khr ain't mine.

Glad you guys liked that chapter. Feel free to comment or discuss bout the story, it might be a bit early for that tho. The stage is being set, lol.

Well, hope you have fun reading this chapter. Away we go~ ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ

Chapter 2

Hide a tree in a forest

Tsuna stared blankly at the treasure chest finding it difficult to decide to put a lock on it. Logically speaking, if he didn't, the box might tumble down for whatever reason and he'd lose some or all of its content. But, his vision was blurry and he felt like it was hard to breathe, making it difficult to listen to that voice of reason. His mirror image was something he was so familiar with. He had seen this expression so many times on the brunette as the other would choke out words while giving them manicures and once, twice and thrice overs. The lad would ramble and hop over topics, never acknowledging his current state. He spoke about a lot of things when he was in that state -wistfully, as his voice merged with the wind, never to fall on anyone's ears.

Well, to be honest- the tears and the sound was the only thing he could recognize. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't get that expression stuck on that face of his. Like it was physically locked by a mechanism. The brunette was quite a skillful in doll crafting and when Tsuna tried to mimic one of his past actions- fix an expression by his fingers- he realized that the animatronic he had been made into was given far fewer expressions than what his experiences and imagination dreamed up for him. Tsuna was quite crafted into the ideal being that the brunette envisioned.

The lad thought that the ugly expressions like grief, rage, jealousy and such did not fit into his idea of perfection- and served as limits that the doll could shapeshift into. A perfection that meant that the doll couldn't be truly human, nor truly Sawada Tsunayoshi- all because the maker couldn't accept those facets that made up his being. But Tsuna could accept that, that was not the kind of person he wanted to be. It was the shackles that his master wanted him to wear, one of the common points that they shared, even if one was worn willingly and the other was worn when he was beaten into submission.

His master didn't want the other to be as vulnerable as he'd been; he didn't want him to be as damaged as he had become. He regarded himself like an old patched up ragdoll and didn't wish that fate on Tsuna- the unblemished, untarnished version that he wanted to strive to become. He wasn't allowed to tear or be in grief, they were the remnants of Tsunayoshi's will, the parts the lad desperately wanted to lose, but couldn't. So when the doll tried to show a path to survive, the brunette cried for the last time in his life and refused to take the hand offered to him, ending in the immolation of his self. It left the doll bitter since the other forced him to take over parts that the other didn't exhibit, and didn't allow him to carry him to a better future- deeming those parts irrelevant.

Sawada Tsunayoshi had broken apart a drift- a crevice in his unconscious mind; He separated his feelings of love and banished them in the dolls and pampered them, isolating those feelings into his garden of Eden- he personified the dolls by ornating their being with names representing love. Tsuna was his magnum opus- it had his whole existence, but simultaneously, none of it. He thought that he was meant to be the bluebird, from Maurice Maeterlinck's play 'The Blue Bird'; that he signified his master's happiness and was chained close to him via the physical limitations that came with being a doll. But his master, like Tytyl and Mytyl, fed him and he was now forced to leave his cage and fly away to the heavens. His master never acknowledged their significance, perhaps he avoided trying to, fervently.

His joint movements were smooth, as the brunette used to grumble that it wouldn't make sense if dame-Tsuna had more fluid movements than he did. It was the crack of dawn, when Tsuna had finished somewhat examining himself, feeling somewhat dissatisfied that his palms didn't have the callouses and cuts, and his eyes didn't have the dark bags that indicated how hard the other worked to add those features to transform himself from a simple ball joint doll to a full-fledged animatronic.

He remembered his promise but wasn't sure if he was ready to blend in with his master's actual world. He was, after all, a frog in a well. After contemplating for a bit, he figured that things would be fine since the brunette's memories indicated that he was more or less invisible to the world and that no one could care less about him. He had plans to change that, but he had to take baby steps to fulfill many of the wishes and reduce the number of regrets that had been carelessly spoken in the brunette's safe haven.

'First, let's watch and observe'

He walked down the stairs with little effort. The body was, he thought, powered by those nefarious golden flames which could be the manifestation of Tsuna's soul. So it probably contained his essence and his ideals to start with. The doll had the memories that left impressions in the brunette. The biological and physical aspect depended on the doll's machinery. He had to make little effort to keep his balance, as there was something like an accelerometer or a gyroscope linked with motors to maintain his center of balance.

Tsuna didn't know what to do with the breakfast since he didn't have a damn digestion system that could process it. He couldn't exactly eat it since the mechanism inside him will get screwed up if he did. Cleaning up would be a damn mess. So he ignored the meal left on the table and rushed out- it wasn't relevant for a person, no doll, like him. He would need to blend his existence into his being's regular routine.

