Chapter 7 tells of a secret being made known
"You sure woke up early this morning," Asari waved to Giotto who appeared in the kitchen as early as six in the morning.
"Early? That's considered late already!" G scoffed and stood up from his seat, straightening his shirt and smoothing out all the creases. "We were supposed to leave the inn at six."
Giotto groaned inwardly. "Relax, G. We will make it on time. It only takes fifteen minutes to get there."
"If we sprint," G added on. "I can't believe that you are telling the kid behind you to run along with us too."
Tsuna fidgeted uncomfortably. He wasn't used to the attire he was in right now, and he would rather stay in the inn than tag along to visit a grave of a person that he had never met before. However, the problem was that Tsuna didn't know how much longer he would be able to stay in this time frame and he would, of course, prefer to spend every minute exploring a little more of the town and know more about the past of Vongola – the renowned mafia familgia that he would inherit in the future.
"There there, G you should learn how to relax," Asari grinned and handed the red headed teenager a basket. "Make sure to have fun later!"
G facepalmed – He didn't get how it was possible for people to have fun when visiting a grave. However, that doubt was quickly forgotten when he opened the basket Asari gave him and saw a large amount of food in it. "You idiotic flute freak! What's with the amount of food? How many times must I tell you that we are not going for a freaking picnic?"
"It's one hundred percent okay that we are taking all these along! Just leave it to me to finish all of it!" Giotto shot Asari a thumbs up and quickly grabbed the entire basket of food before G could do any form of damage to the delicious dishes inside.
"Um... Isn't Asari-san coming along?" Tsuna asked tentatively and turned a slight shade of blue when G turned to him with an expression on his face that read 'I'm very pissed off right now so keep silent or I shall cut off your tongue and cook it for breakfast'.
"Nope! He said that it was impossible for anyone else to be able to run the inn efficiently besides himself since everyone has to leave for work and Asari refuses to close the store for the day because he says that it's betraying the customers who really want to eat the inn's food for the day."
"Right..." Tsuna trailed off, wondering why on earth did Asari suddenly want to use the inn to start a small shop to sell food. "But isn't Knuckle there as well? He can help, can't he?"
Giotto laughed awkwardly. "Maybe, but he broke three plates in just two minutes when he was trying to help yesterday."
Tsuna tried hard to keep back his urge to burst into laughter. Knuckle was way worse then him – even though he could guess that it was generally due to Knuckle's monstrous strength that the plates actually broke – at least Tsuna didn't have a record of being able to break so many things in such a short span of time.
"Giotto, don't you think that we should walk a little bit faster..." Tsuna gulped when he realised a dark glare being directed at them and quickly upped his speed by a notch.
o0o0o
Tsuna looked upon the small stone set in the ground with several words carved into it – a grave.
"It's my dad's," Giotto knelt in front of the stone and closed his eyes. The blond's lips moved continuously like he was saying a long list of things to his dead father and Tsuna would occasionally hear Giotto mentioning his name as well.
G guided Tsuna over to the shade under a tree and made him sit on the mat. "Giotto's father loved the town very much and died while trying to protect it."
"I-Is that why Giotto wants to... protect this town too?" Tsuna questioned even though he knew that it was wrong for him to attempt to dig up information in Giotto's absence.
"Not really, I just happen to like the town as much as my father did," Giotto chuckled and got up from the ground. "Now then, shall we go home?"
G rolled his eyes. "That was fast. You took several hours last year."
"That was different! I had more things to say the last year, but I only have two main things to say this year – meeting Tsuna and the setting up of Vongola!"
Tsuna blinked and raised a hand up into the air to signal that he was going to speak soon. "Um... You forgot about Knuckle."
Giotto froze and the atmosphere seemed to darken a little before Giotto started to officially freak out. "Yeah you are right! Crap! Hey, dad? Are you here? Can you still hear me? Don't go away yet! I forgot to tell you something else just now-!"
o0o0o
On the way back, Giotto seemed to be happy for some unknown reason and kept grinning. On the other hand, G seemed to have calmed down from his outburst that morning and finally stopped glaring at everything in his path.
And Tsuna learnt something very interesting about G today. If he was ever furious with you, all you have to do is just to pat him on the head, call him a good boy and tell him to forgive you. According to Giotto, this method worked perfectly every single time and the blond had even taken the effort to demonstrate to him several minutes ago.
"What do you want to eat for dinner, Tsuna?"
The brunet managed to pause in time so he was able to stop himself from knocking into Giotto who was suddenly standing in front of him. Hamburgers! "A-Anything is fine!"
"You aren't helping me to come to a decision at all," Giotto frowned slightly and turned to the other person. "G? What about you?"
"Bread."
Giotto's face fell slightly. "Really? But isn't bread a little too...? And it is barely filling and I'll-"
As expected, G's eyebrows twitched in anger and his fist connected with the back of Giotto's head in the next second. "Don't ask someone something if you don't intend to listen to them!"
"But, G, bread is indeed a little-" Giotto began abruptly but a loud bang from a gun which was followed closely by screaming and the sound of people running and hiding was enough to interrupt whatever he was about to say. "Stand back. There are enemies around."
