(Age 3)
Learning how to speak Japanese beyond random words and phrases had been an incredibly frustrating experience.
For one thing, hearing something cooed to you in that baby voice adults are so fond of does not make it stick. If anything, it makes you want to ask them to repeat whatever they said because you couldn't understand a word they were saying. Tsuna seemed to pick up the language with little problem, which was expected since he didn't know anything different. While he wasn't the most elegant of speakers (many of his words could easy be confused with senseless babbling), he could still hold very basic conversations and answer questions and the like.
Me? I took a little more persuading.
When I finally did manage to connect the dots and learn how to speak Japanese as if it really was my native language, I only spoke when absolutely necessary. For one thing, I didn't want to come off as too smart. I was a 17 year old in an 3 year old's body for goodness sake. I didn't trust my ability to dumb myself down, nor did I want to, so I just stayed quiet. I could tell that Nana worried about me, but since I always answered questions and sometimes talked to Tsuna, she didn't take me to a doctor or anything, to my unending relief. I was pretty used to long periods of silence anyways- while my original father and I had gotten along, we were both the kind of person who preferred silence and thus spent our days exchanging maybe a sentence or two at best.
It was around the time that I was seriously considering stealing Nana's dictionary to try and muddle my way through so I'd have something to do other than play with fake telephones and singing books and maybe sometimes busting my ass trying to set a stupid block on fire that the Ninth Vongola Boss finally came around for a visit.
Iemitsu had been mysteriously absent for the better part of three weeks (I was beginning to wonder just what he was telling Nana) and had returned with the crime lord at his side, smiling jovially like the older man wasn't the most powerful mafia boss in the world with the resources to wipe out a small country. The Ninth had an oddly grandfatherly look about him, but I wasn't fooled. Now that I was actually living in a world where the mafia had goddamn superpowers (in what universe was this a good idea, seriously), I knew I had to be a lot more careful. It was one thing to see Timoteo behind the safety of a screen and take a liking to him. It was another matter entirely to see him face to face and be reminded of the reality that this guy was personally responsible for the deaths of countless people.
Despite all of this, I couldn't bring myself to be truly scared of him. What can I say, I was deeply stupid and he had a cool looking mustache. Besides, you could almost see the sparkles shooting off of him when he'd gotten his first look at Tsuna and his cuteness.
I kept my distance just in case, though.
Tsuna had spent the majority of the day napping after we had played a very lengthy game of tag earlier that morning. Since Tsuna's legs were so stubby compared to mine even at this age, I could literally run circles around him. The only reason he didn't give up in a fit of tears was because every so often I would give in to his pouting and slow down just enough for him to snag me. Considering my only source of entertainment most days was listening to Nana read stories and playing random melodies on my electronic baby xylophone (trying to find my flames had long since graduated from entertaining to incredibly frustrating), it was surprisingly fun. Tsuna however had been forced to work much harder than I had in our game and was thoroughly exhausted by the time it ended almost two hours later. While I had pounded out a few notes to an anime opening I remembered on my little xylophone (I was starting to actually become fond of the thing), Tsuna had passed out on the couch and hadn't even woken up when Iemitsu burst through the door completely unannounced, singing love serenades to a surprised but blushing Nana.
Back to now. The Ninth appeared out of nowhere, chuckling heartily at Iemitsu and Nana as the former scooped Tsuna up into his arms and spun around with him. I jumped violently at the sound and my flailing produced a particularly nasty sounding chord that succeeded in jarring Tsuna out of his zombie sleep. I, meanwhile, abandoned my keyboard and gravitated to Nana's side, curious.
