WARNINGS! Mentions of anxiety and depression and a description of past suicidal thoughts.
It's not bad, but please stay safe guys!
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The first time it happens, it's a warm afternoon in September, just a few days after Gokudera's birthday.
Without any warning, Tsuna completely disappears from Reborn's sight.
Reborn doesn't like it when his targets disappear, but he isn't worried. There haven't been any new reports of assassins itching to spill the young heir's blood and while Tsuna can be distressingly oblivious and outright birdbrained, he has faith that the kid wouldn't run straight into an assassins lap. Or if he did, he'd at least be very loud about it.
Be that how it is, Tsuna returns home a few hours later no worse for wear so it's not a big deal at all. The boy doesn't say where he's been and Reborn doesn't care enough to ask. He's actually feeling rather generous and only kicks his student in the face once when he's a few seconds late for dinner.
Reborn dismisses the incident.
However, it happens again about a week later. One moment Tsuna's yelling at Lambo to wear regular clothes just until his cow onesie is being washed, and then suddenly the house is quiet and Reborn finds Lambo alone on Tsuna's pillow, naked as a newborn baby and drawing turds into Fuuta's book with I-Pin's new crayons.
None of the brats know where Tsuna is (though Fuuta's smile is annoyingly mysterious) and even Mama simply shrugs absently and says that maybe Tsu-kun went to the playground to play. (Reborn doesn't remind her that Tsuna is turning seventeen soon and hasn't done that for years. Has probably never done that all, considering how lonely he was as a child.)
It gets Reborn a little curious, but he has to admit that even future mafia bosses sometimes need time away from obnoxious cow brats and distant mothers.
Tsuna looks upset when he returns that evening so Reborn considers it case closed and gives him double homework. Just because Vongola funds (bribes) his high school studies, doesn't mean that he gets off easy. And the screech he lets out when he discovers that Lambo has peed on his pillow is a nice bonus.
Tsuna disappears again just a few days later and that's when Reborn really gets curious. Mostly not about where and why Tsuna wanders off to, but more about how he does it. He's been keeping a closer eye on the young heir after his second disappearing act and yet somehow Tsuna still manages to vanish into thin air at some point between leaving school and reaching home. His Guardians get home alive and well, so Reborn's not curious enough to go look for the wayward Sky.
But.
Reborn's a hitman. The very best the world has to offer. Some snotnosed formerly sealed Sky brat doesn't just slip past the world's number one hitman without getting caught a dozen times over. Even if the Sky brat is about as powerful as all of Japan's nuclear power plants combined (and potentially as dangerous as that bunny from Monty Python), it just doesn't happen.
So Reborn is curious. And more than a little bit annoyed as he resigns himself to watch over his student more until he stops being stupid.
When Tsuna gets home, frowning and quiet, he initiates a full-scale training regimen that makes the fight with Jaeger and Bermuda look like a playdate and wallows in Tsuna's wails of despair to make himself feel better. It sort of works.
(Tsuna's too exhausted to drag himself upstairs that night so he passes out on the couch. No one mentions the blanket thrown over his exhausted body nor the mug of still steaming hot chocolate he finds when his aching muscles wake him in the dead of night.)
But even that isn't enough to deter Tsuna from his newly formed bad habits. He's not even fully recovered yet (maybe that training was a tiny bit too much) when he goes to the bathroom for a few minutes. Few minutes turn into ten, then twenty, then an hour...
Reborn still quickly checks the bathroom before ditching the house.
The first one he finds patrolling the streets near the house is Hibari and Reborn isn't surprised at all when he just shrugs and walks away without saying a single word.
The girls are having a sleepover at Kyoko's house with Ryohei as their official and extremely enthusiastic Snack Bringer and don't have a clue where Tsuna might be.
Yamamoto and Gokudera greet him together at Gokudera's apartment (Colonello and Lal both totally owe him 100 euros) and when asked about Tsuna they share a glance and shrug in union.
"I'm sure he'll be back home soon," Gokudera says with only the barest hint of worry, avoiding eye-contact with Reborn.
"Don't worry, kid. I'm sure Tsuna's fine," Yamamoto says with a smile that's just a little bit too bright.
He doesn't even bother with Mukuro.
A quick scan through entire Namimori doesn't give him any hints either, so he returns home and settles in to wait.
