When Tsuna groggily peeled his eyes open and the fact that he was currently in a hospital bed registered the relief hit almost like a physical sensation. There was an underlining thread of fear and helplessness to it as well because he felt weak, weaker than he'd ever been. Was this a side-effect of using his flames for such an extended period of time? Or was it that he'd downed his special flame-infused tea on top of flipping the seal on his flames? Had the stress of the whole situation that been too much for his body to handle?
Mostly though he felt a need for his questions answered. He wanted to know what had happened to the hitman. He wanted to know what the police were going to do about the man, would they release him? Would the man be going to jail? Had the police figured out who he was and who he worked for? He wanted to leap out of bed and head for the nearest library and look up the names CEDEF and Vongola, maybe even scour the internet. Something that would give him a clue as to what was going on.
He wanted to go back to the place he'd been taken to and tear it apart for answers, the papers alone would be worth looking into and right now he'd give anything to get his hands on them, they'd probably unearth a wealth of information… The phone. Had the man had left his phone in the building? He'd set it on the window sill before picking up his gun, he'd picked it up again after threatening him but would he have laid it down again to chase after him?
Trying to sit up was a mistake, he knew it the second he tried it, his head swam in dizzying circles at the movement and slumping back against the pillows was all he could do to fight the sensation. Dragging a hand up over his eyes he pressed his wrist over them and rode it out, opening them only when he felt the world steady enough to get a look at the plastic identification bracelet looped around his wrist. Sawada Tsunayoshi.
A slow look around as he propped himself up on his elbows revealed he was in a hospital. Namimori Children's Hospital. He recognized the paediatrics ward from the time the doctors had been trying to figure out a cause for his black-outs and migraines. The doctors HERE had figured out his name where the ones at Namimori General Hospital's Emergency department hadn't, or was that because he'd been seen here before? Had one of the doctors recognized him?
Curling into his pillows he let his eyes shutter close for a long moment and just let that fact that he was alive sink into his being. He was alive. He was in a hospital, (he'd half been expecting that), and he hadn't had to kill his would-killer/kidnapper. His head was aching, his throat was itchy and dry and his mouth tasted like he hadn't brushed his teeth in days, that last one probably meant that he'd been sleeping for longer than the day it usually took for him to recover from flipping the lid off his flames.
If he had to guess.. then he'd been asleep for a lot longer than just the one day then, he'd pulled at his flames harder than he'd ever had to before, however long it had taken for him to wake up he'd thoroughly earned and deserved it. He felt oddly warm though, for waking up after a forced 'nap', it was almost as if he'd drunk a whole flask of his special tea… speaking of tea his throat itched. Coughing weakly he slid his eyes open again and tried to sit himself up now that he had a reason to try, (maybe he could reach the bedside table and the jug of water there), and startled badly when an arm reached out to help him.
"Hey, it's alright! You're safe! Shhh… Here, drink this, you must be thirsty after sleeping for so long." The man who was helping him sit up said, pressing a plastic cup of water to his lips.
What? Who was this and what were they doing in his hospital room- no, he remembered who this was. Short black hair, sharp and distinctive slate-grey eyes… This was the police officer who had so handily dealt with his kidnapper, the one who had picked him up and carried him into the police station.
The man was wearing a side-arm in a holster which was tucked under his left arm, a police badge was hooked into his belt and he was dressed down from the suit he'd been wearing, having discarded the jacket and tie and had loosened the top few buttons of his shirt. A quick look over to the bed next to his as he drank down the water and Tsuna was able to locate the missing jacket and tie, tossed carelessly onto a side table, and the bed itself was covered in files and loose papers.
Exactly how long had the man been waiting for him to wake up?
"There you go, drink the rest of that while I go call the doctor, I'll be right back okay?" The police officer said as he carefully let go of the cup he was helping him hold. Tsuna's drained it and let his hands fall back into his lap, he was tired. There was no way this wasn't a side-effect of flipping his flames into overdrive.
Not only was he tired but he also hurt, ached in ways he didn't think were possible and that ache went right down to his bones. The skin around his mouth stung too, (chemical burn?) and when he lifted his hands to check he noted the bandages wrapped around them and discovered his palms felt a little raw under the wrappings. That had to have been from clenching the rope too hard and then catching himself with his hands against the pavement when he'd tripped over those kids in the alleyway.
Tsuna's head dipped from the effort of keeping himself upright and it was only fast reaction the police officer from earlier, darting back into the room to catch him, that saved him from either falling forward over himself or falling out of bed altogether. "Easy there, we've got you." The detective said as he gently eased him back so he was lying back against the pillows, stepping back to allow doctor and nurse who'd followed the chance to examine him.
The bed was adjusted so that the he could sit up without having to support himself and the doctor looked him over. The detective stayed back while this was happening, standing near the door where he signalled to someone outside the room and a woman with straight black hair pulled up in a high ponytail ducked into the room with a relieved smile on her face. Tsuna watched the two out of the corner of his eye and wished their quiet conversation was loud enough for him to eaves drop on. The doctor was giving him careful instructions, asking him questions and keeping his attention split between him, the nurse next to him, the detective and the woman with the dark hair.
Did this hurt? Yes. Did that hurt? Yes. Do you know where you are? Hospital. Do you know what your name is? Tsuna didn't bother trying to lying about that one, they already knew who he was. They were just testing if HE knew who he was, which made sense given the blow he'd taken to the head. Sawada Tsunayoshi.
"Do you remember what happened to you?"
Tsuna looked away from the doctor to the detective and very carefully didn't bite his lip. He remembered absolutely everything… but if he revealed that and answered the follow-up questions then the police would get to the old office building the hitman had used as a base before he did. They'd take it all away before he could even look at it while he was still stuck in the hospital and who knew what was in those notes the man had scattered all over the place?
Avoiding the detective's sharp gaze was as easy as dropping his own to his lap. "I… the man… he said he was lost, that he wanted to find the library. He had a map and asked me if I could show him where it was." He said, clenching the blankets that covered his lap as he remembered how easy it had been for the man to lure him within reaching range. Lesson learned now though, he wasn't going to be making that mistake ever again.
"He put a wet cloth over my face, it smelled like… sweet medicine." He continued, lifting a hand to the healing burn around his mouth and nose, touched at it lightly and dropping his heavy hand back onto the bedspread.
"Chloroform." The detective muttered seemingly to himself as he pulled a notebook out of a pocket to scribble down notes.
"I… don't really remember much of what happened next." Tsuna lied carefully, keeping his eyes firmly on his hands. "When I woke up he was on the phone, I think he was speaking in English. He asked me something but… I didn't understand. He asked me what my name was and called me a liar when I told him. He hit me." Tsuna didn't bother reaching up to his throbbing cheek. It was obvious where the man had hit him, it probably made for quite the impressive bruise right now.
"He went back to his phone so I tried to get away, I ran as fast as I could and then at the police station you…"
"Took care of the rest." The man finished for him, Tsuna saw the detective frown out of the corner of his eye and stiffened, hands clenching tighter on the blankets he was holding. The frown softened and the man's tone of voice gentled. "… was there anything else you'd like to add? Anything?"
'I must ask you, Harry, if there's anything you'd like to tell me. Anything at all.' Tsuna closed his eyes against the aged voice and breathed slowly around the sparking beginnings of a migraine, carefully calming himself down with ease of practice.
"No." Tsuna murmured carefully, echoing the reply his dream-self would have given to that kind of question. "There isn't anything…" he trailed off biting his tongue on the 'Professor' that wanted to trip out of his mouth, catching himself before he could switch languages. His knowledge of English was something that had just saved his life, he wasn't about to let that slip, not even in front of a cop. Who knew how far that information would travel? The best way to keep that information from spreading was to keep it to himself. A secret was only kept a secret if one person alone knew it.
He was never going to take his safety for granted again, he almost wanted to thank the hitman for opening his eyes, how stupid had he been to limit his caution to kids around his age or older? He should have known better, hadn't his dreams shown him how dangerous the world could get? Adults. Teenagers. He'd been walking around with his guard halfway down, now that he'd been shown just how wrong he'd been in doing so… he wasn't about to drop his guard down again.
