Katekyo Hitman Reborn Fanfiction
Dead End
5
In the deepest recesses of her heart, where her darkest thoughts and feelings lingered, she had always known the unavoidable damning truth that despite his lovely smile, his sweet nature and gentle demeanour, so astoundingly similar to her own, her boy was … broken. The abruptly continuing absence of the doting if erratic father he once cherished like the man actually hung the sun and the moon and the stars, and her own obvious inability to handle their admittedly difficult home situation with the level of maturity it truly deserved, had damaged their son in ways she could barely grasp, and personally, she preferred to turn a blind eye to his depressive inclination whenever the signs grew too bold and the guilt of her mistakes drowned her. But as much and as successfully as she tried to avoid the truth that had always been staring her straight in the face – now they had reached a point where she couldn't dare to deceive herself any longer, much less her child. And the truth … the truth didn't merely taste bitter, it tasted like ash, and fire, and failure. Like tearful sleepless nights, and countless buried regrets. A tinge of desperate fear, of repressed resentfulness and choking shame mixed under.
It tasted like defeat.
But it was a defeating truth that had slowly crept into their life over a long time … until they couldn't ignore it anymore – the fact that their mediocre parenting was a major factor of why their baby boy had such a nonchalant and dire outlook on his own life, such a horrible uncaring attitude to his own well-being, and his terrifying preference to ignore the screams of reality while hiding himself away, lost in the fantasy world of manga's and video games … it was their fault.
It was their fault that he was sitting there, aloof to what was not only happening around but to him, completely disinterested in even trying to outrun the wrenches life threw in his way.
What she hadn't fully understood, even then, despite waking up to the facts, was the severity of damage their behaviour dealt their child. A damage that showed in every action he didn't take and every hurt he swallowed silently.
It showed in the blankness of his eyes when he looked at her.
She thought she knew, thought she was looking out for her baby as much as she could … but like so many other irrevocable securities in her life, this too was nothing but wishful thinking.
Until wishful thinking was hit on the head by a demon it couldn't see through rose-coloured glasses.
It began as a persistent cough.
Painful. Raw. Wrecking. Days spend at home, suffering.
It quickly evolved into a sickness that household medicine couldn't reign in.
There was nothing to it – she helped him dress in something warm and took her ailing child to their family physician. Antibiotics, maybe the heavier variant – that were her thoughts.
Her hopes.
Hopes that were quickly dashed, grounded into so fine dust she couldn't recognize them any longer as Matatabi-san's eyes turned narrow, and his voice held a tone she had never heard from him, cautiousness. Tests. They needed to perform tests, because the other symptoms Tsuna experienced beside his cough? The old doctor didn't seem to believe in a variant of the flu, or even pneumonia. He didn't say why, and Nana was too afraid to ask which of them had alarmed him so much. She didn't know what diagnosis he foresaw, but whatever it was, it didn't seem good. Not good at all. He took blood from Tsuna, telling them that he wanted to make sure of his suspicion before voicing it and that he would call them back as soon as the results were in.
The call came two anxious days later.
Dread couldn't describe the feeling pooling in her stomach at the stern frown marring the old physician's face.
Rightfully.
It felt as if reality itself unravelled, the graveness of their situation hitting home like a sledgehammer to the ribs, driving out her breath as she sat next to her son in the doctor's office and Matatabi-san told them that the results had come in as he had expected them to, that her darling little boy, her sunlight, had cancer.
Cancer. It wasn't a world she had any kind of experience with, and now …
Now it was the six-letter-word that devastated their lives.
There were more tests, these ones at the hospital, rushed because Matatabi-san was afraid of how far the cancer seemed to have progressed from the severity of Tsuna's symptoms alone. Her baby boy was admitted and three days later, they were sat down together, and Matatabi-san proceeded to tell them the crude truth. Nana had never hated another human more than she hated the kind old doctor who explained to them that Tsuna would not survive to reach his fourteenth birthday because the cancer located on his pancreas and lungs was caught too late … and, from first deeper-going results, seemed to belong to the inoperable kind.
A kind that could only be fought with therapy … for which it was too late and her sons condition much too weak. And even if they had found out earlier …
It would have merely prolonged his life for three to five years.
He never stood a chance.
And Tsuna … her Tsuna had patted her shaking hand comfortingly, smiled softly …
… and shrugged.
He shrugged.
" You will be okay, Kaa-chan. Nothing will change, not really. It's no real loss."
… no real loss …?
It was all she could do not to break down crying as she wrapped her arms around her frail son, feeling once more how much the sickness she had thought to be the flu or something like that had already damaged his body … and he never complained. He always – always tried to take the burdens life threw at him on his own narrow shoulder, no matter how much it broke him, just so that she could remain steadfast in her delusions. But not this time.
This time she had to stay strong, she had to be there – just this once, she had to be the mother her baby deserved, and not some airheaded fool who took her greatest treasure as granted.
But truthfully …
She had never before wanted to die so badly of shame than then, looking at those encouraging gentle eyes that held everything warm and soft for her and nothing but indifference and carelessness for himself.
