She wants to ask Sawada again.
Instead, she settles down in the char across from him to stare.
He doesn't look up from his book, but she can feel the weight of his attention. There's only so much you can moderate without talent. He'd made good on his promise - he's not calling out for someone who's no longer there anymore.
Without that, she no longer feels so desperate.
Without that distraction, she can read him more clearly. It had startled her at first, before she realized how good of a defense it truly made then. She'd wondered if the leaking emotions might not be a disadvantage, but no longer drowning them she can see how they must be only part of what he feels. She wants to say that they must be real, but watching him, she's realizing she doesn't actually know.
She finds herself amazed again at him and how well he'd been taught, despite lacking the talent, amazed again at how much control he has.
And without the call drowning her, she can see how much he wants .
It's barely been any time, but she finds herself walking in and out of the room to see it happen over and over again.
His brilliant defenses (even half manned, even with someone missing and she can see it, more and more traces where the patterns break, energy lines preparing to feed into heavier defenses aren't there) come to life as he registers her presence, and they relax when they register that it's her. They actually wind to to a state of relaxed even lower than they'd been before she came into the room.
And it's about the way his attention turns to her when she's in the room, the weight of his attention so tangible she's fairly certain it must be some magic talent of its own. And when he looks at her, he looks at her like a smoker looking at the cigarettes they're trying to quit. Or something worse, like she's glimpsed running drugs for the yakuza. They try to get runners hooked too.
He wants her, but more than that he wants her to be and feel safe. He wants her to make an informed and thought through decision, when doing this doesn't feel so desperately like something that will make him keep her.
Where else will she find someone who cares enough to care for that?
It all only makes her want to do it even more. She wants to be the person he sees when he calls her Chrome - it had been a throwaway name when she gave it to him. He says it like it has meaning, though he pronounces it oddly. Kro-mo . He effortlessly hits the 'cr' consonant combination like she'd heard in English class. But he's not saying it in English either, not with that 'o' at the end. She wants to be that person. She wants to be that person he sees when he looks at her.
She doesn't want to wait, but if he can respect her enough to insist on this, she can respect him enough to wait. She can ask again later.
Until then, she still has him before her - his beautiful shields and comforting attention.
()
Takeshi is laughing as he drags himself out of the water.
"It's extremely not funny!" Ryohei calls behind him. "I almost drowned!"
"You like her!" Takeshi says as he settles on the edge of the pool, kicking water at Ryohei when he gets too close.
"She's my sister's best friend, if I didn't like her-"
"She's a Hibari!"
"She's a Kurokawa! "
"In name, sure, but she's part of the clan! You like a Hibari!"
Takeshi is intensely aware of their surroundings. He's half naked, on a ship filled with criminals, and normally that would be the reason, but more so he's sharply aware of Tsuna, in the lounge overlooking the pool with Reborn and Chrome Setsuna, smiling fondly at Takeshi and Ryohei. He's aware of Hibari Kyoya with his Hibari minder, lurking in the shadows of the corridor under the lounge, watching them with crossed arms. He's aware of Bovino and Gokudera, whispering with their heads tilted together in their own swim suits, sitting under the pool-side umbrellas, still as dry as they'd been when they arrived at the pool.
He's aware of the various mafioso quietly positioned around the pool, hungry for information on Vongola's mysterious new heir - already accomplished enough to have a full set of guardians to fill the guardian suite on the cruise ship.
So Takeshi makes it clear, Tsuna's guardians are strong.
Takeshi and Ryohei were always going to be a weak point, Reborn had explained to them when he'd gathered Tsuna's guardians. They're both civilian raised and without Chrome's excuse of Mist-begotten disguise.
So Takeshi makes a show of it - he knows how to twist so his muscles are on display without doing anything he wouldn't normally do. And he makes it clear that civilian raised or not, him and Ryohei are comfortable moving at Vongola's level - comfortable enough with the Hibaris to joke openly about something as schoolyard as liking one of them, or being friends with one.
"Alright, alright," Takeshi says laughing, drenched again by the water Ryohei splashes at him. "I give! But now that we're not in danger of setting the entire cruise ship on fire - do you want to try again?"
"Ahhhh," Ryohei says, glancing around.
"Look," Takeshi says, cupping his hands. He thinks - what would I die for - and the flames are there in his hands like some illusions, blue and brilliant.
Reborn had been vicious in training all of them, furious about whatever is going on with Tsuna that thwarts his normal training methods. Takeshi hadn't gotten around to Hyper Dying Will Mode - had barely gone into Dying Will Mode and certainly not enough to build up the resistance Reborn explained was necessary to reach Hyper Dying will Mode - but apparently you don't need that if you can spark on your own.
( what would I die for )
(The doctor, after Tsuna's examination, had stared blankly at Takeshi when Reborn pushed them into a room together.
"Where did you fucking find these kids Reborn? First Sawada and now this shit?"
"Is he safe?"
"Fuck if I know? No, wait, argh, let me think . . . he should be fine. No clue how he's doing it, but beyond activation and full on modes, flame use is safe enough.")
Ryohei on the other hand . . .
The flames stay there before him when his hands drop as he twists around to yell, "Hey Gokudera, the pills!"
There's a gunshot before Bovino or Gokudera can look up, and when Takeshi glances back at Ryohei, he sees him floating face down in the water.
His flames spark.
Catch.
"Give you an extreme noogie for teasing me!" Ryohei yells, surging out of the water at Takeshi, and Takeshi laughs, dodging.
As he rolls, he catches a glimpse of Reborn in the lounge, gun still smoking.
And Tsuna, his smile brilliant.
And all the mafioso watching them, watching the guardians of the Vongola Tenth generation, looking for any sign of weakness.
As Takeshi strikes out, Ryohei meets him blow for blow.
Ryohei's arm doesn't collapse, or even shake under the strain, as it had when Reborn first started training them.
It's not a serious fight.
Ryohei would come back from the dead to revenge himself for Takeshi's teasing, because he would come back from the dead for Takeshi, for Tsuna, for his sister.
And maybe a little , Takeshi thinks, sweeping Ryohei off his feet, still laughing, for Kurokawa Hana too.
The best way to lie is to not lie at all after all.