Hello! So, for you who read Into the Light, I'm sorry for not getting this up yesterday. My family left right after the wedding but I didn't remember until this morning that I promised to post this. So...yeah. My bad. Anyways, this chapter has a little more insight into Tsuna's mind about his situation-although most of the story has this, I feel like this chapter has one of the most important pieces of the puzzle in it.
Thanks to tofldh and Spiral Reflection for reviewing!
Tsuna wasn't a stranger to hospitals. He had been a frequent visitor for as long as he could remember, what with the bullies beating him up coupled with his own clumsiness. He didn't feel comfortable as he struggled to keep himself upright entering the infirmary, but his surroundings were familiar enough that Tsuna didn't bother looking around like he had with every other part of the base. It looked like a generic hospital room—white walls, medical equipment, medicine, lumpy bed. It all fit.
Plus, he could barely keep his eyes open.
Tsuna collapsed onto the lumpy infirmary bed as soon as he got close enough, hoping that Reborn and Yamamoto weren't going to say anything so he could surrender to the heaviness that dragged his eyelids down. He wanted to sleep.
"If you even think about sleeping before Ryohei takes a look at you, I will drag you back to those training rooms by the collar, string you up by your feet, and make you recite all 118 elements of the periodic table in order, including their atomic number, their mass, how many neutrons are in each element's nucleus, and every single one of their ions. And if you get even one wrong, I will shoot you."
Tsuna shivered and pushed himself up on trembling arms, knowing that Reborn wouldn't hesitate to carry out his threat. He sat up to face a seething Reborn and a sympathetic looking Yamamoto. Tsuna sent a shaky smile towards the both of them. It might have been useless in reassuring them, but he hoped to at least prove to Reborn that he was still alive and kicking.
Inside, Tsuna was cursing himself in every language he knew—which was really just one (but it could be three, if you counted the five words he knew of English and Italian combined). He had been too careless. Tsuna hadn't given any thought to his wellbeing and he was paying for it dearly.
The fight against Byakuran had left Tsuna's mind reeling for hours afterwards. His brain had been muddled with uncertainty—not to mention he was left absolutely drained—to the point where he could barely move. His mind couldn't handle the physical and mental exhaustion that had hit him like a brick in the aftermath.
The physical fatigue was the worst, though. Primo may have released the Vongola Rings' true power, but Tsuna wasn't the least bit used to the tremendous exhaustion that came with it. He had been forced to level up quickly in the future, but it had been during training. The power and purity of the flames he had emitted was beyond what Tsuna could handle for more than a few moments, and he knew it.
Even slipping briefly into Hyper Dying Will mode to spar with Hibari left Tsuna gasping for breath afterwards. Now that he was past all of the fighting, the sheer force of the power Tsuna was somehow supposed to handle left the brunet wary. Being unaccustomed to the flame's power, Tsuna wasn't going to be able to use his full strength in battle unless he found some way to slowly acclimate to the strength of the ring.
"SAWADA!"
The door to the infirmary slammed open, jolting Tsuna out of his musings as the startled boy turned towards the entrance. A young man stood there, maybe eighteen or nineteen, panting with exertion, looking as if he just ran to Japan and back.
"O-Onii-san?" Tsuna asked bewilderedly.
Ryohei's bleach white hair was longer than Tsuna last remembered, but was still cropped rather short. A white bandage was taped onto the bridge of his nose and he was clad in something Tsuna would never have thought he would ever see the younger Ryohei wearing: a suit.
"Sawada!" Ryohei yelled, running over to Tsuna's side, and as many emotions seemed to cross over his features, relief dominated when he looked the brunet up and down and found no fatal injuries upon the boy. Ryohei's features crumpled instantly, his brow furrowing in worry as he took a second survey of Tsuna's exhausted form. Tsuna yelped when he found himself being crushed by the comforting arms of Kyoko's older brother. He winced as pain flared in his side, prohibiting him from taking anything but shallow breaths.
