Title: Pilot of the Sky
Rated: T
Summary: Tsunayoshi Sawada—a not-so-ordinary pilot in-training—now in search for his own loyal and trustworthy crew. Will he find them?
Warn: AU, ooc, ocs, adult!Arcobaleno, character revamps, incorrect facts, inconsistent writing style, jumping and inconsistent povs, minor profanities, absurd, weird, not beta'd.
Disc: I don't own KHR or the brands, except the ocs I guess.
A/N: Hi, just rewrote things again for the umpteenth time, added, and changed a couple of stuff 'cuz why not—also sorry for those few who actually waited for this story's update, I guess—I had to revamp the whole thing since now I have more insights with university and revitalize my interest in the story (which, as of this writing, is my top priority to finish with 20-30 chapters, at the length of a duology lol, more or less), so yeah, continue on reading and just skip this rant thing ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ #notmeanttobesarcasticIswear
Random quote from chapter: "Just a tip, a majority of chicks like men in uniform, so kudos to you for unknowingly got the upper hand, Bête-Tsuna." ~Reborn to Tsuna.
Black expensive shoes tapped along the busy corridors while the owner of said shoes hummed a light tune and greeted back short good-mornings toward the passing employees.
"Buongiorno Signor Tsunayoshi." A uniformed staff slightly bowed, whom he nodded and sheepishly smiled back before continuing to walk.
When he had arrived at his destination, the brunet man swiftly knocked twice as a short "come in," reply came from the other side. Slowly turning the metal doorknob, he quickly went inside and quietly closed the door, now facing a couple of stacks of papers piled on a dark mahogany desk and a dark-haired elderly man sitting on the opposite end. Looking around, he couldn't help but eyed the weirdly placed chameleon glass cage on the left side of the smartly designed room. It was an odd addition to the modern-theme but realizing he was staring too much, he shook his head and finally addressed the fedora-wearing man.
"You were looking for me?" said man—raven-colored hair, wearing an equally (or more) expensive and stylish-looking crisp pure black suit with a white dress shirt underneath—rose his head, before looking back at the papers in front of him.
"Hmm," was his reply, "Nono called." then shuffled the papers in his hands, "it's time."
Nodding, he sat on one of the black modern couches on one side of the office—waiting for the other man to finish the documents and sat on the opposite couch. After the older man had seated comfortably a few minutes later, he slid a medium-sized brown envelope he had on the table—letting the pure onyx eyes stare seriously at the caramel brown ones.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
"…can we stop staring now—my eyes are getting dry and I still need to go back to check my new schedule this afternoon…"
The older man rolled his eyes, "Here are the living expenses for the month—don't overuse it, again, Bête-Tsuna," as the younger man took it.
"It was only one time," Tsunayoshi Sawada grumbled, pocketing the envelope into one of the inner pockets of his jacket after folding it into a small rectangle, "I only did it once—when I was fourteen—and we've been doing this for a decade already, can't we just stop with the dramatics already…"
The aforementioned man, Richard "Reborn" René, merely put up a flat look on his face and readjusted his tie.
"Once is already enough, if you understand what I'm implying," he nonchalantly dismissed his glare and crossed his legs while placing his hands on his knee. "After careful considerations and talks with Nono, from now on your 'allowance' will be transferred directly to your bank account—we believe you're 'mature' enough to handle it with care and not misuse it like before."
After a few minutes of silently blinking at the older man in front of him, Tsuna nearly jumped from his seat and gaped his mouth.
"Wait—does that mean I don't have to come here next month—or the next month either?" at first, Reborn only gave him a blank, deadpanned look, internally wondering if his ward had finally lost his screws with him redundantly parroting his words like when they first started this mentor-student relationship a decade ago, but in the end nodded to give his confirmation.
Now grinning, Tsuna took a hand from his tutor and shook it vigorously.
"It was nice seeing you Reborn, see you next year—" the hold suddenly tightened.
"—that doesn't mean you're off from your mandatory internship here, Bête-Tsuna." the man smiled, although one would see the evil quirk from the corner of his lips even without squinting hard enough at it.
Then a sigh.
"Yes, yes, how could I forget 'the chores which Reborn doesn't want to do and just throw to his student as an internship excuse,'" Tsuna replied before suddenly cut again by the tightening hold of their handshake.
"You were saying?" the evil glint in his tutor's eyes still lingered, promising unspoken levels of misery if he continued his line of thought.
With a small grunt, Tsuna relented and changed the subject, "by the way, I never asked, but why the pet cage?"
