A/N: This bitch…

This bitch was the very first chapter I finished during my Hiatus.

I hope you like it.

Enjoy.

Scene 28:

Don't Jump

July 1

Wednesday 2215

The skies were very dark when the students of Namimori high got up that morning, the clouds rolling in thick and heavy for as far as the eyes could see.

One after another, the students arrived at the school building, the majority of which either carrying their umbrellas directly by the hand of stashing them at the very top of the contents in their bags for easy access, everyone expecting it to suddenly rain down on them at any minute.

Inside his home-room classroom, Yamamoto watched as the students entered through the gates. Some in pairs chatting merrily or somberly depending on what subject or plans they were discussing, no doubt some of those being couples just ecstatic to be in the other's presence, high on teenage hormones. But no one was talking to Yamamoto, he was alone in the room. To him, there was very little to find enjoyable with being in the building, and it was slowly, painfully, eating away at him as each day passed.

Watching those groups only made it worse, but he couldn't look away.

Suddenly, he caught sight of something, a familiar something zooming right past the school gates and expertly weaving through the crowd of students. Really, it was going way too fast before it gradually slowed down as it reached the bike parking-lot, finally stopping.

He watched with a painful gnawing in his chest as the two passengers smoothly got off the vehicle, removing their helmets as they did. The driver grabbing both of them, collapsing them to swiftly stuff them into his bag before he and his passenger stalked up to the school building, obviously deep in conversation.

The messy golden brown hair and smooth silver hair stood out like two beacons for anyone who wished to find them among the rest of the students, and by the looks following them as they walked, it really worked. Even though the two in question didn't seem to pay the looks they were receiving any attention, they couldn't help but attract it whenever they were spotted together within the school grounds.

Yamamoto honestly couldn't understand it.

Sawada Tsunako had gone from being the schools most hated and bullied person to the school most surprising and gossip centered student. She had gone from the bottom of the school's food chain, constantly working as the pray of the buildings more insecure members to the person people had started to pay more attention to, a person they now wanted to try and figure out, to get to know better. A person that had become the most difficult to successfully pin to a social class.

She had become different in the last few months, more confident, more open. She no longer avoided eye-contact as much when people addressed her in the hallways.

In some aspects, that particular accomplishment could be due to the delinquent now following her around almost like a loyal puppy. Well, according to some of the more jealous-minded students.

This too, greatly confused Yamamoto.

Sawada and Gokudera were very different in personality. One being hot-head and the other seemingly not having the physical capability of getting angry, one explosive and the other caught in a near-constant state of calm. And yet, the delinquent seemed to believe Sawada to be the center of his universe.

Again, those were the words of jealous-minded teenage girls.

Yamamoto… Yamamoto couldn't see it.

There were a few circles of more diabolic females in the school that had on a multitude of occasions tried to start really disgusting rumors that Sawada had somehow managed to worm her way under Gokudera's sheets and had subsequently fallen pregnant, and that was why he was treating her almost like a goddess whenever they met. Though these rumors would hint that Sawada was better than the regular girl when it came to those kind of… activities.

Personally, Yamamoto was more than certain that those speculations were nothing more than absolute bullshit.

Sawada had always been a very prideful girl, way too sure of herself and cautious of anyone that even looked at her, so the thought of her seducing anyone to somehow gain a higher standing in their school's social structure was strange enough that Yamamoto couldn't even imagine it. And, Yamamoto had encountered people like Gokudera before; Just sleeping with a girl and getting them pregnant usually didn't make them completely faithful to them, in fact… if one were to go by the image the silver-haired teen was portraying, they wouldn't give a damn about who they had slept with, leaving them as soon as they said they were knocked up, no matter how good of a lay they had been.

What had bonded Sawada and Gokudera had been gradual, and it was something far stronger, not to mention more unbelievable than just the two of them sleeping together.

There was a trust between them, a camaraderie that was hard for Yamamoto to explain.

A true friendship.

Sawada's whole image had changed in what felt like no time at all. If that could happen to her, it could more than likely happen to anyone.

He glanced down at his useless arm, frowning at the cast covering it.

