So a new chapter! This one is considerably longer…=_=;
This chapter is more aimed at just Tsuna and what happens at school.
Secret 29: Thanks! And again, thanks for the editing! I don't have a beta, so it's appreciated when someone picks up a mistake I've missed.
TomatoSandwich27: Thank goodness! I hope you like this chapter too! And the rest of the story. 83
Lexie-chan94: Doing so now! XD Thanks for reading!
Ayz283: Thank you! And I'm working on it! :DD
So thank you all reviewers! Much appreciated encouragement!
"italics with quotes" means thoughts
"Just italicized words" is just emphasize.
Warning: As per request, this IS YAOI. So beware. I don't want flames about this being boyxboy.
Disclaimer: Only the one OC I threw in for plot belongs to me. The rest belongs to Akira Amano.
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You'd think that after all the asses Tsuna kicked and all the challenges he'd overcome, Tsuna would be just a little bit…cooler. At least, cooler than he was before all this started.
"He kicked the…balls…and stepped."
Yeah….not getting there anytime soon.
"No, Sawada," the teacher sighed. "It's 'he kicked the ball into the goal.' How in the world did you mess up this one sentence so badly?"
Tsuna allowed his face to meet his desk as the rest of the classroom burst into laughter. The desk and his face had a very intimate relationship after all this time, and this wouldn't be their first meeting. As usual, Gokudera started yelling at the classroom as a whole (though his face was a bit red for some reason) while Yamamoto laughed it up innocently while cheerfully encouraging Tsuna. This in turn caused Gokudera to turn his attentions to the baseball player and yell at him.
"Hayato-kun…," Tsuna murmured with a hint of exasperation.
"Yes, Tenth?!"
Tsuna started and blinked wildly, trying to rid himself of the hallucination of puppy dog ears and a tail suddenly appearing on his suddenly very close right-hand man (when had he acknowledged that?! He wasn't going to a mafia boss!). Ever since he started calling his friends by their first name, just saying their name suddenly drew their attention to him. He'd never admit it, but it sometimes felt like suddenly, he had a ball that all the dogs wanted to play with.
Of course, he continued to call Hibari-san likewise. His attention was NOT something Tsuna wanted.
"P-please calm do-own."
"If it's for you, Tenth, I'll be as calm as the most serene of lakes!"
"You do that, Hayato," Tsuna muttered doubtfully under his breath as he let his head rest on the oh-so-cool surface of the desk. Thank god for small miracles right?
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That passing thought he had earlier? The one where he may not be that dame for have surviving Reborn? Yeah, that one? He takes it back. He is very dame. Why the sudden squashing of an earlier passing thought?
Because Tsuna is reminded that—aside from his fail grades, his fail sports ability, his fail attitude—his luck was shit. Just…shit.
And there was nothing to remind him of this better than his current situation. One where he is surrounded by a group of guys who use to bully him before Reborn's arrival (via. befriending the popular Yamamoto and the explosive Gokudera). And not in the way that most his classmates did with their jokes and all-around (comparatively) good natured jabs. This was the group from the other class that liked to use him as a gopher, took pleasure in seeing how much he'd squirm and how much pain they could put him in.
Yeah. The one time during lunch that Gokudera is called to talk with a teacher and Yamamoto is at a baseball club meeting, Tsuna decides to just go to the restroom. The restroom. Of all the restrooms, he walked into the one that this group had decided to smoke in for the day. And they look bored. Or more specifically, they look liked bored people who just had entertainment walk through the door. Quite literally.
What in the world had Tsuna done in his past life to have such shitty luck?
"Well, if it isn't Dame-Tsuna?"
And in no time, he was surrounded.
"You've gotten pretty popular lately, haven't you? It seems like you've forgotten all about us lately!"
"Yeah, and us being such good friends! We're hurt!"
Tsuna swallowed loudly, trembling as his eyes darted for an escape route. He could see where this was going.
A good couple of beatings later, Tsuna found himself stiffly rubbing the cheek that had early met one of the sink faucets. His only saving grace was that most of the marks he had now acquired were hidden by his uniform. His friends would overreact, and even his current tormentors were still afraid of his friends (coughGokuderacough) to some degree. There was also a silent, nonverbal, and unspoken agreement on both parts that this incident would never reach Hibari.
Tsuna had stopped truly fearing these kinds of tormentors a long time ago. Even before Reborn came, more than anything, he empathized with his tormentors. Or at least, he understood who was and who wasn't necessarily a bad person. This wasn't and couldn't be entirely healthy, but he dealt with it. Now though, what he truly feared was losing what little respect he had with Hibari and the pride his friends seemed to place in him. They were not afraid to go up against normal civilians, but Tsuna was still deadly afraid of hurting others. These two conflicting ideals in this kind of situation lead to the resulting almost secretive (luckily rare) beatings.
