Cinzia violently slammed a hand on the countertop next to the sink. The resulting bang echoed like a crack of thunder.
"Let's switch," she said. "I'll take over with the cleaning, and you go deal with the front shop."
Tsuna blinked.
He was elbow-deep in soapy water, in the process of washing several loaf pans, whisks and pastry brushes, and the front of his shirt was wet. As a final nail to the coffin, the apron he wore was purple with pink frills around the neck. This was not the sort of appearance that conveyed serious professionalism. One glance and customers would run away giggling into the hills.
"Come on, hurry up," Cinzia said, trying to push him aside.
Tsuna resisted, holding onto the edge of the sink. "Why?" he asked warily.
If ever there was a time to look a gift horse in the mouth, this was it. Cinzia did not simply offer to take over your chores.
She narrowed her eyes at him. "Just do it, or I swear to God someone's gonna die, and then you'll have to visit me in prison for the next thirty years."
Oh, wow, okay.
Red flags snapped up in Tsuna's mind. That sounded serious – the kind of serious he did not want to get involved with.
At all.
A quick look around revealed that Ottone was nowhere to be seen.
Tsuna grimaced.
Fine. He could deal with this. It was just like defusing a bomb about to have a nuclear meltdown in your face, right? No problem.
He turned off the faucet and focused on Cinzia.
"What's going on?"
"What's going on?" she repeated, hissing like a venom-spitting dragon. "What's going on is that I'm going to punt that jackass through a goddamn wall if he asks me to make him another coffee again."
Well. Crap.
Asshole costumers could be a real pain to deal with.
Tsuna made a small commiserating noise. "That bad?"
"Three times, Tsuna. Not once, not twice, but three times. And he just goes on and on about the texture. What the hell?"
Tsuna winced. "Sounds like a winner to me."
"Right?" Cinzia's hands clenched and unclenched at her sides, as if she were imagining them wrapped around somebody's throat. "Too cold. Too bland. Too hot. That jerk's messing with me." She paused. "I'm thinking arsenic."
"Whoa." Tsuna yanked his gloves off and shoved them at Cinzia. "Let's not get carried away."
"I'm not," she retorted. "I'm having a perfectly normal reaction. In fact, I'm about to do the world a favor."
"Murder is a favor?"
Cinzia waved his concerns away. "Clearly, you've not murdered enough people," she said. And then she smiled, wide and white with a whole lot of teeth showing. "It can be wonderfully therapeutic."
Tsuna maneuvered her toward the sink.
"I'll take care of it," he said. "You – you just stay here and relax for a moment."
Please, he almost begged. Please, don't assault anyone again?
Ottone was still grousing about that time last month when she'd sucker-punched a tourist who'd said their bread didn't taste like authentic French baguettes.
"Fine." Cinzia sighed. "No arsenic. Party pooper." She grabbed a sponge. "He ordered an espresso, by the way. Short black. No sugar, no milk." A snort. "Savage."
Tsuna took off his apron and started for the door.
Cinzia craned her head to watch him go.
"You sure you don't want a little pinch of arsenic?"
"No!"
Little Trinci was empty except for the lone customer leaning against the counter. The man was idly spinning a black fedora hat on the tip of a finger, gazing out the windows with a bored air about him.
Tsuna eyed him suspiciously for a second, then glanced outside, too.
Dawn was just breaking over the roofs of the city, painting the sky in hues of pink and orange. Like a great machine shaking off its slumber, the neighborhood was reluctantly waking up. People trickled down the street, heading to the nearest bus stop to catch a ride for work.
"Good morning," Tsuna said as he slipped behind the display cases, making a bee-line for the coffee machine.
The man slid him a disinterested look – and abruptly stilled. He straightened, turned around, and looked right into Tsuna's eyes.
It was – it was like a reinforced piece of iron had just slammed into his guts.
Tsuna yelped, stumbled, and almost crashed into the counter.
