He was worried again.
For some strange reason that he couldn't fathom, it made him immensely annoyed when the herbivore got that look on his face. His brows were all pinched up and his large, brown eyes clouded over. He was frowning too, and Hibari didn't like that.
It wasn't as if the expression was something new; on contrary, it was something Hibari saw every day. When he came to school, he was always worried about something or the other, but Sawada Tsunayoshi still tried to smile, a sheepish little grin that wasn't fooling anyone. But he was smiling, and even if it didn't come from happiness, his eyes were clear, bright and earnest. That expression was tolerable, Hibari had decided.
He knew what the little herbivore was fretting about; it wasn't all that hard to guess. Under the bluster about being bitten to death and school marks, he was wondering if the silver haired herbivore would get detention for smoking, if Yamamoto Takeshi's new wounds from practice were healing properly, if that woman, Chrome Dokuro, was eating well and a million other things that didn't really affect him, but he cared about anyway. Hibari never understood it –it didn't affect the herbivore if the boxing idiot was bitten to death for damaging school property or if that infuriating pineapple was slowing dying in his cell. One the other hand, he never really cared or tended to his own wounds, physical or emotional, and generally let them be in order to fret over someone else's scars instead.
But Sawada Tsunayoshi worried all the same. Not that Hibari cared enough to notice, but those emotions were written all over that herbivorous little face. But that kind of worry was fine, since it made the little herbivore stronger for some strange reason that didn't make sense; after all, you became stronger if you were alone because you didn't need to hold back, but apparently, that basic logic didn't apply to the Tenth Boss of Vongola.
But this kind of worry –lost eyes and close-to-tears expression –only made Sawada Tsunayoshi weaker, and he knew that because it was the same kind of worry he had when he intervened with his fight on the rooftop of Namimori Middle. There was the sound of crunching bones that Hibari took in impassively, but he didn't pity the thing because it was common sense not to throw yourself in the middle of Hibari Kyouya's fight.
Still, the herbivore became blindingly weak when he was immersed in this kind of worry. It was the worry he had for weeks after he killed Byakuran, when he learnt that Mukuro was with the Vendicare in his eternal, watery prison, and when he found out that sword fighting-baseball herbivore was in the hospital. Hibari didn't like it. Hibari didn't like it at all.
That was what prompted him to take the helicopter to the deserted island where the Shimon family was despite his hate for crowds, even more so than his desire to bite someone to death. When he had descended, quite literally, from the sky, that stupid, pinched up face was still fogged up with that ugly worry. Even his voice was brimming full of that sickening anxiety.
He didn't know what possessed him to accept that fight with the female Shimon herbivore, but he thought that it might have something to do with that expression. That woman was sufficiently strong, he supposed, but not nearly strong enough to defeat Hibari Kyouya and barely worth his time.
Hibari almost laughed when he learnt that the woman had challenged Sawada Tsunayoshi to a battle of pride. Was the woman dense? Sawada Tsunayoshi had no pride whatsoever; it was his nature to be humble and underestimate himself, and the only thing that herbivore had now was that hideous worry.
Then that mirth turns into something far softer as the herbivore's face twists again, pain-filled and scared for someone else. Only this time it's for him and Hibari instantly decides that he likes that, even it makes that herbivore weak. He doesn't need that herbivore worrying for him on top of everyone else he is shouldering on his back, but feels nice to be worried for.
The emotion quickly shifts to the other extreme when he realizes Sawada Tsunayoshi doubts his ability to win this fight.
"Your face just now was boring," Hibari drawls, carefully concealing all emotion.
He wants to wipe that expression off his face, but he doesn't do comfort because he is Hibari Kyouya and attempting anything like that would likely make that little herbivore's worry increase tenfold. So he does the only thing he knows how, to fight and to discipline, showing Sawada Tsunayoshi that, at the very least, he didn't have to worry for his sake, because he was Hibari Kyouya and he was strong.
"Look closely at my fight," he adds, and this is as close to comforting as Hibari believes he'll ever get.