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The newest Bovino invention has sown utter chaos again, children running around everywhere. Tsuna, the only one besides Hayato still of proper size, is desperately trying to catch Yamamoto, who is pretending to be an airplane chasing a chubby Ryohei’s impression of a motorbike. He doesn’t succeed, tripping over a small Chrome in a dress that has no business being that adorable. Baby Hibari is fighting Lambo- if one could call the cheek squishing with too harsh hands that. Lambo, predictably, is bawling so hard it hurts Hayato’s ears. I-Pin is laughing at them from a distance.
It’s been a long day, his shift at the grocery store just ended an hour ago, and Hayato doesn’t have the energy to deal with this shit. There is too much happening around him, and he just wants them all to shut up. He loves Tsuna, he really, really does, but there are some things that Hayato can and will leave him alone to deal with.
It’s not like he’d be of much use right now anyway. He sighs, turns around, and enters the kitchen. At least there it is somewhat quieter, even if the crying from the next room over is still audible. Hayato sits down and closes his eyes. Breathes in through his nose, out through his mouth. The hum of the fridge is soothing.
Feeling the weariness settle into his bones, he opens his eyes and startles. There, underneath the table, another child is hidden. For a second, Hayato thinks it’s Chrome, but he quickly discards that thought. This one’s dress is decidedly less cute. It dawns on him that it isn’t a dress at all- it’s a hospital shift.
It’s Mukuro. It has to be. Both his eyes are blue, and it shocks Hayato, to see him like that. The purple hair that’s hanging limp and too-long over his forehead is recognizable, but the hollow cheeks and the frightened scrambling back is not. It aches, right there in Hayato’s chest, because he knows that look. This is the frightened little boy that Mukuro tries so desperately to cover up with his insanity. The boy Hayato can only see because he himself is still a desperate, hungry child inside. Hungry, hungry and longing.
It’s the hunger that often kills kids like them. It’s the longing that makes them think that fate might not be so bad.
Children like them are good at putting on a show, but even better at falling apart. Things they are not good at tends to be things like kindness- or well, it may appear so. Because kindness is something one must be able to afford. There is no kindness when it comes to a single scrap of food and four starving bodies. But, Hayato knows, there can easily be kindness is a fully stocked kitchen.
He stands up, pushing his chair out. At the scraping sound, Mukuro scrambles backwards, cowering fearfully against one of the table legs. Hayato ignores it as he walks towards the kitchenette to pick up some rice crackers. The plastic crinkles as he gets them out and puts them on a plate. He wants to put something on it, but he has no idea if Mukuro’s stomach will take well to that. Who knows what they used to feed him in that facility they held him in at that age. That it was little is something Hayato doesn’t question, at least.
He sits down on the ground in front of the table, not too close, but close enough to push the plate towards the boy.
‘’What’s in it?’’ Mukuro’s eyes- blue, so blue, Hayato’s still not over it- flit over his face nervously, hands inching towards the plate, but refusing to let Hayato out of his sight.
‘’What, you think it’s poisoned?’’
The suspicious look says enough.
‘’Look, kid, even if I cared to poison it, would you care? Grub’s grub.’’ A knowing look.
Mukuro’s stomach growls as if on command. The boy scurries forward and snatches the plate from him, retreating to his hidey hole underneath the table.
It’s hard to gauge age. Hayato’s never been particularly good at it, but he’s pretty sure Mukuro’s older than three but younger than six at this point. An early four, most likely, looking at those motor skills. He’s tiny. So utterly tiny. Hayato feels like he can feel that hummingbird heartbeat under the boy’s paper-thin skin.
Hayato honestly forgot they made ‘em this tiny. The malnutrition is probably a factor in that.
How is he supposed to turn away someone that looks at him like that?
Pink smoke appears. The little boy is gone, and a lanky, too-thin still body takes it place. One eye blue, one eye red. They both blink at him. Mukuro is back. The older version of him, Hayato means.
Silently, they stare at each other, sitting on the kitchen floor, one next to a chair, the other folded uncomfortably underneath the table. Time means nothing here. Not with a connection like this. Not with a plate of food between them.
There are two children in the kitchen, and for a second, they don’t need to be hungry or lonely.