"S-sorry," he said, catching himself with both hand on the register machine. It let out a distressed beep-beep and Tsuna frantically stabbed at its buttons until it fell quiet again. "Give me a moment and I'll have your order ready."
"It's fine," the man said, head cocked to the side. "I'm not in a hurry."
And then he stared. And stared some more.
Alrighty, then.
Determined to ignore how the man was intently tracking his every move, Tsuna set to work. He grabbed a paper cut, worked the coffee machine and waited the nerve-wracking couple of seconds until dark liquid started dribbling from its brew-head.
Tsuna frowned. The space between his shoulder blades itched, as if something massive and unblinking had fixed its eyes on him. A quick peek behind revealed that the man hadn't looked away. Tsuna winced.
This was starting to feel really awkward.
Thankfully, a fine layer of foam had started to float over the top of the coffee by then. It gave off a pleasant aroma, thick and rich.
Tsuna turned off the machine and brought the coffee to the costumer.
"Here you go," he said, and felt damn proud when his voice didn't waver – his knees knocking together like a small earthquake were bad enough.
The man didn't react at first. An eternity seemed to come and go before he picked up the cup and brought it to his mouth for a careful sip.
His face immediately twisted into a scowl.
"Disgusting," he spat, slamming the cup down.
Huh?
The man looked at the steaming coffee as if it were a particularly gross bug who'd just insulted his mother. "This is no better than sewer water," he said. "Again. I want a refund."
Long fingers firmly pushed the offending cup away.
Tsuna blinked down at it like an idiot.
A jerk, Cinzia had said, and alright, sure, he could definitely see where she'd been coming from now. A small voice at the back of his mind whimpered about how lucky they were that it was him standing there, getting sort-of-maybe insulted, and not Cinzia. It would have taken weeks to scrap the blood off the walls.
"I'm … sorry?" Tsuna said, even though he had nothing to apologize for – they weren't a café. "We're not really equipped to make traditional coffees but there's a bistro a little further down the street and I'm sure –"
"Never mind that," the man interrupted. "It's not important."
Was that guy serious?
Tsuna grabbed his patience with both hands and held on for dear life.
He smiled. "Can I get you anything else?"
The man cocked his head to the side. "It depends," he said, and then leaned an inch forward.
The air around him abruptly changed. It grew taunt, tense and still in a way that reminded Tsuna of a shark scenting blood in the water. It was impossible to miss how his eyes went from dark to completely and utterly black. For a moment, they almost seemed to glow, somehow, as if there was a star burning just under the surface.
The stranger smirked. "What's your name?"
"Tsuna."
The answer fell from his lips automatically, instinctively, before he could even think about deflecting or lying.
Tsuna immediately wanted to kick himself in the teeth.
"Doesn't sound Italian," the man told him.
"It's not."
"Oh? Are you a foreigner?"
"Not exactly," Tsuna said slowly, glancing around. There was nothing behind him, of course, but he couldn't help but feel like a big shadow had started drawing circles around him. He resisted the urge to take a step back.
The man looked down at Tsuna's twitching fingers. The curve of his smile widened, sly and darkly amused. "There was a boy I heard about a few years back," he said. "He wasn't Italian either."
Tsuna had no reason to panic, absolutely no reason at all. This was a coincidence, and one day he would look back on this moment and laugh at how stupidly paranoid he could be.
One day. Very soon.
"R-really?"
The man hummed. "What was his name again? Ah, right." He snapped his fingers. "Tsunayoshi. Sawada Tsunayoshi."
No.
Tsuna stiffened.
His stomach lurched, as if the floor had suddenly disappeared, and his heart beat went wild, a thundering beast trying to escape his ribcage even if it meant pounding a hole through flesh and bones.
Just – no.
People weren't supposed to know, not about them, not about him. Timoteo had been categorical. Tsunayoshi will be sent away, he'd said, and they'd left. Because Tsuna's existence was an inconvenience. Because he was dangerous. Because that was what had been bargained and promised.
