15. Guilt
Word Count: 1590
After Chapter 325, before Chapter 328.
The wound on the right side of his face still ached.
Yamamoto stared in the mirror of the men's locker/changing room, one of the two the Vongola Japan HQ base had to offer, eyes dull in reminiscence as he gingerly fingered his face, feeling up where he'd been injured.
There wasn't a single mark on his face; it was completely healed. His fingers didn't particularly trigger any pain either.
But it still ached. It wouldn't go away, as if reminding him that he failed.
He let his friends down.
Yamamoto's jaw clenched and glared at his reflection.
The sound of the door sliding open with a hiss and a loud sigh broke into his thoughts and wiped the animosity off his face as he turned from the reflection to the door. He felt his lips spread in a natural smile as he watched Tsuna drag his feet through the door, hunched over rather comically, and clothing littered in black spots, no doubt burns considering that he was probably training with his box weapon just before arriving.
Tsuna was clearly on auto-drive as he passed Yamamoto without greeting him and walked toward a locker, so Yamamoto widened his smile and called out to him, "Yo, Tsuna!"
Yamamoto tried not to laugh as Tsuna shrieked out, "HIIIIEEE!" and flailed around, startled, and nearly lost his balance when he straightened his poise. Tsuna slammed his hand on the locker to keep himself upright and pinned a startled stare at Yamamoto. It quickly brightened, though the shock still stayed present in his eyes.
"A-ah! Yamamoto!"
Yamamoto fixed Tsuna an easy grin, "Did you just get done with your training?"
Tsuna face blanched with a tired smile, turning away to work on the locker combination, "Sure… If you call getting absolutely nowhere in your practice 'training.'"
Yamamoto laughed, "You and me both! I'm at a standing point in my own training."
'And that's not acceptable. You were already too weak at the Melone Base. You're going to fail everyone again if this continues.'
Yamamoto's smile faltered, but Tsuna remained oblivious to it as he opened his locker. "I don't know what Dino-san was thinking there. Didn't he say something about waiting for somebody else?" Tsuna turned to him, eyes questioning.
Yamamoto hastened to pick his smile back up, "A-ah! I think he was hinting at something but I didn't catch it."
Tsuna's expression sobered, eyes flickering over Yamamoto's features as if assessing and searching. Yamamoto fought to keep the smile on his face at the sudden change in demeanour and tried not to shudder at how exposed he felt with Tsuna staring at him like that. As if he realized what he was doing and was bringing discomfort, Tsuna blinked and gave a sheepish smile that lit Tsuna's eyes up in an apology.
"W-Well, Reborn says you train pretty well on your own. I'm sure you can make at least a little bit of progress on your technique." Tsuna offered a shaky, but encouraging smile that Yamamoto had no urge to return, but did so to ward off Tsuna's worry. Something in Tsuna's eyes flickered, something Yamamoto didn't know whether to decipher or not, but Tsuna turned away before Yamamoto dared to.
Yamamoto sighed inwardly, a silent question passing through his mind as he removed his sweat dampened shirt.
'What am I doing? I'm making Tsuna worry over something he shouldn't…'
He snuck a glance at Tsuna's small form, just in time to see Tsuna pull his shirt over his hair. Yamamoto felt the beginnings of a slight blush begin to crawl across his cheeks, a reaction Yamamoto deemed involuntary since he's seen Tsuna shirtless many times, but white on a creamy peach chest was out of the norm and Yamamoto turned to get a better look.
Yamamoto's breath caught in his throat.
He felt his body tremble as his eyes ran along the ribbons of bandages wrapped snug around Tsuna's torso. His fingers tightened around the shirt in his hands.
'He must have gotten that from a battle in the Melone Base…'
"Hey, Tsuna?" Tsuna turned to him. "What happened there? To…to your body?"
"Eh?" Tsuna's gaze dropped down, a flash of understanding passing in his eyes. "Oh! A-ah…!" Tsuna looked back up, nervousness in his expression. "It's just a couple of wounds; I mean, it's not anything serious."
Yamamoto's smile was wistful and strained.
"Can I see it?"
Tsuna blinked uncertainly, "Um… S-sure, I guess. I was going to have to undo it in the first place since I need a shower…"
Tsuna's hands were surprisingly deft as he hurriedly unhinged the bandages from his skin, and yet, Tsuna seemed to peel the bandages too slowly for Yamamoto as anxiety began to escalate.
