F:CV | footsteps

The sound of footsteps.

They crashed through the night. Wherever he might turn, they were there. Incessantly, brutally, they inundated his senses and drove them to the ground.

Light had long since evaporated with the sun. There he was, stumbling alone without a single sign to guide him. There he was, ten years old and with nothing but a stolen gun standing between him and the rest of the world.

There he ran.

If there was one thing he'd learned from his father, who'd been shot between the eyes in broad daylight, it was that you couldn't run from the Mafia. No, once you had dipped even a toe over to the wrong side of the line, the mafia dogged you like your own shadow. Worse, because even without a light, it was there. It was darkness.

The mafia was the night.

He stopped. There he stood. He couldn't run. He should have branded those words—you can't run—in his mind the day his mother died to bring him into this world. Reborn was no fool, so he stood still in the night.

The sound of footsteps was no longer.

In their absence was an abyss. And then he realized that the only one hounding his own steps was—

Himself.

In this night, his fears had one genesis, and only one: himself.

Hesitation banished, he raised the gun and shot his stalker straight through the right eye and watched the man hired to kill him fall to the ground. A clean shot. A painless death. An easy kill. One no one would expect from a boy of ten years.

And then.

A year later, he was like a deadly poison spreading throughout the underground network. They whispered his name in the shadows of the night and hid from him when he walked the streets—him, the eleven-year-old monster who was as intelligent as a forty-year-old and as skilled as a seasoned hitman. A freelance assassin at the time, he held no ties to any particular family and serviced only the richest. It was a lucrative business.

Albeit a lonely one.

Reborn thinks it was around then that he met Tsuyoshi, a fellow freelancer whose face looked like a tree's trunk. What had previously been lines of compassion had been sliced open and healed as knotted scars of dogged resolution. Unforeseen was their meeting, which occurred in a dark restaurant across a slab of granite. They locked eyes for a good while, gauging intentions and motives, before settling into a hairy silence accompanied only by the clinking of silverware.

Tsuyoshi knew Reborn's name. And though Tsuyoshi was less known, more of a quiet force in the mafia, Reborn knew his. It was no secret to either of them that one could be an assassin and the other a target.

But that night, they coexisted peacefully.

As peacefully as assassins could, at any rate.

There was a sort of beauty to the mafia, Reborn used to think. You couldn't run away from it, but to reciprocate, the mafia would never run from you. No matter how monstrous you were born or molded yourself to be, there was always a little niche somewhere in the darkness, waiting with open arms.

He remembered his first job with a vivid clarity; he wondered if it were the same for everyone. The target was a journalist who had been poking her nose too far into the mafia's business. Take her out, leave no trace, and get paid.

Clean, quick, easy.

It should have been, anyways. But she had been a fighter, extremely wary and borderline paranoid, and refused to sleep without a knife under her pillow. In the end, Reborn had to scrape the plaster from the walls to get rid of his blood. There was nothing clean or quick about it. He had been ten. Nobody could expect him to get his first mission perfect.

At least the money transaction had been easy.

He took out heroin addicts and cops, judges and bosses. Journalists, doctors, lawyers, laymen. Under orders of family A, he'd take out member E of family B, and then he'd turn right around and wipe out family A, hired under family B. Nobody knew what to call him; he held no alliances, was as aloof as the wind, and certainly didn't give a damn about any job he took.

Until.

They'd never told him the details of the assassination. One day, he just received a pleasantly hefty amount of cash in the mail accompanied by an address and a promise of double the pay after 'annihilation of every soul under the roof.' It was painfully easy to bypass the security system—you'd think that being a millionaire would prompt you to install something more than a couple of pit bulls wearing spiked collars—and into the house. His choice of weapon was a knife—quiet, though not clean, but part of the request was adamant that he 'make it art.'

Blood could be art.

He'd learned that over the past two years.

Husband and wife lay in gold sheets, red blossoming from their necks like peonies wrapped in sun-blazed wheat. Job done, Reborn turned to leave—

And then.

He saw them.

Two wide eyes glowing at him from the darkness of the doorway. Young and confused. Wondering.

"Are you the new butler?"

The girl's voice wobbled, unsure, but not entirely wary. She must not have reached the age yet where she distrusted the world.

