Summary: Fifteen-year-old Sawada Ienari and his father are really close, but that isn't always a good thing. His father's apparent need to know everything that goes on in Ienari's life makes Ienari feel suffocated and even a bit resentful, thinking that the reason his father is like this because he doesn't trust him enough. That all changes, though, when Ienari takes a trip twenty years into the past, five years before he was born. One-shot.
SkyGem: Well, this idea, like most of my others, came to me out of thin air. I was trying to think up a one-shot, since it is my dearest wish right now to reach 100 fics, and this came to me! And hey, it's not like Iemitsu's shameful neglect of his only son wouldn't leave any marks behind, ne?
Disclaimer: I don't own KHR.
Twenty-year-old Tsunayoshi Sawada was at his desk, signing the stack of paperwork that had come in from Kyoya's latest assignment in Hokkaido, when he heard a sound like an explosion, and quickly his head jerked up.
Normally, an explosion wasn't that big of an event, seeing as he was in the Vongola HQ, after all, but this explosion had been right here, in his office.
The brunette stared in confusion at the cloud of pink smoke that had suddenly appeared in his office.
He recognized that pink smoke; it was from the ten-year bazooka, but who had appeared in his office?
Younger Lambo wouldn't be appearing in their time for approximately another four years, seeing as he was only eleven right now.
Tsuna's hyper intuition told him that whoever it was, they weren't dangerous, so he just sat patiently and waited for the smoke to clear.
When he was able to see who it was, the brunette couldn't hold back the small gasp that escaped.
There, right in front of him, was a fifteen-year-old with Tsuna's warm brown eyes, but Iemitsu's pale blond hair.
Having heard the gasp, the teenager looked up at Tsuna and his mouth dropped open, his eyes widening to the size of saucers, as if he had seen a ghost.
"D-dad?" he asked in Italian, his voice completely disbelieving.
"God, I hate you so much! Why can't you just leave me alone?" shouted one Sawada Ienari. "I'm not a kid anymore, dad! You don't have to watch my every move! I can take care of myself!"
And without sparing a second glance at his father's hurt expression, the teen turned and stormed off towards his bedroom, grumbling about overprotective parents.
On his way to his room, though, the young blond failed to notice the experimental antithesis of the ten-year bazooka that Giannini had been working on. It was supposed to allow a person to switch places with their ten years younger self when shot with it. Unfortunately, though, it wasn't complete yet, so when Ienari accidentally tripped over it, something quite unexpected happened.
The boy suddenly found himself surrounded in a cocoon of gentle pink smoke.
There was a feeling as if he were travelling great distances over a short period of time, making the teen feel dizzy, and when the smoke finally cleared, he found that he was in one very familiar place.
A very familiar place he could have sworn he had angrily stalked out of only minutes ago.
Rubbing his aching head, Ienari blinked a few times to clear his vision before sitting up.
Before he even had time to wonder what he was doing back here, Ienari heard a small gasp, and quickly whipped his head towards the sound.
The boy didn't know what he had been expecting, but it certainly was not the person he was seeing in front of him.
Sitting right in front of him, staring right back at him with a dumbstruck expression on his face was a man about five years older than Ienari himself with disheveled brown hair that stuck up every which way and warm brown eyes that were stretched as wide as they could go.
Even though he looked so much younger than he should have been, this person in front of him could be none other than…
"D-dad?" he stuttered out, his anger at his father forgotten in light of the recent events.
The brunet continued to stare at him for a moment longer before giving a quick shake of his head and a gentle smile, saying, "Welcome to the year 20XX. How far into the future are you from and do you know how you got here?"
A little disconcerted at his father's calm reaction to their strange situation, Ienari quickly did the math before stuttering out his answer, saying, "I-I'm from twenty years in the future, and I got here by tripping on a new weapon that Giannini was working on."
His answer brought a thoughtful look to his father's face, and while he was thinking, Ienari took the time to study the office and the person it belonged to.
