Their paths have only crossed once, twice, and yet each of them have somehow memorized the angular contours of their faces, the swaying of their hips in a rainy day, the quirk of sharp lips on a joke, blood, or any poison of their own choice.
Rewind:
It was raining. He's walking home without an umbrella back to his house, surprisingly alone because sometimes the presence of the family can be an awfully stifling, choking thing. Tsuna rather thinks that rings and smiles are brilliant, seductive ways of chaining him to others without his knowledge; inch by inch breaking him open gratefully to know what his new friends were like. Hello, hello. This is my heart; can I keep yours? Can I keep yours? Can I --
The streets were cold and unfamiliar without his friends, but it's silent for once and he thinks it's a cooling, satisfying thing. Momentary, but enough.
A sharp glint at the next street light catches his attention. What was it? The rain was making it hard to see. He wipes the water in his eyes, tries not to think how much it awfully feels like ice on his skin (it's too cold; too cold, when the hell did it get this cold?) and tries to see. Was it just the collar of a cat, glinting underneath the lamppost? Was it an assassin? Was it --
--a boy, it turns out, and just as soaked as he is, although he doesn't seem to mind. There was a crown on his hand and it glinted eerily in the light.
"Hello, hello!" The boy walks up to him and he instinctively walks a few steps back. Eyes hidden, smile too wide it looked as if it could snap his face in half (what, is he a doll? a pawn?), a silver crown dangerously tipping to a side of his head (like it doesn't want to be there).
"You're soaking wet."
"A-ah. So are you," he adds shyly. He feels kind of dorky just standing in the rain and talking to someone he doesn't know but he doesn't seem to bad, he doesn't seem to be dangerous (the crown glints sharply against the gentle rain).
He walks slowly, looking to the boy as he did so -- come with me, would you like to come walk with me? Hello, hello. This is my heart; can I keep yours? Can I keep yours? Can I -- The boy with a crown cocks his head to a side, grin never faulting, until he jauntily walks with him and dimly Tsuna can hear the whispering of knives.
But that could be nothing, because how can knives be present outside in the rain, and not in the kitchen, where they belong? Or they could belong within boxes containing hearts and souls (we're in the mafia, after all) and Tsuna doesn't want to think of that either.
They walk a little slowly in the rain.
"What's your name," the boy asks, spitting the words out like a rehearsed script.
"Sawada... Sawada Tsunayoshi..." he smiles and sticks out his tongue to catch a few drops of rain, one, two. The boy with the crown chuckles weird and he imitates him, too, sticking his tounge out to catch some rain.
Tsuna notices that it was a weird shade of red and shudders.
"What's your name?"
"Shishishi, I can't give that to you! You're not royal enough." He skips around and dances haphazardly, violently on the streets and Tsuna had to yank his arm to make sure he didn't crash onto walls. "You're not enough!"
"Ah, stop dancing so much, you might slip and hurt yourself! The roads are too slippery to--"
"Shishishi, why are you walking alone, little ghost? You're nowhere as good as my king"
The rain falls harder now. It might turn into a storm later on. "I don't understand you," he says, and he tries to make his voice louder because the rain was turning into a storm and it was eating his voice. "I don't understand --"
"Ah, but you don't understand anything yet!"
The crown glinted underneath the storm. He twirls and twirls and when he stops, right in front of him, produces two silver knives and waves them casually before his eyes. "You don't understand anything, little ghost"
Tsuna freezes, stops underneath the rain and the boy -- and the boy --
--and he moves so fast, so fast that Tsuna didn't even have time to react --
...he falls backwards, eyes closed and when he opens them there is no-one there anymore, no crown nor boy with silver knives and unwavering grins. There is a thin line of blood from his shoulder blade to the edge of his shoulder, very thin, barely perceptible, but the blood was there and the pain was there.
He hears the thunder roaring from the heavens and he runs the rest of the way to his house, panting and scared. What is he? What was that? A pawn, a doll, a little toy --
They were all there, patiently waiting for him and Gokudera even brings him a towel, some extra clothes and fusses over him and Yamamoto smiles and everyone smiles and he's glad that he's back.
"Tsu-kun! Change into some other clothes, you might get sick already! mou, you should've let your friends accompany you home --"
"It's okay, mom, I'm fine, I won't leave my umbrella again --" He's walking to the stairs now.
"10th, please don't go home by yourself alone! It's quite dangerous outside and who knows--"
"Hehe, Tsuna, look, I brought some sushi! My dad gave me too much again today and I figured I should--"
Hello, hello. This is my heart; can I keep yours? Can I keep yours? Can I --
Reborn glances at his shoulder and says nothing, but he leaves some bandages for Tsuna on his bed. He picks them up wordlessly, lets them fall because his hands were still shaking, picks them up again, determined now, and makes sure to hide the little wound. They didn't have to see it; they were going to have a party tonight for his latest test results -- something higher than thirty percent, miraculously -- and nobody had to be upset right now. They didn't have to see it.
He shudders to think that there might be boys with crowns dancing underneath storms at night, and wishes that he never dreams of him, or meets him accidentally in the streets again.