You can't touch a memory

Summary: As friends come round, Tsuna fades away. (In which, being the leader of the strongest mafia family still leaves you prone to mental illnesses.)

"Reborn, do you know where I left the Emilio famiglia alliance papers?"

The tutor walked over to him and flicked him on the forehead—hard. "No-Good Tsuna, how could you misplace such an important document?" he snapped.

"I know, I know," Tsuna muttered under his breath as he absently massaged his injury. "I'm sorry, I'll find it." But when he looked up, Tsuna couldn't begin his search with the strange scrutinizing look Reborn pinned him down with. "What?"

The adult hitman bit his lip as something flickered in his eyes. "That won't be necessary."

Tsuna blinked. "Why?"

"Because"—Reborn vacantly ran his thumb along the sides of his mug—"you handed that document off to Gokudera for proofreading just thirty minutes ago."

"I did?" Tsuna blurted out in surprise, running a hand through his caramel locks. "Thank goodness," he sighed, shoulders loosening. "I really didn't want my two hours of work to be wasted because I misplaced it."

Just for good measure, to make sure Tsuna was wide awake and focused for his other paperwork, Reborn kicked him through the open window, bellowing "No-Good Tsuna" as the latter's echoing screams could be heard across the whole estate. A burst of flame reflected off the clear glass.

And as Reborn resumed to sipping his lukewarm espresso, he wrote off the incident as something as simple as Tsuna's bad memory.

"I mean, she was pretty nice, but seriously guys, why are you all so keen on getting me a suitor? Vongola won't need another heir after I'm done with it. We're aiming for a vigilante group, aren't we?"

"Come on Tsuna," Takeshi laughed lightheartedly. "A partner will make you happy!"

Tsuna quirked an eyebrow and muttered under his breath, "But I'm happy with just you guys."

Mukuro smirked smugly by the corner of the room, arms crossed as he leaned against the wall. Tsuna didn't like that look. He really didn't like that look. "I wouldn't be surprised if you haven't had your first kiss yet, Tsunayoshi," he presumed.

The latter blushed profusely. "I have!"

"Sure..."

Takeshi slung an arm around Tsuna's shoulder, tugging him close. "Anyway, what was her name again? Hayato and the kids set you guys up so I'm not up to date."

Lambo mumbled as he chewed his candy, "I'm not a kid... and was that a pun?" Takeshi only shot him a knowing look.

"Umm," Tsuna murmured as his eyes wandered around the room. What was her name? He scratched the back of his head, flustered, as he tried to rake his mind for answers. "I… actually don't remember."

Ryohei exclaimed in disbelief, "How can you not know her extreme name?"

And as the guardians resumed their half-hearted meeting, they brushed off the incident as something as trivial as Tsuna's bad memory.

"The crime rate of Japan overall has decreased by a percentage of 7% since last year," Reborn stated from the document as he stood off to the side, foot clicking against the stone tiles.

The leaders of the Simon, Chiavarone, Giglio Nero, and Vongola family sat together at table, papers spread before them.

Yuni gave Tsuna a lax smile. "Looks like your idea of a vigilante group has been working out," she commented in a good nature.

Tsuna simpered back. "Thanks Yuni, but with all the help I've gotten from you all, I think this accomplishment belongs to all of us."

The mafia leaders all contributed a warm grin.

"Reborn," the man in question turned to Tsuna, "where is Xanxus? He's supposed to be here for this meeting," Tsuna asked as he straightened his papers. While the Varia didn't support the Vongola with its changes (like almost every ally of them didn't), they were still a part of the family.

Pulling out Tsuna's phone from his pocket (because while Tsuna was serious about his role in the Vongola, that didn't stop him from playing mobile games on his phone when he was bored), Reborn read off, "Message sent from fifteen minutes ago. 'Just landed. I'll get there when I get there. Go die, trash.'" Reborn glanced up. "Well, we have proof that he didn't die in a plane crash."

They laughed.

With a twitch of his lips, Reborn continued with his report.

