I see him smiling and my doubts are gone



"AAAAHHHH-CHOU!"

It turned out that Hibari was the one who ended up catching a cold after all. The next morning he had been coughing and sneezing, but had trained anyway, and had gone straight to bed feeling faint and with a high fever by noon.

"Trust you to make yourself worse, Hibari! You shouldn't have trained with such a high temperature. What if you'd died!"

Hibari looked at Tsuna with that 'are you an idiot?' expression of his, making Tsuna blush. "Okay, maybe not died, that is a bit extreme. But it couldn't have felt very good! You should just stay in bed when you're sick."

"Kings don't get sick." Came the hoarse reply, followed by a small coughing fit.

"Are you kidding me? You're still human, aren't you?" Tsuna sighed. But Hibari only said that out of habit now, he was sure. Tsuna sat beside him in a chair that he'd asked brought in from his room. He felt bad that although the prince was sick, none of the servants were keeping him company. He could understand that they were busy, (or maybe terrified of disturbing him, which was probably the case) but then shouldn't they be worried? Hibari had all but passed out on the sparring ground. "It's because you gave me the jacket." Tsuna said suddenly.

Hibari opened one eye to peer at him, then closed it.

"And then you fell asleep in damp clothes. It serves you right, really."

"You could have woken me."

"And risked death! No thank-you. I'd rather just let you sleep and risk getting a cold myself. I didn't think you'd catch one instead, though..." he drifted off. Hibari seemed so invincible to Tsuna, it was...disconcerting to see him in bed with a fever. Thinking back to the tree made him wonder about something.

"Hibari, back then...you, erm. Your arm..." he made the action of putting it round his waist. "Why did you...do that?"

Hibari didn't open his eyes. "It seemed like a good idea at the time," he replied.

"...I see." There was an uncomfortable silence. Tsuna shifted in his seat. "You know, back at my own kingdom when I was ill, everyone had been fussing and disturbing me so that I could never get any rest, just giving me a headache. 'Too many cooks spoil the broth', I think. It was terrible – they could have killed me!" Hibari didn't respond. "I mean to say – maybe it's better to be able to actually rest when you're sick. I would prefer to be a lone when I am ill, is what I'm trying to say." Suddenley he felt uncomfortable. "Do you want another grape?" he added.

Still no response. Tsuna started to worry that he'd fallen asleep, and that any wrong move now would wake him up.

"Do...do you want me to leave?" He asked quietly. He was surprised to see the slight shake of Hibari's head, and thought he'd imagined it, but then Hibari opened his steel eyes for a moment before closing them again. That was Hibari speak for 'don't even think about it', he was sure.

Hibari wasn't sure why he shook his head at the offer for peace and quiet rather than the airy chatter Tsuna was in the mood for. He liked the atmosphere, he supposed. He felt relaxed when this guy was around, and felt like he could probably sleep better, so long as he shut up. He knew that even though Tsuna said 'it would be nice to be alone when you are ill', he really only said that to try and comfort him, in his own Tsuna-way. In truth, Tsuna probably knew that he didn't feel comfortable being a lone in a vulnerable state. What's more, in turn, though he said that, Hibari knew that Tsuna wasn't the type to like being alone at all – Tsuna was the type who needs people to live happily.

Very soon after that, Hibari did fall into an uncomfortable sleep. He had a vague impression of a series of dreams, and blurry intervals where the a cold damp clothe was pressed to his forehead, or soothing touches to his heated bare arms and feverish skin. He also had a very, very strange dream. He was up in a tree watching a unique orange and lilac sunset, and selfishly wanted to keep it to himself, and when he looked around he saw with relief that only Hibird was in the tree with him, but he had a spiky nest of brown hair on his head, and on closer inspection Hibari realized it was actually Tsuna sitting beside him.

Another one quickly followed, though this one was more of a memory, in which he was seated in a familiar place on top of the Namimori church with Kyoko seated beside him. He felt an unexplainable need, like you do in dreams, to relieve himself with someone right now, but only Kyoko was there, which made him frustrated. She was looking very unsure of herself and fidgeting in such a familiar way, though, that he lifted up her dress to check. "What are you doing, Hibari!" said Tsuna, and Hibari was so relieved that it was him and not his sister, that he kissed him full hard on the lips.

