La Conflagrazione

lighting the fire - I

have no fear

Sawada Tsunako is four years old when she remembers.

The trigger is not Nana. It is not Mama, not her loving embraces or her bright smiles or her soft voice or her adoring kisses speckled all over chubby cheeks and chin and nose, not the warm shade of her hair nor her round, gentle brown eyes.

It is not Namimori. It is not the chirping birdsong or the uniform sprawl of her urban homes, not her bustling markets nor the cute little cake shops. It isn't even the passing view of Namimori Middle School or the students wearing its cheerful yellow uniform.

The trigger is Iemitsu.

Not Papa, with his blonde hair and chocolate gaze, not the loud, boisterous man who goes away for periods of time ("Daddy has to go to work, Tsu-chan, but I'll be back before you know it!"), who fawns over her unceasingly, who brags about her every chance he get, exclaims over her every triumph and cries with her for every hurt. Not the man who lifts her with large, warm hands and rubs her cheek against his, peppering her with just as many kisses as does Mama.

No. It is Iemitsu, leader of CEDEF, the soldier with broad shoulders and irises of molten gold, whose hair burns like the sun against a twilit horizon. Sawada Iemitsu, who orders the death of a man and proclaims love for his child in the same breath.

He must think she is well and truly asleep to risk picking up that call, even as she is cradled high upon his back, or perhaps she only hears due to her frightfully sharp ears. Perhaps it is her Intuition that rouses her, incites her to lean closer, forces her to not only hear but also to listen.

Whatever the case, it comes as a shock to hear a voice report crisply through the sleek mobile pressed against her papa's ear, to find that she understands what the stranger means when they suggest "neutralizing the threat", to realize that she knows what organization that voice belongs to. But the biggest shock comes when Iemitsu says, "Do it," as if the decision is nothing at all, certainly not someone's life in the balance.

In the recesses of her soul, a delicate balance is irredeemably severed.

Without warning, without any apparent cause, memories made throughout her short four years of life are suddenly supplemented with twenty years of someone else's, and she doesn't know what to think because that's not her, not her at all, and yet the bombardment of laughter-tears hate-love life-death the brief sputtering of a single spark embers of a burning falling star against the dark eternity of space it won't end won't stop and it's starting to hurthurthurt her

But whatever these new memories may try to claim, Tsuna is just a child, still just a child, so she burrows her face between her papa's shoulders, grips his shirt tight with both hands, and bursts into loud, hot tears that quake through her entire body and soak the back of Papa's neck. And she doesn't care if this'll make him suspect that maybe she wasn't as asleep as he thought, because this man is her daddy, this man is her beloved papa, and she just wants comfort from one of the two people she loves most in the world.

"Tsu-chan? What's wrong?"

"Papaaaa…!" she bawls. "It hurts!"

"It hurts? What hurts? Tsu-chan, tell daddy where it hurts!" her papa is beginning to panic, and she can see his eyes going wide and frantic when he cranes his neck to see her better. As if only just remembering the agent still patiently waiting at his ear, he quickly spits, "Something came up, use your discretion," and snaps the phone shut to give Tsuna his full attention.

This is exactly what she wants to see, so despite the tight, painful pressure in her temples and behind her eyes, despite the tortuous twisting-turning of her insides, her sobs quiet into wet sniffles. She peers up at him, big and moist, and whines, "Tsuna's head hurts, and her tummy is all twisty."

She finds herself in Papa's arms in a blink, serious eyes gazing down at her and a handkerchief pressed against her nose. "Tsu-chan, don't worry, daddy's gonna find a doctor to make the ouchie go away."

"Can'd bwead," Tsuna complains. She goes cross-eyed as she tries to push away the offending piece of cloth, until she realizes that red is beginning to seep into the garish orange kerchief. Surprised, she exclaims, "Tsuda'd bleedig!"

"Just a nosebleed, Tsu-chan," Papa soothes. Despite his words, he walks straight into the mall's small clinic and, without even a glance at the queue, demands loudly for a doctor to check on his daughter right this moment or so help him he would -

Tsuna only smiles a little and is glad that she is still her daddy's number one priority.

[no matter what these not-memories are trying to tell her about negligent fathers.]

"You want me to go all the way to Japan to check on your kid's nosebleed? I didn't even you were married until now, let alone a kid!"