Not for anyone.
"Tsu-kun! You're awake!" a delighted voice sounded from the doorway.
Relief swamped him, his mother! At least here was someone he didn't have to hold his guard up against! She was here and looking the same as she always did and smiling! She was safe! Melting into the embrace she swept him up into Tsuna pressed his face against her shoulder and just let himself relax, letting the tension he hadn't known he was carrying rapidly leech out of his system. His plan had worked! She was safe and judging by how she was acting she didn't even have a clue what had happened. Whoever had been on the other end of the Hitman's phone call must have actually believed the lie he'd spun and had decided not to go after her, thank god for idiots and hair dye!
"Oh Tsuna, look at the mess you've made of yourself!" his mother scolded lightly, smoothing a hand through his hair and tilting his head to get a good look at the bruise on his face. "You really outdid yourself this time didn't you?"
Tsuna giggled, he really couldn't help it. Yeah, he really HAD outdone himself. This was everything he'd hoped for when he'd hatched that plan. The two of them were safe, he'd gotten whoever had hired the hitman thinking he was a body double, he hadn't had to kill anyone AND he'd been taught a valuable lesson at the same time. If or when someone came for him again he was going to be ready.
"Sorry mama." He apologized around a grin, hiding the expression by burying his face into her cardigan. "I'll be more careful next time."
OoO
Minoru snapped his pen in half without realizing it.
In the worry that the suspect they had in custody hadn't been working alone he'd taken up guard duty and had only really left to use the bathroom, change into the spare clothes he kept in his office drawer, (he'd asked one of the uniforms to fetch it for him), and to speak with the doctors and the social worker. As such he knew exactly how much damage Tsunayoshi had done to himself and could estimate the kind of fear and stress the boy had to have been feeling to run himself quite so ragged, especially given his underlying health issues.
Sawada Tsunayoshi had run his feet to shreds, had fought against his kidnapper with his bare hands at one point, (the scratches on the suspect's hands and the matching DNA they'd found under the boy's fingernails were enough proof of that). He'd been tied with those same hands behind his back, (bruises and rope-burns across palms and wrists), he had even successfully managed to slip out of those restraints and gotten away with his life intact! It was a minor miracle he was alive at all, never mind the fact that he'd done so while fighting the side-effects of Chloroform to boot!
Sawada Nana should have been the one reassuring her son, not the other way around! The woman shouldn't be scolding him, she should be praising him to high-heaven! Also what the hell kind of interaction had that been? Just which of the two of them was the adult in that relationship and which of them was currently in a hospital bed?
Dropping the broken ends of his pen into the waste paper basket and his notebook on the bedside table he shared a look with the Social Worker and very slowly cleaned the ink off his hands with a handkerchief fished out of a pocket. What they had right now was mostly circumstantial and they currently didn't have a lick of evidence that would prove neglect, at least not directly. He knew how Social Services worked, if they didn't have that proof, strong enough evidence to support removing Sawada Tsunayoshi from his mother's care, then they really couldn't do much. They would observe the situation, put a flag on his profile and check back every now and again, keep a very close eye on his education and medical records.
He knew something was wrong here but not being able to do anything about the situation was going to drive him to insanity and back, he just knew it. Legally his hands were tied, he'd already done all he could have done by calling Social Services in the first place. As much as he wished he could remove the boy from his family situation and give him a real home he was just going to have to wait for that evidence to show itself. It would, he had no doubt it would, with the mother being this much of a space-case it was only a matter of time until they had enough to remove Tsunayoshi from her 'care', but…
The problem was the very fact they had to wait, wait until they HAD that evidence, leave the poor kid in a situation he didn't deserve just to satisfy the law. It was times like this that Minoru wished he could just ignore the letter of the law and go with the spirit of it instead, even if the kid was apparently more than happy with the situation as it was regardless.
It made his heart clench, to think that this kind of behaviour from his own mother was so completely normal to Tsunayoshi that he didn't even bat an eyelash at the scolding, was so affection-starved he melted into his mother's arms the second she arrived and clung to her cardigan even as the woman got up to leave. The grip he had on his handkerchief tightened, threatening to rip the fabric of it as the kid reluctantly let his mother go and didn't even question it when the woman mentioned she had to go home again, merely nodded and accepted it. Accepted that small scrap of affection tossed his way like it was all he was going to get.
There had to be some kind of mental damage going on there, on the mother's side. He'd pulled up her records along with her husband's when he'd been digging into their backgrounds and could almost picture when that damage had happened. Sawada Nana's criminal history been the kind of laundry-list of offenses one would expect out of a teenager in the middle of a downward spiral. The last incident of which had been a large-scale fight that had landed her, and a fair-few others including her new husband, in hospital for quite a while.
Records indicated that charges had been dropped and he could see why.
A large-scale fight that landed the woman in hospital, her criminal activity just stopping, Reports describing the then seventeen-year-old as a fiery and explosive young woman who'd had everyone around her walking on eggshells… Comparing the reports to the woman as she was today and all he could conclude was brain-damage, a brain-damaged woman had no business trying to raise a child, let alone try to do so alone.
Tossing his handkerchief into the trash Minoru searched around for a tissue or napkin, he was pretty sure he had a few from the convenience-bought lunch one of the officers on the case had dropped off for him, and blinked in surprise when a packet of wet-wipes was held out to him.
"Calm down, it's not going to do you or him any good to get yourself worked up. This is just the first step, we've got a long way to go if we're going to be able to help him." the social worker murmured, opening the packet for him and tugging a napkin free before offering it back. "I know how you feel, trust that I wouldn't be in this job if I feel the same way, but we can't rush things. At the moment we've only just scratched at the surface, who knows what we're going to find underneath? First impressions aren't always what they seem." The woman remarked as she set the open packet of wipes down on the bed he'd spread his files out over.
"How are you doing it? Staying so calm." Minoru asked, cleaning the ink from his fingers. "Every time I look at him I can't help picturing my nephew and I can't even…" he cut himself off before he could start swearing and studiously scrubbed at a spot on his thumb when the boy they were talking about looked around the doctor currently examining him to peer at them with innocently curious brown eyes.
"Cats."
Minoru looked up at that, wondering how that answered his question.
Hashimoto Rin smiled, wiggled her fingers a bit in the direction of the little boy that was watching them and then casually tapped her pen against the open file in front of her. "When I first walk into a case I picture the families involved as cats and kittens. It might sound silly but it's how I cope with it, it's also a reminder and a check in how I behave."
"How?" Minoru asked incredulously, feeling an eyebrow hike up in disbelief.
"I think to myself, 'How would a stray kitten react if I tried to just reach out and grab him?', I might be trying to save him but HE doesn't know that, all he would know is that someone was trying to take him away from his mother. Look at how high his guard is up, he's about one surprise away from hissing and spitting." She remarked idly, nodding minutely at the boy who was pretending not to pay them any attention but was constantly watching them out of the corner of his eyes. Eyes that had seemed so innocent before she'd pointed it out now seemed sharper than they had earlier.
"How did I not notice that?" Minoru's wondered, eyes widening despite himself.
"He's small, injured, and you have a massive bleeding heart?" she delivered immediately with a straight face. "It's not a bad thing." She clarified, coughing to hide a laugh at the consternation that crossed his face. "You're not the only one in the room with the same condition. A mental picture like this lets you see the details you'd normally miss in a case and puts things in a new perspective. It's almost like taking a step back to view the entire picture without actually taking that step."
"So the mother…"
"Another stray, one that got injured as a young cat and left with a kitten to raise without the proper treatment. I'm sure you've already seen the reports by now."
Minoru agreed with at that. "The father?" he asked curiously, wondering how she was going to spin it.
"Tom cat."
He snorted at that reply, should have guessed. "… so you're saying they can't help who they are?"
"To some extent, but you know…"
"Hmm?"
