Chapter Text
Tsuna starts having them when he’s too young to know what they are.
He remembers his father coming home after a six-month absence, one year after meeting a supposed grandfather whose hands felt like a warm fire. He remembers being confused at first because by then he’d begun forgetting who the blond man with a loud laugh was entirely, but that’s not important. For the entire week the blond mad had stayed, Tsuna had had nothing but nightmares. There weren’t vivid like they would be when he’s older, only glimpses of darkness and impressions of cruelty, but they were enough to put little seven year old Tsuna into hysterics.
Iemitsu had been grave but reassuring, standing near like a silent protector has Nana rocked their special little boy back to a reluctant, fitful sleep. He’d made phone call after phone call that seemed to do nothing but frustrate him, and then he’d left for another ‘business trip’ three days earlier than planned once Tsuna had recovered, but in the end Tsuna had been too strung out to feel the absence of a man he barely knew.
Nana had been worried about (heartbroken for) her son, of course, what mother wouldn’t be? But it wouldn’t be until Tsuna was older that he would understand why she hadn’t called a therapist on that first week they appeared, when he’d woken up screaming about the end of the world.
He was special, she’d said.
It’d taken a few dozen more of those waking nightmares and several predetermined events for Tsuna to realize why she’d looked so sad when she’d said it.
They were called sights.
It was a gift passed down by her family, his mother had explained much, much later, smile wavering with the effort to hold back tears. A gift that let him see more than the rest of the world, things he could influence if so inclined, the ability to peer into someone’s life for a brief moment whether it be for better or worse. A gift of fate, given to their family generations ago.
Vaguely, in the back of Tsuna’s young mind, he’d recognized that his mother didn’t view the sight as a gift as her forbearers had, and at the tender age of nine, mind stretched too thin and eyes burning with tears, he'd had to agree.
She’d lost the gift when Tsuna was born and had believed maybe it had just disappeared instead of being passed down to him – her mother had been very private about her experiences beyond helping Nana when her gift began to blossom as a child, younger than Tsuna but not as all-consuming. His mothers’ sights never reached very far into his future, stopping just short of his sixth birthday in most cases–
(and if they did ever reach farther, if she’d ever had fuzzy dreams of a strong young man with fierce amber eyes like fire and blood blooming around him, she didn’t say)
–and she'd naively prayed that the sights had finally stopped cursing her family.
“It’s in your blood, Tsu-kun,” she’d say, a choked laugh or sob caught in the back of her throat as she held him during another sight, one that was too real and too dark to have ever let her make it through life completely sane.
The bone deep ache in his small body told him it was truer than he could imagine.
Her sights were like flashes of light, constant streams of images, still life’s that swept by too fast to comprehend but crystal clear and stuck in her mind. It seemed that Tsuna wasn’t as lucky though, plagued with nightmares and sickening feelings of déjà vu – like he was there, fast forwarding through time and then being wrenched back to where he began, could feel the blood pounding in his head and hear voices press in on him. They were always short, no more than a few minutes whereas his mothers could last ten, but they were intense and often too much for him to handle. His sights were different, stronger, distinct, just different . He could tell even without her saying so just by the purse of her lips and the lines that appear around her eyes decades too early.
“You can’t tell anyone, okay Tsu-kun? People aren’t supposed to know about their future or they might try to change it.”
“But why? Can’t we help people?”
Nana couldn’t stop the helpless smile that blossomed, pride warming her chest at her sweet son’s words. “You’re such a good boy, Tsu-kun. Yes, sometimes you can help, but you can’t stop what happens in your sights. If something happens, good or... or bad, it’s not up to you to stop it.”
“Does papa know? About the sights?”
Her eyes would shutter, like the mention of the love of her life also caused her immeasurable pain. It probably did, but Tsuna wouldn’t understand that either until he did the same to someone he loved.
(soon, soon)
“No…no, he doesn’t.”
(Secrets, secrets, they all had secrets.)
“Is it because he has a gun and wears suits and stuff? Like the, um, FBI?”
He’d had sights of his father multiple times despite rarely seeing him in person. Usually he was wearing a suit and spoke a strange language but still inarguably his father, and Nana was relieved and heartbroken that Tsuna didn’t understand. Not yet.