"O-Onii-san!" Tsuna wheezed. "I-I can't b-breathe."
Ryohei let him go, stepping back without looking the least bit guilty. The boxer clamped a taped hand on to Tsuna's shoulder, startling the brunet once more. "Sawada! I'm extremely glad you're okay! When I saw Octopus Head and Hibari in the hallway and they told me you were hurt, I came as fast as I could!"
Tsuna sighed at Ryohei's loud volume, but sent the boxer a small smile anyways. "I'm fine, Onii-san. I'm just-" Tsuna said, stopping when Reborn pointedly glared at him. Groaning, but not wanting to be subject to a Reborn style torture session, Tsuna started again. "My ribs were broken a while ago," he said, but gave the boxer a reassuring smile, "b-but they don't really seem to hurt all that much!"
"Broken?" Ryohei asked, a small frown pulling the corners of his lips down. Tsuna thanked every god he knew of that the boxer had quieted down to some sort of a normal volume. "I extremely don't remember that happening!"
Behind Ryohei, Yamamoto laughed, clapping the boxer on the back. "Wow, Ryohei! You're still so weird. Even I noticed that this wasn't our Tsuna when I first saw him!"
"What do you mean Yamamoto?! Of course this is Sawada!" Ryohei barked out, completely clueless as per usual. The boxer pulled a drawer on the table beside the hospital bed open and hefted out a pristine first aid kit. The box opened with a click and Tsuna couldn't help but pale at all of the medical supplies packed inside the unused kit. He hoped that he wasn't going to need that scalpel because Tsuna would rather face a bloodthirsty Hibari than be subjected to the terror of that wickedly sharp surgical knife.
"You're always so funny, Ryohei!" Yamamoto said, not even fazed by the fact that the boxer had no idea what was going on. "I guess you're right. Tsuna is Tsuna."
"Of course I'm extremely right!" Ryohei exclaimed, pulling out what looked to be a bottle of pills. "Sawada is Sawada and he needs some extreme treatment!"
Tsuna could only look on in exasperation at the two. What the heck were they even talking about? Were they talking about treating him or the fact that he wasn't his future self?
Reborn muttered something under his breath as he made his way to Tsuna's bedside, completely ignoring the two guardians. He looked the exhausted brunet over with a critical eye before turning the full force of his glare at the teen. Tsuna flinched, still unused to the hitman in this adult form. The glare lessened by a fraction but the glower still remained fixed on him.
"Take off your shirt," the hitman ordered.
"What?" Tsuna asked. "Why? Hibari didn't- Oh."
Reborn's scowl dropped, his face going blank as he tugged at the blue fabric. "I know he didn't hurt you. Now take it off."
Tsuna sighed and did as he was told, blinking as he looked down at his ribcage. Reborn's sun flames—Tsuna figured they must be strong enough to heal even bones in this form—had erased the marks to a point, but the bruises were far from gone. Tsuna squirmed uncomfortably as he looked up, finding Ryohei and Yamamoto frowning at his bare chest.
Ryohei was the first to move, immediately sweeping in to take a closer look at the injuries. He was surprisingly quiet as he poked and prodded the bruises. Tsuna flinched as a finger brushed against a particularly tender spot.
"My guess is that it was extreme asphyxiation," Ryohei muttered, lightly running his fingers over the offending splotches of black and blue. "What happened to you, Tsuna?"
Tsuna hesitated, for once not liking the informality of his name. Was it so bad that he wanted things to remain normal? The brunet looked Ryohei straight in the eyes, summoning up as much courage as he could manage before he began to speak.
"Do you remember that time I fought Byakuran and he used that weird hand to strangle me?" Ryohei nodded, still strangely soft spoken, so Tsuna continued. "He broke a couple of my ribs when I asphyxiated. He went too far with it and I ended up with some fractured and broken ribs in the process."
"What does that have to do with this?" Ryohei asked, gesturing to the rainbow of bruises that plastered Tsuna's ribcage.