The social worker looked up from the file she was reading through and cut a dry look up at him, dark eyes hardening from the soft expression she was wearing. "…spaying and neutering should be more a common practice than it actually is."
OoO
Tsuna spent most of the time in between examinations and interviews, both with the police detective and the social worker, sleeping and feigning sleep. He was curious enough, and bored enough with faking sleep, that he'd started to investigate the only thing he could from his hospital bed, which was the strange warmth running through his system AROUND the seal.
It hadn't taken very long for someone to mention his father and the fact that the man had visited him in hospital, nice to know that the man still had some sort of affection for him regardless of time spent actively avoiding him, (cause honestly what other conclusion could he draw from that?). His father used to go on business trips but they'd never lasted longer than a week or two in duration, not before his 'accident' at least.
By now, already three days after waking up in the hospital, Tsuna should have been back to feeling like he'd been dipped in ice. Instead he was still warm, not AS warm as he'd been waking up but it made a very big difference. The seal was still sitting snugly over his flames and nothing was leaking past it, but… he had flames running through his system, enough that he was still keeping his wits sharp enough to dodge Detective Hibari's pointed and leading questions.
Connecting the dots to the atypical warmth he had woken up to with his father's sudden and temporary visit wasn't exactly a stretch. He'd noticed years ago that his father had been one of the few rare individuals who had felt warm to the touch, noticeably warm. Like his grandfather, like how Tsuna himself had once been. The two men had to have the same ability to create flames as he did, his grandfather had shown his and his dad was either the same or at least an offshoot of the same ability, the warm he'd woken up to… had his father lent him some of his own magic? To make up for what he'd used trying to escape from the hitman?
Sinking his awareness into himself Tsuna spent hours just feeling the flames run around his system. The flames were different from his own, a bright orange-gold, and they burned brighter than the seal, which was closer to a burnt and faded amber. Tsuna's own flames were a deeper amber and sparkled rather than glittered like the other two examples he had inside him so it wasn't exactly hard to tell the difference.
The foreign flames were also healing him.
The flames, shaped into rounded and flaring spheres, travelled around Tsuna's body. They found an injury, pushed in and lost their shape when they washed back out of the healed area. It wasn't long before he tried reaching out to touch them, there would have been no way he could have resisted the temptation. He was bored. He was trapped in a hospital bed and the flames were Right. There. Almost like they were begging to be pla… experimented with.
The first tentative touch at the flames didn't trigger a black-out. After few moments spent waffling in confusion and some more careful prodding he concluded that as THESE flames weren't his they didn't fall under the Seal's authority. He was safe to play around with them for as long as they lasted.
He spent more time than he'd have liked to admit just admiring the flames, poking and prodding them for a reaction and then grinning stupidly into his pillow when the glittering spheres popped. The fizzy sensation that rippled through him when they burst made him feel like he could hop out of bed and bounce down the hall. He made the flames swirl, pushed and pulled at them, chased the rounded spheres around his body, corralled them, directed them and then let them go to watch what they'd do. When he started to run out of the glittering orbs he sparked a few more to life, shaped them into balls of sparkling light and let them loose. All in all he had more fun than he'd had in a very long time.
As much fun as he was having with the flames Tsuna was MORE than ready for it when he was finally deemed healthy enough by the doctors to return home, they'd kept him for three days. Three agonizing days of playing twenty-stupid-questions with the doctors and the Social Worker and then dancing a verbal two-step with the strangely observant and watchful police officer who'd introduced himself as Hibari Minoru
The Detective was quite unlike any adult Tsuna had ever come across before, the man looked him directly in the eyes rather than looking at him and actually listened when he talked, asking him to clarify a point or two during each 'interview'. It was almost as if the man didn't realize he was talking to a kid, it was a novel experience but… the attention was slightly unnerving after years of people talking over his head or at him instead of TO him.
If he hadn't had the excuse of being 'exhausted' he'd have had trouble ducking the man's pointed questions and expectant stares. He could see that the detective knew he was holding something back and was trying to get him to 'fess up' but it wasn't going to work, he wanted to get a look at the 'crime scene' before the police did. The only thing that kept him from letting something slip was the flames that were keeping his wits sharp, sharp enough that it was… child's-play to dodge Detective Hibari's questions.
Right now one of the nurses was helping him get ready to finally go home, after apparently spending a day short of a week in the hospital, three spent sleeping and three awake. Which was lucky because he'd been about one more test away from checking himself out of hospital regardless of the police watching his every move. He would finally be getting away from the 'Social Worker' and her weird and seemingly pointless questions, away from the detective with his all-too-sharp eyes and the doctors who stood around scratching their heads over his 'rapid' healing when they thought he wasn't paying attention.
The lack of freedom was chafing across his every nerve. He apparently had one more stop before he was allowed that freedom, when it was explained to him Tsuna didn't mind the side-trip. A police line-up, to identify the hitman that had come after him from a group of others. That was fine with him, right now he'd do anything to get out of hospital.
OoO
He wasn't allowed to walk.
Tsuna tried not to sulk from his seat in the wheelchair as he was pushed up a ramp and into Namimori's prefecture police office, he was out of the hospital, he was in his own clothes and he was about to be allowed to go home. He wasn't even allowed to get up in the lift! It wasn't like he NEEDED to sit in the chair, his feet were long-since healed and he wasn't so weak that he couldn't walk around under his own steam, but when he tried to explain that to everyone they steamrolled over his protests. He could either spend a few more days in hospital or use the chair, he wasn't exactly given much of a choice in the matter.
Hibari Minoru's office was in a large, open room divided into small workspaces. More specifically his 'office' was a desk lined up against a short cubicle wall. A filing cabinet sat behind it, three identical desks spaced further along the same 'wall' shared the same space and four desks mirrored them on the other side. There were several rooms, (Actual offices? Was that one a break room? There was a coffee machine in there. Interview rooms?), on the far side of the room and there were plain-clothed and uniformed police working all around him.
Tsuna was wheeled up to the side of the desk and a heavy-looking wooden chair was moved from the front of the desk to make room for him. The detective moved one of his file-boxes out of the way so he had a bit of clear desk next to him and handed him a colouring book and a stationery box dug out from one of his drawers. "I got these for my nephew but he never touched them, he's SUCH a weird kid, I thought you might enjoy them instead." The man said as he handed them over, sitting down in his own chair to sort through the files he had tucked under his arm.
Accepting the colouring book and placing the stationery box on the clear bit of desk next to him Tsuna took a peek into the box, (there were colouring pencils, an eraser and a sharpener inside), and then opened the book to flip through it. He was about four pages in when a splash of colour caught and drew his attention to a meticulously coloured in bear. It's fur was done in shades of brown and black, the details of its eyes were carefully drawn in and shaded, complete with the iris, the whites and the shine of light that would have hit those eyes were untouched. Flipping further through the book showed that the same attention-to-detail had been paid to the other animals in the book, it was only the plants, people and every-day objects that had been ignored.
"I think your nephew may be a little more normal than you think he is." Tsuna grinned. "I think he just likes animals more than anything else… or at least he likes SOME animals." He corrected himself as he caught sight of a sheep and a cow covered in drawn-in bite marks, 'blood' welling up from the 'injuries'.
The detective paused in organizing his files, craned his head to look, started smiling at the coloured in animals but then then palmed his face when he caught sight of the unfortunately bleeding cow and sheep. "… that kid. I swear I am never going to understand him." he muttered, taking a moment to massage his temples.
"You could get him a pet? Looks like he likes small animals, none of the cats, birds, rabbits or dogs got bitten." Tsuna observed, pulling back the book for a bit from where he'd angled it so the detective could see and showing the man the carefully coloured, and completely 'uninjured' animals. "Maybe he just needs a bigger lunch or something, he only bit the farm-animals."
"… I might just pass that bit about his lunch on to his parents but I am NOT rewarding his current behaviour by getting him a pet." The man remarked, getting up from his desk he collected a few of the files as he did so and reached over to ruffle his hair a bit. "Got a job in mind for when you grow up? You'd make a pretty good detective with observational skills like that."
