Case 2

The next was a little more memorable.

Gokudera Hayato.

Tsuna was 10 when he'd met him. He was scary and scowling and honestly Tsuna didn't even want to look at the taller boy when he arrived into his classroom all angry and vicious. Destructive. Tsuna knew better to go near people who acted like that.

But he also couldn't possibly just stand there and watch the other die in front of him either.

The brunette remembered his eyes looking back at those shining emerald green ones as the adrenalin from his tackle ebbed away from his small body. He had never looked at a person directly in the eyes for a long time, his was a rather spectacular shining colour. Tsuna could almost ignore that far too close, brush of death he almost had with the falling roof beam.

"Are you okay?" He asked softly, worriedly. Real concern and fear in him. For this stranger. A person he hadn't even planned to talk to for the rest of his life.

"You, you saved me." Was all the other kid breathed out in breathy shock and awe. It was a stupid thing to say really. So Tsuna just smiled politely and just replied, "Of course." Like it had been the most obvious thing to do in the world.

Gokudera and he instantly became close after that. The silver haired boy's personality had made a complete 180, from angry and fierce and violent to happy and charming and endearingly puppy-like. Looking back on it now that really should have been the first clue that something was off about Gokudera.

But Tsuna was just so, so overjoyed to have a friend.

That joy was tragically short-lived.

Somehow Gokudera found out about Mochida. Tsuna had never told him. No one ever spoke of that incident. The brunette never did know how the silver haired boy had found out but he did. He did and of course everything changed.

He became violent and possessive and would actually snarl and threaten anyone who dared go near Tsuna, talk to him, even look at him. Sometimes when Tsuna would be the one to initiate contact with anyone else other than Gokudera, he would find himself pushed harshly against a wall, enraged green (no longer beautiful and clear, just clouded, so terrifyingly clouded) intensely glaring at him with vehement jealous. The smaller boy would cry as the other shouted and yelled and dug his nails into soft skin as if the pain would integrate the words better.

Then like a little switch all the fight and rage would flow out of him like water to a drain. Gokudera would apologise, tears forming in his eyes and try to coax Tsuna out of whatever hysteria he was in. Gokudera became gentle, painfully gentle as he took care of the brunette's wounds and treated him with a carefulness that Tsuna had felt like a delicate fragile precious doll. The repeated whispered apologies and 'I'm only doing this because I care' and 'Why can't you see how much you mean to me?' and 'I love you, I love you, I can't possibly let anything hurt you ever again, I love you,' still occasionally echoed in Tsuna's ears.

People began dying. Poison. Cyanide. The ingredients for dynamite found in their stomach contents. One Mochida was found first, face down in a pool of his own vomit and blood and urine. He was supposed to leave Juvie the next day. Never did.

The next few were some of Tsuna's former bullies. They had apologised and left the young child alone after the whole Mochida incident. Not many still remembered they had bullied the brunette with gravity-defying hair. But here they were. Dead in the quarters of their own homes. Poisoned.

Tsuna picked up the pieces relatively fast. It help Gokudera looked so proud, his green eyes glittering and looking at Tsuna with such hope and expectancy for his approval Tsuna felt sick.

Gokudera never had been caught, he was a genius after all. But his family had found out about his little 'obsession', it hadn't been that hard not to, and wisely moved to Italy. Gokudera had cried and held onto Tsuna with such force that the brunette had hand-sized bruises for days. His green eyes, dim, erratic, no longer bright but dark and dangerous would not leave Tsuna's scared honey brown ones (he was ordinary, so ordinary, why must he go through this?) as he promised to come back, that he will find him and never let him go.

Tsuna felt terrible for feeling so relieved to find out the silver haired child and his family died in a car crash less than a year later.