Chapter Six
Drip, Sad Boy, Drip
(A little boy made of wood
Wished on blue stars and drops of rain.
'I think I was a human once
Can you make me that again?')
Namimori Middle School is not a place that Tsuna likes.
It is filled with hateful people and false emotions and broken promises and sex with people who weren't their lovers against lockers and nasty sounds and awful smells and terrible teachers.
Tsuna has it bad because every time someone tells a lie and he hears it, his empathy goes haywire. And Tsuna has it worse because 'make the pretty boy scream' is a fun game. And once Tsuna started wearing gloves and long sleeved shirts, his classmates would rip them away and shove him, and as the scene of a boy getting stabbed by his peers plays over and over again in his mind, Tsuna bites his tongue.
He does not want to scream.
He will not satisfy these people.
And that is why Namimori Middle School is not a place Tsuna likes. At all.
And that is also why Tsuna dislikes Yamamoto Takeshi.
Because the teen is fake.
And because he feels the way Yamamoto feels whenever he is forced to clean the baseball bats after his bullies steal his gloves.
'OH MY GOSH I AM SO ALONE'
'I AM SO ALONE'
'DON'T FORGET TO SMILE'
'I AM SO ALONE'
'HELP'
.
.
.
.
'am i useless, now?...'
'...help me...i miss you...mother...'
And as Tsuna cleans, he cries.
He cries over the poor, troubled, tired teen that he never sees because they are in different grades. He cries over the loss of another's mother. He cries for this sad boy, with a smile like a chipped shard of stained glass.
He cries because that boy has long since forgotten how to feel a thing.
('I have long since learned the beauty of dancing in the rain')
.
.
.
(I have also learned the pain of angry raindrops beating at the skin.)
Tsunayoshi has a burning fever that has his usually pale face flushed and sheet white all at the same time.
His mind swims in and out as he struggles to focus on his math lesson for a reason he can't remember because he knows that even if he was looking at the board, he wouldn't get it anyways.
He feels so cold.
(He is burning up.)
And his head just hurts.
(The laughter of his classmates slams his head like the banging of a great gong.)
All Tsuna wants right now is to be in bed at home, and in truth, he should be. He had never really been this sick before.
The pacifier is taking its own toll on him.
And any power comes at a price.
He almost wishes that he let Hayato stay with him, or that he had at least stayed at home for an extra hour. Or that he wasn't assualted by feverish nightmares when he tried to get back to sleep.
The bell rings for lunch, shoving its sound through the hazy drip drop grey fuzz of his mind as he shakily gets to his feet. As he staggers out the door, he doesn't even glance at the boy who runs past him in the hallways. At least he doesn't until the boy starts screaming.
"Yamamoto is about to jump off of the roof!"
Tsuna's eyes widen, and the haziness in them clears up a bit.
Oh.
That was why he dreamt last night.
The Selfish Boy.
He's really jumping.
('The rain...you can't really blame it for looking like tears,
After all,
It may just not know how to fall up.)
And Tsuna runs to the rooftop.
With his throat sore and his head pounding and his lungs heaving in great coughs,
Tsunayoshi runs to the rooftop.
He is barely aware of Hayato behind him. And it is with a dreamlike, drunken dullness that he notices Reborn standing on his shoulder.
Because his fevered brain is set on one thing.
'don't let another one die,'
Because if Tsuna was just a little less dame, Yamamoto's mother might still be here to hug her son. If Tsuna was just a little less selfish, he would be dead and Yamamoto's mother would still be alive. And if he was truly kind, well, he would stop himself from wanting others around him.
It wasn't like he had a future to him, anyways.
But...
He really was so lonely.
(The kind and the greedy
One must wonder if they are the same...)
Stupid Tsuna, he berates himself, stupid no good dame Tsuna.
Why can't you do anything right?
Hayato has one eye on the path before him, the other staying fixed on his boss. The worry he was trying to hide was bleeding its way into his eyes as he ran. After all, as much as Hayato wished that it weren't so, Tenth...Tenth is delicate.
He felt it when he was carrying the boy to the nurses office.
