Chapter 4 : Intragroup Politics
Tsunayoshi is probably some kind of disgrace, he thinks. He's never been a 'good kid' - that went out the window the time Nana told him that Iemitsu had ended up in the heavens with the rest of the stars. Maybe he had acted out in various bad kinds of ways. Suddenly, various things had stopped having urgency and weight.
If he can't understand the world around him, how is he supposed to do anything with it?
He's stupid and naive and clumsy and unlikable, and his father was dead and his mother didn't seem terribly bothered by it. He hadn't been able to understand any part of it, hadn't been able to connect his feelings with his mother's, and since he wasn't able to connect those feelings, he went through them alone.
Nothing seemed important after that. What was the point of putting out effort in something like school when his father wouldn't be around to tell him 'good job' and his mother was someone strange and mysterious and unfamiliar?
(-hadn't she loved him-? hadn't she- ?)
And then even that turned out to be a lie. No wonder Nana hadn't cared: Iemitsu wasn't dead. And Tsunayoshi can't even be grateful for that because he's done That and somehow Iemitsu has become something terrifying, and his mother flinched from him and doesn't seem to grasp his reality.
He still can't connect his experiences to Nana's. He doesn't understand Haru's feelings. He doesn't even understand his own, which put him at Hibari's heels despite the fact that all it earns him is black and blue and green and yellow bruises.
Those feelings which catch fire and consume themselves and him until he's hollow and hallowed and char and smoke.
"A few months of training does not a combatant make," Hayashi-sensei tells Tsunayoshi - tells him and tells the rest of the class, and then boots out a boy caught using those fighting skills he'd learned outside the dojo.
"The things you learn in my classes could seriously hurt someone," he says grimly. "You are never to use these abilities against another person outside very controlled environments, such as my class, or officially organized tournaments. You are especially not to use them against someone else who doesn't have training."
And a disgrace like Tsunayoshi gravely promises 'of course not' and then goes out into the streets and faces the Disciplinary Committee and does it anyway.
It's not that Tsunayoshi wants to be this kind of liar, but saying one thing to someone's face and then existing with a completely separate truth - it's in his blood, isn't it?
-0-
What is the value of a promise given? What is the value of words? Only, why would Tsunayoshi lie about something like that? He hates to hurt people and he hates fighting.
But even someone like him is capable of taking a gun in hand and ending someone's life if he decides that it's necessary. Tsunayoshi remembers that. Whatever better intentions people have, it's different from what they might do when it comes down to it.
Tsunayoshi himself, who hates hurting people, can also kill them without hesitation and not even cry about it later. He reasons that those men forfeited their own lives, and is named 'capable of anything' and told 'good job' - and yet knows that it's not a good thing to be.
He knows it's not good. A loser like 'Dame-Tsuna' can't also be someone who without hesitation kills other people - but isn't he? Isn't he?
Hasn't he proven to be precisely that person? Ahh, it's not good.
-0-
Everyone already knows that the Disciplinary Committee is only an official name for Hibari's crew of thugs and delinquent followers. Tsunayoshi supposes there could be worse things that they could be getting up to - follow the rules and stay out of Hibari's way and beneathe the Committee's notice, and you'll never even have a reason to come to their attention. It's not precisely a bad situation. It could be worse, Tsunayoshi rationalizes, especially if the guys that were in it were allowed to do whatever they liked.
Hibari, after all, has no rule against beating some discipline into his own men and actually does so frequently if they seem to be becoming unruly. Saying that he 'rules them with an iron fist' is somewhat incorrect. Kusakabe rules them with an iron fist. He has a hand on some kind of intragroup politics; there are about five of the Committee members that Tsunayoshi tentatively labels as 'actually good people with behavioral problems.' The rest of them are held under tight leash by Kusakabe and his hand-picked support team, and made to fear it by the threat of Hibari's tonfa.