His desk was quite ruined with the smell of nail polish, paint, rouge and other makeup utilities that he could partially recognize. Other than the exciting mesh of colors it took up, it had tiny scratch marks that were tipped with blood. His vision flashed a type of fond resignation that he had when he painted and manicured the nails of Sasagawa Kyoko and Kurokawa Hana, who seemed pretty amused and chuckling at something. The brunette felt like the paint he bought specifically for his dolls were used for something other than what they were intended for, making him slightly regretful and upset. The fondness came from the joy that bubbled up when the other looked at the two's happy and intrigued faces. Tsuna wondered if he had been pressured to do that or was it the social stigma that forced the fondness to develop. The other did have the habit of faking it until you make it.

He saw the two girls observing his stillness, and gave them a tentative smile and wave, and they stiffened in shock. They seemed unused to having his undivided attention, which was strange, given how high of a pedestal his master put the both of them on. The baseball jock swiveled his head around and silently observed this supposed oddity, but Tsuna didn't understand why the other seemed to be a bit hostile towards him. Surprisingly enough, his memories didn't have any memories of the other looking at him this way.

His memories flooded his mind with what happened before when a voice laughed mockingly as they sloppily put on heavy makeup on his face when he had brought it to class. They weren't meant to be put on people- they could cause rashes and possibly even skin disease. Someone opened the door in the midst of the session and footsteps rang. His eyes had been focused on the diminished amount thinking he couldn't decorate Amore to the extent he pleased. Someone pulled up his chin and he felt his cheeks rubbed roughly as a gruff Hana pulled him up by his collar. The child didn't really know what had happened- his concentration was entirely on the decoration set.

Kyoko rushed into his line of sight, eyes focused entirely on him, inadvertently knocking over the set in her haste. He broke into a wail right then and there, while the other two misinterpreted his emotions as that of relief. They couldn't really calm him down, but Kyoko distracted him from his dilemma by complimenting him on how well his nails had been done. Well, just a few moments ago, he had been threatened with the set's safety if he didn't show off his expertise. His friends were apparently amused by the whole idea and the execution, and the brunette knew this the moment he saw the crescent moon shaped eyes that they made when they sighted the set's contents. The lass asked him if he could do it for her, bringing him her pocket makeup set which he acquiesced after getting slightly fascinated by her well-shaped nails. Hana joined in later after seeing him mid work by bringing in the drama club's makeup kit, wondering the extent of his skill. Their genuine awe had calmed him from his hysteria, and he quietly set to work and got engrossed in the art. He didn't mind if they were part of the bullies and was willing to forget about the broken makeup set. It was because he was allowed to touch a willing person's hands and see for himself what made friends smile gleefully as they pulled each other's hands to lead them to places or even share their happiness via touch.

The identity of a doll-maker had made instances like this, accessible and viable to him. Even if they didn't know that he cherished dolls. Sawada Tsunayoshi will never have that luxury. In Tsuna's mind, Namimori was a hellhole that chose him to be the sacrificial lamb. No one, not even the stickler of rules himself objected to the implicit status quo. To him, Namimori was a swamp- it reeked of stench, aimed to decompose and sink you until there was nothing left.

Tsuna reframed his relation with the two girls- they probably stuck around him since they were, apparently, his dolling-up buddies. He didn't know if they were part of the group that instigated that incident and he didn't know if the child was lonely enough to forgive any and all circumstances, but he'd rather not look at the gift horse in the mouth. The brunette never really gave a face to his bullies, but what they did to him; were clearly films that wouldn't deteriorate. It did leave the question, what were those scratches on that desk of his?

His classes were a literal droll and the brunette couldn't do anything there since the past him decided they were an utter waste of time and he didn't have any notebooks in his bag nor at his house. There wasn't even a single textbook in the residence's bookshelf and it made Tsuna wonder how did the other pass so far. His bag contained medical supplies like band-aids, bandages, antiseptic and painkillers to name a few. He felt like he should apply as the school nurse since the infirmary was apparently useless to the one who seemed like he'd need it the most.

When school ended, a couple of streets away from the school gates, Tsuna felt grabby hands haul at his collar in a vice grip as they slammed him against a wall. He didn't recognize the unruly lad's faces, but their annoyed voices made him identify them as the troublemakers that made his life harder than what it should be. They seemed mildly miffed at the self-assured expression that was fixed on the other's face since the morning, the confident steps that the other had paced about in. The brunette didn't acknowledge their existence and reduced their interferences in his life so far, into thin air. They had been estranged so suddenly, their value had plummeted in an instance. His existence in their life was something fleeting, like a piece of chewing gum on a shoe - something that mildly annoyed them, but stuck onto their conscience. It was out their orbit of normalcy, tilting it slightly and they wanted relief for the itch.

