fanfic]
Title: Center of the Universe
Author: Primal Red a.k.a. teruame
Character/Pairing: Sawada Tsunayoshi. Miura Haru. Tsuna/Haru
Genre: Drama/Romance
Rating: PG-13 for some gory details and not-too-pleasant images as well as one reference to drugs, mostly from mafia life.
Prompt: I-43: TsuHaru-Lady-She was his pillar of endless hope.
Notes: None, really.
Word Count: 2,596
Summary: She was that faraway star in the corner of his vision that always shined millions of light-years his way, even when all other lights faded.
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A/N: So…here is prompt 43. I just hope that this work actually lives up to the standard well, because this is really public and I admit the nervousness.
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Truth be told, Sawada Tsunayoshi didn’t have many things in his life to look forward to. As a future mafia boss of the most powerful criminal organization in the world, he was constantly in need of self-improvement even when he didn’t wish to change. He had very little luck to begin with, as he was always seeking to find a way out of the precarious, crazy situations that Reborn placed him in due to the heritage of his blood.
And, as always, there was the friendship he had with everyone he knew. Not exactly friendship in every way, but at least it was something to look forwards to. Such included the strange companionship he had with Haru. Haru, who would cook and clean and take care of him and the others. Haru, who would make silly love notes to him so that he would be on his way even when he dreaded seeing her.
And sometimes, he wondered if it even mattered if he met her or not, for she was barely any part of his world in the sense that she seemed almost miniscule and not exactly a bright light out of all the stars in his night sky. What Tsuna often forgot, though, was that life often didn’t turn out the way he would hope for in the end in many ways, and it was only later when he reflected on this that he remembered certain facts about the stars in the sky.
Some stars are farther away than others.
Which means that some of them are brighter than they seem.
That and…some stars last longer than others even when they are further away. Supernovas, bright as they were, never lasted for long, but there were stars in the universe that truly had the strength to outlive the world he knew by many times even when they didn’t seem to be very bright in the first place from where he looked.
--
It all started when Haru began to include everyone in the group and stopped making food for him alone.
Tsuna, for all he knew, understood that he wasn’t the brightest boy out there, and yet it was noticeable enough to see that something had changed ever since they all finished high school. Instead of calling him out alone, the first questions that Haru would ask him over the phone often involved Lambo, I-Pin, and the rest of the group as well. What’s more, the visits she went on to come over to see them were no longer just for seeing how he was, even though she never quite changed that exclamation.
Needless to say, the summer after their graduation from high school was mostly uneventful in regards to any changes of lifestyle, with the exception of Haru being a bit different and less communicative of her so-called “love for Tsuna-san”.
It didn’t take long for the other guys to think about this, and eventually Tsuna went to call upon Haru to ask her what was wrong.
She blinked, and Tsuna found himself wondering whether she had ever looked at him as though he was asking something extra. “Why? Tsuna-san must be overthinking everything these days! Nothing is wrong with Haru!”
“Haru, are you sure that you’re okay?”
“Yes, Haru is positive about that.”
“Okay.”
And with that, Tsuna found himself unable to speak anymore about the matter. For all he knew, he was still not a perfect master at using his Hyper Intuition to understand people.
It was only a few weeks later when he found out-through Kyoko-that Haru was planning to go to a prestigious university majoring in the field of medicine.
They had already accepted her application.
And she had agreed to go.
The first thing that he decided at that moment was to be there at the airport to at least say goodbye.
Because that was what friends are for.
--
Needless to say, Haru was beyond surprised to see him and the rest of the group show up at the airport to see her off right when she was about to board the plane to England.
They exchanged a few words, though there was something in her glance that Tsuna recognized as gratefulness. For the first time in his life, Tsuna wondered if he had done something right.
“Haru is…happy that Tsuna-san wants to see Haru off.”
“Eh…of course! Why not?”
Haru smiled serenely, and Tsuna was taken aback at how rarely she had smiled so genuinely in his presence. Most of the time, she would smile to try to induce him to do the same, but it was rare for him to see her be so content and express herself so openly in a way that didn’t hide anything.
