Rather obviously, I don't own KHR!, nor do I own any of the characters. Honestly, I'm not sure I'd like to, either, because good heavens! producing the manga each week must be a great and terrible production. However, please do enjoy my completely fannish offering.
I haven't decided if I'll make this a one-shot or go further, but for now I'll leave it open as I think.
Lying in bed at night, watching the infrequent flicker of headlights on the ceiling, Tsuna has a lot of time to think. Reborn is in his hammock nearby, yes, and on the floor might be bombs, or flesh-eating acids, or maybe even just some baby powder, but Tsuna is thinking.
During the day he has no time- there is a cherry-blossom-viewing spot to be won, or a criminal to be sought, or a fight to be won. There is blood and fighting and friendship, so much of it all that Tsuna feels he might die of it one day.
He thinks of many things. He thinks of cowardice, and how deeply afraid he sometimes is that when Reborn shoots him, he will come back screaming about running as if he is to die. Inside he thinks of himself as No-Good Tsuna still. A year or two of loyal friends and deadly battles doesn't wipe clean a whole life of failure.
But the thing is- and here Tsuna turns his back on Reborn, just in case he's watching Tsuna in the dark, because these thoughts are his and his alone- Gokudera and Yamamoto don't know him as No-Good Tsuna. He's Tsuna, or Tenth. Well, maybe Yamamoto did (Tsuna will roll around in his bed, back and forth, while he mentally corrects himself), but when Yamamoto became his friend, he was friends with Tsuna-who-saved-Yamamoto's-life. Gokudera knew Tsuna as Tsuna-that-beat-him-up.
When the whole thing started and Tsuna was getting used to having the kind of friends that showed up to do nothing at all, he felt guilty. He hadn't really saved Yamamoto's life and he hadn't really beaten Gokudera, Tsuna knew. But as time went on and Tsuna grew into himself, grew into his family, grew together with Gokudera and Yamamoto, he started to understand. Whether or not he had actually done anything, to Gokudera Tsuna was somebody to look up to, to defend, to befriend. The same was true with Yamamoto.
The whole thing boils down to different ideas, Tsuna concludes, tracing an especially bright beam of light as it arches around his room like a lazy cat (somebody needed to turn their high-lights off, he mumbles to nobody). Yamamoto has an idea of Tsuna that's different from Gokudera's idea of Tsuna. He himself has a different (vastly different, vastly, vastly, vastly different) idea of Reborn than anybody else. But despite their differences in perception (Tsuna as a competent person; Reborn as a psychotic maniac), or maybe because of them, they all get along like they were made for it.
Tsuna's thoughts stutter a little there, because while he can accept that kind of thought for friendship, he can't quite make the leap to romance. (Well, he calls it romance and Reborn chuckles while flipping through a girlie mag.) Gokudera kissed him on the cheek the other night and Yamamoto gave Tsuna a two-armed, snuggling-close hug a mere second later and
and
well, Tsuna's spending a lot of time rolling around in his bed thinking about what that means.
He's still used to thinking of himself as No-Good, especially in the areas he's not had much practice doing otherwise in. Tsuna knows he shouldn't expect himself to kick the habit too soon.
For Gokudera and Yamamoto, though, he wants to try. He just won't tell Reborn, because a bullet might come into the equation and that's the last thing Tsuna needs- running down the street in his underwear screaming about romancing his best friends as if he's going to die.
No, Tsuna decides, watching another arc of light slide over his ceiling, he'll do things his own way- quietly.