After spending so many months following Hibari and the Committee around, Tsunayoshi tentatively decides that calling Kusakabe the 'Second in Command' is actually a bit of a misnomer. Kusakabe is the one that makes the organization go round; the threat of Hibari is what enforces his claim.
Well, Tsunayoshi arrives at this conclusion but doesn't actually realize it or know how to explain it until one afternoon, when Haru starts poking and prodding at the structure of the Committee during a break from trying to help Tsunayoshi with his homework. Tsunayoshi feels like he's achieved something impressive in making Haru sweat and suggest a snack break, but it doesn't make him happy.
In either case, Haru starts poking at it. "I don't get it," she says, "it seems like the Committee mostly operates outside of or around that shaggy beast."
"Of course they do," Tsunayoshi says. "Hibari doesn't have the patience to lead people. He doesn't even like people."
Haru blinks her big brown eyes at him. "But then how is he the leader?"
"Well, you certainly can't say that he's the follower type," he says dryly.
Haru considers that for a moment, then says, "Then are we going about this wrong? Should it be Kusakabe that we should be forcing to acknowledge us?"
It's Tsunayoshi's turn to blink at her as he processes that question and what she must be thinking that lead to it. "I don't think so," he says. "I think Kusakabe has already accepted us as much as he's going to. People other than Hibari don't really seem to matter much to him."
"How questionable," Haru says with a strangely dark expression as she bites sharply into a piece of apple that Nana had cut up for them. Tsunayoshi laughs a little dryly; he's not sure Kusakabe even likes Hibari, despite all the work he does for his sake. Maybe whatever hold Hibari has over him is something that it doesn't matter what his personal feelings are.
Saying that the Committee is 'for Hibari's sake' isn't precisely correct, either. That's not the feeling that Tsunayoshi gets. More, the Committee is a product or result of Hibari existing. Hibari is a force of his own that requires certain countermeasures and allowances to simply survive. That kind of thing...
Ahh, Tsunayoshi thinks; he doesn't like that. It's fine if it works for other people, but he's only interested in letting people he actually likes close, that will hopefully like him in return. That would be good.
'Anything' is already terrible enough without doing it for people he feels nothing for. Crossing that kind of line is-
-0-
What is he thinking again? What is he thinking? Aren't the only people he cares about his own mother? It's only her. Ah, but he might do something terrible if Haru were in danger, that's true, and-
What, precisely, is he thinking regarding allowing people close and doing 'anything' for?
He rubs his knuckles against his breastbone, and thinks about Kusakabe and the Committee's intragroup politics, and Hibari and Haru and Nana and that hollowed, burnt out feeling and his fingers being so, so, so, so sticky.
Ahh. The space under his ribs feels like it needs to be filled up and he doesn't know why. What, precisely, is he-
-0-
There's a certain amount of 'seeing Hibari' that Tsunayoshi has to do during the course of the average day, but that kind of quota isn't difficult to reach given that they attend the same school.
After school, Hibari meets up with the Committee for a certain amount of time in order to receive and distribute information, and most of the time, Hibari takes off on his own and leaves the Committee to their own devices. The only time they stick together is if Hibari is being particularly cranky about some 'small fry' in a nearby neighborhood.
Hibari says 'small fry' and absolutely means adult thugs trying to set up some kind of operation. It takes Tsunayoshi a bit of thinking and Haru giving her time again before he can put his thoughts into words: civilian-type criminals like these are barely even worth the attention of the men in police uniforms. That's why some middle school kid and his middle school gang are the ones who have taken responsibility for stopping them.
When something like that isn't happening, though, mostly it's just the Disciplinary Committee patrolling the streets. They don't get along great with the men in police uniforms, but it's not like anything more than glaring happens. It's a bit odd, isn't it? Aren't a lot of those people in uniforms people with the Hibari clan name?
