Hey guys! :) I spent so long writing this, and I actually cried in the process! :') I'm really proud of this and it's my longest story yet, so please review and let me know what you think.
And, just to say a huge thanks to Ri-Ryn for requesting this fic. I wouldn't have written this without you, and I hope you love it as much as I do! :D Let me know, yeah? :P
Disclaimer: Still legally obliged to tell all you lovely peoples that KHR isn't mine, though that fact make me sad.
It started with a chuckle, a 'kufufufu' that Tsuna knew would stay with him for so long. He was right, and it played over and over and over again in his head at night when it was just him and the shadows on his bedroom walls. It played and played and played and Tsuna was so sure that it would play forever. Over time he got better at focusing on other things, partially ignoring the sound he was so used to. He saw the boy with the chuckle at school sometimes, and it hurt him to know that the one he felt strange, unfamiliar feelings for was only there to mess with Hibari. He would always cover it with a smile though - no need for Gokudera or Yamamoto to worry. No need for them to ask questions he had no answers for. No need for them to ask the questions he asks himself each night in the silence that was filled with the hypnotising sound of the blue-haired boy's little laugh, the silence that was so empty yet so full, so wrong yet so right.
A year. It took a year before Tsuna even came close to an answer to his questions. A whole year spent staring after the other boy, memorising everything he could see but never knowing why. The realisation was not something he came to by himself. He understood, as much as he could, when Mukuro kissed him.
It was his first kiss, and he was happy that Mukuro had taken it, even though he hadn't known that was what he wanted. He had seen the older boy in an empty corridor one day, him being late for class and Mukuro most likely trying to lure Hibari into a fight. His feet had stopped against his will, lateness all but forgotten as he stared at the profile of the one his dreams revolved around. His eyes were glued to boy's strong jaw line and flowing hair, and he was unable to pull them away even when the teen turned to look at him, eyes wide and curious. Tsuna could only blush, still staring before Mukuro started towards him, steps long and confident. The blush deepened and travelled down his neck when Mukuro leaned down and whispered in his ear, 'Tsunayoshi? What do you want?' He hadn't known what he wanted at that moment, barely able to form a coherent thought with the feeling of the other boy's hot breath on his ear, but Mukuro seemed to know. One of his hands rested at the nape of Tsuna's neck, the other sliding into brunette hair when he attached his lips to those of the blushing boy in front of him. Tsuna froze when he felt lips on his, but his eyes closed of their own accord and after a moment the sensations of the kiss forced a small sigh from him and he pressed forward, participating.
Mukuro had left when the chaste kiss ended, striding away without a word to Tsuna. Tsuna had felt much like he did when he allowed himself time to immerse himself fully in that beautiful chuckle; empty and so full, wrong but right, broken but complete. He let a tear fall down his face, one that even he wasn't sure was happy or sad. He had just been kissed by the one he loved, even though he hadn't known that he was in love. He had also just been left standing alone in a corridor, full of confusion and hope and disappointment. He didn't know what to feel. Instead of trying to figure things out, he forced the chuckle ringing in his head into silence, wiped his tear away and strode to class, leaving behind whatever had just happened as Mukuro did minutes before. If Mukuro didn't care, Tsuna wouldn't either.
He allowed himself to remember in the months following the kiss, and as he lay in his bed every night, haunted by that chuckle and the memory of lips on his, he let himself cry for what he had never had and all that he felt like he had lost. Mukuro didn't try to talk to him, still coming to school and damaging things to irritate Hibari but never looking in the direction of the boy who always stared, the boy he kissed, the boy who loved him.
Tsuna didn't try either. His eyes followed the graceful movements of the one he loved, but he managed to keep his distance. He needed that distance - it was keeping him safe, safe from everything Mukuro made him feel. Safe from what he knew was already breaking him apart with every replay of that chuckle, or the way his name had sounded from that mouth. He convinced himself that it was safer to stay away.
It was in an empty corridor, much like the last time, when Mukuro kissed him for the second time. It was different though; Tsuna had seen the subject of all his thoughts and tried to run. He had turned as soon as his eyes caught the flash of blue, but his wrist was grabbed by long fingers, and he was pulled into a lean chest. He had looked up, into the heterochromatic eyes that he had never seen this close before, and his eyes had been wide with fear, surprise, curiosity, pain and love. His lips had parted slightly in shock and they were captured by Mukuro's. It was familiar and so, so right. He felt Mukuro's tongue, and he allowed himself to just feel everything. He allowed himself to forget about the hurt and the questions and the confusion, just focusing on the lips on his, the tongue exploring his mouth, the hands on his face.