The last of the bandages fell to the floor, encircling around Tsuna's feet and slipping from small fingers.
Yamamoto cringed.
Two long cuts clashed each other along the expanse of Tsuna long back, forming a long 'X.'
The creamy peach that was Tsuna's skin tone was now a tint of pink, his wounds on his back irritated from moving the bandages and possibly just walking, never mind what strenuous activity Tsuna might have been doing earlier. The cuts still looked fresh; his skin was raw and raised. Skin curled up and sunk into the wounds as it tried to heal itself, red spots of blood, dried and fresh, lined the cuts. The wound at its deepest, right where the cuts intersected, were bound by stitches weaved together intricately to prevent the wound from opening; however, blood seeped from the bound wound.
Yamamoto raised a shaky hand, eyes transfixed on the wound in morbid fascination, the same morbid feeling bringing the urge to run his fingers over the injury.
Yamamoto's breath was shaky as he gently pressed his fore and middle fingers on the tip of the cut that ran from the top right of his back, down to the bottom left.
Tsuna shuddered.
Yamamoto's hand twitched, wanting to pull back but he didn't want to, really, "I'm sorry. Did that hurt?"
"N-no, i-it didn't." Tsuna looked at Yamamoto from over his shoulder, "I-it just feels strange."
Yamamoto gave a weak nod, so weak he wasn't even sure his head moved at all. He moved his fingers along the cut, expression pained. The wound felt mocking, as if Tsuna's assailant made fun of Tsuna's position as the Vongola Tenth and it almost made Yamamoto press harder onto the wound.
"Who gave this to you?" Yamamoto's voice felt too tight and raw for even him and by the way Tsuna looked at him in surprise, he felt it was out of character for him. Tsuna only smiled patiently with his shaky smile.
"I-I got it from my battle with Genkishi."
Yamamoto's eyes widened and it felt like it was crashing down. What, he didn't know.
Yamamoto looked back at the wound, face pained still, and ran his fingers up the other diagonal slash. Tsuna was going to have such an insulting wound as a permanent scar on his back; Yamamoto just knew this injury wasn't going to heal over nicely.
His jaw tightened and he swallowed thickly.
"I'm sorry, Tsuna."
Tsuna's expression was surprised, "What?"
"This is my fault, this wound is." Yamamoto pressed onto it harder as he dragged his fingers up; he marveled at how Tsuna's back arched away from his touch with a pained whimper. "If I was strong enough, I would have defeated Genkishi on my own. You wouldn't have had to fight him and then you wouldn't have this insult on your back and we'd be home and I-"
It was guilt. Guilt continuously crashed down on him and the realization caused him to pull his hand away with a startled gasp.
"Y-Yamamoto…?"
Yamamoto's hand clenched and a bitter smile formed on his lips. "I let you guys down, huh?"
Silence hung in the air, stretching long enough for both parties to lose grip on its duration.
Tsuna's shaky sigh brought them back as he took a tentative step towards Yamamoto.
"None of us really won the battle in the Melone Base, Yamamoto. I-in the end, we're still stuck in this terrible future."
Yamamoto looked up at Tsuna, words on the tip of his tongue, but the defeated look on Tsuna's features shoved the words down his throat.
"We're still here, another challenge is in the way, and the promise I made to get everybody back home after our tough battle at the Melone Base w-was br-broken." Tsuna's hands fisted at his sides as he looked down at his feet.
"I felt like I let everyone down…"
Panic surged through Yamamoto, "No! You didn't let anyone down Tsuna!"
Tsuna looked back up, a pained glint in his eyes, "Then you aren't so guilty right?"
"I-I-"
Tsuna raised his hand, admiring the Vongola Sky ring with a hollow marvel, "I-It's just like every other time, unfortunately. We have to struggle through another challenge. But to make sure we win this time, we have to get stronger."
Tsuna lowered his hand, eyes boring into Yamamoto's, flames of determination burning in them in contrast to the sheepish look on his face.
"You do understand that right?"
He couldn't let this get to him; he understood. He had to get stronger; he understood.
Yamamoto smiled determinedly, the fire in his own eyes burning.
He wasn't going to feel like a burden again. He wasn't going to let everyone down.
He understood.