He couldn't say anything. There Reborn stood, between the child and her parents, blood still dripping from the sliver of metal in his hand.

Every soul.

Make it art.

"I—" His tongue was dry. "I am."

Discreetly, he hid the knife behind his back and made to move forward. But his step faltered when he saw, by light of the moon, the child break into a smile.

"That's good. Mommy and daddy are always looking so tired these days, and Elaine thinks it's good you came along to help!"

He was never any good at smiling, but he tried one on.

"Is that your name? Elaine?"

The girl nodded. Her smile danced with the moon.

"How old are you?"

"Five! Oops!" she said, clapping her hands over her mouth. "Mommy and daddy are sleeping. Elaine shouldn't be loud."

"Yes," Reborn said, and his voice was hollower than a tree that had been rotting for a hundred years. "Your parents are sleeping. I'll—I…

"I'll help you get into bed."

Every soul.

Her smile blossomed further, and she held her arms up to Reborn so he could pick her up. He did it gently, with a smile cut into his face, one arm under her legs, and the other—the one with the knife—at her back.

Abruptly, he slipped it through her ribs and into her heart. He felt her convulse as he pulled the blade out.

Stone. Be stone. He was stone.

Reborn shouldn't have looked at her when he laid her down between her parents, but he did anyways. She wasn't dead yet; there was still light in her eyes, confused and betrayed; blood dribbled from her mouth; spasms ran through her tiny body. And he couldn't look away until the last of her life had escaped through her child's lips.

Make it art.

When he left them, they were sleeping in a bed of golden wheat. The father and mother lay facing each other, with their child in between. They all held hands, and if it weren't for their wounds, they might have just fallen asleep during a family picnic. Yes, the gold covers were wheat, and the blood was flower petals.

And the blood-inscribed GOOD NIGHT above the dead family was just...

…all for the sake of art…

It was all over the news the next day. No matter where Reborn turned, it was plastered in his face.

BRUTAL MURDER OF PHILANTHROPIST FAMILY

NO SOUL LEFT ALIVE

MURDERER LEAVES MOCKING MESSAGE AT SCENE

Mocking?

Mocking message?

He stared at the TV screen before turning around and continuing his walk down the street. His steps echoed the word—mocking—at a slower and slower rate, until he found himself standing in the middle of an empty intersection.

The sun was bright; it was burning away his already blandly colored world.

That wasn't right. It wasn't right. Reborn wanted to tell them that it wasn't right. He'd wanted to say good night to that little girl. To Elaine. Wanted to tell her 'good night' and put her underneath the covers. He hadn't wanted to kill her. Put the knife in her heart. He'd wanted to say good night. Good night. Writing it on the wall for her, that had been the only way he could say it. It wasn't mocking them. All he—he'd only wanted to—who would believe him—

After that, he didn't take just any assassination request. He took those that demanded the deaths of the strongest. He courted death. He slipped through its fingers like water, turned the tides, defeated the odds. Reborn went up against the top assassins and came out alive. Him, a fourteen-year-old boy who'd emerged in the night barely three years ago.

They knew what to call him now.

The Strongest Hitman.

"She's called Luce," Tsuyoshi said one day over a cup of coffee. They'd been seeing a lot of each other lately, working for similar employers—ones that didn't indiscriminately kill—and travelling to similar places. "She's wanted to meet you for a very long time."

"Not interested," Reborn said dismissively. "Romance is for writers and lunatics."

"No," Tsuyoshi said, torn between being amused and exasperated. "She's not interested in you like that. Good god, she's a grown woman, and you're a little boy—"

Reborn shot him a nasty look.

"—A-and she's married. Look, s-she has a husband and everything, Reborn. I mentioned you to her a few weeks ago, and she's been bugging me ever since to let her meet you."

"Is it an assassination request?"

Tsuyoshi's face fell as he listened to the words coming from this fourteen-year-old's mouth.

"No. Not everyone wants to talk to you about killing people."

With an expression of deep concentration, Reborn cleaned his gun. He held it up to the light for inspection.

"Like you, I guess."

A grin cracked onto Tsuyoshi's face, and it was like rain spattering on dry, cracked earth.

