I do not own Katekyo Hitman Reborn.
Hope you enjoy.
Chapter 4: Long Story
When the Friday came, Tsuna was starting to wish that he was dead. High school, apparently, was hell. He honestly had no idea how people survived high school, he had doubts that he would be able to.
After the school ended for the weekend, he declined every request he received to go out or to simply do something. He was too tired to even breathe; he just wanted a shower and a sleep until the dinner.
But of course, when he finally reached home, all of his hopes were crushed by the reality. He considered running away from home so he can sleep somewhere else, Enma's place maybe? But he knew better. He knew that Devil, aka Reborn would personally drag his body back home.
He resigned and went inside the house. He was expecting to find everybody on the kitchen but instead they were out at the backyard. He silently thanked his luck and went upstairs. In his opinion, if he would be facing all those people downstairs, to relax before was a good idea.
He took a slow shower, as if he was trying to wash himself enough that he even erased his own existence. He finally gave up and turned off the water before anyone decided that was a long enough bath to interrupt.
He put a towel around his hips, and then took another one to dry his hair off – it was never enough but he liked to try – but stopped when he was in front of the mirror.
It has been a while since he paid attention to how he looked. Back then, he did not care about how he looked. He was "useless" anyway, why give another reason to pick on him to the bullies? He tried to be "simple" as he could manage even though he was already far away from simple with that hair.
It wasn't that he didn't try, because he did. One day, he forced all of his fears away, and put on a brave mask, and then went to school with an earring. Yes, a pierced ear was maybe early for a 8 year old boy, but his mom said he can get one when they were at his grandparents' place for a vacation. He liked that place, he cried when they had to leave.
After he got beaten up for "looking like a girl" by middle schoolers, he decided that it was best for him to pretend like he was a simple boy.
But after he become close enough with his friends to tell them about it, they encouraged him to show them all the stuff he collected but decided to not to use. They spent almost two weeks talking about how they all have something they never dared to have, and in the end decided that if they did it together, none of their fears would come true.
That was how he was finally able to express himself the way he always wanted. Not just that, his body also changed so much in just a couple of years.
He was half Italian so he had some Italian lines but they were not as sharp as his dad's but not as soft as his mom's. His cheeks were not as chubby as they used to be too, and his skin was tiny bit darker than it used to be, because of all the amount of time he spent under the sun for practice, making him a little bit more exotic. His shoulders were broader; the muscles on his arm now clear to see if you pay attention, he even had a tight abdomen now!
He had the tattoos he always wanted and also pierced his ears, too. On his left ear, he had 3 earrings, one at the very tip, the others gets lower one by one. On his right, he had 2 earrings, one at the tip again but higher than the one at the left.
He had lots of earrings now thanks to his friends, but since he fell asleep many times in library and had to wake up in pain of his ears because the earrings got stuck between his head and the table; he decided wearing earrings to school was not a fun idea during exam weeks.
Now that those weeks passed, he reached for the small black box near the sink, and took out some of his earrings out of it to put them on. On his right ear, there were little black rings which he wore them at the bottom, then for the tip he chose a black crescent. For his left ear, he chose one of his chain earrings.
There were so many noises coming from outside when he put the last earring, so he decided it was time to get dressed and go down. But when he opened the door, he saw Reborn there, right hand stretched towards the doorknob, as if he was about to open it. They stared each other for a while, until it became awkward.
"Oh- Hi..." Tsuna said, mentally kicking himself for making things more awkward. That seemed to shake Reborn out of the thoughts he was in. - which is weird, Reborn didn't even let anyone know he was breathing; now he is showing that he is deep in thoughts? - "Everyone is waiting for you. If you are done with your princess bath, come down." The hitman said in a weird tone.
"I am not a princess." Tsuna retorted back lamely while he was walking hurriedly towards his room, trying to run away from the awkwardness.
"No. You are not." Reborn answered, surprising the brunette. There was something in his voice, same as his eyes, which Tsuna couldn't figure out. Reborn looked at his eyes for a while longer, and then went downstairs.
Tsuna wore his clothes as soon as he could and then ran to the backyard. As he was expecting it, his dad and his "team" was back at home too. The man didn't show up same as Reborn after he also went away for months. Now they were both back, pretending to never have been absent. How nice.
But what he didn't expect was to found Varia at his house too. "It must be something about work, he thought although he chose to not to ask why they were here, thinking it would be rude. Tsuna and his friends were now on good terms with Xanxus, but in Xanxus-Language it just meant that he simply wouldn't be putting a bullet into his head just because he existed.
Tsuna wasn't complaining though, he saw what had happened when even that tiny bit of "good" didn't existed in their relationship.
While he was busy looking at all the people in the backyard, his so called father ran towards him, hugging him while he was shouting out his stupidity with sentences like "Daddy is home!" "Say hi to daddy!" "Daddy missed his Tuna-fiiish!""Tuna-fish say hi to daddy!""Say hi!" "Hi! Hi!"
"Hi" Tsuna said, coldness creeping into his voice. But of course, the blond man didn't even notice that. He forcefully got rid of the man's grip, walking towards the other side of the table, where he would be farthest away from the man, which was also happened to be the seat next to Xanxus.
When he sat down, you could be able to cut the silence with a knife. He tried to ignore it and started putting food in his plate from the table. Casually as possible, he asked "So how have you guys been?"
The dinner was a little bit more awkward until the deserts came, but after the deserts the conversations took a turn towards funny, allowing everyone to relax and enjoy their evening. That didn't last, of course.
Around the time Lal was telling an embarrassing story about Iemitsu, Xanxus spoke for the first time in the evening.
"Any sign from that shitty excuse of a fucking dog?"
Everybody stopped laughing and watching Lal who was doing the impressions of Iemitsu, and turned towards the source of the strong but unnaturally calm voice.