It doesn't really matter if the brats are hiding something from him. They are allowed to do that. And as long as Tsuna's Guardians aren't worried about their boss, Reborn refuses to be worried too. He's just waiting for Tsuna to show up so he can finally train the stupidity out of him.
Except Tsuna shows up that night, dragging his feet and eyes red and puffy like he's been crying, and Reborn thinks that he should've pushed the others more.
He mumbles something about not being hungry as he toes off his shoes, then drags himself upstairs, the door to his room closing with a soft click.
Logically Reborn knows that Tsuna's much better nowadays and has a proper support system a teenage boy and a future mafia boss needs. But Reborn has worked way too hard to get the boy out of that hole and he's not about to leave anything up to chance now.
He finds his student sitting in the dark room on the edge of his bed. He's hugging his legs, head resting on knees.
Reborn shows no mercy when he flicks on the light and says sternly, "Tsuna."
The boy doesn't flinch, but he stiffens, hands clenching the fabric of his pants. Then he relaxes with a quiet sigh and looks up. Reborn expects to see tears or frustration, but all he sees is exhausted resignation.
Somehow Reborn thinks that crying would've been better.
Tsuna plasters on a mechanical smile before he speaks. "Oh, Reborn. Um. I did my homework already, you can go ahead and check it. And you probably want me to do some extra work or get some training done, right? I just... do you think it could wait until tomorrow? I swear, I'll work twice as hard. I'm just... tired right now. Really tired."
Something white flashes in Reborn's sight and he zeroes down on the bright white bandage wrapped around Tsuna's left hand.
"What happened to your hand?" he asks, sharper than intended because while he knows that Tsuna still has some unhealed cuts and bruises from the training (the one on his thigh brutal even by Reborn's book), none of them were bad enough to need wrapping. Reborn is convinced that he knows all of Tsuna's injuries, and his hand wasn't in that list before.
"Ah, this? It's no big deal, I was just clumsy... again. So I burned myself a little. Should be fine in a few days." Tsuna flexes his fingers carefully, showing that it doesn't bother him much. It's wrapped neatly, too, so the brat had to have someone else take a look at it.
"You're hiding something from me."
"No?"
Reborn gives him a bland look and Tsuna cringes.
"Okay, yeah, maybe. But can we please not do this tonight?"
He sighs. His useless student is a terrible liar and he knows it, but he is good at keeping things hidden simply by being ridiculously stubborn. If he really doesn't want to tell, he won't tell and Reborn's not going to force him. He's not an asshole like that. (He's a different kind of asshole.)
"Fine. Go to sleep if you're that tired. I'll tell Mama."
"Thanks, Reborn."
"Don't thank me. This conversation isn't over."
"I know!"
Reborn sleeps lightly that night, keeping his brain awake just enough that he'd know if anything happened to Tsuna. But the boy stays in bed, sleeping soundly, and come morning, Reborn considers his options.
Tsuna needs attention and stimulating activity when he's feeling down, but recently it hasn't worked the way it usually does. Sure, it gets his mind off of things for a few hours, but ultimately makes him more exhausted without giving his head time to clear. It doesn't work on longer problems.
So for now Reborn decides to give his student a few easy days, give him time to sleep and recharge. He'll make sure he has normal (boring) fun with his friends and not the dangerous (cool) kind of fun. Let him be a normal teenager for a while.
He also won't ask about the disappearances. Forcing him to talk could just prove to be counterproductive anyway, make him run and hide even more. Tsuna will talk to him when he really needs to.
He can't indulge the boy for long, because he does need to catch up on a lot of studies if he's to become a respectable Mafia boss, but he does deserve a little break. He's worked hard.
So over the next few days, he gently manipulates Tsuna to catch a movie with his friends, spend time in TakeSushi after school, and even have a sleepover at his place with a lot of video games and homemade snacks (and Math homework).
And it seems to work. Even if he still doesn't talk about what happened that night or how he hurt his hand, Tsuna looks happier than he's been in a while.
October rolls around with its cooler winds and the rainbow of slowly dying leaves. And that's when Reborn catches his student on the act for the first time.
He steps into Tsuna's room, about to force him to a light (three times around the entire town) jogging session with Ryohei. But what he finds, is his student frozen with one leg out the window, staring at his tutor with wide eyes, his entire body soundlessly screaming, 'ohshitohshitohshit'.
