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He lived by one rule: do not get angry. And, unlike others, he found that following it was one of the few easy things he could do since he lost his warmth. He thought it somewhat funny; he traded his physical and mental capabilities for this abysmal sense of nothing. Tsuna deeply believed he got the short end of the stick.
Alas, the world is unjust and unfair and one must learn to live in it or decide to not live it at all. To morbid a thought, Tsuna shook his head and tried to pay attention to his english teacher. Sadly, he understood every third word of what she was saying and, even then, it appeared to enter from one ear and then run for its life through the other. And that was when she was speaking japanese. He dreaded the thought of how it would be when she began to speak in english.
Still, one such as him had to learn to see the silver lining, especially when it was grey instead of silver and rather difficult to see. Being so cold helped in that he had to center his attention around himself, not being able to spare his environment more than the essential to not kill himself with his clumsiness (an achievement that he happily could say he still haven’t managed to accomplish). It also had the effect that he could expertly ignore external stimulus. As such, no matter what others did, he could maintain his calm.
And, as he focused to watch his fellow students, that was rather fortunate. People, he had learnt, and specially teenagers, were very emotionally driven. Tsuna shuddered at the thought of how many problems he would have had if he was like that. Injured people would have been the last of his concerns.
He was startled when he felt a wet, slippery thing impact with the back on his neck. Looking backwards, he saw two blurred figures snickering. He look around and saw that the classroom was almost empty. Ah, the bell had sounded when he wasn’t paying attention. He then turn to throw a glance at the laughing pair. As he couldn’t recognize their faces, he determined they weren’t important and grabbed his backpack to take out paper to clean the spit from his neck.
He really couldn’t understand people. Boredom, he knew, but how did those students decided that chewing a processed dead tree and then spitting it through a straw was an excellent way to kill it?! What do they wanted to achieve? Actually, he was kind of curious about the evolution of that train of thoughts. Truly intriguing.
He reached the bathroom, then grabbed some paper towels and went to the sinks to wet them and clean himself. He looked at the mirror, seeing brown and pale skin and untidy uniform. He blinked and the world blurred. He intellectually knew his feet were moving, but his body felt more an ethereal thing than the solid mixture of carbon and other elements that it was.
When he managed to feel more real, he noticed he somehow managed to arrive to his home’s door without having (or causing) any accident. He blinked, this time in astonishment. That was an amazing achievement for him. Feeling his mood improving, he decided then and there that, just for that, it will be a great day and nothing would change his mind. Tsuna smiled, opened the door and entered.
——
And so it was.
He managed to muster enough attention and will to at least complete the first page of his math homework. It wasn’t a lot, as he still had other courses to work through, but considering it was him he thought it was rather outstanding. Then, after pleasantly zoning out a few hours, he heard his mother calling him for dinner.
Remembering for once that his bedroom was, in fact, in the second floor, and that the kitchen was in the first, he managed to walk down the stairs without any major disaster happening. Then, after a nice dinner where he almost could see pass the blurt of his mother’s face, he went to his room and fell blissfully asleep.
What a great day indeed.
——
The next day he woke up with the dregs of his past happiness lugging through his system. He somewhat wanted to somehow capture said happiness as for it to last for another day, but it seemed his energy levels weren’t in a cooperative mood today, as usual. He sighed and moved his legs to his bed’s side, trying to stand up and get ready for school. Try being the key word, as his legs tangled with his sheets and made him fall on his face with an indignant squawk.
He laid on the floor a couple of minutes, but in the ended he knew he had to acknowledge that the day still went on, and with it, The Hibari’s Student Arrival Deadline, which could actually be the end of the line for the few who dare to infringe it. And so, he stumbled his way to a more vertical alignment, barely feeling the new bruises he gained to achieve it. Well, one more flower to the bouquet, Tsuna distantly thought. He ran towards the kitchen, tripping on the stairs and falling head-first to the bottom.
The worst thing of all is that this event wasn’t unusual. One can even say it was so ordinary that the fact that yesterday he managed to avoid it was the abnormality in his case. He was tempted to just lay on the floor and contemplate how this was his life, but the threat of the skylark won, as always. He jumped to his feet, and tried to avoid the tiny figure in front of him.
Ensuring that he remembered to say good morning to his mother, he moved as to enter the kitchen, making an effort to listen to her greeting. He thought he heard her say something about being graceful and a tutor, when he was suddenly on the floor again. He blinked in stupor, having been sure that there wasn’t anything that could have tripped him, but then shrugged, thinking he must stumbled with his own feet. It wouldn’t be the hundred time he had done so.
He stood up, patting his stinging cheek and moved his feet towards the kitchen. He though he heard his mom, so he absentmindedly said good morning to her. It was his mother, it was important that he at least try to acknowledge her, even if he couldn’t be bothered to do that to the rest.
Suddenly, he heard a booming sound and felt heat on his cheek. Yellow, he thought as he watched what appeared to be a bullet hitting his kitchen wall. Bright, clear yellow.
Suddenly, for a crisp, sharp movement, he could see it. A strange, disproportionate, baby wearing a suit and a fedora, with a smoking gun on its hand. Its beady, black, blank eyes staring at him. Tsuna could see him clearly, every small detail plain to his eyes with no blurriness in sight. Something he had only seen a few times before when he saw a furious Hibari, and even that wasn’t as clear as in that moment.