“Haru is glad.”
The trip back from the airport left a bitter, forlorn taste in his mouth, and Tsuna wondered slightly if he was to blame for Haru’s leaving, and whether or not he had wanted to ask her to stay.
--
The next few weeks passed by quickly, mostly with Reborn and the others trying to prepare themselves for the Mafioso lifestyle and ignore the fact that one of their own had left to go to college, until Haru’s first line of contact came in. It was a phone call, and Tsuna wondered for a moment whether the lump in his chest felt like guilt and anxiety.
“Tsuna-san.” It wasn’t a question.
“…Haru.”
“How are you these days?”
“I’m okay, really.”
“You sound tired.”
Tsuna blinked. Even through the phone, Haru was able to tell how tired he was. He wondered briefly whether the girl understood him better than he would like to admit, then brushed that thought off.
“Tsuna-san?”
“Yeah, I’m here.”
“Do you have access to a computer?”
“Yeah. I do.”
“I’ll email you, then.”
“Okay.”
The next few words they exchanged were mostly through her part-words on her hectic college studying and so forth, but somehow Tsuna felt calmer and more content this time around after he finished talking with her.
He was able to talk to her more often now.
That and…he could ensure that she was safe and sound.
--
When Tsuna turned his computer on the next day, he went straight to his email and instant messenger. There, he found a number of emails from her on the many different aspects of what Haru had to say about the life there.
Needless to say, as he typed out his responses, he couldn’t help but smile.
--
A month later, he got a letter from the Ninth asking him and the Guardians to come to Italy at a university for business students. From what he knew, it was a school for mafia leaders.
He wondered for a while whether he would be able to see Kyoko-chan during the holidays, then decided that it was for the best to keep her away from the mafia life for now. He briefly thought of Haru, then realized that it was much easier to reach Haru than Kyoko.
He thought for a moment, then decided that it was possibly strange that he was suddenly worrying
about Haru at a time like this. What was with him, really? Haru was content, studying ambitiously as a medical student, and…
…and in London.
He couldn’t help but wonder if students from Italy were allowed in London for even a bit of time in the case of visiting friends.
--
As he had suspected, most of the students at the Italian university were Mafioso, and many of them did not like his presence there as a Japanese exchange student. It didn’t matter that his grades were somewhat better than how they used to be.
What was worse, however, was that he had to train as a Mafioso outside of the school in the Vongola family. He was expected to kill, maim and physically hurt certain individuals who didn’t pay their share to the family, and though Tsuna had hoped that it all didn’t have to go in this direction, he knew that protesting would lead to worse consequences.
The first thought that went through his mind when he saw the blood was how horrifyingly brutal and savage it all was.
When he got to his dormitory, Tsuna ran to the bathroom and vomited. He didn’t know what it was that he wanted, but he did know that he couldn’t stand the sight of red for that day.
It was only when Haru’s messages through the computer screen showed concern that something akin to nostalgia came back to him. Here, and only here alone, he could pretend that it was still that summer day when Haru called him. Only within the confinement of his room was he able to stay in the idea of being normal and living a decent life.
--
Tsuna soon realized that being a Mafioso was everything that he couldn’t stand without vomiting.
The first part involved dealing with women. Women who were sinful and dark and terribly power-hungry in that way that scared him when he looked into their eyes. To put it simply, as he was talking to them, these women would lick their lips and attempt to walk closer to him in a way that made his stomach turn terribly, even though his task was simply to ask about certain things.
He didn’t dare look at the women on the streets of Milan afterwards.
The second part, as he learned, involved trade and business. Tsuna found that he was often introduced to criminal after criminal who specialized in things he could hardly imagine being done. The feeling that stayed with him, however, was the fact that he would never look at food and falsely manufactured items in the same way again.
And-oh, God-the needles. The needles on the streets that the children played with.
