Chapter 5
But once you start
Reborn awakes to a heavy feeling on his chest. Staying stock still as to not alert the person that he is awake, he opens one eye. He is met by a small bush of brown hair. Opening his other eye, he relaxes. It seems that during the night the baby had ended up on his chest. How Reborn wasn't sure, but he hoped it had nothing to do with the arm wrapped tightly around the boy.
Letting go, Reborn turns on his side, letting the child slide off and bounce gently against the bed. Amazingly Tsunayoshi doesn't wake up. Instead, he instinctively snuggles backwards until he's back against Reborn's chest. The tiniest smile escapes from Reborn's mouth before he catches himself. What am I doing? I'm a hitman. I can't get attached to him. I'm a ruthless killer, an emotionless shadow in the dark. I'm not capable to look after something like him, to give him what he needs. I'm an assassin, not a father, and there's a reason for that distinction.
"LUCE!" Down the hall there's a thump, a few clatters and a bang, before footsteps sound and his door slams open too. Standing there is a dishevelled Luce, only in a nightdress since she didn't have time to put a dressing gown on. She looks around the room for the threat, before resting eyes on Reborn.
"Reborn," she gasps, still half asleep "What's the matter?" She looks down at Reborn's chest to see the baby, looking bewildered at the sudden range of loud noises. Reborn grabs the baby by the back of its clothing and holds it out for her to take. The baby claps at the swinging motion, enjoying the ride.
"Take it." Reborn growls, before literally throwing the baby at her. Luce scrabbles forwards and catches the child. Sighing now that Tsunayoshi is safe, she turns dangerous eyes to Reborn.
"Reborn, how dare you throw him like that! What if he had fallen? I can't believe that you would do something so irresponsible." She holds the baby tightly against her body and half turns, keeping the child as far away from Reborn as possible.
"I am dangerous Luce. The baby should learn that now and stay away from me." Luce's expression changes from mad to confused, but Reborn simply rolls over, his back to them. Leon stares at them for a moment, large eyes trembling and looking sad, before climbing over Reborn and out of sight.
She turns and walks out of the door, closing it behind her. Slowly she walks downstairs, wondering what's happening behind those blank eyes of Reborn's. Once in the kitchen, her body follows a routine not followed for nearly for nearly 20 years without her mind's agreement. Before she knows it, she's sat on the sofa, bottle of milk in her hands.
She blinks out of her thoughts when the load in her hands lightens. Turning, she sees that Fon has taken Tsunayoshi out of her arms and is calmly feeding him once again. She smiles at the sight, thinking how natural it looks. "You've gotten good at that." she admits.
Fon looks up and gives her a smile. "Well, you weren't doing a very good job of it." She looks stunned for a moment, so he elaborates. "You were staring into space, leaving this little one to try and feed itself."
"I was?" He nods. "Well, it's just Reborn. He brought Tsunayoshi home and everything, and he was even smiling at the child yesterday, but now, he doesn't want anything to do with him. He even threw the baby at me earlier."
"That's Reborn for you," says Fon, shaking his head. "Just give him time to adjust, and he'll be fine. Out of all of us, he's going to have the hardest time becoming a father."
"Luce, kora!" Comes a shout from the kitchen. "Ain't you started breakfast yet? I'm famished." Leaving the baby in Fon's capable hands, she walks into the kitchen and starts breakfast.
The atmosphere around the table couldn't be colder. Colonnello has taken custody of the child for the time being, keeping him entertained by bouncing him gently, whilst eating his meal at the same time. The others are trying to ignore the glares between Luce and Reborn, assuming that they are having yet another fight. It wasn't an uncommon occurrence and the others knew to stay well away from it. Luce would go out shopping or to see Aria, Reborn would go on a mission and be more ruthless than usual. They'd come back and act as if nothing happened. The usual. They hoped.
And true to form, as soon as breakfast was finished, Luce stood up, leaving her plates on the table and left. 5 minutes later, the sound of the front door shutting could be heard. Tsunayoshi looks forlornly at the door, as if his favourite toy had just walked out. And 10 minutes after that, Reborn was nowhere to be found, leaving silently as usual.
A sigh of relief sounds through the house. Tsunayoshi still looks very sad.
All throughout the day, nothing they try and do cheers the child up. In fact, apart from eating and sleeping, Tsunayoshi doesn't do very much else at all. It's worrying for the others and without Luce they don't have a clue what to do.