Although it was just to reroute their conversation, he was genuinely curious about the oddly placed glass cage and chameleon ever since he first stepped into the office years ago. At first he thought it was just the older man's weird tastes, but after seeing Reborn would bring the lizard back to his apartment at the end of the day, feeding it with high-quality insects, and giving it state of the art and realistic environment inside the cage, he wondered if he just really liked it a lot.
"It was a present from a friend," Reborn replied offhandedly, not even bothering to elaborate his statement while still holding his student's hand, "any other thoughts you want to convey to me, Bête-Tsuna."
"Nope, none at all," the brunet man quickly shook his head, slowly trying to pry his hand away from his tight hold, "I still have Hunger Games for my classes, so can I go back now?"
After another few moments of silence, the older man finally let go of his student's hand with a smile. Tsuna instantly rose from his seat and gave him a mock salute, walking out of the room with a discrete amount of exasperation in his steps. Looking at the closed door, Reborn glanced back to the small calendar on his table, a small red dot was put on just below the date for last week's today with the words, "First day of the Last Year."
"Still no good with the atmosphere, huh…"
Shaking his head, the raven-haired man rose from the black sofa and sat back on his desk. As time passed by, he only propped his cheek on his palm while his other hand quietly tapped the wooden surface, ignoring the piles of work on it (he still had time to do those later). His mind was still deep in thought as he heard a couple of glass taps from the side. Glancing to the right, he saw the large green chameleon was projecting its long tongue to catch the small fly on the other side of the glass. Reborn chuckled as he stood up, grabbing a medium-sized plastic box from the cabinet under the glass cage and took out some bugs to the inside of the cage.
As he watched his chameleon, Leon, ate the bugs with subtle delight, the older man finally crossed his arms, genuinely smiling this time.
"Yeah, there's still next time."
Without waiting for an answer, he went back to his desk and resumed his work.
"Dammit Reborn—just because you're the tutor doesn't mean you can just dump your work on me," Tsuna grumbled under his breath, still very much annoyed because of earlier events, whilst prowling his way through the sea of people walking along the not-so-busy roads of Canicattì in midday. He had gone back from Palermo by train and although it was nearing the start of Autumn, the summer heat still lingered in the Sicily Island. So by loosening the tie from his buttoned white dress shirt and shrugging off the black pinstriped jacket from his shoulders, he tucked them on one of his arms and wiped the drops of sweat on his forehead after rolling up his sleeves to elbow-high.
(He was still not used to using the suit even after years of wearing them. Formal wear? Sure. Long-sleeved dress shirts? No problem. But tight suits for business-wear? Yeah, thank you, but no thank you.)
With a blue shoulder bag on his back hung firmly on his left shoulder and a sleek black iPhone on his other hand, he lazily swiped his thumb from tab to tab. A sigh escaped his lips as he scrolled through the unread messages in his mail—
(It was mostly junk-mail to be honest, nothing worth any notice in his eyes. Though there was one with a very interesting caption on its title, "Got some new flavours from him today, and it's weird." by a close friend of his and an incoming one from his mom. He should check these later.)
—when a very familiar red-and-green mini-mart banner came into his view.
"Better get some food for tonight." pocketing his phone, Tsuna gingerly walked inside and felt the cool air sweeping away the heat from his body.
A dark-haired employee carrying a couple of cardboard boxes noticed him walking and tried to wave his hand with a grin, "ciao Tsuna, here for the usual?"
"Ciao Lu," he waved back, taking a shopping bag and began to roam the front shelves, "yeah, just the usual." Buy eggs, milk, bacon, oil, salt, beef—what else?
"You should get some cheese and basil—they're on half for the day." the young worker, Luigi Benzo, suggested, as if he had just read his mind.
(The young teen had a knack to those sorts of things, saying things out of the blue ever since the brunet first came to the family-owned mini-mart near his apartment and met the dark-haired part-timer three years ago. At first, he was a bit unnerved by his extraneous comments like he had read his mind, but after a while, he didn't mind it at all and sometimes missed the constant inputs by him when he wasn't there during his off-days. And besides, the teen was kind enough to talk to the awkward man so there was that.)
Tsuna shrugged, already used to it, taking said items into his shopping bag. After he was satisfied with his findings around the market, he went back toward the entrance to the cashier to pay his groceries.
"Oh my, another big purchase today," the dark-haired cashier operator, Felicia Benzo, noted as she scanned his purchase and counted the total. "having a couple of guests tonight?"