That one faded oddly into nighttime all of a sudden, and Tsuna was still sitting beside him, but he was very pale and afraid, and staring up at the moon with wide eyes. Hibari looked up too and realised that they were no longer on top of a roof, but amongst some trees, and that before them was a lake. With the sudden fear that something terrible, something horrible was about to happen, Hibari grabbed Tsuna by the icy hand and began to pull him away from the lake. "You're not jumping in!" He said for some reason, but then a restraining hand was placed on his chest. He spun round in askance and saw Tsuna with a sinister grin on his face, his eyes narrowed into slits, one eye blue, the other red. "What's wrong, Hibari?" said the low not-Tsuna voice, and blackness started to spread wildly from the tips of the once beautiful chestnut hair, the face altering, the skin paling. The thing cocked it's head to the side in amusement. "Kufufu, how interesting. You can see me?" Said the man, now not Tsuna at all, but a tall boy dressed in night-colored clothes and cloak, black gloves, and mis-matched eyes. Hibari had reached for his tonfa but found he couldn't move. Suddenly the demon lunged at Hibari, clutching his shoulders and rattling him like a rag doll, shouting "Hibari! HIBARI!"

Hibari's eyes opened with a snap, and his tonfa sprung to life before he could stop it. He felt it collide with something human, followed by a yelp of pain from the darkness.

"OW, Hibari! Are you trying to kill me?"

Hibari shot up in bed and peered to the floor, and sure enough, he could just make out the figure of Tsuna sprawled on the carpet, clutching his cheek.

"I'm sorry I had to wake you, I know you hate that – but you were having a nightmare!"

"...I was?"

"Yeah, you were. Can't you..." Tsuna felt upon climbing back onto the chair he'd brought up to the bed that Hibari was shaking a little. His hand moved to his shoulder supportingly. "Are you alright, Hibari? Can you...remember what you dreamed about?"

"No." Hibari tried to recall something, but nothing was coming to his head. Only a vague impression of the colors red and blue, and of something...bad. He felt a little sick, and very thirsty.

"Are you thirsty?" Tsuna said, startling Hibari. Was he a mind reader now? He reached round to the night stand and handed Hibari a glass of water. "Your voice sounds a little dry."

Hibari nodded and took the water gratefully, swallowing it all in heavy gulps. It was nighttime, and the moon flooded the room in an eerie white glow. Someone had only shut the curtains half way, it seemed.

"You woke me up." Tsuna said once he'd finished. "Grabbed my arm really hard, like this..." Tsuna gestured to a red mark on his arm, and angled it to show Hibari the hand print wrapped around it in the moodlight. "You did that! Grabbed me and wouldn't let go. I thought you were having a fit or something because of your fever. You weren't having a fit, were you?"

Hibari didn't even dignify that question with an answer. Just glared at him in the semi-darkness, the shadows cast over his ghost pale face making him look all the more sinister in the half-light.

"I guess not." Tsuna said in a little voice. "That's a relief. It was just a nightmare?"

Once again, Hibari couldn't answer. He couldn't remember anything...though vague impressions of a tree, a roof, maybe...there was a moon.

"What time is it?" Hibari asked instead.

Tsuna shrugged. "It was day time last thing I remember. I must have dozed off..."

When Hibari continued to just sit there and look around, Tsuna moved forward and put a hand to his forehead and one on his own. "You still feel hot, Hibari. You should maybe get some more sleep if you can."

Hibari did feel exhausted, even though he had slept the full day away, it seemed. He lay back down without protest and pulled the cover back over him, when something occurred to him.

"You've been here the whole time?" He asked Tsuna.

"Er...no, I left for a bit. I had to go down for dinner and stuff, and my lessons, but I came back in the evening, since it was so quiet and peaceful in here, and I must have fallen asleep."

Hibari closed his eyes in acknowledgment. "You can leave now."

"Oh!" Tsuna exclaimed. "I...yeah, I guess I should. Then, are you okay? Do you need anything before I go?"

"No."

"Okay then, well, good night, Hibari. I hope you feel better in the morning." Tsuna whispered, and crept over to the door. He opened and peered around it, hesitating. Then he quickly disappeared, and the room was silent.

Not even twenty seconds later, the door burst open and Tsuna shot in and snapped the door shut with his back pressed against it.

"What is it?" Hibari asked lazily, not even bothering to lift his sore head.

"Erm... nothing! It's nothing. Er...I think, I don't mind, I mean...do you mind if I just, sleep in here tonight?" He stuttered nervously.

Hibari narrowed his eyes, but immediately saw past it. "Are you scared of the dark, herbivore?"

"Ah well...that is...s-something like that." Tsuna shook, climbing into the chair and curling up into it. "I won't be a bother. I'll just sleep here."

Hibari watched as Tsuna tried to get into a comfortable sleeping position on the chair, but his feet kept slipping off the edge, and he didn't have a blanket or anything to cover him. Hibari turned his back to him and tried to ignore the shuffling.