"Hey, hey! Look at this thing! It's kinda cool!"
"Cool?! Are you screwed up in the head or something?! Who wears this kind of stuff anyways?"
"Gao!?"
Tsuna's neck nearly snapped at how fast he turned to see exactly what the three bigger boys had in their hands. Surely enough, the tormentor with the particularly sharp face was toying with his rings and the chain that attached them. He pulled at the chain before starting to nonchalantly twirling the bigger ring by the smaller ring.
"Gao!"
And somewhere in Tsuna, something started cracking.
There was no telling who was more surprised at what happened next. Tsuna, or the sharp-faced boy whose wrist Tsuna just grabbed. Not that Tsuna showed it, but he was still distantly surprised at the simple but uncharacteristically (to most) straightforward action.
"Give that back," Tsuna ordered quietly, glowing eyes staring up at the student holding Natsu in his hand. He made no move to grab Natsu, but his eyes bore seem to bore into the other's taller boy's skull. "It isn't yours."
All three tormentors felt the change, and each of them was suddenly very uncomfortable. The Dame-Tsuna they knew was the small, panicky, dorky kid they made to do their work and ran around in his underwear. He was the Dame-Tsuna that was weak and puny and was the worst at absolutely everything. No matter how badly somebody did, they knew they could never do as badly as the Dame-Tsuna. And maybe that's what made torment Tsuna so in the first place. It didn't matter if they were the scum of society. Even they were better than Dame-Tsuna. Better than this weak cowardly kid that couldn't do ANYTHING.
For a while, they couldn't approach him as the shorty was constantly tailed by lackeys he made from the Yamamoto and Gokudera. Later on, he even procured the company of the school idol Kyoko and her boxing captain brother. Every day, a bunch of people who didn't even belong to the school seemed to appear to accompany Tsuna whenever given (usually just forcefully taken) the chance. Transfer students especially seemed to flock around the brunette as of late. This irked people like these three boys currently surrounding Tsuna. What could it be said about them when suddenly, Dame-Tsuna seemed to be so popular and surrounded by friends. Not even just dorky, nerdy, geeky friends and weirdoes, but also popular people like Yamamoto and Kyoko (and to some extent, Gokudera). And no one missed how the Dame-Tsuna recently seemed to be on considerably better terms with the feared Hibari Kyouya and the busty Adelheid.
Many in the school had long acknowledged that something had changed in Tsuna, though no one did so out loud. People took notice of how when he walked past, he simply seemed so much…brighter. There was a light in his face that made him look so open and kind. He was still dame, of course. But now, people were starting to take notice of more than his dame-ness. They took notice of the gentle looks he had around his friends, of how fluffy his hair seemed and how big his eyes were. They took notice that he really was always polite and courteous to everybody (despite that they bullied him), and how patient he was (which was amazing considering his crowd…).
He was…very cute. And as of late, people were starting to notice his potential.
But never had anybody seen it quite like how these three boys were currently seeing it. Suddenly, Tsuna looked older, more mature, and just…not dorky. His bangs hung just right over his eyes and framed his face handsomely. His eyes became half-lidded and his blank face conveyed only a kind of gravity. He stood straighter, shoulder squared, with a sort of calm confidence and one hell of a commanding presence.
For the first time, members outside of Tsuna's group and family saw the potential that had dazzled and still blindsides friends and enemies alike within the Mafia.
And it scared these bullies in so many ways.
For one, an entity inside each boy recognized that this was not foe that they could beat when at this level. An angry Dame-Tsuna, they thought they could deal with. But…this was someone they didn't recognize. This serious, boss-like figure with the glowing, penetrating, blank stare was unrecognizable and scary.
But their pride wouldn't allow them to back down from this person. Logic dictated this was still Dame-Tsuna, and their beings quailed at the thought of letting him beat them. Backing down meant admitting Dame-Tsuna was better than them, that he was better and had beat them at something. It meant let Dame-Tsuna win!
And that was unthinkable.
"So what?" the sharp-faced boy countered, his arm tense in Tsuna's grip. He suddenly gasped as the grip of that small, delicate hand squeezed. "You fu—"
"What's going on here?"
All four heads snapped towards the figure standing at the bathroom doorway. Tsuna nearly face-faulted upon recognizing exactly who was standing before them in a neat brown suit.
"Who the fuck are you?"
Reborn raised a bored eyebrow. "I am Reboyama-sensei. I'll be teaching Algebra II starting today. And you three would be…?"
