At the age of three, Tsuna has a loose grasp on what love is.
Love can make people happy: like Tsuna's stuffed lion Natsu that he carries around everywhere. Or when he wears his favorite orange hoodie. Like when his mother tends so carefully to the their backyard garden. Or when his mom smiles so magnificently on the occasion when a certain someone calls the house.
But love also can make people sad: when Tsuna lost Natsu on the subway last month. Or when his mother doesn't receive a certain call for a while.
Today Mama is especially sad. She hasn't received a call in a long while, and her beautiful smile doesn't seem too honest, which isn't good because Tsuna likes seeing Mama happy.
Just earlier this morning when they were doing their daily grocery shopping, Tsuna noticed Mama wasn't listening to him talk about his journey with Natsu to space. Instead she was nodding absentmindedly while staring at something off into the distance. It wasn't too hard for Tsuna to realize his mother was looking at the couples on the street.
Tsuna likes to look at the couples on the street too. Sometimes if he promises Mama he will be a good and well-behaved boy, Mama will let him sit on the benches just outside the shop. Often the couples will look and smile at him, and Tsuna will smile right back because they look so beautiful. One day, he hopes he will be like them with his own soulmate. Whether the couples are smiling or not, just being near each other seems to make them lite up. Not literally. Not like the star nightlight he has in is room, but the way the couples act and their general aura makes them stand out more than one of them would on their own.
But Mama wasn't looking at the couples like how Tsuna does with admiration and adoration. She looked really sad and if not a bit jealous. This especially shocked Tsuna because he's never seen his mother jealous. Not even when Tsuna eats the last pudding, Mama would always look endearingly. So today Tsuna has a plan to turn her frown upside down!
Every night when Mama puts Tsuna to bed, she likes to roll up his sleeve to reveal his soulmate marks. With gentle fingers, she taps each one, muttering under her breath the number. Right now the lines are up to ten and span longer than Tsuna's hand. Afterwards, Mama always kisses each one and whispers to Tsuna, that he is loved - not only by her, but there is someone out in the big world who will love him just as much as she does.
Mama told Tsuna all about soulmates and how if he were to write on himself, it would also appear on his soulmate. Tsuna has never done it himself, but Mama does it every day and sometimes she lets Tsuna help. She writes long paragraphs, more often a sentence or a word or two. But always she ends it with a heart and her name, then she helps Tsuna write his own name, but Tsuna is really bad at writing the squiggly 'S' so Mama just had him abbreviate his signature to Tuna.
Tsuna often wonders who his mother's soulmate - who gets to see his mother's special writing. One time he worked up the guts to ask her, but after seeing her smile falter and hearing her voice crack, Tsuna never bothered to ask again, which is why his mission today is even more imperative to make his Mama happy.
"Mama?"
"Yes Tsu-kun?" his mother responds somewhere in the kitchen.
Tsuna hesitantly asks, "Will you help me write something on my arm?" He peers from the living room to his mother at the kitchen counter.
The way his mother lites up, eyes crinkling in amusement, and smile finally reaching her eyes makes Tsuna forget his initial hesitancy and he concludes: he made the right decision.
Tsuna's mother runs around the house, in search for a box of permanent markers and some baby powder. Together with his mother, Tsuna sits in the middle of the living room floor, table pushed off to the side to make room for their impromptu art station.
Mama rifles through the markers talking mainly to herself.
"Orange? No, orange won't show well on skin. Neither will yellow. . .black? But that's not a pretty color. . ."
In the box, Tsuna spots a pretty purple marker and plucks it out with his chubby little fingers.
"Can I use this one Mama?" Tsuna asks, pulling her out of her reverie.
"Of course Tsu-kun. What do you plan on writing?"
It doesn't take long for Tsuna to decide. In fact he already thought about what would be the most recognizable mark since his mother always talks about the importance of first impressions.
"Fishy!" Tsuna shouts enthusiastically, arms shooting up above his head.
His mom raises a hand to hide her mouth as she chuckles demurely in response to Tsuna's antics. She makes a move to help Tsuna, but he easily evades her grasp.
Tsuna puffs his chest out with his hands curled at his hips. "No need for help! I've been practicing!"
"Of course! I'm sorry, big boy!" Mama replies, hands up in defense. She tries to keep a straight face but the ends of her lips curl upwards despite herself.
Satisfied and assured he will be uninterrupted, Tsuna shifts next to Mama's side and holds the purple marker in a clenched fist. To the best of his ability, on his right arm, Tsuna draws out the oval body with his shaky hand and then a triangular tail and a small dot for the eye. He pauses for a moment to admire his work, and he raises his arm for his mother to look at. After receiving an approving nod, Tsuna moves right below his fish and one letter at a time, writes out 'Tuna'.
No sooner when he finishes the last letters he is attacked by his mother as she rains a torrent of kisses all over his body. Overcome with giggles, Tsuna can barely wheeze out the words to stop his mother.
"Ma . . .ma. My . . .Fish . . . smudge."
Like a switch was flicked, Tsuna's mother pulls away, face flushed from the recent excitement.
"Sorry, Tsu-kun! Your mama is just excited to see her baby boy grow up!"
"Mooomm!"
"Sorry, sorry. Let me just apply the baby powder so the drawing will last longer!"
As she applies the white powder, Tsuna admires his work on his arm. It is a miracle to think that someone else will see this.
Tsuna smiles to himself and crosses all of his fingers and toes in hope that his drawing will give his soulmate as much happiness as their marks do for him.
Now just to wait for the response.
A/N: So a new story. . .I'm going to be using this to get back into the swing of writing. Besides, what better way to celebrate to getting into college.
Anyways, this is on my AO3 as well under xKeshire. Comment and Reviews are always appreciated. 3