CHAPTER 11: CLOSE CALL
Tsuna smiled wryly at the small bird perched on his desk, staring up at Tsuna with big round unreadable eyes. Hibird, they had named it, was hopping about the room. The little thing was lost in its own adventure. Tsuna could understand though, his room was still an alien world to the tiny creature. But he would get used to it. Hibari had a long chat with Hibird. Or what Tsuna believed was a chat, and it turns out that Hibird will be his new guard while Hibari was gone.
"Cheep!" Hibird twittered excitedly when he came across a dormant action figure. He poked at it with his beak as a test, deeming it harmless, Hibird nestled itself next to the inanimate object. That was his purple ranger he had gotten from Kyoko in his tenth birthday. In fact, he had all his gifts from his tenth birthday. Even Ryohei's dumbbells which started collecting dust in the deep confinements of his closet. Gokudera's paintings, however, Nana had politely kept them of course. She saw no reason to return them after the silver haired boy had so lovingly gave them as a gift but only put them in the attic where her son could no longer see them. Tsuna didn't mind in the least.
Tsuna sat on his desk, watching Hibird flutter about the room. Hibari had given the bird specific instructions to stay quiet and stay hidden from the Sawadas when necessary. Otherwise, the bird was able to come and go as he pleased, like his master. But the creature would rather just stay with either Tsuna or Hibari. Apparently the outside world did not hold as much interest than his room did.
"Tsuna!" Iemitsu's voice bellowed from downstairs, "Get ready for school!"
"Okay!" He called back and quickly got dressed. He opened the window just slightly and picked up Hibird, placing him on the window sill, "Meet me downstairs, okay?"
Hibird tweeted and swooped out of the room and into the warm morning air. Tsuna closed the window behind it and made his way downstairs.
"Good morning, Tsu-kun," Nana cooed as she cooked some eggs in the frying pan, "There's some toast in the toaster."
"Okay." Tsuna said and took the hot toast out, and he juggled it as he handled the hot slice of bread. Putting jam on it, he let it hang by his mouth as he gather up his backpack and put on his shoes.
"Tsu-kun, you don't want eggs?" Nana called from the kitchen.
"No thank you!" Tsuna said through a teethful, "I have to meet up with Gokudera-kun and Yamamoto!"
"Okay, be safe and look both ways!"
"I will!" Tsuna reassured, and waved, although there was no one to see it, "Bye!" Tsuna called as he shuffled out and closed the door behind him.
Almost instantly; Hibird was there, perched on the Sawadas' entrance gates. It flapped its wings impatiently and tweeted. Tsuna smiled apologetically, "Sorry, sorry, I'm here now. I hurried as fast as I could."
And they were off. Tsuna raced Hibird down the street towards school. Both of the two liking the way the morning was filling their bodies with excitement and adrenaline. Of course, even Hibird could beat Tsuna in a race and already the boy was tired. What he liked about Hibird—he was so much easier to communicate and have fun with unlike his master. Not that he ever had fun with Hibari, it was just on rare occasions. Rare, scary, occasions. But the two had some things in common. Like how well they got along. Hibari enjoying the company of Hibird and Hibird likewise.
And like his master, Hibird was a guru at hiding.
"Good morning Tenth!" Gokudera screamed as he passed him. Within seconds, Hibird disappeared (flew off into the sky perhaps?), as if he was a fleeting illusion.
Tsuna skidded to a stop then backtracked, panting lightly as he greeted Gokudera, "Good morning, Gokudera-kun. How is it going?"
"It's going well, Tenth!" The taller boy greeted, "How was your morning?"
"G-Great. Running. Bird." Tsuna then realized how his reply didn't make much sense, "Yeah."
Gokudera gave him a mystified look but didn't comment, only choosing to not call him out on it. Suddenly, his face turned sour, "Where's the jock?"
