Authors Note- Purely platonic but you may read this as however you like. But then again, a look into our adorable yet creepy Kyo-chan. I apologise about the small chapter but this how the chapters are going to be for this story. Though I may have mentioned this before in the previous chapter. Thank you for all your reviews and ect, I hope you enjoy this one. I also apologise for any mistakes made, I didn't have time to go over this.
Chapter Warnings- Kyo-chan is creepy as hell, so is Tsuna. I am sorry. Also, work not checked over.
Chapter 5: When the Earth stops Spinning
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Hibari had noticed it before he had ever done anything about it, the herbivore with caramel hair and eyes. He'd watch as the weakling played at pied piper, the child's tale only with a darker twist, he skipped merrily along, other useless beings following him, intending to hurt not lead them to a land of pure wonder. The odd herbivore played predator as he passed them along to him. It was the pathetic looking ones plan all along, have him rid him of his garbage. Hibari didn't know why he went along with it.
Disinterest?
Curiosity?
Either way, he should have let him be. Looks truly were deceiving, the herbivore was something else entirely, not a predator but not prey. He was like gravity, you couldn't see him and you always forgot he existed, but all the same he was there baring down on your back, making sure your every step consisted of him and unless you ran to the confines of space, he would be with you every waking moment.
He should have stayed away.
The thing- for it couldn't be a human child- was made to look like a creature in constant need of protection until you got too close and you could see it for what it was. An adorably innocent smile ever present on its round face was a mothers daydream, but no one noticed how it never slipped away, like it was painted on or more accurately stitched on, like someone had gripped the edges of its lips and cross-stitched them to the apples of its cheeks. Like him, smiles meant nothing to the thing. Unlike him, the thing still wore them, like a pretty hat it picked up on a whim and forgot to take off.
Big brown eyes fluttered cutely at every given moment, but it's brown orbs were empty. Empty or masked, he didn't know. Rarely, something would spark in those eyes but those sparks quickly died out. Even more rarely, something big would spark in those eyes and like a wild fire it spread through its pupils and through its entire body, eyes shining orange and body buzzing with energy. It looked almost human, no, it looked beyond human, which didn't make it less of a danger. In fact, it made it more of a danger.
It's body- its shell- was pale and small, drawing him in with its vulnerability. But he knew better, he saw the sharp angles and could pick up the barely moving chest as if taking in oxygen was just a phase it was going through and it wasn't thoroughly invested in it. He knew all this, he saw all this. Yet, he still wanted to smash the things head against his chest and keep it there for all eternity. Carve a small place beside his heart and lungs for the thing to comfortably nestle in for eternity, let his ribs become a cage and shield for it.
He had these feelings sometimes when dealing with a small puppy or bird, wanting to hurt it for being too cute or pathetically vulnerable but not like this. He wanted to destroy the thing before anyone or anything else could, he wanted to protect it by killing it. It was too free willed, too full of something to stay locked in a cage so he would kill it before someone else could even put a scratch on it.
He always stopped this line of thought before it got too far, because he was a Hibari and Hibari's didn't care enough to kill with a purpose like his own. There were times though where he would find himself staring at it's neck, hands twitching to hold it in his grasp and lovingly give it a sharp twist, the thing wouldn't have to breathe again- it'd like that, wouldn't it?- and then he'd look up to find blank eyes peering at him, it's smile curling up even more, like it knew.
It didn't obviously, but it still unnerved him, excited him. There were times when he'd gotten close, hands made for killing, for destroying rushed to it's pale skin to do just that but as soon as they made contact, hands that had soaked in blood despite their young age and obvious youth turned into gentle ones only capable of soft touches and guiding nudges. It had done something and that twisted smile became too familiar, making every other normal herbivore smile seem just that little bit off.
The thing spoke of friendship often, as if it understood what it was. It thought the two of them were friends, like that word meant something to it and he almost believed it. Those scary and somewhat eerily beautiful eyes sometimes looked more real when they were focused on him, a fact that made blood pump around his body faster thanks to an accelerated heart beat. To be friends with the thing, did he want that?
Yes, he did. Dearly. Annoyingly, earnestly.
But they weren't.
Cold indifference was all he could show but that seemed to be enough for the thing that was suspiciously starting to look more and more like a person to him. A person with the emotional range of a text book; apathy with a clinical look on life and its happenings but with those odd bursts of fierce loyalty- loyalty that was thoroughly misplaced. A smile that was now the only one that didn't annoy him, strange thoughts, an even stranger mind. It was like a radio channel switched to only think in AM while everyone else worked on FM. Sometimes the thing was more machine than child, but so was he.