"On their way," Tsuna interrupted firmly. Plucking combined Natsu ring and the Vongola Ring from distracted fingers, he quickly ushered the three boys out. The sudden appearance of a new threat caused the three bigger boys to do as Tsuna bid without protest, though not without some dark looks and rude, poorly hidden hand gestures. Still, the urge to get away from the new teacher who was looking at them with a particularly frightening look in his eyes outweighed their urge to deal with their newfound uncertainty with Tsuna.
Meanwhile, Reborn turned to Tsuna with searching look in his dark eyes. Grabbing Tsuna's chin, he leaned forward while pulling the boy closer to examine the injuries on his face.
"If Giotto catches wind that you're still be bullied, he'll throw a hissy fit and issue orders to have those three killed and made examples of."
Tsuna moaned in exasperation, tensing before relaxing in Reborn's grip and letting the taller man examine the bruise on his cheek. "Dad won't know anything if you don't tell him."
Reborn shrugged before letting go of Tsuna's chin, shoving his hands back in his pockets. "He has other resources besides me. It's not too bad. Nowaki says she has a quick fix for bruises the other day. Meanwhile, when are you going to tell your Guardians you're being harassed?"
"Never," was Tsuna's immediate, firm answer and ignored the twinge he felt at Reborn familiarly addressing their house guest by her first name. When had they had time to talk about quick fixes for bruises anyways? "And I'm sure Mikazuki-san has better things to do than just looking at every bruise I have." "Most of them are from you anyways." "There's no use worrying about it. I've always been bullied, you know that. I'm just lucky it doesn't happen more often now. I'll tell them I tripped down the stairs and that'll be that."
"They won't be happy once they catch wind of this," Reborn warned. "I'm not happy with this," his thoughts echoed in his mind.
"As long as you don't tell them, they won't find out," Tsuna emphasized gently. "So please don't Reborn. They're civilians, and they aren't bad people. Just stressed and pressured. If you tell Dad or the others, those guys will get hurt."
"They hurt you," Reborn suddenly shot out, his arm shooting past Tsuna to grip the edge of a sink behind the younger. The resulting position was Tsuna not quite, but almost sandwiched between the sink and the man towering over him. Said man continued sternly, but his suddenly deadly quiet voice lost none of the hard intensity. "You are the sky, Tsuna. It only makes sense that they—" "We" "—want to get rid of—" "eliminate" "—anybody or anything that's trying to hurt you. And Tsuna, those boys will try to hurt you one day. They're scared of you. And humans have that little habit of trying to destroy what they fear."
As a silence hung over them, something in Reborn was still shaking in rage and frustration. Rage at the boys that had harmed his student and frustration at the lack of retaliation. There was pride, certainly. Tsuna would be a good boss. A kind boss with the ideals that Giotto would want carried out after his retirement. But at examining Tsuna, Reborn just wished that Tsuna had done something to help himself. He saw Tsuna's hyper dying will peek out, saw the sudden calmness. But it was to help Natsu, not himself. Self-control kept him from voicing any of his more destructive thoughts or let his emotions show, but he was determined that he and his student would have a talk about this later. Whether Tsuna wanted it or not.
"I won't give up my friends," Tsuna finally murmured. There was resolve. A firm resolve as vast as the sky Tsuna represented. And Reborn couldn't help but subconsciously lean in to listen to those words that held such conviction within them. "And that scares people. Suddenly the person they all looked down on, the one they look to for assurance that they aren't the absolute worst, seems to do better in life than they are. When suddenly this person that's supposed to be the worst is suddenly so happy, even when they're not, that scares people." A gentle, warm smile spread across Tsuna's face as the boy looked back up at Reborn with such a look of understanding and empathy in those caramel eyes. "So it's okay, Reborn. As long as everyone is with me, I'll be more than okay."
Reborn was instinctively aware of the shift before it happened. The calm Tsuna started to fade as Tsuna suddenly became very aware of what just occurred. Cue trembling, the widening of the eyes, and the stuttering. Not to mention the fear at the sudden revelation that Reborn was very, very close. "W-well…A-a-at le-east tha-at's-s what I th-hink. I-I'm probably b-b-being pretentious, but i-it kinda s-s-seems like that so-sometimes."
Laughing softly under his breath as he pulled away. This really was the most unbelievable of all his students. This empathy and intuition really was off-the-charts, and he chose the strangest of times to be unpredictable.
No, not unpredictable. Reborn knew this was going to happen. When it came to Tsuna, he always did.
"Hmph," he murmured as he turned away to walk out the bathroom. "You win this round, Tsuna,"
"W-wha-a-at?"
"I said that Hibari's going to bite you to death for being so late to class, Dame-Tsuna," he threw over his shoulder more loudly than his previous (nonexistent, of course) comment.
"HIIIIIIEEEEEEEE!"
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Happy Holidays!
Sorry for the grammar and spelling mistakes.