Between him and Sawada, he couldn't help but feel as though he had been the one to pick the short stick in social development.

However, no matter how much he may have wanted to, may have fantasized about pushing his anger at someone else… he couldn't hate Sawada.

She was too kind, to overall sweet beneath that layer of cold armor she keeps erected around herself at all times. And the fact that she had been the one to get him to the hospital before any-more damage could have been done to his arm, thus causing more permanent damage to his muscle leaving him unable to ever pick up the sport he loved ever again, also helped keep her on the list of people he legitimately liked.

She also… miraculously, got his father there.

It must have been hard work for her, no doubt utilizing Gokudera to shout over the noise in the kitchen to even get the old man to look up from whatever it was he was preparing, then spending minutes… maybe hours, convincing him to go to the hospital.

He shook his head, not wanting to think about his old man right now.

He looked back out the window, watching as the floodgates in the clouds finally opened, raining down over the few stragglers out in the yard, sending them sprinting into the building.

He really did like Tsuna… he found her to be an amazingly strong person.

But he couldn't help but to be envious of her life as well.

Despite her bullying, she managed to get people that obviously cared about her.

Him included.

A sigh escaped his lips as he watched the rain pelted the window, obscuring his view of the schoolyard.

His fingers clenched against the windowpane.

His mind was made up.

Tsuna didn't know why, but she had been filled with an overwhelming sense of dread from the very moment she'd stepped through the schools front doors. The sensation had been so sudden, so overwhelmingly heavy, that Tsuna's kneed had actually buckled from the sudden weight the second she'd put one foot inside the building.

She probably would have fallen to the ground had Gokudera not caught her.

He had asked her what had happened, even questioned her about it, but she couldn't for the life of her answer the questions he brought forward, it was too… weird.

Thankfully, everything from the point they entered the classroom had been relatively normal despite the dread hanging in the air. Of course, no one else seemed to notice the overwhelming emotion but Tsuna had decided not to worry about it.

Not yet anyway.

By the time lunch rolled around, the dread was thicker than ever, thick enough that Tsuna by all the stars found it difficult to breathe through the sensation.

If anything was going to happen, now would be the time.

"Tsuna-chan!" a bright, cheery voice rang through the air, successfully snapping the golden-brown haired girl out of her thoughts. Turning towards the sound of the voice, Tsuna was surprised to see Sawagawa Kyoko happily walking over to her, a bright smile on her face.

For some reason, Tsuna suddenly felt the need to crawl in under her desk and not come out until the end of Lunch.

It wasn't that she didn't like Kyoko, far from it. It was just that this wasn't the atmosphere, or mood in which Tsuna felt she could be open enough to be around someone like her at the moment.

Kyoko stopped in front of her, that bright smile still very much there.

How could someone smile in this atmosphere?

"You want to eat with me and Hana today?" she asked, voice chipper just like any other day, but Tsuna couldn't for the life of her gather up the same amount of positive emotions.

Her arms folded around herself.

From the corner of her eye, she could see Gokudera leaning against his desk, staring at her and Kyoko with an unreadable expression on his face. He was waiting for something.

He was waiting for her decision.

She knew that he would go along with anything she decided to do, even the things that didn't involve him to begin with.

The thought made her feel bad.

Finally, she turned her attention back towards the smiling girl.

"I-" she never got the chance to give her reply.

The sliding doors shot open with a loud bang, startling the few students still there, and in rushed three very disheveled and horrified looking classmates, their breaths heavy and eyes wild as they frantically looked around the room.

The students fell absolutely silent.

It took some time before one of them caught his breath enough to scream:

"YAMAMOTO IS ABOUT TO JUMP OFF THE ROOF!"

The screams that immediately followed the message reached Tsuna's ears as though they were reaching her through water, muffled, jumbled. It took several moments before the boy's panicked statement even registered, and at that point, she felt her insides heat up from the fire slowly pumping into her bloodstream.

She wasn't scared, she wasn't worried.

She was furious.