Reborn shoots a bullet past his head, making him screech for real as he trips and falls to the floor.
"Watch your language, No-Good Tsuna,"
"I didn't even say anything!"
Reborn waits patiently as Tsuna gets up slowly, grabbing the windowsill for balance.
"Um. I'm going out for a while," he says carefully, as if he's facing an aggressive lion who hasn't been fed for two months. He's not wrong to assume that.
"I can see that, yes," Reborn answers dryly.
Tsuna swallows, and his knuckles turn white with how hard he's gripping the windowsill. His eyes dart around the room, not meeting Reborn's even for a moment.
"I know you want me to, uh, go jogging or something, but I can't right now. I need to go out. I'll be back in a few hours."
"Where to?"
"Just... around. Somewhere. Not far."
"That's not an acceptable answer." Reborn flicks the Leon-safety off again, making his student flinch.
Tsuna collects himself with a deep breath and finally meets Reborn's eyes. "I know. But I-" He stops abruptly. Closes his mouth with a click, then opens it again. "Are you... worried?"
His fingers twitch on the trigger, almost shooting another bullet. But it seems like lies and denial don't work on the boy anymore. His intuition has grown too strong for that. So he goes for the truth instead.
"You're gone for hours and when you return, you're either depressed or hurt or both. Yes, Tsuna. I am worried."
"I... I'm sorry. I thought you were just mad at me, not..." He trails off as something catches his eye outside. When he looks back, his eyes gleam bright amber even through the faint sheen of guilt. "But still, I need to do this, Reborn. I promise, it'll be better this time. I'll make it work somehow."
It takes one tenth of a second for Reborn to reorganise his thoughts.
"Yamamoto and Gokudera know where you go, right?"
Tsuna winces at that, but nods slowly. "I asked them not to tell anyone," he whispers.
"And they've been following your orders. Good job. Where's your phone?" he continues, ignoring Tsuna's grimace about the implication that he'd given an order.
The brat pats his pockets down quickly, frowning. He looks around the room until his pillow catches his eye. After a brief search, he digs it out from inside his pillowcase and Reborn kind of wants to shoot him for an entirely different reason now.
He then holds it out for Reborn to take with sheepish resignation.
"What are you going to do with it?" he even has the gall to ask.
Tsuna blinks in surprise when Reborn suddenly lets Leon morph back into his original form.
"I won't do anything with it. But how can you call your guardians when you get in trouble if you don't have your phone?" he says, also making a mental note to start training the whole crew to carry around wireless transmitters even on their days off.
Tsuna gawks at him for a long moment. Then he quickly shoves the phone into his pants pocket and climbs up onto the windowsill again.
"So I can just go?"
"Be back by dinner. If you're not..."
"Triple training?"
"Quadruple."
Tsuna winces, but jumps out the window with a quick "Thanks!" thrown over his shoulder.
Reborn allows himself to feel a little proud – the kid didn't even think of using the front door.
Life goes on. Tsuna dutifully keeps on disappearing about twice a week on random days, but at least now he tells Reborn each time before he goes. And each time Tsuna returns, he looks a little bit better. He's not happy, but whatever he's doing isn't hurting him anymore. And that, Reborn thinks, is good enough for now.
Until, one evening, Tsuna returns to the house as a complete wreck. There doesn't seem to be anything physically wrong with him but he's panicking as he stammers out halfassed apologies and promises about something Reborn can't quite catch each time he tries to talk the boy down.
Several times over the evening he considers calling Yamamoto and Gokudera to see if they can calm him down, but seeing how even quiet unexpected sounds make him jump and how he can't stomach more than a few bites of Mama's fried rice, simply allowing Lambo to steal his leftovers without a single protest, he ends up not calling them.
Tsuna's not on the verge of having an anxiety attack, he's in the middle of it and nothing Reborn does can snap him out of it. Oblivious and destructive Guardians might just make the situation even worse, might push Tsuna right off the edge of anxiety and right back into depression. (Reborn adds that to his ever-growing checklist of Things The Brats Need To Learn. They need to know how to handle an overwhelmed boss.)
So all he can do for the boy now is to force him to bed, ban the children from entering his room so he could actually rest, and lie to Mama about Tsuna having a bad headache so she'd bring him warm tea and tuck him in. (Nana loves her son, she really does, but from time to time Reborn needs to remind her to actually show her love, because otherwise Tsuna might forget.)