The room itself had changed little over the years; the only real difference that Ienari could see was that there weren't any pictures of him or his mom yet, and some of the pictures that were in albums in his time were hung on the wall in this time. The room still projected a feeling of safety, and Ienari found himself relaxing despite the tension of being in a time not his own with no idea of how he was going to get home.
Turning his attention back to where his father was sitting, Ienari noted with some amusement that the desk was incredibly messy; much more than his father's desk in this time. But then again, it wasn't all that surprising, seeing as the Tsunayoshi Sawada in front of him was really only five years older than him.
Studying the man's face, Ienari was really taken aback at how much younger his father seemed; he supposed that was to be expected, since it was twenty years earlier than his time, but still. It wasn't even really the lack of the wrinkles that had lately begun to form around his father's eyes, but more his expressions and mannerisms. Tsuna's eyes were so much more innocent than Ienari was used to, and his face more expressive; there was even a little bit of baby fat left around the man's cheeks.
Suddenly, the boy was snapped out of his thoughts as Tsuna made eye contact with him, then smiled a small, unsure smile.
"Gomen," he said in Japanese before continuing on in Italian, "I'm not really used to this whole boss thing yet, so it's all I can do to not freak out right now, even if I am somewhat used to time-travel."
This sentence, for some reason, shocked Ienari. A lot.
"Not…used to it?" asked the blond teen.
Looking apologetic, Tsuna sat back in his chair in a more relaxed position than he had been in before. "I only took over the family last year, you know."
"But…what about when you were younger? I mean, surely you were trained from when you were a child, right?"
For some reason, Tsuna's expression hardened a little at this, before softening again into an almost rueful smile. "You really don't know?" he asked.
"Know what?" asked Ienari, his brows furrowing; he had never, ever seen that expression on his father's face before.
Closing his eyes for a second, as if trying to picture something, Tsuna said, "I wasn't supposed to be the Vongola Decimo."
There was a moment of silence before…
"…WHAT?" exclaimed Ienari, staring at his father in shock.
Tsuna met his gaze, his eyes speaking volumes. "That's right," he said, "I didn't even know about the mafia until I was fourteen."
"But-but…how?" asked Ienari, not able to string together anything longer than two words.
Tsuna just shrugged. "Grandpa actually had three biological sons who were before me in the line to inherit the position as head. They all died, and as a direct descendant of Vongola Primo, and the son of the outside advisor of the family, I was the next choice. Reborn appeared in our house in Japan one day and told me that I was the heir."
"He told you?" asked Ienari, his eyes narrowing and hoping that that wording didn't mean what he thought it did.
His father just nodded. "I kept telling him that I didn't want to join the mafia; that I wanted to be a normal kid, but he didn't listen to me. He trained me against my will, and before I knew it I was in too deep; I'd made too many deadly enemies, but more importantly, I'd made too many precious friends. I already had a Family by the time I turned sixteen, a Family that I wouldn't give up for the world."
Ienari continued to stare at him after he finished talking, not quite sure how to react. All his life, he'd been hearing about how wonderful his father was, how his father was the best boss the Vongola had had since their founder; the teen had never considered that his father hadn't even wanted this in the first place.
Before he could say anything, Tsuna continued.
"I may have come to terms with the way things happened, and I may actually prefer the way things happened to an extent, but I don't want any child of mine to be in the same position I'd been in. When I have a son or daughter, I'm going to make sure that they know that they don't have to do it. If they don't want to, they don't have to take over the family, because their happiness is what's the most important to me," said Tsuna, a sweet smile on his face. Looking at Ienari, he tilted his head to the side curiously, asking, "Am I doing a good job, so far?"
Ienari swallowed the lump that had formed in his throat. Even before he had ever existed, his father had loved him, had put him before the Family.
Ienari remembered his father telling him, on several occasions, that he didn't have to be the next boss of the Vongola. At those times, the teen had taken it the wrong way, believing that his father thought him to be too weak to head the Vongola. Now, the blond saw just how wrong he had been.