Reborn met this Luce, and Tsuyoshi met a woman. Luce introduced Reborn to a group of misfits who were like him—young, flayed, and thrust into the night headfirst. The woman—Kimi—introduced Tsuyoshi to a life of fresh rain and cherry blossoms. The motley of broken children warily accepted Reborn into its ranks, gradually embracing him, albeit with thrown fists and broken teeth, into their dark corner of the world. Tsuyoshi's new life tore him away from the night to flood his life, momentarily, in the warmest, golden sun.

It felt like Tsuyoshi had left him, and perhaps that was why he hadn't bothered to attend the wedding. The invitation lay at the bottom of his drawer while Lal and Colonnello both hounded him for being so irrevocably rude.

He brought you here, they said. He took you—took us all—to Luce and wrenched us from the hell we would have otherwise rotted in.

He didn't listen to them.

By wedding day, the son was already five months old. And he was only five months old when an assassin came and took out Tsuyoshi's wife. The fool, instead of seeking revenge, put up the sword and vowed never to fight again so long as his son still breathed.

Tsuyoshi moved to Japan. Reborn stayed in Italy, right in the heart of organized crime. He built his reputation sky-high and took out bosses, drug rings, weapon smugglers, and assassins. Tsuyoshi built a restaurant and raised his son. Reborn began to loosely associate himself with the Vongola, one of Italy's strongest mafia families, because they at least never asked him to murder children. Tsuyoshi joined his son's baseball fanclub and cheered for him even when he missed the ball by miles.

Following a miserable mission that ended with Colonnello in a coma and with Luce dead, Reborn was sent to Japan, right to the boring town of Namimori. Quietly, he rented out the most expensive apartment he could find—the top floor of a grey building with horrendous yellow curtains—kicked his feet up and waited for the missions. They trickled in slowly, irregularly. He was lucky to get two in a month. He hated it. He hated twiddling his thumbs, waiting for orders, so he slept.

And when he began to tire of sleeping, he went to TakeSushi.

When Tsuyoshi first laid eyes on him, it was like the man was looking at a rock that had sprouted spindly legs and arrived on his doorstep. He guffawed and he blinked, and Reborn had half a mind to slap him around the head. Then, with an uncertain shrug of his shoulders, Tsuyoshi swept open the door and invited him inside.

The first thing Reborn saw was a hurricane of crayons in the center of the restaurant. Tsuyoshi cleared his throat, and a small boy with tanned skin and honey-brown eyes emerged from the storm.

"This is—this is Takeshi," Tsuyoshi said, and his voice was unsteady, like he was a little nervous to be showing his son to Reborn. Like he knew Reborn, though he would never admit it, had felt betrayed when he'd left with his son.

"Takeshi, this is Reborn—an old—" he almost choked on his words, then said very stoutly, steadily, "an old friend."

Friend.

Takeshi's face crinkled up in a smile that was lacking in teeth.

"Hello! Weebown! Hi!"

Reborn didn't say anything, just stared at the boy for a little bit, feeling nothing.

More often than not, he found himself wandering over to that side of town, where the rain fell fresh and the sun shone bright. Around that time, the Vongola had begun to be busy, and he was being called into Italy for assassinations and information lifting. Each time, even though he'd never say he was leaving, Tsuyoshi would track him down and hand him a bento. And each time he returned, it was with a clean box and a small souvenir. A bullet from Naples. A spiked baseball. Brass knuckles. His version of child-friendly gifts.

Because assassins should repay their debts.

One year. Two. Then three. They were the only people he bothered to talk to in Namimori. They were the only people in Namimori who bothered to notice him. Leave food at his door. Invite him to baseball matches (though he never attended). Let him stay long after hours and drink miso soup and sake while the moon peeped through the barred windows.

He called Takeshi the baseball terror. Takeshi seemed ecstatic about the name; his father, equally enthusiastic. It was fine. It was all fine. He didn't get too close to them; they didn't pry into his life. He would visit once a week.

Until.

The Ninth put him on standby and thrust a child into his lap.