And as Tsuna drifts off to restless sleep, Reborn stays up.
He has had enough of this fiasco, he thinks, watching his student toss and turn with nightmares. Next time Tsuna tries to disappear, he'll follow him and finally find out what's bothering him. He put it off long enough because he trusts his student, but this isn't about trust anymore. This is about Tsuna's physical and mental health and that's something Reborn doesn't want to mess around with unless he has full control over the situation.
Tsuna finally settles down some time before the dawn and Reborn thinks it's safe for him to catch a few hours of sleep as well. His rapidly growing body does not agree with him staying up all night anymore. It's a weakness, but it's the type of weakness he'll happily endure in exchange of being free from the curse.
Tsuna will be fine.
But then, Reborn wakes up just a little after dawn and finds Tsuna's bed empty and cold and uncharacteristically neatly made up.
He bites back a sharp curse as he throws his own covers off. Changing his pyjamas for his suit and slacks takes half a second and then he's already out of the room, Leon – startled by the abrupt wake up – shifting too slowly into a phone.
He rushes down the stairs after a brief stop at the bathroom - just making sure his stupid student isn't doing anything idiotic in there. Mama is obliviously making breakfast in the kitchen – the smell of coffee is somehow especially good and inviting, but he doesn't have the time right now. Not when Tsuna could be somewhere all alone, dying under the weight of guilt and responsibilities this world has forced on him.
Leon finally finishes shifting as he makes it to the front door and–
"Reborn? Is everything okay?"
His shoes squeak with how fast he turns around.
"Tsuna!" he hisses at the boy peeking out from the kitchen. "What are you doing?"
Tsuna eeps and retreats further back, like the wall would protect him.
"Is this about last night? I'm sorry, okay? I didn't mean to freak out."
Reborn sighs deeply, pinching the bridge of his nose. He takes a long moment to just... resent stupid Tsuna's stupid bad habits of not making his stupid bed in the mornings.
"Reborn? Is there something wrong?" He glances up the stairs for a moment before continuing quietly, fiddling with something in his hoodie's pocket. It rattles quietly so Reborn assumes they're Dying Will pills. "Is there another battle coming?"
Reborn could turn this into another training exercise by telling him that Shoichi and Spanner let loose an invisible herd of robot attack pigeons and that they're now running rampant in the town, robbing small businesses and bullying children, and the only way to locate them is with his intuition, but Tsuna looks so nervous about the thought that he might have to fight again and truthfully, after last night's and this morning's ordeal, Reborn doesn't even have the energy to troll him. Not without coffee.
"No, Tsuna. Nothing's wrong," he says instead and Tsuna's shoulders sag in relief.
Now that Reborn knows that his student hasn't spiralled back into being an obliviously suicidal idiot, he can relax a little, too. He can't feel Mama in the kitchen and so the smell of coffee had to be something Reborn simply imagined because Tsuna absolutely refuses to go close to the espresso machine, afraid that he might break the expensive machine somehow. Except there is a very distinct smell of good, freshly grinded coffee in the air, nothing like the bitter smell of second-rate espresso from the Sawadas' coffee machine. He only drinks that because Mama may excel at cooking, but coffee isn't her area of expertise and she did spend all that money just so that Reborn could get his fix of caffeine without having to raid nearby cafes.
"What are you doing, anyway?"
"Oh, right! Um. I got something for you."
He gestures meekly at the kitchen and Reborn takes up the invitation easily, settling in the heightened chair at the table.
"Just give me a few minutes, okay?" Tsuna says.
He turns back to the counter and Reborn very nearly can't hold the surprise off his face at what he sees. And just with that one look, everything clicks. Tsuna's secretiveness, his anxiety attack, the burnt hand, it all makes sense. Because the kid is measuring freshly grinded coffee – there's a small manual coffee mill at the side – into a moka pot, his movements slow and careful, but not blundering like Reborn is used to see. They're practised.
Tsuna levels the grounds gently, not pushing them down (which would be a rookie mistake). He's impossibly even more careful as he screws the top chamber in place, triple-checking that it's secure. Placing the pot on the stove and nudging it a few times to make sure it's in the middle, he picks up a large pot lid and approaches the stove, holding the lid up like a shield. He turns the heat up slowly almost to the highest, then yanks his hand back behind the protection of the lid. Then he settles in to wait, faintly orange eyes fixed on the pot with the amount of concentration Reborn usually only sees in his student when he fights for his and his comrades' lives.