Tsuna couldn't help the bitterness that slipped into smile on his face. Sure, a detective. With a father who was somehow connected to the hitman that had tried to kill him, the hitman who had been scared of the consequences of pissing that same man off. Would he even get the chance to choose his own career? Also… how was he supposed to plan for a future he didn't even know he'd reach? It made for a nice dream though, working along-side this sharp-minded detective sometime in the future, helping people and punishing criminals. Working with someone who would listen to him when he talked and valued his opinion enough to share… but wasn't THAT wishful thinking.
Tsuna wiped the look off his face when he realized the detective had frozen and ignored the piercing stare the man was levelling at him. Reaching into the stationery box as if he hadn't noticed was easy after three days of the same, and riding out the uncomfortable silence was easier, all he had to do was turn his attention back to the colouring book. He snatched up a pencil up at random and checked the colour before using it. Green, perfect, he could fill in the blank areas that the detective's nephew hadn't touched.
Detective Hibari sighed heavily, as if the pointed silence hadn't been enough, and lifted the hand from his hair. "Just sit tight, I'll be right back, we're just going to get things set up and then we can get you home." he didn't bother looking up from the colouring book, just nodded and continued colouring in. As much as he admired him for his job Tsuna was more than a little tired of being the subject of the man's intense focus.
Colouring in the plants around the animals was surprisingly relaxing, bit by bit he was winding down from the tension that had him pulling his shoulder-blades so tight. He easily lost himself in the mind-numbing relief of doing something he didn't have to hold his brain back on and made a mental note to maybe get himself some colouring books of his own…
Tsuna was jolted out of the zen-like state ten minutes later when a highly irritated cop abruptly stopped by. The uniformed cop dropped a dark haired boy he'd been carrying under an arm onto the seat that had been moved to make way for his wheelchair and clapped the end of a pair of handcuffs around the one of the kid's wrists to secure him to the heavy chair.
"I… what?" Tsuna gaped as the dark haired boy hiffed at the officer in equal irritation.
"Don't you hiff at me you little hellcat." The cop snapped at the other boy before turning to him. "Do you know where Detective Hibari is? I was told he was back already?"
"H… he was just here, he said he'd be right back…"
"Oh thank god." The man said feelingly as he slapped a small key onto the top of the filing cabinet where his charge presumably couldn't reach it. "My job here is done. Don't get too close, he'll try to bite you."
"O…okay…?" Tsuna replied, staring quizzically after the man as he left before turning to the glaring kid with the strangely familiar grey eyes. "What did you do?"
The boy stopped glaring to stare, strengthening the feeling of Deja-vu Tsuna was getting from those grey eyes, and replied after a lengthy silence. "…I bit a herbivore to death."
"… herbivore? Bit to death?" Tsuna repeated slowly, tilting his head in confusion but then starting as the sound of a loud wailing reached his ears. Straightening, he popped his head up to see over towards the lifts, where the sound was coming from, and watched as a sobbing teenager was led in through the doors by his parents and another cop.
Both of the teenager's eyes were blackened, an arm was in a sling and there was a strip of bandage plastered across the bridge of the boy's nose, was it broken? Tsuna's eyes widened, not from the injuries but because he recognized the sobbing teen. This was one of the same kids who had been responsible for the scar running through one of Sasagawa Ryohei's eyebrows years ago!
"That guy?" Tsuna clarified, pointing to the teenager in question. "What did he do?" He asked further when his desk-mate nodded slowly.
"The herbivore tried to stand above his station on the food chain. I merely returned him to where he belonged." the boy replied, lounging in the heavy chair with a highly self-satisfied smirk. "As expected, a herbivore will always lose against a carnivore."
Tsuna processed that for a moment. "… so he tried to pick on you and you… taught him why that was a bad idea?"
"Are you going to repeat everything I say?" The boy bandied back dryly instead of answering his question and yawned widely afterwards, seemingly wholly unconcerned with being cuffed to the chair by a police officer.
Placing his pencil down Tsuna carefully got up out of the wheelchair, planted a hand on the desk to save himself from falling face-first onto its surface, and then slowly made his way over to the filing cabinet. He raised himself up on his tip-toes, scrabbled for a bit to reach the key and almost fell backwards when he finally managed to grab it. When he finally righted himself he rounded the detective's desk again and held it out for the other boy to take.
"Go, be free." Tsuna jokingly saluted, "You earned it." he then dropped the key into the other boy's palm when the kid made no move to take it from him, pointedly waving him away when he stayed frozen.
"Why would you…?"
"Because that jerk-face is one of the biggest bullies I have ever had the displeasure of meeting?" Tsuna answered easily as he sat himself back down in the wheelchair, picking up the pencil again to continue colouring. "Good on you for giving him what he deserves, you should have bit him harder though, him and his friends gave another kid I know a permanent scar through his eyebrow."
Grey eyes narrowed thoughtfully, as if the boy was measuring the truth in his words as he silently turned the key around in his palm, finally moving to free himself after a long stare but not to escape like Tsuna would have done the second he was free. He merely sat there after carelessly tossing the cuffs and key into the waste-paper basket without looking and continued to stare.
"… are you waiting for a written invitation?" Tsuna asked sarcastically, quirking an eyebrow at the kid.
"There's no need for me to escape, I was acting in… self-defence."
He snorted at that, self-defence, sure. The grey eyed boy's black hair was a little tousled and his clothes were slightly mussed up, likely from being carried around like a sack of meat, but other than that there wasn't a scratch on this kid. Whereas on the other hand the teenager had a broken nose, a pair of black eyes to match and what looked like a fractured wrist on top?
"So you're just going to sit here and wait to get into trouble?" he asked sceptically, eyebrow raised in disbelief.
"They'll make noise and crowd if I try to leave." The nutcase sighed in an aggrieved manner, not saying anything further as if that last statement was all the answer his question needed.
"Okay… then did you want to colour with me while you wait? We can share."
The dark haired boy spent another long and uncomfortable moment staring, (was he trying to stare him down?), and then backed down. Scooping up the colouring book the boy flipped to an uncoloured page, flattened the book across the desk and dug into the stationery box for a pencil of his own. "I'm colouring in the animals, you do the plants."
"… did you just call me a herbivore?"
OoO
It didn't take Minoru very long to gather together some stock-photographs the police kept on hand for photo line-ups, it was a simple matter of picking the closest match in the photographs they had on hand to the foreigner's looks. Brown hair, tan, green eyes. He could have pulled these photos and shown them to the man's victim earlier but he'd held back on it, wanting to see if getting the boy away from the hospital environment would change the boy's guarded replies. However, aside from the boy pointing out something he should really have noticed earlier, (revealing Kyouya's unexpectedly adorable side in the process), Tsunayoshi's lips had stayed sealed.
The social worker had said she was going to use the time available to interview the mother without her son around as well as the boy's classmates and teachers. He was going to have to ask her for some advice on how to work with a kid like this because he wasn't used to this kind of guarded attitude from children. Her comment about seeing the people in her cases as cats may have been rather eye-opening but he half wished she'd kept to herself, he was now having trouble trying to get the mental image out of his head.
Sawada Tsunayoshi reminded him more of a lion-cub than a kitten though, there was a core of pure steel buried under that harmless exterior. If he'd had any doubts about it after the boy's escape from the gunman then all he had to do was walk back to his desk to discover it.
Kyouya. Socializing with another child. Sharing a colouring book and actually talking. It was a scene that had to be witnessed in person to be believed. Yun was IN NO WAY going to believe that this had happened, neither was Satoshi. What a time to leave his phone on his desk, he'd have given anything to be filming the scene that was happening right now!
"My kingdom for a camera…" Minoru breathed, afraid of moving just in case he was hallucinating the interaction.
A co-worker discreetly signalled for his attention and pointed at the camera in his hands, the grin across his face slashing ear to ear and threatening to split his face in half. He quickly slithered up to the man's desk and ducked low so the kids wouldn't see him. "Kiriyama, I owe you more than I can ever pay back! How long have you been filming?" he whispered.