Clueless, and admittedly bewildered by the lack of assignments, Reborn did less than he should have for the child. He never bought him a bed or gave him food. Never took him outside or bothered to say 'good morning.' Instead, when he finally found the motivation, he fled to the Yamamoto residence, knowing they would know what to do with a dejected child. And before he knew it, they were taking care of not only Tsuna, but also him. He didn't realize it at the time, but he found out later, when—

When…

"Take one step away from me, and I will make you so bald you'll wish you'd never been born."

It's a threat that's more of a promise, so Tsuna and Takeshi huddle together and cling to his shadow. The car's behind them now, having no more use to Reborn now that they've arrived at the place the cold summer wind has led them. He questions his decision to bring them, but it's too late now.

The night is cold and unforgiving as he glides through the night market. He doesn't know what pulled him here. The lights are warm and the voices soft, but there's something off. It's the smell of lavender that catches his attention, and he stops sharply, feeling Tsuna and Takeshi buckle into his knees.

The scent comes from the adjacent alley, which is dimly lit and is decorated with Christmas lights. There's no sign of abnormality—just that damned odor of lavender. Lavender, which the neighbors had recently begun growing…

One hand reaches for his gun as the other signals for Tsuna and Takeshi to stay back. Of course, they don't understand mafia signs, so they bumble after him like fools. It's fine. They'll be fine. He's the world's strongest hitman.

He earned that title.

The scent grows stronger and stronger further into the alley. He uses the light from his phone to scope out the path. There's nothing to be seen, nothing until he hits a dead end, on the wall of which is a red arrow pointing right to a rusted, metal door.

It's too inviting to be a trap, so Reborn opens the unlocked door easily.

Inside is just a vast expanse of darkness so saturated with night that it almost catches Reborn off-guard. Almost, because he is the world's greatest assassin. But from the whimpers behind him, he knows that this type of night is like a monster. He orders them to stay outside, rethinks his decision—after all, it wasn't too long ago that Takeshi had been injured—and promises to pull out every eyelash if they don't keep within a foot of him.

One hand hovering around their heads, and the other casually resting on the gun in his belt, Reborn moves forward. There's a pinprick of light at the other end of the stretch of night, like a sickly lighthouse that would love nothing more than to collapse into the sea.

There, they find another door, where the stench of lavender is absolutely incapacitating. Gun drawn, Reborn covers his nose with an arm and kicks the door open.

A rod of light pierces the room diagonally, illuminating small, papery objects fluttering from the ceiling. They glow white in the light, then vanish, like short-lived snowflakes. Reborn's nose wrinkles. He hates theatrics like this. But this also means—

Then he sees it, at the back of the room, under a second spotlight that has been dimmed so no attention is drawn away from the diagonal light. An instinct up until then foreign to him surges up, and he grabs a hold of Takeshi and Tsuna's heads and pushes them into his side.

"You don't need to see this," he says quietly.

There's no danger here. He tucks away his gun and calls for backup. He guesses he must not have been fast enough in his actions, because he can feel Takeshi shuddering under his hold. Heaving. Sobbing. A chill descends across his countenance, and the line of his shoulders harden.

He desperately wants to extricate himself from the arms wrapped around his leg but decides that so long as the boy doesn't vomit on his clothes, Reborn will tolerate this.

His eyes turn from the crying boy and to the second spool of light. Seeing it leaves a sour feeling in the center of his chest and brings back memories of a night lit by moon.

Make it art.

The words ring in his ears like the obstinate phantom of a mosquito killed long ago.

Suspended on strings of varying lengths from the ceiling are wreaths of lavender. They all fall within the column of light, like it's a vial preserving some sort of specimen floating in yellow liquid.

Make

Under all the hanging nonsense, there is a single chair, which is more of a bed of lavender. They say you habituate to the environment, but the odor is still so sickening that Reborn wants to set fire to the place.

It

He grits his teeth, but those words still pinwheel in his mind. He hates it. He hates those words more than he hates children.

Art

Cumin bursts into the room, waving his flashlight around wildly. Reborn's lip curls; had he and Iemitsu been on better terms, he would have had a few words about his training. Behind him trail Cinnamon and Oregano and one person he didn't think he would see here in Japan.

"Situation?" a brusque female voice demands. She at least has sense not to barrel in with guns blazing, instead sticking surreptitiously to the shadows.

