Hi, guys! This is a companion fic to "Lies and Promises are Both Made of Words." I'd recommend reading that one first.
This got suuuuper angsty again. This anime is like the happiest action-ish show ever but I'm incapable of writing anything but sadness for it for some reason, which is even weirder considering my track record. Anyway, I hope you enjoy!
Hayato has never viewed soulmates with the same rose-tinted glasses as the rest of the world. If you ask him, everyone would be a lot better off if they were left with the ability to choose, rather than having their souls assigned at birth to some stranger.
That's probably why no one asks.
Hayato has never really questioned why his mother seemed to hate him so much. He never questions why she encourages Bianchi to feed him so often, or why he looks nothing like her, or why the servants whisper about him behind their hands. It is the way of things; always had been, always would be.
Every year, on his birthday, his mother can't seem to stand the sight of him. He gets sent to an out-of-the-way (his mother likes him best that way) villa, and spends the day in the company of a young woman who plays the piano with him. His minders point and whisper at the crimson letters that ring her neck like a choker or a noose when they think he can't see them. Your playing is almost as beautiful as you are.
He asks her about them once. She falters, her fingers clawing a discordant sound out of the piano they are seated at. She hesitates and glances at the servants, who hastily look away, and her eyes go steely.
"Soul marks are what lead us to our other halves," she says, voice soft but firm. "They're our destiny, and they mean that no one can ever truly separate you. To do so is the greatest of sins."
"Did you ever meet yours?" Hayato asks.
"I did," she says, and gently touches his face. "You will as well, gattino. Promise me that when you do, you will never let anyone take you away from them."
Hayato nods obediently.
She smiles, and they continue to play.
When Hayato returns home, he asks his father if he has ever met his soulmate.
His mother slaps him.
He never sees the young woman again.
When he's called in for a job by the Vongola, Hayato feels a giddy thrill. Maybe this time he'll finally be accepted by a famiglia. He's supposed to test the heir, both to see if he's worthy and show him what to expect from the mafia world. The kid grew up a civilian - this will be a piece of cake.
He brushes up on his Japanese and threatens and bribes his way into Sawada's class. The moment he claps eyes on him, he feels a distinct, alien swell of emotion. Most of his experiences with emotions this strong have been limited to anger or fear, and he hates being scared, so he settles on anger.
"Well, Gokudera-kun, you can take your seat now," the teacher drones. Hayato marvels at hearing someone use his actual name, after so long going by Smoking Bomb or half-breed or bastard, but the vast majority of his attention is focused on Sawada Tsunayoshi. He strides over, watching his eyes widen like those of a terrified rabbit, and kicks over his desk. Sawada looks like he might make a break for it, trembling wildly, but remains completely silent. Hayato clicks his tongue disdainfully, deafening in the classroom's shocked quiet, and walks by without a second glance.
The more he watches Sawada, the more disgusted he becomes. He never says anything. He has no friends. He's stupid and unathletic. He lets himself get bullied without doing a thing to defend himself. He's scrawny, weak, useless.
A kid like this is gonna lead the Vongola? A kid like this, untrained and unremarkable, is worthy to be part of a famiglia, due to blood and blood alone? A kid like this gets all that, and Hayato doesn't get anything?!
To make matters worse, he's got shit instincts. He constantly watches that Yamamoto kid like he's going to bite him, even though Hayato is clearly the bigger threat. If he looks at anyone like that, it should be him.
What an idiot.
This all eventually comes to a head. Hayato is seething with emotions he can't quite name and emotions he's all too familiar with, and it's all Dame-Tsuna's fault.
He decides that now would be an excellent time for an assassination.
Hayato waits for the classroom to clear out at the end of the day. Sawada always stays after school, zoning out and staring out the window like some sort of serial killer. (He realizes that's not much of an insult coming from a mafioso, and decides to keep it to himself.) He stands in front of his desk, still sporting his footprint, and waits to be acknowledged. He isn't. Sawada is still staring out the window at the baseball field.
"Oi," Hayato snaps, needled. He writes it off as annoyance over Sawada's. . . everything.
Sawada squeaks and jumps a foot in the air, bashing his knees against his desk. He looks up at him and squeaks again, teary and trembling in abject terror. Hayato's heart does a weird flopping maneuver, like it's trying to escape but can't decide how to exit.
Bloodlust. That must be it.
"Come with me, idiot."
