It is not flesh and blood but the heart which makes us fathers and sons.
~Johann Schiller
Tsuna wanted many things like other children of his age, the age of seven. But there's only one thing he kept wishing; someone he'd call "Otou-san".
"Nee, Okaa-san, what's an Otou-san?" two big honey orbs stared at the female in front of him, showing the image of innocence.
The woman, his mother probably, looked shocked at the question but smiled nonetheless, answering, "Otou-san is someone who takes care and protects us from harm. He's always there for us."
The woman cracked at the last word. She didn't think it was fitting for her husband but told the child.
The said child blinked confused. Then, tilted his head, "Then, Tsu-chan doesn't have one?"
His mother balanced out at his question and flinched, not visible to the child, at how true yet wrong the statement was.
"Of course, you have, Tsu-chan!" she tried to smile but anyone could see it was fake.
Especially a child with hyper intuition.
'Tsu-chan' took noticed of how the smile was weird but said nothing. He was more curious of this so called Otou-san.
"But Okaa-san you said this Otou-san was always there for us but no one's here!"
The mother really flinched visibly and paled at the words. It seemed like she never expected those kind of words to be said by her son.
"I-" she tried to voiced out but no disagreement came to her. It was true he should be here, not work every time. He should have seen their child grew, not seen the whole world. He should have care to call, not call only with the message of disappointment.
"Then, then!" the woman broke out from her trace and looked at the bouncy boy in front of her. "I wished I have an Otou-san always there for us!"
A simple wish yet it broke the mother's heart for her only child didn't know his real father and only thought of him as a stranger.
"Haha, look at Dame-Tsuna's father!" a boy around eight said pointing at blonde man wearing construction uniform with a goofy smile. "So goofy and dame!"
'Dame-Tsuna' just looked down, not embarrassment but sadness. He didn't like it. The stranger came to his Otou-san's place again. And his classmates thought the stranger was his father.
But that wasn't true. His Otou-san's like what his mother said. He just knew it!
'Someone who takes care and protects us from harm. He's always there for us and many more good qualities!' he thought, smiling determinedly at coincidentally the stranger's face. 'That's Tsu-chan's father and even if he's a dame like Tsu-chan, Tsu-chan will love him for being there always!'
Even if the boy was being teased and insulted, he wouldn't stop thinking he had a real father than the weird blonde stranger that always took his father's place.
"Tsu-chan, did anything happened today?" Nana asked her child optimistically. It had days since her son turned nine and it worried her at how silent the boy became at his age.
She really didn't like how his son had always came home with bruises and cuts. She was even close to calling the principal of her son's school but her son told her not to with a bright and kind smile.
'That smile,' Nana thought blissfully. 'That's what keep me from being angry but..'
She stared at the dull face of her once bright son and cried silent tears, 'It pains and frustrate me to find that smile gone.'
"Okaa-san," her son asked quiet as the wind, making the woman even sadder than before.
She faked a smiled and she knew her son knew it was fake from the start, "Yes?"
Tsuna stared at her mother and sighed. He couldn't bother her mother. He didn't want to be a bother.
"Nothing."
He went to his upstairs to his room, not noticing the look of sadness and guilt he left behind.
He took interest in the ceiling and just glanced at it in daze.
It's been days since he found out that the stranger was actually his real father and it just made him sick. The father he thought that would always be there for him and his mother, that would protect them and take care of them was just a lie.
He hated it. He couldn't accept it.
He knew what that man had done to his mother, how his mother always cries for the other, always got hurt in hoping to be together and just how the man left for work.
He might be young and a dame but he knew that work wasn't more important than the family!
Tsuna gripped onto his hair and cried silently.
He really wanted an Otou-san before.
...
...
But now, he didn't need one. If he could survive without one before then he'll survive without one in the future.
It's been years and Tsuna had really survive and he was happy as well as his mother. His life was normal...well, not exactly.
"You are chosen to be the Mafia Boss by your father."
"I don't have a father."
...
"Of course, you have."
"Reborn, I long forgotten I even have and needed a father."
The End...?