He saw it when the frail chest of Tenth's rose so slightly he had to rest his hand on his torso as to make sure he was really breathing.
He heard it in the shaking coughs his boss had been suffering from since last night.
Tenth, he was fragile.
Not in the mind of course, heavens, no.
The determination in those eyes could tear down the skies if it wanted.
But the body?
(He is like a teacup.
Chipped China.
When to use him?...)
His boss, is fragile.
Thin.
Like a shard of a china cup hidden in ruins.
And as much as Hayato just wants to reach out and pick up and swing his Tenth off into a comfy bed someplace, tell him to lay down a let his right hand man take care of it, he can't. Tenth...Tsuna needs to do this.
So Hayato watches his too determined, too fragile boss run, chest heaving.
(Have you ever known anyone with a soul too big for their body?)
And he cusses out the bastard up on the rooftop in his mind because even though whoever was up there probably would never know just what Tenth was doing for him.
But he would.
And even now, the look on Tenth's face last night...
It haunts him.
He, at some point dragged his futon into the room of his new boss.
Dozing off in the warm and yet somehow so empty house, he hears it.
A scream.
A scream from his boss.
He had never been more awake in his life.
As he rushes over to the bed,
He takes his boss into his arms, trying to ignore that flinch.
He had noticed it before though.
It was as if Tenth was terrified of touch.
It slips away however,
And now, Tenth is clutching his shirt with still gloved palms.
'Hayato'
shaken.
So very shaken.
Like he had just seen the doors to hell
'Hayato...'
Like he was reassuring himself that Hayato was indeed here.
His boss is burning up beneath his long shirt and Hayato has to wonder,
'Why wear that at night?'
Tenth curls up, and Reborn jumps down to land on Tenth's thigh.
'Dame-Tsuna, what's wrong?'
Even he can see the worry on the hitman's face.
Then Tenth speaks again, and Hayato's heart freezes
'I...don't want to fall...'
That look on Tenth's face...
.
.
.
It doesn't leave,
Even as he goes back to sleep,
Hayato still at his side.
Hayato grits his teeth around an unlit cigarette as the doors to the roof loom closer.
Tenth's face is pale and sweaty, and a determined expression takes over his features.
And it is with soft steps that they walk into the hurricane.
Giotto was running to the school on soft paws, a flash of gold shooting down the street.
In his mouth, he holds a small red bullet.
'Oh please let me be not too late'
This kind of bullet might kill Tsuna.
'Oh please...PLEASE!'
A gunsot fires in the distance and he runs even faster.
'Please no...'
.
.
.
'Not my Tsunayoshi, please!'
(When you walk away...
You don't hear me say...
Please...
Baby, don't go...
.
.
I don't want to be alone...)
.
.
.
(Didn't I say? This is a tale of the kind, the lonely, the bitter, and the scared.)
Yamamoto Takeshi is standing on the rooftop on the very edge with his heels just on the edge and his toes pointing out to face freedom. Or death.
Same thing, really.
He adjust himself, shifting his -broken, useless, pointless,- arm slightly, then winces at the pain.
Yamamoto Takeshi is going to die.
And he is...happy?
('Remember? Remember who I used to be?')
Peering down at the down below him, he smiles sadly when he sees the throng of students below.
Are they afraid to come up?
Do they think he has a strange disease that he will spread to them if they dare come up on the rooftop?
He is smiling still, if simply because smiling has now become a subconsious habit.
He was pathetic.
(Who am I? Who am I? My reality,
It's slipping away...)
The doors bang open, and he nearly jumps out of his skin. Turning around, not swinging around because he can't be bothered to care anymore, he sees a boy whom he only saw in passing on the street.
Dame-Tsuna.
And now he feels like letting out barks of laughter because this school sent its whipping boy up to talk to him.
Was he really so useless?
(I'm lost
So very, very lost.
Will I...
Be able to see the sky again?)
How does one write a suicide note?
Do you scribble down words of nothing, and keep it as superfical as the mask one wears?
Or do tell them why, and apologize for not being there with them to comfort them?
In Yamamoto's locker, there are several crumpled up pieces of paper, each trying to begin.
