Chapter Four – First Impressions
Hibari had stared at him for a solid fifteen minutes. Every move on Tsuna's side had been thwarted and when – only when – he'd mentioned he'd be late to his next class did Hibari let him stand from the couch and leave the room.
He proceeded to stalk, or escort, or whatever it was, Tsuna to his next class by following him so close behind that Tsuna felt nerves prickle his skin with goosebumps.
The urge to ask Hibari how, why, when he could see Tsuna was on the tip of his tongue and he blurted it when they reached his classroom, whirling on the frightening senior.
"H-Hibari-san! How come you saw me die?"
Hibari looked at him like he was a particularly difficult puzzle – or his next murder victim, Tsuna mentally despaired – and then sharply said, "Don't run in the hallways. I'm going to walk you to your next class after this lesson to enforce this. If you try to escape, I will hunt you down."
That doesn't answer my question, Tsuna wanted to scream, nearly tearing at his hair. How can you remember?
Instead, he smiled stiffly and darted into the classroom so quickly he almost stumbled over his own feet, tripping in the doorway and ignoring the titters at his expense.
Hibari had his scent.
Tsuna was fairly certain he was now on some sort of obscure hit list.
Then Reborn appeared on the windowsill next to him and Tsuna nearly had a heart attack.
The next morning, when Tsuna trudged downstairs, yawning pathetically and fighting with his shirt collar, he was more than a little surprised to see Yamamoto and Hibari staring each down from across his kitchen table, Nana humming merrily all the while.
Yamamoto was rather viciously eating toast whereas Hibari had an untouched plate in front of him.
Tsuna froze for so long in the doorway that Reborn kicked him in the back of the knees and he was forced to stumble forward, drawing attention to himself.
"Uh…"
"Breakfast, Tsu-kun!" Nana said brightly, gliding over to usher him into a seat that, unfortunately, was closer to Hibari than to Yamamoto. Yamamoto wasted no time in picking up his plate and moving over two seats in order to box Tsuna in.
It made Tsuna feel a little better that Yamamoto wasn't leaving him to the wolves.
It did not explain what Hibari was doing in his house and apparently being served breakfast by his mother.
"I heard you took a tumble yesterday, Tsuna," his mother declared as she set a plate in front of him. It almost physically hurt Tsuna to see the guarded expression in her eyes, the hurt tinging her words.
He couldn't stop himself from glancing at Reborn, because he was certain the proclaimed hitman would have no idea what his mother meant.
"I heard that too," Yamamoto said, voice surprisingly cheerful despite the dark glint to his eyes as he continued to stare at Hibari over Tsuna's head.
Tsuna stared at his food and stayed stubbornly silent, trying to wrap his head around the fact that this was happening. No one had ever approached him about this problem before.
And he still didn't understand why Hibari was in his kitchen.
"Well, I'm alright now!" Tsuna laughed with false cheer and abruptly became the centre of attention, something he tried to dispute by quickly cramming food into his mouth as fast as he could without choking.
Hibari was remaining frighteningly quiet and Reborn had disappeared somewhere, somehow, and Tsuna was acutely aware of everything going on around him as he tried to disappear into his chair.
Everything seemed to happen in the kitchen.
Reborn, Yamamoto and now Hibari.
His mother was very trusting and his life was very complicated.
A few more minutes in it became too much and Tsuna burst out with, "What are you doing in my house, Hibari-san?!"
"Tsu-kun, don't be so rude!" His mother admonished from the other side of the room where she had been clattering with the dishes.
"Since entering Namimori Middle School you have entered a deceased state approximately six times in the last two years."
Tsuna snapped his mouth shut with an audible click, mind whirling as he tried to determine how exactly Hibari knew that. He wasn't about to admit that the number was closer to ten than Hibari, or even Yamamoto knew.
The silence stretched out before Tsuna pointed out, weakly, quietly, and wary of being injured, "B-But how can you s-see me, H-Hibari-san?"
"Because I chose to," Hibari replied sharply and then chose to stand so abruptly that Tsuna flinched into Yamamoto, trying to hide against his friend as Hibari leaned in unbearably close.
"No one gets hurt in my school, herbivore. You managed to. This is a situation that will be rectified."
Tsuna chose not to point out that it didn't answer his question and instead stared, dumbfounded and afraid up at Hibari.
"You are to tell me whenever you are injured mortally. If you don't tell me, I will bite you to death."
"Hibari-san," Tsuna hissed feeling emboldened and ignoring the curl of fear in his stomach at the sharp look he was given. Regardless, he forged on, "Hibari-san, that is all fine and well, but not in front of my mother."
Indeed, his mother was pressed into the furthest corner of the kitchen where she had been fruitlessly washing the same plate for the entirety of the conversation, bright points of blotchy colour on her cheeks and eyes red with unshed tears.
Hibari eyed him closely and then walked towards the front door. By the lack of the latch clicking, Tsuna determined he had just chosen to stand there in vigilance until Tsuna readied himself to leave.