When the pot starts gurgling, Tsuna turns the heat off and picks the pot off the stove, immediately placing it on a small stone trivet on the counter. Only when it's safely on the trivet, he puts the lid down and takes a moment to shake his hands out. But as he reaches for the two cups, he stops, staring at them in horror.
He throws a quick contemplative glance at Reborn, who keeps up a blank expression, then picks both cups up, one in each hand. A moment passes and then orange fire licks the edges of the cups, heating them up from inside. He peeks sheepishly at Reborn again after he puts the cups back on the saucers, as if expecting reprimand.
Reborn doesn't say anything. They're Tsuna's flames and he's got them in abundance. He can use them however he wants. And if Tsuna's resolve lies in heating up coffee cups, then so be it. Reborn has worked with less.
Tsuna fills both cups with hot, fresh coffee, one to the top and the other about three-quarters up. He measures the distance between the counter and the table several times and takes a deep breath before he even attempts to pick up the full cup. He covers the full meter and a half with three careful steps and places the cup down right in front of Reborn, not spilling a drop. The second cup gets the same cautious care and lastly, Tsuna pulls out cream from the fridge before he finally settles down in a chair, releasing a long sigh.
Reborn doesn't even bother trying to hide the amused smirk. Honestly, even if the coffee is bad, he'll still give the kid some credit just for the show.
"Happy birthday, Reborn," Tsuna says quietly, as he pulls the sugar and cream closer to himself.
And Reborn freezes for a fraction of a second. It's not that he forgot about it. Reborn never forgets things like that. It's just that with all the distractions, he didn't really think much of it. He did assume that his student would arrange a party or something, too scared of repercussions to not to, but he never spent more than a few moments thinking about it. But a quick look to the calendar on the kitchen door confirms it. It's October 13th, Reborn's birthday.
Tsuna fidgets with the sugar bowl, lifting two heaping spoonfuls into his cup and stirring it absently, almost spilling the whole cup before he catches himself and holds the cup steady with his other hand.
"I know it's not real espresso, but moka is close enough, right? And I mean, if it's no- um, no good, then I've prepared something else for you too, at the party tonight. Vongola style. I just thought that maybe... well, I can't really tell myself, but Gokudera-kun said it tasted okay and even if he can be biased sometimes, I thought that since it didn't kill him, it might be worth a shot even though I know that the only thing I can cook is like cup noodles and even then I usually spill like half the seasoning before it even–"
"Stop blabbering, No-Good Tsuna." Reborn cuts him off before he can spiral any further into some twisted self-discriminating disaster.
"Right, sorry."
He fumbles with the creamer next, almost spilling that too as he attempts to hit his coffee with a splash of cream.
Reborn picks up his own cup, taking a deep breath. The coffee smells good. The aroma is rich and complex, nothing like cheap espresso.
He takes a sip, ignoring how Tsuna turns rigid, his clenched fists shaking subtly.
The coffee... is good. It's not the best he's ever had, but even with Reborn's standards, that'd be way too much to expect from a beginner, anyway. It is still very, very good coffee, and Reborn suspects that the Sky flames Tsuna used to warm the cups only help a little with balancing the flavour.
"It's good," he says.
Tsuna snaps his head up with a sharp intake of air.
"Really?" he asks, incredulously, and from the way he studies Reborn's face, he's trying to find the lie in Reborn's words. But there's no lie and Tsuna huffs out a short and brittle laugh. "I did it. I really did it."
"Don't get cocky, No-Good Tsuna. I said it's good, but there's still a long way to perfection."
Tsuna laughs again, a little lighter and brighter now. "Yeah, I know, but it's a start, right? I didn't just simply mess it up."
"Yeah, you didn't. It's good," Reborn allows, not at all minding the repetition for the sake of his student's crumbled self-esteem. "So this is what you've been up to for the past month?" he asks, wiping the stupidly happy grin off of the boy's face.
"Well, yeah. I asked Grandpa to send me the tools from Italy and he sent me beans, too. And Yamamoto-san allowed me to use his kitchen to practise. Mom doesn't like it when I'm too close to the stove, but Yamamoto-san just kept an eye on me in case I set anything on fire. And, you know, despite everything, it was fun. And it was hard, but I learned it because I wanted to, not because I had to." He finally takes a sip from his own coffee, slightly scrunching his nose at the taste. "I still think coffee is just bitter bean juice. It's bearable with cream and sugar, though."