That didn't last long though, either. Hibari shuffled over to one side of the king sized bed, leaving the warm space for the cold space and shivering at the coolness against his fevered bare back, but it didn't feel unpleasant. "Come here", he said aloud.

Tsuna looked at him in askance. "Come where?"

Hibari pulled back the bedsheets in a wide arch of material to reveal the mattress beneath. "You won't be able to get back to sleep in that chair."

Tsuna looked stunned. "...What?"

"Just get in, herbivore, before I BITE you to death."

"Eee! Yes, Hibari!" And Tsuna hurriedly crawled into bed with him and pulled up the covers. It was incredibly hot in the bed, especially since he was in the spot that Hibari had been occupying. Hibari's body heat had warmed it up for him already. And now he was sharing the bed with him.

"G-good night, Hibari." Tsuna whispered. There was no reply, but then, Tsuna hadn't really been expecting one. He smiled to himself and snuggled into the blankets, and soon feel asleep.

Hibari also tried to fall asleep after that, but as drained as he felt, he was uncomfortable. He was either too hot or too cold, itchy from the sweat over his feverish body and aching. Worse, he felt weak from not eating anything all day, and his throat was still sore from the flu. This was the first time Hibari was ever sick in his life.

Hibari twisted over restlessly, and there was Tsuna, lying on his back beside him. He was breathing evenly, and Hibari watched the rhythmic fall and swell of his chest for a while. The sky outside was lighter now, it was closer to morning, and cast softer shadows over his glowing face.

Tsuna was not particularly beautiful or handsome, like Hibari was. Tsuna had a certain 'cuteness' and sensuality about him - his full lips, the warmth of his light caramel eyes, the wild hair – his imperfections were endearing – whereas Hibari was considered so beautiful as to be considered untouchable, like a fine china cup that was fated to be put on a high shelf to be admired. Look, but don't touch. And with time, Hibari had become as cold and hard in the acts of love as that fine china cup.

Yet this one...he is so honey warm and kind. It was too cliché to say that it felt to Hibari as though his cold heart melted whenever he was touched by the words of this one, since they are so sincere and strong.

So tempting. He was just so tempting – Hibari recalled the kiss from his dreams. Yes, he remembered that, if not the dream that followed. He recalled the way he had held him close earlier that day, during the rain beneath the tree – remembered thanking the heavens for opening onto them – remembered Tsuna, pressed against him, his tiny body shaking like a little bird.

Without realizing it, Hibari had been leaning slowly closer and closer to Tsuna's face, and his eyes were on his lips. When he woke up from his trance to find this, their faces at such close proximity, he immediately pulled away and stumbled out of bed. He now felt both physically and emotionally spent, and yet he was now more awake than ever, his heart beating wildly against his chest, his head aching from exertion.

The ache reminded him of his illness – of coarse, he had a fever. That was the reason for all these strange emotions he was feeling. The fever was the reason he was thinking strange things. The fever...

It was just before dawn now. The first bands of sunlight were illuminating the horizon. He crossed the room and pulled the curtains shut with the cord. Then he felt around for his night gown thrown over his chair, and set out for the kitchen, where he knew the first few servants would just be getting up.

He heard soft voices upon approaching the royal kitchen, and sure enough, there were two servants already up and preparing for the day. But no, one of them wasn't a servant at all...

"Oh, good morning, Hibari!" Dino beamed, "I didn't think you'd be up for sparring so soon. Feeling better already?"

Hibari said nothing, not trusting his sore throat, which he was sure would betray his current state of illness. Rather than reveal he was still so sick, he opted for silence, and took seat on a stool on one of the work surfaces.

"Would you like something to eat, your majesty?" said Bianchi, offering him the fruit bowl. Hibari reached for an apple and took a bite.

"Did the fever take away your voice? Or perhaps you're still half asleep, hm?" Dino grinned, his head in his hands. Hibari hated Dino when he was in one of those moods. Right now, he could tell, he was in one of those moods. "Did Tsuna eventually go back to his own bed? Or is he still dead to the world beside your bed?"

Crunch, went Hibari, into his apple. Dino just grinned, and yawned widely.

"It's too early." He groaned, and slumped into his arms. "Why get up so early, Prince Hibari, when you could have had a lie-in today? I wasn't about to give you your daily wake up call when you were sick."

"I remember the last time I was sick very well." Bianchi said suddenly, rolling a pastry. "I was near death for several weeks."

"You lie." Dino said, not raising his head from the table. "You've lived here your whole life, and I've never known you to be as sick as that."