He was going to be escorted to school. He didn't know if it was terrifying or embarrassing.
"Six times, Tsuna?" Yamamoto asked from his side, voice close but quiet and upset and Tsuna felt his appetite leave him as his heart shrivelled a little in response to the pain his friend's voice.
"Something like that," Tsuna mumbled, staring at the half eaten toast on his plate.
"The gym. The fall for me. Yesterday, if Hibari-senpai is true. When else, Tsuna?"
"Yamamoto," Tsuna said desperately. "Please. Please not in the house, not in the kitchen. Not here. I'll tell you if you need to know but." And then, embarrassingly, he hiccupped, the sob catching in his throat and Yamamoto seemed to shake himself out of the funk he'd gotten into.
The arm around his shoulder was comforting but Tsuna didn't want to be seen succumbing to weakness in front of his mother, so he shrugged free of the hold, crossed the room to hug his precious mama tightly from behind, and whispered a soft goodbye before he quickly absconded from the kitchen to gather his bag from the hallway and face the calamity that was Hibari again.
As soon as Tsuna made it clear of the front yard, he crouched with his back against the wall, pressed his face into his hands, and tried not to scream.
Every day he tried to take normally just got more and more complicated and already it was wearing him down.
"Whoa, Tsuna, are you feeling okay?" Yamamoto voiced the question as if he really needed to ask.
Tsuna made a frightening noise then, more of a keen, like an injured animal and apparently so worrying that Hibari hauled him to the feet by the scruff of his neck. Tsuna didn't even fight back, scraping his hands over his head and swallowing the urge to just slump back down.
"I will not tolerate tardiness," Hibari simply told him and then strode down the street. It was the sharpness of his voice, the undercurrents that promised violence, that incited Tsuna to start trudging down the street, not even flinching this time when Reborn appeared on the wall next to him as if he'd been there the entire time.
They made it to the school without incident, and Mochida, who had taken to teasing Tsuna ruthlessly every day since the kendo-gym incident, chose to leave him alone that morning after seeing Hibari so close by.
Tsuna wanted some normalcy in his life.
Apparently he wasn't going to get it.
And, as if to prove his point, when he walked into the classroom, Yamamoto closely behind and Reborn once again hidden from sight, there was a silver haired transfer student at the front of the class.
Tsuna hurried to his seat, Yamamoto following closely, and glanced curiously at the new student, eyes flickering between his wildly coloured hair and the bangles and rings his wrists and hands were adorned with.
By the time he made eye contact, the transfer student was staring coldly at him and Tsuna lurched back in his chair in shock, thankful for Yamamoto throwing out a hand to support him, pressed between his shoulder blades.
"He's kind of intense, huh Tsuna?" Yamamoto asked, voice mirthful despite the fact that Tsuna could almost see the killing intent wafting off of the person at the front of the class in visible waves.
"Uh, sure?" Tsuna squeaked out, committing the name 'Gokudera Hayato' to memory as the teacher introduced him and unsuccessfully convinced him to remove his multitudes of jewellery.
But then this Gokudera student was striding down between the desks, stopping in front of Tsuna and staring down at him, intimidatingly. Then, just as abruptly, he kicked Tsuna's desk violently enough to knock it over and then moved to take his own seat.
Tsuna was pretty sure Yamamoto was unaware the hand on his back had turned tense, fingertips digging in and he just weakly laughed the incident off so Yamamoto wouldn't act recklessly in his defence.
Tsuna was a very easy target after all, small and unassuming, and this Gokudera guy, a transfer from Italy apparently, seemed the type to bully the weaker kids.
It didn't help the unease that had settled in his stomach.
"Hey, Tsuna, I've got to catch up with club activities for the first ten minutes of lunch," Yamamoto abruptly said as they were packing their bags. "Did you want to come with me, or meet in the usual place?"
"Ah, we can meet in the usual place…" Tsuna decided very quickly, considering he was certain that a majority of the baseball club wasn't very fond of him and his friendship with Yamamoto.
As they made their way to the door, he glanced around surreptitiously to see if he could spot Hibari anywhere nearby. When he couldn't see the prefect anywhere, Tsuna bid farewell to Yamamoto and strode down the corridor.
The place he and Yamamoto liked to go to was on the far side of the school, a little rundown and unkempt and, up until the year before, was a prime spot for the elder years to smoke, drink and get into fights.
It had taken a few weeks, but he and Yamamoto had cleared the worst of the mess away from and off of the bench set against the wall of the building and so, every day, they would sit down and talk aimlessly about anything and everything.
Tsuna sat down on the bench and rummaged through his bag to fish out his lunch, wondering what his mother had packed for him that day, setting the box of food on his lap and easing the lid off.
"Pathetic," was muttered a little ahead of him and Tsuna flinched, lifting his head up in brief panic, only to see Gokudera there, fiddling with a lighter in order to light up a cigarette.
