future pairings include; Shouichi/Spanner, Byakuran/Spanner, Byakuran/Shouichi, Shouichi/Byakuean/Spanner.
I don't own Reborn!
the mind-body problem
There are often things in your world that you find great excitement in. You are fond of sweet things; food, drinks, movies, people. You like surprises more than you like predictability. You often chase away boredom through odd methods; such as, while studying, you decide that flying a kite is a suitable alternative. These are things locked deep within your core and they don't change; no matter how old you'll get.
It is easy for a person to become twisted; an event, a person, a phrase – little things can trigger big reactions. Power can corrupt a person. It's a lesson the universe has learned from you-
-but you will never know this. Not now.
It starts like this: you are not born into the mafia. Your father owns a chain of stores in Europe, which are dedicated to photography. You grow up in comfort, listening to the stories your mother tells you of happy ever afters, enjoying the money your father has earned. Your life is normal.
You go to school, you make friends and you do well. You play soccer almost every day after school,)under the skies of Italy. As a child, you had wanted to do it professionally; you had thought it a plausible career. You're good at it, like you are at most things.
You grow up under the sun, a ball at your feet, money in your hand and stories in your heart. You like your friends well enough, but you know that people go and friends change and one day, you'll be playing soccer with friends and you'll be older and they'll all have different faces.
You wonder briefly what kind of person that makes you.
Life is normal and you can't imagine it any other way.
You love old mafia films. The old American films, with their loyalty, betrayal and passion. You're father scoffs at the very notion of them.
You find them oddly romantic.
One day you're ten years old, kicking a ball around. The next you're fifteen, sitting in your room with a textbook lying across your face. You're bored of Italy, bored of its sun, its promise of romance. Your head is against your wall, hands gripping the edges of your book. You want to study; you have plans to get away from this place, to go somewhere else, but you just can't concentrate.
You're five seconds away from throwing the book across the room when you receive a text message. The number is unknown, but you're friends are always changing their numbers. Without a second thought, you read it.
In another world, this is the moment where your life changes forever. In this world—
For three months, you have this ability: this ability to see into other worlds. It hurts, but it's so fascinating and new and you wonder if you're maybe losing your mind, maybe just hearing voices or hallucinating. They say that there are stages to madness, signs leading up to a climax; all of this is sudden.
You know things about people that you hadn't before. You know things that will happen before they do. It's exhilarating; you're special now. No one else can do this. No one but you.
You excel suddenly at school more than you ever had; know questions, know the things you need to study before everyone else. You know which friends talk about you behind your back, which people like you, who's crushing on you, who's been dabbling in drugs and who's been sleeping around – you know all of it before anyone else.
It's like you're the most powerful person in the world.
And then it's gone, as though you never had it in the first place. Years later, you'll question if you ever did. In that moment though, the moment where you're suddenly so lonely, so un-connected, your mother notices a change.
A year in therapy convinces you it was a childish game, a last attempt at seeking attention before adulthood. You are a selfish person, you can't deny that maybe there's some truth in it all; maybe you did just make it all up.
You can't understand though, why you still feel so lonely; like you've lost something incredibly important.
They say high school is a bubble of naivety; a place in the middle between childhood and adulthood where you test the waters of your future, where you make big decisions and make big mistakes.
For you, high school is this:
In your first year, you secure a group of friends, some of them you've known since childhood. All of them are athletic, some of them are smart. You make an impression on your teachers from the beginning and continue to do so until the day you graduate.
In your third year, you get your first girlfriend. She's a tall brunette with glasses; in later years you'll remember that she loved reading more than anything and that her favourite food was an Italian dish called Pomodori col Riso. You sleep with her after two months of dating – you break it off two weeks later.
In your last year, you sleep with one of your best friends; a gorgeous blond who's on your soccer team. You graduate with the second best results in your class and the knowledge you have at least five Universities to choose from, four of which are all in Europe, the fifth being a 'what if' choice in America.
You make the decision to succeed your dad in his business almost as an afterthought.
You're sitting alone one night, reading through your acceptance letters with a bemused smile on your face. They came almost a week ago and you've been feigning indecision ever since.
The truth is, you aren't quite sure how to break it to your parents that you've already accepted the offer from America or that you've started to make preparations for your accommodation. Quietly, you fold the letters and slide them under your bed and then lie back, arms folded behind your head. You close your eyes and you think about whether or not you'll regret this decision. You don't think you will, at least not in your first year.
You fall asleep, smiling like you usually do and promise yourself to tell your parents tomorrow. Or maybe the day after.
Your mother starts crying and your father grasps your shoulder firm and you smile and smile and assure them you'll be fine on your own.
You don't tell any of your friends until three months later; you're standing at the airport, your mother kissing your face and your father checking in your luggage; you send out a mass text and then quietly turn your phone off. When you're through security, you don't even look at the phone as you trash it.
Some things never change.