"From the start!" Kiriyama Toshiya cackled quietly, trying to temper the unholy glee in his voice. "Kyouya usually scares the piss out of other kids so I thought I was going to catch a good reaction but holy hell! Where did you pick fluffy up from? Kid's got balls of steel!"
"Remember the case I'm on? The gunman? That's the kid from the case… lend me your phone, Kyouya is NEVER like this, I need evidence" Minoru whispered back. "His parents are never going to believe it, it needs to be immortalized."
Toshiya pulled his desk drawer open and dropped another camera into his hand. "I was going to print out the photos of the holiday I just came back from with my girlfriend but go right ahead and delete as many photos as you need. She works in the traffic division, she'll understand."
"Kyouya's been making a pain of himself hasn't he? Little pest." Minoru grimaced, grudgingly fond of the crazy brat. "He used to be so cute and sweet, then his dad let him watch the Jurassic Park movies and David Attenborough Documentaries, You know, that British naturalist guy with the ridiculously soothing voice? The little monster learned his katakana and kanji just so he could read the subtitles… it all just went downhill from there."
"I wondered where he was picking up his English from, the words he uses are quite… unique."
"That's one way to put it." Minoru coughed, switching the flash off and slowly standing up so he could get a better view through the camera without alerting the kids to the fact they were being filmed and recorded.
The scene was so adorable he had trouble keeping himself from laughing outright. Sawada Tsunayoshi and Kyouya were arguing softly over how they should colour a particular animal in. From what he could see… Kyouya had done to the pig they were arguing over what he'd done to the other farm animals in the book, drawn in bite marks and coloured the 'wounds' in red. Tsunayoshi was arguing the merits of 'bandaging' them since it would be cruel to just leave the 'poor thing' like that and Kyouya was trying to tell him to leave it alone.
There was a brief stare-down, narrowed grey eyes staring down at chocolate-brown doe eyes, and then the impossible happened, Kyouya… gave in. With a great huff of annoyance the dark haired boy turned away to continue colouring, focusing on a bird this time, the look on his face clearly saying he didn't CARE what happened as long as he didn't have to do it himself. Sawada gave a little huff of his own, reached for the eraser and carefully erased the blood Kyouya had drawn in, picked up a pencil and then drew little Band-Aids over the disputed areas. His nephew sniffed at the correction, having watched it all happen out of the corner of his eye and then returned to the pig to touch up the picture, not adding any more bites but fixing the areas his new friend had accidentally smudged.
Toshiya bit into his fist to keep from making any noise, folding slightly in over himself and Minoru had to crouch down again and stop taking photographs so he could muffle his own cackle into an arm. He needed to get his act together, as much as he wanted to let the stupidly adorable moment continue he had a job to do and Sawada looked like he was starting to look tired again.
Pinching an arm he waited till he felt he was calm enough to keep a straight face and saluted as he ducked back down. "Wish me luck, Kyouya might not let me take his new friend away without trying to bite my arm off." He whispered, as he prepared to slink back to the doorway and pretend he hadn't just spent the last few minutes spying on the two kids sitting oh-so-cutely at his desk. "Get me copies of everything and I owe you. Whatever you want."
"Even if I ask you to cover for me on weekends?" Kiriyama grinned teasingly even as he started hunting around his desk for his camera case.
"Whatever you want, seriously."
"Sold! Expect it on your desk in about an hour!"
Minoru returned to his desk with a straight face, casually cuffed his nephew to the chair he'd been freed from as he sat himself down at his desk and very, very carefully kept himself from laughing at the look on the brat's face. He hooked the waste-paper basket, and its contents, out of the boy's reach with his foot and wondered how his nephew had gotten the key to the cuffs inside. "I'll deal with you later." He promised the little devil, "You're lucky you caught me in a good mood." Kyouya huffed, glared at the new handcuffs now trapping his left hand to the chair again and looked at him pointedly before shifting to his colouring companion and back.
"Verbalize Kyouya, it shouldn't be too difficult."
"… herbivore."
Little brat!
"Okay, you want to be rude? Then there's no need to introduce you to my little friend here." he declared, turning away from him and back to the file he placed on his desk, now completely ignoring him. He wasn't going to reward that kind of behaviour, besides he had work to do, he was going to pretend the chair Kyouya was occupying was empty. It would be easier on his blood pressure.
"Okay Tsunayoshi-kun, I have a stack of six pictures here and I'm going to be showing them to you one by one. I want you to look at all of them and then tell me which man is the one who attacked you, if at any point you feel like you need to stop just tell me and I'll pack the photo's away. Are you ready?"
"Yes." The brown haired boy replied shortly, the guard he had dropped around Kyouya now back up in place. Wasn't that an interesting reaction? Kyouya usually had the opposite effect on his peers.
"Alright then, here we go." he said, carefully handing the first photograph over.
Tsunayoshi immediately shook his head and gave it back, doing the same to the next three photographs before stopping at the fifth one. "This is him."
He froze in the act of handing the last photograph over. "Are you sure?"
"Yes." The boy replied, sharp brown eyes looking down at the photograph he held in his hands. Instant recognition with no confusion whatsoever, wasn't that interesting? Especially given that the kid had spent the last three days telling everyone he couldn't remember much of what had happened. Sawada Tsunayoshi was going to be one tough little nut to crack, there was something wrong here, a secret that the boy was desperate to keep. What kind of secret could a six-year-old have that would get him to clam up like this? Keep secret even from the police?
"… do you remember anything else from the attack?" Minoru tried one last time. He wasn't going to push very hard on this, the boy looked like he was half a second away from bolting, but he wasn't going to back down. He was going to give the kid some breathing room and hopefully build up some trust because he wasn't getting anywhere like this.
Tsunayoshi shook his head at the question and that was enough for Minoru, reaching into his desk drawer he pulled out a business card and gave it to the boy. "Okay then." He replied getting up from the desk so he could pull the boy's wheelchair out from behind the desk. "If you remember anything else call me? Any time of the day, any day of the week."
"… okay." The boy murmured, carefully turning the card over in his small hands, reading the information printed on the surface before looking up at him almost pleadingly. "Am I allowed to go home now?"
"Yes you are, I'll just drop you off. Don't want you collapsing on your way there, you only just got out of hospital." Minoru replied, wheeling the kid away from the desk, easily ignoring his nephew's pointed glare. Kyouya tried to drag the chair he was cuffed to after them but with no real results. The chair had been a joke at first, a group of harassed officers pooling together to get one made that could stand against the little hellion's love and attention. It was made out of wood-covered. Solid. Metal. It was heavy, it was sturdy and the idea had been that it would take more than strength than Kyouya had in him to move or break it, at least for a few years.
It hadn't taken very long for the police officers in the precinct to realize exactly how valuable that particular chair was in keeping his nephew in line.
Minoru ignored the clatter that was the sound of Kyouya kicking at the ground to reach the waste-paper basket for the handcuffs and key he'd seen in the waste basket as he'd gone to sit down, (which was why he'd hooked it out of reach with his foot), and kept on wheeling the boy out. If Kyouya wanted an introduction he was going to have to talk like the human being he had been BORN as and not act like the little animal he'd turned into. That snapping and growling was just going to be ignored and the brat was either going to learn some manners or forget about seeing his new friend any time soon.
Besides, Tsunayoshi was still wired, looked like he was fighting the urge to sleep again and had to be far too stressed for a play-date right now. He'd let the boy have some rest before he dropped Kyouya on him, (and ONLY if the brat behaved). God knew his nephew was in sore need of some quality socialization.
"Let's get you home shall we?"
OoO
Tsuna spent most of the weekend preparing himself to look in on the office building he'd escaped from. He managed to wait long enough for his body to heal enough to allow for free movement, (using the trick he'd discovered in the hospital to speed up the process), before his need for answers became too strong to ignore.
