Tsuna led a doubtlessly boring life, with boring people and boring places. In fact, God could run out of demons down in hell and just say, "Hey, that Sawada kid looks free!" and pop! Tsuna and his meaningless life would be over. No one would even notice, excluding his mother who'd honestly just assume he was asleep.
Worst of all, Tsuna was hyper-aware of the boringness of his being. He was boring to the extent of being a kitten. And now, you may say kittens are fascinating, but nobody ever called Tibbles Einstein, did they? Tsuna was passively adorable, and could maybe learn to drive a car and make it big as the first cat to do so, but basically spent his day chasing the string that no one else wanted.
He was so boring, that he even knew his schedule off by heart: be boring.
Boom.
In fact, Tsuna was so boring, that he no longer cared how boring he was. He was even bored, and maybe someday he'd change and become a mafia boss or something equally crazy, but for now he was just… boring.
He was so boring, that he even knew that he'd said boring eleven times. Twelve. Dammit.
After thirteen years of waiting for something to happen, for anything to happen, he gets a lucky break in someone else's unluckiness. In fact, it really isn't all that lucky, because he has to convince a suicidal baseball player to get the hell of the school roof. He doesn't say that word to word, but he kind of means it. Like, durh. The guy was the school's sport star. He mattered. Tsuna really doesn't want one of the interesting people in the school to die, and really, he has no reason to live himself, so he runs up to the rooftop. The boy, who Tsuna recognizes as Yamamoto Takeshi, glances back when he hears the door shut behind Tsuna, who's clumsy enough to slam it. So much for subtle.
Tsuna decides that he is fed up with boring. He walks up to beside Yamamoto, and says as bravely as he can for a boring coward, "If you jump, I jump too."
For some reason, Yamamoto decides not to jump, and Tsuna is left disappointed. It is, however, the start of a dysfunctional friendship, and Tsuna isn't lonely anymore.
Takeshi is really an idiot, and that brings out the equal idiot in Tsuna, so now he is a little less boring. Now he's stupid, which isn't much of a promotion, but Tsuna takes it.
They study together, and really, Tsuna thinks it makes them even stupider, but he doesn't tell Yamamoto. The weirdo seems to enjoy hanging out with Dame-Tsuna, and that's… interesting. Yamamoto is fascinating naturally, and Tsuna supposes that's why he's so popular. He doesn't need to be smart. Then again, the logic doesn't work with Hibari Kyoya, so Tsuna takes it back. If something doesn't work with Hibari, then it's not worth it. 'Worth' being the cost of your life.
Tsuna learns this when, a week into being stupid with Takeshi, he comes late to school. It's ironic really, because he's misplaced his boring uniform black shoe, and he knows he'll be 'bitten to death' if he can't find it. He's attacked with twice the power he expected as he enters Nanimori Middle as a straggler, a full minute late. Hibari doesn't hold back, and his tonfas are damn sharp. Tsuna had previously wanted to believe that they were fakes, but that was just wistful thinking. Tsuna loses hope in humanity, and, with his final breaths, bites Hibari Kyoya like a madman.
Maybe he isn't as boring as he imagined, Tsuna thinks, as his teeth sink through Hibari's hand and tear. He staggers away, spitting out a pink-red fleshy liquid, ignoring the 'carnivore's' narrowed eyes watching him.
Gross! He thinks, and in that moment considers the flavour of souls. Hibari's following move screams 'bitch puh-lease!' and Tsuna ducks as tonfas rain down on him. Hibari is grinning and successfully doppelganging Satan, with teeth as sharp as knives. Thank god that Hibari hadn't bitten him with them, or Tsuna would really be fearing for his life.
Wait, what life? Since when has Sawada Tsunayoshi had a life?
Crap, Tsuna thinks. He has a life now, and it is way too soon to lose it. And it's not like he suddenly develops super powers or anything- but he totally does. It's all like whoop! And BAM! and Snap! And… well, you get the point.
Somehow, though, Tsuna still ends up on the ground. He may have gotten a little too anime and tried to backflip, but let it be known that it has never been said that Tsuna was sporty in the first place.
Awkward, Tsuna stares up at the rabies-infected dog, who's probably foaming at the mouth. Hibari looks blankly down at him, humming "Kill him, kill him not," ripping petals off of flowers… you get the idea.
"Tch," Hibari mutters suddenly, twirling –yes, twirling. His cape spun in the wind. It was kind of beautiful. Silently, the vampire stalks back toward the school.
Tsuna watches him go, exhilarated, and strangely disappointed.
Maybe he's not quite as boring as he thought, he decides. And maybe he has a life. But it took two life-threatening situations to realize this, and Tsuna isn't going to stop there.
