Chapter Text
Tsuna meets Sasagawa Kyoko’s older brother for the first time just one month shy of graduating elementary school.
They don’t actually meet, though. That day, he hears a loud voice near the entrance to the school and when he peeks out of the window of the classroom, he sees Kyoko and Hana greeting an exuberant looking older boy. Hana looks vaguely annoyed by the volume but Kyoko’s smile is practically glowing, and Tsuna already knows the energetic middle schooler is her older brother from the few sights he’s had of them together. Sometimes she looks worried or fretful, but most of the time he makes her laugh and for that Tsuna is grateful.
After that first encounter with Kyoko, Tsuna hadn’t been able to shake off the feeling of guilt that plagued him whenever he saw her and he ran away whenever she made an attempt to approach.
He didn’t know what he’d do if he had another sight like the first one, can’t imagine recovering from a second sight so gut wrenching in less than a week. As a result he hadn’t been able to thank her for sticking up for him and while he didn’t like the fact he’d lost whatever smidgen of respect Hana had for him as a fellow student in Namimori, the distance in Kyoko’s gaze hurt far worse. How could he miss a familiarity they never shared?
The second time was different, however. That night, Tsuna closes his eyes and instead of the darkness behind his lids, he feels like he’s blinded by the shining light that eclipses everything else. It disappears in the form of a setting sun, leaving behind the imprint of a crying Kyoko and her brother, surrounded and in danger. He clutches his sheets and his stomach twists.
“Stay behind me Kyoko!”
“Aw look at that, he loves his little sister.”
“Leave her alone!”
“Oniichan!”
He doesn’t see much else but by the pounding of his heart, he knows , just like he knew with Hibari, that he can’t stay silent.
The next day at school is spent trying to approach Kyoko to warn her since he has no real way of contacting her brother since he’s already a big kid in a different school, but his attempts are either rebuffed by bullies or teachers or Hana or his own nerves because what is he supposed to say once they’re alone? How does he explain avoiding her up until now? What if it comes out like a threat like with Kusakabe? He doesn’t want to scare her, but he doesn’t want to see her or her brother hurt.
In the end, all he manages to do is start a new string of rumors about his ultimately fatalistic crush on the sweetest girl in their class.
He finally gets a chance a few days after the worst of the rumors have settled into undisputed fact among the student body of Namimori Elementary that he’s in love with Sasagawa Kyoko. It’s lunch time and Hana is talking to a teacher about something, leaving Kyoko alone in the back corner of the classroom. Tsuna works up his small reserve of courage and makes his way towards her, journal clutched in his hands and trying not to turn into a puddle of nerves, and wonders in the back of his mind why she looks so lonely when everyone wants to be her friend.
Unfortunately, he trips over air and stumbles into someone who manages to catch his fall with a “Whoa!” and carefree laugh, and Tsuna’s blood freezes in his veins when he looks up to see empty brown eyes.
“S-sorry, Yamamoto-san!” he squeaks.
Yamamoto cracks a grin but it’s so brittle Tsuna can practically see the edges of it breaking across his skin. “It’s no problem! And just call me Yamamoto, Yamamoto-san is my dad.”
Tsuna nods rapidly, vaguely remembers just days after his birthday when Yamamoto had been gone from class for an entire week to mourn (and it takes so much longer than that, to say goodbye to a mother and wife, a woman who brought her son into this world with her laugh and her husband’s smile; Tsuna knows numbness and despair as a passing acquaintance and it kills something in him that now whenever he thinks of those things, he thinks of Yamamoto), and scuttles passed with guilt heavy in his lungs. Whatever leftover adrenaline rushing through him from that terrifying encounter with the boy wearing Yamamoto’s face pushes him through the final few yards to reach Kyoko’s desk.
She blinks at him curiously and he blurts, “Thankyouforhelpingmebefore!”
It’s not long before she tilts her head sweetly with an accompanying smile and, “You’re welcome Sawada-kun.”
His face explodes into various shades of red but the vice around his heart doesn’t loosen it’s hold. It just gets tighter, tight enough to make him choke on his warning and carefully chosen words, and before he can get his breath back the teacher is clearing his throat and looking pointedly at him.
He feels like he’s vibrating out of his skin when he slinks back to his desk, for once ignorant to the snickers pressing in on him because something strange, something different is making his blood sing.
Today, he thinks resolutely, it’s today.
That feeling of certainty is carried with him throughout the day and pushes him to ignore the guilt stinging in his chest at not immediately going home where his mom is waiting with an afternoon snack before dinner. And if he doesn’t let himself think of another boy who no longer has that to go back to, no one but him has to know of the spear of grief that spikes through his chest.
Instead he pushes through throngs of other kids, trying desperately to catch a glimpse of honey-gold hair in the crowd, and insead hears a loud, enthusiastic shout just outside the gates.
Sasagawa Ryohei.
Tsuna doesn’t know why he draws such strength from that bright grin or boisterous voice, but he knows that losing those things would devastate Kyoko and, for some reason, him.
He’s waylaid by a few meaner kids before he can track down the two siblings, and he’s almost frustrated enough to shout because these kids are just kids ( so what am I? something whispers) with trouble in their own lives - and older brother who’s gotten into a bad crowd, an absentee mother, a dying cousin close enough to be considered a sibling - but it doesn’t tamp down the growing restlessness in him.
In the end, they do nothing but taunt him and cost him precious minutes. By the time they finally leave, Kyoko and her brother are nowhere to be seen.
What do I do? What do I do? He thinks frantically, heart and mind racing.
He blinks and sees a flash of violet fire.
I know what to do.