We went out to the porch and Iemitsu let Tsuna down so he could run around. Ever the scaredy cat (honestly, this kid was such a pansy. I was trying to break him out of it, but it was harder than I'd anticipated), Tsuna did no such thing and ran towards me, trying and failing to hide behind my back. Had Tsuna's miniature 'fro not been the size of a small planet, he may have succeeded. Nana put a hand on my back and nudged me forward, an encouraging smile on her face. I wanted to tell her exactly where she could shove her encouragement- I was standing in front of a damn mafia boss- but that would be incredibly rude and counterproductive. Toddlers aren't supposed to know how to swear. So, instead of chewing her out, I grabbed Tsuna's hand and took a few steps forward with my head held high.
Now to hope he didn't suspect anything.
Timoteo knelt to our level, his soft smile partially obscured by his rather impressive facial hair.
"And what's your name, hime-chan?"
Was I flattered or really creeped out? I couldn't really decide.
I knew that he meant it in a purely familial way- and to be honest, he was technically my grandfather anyways- but that didn't change the fact that as far as I was concerned he was not part of my family. He was a man who made a living breaking the law.
Nonetheless, cringing away and running for the hills was very rude and wouldn't really do anything except make me look a little unhinged. Instead I tightened my grip on Tsuna's hand and looked Timoteo dead in the eye with what I hoped was an intimidating scowl. Considering my giant eyes and chubby cheeks, it likely looked more like a pout.
God, I hoped my eyes were doing the flashy thing right now. That would make me look so much less pathetic.
"Tsunami, ojii-san." Very desperate to end the conversation (could it even be called that?) and leave, I reached back and drug Tsuna in front of me to face the Ninth. Maybe it wasn't the best idea to use my little brother as a meat shield, but I didn't really care at the moment. I wanted to get out. Tsuna shrunk back into me and I had to brace my arms against his back so he didn't knock me over backwards.
"Introduce yourself, Tsu-kun!" Nana prompted gently, face open and encouraging. Tsuna looked at this hesitantly before dropping his gaze to the floor and pressing back against my hands.
"M-my name's…Tsunayoshi…y-you can, um…" His voice faded to a soft whimper and he looked like he was going to cry. Ever the sucker for his cuteness and maybe feeling just a little guilty for putting him on the spot like that, I quickly stepped in and put myself back in between my new brother and Timoteo.
"You can call him Tsuna. Momma, can we go play now?" I turned to Nana, hoping that she'd take the hint and let me get Tsuna and myself out of this pool of awkward. She had a slightly surprised expression on her face, but it quickly melted into a gigantic smile that reminded me of Tsuna's and nodded enthusiastically. I wasted no time in leading Tsuna off the front porch and towards our big purple ball that lay forgotten in the middle of the yard. Patting his fluffy afro fondly, I rolled the ball in his direction. Behind me, the adults began making conversation.
"Your daughter seems very well-spoken for her age." The Ninth noted and I had to physically stop myself from freezing. Crap. Was he onto me? No, he couldn't be. I was being ridiculous. If I saw an unusually eloquent little girl, my first thought would be that she's very smart. I would not suspect her of being a teenager from a different dimension because that was just absurd and why would anyone ever think that but maybe the Ninth's hyper intuition was telling him something and he was going to find me out and lock me up and experiment on me-
I mentally slapped myself and took deep breathes through my nose as inconspicuously as I could. Crime lord or not, I was fairly certain the Ninth wasn't the kind of man to experiment on children. That's what the Estraneo were for. Even so, I plastered a big grin on my face and picked up the purple ball.
"Play with me, Tsu-kun!" My twin blushed in indignation at the nickname (it was common knowledge that he hated it with a passion, but it was just so cute) and held out his arms for the ball.
"Nami-nee? Who's he?" He staged whispered, glancing back at Timoteo even as he knelt down to catch the ball I had rolled at him. It rolled on past him, missing him by a few feet and I waited until he was done chasing it down to reply.
"I…" I began to say back, but then thought better of it. Maybe I wasn't supposed to know the answer yet? But then again, it was sort of an obvious conclusion…to me. Maybe not to the average three year old?
I motioned for Tsuna to come closer and he obeyed, abandoning the purple ball so he could walk like a normal person. I cupped my hands around my mouth and leant in close enough that the big white bow on my headband almost got tangled in Tsuna's hair.