The class started rushing out of the room, tripping over themselves in their frantic rush, but there Tsuna stood, her expression a cold calm as she watched the spectacle they were making of themselves.

With the majority of their classmates out of the room, Tsuna started moving.

A hand latched onto her upper arm, forcing her to turn around.

Gokudera was looking at her with a pleading expression, begging her not to leave the room. His eyes widened slightly when he noticed the expression on her own face.

His fingers loosened around her arm, allowing her to yank the limb out of his and proceeded to follow their classmates out into the hallway, not saying one word to him.

Begrudgingly, Gokudera followed her.

It was hard to really see through the heavy rain, but with how the scene looked like, it was obvious enough to tell through the shapes.

Yamamoto was standing on the other side of the low railing, his healthy hand clasped around the support railing as he looked out over the crowd his fringe hanging in front of his eyes as he stared out over the crowd of panicked schoolmates gathered on the roof, the pain he had previously kept carefully hidden from them now clear for all of them to see despite the heavy rain, not just for Tsuna, and it was only fueling the fear in those that once felt like they'd known him.

Standing in the doorway to the roof, staring out over the drenched chaos, there was only one word that flashed through Tsuna's mind.

Idiot!

It suited him better than the name his parents had given him right now!

Tsuna knew that she should be scared for him just like the rest of her classmates, but all she found was herself becoming angrier and angrier at the scene that played out in front of her.

She could hear the students shouting for him not to go through with it, that he still had so much to live for, but she knew that their words wouldn't reach him.

It were the words sounding from Yamamoto himself that finally did it for her.

"There's nothing left for me now," he said, turning his back to them, his eyes trailing down towards the asphalt beneath him.

And that, that was the last straw.

She knew that she should tread carefully, to try and be sensible, sympathetic and cautious, but she knew Yamamoto-san.

He was a hard-headed person, someone who doesn't take kindly to pity and sympathy can very easily sound like pity to someone in his position if you don't know what you're doing, or get the wrong idea of what the person really needs to hear.

She knew she should approach the athlete with a calm voice and cautious, sensible wording but that was already being done by everyone around her. Some of them practically shouting all the things Yamamoto had to live for and that only served to make the athlete appear all the more attracted to the sight of the hard ground beneath him.

It wouldn't work.

They didn't know him, not really.

Their words would never reach the hard-headed young man in front of her, she knew that.

He knew it too.

And that was probably one of the reasons why he was standing there at this very moment.

She knew him.

Yamamoto was not like any other person whom needed a gentle hand to guided him out of the darkness he had put himself in.

Oh no.

Someone had to go in there and SHOVE him out of it.

It was with that in mind that Tsuna allowed her anger to build up inside of her, letting her body wash over in that eerie calm that she now was conscious enough to take note of, before she took the first self-assured step into the group, completely ignoring the feel of the rain pelting down on her, and the almost soundless sizzling the drops gave off as they hit her skin.

She took a deep breath before she let the words out.

"What in the name of everything pure do you think you're doing!?"

The sound of her angry voice cut through the buzzing notes of concern, successfully silencing the crowd till only the wind brushing over their heads and the sound of the rain hitting the roof could be heard.

Yamamoto visibly recoiled at the angry tone, but where all the tragic pleading had resulted in no reaction, the angry voice screaming at him forced his instincts into gear, and he turned towards the crowd.

It only took one student being shoved aside by a deceptively weak Tsuna before the rest of them quickly scurried out of her way, clearing a path for her as she stepped forward, radiating a silent fury only a few could spot when focusing on that narrowed gaze just barely visible through those messy bangs.

The fire raging inside those eyes was unmistakable.

Sawada Tsunako walked up towards the railing with a purpose and poise that no one had seen on her before, Gokudera following behind her, gaze apprehensive but just as loyal as ever, knowing to keep out of his Juudaime's way at the moment.

Yamamoto watched the petite girl stride towards him, looking almost bigger than she should even though the majority actually had to literally look down to see something other than her messy head of hair.

The silence dragged on until the tiny girl stopped just a few feet away from the athlete, her arms crossed over her chest as she stared at her long-time classmate. Gokudera having optioned to stay at the front of the crowd, but close enough that he'd be able to step in should she need him to do something.