"And I don't think I have to remind you that it's going to stay that way. You speak of this to no one."

"Yeah, yeah, no need to get so worked up. I know that already. What do you need me for, anyway? Any normal doctor should do."

"Her eyes, they - there wasn't a flame, but her eyes were definitely… that. You understand what I mean, right?"

"Ah. My line is clean, you don't have to be that obscure. But yeah, I get it now. I'll be there."

"Just as a side note, any moves on my wife or kid, and there won't be a body to find."

"You're… warning me off a toddler. Seriously."

"Tsu-chan isn't a toddler! She's already four, can you believe it? Kids really grow too fast!"

"... You really must think of me as a despicable brute."

"No you don't understand, Tsu-chan is really cute, she's like an angel descended from heaven, like the purest flower to ever bloom, as sweet as a delectable mont blanc - "

"I'm hanging up."

when darkness falls

Sawada Tsunako is four years old when she forgets.

Tsuna sits on the kitchen counter and swings her legs as she undergoes her second check-up in just as many days. She knows that in the Underground this doctor is called Trident Shamal, knows that he's a mafioso and an assassin, that he's considered to be one of the most skilled in his field, if not the most, and that he's been brought in all the way from Italy to shine lights into her eyes and ask her questions like, "How long did the headache last?" or "Did you feel any pressure anywhere?" or "And you felt like throwing up, you said?" or, to her papa, "Has she shown any symptoms of being ill recently?"

Of course, no one's said as much to Tsuna. She's only been told that Uncle Shamal is a doctor-friend of Papa's and that he would just be looking at Tsuna again because Papa wants to be sure she's fine.

"Well, Iemitsu," Uncle Shamal begins, snapping his gloves off and finally stepping away. "From what I can tell, it was just a tension migraine. Though it's strange that a child this young would experience something like that in the first place, I couldn't find anything particularly… noteworthy."

"That's what the civ doctor said too," Papa replies, rubbing the back of his neck.

"If it wasn't for that one thing, I'd even complain that you were wasting my time. What were you two doing when this happened?"

"We were at the mall. Tsuna was sleeping on my back, and I was on the phone with…" There is a poignant pause, and both grown men turn to stare at her. She blinks up at them. "Tsu-chan," says Papa calmly. "Can you please go play with your toys? Papa needs to talk to the nice uncle."

Little Tsunako nods as grimly as a four year old knows how and toddles out of the room. She clumsily shuts the door behind her, only too aware of bronzed eyes trailing her every move.

"I was on the phone with one of my agents," Iemitsu continues in a low voice, eyes still caught on the door. "We were discussing the handling of an... individual. Needless to say I can't exactly elaborate," and here Shamal rolls his eyes, "but even if she wasn't sleeping, even if she did hear, she couldn't have understood - she's just a little kid, and I wasn't exactly declaring my intentions to the world."

"You're underestimating children, Young Lion. Kids are like sponges, and they comprehend a lot more than we adults give them credit for."

"I don't know how much she heard, but if she understood the consequences of what I was saying… Could that have triggered her?"

"It's possible."

"Tsuna's not flame-active yet, but she's on the verge. Once her Dying Will is sparked, the wrong sort of people will start to notice. Shamal, I don't want my daughter to be involved in the mafia. She's not suited to live in our world of crime. It's too dangerous - if it doesn't kill her, then it'll corrupt her, make her a husk of herself."

The doctor crosses his arms and, impatient to this hypocrisy, snaps, "Get to the point, Iemitsu Sawada."

"I want her to forget everything that happened yesterday. I want her to disassociate with anything mafia-related. She's innocent right now, and I want her to stay that way for as long as possible."

"You want me to hypnotize her," Shamal clarifies. "Make her forget the entirety of yesterday, and, what, deny everything and anything to do with the Underground? Basically you want to keep your kid's life as happy-go-lucky for as long possible."

"Yes. Exactly that. Can you do it?"

"Who do you think you're talking to? The problem isn't whether I can do it - the problem is whether you're sure this is the course of action you want to take. You gotta understand that because we'll be doing this without her assent, I have to take extra measures."

Iemitsu narrows his eyes on Trident Shamal, and demands, "What kinds of extra measures?"