Mukuro pulled away and looked down into the caramel eyes of the younger boy for an eternal moment before he took his hands away from Tsuna's face and walked away for the second time. He didn't stay to see the tears flowing down the smaller boy's face, and he pretended that he didn't hear the echo of a heart-wrenching sob when he turned a corner. Tsuna cried. He sank to the ground, sobbing without restraint, and that was how he was found an hour later by Gokudera and Yamamoto. They asked him what was wrong, they begged him to let them fix it, but he just told them that there was nothing they could do. He couldn't tell them how he felt, what had happened. He was ashamed of himself, of his weakness.
He spent months with the ghost of lips on his, the distant memory of that chuckle a constant reminder of the boy who had kissed him twice but only ever spoken five words to him. Time passed without meaning for him, each day ending with tears and starting with a dull ache in his chest. The days he saw Mukuro were the worst. The first time he had seen him since the second kiss, Tsuna had turned and fled, tears streaming down his face and his heart full of pain. The next time he had looked away, tears threatening to fall. After that, he was able to hold the tears back, keep the pain locked up somewhere deep inside himself, somewhere he never wanted to think about. He was able to look directly at the one he still loved and not feel the sting of tears at the back of his eyes after months of puffy eyes. Even through the pain that filled his heart, he had to admit that Mukuro was still beautiful, still so perfect and so right.
At night though, the haunting melody of that chuckle and those breaths in his ear had stopped feeling right. They felt wrong, tainted, and Tsuna just wanted to forget. He wanted to forget everything, go back to how he was before, when he woke up to a dry pillow and a light heart.
No matter how much he tried, he couldn't stop thinking about that blue haired boy. No matter how much he tried, he couldn't stop loving Mukuro.
The third time, Tsuna struggled. Mukuro had looked at him for the first time in months, and Tsuna had seen a fire in his eyes that he couldn't explain. That look had caught him off-guard, and he forgot to flee in his confusion. Before he knew it, he was cornered and there was nobody else around. Arms formed a cage around him, trapping him against the wall that Mukuro's hands were flat against. That perfect face leaned down, and those lips met his. He forgot himself for a second, lost in the way he felt complete for the first time in months, lost in how much different those lips were against his compared to the ghost of them that lingered. He sighed and the noise from his own mouth, caught by Mukuro's, brought him back to reality. It reminded him of the tears he had cried, the pain he had felt, and he pushed the taller teen back - away from him. Tears fell, the wetness so familiar that it was almost comforting, and he looked up at the astonished face of Mukuro.
'W-why? Why d-do you d-do thi-this?' The stuttered words were all Tsuna could manage through the tears. Why do you hurt me like this was a question left unsaid. Tsuna thought he saw a flash of sadness, of agony, in those mesmerising red and blue eyes, but it was gone before he could be sure. A mask of indifference replaced it, and Tsuna cried harder, already knowing what would come next. He closed his eyes so he wouldn't have to see Mukuro walk away again, so he wouldn't have to see as well as feel the loss of everything he wanted, everything he needed in his life.
He still heard the footsteps against the tile floor, and he knew that the sound had been added to that part of his mind that only fully opened at night. The part that swallowed him in the dark, tormented him in the dark with that chuckle and those five words and those lips on his. The part that had turned against him somewhere along the line, hopeless and heartbreaking, allowing him to feel nothing and everything at the same time. Similar to how it was that first year, right and wrong, empty yet full, but not the same. The innocence that he had once held was gone, the naïvety and hope had been taken, and the full wasn't as full as it used to be, the right always just a little bit off.
Tsuna spent a year without a trace of Mukuro, aside from the ghost of breath in his ear and the whisper of lips on his. A hard year, a year of hiding tears and acting fine. A year of wishing for the tears and the pain to stop. A year of wishing that he didn't still love the boy with the blue hair. Said boy had stopped coming to school to goad Hibari, and Tsuna never bothered to wonder why. Such information would be pointless, insignificant to him, useless and unhelpful. He couldn't forget that chuckle either, the one he had first heard years ago, or the feeling of that soft kiss that had shocked him and made him see truth. He couldn't bring himself to wish that it had never happened. He couldn't bring himself to regret pressing his lips to Mukuro's, letting himself feel his first kiss, no matter how much pain it had caused him in the time since then.
The next time Tsuna saw Mukuro, the blue haired teen didn't see him. Tsuna cried, and he cried because the one he loved looked happy. He hadn't expected to see him when he left his house to go for a walk in the park, and he hadn't expected a part of him to die. He hadn't expected to see Mukuro. He hadn't expected to see Mukuro with someone. She had purple hair, similar to Mukuro's, she wore an eye patch, and she was beautiful. Heart-stoppingly so. Looking at her made Tsuna feel worthless, inadequate, and he knew that he had never stood a chance. How could he have ever compared to someone like that, a beautiful girl who was probably so much better for Mukuro than he could ever be. He stared for a while, paralysed by the crippling heartbreak, but when Mukuro leaned down with a smile brightening his face and pressed a loving kiss to the pink-painted lips of the girl, he ran from the scene. He ran and ran until he was away from there, away from what he had seen.
