Being a baby was insanely boring.
After my life-changing epiphany concerning my new role, I started trying to interact with Tsuna more and silently despise him less. When he wanted to play with blocks, I would sit next to him and teach him how to make the biggest towers. When Nana got around to buying us little toy pianos and plastic trumpets and whatnot, I would play along with him and try with varying amounts of success to coax him into playing little tunes instead of the random cacophonous noises that he was so very fond of.
He rarely ever objected to my sudden interest in him, although he did draw the line when I tried to get him to play with anything dog related. Nana thought it was adorable and took pictures at every available opportunity. I thought it was pathetic and would bark at him whenever he got too annoying. He learned to shut up real quick.
To summarize that all up for you, I spent all day every day babysitting a little kid.
It wasn't just boring, it was exhausting. I slept more than any baby I'd ever met and I slept hard. Like, 'sleep through Tsuna throwing a temper tantrum at 3 AM because I won't wake up and play with him' hard. Nana seemed thankful that she only had to silence one baby a night, so it all worked out pretty well in the end.
On the happier side of things, I was finally starting to pick up on the language, albeit slower than I would have liked. At the very least I knew the terms for all of my toys…and the word for pineapple. Nana was incredibly confused when, after gleefully cackling out my 'first word' ("Nappo-sama!"), I burst into uncontrollable giggles that took at least ten minutes to finally quiet down. I may have technically been undead (did that make me a zombie?) and very much chibified, but I was still a diehard otaku and come on.
My first word was Pineapple-sama.
Imagine Tsuna's face in fourteen years (holy crap that was a long time) when Nana tells him that his big sister's first word was synonymous with the name of the man who kept trying to kill him slash steal his body.
Ha.
Other than those little spots of joy in my life, my day was depressingly monotonous and routine. Wake up to Tsuna's crying. Calm him down. Eat. Play with blocks. Watch Tsuna nearly swallow a block and move on to other, less hazardous toys. Eat. Bathe. Sleep. Repeat.
It was maddening.
The most exciting part of the week was grocery day. Nana would gather Tsuna and me up, a twin in each arm, and head out for the supermarket. That was my only chance for the week to scope out my surroundings and maybe even catch a glimpse of a familiar face.
The one thing I could do without were the stares.
Months into my new life, I had finally managed to catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror while Nana was bathing Tsuna and me. I had very nearly flailed at what I saw.
My face wasn't really the problem. Sure, it was a little weird seeing a baby face in the mirror instead of my own, but I was cute enough with my giant puffy baby cheeks to not mind. I even had little wisps of pale honey brown hair coming in that Nana had taken to pinning back with a cloth headband complete with floppy bow.
No, the real problem was with my eyes.
Now, please don't misunderstand. My first reaction upon seeing my eyes wasn't necessarily because I was horrified or whatever. In comparison to the muddy black they used to be, they were actually pretty cool. Instead of any natural color (I was in an anime world, god forbid I have normal eyes), they were an incredibly bright shade of orange. I hated to compare the two, but they were somewhat reminiscent of Tsuna's eyes in Hyper Dying Will Mode.
The thing that freaked me right the fuck out was the way they glowed.
Whenever the light caught them just right, they went from bright orange to downright radioactive. It was so shocking of an effect that it was almost offensive. It was kind of like looking at a cat's eye in the dark- all bright and shiny and almost like a reflector. It was hella cool, but holy crap. I didn't just have eyes, I had goddamn headlights. It definitely explained why people always looked so shocked whenever I looked at them. Honestly though, this was an anime universe. You would think that in a universe where people could walk around with eyes and hair that looked like they were carved from magic rainbows, a little girl with shiny orange peepers would be a normal occurrence.
Apparently it wasn't.
Everywhere I went, people would glance at me and then do a double take like they had seen a monster or something. They'd get over it pretty fast, but there was something about watching people pause momentarily in whatever they were doing to just stare that really unnerved me. I didn't like being the center of attention. They were just eyes, after all. Everyone had them. Eventually it got to the point where I just wanted to steal a pair of Nana's sunglasses or something to avoid the looks.