Tsuna averted his eyes from Ryohei's, gaze wandering to Yamamoto's hardened amber ones instead. Tsuna shivered and turned his brown eyes to his feet, which seemed to be the only safe place in the room.
"It's...I'm not...I'm not exactly from this time," Tsuna whispered, more to himself than anyone else. "It's hard to explain since I'm not too sure what happened myself, but I was just about to go talk to my mom after that final battle with Byakuran. I was going to talk to her, but I just couldn't. The kids were crying in her arms, she was trying to do laundry, and she had no idea about anything. I didn't know how to say anything...How to explain why I was beat up and...just different..."
"Tsuna," Reborn warned.
Tsuna took a deep breath. He was rambling. He knew he was rambling. But the thought of his mother sent a pang longing through his heart. She was the one he had missed the most while stuck in that horrible future where the weight of the entire world—even other worlds—rode upon his small shoulders.
"Sawada," Ryohei said, interrupting before Tsuna could speak again. Tsuna's lips formed a small, dissatisfied grimace. The boxer just smiled reassuringly at him. "You're extremely injured. You should rest and let me take a look at those extreme bruises."
Tsuna faltered before letting out a resigned sigh. He sat back, leaning against the stacked pillows on the lumpy hospital bed and allowing Ryohei to shove a pill into his mouth. Swallowing the medicine dry, Tsuna watched as the boxer's smile vanished when Ryohei turned his face to the brunet's torso. Tsuna waited patiently as the boxer pondered his next course of action.
It didn't take long. Ryohei went to work immediately. His upturned palms shone bright with yellow sun flames before the warmth was pressed against the brunet's chest. Tsuna idly wondered when Ryohei had learned to activate his flames without his ring, seeing as he wasn't wearing it. Actually, now that he thought about it, Yamamoto and Hibari hadn't been wearing theirs either.
Tsuna didn't let his mind stay focused on that thought, though. He was exhausted and his mind was refusing to work, leaving him unable to think straight. Trying to figure anything out while he was so worn out would probably counterproductive, as his brain would lead him in nothing but circles.
Drained, but enjoying the feeling of Ryohei's sun flames, Tsuna let his shoulders sag, finally relaxing into the pillows propping him up. He let his eyes flutter close, content with this warm, tranquilizing feeling flowing through his veins.
"Tsuna."
Tsuna hummed, a foggy haze settling over his exhausted brain. He blinked lethargically at the smiling boxer, not understanding what was going on. His gaze moved lazily from Ryohei to Yamamoto before it settled on Reborn.
The hitman wasn't actually smiling like the other two—it was really more of a smirk—but the man still set Tsuna's mind at ease anyways. His last memory before drifting was of Reborn laying his hand on top of Tsuna's spiky brown locks, ruffling his hair like Tsuna imagined only a father would do.
"Sleep, Dame-Tsuna."
"STOP IT!"
Tsuna lurched up, out of breath and drenched in sweat. His gaze darted around the darkened infirmary frantically, panicked eyes looking for the bloodbodiesdead that weren't there. Trembling, the boy clutched at the blankets of his bed, trying to ground himself to something other than the murderous aura he had felt in the depths of his subconscious. He choked, still very much within the throws of the nightmares fueled by his own fear.
He exhaled in a rush, but when he tried to inhale, the air caught in his throat and he choked again. Shaking hands came to clutch at his ribs, his rational side begging, pleading for his body to cooperate. To calm down.
But something inside him wasn't satisfied. Warning bells were going off in his head and this time he couldn't ignore it. Blood of Vongola, Reborn would say. Trust that Hyper Intuition of yours.
The only thing was, he didn't know what it was he was supposed to be scared of. Panicked brown orbs surveyed the room again, but found nothing. There was nothing here. It wasn't here that Tsuna needed to be worried about. Here, he was safe, no matter if it felt like spiders were crawling up and down his skin, underneath his pajamas.
Something's coming.