Giotto's voice became a tad bit lower and more authoritative and Tsuna found himself obediently stepping away from the blond. The brunet knew that he would get in the way if he stood around, and it wasn't like he could get into his Hyper Dying Will Mode to help in the fight – if he did so, he would have to reveal the fact that he came from the future and Tsuna preferred not to let that happen.
"A-Aren't you going to help?" Tsuna asked G who had taken refuge from the mass of bullets raining down from the sky.
G rolled his eyes. "No way. The gun I'm carrying right now can't hit that far and Giotto is better equipped to deal with such situations."
You mean by flying through the sky and becoming an easy target for the enemies?
"But he'll get injured!" Tsuna hissed in reply as he watched the blond wincing when a bullet made contact with the side of his thigh, tearing the skin.
"I'll treat his wounds later. For now, we'll have to trust Giotto's strength," G muttered and pulled out his gun, easily taking down several of the enemies within range.
Tsuna looked up at the blond soaring though the sky, darting around quickly to dodge a few vital attacks. None of his movements were superfluous and it looked as if Giotto was taunting the enemy rather than actually putting in effort to fight properly.
Was he going to be alright?
But it seemed that Tsuna didn't had to worry since all of the hidden enemies were taken out minutes later. G cleared the enemies on the ground and within range while Giotto was responsible for the others who were hiding up on higher floors or were further away. Words were not needed to convey their battle formation and that was what took the enemies by surprise.
"So? Who sent you? Why are you after Giotto's life?" G demanded. He grabbed the poor injured man by his throat and started to shake him vigorously. "Spit it out!"
The poor man started choking and struggled in G's iron grip. "P-Put me d-down... I'll s-speak..."
"Let him go, G. He's turning blue already! If you keep this up, he'd die!" Giotto freaked out and pried at G's fingers.
Noting the fact that his victim was about to die from lack of air, G quickly let him go and the injured person fell heavily onto the ground – if their only source of information was gone, it would be troublesome to attempt to find others instead. "Now, speak."
"I... I'm from the Jozue familgia. We... are here to take out the Vongola familgia..."
Giotto blinked twice. "Familgia? You mean, like a mafia familgia? B-But we are only a vigilante group! And I created Vongola to defeat the mafia and bandits! There's no way that we would join the mafia!"
Tsuna stayed silent while he watched Giotto and G bickering with the teenager. He knew that the vigilante group created to protect the people had indeed became part of the mafia in the end and this was probably the turning point.
"Not part of the mafia?" The boy croaked hoarsely and quickly attempted to clear his throat. "Don't be ridiculous! It is impossible for someone to not be a part of the mafia and yet be able to stand up against them. You guys have been seen as a threat to us and even the government has labeled all of you as a new mafia familgia – the Vongola familgia."
"Being an enemy of the mafia world does not make me into a mafia member!" Giotto tried to explain his situation to the best of his ability.
"That doesn't concern me at-" The boy tried to stand up but fell limply to the ground less than a second later, with blood oozing out from the gunshot wound on his forehead.
As if on cue, Giotto lit his dying will flame again. "So there were still enemies? Where are they?"
Constantly reminding himself to be on guard, Tsuna spun around quickly and started to search for the enemy. Of course, Reborn had given him training on using an efficient and effective way to spot the enemy – and those training tips would certainly come in handy here.
Tsuna spotted a dark shadow on the third level of the building right in front of them. There was someone hiding there and there was no doubt that he was pointing a gun straight at Giotto.
The worse thing was that the blond was looking in the opposite direction and wasn't aware of the man hiding in the building. There was no way that Giotto would be able to anticipate and dodge the incoming bullet!
Tsuna knew that he had to do something quickly... but what could he do?
Against his better judgment, Tsuna dived in front of Giotto's back and instantly created a large wall of flame that glowed a bright shade of orange. The flames absorbed the impact from the contact and fired the bullet back at the direction that it came from, eliciting a loud scream from the person who was hit.
Giotto turned at the sound of the scream and saw the last of Tsuna's flames before they disappeared. "Tsuna... That was... Were those dying will flames?"
Crap! Why did I do that for? I should have just shouted for Giotto to be careful! N-Now he's going to find out that I'm... I came from the future!
"HIEEEE? Wh-What are dying will flames? Nothing happened just now, nothing at all! Hahaha!" Tsuna decided to follow Plan A, which was to play dumb and act as if nothing happened. However, he failed to consider the fact that apart from Giotto, there was a high possibility that G saw his flames.
"Who exactly are you? Don't tell me that you are a member of the Jozue familgia?" G demanded in a threatening tone while pointing his gun straight at Tsuna's head. If G decides to squeeze the trigger, Tsuna knew that he would be gone in a flash – he wouldn't have enough time to dodge, not with that close proximity.
Unlike the last time, Cozart was not around to help stop G and it didn't seem like Giotto would lend him a hand either. Well, at least he should be glad that Giotto wasn't trying to kill him as well, seeing as he had been the one trying to keep secrets from them.
Oh god, why can't the ten year bazooka just recover this very instant and send him back home? He didn't want to be shot repeatedly by a gun and have his life punched out of him!