Most of the time, the various sub-groups of the Committee - usually lead by one of the members that Tsunayoshi thinks of as 'good' - wander the streets and glare at various people and stop in many of the local businesses. They're not always welcome, but considering the few times that Tsunayoshi has dared to step inside and saw money changing hands-
Well, it's not any of his business.
Two months after Haru joins Tsunayoshi on his usual Committee-stalking rounds, it kind of goes to hell.
-0-
It just so happens that they're tagging along with Hoshino's group when it happens. Tsunayoshi likes Hoshino, in so much as he likes anyone who looks that scary- for a given value of scary: Hoshino is actually relatively good-looking for a boy, except for the fact that he has a big, ugly pair of scars that streak over his face from cheekbone to chin on the left side of his face. Kusakabe likes Hoshino, which is about as much of an endorsement as Tsunayoshi really needs; Kusakabe is actually a relatively trustworthy and good person.
Thanks to whatever it is that Kusakabe likes about him, Hoshino has the unfortunate duty of being the third in command of the Committee and being the one that gets left in charge when Kusakabe is off wrangling Hibari's other affairs - whatever that might be. It's part of the reason that Tsunayoshi had defaulted to following this particular part of the Committee.
Hoshino also has a dry sense of humor as it goes when their squad turns the corner into another group of delinquents. The Committee members bristle, but Hoshino just pauses momentarily and then sighs a little bit. "This is all Sawada's fault," he says with resignation.
Tsunayoshi and Haru, who had been trailing a respectful two meters behind the Committee, stare at the back of his head. "What did I do," Tsunayoshi wonders under his breath. He's pretty sure he'd remember making a group of delinquents angry, but-
"Aren't you lot getting a little overconfident," the boy that's clearly the leader of the delinquents says. Tsunayoshi doesn't recognize any of them, or even their uniform, actually, so he's pretty sure this can't be his fault.
Hoshino smiles. It's nice that Tsunayoshi is standing so far behind him; Hoshino doesn't smile a lot, but when he does, it stretches the scars on his face in an unpleasant way. "Look who's the one talking," he says pleasantly. "Sorry, but no matter the outcome of this meeting, things won't end well for you."
The leader grins at him, or more like: bares his teeth. "That's funny, I was thinking the same thing about you."
"If you think that Hibari is being a little restless now," Hoshino says with the tone of someone privately amused, tilting his head in an odd way, "you'll really be impressed with how he gets after the Committee is attacked. You'll be lucky if all that happens to you is being 'bitten to death.'" And then his voice drops, mocking: "I think he'll only be too happy to chew up your bones and spit out the splintered remains."
But those boys don't seem impressed, and their leader grins with too many white teeth. "Ah-ha. You sure are confident in a rabid dog. But sick mutts like that get drowned, you know?"
"You've got to be kidding me," Tsunayoshi says faintly, staring with wide eyes, and then the leader of the delinquents roars and his group surges forward and things get really violent and confusing really fast.
This is the kind of thing that Tsunayoshi has no interest in getting involved in, but Haru screeches something like 'die' and surges forward along with the rest of the Committee and, crazy or not, Tsunayoshi can't just leave her that easily. He's not even sure he believes that something like this could be planned out without Hibari's supernatural senses summoning him to the scene to bite everyone to death, and if that's the case, then probably ending it quickly is the best idea.
For all that Tsunayoshi has gotten into various scuffles with the Committee itself, he's never been in the middle of an actual street brawl. Compared to the Committee scuffling with him, which generally is two or three people beating up Tsunayoshi and Haru while the rest watch and comment, it's completely different. It's a lot harder to dodge, and the atmosphere is totally different; the delinquents they're fighting actually want to hurt them badly.