A few minutes later, Tsuna asked absently, knocking his pen against the table, "Reborn, do you happen to know where Xanxus is? He's supposed to be here today." Everyone glanced up from their papers, shooting him confused looks. Tsuna became nervous at the sudden attention. "What? Was it something I said?"

Yuni and Enma exchanged expressions and Dino gave him a concerned frown.

"Is Xanxus right behind me or something, and he's making fun of me? 'Cause I really don't want to turn around right now."

Dino bit his lip and craned his head to meet Tsuna's flustered eyes. "No, it's just…"

Enma continued, looking to the side, "You already asked about Xanxus."

Tsuna was taken back, and abruptly, their confusion made sense. "I did? When?"

Reborn's stone cold face did nothing to console Tsuna as he replied, "Just a few minutes ago."

"Oh…" Tsuna started before laughing nervously, resting a hand on his nape. "Ah, sorry, I have a really bad memory."

Enma murmured softly, but loudly enough for everyone to hear, "You should go to the doctor's, see if everything's okay." There was a pause. "Not that there's anything... mentally wrong with you."

Tsuna brushed him off with the wave of his hand. "Ah, there's no need. Thanks, Enma. 'Suppose the all nighters have been getting to me. I'll make sure to sleep more."

Yuni smiled but Tsuna could tell it was strained. Her eyes told stories. "Take better care of yourself, okay Tsuna-kun?""

"Yeah. Sorry…"

Reborn flicked him on the forehead. "A mafia boss shouldn't be apologizing so much."

"But I'm not a mafia boss!"

"Keep denying it."

And as they resumed their meeting about the world affairs, the three allies and the home tutor were hesitant to brush off the incident as something as simple as a bad memory.

"You have to tell him, Hayato. You could be right."

"I don't want to be right, you baseball idiot!"

"You're his right hand man, carnivore. The omnivore has a right to hear out your suspicions."

There was a pause.

"We can't lose him."

"We won't."

"But if he has what I think he has, we will. We will lose him, and even though it wasn't our time, I don't want to lose him again."

"If he does have it, we will do everything, okay Hayato, everything we can to hold on to him."

Another pause, and the room seemed a bit smaller than it was before.

The smell of the cigarette wafted through the stiff chilling air and even the former prefect—merciless in all his glory—couldn't bring himself to reprimand the bomber. If it started raining on a clear day, no one said anything.

"I don't want him to forget us."

"He won't."

Lies were always more comforting than the truth.

"Alzheimer's, huh? Extremely rare for my age." Tsuna was calmer than they thought he'd be at the harsh results of his tests.

"You knew?" Mukuro asked in surprise, eyebrow quirked. As much as the (half) mist guardian would refuse the claim, the man truly did care about what would happen to the little Sky.

Humming through his lips as he continued signing his papers without a care in the world, Tsuna admitted hesitantly, "I... had my suspicions."

"We'll find a cure, Tsuna-sama!" Hayato persevered as he pumped his fist, reassuringly, eyes of hope and light. "We'll enlist that broccoli scientist and those computer geeks and—"

Takeshi stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. Even with Hayato bristling at his touch, the smiling baseball idiot laughed and everyone knew it was tense, "What Hayato's trying to say is that they'll find a cure, and it'll all work out!"

Tsuna shot him a grateful smile, but nevertheless kept reading over his paperwork.

Over the suffocating silence with the scribbling of Tsuna's pen, the guardians restlessly stood in place, put off by how calm Tsuna was taking the matter, compared to how he would've reacted in the not-so-faraway past.

"Boss, you're not worried?" Chrome asked softly, holding her trident close to her chest.

Tsuna bit his lip, as if in heavy consideration (even if he saw the situation as a simple dilemma). "Well, as long as my goal to completely destroy the Vongola is fulfilled, I'm not worried. A long relaxing life of retirement would be nice, but I've felt like my life has already been prolonged." The abrupt painful expressions on his guardians' faces stopped him cold in his place. He threw up his hands in reassurance, chuckling uneasily. "Of course I'd like to live longer, but if I die young, I die young. There's nothing I can do about it. If Verde, Spanner, Shoichi, and Giannini figure out a cure, that'll be great, but…" He met the gazes of the tawny and blond mechanics and smiled softly. "I don't want them to hold the fate of my life in their hands. It'll be too much of a burden."

