Oddities
4. Kiss
Tsuna pressed a small kiss on Giotto's forehead, brushing the soft golden bangs aside. The small boy had worn himself out emotionally with Sailor Pluto's death (and Reborn stubbornly refusing to tell him that PLUTO GETS BETTER. Sorta. As better as one could with time travel, magical girls and anime. Reborn also wouldn't let Tsuna tell Giotto either.)
Tsuna coaxed Giotto into a quick shower and brushing of teeth before ushering him into bed where Giotto promptly fell asleep. Tucking the blanket tight around the boy, Tsuna crept out of the room, switching off the light.
He traveled down the hall, into the master bedroom that Reborn and he shared. Reborn was already under the covers, reading of his manga novels (more Sailor Moon it looked like). Tsuna crawled into bed, wrapping his arm around Reborn's torso.
Dumping his manga to the side table, Reborn pressed a kiss to Tsuna's forehead, mimicking Tsuna's earlier action to Giotto. "Brat asleep?" Reborn asked.
"Yes," Tsuna said with a heavy sigh. "What did you notice?"
"He was abused," Reborn said without preamble. "He thought I was going to hurt him. It might be the malnutrition he is suffering, but he's rather small. So either he's about the age you predict him to be or has been on the streets for a long time."
Here, Reborn paused, thoughtful for a moment. "He does not act like a five year old. He understood the implications of Pluto's death, the very concept of death, something kids his age is just starting to understand. Not only that, his questions about the show were thoughtful and insightful, something an older fan would ask about. He didn't accept anything at face value. Kids his age shouldn't recognize that Tuxedo Mask doesn't really anything in the episodes, but he does."
"So he's a genius?" Tsuna asked.
"Could be, or his circumstances forced him to grow up much faster. Or both," Reborn asked.
"He reminds me of Fuuta and I-pin," Tsuna said quietly.
Fuuta was one of Tsuna's foster siblings. Nana (whom Tsuna had inherited his habit of taking in strays) had taken in Fuuta one day, a tale of abuse and kidnapping and manipulation. It was honestly remarkable that Fuuta could smile at the end of the day. But the life of trauma had left Fuuta remarkably polite out of fear of offending the wrong person, afraid of violence and a questionable self worth. He had eventually overcome it, but Tsuna still remembered the days where he would find Fuuta outside of his bedroom door, too terrified of the nightmare he had but unable to ask for comfort.
I-pin was Tsuna's only foster sister. Fon, Kyoya's uncle and Reborn's friend, had come in the late of night to Tsuna's doorstep. Hidden in his sleeves was a small Chinese girl. The Triad had been raising her as a child soldier, an assassin. She didn't want that. Fon couldn't turn her away, but couldn't raise her either. So to the Sawada household, he turned to.
"At least he doesn't act like the cow idiot," Reborn muttered darkly.
The cow idiot would be Lambo, Tsuna's last foster sibling. Lambo didn't suffer abuse, just neglect and finally had been abandoned. In turn, he lashed out, in a permanent tantrum for many years.
Tsuna's childhood had been interesting so to say. He wouldn't trade his siblings for the world though.
"Reborn," Tsuna chided. For whatever reason, Reborn adored every one of Tsuna's family except for his father (whom Tsuna was not very fond of either) and Lambo (whom Tsuna did love but understood that Lambo was not the easier person to be around).
"The brat's eyes glow orange," Reborn said.
"I noticed," Tsuna said softly. He clenched his fist tightly. Giotto's eyes, a blue shade normally, flashed orange when Tsuna had approached him in the alleyway, when he first woke up this morning and again the first time Giotto had met Reborn properly. There were probably a few more times it happened.
Reborn pressed a light kiss to Tsuna's lips, soothing him.
"Hyper Intuition?" Reborn asked.
Tsuna tensed once more. He didn't want to think of how this child had Hyper Intuition, a trait that only Tsuna's family had. Either his father was a bigger bastard than Tsuna thought or by some quirk of fate Giotto had waken it by accident. It better be the latter.
"I'm not sure yet," Tsuna said, compromised for his own heart and sanity. There wasn't any way to tell yet. Not without more observation and careful questioning of Giotto.
He pulled himself closer to Reborn, listening to the steady beat of his husband's heart.
"We'll figure it out," Reborn promised, threading his hand through Tsuna's soft hair.
That was really all Tsuna could hope for.
And the plot begins to thicken.