"Ah no Signora Benzo," the brunet man shook his head, taking out his wallet to grab a couple of euro bills from it after looking over the total of his purchase and gave it to the elderly woman, "just my neighbors as usual."
Luigi grinned as he slyly walked by his mother's counter, his hands a bit dirty from moving the boxes from before, "is this neighbor the one with the boxing brother, Tsuna?" while wiggling his eyebrows toward the older man.
"You mean that Kyoko-girl from Friday?" before the taller man could retort the younger teen, a deeper voice questioned from behind one of the wooden racks, a slightly balding head with a mustache on his face peered out from it with his eyes slightly widened at the news.
Sighing, Tsuna could only nod at the newcomer walking toward them.
The mustached man, Pietro Benzo, laughed, patting the back of the Japanese man with minimal force. "Mio Dio! Who would've thought you're the one Little Kyoko was talking about!" now grabbing his shoulder, "when I asked her why she wanted to buy some fish a couple of days ago, she told me because it's her turn to cook that day—don't tell me you two are dating?"
"N-no, no we're not," Tsuna quickly shook his head, his cheeks slightly reddened from embarrassment, "it's just a ritual of sorts with me, her, and her brother—we only do it every other day."
"I see, I see," the taller man responded as his other hand held his chin in a thinking pose, grinning, "then if you're still single, my daughter's still looking one, so how about dat—" when a large bag of bread flew to the older man's face, cutting him off from finishing his sentence.
"Dammit Cia, Daddy here's trying to get you a man you know!"
The culprit, Lucia Benzo, gave her father a menacing glare from the near back of the store, her teeth ground into a sneer while her hands had a couple more of the bags as ammo to throw again at him.
Although the store was slightly bigger than the average family-owned mini-mart, one that could rival a medium-sized franchised one, it still had the homely vibe and a single counter to be more personal and engaging to their customers. So if one called from the front loud enough, everyone could hear it through the store's high ceiling clearly.
"I already have someone I like—besides Tsuna's not even my type and he's old," she hissed, then gave the bewildered brunet man a deadpan expression, "no offense Tsuna."
Blinking, Tsuna shook his head with a smile. "None taken, Cia."
Luigi, on the other hand, scoffed to his older sister, giving her a smirk, "yeah right, a gorilla like you actually capable of liking someone? Get real Sis." as another large bag of bread was chucked to his head.
(Fortunately, the store wasn't that busy today, or else there would be unwanted passerby casualties and spilled goods on the ground from frightened customers.)
As the verbal, and bags of bread throwing, war escalated, Felicia smiled apologetically to the dazed brunet man and gave him his change, tapping him of the shoulder. He gave her a smile and a nod, taking the change and putting his items into his blue foldable bag (which he almost forgot to take out earlier from his bag because of the younger teen's unprompted statement).
"Thank you, Signora Benzo," he smiled wryly, "and sorry for… that…" pointing to the "war spoils" with his eyes in regret as she chuckled, waving his concerns goodnaturedly.
"Oh don't sweat it, Dear," the elder woman laughed, then gestured him to come closer as she whispered, "just between you and me, Lu and Pie are actually very anxious about Cia's lack of love-life—they are worried that she'll never have a partner with how 'ungirly' she acts."
Chuckling and amused, Tsuna shook his head, "I'm sure someone will find her charming, inside and out, Signora Benzo."
"I hope so," the dark-haired woman sighed, her right cheek propped onto her right palm, "at least now we know she actually has someone she likes, so that's a first." moments later, she shook her head and smiled again to Tsuna.
"Anyway, enough of me complaining," Felicia grinned (if it weren't for the slight wrinkles near her mouth, the brunet man would never have thought the elder woman in front of him was actually the same age as his mother), placing her hands on her hips, "I hope your dinner with that Kyoko-girl goes well tonight, Dear—don't forget to tell me when you start dating her okay."
Tsuna could only meekly nod (it was rather futile to amend the Benzo matriarch after multiple denials from him) and waved good-byes to the rest of the family when the tension had waned a bit. ("I'll be waiting for your wedding with her 'kay Tsuna!" "Again, there's nothing between me and my neighbor, Lu—") Now walking through the not-so-busy roads again, the brown-eyed man adjusted the cloth bag to his left hand as he looked over his inbox to see if there were any new e-mails in it. Noticing the only ones still on top were the ones from his mother and former schoolmate, the corners of his lips quirked a little.