"What I can do isn't so much making her forget as it is making her subconsciously avoid revisiting the synaptic connections made yesterday until those connections degrade altogether. If she's prompted by any related stimulus, she may consciously try to recall what happened, and if those connections remain strong enough she may even be successful. Since she's still young, it should be fine to just induce her to fall asleep every time she's faced with a reminder. The events of a single day at such an age - in most likelihood, the connection should be pruned before it can become an issue, provided that she hasn't made any significant memories today. Elsewise it may intrude on everything she does from here on."

"Significant, as in?"

"Anything that could constitute a childhood trauma, any life-altering incidents, a sudden shift in perception of the world, or any episode of intense, prolonged emotion."

There is a pause, and then, "No, there won't have been anything like that. So given these conditions, there will be no potentially harmful repercussions on her psyche, or her day-to-day functioning, correct?"

"Yes."

"Then do it."

A long, frustrated gust of air escapes Shamal's throat. What a farce, he thinks but resolutely does not say, because no matter how ridiculous he finds this to be, the man in front of him is still the leader of CEDEF, still the second most powerful man in the most powerful underground organization of the western hemisphere, if not the entire world.

"I can't believe I'm doing this because of a goddamn tension migraine. Damn overprotective fathers - Young Lion, you really take your name too far."

Iemitsu only laughs in response. "Thanks. I owe you one, Shamal."

"You better remember that, because I'm definitely not gonna be forgetting it."

because there's a light

Tsuna is five years old when she first meets the boy who breathes stardust and trails nebulae in his wake; at the time, though, she doesn't realize that is who he is.

"Go away," she wails, scrambling away from the slathering monster at her heels. It snarls, and she shrieks with fear. "Please! Leave me alone."

Either incapable of understanding or apathetic to her desperate plea, the creature continues to hound her down the riverside, over a park, across a crosswalk. She is terrified out of her mind because no matter what Mama says about harmless animals these things have fangs like daggers and they snarl so loudly and they chase her like they want to hurt her and and and

The dog begins to bark frantically from behind her, short, sharp yips that break against her eardrums like sirens. Feeling the stir of some strange pressure-panic-pull deep in her chest Tsuna lowers a damp forearm from her cheeks and casts her gaze over her shoulder. Through a hazy film of wet she can see two luminous yellow eyes barrelling towards her and without any warning the roar of some great beast crashes against the very pores of her skin like a tsunami so loud that she can't breathe except she's forgotten how and something monstrous and ugly and sick, something terribly foul twists low in her belly scorches through her chest like acid in her throat heavy and rotten on the back of her tongue

And then a deluge of molten lead is poured over her head.

Tsuna's eyelids are... heavy. Excessively heavy. Her brain is sluggish. And she is tired. So tired, like after a full day of too much activity, and too little sleep. She cannot seem to scrounge up any sort of coherency from the thick swampland that has become of her brain, not when she is so exhausted. Everything else falls to the wayside. It is imperative that she takes a nap. She will die if she doesn't take a nap.

[she will die regardless]

In the moment between falling fairy lashes and a shuttered stage she sees eyes like the underside of a cumulus.

Something pulls her forth in a terrible imitation of gravity.

Tsuna falls into slumber.

And then she awakens with a world rattling gasp when she is jolted harshly, teeth rattling against each other in the confines of blood and flesh and muscle.

"Little animal. Wake up," says the universe in the high voice of a child. "Wake up. You better not be dead."

Her eyes fly open. Above her looms a young boy with a pale doll face, all porcelain skin and marble gray irises and empty spaces painted in with midnight ink, donning a scowl too old for his brows.

"W-whaa…" she gurgles, too confused to give proper due to the growl curling deep in the boy's throat. She cannot gather herself enough to even offer the mandatory scared squeal; her brain feels as if it's already splattered all over the concrete road.

"If you wanna kill yourself so badly, do it outside of Namimori," he spits caustically, finally abandoning his hunched post over her inert body and leaning back. His legs are still sprawled on the pavement, held down by her weight. "Or you'll be bitten to death."

She blinks at the paradox that must be implicit in those words, then flinches when the boy kicks out impatiently with a foot and his knee jars the curve of her spine. Obligingly, Tsuna pushes up until she is sitting upright enough that he can draw his legs towards himself, still glaring at her all the while.