"That's because you're still a brat."
"Look who's talki– Eeep! Don't shoot! I'm sorry!"
Tsuna ducks under the table. Satisfied, Reborn lets Leon turn back into a chameleon and takes another sip as he waits for Tsuna to emerge.
He does, eventually, and goes back to his coffee with a quiet grumble, leaning his chin on his crossed arms on the table.
And Reborn enjoys the moment. The kids are still sleeping so the house is quiet. Mama should be getting up soon to make breakfast and birthday breakfasts are always the best. The sun is still low but the sky is clear and it's promising a beautiful autumn day. His student is drinking coffee with him in a sleepy silence and there'll be lots of chaos for Reborn to bask in in just a few hours, but for now this is good.
Except Tsuna's been quiet too long, staring off into distance with that hard look on his face he gets when he thinks too much about certain things.
Reborn holds back a sigh. "Just spit it out, Tsuna," he says, not unkindly for once.
Instead of the indignant gasp he's expecting, Tsuna hums faintly in acknowledgement. Whatever his student is going to say, it's important.
"I wanted to..." he trails off. Finishes off his coffee and offers Reborn a refill with a vague motion with his hand, which he gladly accepts. It takes a while for Tsuna to work up the courage to bring the pot to the table and fill up Reborn's mug again, but he manages without causing a disaster. He speaks again when he has sat down.
"It's not just a birthday gift. I also wanted to thank you. For, well, pretty much everything."
"Oh?" Reborn says, instead of the sarcastic reply he had in mind at first. Tsuna needs to learn to speak his mind even when he's scared to do so. And if the nervous fiddling with his empty cup is anything to go by, then Tsuna is scared at this moment.
The boy thinks for a while, his brow furrowed. When he speaks, he does so quietly, as if someone might overhear.
"I think there's something I want to tell you. I haven't told anyone else and it's probably best if I don't. They'd freak out. Or, well, it'd probably take a while to explain things to Onii-san and Hibari-san would just beat me up. Mukuro... I honestly don't know about him. He's weird. But yeah, Yamamoto and Gokudera-kun would freak out and Chrome and the girls would be–"
Reborn rolls his eyes. "Get on with it, No-Good Tsuna."
"Ah, right. Sorry, I got distracted. Anyway, before you barged into my life and made things complicated, I had this goal. It was something that... that kept me going even when my classmates made fun of me, or when Shiraki-senpai and his gang beat me up, or when Mom yelled at me for not cleaning my room and called me useless... She's better now. The kids make her happier than I ever did and I'm glad for that.
"But back when it was just the two of us, sometimes Mom got mad for my dirty uniform. I tried telling her and the teachers about all those things the others did to me, but they just wouldn't listen. They called me useless and stupid and told me to do something about it but I never knew what else I could do besides just enduring everything."
Tsuna sighs and leans back, suddenly looking much older than an almost seventeen year old boy should. "And you know, Reborn, when everyone calls you worthless and useless all the time, from the moment you get out of bed until you can pass out again in the evening, and nothing changes even when you try to be worth something, then you kind of start believing it. I mean, if that's what everyone says, then it must be true. And I've never gotten a good grade in anything so it's not like I can trust my own knowledge on anything.
"So I thought that, if I'm so worthless, then no one would even care if I wasn't around anymore. I thought that maybe things would be better for others without me. But you know that I've been a coward my entire life, so instead of dealing with it immediately, I sort of just... set a goal."
Tsuna takes out a white pill bottle from the pocket of his hoodie and hesitantly pushes it closer to Reborn. His blood runs cold the moment he recognises the writing. Secobarbital, the characters read. Or "Red Devils" as Reborn knew them from the streets of Italy. Overdosing is not a certain death if it's caught fast enough, but for someone as small and light as Tsuna, it might as well be.
Reborn had always known that Tsuna had been close when he first came around, but he never knew how close, and he definitely didn't know the boy had the means to take his own life this entire time, keeping it around like some sort of twisted protection charm.
But even as his fingers twitch to get the damned drugs away from his student, to protect him from this danger, he forces himself to stay still and listen to the end.