There's a precise moment where Tsunayoshi feels that awful feeling begin to lurk about just under his ribs at the back of his throat. For a split second, he freezes to let the next hit land, and nearly gets his head taken off by a metal pipe. In the next instant, Tsunayoshi has it twisted out of the boy's hands and rears back to swing and -
The pipe nearly tumbles loose of Tsunayoshi's slack grasp. What was he-
He catches a fist to the face as someone comes to the boy's defense. Tsunayoshi crashes back, then scrambles in the usual manner for a bit before he manages to get his feet under him and he tries to make a desperate escape from the fight.
"Get back here, you shrimp!" the boy who originally had the pipe shouts - like he's one to speak, he's not exactly any bigger than Tsunayoshi is in the first place.
"No way!"
"Tsunayoshi-san!" Haru exclaims, and Tsunayoshi is going to be very annoyed if what attracts her attention is someone shouting 'shrimp' threatening; granted, half of the Committee calls him that, but all the same. Tsunayoshi hears an unmanly yelp and a crash behind him and glances back to see that Haru has leapt upon the boy who had been pursuing him. She is, at that moment, wrapping rope around his arm and throat.
Far from an elegant hojōjutsu style, it reminds Tsunayoshi of that weird western thing he'd seen at some point on the TV, where someone threw down a small cow and tied them up. Given that neither of them had exactly expected to get into any fights today, Tsunayoshi isn't entirely sure where Haru even got that rope from, but he does know its sudden appearance and Haru's apparent skill in quickly tying someone up is making him incredibly nervous.
Then he abruptly has to reverse his footsteps back toward the brawl because while Haru is busy with tying that kid up, some girl is approaching her from the back. "I'm your opponent!" the girl with strangely bleached and dyed hair declares, swinging a bokken. Haru is going to end up taking it directly to the head.
Tsunayoshi desperately stretches his legs, but Haru looks up quickly, and gripping the boy with her knees and the ropes wound around his limbs, she easily rolls out of the way, using the kid as a shield. Even as a ripple of relief goes through Tsunayoshi, he's already committed, and the bokken itself hits his shoulder and arm where he'd gone to block it.
Blunt pain bursts through his side, but he's at most bruised. "Tsunayoshi-san!" Haru says sharply with alarm, but he grasps the heavy weight of the bokken with his opposite hand and yanks the girl off balance. She's not even as good as Mochida, he thinks; she doesn't know anything about kendo. Mochida would have never allowed Tsunayoshi the opportunity to grab his bokken.
"Hurry up and finish," Tsunayoshi snaps as he and the girl engage in a game of tug-of-war. She's older than him and bigger and stronger, too, but as for training...?
"Oh! Tag team!" Haru realizes with excitement.
"No way!"
Of course, the Committee is built out of a bunch of kids who can survive being under Hibari's merciless care, so it doesn't take long at all for them to wipe the street with a bunch of loosely associated thugs from another school. Tsunayoshi comes out the other side of the brawl feeling a little like he spent too much time dodging random weapons and fists and kicks. A bit like he'd been used as a distraction somehow while the Committee and Haru did the actual work of putting the delinquents down.
Instead of complaining about that, Tsunayoshi counts over the kids actually tied up rather than beaten unconscious and then boggles at Haru. Where was she even hiding all those ropes?
Haru notices him looking and promptly approaches him sunnily, grasping onto his arm. She's a mess, with scrapes on her cheeks and a bruise on her temple, and there's blood on the side of her hand, but her eyes are gleaming. "Are you okay, Tsunayoshi-san?"
"Ah - forget me," he says with alarm, taking in more: red marks on skin, torn clothes, scrapped knees. "Are you okay, Haru?"
"Hmm?" Haru glances down at her own condition and seems unmoved. "This is nothing compared to the training I did to get into Midori Middle!"
What kind of scary thing is that, Tsunayoshi wonders in sudden alarm. He knew that Midori was considered one of the toughest elite schools in Namimori, but if the school work is that difficult-! "E-excuse me," he says, glancing at the nearest Committee member. "We're going. Haru has wounds that need tending to."
