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Xanxus huffs in his bed, annoyed at everything and anything because he knows, oh he knows. It's cold tonight, not freezing but cold enough that his paranoia won't let him sleep. Zero Point left scars on him and less than half of them are physical. And still, he lays on his bed, staring at the dark ceiling. The only light in the room comes from the moonlight, trickling in from the balcony. So different from the flickering candle he got used to, after years of… after years. It's why Xanxus left the curtains open to begin with.
In through the nose, out through the mouth. Xanxus closes his eyes briefly, turning on his side to stare at the door. Kid should be standing awkwardly on the other side of it by now. Xanxus won't press him, he'll let Tsunayoshi come to him. What a big name for such a scrawny brat, Xanxus snorts and waits. He hadn't expected to understand, to see Sawada and recognize the misdirection, the fear hidden thinly by denial where anger is usually Xanxus's go to. More useful that way.
He hadn't expected to see Tsunayoshi, truly see him and grow attached.
Still, he had. Xanxus hadn't expected them to cross paths any time soon after the ring battles but well… he'd been out on a walk to cool his simmering temper when he'd ran into Sawada, sitting on a swing, legs making him sway lazily. Compelled by something he couldn't explain even now, Xanxus had taken the ratty swing to his left. He hadn't planned on talking, just sharing a moment of quiet with a fellow Sky. Family turned enemy turned family again. Yet, alive unlike his brothers; and Timoteo… well, Timoteo.
Then a night had become two, then three and so on. For almost a month, Xanxus kept holding the Varia in Namimori for more reasons he can't explain. Until one night, it had been raining, cold and annoying and entirely too triggering but Xanxus had gone out to the park anyway. There he had found Tsunayoshi, clutching an umbrella to offer Xanxus and shivering with more than cold. Xanxus had seen then and his body had moved without his permission.
Maybe he had been lonely. Maybe they both were.
Xanxus had wrapped an arm around the kid's shoulder and pulled him along, guiding him to the hotel and to Xanxus's suite inside of it. Tsunayoshi had taken the hint, showering quickly and accepting Xanxus's larger shirt while they waited for his clothes to dry. Somehow it turned into Tsunayoshi sleeping on his couch. Much like the swing, a day became two, then three and so on. Until Xanxus had company almost every day, a kid walking at his heels and asking timid questions now and then.
Squalo got a kick out of it, Xanxus knows. Out of the future Vongola Decimo following Xanxus around like a duckling, with a notepad in hand. Xanxus found himself not pushing the kid away, feeling proud when Tsunayoshi rises up to the occasion with nothing but his own mettle and the notes he's taken. Tsunayoshi became something of a daily fixture in Xanxus's life, though he did send him off to his officers sometimes. On the bad days, especially, when Xanxus couldn't afford to let the kid stay.
Perhaps that's why, when Xanxus finally did return to Italy that summer, they loaded up Tsunayoshi right along with the rest of them. Tsunayoshi had woken up in the middle of the flight, wondered if somebody had told his friends and asked about Reborn's opinion. Not that Mammon didn't enjoy keeping the other cursed baby out but the man still is Tsunayoshi's tutor, for all of his unconventional training methods and apparent frustration that Xanxus earns more attentiveness than he does.
It's hardly Xanxus's fault the man is all stick and no carrot.
But… much like Xanxus sees Tsunayoshi, Tsunayoshi sees Xanxus. Perhaps he managed it even before. Hyper Intuition is a curious thing, the limits of it are largely untested. All it means for them is that Xanxus might have sent the kid away during the bad days, to give himself privacy and to spare the kid the sight. For all of that, Tsunayoshi still knew, deep in his gut. And one can only live so long with the Varia before losing that timidness of his.
Or maybe, Xanxus thinks, Tsunayoshi was never shy. Maybe he just got used to rejection. Whatever it is, once the kid got comfortable enough with them, they discovered there's no stopping the little shit.
The knock on his door comes almost on cue. Xanxus reaches for the shoe on his nightstand and throws it into his door in wordless agreement.
Tsunayoshi scurries in, putting his pillow against Xanxus's headboard and covering himself with his blanket. "Did you know," he starts, scrolling through his bookmarked tik-toks, tilting his phone for Xanxus to see, "that mushrooms are more closely related to animals than to plants?"
Xanxus feels his shoulders loosen but he doesn't say a thing. He concentrates on Tsunayoshi's voice washing over him, the moonlight lighting up the room, the people moving on the screen. The differences. He lets the kid play with his fingers, move them one way or the other if only to remember that he can.