Papa was away for work, Mama had said.
Tsuna knew that was the truth, the same way he knew things usually, except it was different this time, like it had been since two days ago when he woke up in the morning and Papa was gone. Harder, like trying to smell something when his nose was plugged with a cold, or trying to see the world through a thin cloth over his eyes like he did sometimes while pulling on a t-shirt. Everything was blurry, except it wasn't. His eyes were fine, his hearing as well, but the world didn't make sense now.
It frustrated him, because all of a sudden everything was different. Tsuna stared at the sky, trying to find out what was wrong with him. He wasn't sick, Mama said he didn't have a fever or anything, but suddenly the world was different. Harder to know than before. Scarier, because of it.
"Scarier?"
"Like monsters under the bed," Tsuna tried to explain. If Mama was there with him to check under the bed, then he could look with her and relax because nothing was there except maybe dust bunnies, or a stuffed animal he had dropped. But if he was alone, or if it was night, then he couldn't look under the bed or step too close, because then the monster would grab at his feet and pull him under and eat him.
Tsuna didn't know if there would be a monster there, and he was too scared to check by himself. It was like that now, except with the entire world and almost everyone in the world.
"I see," said the lady with hair like a bunny. She was thoughtful about it, and serious, too. She didn't brush him off. "That does sound scary."
He wasn't supposed to talk to strangers, that was what Papa and his teachers said, but she had helped him up when he tripped and cleaned his wound with her handkerchief, and was listening to him now, so Tsuna decided she was alright. It was still hard to know, but he knew – faint as it was – that she was a good person. A stranger but not a dangerous one, not to him.
Tsuna talked to her because it was impossible to explain to anyone. Mama worried for him, and believed him when he said he was scared and didn't feel right, but she didn't get it. It was frustrating – and a little sad.
But she listened, like she understood.
"Do you know how to get better?" he asked. The weird-tasting syrups he drank when he had a cold weren't going to help him with this, and with how difficult it was to know people, everyone scared him. They felt like blurs to him, black and monstrous.
Mama was fine. Papa might have been fine too, but he had left to dig for oil in a faraway place he forgot the name of. Bunny Lady was okay because she was easier to know than anyone he had met so far.
Maybe she would know the answer. It was hard to know now, but it felt right asking her.
To Tsuna's disappointment, she shook her head. "I'm sorry. I've never been good at studying, so I'm not smart like some of my friends."
Bunny Lady looked even more disappointed than he felt, and Tsuna hurried to make her feel better. "That's okay. I guess I'll just . . ."
Just what?
Tsuna couldn't finish the sentence. What could he do? It was hard to know people, and they felt like monsters. They scared him.
Even kids his age scared him. How was he supposed to make friends when everyone in the world was scary? He wanted friends. He wanted to not be scared. He didn't want to be a hero, but he wanted enough bravery to be not scared of the darkness under his bed, or other people.
"It's not fair," he mumbled. He wished his papa would come home quickly. He wished other people weren't so scary. He wanted friends, people he could know like his parents.
Bunny Lady ran a hand through his hair, and it felt kind. Different from how Papa did it, and not quite like Mama's.
"No, it's not," she agreed with him. She slid off the bench they had been sitting on and crouched in front of him so they were at eye level. She had wide blue eyes, and with her golden hair long, longer than anyone's he had ever seen and in an elaborate style like a rabbit's she almost looked like a princess, even if she didn't have a crown or a dress.
"I have to go now," she told Tsuna. "But before I go, do you want to see a little magic trick?"
Tsuna was a little disappointed she would be leaving, but the question she asked made him curious. "Sure."
She took out a large silver crystal from her pocket, shaped like an egg – except it stood on the pointy end instead of the round part, like it was floating.
"I think," Bunny Lady said as he stared at the large crystal. It was like the diamond on his mama and papa's rings, except so much bigger. And it wasn't a toy, he knew. It was special. "That you're already a boy with a brave heart."