Tsuna's voice sounded partly accusing, partly disappointed when she once again opened her mouth.

"Are seriously this much of an idiot?"

Yamamoto found himself flinching at her tone.

"I mean, I knew you were a little slow on the uptake sometimes, but I never took you for being this stupid."

Probably despite their better judgments, multiple of Yamamoto's "fans" and teammates broke out into violent outbursts and angry disagreements, screaming insults at the small girl's back.

It wasn't until Gokudera threw a nasty comment at the crowd that they fell back into silence.

During this entire time, Yamamoto had not taken his eyes off of Tsuna, whom in turn had done little more than roll her eyes at the first outburst.

It was so strange.

Seeing the girl known for being incredibly socially reclusive stand her ground in front of a large crowd of people was very strange.

Finally, Yamamoto's eyes narrowed to match Tsuna's own.

"An idiot am I?" he asked, voice dripping with contempt as he looked at the girl he would have very much liked to call his friend. "Just how am I an idiot to you?"

The tone didn't seem to phase Tsuna at all, if anything, she seemed to become all the more annoyed at it.

"You're standing there," she answered, holding up her hand to show one extended finger. "You're staring at the asphalt as though it looks heavenly soft to you." another finger came up, "You've got that stupid dejected expression where it doesn't belong." a third finger joined the other two before the rest followed in the journey of her hand up towards her head, waving the limb in front of the most expressive part of the body. "Your face."

This was probably the most anyone had heard Sawada Tsunako and they had to strain their ears to even hear it through the heavy rain. With every word added to her sentence, the crowd behind her grew more and more silent, needing to hear every single syllable passing through her lips.

Tsuna took a deep breath before she opened her mouth again, wiping her wet bangs from her face as even she couldn't stand the strands sticking to her face.

"Are you seriously going to kill yourself over a broken arm?" she asked, her voice surprisingly loud, her tone at an octave lower than the other were used to hearing at it washed over them. "It'll heal." she crossed her arms over her chest, nodding pointedly towards the cast surrounding Yamamoto's arms. "You can train your muscles back up again, there is no need for you to act this way."

There was a moment of silence before the surrounding students, unhelpfully, broke out into screams of agreement, some even taking a step up closer to Tsuna to show they were finally agreeing with what she was saying.

However, it appeared as though Tsuna's words only made the athlete angrier.

"How would you know!" He screamed right in her face, shocking everyone around. All they had ever seen on Yamamoto had been the Happy-Go-lucky attitude he had put on for them, so seeing him like this, with so much raw pain and anger on his face, was a brutal eye-opener for the vast majority of them. "You don't know how hard I worked, how many hours I spent training, how much I sweated to get where I was!" he glared down at the ground, his hand clenching around the railing tightly enough for his knuckles to whiten. "Baseball was everything to me… and it threw me away like I was nothing." he pinned Tsuna with the most hateful glare that anyone had ever seen on him. "How could someone who has never worked for anything in her life possibly understand what I'm going through!?" he screamed loud enough for his voice to crack.

Gokudera reacted as was expected of him.

He jerked forward, hands reaching into his back pockets as he screamed at the athlete in absolute, explosive rage.

"WHY YOU-!"

Before Gokudera had the chance to really do something however; much to everyone's surprise, Fujitaka Sasuke cut him off.

The male dancer had been standing in the crowd like the rest of them, looking at the horrifying spectacle in front of his in silence. That is, until Yamamoto had started spewing those horribly, horribly false things about Sawada Tsunako.

Suddenly, he couldn't keep silent anymore.

"That's not true!" he screamed, shocking everyone, even Tsuna, as he stepped through the crowd, ignoring Yuki's pleading look as he left her side. "Sawada-san is very hard-working!"

Tsuna blinked.

Okay… this… this was unexpected.

"Fujitaka-san..." she muttered, trailing off. She really had no idea what she was supposed to say to this, how she was supposed to react, it was too mind-boggling.

The dancer wasn't done.