… Kami-sama …
What had they done?
Time seemed to fly, trickling away like sand between her fingers.
And at the same time, the pain stayed vividly burned into her memory.
A never-ending spiral of despair and agony.
Of watching, and holding, and breaking, and recollecting, breaking, again, watching, despairing, screaming, holding …
And the pieces started to fit less and less, small shards remaining on the floor, lost …
Who is that in the mirror, that woman?
A wife?
A mother?
An absolute failure?
It is a stranger.
A stranger, paralysed and powerless, faced with the inevitable death of her son.
A stranger was watching her back, watching her change …
And into what …
She didn't have the strength to care about something like that.
Not anymore.
How strange her own skin felt.
How strange her own face looked.
Strange …
Iemitsu …
Help …
Anata …
Where are you?
We need you.
Your family needs you.
I need you.
He needs you.
Where are you?
… what are we for you?
From the moment those damning words had left the doctor's mouth, everything had gone to hell. Literal hell.
Nana found herself forced to watch as Tsuna's health declined, no longer able to see it as the signs of mere sickness and recognizing it for what it truly was: he was wasting away, slowly at first, then so rapidly fast that she could barely keep up with it. It was an unstoppable disaster, the definition of terminal sickness laughing into their faces, and she could do nothing … just as he would do nothing while the pain started progressively worsening, making them up the amount of pain medication doses until he was at times barely conscious or coherent.
He couldn't go to school anymore.
His cough brought up blood … so much blood.
Food wouldn't stay down, not even on the rare occasion when he had appetite or forced himself to eat … just to keep Nana from crying when she saw his frail bony frame, the bones sticking out. He had been laid a cannula for the total parenteral nutrition, but even that was merely a means to keep him … going.
His chest kept hurting. No matter how he sat or laid, nothing was comfortable anymore.
He grew weaker, thinner, paler.
Colourless … lifeless.
His words were choked and thready, breathing became a chore. Pain killers, even morphine, lost their efficiency after a while. She had to swallow the tears when his choked sobs and ragged breathing kept her up at night. His fingers wouldn't stop trembling as she gave him more pain killers, hoping to sooth the pain as she brushed away the tear stains on his sunken cold cheeks, biting back her own tears as those tiny hands tried to squeeze her own, trying to give her comfort.
She squeezed back, smiling.
… on the inside, she was screaming …
The pressure of his hand had been next to naught.
Then they gave him methadone … and she knew that it was only a matter of time, that the pain had gotten so bad that … so bad that she was told to cherish every minute he was aware and with her, and to ready herself to let go … to not make him suffer anymore.
She wouldn't. She wouldn't force such deep deep pain on him – for her own selfish sake.
No, seeing him so agonised tormented her, painting her every waking and sleeping moment in despair, but despite this, she soaked up every single second with her beloved son …
Her baby.
Oh kami … kami, kami, kami, kami, KAMI …
Her baby!
Her baby!
Kami-sama, no, no, no, please … no … please …
… no …
Not her son.
Not … not her baby.
Please …
… time stops for no one. It goes on, whether you like it or not.
Mercy is no emotion time does, no.
And bitter bitter tears trailed down her hollowed cheeks as she cuddled her tiny breakable baby boy in her trembling arms, pressing a gentle kiss to his fevered forehead and softly stroking his hair. He tried to reach up and tug until her arms surrounded him completely, which she obliged to immediately, letting him burrow deeply into her embrace.
Even lying like this, hurt him. Being touch like this, hurt him.
But he wanted it.
And she gave what she could.
Everything, everything for him.
" Love … y-you, Kaa-chan."
A mere whisper, but a whisper she would hold dear to her heart forever more.
" I love you too, sweetheart. I love you so much …"
And he fell asleep, to her humming of his old lullaby.
He fell asleep with a tiny tiny smile.
And he didn't wake up.
Time slipped away.
Nothing mattered.
His chest was still.
His skin cooled down.
His eyes were closed.
His breath had stopped rattling.
And Nana kept humming his lullaby as tears fell down her cheeks.
She didn't clearly remember how or when they came and took him away. She didn't remember screaming, and crying, reaching for her still still child as he was carried out of the home of his too short childhood.
She didn't remember the funeral, the cremation or speeches. She didn't remember the faces or names of meaningless people, offering platitudes that held no significance in this cruel grey world.
All she remembered was his favourite old stuffed lion toy, looking at her forlornly. Her hands gripped it like a lifeline, the only anchor keeping her from drowning.
She remembered the sweet little boy that brightened her life with his kind smiles.
And the empty seat next to her.
No parent should bury their child.
No mother should grief her son.
No father should miss the funeral and burial.
He never called back.
He never called her back.
Why didn't he call back?
Nana stopped calling Iemitsu.
When did Anata become Iemitsu?
… the day her heart broke and was lowered in the ground while his life continued ignorantly on.
How to go on from here?
Where to go to?
… Why even … try?