Shoichi took a step forward. "Tsuna—" he started but stopped when Tsuna held up a hand.

"I'd like our science and mechanics team to work on supporting Vongola, not my illness," Tsuna voiced, as he tilted his head comfortingly on the palm of his hand, arm propped up on the desk. "Now," he said, eyeing his work with a fiery hatred. "I have all these piles of paperwork that I—"

"If it was any of us…" Tsuna looked up to see Takeshi, face devoid of all his former happiness and smiles and blinding joy, and instead with trembling eyes and pursed lips, the gloomy appearance of all rain clouds. "If it was any of us, that had Alzheimer's, would you give up that easily?"

Tsuna flinched, and while guilt swirled in the hole where his heart used to be, Takeshi pushed.

"You baseball idiot!" Hayato hissed defensively but Chrome held him back.

Tsuna looked genuinely conflicted. "That's different—"

"How!?" The Rain became icy, harsh waves and culling sharks, raindrops sharp as swords. A Rain will settle conflicts and wash away the pain, but some forget that at the same time a Rain will stir up floods and typhoons to protect the people it loves.

"Takeshi..." Tsuna started and his voice came out numb, "It's not—"

"How is it any different, Tsuna? How is it that you see our lives more important than yours?" Takeshi appeared borderline like he wanted to cry, but the fury of the Rain wasn't something to be trifled with so the rest said nothing. "How do you expect us to back down quietly as you slowly rot? How do expect any of us to do that?"

Tsuna could only gaze at his hands. "Because all of you are important to me, and if I..." The word went unsaid. "Then... you'll blame yourselves—I know you guys. I know you guys better than you know yourselves, and you won't hesitant to shift all that blame to something that couldn't have fixed anything."

"You're important to us too," Takeshi reasoned as he stepped in front of Tsuna's desk, tall and proud (but almost broken at the same time), and the floods began to drain. "You're my sky. Our sky."

And Kyoya stepped from the corner, tonfas bared like a wolf's fangs. "The clouds cannot exist with the sky."

"Neither can a storm."

"Nor the mist."

"Or the extreme sun."

"Neither can the lightning."

"And no more than the calming rain can." Takeshi smiled—a smile made of broken shards and pieces of raindrops that never met the ground, a smile that never truly met the eyes and a smile that could never really be unless the sky came back. "Your life is worth the same as ours. Maybe even more so."

And even with that feeling of lost and hopelessness swirling in his stomach, eating away at everything he was, Tsuna was wrapped up in harmony, sky flames being coaxed out to show its light by every other gentle flame.

Hayato crossed his arms, a grin plastered on his smug face. "You promised we'd see the fireworks together again, didn't you, Juudiame?"

"I told you not to call me that, but," Tsuna couldn't help but grin light and stars, "Yes. Yes, I did."

"Don't we have school?"

The guardians, in their common room, glanced up to see Tsuna dressed in his Namimori uniform that was stored at the very ends of his wardrobe. He was a bit taller than before, which left his uniform a bit short for his liking, not that Tsuna noticed.

Takeshi, who was previously swinging his baseball, stepped over to Tsuna, slinging an arm around his friend's shoulder. "Ah, don't you remember?" Takeshi grinned (a cold suffering grin that cried in puddles and raged piercing rain). "It's a holiday!"

Tsuna quirked an eyebrow at him, confused at the development. "What about that math test? Gokudera-kun spent all night teaching me about logarithms."

Second year, high school, huh?

"Ts—" Hayato coughed, "Juudaime! Don't worry about it! The math test is actually tomorrow! We have an extra day to study!"

"Oh," Tsuna murmured in understanding. By the flash of amber flickering in Tsuna's eyes, the guardians knew the inner workings of his intuition was trying to assess the situation. "Okay, thank you very much," Tsuna said as he took a seat beside Hayato, taking his textbooks out.