"Even if I'm scared?" Tsuna asked, tearing his attention away from the sparkly stone. She was telling the truth, which didn't really make sense. She heard him talk about how he was now scared of the world, and she thought he was brave?
"Even if you're scared. Because you still want to be brave, right?" She beamed at him, smile as bright as the crystal in her hands. "That takes courage, especially when everything scares you."
He didn't really feel brave, though. Maybe it was like how getting pricked with needles even when they hurt a lot more than what the doctor said made him brave.
"Will this magic trick make me better?" Tsuna asked. The stone was special. Bunny Lady was special.
"I don't know," admitted the Bunny Lady. "But – I don't want you to think there's something wrong with you right now, because there isn't. It's okay to be scared, or not feel brave. So put your hands over the Silver Crystal, like that, good."
The crystal felt warm. It wasn't usual for rocks to be warm like this, but Tsuna knew – faintly – that it was okay. It lay between his fingers, and she wrapped her larger hands around his so that they both held it.
"If there's nothing wrong with me," Tsuna said, his heart beating fast enough for him to feel it in his palms. Or maybe it was the rock that was beating like a heart, steady and strong. "Then what?"
Bunny Lady leaned in.
"I wish," she said, whispering like it was their secret. The insides of his mouth and throat were dry, and Tsuna knew it was something big – like the sky, endless and wide and impossible to touch. Something so big it was hard to fully know it. "That you'll be happy."
Light shone out from between their fingers, bright and pretty and soft. Like the full moon on a clear night, surrounded by shining stars. It was a nice light.
Being happy. Tsuna considered it, long after Bunny Lady had left and he was home, taking a bath with Mama. He was still scared of the world, but he decided that 'happy' was something he wanted to be. Bunny Lady had said she wasn't smart, but he thought she was smarter than she had said she was.
"I can't believe I forgot to ask for his name," bemoaned Usagi, ready to tear her hair out in frustration. "I'm so stupid!"
Hotaru quietly laughed into her sleeve. After Setsuna, Michiru, Haruka and Ami had come for their turns visiting her in Namimori, it was Usagi's turn, finally, months later after Hotaru's arrival. True to herself she had run into a young boy while wandering the streets, lost, and found something about him that she had stopped to listen to.
"He was sad," Usagi had tried to describe, brows furrowed as her hands made squiggling gestures in her attempts to animate her explanations. "And – frustrated, but at himself."
But unable to find any traces of magic on him that might have hinted at an outside influence, Usagi had done what little she could – and blessed the boy with the Legendary Silver Crystal.
"Nothing really spectacular or anything," Usagi had explained when Hotaru had raised her eyebrows, because the Legendary Silver Crystal was generally not something that fell under the category of 'little'. "Just – wishing him the best."
A little bit of goodwill, easing the panic he must have felt. Not erasing his fear altogether, but a gentle reminder that he was not alone. A soft nudge towards happiness, towards taking a risk, sometimes.
Hotaru sipped at her tea and considered what would likely happen. What Usagi described was something she found a little familiar – that of having a kind of sense, a cognition of sorts, and then losing it. Essentially it was what she was going through right now – knowing, remembering what it was like to be Saturn but not being able to access it, and that making all the difference. Hotaru was old enough to know the reason behind the loss and could accept it, frustrating as it was.
But a five-year old boy? Who didn't even seem fully aware of what he had lost, just knew that he had lost it, something he had been with for as long as he could remember?
The world would have been terrifying. It would have been like losing a sense and suddenly being disconnected from the world in one way. Like going blind, or deaf.
He would eventually get used to it. And as Usagi had wished for, he would eventually find happiness.
Usagi hadn't done more because to use more of the crystal's power in Namimori, so close to Hotaru, would have hurt her. It was only after she met up with Hotaru and heard more of the new friend she had made that Usagi realized she could have offered the young boy something else – a friend that could help him know the world didn't have to be a scary place. Both of them could be friends, the boy could make friends like he had wanted, and Hotaru would have been less alone.