"It wasn't that type of sickness, and it was much more dangerous. it attacks the heart and soul directly, and numbs the mind, leaving only the body functioning in automaton. The only way to keep myself alive was to work, so you wouldn't have noticed it. I still came into work in my incapacitated state."

"How noble of you." Dino said. "And pray tell, what kind of other-worldly sickness were you suffering from?"

"Love sickness."

"Ah, of coarse." Dino grinned. "I should have guessed. And by any chance, was your Romeo the cause of it?"

"That bastard! Don't even mention his name to me! God no, I would never let such a pathetic, unworthy man affect me to the core!"

"Oops, oh yes, I forgot. Your other lover is hardly ever around, so he slips my mind sometimes. It was my former tutor, wasn't it? Have you heard from him lately?"

"I heard a rumour that he will be returning soon, though no one knows when. Oh, I can't wait! My darling Reborn, oh how I've missed you..." She swooned, holding the rolling pin to her breast like a little baby, and getting flour on her apron.

"Just a rumour and you've already made all these?" Dino said, gesturing to the pile of heart shaped cookies and jam tarts on the cooling rack behind him. "You sure you're not still suffering from love sickness?"

"It's incurable, of coarse I still suffer from it. But I have learnt to cope with it after all these years." She picked up the heart shaped dough cutter she had been using and proceeded to cut out hearts into the dough she'd been rolling. "And beware, it's highly contagious."

"Is that so?" Dino said, still smiling. "If that's the case I better avoid these young ones. I can almost smell the pheromones in the air recently, it's practically saturated in it."

"Summer is the season of love, so of coarse the air will be filled with it's radiance."

"Ah, but summer is almost over. King Iemitsu and his children will be leaving soon." Dino sighed dramatically. "The kingdom always seems more empty when they leave for the autumn." There was a period of silence, in which Hibari finished his apple and was reaching for another, as hungry as he was. "Hibari, been interested in anyone lately? You've been at that age for a while now."

In return, he got only a cold look from the prince.

"I guess, you're not ready to share it with me yet?" He said, unfazed. "No matter. I'm sure we'll hear of it sooner or later." Another silence. "Hey, Hibari, did you know that there is such a thing as gay swans?"

Bianchi huffed. "Oh what are you talking about, you idiot?"

"No really, it's true! I read it in a book from the library yesterday, and it stuck with me for some reason. I mean think about it, it's considered so unnatural in some cultures in the world, and yet there it is, a clear part of nature itself. Perhaps the most natural thing in the world. Another effective way of survival. Male swans who love male swans, and spend the rest of their lives together."

At that Hibari stood up abruptly and left the kitchen without so much as a nod in pardon.

"Eh? Was it something I said?"

"That was a disturbing topic of conversation, Dino."

"Why? Why was it disturbing? The fact that swans can be gay, or the topic of homosexuality in general?"

"I always thought men are averse to those sorts of conversations, actually. Homophobic, as it were. A taboo subject."

"No, not for all men. I've never seen it myself, and I don't really understand it, but when I think about a gay man, all I have to do is think of them as a girl wearing a man's body as a meat suit, it becomes a lot easier to handle."

"...that's even more disturbing, Dino."

"Not as disturbing as a gay swan though, right?" He laughed, and they continued their conversation until the rest of the castle began to rise, not twenty minutes later.


The minute Hibari's head hit the pillow, he was fast asleep. The slight movements he made when creeping into bed had stirred Tsuna, and when Tsuna opened his eyes he could make out the shape of Hibari in the warm darkness, still in bed, no doubt having slept throughout the night. Not wanting to disturb him, Tsuna himself crept out of bed, briefly checked Hibari's temperature, then crept out of the room like a ninja and shut the door quietly behind him.

He yawned, intent on crawling back into his own bed. Now that there was some morning light filling the corridors through the windows, there was no eerie darkness to fear. He wanted to go to bed, but Hibari's fever still burned on his fingertips where he had touched him. Worried, and knowing that the flu should not be taken lightly, he instead set out for the royal nurse, who was also a cook.

Unfortunately, he made the mistake of asking another cook of the whereabouts of the nurse, and that cook was Bianchi. He should have guessed from the pink steam coming from her pot that she was in the middle of a spell, but as established in previous chapters, Tsuna wasn't the brightest bulb in the box. And no sooner had he approached her, she turned cold and heartless towards him.

"Please, I just want to take him some medicine, just to get the fever down. He looks really uncomfortable!"

"Then maybe he'll die."

"How cruel!"

"It's of no consequence to me. People die, Tsuna, they disappear from this earth, and we are powerless to stop it."