"I think he's our grandpa, but I'm not sure." I whispered, glancing back at my parents and Timeteo, all of whom were talking amongst themselves just as quietly. Tsuna just nodded slowly and looked up at me like he couldn't figure out why what I'd just told him couldn't be said aloud like everything else. When I offered no answer, he pouted and scampered back to the ball, pulling his leg back to kick at it.
Fact: Playing catch with Tsuna can get very dangerous very fast. Tsuna had zero coordination. He couldn't aim, he couldn't throw, and he couldn't catch. The only reason we hadn't broken anything yet was because Tsuna could hardly put any power behind his tosses. Most of the time, the ball just missed me by a mile and bounced out into the street. To fix this problem, I had taken to rolling the ball back and forth between us instead of tossing it. Tsuna could chase it to his heart's content and then kick it back at me. His aim was so bad that I in turn could burn some energy chasing it around the yard before the process restarted.
Today, however, our game was interrupted by the appearance of the neighborhood Chihuahua. Personally I didn't have a problem with the thing other than its yippyness, but Tsuna was terrified of it (and all other dogs) for some reason. Maybe he was just a cat person. That would certainly explain his affection for Nuts in the future.
The small dog slipped through the bars of our gate and padded over to Tsuna, who fell over in his haste to escape. He did nothing but scream and flail as the tiny furball jumped on his chest and started licking at his face. I stood to the side and giggled at the picture they made, a sound that was echoed by the adults behind me. When Tsuna's wails began to reach hysterical pitch, I finally stopped my giggling and plucked the tiny dog off his chest. It was a bit heavy for my scrawny toddler arms, so I set it down quickly a few feet away and went to comfort the now openly bawling Tsunayoshi.
"Neh, Tsu-kun. The dog isn't going to hurt you. He's just a puppy." My words didn't seem to have any effect on the teary-eyed chibi, so I settled for a different approach. I knelt down on the ground and patted his head comfortingly. Tsuna, apparently, was having none of my hesitant-to-touch shit and glomped me. Barely resisting the urge to 'Awwww' like the depraved fangirl I was, I hugged him back and tried not to make a face at how his snot and tears were getting all over my pastel shirt. He was hugging me back with a ferocity I didn't think a toddler could have, obviously still terrified of the dog that was sniffing at his feet. It was tight enough to actually hurt, at any rate. Slowly and carefully, I pulled us both to our feet and awkwardly hobbled us back to Iemitsu, Timoteo, and Nana. With a pointed stare at Nana and a heavy, somewhat grossed out pout on my face, I offered up my twin brother.
"Fix him." I demanded. Instead of Nana (you know, the only parent that was around often enough to actually know how to calm her kid down) Iemitsu grinned his rugged, manly grin and plucked Tsuna off me. Well, the better word would be 'pried'. My feet almost made it off the floor before Tsuna released me from his death grip. With no small amount of reluctance at leaving Tsuna with Iemitsu, I retreated to the Chihuahua puppy, who was sniffing the discarded purple ball curiously. With a bit of effort, I picked it up and deposited it just outside the gate, glaring sternly and instructing it to go back home. I knew it probably couldn't understand me, but I always talked to animals anyways. To my slight surprise, the dog obeyed and yipped at me before turning around and trotting off down the sidewalk. I turned around just in time to see Timoteo's flaming fingers make contact with Tsuna's forehead. I turn around for three seconds and Tsuna's being attacked by an old man with combustible hands. How was this my life.
I knew what he was doing, but that didn't make seeing it any weirder. My brother stared at the fire curiously (if that was going to be his reaction when strangers approached him with fire, then we had some serious work to do on his self-preservation skills) before yawning widely and passing out on Iemitsu's shoulder, tears and flames forgotten. I clambered back up on the porch and watched him curiously. I was almost jealous of his sleeping abilities. I was something of a night owl, which didn't really work out well in a family of early risers. I took comfort in the knowledge that one day Tsuna would grow out of his morning chipperness and turn into a lazy snoring teenager like he was supposed to.