Your first year goes by quickly. You sign up for clubs and you pledge to the fraternity that looks the most fun but also has the most connections and maybe they're all shallow choices but what does it matter? Life is about winning now and you hate being the loser.
Mostly it's a blur of studystudystudy and the electric thrum of nightlife; everything is so normal and so typically first year. Typical, typical, typical and you thrive on it for a while and then you crash. You don't go home in the summer between the end of first year and the beginning of second. Instead you book a flight and you go to Russia, Hungry, Norway- anywhere but Italy. Your mother calls and calls always asking why, are you alright? You don't know why but you're fine.
It's your third year when things start to shift around in your spectrum of what life is and what it isn't. You remember your grandmother saying things like feeling change in the air; you think she might have had the right the idea. The moment you step onto campus, there's just something different. It makes your stomach clench and flip and summersault.
You hold on to that feeling for five weeks until it comes bursting out on a Thursday afternoon.
It all happens a bit like this:
You're 3 nil down in a soccer game against another fraternity when you get passed the ball. You dribble with it and lift your leg back and then shoot with all your might-
Except the ball doesn't go in the goal; it flies over the top and soars and soars until it connects with the shoulder of a red haired boy. You snort to yourself as he stumbles and all his books topple to the ground – his friend, a blond taller than him, bends down to pick up the ball and you snort again and start to jog towards them.
"Sorry!" you call, waving them down. "Sorry!"
The blond is smirking down at his friend and he turns towards you and this is a moment you think you'll remember for a while. It's like recognition sweeps across his face, which is odd because you've never met (though your hands feel sweaty and that's strange, isn't it?), his eyebrows raise and his friend sort of gasps and he gives you the ball back, abruptly. "It's cool," he says. "Shouichi – hurry. We're late."
You spare a glance down at Shouichi and your stomach clenches and drops and it's the most bizarre thing. You watch them walk away, ball under your arm and a hand resting against your stomach. Your face must be a picture, you're sure; your mind races with all sorts of things until you shake yourself out whatever this is and turn and jog back to your game.
There are moments of fate that seem to keep happening in Shouichi and Spanner's lives. For example, Shouichi expresses a nostalgic desire to study in America. This is in despite of everything that's happened. Or what would have happened- and really, their lives are overly complicated, Spanner thinks.
Tsuna, always the ever-helpful boss and friend, just so happens to need a man in the States to keep an eye on their drug trade. What happens is that Tsuna pays for Shouichi to go and then pays again for Spanner to go the year after – it's not without warning, though. The 'be careful' lingers more in Shouichi's mind than it does in Spanner's. Two years at this university go by and it's a place Shouichi finds painfully nostalgic and megalomaniac free – and then the soccer incident happens.
It's Spanner who notices the incoming ball first but even then it's too late; it hits Shouichi with enough force that he stumbles back and drops all of his books to the ground. Spanner picks the ball up, eyes and mouth unyielding in his amusement at Shouichi's expense; picking up his books and regaining his dignity isn't something Shouichi can do unflustered, after all. There are calls of "sorry! Sorry!" and Spanner turns to throw the ball towards whoever is calling and stops smiling as soon as he sees the figure jogging towards them.
The thing is, Byakuran is unmistakeable and Spanner thinks for a second that he should block Shouichi's view but then he hears Shouichi suck in a breath and knows that would have been a stupid idea anyway. Byakuran is five years younger than what he remembers; all apologetic laughter and easy going posture. Spanner passes him the ball and ignores the way his hands tremble. "It's cool," he says. "Shouichi – hurry. We're late."
He doesn't think he's ever felt so anxious in his life. It's not a feeling he wants to repeat.
Byakuran holds the ball, looking somewhat perplexed at their retreating forms, but Spanner focuses on Shouichi's hisses of "what is he doing here?" and "two years – how had I not known?"
By the time they're back at the apartment, it takes all of Spanner's strength to wrestle the phone out of Shouichi's hand and stop him from calling Tsuna. "Don't cause unnecessary trouble," Spanner says, calm radiating from him.
"Spanner-"
"He's just a college student. He hasn't done anything yet."
"How can you say that, you know exactly what he-"
It's the by this point that Spanner sighs and sits down. "If you call Tsuna, Vongola will be all over this place by tomorrow night. He's harmless, probably. Relax before you give yourself an aneurism. We'll keep an eye on him, see how that goes."
"Right," Shouichi drawls, all sarcasm with his brows drawn together, "because I judged his character so well last time."
Spanner snorts. He's said more today than he ever has in a week and all this chaos is annoying and-
"I'm going to my room," he says, sliding a lollipop into his mouth, suddenly craving the simplicity of mechanics.
You lie awake that night and wonder if this is fate. Or maybe that's too philosophical. It's definitely something though; it's new and confusing and wonderful. On the floor lies mountains of finished essays and half attentive notes – you idly look around your room, your chest feeling tight and you turn on your side.
Change is always something you've invited in with open arms; you intend to embrace it this time too.