"Yamamoto?" Tsuna questioned, only to shake his head at his own stupidity. He must be lightheaded from the adrenaline. Of course it would be Yamamoto; who else does Gokudera hate and call a jock? "I didn't see him on my way here. Maybe he's at school?"
"Tsuna! Gokudera!"
The two turned to see Yamamoto jogging and grinning over to them, "Good morning! Sorry I'm late, I overslept a bit."
Gokudera only sneered and turned his nose in the other direction, "Hurry up, we're going to be late. That is if you can keep up with the Tenth-the-fast-legs and me."
"A race?" Yamamoto considerably brightened at this and his smile became playfully competitive.
"Ready," Gokudera said, smirking as he positioned himself to run.
"What?—Wait, Gokudera-kun!" Tsuna protested.
"Set…" Yamamoto continued, with an excited whisper.
"Go!" The two boys shouted loudly before sprinting, legs and arms pumping in synchronization. Tsuna gave groaned tiredly and jogged slowly after the two boys.
Tsuna rolled up a sticky note and began prodding his eraser with it. They were in geography, beginning their exploration with a study on innovations and culture. Gokudera was sitting in front of him and he didn't even have to look to know that Gokudera was also dozing off. He sat with his legs on his desk, hands in his pockets, and head bowed to the elaborately-placed book on his lap. Yamamoto was sleeping too, but not as sneakily as Gokudera. The jock was simply laying face down on his textbook and his arms hung limply at his sides.
Tsuna was more considerate of the flustered teacher and gave a far more worthy struggle on staying awake. He too, was close to give up any second until the teacher began a new topic of astrology. The girl next to Tsuna sighed. Gokudera gave a loud snort and startled, he jumped in his seat. He unbristled, grumbling, "Damn, just a dream…" The girl with the glasses caught Gokudera looking at her and she waved her eyelashes bashfully at him. Tsuna blinked and turned his attention back to the teacher, not wanting to get into a mess he knew would come if his friend happened to snap at the moment.
"Isn't astrology wonderful?" The girl whispered, leaning her chair closer. "They're a lot of different signs too, Hayato-kun." The girl continued despite the fact that she knew Gokudera was deliberately ignoring her.
"They're just stars." Gokudera muttered irritably and shuffled to get comfortable.
"We don't have stars where I come from..."
Tsuna gasped and the students around him turned to stare. He'd completely forgotten!
"Excuse me!" Tsuna shouted loudly, his hand darting high up with vigor. Gokudera fumbled with the book on his lap; it almost dropped onto the floor from his surprised jolt. Yamamoto lifted his head from his textbook, eyes droopy but shaken awake and surprised at Tsuna's sudden attention in class.
The teacher jumped and slowly he turned around. He had not expected Tsuna to be so loud today. Usually Gokudera…but… He shook himself to smile kindly. "Yes, Sawada-kun?"
"U-Um," Tsuna began, nervously twiddling his thumbs, "A-Are there any places that doesn't have any stars?"
There was a short pause of silence before the classroom erupted into loud, uncontrollable laughter.
"Are…you serious?" A classmate guffawed in the back gasped for air, gripping his chest.
"My house doesn't have stars, Sawada! Oh, and school too!" A girl teased lightly, giggling in her hand.
"You all shut the hell up!" Gokudera shot out of his seat, spinning to give a spiteful look at all the students, "If you keep laughing, I'll kill you!"
Gokudera's threat seemed to have the opposite effect and the class began laughing harder. The teacher looked absolutely lost in the flurry of his chaotic classroom. Yamamoto was laughing too but slapped Tsuna's back, commenting, "Nice one, Tsuna!" Gokudera was still standing up, looking bewildered as to what little harm his threat did. Usually, the whole class would hush at his voice. Tsuna put his hands to his face and sunk in his chair, as if it would hide him.
