16. Shy Person in the Middle of the Crowd
Word Count: 376
In which Yamamoto wasn't the Vongola Rain.
There was something Yamamoto unconsciously yearned for.
He never sees it with his self; he has a team that supports his moves, his accomplishments, his failures, yet when he needs what he yearns for the most, he can't find in his team.
When he wants a companion to walk to school and fro, he knows he can't call up a baseball teammate. When he wants to switch the topic to an anime or video game, he knows the people surrounding him wouldn't get into it; it's all about the girls when it's not baseball. Whenever he wants to play hooky, he knows he can't invite a fellow teammate to skip with him.
What Yamamoto wants is a friend, a companion that can accept him and spend time with him and cherish his company outside the field.
And Yamamoto sees what he wants every day.
There is a crowd of people in his class as he walks in. They're loud in their conversations, varying in craziness and odd topics.
What Yamamoto notices is how they are utterly different from one another, how their personalities clash in ways that clearly say just how they wouldn't even be together if they had no mediator of any sort.
Yamamoto sees the boy in the middle of the group, with quiet, maybe bashful smiles for the lot of them, how each of the members of the crowd tries to talk over the other, excited to give their stories to the boy. Yamamoto sees how the boy accepts all their stories, manages to give them the attention they want, shows them compassion through his eyes.
Yamamoto can see though, how all of their eyes share a burden, a burden they are determined to carry together. It is something others overlook, yet Yamamoto always stares at longingly.
Yamamoto yearns for Sawada Tsunayoshi, that boy in the middle of the crowd.
He yearns for him to look at him with compassion, for him to listen to his conversations, for him to give him attention, for him to pass that burden onto him so he, too, can share with him.
Yamamoto wants to be by Tsuna's side.