“Sort of. I can’t say much when you’re so young, but just remember that your father loves you and will protect you whether or not he knows about your gift. He works with people that will protect you too, but there are a lot of bad people that will use your gift for evil things. That’s why you can’t tell anyone, sweetheart.”
“Okay mama.”
And so his training began.
For about a year since their talk, Nana would teach him how to avoid waking sights until he was somewhere private, how to think and breathe through a particularly bad one, how to keep track of them in his journals even if she never read them, what to do to avoid babbling about his sights out loud after touching someone on accident. Most importantly, they tried to figure out the triggers. Nana’s had been sound - whatever thing she heard, a whistle or word or song, it was somehow related to what she saw. Tsuna’s was harder to pin down, but they’d been able to figure out that seeing someone he was familiar with triggered a lighter sight whereas touching someone he knew and cared about would reveal something deeper. Tsuna didn’t really have friends to practice with so they weren’t completely sure, but his mama’s hugs were more than enough to soothe the ache in his heart.
The training helped, lessened his sights to about a few a day and a nightmare or two a week, none very gory except for the ones that involved his father. Those were few and far in between thankfully, and despite it being the only time he saw his father, Tsuna was glad. Along with the passage of time, his sights lightened, became easier to handle when he didn’t see funerals every other day like when he was younger.
However, despite the meditation and control, he’d already begun to be viewed as strange.
It wasn’t his fault, though. He couldn’t stop himself. He wanted to help .
He’d go up to strangers and attempt to tell them what to avoid, whom to talk to, when to do something, but he had to be careful. If someone was hit by a car, he couldn’t stop that, but if he saw a car coming towards someone and the possibility was there, then he could intervene, and he tried.
He tried so hard to help, to make this curse a gift.
Sometimes they listened, sometimes they didn’t. It still left an impression, that he was a strange kid, not quite right and too skittish for his age, too secretive, too… different . Those that did listen brushed it off as a strange coincidence and those that didn’t sometimes came back thinking it was a prank or that he was just bad, bad luck. Sometimes if he was caught off guard by a waking sight, he’d be helpless, standing still wherever he was as he watched something life changing for a complete stranger play out in front of him while the world kept spinning.
“Hey, look! It’s Freaky-Tsuna.”
“More like Space Case-Sawada. Saw him staring at a pole for like five minutes yesterday.”
“What a weirdo.”
“Look, he’s carrying around that stupid journal again.”
“I heard he told a middle school teacher not to drive on the highway two weeks ago and now she’s in the hospital from a really bad wreck. He’s bad luck.”
“Maybe he’s evil and doing it on purpose.”
And Tsuna… Tsuna hated it.
He hated the sights, hated the way people look at him like he was broken, hated what they said about his mother. He hated the feeling of helplessness as he was dragged until into another sight, hated seeing things other people couldn’t, hated feeling things that left him nauseous or weak or scared or sad or just all-around miserable . He hated the look his mom got when she caught him mid-sight, waking or asleep, hated the guilty, sad shadows that crossed her face and made her smile fade. He hated the nightmares that were so similar to his sights it left him in a cold sweat. No matter how much he tried to help, how much he did help or messed up, it never felt like enough.
At ten years old, Tsuna was scared of the world and never wanted to wake up.
The lunch bell rang and Tsuna heaved a sigh of relief as he quickly gathered his things and trudged his way to the lone, barren sakura tree in the school courtyard as students sneered or jostled him on the way. He found that as long as he was within sight of at least one teacher the bullies tended to leave him alone for the most part.
A chill swept through him, a little shiver despite the warmth of coming spring, and suddenly-
“Nezu-sensei, we’d like to offer you a promotion. In a year or so, Namimori Middle School has three faculty members retiring and is looking for an experienced teacher with a degree in-“
Tsuna groaned as he fell out of the short sight, hand automatically reaching for his journal.