The process forces her to acknowledge the aches and pains that hadn't been there before. She stares at the split skin of her shins and asks, "What happened to Tsuna?"

"You ran in front of a speeding vehicle. Fool herbivore." His gaze is a bullet and she is raw flesh and bone. Tsuna flinches into herself, finally feeling the stirrings of fear in her triune brain. "You're like a bunny," he hisses. "But worse."

He says it as if it should be a great and terrible thing that she is inferior to even a bunny. Tsuna… doesn't quite get it. Bunnies are cute, and cuddly looking, and they're so round and fluffy that they aren't even scary. Which part of that is she supposed to be worser than?

"The worst herbivore," he continues vaguely, lips forming words but gaze far off, unfocused despite its intensity. His fisted hands are trembling faintly in his lap. "A slug. Or a snail."

Tsuna blinks and gathers every bad emotion in her body into her next breath. She pushes, pushes, pushes it all out, and when she is ready to function again, she says, "Tsu-... m-my name is Tsunako! I-I'm five years old. How old a-are you, onii-san?"

His eyes snap to her again, dark and hooded. "As a carnivore, I refuse to speak to a fool herbivore like you."

"But," she protests, "But you saved me. S-so that makes you my saver, and I want to know who my saver is! You're like - like a guardian." At his unimpressed look, she adds, "A car-ni-vore guardian. Namimori's very own car-ni-vore guardian!"

Moments pass, and the boy remains utterly still, as if he is chiselled from the stone of his eyes. Despite herself, Tsuna startles when the portrait is broken and an amused smirk suddenly slides onto the boy's face. He rises easily to his feet and his hands are steady when he gestures at her to follow, so she stumbles to stand and waddle after him. "Where do you live, little animal?"

As she rattles off her address, Tsuna follows the boy from a fair distance and notes that he seems quietly pleased with his new title. His shoulders are thrown back and he stalks forward as if the earth beneath his feet exists only to support him and his glass marble eyes gleam with a vicious sort of pride. He looks arrogant, vengeful, like a budding god.

It suits him. Far more than the way he was earlier. Tsuna's glad that she could cheer him up so much.

"Kyo," says the boy, without prompt. "I turn eight this summer."

"O-oh!" Tsuna bounces towards him until the space between them whittles to the length of an arm. She beams up. Kyo does not deign to bestow onto her even a single glance.

Well. If that's not good enough, then Tsuna will do better.

The brunette scrunches her face in concentration, her nose and brows crinkling together. She focuses very very hard on that warm, giddy lava deep in her belly, between her lungs, behind her eyes, and tugs on it, tickles it out, coaxes it to spiral into a hot lick of flame high upon her cheeks and sparking into the air around her. If Mama can do it, Tsuna can do it too.

Sparkles and flowers, she thinks. Sparkles and flowers.

This time, when she grins insistently at Kyo, she is granted shifting eyes and parted lips.

Buoyed by her new success, Tsuna begins to chatter cheerfully at the older boy. "If you're almost eight, t-then you're in school now, right? Which school do you go to, Kyo-san?"

"Namimori Elementary."

"Ah!" she gasps in delight. "I-I'm gonna be in Nami-sho next year too, so Kyo-san is going to be my senpai! If I get to see Kyo-san again, then I'll, I'll be really happy."

This earns her another slanted shift of starless pupils and the barest curve of a mouth and Tsuna is left feeling stupidly pleased by her feat. Her joy only too soon falls away to disappointment when they immediately pull up next to a low brick wall with the Sawada nameplate; she'd been eager to make further acquaintance of the boy who she thinks has just saved her life, though she can't properly recall it. Tsuna doesn't know why she expected the trip to take longer - even driven by fear, her legs are pathetically short and her stamina paltry, so she wouldn't have gotten far from the house - but somehow she thought that she'd have more time than this to talk to Kyo.

Having safely delivered her to her home, the older boy tells her, "I'll make sure the other herbivore is properly punished for his transgressions," and then turns away without so much as a by-your-leave to stride down the road.

Tsuna is confused by the long words, but she's far more alarmed that he's already leaving. This will be the last time she'll see him for a long time, she knows it, and she doesn't want that, doesn't want it at all.

"Kyo-san, umm, do you - do you want to come in to play?" she asks, gripping the corner of the fence with a hand. "I-I could ask Mama to make us snacks."