"I've always been watching her during ballet lessons," he confessed, looking somewhat sheepish. "Even with a handicap, she always had a better grasp on the basics than most in our class." to anyone who was looking, the few members of said ballet class up there with them seemed to want to protest, before they paused, giving it a bit of thought before slowly, they closed their mouths, their gazes shifting to the floor. Fujitaka soldiered on. "No matter how many times she fell, she always got back up and tried again, over and over and over again." the dancer's hands clenched at his sides. "She repeated the choreography so many times that I knew I would have demanded a half-hour break long before she even decided to take one long enough to rehydrate!"

Tsuna could feel the eyes on her.

Okay… so she may have a higher level of endurance and stamina than the other dancers in her class, but really, she had worked hard for those levels, and now they are dwindling what with her doctor forbidding her from properly practicing!

She shook her head, letting out a long breath before she turned her eyes back on Yamamoto, who had the audacity to look shocked at Fujitaka's words.

The rest of the class, she understood, she doubted most of them had even known she was in the ballet class before now, but Yamamoto had no excuse. Yamamoto knew better than this. Yamamoto had known.

"You knew this," she spoke up almost spitefully, forcing Yamamoto's attention back towards her. "You were the first one I ever told about my handicap." she narrowed her eyes as Yamamoto had the nerve to look sheepish, shifting his weight dangerously on that small slip of roof on the other side of the railing. "You knew perfectly well, in theory, how hard I would have had to work in order to get where I am today." she let out a humorless laugh, throwing her arms out at her sides. "I only took up ballet lessons to give me the reflexes to not fall on my face when my balance failed me." she declared, pinning Yamamoto with a hard look. "I practiced until my toenails cracked despite my handicap." the athlete met her gaze from the other side of the railing, his grip flexing as her words sunk into his brain.

She could see the thoughts running through his head. He had known about her problems, was it really that puzzling that she'd have to work her butt off in order to get as good as she had in her physical classes

The only one who didn't look shocked was Gokudera, still standing in the same place as before with his arms crossed in front of his chest, narrowed eyes pinned on the injured athlete.

Letting out a long breath, Tsuna rubbed at her temples in frustration.

Finally, her arms fell back at her sides.

"I even practiced to the point where I went through the exact same thing you did with your arm, only with my ankle." Yamamoto's eyes widened, his full attention snapping up to her. "Someone got to me before I actually broke it through..." she licked her lips, brushing her hair behind her ear. "That's how I recognized it." Yamamoto adopted a look of realization as Tsuna sighed heavily, shifting her weight from one leg to the other. "Turns out, I was practicing too much without allowing my muscles the time to recover from the training, wearing them out." she put her hands on her hips, giving Yamamoto a chilling, accusing look from behind her bangs. "You should have allowed me to finish."

Rightfully, Yamamoto looked away, shame clear on his face.

However, he quickly shook those feelings away.

"That still doesn't help the situation I'm in!" he screamed, eyes wrung shut as he practically bent over the railing, looking as though he was second away from crying. "I am nothing without baseball..." his voice trailed away, overcome with pain and sadness.

Tsuna found herself having to restrain her anger, taking a deep breath before saying something that she suspected would come as a shock to Yamamoto's psyche.

"You're not just an athlete Yamamoto-san." it was like the breath had been sucked out of everyone except Tsuna and Gokudera, no one daring to say anything. "There is more to your life than hitting the ball." she let out a frustrated sigh, shaking her head in exasperation. "You shouldn't even have been the only one training that hard, what were your other teammates doing!?" she didn't need to look to know that said teammates were shifting uncomfortably behind her. "Haven't you heard that there is no I in team?" she closed her eyes, rubbing the bridge of her nose when Yamamoto had the nerve to look astonished. "They shouldn't have treated you as if you were the only one that needed to play in order to win..."

Even though Tsuna didn't have any particular interest in sports, she had seen enough of Yamamoto's games to know that something was wrong on the playing field.

It was as though the second Yamamoto stepped out on the pitch, his teammates became lazy. In their mind, their victory was ensured, simply because of Yamamoto's natural talent and the amount of extra training he put down after practice.