Dear Dad,
I'm sorry-
no.
Dear Dad,
I love you-
no.
Dad, I'm writing because-
no.
In Takeshi's pocket, there is a complete note, but it is not to his dad, and it is not to a girlfriend, and it is not to a buddy.
It is to his mom.
His dead mom.
His mom who he will soon be seeing.
His eyes slide shut as he listens to the whistling of the wind from where he stands up on the ledge. It is the most peace he has felt in a very long time. The piece of paper in his pocket is scribbled with his besst handwriting, or rather the best handwriting that he could manage with a broken right hand.
Dear Mom,
I miss you
I really, really, really miss you.
Remember that book that you read to me all the time as a kid?
I do.
So then,
Can you guess how much I love you?...
Tsuna looks pale. Takeshi looks like death on wings. Hayato is trying to restrain himself from reaching out to support his boss, and now Reborn is hidden, Leon gun at the ready.
The potential Rain guardian is just two centimeters from dying.
That doesn't really concern him.
What does concern him is the fact that his stupid student is probably going to run up to the teen and jump right after him in a useless attempt to save him. Tsuna was kind like that.
Oh, Yamamoto wass speaking now.
"You won't be able to stop me, Tsuna." At this his head tilts back up towards the skyline, and his eyes take on a scary sort of longing. "I have nothing left to live for, after all."
Such...finality.
Such loss of hope and sadness and-
"Hey Tsuna, have you ever wondered where we go when we die?" And Tsuna...he nods.
He nods.
Why in the hell, at ten years old, would Tsuna need to think about where he went when he died?
Why?
Why...did he care?
At this point, Reborn doesn't know if that last question is for hm or for his student. Tsuna, his mind whispers, his name is Tsuna.
He ignores it, and adjusts his grip on his gun.
He wasn't going to try to find another sky again.
It just ended up in ash.
(In his later years, as he watches Tsuna fight with pure and sky bound flames, he laughs so bitterly he might as well have been crying.
Up in ash...)
"I-I have," Tsuna murmurs, and his voice is like the song of a slightly rusted wind chime against the wind, so hoarse and soft. "B-But, then I tell myself that I shouldn't, no...that I can't."
His eyes...
Takeshi looks back at the change in tone.
Tsuna, who had previously been hunched over in the throes of a severe cold, was standing back straight and head held high, hair whipped in a stronger wind that seemed to be drawn towards this slip of a boy.
And his eyes were burning.
And Takeshi...Takeshi just clutched at the note in his pocket. trying to block out what he knew would come next because deep down, he knew that this person was not going to let him jump without the world ending first.
I love you so much you wouldn't believe
I love you as far as I can pitch a fastball
I love you as high as I can hit a home run
And...
Once, someone told me, if I swing high enough, I could hit the moon.
.
.
.
Do you remember that?
Tsuna steps forwards and Takeshi watches.
Then-
"But surely, tou can at least understand where I'm coming from, right?" Takeshi says, allowing the words to spill past slightly chapped lips.
Tsuna stares at him, but for a moment, to all watchers present, his eyes go almost misty, clouded over with a milky gold as they focus on something that seems to be located just over Takeshi's shoulder.
Then he focuses again, and he smiles.
Tsuna smiles in the way a tossed aside, used, broken angel might smile.
He smiles in the way a tired, world weary, old man might smile.
His face...doesn't look right, smiling like that.
"I...am sorry, Yamamoto-kun, but...I can honestly say that I don't understand." And Yamamoto sneers now, and it is the first genuine expression that he has for what feels like the first time. His eyes darken, and as a bit of killing intent touches the air, Reborn gets ready to shoot. It's not a lot but it's directed at Tsuna so screw it all if Yamamoto is rain guardian material-
"Oh? So you're better than me now huh? I guess even Dame-Tsuna has to trample on someone, huh?"
That has Tsuna shaking his head so frantically that Reborn thought his students head might fly off.