"As you see it, Lal Mirch," Reborn responds. He pushes Takeshi and Tsuna over to Oregano, who looks completely at a loss, juggling two crying children in her hands.

Lal Mirch looks grim as she throws her cloak over the kids' heads.

"Take them out. They don't need to see this."

Oregano hastens to the door, and Lal Mirch turns around. Reborn watches as her eyes sweep across the room, listening to the vague dispute over which button is the one that will light the place up.

"Done in poor taste," is all she says about the hanging flowers. She makes no commentary about the setup in the back.

"Stop dicking around over there," she barks out at Cumin and Cinnamon, who jump guiltily and point the flashlights in Lal's direction. "And go get—"

Her strong voice falters.

"—get Yamamoto."

Cumin gulps. "Is he aliv—?"

"If you ask seriously need to ask that question," Reborn says acidly, "Then your head doesn't deserve to rest on that brutish body of yours. Get him and get out of here before the cops get here. You'll need to inspect his body before they can, and then put him somewhere he'll be found. Is this understood?"

As the two fools busy themselves, Lal and Reborn walk to the door, steps slow and deliberate.

"Did they see?"

"Does it matter?"

"Does it matter?" Lal echoes Reborn heatedly.

"I didn't think you to be someone who'd care."

Lal snarls at him. Unlike Cumin, he knows she has no reservations from attacking him. It's no secret that she can openly despise him, and she has more than one reason to.

"They did," Reborn says shortly. "And I tried, before you jump on me. But even one glance is enough. It doesn't take a genius to see that he's dead."

They ring in the air with a sour aftertaste, those words do.

That, sitting, slumped, in the lavender-smothered chair with a sprig of the flower itself in a hand, Yamamoto Tsuyoshi is unmistakably dead.

"They made it into quite a spectacle," he adds, gesturing at the lavender. "An elaborate display of ar—"

"Art?" she seethes. "Were you really about to say that, Reborn? In front of the dead, are you actually doing this?"

Reborn faces her, eyes hard chips of ice in a face of stone.

"The dead are the dead. They don't know anything."

He sees her punch coming a mile away. But he doesn't dodge it.

Two days later, after a clamor in the local newspaper about Tsuyoshi's death and a horde or reporters swarming the restaurant filled with consolatory flowers and notes, Reborn and Lal find themselves clothed in black and waiting in Reborn's room. The curtains are drawn, allowing solemn sunlight, which doesn't dare try to reach out warm hands of compassion, to shy inside.

Reborn meticulously cleans a gun, and Lal stands at the open window with her hands behind her back, sealed lips hiding an order from the Ninth.

"The fool died without his sword in his hand," Reborn says abruptly.

"He wasn't a fool," Lal returns.

"An assassin should never be without his weapon."

"He wasn't an assassin. Hadn't been in years."

"He was a fool to think himself safe just because he'd put down the sword. Once you've stepped into the Mafia, you're never safe.

Lal turns around finally and pins a glare on Reborn, who's unperturbed.

"I hate it when you act like this, Reborn," she says irritably. "Whenever someone you know dies, it's always their fault. You act like they're all fools for getting killed—"

"And they are," Reborn says. "Only fools die."

Lal grabs Reborn by the front of his collar and drags him so close that he can see every detail of the scar covering the right side of her face.

"Only fools die?" she hisses. "And what about Colonnello? Was he a fool, too, then, for trying to save all of us?"

"He was trying to save you," Reborn corrects. "And fool though he may be, he's only in a coma."

Lal looks like she wants to punch him.

"That's what you said, even when you were standing in front of his hospital bed," she says disgustedly. "Only trying to save you, Lal. Me? I'm a big-shot assassin, people don't save my ass, I save theirs. Colonnello was an idiot for thinking we needed his help. That's why he's like this."

"Paraphrasing, but the general idea is correct."

Overcome by anger, Lal slams her fist into Reborn's desk so hard that it cracks. He moves his gaze coldly from her hand to her face.

And then she says in a low voice, "And Luce?"

He doesn't say anything, his lips pressing into a tight, white line as his eyes send the silent threat of death by defenestration.

"You may be respected in the mafia world," Lal snarls in his face. "But you're not loved."

"I don't need to be," he replies frigidly. "And I don't want to be. I've seen what it can do to people."