"I guess that's fine," Hoshino says, not looking up from where he's delicately stepping on the leader of the delinquent's face, cellphone in hand. He seems to be taking pictures. "I can't really expect more than that."
Haru bristles, but seems to find it beneath her to do more than that. One of the rookie members, a boy named Nakamoto that Tsunayoshi has tentatively slotted into 'actually good person' and so had helped when he saw him getting double-teamed, glances reproachfully toward Hoshino.
"That's probably for the best," Nakamoto says to the two of them, like he's trying to soften Hoshino's dismissal somehow.
It doesn't really bother Tsunayoshi to have been dismissed like that – for whatever reason, Hoshino holds him responsible for them getting attacked, and Tsunayoshi has long since decided it's not worth arguing with those sorts.
But then Nakamoto, in his soft-spoken way, adds offhandedly, "if it were you, that'd be one thing, but there's no way she can come back with us for medicine."
Haru, already bristling, grips Tsunayoshi's arm to the point of hurting. He pries ineffectually at her fingers. "Is that so," she asks, sugary sweet. "I wonder why that is."
Hoshino says, flatly, "You're kidding, right? If it's Sawada, Hibari might let him live."
Hibari let Haru live, and apparently she'd hugged him, or something, so Tsunayoshi doesn't really understand what the deal with that was, unless Hibari's feelings toward Haru had changed.
"B- besides that," Nakamoto says uneasily, "it's the reception room, and she's not even from Nami Middle, so it's impossible. You shouldn't be in there, not being on the Disciplinary Committee, but with your skill at surviving-"
"Undoubtedly. With Sawada's dodging skills..."
"He'll at least survive long enough to run away."
Gripping his arm tight enough that Tsunayoshi winces and hisses, Haru proclaims, "What kind of lies are those? Tsunayoshi-san would never run away! Especially not from that savage beast!"
"Haru!" Tsunayoshi yelps in horror, reaching up to clasp a hand over her mouth and stifle any other insults that she might feel like saying. "Please don't pick fights by insulting Hibari in this situation." Namely: right there in front of Hibari's underlings. Is it just him, or are Haru's self-preservation instincts becoming even worse?
Haru's sharp eyes narrow at him in a cutting glance, reaching up and dragging his hand down. She puffs up like an angry cat, hissing and spitting. "He's a beast!" she exclaims indignantly. "A shaggy, savage beast! An ogre! A total ogre! Bleh!" If the words weren't enough, she caps off her short tirade with sticking her tongue out at the Committee members in what could only be construed as a challenge.
More than one or two of them look a bit pissed off, which is kind of- they're standing over the fallen bodies of delinquents from another school, so- but on the other hand, Hoshino just spreads his hands. Looking at Haru plainly, he says easily, "no one here is really arguing with that."
"Senpai," Nakamoto says in shock, but Hoshino just glances at him like daring him to really argue about it. Momentarily, Nakamoto subsides; he's only a rookie after all.
"Eh." Haru stares at them, her arms dangling limply at her side and seemingly a little confused by the easy acceptance of her insults. Tsunayoshi takes this moment to take her by the wrist, hoping a little bit that they might be able to escape without much more trouble.
"Don't worry about it, Haru," he says a little nervously, "that's something only people who feel fear could understand. Um- everyone - we'll be on our way, thanks."
Hoshino steps on the leader again, his cellphone flashing, but he's watching him with a smile that stretches his scars really unpleasantly. "Well, this was annoying," he says cheerfully, "but at least you two helped out with the situation you caused in the first place... no, actually, the fight was pretty easy thanks to you and Haru-kun running interference. I guess it's fine, after all."
"Not that we needed the help," the especially gruff looking delinquent at his back says.
"No, but come play with us again, sometime," Nakamato says. The invitation is echoed by a few of the others, to the testy response of the others who were less than impressed with Haru's description of their leader.