He was so stupid…
Tsuna walked home alone later. Yamamoto was staying to play baseball at the park and Gokudera had to stay for music club. His shoulders slumped, and he stared at his feet as he walked. He felt so depressed and tired. Maybe he was tired of having to hide Hibari. Maybe he was tired of Hibari not trusting him. Maybe he was just tired. Perhaps a good night sleep will do him good, he was spending every night with Hibari after all and it did do a toll on his body. He dragged his feet on the sidewalk, occasionally pushing a small pebble or debris by his feet lazily out of the way. Hibird was twittering above him, circling his head. It was keeping sentry while Hibari was gone.
He stopped at his normal intersection. It was one of the most busiest intersections in their neighborhood. It had a good reason though, the intersection connects everything in Namimori. His house to the east, his school to the south, the hospital to the north, and the playground to the west. He watched boredly as the usual cars passed. They always passed this time of day. When the pedestrian green light turned on he began to step forward.
There was a loud bang and the sound of tumbling metal, it's volume increasing as each millisecond passed. That was when the screaming started.
It had happened so fast, it wasn't like the movies at all; where he pictured everything is in slow motion. Tsuna only had enough time to watch as a car was spinning in mid-air down on him. He didn't even have enough time to cry in alarm, only shrink in terror, his feet buckled under him and he was lying on his back. He slammed his eyes and threw an arm over his face. Just when he was so sure he was going to die, and he really did think he died, when he heard this loud sound. The sound of metal snapping together with such ferocity Tsuna couldn't hold back his own scream to join the chorus in the background. Glass popped from the car windows and he was so glad his eyes were closed. The glass rain like hail down on him.
Then all went quiet. The screams and yells of other pedestrians was the only remaining sound.
"Someone call an ambulance!" A man yelled.
"Oh my god, that boy! That boy!" A woman wailed.
Tsuna gasped, he needed some sound from himself—to reassure himself he was alive. He felt no pain at all, just the glass that crunched noisily under his arms as he propped himself up. The opened his eyes and he thought for certain he was dead. It was Hibari in front of him, holding some sort of metal weapon in place, leaving a very large dent on the vehicle that been oh so close to killing him.
Hibari ripped his tonfa out from the dent in the car and turned to face Tsuna, "You're hurt. Stay here, I'll meet you at the hospital." The man said in hushed curt words and hurriedly crawled out the tiny space jumped into an empty trash can in the ally.
Tsuna was bewildered by his words. Hurt? He felt no pain at all. The studied himself, his legs was still curled in his previous fetal position. He roved his eyes over his arms. Then he understood. Glass was protruding his arms, sticking out in disgusting angles. Blood wasn't flowing freely, yet. The glass acted as a plug. Now that he knew it was there, he was starting to feel the pain. The sight made Tsuna's stomach churn and he tried to study the car to keep his mind off of it. The car was completely trashed, the windows were all broken but the car was kneeling in an awkward way. The concrete building behind Tsuna acted as a lever to keep the vehicle's front up, making it look like a disturbing makeshift tent. Under the car and between the building isn't exactly what Tsuna had in mind on an after school activity. Wait a second...Where was Hibird? Wasn't he with him just before the accident? Wildly, Tsuna looked around for any sign of his new friend. Maybe he went with Hibari?
He could hear the sirens of the ambulance and police a few distances away. It won't be long until they were here.
"We have to push this car out of the way!" A man grunted.
"Hello? Hello? Are you okay?" A woman asked blindly.
"No way," Another woman said grimly, "There is no way he ever survived that."
At her reply, the first woman gave a despaired cry. Didn't they see Hibari save him? How could they not? Well, it was understandable. The car and building did obscure the daring rescue.
"I-I'm alright." Tsuna croaked, struggling to raise his voice over the pleas and screaming, "Please get this off of me."
"Oh my god! He's alive!" The woman gasped, "Hurry!" She snapped determinedly, voice shaky, "Move the car! Hurry!"
"We can't," A man replied with panic evident in his voice, "There isn't enough people."
A girl stamped her foot and growled, "Where are the police? Where the hell are they?"