That was it, he thought. Something was coming. What, he didn't know, but he knew that whatever it was, he wasn't going to like it.
Feeling himself start to calm down, Tsuna focused more on his breathing in an attempt to staunch the fear that had taken him hostage. This was something he needed to think rationally about, and he couldn't do that when he was so overtaken by fear that he couldn't even think straight.
"Calm down," he whispered to himself, clutching at his spiky locks.
He took another gulp of air. Feeling the oxygen fill his lungs, Tsuna let it out slowly, careful not to make himself choke again.
This constant feeling of being out place in time was messing with his head. He was seeing things that weren't there, dreaming of ominous auras that came to murder him, his friends, and his family in the middle of the night, and predicting things that he wasn't all too sure was really coming for him.
Don't think about that, he reprimanded himself. Think about something else.
Tsuna pulled the covers over his head, opting to think back to how all of this started instead of how he was slowly going insane.
First he woke up in the arms of his Storm Guardian, only to find that he had managed to get transported from ten years in the future to two years in the future. And then he found out they were at war.
To think, Tsuna was going to be leading an army against enemy Mafioso in two years. It was completely unfathomable. Tsuna wasn't a leader. He hated having to lead his friends around like they were pieces on a chessboard. They were his friends, not his pawns.
And besides, Tsuna didn't want to become a mafia boss. He didn't want a title that sent fear shivering down his enemies' spines. In fact, he didn't want enemies at all. He was just too soft-hearted for the life of the mafia. He could never be someone who smiled at someone and then turned around to murder their family. He wasn't fit for this life.
All his life he had been pushed to the ground for being less than average by people who looked down on him, but never once could he think about doing something so evil as hating them. Sometimes people did things to make themselves feel better, no matter how it made others feel. Like the classmates who used to beat down on him. Tsuna didn't blame his former bullies in the least. It wasn't their fault they were hurting and needed some way to feel better about themselves, even if their execution was wrong.
And then Tsuna was forced to face Mukuro, a boy who had been bent and twisted by the Mafioso family that had experimented on him. And Tsuna couldn't really blame him, either. He could only try and sympathize with a boy who held so much hurt in him that he lashed out and became something no one wanted. Tsuna could only try his best to understand him, too.
It may not have been during the best of circumstances—and really, whenever was it?—but Xanxus had crawled his way into Tsuna's heart, too, if only for their similarities relating their fathers. Xanxus's story was a sad one, but it made Tsuna's heart flutter with a familiar anguish as he was forced to recall his own life, devoid of a father. He couldn't blame Xanxus for hurting.
And even with Byakuran, Tsuna could not find fault with his insanity. After years of being aware of parallel versions of himself constantly being born or dying, Byakuran would have to be a god not to have gone off the deep end. Tsuna couldn't even imagine having to deal with that—having his ancestors appear randomly was enough as it was. So, as much as he resented Byakuran's actions, Tsuna couldn't blame the white-haired man for his insanity. And even if the man hadn't ever been an ally, Tsuna couldn't help but think if things had been different, they could have been friends.
And now Tsuna was waist deep in a war he knew nothing about. But that didn't make the thought any less scary. Tsuna was supposed to be leading people in battle. He was the leader of an army against nondescript enemies, and though that should have made Tsuna feel better about confronting them—if you didn't know them, they were easier to defeat, right?—he could only dread having to face them.
These were people he had no clue about it. He had no idea why they were even at war with them, but he knew that this wasn't just some turf war. This was a war full of armies and battles. It was like nothing Tsuna had ever known.
That thought made Tsuna feel so much worse. He knew nothing about these people, and yet, there were automatically his enemies. During every other battle he had fought in, Tsuna had had a chance to understand why. He had the chance to understand their actions and the part. This? This was just killing someone else before they came to kill him. This was war.