At midday Viper finally emerges from her room and notices the strained atmosphere around her. Walking into the living room, she finds Skull lounging full length on his side on the sofa. The baby is laid on what little sofa remains. Skull is trying to entertain the baby with his bracelets since it worked yesterday, but the baby doesn't even react to them. Hearing her enter the room, both look up and Tsunayoshi immediately brightens up and reaches out for her. Sighing, she walks over and picks the child up. She'd rather do what it says than deal with the awful sound of crying. It's a lot quicker and simpler. Once in her arms, he turns to face her and starts crying.
"Oh no, not again. He's been doing that all day. The baby seems really depressed. Nothing we do cheers it up." Explains Skull, looking at the pair.
"I know," she growls. "It was him crying that woke me up." Skull gulps, waking Viper up is not a good idea. However instead of taking her anger out on Skull like usual, she sits down in an arm chair, brings her knees up, and settles the baby in the space between.
"You owe me money for waking me up." she warns the child. He simply keeps looking up at her with those huge chocolate eyes "I'll add it to your tab." She compromises and the babe smiles as if agreeing. Shaking off the feeling that Tsunayoshi really did understand, she places one fingertip on his forehead, and both close their eyes.
Skull watches on in fascination and secretly smiles at the bond between the two. It seems that Viper is more of a softie than she lets on. She's only ever like this with the baby, no one else. Keeping a close eye on her face, Skull sees that it changes; first she has half a smile on her face, which then changes to a scowl, outright shock then rage, before looking very sad herself.
Blinking away tears she opens her eyes. Skull looks at her with a dropped jaw, seeing the tears run down her cheeks. She growls at him, "Say anything and I'll take every penny you own," and Skull wouldn't put it past her. "Anyway, they're not mine but his." Oh, that made sense, Viper never cried.
"So, what's wrong with him?" asks Skull, looking down with concerned eyes.
"He wants Luce and Reborn to make up. And he wants Reborn to like him." She chuckles slightly. "God knows why. But it seems as if he likes Reborn the most out of all of us. Maybe likes is not the best word. He wants to… look after, no, he concerned, no that's not right." She lets out a deep sigh. "Well, it doesn't matter. That's for Tsunayoshi to know." She looks down at the child before sniggering again. "He says to pay up for knowing that."
Skull looks shocked. Tsunayoshi looks over to Skull and the stunt man swears there is an evil glint in his eyes- Not the baby too! In a scrabble, Skull grabs his wallet and hands over a load of notes. The baby eagerly grabs them and cuddles them as if it's a stuffed toy. Skull runs out of the room in fright.
"What a good little boy you are. I'll take this off your tab okay."
The moment Reborn comes home, Fon starts to attack him. Immediately, Reborn defends himself, but wonders what Fon is doing- Fon can hit harder than this, and he hasn't even aimed for any vital organs yet. Reborn finds his answer as he enters a room and the door is slammed infront of him.
Looking around the room, all he sees is Tsunayoshi, bundled in a blanket on the table sleeping. Reborn tries to open the door, but it's firmly being held shut. And there are no windows to escape out of either. A little while later, the door opens and Luce is chucked into the room too. Reborn thought he saw blue hair through the gap in the door, meaning that Lal must have pushed her in. She did, she was fed up of the baby's crying and wanted it sorted out immediately, since none of the others would let her lecture or train the child into silence.
At that point, the baby on the table wakes up and makes a happy gurgling sound. He looks at the two of them as if it's the happiest thing he's ever seen. Then he looks between the two and keeps on doing so.
Outside, the others are trying to listen through the door with little luck. When a bullet comes through the door, they decide that it would be safer slightly farther away. A few minutes later, loud shouting can be heard. It's easy to tell who is who, but what they are saying exactly is impossible to determine. The shouting match gets louder and louder and eventually they are shouting over each other. Just as the others think they should interfere, someone else does.
Tsunayoshi lets out the loudest scream they have ever heard. They swear that the rest of Mafia Row can hear it. Needless to say, the shouting match stops. However, just as it starts up again- doubtless debating who caused the noise- there is another scream. There is about another twenty minutes of mumbling through the door, before everyone hears a happy cheer from the baby. The rest of the Arcobaleno sigh in relief.
Seeing the time, Fon walks over to the kitchen "I think I'll cook tonight."
By the time dinner is served, Luce and Reborn have come out of the room. Fon takes the baby out of Luce's arms since he can eat one handed and hold Tsunayoshi in the other.