Over the next month he comes late every Monday, walks shoeless each Tuesday, wears a skirt on Wednesdays, forgets his shirt for Thursday, and attempts to hug Hibari on Friday.
Honestly, he's not sure how he's still alive. He is stupid on a whole new level now, and even Takeshi is impressed. The school nurse knows him by name now, and they know so much about each other from small talk that she's now one of his best friends. He knows her as Bianchi, and by this point he's realized she knows nothing about first-aid. She confides in him that she actually threatened her ex's boyfriend Benvolio, and the only payment he could offer was a job in his uncle's school. She'd been hoping to teach Home Economics, and was, well, fairly pissed off. Italian headlines now read 'Gay Couple Still Missing' and 'Romeo and Benvolio Presumed Dead'.
Bianchi is very much not-boring. Tsuna was proud to have her as a friend.
She approves of his attention-seeking with Hibari, even though she calls it by a very different name. "You are quite the seductress, Tsunayoshi," she tells him proudly. Tsuna doesn't bother correcting her, because it was her genius idea to wear a skirt on Wednesdays. For this he forgives her. The first time he dressed up sans trousers Hibari's grey eyes seemed to bore into his soul. Tsuna felt they really shared a moment there, even as he ducked under a blood-stained tonfa.
Fridays are no less interesting, and Hibari has left so many marks on his chest that Tsuna can finally call himself a badass, even if it's not by the means he expected. When he looks at the cuts in the mirror at a certain angle with the lights dim, Tsuna is pretty sure he can make out a smiley face. It's like cloud watching. Except with battle scars. He traces something resembling a love heart and grins. It's so worth it.
Hibari seems to be at the top of the food chain, and Tsuna can't argue with that. But when the carnivore finally accepts Tsuna as a fellow animal he is ecstatic! He can't fight the grin pulling on his lips as Hibari nonchalantly refers to him as 'Little Maned Wolf'.
Tsuna feels this is one leap forward in their maladjusted relationship, and rushes to the library to look up the furry creature.
And it is freaking adorable.
It has legs like a baby deer, and the fur of a fox. It is an efficient killer, but only hunts when necessary for food. It's skittish and shy around humans, but often steals their chickens like a BAMF behind their backs. A Bambi-Assed Murder Fox. It all made so much sense now.
Tsuna finds this an acceptable caricature and stops his weekly attempts to, as Bianchi knows it as, 'Make Senpai Notice Him'. Because, Yandere-Chan, Tsuna has caught the attention of this man-bitch. He is unsure of whether this is good or bad, though it certainly makes for an interesting bond. But as attractive as the prefect was, Tsuna no longer was the happy roof-jumper he once was. He hasn't even said 'boring' the last 368 words- dammit.
He's still stupid though.
It's probably because of this that he doesn't notice Bianchi noticing Takeshi noticing Hibari noticing him, and ignores the pink-haired girl's fanfictions and what she calls 'shipping'. He accepts that she is rather messed up, and moves on.
Or, at least, he could have- had he not stumbled on the things she wrote.
After recovering from what truly could have traumatized him for life, Tsuna realizes he now has a goal in life. He is going to write a book, and it is going to tell all his fellow poor unfortunates how to stop being boring.
Somewhere along the way, Tsuna realized the book was actually turning out sincere. It had never been intentional, and maybe it hurt a little that he had forgotten how sad it was to be boring. Boring was pain that wasn't there. Boring was uncertainty. Boring was meaningless. It was depressing, really, how his feelings escaped in white paper and black font.
At twelve years of age, my own mother began knowing me as 'Dame-Tsuna'. I don't believe she meant the offense, but as the slur turned into a casual routine, I felt myself resign to the name. If my own mother no longer cared about my feelings, who was I to? I think I wanted to die, in those moments. I never considered suicide, too cowardly to do so, but forever wondered what would happen if I died simply and silently. Just slipped away into nothing in my room? Would my mother notice- my schoolmates, neighbours? Would anyone stop to ask where the Sawada boy went? Would anyone care? Or would my name fall like a trodden Sakura flower, dead and forgotten? My name held no meaning, and nor did my smiles. I was alone. At my funeral, even I would ask, "Who was Sawada Tsunayoshi?"
He never could have guessed how this one book would spin his life around, all because of one meeting on a rooftop and a dying will to change.
Tsuna didn't want to be boring, and that's what started it all.
AU- Huzzah. This was supposed to be a random one-shot, but it only got weirder. It'll probably be a three-shot, I'd assume. This world is totally AU, and I'm not saying whether Dying Will flames will play a part, but Tsuna's still the same idiot we all know and love. TsunaXAll, because everyone is awesome. He will be OOC, but, well, AU. Not the same guy. A parallel Tsuna, you could say, but with the same Dame mindset and ideals. Thanks for reading!