The conversation was like this up until the point when the pink smoke faded to blue, and then as though her personality had switched, she suddenly became tolerable. "Here." She said, handing him a cup full of the liquid she'd been boiling. It was clear, like water, yet still dark blue fumes curled up from it. "I was already in the middle of making this for him. You don't need the nurse."

"YOU made this?" Tsuna said, "mm, couldn't you just direct me as to where the nurse is?"

"That will do. Trust me."

Tsuna recalled being turned into a frog by this person, and the crippling stomach aches he'd received over the years thanks to her cooking and his gullible nature for eating them. "Oh, I don't know about that..."

"Listen, Tsuna. I know I've been sharpish with you while I was making that..." More like evil, Tsuna thought, "but it was only to ensure that I did it right, and you were distracting me."

"Oh, I'm sorry, Bianchi. I didn't mean to..."

"Look. Here's the difficultly of spells, Tsuna. Do you know why witches are so rarely young, yet men can use magic so easily, whether young or old? It's almost ironic, but the reason is this: the less feeling you put into it, the more powerful a spell is.

There, I've said it, and it's true. Fuuta puts himself into a trance, my beloved, Reborn, can shut out all feeling, and any old hag that has lost her heart at some point or another can cast spells, with a little know-how. The secret to great magic, or any magic, is no emotion, no passions, no malicious intent, nor good intentions – or the spell will simply not work, or worse, mutate itself.

Now, knowing that, isn't it obvious that young women, who are tender hearted and sensitive by nature, will have some difficulty perfecting a spell? But know this, that when my brother disappeared some years ago, my heart turned hard and cold as granite, and only started to crack when I fell in love some years later. But I can still remember that hardness, that feeling, and it's that hardness within me that makes it possible for me alone to do magic. And that, your majesty, is why you, nor any worthy king, will never be able to do magic. You feel much too much, your heart is much too soft, you're much too warm. And who has ever heard of a heartless king?"

"I...I see."

"And that's why I said those things. There were just cold facts. The prince won't die any time soon, though. That's ridiculous."

"O-okay." Tsuna was more composed now. "It must be painful,then, doing magic?"

"No, it's not. I don't feel anything. That's the point."

"But...what about your brother?"

At this, Bianchi simply turned her back to him completely and ignored him, and that was the end of that. Tsuna knew not to ask questions about that particular subject, but he wished that he could help in some way. She obviously missed her brother very much. He tried to imagine Kyoko disappearing from his life forever, and found that it was indeed very painful.

"By the way, if you tell anyone of what I just told you..." Bianchi turned to glare down at him. "I'll kill you."

Heartless! Tsuna thought internally, but he smiled when she left. At least he knew a little something about her now. She had always been so distant before, and scary. Well, she was still scary, but at least she wasn't so impossible to comprehend anymore.

Deciding that she was truly heartless and without feeling that morning, Tsuna deemed the spell he was holding sufficient for Hibari to consume. He carried it with care back up the stairs, trying not to spill any of it. It smelt very strange, but it was sweet and pleasant, almost like a minty apple juice, he thought. By the time he got to Hibari's bed side, about to put the cup down, he was very tempted to try a bit.

"I better do so...just in case. After all, this is BIANCHI we are talking about. Besides, it smells so good...and Hibari won't miss a sip missing, so what harm can it do?"

And so ofcoarse, as soon as Tsuna had swallowed the first sip, he found that it was so sweet as to be bitter, and so minty hot that it burnt his nose, and then it burnt his stomach, and then he felt his skin heating up, and he immediately collapsed on the bed with a fever and a stomach ache so severe, that he was to be bed ridden and feverish for the rest of the week, alongside Hibari.

He was grateful for not giving it to Hibari after all, since it might have killed him in his weakened state.


That Autumn, when Tsuna and Kyoko returned to the Vongola kingdom, they are greeted by a stranger.

"Pleased to meet you, your majesty, my name is Reborn. I'll be your home tutor from now on."


A/N; Haha, I found this funny and slightly-kind-of-not-really relevant to my fic, so I slipped this in there:

from Wikipedia: Natural History Museum in Norway called Against Nature explored homosexual behaviours in a number of species, including black swans. Several swan species exhibit lifelong homosocial behaviours where it serves as a flexible life strategy.

In swans, the pair is the central social unit. The birds reinforce the unit with frequent preening and sex. (:D) Should one die, the other will usually live out the remainder of its life alone. The pair builds nests, raise cygnets and defends a territory. Two cobs, being bigger and stronger than a cob and a pen, can hold down a larger territory, and provide their cygnets with more to eat.

I'm going on a class trip to New York tonight!! Whoo! :D

At this point in the fic it's on the brink of plot line...next chapter, the engagement date is set!