He really wanted to read it right there right now, but for the sake of reading it with wholeheartedly in the comfort in his own space, he ultimately shut the screen off and put it in his pants pocket.
Thinking further, as his steps slowly mellowed from its previous pace of flustered haste, he began to wonder about his mother. It had been more than six years since he last saw her in person—a painful toll for having to focus on his studies with a personal tutor his distant grandfather had hired as the legal heir of the family business since his father was unavailable for the position—he wondered… if she ever felt lonely with him here and most of their family members nowhere in sight anymore back in their hometown…
Tsuna stopped his tracks as he gathered his thoughts and reeled his head.
No, better not muddle my thoughts—there's still a year left, you can do it, Tsuna. For Mom.
With the smile resurfacing on his lips, he continued his stride on the pavewalk until he saw a red eleven story building came into view a few blocks away from his location. La Casa de Rossa. It was one of the numerous apartment blocks in Canicattì; near the heart of the city, multiple stores, cheap eateries, and a few meters away from the train stations directly heading to his university. It was simply the perfect place to be living in as a university student.
Opening the main doors of the building when he arrived in front of it, Tsuna slightly smiled at the passing flat occupants. He then opened the glass doors on the middle of the floor with a swipe of his resident card and pressed the elevator button as he waited for it to come down. The apartment was still fairly new, only had its fifth anniversary last April, so it had cost a bit more than average. While it was fairly more costly than its similar competitors, the apartment was mostly always full all year round and had many people wanting to rent it whenever it had an opening because of its wide range of services, reliable security, and modern room designs.
The brunet man eyed the little screen above the elevator as the numbers counted down to Ground and opened its door, entering it and pushed the number ten floor after swiping his resident card. Although back then when there were rooms available on the first floor of the apartment, Tsuna wasn't able to choose it and only managed to get the one on the very top floor because of his tutor. So because of that, he had to use the elevator or begrudgingly use the emergency stairs if the power ever went out.
(Tsuna sometimes wondered if Reborn picked it just to spite him when he asked for a room on the first three floors of the apartment block three years ago. Perhaps he shouldn't have pranked him a few months prior to his moving, back then…)
As the elevator chimed, signaling he had arrived at his floor, Tsuna walked out of the metal contraption and began to stride toward his room number. Putting the card back into his pocket, the brunet man pulled out his keys from his shirt pocket, the numbers "1010" were written on the orange keychain hanged on the keyhole. He lightly hummed as he passed by the doors and arrived at the very last one on the corner, inserting and turning the key to the right to unlock it. As he was about to turn his doorknob, he heard the one behind him opened and looked back.
It was a long-haired brunette woman carrying out three plastic bags of waste. Seeing this, Tsuna immediately put down his luggage on the ground and helped her took the bags.
Blinking, Kyoko Sasagawa looked up and then smiled when she realized whose hand they were, "oh, Tsuna-kun, I didn't know you're back already."
"Just got back to be honest," he replied, gently swatting away her one free hand when she tried to take the two medium sized plastic bags from him, "anyway, let me help you throw these out, I also need to throw mine as well."
The young woman glanced over at his laid baggage on the ground and rolled her eyes, a few moments later she walked toward his door and opened it, with one hand carrying his blue foldable bag (in a swift move she had also placed his suit jacket inside the bag) and his small blue bag on her shoulder. When he wanted to tell her he would put them himself later, Kyoko waved a hand at him, a gesture she didn't want to hear any more excuses from him.
"At least put them in the fridge first," she entered the two bedrooms flat with ease and turned left to the kitchen, first putting his shoulder bag and her plastic bag on the pantry. "Ooh, you even bought cheese and beef, are we having lasagna tonight?"
As she placed his groceries in the fridge, he shook his head with a grin, softly looking over her back from his doorway. "If I told you, it won't be a surprise you know—you were the one who wanted something unexpected tonight, Kyoko-chan."
"True," Kyoko agreed, turning her body after finishing her self-appointed task, folded back the blue back into a small package (smoothly placing it into the magnetic fabric bag on the fridge as Tsuna usually did), and grabbed her plastic bag with Tsuna's own plastic bag from the kitchen's trash bin. As she locked the door and handed over his keys back to him, the brunette woman tilted her head when she noticed his stare. "what's wrong? Is there something on my face?"
Tsuna blinked, his cheeks slightly reddened as he realized he was caught staring at her, and quickly swayed his head to the side, the tips of his ears were also red from embarrassment. "I-it's nothing," he muttered, "b-by the way, Oniisan is also eating tonight, right?"
