tsunahiki
KHR fic, again. :) This one is about Tsuna's ongoing, sort of unwilling attempts to be everything to everyone.
That kid. I don't even know if I'm proud of him or incredibly sad for him. Well. Why stop with one when you can have both? o_O
Spoilers through 281...and a little 282.
KHR does not belong to me.
ETA: Now with a Russian translation by miroveha ! :D
Tsunahiki
Life has been strange since they got back to their own time.
Of course, Tsuna’s life has been strange since the first time Reborn smiled a cheery smile and shot him in the head. This is nothing new. It’s just that the strangeness has taken on new dimensions.
For one thing, his Family…is definitely family now. After everything they’ve been through and all that they’ve lost, after being totally cut off from the world they knew, it’s not a surprise that they rely on each other. Not in hindsight. And yet Tsuna hadn’t seen it coming.
Yamamoto says it’s like they’ve been to a really intense training camp together. Gokudera rolls his eyes and elbows Yamamoto in the side, but it’s not the same as it used to be. There’s no bad blood there. Sure, they compete, but sometime when they were fighting for their lives in the future, that competition became friendly. On both sides.
They’re family, and they look out for their own.
They all spend a lot of time at Takezushi because they know Yamamoto doesn’t like to let his dad out of his sight for too many hours. They take turns fighting Hibari to keep him entertained. They run interference between Bianchi and Gokudera, though those two seem to have come to some kind of understanding, too. Every so often, somebody feels energetic enough to spar with Ryohei. Tsuna, Yamamoto, and Bianchi make sure Reborn is never left alone to brood.
Kyoko, Haru, Lambo, I-Pin, Chrome, Futa, Basil when he’s around-their needs are met. Big things, yes, but also little things, done without comment, mostly without conscious thought.
The last time Tsuna saw Dino, Dino smiled and said, “You’re a real boss now, little brother.” It may be the most horrifying thing Dino’s ever said to him.
Still, Tsuna’s proud of his family. Proud with overtones of stark terror, that is. It’s all fine and good to meet the needs of the family, but consider the family. Their needs include bombs, beatings, and general mayhem. This wasn’t a big deal when the whole future world was dissolving into chaos anyway, but now? Not good. And of course Tsuna’s the one who’s supposed to be keeping them under control. Right.
Kyoko once said that Tsuna reminded her of a hamster. He’s never forgotten that. Actually, he kind of obsessed over it for a while, because the thing is, she was right. She was so right. Tsuna can picture the very rodent: a fluffy hamster with big, terrified eyes, running in frantic little circles. Squeaking.
Reborn seems to think he’s killed the hamster and replaced it with some scarier creature. Reborn’s wrong. The hamster is alive and well and still running in circles. You can give a hamster crazy eyes, big claws, and bloodstains, and it is still, at heart, a hamster. A creepy hamster.
Reborn turned Tsuna into a creepy hamster. Someday Tsuna’s going to tell him that in exactly those words and see what happens. He expects he’ll get shot.
But this is the other thing that’s strange. Really strange. Unearthly levels of strange.
The kids at school don’t seem to recognize that Tsuna’s just a creepy hamster. For some reason…they do think he’s scary.
They really do.
It took him a while to work this out, and even longer to honestly believe it. But the evidence is in. All he has to do anymore to make people back down is look at them and think, God, I’m exhausted. That’s it. They flee. Actually, most of the time they don’t even approach. It’s insane.
Third year bullies are officially scared of Sawada Tsunayoshi. In some ways, this is weirder than jumping ten years into the future. Weirder still is the sure (absolutely sure, unnaturally sure) knowledge that he’ll come to take this for granted, just like he takes his posse of hitmen for granted.
Intuition. Blood of the Vongola. Reborn can call it whatever he wants, but nothing will change the fact that it feels like an alien taking up residence in Tsuna’s skull. A know-it-all alien.
Tsuna’s pretty sure he’s more afraid of his own brain than other people are of him. That’s comforting, in a backhanded sort of way.
* * *
People are afraid of him, that is, with a few notable exceptions. His family, obviously. But not just his family.
“Sawada,” says Kyoko’s friend Kurokawa Hana, cornering Tsuna one morning before Kyoko’s there to save him. Kurokawa is not amused, which isn’t like her. She’s usually amused by everything, and by Tsuna in particular. “What is with you guys lately?”
They’ve been back for a month. Tsuna knows they’ve been acting weird ever since they got back, but, well. They’ve always been weird. Kurokawa’s the only one so far to find it special.
“Um?” Tsuna replies intelligently. God, he really is a hamster. Q.E.D.