Tsuna opened his mouth.
No sound came out.
"Are you alright?" The man tilted his head to the side, an edge of mockery entering his voice. "You've gone a little pale."
"Who –" Tsuna choked. "Who are you?"
The man lifted a brow. "You don't know?"
Was he supposed to?
Tsuna shook his head.
"Ha." The man snorted. "Now, that's what I call screwing up."
Tsuna agreed wholeheartedly.
"What are you doing here?"
The new voice sliced into the conversation like a sharp blade. It felt wonderful. Tsuna snapped out of his budding panic attack and back to the present.
Ottone stood in the kitchen's doorway, looking a little like he'd just been slapped with a dead fish. He glanced at the man, glanced at Tsuna, and then glanced back at the man.
His face reddened. "What the fuck are you doing here?"
"Ciaossu, Ottone." The stranger put his fedora back on his head. "I was just dropping by to say hi. You'll never guess what I found instead." He looked at Tsuna, dark eyes glinting. "One of Nono's skeleton. A big one that's not hidden away in a closet."
Ottone turned livid. He pointed at the door and snarled. "Get out."
The man snickered. Held his hands up in surrender.
And left.
.
.
"He's what?"
"A hitman."
"A what?"
"A hitman – and don't make me repeat myself again!"
Cinzia's mouth had dropped open. "That jerk?"
"Yeah, that jerk." Ottone paced back and forth in front of the dining table, footsteps heavy and loud. "Name's Reborn, and he's probably the best fucking hitman in the whole goddamn mafia right now."
"Wait." Cinzia paled. "He's Reborn? The Reborn?" She paused, long enough to give Ottone and incredulous look. "What on earth is he doing here?"
"Fuck if I know." Ottone shrugged. "The crazy asshole's always been fucking unpredictable." He frowned. "But he shouldn't have heard about this place. It's supposed to be kept confidential."
"He knew my name," Tsuna said. "My other name."
"Of course, he did." Ottone clipped. "Reborn doesn't belong to any Famiglia, but he's an ally of the Vongola and he's skilled enough to come and go as he pleases around the Boss. If anyone knows about Iemitsu's fucked up family history, it's him. And that's not even talking about what Primo looked like."
Tsuna gaped at Ottone.
Then he turned around to gape at Cinzia.
"And you couldn't choose someone else to pick a fight with?" he asked, voice going one octave higher with each word. "Anyone who's not a professional killer?"
"I – I didn't know." Cinzia stared at him, apparently at loss for words, and if the situation had been any different, Tsuna would have taken a moment to savor the carp-out-of-water expression painted on her face.
Except that there was a hitman out there. A hitman who knew his name.
That sort of beat seeing Cinzia struck speechless.
Holy crap.
Tsuna forced himself to take a deep breath before he started hyperventilating.
Cinzia recovered, pulling indignation around her like a thick cloak of protection.
"I don't work for the mafia, and I'm not Flame Active," she said stridently, using terms and phrases no one had uttered in years, not since Ottone had explained to Tsuna why an old man had felt the need to put ice under his skin.
"I'm no one important," Cinzia continued. "Not to them. I haven't put a single foot in a Vongola headquarter in over a decade and even before that I didn't exactly mingle with mafia nobility." She scowled. "Where, exactly, would I have had the chance to meet that guy?"
"B-but!" Tsuna flailed a little. "How could you not know?"
It wasn't logical, it wasn't even reasonable, and yet he couldn't get over the fact that she had almost fought with a hitman.
What if something had happened? What if she'd been hurt?
The mere thought made Tsuna feel sick.
"Like I said," Cinzia snapped. "It's not like I knew his face or something." She looked remarkably irritated now, as if the man – Reborn – had gone out of his way to annoy her. "How was I supposed to recognize him?"