"The dog?" Iemitsu asked looking puzzled at that, until Squalo bothered to explain.
"He is talking about the bastard who tried to get into your boy's pants." He said while rolling his eyes, not even looking anyone in the eye as he was too busy to devour another plate full of ice-cream.
There was a dead silence again. "What?" Iemitsu asked, a tiny bit angry since the people who tried to kill his beloved son knew more about the said son than Iemitsu ever did, because how did this even happened?
Iemitsu did think that he was a smart man. It was so sad that it even made Lambo pity the man.
Tsuna got up and said "It is a long story, okay? We can talk about it another time, now I have to go and get some sleep or I am going to faint from exhaustion."
No, he did not use his tiredness as an excuse to run away.
Okay, maybe just a tiny bit.
But just maybe.
It wasn't actually a long story; it was just that one night out at the club, a young man not much older than them approached to Tsuna and his friends. He had fair skin, styled dark brown locks and dark brown eyes. He was tall and dressed nicely, but not like brand-new clothes, more like clothes you bought at a just price and treated nicely.
Tsuna was busy staring at the mole under and a little to the left at the man's right eye when said man asked to buy him a drink. Tsuna thought he was a nice stranger, who wanted to just talk, and share a drink with him.
They did talk about lots of things; Tsuna ranting about how cruel of a man was Reborn, how Tsuna decided to not to love him anymore. And Tsuna thinks that tiny dogs are scary because they are like cats but they are dogs also does the kind stranger believes in aliens? Because Tsuna does, it is selfish to believe that we are alone in this universe and what a nice shirt the kind stranger has!
No one ever said Tsuna was good with alcohol.
He also never said he was good with relationships, so it was kind of a shock for "the kind stranger" when Tsuna asked why would he want to be go to the man's home? He already had a home.
Hayato blames Iemitsu when Tsuna does things like this.
At the end, Tsuna's so-called "kind stranger" turned into a stalker. He was everywhere, watching Tsuna, bothering him, threatening him. One night, when Tsuna was alone and was running away from his stalker, he stumbled upon Varia.
After the third time his friends fell asleep at school, Tsuna forbid is friends to try to watch his house at night, saying they all needed sleep and he could deal with a simple man. Lambo had a bad day at school, so to cheer him up he was about to get a grape candy when the man started chasing him with a gun.
Tsuna should have been expecting it. He should have realised that Xanxus was not a good at sharing. Not even his enemies. Let's just say that the stalker can't be stalking anyone for at least a century.
After that night, the Varia was a lot closer. Not close like "we are family" but close like "I won't let anyone hurt you because I want to do it myself". It was good enough for Tsuna.
Okay so maybe story was a little bit long. But that was not why he was running, he just seriously did not want to explain any of this while Reborn was right there.
His dad can be oblivious, but Reborn would definitely ask what he was doing at a night club. And he wouldn't miss the fact that Tsuna is still 17. But of course, it wasn't a story to hide for anyone else at the backyard. So Squalo told the story like he was telling the most boring story on earth when Iemitsu demanded to know.
Tsuna was sleeping for almost an hour when he felt someone was watching him and stirred awake. It was dark in his room only light coming from the open window. He sleepily watched the shadow of his curtains moving along the wall when a soothing breeze slowly pushed them towards the darkness of the room.
"Is everything okay?" Tsuna asked, not bothering to see the hitman watching him.
"No." The hitman said, not offering any further explanation. Tsuna slowly turned towards him, not exactly laying on his back, and put his finger tips on the man's forearm. It was not usual to see Reborn like this, his expensive tie was loose and hanging around his neck, the three buttons of his white shirt was open and his sleeves rolled up enough that his elbows was visible, his jacket was nowhere to seen, his hat sitting on the desk with Leon still on it.
Tsuna slowly traced the length of the man's forearm, and then raised his caramel eyes to the pitch black ones, sleep slowly fading from his eyes. "What is wrong?" he asked, his hand still touching the man.
Reborn didn't answer for a while, using his other hand to play with Tsuna's hair while the brunette started to draw circles on the man's arm "Just tired." he said, that weird tone back in his voice.
"Want to sleep together?" Tsuna asked, trying to clean the traces of hope from his voice. Even after all that time he declared that he hated the hitman, he couldn't help his heart when it started to beat faster in his chest with hope.
Reborn laughed, not like a sarcastic laugh, but one of his genuine, warm laughs. Tsuna counts them. "11" he found himself saying, unable to shut his mouth with his brain filter still sleeping. Reborn looked at him like he was confused, then he narrowed his black eyes for a moment; as if searching for something.
If he realized what exactly Tsuna was counting, he said nothing about it.
"You are not allowed to go to the night clubs anymore." The hitman said instead, dodging the brunette's question. The sentence made it clear that it wasn't a joke; Tsuna would be in serious trouble if he took it as a joke although there was no fire in the man's voice. Reborn was still playing with his hair, making sleep come back to the brunette, so Tsuna easily agreed with a nod.
It wasn't long before Tsuna fell back into sleep, his hand still on Reborn's arm, while the hitman played with his hair some more before his hand finally cupping his face. He traced the brunette's lips with his thumb, his eyes roaming Tsuna's face.
The itch to shoot someone still following him ever since the evening, he just couldn't decide if he wanted to shoot himself or someone else.
This chapter was a lot more harder than the last three combined, I almost had to write it from zero. And I had to do it twice.
I seriously do not know if it turned out well, I wanted to show all the relationships that had changed over the years, but if this chapter was boring for you, please let me know.
If anyone is interested, I am looking for a beta :)
Thank you guys for all the follows, favs and reviews!
Comments and critisim are welcome as always ^w^
~Eliza.