He had a lot of them, dozens filling the unused spaces of the basement at home, but unlike his mothers’ collection from when she was still writing them, his had transitioned from paragraph summaries of his sights to illustrations with hastily scribbled dates and side notes around six months ago. As much as he tried to avoid other people and keep his journals to himself, bullies would always be bullies and he couldn’t risk any of them looking into his things, so he figured they would just see drawings and random words instead of predictions of the future.
It was hard at first. He wasn’t an artist by any stretch of the imagination, but after a while, he was able to figure out a system. Now his journals just looked like a bunch of strange cartoons with a few recurring characters, mainly his mother, less his father, and even less but still strangely present, the ‘grandfather’ he’d met nearly five years ago.
Tsuna cried out when the journal was abruptly ripped from his hands.
“Hey, Dame-Tsuna! What’re you scribbling about now? About how much of a loser you are?” Bully Number One said obnoxiously, him and his two other friends laughing like it was the funniest thing they’d ever heard.
“Give it back!” Tsuna demanded weakly, standing up with clenched fists. He couldn’t do more than bite his lip at their sneers.
Bully Number Two snorted, ”Why? You gonna cry, huh? Crybaby, crybaby!”
“Haha, yeah, weirdo-Tsuna! Gonna give us bad luck?”
“It’s already bad luck having you in school!”
"You should just leave and stop making our class dumber!"
"Yeah, and take your weird bad luck with you."
Before Tsuna could shout for a teacher or give in and cry, Bully Number Two and Three were crumpling to the ground while Bully Number One dropped the journal and ran like the devil was on his heels with a strangled cry. The brunet blinked, stunned, before looking up and meeting the steel grey eyes of Namimori Elementary’s very own self-appointed disciplinary figure, a legend he’d ever only seen from far away.
Hibari, older and wilder, wearing a suit and smirk that fit too well. “Sawada Tsunayoshi.”
The murmur of his name was like a shock to his system, jolting him where he stood. Words floated by, none that he could grasp, as his eyes stayed locked with a predators, trapped with nowhere to go, nowhere to run. Power like nothing else flooded him, flowing from what felt like a deep well inside him and beautiful, crystalline fire danced at his fingertips. It terrified him. He didn’t want this.
“You seem a little more like the you I know…”
What? What did that mean?
“This fight has no rules. Your only choices are my defeat or your death.”
No. Please, stop. STOP.
He didn’t want this. He didn’t want this. He didn’t–
Tsuna blinked and the sight was gone, leaving him trembling from the force of it with an impassive thirteen-year old but still dangerous Hibari Kyoya standing before him. The older boy didn't even twitch at his odd behavior and didn't make a move to discipline him like he did the other boys.
“Herbivore. Don’t disrupt the peace again.”
The boy was gone before Tsuna could utter a sound or simple 'thank you'.
With unsteady, mechanical movements, Tsuna picked up his journal and various belongings and completely bypassed his classroom, knowing he wouldn't be able to face his peers. He walked into the nurses office instead, the nurse not even glancing up from one of her reports due to his regular visits, and Tsuna settled into the sickbed farthest away from the door or any prying eyes. Quietly, he opened his notebook and drew a bird soaring among distant clouds and tried not to cry.
This is important, Tsuna thought numbly, this is important , this is important, this is important–
And for the life of him, he couldn’t figure out why.
After that, his sights began including Hibari more and more. Once a day now versus maybe-once-every-few-weeks since he didn't see Hibari often. None were as staggering and painful as the first one, not as intense or filled with confusing words or as utterly terrifying, and Tsuna thanked the heavens for that, but… the less important ones were just as strange.
Hibari drinking tea.
Hibari with small animals.
Hibari quietly reading in the Disciplinary room.
Hibari fighting against faceless opponents and always winning (except when he didn't).
It was like Tsuna had all this access to one person's life that he hadn’t had before aside from his mother and he wondered why Hibari of all people was able to elicit those kinds of sights, but ultimately, his fear and respect for the older boy kept him from looking further into it or digging around. He was scared, too, frightened at the intimacy of it. He doubted Hibari even knew his name while Tsuna knew he lived alone in his parents large, traditional Japanese house and liked to take naps on the school roof on quiet days. That he watched the clouds roam free even as he was chained to his self-proclaimed post as protector of Namimori.