It was disconcerting to keep up with his raging thoughts. It seemed like a vivid nightmare the way things were playing out, and Tsuna couldn't help but find himself in much of the same position he had been during that first night ten years in the future. Hiding under the covers and praying to someone out there to take pity on him and send him back to his original time before things could go to hell was really the only option he had at this point. Well, it was either that or accept his new reality straight-faced and help the Vongola win a war he was terrified to participate in.
Tsuna sighed, clutching the covers tighter. This was just too much to handle. He wasn't strong enough to be able to face something so improbable head on. At least he had had Gokudera—his Gokudera—and Reborn with him before. Now? Now he had no one to rely on. He was the only one from the present and he was stuck in the future by himself with everyone's older selves—and while they were familiar and somewhat comforting, they just didn't act the same. Tsuna didn't know these future guardians that well and it made him feel lonely.
"Tsuna," someone whispered into the darkness of the infirmary.
Tsuna sat up suddenly, tugging the covers off of his head. He scanned the darkened room but found no other person. Discounting the call as a part of his overactive imagination, Tsuna warily lied back down, pulling the blankets up to his chin and closing his eyes. He was probably still freaked out because of that dream.
"Tsuna!" the voice called out again, this time closer and with more urgency.
Tsuna squeezed his eyes tighter, clenching the blankets with a death grip. It wasn't real. There wasn't anybody there. He was just panicking again. The nightmare was just trying to sneak back up on him while he was caught unaware.
"Tsu-"
Tsuna jerked up with a yell when he felt something grab his shoulder. Panting and veins pumping with adrenaline, the brunet stood on top of his mattress, glancing down at the white tiled floor below in trepidation. His heart pounded in his ears as he scanned the room for anything suspicious only to skip a beat when he caught wide green eyes gazing back at him at his bedside.
He put his hands over his ears and leapt off the bed, tumbling to the floor. Still on an adrenaline high, Tsuna simply rolled to avoid injury, jumping back to his feet as soon as he could. He backed away from the bed, back hitting the cabinet behind him and hip bumping into a cart, causing something to fall to the ground with a loud crash.
Tsuna winced but didn't let his thoughts linger too long on that. He was struggling to pull oxygen into his lungs and locking eyes with those wide glinting, green eyes were not helping in the least.
"What the hell is going on here?!"
The lights flickered on and Tsuna blinked, eyes snapping to an alert Gokudera and Yamamoto standing in the doorway. Both had their weapons brandished—Yamamoto, his sword and Gokudera, his dynamites—and at the ready.
"G-Gokudera-kun," Tsuna said, breathing still shallow and fast-paced. "Y-Yama...moto."
All eyes turned to the trembling brunet and something within both guardians' seemed to click as they rushed over to their panicked boss.
"Tsuna!" Yamamoto asked, setting his sword to the side. Tsuna's eyes followed the sword warily, not liking that Yamamoto had dropped the weapon when there was something in here with them, even if a sword wouldn't do much against a figment of his imagination. Gokudera trailed after the baseball player, looking around the room.
The bomber zeroed in on something near Tsuna's bed and Tsuna's quivering increased. He couldn't see past Yamamoto, but if Gokudera had seen what was supposed to be a creature made up from Tsuna's overactive imagination, that could only mean one thing. He hadn't been imagining it.
Tsuna paled. He really wished Yamamoto would pick up the sword now.
"Oi! What the hell are you doing? It's two in the morning!" Gokudera yelled at the figure sitting next to Tsuna's bed. Yamamoto shifted, turning away from Tsuna to gaze at the offending figure Gokudera had approached. Tsuna's heart squeezed as Gokudera put away his dynamite, but it wasn't until he actually caught sight of exactly what—who— was sprawled out on the floor beside his bed.
Letting out a shaky breath, Tsuna let his back slide down against the cabinet, his legs refusing to hold him up anymore. He brought his knees to his chin and covered his face with his hands. He was so stupid. So, so stupid.
"Well?" Tsuna heard Gokudera growl, noting that the bomber seemed back to his grouchy self. "Are you going to answer me or stare at me like I killed your mother?"