The boy does not quite stop, but he does slow to give her a Look from over his shoulder. "I don't crowd," he says. The brunette correctly interprets this to mean No and deflates.

"Oh." Tsuna sighs. "Okay t-then - "

"But," he continues, directing an irritated glare at an innocent rock to his left. She isn't sure what the cause of his ire is, but she pities the poor rock its life. "I'll be… looking forward… to your admittance at Nami-sho." The words fall awkward and alien from his lips, but they coil around her heart like a warm promise. Tsuna perks up and does not so much smile as she does glow at Kyo.

The boy is nearing the end of her road when she finally manages to fumble out, "Thank you very much, Kyo-san!" after him.

He says nothing and continues walking. At first she isn't sure if he heard her, but she sees a twitch of a smile on his mouth as he turns the corner and she knows he has.

that shines within us all

Tsuna is six years old when her papa begins to fade away from her life.

It is summer, and Papa has returned back home as he inevitably does, every year without fail. His trips home cannot be called regular, exactly, because they follow absolutely no kind of pattern or schedule - and sometimes they don't even know he's returning to Namimori until the doorbell chimes merrily to the tune of 'Papa's home!' - but Iemitsu does invariably spend at least a few months home with his family every year, always on Tsuna and Mama's birthdays and many other little visits lasting anywhere between a day to a month, though never more than that. This time, Papa has brought along with him a friendly looking grandfather with a warm face and tender hands.

Tsuna falls asleep the moment she sees him.

In fact, she falls asleep every time she sees him, for the entirety of the visit. As Papa spends a lot of time beside the old man, taking him to the Namimori attractions and drinking bitter water together, and she spends lot of time clinging as close to Papa as physically possible, that equates to nearly two weeks of being asleep in accommodating laps or backs or arms.

Sometimes, though, Tsuna stays awake long enough to beg off a story from the grandfather, because she knows that the elderly always weave the best tales of everything and anything at all.

Sometimes, Tsuna stays awake long enough to hear about the blond man with the invulnerable will, who saw the world for what it was, who saw all the parts that were dark and ugly and twisted and still decided it was something worth saving. The man who had comrades willing to go to any length for him, if he would just ask, and for whom he would sacrifice his own soul to save. The man whose sheer conviction was enough to bury armies in stone and resurrect countries from ashes, but who would also, for all his power and his pride, prostrate himself without hesitation to calm the tears of a desolate child.

She adores this fairy-tale man; he is the sun and the moon and the stars glowing big and bright and beautiful, a celestial body that reaches into the void of space and sets it aglow with his incandescence.

I want to be just like that hero! Tsuna tells the grandfather one day.

The elderly man only smiles kindly and pets her hair with mournful eyes. I pray that you will never have to, says he. She doesn't quite understand, but it isn't long before she succumbs to the slow, rhythmic lullaby of another well-spun story, to the drowsy lure of verdant pastures, azure skies, slugabed morning picnics, an umbrageous boy with eyes like funeral pyres and the bearing of a kaiser and too much to prove against people with expectations set too low.

She adores this boy too, cherishes him with all the starry-eyed fervour of a little girl in love.

Is the boy real, grandpa? Tsuna asks.

And Timoteo answers, He is as real as you or I.

The visit runs its course and comes to a bittersweet end. Eventually, grandfather and Papa both board onto a plane and Tsuna watches as they are borne aloft into the sky and disappear amongst the clouds.

After that, neither Tsuna nor Mama hear from Papa for a very long time.

although this world

Tsunako is seven, and sometimes, she wishes she could be absolutely anyone but herself.

Sometimes she wishes her knees aren't so knobby; that her feet aren't so ungainly; that her fingers aren't about to make disaster instead of art when she plucks at a piano, a paintbrush, a whisk.

Sometimes she wishes that her hair could drift in the breeze; that she could wear dresses without utterly embarrassing herself; that she could answer questions in class; that she could walk ten feet without smashing face first into a wall, a lamppost, a person.

Sometimes she wishes that her teachers wouldn't call her useless; that her classmates wouldn't tease her so mercilessly; that Mama wouldn't have to sit and force a cheerful smile as her daughter is casually insulted at every turn.

Sometimes, Tsuna wishes 'sometimes' isn't closer to 'always'.