Alarm bells went off in my head as the Ninth turned towards me. No. No way. He could poke Tsuna with sky flames all day if he wanted, but he wasn't getting anywhere near me with those fingers of his. ('But maybe they'll unlock your flames?' No no no, still not worth it. Besides, I had a sneaking suspicion that these were supposed to seal flames) For the second time that day, he knelt down to me level and I took a tiny step back, tensed and ready to run. Instead of giving me the death poke, he simply smiled.
"My dear Tsunami…you have the strangest eyes." Feeling somewhat insulted, I scowled and fought the urge to hide my face.
"Momma says they're pretty." I huffed defensively. Forget Momma, I said they were pretty. Orange was a cool color. He was probably just jealous because his eyes were all boring and brown. Timoteo, realizing he'd offended me, quickly backtracked.
"They're beautiful. And very unique, if I do say so myself." I flushed slightly and looked away. Back in my old life, my eyes had been so dark of a brown that I myself had thought them black until I was nearly twelve. Here, however… well, not so much.
After my various experiments with flames had yielded no results (to be entirely honest, I was hoping that I'd have mist flames so I could hide my eyes sometimes and go out in public without getting stared at. Or maybe storm flames so I could disintegrate everyone who looked at me funny?), I had grown out my bangs and tried to hide my bright orange eyes with them, but Nana would have none of it and took to pinning my bangs back with different bowed headbands that changed color every day. I actually started to grow fond of the things, which was why even now after I had consented to getting my fringe cut back to a normal length I still wore the headbands.
"…Thank you?" I tried, unsure on how to respond to the compliment. Timoteo smiled and ruffled my light brown hair affectionately. It took a large amount of effort to keep from flinching away. I knew who he was but he was still a stranger and he was touching me and- was I developing some sort of aversion to physical contact from people who weren't Tsuna and Nana? That was kind of weird. I would have to think about that a little more later.
"Look out for your brother, alright? He's going to need a strong sister to help him out." I barely, barely kept from snorting. I knew that better than anyone did.
He didn't have to tell me twice.
A/N: Timoteo :D He creeps me out a little. I think it shows in my writing.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TSUNA! And belated to Reborn, but Tsuna.
The poll is still open and oh my goodness. You people really like Mukuro, don't you? I completely agree, though I must say I'm curious as to why he's the one in the lead. I myself have a special soft spot for redheads, if you know what I mean~
MASSIVE THANK YOUS TO:
Flower power.u know u like it, OwOTunaFishAndPineapplezzOwO , assi, mebo1, April Marciano, Chuu112, Jasmine-angela, Maso-chan, Seithr-Kairy, SinisteRRRsAngel, YuujouKami, Inoue Orihime15, 7, TenraiTsukiyomi, devil190, pizzas are immortal, Bluosity, Sasuna123, moonlight phonex101, Dreamless-Sleep777, Mikkola, RosaLuna416, Tani Yoru, alexag98, vnienhuis, CeramicPizza, Eovin, HG59, KeiGinya, .exile, Pandawasmyballpen, kamikorosuXP, monamonalisa17, NotreDaaaaame, UltraCreepyKiwi, Saskue's-Killer112, Viviene, Bishi-Bishi, nandive, shanagi95, Hayate The Soul Reaper, InTheDarkestHowers, Juliedoo, KuroHi91, Vikky Plushie, Sgaapje, sync94, and virusxD.
SUPER SPECIAL THANK YOUS TO:
1. KeiGinya, who pointed out a little error I made last chapter. If any of you guys catch any spelling, grammatical, or plot-related errors, please feel free to point them out! I won't get mad. Ever. Promise.
2. The 600 of you who have clicked on and read this story. 600, guys. 600. asdfgjkl;;HOLY CRAP.
I love yooouuuuu TTwTT