Takeshi followed right behind.

If the guardians started slowly gravitating toward Tsuna just a little bit more than usual, no one mentioned it.

Tsuna forgot a few birthdays, but if Hayato and Shoichi and Enma were upset about it, they didn't show it.

It wasn't a surprise then that Tsuna forgot about his little brother's birthday.

Lambo remembered that every year for him, his older brother would arrange a giant birthday breakfast, full of streamers and balloons and everything colorful. Those were the days when Vongola Mansion didn't look like it belonged to a vigilante group, so when Lambo walked into breakfast, seeing the room bleak of color, Lambo didn't say anything. He just silently took his seat, a chain curling around his heart.

It was hard to breathe. Everyone knew about big brother's condition. They got used to it. (Not really, not when Tsuna's eyes resorted back to innocence to joy to fury.)

("Don't touch me!"

"Sir—"

"Where are my guardians?"

"Sir, they're busy on a—"

"I asked, where are my guardians?")

At his appearance, the rest of the guardians congratulated him on a happy twentieth birthday.

Tsuna wasn't at the table.

Lambo had to pat down his stomach to make sure there wasn't a gaping hole there, because that's what it felt like. And as he reached over to snatch a piece of french toast, his phone buzzed. Slipping it out, Lambo checked his messages.

Tsuna-nii: Can you come up to the west wing balcony, please?

There was no happy birthday message. Shrugging and muttering a word in reply to the guardians' confused expressions, he made his way up the Vongola mansion. While climbing up the sets of stairs, Lambo's mental state only descended. Not knowing what Tsuna wanted, he was reluctant to walk towards the balcony at the very end of the wide corridor. Breathe, he told himself, he probably just needs me to do a favor for him.

There sitting, Tsuna's head was craned to look out at the open woods, hands loose in his pant pockets. As Lambo took a step forward, shoes clicking against the carpet, Tsuna turned to look at him, smiling brightly. "Hey, Lambo!"

He suffocated.

("Hey Lambo!"

"Hey Tsuna-nii."

"How was school?"

"...It was okay."

"Well, school's like—Lambo, how did you get this bruise?"

"...I fell."

"Lambo."

"...I-Pin hit me."

"I-Pin knows not to hit that hard. Lambo."

"...I was being too loud in the classroom. She called me an annoying brat... and then I... I tried to..."

On the local news, when a fourth grade teacher was fired and trialed for child abuse, Lambo only clung a bit tighter to Tsuna's hoodie.)

"Are you okay, Lambo?" Tsuna asked, a breeze ruffling his brown locks. The guardian's chest only tightened.

("Hey Lambo!"

"Did you know, did you know, Tsuna-nii? I got a ninety-two on my test!"

"Wow, you're really smart, Lambo. Why don't we go get some ice cream with I-Pin?"

"But I-Pin got worse than me!"

"I'm sure she tried her best."

Lambo pouted but didn't argue, because Tsuna's amber eyes singed home and love, and his smile was a light within the dark. Home, his flames called. Home with his Sky.)

On the little circular accompanying table, sat a steaming hot omelet, perched appealingly on a plate. Tsuna gestured for him to sit down, and Lambo could only follow his commands. "Try it," he said warmly like his Sky flames. There was a spark of excitement and anticipation flickering amber in his eyes.

Quirking an intrigued eyebrow, Lambo grabbed the spoon and scooped a bite. It was... good. It was delicious and so familiar and he recalled the small room and the loud voices of laughter and joy and the brown-haired woman who showed him the world in just a small house. But it tasted sad because there was a grave during a day of light and yellow, and please don't go.

Something was prickling his eyes and he bit his lip.

Tsuna started laughing quietly. "Ah, is it that good?" It was not funny.

Lambo could only say, voice shaky and close to collapsing in something he wouldn't call emotions, "But Mama's dead."

Tsuna made a small apologetic smile, but the glint in his eyes never wavered. "Does it taste just like hers?"

Nodding, Lambo scooped another bite, water prickling his eyes. "Who made it?"

"Me."

Lambo looked up in surprise, spoon almost falling from his hand. "You?"

