It had been a week since the terrorist attack. The DC had been all around Namimori, helping with the cleanup and repair. The garage had been reopened the day before, and the entire crew had breathed a sigh of relief when Hibari-san's bike was completely untouched. The lists of the dead, injured, and missing showed that despite the danger, only three people had died. Tsuna comforted himself with the knowledge that it could have been much worse. That was not, however, the language he used when he called his mother and reassured her that he was completely fine. Not even a scratch, Mom, I swear.
It was exactly closing time when Hibari-san strode into the garage, looking for his motorcycle. When Tsuna brought it out to him, Hibari-san's eyes flickered all over the motorcycle and the mechanic. Then he nodded, sharply.
"Good work." He said. Then he mounted the bike and drove away. Tsuna stood frozen for a second. Hibari-san could have been talking about the bike. Tsuna doubted it, not with his luck.
The next months seemed to blur together, and Hibari never came back to the shop. There were no more explosions and Namimori was even more peaceful than usual. Tsuna took first aid courses. Occasionally he'd look down at his hands, and see them soaked red with blood. This tended to end with him dropping a wrench on his foot. Life was normal.
Then one day he woke up to a knock on the door. It was a polite knock, kind but firm. Tsuna did not want to answer the door. His entire body rebelled at the mere thought of opening the door. But his mother had taught him manners, and manners said that when someone knocked on the door to your apartment, you had to get out of bed and answer the door. Thus, Tsuna entered the door in bare feet and pajama pants.
In the hallway stood a very tall young man with a grave expression reflected in his light blue eyes.
"Are you Sawada Tsunayoshi, son of Sawada Iemitsu-dono?" He asked. Tsuna considered slamming the door in his face. The door was already halfway closed before he realized he was already carrying out the motions. "Please wait, Sawada-dono!" The man who knew his father cried out. "This is very important! The fate of the world important!" Tsuna stopped actively trying to shut the door, flinching from the raw desperation and grief that coated the words coming out of the stranger's mouth.
"My name is Sawada Tsunayoshi," he confirmed. "Who are you?" He pointedly failed to invite the distraught foreigner into his apartment.
"My deepest apologies, Sawada-dono! I am Basil, acting head of the CEDEF." Basil dropped into a deep bow, and continued, "I am sorry for bringing such terrible news to your door, but it has fallen on me tell you that your father, Sawada Iemitsu, is dead." His eyes were red rimmed yet fierce as he stared intensely at Tsuna, who was at a loss.
"I...uhm...okay?" He tried, confused. "Hasn't he been dead for years?" Basil's eyes widened in shocked dismay.
"Negative, Sawada-dono! Iemitsu fell in battle a few short weeks ago!" At this, Tsuna started to roll his eyes.
"My Dad was a construction worker, Basil-san," Tsuna said, gently. When he wasn't being a lazy bum, Tsuna added in his head. "But it was nice of you to want to tell me about him!" He hastily slammed the door shut while Basil was still frozen from shock.
Then his knees gave way. Tsuna looked at his hands, and saw they were shaking, the muscles jittering back and forth as the quaked underneath his skin. All he wanted to do was curl up in a ball and he didn't know why. Tsuna tried to pull himself together. He had to go to work today. He had to call his mother in the evening. He had to get dressed. He had to stand up.
There was another knock on the door. Tsuna remained curled up in the ball. It figured that anyone who had known his father enough to be bereaved by his passing wouldn't know when they weren't wanted.
"Sawada-dono!" Came the muffled voice through the door. "Sawada-dono, there are more things you need to know!" Tsuna put his hands over his ears. Maybe he wouldn't go to work today. Maybe he should call in sick. At this point, it wouldn't even be a lie. All of his instincts were united in telling him he didn't, in fact, want to know what else Basil wanted to tell him. Basil had stopped knocking on the door. Tsuna did not take this as a good sign. He wanted to rewind time and never have opened the door in the first place.
The next thing he knew was desperately rolling away from the door as wooden shrapnel speared right through where he had previously been wrapped around himself. He felt a scream building up inside his throat and choked on it, gasping and wheezing and shaking from the sudden burst of adrenaline.
"Are you alright? Sawada-dono!?" Basil entered Tsuna's apartment as if it wasn't his fault that Tsuna now had a gaping hole where his door used to be.