As if we could! Tsunayoshi thinks, a bit flustered as he tries to hurry Haru away, but Haru responds brightly, laughing and waving goodbye. Her good spirits are explained momentarily when she says, "yes! We're one step closer to forcing that shaggy beast to acknowledge us, Tsunayoshi-san!"
"Why do you even want such a thing!" he demands in exasperation.
Blinking her big, slanted brown eyes at him, she says, "Ehh, but Tsunayoshi-san, I want that because you want that. That's why you're always chasing him around, right?"
"Please don't say weird things like that, Haru," he says with a sigh.
The entire idea that he wants to be acknowledged by Hibari is ludicrous - first of all, because the thought of Hibari acknowledging anyone is ludicrous, unless secretly at home his parents somehow beat him into submission. Seriously, the only way Tsunayoshi can see Hibari acknowledging anyone is if they're stronger than he is. Tsunayoshi is pretty sure that such a person doesn't exist.
No, Hibari is more than welcome to continue ignoring them as he usually does. The occasional attempts to crush them under the hateful force of his tonfa are one thing - Tsunayoshi accepts that because it's something that can't be fought against, like tsunami, and the way food goes bad. Hibari doesn't even actually talk to any of them, which is fine. If Hibari never directly acknowledges that Tsunayoshi exists ever again, then Tsunayoshi will call that a win.
It would be a double win he could just leave Hibari alone. None of this is of his own choice - he just gets this incredibly uneasy feeling if he doesn't keep an eye on Hibari. It's more and less desperate than it used to be; that awful feeling seems to be less of a threat these days with Haru always on the case, but strangely, since he's started hanging around with Haru, his ability to tolerate Hibari being off somewhere in the city with only the easily cowed Committee at his back takes a horrible sweeping nosedive. Like his grades had, ever since he was a kid.
'Tolerating Hibari being off somewhere in the city' - that's a weird way of putting it, isn't it? It's exactly that, somehow. Used to be, Tsunayoshi hadn't cared one whit what his mother go up to or where, but ever since then- ahh, letting her do things like shopping in town when he isn't around has become impossible. What he feels regarding Hibari isn't that feeling, but it's very similar, after all.
It's almost like he- might like Hibari? Like he's? Worried about his well-being or something?
No way! Tsunayoshi acknowledges that he's a bit weird in the head, but liking Hibari Kyoya would be even too weird for him. And worrying for his well-being? Well, feeling something like that would be nothing short of delusional.
-0-
It's true that Tsunayoshi goes through his days constantly on edge. Sometimes he thinks that he'll develop ulcers, or otherwise go insane from the constant worry. Worry about what? Well, various things, naturally. First of all, while he was at school, Nana had been taken from her home. Tsunayoshi had no idea anything had been wrong before he was taken from the streets much the way that those men had been trying to take Haru. And he-
Naturally, Tsunayoshi worries about things like that happening again. He worries about Haru being kidnapped when he's not there, which is part of the reason he never tries to drive her away. He worries about delinquents attacking him, or just angry peers from school. He worries about getting hit by a car or choking on something or eating something bad or having something heavy fall on him or tripping and breaking something, maybe even his neck -
About the only time that Tsunayoshi really relaxes is when he's at home. Nothing awful ever happens to him when he's at home, even if Haru comes over to eat dinner with him. Even when he escorts Haru to the bus stop, nothing bad happens! It's like even the criminals are polite enough to keep their stupid activities to the day time.
Of course, if he's out and about too late at night, Tsunayoshi starts worrying if that's because there's something out there roaming the night. In other words, Tsunayoshi is an ace at being paranoid.
Besides that, being a homebody is Tsunayoshi's default state. It was like that before when he hadn't had the interest or energy to leave it, and it's like that now when he's enjoying the good food his mother cooks, and her happy smile, and having warm baths and a comfortable bed.
Which begs the question of why he's startling awake and rolling off that bed. There is a 'thwap' noise just before he hits the floor, and Tsunayoshi rears up to see what has startled him awake.