"Ah," Tsuna began as he scratched the back of his head as if embarrassed. "Mom left a list of recipes in a notebook before she died. When I was clearing out the attic, I came across it. I wanted to learn how to cook for you."

Lambo was taken back, his open eye blinking. "For me?"

"Yeah!"

"Why?" he asked, curious, because he would not admit why his heart was beating so loud and fast in his ears. He would not admit the hope in his chest and the wavering of his lightning flames residing under his skin.

Sky flames reached out like a hand, and lightning, destructive in its wake, extended its own.

"You've always been a bit sadder," Tsuna murmured, eyes drawn to the ground, grief lingering by the edges of his mouth, "since mom passed away. And so I wanted to do something special for my little brother's birthday. I didn't know if you still liked those colorful parties since you're twenty now and not a kid," he winked, "so I thought maybe something small like this would suit you better."

Lambo's sense of fear washed away and the world seemed just a little brighter. He remembered. His older brother remembered.

Tsuna, already reading between the lines, chuckled. "Of course I remembered. How could I forget my little brother's birthday?"

Hold it in. Hold it in. Hold it—and tears burst forward.

And all Tsuna could say was, "Happy birthday, Lambo."

When Tsuna awoke to a light brown haired tuft tucked under his chin, he thought nothing of it. As he tried to wrap his arms around the sleeping Fuuta, he was surprised to find the boy a little… bigger than before.

"Good morning, Tsuna-nii..." Fuuta yawned as he curled into Tsuna's chest.

The latter mumbled, still dripping with sleep, "When did you get here?"

"Just now. I had a nightmare," the boy murmured softly. "I hope you don't mind."

"I don't." Curling his arm around Fuuta a bit tighter as a sign of comfort, Tsuna asked in curiosity and confusion, "Did you grow bigger overnight?"

The Neo Vongola Primo could feel the boy (man?) tense in his arms. Fuuta whispered softly, as if he was close to shattering glass, "I've always been this big."

"Oh, really?" Tsuna hummed as he drowsily pressed a kiss to his little brother's forehead. "Lambo hit the younger-you with the ten-year bazooka, didn't he?"

"Ahh," Fuuta started, unsure of what to say, because mentally, this wasn't Tsuna of this time—this wasn't the Tsuna who muttered in indignance at Fuuta's towering height, this wasn't Tsuna whose entire being was buried beneath speeches and paperwork. "I guess you could say that."

A brief moment of silence passed. "I know I'm not supposed to ask, but... is the future nice?"

Abruptly, Fuuta froze in his arms at the question, which only made Tsuna tug him closer, his fingers drawing circles on Fuuta's back as inner flames cloaked the younger. Closing his eyes as they welled up with water, Fuuta was sure his voice was untrustworthy. He shook his head as he drew his arms against his chest like he was protecting himself.

Tsuna stared over Fuuta's head through the window, gaze lost and accepting. "I see."

Reluctant, the light-haired brunet offered quietly, "There's… I actually have an older brother who has Alzheimer's. And one time, he didn't even remember me." Tsuna's thumb wiped away his tears. "He forgot about me. I was standing there and he asked who I was."

"Are you two close?"

Fuuta's hands clung tighter to Tsuna's shirt. "Yeah," he said. "We're really close."

Tsuna hummed as amber flickered in his orbs. "Then he'll come back. Maybe not today, maybe not in five years, but he'll come back. If he cares—which I know he does because anyone who meets you loves you—he'll come back to you."

And as something wet soaked Tsuna's shirt, Fuuta whispered, "You don't know how much I want that to be true."

On one of his many pages of the ranking book, sits the name Sawada "Neo Vongola Primo" Tsunayoshi, the number one mafioso with the most amount of love to give.

Hayato was smoking on his balcony during devil's hour when he saw his boss wandering about the courtyard. Concern pounding in his chest, maneuvering over the balcony railing, Hayato landed gracefully on his feet two stories down. Making sure he wasn't disrupting his friend's thoughts, he quietly padded toward Tsuna, who was staring lost in the koi pond.