He looks pointedly at her, at the scar on her face. He can see her expression morph into one of pure hatred. She knows he's referring to Colonnello, whom she loved and who loved her. Who would have died for her. Who almost did. She knows he's referring to Luce, who loved everyone and died for them. With one last snarl, she moves back. A few breaths later, she glowers levelly at Reborn.

"The Ninth wants to push your assignment up. This weekend, you'll move with members of the Cavallone family to take down the Ciro family. In the meantime, CEDEF and the Vongola will do its best to analyze Tsuyoshi's death, his killer's motive, and whether this was an order or just a random act of chaos."

Having delivered the news, she stares hard at Reborn, who returns it unflinchingly. Finally, she says, "Tsuyoshi was a good man. And he was no fool. You and I both know that. Get off your high horse and mourn properly for once, you idiot. I know you want to."

She makes for the door, and just before she slams it shut, she throws, "After all, you're only human. Like the rest of us."

Outside, she sees the Yamamoto boy and the son of the head of CEDEF curled up next to each other against the wall. She doesn't know if they'd heard the conversation and hopes they didn't. Lal might have an abrasive personality, but she at least had more tact and compassion than Reborn.

She kneels down and puts a hand on the Yamamoto boy's head.

"You're Takeshi, right?"

Her words are stilted because she's never the one to give out kind words. Those things are better suited for Luce. Yes, Luce would know what to do in this situation. Just being here would give the children some comfort. Luce is warm like the sun and has the embrace of a blue sky.

Was warm.

Had the embrace.

She pushes on because she knows they'll never get anything out of Reborn.

"How are you doing?"

Yamamoto puts on a smile that nearly breaks her heart. It's one of those smiles Colonnello had given her just before he'd slipped into his coma. One of those I'll be fine, but not really smiles that she so hated. Maybe he was fine. She didn't actually know. Did kids his age understand death?

"You'll be alright," she says. "Don't listen to what Reborn says if he says anything dumb to you. He hasn't, has he? A friend of your father has made arrangements for you to stay at an orphanage. Is that okay with you?"

With a vague smile, Yamamoto stares at her for a bit, but he's not really looking at her. It's almost unnerving.

"I guess this means dad will have a skull and crossbones next to his name from now on."

Shocked, Lal can't find the words to say, but the boy is already moving on, smile wide and agreeably saying he's fine with moving to the orphanage. Lal doesn't want to deal with this for any longer than she has to, so she pretends she didn't hear anything and instead turns to the Sawada kid, who's watching her with eyes she can't quite read.

"And you're Sawada, right? Is Reborn giving you trouble?"

Tsuna shakes his head, but somehow she doubts him.

"There's a kid I know who'd be willing to look after you if you don't like this place. His name's Basil," she says. "He's nice, though a bit… eccentric. If you ever want to leave, just give me a call, and I'll set you two up."

She shoves a slip of paper into Tsuna's hand.

"I'll see you at the funeral," she says, wincing at the crassness of her words. "Take care."

Tsuna watches this lady leave. He doesn't even know her name, but he knows to fear her. She moves with a brusqueness and speaks words she seems unfamiliar with. But fear doesn't equate to distrust; on the contrary, he thinks he can trust her. Just like he knows he can trust Reborn.

He holds out a hand to Yamamoto. It's time to go.

The eulogist promised that Tsuyoshi would be remembered in the hearts of many. But every heartbeat told Reborn that people were going to forget.

As soon as they laid their flower down—as what sort of symbol? What does covering the dead with flowers do? Pointless, all of it—Reborn could see them forgetting. People always forget the dead, the ones who didn't have trumpets and horns to champion their heroisms. They might turn away with tears now, but give them a few days, a few months, a few years and they will barely remember the name of the owner of TakeSushi who'd thrown away the lucrative career of assassin to exist as a father for his son. And soon, all that will remain after a hundred years is this silly little grave marker and dust of bones.

He doesn't like how that sounds.

It makes him…

He doesn't know what it makes him.

All he knows is that below his feet is Yamamoto Tsuyoshi, who would now never say hitting Reborn with mud will earn Takeshi a haircut or shout that his son is number one at the baseball field or even just—

Just one day, with his son, share sake under the moon.

