The first time Tsunayoshi takes a life is a complete accident. He's only twenty years old and still unable to control his power at times. Everyone is willing to forgive it and call it a slip-up, because the ever-benevolent Tenth could never intentionally do that and he was fighting with good will. Tsunayoshi believes that an awful part of him in the depths of his being meant to do it though, and the guilt is agonizing.
Gokudera sleeps on The Tenth's floor for two months so he can be ready with comforting words when the latter wakes up in cold sweats from vivid, painful nightmares.
Several months later, things are looking up. Tsunayoshi has long since come out of his depression. He's eating again, smiling again, able to look at his guardians with the brightness of the sky reflected in his brown, hopeful eyes.
Then another family with ill intent rises up and Tsunayoshi doesn't want to interrupt his Guardians' current missions, so he goes to quell the insurgence alone. This time he's in such a tight spot that he's forced to consciously make the decision to take another man's life.
Within hours of the news of Vongola's latest victory, Gokudera is back in Japan and nearly breaking down The Tenth's front door when he doesn't immediately answer. The door does open though, and as soon as it's pulled back enough for the brunet to see his Right Hand, he crumples into the other's startled arms in a mess of tears and garbled apologies directed at someone who isn't there.
Tsunayoshi's guilt is much more raw than the first time. The first time it bit at the edges of his eyes and clogged his esophagus. Now it'd combined with unshakable shame and bursts from his tear ducts like tidal waves and claws viciously at his throat. He looks awful, sounds awful, and Gokudera wants desperately to embrace him. But he can't cross that line so instead he contents himself—forces himself, but he tells his urges that he's content—with just helping him collapse onto his much-too-small couch before gently closing the front door to the apartment, pretending that curious neighbors from down the hall aren't trying to peek inside to see what all the commotion is.
Hours later Tsunayoshi has exhausted his vocal chords to a point where the only sound that comes from him is heavy breathing. Gokudera has long since tuned him out, too focused on keeping his wants in check behind his duties. All he can hear is the sound of the clock in the kitchen, each tick etching every second he spends telling himself that he is doing all that he possibly can for The Tenth in his mind. The only reason he's not calming Tsunayoshi, not lulling him to sleep with reassuring kisses or the sound of a calm heartbeat is because that's not what he's meant to do.
Gokudera volunteers to sleep on the couch instead of the floor that night.
A few days later when Gokudera comes again to check on Tsunayoshi, the latter looks like death. His hair is more disheveled than usual and large, puffy bags under his eyes coupled with the red rimming his lashes tell the story of quite a few sleepless nights. He looks thinner, sickly like he hasn't eaten or can't hold anything down in his stomach when he tries. The red light on his answering machine is blinking dimly somewhere in the background and it's obvious that he's doing everything he can to ignore the world.
He moves to the side though, after a moment of silence as if to say, "come in". Gokudera's brain registers it as, "hold me". But he won't entertain the thought and instead steps inside, automatically ducking his head respectfully as he passes through the doorway.
Tsunayoshi sits at his kitchen table, staring at nothing as Gokudera bustles around his kitchen in an attempt to make something edible out of the few ingredients in the cupboards. Finally, he speaks. "Gokudera," he asks, "do you still trust me?"
The Storm pauses, hand clutching the refrigerator handle. His mind goes blank for a moment after the question registers. "Of course, Tenth," he says in a tone that comes out more matter-of-factly than he means for it to.
Tsunayoshi's expression and posture don't change and Gokudera wonders just how much of the man is really here right now. He maintains his end of the conversation despite it. "I mean, do you still want to be my friend? Even though I've killed people?"
Gokudera takes a seat opposite his companion, deciding that getting his friend—and also Boss of course, but nothing more—to actually speak for the first time in days is (only slightly) more important than attempting to make a meal out of some eggs and mustard. "It's not as if you wanted to kill him, so—"
"But what if I did, secretly?" Not that Tsunayoshi ever actually thought that he'd wanted to steal anyone's last breath. He'd simply thought briefly that it would just be easier if the nuisance didn't exist at all so that no one, including himself, had to be troubled. When he was younger, that idea wouldn't have bothered him at all. The problem was that now, at age twenty, he was well aware that in the mafia for a "nuisance" to "not exist" a human being had to be murdered. And while the rest of the Ring Guardians had accepted this and carried out mission objectives without complaint (with the exception of Lambo), the idea of dealing a fatal blow to someone and then watching their chest rise and fall one last time and the light in their eyes fade with your horrified face reflected in them was something that Tsunayoshi found absolutely sickening.
Gokudera sympathizes. Not just because he cares to deeply for The Tenth, but because he remembers feeling the same weighty guilt that used to creep up his spine every time his dynamite hit their target. He eventually became accustomed to the cutthroat ways of the mafia and the feeling become more of an irritation than anything else. So, without thinking, he says, "You'll get used to it. You killed him, but you're not a murderer."
Then Tsunayoshi's eyes lock with his and there's the hint of a flame behind them, making them shine a bright, angry amber. "I'll get used to it?" He manages to keep his voice from rising, but the leftover rage from unwept tears laces his tone. "Are you trying to tell me that 'killing' someone isn't the same as 'murdering'?"
Hearing it repeated back to him like that, Gokudera realizes the hypocrisy of the statement. It occurs to him that he used to tell himself that to fight off his own grief ridden, nightmarish dreams. It was an excuse, a lie. Just something he said to keep himself going. But what else could he say?
He is grateful when Tsunayoshi doesn't kick him out right then, but when the other actually tells him that he is to spend the evening on his couch, instead of politely inviting him into his room—but never specifically his bed—a pang of anguish courses through him.
Gokudera spends the evening mentally kicking himself for wanting to beg at The Tenth's feet for an apology and for permission to just love all of the despair away. Regret is heavy on his fingers as he turns each page of the novel he's only half reading. What Tsunayoshi needs is comfort beyond a few nice words and a hug. He needs tenderness and understanding and forgiveness from someone who is rotting in a dirt plot miles away. Forgiveness from someone that does not claim undying loyalty to him like an overzealous puppy.
No matter how hard Gokudera thinks on it, he cannot stretch the duties of a friend and a Guardian to overlap with those of a lover.
So instead he focuses more intently on reading his novel when, at three in the morning, after he's cried quietly for a good hour or so, Tsunayoshi clumsily stumbles out of his bedroom and into the bathroom where he doesn't bother to close the door as he dry heaves between sobs with his face in the toilet bowl.
A/N: Aaaaaangst. Not something I'm entirely comfortable with, but sometimes it just has to be done. I have to say I don't entirely agree with Tsuna's ideas, but I certainly understand where he's coming from. According to the dictionary, "murder" and "killing" are synonymous. So when did people start differentiating between the two purely through connotation?
Please review and thanks for reading!