What fourteen year old smokes? Tsuna shrieked in the safety of his mind but instead pretended he hadn't heard, noticing absently that his mother had packed extra once again, for Yamamoto.
Apparently having no answer was the wrong answer.
"I can't believe you're to be the tenth boss of the Vongola Family," Gokudera sneered, leaning in and blowing out acrid smoke into Tsuna's face, enough to make his stomach twist with disgust.
"Who told you that?" Tsuna asked, surprised, and tried not to flail when Reborn was suddenly next to him and plucking at the food in his lunchbox.
"I did, Dame-Tsuna."
"Do you stand by what you said, Reborn?" Gokudera asked, eyes drifting towards the tiny hitman. "That, if I kill this little brat, I get to become the tenth boss?"
"What?" Tsuna squeaked at the same time Reborn said, "Yes," and stole a riceball.
Gokudera grinned widely, wholly unrepentant, and Tsuna felt horror slither down his spine as the boy opposite him pulled out what looked like sticks of dynamite from his pockets.
"You cannot be serious," Tsuna blurted, making his way to his feet after reverently setting his lunch to the side. His hands were trembling and he had to twist his fingers together to hide it.
This seemed to disgust Gokudera more, who lifted the dynamite close enough to the lit cigarette in his mouth for the fuses to catch alight.
Tsuna was forced to screech and dive to the side out of the way when yes, Gokudera was definitely serious and the fact he was dealing with some serious firepower here.
Fourteen! His mind wailed again.
"Gokudera's primary ability is that he can hide copious amount of explosives on himself," Reborn narrated cheerfully. "In fact, in certain circles within the mafia world, he is known as 'Smokin' Bomb Hayato."
"Fourteen!" Tsuna shouted, out loud this time. "We're both fourteen!"
"Stand still!" Gokudera snarled in return, dynamite appearing clasped between his fingers faster than Tsuna could keep track off, each and every one of the being lit almost quicker than he could dodge them landing at his feet, where he would promptly stamp them out rather than letting them explode like the first two had – completely destroying the side of the bench he'd been sat on, jagged metal spikes where the feet had been the only remainders.
There was a popping sound from his left, a sharp sudden pain in his forehead but then the world seemed to be slowing down, dodging became easier and Tsuna became aware of the fire merrily crackling away on his forehead.
In fact, the world had dimmed enough around him that it wasn't too much of an issue to leisurely pinch the fuses out instead of simply stamping on them – and really, he was lucky he hadn't lost a foot that way.
It became less leisurely and more of a race when Gokudera bit off more than he could chew and the explosive weaponry fanned out around the silver haired teenager, who looked first frightened then resigned.
But, less than thirty seconds later, Tsuna was pinching out the very last one, fingertips callused from the faint burning and the fire sizzling out.
He waited for Gokudera to – figuratively – explode at him, but instead the other started fawning over him, staring at him with unadulterated acceptance and wonder, and it was such a one eighty of his previous attitude that Tsuna was rightfully shocked.
It was a few moments after that that Gokudera's expression flickered down and to the side, brief horror crossing his features.
"Tenth - !" he started, reaching out just as Tsuna looked down as well at the fuse merrily burning away on the awry piece of explosive he must have missed.
It wasn't close enough to much damage really, blowing out a crater near his foot and making him stumble back with no balance.
The fall was graceless, all flailing limbs as Tsuna tipped over with no hope of catching himself, no matter how quickly Gokudera reached forward.
The pain was so unexpected and so sharp that Tsuna couldn't help but give a strangled scream as he fell backwards with all of his weight on the remains of the metal bench stump, the edge tearing through his back and scraping through and past his organs to messily break out of his stomach, glistening with blood.
Gokudera gave his own startled shriek, almost amusingly high pitched, but all Tsuna could focus on was the burning agony centred around the metal spike jutting from his abdomen, every sluggish beat of his heart spreading the pain further and further.
He was choking on his own blood, drowning on it, and all he could do was scramble at his chest as he fought to breathe past the pain, his vision flickering and blurring but not fast enough, not quick enough and Tsuna found himself wishing he would just die already, have it over and done with.
Gokudera's face was swimming in and out of view above him, eyes wide and horrified and so full of abject terror that Tsuna did his absolute best to reassure him and only succeeded in coughing up a mouthful of dark, gritty blood, ever jar of his body some new fresh Hell in terms of pain.
He blacked out for only a handful of seconds but when his vision refocused – just stop already, stop, let me die, he pleaded – Yamamoto was there, fist in Gokudera's shirt collar and shouting nonsensical words that Tsuna couldn't make sense of at a distance.
There was a tiny hand in his own, fingers only big enough to be curled around his thumb and a quiet, reverent voice,
"I never meant for it to be like this Tsuna. I never did."
But then his wish was answered and Tsuna almost thankfully took in his last breath, conscious and life falling from between his fingertips as readily as the blood that bled from his side
Nothing to say about this one!
Still unbeta'd and maybe a little more gory than the previous chapters. Oh well! Hope you enjoyed it!