Company
Prologue
We all wear masks, and the time comes when we cannot remove them without removing our own skin – Andre Berthiaume
Tsuna knew what being alone felt like. He had known what it felt like for thirteen years of his life.
He knew what it felt like to be the one standing in the background. To be the person who was ignored. He felt relieved when he was overlooked though because that meant no attention, attention led to trouble. He knew from experience.
Sometimes it felt as if he was a ghost but then he would be brought back to reality when his malicious maths teacher started picking on him to answer a question several years above his level. When he said he didn't know, a sneer, which was a common view for him would break apart on the teacher's face.
A jeer would be thrown from the audience, his classmates, and snide comments would be made. Rejecting him for the same faults they had. They shoved him away for reasons they pulled from thin air. Tsuna loathed them and he didn't think he would change his mind any time soon; he didn't need anyone especially those who went out of their way to make his life a living hell.
(But… sometimes, Tsuna wondered, if he would ever be accepted as one of them…)
It's not as if he was stupid, he knew he wasn't, in the past many had said he was a genius but he didn't like that brand. Genius. It had limited (hurt) him in the past so he stopped being one, if that was possible. He tried to turn himself unrecognizable to the few who really knew him.
He had turned into the polar opposite of what he had been.
He turned weak, delicate regarding his emotional state, cried about every scratch. He became a boy who was bullied, rash and stupid, a coward in simple words.
He had felt trapped, suffocated in that strained new skin of his for the first few days unable to breathe but when people began to brush him off and started underestimating him, he had only felt a sharp sense of relief.
There were time when he had wanted to rip this new mask of his into pieces unable to stand the way it would itch, leave red burning eyes and take a piece of life that belonged to him. He didn't know how long it would take to get used to the frequent glare and insults and some part of him had wished, back then, that he hadn't gotten used to it.
(But he had and Tsuna, at times, never regretted it more and mourned for the forgotten innocence)
Tsunayoshi wondered who he was…
Was he Dame-Tsuna the coward, the weak and frail or Tsuna the genius, years ahead of his peers? He didn't know anymore and during those moments he mourned the fact he had chosen to wear a mask that was so unlike him. But then again that was the idea.
Thank you for reading this, this is my second FanFiction which I hope you have been able to enjoy. I welcome any comments on this and advice since I have started new, but please no insults and I don't mind having my mistakes being pointed out but any repeated insults or spamming with be reported.
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