He sat until dark on a bench somewhere unfamiliar, unaware or uncaring of the curious glances sent his way by passers-by. He sat with his gaze fixed forward, seeing something off in the distance invisible to everyone else. He played and played and played that chuckle in his mind, the feel of those lips, those lips that weren't his anymore - those lips that had never been his. He sat and he paid no mind to the twin trails of tears on his face, continuous and unwavering. He sat until he was so cold he felt nothing, and then he walked home in the dark, broken and alone. This time he was the one to walk away.
Seasons passed and before he knew it, a year had passed again. Another lonely year, one of more fake smiles and endless tears. Another year of being haunted by the memories and a year of trying to repress the pain of knowing that Mukuro was happy with someone that wasn't him. He had become a man at some point in that year, eighteen and heartbroken, still in love with the fading memory of the blue haired boy who kissed him. He still lived; going out with Gokudera and Yamamoto, studying and generally being an eighteen year old. He became a strong man, powerful and admirable, but there was a heaviness about him that made him different, though no-one knew why. He never dated either. He knew he couldn't love someone else, and the mere thought of kissing someone who wasn't Mukuro just felt so unbelievably wrong that he didn't even try to convince himself otherwise.
He went for a walk on the same date as he had the year before. A broken man walking the very route that had lead to his end, his breaking. He wasn't sure whether he wanted them to be there again, just to see him, or whether that would just be too much for him to handle. He went anyway, not sure of what he wanted. He made sure that he always knew what he wanted now, because not knowing is what had lead him to the heartbreak and loneliness. It was that moment when he was fourteen that he hadn't known the answers, hadn't known what he had wanted, and he had been slowly broken because of it. The walk brought him to the park where he was sure that some of the pieces of his shattered heart lay. It brought him to an empty park. The wind whistled in his ears, almost drowning out that chuckle and those words, almost, and the grey sky gave the world a bleak and hopeless colour scheme.
He walked home that day feeling lighter and heavier. Right and wrong once again. A walking contradiction. Tears didn't fall and he didn't stop walking. The wind and the streets and the distant memory of a chuckle were all that he knew in those moments, and Tsuna felt like he might just end up okay.
He smiled more often in the months following, though the chuckle remained and the ghost of lips on his never left. He smiled for real and he felt more alive, but he never stopped loving that boy with the blue hair.
He saw Mukuro again later that year. He looked different, and that blue haired boy was no longer a boy. He was a man, and Tsuna still loved him, even after all the time that had passed. This time, Mukuro saw him and as Tsuna turned to walk away from the street he was heading towards, he felt long fingers on his wrist pull him round to face the man he loved. He stared up at the face of said man, and he noticed the pain in his eyes, the pain he saw in his own when he caught his reflection in a mirror. His caramel eyes showed his hurt and confusion and love, too caught up in memories and despair to hide the emotions, and the older man's eyes widened at what he saw.
Mukuro had walked away three times, and it had hurt Tsuna so much, but this time Tsuna didn't sense that he was going to leave straight away. He waited, even though he knew he owed nothing to the man before him, and hoped that this wouldn't be a mistake. Mukuro seemed to have trouble finding the words to say what he needed to, and Tsuna could see that his eyes were filling with tears. He finally seemed to find the words he needed and he blurted them out, seeming relieved to say what he did.
The words rang in Tsuna's ears, overpowering the constant sound of that chuckle, and consuming him completely. They felt so right and so wrong. Tsuna felt like everything he wanted was right there for him to take, but at that moment, he just wanted to run away.
'I love you.'
Tsuna stood in shocked silence for what could have been a million years of a second, and watched tears slip from the eyes of the man who loved him back. He saw the truth, the regret, the pain and the apology in those eyes, and he knew what he had to do.
He could have easily just walked away, wondering what-if, but he chose to follow his heart. He whispered 'I love you' back to Mukuro, and pulled him down for a kiss.
There was still a lot to talk about, a lot of pain to sort through, but there, on a random street corner, everything felt like it could be okay. Tsuna had the blue haired boy he loved in his arms, a real kiss on his lips and that chuckle in his ears. It was all going to work out just fine in the end, he was sure.
Fin.
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Especially you, Ri-Ryn! ;) I'm expecting a review from you at least! :P