Tsuna took a moment to berate himself for not remembering his flames earlier.
If he was actually able to light them, then that would mean that it hadn't all been a dream, right?
If he was able to light them, then that would meant that he could get his friends back, that he could get his life back.
The fact that he didn't even have a ring didn't register as a problem in Tsuna's mind; the brunet had long been able to go into hyper dying will mode at will.
Closing his eyes, Tsuna thought of his friends, his guardians, and tried to imagine how they would be feeling if they were in the same situation as him.
It would be painful, he knew; they'd all grown so close over the years. Thinking that he had to get them all out of this situation, he fed his determination, trying to go into his hyper dying will mode.
And for one breath-taking second, Tsuna thought he felt the telltale signs of his shoulders relaxing, his mind becoming more organized, but then that second was gone, and the brunet opened his eyes to see that he was still the same, old, useless Dame-Tsuna.
Letting out a growl of frustration, he threw his pillow at the wall and decided to try again. And again. And again.
Almost half an hour had passed before Tsuna finally decided to give up, decided that it really had all been a dreaming, and that he was acting silly, trying to get a flame to sprout from his forehead.
Screaming in frustration, he collapsed onto his bed, face-first. He stayed there for several full minutes, his mind replaying a quote from the infant that had been his tutor.
Stop trying to be such a hero, Dame-Tsuna.
The words kept replaying over and over in his head, and Tsuna kept wondering what exactly it meant to him.
Finally, though, he settled on the thought that maybe he should stop trying to get his position as Vongola Decimo back.
Tsuna thought on this for a moment, then came to a very sensible decision.
Even if he couldn't get his "dream" life back, that didn't necessarily mean that he couldn't still have parts of it.
What was to stop him from, say, going over to a certain sushi store and seeing if one Yamamoto Takeshi wasn't willing to be friends with him in real life after all?
With this new thought in mind, Tsuna quickly jumped off his bed, threw on a pair of shoes, and headed out the door, knowing that at this time of day, his soon-to-be friend would be helping out in the store…at least, that's how it had been in the dream. What if it was different in real life?
Shaking his head to get these thoughts out, Tsuna just kept running, deciding to deal with that bridge if he came to it.
Now, the only thing in his mind was befriending his best friend.
Yamamoto Takeshi was helping his father out with their sushi store, as usual. But what was not usual was that the boy didn't seem to be enjoying his work.
"Takeshi?" asked his father suddenly, startling his son a little. "Is there something wrong?"
Takeshi took in his father's worried gaze, and slapped a smile on his face, saying, "Not at all! Why would anything be wrong?"
When Tsuyoshi fixed him with a level stare that said he wasn't buying it, Takeshi let his smile dim a little.
"I'm fine, really dad," he insisted.
And just at that moment, they heard the bell over the door ring, and someone entered the restaurant.
Takeshi turned to greet the customer, relieved that he had been saved from answering his father's questions, but froze upon seeing who it was.
There stood one very familiar brunet, shifting from foot to foot and looking a little uncomfortable.
When he caught his eye, the other male smiled shyly and said, "Hello, Yamamoto-san. I didn't know that you worked here!"
Maybe he was just imagining it, but the way Tsuna said those words, they sounded almost…scripted.
Shaking his head to get this weird thought out, Yamamoto just smiled casually at the boy and said the lines that would be expected of him, "Oh, I don't just work here, my family owns the restaurant."
Tsuna's eyes widened a little, but even this reaction didn't seem natural. "That's pretty cool, Yamamoto-san! I hope you won't mind if I come here often, then!"
Takeshi just stared at the boy, trying to process his words; here was Tsuna, the man that Takeshi thought of almost as a brother, someone that the baseball player thought that he'd lost, and he was offering to be friends!
It wasn't quite as good as what they'd had before, but it was the next best thing, and he'd be darned if he gave this chance up!
Smiling widely, genuinely, he said, "I guess that means we're friends then, ne?"
Meanwhile, in a hospital in a far away country named Italy, a certain silveret woke up from a deadly coma.
It took the boy all of ten minutes to realize what exactly was going on, and when he did, he felt a sense of betrayal and loss wash over him.
He knew that whatever he had witnessed in his dreams was far too real to be just a dream, so that left only one possibility; someone was trying to control him, they had given him these fake memories to fabricate a sense of compassion for that boy, but it wouldn't work.
The moment he was well enough to leave the hospital, Hayato Gokudera would fly to Japan, and he would destroy the one known as Tsunayoshi Sawada!
At the same time, in another place in Italy, a certain infant hitman looked up at his boss, his face carefully blank.
"You've decided, then, Nono?" he asked.
The aforementioned man, Nono, nodded, saying, "We have no other choice."
"And his father is okay with it?"
"He was very against it at first, but we were able to convince him otherwise."
"Then I will be going to Japan soon?"
"That's right, Reborn, your job is to tutor Tsunayoshi Sawada to become the Vongola Decimo."
SkyGem: Well then, there's that chapter done and over with! I hope you guys enjoyed it, ne? Please do leave a review and let me know what you thought!