It also took him that long before he deemed himself ready enough to explore the place. He refilled his flask the first chance he got and let himself fall back into the inevitable 'nap' without a single grumble. He hadn't bothered with leaving the house to top up his flask with flames, he'd long since learned the fine-control it took to direct the flames into the small opening without incident. Instead he'd merely closed the curtains and shut his door, he hadn't exactly felt safe at the idea of leaving the house without the extra security it offered, he'd use the bowling alley again when he was absolutely sure it was safe to do so.
He spent all of Friday sleeping off the after effects of flipping the seal again and woke up Saturday morning more than ready to prepare for his little 'trip'. He took the shower he'd been itching for during his hospital stay, washed out the old hair dye he'd gone to a lot of trouble to keep in his hair for the last few days and combed more in before his hair dried.
An excuse of buying new school supplies and he was out the door with his mother's blessing with a handful of notes tucked carefully into a pocket of his jacket. A sports cap was set firmly on his head, a pair of gloves was pulled on and a scarf was wound around his neck so he could slip his flask carefully into the folds and tuck the excess material down the front of his jacket.
Caution was Tsuna's new policy. He'd always been a little cautious, (he couldn't help but be with the dreams he'd had his whole life), but now he couldn't exactly afford to be so careless with his safety. He had HITMEN after him now, it was almost like the Snatchers and Death Eaters had jumped out of dream-land and transformed to fit reality. Which was great, that was going to make for some fantastic nightmare fuel in the future, he just knew it.
He stopped by the second hand shop, picked up a school bag for a fraction of the price it would have cost him if it had been brand-new and a trip to a 100yen shop and he had all the school supplies he needed. He'd long since given up on buying new, expensive things, what was the point when they were just either going to get stolen or destroyed? Bullies. No longer threatening to his person… but his belongings were always going to be another story.
Retracing the steps he'd taken to get away from his kidnapper Tsuna spent a lot of time just circling the building before he entered it.
He paced a healthy distance away from the building watching the people walking past and watching out for anyone paying him too much attention. He pulled out his flask and took small sips of tea every now and then, building up enough 'liquid courage' to hype himself into taking that last step into exploring. Enough that he was warm without drowning in his emotions and so that he was free to think as clearly and as fast as he wanted. His stride smoothed out with every step he took and he had to loosen his scarf and stash it in his newly-bought bag by the time he'd circled the building for the third time. By the time he made his fourth and last circuit he'd shrugged off his jacket and tied it off around his waist, he wasn't about to risk passing out from overheating.
It really was a kidnapper's dream, that building. Three stories high, he hadn't noticed that when he'd been running down the stair-well, that or he hadn't paid much attention to that fact. The neighbouring offices were abandoned too, they must have belonged to the same company. Several business had gone under within the last few years, the amusement park just outside the city limits having gone bankrupt had really hurt Namimori that way. Almost every single one of its associated businesses had gone under too. The bowling alley Tsuna liked to use as a practice arena was one such business, these were more of the same.
Slipping around the back of the building he squirreled up a tree and boosted himself over the fence, not even trying to walk in through the front gate. If the man had a partner… then it would be suicide, why announce your presence when you didn't have to? Landing lightly in the rear courtyard he waited for any sign he'd been noticed as he padded a tight ring around the building. No one was coming out so… he was going to try checking inside. Oh, there was the car the kidnapper had used to kidnap him, the coral-pink Suzuki Swift the man had been leaning over when they met… another reason to hate the colour pink.
Ignoring the car for now he slipped his shoes off at the entrance, once again to ensure absolute silence, and padded in through the doors in his socks. He kept his ears peeled for sound as he went room to room on the first floor, checking for people first before continuing into the room to look for clues. Repeating the process on the second floor he continued up to the third floor and inched his way off the staircase step by step. One noise and he was going to bolt RIGHT back out of the building, clues to find or no clues. A quick check-through of the rooms and he was safe to explore the room he'd woken up in.
The place was abandoned and had probably been that way since he'd gotten the hitman arrested. He turned to the door he had tied shut with rope and lightly stepped his way around the mess, picking up discarded pieces of rope as he went and dumping them inside the room. Best not leave anything for the cops to contradict the story he'd fed them, just in case they ever found this place, who knew how they'd take it?
Hello, there were the sneakers he'd left behind in his escape the week before. Guess there was no more need to walk around bare-foot, the building was deserted… Slipping his feet into the shoes Tsuna eyed the hitman's belongings, even if the building was occupied he'd hopefully hear anyone coming, it had taken quite a bit of effort to stay silent in such an old building and someone as heavy-footed as an adult would find it nearly impossible to sneak up on him.
The papers around the room were his school and hospital records, there were even a few letters that had to have been taken directly out of their letterbox. Bills and letters addressed to 'The Sawada Residence'. A credit card statement sitting on the floor near the sports bag had his father's name circled and underlined in pen, clipped to the back of the statement with a paperclip were two photographs. One of the pictures had to have been stolen from their family home, a stand-alone shot of his father, and Tsuna felt every hair on his body stand on end at the thought of the hitman having had access to their house. The professional killer had been able to steal one of his mother's precious photographs from their family album all without anyone noticing. His mother thought she'd just misplaced the picture and she'd been looking all over the house for it a week or so before the hitman had approached him!
Tsuna had to look at the next picture twice before he realized the blond man captured was also his father, only clean-shaven and wearing a sharp suit-and-tie combo. The hard expression on the man's face… was one he'd never thought he'd ever associate with his father.
What the hell?
Leafing absently through the remaining papers Tsuna came across a school report from before the incident with the tree and realized that this one had more photographs clipped to it. These were of him before and after the accident, one was of him with his hair blond and his eyes… had been an interesting shade of amber-brown, at least they had been in the picture the man had stolen. In the next photograph… he could see the differences that had caused the man to think he might have accidentally stumbled on a body double.
Body language, expression, general health and overall appearance. Compared to his five year old self he was an absolute mess. His younger self looked quietly confident, at ease in his own skin and blissfully innocent. He… really had fallen quite the distance the day he'd fallen out of the tree hadn't he? In more ways than one. Add it all together with the hair, the plain brown eyes with the visible signs of stress and it was no wonder that the man had thought he'd gotten the wrong kid when he'd 'picked up' his target.
The sports bag held clothes, a digital camera in a zipped up case that Tsuna didn't bother checking before dropping it into his school bag along with the cables that presumably went with it, (he'd go through the photos later), there was a small box of bullets and a spare gun, (exactly how much artillery did one man need to kill a kid?), a large knife tucked into a leather sheath and a tightly rolled cylinder of Japanese currency that Tsuna stared at for a long while before pocketing. To the victor went the spoils, he was calling this Karma and divine retribution. He was going to go get himself a cake and share it with his mother when he got home and the hitman could sit in a jail-cell and ROT for all he cared. He double-checked the sports bag, making sure he'd searched every pocket, before he repacked it and set it aside once he was done.
Picking up and collecting every bit of loose paper into his new school bag Tsuna checked through what was left in the room. The hitman's cell phone wasn't anywhere to be found, (the man had probably taken that with him), and there was nothing else of note aside from a flat wooden crate. The crate turned out to be empty but it was lined with plastic sheeting that was taped to the sides with duct tape. It didn't take a genius to figure out what the man had been planning on using that box for or even that much of a stretch of the imagination.
Sitting back on his heels he rubbed at his face for a bit, if things had gone differently that would have been his… Yeah, fantastic. Why not just add more gallons to the tank of nightmare fuel he had going on here? Shakily pulling his flask out Tsuna took a deep, fortifying swig of tea and for the first time in his life wished he was drinking something a little stronger, maybe something alcoholic. Because if there was ever a time he needed to get drunk? Now would be that time. Just what had his father gotten him mixed up in?
He pulled a glove off and clenched his hand, closed his eyes and called to his flames. He didn't try pulling for the flames locked away under the seal, (doing that would just knock him into nap-time), but if he'd been able to play around with the flames his father had left to heal him... then maybe he could use the flames he currently had running through his system the same way. If he was wrong he'd just end up napping off his bright idea but if he was right… Reaching deep inside himself he pulled, not at the seal but at the flames flowing AROUND the seal. The flames he'd infused into his tea for the express purpose of warming himself up, they would hopefully serve a new, more important, purpose.