As if on cue, the ambulance's sirens grow louder and the cars skidded to a halt with a grating sound of squealling tires. By the time the medics and police got out, Tsuna was tapping his finger impatiently. At the loud unison of grunting from five different men, the car was lifted gingerly, the sound of metal scraped the concrete as it was dragged hurriedly away and within minutes the car was up and away from him. The women gasped at Tsuna's unscathed state. Well, almost unscathed besides the gross glass shard in his arms. "It's a miracle." One of them gasped, "It's a true to god miracle…"
The medical team swirled around him asking him questions. He struggled to keep up with them and they prodded and poked everywhere. He yelped in surprise when one of them picked him up and placed him on the stretcher. This was a mistake, because the yelp was mistaken as a cry of pain and it brought a new onslaught of questions. As they loaded him into the truck, he heard the witnesses talking to the police in panicky voices.
"I'm not lying! I really saw the car fly fifty feet in the air then drop on the boy! It was just so unreal!"
"He's not lying! I saw it too! I-I think I saw a man standing in front of the boy, but he just disappeared!"
"Please, calm down. Take deep, slow breaths." The police man gruffed professionally in between their stuttered testimonies.
"We are calm, dammit! We're telling the goddamn truth! And we can breathe just fine, thank you very much!" The witness retorted angrily.
The rest of the argument drowned out by the slamming of the ambulance doors. Fifty feet? How long was that? He couldn't tell he was too tired. The medics kept asking questions of his wellbeing, how did his arm feel, how is your hands, do you feel any pain in either of your legs? Tsuna sighed and closed his eyes and pretended to go to sleep.
"No, no." One of the medics said, tapping him on the cheek lightly, "You may have a concussion."
"What?" Tsuna asked, staring wildly at the medic. What was a concussion?
Seeing the question in Tsuna's wide eyes the medic only shook his head, "Just stay awake, okay? No sleeping." The ride to the hospital was overall boring. Other than the occasional questions from the medics and the constant ringing of the sirens all was quiet. When they arrived, the chaos ensued once again. They brought him onto a caster bedding and wheeled him to the emergency room. Tsuna scrunched his nose. He hated the smell of hospitals. You could even taste the smell of plastic gloves in the air. It was dark in the ER except for the lights directing on the operation table. His stomach turned. He'd be on there soon.
A medic turned to Tsuna and asked a simple one last question, "Would you rather be awake when they take the glass out of you?"
Tsuna blanched and the medic nodded, taking that as an answer. The medic turned to a nurse, "Give him some sedatives to knock him out during the operation."
The nurse nodded and turned towards Tsuna, "This isn't going to hurt one bit, okay? Close your eyes, sweetie."
Tsuna did as he told and gasped as a needle attached to an IV was prodded into the crook of his elbow. "Shhh, shhh." The nurse hushed reassuringly and pushed him on his back. "Now relax, sweetheart. It'll all be over soon."
Tsuna let out a small wail and concentrated on calming himself down. The world around him began to become fuzzy and blank. He could distinctly hear the doctor speaking to him and introducing himself but he was too far off to care. Maybe it was the drug's help but he started to dream about Hibari.
A/N: The website changed their logo. I was staring at it for a few minutes, wondering what the heck it was then I found out it was actually "FANF" just really, really close together.
ABOUT THE MANGA: Ghost is gone but oh shit! Byakuran is really strong! And what the heck is with his angel wings? I don't know why but it pisses me off to see angel wings on him. Argh it's just like on bad thing after another. I hope Tsuna will be okay. I can't help but feel so very proud of him. He used to be such a useless boy but now he's so strong! I liked how Mukuro admitted that he was swayed by Chrome and Tsuna. That was just too cute.
FANART: By yours truly! Yup, I also did a fanart of Boogie Man. It's to celebrate the 10k hit! You can find it here, ( http : / jikage . deviantart . com /art/ 1827-The-Boogie-Man-by-Jikage-151387812 ) Remember to disregard the spaces in the link!