She'd hoped Yamamoto could have figured this out, but apparently, he needed to be told square to his face.

Looking at the athlete, Tsuna could see the thoughts swirling behind his pained expression, his gaze shifting out across the crowd, pausing briefly as he spotted a member of his team. Slowly, her words sunk home, his anger shifting from Tsuna, to the mean-members that had taken advantage of his one passion in life.

As they well deserved.

Yamamoto slowly turned his attention back towards Tsuna.

"You were the only one who ever noticed." he gave her a shaky, sad smile.

"Yet you ignored me when I tried to help you." Tsuna shot back, giving him a long annoyed look. Shaking her head, she breathed out the rest. "Multiple times."

Yamamoto opened and closed his mouth before his gaze drifted down to the concrete rooftop beneath his feet, biting his lips before he finally allowed the words to flow.

"I was scared..." his voice was barely more than a whisper, everyone had to strain their ears to even hear him through the sound of rain pelting down around them. "I was slowly losing the only thing that made people like me." he raised his head, looking at Tsuna with a guilty kind of sadness in his eyes. "And you..." he chuckled humorlessly. "You were just gaining more and more attention."

Tsuna raised her eyebrow.

Was he saying what she thought he was saying?

Apparently, Gokudera thought the same thing.

"Are you blaming her?" he asked, tilting his head to the side. Tsuna could hear the fury brewing in his voice. "Are you seriously trying to blame Juudaime right now?"

Yamamoto didn't get the chance to answer him, Tsuna needed to refocus the athlete's attention back to her before Gokudera's misplaced anger sends Yamamoto over the edge.

She could already see the anger seeping back into his eyes and she wouldn't have it, anger did not belong there.

Tsuna knew that she had come a long way in trying to sway Yamamoto's mind, but she wasn't quite there yet.

She knew the subject she would have to bring up, even though it would hurt her in some aspect as well.

She sighed heavily before she hesitantly opened her mouth again.

"I have been bullied since I was five."

Yamamoto's head snapped in her direction, confusion written all over his face.

He knew this, they all knew about this by now so why was she bringing it up in a place like this? From behind Tsuna, Gokudera's fingers tightened around his arms. The crowd of students also seemed to be taken aback by the sudden change of subject, turning towards one another in silent whispers.

"Wha-" Yamamoto started but Tsuna didn't want to hear it.

Not yet at least.

"At least, that's what my mother told me." this was a lie. Her mother hadn't even known that Tsuna was bullied until years later, and Tsuna had never bothered to tell her about it. She only knew that Tsuna had been returning home with bruises when she was give and for a few years into primary school, but that was everything Tsuna needed to connect the timeline. "I was shoved down a flight of stairs during my first week of middle-school and lost three years worth of memory." she whispers around her became even more buzzing.

This had always been a sore subject for Tsuna.

Three years of her life, five to eight, completely wiped away from her mind, leaving nothing but an empty slate where her earliest memories should be.

She shook her head, ridding her mind of the unpleasant thoughts.

"I have been through hell because of reasons I couldn't even control, things I couldn't fix no matter how hard I tried, and I HAVE tried." she gave Yamamoto a pointed look, forcing him to look away from her again. "But I NEVER even CONSIDERED taking my own life."

There was silence for a long moment.

"But Sawada..." Yamamoto spoke up, looking at Tsuna, his eyes filled with pure anguish. "You're stronger than me." a weak, devastated smile curled the one corner of his mouth. "You proved that much when you survived that gunshot."

"And who was it that pressed down on the wound to make sure that I did?" Tsuna shot right back at him.

Immediately, Gokudera reacted.

"What…?" he breathed.

It hit Tsuna at that moment that Gokudera hadn't known the full story. He'd come into the class weeks after it had happened and by then none of them were comfortable speaking about it, and she had deliberately asked for some time before she revealed that particular part of the story.

This was not how she had wanted him to find out about the gunshot...

Gokudera turned towards Tsuna, taking a few steps towards her, his eyes almost pleading with her to explain further despite the situation they were in.