As she didn't press further on his odd behavior (though, she did find his reaction adorable), Kyoko nodded her head, "yeah, Oniichan was really excited about it this morning before he went to his match today."
"I better make tonight extra super surprise special for him then," he chuckled, recalling the shorter woman's older brother.
Back when he just started to move into the flat, Ryohei Sasagawa (and also with the help of his little sister) had helped him unpack his things and tidy-up the place. When they had finished arranging his belongings, he had offered them dinner as a way to say thank you. At first they declined ("It's just what neighbors do—no need to think about it, Sawada-san." "Yeah, the extreme way, Sawada!"), but after some probing the two siblings finally relented to his puppy-dog eyes and ever since then they would have dinner together every other day when the three realized they were going to the same university together, albeit in different departments. And up until now, the tradition never waned between them, to the point of Ryohei telling him to call him as "Oniisan" and generally dropping any formalities between the young adults three years ago.
(And that wasn't even including other traditions like walking together to class every day, movie nights every Fridays, and dessert-hunting once a month to name a few.)
As they strolled the hallway to the middle of the building floor, the conversations had moved to other topics until it went full circle back to the matter of tonight's dinner when they had reached the compact waste disposal chute beside the mailbox one and the elevator.
"By the way, do you need help buying more ingredients at I Viveri?" Kyoko asked after she had put her plastic bags into the disposal chute, eying the taller man beside her as he began to throw his own in it.
I Viveri—the name of the Benzo's family mart and the place he wouldn't want to be right now in fear of growing additional misunderstandings between him and his neighbor than it already had.
Remembering the name, Tsuna suddenly recalled the Benzo patriarch's word and shook his head to her, "i-it's okay, I bought plenty of them, it's should be fine—and besides you and I both know whose cooking is more ingredient-efficient, Kyoko-chan."
"I was still learning how to cook back then, okay," the brunette woman pouted, lightly swatting his shoulder and crossed her arms at him, "for your information, I'm much more competent and economical than I was three years ago—my group did manage to get more points than yours last semester."
The brunet man rolled his eyes but didn't comment on it, as he was more relieved the topic had steered away to another one. The event in question was their university's cultural community's annual quarterly cook-off, the Japanese Communal Cook-off. It was one of the biggest events in the community, so participating in it was a must. If the members weren't able to attend because of one reason or another (that had to be very viable and sensible), they could attend other events to fill the minimum quota.
(Rumor had it that all of the communities in the university had a unanimous rule, no matter how minuscule the community was. He didn't know what it was, but he had heard hushed whispers that years ago there were a couple of students who managed to break the unspoken rule and was harshly punished by the committee members. Although it was probably just a way to scare the new students so they wouldn't misbehave, he wouldn't count it out as many rumor usually had some truth in it.)
Anyway, last semester he was fairly busy with his classes (and Reborn) so he didn't take mind or major parts in his group's plan, resulting in them barely passing with an okay from the judges. On the other hand, Kyoko had managed to up her cooking skills with her own group and got second place in the event.
To be honest, Tsuna had always thought her cooking was superb ever since he tasted them three years ago, even on par with the ones in a three-star restaurant in Italy. It was because of how unconfident she was with her cooking skill and often compared herself with his own which baffled him.
(The only reason he even had a passable cooking skill was because of his tutor. If the older man didn't have high standards to put up in his daily life, he probably wouldn't even try to pick up a knife unless it was his last resort.)
Removing all the negative thoughts from his head, the brunet man chuckled again when he noticed they had arrived back at the front doors. With a wave, he gestured her to go back to her flat. "Go, I'll knock you when they're ready, by the way, when will Oniisan get back?"
Kyoko glanced over her silver smartphone, "around six I think." on the digital clock was 15.35, so there was still plenty of time to prepare the "surprise" dinner. Eying him again from her doorway, she looked at him with a serious face (which was rather cute in his opinion) and asked again. "Are you really sure you don't need my help, Tsuna-kun?"
With a laugh he nodded, pushing her shoulders inside the flat. "Yeah, I'm pretty sure—we've been doing this for years already, you should put more faith in my cooking skills, Kyoko-chan."
Frowning, she watched as he trod back to his own flat and (cutely) stuck out a tongue at him when he turned his back to see her, "then don't come crying to ask my help when Oniichan comes back home early 'kay." and softly closed the door after her hair swished at the ends, leaving him momentarily dumbfounded and unconsciously entered his apartment.