Well, too bad for them, Tsuna couldn't mirror or deeply sense their unrest or their malicious intent. His head didn't hurt from its abrupt kiss at the nearby wall, and he didn't even take it out for dinner. His eyes could see their motions quite easily and he figured he could start his revolution here and gave them a profound smile. He captured a flying fist and tightened his grip, the metal springs in his joints contracting to tensions he realized were very uncomfortable to the other. Realizing that one of their friends was in impending danger, the latter gave the brunette a panicked shove. He didn't fall over with that shove, his motors balanced the force before he made contact with the floor.

He released his grip leisurely and the boy shrunk and whined miserably at the pain and Tsuna absent-mindedly thought that those bones of his must have cracked at the pressure. The other's misty eyes glared, but widened, feeling disturbed at the unblinking and unwavering eyes. Tsuna smiled charmingly at the other

"My dear friends, you might need to find something else to put your frustrations on. It's a truly unhealthy coping mechanism; Look at how much pain you're in right now. We wouldn't this to worsen into something unspeakable, do we?"

He left the sufficiently cowed group behind, not willing to linger around these people. Tsuna may not do tit for tat, to honor his wishes... but he wouldn't passively take it all in and carry all the burden in his shoulders as the other did.

As he walked, he realized that breeze was entering his body, and his flitted to his shoulder. His shirt sagged at a particular spot and he entered an alley and popped open his shirt and realized that, in exchange for feeling the brunt of the shove, his fragile body cracked open. He paled at that, remembering that real people would bleed or even show the lower dermal layers and muscle with deep damage. He couldn't afford to get injured now since he couldn't offer a reasonable explanation for the mechanized insides if it was seen.

His master didn't make his body, a body of steel. He couldn't have predicted that that could have happened. He was ultimately a doll, regardless of how impressively it had been made. But it worked out for the other since the brunette was intended to be unblemished and indestructible. It just left the actual person in question in potentially sticky situations. He needed to fix this crack, pronto. He headed over to the antique shop since he didn't have any spare parts and worried about how would he fix himself, now that his perspective was different.

Kawahira stared at the other for a moment, before seeming sullen. The brunette offhandedly questioned his countenance, eyes tracing the shop for material to make a fix. His memories flashed over the shelves of the shop. It used to have a lot of trinkets, scrolls, books and could fit its name.

Now, many of the shelves contained doll parts, mechanical gears, and electrical components. There were even jewelry boxes and paints, many of which, he himself remembered the other gushing about as he applied them meticulously. There were even spools of threads.

His memory showed a glittering version of the merchandise that a chirpy Kawahira showed flamboyantly. The man brought out a curtained trolley and unveiled it with aplomb. Tsuna would look at them with childish glee as his mind would whirr around at the various looks that he could adorn his dolls in.

There were two plates of sweet manju with chamomile tea on the shop's counter. Kawahira didn't offer any to him, seemingly absorbed in something. It worked for Tsuna, since he wasn't sure if he could do damage control if he ingested that.

"Ah, it's just because a rather insistent visitor had been bothering me for a while. They had been giving me bouquets that I have to force myself to look after. They require a lot of work, and I don't have the energy to do so."

He hummed in response and picked up a few materials. The other seemed to have a eureka moment, as he shuffled into the back room. He emerged out with a bouquet of white lilies and Tsuna's eyebrows wrinkled in confusion.

"Say, could you do me a favor? Could you take this out of my hands?

I've decided to give it to them straight so that I don't have to deal with this type of thing again."

The brunette quietly stepped forward and accepted the fresh, pure white flowers. He felt like the other had urged him strongly to accept it, despite the whining, almost childish complaints that the man spoke out. He felt like, it was the grace that the other was showing for a loss that he couldn't intercept.

When he left the shop, the older man went and sat in front of the checkered mask and started giving it a once over, to give it some maintenance so that it wouldn't break apart. His head bowed down in respect as he quietly tinkered with his tools, eyes lost in memory.

Tsuna returned to the Sawada residence in silence and moved towards the jewelry box stuffed in the depths of his closet and placed the bouquet over it, not bothering about keeping it in a vase to prolong its freshness and liveliness. He moved to the makeup set and replaced the golden contacts with auburn ones and stared outside the window, after all; he no longer required sleep.