"What about this is alright?" Tsuna hissed, choosing to be mad as the much better option than having another panic attack. "Just now. I could have died from some wood scraps that came from some stranger destroying my front door. How is that alright?" It occurred to him later that he may have been accenting the wrong part of that sentence. By then, of course, it was far too late.
"But I don't want to be a Mafia boss." It was the first thing that Tsuna could think to protest. He didn't want any part of this. It wasn't a huge surprise that his dad was actually even shadier than he had thought. It was… weird that his dad had gone five years without contacting his family, but he was dead now? So it wasn't like Tsuna could punch him. If Tsuna was the type of person who punched people. Which he wasn't. Even if he really sort of wanted to.
"But you must, Sawada-dono!" Ah. He was still here.
"Isn't there someone else?" Tsuna asked. It was not a rhetorical question. He really wanted there to be someone else. What type of criminal organization decided that blood relations were more important than someone who has any idea of what they're doing. This is whole thing is a terrible idea. He would call it a terrible joke, but this is his life, isn't it. He doesn't want to call his life a terrible joke. He doesn't want to hear the ring of truth in his voice.
He pushes down the voice inside his head that tells him that the best thing to do right now his run around in circles and scream. The voice is lying to him. He needs to focus on what he does best- giving away responsibility as fast as he possibly can.
"There is no one else, Sawada-dono." This time it is Basil's words that ring false.
"You're lying," Tsuna says flatly. He is still curled up in a ball on the floor. Basil has been talking to the top of his head, taking the lack of acknowledgement as permission to tell Tsuna all sorts of things he didn't want to know about what his father has been up to. There is a pause. Apparently Basil isn't used to being called out like that. He should be better at lying. He's a mafioso, right? Tsuna thinks that's what they're called.
"You are the next in line, Tsunayoshi Sawada-dono. Even if you choose to pass the mantle on to someone else, you must first take it for yourself." So Basil had figured out what he was getting at. That was good? That meant that there was someone who would be willing to be involved in this mess instead of Tsuna. He wishes them the best of luck.
"I'm not moving to Italy," he says instead. He's losing ground, now. He's really not cut out for this type of thing. He wants to go home. Wait. He is home. He wants to be somewhere else. But not Italy.
He doesn't like Italy. The people are loud, and the food is strange, and he feels so stupid trying to talk to people in Japanese when there are so many people who are bilingual. He misses his motorcycle. He hadn't wanted to bring it with him, afraid of it being damaged. He is aware that that fear was well founded, but he still wants his motorcycle. Tsuna had poured his soul into that piece of machinery. He feels like a child, lost without his safety blanket. He does not share his newfound perspective with his blank-faced escort.
He told Basil that the first time he was addressed as the Don of the Vongola, he was leaving. He's pretty sure they're still calling him that behind his back, though. Probably with an addendum of something like "puppet". He doesn't care what they call him, not really. He just wants to go home. It feels like it's been ages since he dropped a wrench on his foot.
Today he will meet someone called Xanxus, head of the Varia Assassination Squad. This seems like a terrible idea. He is absolutely certain that this will end in tears- his tears, to be exact. There was a suit on his bed this morning. It was black, with pinstripes breaking up the dark lines. Beside it was a cape. Tsuna has the terrifying idea that they were tailor made for him. He does not want to wear a tailor made suit and cape. He fears it might make it look like he's an imposter. Worse, it might make him look like he belongs.
As he goes down to the meeting, he is still wearing his mechanic's jacket over some casual wear he brought with him from Japan. If he is going to die, at least he's going to be comfortable, he thinks, semi-hysterically. Tsuna has no idea what he's doing anymore.
At the end of the mansion's corridor, a pair of double doors loom. Actually, they were ordinary doors. It was Tsuna's imagination that made the shadows stretch and the lights flicker. Probably.
Tsuna tries to knock. The sound his knuckles produce is pathetic, easily absorbed by the thick wooden planks. Tsuna gives up, gently then firmly pushing on the doors so that they creak open.
Now he knows that someone is messing with him. There is no way that, out of all of the doors that exist in this giant mafia base masquerading as a house, it is this one in particular that has not been oiled. Tsuna scowls. He had expected something more from the Varia than a childish prank like this. His imagination had been coming up with so many different things they could have used against him. He feels something inside of him relax.
Then, he sees what is on the other side of the double doors. And promptly regrets any and all of the choices he has made in his life that have led up to this point.