Kurokawa puts a hand on his desk and leans toward him, and Tsuna cranes as far back as he can without pitching over. Gokudera’s starting to lurk ominously in the aisle; Tsuna has to give him a back off look. After everything that’s happened, he really doubts he’ll be taken down by Kyoko’s best friend. For God’s sake.
Gokudera wanders back to his seat, but he’s still watching. Tsuna checks on Yamamoto. Yamamoto is also watching, albeit with less murderous intent than Gokudera.
Sigh.
Tsuna sees with some dismay that Kurokawa has been taking all of this in, too. “And what was that about?” she demands.
“What was what about?” If you’re stupid anyway, Tsuna feels, then you ought to take advantage of it.
“Don’t mess with me, Sawada,” she snaps. So that tactic didn’t work. “What’s going on? At first I thought it was just Kyoko, but then I looked around, and it’s all of you, isn’t it? Kyoko and you and your gang of misfits. You all suddenly started acting like, like-I don’t even know. Like survivors of a natural disaster or something. Those two follow you around like you’ve got them on a leash”-wow, what an image-“and even before that, there was Kyoko’s brother and his-what did you guys call it?-‘sumo tournament.’ I wasn’t going to ask because it was none of my business, but then you turned weird, and you took my best friend with you. That’s it. That’s my limit. I’m asking, and don’t you lie to me. What are you dragging Kyoko into?”
Tsuna smiles at her. She’s a good friend.
The cool, alien voice in the back of his mind points out that she would also be good family, which is true. But Tsuna refuses to involve any more people Kyoko loves in the nightmare that is his life.
“Why don’t you ask Kyoko-chan?”
It’s a fair question. As much as he might wish otherwise, Kyoko’s personal life is still none of his business, and it’s definitely not his responsibility. There are so few things that aren’t his responsibility these days; he likes to keep track of them. He puts himself to sleep by making mental lists of them.
“She won’t tell me anything,” Kurokawa hisses, sounding sort of like Bianchi on a bad day. “And I won’t bother her about it, because I don’t want her to decide I’m a nag and end up afraid to talk to me. But you. I don’t care what you think of me.”
“Kurokawa, I can’t tell you anything that Kyoko-chan doesn’t want you to know. I can’t.”
“But you’re the reason she doesn’t want me to know.”
“You don’t know that. And neither do I.”
Her eyes narrowed. “I will find out, Sawada,” she informed him. “You’re just making this harder on yourself. But that’s your style, isn’t it? It’s like you deliberately aim for trouble. You even hang around with that psycho Hibari now, I’ve seen you. Didn’t he try to kill you once?”
Tsuna’s hardly in a position to hold grudges against people who’ve tried to kill him. Almost everyone he knows has tried to kill him.
“Are you seriously worrying about me?” he asks incredulously.
“Kyoko will be sad if you die,” she announces. “Though God knows why.”
“Hibari-san isn’t going to kill me,” Tsuna assures her. And he isn’t, not after all the effort he’s put into keeping Tsuna alive. Hibari’s investment in Tsuna is a little scary. And humbling.
“That face,” she says, standing and pointing accusingly. “That’s new, too, and I don’t like it one bit. I’ve got my eye on you.”
She stalks off, and Tsuna reminds himself that he isn’t allowed to beat himself unconscious against his desktop. That sort of thing isn’t okay anymore. It’s bad for his image. More importantly, Gokudera would freak.
He’d never dreamt there would be a time in his life when he’d feel responsible for a high-strung math genius bomber. Not that he’d ever had a particularly clear picture of his future-he hadn’t wanted one. His mind had wandered that way a few times, presenting him with images of late nights drinking, capsule hotels, loneliness, anonymity, 7-Eleven oden. Dying middle-aged of a stress-related heart condition. Best not to think about it.
Now he has the comfort of knowing beyond question that that won’t be his life. For one thing, he’ll be lucky if he manages to make it to middle age.
He moans and lets his head thud to his desk. He doesn’t care what Kurokawa thinks.
He tries not to care about the slightly frantic, “Tenth!?” from the back of the room either, but it’s more of a challenge.
* * *
Tsuna has always listened to whispers, even when it was hideously bad for his self-esteem. The whispers relating to him used to be along the lines of “loser Tsuna,” “failed the math test,” “fell off the sidewalk and knocked a guy off his bike, what a spaz.”
That is not how the whispers go now.
“Our little Tsuna…he’s all grown up, isn’t he?” “They follow him around like bodyguards.” “Did you see the look he gave Taka-chan? Scary!”
He listens. And that cool voice says, Let them wonder.