She gave him a calm look.

"Not now Gokudera-kun." had anyone known better, they would have thought she was ordering the delinquent, but that couldn't be right… right?

Never the less, Gokudera stepped back.

Swallowing, Tsuna turned her attention back to Yamamoto, her calm demeanor slipping.

"Besides." she breathed, focusing back on the task at hand. "It's because I powered through these eleven years of bullying that I've become so 'strong' as you put it." she said that word as if she didn't quite believe it herself. "If you allow your arm to heal, you will probably find that it will become the strongest part of your body." she threw a pointed look towards the cast, taking a mental note of how Yamamoto followed her gaze.

"Believe it or not." Yamamoto looked up at her again. "My life became a lot better after that gunshot."

She could feel their eyes on her, the disbelief at her words.

A hand landed on her shoulder, no doubt Gokudera's, a comforting kind of touch as she steeled herself for what she was going to say next.

She closed her eyes, clearing her head before she looked at the athlete again.

"I'm currently working on something else."

Heads rose from all around the rooftop.

"What is that?" Yamamoto asked, his voice lower than it was before.

"Turning my life around."

Yamamoto's eyes widened at her words.

"I barely had one to begin with, so I'm going to change that." her calm was slowly slipping away with the more seemed to start rethinking his decision. Her hand rose up against her will, brushing her hair behind her ear.

Yamamoto's eyes snapped to this movement immediately.

With the little calm she still mastered, Tsuna walked up to Yamamoto, standing right in front of him as she looked him straight in the eye.

"You're currently resenting me for picking myself up after the lowest point in my life." she could have sworn she saw the color drain out of the athlete's tanned skin. "All the while you're thinking about taking the cowards way out."

Yamamoto looked just about ready to argue, and he did.

"I don't resent you," he said, looking almost desperate, his hand clenching around the railing, looking her right in the eye. "I could never resent you."

"Then why do you act like you do?" The words came out before Tsuna really had the chance to think about them, something she'd never liked.

"You don't realize, do you?" Yamamoto breathed, shaking his head. "All I've wanted since the start of the school year, was to be your friend."

The words echoed through Tsuna's head.

Again, that word that was so foreign t her, coming from the mouth of one of the most popular students in their class.

But, accepting the words from Yamamoto… came a lot easier than it had when coming from Sasagawa Kyoko.

"We already are, aren't we?" she replied cautiously.

Yamamoto blinked.

"W-we are?" he stuttered, staring at her.

Tsuna let out a long-suffering sigh, tearing her eyes away from the athlete as she brushed her hair behind her ear.

"The way I see it..." she began, taking a deep breath before she allowed herself to continue. "You're friends when you're comfortable around someone." she turned her eyes back to the athlete. "Yamamoto-san, that was ages ago."

Yamamoto looked even more bewildered by her words.

"B-but..." his grip faltered slightly on the railing. "You're friends with Gokudera..." he nodded towards the delinquent in question, who raised his chin in a haughty manner.

"Seriously?" Tsuna had to keep herself from laughing at the sheer disbelief, running a hand through her hair. The crowd was gone from her mind now, not caring about how they would react to the words that she now carefully thought through before she allowed them to roll off her tongue. "You can have more than one friend, can't you?"

He stared at her.

For a long time, he just stared at her, eyes wide with disbelief.

Apparently, that kind of thought had never crossed his mind in his self-deprecated state.

He knew Tsuna, he knew her better than most, only outclassed by Gokudera but he had himself to blame for that. Yamamoto was the one to pull away as Gokudera started getting to know her better, he was the one who started to distance himself from Tsuna when their friendship was flimsy at best. Tsuna had never been one to approach someone without the need for it, he'd always been the one to approach her.

But he was starting to think, he was starting to doubt his decision.

This is good, almost there.

Just a bit more.

"And what of your father?" hazel eyes twitched, closing in pain. "How do you think he will react when he hears about what you did?" she tilted her head, leaning in closer to try and get a closer look at his reaction, but he just rolled his eyes, even though he could no longer look at her.

"He doesn't care about me..." he whispered. "Not really."