"I wish I could have recorded that," says Verde. The others all look at him questioningly. "Document how a mere child stopped these two from fighting. I would add it to the data I have already complied," and he grins scarily.
"You're not experimenting on the child now are you Verde?" asks Lal. Whilst she has no interest in the child, even she wouldn't want it to be experimented on.
Verde shakes his head. "No, I value my life. I am merely documenting the changes this child has brought upon us all. It's certainly extremely interesting." Keeping their thoughts to themselves, the others can't help but agree. They have noticed the changes Tsunayoshi has brought in the others.
When it's finally time for bed, after a fight over who was going to change Tsunayoshi, Luce takes him to her room. However, Tsunayoshi is determined to repeat last night.
After a while of trying to get Tsunayoshi to be quiet, Viper storms in again. "You're disturbing me again," she growls at the child.
Luce is really distraught that the baby doesn't want to sleep with her. She's never had that happen before. Aria always wanted to sleep with her; in fact, she couldn't sleep without her mother by her side for quite a long time.
"Why doesn't he want to sleep with me?" she cries over dramatically. Luce can feel the glare come from under the hood, but ignores it. "Viper, why me?"
Viper holds out her hand expectedly. Luce sighs. "Transferred tomorrow, usual rate right?" The hand disappears back under the robe. "He says he'll get to you eventually."
"Eventually… what's he planning?" Luce asks, confused by the mind of the baby.
"Didn't we go through this last night, kora?" asks Colonnello, standing in the door way.
"Would you make him shut up!" shouts Lal, hands over her ears.
"Give me a second." Viper says, turning her attention back to the baby. "Well, what do you want?" she asks rudely. Well, she does have better things to be doing than standing here with a crying infant. After a moment, she looks down at the baby, eyebrow raised (not that the others can see) in disbelief.
"You certainly are a weird one." She tells the baby. He simply looks up and smiles, before waving at her to hurry up and starts crying again. Sighing she walks out of the door.
"So who is it tonight?" asks Fon from his doorway.
She stops outside of a green door. "Is he sure? He's not safe behind there," stutters Skull, worried for the baby's safety.
"Well, he's not going to stop crying until he is. Unless you all want to deal with a crying baby for the night?" Heads shake in a definite no. She knocks on the door. The blueish glow from underneath shows that he's still up, on his computers. After a few moments the door opens and Verde looks at Viper.
"What? I'm busy." He asks. Viper hands over the baby.
"He's sleeping with you tonight." With the baby passed over, she and the others return to their rooms.
Verde stares at the baby, then the empty corridor, and finally the baby again. Tsunayoshi claps and moves closer to Verde's chest, before falling asleep in his arms. Verde shuts the door behind him. Tipping out some documents from a basket, he chucks a pillow inside and lays the baby in there. With him settled, Verde goes back to his research.
When he finally decides to go to bed, he turns the computers off, changes clothes and lies down. But Tsunayoshi starts to create a fuss and starts whining. Not loud enough to disturb the others, but loud enough to stop him from sleeping.
"Shut up and go to sleep," Verde growls. His crocodile follows suit, glaring at the baby. But Tsunayoshi keeps on crying. Stamping out of bed and over to the child, Verde brings a hand up but freezes when he looks into the baby's eyes. Seeing Verde looming above him, the child giggles and reaches up for him. Keiman stands on its hind legs, front paws on the basket and peers in as well. Tsunayoshi reaches over and pats the crocodile's nose, before returning to reaching up for Verde.
"I read in a journal somewhere that it's not a good idea for the baby to sleep in the same bed," The child looks sad, but still reaches up in hope. "They suggest to have the baby next to you, at the same height, but in its own separate bed." Sighing, he stacks a load of books next to his bed before placing the basket on top of it. "There that should do." Minding the basket he gets into bed. The baby quietens down and goes back to sleep.
Supposedly.
But after a few hours, Verde wakes to find that the baby has managed to make its own way into the bed. Verde suspects that Keiman, who is on Tsunayoshi's other side, moved the child. But Verde is too tired to complain, and goes back to sleep.
What an annoying child this is. But still, to sort out an argument through screaming alone is amazing. I'm going to watch you grow up and document it all. I hope that you give me something interesting to write about.
And if the crocodile wiggles over and pushes the baby closer to Verde, well, he's not about to let a specimen and data subject get harmed now, is he?
Phantom Hitman 1412
First Published 18 March 2012
Edited: 27 February 2013