There was silence. No one said a word. Tsuna peeked out from between his fingers, feeling shame and guilt threatening to spill over into tears. Watery brown eyes caught encouraging amber before the baseball player pulled Tsuna's slender fingers from his flushed face.
Tsuna's lip trembled as tears pricked his eyes. He rubbed frantically at his eyes with a shaking fist, unsure of his own emotions.
"Tsuna," Yamamoto said quietly, a pitying look washing away his earlier encouraging one. "Are you alright?"
Nodding, Tsuna let out another shuddering exhale, unable to form any words as he choked on his tears.
"I..."
Tsuna froze, looking over Yamamoto's shoulder at the figure beside the bed. The figure—the boy, Tsuna corrected himself—looked up at Gokudera with unnerved green eyes and Tsuna couldn't help the fresh wave of guilt that washed over him.
"I...I heard Tsuna yell, and I thought someone was attacking the base," the boy admitted.
Gokudera hit him on top of the head. Tsuna didn't say anything. He didn't reprimand the bomber nor did he stop the words that seemed to flow from the angry teen's mouth. He couldn't. He was too busy trying to stop himself from freaking out.
Because in front of Gokudera sat a boy of about eight or nine with curly black-hair, dressed in cow print pajamas and all Tsuna could think about was the reality slamming itself down upon his shoulders. He could deny it before with his guardians, because they hadn't looked that much different, but now...
He had been scared of Lambo.
"Why would you come straight here—where an enemy could be attacking—when your room is right next to the sword freak's?! You could have gotten Yamamoto instead of charging in here blind by yourself!"
"But Tsuna might have been in trouble!" Lambo protested, slamming a fist into the ground.
"And what were you going to do about it if he was?!" Gokudera fumed, jabbing a finger at the boy. Tsuna could only watch the argument with wide eyes, even as Yamamoto helped him to his feet. "He's more capable then you are and coming here would have put the both of you in danger!"
"I would have helped him!"
"By getting yourself killed!" Gokudera countered. "You know you can't fight off an assassin who could infiltrate the base. You know, Lambo! Why in the hell would you do something so reckless?!"
Tears pooled in Lambo's eyes and Tsuna felt his heart clench with guilt again. The brunet walked forward on numb feet before he rushed over to where Lambo was sitting, dropping to his knees and engulfing the cow clad boy in a tight embrace.
"I'm so sorry," Tsuna whispered softly into the boy's ear. "I'm so sorry."
"Tsuna...?" Lambo said uncertainly, arms raised half way, as if he were going to hug the brunet back but was unsure about his actions.
Tsuna just held the boy tighter to himself, tears blurring his vision of the room. He couldn't see Yamamoto and Gokudera behind him, so he couldn't guess why they were silent, but Tsuna didn't let himself focus on them. He fixated on the boy in his arms, a tearful smile pulling up the corners of his lips when Lambo's arms wrapped around him. He may have been older, but this was Lambo. This was his little brother he would stop the world for.
"L-Lambo," Tsuna sobbed, tears streaming down his cheeks. "I'm so, so sorry. I...I didn't mean to...to scare you."
Lambo nuzzled his head into the crook of Tsuna's neck. "It's not your fault. I shouldn't have snuck up on you."
Lambo owning up to his mistakes? Maybe this wasn't Lambo.
"Tch," Tsuna heard Gokudera click his tongue in annoyance, although it sounded more fond than annoyed. "You better learn not to do this again, you stupid cow."
Lambo's head shot up, glaring at the bomber over Tsuna's shoulder. "Shut up Octopus head! Lambo-san doesn't have to listen to the likes of you! Right Tsuna?"
A laugh escaped Tsuna's lips. Tsuna just hid his face in Lambo's curly hair, glad that the boy didn't still have that physics defying afro. Tears still escaped the brunet, but his sobs had stopped. He wasn't sure if it was the relief or the tears or what, but he was suddenly feeling exhausted. He just wanted to stay like this forever.