The soft rustle of brushing leaves awakened Tsuna from his trance and the latter looked up to see the worrying expression on the silver-haired man's face. "What's wrong, Hayato?"

"Nothing, it's just that—" Hayato's eyes widened in epiphany and suddenly, he couldn't breathe. He called him by his first name, so that meant Tsuna was—Tsuna, after months of no signs, was—

"Lucid?" Tsuna finished his thoughts for him as he waved him over. There was a rueful smile on his face. Small and pitiful.

Hayato crouched beside his friend, and Tsuna wasn't hesitant to rest his head on his shoulder.

"How long?" the brunet asked, voice numb and bleak.

Hayato wished his voice could be the same. "Two years." God, his voice sounded like a kicked puppy.

There was a pause before: "Sorry."

"They haven't found a cure yet," Hayato said, "but they will. They have to."

"They're not gods," Tsuna laughed and Hayato wondered, so desperately, how Tsuna could be so bright in the darkness. "They don't know the inner workings of the brain. The medical industry has been studying for years—hundreds of years on figuring out how the brain works. And as much as I have faith in my team, two years are hardly noteworthy of figuring out the cure of Alzheimer's." Tsuna's hand hung loose by his side and Hayato gave no hesitation in taking it with his own. He squeezed, as if making sure his dear friend was still there, alive and breathing, and just being.

"I missed you."

"And I you," his friend said.

"Don't leave."

"I'll try not to."

"Don't forget me."

"I won't."

And the next morning, when Tsuna was in his Namimori uniform again, talking about how they'll be late to school and dragging Takeshi and Hayato through the mansion doors to who knows where, Hayato was glad that Tsuna somehow remembered their promise.

It was weird how sometimes, Ryohei or Reborn were by his side while he was doing his paperwork, hands aflame with yellow. When he asked what they were doing, they only said one thing: "Four to eight years which I'll make twenty. Maybe even beyond that."

His intuition was always screaming when they said things like that. But he wasn't complaining. Sometimes he had these horrible headaches and these episodes of random dizziness and their healing flames did everything to coax them to slumber.

Tsuna couldn't help but feel like he was forgetting something.

The guardians were aware of it; it wasn't much a surprise though. Tsuna was fading, and their harmonization along with it.

But it wasn't breaking, more like fading into the background until it was just a fancy bow hiding all the cracks behind it. And it wasn't like Tsuna was forgetting them entirely, it's just that his mind re-winded back to high school or university sometimes, and the scars and medals on their harmonization vanished along with his sense of time.

Tsuna didn't think much of it when randomly, his guardians would curl into bed with him, tugging him to their chests with his head in the crooks of their necks and feeling his pulse just to make sure he was still there. The bond of a sky and its guardians was near impossible to break, but bonds could grow old, they could fade to grey and only burst back to color when harmonization clicked back into place.

Tsuna didn't remember his guardians being so close to him. Tsuna didn't remember his guardians wearing so many fake smiles. Tsuna didn't remember his guardians having such attachment to him—attachment that could tear apart worlds until space and time crumbled and laid waste to anything in its way.

If Hayato wanted praise, if Takeshi slung his arm around Tsuna's shoulders, if Ryohei demanded medical training, if Kyoya called him a small animal, if Chrome kissed his cheek, if Mukuro hung around, just a little bit more than usual, Tsuna didn't comment on it.

Mental illness was fickle thing, but it didn't make him blind.

Forgetful yes. Blind? No.

They wanted more of Tsuna until he had nothing left to give.

They wanted to remember Tsuna laughing instead of a dysfunctional mess. Tsuna would take offense but even he agreed.

People liked to remember the good things rather than the bad, right?

So when Tsuna, who was barely lucid at thirty-two, awakened from the clutches of his illness and turned to his guardians, asking, "Why don't we all go see the fireworks one last time?" his guardians were already smiling.

One last time replaced again, because although his willpower burned bright and strong for his family, his illness—weaved into every corner of his brain—burned just a little bit more brighter.

And so the sky loved.

It loved until it could love no longer.