Why try to go on?
There was nothing left.
Nothing but despair.
Nothing but memories.
Reminders. Promises. Wishes.
The cruelty of reality.
The shadow of her child, his presence hidden in the little things.
She … just wanted her reason to live to return.
She wanted her little boy back.
The most sincere and honest wish she ever had, and the one that never could be fulfilled.
… could it?
It tore her sanity apart.
Tsuna could not return.
But Nana could join him.
One last call.
One last try.
Unanswered.
There was a wooden beam along the ceiling in their bedroom.
It was sturdy, build rather annoyingly to support the roof. Few other rooms had one, but their bedroom did. She looked at it, every time she laid in her bed, in the morning when she woke up, during the day when exhaustion won, at night when she went to sleep. Even before ... Tsuna had d-died, when she had felt his body and spirit weaken and slipping away, her gaze had been inevitably drawn to the same beam while she listened to his suffering. When her tireless thoughts turned darker, when her naïve dreams of a happy future had turned bleak and blurry, and her eyes had burned from countless sleepless nights, she had stared at that beam.
It was sturdy.
It was there.
It was possibility.
Opportunity.
… a way out.
Had Iemitsu known how their life would turn out, if he had even felt the slightest inkling, maybe he would have kept at least one of his promises to renovate the house and remove the beams in exchange for a different, more subtle structural support, but alas, not even his rather strange intuition foresaw this, and so, all he ever actually did was pay her one more lip-service …
Just like his wedding vows.
Just like his oaths to their son.
If there was one thing her husband was exceedingly excellent at, Nana thought bitterly, than it was paying lip-service to those he claimed to love.
She really wished he would hate her like she was beginning to hate him.
Maybe he would have kept his word to keep her from nagging.
Maybe he would have been there, maybe she would have been able to get through to him.
But 'maybe' … 'maybe' was an endless game, beyond useless.
It didn't change reality.
Actions did.
Nana stared at the beam.
Actions changed reality.
She would change her reality.
Without regret.
A tear run down her cheek as she felt the fabric tighten around her neck.
Her first instinct was to struggle.
Her second to claw.
Her third … her third was to smile.
She was afraid, afraid of dying, but even as her vision started to grey around the edges, black spots dancing, she … couldn't regret.
Fear, fear there was, but the promise of what laid beyond …
She had once been afraid of childbirth, she had laboured for hours to watch the greatest gift of her life, the one she helped bring into the world, take his first freeing breath, and just a few short years later, she had been forced to watch him take his last laboured breath.
She closed her eyes.
Beyond this moment waited Tsuna. Her son. Her baby.
And she wouldn't let him wait, alone, any longer.
She couldn't.
She was his mother.
Fear, loss, grief, pain, despair … all that and more fought for dominance within Nana Sawada in the moment she died.
None of them won.
It was relief that soaked her heart.
There wasn't an audible crack.
Her eyes were closed.
The barest hints of a smile graced her blue lips.
It was a tragedy.
The story of Sawada-san and her little boy was nothing short of a terrible tragedy.
Neighbours who had known the both of them for over a decade grieved for the horrible fates of mother and son even as shame ate at them for feeling thankful that their own children were alive, healthy; only daring to admit in the embraces of their loved ones that they themselves couldn't and wouldn't imagine not only losing a child, but watching their own flesh and blood wasting away. It was unkindness, and no one begrudged Nana and her little boy their peace.
Mothers cried for Nana, for the pain she must have went through to end it all, for the horror of losing her child. They cried for Tsuna, a sweet timid little boy who was dealt such a heavy blow and until the end cared so deeply for his mother. Those of them who had helped the Sawadas, who had taken the time to sometimes collect their groceries to spar Nana the run, or sat by Tsuna when his mother had nearly collapsed in exhaustion, who had seen how despite being defeated by his own body the child who never fought back tried to always smile to ease his mother's burden, felt humbled and deeply grieved. It was heart-breaking, and it made them appreciate their own happiness only all the more, knowing how fleeting life could be.
Fathers thanked whatever deity watched over them that their own families where there, promising to do everything to never be able to relate to the Sawadas. It was disgust and distaste that made them shake their heads whenever the man of the house was mentioned.
Not even those who bullied the young boy, or those who thought Nana an incompetent airhead could find any blame with them.
Some tried to say that Nana took the cowards way out, but most of the time they were shushed.
Everyone was allowed their own grief, and if Nana couldn't deal with it in any other way, if her new reality left her so desperate that she saw no light at the end, then it was her choice, a choice that, while not understood or accepted by everyone, was hers to make.
Many parents didn't even dare imagine being forced into the same situation. They didn't dare judge, unsure if they wouldn't have reacted in the same way.
And through it all, the house never went up for sale. It was never cleared, the belongings of the little family left to gather dust, forgotten and abandoned.
Somewhere in Italy, a phone rung.
The area code for Japan on the display.
It went unanswered.
Iemitsu Sawada … never answered.
To … or for anything.
~The End. Companion to 'Delay'~