Letting a genuinely touched smile grace his features, Ienari nodded in answer to the Decimo's question, saying, "You're doing a wonderful job. I couldn't have asked for a better father in the whole world."
Tsuna's answering smile blinding, and Ienari couldn't help the stab of guilt he felt when he remembered what had happened earlier, and what he had said to his father.
Having always seen him as a parent, Ienari had never really grasped how rare it was for someone like his father to exist; people always told him how lucky he was, but only now was he really beginning to realize the truth of it.
"That's good," said Tsunayoshi, his smile wide, his eyes closed in satisfaction. "I'm glad. I've always wondered if I would be able to do a good enough job, having had no real father figure during my childhood."
And once again, Ienari found himself immensely confused. "No real father figure?" he asked ,"But…what about grandpa Iemitsu?"
Tsuna just shrugged, answering with, "While I do love my dad a lot, and I understand that he's doing his best, he really isn't the best at being a father. He was a stranger to me as I grew up. Up until I became the official candidate for Decimo, the total amount of time I actually spent with him totaled up to about…three years, if even that. Imagine that; out of fourteen whole years, only about three of them were actually spent in the presence of my father…"
Ienari tried to imagine it; how would life be like if his father was like Iemitsu? If in all the years he'd lived so far, he'd only got to spend three years with his father, with the visits short and far between.
And he just couldn't do it. He just couldn't imagine it, because a life in which he wasn't greeted by his father when he got home from school every day, where they didn't spend holidays and birthdays together, where his father wasn't there when he needed his advice.
It was a scary thought; he and his dad were so close, surely it would have a profound impact.
With a dawning realization, Ienari murmured quietly to himself, "So that's why he always makes sure we know where he is, why he always wants to know what's going on in my life…"
His father's hearing, apparently, was a lot better than he had expected, because the man nodded in answer to his words. "Seeing your kid grow up only happens once, after all, and unlike my father, I'm not going to let that chance slip by me…"
Ienari Sawada just stared at the man in front of him; this man, who was so different from his own father, yet who still had his father's endless kindness and ability to love.
The blond was suddenly brought back to the present as he felt the corners of his eyes sting, announcing the arrival of tears.
As a single tear trickled down his cheek, the twenty-year-old Tsunayoshi smiled kindly at him, saying, "I hope you make up with your father; you have no idea how much you mean to him. I really can't wait until you're born."
This statement brought even more tears to Ienari's eyes, and just as he brought up a hand to wipe them away, he was engulfed in the same cocoon of pink smoke as before, and when it cleared up again, he found himself to still be in the office.
Only this time, it was the right office in the right time, and sitting beside the desk wasn't twenty-year-old Tsuna, but forty-year-old Tsuna, staring at him incredulously, his expression showing understanding.
"D-dad," stuttered out Ienari, swiping violently at the tears on his face as he stood up, desperate to get the words out. "I was lying, dad. I didn't mean what I said."
Quickly getting up from behind his desk, Tsuna stepped up to him with three powerful steps, embracing him with his protective arms, a smile in his voice as he said, "I know."
Ienari just burrowed his head into his dad's shirt, still protesting, trying to get the words out, "I was just a little frustrated. I really didn't mean that! I don't hate you!"
"I know."
SkyGem: Well, this plot is starting to seem a bit repetitive. I'm beginning to think I have too many "ten-year-bazooka malfunction" fics, where one of the characters has a life-changing conversation with Tsuna. I mean, there's "Mia Famiglia" and "His Saviour" as well, aren't there? Ah, well, who cares. I like this plot, and if it's getting too repetitive, then just tell me and I'll stop. Anyways, please do leave a review and tell me what you thought, ne? Ciao!
P.S. I'm planning on updating "Seven Flames Academy", "Thrown Into the Past: Gather the Guardians", and "No Need to Hide" this weekend; they should be done some time tomorrow. I'm trying my best to get them done soon, but I know that reviews really help motivate me *hinthint*.