Glittering amber flames flickered to life as he unclenched his hand and he had to stop himself from staring at them, reaching down Tsuna swept his hand across the surface of the roughly hewn box and guided his flames into consuming his would-be coffin. The flames ate through the container in near silence and within seconds he was left staring down at fine ash. He staggered away from the smouldering pile and leaned up against the wall, panting for breath. Movement caught his attention from the corner of his eye and he turned to face it, relaxing when he realized he'd just caught sight of himself in the reflection of the window.
He'd changed again, his eyes were now the same solid amber they had been when he'd gone to rescue the Sasagawa siblings but the candle-like flickers of flame that had appeared on his forehead during that rescue… were absent. Was that because flames he was using now were weaker? Because they were, by quite the fair margin, even the emotional effects of the flames were heavily muted.
Feeling his vision start to swim Tsuna hastily fumbled to fish his flask out again and took another deep draw from it before the cold could begin to spike into his system. He could use his flame-tea like the flames he initially pulled up from the seal. That was unbelievable. The flames were weaker and it took a lot out of him but… he hadn't blacked out. Tsuna let a small smile slip onto his face as rubbed a hand across is eyes and breathed out a near-silent laugh into the lip of his flask. He could use his flames. Without blacking out. If he'd been looking for a silver lining to this whole situation there it was.
He'd discovered two new things he'd never have noticed without the 'outside' help he'd gotten. He could heal himself by changing the sparkles already present in his flames into round little spheres of flaring light and he could actively use those same flames without having to push against the seal every single time. Thank god, as weak as the flames were at least it was SOMETHING he could protect himself with! If push came to shove he could drink his tea and use THOSE flames without risking a black out.
Straightening Tsuna wobbled a bit as he got up, he pulled his glove back on, tucked his flask away into a pocket and hooked the sports bag up and left the building, stopping only to scoop up the shoes he had discarded at the entrance as he went past, tying the laces onto the a strap of his backpack, and walked around the building to where his kidnapper had had parked in the small, sheltered parking bay to test one of the car doors.
He dropped the sports bag on the ground and climbed into the unlocked car to search through the glove compartments, the pockets of the seats, under those same seats and even checked the cup holders. He found a set of number plates sitting on the back seat and when he unfolded the shades a set of keys dropped down. Unlocking the car boot he found a pair of women's sneakers, a set of work-out clothing, (also for women), a few cloth shopping bags and some folded rags. The car had to be stolen, there was no way the guy owned this car. A quick check of the car's number plates showed that the screws securing them to the car looked like they were an inch from being stripped. The hitman had been a little too enthusiastic with replacing the plates hadn't he?
Realizing he wasn't going to be finding anything else in the area Tsuna paused for a moment to check the nearby trash cans before leaving. Newspapers, convenience-store food packages, discarded napkins, chopsticks and plastic cutlery. Had the guy actually lived in that office building for a bit? Leaving the area Tsuna jogged a good few blocks away and then dropped the sports bag again. He pulled out the gun he'd found so that it sitting on top of the clothing in the bag in plain view and then dashed away into a nearby phone booth to call the police. This way they'd find it and take it to the police station, the police there would either connect the bag to the hitman or not, he didn't really care as long as he never saw the bag again.
He watched the police that arrived, (in a very short amount of time!), from the safety of a hedge, he didn't want to be found when the police started searching the surroundings, he'd rather spare himself the round of 'twenty questions' that was likely to follow. He stuck around only long enough for the police officers to locate the bag he'd 'reported' and left as quickly as he could without making it look like he was running away. At the very least the gun, (and knife), weren't going to picked up by anyone else now that the police had 'found' the bag.
His mother was watering the flower garden when he got home, paying particular loving attention to the riot of sunflowers that followed the fence-line, and welcomed him home with a warm smile.
"Tsu-kun~! Did you get everything you need?"
Tsuna couldn't help but smile back in response, the warmth of her greeting soothing away the raw edges of the emotional upheaval he'd suffered these last few days.
"I… hope so." He replied, hand tightening on the grip he had on the straps of his 'new' bag. He'd discovered a lot about himself, he had information to work off of now and that was without taking into account the names the hitman had unwittingly told him about.
He had so many questions and it was more than clear that he wasn't going to be getting them out of his father. It didn't matter though, he had a starting point now… a backpack full of clues, a camera and the names CEDEF and Vongola. As much as it felt like he had barely moved forward he had to keep reminding himself that he WAS making progress, it might just be baby-steps the whole way but even these smalls steps were eventually going to get him somewhere. He'd take these little steps and collect every little scrap of information he could pick up because he knew that they were just pieces of a larger puzzle and one day it would all come together.
Letting himself into the house Tsuna took his shoes off and put them away, untied the other pair from his backpack and put them away too. Trooping upstairs he unloaded everything he'd picked up onto the coffee table in his room and spread them out, his school supplies were packed back into his bag, everything else he carefully sorted through with a sharp eye.
He didn't find anything about two names the hitman had dropped, it was all information the man had collected while watching him. School reports, days attended and missed spanning back at least four years. His health records both from the school and hospital, there were even a few dental records in the pile Tsuna picked up. There were the bills stolen from the letter box, a postcard from his father and even a few bits of junk mail mixed in with the lot and finally the four photographs.
Taking the two that had clearly been stolen from the family album, (the picture of his father and the picture of himself at age five), Tsuna made a mental note to put them somewhere his mother would find them later and reached for the camera. He didn't even have to charge the thing, it still had a good bit of battery life left, clicking through the settings he found the button that allowed him to view the pictures taken and scrolled through them.
He wondered how on earth he'd missed the man following him for so long, there had to be at least two weeks' worth of pictures here! They were taken at all times of the day and featured just about every place he visited with the exception of the bowling alley. The school, the library, the park and the shopping district. There were photos of him walking by himself, of him saying his goodbyes to the school librarian, of him in the garden tending to the plants and a few shots taken of him with his mother.
He had clearly been the hitman's target.
Deleting the photographs Tsuna removed the memory card, flicked it outside his bedroom window and then tossed the camera at the wall hard enough to break it. He got up and picked it up just so he could do it again and again, why did things have to get this complicated? Why couldn't he be like the other kids for once? Their lives revolved about popularity, games, school, sports and grades. Some had to worry about bullies just like he did but no, his life just couldn't be that simple.
Why was normal so hard reach?
OoO
Returning to class on Monday was terrifying, he'd never been the center of that much focus before, (at least not outside of his dreams), and the undivided attention he got from his classmates when he walked into the classroom almost made him want to turn around and run right back home. Why the hell was everyone looking at him like that? Even the teacher was giving him a good long and considering look.
Had he forgotten his hair-dye? Had he missed a spot? Had he suddenly grown another head or a set of horns or something?
Walking stiffly to his seat Tsuna sat himself at his desk and kept his head down and pulled out a notebook and pencil to avoid the stares, not knowing that the story of his kidnapping had made the rounds of the school and his week-long absence had only added fuel to the rumour-mill. He only realized what was going on when his desk was surrounded on all sides as soon as recess was called and he was crowded in by curious classmates that looked like they were all foaming at the mouth for information.
"Tsunayoshi-kun! Is it true that you were kidnapped?" one girl asked, pushing right up into his personal bubble and so close that her curly brown hair brushed his face. Everyone waited for his response with bated breath and even the teacher was hovering near the door, clearly waiting to hear it too.
"I… yes?"
Exclamations rippled through the crowd and everyone started talking at once, questions piling one on top of the other as kids pushed at each other so they could get to the front and deliver a question.
"What happened to your face?" a boy asked, pulling the girl with the curly hair back and pushing forward to tilt his head at the yellowed bruise still on his face.
"The guy hit me…" Tsuna replied and then winced back as the crowed 'oohed' at that.
"Did it hurt?" another girl cooed making him cringe back further in his seat, wondering why the girl had even bothered to ask the question.
"… yes."