A solution came to me one day when I was laying on the play-quilt that I shared with Tsuna, staring up at the ceiling and watching the blades of the fan whir by. Tsuna was alternating between gnawing on the fin of his large tuna plush (I giggled a little bit inside) and throwing building blocks at me in a an effort to convince me to get up and pay attention to him. Ignoring him as studiously as a baby in orange footie pajamas could, I watched the fan blades go around.
And around.
And around.
And around.
'So if Ken, Chikusa, and Mukuro are Italian, why are their names Japanese?' I thought absently to myself, still watching the fan blades. Maybe they had been born in Japan and shipped off to Italy. Had they been kidnapped? No, no, that couldn't be it. The idea of someone kidnapping Rokudo Mukuro was laughable, insane even. He would convince them to chew off their own leg first.
'Maybe he couldn't make illusions yet?' I tried to reason. This made a little more sense. Maybe he had just been too young to access his flames.
...Too young to access his flames.
How old did you have to been to tap into your flames?
I sat up just in time to get beaned in the forehead with a block (courtesy of a drooling Tsuna), but I hardly noticed or minded. This…this was something. It was productive, it was interesting, and it gave me something to do all day other than babysit.
How did one go about activating flames as a baby?
Could it even be done so young?
I frowned hard and started thinking. Maybe flames were like…like chakra from Naruto or something. Maybe your body had little flame-chakra-coils that could be damaged if you tried to access them before they had fully developed. Maybe this wasn't such a good idea. Could I actually hurt myself doing this?
But no, Reborn and the others were babies. They could use flames just fine. But then again, they were Arcobaleno. There were some very fundamental differences between a normal baby and an Arcobaleno.
But there were some very big fundamental differences between me and a normal baby as well. Besides, what was an Arcobaleno when you got right down to it? An adult chosen for a special purpose who is then turned into a baby in order to better fulfill that purpose.
Was that really so different from what I was?
(To be honest, it absolutely was, but I chose to ignore that fact.)
I flexed my tiny baby hand, watching how the little rolls of fat squished and reformed at the joints. Did you need some sort of ring to conjure a flame? No, I didn't think so. Reborn and Xanxus could do it without rings. They channeled it through their guns. And Tsuna, Tsuna could set his gloves on fire even before he got the Vongola Ring.
So…did I have to have something to channel them through?
I eyed the block that Tsuna had thrown at me. Without consciously thinking about it, I reached over and plucked it up with my meaty baby fingers, rolling it in between them thoughtfully. You needed resolve to light a flame. What was my resolve? My eyes traveled back up to the ceiling, the gears in my brain whirring so fast you could almost smell the smoke. Resolve was like determination, right? Or, in a few special cases (and by 'a few' I meant Hibari), anger. So what was I determined to do?
I wanted to be Tsuna's big sister.
…Was that enough?
Looking down at the wooden block, I concentrated with all my might on that one goal. 'I wanna be the best big sister I can possibly be. I want Tsuna to be able to look up to me.' My eyebrows furrowed, my jaw locked, and my breathing slowed to a stop. If I'd had more than three or four teeth, they would have been grinding together.
I wanted this to happen.
This had to happen.
I opened my eyes.
Nothing.
The block was still the same as it had been before. Tsuna was still teething on his fish. Nothing had changed.
Was I doing something wrong?
Frowning more deeply, I tried again. 'I want to be able to look out for him.'
Nothing.
So I tried again.
And again.
And again.
And again.
Nothing.
Maybe…maybe I just didn't have flames? That had to be it.
If I had them, something would have happened, right? The block would have, I don't know, disintegrated or become hard like a diamond or lit up like a disco ball or something. Maybe it would have even done something unheard of and uncover some previously unknown eighth or ninth or twenty thousandth flame. It wasn't supposed to do nothing.
That wasn't how this was supposed to work.