"No! No, not at all!" His eyes dim behind a soft curtain of bangs, and he raises one hand to brush over the other gloved one. "It's just, I've never had much to live for, you know? I-I mean, people, they're always teling me that I'm useless, and that I'm no good, and that I shouldn't try," he murmurs. "And, I-I know that."
He so sure. So sure. And honestly, the fact that his usually meek and soft and submissive student is so sure of the one thing that it causes an old and yet very familiar feeling to settle in Reborn's stomach.
How dare they hurt my Sky.
And Reborn doesn't try to avoid those words now. He doesn't fully trust Tsuna, but...he was, in a way, Reborn's.
He was his student.
His.
So, how dare they? How dare they?
Tsuna isn't finished yet, though.
"But, whenever I see you, I think that maybe I can be just a little bit better! I mean, you- your emotions-your smile- I mean," Tsuna wrings his hands together, and tries again, with Yamamoto hanging on to every word, eyes wide. "You...your face never matches your emotions, and deep down inside your trying to avoid crying because you want to be strong and you just want your happiness back-"
Happiness back?
Was that...was that what he wanted?
But then why...then why was he up here?
Sometimes, I like to think that when I hit a ball as far and as high as I can,
You're up there
Just behind the moon
Waiting to toss it back
Just like you did
When you were still alive
And we would go to play at the park
"And Yamamoto-kun...I...I am so sorry."
Tsuna's soft honey orbs cloud over with a deep, heartfelt regret and he looks at Takeshi as if he was holding up his heart for judgement.
"I'm so sorry that never tried to help you. I'm sorry that I saw all of this and still did nothing. I'm sorry that I failed to help your mother...I...really am no good...I'm sorry,"
Throughout all of this, Hayato has been watching his boss with the eyes of a hawk, ready to jump in should he need to. Then a spot of gold makes itself known in his vision and he turns and sees the cat Tenth dotes on at the door.
There is a dying will bullet in his mouth.
Why-
Tsuna starts to speak again.
"I...please...come back from there, Yamamoto-kun, please."
And Silence reigns.
Then-
"Your mother, I don't think she would want you to die, not here, not like this."
Red and raw rage takes over Takeshi's vision because Tsuna is just strolling through his soul with his words and tearinng open every careful sealed box and tossing the emotions over himself.
"Oh? So now you want to disrespect my mother, hm? Well tell me, how do you know? How do you know what my mother would want? How do you know, Dame-Tsuna?Well? Go ahead, try it!"
Tsuna just gets that same milky gold sheen to his gaze, and that far awayness to his gaze. Then his eyes take on a rueful tint.
"Don't mothers always wish the best for their sons?"
I'm sorry Mom
I shouldn't have thrown that ball that far
Maybe then,
You wouldn't have had to chase after it
Into the street
I'm sorry.
Takeshi stills.
'I know that you'll do great, Takeshi! So try your best!'
'I love you so much, Takeshi, so, so, so, much!'
'I want my boy to grow up strong! You can do that for me, right Takeshi?'
'Takeshi...I...want...you to be...happy...so...re...member...smile, okay?'
Mothers, they always wish the best for their sons.
He blinks, but a tear falls anyway.
Then another.
And another.
And soon, for the first time since after the funeral, he cries.
Genuine tears and no smile to speak of.
And it is like a cleanse to his soul.
(Smiles are like the rainbows that can only come after tears and rain.)
Shakily, because whatever strength that Tsuna was using is fading fast, Tsuna steps forwards and gently tugs on Yamamoto's sleeve.
"Yamamoto-kun...please come-"
The fence breaks.
It is in a strange flash of speed that Tsuna yanks Yamamoto back onto the saftey of the roof as he begins to plummet to his doom.
And Reborn, feeling the sink of a stone in his stomach, readies his gun.
And Giotto run forwards.
To all looking, he was fast, but to him?
It was like he was running at the speed of a hibernating animal blood as it sleeps beneath the ice.
It was like he was runnig though a dream, no, a nightmare. It was like he was running in the worst nightmare anyone alive could think of because his legs just won't move fast enough to stop that hitman, dammit-!
The gun fires and he bullet slams forwards and Giotto feels his whole soul slip away as his greatest treasure tumbles down with that thing heading for him.