"Were you tied up?" another classmate asked, jumping up to ask his question.
"With rope, yeah." He answered that one, rubbing his palms in remembrance. He was glad he'd learned how to heal himself or the welts would still be there.
"How did you escape?" the same boy asked, leaning down over the desk to check his hands, wrinkling his nose in disappointment at the lack of visible proof.
"… he didn't tie the rope up very tight." Tsuna lied, averting his eyes from the stare boring into his face. "I ran after that."
"Did he have a gun?" the girl with the curly brown hair asked and everyone went silent when he couldn't supress the full-body flinch at the question. He nodded instead of answering verbally.
"Did you have to go to hospital?" the girl continued, the rest of their classmates letting her continue on grilling him. He nodded again without bothering to reply, shrinking away from the questions and wishing he could escape out the open classroom door. God, these kids should be working at the police station! They'd already pulled more out of him than the police had managed to, when were they going to let up?
"Ooh, did you have surgery?" the girl continued on with her interrogation and Tsuna just shrugged. "I don't know, I don't really remember much…"
"Oi…" a male voice interrupted, taking everyone's attention off of him for a moment and to the very back of the crowd where a tall boy with spiky black hair and hazel brown eyes was staring intently. "What happened to the kidnapper? The police caught him right?"
Tsuna's eyes widened, he recognized this boy, this was one of the kids he'd tripped over on his way to the police station! "You're the one that threw the baseball!" he exclaimed, rising up out of his seat, the crowd parted to allow the boy to move forward but Tsuna took the opportunity to escape instead. "Let me buy you a drink as a thank you."
He dragged the boy out of the classroom before anyone could really realize what was going on, sighing in abject relief when no one followed behind. "Sorry about that." He apologized, turning around to the boy he'd pulled out of the classroom, dropping the taller boy's hand as they reached the vending machines. "I just really needed to get out of there! To answer your question, yeah. They got him… did you call the police?"
"My dad did." The boy clarified, sheepishly scratching at a cheek. "I didn't even distract him did I? The ball missed."
"…it was a good thing that you did miss." Tsuna replied absently, feeding a few coins into the machine, "Don't get me wrong, I really am thankful that you tried to help but… what if you really had managed to hit him?" he asked, tapping out a box of plain milk and then reached down to collect it. "He had a gun. He could have shot you. Next time just run instead, you'll live longer."
"… next… time?"
"If you ever come across someone with a gun again." Tsuna babbled quickly, trying to cover up his slip. "What was your name again?" Tsuna asked hastily as he tossed the milk box to the boy to distract him and fed a few more coins into the machine for a drink of his own, hoping to steer the conversation away. "I think it was Yamamoto…"
"Takeshi, I'm Yamamoto Takeshi."
"Nice to meet you Yamamoto-kun, I'm Tsuna, Sawada Tsunayohi." He said as he tapped out a can of warm tea for himself, tucking it close to his chest as he turned away to walk back to the classroom, "We should get back, class is about to start again."
Tsuna felt Yamamoto's eyes boring into his back as he power-walked back to the classroom and wished the day would end already. Takeshi had focused on exactly the wrong part of what he'd said, ignoring the warning and latching onto the minute slip-up he'd made. There really was a lot of police potential in his class, future detective in the making right there! Not even Detective Hibari had picked up on his slip-ups quite that fast! Sharp as hell!
Stepping back into the doorway of the classroom Tsuna stopped and felt a little bit of his soul shrivel up and die when his classmates attention focused back on him. Slinking back to his seat he slumped into his chair and pressed his can of warmed tea against a cheek, not bothering to open it as he planned on emptying it into his flask later. Hopefully this would all die down once the excitement of the whole story faded, he'd go crazy under this kind of sustained focus!
The nosey little girl with the curly brown hair leaned down to his ear. "Did he touch you in the no-no place?" She whispered loudly and the class fell as silent as the grave as they waited for the answer.
Tsuna felt another piece of his soul shrivel up and die.
Yeah. This was going to be a long day.
OoO
By the time lunch break was over Tsuna discovered a downside to his newfound ability to heal himself and he'd done it the hard way, by stupidly trying to heal himself at school instead of finding somewhere semi-private like his hospital room had been or even his house.
He'd abandoned his self-imposed restriction on running to save himself from the lunch-time interrogation and had bolted out of the classroom, he'd headed down a hallway and had somehow managed to twist an ankle on the way down to the ground floor of the building. He'd sat himself down on the step he'd tripped on and had healed the injury, safe in the assurance that no one would see the flames. The flare of orange light went unseen but if he thought the attention from his classmates had been uncomfortable before he'd healed his ankle it was nothing to the attention he got afterwards, suddenly everyone in the school wanted a piece of him.
The sparkles in his flames… acted in almost the same way a Veela's allure did, he almost died when he realized exactly why he was drawing attention all the time. More sparkles meant more attention! He didn't know how to extinguish them without using them and people would NOTICE if the bruise on his face disappeared so quickly! He was never healing himself in public again and he was never going to try making his flames sparkle more than they already did!
Two steps forward, one step back. Did Sod's Law have to be quite so accurate in its aim? No wonder he'd had trouble with bullies his whole life! People followed him into the bathroom and even into the library when he retreated there to get away from the crowds. He caught sight of the librarian, Kimura Saito, swatting a group of kids out the door with the brush end of the broom a few minutes later and hid his face under a book, sinking down into his bean-bag as the loud group were herded out the door. Yamamoto Takeshi tried to slip past but was collared and tossed out after the rest of them, the grizzled, white haired old man not believing his excuse of wanting to find a book.
"You haven't stepped a willing foot into this library since you started school you little brat, I won't have you harassing my assistant, he's the only decent kid out of the lot of you!" The man growled, swatting the broom in the between them threateningly. "Back to whatever the rest of you brats do in your spare time, shoo!"
"I'll be quiet! I just want to read a book!" Takeshi protested, trying to slip past the old man again.
"Feh, sure you will. On with you and take your friends with you! I see you or any of your little 'buddies' try to bother Sawada-kun again and I'll USE this broom! Git!"
Everyone abruptly quieted down when a softly threatening, and familiar, voice interrupted the showdown.
"Herbivores crowding around and making noise… I'll bite you to death."
All the students who'd been at the library entrance scattered and Tsuna looked up from under his book just in time to catch sight of a familiar dark head of hair dash past the open doorway, chasing after the fleeing group. What the hell? Why were they running? Whatever. He didn't care, as long as he didn't have to deal with anymore gawkers or questions he didn't care what happened outside the library. He was almost tempted to stay for the rest of the day but then the school would call his mother... it just wasn't worth it.
When the school bell signalled the end of the day he was the first one out the classroom door and managed to scrape back into the library before anyone noticed where he'd gone. The librarian ruffled his hair and Tsuna felt himself relax as he fell into the long-familiar motions of helping the librarian close down the library for the day. Computers were shut down, books were put away and chairs were set neatly on study desks.
"They harass you like that again just kick 'em in the nuts, it hurts just as much for girls as it does for boys and I'll tell anyone it was self-defence." The man said when they were done, giving his hair another ruffle.
"I'll keep that in mind Saito-san." Tsuna laughed, he'd been doing that for years already anyway, just not with people 'harassing' him in the way they had been today. He was just going to have to keep the sparkles down to a minimum, surely he'd find a way to do it, sparking them to life was easy enough so it shouldn't be too hard to reverse the process…
Right?
OoO
Guh. This chapter was a freaking emotional DRAIN but i liked how it turned out. I had an interesting time writing it. Ima gonna go crawl into bed and face-plant now. I'd write something in the notes here but all my energy just went into this chapter so when I try to think of something to add all I'm thinking is 'Buh' so I'll just let you guys have this chapter as it is.
Have fun reading it, i had fun writing it.
Warnings for some seriously cute fluff in the middle-ish part (I think? Close to the end?) of the chapter, you may need to punch a wall to feel human again. You have been warned. Also go read this fic's twin, it's called Brightly Burning by Araceil, she's in my 'Fave Stories' list.