Ottone pinched the bridge of his nose. "Fucking mafia."
Tsuna inhaled sharply.
Alright, this was bad, but it wasn't like they had a choice in the matter, not anymore. They would just have to find a way to salvage the situation.
Tsuna looked down.
He rubbed his hands together, the tips of his fingers tingling uncomfortably, a sharp pin-and-needle sensation that heralded a change in skin color. Soon, it would turn from a healthy pink to something pale and bluish. Flexing his fingers helped a little, and rubbing his palms over his pants usually warmed them enough that he no longer felt the pinpricks of numbness stabbing at his nerves and articulations.
It had been warm near the hitman. Tsuna tried not to think about it, and yet a small part of himself couldn't stop being fascinated with the fact that he'd actually felt the subtle rise in temperatures.
Which was beyond stupid.
Tsuna wrenched his thoughts away and looked up. "What do we do?"
"We get rid of him," Ottone instantly answered.
Cinzia rubbed her forehead. "Your brother?"
"The moron should make himself useful once in a while."
"I'm not sure about that," Reborn interrupted from their left.
And for the second time that day, Tsuna almost died out of sheer shock.
He leaped to his feet and whirled around, barely aware that Ottone and Cinzia were doing the same next to him.
The hitman was leaning against the fridge, looking grossly out of place in a bakery's kitchen.
Tsuna gawked at him, dumbstruck.
"Does Coyote even pick up your calls these days?" Reborn went on. "From what I remember, you're not exactly on speaking terms."
Ottone unclenched his jaw. "Oh, he'll talk to me alright," he gritted out. "If he knows what's good for him."
"Hm." Reborn glanced at Tsuna. "I suppose he will, yes."
Tsuna had to strain every muscle in his body to keep from flinching. He shifted slightly to the side to stand a little more in front of Cinzia, acutely aware that his skinny frame wouldn't be nearly enough to shield her if the hitman decided he was done playing nice.
Reborn noted the move. His lips stretched into a sharp line. "Cute."
Fuck. You.
Tsuna tried to glare. His chattering teeth somewhat undermined the effort. "W-what do you want?"
"From you? Nothing. Not yet."
"We're not holding you back," Cinzia said, gesturing at the door. "Leave."
Reborn gave her a bored look. "It's definitely not your coffee that's keeping me here, lady."
Cinzia let out the sound of an enraged bull and Tsuna swallowed a groan. If they all made it out of Little Trinci intact, then they would deserve to get some sort of trophy to celebrate. One engraved with simple declarations like, I Didn't Murder Anyone Today, or No One Stabbed Me This Morning.
Tsuna had trouble seeing that happenin though.
"Stop fucking around." Ottone crossed his arms over his chest, feet braced evenly on the tiled floor. "Take your bullshit with you and scram."
"I don't think so," Reborn drawled. "Things have been incredibly dull lately, and this?" He smiled, showing the edge of his teeth. "Now, this looks interesting."
Ottone's eyes narrowed. "Cinzia," he called without looking away. "Bring me my gun."
"Oh?" Reborn perked up, looking positively delighted at the mention of the very illegal firearm.
"Only if I get to pull the trigger," Cinzia retorted.
"You think you have a chance against me?" Reborn asked.
He sounded alarmingly amused to Tsuna's ears, the way a cat might be amused at a fat mouse squirming between its paws.
Ottone glowered. "Let's find out."
"Oh my god, guys." Tsuna scrambled between the two of them. "Let's not."
When had he become the only sane person in the room anyway? Him, the kid with ice in his heart and a nightmare's voice in his head?
Reborn started to laugh.
.
.
Okay, this chapter is shorter than usual but Reborn's being a stubborn asshole to write. I still love him. Maybe I'll try to add an omake written in his POV at the end of the next chapter to get a better feel of his character. We'll see how that goes. Is anyone interested?
As always, thank you for reading this fic.
Rei.