It’s the best thing for them, after all. They should be careful of him, not because he’s dangerous in himself (to them), but because he is not a safe person to stand beside.
* * *
His classmates’ new habit of avoiding him like the plague means he doesn’t have as much to distract him as he used to. That’s probably why his grades have gone up. He’s never going to rival Gokudera’s class ranking, but at least he’s no longer in competition for rock bottom.
His mom’s thrilled. She says it’s all due to Reborn, and it is, just not quite the way she thinks.
Gokudera’s love of math and science almost makes sense now. Tsuna has to admit it’s soothing, being presented with a problem that has an answer. A guaranteed answer! Only one! And, hey, even if he gets it wrong, that won’t kill anybody he loves!
He’s getting really fond of school.
Unfortunately, he’s got bigger academic problems, because Reborn’s decided he needs to learn Italian. Italian does not like Tsuna; he’s sure that articles are a thing invented by Satan (or possibly Reborn) to destroy him. All this worrying about the mafia is wasted effort. Death by article.
He sucks at languages. After all the years of English class, the only phrase he can reliably remember is we’re all mad here, which may say a lot about his state of mind, but doesn’t say much for his future as a polyglot.
Reborn is predictably unimpressed with any of his arguments.
* * *
“But I don’t want to move to Italy.”
“Whether you’re in Italy or not, half of your family is Italian.”
“Yeah, but they all speak Japanese.”
“Yes. They learned your language. Are you the kind of boss who won’t do anything for his family in return?”
“Oh my God, that’s not fair.”
“The mafia isn’t fair.”
“Which is why I don’t want to be in the mafia. I know-” Tsuna breaks off. The argument has carried them through the front door and all the way up the stairs. Where the door is barricaded. This is interesting, seeing as it is, in fact, Tsuna’s door. It’s barricaded with a series of ropes with skull-and-crossbones charms dangling from them, which at least makes it obvious who was responsible. Plus, he can hear them yelling at each other in there.
Bianchi and Gokudera share a certain aesthetic. Tsuna wonders whether he’d die by bombs or by poison if he said that out loud. Maybe both at once.
“Should I do something?” he asks Reborn.
“Of course not,” Reborn says, with the smile he uses when he’s finding Tsuna’s stupidity disappointing. “Their relationship has never been this good.”
Bianchi gives a scream, a battle-cry, and running under it in counterpoint is the sound of Gokudera bitching about something, low and continuous, not even slowed down by the screaming. Happily, it’s all in Italian, so Tsuna has only the vaguest idea what they’re saying and doesn’t have to worry about the specifics. Which is another reason he shouldn’t learn Italian, right there.
He does catch the fact that they use approximately eight hundred articles per five minutes of conversation, though. Articles everywhere. Why?
“You’re crazy,” Tsuna tells Reborn, and he feels his point is only reinforced by the crash of what is probably a plate being hurled against the wall. In his room.
Reborn turns away. “You should have been worrying when they were quiet,” he says, and wanders off, presumably to demand food from Tsuna’s long-suffering mother.
Tsuna tries to do the mental equivalent of prodding at the alien in his brain. Intuition. Surely the alien is supposed to tell him things like quiet is bad when it comes to his family. If he’s going to have an alien in his brain, he’d prefer that it not be three-quarters worthless.
He ends up with nothing to show for the prodding but a headache and the absolute conviction that life hates him.
On the upside, Gokudera and Bianchi are getting along by dinnertime. Or at least they’ve stopped screaming and have unbarricaded Tsuna’s door, which is close enough.
* * *
A few months later, Dino comes to visit. Tsuna has no idea why Dino spends so much time in Japan, but since he doesn’t want to know either, that’s okay. Reborn’s happy, anyway, because it means a new person who can torture Tsuna about learning Italian.
(Yamamoto hasn’t made it past buongiorno, Gokudera is very odd concerning all things Italian, and Bianchi apparently can’t make herself care, not even for Reborn. Everyone else has opted to remain silent on the subject.)
Tsuna’s mom is the one who opens the door to Dino, which makes Tsuna think about what this must look like to her. Some young foreigner with tattoos and a whip, flanked by enormous, burly men who wear sunglasses indoors, coming to her house to pick up her son. Yikes. Sure, it’s old hat by now, but what did she think the first time? He hadn’t thought to wonder back then-he’d been too busy panicking, himself.
It’s a really good thing she likes mysterious men. If she were a normal mom, they’d have had to institutionalize her by now.
“I’m too stupid to learn Italian,” Tsuna explains to Dino. “I don’t know why this is so hard for you guys to understand.”