He collapses, looking away.
oh goodness why.
that red bullet, why.
why did the color red keep stealing futures!
why...
And Giotto lets out a sound from the back of hs throat that sounds so human the boy with the broken arm tears his eyes away from Tsuna to give him a shocked look.
The bullet hits, spot on.
And instead of dying then coming back, Tsuna just goes limp.
And his eyes roll back.
And it is a corpse that plummets to the earth.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Then a brightness.
Giotto spins his head to face Tsuna so fast that he almost got whiplash.
And his heart runs back up into his chest as Tsuna, with the dying grace and beauty of a falling, dying, exploding star, slows and stops in mid-air and raises up, flying.
His eyes are completely orange gold, and flame lcks and the corners of them.
Around his head, there is a great wreath of deep pure and almost blinding Sky Flames.
His shirt and pants have torn away, leaving him in black boxers.
"Live."
A pacifier, bright orange and tied in chains, swings free from around Tsuna's neck a Reborn's heart stops in his chest.
"Live."
His voice is deeper now, and Hayato just can't breathe as he stares at the supernova before him.
"I will...I wish to grow strong, and to live."
Takeshi can't help but sigh in relief as Tsuna touches down back on the rooftop, and the fire dies away and Tsuna's eyes blinks back into an adorable brown.
Tsuna smiles at him, face flushed and eyes already closing as he staggers to Takeshi's side. He drops to his knees.
"Takeshi...will you be okay?"
That's when Takeshi realizes that Tsuna is way too kind. And as Gokudera runs forwards crying 'Tenth!' and Tsuna pitches forwards and he catches him-
Takeshi realizes that Tsuna won't ever stop being kind. And that will be alright. because no matter what happens, Takeshi will be here to protect Tsuna and carry him when he is too kind.
It's the least he can do.
And his mother...well, she taught him to always repay his debts.
"I'm fine, Tsuna." And as Tsuna smiles and drops of into a feverish sleep, he adds one more thing. He presses his lips to a burning forehead and smiles, for real this time, and murmurs against flesh, ignoring Gokudera's enraged shouts and the cat's rather close claws.
"You, Tsuna, you...You are definitely not no good."
(Ah! The rain has stopped, you see, I told you it would!
And now that you don't have to be perfect.
You can just be good!)
Reborn...Reborn is numb.
And as he watches his student guardains and his dumb cat celebrate, he thinks.
I've found my Sky.
And then, as fear crawls down his veins and into his stomach, he pales.
please don't let me fail again.
.
.
.
...please...
A/N: (How to write a Yamamoto meets Tsuna chapter. Write like you're half dead, and make no mention of Yamamoto's dad whatsoever. Nailed it.)And this chapter is finally done. Finally. Now we just have one or two more chapters until the Mukuro Arc. And guess what?
Next chapter won't have that much angst!
Or tragic happenings!
Or any other sad stuff!
And it will have Hibari!
Yay!
Anyways, I am just so happy you guys like this story, I read every review, and treasure every favorite and follow to my heart. Really, you all are the absolute best. In fact, right now, I want you to look in any reflective surface, pat yourself on the back, and smile and say
"Damn, I am really, really amazing,"
Because you are. But now, I have some questions.
1. Quotes, stay or nay? I've been wondering if the quotes are too distracting from the real story, or just plain useless. Let me know?
2. Are you okay with the lack of dialogue? I've read through my chapters, and I've noticed that as an overall story, this lacks a lot of dialogue. Are the charaters progressing fine without it? Should I add more?
3. Which Arcobaleno should I introduce first? I was thinking either Fon or Skull, but I really want your opinions.
But that's enough out of me for now,
Lots of tuna plushies and fat giottos
Ciao~
Pink.
P.S The quotes here are snippets of Kingdom Hearts song covers done by Lizz, John Steinback's East of Eden, or my own. As usual, if you've got a quote, send it, I have three really nice ones so far, which I plan on using in the Varia arc.
Also, I have written a oneshot called Asphodels. If your looking for more feels, feel free to check it out!
Real Ciao~
Pink.