"Tsuna?" A finger prodded Tsuna's cheek and Lambo pulled away from the sniffling brunet. Tsuna just dried his cheeks with a shirt sleeve and gave the boy a tired, but bright, smile, hoping that Lambo could see the see the happiness he was trying to convey.
"Are you alright now, Lambo?" Tsuna asked.
"Am I alright?!" Lambo exclaimed incredulously. "You're the one who was freaking out when I called out to you!"
Tsuna shuddered, blood and death filling his vision before he could stop it. He let his arms wrap around his shoulders, shivering again. His nightmare had been something else entirely, full of mountains of bodies throwing themselves in front of him to protect their precious boss before the dead were burned to ashes by enemy flames. That's when the darkness had surrounded and his Hyper Intuition warned him that something was coming-
A hand dropped on to Tsuna's shoulder, startling him out of his delusions. Yamamoto knelt in front of him, a concerned frown replacing his usually cheerful smile.
"You okay there, Tsuna?" the baseball player asked. "You started to drift off for a minute."
Tsuna shook his head, trying to rid himself of the stupid nightmare and the fear that was brought along with it. "No. Yeah. I'm fine. I was...I just had a bad dream, I think. I was still kind of freaking out from the nightmare I was having and I thought Lambo was somebody else."
Gokudera sighed, arms crossed in front of his chest as he looked down at his friends on the floor. The bomber stared at each person in scrutiny before green eyes landed on Tsuna.
"Are you alright? We heard a crash," Gokudera said, his voice a little flat.
Tsuna nodded, a little wary at the distance the bomber was putting between the two of them. Wasn't the teen supposed to be all up in his personal space? Not standing ten feet away like Tsuna held some sort of plague?
"I-I'm fine. I just hit one of the carts."
Gokudera nodded, gaze drifting the metallic objects scattered all over the floor Tsuna now recognized as surgical instruments. Tsuna shuddered. If he had stepped on those, it wouldn't have been pretty. Reborn would have probably hit him.
"Um, Goku-"
"I'll be going then," was all that the bomber said, cutting Tsuna off before the brunet could say anything else. He was gone in seconds, leaving the rest of the room's occupants confused and uneasy.
Silence permeated the air, none of the flame users wanting to break it.
"I guess we should clean this up," Yamamoto finally said as he stood up, helping the other two to their feet as well. "I don't think Ryohei will appreciate it if we leave the infirmary in such a disaster."
Tsuna glanced at the mess he had unintentionally created, mentally berating himself. The bed was a complete disaster. Pillows were strewn around the room—probably kicked away when he had stood up on the bed—and the blankets had been heaped haphazardly at the foot of the bed, laying in an arbitrary pile. Surgical instruments had spilled from the box he had knocked over from the cart, leaving a pile of sharp, pointy objects on the tile that could stab a hole through his foot if he were to accidentally step on one—and he probably would, given his clumsiness.
"I'll get the pillows!" Lambo exclaimed, rushing over to where most of the pillows were and hauling them back onto the bed. The boy rearranged them exactly like Tsuna had had them before, so the brunet would be able to sleep with some support.
"I'll clean up the scalpels," Yamamoto offered, making his way to the cart and bending down to set them back in their proper places within the box.
With nothing to do, Tsuna just stood there dumbly, a wave of exhaustion washing over him. His eyelids drooped as he yawned, realizing that it was still early morning, even if all he did was sleep most of yesterday. If he didn't want to be dead in the morning, he figured he should probably go to sleep.
"Reborn's going to kill us if he finds out about this," Lambo said suddenly. Yamamoto's face lit up like a Christmas tree at the boy's words while Tsuna just sighed in resignation, dragging himself to lie on the bed and pull the blankets up.
"We could try and keep it from him," Yamamoto suggested. "It'll be like a game!"
Tsuna moaned and pulled his blankets over his head. Tomorrow was going to be a long day.