“Tsuna, you’re not stupid,” Dino says with an indulgent smile that makes Tsuna want to cry. “I’ve seen you fight. You strategize like a mafia boss should, and that takes brains.”
“Yeah, but that’s-” the alien in my head. No. No, he is not going to say that out loud. Not even to Dino. “…that’s when my life depends on it.”
“You’ve got plenty going for you, little brother,” Dino insists calmly, unaware of the fact that he is so, so wrong. Hamsters with claws and alien brains do not have things going for them. “Not just when your life depends on it. And you don’t look anything like as scary as you are. That’s lucky.”
Tsuna knows by now that arguing with mafiosi is futile, so he just shrugs. He doubts how much Dino really means that, anyway. Dino wouldn’t look scary either if he hadn’t gone out and gotten massive tattoos all over himself. He must’ve done it for a reason.
“It would make Gokudera’s year if you learned Italian,” Dino says. Of course he’s right, but it makes Gokudera’s year when Tsuna smiles at him, too, and that’s a lot less effort. “And Reborn’s.”
Tsuna blinks. “Oh. You think?” Is that why Reborn is pushing him so hard? He wants Tsuna to learn Italian, not for the mafia, but because…
Because what? Because it’ll be nice if Tsuna knows his native language, or because it’ll be nice to be able to insult Tsuna in two languages and know he understands all of it?
“I’ll try,” Tsuna says. He is trying. He has been trying. He wishes the alien would throw him a bone, here.
“Tell me about school!” Dino says brightly. In Italian.
Tsuna sighs.
* * *
The Italian language notwithstanding, Tsuna and Reborn have really come to see eye to eye on a lot of things.
In his more introspective moments, this scares Tsuna half to death. Luckily he doesn’t have a lot of time for introspection, being far too busy with galloping paranoia.
The Millefiore are gone, that’s true. There are hundreds of mafia families out there, though, and Tsuna’s life up to this point hasn’t made him the most trusting person ever. Actually, it’s left him with a wild suspicion that every last one of those families is secretly out to kill his.
It doesn’t help that Reborn feels exactly the same way.
Tsuna kicks absently at the dirt where a base once was, once would have been, will be. “What I don’t get,” he says, “is how we managed to build an entire underground base without anybody noticing. That’s unreal.”
“The word for bribe in Italian,” says Reborn, “is tangente.”
Tsuna meets his eyes, annoyed. “This isn’t Italy.”
“Repeat it back.”
“Tangente.”
“No, tangente.”
“Tangente.”
“Your pronunciation is a disgrace to the Vongola.”
“Okay, but back to the point, this is not Italy.”
“No. We were probably able to work in Namimori thanks to your Cloud. But under normal circumstances-”
“So I should talk to Hibari-san?” Tsuna cuts in before Reborn’s interpretation of ‘normal’ can give him a headache.
“Of course,” says Reborn. There’s a moment of contemplative silence, then Reborn leaps into the air and kicks Tsuna directly in the temple, possibly for old times’ sake.
“And don’t get cocky,” Reborn tells him once he’s in his proper place, i.e., moaning on the ground.
* * *
Tsuna makes his way to Takezushi, because at this time of day, that’s where Yamamoto and Gokudera will be. Well, either there or in Tsuna’s room, but he already checked the room.
They are, indeed, in Takezushi. Tsuna wonders how long Yamamoto’s dad will put up with Yamamoto and his friends hanging around the restaurant giving him worried looks like he’s got a disease. Tsuna doesn’t think he would have lasted this long, if it’d been him.
“Someone,” he says, “needs to ask Hibari-san to help us build the base.”
“Maybe you’d better leave it up to me, Tsuna,” Yamamoto says cheerfully. “I don’t lose my temper like Gokudera.”
“Tell it to my missing tooth, asshole,” Gokudera snaps.
“Haha, that doesn’t count, I was driven to it!”
“I’d prefer it if you went together,” says Tsuna, who doesn’t know about any missing teeth and wants it to stay that way. “I’m hoping Hibari-san will get used to the idea of talking to all of us. Eventually. In a few years.”
Yamamoto and Gokudera both look dubious.
“It could happen,” Tsuna insists. “At least give it a try. If he attacks you, I’ll try again later.”
Collective shrug.
Tsuna’s Guardians. He thinks his father did this to him on purpose. Of course they’re his family now, of course he’ll protect them no matter what and vice-versa, but God. Couldn’t his dad have picked a less catastrophic combination of people? Seriously?
Oh, and speaking of catastrophe, he hasn’t seen Chrome lately. She’s not much trouble in herself, but she does come attached to Mukuro, and Mukuro is a problem.