Reborn wonders if he will forget those words Tsuyoshi had told him, what he had given him. Wonders how long it would be before vines grow over this tomb and ravage the gravestone and cover the ground.

Every heartbeat reminds him how easily people forget. How easily he might forget.

Tsuyoshi had walked this earth, and all that is left behind of him now are his fading footsteps.

Reborn doesn't know how he feels about that.

Tsuna wonders what Reborn is thinking about as he stares at Tsuyoshi's grave.

(It's better than thinking about how Tsuyoshi is dead)

Reborn's face is carefully blank, as it is most of the time. It's something Tsuna finds scary about Reborn. Though he's young and relatively new to the world, he can't find it in himself to be completely comfortable around people whose faces are like masks. One emotion, one expression, one state of mind and being. It's all so strange to him.

(Tsuyoshi was never like that)

He wants to say something to Yamamoto, who's taken to arranging and rearranging the flowers laying on the mound of earth, but he was never any good with words. He was never any good at anything.

(Tsuyoshi tells him—used to tell him that wasn't true. He tell—told him he was good at understanding people and being kind)

He takes a few timid steps forward until he's standing a breath behind Reborn. Reborn's hands hang at his side, open and empty, which is somehow a little odd to Tsuna. They aren't just empty—they're empty. Like they once had something, and now they don't.

It makes him a little sadder on this already dreary, weary day, and without really thinking about what he's doing, Tsuna puts his small hand in Reborn's large one and squeezes.

When Reborn looks down at him, terror runs through him and he almost—almost—tugs his hand away. But there's a surprising light in Reborn's eyes that stops him in his tracks, and for a moment, they look at each other like this, one from above and one from below.

And then, very quietly, Reborn asks, "Are you going to forget him, too?"

And in that instant, Tsuna thinks he understands Reborn a little more, understands why his hands look so empty in the wake of Tsuyoshi's death. He understands because he's felt it himself so often. Scared that what he's been given, miraculously, will disappear like fireflies. Worried that Reborn will leave. Terrified Yamamoto will leave. Devastated that Tsuyoshi has left.

Tsuna has realized, over the years—and he is older than they think he is—,that when people leave, you have to walk along a long stretch of sand and pick out the glimmering memories they've left behind. You'd retrace your footsteps a hundred times because those shards of glass are all you have left. But time will pass, and the waves will wash them out to sea, and you'll slowly forget what you had. The happiness, the laughter, the sense of family or friendship.

It is one of the loneliest feelings in the world, running across that bleached sand and watching those pieces being swept away.

Knowing you what you'd had, but forgetting what it felt like.

To Tsuna and Reborn both, Tsuyoshi had given the sense of family, and, for Tsuna at least, the fear of losing and, moreover, forgetting that sensation penetrated him to the core.

He has already forgotten what it was like to have a mother.

He had been forgetting what it had been like to have a father until Tsuyoshi came along and showed him the way.

He'd forgotten what a real family—not the day-to-day existence he'd led in the daycare or the orphanage—had felt like until Tsuyoshi and Takeshi shone on his life like the warmest of suns.

And he—

He really doesn't want to forget again.

The way Tsuyoshi smiled at him, like he was saying Hey! You belong here. I love you like I love Takeshi and Reborn. The way Tsuyoshi rubbed his hair like he was saying I'm proud of you. The way Tsuyoshi fed him too much and was too kind and paid attention to Reborn even when the colder man thought nobody was looking and tucked them in—even Reborn—at night when they slept over and unconditionally, resolutely loved them—

Tsuna grips Reborn's hand like it's the string of a balloon about to be whipped away by the wind and balls his other hand tight, tighter than the knot raveling up in his chest.

"I don't… I don't want to forget."

A hiccup escapes him.

Tsuna begins to cry.

(But how much worse is it for Yamamoto?)

What have I done

Just kidding, I know exactly what I did. Because I've been planning this moment ever since Tsuyoshi was put into the story.

Don't hate me pls i love u all

I'm a little nervous posting this. The story up to now has mainly been 'humor' (hopefully it's funny -dead-), so I'm not sure how this chapter will be received. Walp.

Thanks for all the support. Really puts a (creepy) smile on my face.