"Really?" Tsuna asked raising an eyebrow, clearly not believing him.

Yamamoto just shook his head, meeting her gaze, looking even more broken than before, if that was even possible.

"Ever since Mom died..." a ripple of shock ran through the crowd, most not having had a clue that Yamamoto Akiko passed away in that accident three years before. Gokudera's head snapped up, pinning Yamamoto with a look that was… unreadable to those who saw it. "He's been too busy in the shop to even look at me!" Yamamoto yelled in pent-up anger, turning back away from Tsuna. "That's all he ever cares about anymore… that stupid shop..." Tsuna heard his voice break. "His business is more important than his own son..."

He looked so broken, so absolutely broken.

How long? How long had he kept his emotions hidden, hoping for someone to notice that he was silently falling apart.

Taking a deep breath, Tsuna delivered what she hoped to be her second-to-last blow.

"Then why did he rush out of the shop like it was on fire when I told him you were in the hospital?"

Yamamoto looked as though he'd been punched.

"He… w-what?" he looked close to tears, shaking his head in disbelief.

"She's telling the truth." Gokudera suddenly spoke up, causing everyone to turn briefly towards him. "I was there."

"From what I could see..." Tsuna continued, making Yamamoto almost snap his head towards her. "In those few seconds I talked to him, you are more important to him than anything." she gave him a small, sympathetic smile. "I asked the man at the counter to say I needed to talk to your father about you, and he was out quicker than I had even had the chance to think about how to properly tell him about your accident."

Yamamoto looked close to hyperventilating.

"B-but..." he had to catch his breath. "If he cares about me, why didn't he..." he couldn't find the words, his world was turning on its head right in front of him.

Okay… one final blow.

"Perhaps..." Tsuna started gently, allowing herself to put her hand on top of Yamamoto's now white fist, still clenched around the railing. "Perhaps he was doing exactly what you did." Yamamoto slowly looked up at her. "Except, instead of burying himself in baseball, he buried himself in his work." she could see the tears now forming in the athlete's eyes, she gently stroked him over the knuckles. "When exactly, was the last time the two of you actually sat down and talked about your mother." he didn't need to answer, she already knew. Slowly, she brought her head closer to him, forcing their faces to align. "Maybe you should try that."

The floodgates opened.

All that bottled up sadness rushed to Yamamoto's eyes and the tears flooded down his cheeks mixing with the rain as they dripped off his chin.

The crowd was painfully silent, watching the usually happy star athlete bawling his eyes out.

It was a strange sight for them, but for Tsuna…

The young man had never looked lighter.

Her job was done.

"Think about it for a while, okay," she said gently, letting him know that she was done talking, and with that, she turned around, her arms crossed in front of her chest as she started back towards the thick crowd of students, all of whom were staring at her in obvious shocked disbelief.

She didn't get that far though.

"Sawada, wait!" Yamamoto called out, letting go of the railing to grab hold of the back of Tsuna's blouse, meaning to yank her back and hold her there long enough to talk to her just a little bit more, just a few more sentences until he felt like the world had stopped crumbling around him.

He needed it.

He needed her presence.

What he hadn't expected, however, was just how light she'd be.

Way too light for her size, even if she was already a very slight thing. Way too light for even a normal human being had any right to be.

She practically flew towards him and over the railing at the strength of his pull. And before anyone had the chance to really react, the two of them were tumbling off the school rooftop to the sound of the panicked screams of their fellow students.

One scream, in particular, echoing louder than any other.

"JUUDAIME!"

A/N: If anyone has anything to say about the scene not being realistic enough, I wrote this chapter before I took a 20-week course in psychiatry taught by a practicing psychiatric nurse, and I'm still pretty satisfied with what I wrote and the explanation I gave as to why Tsuna decided to go about it the way she did.

Also…

Cliffhanger.

I feel so evil.

Please tell me what you think.

Don't worry about the sequel, I am working on it on and off, I just haven't been actively working on it on a Friday so I felt it right to post another chapter to make myself feel better.

This has been:

A message from Her Ladyship.