He almost rejoiced when the thing showed a glaring sign of his difference to society with his little ability. Subconsciously he knew he was happy because he now had a just reason for taking interest in him, for wanting to be friends and around him more often than that flimsy one he had used before; the thing seemed so indifferent towards his education and no amount of blood loss courtesy of himself would convince him to attend more than a few days without a day or two off.
Even now as it looked up at him, small and pale, he fought the urge to rip it's head off or chain it to a post in his room where no one could be equally drawn in to it's odd and dark nymph-like ways.
"Kyo-chan." It cooed, chubby legs swing in the air, too small to reach the ground as he sat on the rocking swing. It's mother or caretaker as it claimed not knowing or not caring if it was out so close to dark with a boy who was named the demon of Namimori. This annoyed and agitated him for reasons he would not acknowledge, could she not see the thing would corrupt the rest of society or die whilst doing so? He didn't know which possibility was worse.
"What do you want to be when you die?" The thing asked, kicking off a pole so as to swing higher.
It never made sense, yet at the same time Hibari was sure he could make out the answer to the riddle underneath the many layers of its misguided sense of humanity, but then he'd blink and it was all lost on him. He growled with a glare just to let the thing know it was stupid for asking such a useless question, not wanting it to know that he didn't understand. The thing was interested in him but Hibari got the impression that its interest was bipolar in spirit, it would toss you aside when it got bored. Oddly enough, he did not want to be tossed aside, even if some part of him wanted the relief.
It seemed to understand his look, something that made him inwardly shifting in discomfort. No one was supposed to understand him, not with a single uncaring look.
"I think you'd be a bird." It leaned back, hands sliding down the chains so that its body slumped backwards and it's gravity defying hair brushed the loose grains of sand on the ground as it stared up at the sky dispassionately. "I would be a bird too, or a breeze in the sky. I want to float forever."
Caramel eyes slid to him like oil on water before odd smile dropped, the first time in a long time. "Did you know that even the largest birds of prey can be conditioned?"
He didn't bother answering, the thing was in the mood to talk once more and therefore his opinion was not needed until the thing wanted it.
"Yup!" It continued, suddenly a little excitement rising in it's voice. "People don't realize it but they see a bird on the street and thoughtlessly toss it a crumb. The bird learns that as long as it sticks around it can be fed. It adjusts and it gets it's fill of food and people in cities don't care much for capturing birds so the bird learns it's safe in the towns filled with people and polluted air."
A small smile quirks on its lips as it once more looks the older boy that has kept quiet all day. "It doesn't realize it has been domesticated. I can still fly away, it believes. I still have my wings, it thinks. But if that bird were to fly once more into the wild it would not survive. It would have forgotten how to be a bird, how to catch it's own food, how to escape the predators, too used to it's cage within the hustle and bustle of the human world."
He sensed the end of the story but couldn't stop his body from jerking forward the slightest bit when the thing slipped from its makeshift bed on the moving swing and let its body hit the sand below, the seat of the swing making arcs above its face and yet it didn't look the least bit worried or startled.
"You've been thinking lately, Kyo-chan." The thing murmured softly, "It's not too late for you. You can still leave, the wild still lives in your heart. Do you want to fly away with the birds too?"
Caramel eyes slowly lit with orange fire as it peered up into eyes of steel. Hibari felt himself unable to lie. "Yes." All the time.
It cocked it's head to the side. "With me or away from me?" It asked with the same manner a child would use when asking for a lollipop.
Away from you. Away from you. Away from you. Instead his lips moved on their own, "I don't know."
The thing hummed thoughtfully before nodding. "I'll ask again in a few more years." It's eyes where intense once more, the orange fire blazing in them, if a fire could blaze like an inferno yet remain at calm as an undisturbed pond. "I'll ask when everything on the ground has been reduced to ashes and nothing but the sky remains untouched and only then, Kyo-chan will you fly away with me?" It ended in a whisper that rolled over him more powerfully than any avalanche could.
The fire died out and blank eyes returned along with the stitched on smile. "Until then, I am Tsuna, okay?"
Giving it a name would make it a person, Hibari didn't know if he wanted it to be a person just yet but nodded anyway.
A sigh escaped it, a happy sigh. "I can't wait till the earth stops spinning."
And when it was too dark to do anything but sleep Hibari took the thing home and ignored the disgruntled form of the things brother and placed the cover of its bed over its small and childish frame and took a chance.
"Don't die in your sleep, Tsuna."
It was a start and someday he would look back on this moment as he stared at the polished wood of his desk and listened to the hum of his many subordinates and the technology crashing together, felt the clean fabric of his expensive suit and remember just what it was like when the two of them only had each other. Jealousy was not above him when it involved the one person he would follow to the depths of hell and back.