"My hyper intuition tells me that you don't have any ill intentions and you even saved me from that bullet earlier. But, I'm interested to know where you are from, Tsunayoshi."
The brunet took a deep breath and prepared himself mentally for what he had to say next. Despite knowing that this day would definitely arrive sooner or later, somehow, he still felt uneasy about saying the truth out. Even so, the brunet understood that he didn't have a choice in this life and death situation. He totally sucked at lying and knew that if he told one, it would be exposed on the spot – and so, telling the truth seemed to be a better course of action for Tsuna. Yes, he had to say it.
"I'm from the future."
o0o0o
Giotto bit at the piece of bread in his hands. He and Tsuna were currently in a small shop and G had went off first, leaving the two of them alone together.
"Okay... So what you are saying is that you are the Vongola Decimo and you live in a small town in Japan called Namimori. Several days ago, during breakfast you made a five year old kid upset and he pulled a bazooka out of his afro, hit the weapon against the wall and somehow, it slipped out of his hands and hit you. Because of this, you were sent 400 years into the past."
"Y-Yes, that's right," Tsuna nodded and felt his face burning up when Giotto burst into laughter. "What's so funny?"
"Nothing much, I was just thinking if this was the reason why everything clicks together so perfectly."
Tsuna raised an eyebrow in confusion. "Clicks together? Everything?"
Giotto grinned. "Yeah. Like how you fell out of the sky and called me Vongola Primo when we met for the very first time."
"O-Oh," Tsuna replied. At first he was fearful that the blond might not accept his explanation but it seemed that he did right now. However, that does not mean that Giotto believed it, and no matter what, Tsuna was at fault for not thinking before acting earlier and now that he revealed his secret, he had to make sure that the situation didn't get out of hand - God knows who might attempt to change the future and make everything go out of hand? "B-But can you promise me to keep this to yourself? I-If others know of this, they might create a time paradox, and then..."
"It's okay. I promise you that I'll definitely not say anything to the others. But how much time do you have left in this time frame?"
Tsuna's face fell slightly. "I don't know... But I'm sure that I'll probably have to leave sometime soon." That was true since Tsuna knew for sure that the others must be devising some way for him to return to the future right now, and it wasn't like he actually wanted to stay here, right?
It wasn't possible for him to keep staying in this time frame either. His mother would be worried and he had friends back at Namimori too.
"I see. Then I guess my new job is to make sure that every second of your time here is so fun that you won't forget about it when you return back to the future!"
Giotto flashed a bright grin at Tsuna and the brunet immediately felt his face turning a slight shade of pink.
Confused and a little embarrassed, Tsuna quickly lowered and concentrated his gaze on the piece of bread in his hands. Recently, it seemed to him that he always faced a little trouble remembering to breathe and would never fail to blush when Giotto looked at him, especially when he had that bright yet gentle smile on.
And his heart felt like it was actually beating a hundred times faster than when he saw his first ever crush – Sasagawa Kyoko – in school.
Having such fuzzy emotions kind of reminded him of a school girl falling in love with the boy seated right next to her in class. However, there was no possible way for him to be able to fall in love with Giotto! God, that guy was his great-great-great grandfather and even if he was not, Giotto would be a pile of bones by the time Tsuna was born - if he wasn't bombed to smithereens beforehand, or decayed into dust already.
And he wasn't some naïve school girl who thinks of nothing but love either.
"What are you thinking about, Tsuna? Or is that piece of garlic bread really that delicious?"
The brunet gasped when he was pulled back into reality by Giotto's voice. "HIEEE? N-No! That's not it!"
"Then what is the problem?" Giotto questioned. "And I don't think that you should speak that loudly when you are saying that the food cooked by others are not up to your expectations."
Tsuna spun around to see that all the staff in the shop – including the older woman in charge of sweeping the floor – seemed to be glaring angrily at him. "I-I didn't mean that it tasted nasty! It's the most delicious bread that I've ever eaten! I swear!"
"Haha, why are you so-"
"S-Say Giotto, why don't we go home already? I'm sure the others will be worried if we stay out any later, right?" Tsuna quickly interrupted when he felt more dark glares being directed at himself. Jeez, why did he always say something wrong? Why was he the only one always causing misunderstandings?
"If you say so," Giotto replied placed a bill on the table before proceeding to drag Tsuna, who was currently frozen with shock, out of the store and down the path towards the inn.
Needless to mention, Tsuna flushed at the contact and immediately struggled futilely to get free. "W-Wait, Giotto!"
Stopping for a short moment, Giotto turned around and stuck his tongue out at the brunet before continuing to pull Tsuna along while he raced down the winding streets at breakneck speed.
"Sorry but I'm not going to let go of you, Tsuna."
Author's notes: And that's another chapter done! Tsuna is finally starting to understand his feelings for Giotto, but Giotto... hmm... let's see... still treats Tsuna like a good friend? Either that or he doesn't know of his own feelings yet. (I'm rooting for the latter. And Giotto, start liking Tsuna already!) And so, I'm going to start introducing the other guardians into the story so it wouldn't seem like I'm only focusing on G and Asari that much then (: