F:CV | the first ripple
Reborn's apartment is scantily decorated, and he likes it that way. He likes the white walls and the black curtains and the original da Vinci sketch hanging in the living room that he'd lifted from a museum on the way back from an assassination.
(You can't really call yourself mafia if you'd never done a heist. And while the Ninth had pinned him down with a disapproving look, at least Reborn stole classy.)
So, Reborn can't really get mad since it had technically been free, but it still stands that the heinous small human had gone and scribbled all over a priceless artifact.
He grabs the walking tragedy by the back of its neck and can hear it whimper like a dog as he puts its nose to the artwork and says in his best you done bad voice, "Bad. This is incredibly expensive. Do you know that? Do you even understand what expensive means? Where did you even get crayons? Crayons have never existed under my roof."
Guiltily, the boy draws from his pockets a set of stubby crayons that he holds with a strange reverence, as if they are his only friends and he would die if Reborn tried to take them away. Reborn regards him for a second before thoughtfully handing him a large stag beetle.
The boy screams.
Reborn later has to explain very patiently to his frightened downstairs neighbor that no, nobody was being murdered and that yes, Reborn had legal custody over the weeping child rocking in the corner. With exasperation, he shuts the door and rounds on Tsuna, who quails under his expression.
"His name is Fred, and he will be your friend."
And with this, Reborn shoves the poor stag beetle into Tsuna's nest of hair and sits back to watch the show.
In retrospect, perhaps that wasn't the best way to introduce himself to Tsuna. He realizes rather belatedly that he'd told Tsuna the beetle's name before ever telling him his own. But the damage is done; after having very generously displayed to Tsuna an entire array of insect friends—in Tsuna's eyes, fiends—Tsuna believes him to be Devil Ruler of the Insects and hides from him, which is all well and good with Reborn until the Ninth decides to pay a visit.
The look on his face tells Reborn that he is not amused.
With a gentleness that Reborn could never have, the Ninth scoops the small human up and bounces him around until he laughs. Reborn can feel his eye twitching.
"Do you know his name?" the Ninth asks of Tsuna, who whimpers something along the lines of King of Terror. Reborn's lips curl into a smirk when the Ninth isn't looking.
It seems he's built a fine reputation.
The Ninth isn't half as amused. He coaxes Tsuna very kindly to call Reborn, 'Reborn.' Tsuna tries it out timidly, like Reborn will box his ears if he gets it wrong.
"Ree-bown."
Reborn twitches violently like he'd very much like to break the potted plant in the corner but refrains.
"Very good," the Ninth praises. "Now Reborn here is going to take care of you, you know that, right?"
Tsuna nods.
"He might seem scary at first, but he's really just a sad old man—"
"What," Reborn spits.
"—who needs a friend, just like you. Do you think you can be friends with a sad old man like Reborn?"
Had Reborn been a different human being entirely in a different dimension, he might have put on his best 'I'm a poor, lonely man in need of a friend!' face, but he is very decidedly not.
"See? Look at his sad face," the Ninth tries to say to a blanching Tsuna. "Look how lonely he is."
Reborn very desperately wants to defenestrate himself.
The Ninth mentions school before he leaves and lets Reborn know that he'll be visiting again in a while—when, he doesn't say because he wants to keep it a surprise. Reborn huffs at this, because it's clear the Ninth just wants to grab Reborn's life, turn it upside-down and inside out and shake out all the spare change.
He accepts it as it is, because that's what assassins do.
It's day seven and Tsuna has gotten Fred to dance on the palm of his hand. It's endearing to watch, really, seeing the two get along so well. It reminds Reborn of his own partner, the chameleon that usually lurks along the brim of his hat. The reptile isn't around at the moment; Reborn can only assume it's off courting its brethren in the zoo or the like.
Fred lifts the legs on one side and then the other, and Tsuna giggles like it tickles him. And when Tsuna laughs, Fred head butts his thumb. It's cute, Reborn can admit. Never mind the fact that Tsuna has essentially no other friend other than Fred the stag beetle.
It's not Reborn's fault. Reborn had been perfectly willing to teach Tsuna how to assemble, load, and shoot a gun all in under a minute, but the small human hadn't been interested. Pesky creature.
Reborn's been getting restless the past few days, favoring staying at home over venturing out into the open. He'd welcome an assassination attempt—of which there have been many over the course of his career. Anything was better than this monotony of watching Tsuna watch Fred the stag beetle watch Tsuna.
Tsuna's not a hard child to take care of; he's not like those nasty horrors he sees other couples dealing with in shopping malls, nor is he, despite what Reborn likes to believe, incredibly stupid. He's actually astute for a five-year-old, able to pick up on situations with an intuition even some adults lacked. Like with Bianchi the other day, he knew to run away screaming instead of accepting the cake she'd brought him.
Though that may have just been common sense.
He might have a propensity for screaming and running, but at least he doesn't wet the couch or clog the toilet up or do anything worse than scribble on the walls occasionally. Which, in and of itself, is puzzling to Reborn. He's no psychiatrist, but there's something about the drawings that makes him look twice. Another person might have been perturbed, but Reborn has seen worse things than a scribbled out stick figure lying on top of something red from a five year old.
Namely, a five year old lying on top of something red that was really blood.
More specifically, a five year old he'd killed lying in blood.
Reborn is the world's greatest assassin, and that title wasn't just there to look pretty.
He files the drawings away in a corner of his mind but thinks nothing of it. He just buys Tsuna a new set of crayons and a large sketchpad twice the size of the boy himself and tells him rather sternly that the walls are not his canvas and that he should play more with his new friend, Fred.
"Can't we play?"
The question is so quiet and so timid. It's only because Reborn is trained in information collection that he hears it. He turns around, and Tsuna is tugging on Reborn's pant leg, downcast. Even his hair is drooping.
"Excuse me?"
Tsuna shrinks even more, if that's possible, and keeps his eyes on the ground.
"F-Fred is nice," he stutters. The stag beetle does a little jig on his shoulder at the accolade, and Reborn nods approvingly at the budding friendship. "But…"
"But?" Reborn echoes. Tsuna quails and releases Reborn's pants.
And then he smiles at him, which is all well and good, except Reborn knows that in the few days they've known each other, Tsuna has not smiled once.
But he has other things to do than entertain a five year old, so he gives him more crayons and ties a bow around Fred's horn and tries to send them away. But then Tsuna takes a deep breath and latches onto Reborn's leg.
Reborn peers down at him like he's inspecting a particularly interesting specimen of caterpillar.
"Can we go shopping? There aren't any more vegetables left in the fridge."
And so there aren't, Reborn discovers. He hasn't bothered to eat in a while, and he realizes, almost guiltily, that this means Tsuna probably hasn't either. But he notes the half-eaten loaf of bread in the corner of the pantry and deigns to pat Tsuna on the head. So the kid can take care of himself; that's good.
"Very well," he says, picking up the car keys and fetching a leash for Fred the stag beetle. Tsuna shakes his head. "What's wrong now?"
"What if he gets stepped on?" Tsuna says very practically.
Beetles don't have facial expressions, but Reborn can feel Fred pinning him down with a very accusatory glare.
"Your son is cute."
The cashier is new and young and glowing with youth and sadly oblivious to the fact that she is talking to Reborn. Of course, if you aren't part of the mafia world, into which category the majority of the population falls, you'd never know.
It's just her way of starting conversation, of building connections with the customers so that they'll be inclined to return. She doesn't notice the dark expression growing on the man's face or the way his small son looks at her with terrified eyes. Next in line is a bundle of celery, which she picks up cheerfully and puts on the scanner.
"He's not my son," the man replies rather stiffly.
She's a little embarrassed but has gotten into hairier situations. She navigates her way smoothly out.
Or tries to, at least.
"Oh, my mistake. You two just seem to have such a good relationship. Are you brothers? Relatives? Or—or," she falters under the man's undisguised glare. "Maybe… just friends?"
The combination of his heated gaze and his smoking hot looks was a little too much for her, and she found her hand grappling with the collar of her uniform. She wishes he wouldn't stare so intensely.
"Why are you not scanning?" he asks her frostily. She jumps and hastily swipes the next item.
It could be worse, she tells herself. She could have accused the man of being a pedophile and have called the cops on him. She did that just last week.
With an exasperated curve in his back, Reborn snatches the groceries and twirls the keys in his fingers. He nods to Tsuna to pick up the pace, but the boy is dragging his feet.
"What now?" Reborn says, and though he maintains his cool, he can't help but let a tendril of exasperation weave into his voice. He wants to say we bought your carrots and your celery and every other vegetable under the sun and I have been very patient with you, small child, but he doesn't. But Tsuna hears it all in his tone, and his eyes are shining with a strange light now, and for that, Reborn's suddenly feeling a little—
A little what?
A little sorry?
The greatest hitman in the world doesn't feel apologetic.
Before Reborn can even begin to understand his feelings, Tsuna grabs a few shopping bags out of his hand and is promptly pulled to his knees by their weight.
"I'll carry it," Reborn says, reaching out a hand. "They're too heavy for you."
Tsuna shakes his head and gets to his feet. Reborn can see his knees quivering and wonders just why the small human is pushing himself so hard. He's lucky they were inside, otherwise he'd no doubt be sporting two bleeding knees.
They're neatly skinned, though; Reborn can see white blotches.
With a sigh, he shifts all the bags to one arm and scoops up a screeching Tsuna in the other.
"Hold still," he orders, jouncing Tsuna a little. "And for the love of god, don't drop the apples."
Tsuna holds the apple bag like a lifeline, wide-eyed and tight lipped so far off the ground—or perhaps his nerves were birthed from a combination of shock and fear—shock that Reborn is carrying him and fear that he will somehow anger him.
Reborn wants to quell Tsuna's trepidation, but he can't think of a way to do it. Smiles always seemed to work with his clients—targets—but Reborn's mind is cast back to the first day he met Tsuna and how one glance at the purportedly disarming smirk sent him into a fit. Unknowingly, he starts bouncing Tsuna on his arm. Maybe the kid wasn't all wrong in his reaction. Maybe he sensed the implications behind that smile, the way it had been used so many times right before a murder, all the blood behind it…
Maybe Tsuna had seen all the insincerity behind the curve of Reborn's lips and had been frightened by it.
Belatedly, he realizes he is bouncing Tsuna far too hard, because the poor boy, tight-lipped and white-faced, is being tossed into the sky at this point like a beach ball. Reborn catches him deftly and sets him down but doesn't think to check Tsuna's condition because there's something far more pressing on his mind.
"Do I frighten you?" he asks him flatly. Tsuna seems petrified by the question and could almost pass off as a statue with the way he freezes in his shoes.
Reborn doesn't know what he is feeling, but it is something akin to the feeling he gets whenever Shamal is being super annoying and Reborn fails to shoot him through the head.
Something like disappointment?
Tsuna knows his existence isn't in any way a boon to Reborn. It's why he forced himself to befriend Fred, the initially terrifying stag beetle, who turned out to be quite a pleasant companion, to live off stale bread and slightly wilted vegetables until it was no longer sustainable, to never complain or ask for things. His one slip up was his scribbles on Reborn's wall—for which he truly is sorry. He just couldn't help it. The apartment had been so dark, and darkness is—
Tsuna curls up tighter on the couch. He can't hear Reborn breathing in the next room, but he knows he's there and is sleeping. It's a small comfort, but not much.
Not in the dark.
But he'll be quiet. He'll be good. Reborn is kind to him, albeit a little neglecting and forgetful of his existence. But Tsuna's grateful and he prays to a god he doesn't know that he'll be able to stay here. Please, let him stay here. He'll play with Fred and tread lightly, so—
Shh, shh. He has to stay quiet now.
He can't wake Reborn.
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