The last part, as usual, involved torture. He was to get to understand the interrogation methods of the mafia world and see how information was taken out of each individual. Tsuna wasn’t sure how such things were done, really, but it was then that he could hardly look into the eyes of the tortured individuals without seeing their eyes at night haunting him in his dreams.
That didn’t include the many different shades of red that the human body could make.
It was right then that Tsuna felt something in him break, and slowly he watched in horror as Haru asked him whether or not he was alright and as he revealed to her what he could-not every single horrible detail of the experience, but it was enough. He knew that he might be ruining her innocence in ways, but whenever he thought about food he would wonder whether Haru was eating things that might have something from the chemical plants that the Vongola family had a hand in. Whenever he thought about that, something in his chest would tighten and twist in angry circles.
What he got, however, was something that surprised him.
Haru, instead of backing down and running away, told him that she believed in him and his ability to change all those horrible things.
He promptly replied that she was believing in the wrong person, and that he was horrible for saying all of that to her.
She then pointed out that they were friends, and that friends were always there for each other in their darkest hour.
That and, he was telling her this because he cared.
It was right then that Tsuna realized a few things. He knew that it wasn’t going to be an easy task to change the mafia world of his heritage, but that didn’t mean that it wasn’t doable. What’s more, Haru was accepting all this information better than he had thought, mostly because she probably knew about them in ways. Not that she knew everything, perhaps, but she did at least have a hint of an understanding for it.
He couldn’t, and probably would never, ask Kyoko to accept him, to listen to him like this.
Sometimes, he wondered whether he was just being stupid, but Haru’s words brought him a bit of confidence and calm that he didn’t know he could have.
--
The mafia business didn’t get any better, against all that he had hoped.
Contrary to his wishes, he ended up finding himself knee-deep in blood, mostly from men, women and children who he didn’t know about and didn’t dare to think of due to his inability to take in more information-whether that was his bad memory or his inability to stomach more horror was left up to the imagination. For a moment, he wondered what he could tell Haru about what remained of his conscience, then brushed the thought off.
Every time he went to the computer, he would pour his heart out to a girl who he once thought as eccentric and terrifying, even as things he wanted to say piled up like an endless mountain that never seemed to stop growing.
And, as usual, Haru accepted it all, albeit with a tantrum here and there about him not taking care of himself well, but she accepted it like he was not the one at fault.
And that was the last anchor for his sanity, other than Lambo’s still-innocent playfulness and the fact that he and Gokudera and Yamamoto and Ryohei and Chrome and Hibari were facing the same things and had to survive together, because that was what a mafia boss did. Mafia bosses took care of their families and all those they cared about, and that was his last line of hope other than Haru’s reassurances.
And sometimes, he wondered if he could ever turn himself from the incapable boy he once was into someone who could truly change things, but when Haru spoke to him, it was almost as though the illusion became real.
--
The first winter break came, and Tsuna found himself in England soon after he finished his part of the schooling and the Vongola business that he was responsible for. He decided to ask Gokudera and Yamamoto to come along with him, and after writing a letter to Bianchi and Kyoko and most of the others who didn’t come to Italy, he stepped onto the airplane to London.
The first person he ran into at the London airport was a slightly older, albeit calmer Miura Haru, the girl who he had sought to talk to in the first place. Apparently, she was trying to buy a ticket to Italy.
Funny how things turn out that way.
They stood there, staring at one another for a moment, before Tsuna felt himself impacted by a tight hug and a crying Haru. Not sure how to react to the situation, he simply placed a hand on top of her head and held her tighter.
When she calmed down, the smile she gave him made almost everything that he had experienced in the past year slip away.
Almost.
But it was enough. She was here, and for once Tsuna realized that all he needed to do was to shift the direction of his vision to see the star that he had almost taken for granted.
--
He didn’t need to ask. She knew.
And as he hugged her when he realized her answer to his question, he noticed how her eyes would center on his face for a moment, as though his contentedly happy expression was really the only thing she wanted to see in her lifetime.
And that was all that they both wanted.
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El fin.
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