"I think Mom got these a little after Dad stopped visiting, but she never used them," Tsuna explains quietly. "I took them from the first-aid box while I was trying to clean one of the worse cuts Shiraki-senpai caused. Mom never noticed. She probably doesn't even remember getting them.
"I carried them around for a while as a promise to myself. I promised that if I hadn't found a way to make things better by the time I turned fifteen, I would take every pill in this bottle. I thought that, even if they're expired, they'll probably still do the job.
"And the funny thing is, that actually kind of helped me. It made enduring everything, every punch and shove, every insult... every day easier than it'd been before. Because I finally had a way out, even if I was too much of a coward to use it."
Tsuna falls quiet, playing with his spoon, blinking his glistening eyes fast as he tries not to cry.
"It still hurt. And I was still scared."
He fails in the end. The first tears run down his cheek and he catches them clumsily. More well up in his eyes and he gives up, pulling his legs up on the chair and hiding his face into his knees.
He sobs quietly, but then Tsuna has never been a loud crier. He's loud with everything else, but when he cries, he's nearly silent. Reborn watches the boy closely, wondering if it's a start of another anxiety attack, but it doesn't look like it. He's crying from relief.
Reborn gets the paper towels from the countertop and nudges the boy with them until he grabs a few and blows his nose into them. He waits a few minutes until Tsuna calms down a little and emerges from his knees, then pushes a cold glass of Lambo's grape juice into his hands.
Tsuna drinks it slowly, one small sip at a time.
"You're not mad at me?" he whispers after a while.
"No. I'm glad you told me."
Tsuna huffs wetly. "You already knew, didn't you?"
"Had a hunch," he answers honestly. "How do you feel now?"
He shrugs, dabbing his red eyes with the towels. "Better, I think. Lighter. Like there's a load off my shoulders."
"Good. Do you still want to keep hold of those?"
He shakes his head. "No, I'm okay now. I haven't carried them around since you arrived anyway. They've been hidden in my room. Wouldn't want a baby to find them, you know." Reborn scoffs at that. He'll get back at him for it later. "I probably stopped thinking about it when we went to the future. Wasn't much time to worry about such things. After that there have been a few hard days, but I'm really okay now."
"Is that so?" Reborn absently prods Leon. He obliges happily, turning into a gun that he aims at Tsuna. "So when you preached me about life and death and all that garbage, it was all a farce?"
"Ack! No! I just thought that you shouldn't give up so early! Because sometimes things change in a way you least expect it. You taught me that yourself!"
"Alright, fair enough." Leon climbs back onto the rim of his fedora and yawns widely. Another idea occurs to Reborn. "You're turning seventeen tomorrow, Tsuna," he says, watching closely for his reaction.
"Yeah. That's two years past the deadline." Tsuna's smile is a little wistful, a bit frayed around the edges, but genuine. "I think I'm starting to look forward to birthdays again instead of, you know, dreading them."
Before Reborn can answer, Tsuna snaps his head up at something that Reborn can't perceive.
"Mom's waking up," he whispers in mild panic and rushes to clean the countertop and rinse off the moka pot and other utensils. Once everything is clean and put away into the cupboard where Tsuna keeps his cup noodles and other snacks, he turns back to Reborn. "Mom really doesn't like it when I play with the stove so please don't tell her?"
"On one condition," he says, and Tsuna winces. Good, the kid still knows his place. "I'll help you convince her to trust you with it. You'll practice making coffee until you get it perfect. So be prepared."
"Oh. That's all? Okay then," Tsuna shrugs easily. "Yeah, if Mom lets me, then I can do that. Making coffee is kind of fun. A little like Zero Point with the timing and everything. I gotta go now, though. We're meeting up with Yamamoto and Gokudera-kun to organise the party."
As he rushes to the door, he grabs the bottle of pills from the table and pushes it back into his pocket.
"Tsuna!"
He stops and looks back, blinking in confusion at Reborn's stern glare. Realisation spreads across his face when the pills rattle in his pocket.
"You can take expired medication back to the pharmacy, right?"
Reborn smiles and Tsuna smiles brightly right back at him.
"Four o'clock at Takesushi. I can't guarantee you cake if you're late. See you!"
Tsuna runs off, stopping in the hallway to stumble into his sneakers and to grab a jacket.
Reborn wonders briefly if he should follow him to make sure he really gets rid of the drugs. He decides not to.
After all, Reborn has always trusted his student.
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