His window is wide open and a gentle night breeze is blowing in. The light of the moon outside excellently highlights what would otherwise be a pitch-black shadow. Narrow eyes glint, like animal eyes, in strange shades of purple. It's undoubtedly Hibari Kyoya, and that's his tonfa buried in the pillow Tsunayoshi's head had been resting on just seconds before.
What a fool he was. Of course the criminal element was avoiding Hibari. Hibari Kyoya is what goes 'bump' in the night.
Hibari shifts to pull the tonfa up, and Tsunayoshi dives under the bed, scrambling for the panic box that he'd built so many months ago, starting with on item that Nana bought for him. The box is definitely not meant to hold up under frantic fingers, so he has it open and the contents spilled out before a hand closes around his arm and jerks him out from other the bed on the completely opposite side.
Tsunayoshi bites his cheek instead of screeching, twisting onto his back as he fumbles the lid up and promptly squirts peppery spray in Hibari's face. Or - he tries to spray pepper in Hibari's face, but Hibari snorts and with a twist it's the loose arm of his uniform that catches the entire load. A tonfa bears down on Tsunayoshi's throat, and the canister tumbles from his grip as he reaches for it instead, setting the heels of his palm against the wood and struggling.
He pushes, but even with both hands, he can't get any leverage and Hibari has his weight behind the tonfa. It isn't restricting his breathing, but it's too much, it's too much. Tsunayoshi's legs kick in helpless alarm, though they do pitiful little where they're trapped under the bed. The last thing Tsunayoshi wants is for Nana to be woken up and come in on Hibari having bitten him to death, but at the same time-!
Hibari slides off the bed in a spill of limbs both reptilian and feline, settling over him in a crouch, their only point of contact the tonfa that presses against his throat and the heels of his palms. Hibari's eyes keep flickering and lensing purple in the moonlight, and it's freaking Tsunayoshi out. "You're crowding me," Hibari says, flat and low into Tsunayoshi's face. "Why."
'Tsunayoshi is crowding him!' Who exactly just broke into whose bedroom?!
Hibari's teeth look particularly white and sharp in the dim lighting of his bedroom, and Tsunayoshi can't help the distressed noise that claws out of his throat, high and nervous. Swallowing past his own quick, shallow breaths, Tsunayoshi says, "I don't know."
Hibari's eyes narrow, fire and steel and unforgiving. "Figure it out a better answer than that."
He's going to be bitten to death either way! Whether he can put it into words or not! Why else would Hibari break into his bedroom in the dead of night and try to put his skull in with his tonfa! Still, despite the futility of it, Tsunayoshi pushes for an answer. "I don't know," he still prefaces his explanation, because he doesn't, he's just- "following my gut feeling!"
Something as flimsy as that is going to spell his doom for sure, Tsunayoshi knows as soon as the words leave his mouth. He survived being held captive for three days and killing five men with their own weapons and even fighting common thugs on the street, only to be killed in his own bedroom by the guy he's been - well, stalking, a bit, if he's being truthful about it.
Hibari tilts his head slightly and doesn't, doesn't, doesn't shatter his throat just yet. Tsunayoshi pants in time to his hammering heart and can't look away from the strange flickering light in Hibari's eyes, feeling slightly mesmerized.
Isn't that- isn't that because they're nothing like the eyes of the men who'd-
Suddenly Tsunayoshi thinks: I'm in danger, but I'm not going to die. And his gut feeling has always been right. He's not dying tonight, not unless it's on accident.
He thinks that if Hibari has ever killed anyone, it's always been on accident - something that happened after the fact: that Hibari hit something and later they suffocated or their brain swelled, or something. As long as Tsunayoshi survives the beating, or getting 'bitten to death' - he's going to be fine.
Laying on his back and half under his bed with a tonfa to his throat and the leader of the most fearsome delinquent group in Namimori crouched over him, Tsunayoshi lets out his breath and relaxes.