It was a good idea, except Usagi had forgotten to ask for the boy's name. Or, really, even let him know that there was someone he could be friends with.
"Well," Usagi said sheepishly. "I'm still glad you have a friend here."
About three weeks ago all the sailor scouts had suddenly found themselves deeply interested in a boy named 'Yamamoto Takeshi'. Ami had done some digging, and reported nothing unusual, per say. His parents had owned a sushi restaurant, and the mother had died in a car accident recently. They also owned a family dojo and had no relatives – uncles, aunts, grandparents, no one – left, but other than that, nothing.
An ordinary boy in the ordinary (?) town of Namimori, who had become friends with Hotaru.
A boy who had lost his mother in an accident, a little like her. Partly because of that, and partly because of Ameyuri's kindness, and partly because Takeshi was the kind of person she couldn't help but be weak to, Hotaru had asked for Makoto's help.
Like Usagi's blessing, it wasn't much on the grand scale of things. Makoto's flowers, grown by Sailor Jupiter, and more importantly by someone who genuinely loved and cared about her plants, were good for the heart, helping cleanse negative feelings. Less suffering, less trauma. More accepting, more peace. Goodwill and love, helping ground him and his father so that they wouldn't be swept away in their grief.
Hotaru hadn't expected for flowers to make Takeshi open up to her. It was probably more than that, honestly, but something had changed in him that day, and he had let her into his deceptively exacting boundaries. Special as they were, the flowers could only offer so much support. They were temporary, fleeting.
Takeshi's father was better at being there for him emotionally, far better than hers had been, but he was a newly-single father who still had to work to support his family, and that meant Takeshi was often alone now.
She couldn't take the place of his mother, but she could still be there for him, in a way no one had for her. In a way she had wished for, when she was cold and lonely and in pain.
It was possible that he would grow bored of spending time with her, or recover from grieving and no longer need her in his life, and Hotaru would accept his decision when he made it.
"I'm glad, too," Hotaru said, instead of speaking her thoughts. "But thank you for thinking of me, and of the boy. Whatever his name is," she added with a wink.
Maybe it would be the best for the unknown boy, that the princess didn't forcibly return whatever had been lost from the boy. It would allow for slow exposure to the world as he was now so that the boy could recover his lost bravery and rediscover the world and realize for himself that he didn't have to fear the unknown as much. This way, his fear could return to a healthier, more normal level. What was gained through personal trial and error was more precious than what was given, after all.
The fact that she hadn't been able to help the boy as much as she could have or introduce him to Hotaru clearly bothered Usagi, however, because she kept mulling over it until the end of her visit.
"I'll keep an eye out for him the next time I visit," Usagi promised on her way out. "He has a good heart, really! I think you two would be good friends!"
Hotaru, exhausted from the painful day, nodded as she waved. She could hear more about the new training regimen of the sailor scouts over the phone. "Take care on your way back home!"
As if she had jinxed her, Usagi tripped that very moment and fell with a scream.
"Usagi-san!" cried out Hotaru, panicked. This was not the way their princess was supposed to go. She wasn't supposed to go, period, but especially not like this.
Luckily Usagi was nothing if not resilient, and she was back on her feet in an instance. "I'm okay, I'm okay!"
Hotaru exhaled, in equal parts relief and concern, as her princess left with a final wave goodbye and a promise to come back to visit.
AN: Since canonically, Tsuna says he's speaking with Iemitsu for the first time in 2 years when he appears, Iemitsu hasn't gone away just yet he just went to take Nono back and also get some work done. (But he won't appear in the story until his canonical appearance anyways so either way).
Tsuna and Usagi are quite similar in some ways, I think. If Usagi had Flames she'd definitely be a Sky.
Sweet Dreams~