“Ciaossu, dame-Tsuna”, he heard its squeaky voice say. He blinked at it, still dumbfounded by its clarity.
Then he yelped, as it kick him on the face- pretty hard for a body that small -, and the mirage was broken.
——
As much as he didn’t wanted to, he could admit that the rush that being able to actually feel something didn’t compensate for all of the baby’s, well, everything.
Reborn, as he was strongly educated it was called, was the tutor his no-good, deadbeat father decided to send for him. Clearly, when it came to matters regarding his progenitor, him doing nothing was better than him taking initiative. Alas, if only that man could see it that way.
The worst wasn’t the lack of personal space, or even the extremely unsafe desensitization conditioning masquerading as training practices, but the increasing shear level of anger he couldn’t help but experience each time his new friends stumbled into another new way to die.
From flying grenades to Godzilla-like turtles, friendship was really his most difficult trial. He never before had to struggle so hard to remain calm. But soon enough, he learned to canalize his fury into panic. Better for him to fear than to upset the balance he worked admittedly not-so-hard to maintain his whole life.
It began to worsen when his friends began to unlock their flames, becoming bright beacons that screamed ‘notice me!’ to his brain. And so, each time they recklessly ran around with all the attitude of a honey badger and all the self preservation of a lemur, under all the suppressed rage, he just wanted to cry for his lost numbness.
‘Do not get angry’ morphed from a mantra to a divine imposition when he went to deal with Mukuro. Even if his blood boiled with rage seeing Gokudera’s body being used with the same consideration a toddler uses a toy, even if he wanted to scream seeing all his friends bloodied like that, he needed to remain calm.
And so, he did.
Until he couldn’t.
——
His friends burned so bright and he, like a month to a flame, couldn’t help but get closer. Oh how strong he knew he will be scorched, but as the weeks passed and he saw his friends heal and train to became stronger, more human they became to him.
And so, when the too loud, too angry, too strong, white haired swordsman came, hurting what was his for no reason but for a box a stranger gave to him, his control slipped for a beat.
Just as the swordsman aimed to strike his unconscious friends, his eyes narrowed, jumping backwards and raising his sword to defend himself.
A drop of blood began to fall from his temple.
Tsuna cursed inside, quickly forcing himself to calm, just as the swordsman shook himself and began attacking the stranger. He felt a cold chill as he heard a tiny voice squeaking his name, quickly falling into the same old routing of arguing with the baby, but noticing how it looked at him with bottomless eyes.
Those eyes continue to follow him in his fight with the swordsman. If only he didn’t allow himself to become so close to his two idiots, he signed ruthfully, but, as they said, if fishes were wishes. However, as he walked home quietly enjoying their little skit, for the first time he felt that maybe, living in such a colorful world wouldn’t be so bad.
——
Forget about it. It was awful. The baby began teaching him along side his daily training a supplementary Interrogation 101 course, mostly by practicing on him. Experience is the best teacher his overly broken sense of reality, he huffed.
Since that little display, even if his lapse was quick and almost unnoticeable, the baby couldn’t keep its beady little eyes away from him. He didn’t know how could it even link that event to him, from all people, but he knew the baby knew it was him.
After all, it so shamelessly asked Tsuna how he did it. Even in the middle of his you-will-get-stronger-or-else training to fight the Varia, the baby would suddenly stop and threaten him with increasingly difficult and baffling tasks to complete if he didn’t explain.
For all his patience, he wasn’t accustomed to being so directly engaged by another being. His classmates, teachers, even his mother, they all interacted with him, but almost like an after thought. And, for him, their words and actions seemed like a light breeze, fleeting and forgettable.
But with the baby, - and, recently, with his friends -, every interaction felt too sharp and bright, painting the world either colors and forcing it into focus. He felt so out of his comfort zone. He snapped at it, snarling to not mess with what it didn’t understand.
The baby just tilted its head, big reptile eyes staring at him.
“Fine, explain it to me.”
Tsuna just paled, feeling his heart trying to scape his body just as he was trying to flee from it. How stupid, he reprimanded himself, to insult such a being as it. Not being able to take it anymore, he bolted.
—-
Then, the games arrived. Watching his friends putting their lives for pieces of worthless metal he didn’t even want made him tremble with unexpressed rage. Helpless as he knew that their opponents would not care if he was unwilling, too centered on their prize to see that he would happily hand the rings if he knew they would leave them alone if he did so.
But, as he saw his friends one by one falling or winning with his name on their lips, Tsuna knew that there was no returning from this. The Varia has made it personal and so he will answer in kind.
The final straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back was the god-dammed poisonous rings the pink women put on his friends. What a ridiculous plot device only used as a cheap way to create tension and raise the stakes, as if there was not enough drama for the pitiful number of non-participants that they dare call an audience.
He didn’t know who even his anger was directed to, if it was to the uncaring Varia leader, the unfeeling Cervello, or his useless progenitor.
It didn’t matter at the end. His rage was increasing by the seconds, with each stuttering and pained dimmed-colored light he knew were his friends’ flames. And, for the first time in his life, he felt it was okay to let it free.
He opened his eyes, drew a deep breath, and exhaled. With it, hundreds of sharp daggers rained, only sparing the ones he knew were his.
—-
“So, daggers, huh?.”
Black eyes stared at him, the baby wearing a hazmat suit pierced like a hedgehog with the blades.
Tsuna sighed, allowing his body to fell backwards to his bed.