Blinking, he leaned back on the closed door and slowly clutched his chest, hoping it would calm down the pounding noise of his heart, while the other hand covered his slowly reddened face. After a few minutes of calming down his breathing and pounding heartbeat, he sighed and lightly ran his fingers through his short spiky hair, unconsciously messing up the locks in the process.
(There was a time when his hair was "as thick a lion's mane," as his mentor eloquently put it, but because of a bad habit he always did whenever he was in deep thoughts or got stuck in a metaphorical rut (aka messing up his hair to a point of no return), one day the older man burst into his room and cut his hair until it was as short as today. From then on, whenever his hair got way too long (aka 10 cm above Reborn-approved spike length), the man would blitz him with scissors in hands, leaving Tsuna 10% more traumatized and always cut his hair even before it even grew to the 5 cm mark until this day.)
"What the heck is wrong with me…" he muttered, fingers still running through his hair, "I never had any problems whenever I'm alone with Kyoko before—so why now…"
Looking down at his other hand, which was still hovering over his chest, he could feel the rapid heartbeat slowly returned to its normal state. Even and calm. Back to its previous heart rate.
Tsuna then scrunched his eyebrows, confused.
For the last few years of knowing and interacting with the young woman, he never had this kind of reaction before—until recently at least. He didn't remember exactly when he started to have this kind of reaction on her, but he recalled it was the first time he thought her to be really cute (like really, really cute) after she accidentally knocked her dondurma into her face. The ice cream had slightly covered the tip of her nose, and had made the rest of their group of travelers (Tsuna and her brother, Ryohei) laugh, but she only smirked and put some of her own dondurma into his own nose as revenge, while giggling very cutely, he might add.
As he remembered her addictive laugh, he could feel his heart rate suddenly quickened and the blush rushing to his cheeks again.
Tsuna had tried to find the reasons why he began to act like this, even to the point of asking his tutor for advice. The older man, as monotone and sadistic he may be, had always been regarded as a father-figure in his eyes in the years of studying under him, so it was understandable to ask the man first a few months after the dondurma incident. What peeved him though was the man's deadpanned look and nonchalant reply after he had poured out his heart and earnestly waited for his genuine thoughts around his predicament, by saying.
"Just a tip, a majority of chicks like men in uniform," he snorted at his charge's dumbfounded face, "so kudos to you for unknowingly got the upper hand, Bête-Tsuna." then ushered him to leave his office after giving his two-cents on the matter.
That. Was. Not. Helping. Dammit!
(And also, why did chicks even had to do with his problems—baby chickens couldn't even tell the difference between a duck and a hen, for goodness sake!)
Clenching his fists as he tried to suppress his ire, in the end, Tsuna mostly cursed his mentor alone in his apartment and constantly had similar symptoms for the next few weeks until he had managed to control it to be barely normal reactions to the naked eye. The oblivious naked eye, at least.
(In another news, if it was somehow related to weirdly specific diseases with weirdly specific symptoms, the brunet man would definitely grill the man for only telling him in "tips" and riddles.)
Long story short, it was a puzzling development he never had before.
Shaking his head as he gazed over his clock, he realized a half an hour had passed from his ponderings. Tsuna blanched.
He hadn't even started on choosing out the recipe yet!
Panicked, the brunet momentarily forgot about his previous issues and began to search his phone for a recipe. Starting to cook after finding the perfect one, he ignored the nags in his head as the time ticked by. If there was one thing he learned from the years of being Reborn's charge, it was sensible actions first and stupid thoughts later, so by the time he had finished, Kyoko and Ryohei had knocked on his door. As he sniffed the air, a gleeful grin was plastered on the older man's face and a smile bloomed on the younger woman's lips.
With a smile, Tsuna greeted them full heartedly.
Sure, there were still some unanswered questions he wanted to keep pondering for the rest of the night alone in his room, but seeing their happy expressions from all of their weird routines had always warmed his heart. If it meant he would be better off shoving away his thoughts about his abnormal reactions, it was definitely worth it.
He wouldn't even change it for the world anyway.
Random fun facts:
- Dondurma - Turkish mastic ice cream, one of its charms (for me, at least) is the vendor's tricks to play with the customers before giving them their ice cream.
- Bête - French for "stupid, idiotic, or foolish."
- La Casa de Rossa - Italian for "The Red House," while researching apartments in Italy, some of them use the word "casa" which means "house," the more you know.
~G L. [Surabaya, 09.02.2019]