It's no longer frightening, the strange light the moon strikes in Hibari's eyes. Tsunayoshi's curled fingers painfully unfold, settling loosely around the wooden tonfa pressed against his throat, nestled up under his chin. Hibari has broken into his bedroom and tried to bounce his tonfa off his head and has threatened him, but there's no intent behind it, other than frustration.
Of the two of them, it's not Hibari who has dreams of being sticky with blood with so many frightened adult eyes staring at him long after they bleed, bleed, bleed out, enough blood to drown all the world but it's being saved just for Tsunayoshi.
"Sorry," Tsunayoshi says quietly to the older boy bristling above him, feeling oddly comfortable in his skin for once. "I thought I could learn to control it, if- um. You're always in control, so I thought... "
A little less pressure bears down on his throat, and Hibari shifts, pulling back slightly even as he plants his shoe into the empty space between Tsunayoshi's ribs and his arm. Tsunayoshi feels like at this angle, it's slightly more difficult to crush his throat, or at least do so as thoroughly. The strange light in Hibari's eyes is desolate, but - not exactly cold, or cruel; he moves the tonfa at Tsunayoshi's throat, planting the end in the floor and pushing back.
With one foot buried in Tsunayoshi's armpit, Hibari rests his remaining weight on the opposite heel; he's strikingly monochrome other than the strangeness in his eyes, the red band around his arm dull, washed out in shadow. "If it's discipline you want," he says plainly, and his neutral expression curls into a toothy thing that takes the form of a smile but isn't one at all, "I can beat it into your thick skull."
It's slightly worrisome, the way things are when you get the feeling someone else is going to enjoy something a lot more than you are. But Tsunayoshi has been doing a lot of things he doesn't like and doesn't find pleasant recently, so-
"Thank goodness," Tsunayoshi says, relieved, and tries for a smile. It doesn't feel like one at all, if in a completely different manner than Hibari's. Because this is - ahh, ahh, it's nothing to be happy about, but something is kindling inside him and it's not that terrible calmness, but something like letting go.
"Oh?" Hibari says archly, more an inquisitive noise than a word, his not-smile full of sharp teeth.
The last of the stress fading makes him laugh, soft and quiet because if they haven't woken Nana yet, then he doesn't want to now. "I just thought," he says, "that you'll bring order to me or kill me trying. That's great, right? I can trust myself in your hands." Tsunayoshi doesn't know what his face is doing, though he thinks it's still trying to smile.
Above him, Hibari's eyes glint violet over sharp, sharp teeth.
-0-
'Thank goodness,' Tsunayoshi thought at that time, disoriented from being shocked awake and threatened within an inch of his life. It seemed perfectly logical at the time. After all, no part of Tsunayoshi is prepared to die, not after his mother hugged him so tightly and expressed her wish to protect him. For her sake, he has to keep living.
Not just for her sake, however. Tsunayoshi lives for himself on his own accord just fine. He also lives to protect his mother from having that kind of experience again, and also so that if it's necessarily, to rescue Haru if those men come for her again.
If his life is on the line, though, he thinks that he might be able to accomplish anything. He hates to fight, hates hurting people even more, but if the only other option is 'to die,' then he'll do anything to survive.
That doesn't mean he's going to enjoy being that kind of desperate, though.
Of course, where Tsunayoshi goes, so does Haru these days, and she insists on participating. Hibari seems to have no objections: he bites them both to death and seems pretty satisfied about it.
-0-
Notes:
Hibari "morals are for inferior lifeforms" Kyoya, ft Muira "what is normal even" Haru and Sawada "rolling with the punches" Tsunayoshi.
Hojōjutsu is the traditional Japanese martial art of restraining a person using cord or rope, apparently. Used by police and samurai for prisoners they didn't want to hurt. Japanese rope bondage is descended from this art, or so I've read.