(he barely remembered a time when he didn’t know who Hibari was, all stoic silence and keeper of peace – he barely remembered that Hibari had a family, and he was willing to bet Hibari did too)
He never saw Hibari in any danger outside of his fights, though, no accidents he could warn the boy about, so he steered clear and never said good morning or hello even during the rare occasions when it could be returned with a curt nod instead of indifference. He didn't interfere with Hibari's life like he did with others and Hibari never bothered to interfere with his.
So Tsuna adapted, learned to live with the new information, and never said a word.
Until.
“Think you can beat up my little brother and get away with it? Looks like we gotta teach you a lesson, kid.”
A crackle of electricity.
“Time for you to go to sleep.”
Not even three weeks later, Tsuna woke from a violent sight that had him clutching at his sheets, small limbs practically vibrating with adrenaline and nausea.
Hibaria-san’s in trouble, he’s going to get hurt, he doesn’t know, he–
He stopped the thought from forming before his sight came back to haunt him with more images of Hibari being attacked – getting jumped by ten high school students who knew his reputation and armed themselves accordingly, were actually somewhat sickeningly smart and prepared to take down a middle schooler. Horror and worry twisted his insides.
What do I do? Should I tell Hibari-san? But what if he just thinks I’m crazy and beats me up? Hiiieee, what do I do?
It was nice knowing there was one person who didn’t see him as crazy. Couldn’t think someone was crazy without actually thinking about them right? It was a sad thought but Tsuna still didn’t want to lose that. But while he knew he could be selfish, this wasn’t something Tsuna could justify staying quiet about. Hibari’s safety was more important than their silent tolerance of each other.
Well, Hibari silently tolerating him while Tsuna tried not to cause too much of a ruckus. The point still stood that Tsuna didn’t want to lose what little lenience Hibari had bestowed on him since saving him from those bullies nearly a month ago.
After a moment, a thought struck him.
“U-Um, Kusakabe-san, do you know where H-Hibari-san might be?” Tsuna cringed at how weak his own voice was but, thankfully, Kusakabe Tetsuya wasn’t known for being cruel.
The intimidating teen watched him in quiet contemplation for a moment before slowly replying, “Kyo-san is patrolling right now.” An eyebrow lifted in vague curiosity. “Is there a particular reason why you are looking for him?”
Tsuna’s hands twisted in his uniform nervously, “Um, I just…please tell him to be c-careful? Especially around the high school blocks? There might, um, be some s-students that don’t like him a-and might try something s-soon.” Both eyebrows raised this time, expression becoming slightly more severe. Tsuna didn’t realize until right then that his friendly warning sounded more like a poorly veiled threat. He panicked, arms flailing, “I-I mean- Hibari-san is strong but there might be some people th-that don’t, um, like him? And might try to hurt him? I just w-wanted to make sure Hibari-san will be okay…”
Another long, silent moment passed before something kind lightened Kusakabe’s expression, tone much more amiable this time as he dipped his head in acquiescence, “Kyo-san doesn’t like his abilities being questioned…but I will let him know to tread lightly in the future. Thank you for your concern, Sawada-san.”
Tsuna blinked before brightening, “Thank you, Kusakabe-san!”
He turned to leave for class but before he turned down a different hallway, Tsuna looked back to see Kusakabe’s eyes following him thoughtfully.
“U-Um…Kusakabe-san, please stay safe too!” Face burning from embarrassment, Tsuna spun right back around and ran down the hallway, missing the look of surprise transform into warm amusement on Kusakabe’s face.
Three days later, whispers ran rampant throughout Namimori Middle School about a gang of high school students who tried to take down Hibari with unlicensed tasers and a can of illegally acquired tear gas, but even that was no match for their Disciplinarian. Hibari’s legendary reputation grew and spread from Namimori’s school district into others, his name whispered like a guardian between students of his school and hissed like a demons by delinquents and small time yakuza.
Relief expanded in Tsuna’s chest and he didn’t realize he was grinning until he caught Sasagawa Kyoko looking at him curiously.
It was the first night in a long time that he didn’t have nightmares.