Sawada looks petrified, but complies, and follows him outside to a secluded part of the school grounds.
At this point, the legendary hitman Reborn makes his appearance. Hayato meets his beetle-black eyes, and receives the tiniest nod. He now has carte blanche to scare the everliving shit out of the kid. And, hey, if his assassination attempt succeeds, who's complaining? Other than, y'know, the entirety of the Vongola.
It's possible that he didn't really think this through. Yet another anomaly that he can blame on Sawada. The idiot is distracti-infuriating.
"So it's true that if I kill this punk, I'll become the Decimo?"
Reborn cheerfully confirms his bluff. Sawada's eyes, already impossibly large, look like they might pop out of his head.
Hayato goes to town. This kid makes him feel things that he is not comfortable feeling, and it really would be better for everyone if he just died.
But then Sawada gets shot with the Dying Will bullet, and shit, that is the purest sky flame Hayato has ever seen. His chest does that weird twisting thing again, and he chooses to interpret it as murderous rage.
But then he gets carried away and shit, how stupid is this, he's going to die because he somehow managed to fuck up the assassination of an untrained middle-schooler, what the fuck, but then-
Sawada. Sawada saves him.
The (gorgeous) flame on his forehead extinguishes with the last of Hayato's bombs, and he looks up at him with relieved, worried brown eyes, and croaks, "Gokudera-kun, are you okay?!"
Underneath his sock, his left ankle burns.
"J-Juudaime!"
Things are. . . odd, after that. Hayato can't remember what his first words to the Tenth were, but they can't have been pleasant. He must have insulted him over fifty times since his arrival a few days ago. In any case, having a derogatory comment for a soul mark can't be pleasant. The Tenth certainly doesn't seem all that thrilled to have him around.
But they're making progress. The Tenth still doesn't talk much, and when he does, they're either alone or at his house. Hayato's presence, as soon as he adjusts to it, seems to make him happy. He smiles more often, and Hayato makes sure that the idiots who harass him pay for their behavior.
He vividly remembers the first time he heard the Tenth laugh. It was at something idiotic the cow brat had done, and usually Hayato would have reprimanded him for it, but Tsuna was laughing and he sounded so happy and he looked so cu -
"Gokudera-kun?" The Tenth asked, concerned, and Hayato realized that the whole table had noticed that something was off. Holy hell, he'd zoned out in front of the Tenth's mother. To make matters worse, Reborn-san was observing him, his mouth quirked oddly, as if he was trying to be amused but wasn't.
Hayato's face, already flushed, darkened further. "I'M SORRY FOR STARING, JUUDAIME!" He bowed as deeply as he was able while in a sitting position, anxiously wondering if his ears were as red as his face.
"Ah, no, it's fine, Gokudera-kun," the Tenth reassured hastily, "I'm sorry for startling you."
Hayato hadn't corrected him, even as he continued to spout apologies.
Even so, Hayato never seriously thinks that he is one of the unlucky few to have a soul mate whose soul mate wasn't him. Even cases like his mother's, where soul mates were forcibly separated, were more common than that. It was probably underreported, due to the shame and stigma associated with it, but it's still statistically implausible.
At least, that's what he thinks until that day on the roof.
Hayato sees the shocked light in the baseball freak's eyes, the fear and devotion in Tsuna's, and numbly thinks, Oh.
Hayato loathes Yamamoto for a long time after that.
The idiot used to let his disgusting friends terrorize the Tenth for years. Even now, when his soul mate is right there in front of him, he still dances around him as if the Tenth isn't good enough. As if Tsuna isn't good enough.
That, more than anything else, is unforgivable.
But Hayato sees how happy the Tenth is now, how happy the baseball freak makes him. He's more at ease with the baseball freak than he is with Hayato, and he knows that that's partially on him, but damn it, if he doesn't tell the Tenth how amazing he is, then who will?
But then Hayato starts to notice how the baseball freak tells the Tenth the same thing almost as often as he does, if not through words, then through actions. He notices how he goes out of his way to make him smile and laugh, to let him know that he's his priority, his friend, his equal. After all, that's all the Tenth really wants.
It's not something Hayato can give right now. Not until he's (enough) worthy. But he's willing to dedicate the rest of his life to becoming someone worthy of the Tenth's respect, his friendship, if not his love.
That's when Hayato realizes that, even if he'd had a choice, he always would have picked Tsuna.