One the one hand, he helped them beat Byakuran. He’s the Mist Guardian, he’s family, they owe him. They owe him, and yet he’s bound in Vindice chains and floating in a vat. That’s not cool.
On the other hand, it’s not exactly a good idea to unleash upon the world a guy whose stated intention it is to take over your body and kick off World War III. Even if he does tell lies about as often as he breathes out.
Still and at the same time, how long does Tsuna really think it’s going to be before Chrome and Ken and Chikusa break him out? Chrome, at least, knows that it’s been done before.
Mukuro is a problem, all right.
Tsuna sighs and leaves the restaurant to check on that whole…disaster waiting to happen.
“We’ll report in tomorrow, Boss!” Gokudera shouts after him.
* * *
Gokudera and Yamamoto were pretty successful, when Tsuna considers how it might have gone. They didn’t manage to talk about the base at all, but hey, they didn’t get beaten bloody.
“In a few years,” he tells them encouragingly.
“If you say so, Tenth,” Gokudera replies, looking worried. Yamamoto laughs.
Great. How Reborn expects him to handle all of this and school and Italian when it used to be all he could do to dress himself, Tsuna does not know.
* * *
“Kurokawa’s following me everywhere,” Tsuna tells Reborn, because she is, and Tsuna shouldn’t have to be the one to fix that on top of everything else. “Aren’t you worried about this?”
Reborn is disassembling a gun and looks more annoyed by the distraction than worried. “If you made her family,” he says irritably, “we wouldn’t have a problem.”
“But Kyoko-chan-”
“In Italian.”
Tsuna considers trying to explain, in Italian, that this has gone on for ages, and Kurokawa has pretty much worn him down at this point. It’s not all that hard to wear him down, witness the whole mafia thing. And yet he can’t just tell her everything, because she’s Kyoko’s friend and it’s Kyoko’s choice, but he doesn’t even want to bring it up with Kyoko, because she’ll give him that disappointed look. He doesn’t even know why. She will, though. And then she’ll smile the fake smile and it’ll be horrible.
He turns and walks out of the room, out of the house. Some conversations are just not worth the effort.
* * *
“The thing is, you have to stop following me around. Anything but that, okay?”
“Now that you’ve told me exactly what bothers you, you think I’ll stop? I don’t like to be repetitive, Sawada, but what is wrong with you?”
“Look, it’s not that it bothers me!” Tsuna’s trying to keep this quiet. They’re standing in a school hallway; not the most private place on earth. Unfortunately, it’s hard to have a quiet talk when so many things in his life are conspiring to make him wail.
“You mean you like being stalked?” Kurokawa asks, raising an eyebrow at him. At this point, she’s obviously being difficult for the sake of being difficult.
“No,” Tsuna wails extremely quietly. “It’s just, it’s…it’s not safe, it’s-”
“Did you say not safe? So it’s not safe for me, but it’s fine for Kyoko? Is that what you’re saying?”
“People know Kyoko-chan.”
“People,” Kurokawa hisses, stepping forward, would-be scary. Tsuna fights the urge to roll his eyes. Unless she manages to embarrass him to death, Kurokawa isn’t any kind of dangerous.
“Someone else threatening Sawada Tsunayoshi?” Hibari says in passing, mildly interested. “Brave. He burned the last one to death.”
Social disaster accomplished, Hibari walks on by.
Most girls would have screamed at this point, Tsuna’s pretty sure. But Kurokawa, as Reborn says, would probably make good family. She scowls at him instead, like all her worst suspicions have been confirmed.
“Kyoko-chan is trying to protect you,” he tells her in a last-ditch effort to make her back off before she gets herself killed.
“Oh, really?” she says. “From you?”
His first impulse is to disagree. Kurokawa doesn’t need to be protected from him, just from his life.
On second thought, though, he isn’t sure Kyoko feels the same way. After all, she did watch him burn someone to death, and that apparently made an impression even on Hibari. Kyoko might very well want to shield her friends from a murderer.
Byakuran. He deserved it. He did. He’d ruined everything, he’d killed Yamamoto’s father, he’d tortured Uni, he’d threatened Tsuna’s family-
But burning is not a pretty way to die.
“That’s right,” Tsuna says, feeling old and exhausted, like he’s lived two lives already. “So run.”
“Sawada!”
He walks away. He doesn’t have time for this. He needs to talk to Hibari about the base.
There’s always one more thing to do, and never much time to think about what he’s already done. All part of Reborn’s plan, probably.
And all for the best, the back of his mind whispers. He can’t always tell anymore which thoughts are his and which are the alien’s.
All for the best.