My block tumbled out my loose grip (a baby's grip, small and fat and useless useless useless) and onto the floor, my hopes along with it. My eyes began welling up with salty tears of frustration (crybaby).
Wasn't everyone supposed to have flames?
Why didn't I?
Quiet tears began rolling down my face and I tried my best to wipe them away. I couldn't really do anything useful back home, so why had I expected it to be any different here? I was always going to be a deadweight- useless, always useless. I knew how this world worked. If I didn't have flames I would be as good as dead. Why had I even bothered getting my hopes-?
Another block hit me in the face.
I stared at it through my haze of tears for a few moments, uncomprehending. Tsuna wasn't seriously still trying to get my attention, was he? He shouldn't. I was a terrible role model. I couldn't even summon flames and I was crying because of it, oh my god I was so pathetic. He'd really be better off ignoring-
This time it wasn't a block, it was an entire person. I wheezed under the weight of my twin brother, falling onto my back and flailing for relief. For a little chibi, this kid was heavy. Tsuna crawled on with determination (resolve resolve you don't have resolve), another block clutched in his meaty hand. It dug into my stomach as he supported his weight on it, sending a sharp feeling not unlike that of stepping on a lego into my squishy baby tummy. It hurt.
Now both depressed and annoyed, I rolled out from under him and sent him a scathing orange glare. He met it with wide, innocent honey brown eyes, all fluttering eyelashes and soft pouts and my heart turned to goo. There was no way he and I had come from the same mother. He was too cute. I wasn't. Not me, all blubbery and useless. My glare faded and I reluctantly turned my attention to what he was doing with his hands.
One block. Two blocks. Three blocks. With jerky, grabby motions, Tsuna gathered all the blocks he had tossed at me. He stacked them up in front of me in a neat little pyramid.
Just like I'd shown him.
I stared.
He stared back.
"Pway," he demanded, nudging the blocks closer to me.
'…What?'
His face broke into a wide smile.
"Pway," he repeated, louder this time, as if he could solve all of my problems just by saying it.
As I picked up the blocks and began neatening the pyramid, dry eyes and maybe even smiling, I thought to myself that maybe he could.
So I couldn't summon flames on the first try. Physically, I was a baby. I would just have to keep trying until I got results. I had the time.
…What if nothing ever happened, though? What if I really just didn't have flames? My hands stilled over the blocks.
"Pway!" Tsuna commanded again, this time thrusting his (gross, drool covered) tuna plush into my face and waving it around, laughing rather obnoxiously.
Then it would be okay. I didn't need magic mafia powers. I didn't have them now and Tsuna still liked me, didn't he?
I'd be okay.
A/N: I love you guys TTwTT Seriously, so much loooooove.
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU TO:
Flower power.u know u like it, OwOTunaFishAndPineapplezzOwO , assi, mebo1, April Marciano, Chuu112, Jasmine-angela, Maso-chan, Seithr-Kairy, SinisteRRRsAngel, YuujouKami, Inoue Orihime15, 7, TenraiTsukiyomi, devil190, pizzas are immortal, Bluosity, Sasuna123, moonlight phonex101, Dreamless-Sleep777, Mikkola, RosaLuna416, Tani Yoru, alexag98, vnienhuis, CeramicPizza, Eovin, HG59, KeiGinya, .exile, Pandawasmyballpen, kamikorosuXP, monamonalisa17, NotreDaaaaame, and UltraCreepyKiwi.
Plus everyone else who read! I love you, you little creepers, you.
Oh my god guys, there are so many of you! I wanted to respond to each review, but they're seriously still coming in and aaaaaah, this is the best kind of overwhelmed there is.
ONE MORE THING:
I've just posted a poll on my profile for pairings. There will be at least two more polls about this after this one, but I just want to know what you guys are kinda hoping for before I start introducing more canon characters. Please vote!
BY THE WAY GUYS, DID I MENTION HOW MUCH I LOVE YOU? BECAUSE I DO.