Right now, she only wishes it would stop raining. She's not sure where she left her umbrella, but she's sure she brought it to school this morning. It's her favourite too, ocean blue with a pastel fade of the rainbow around the rim, little orange tuna fish swimming in a spiral, and a curved handle engraved with her name. Papa had sent it to her from Antarctica last year, and she loves it so very much. Tsuna adores the pretty way the colours blend when she presses the little button to make it fly open, and she brings it out whenever she has the chance; she'd been so excited when it had begun to rain early this afternoon, but now it's nowhere to be seen and Tsuna is left trudging home in the pouring rain. She shivers miserably and huddles further into herself, fat droplets of water drip-drip-dripping down her hair and into her eyes and under her raincoat.

Until suddenly, it isn't.

"Hey, you okay?"

Tsuna glances up and gasps. "Yamamoto-kun!" she yelps, before colouring. She looks to her feet again and shuffles awkwardly, her cheeks red. "S-sorry, um, you probably don't know me..."

Yamamoto Takeshi pats her on the shoulder and grins so widely that he seems to emit a light of his own, softening the harsh, dreary gray of the street with his sheer force of presence. "Haha, Sawada Tsunako, right? You're in my year, class 2-C. I've seen you in the hallways!"

Tsuna suddenly wants to cry in embarrassment. The only reason she's out in the hall so often is because she keeps falling asleep in class; she's been sent to stand outside the classroom door several times a week ever since she began attending Namimori Elementary. Having to pass by her so often, of course Yamamoto-kun would have memorized her name and homeroom class by now.

"But why are you walking home in the rain? Did you forget your umbrella?"

Tsuna shakes her head awkwardly. "N-no, I had it when school started… I just dunno where it went."

Yamamoto-kun blinks at her for a moment, and Tsuna fiddles with the ends of her sleeves self-consciously. Finally, the boy blurts, "That's no good!" and Tsuna braces herself for the usual, 'You really are no-good Tsuna.' It doesn't come; instead, Yamamoto-kun says, "You're gonna catch a cold!"

"Eh?" Tsuna replies, nonplussed by her schoolmate's sudden concern for her.

"No, this won't do! Tsunako-chan, I'll walk you home, okay?" he chirps, smiling warmly at her.

"W-w-w-wait, Yamamoto-kun, y-you don't have to go that far," she sputters, waving her hands frantically in protest and feeling vaguely sucker-punched. "My house isn't that far, and it-it's my fault for losing the umbrella."

"No," Yamamoto-kun rebuffs staunchly, shaking his head. "I'm gonna go with you. My house isn't far either, so it won't be any trouble. Besides," he continues, cheerfully hooking an arm over Tsuna's shoulders, "I've always wanted to talk to you properly, like this!"

"You have?" Tsunako breathes, incredulous and scarcely daring to believe the boy's words; she half suspects that this is the build-up to another mean joke. Her feet automatically fall into the familiar route that will take her home, but her eyes are unfaltering in their scrutiny of Yamamoto-kun's guileless features.

"Yup!" he says earnestly, peering down into her face. "Every time I see you, you look so lonely, so I wanted to see if I could cheer you up. But I never really got the chance to talk to you before since I have baseball after school, except when it rains like this. And during recess you always disappear somewhere!"

Actually, that's because whenever she can, she takes the chance to escape to the roof; there are only so many derogatory jibes and demeaning sneers she can take before it becomes just too overwhelming. Besides, Hibari Kyoya is rumoured to frequent the roof regularly, so not even the most stalwart of the girls who tease her will dare to follow her there, even though Tsuna herself has yet to encounter the upperclassman.

Still, her heart races. If Yamamoto-kun is really telling the truth, then she might even have a new friend now. Her first friend from school, and the nicest, most popular boy in their grade at that.

No, that doesn't really matter. He could be the least popular person in the entire world and she wouldn't care at all, if he would just be her friend.

Just the idea just makes her so happy so happy and a giddy upwell of if this is true please let this be true a friend please thank you please bubbles thick and golden from her chest to the tip of her tongue to somewhere high on her cheeks and

Tsuna beams up so widely that her eyes squeeze shut, so wide that her nose crinkles and her cheeks hurt and she hopes it can impart onto this boy even just the smallest part of her joy. "Thank you, Takeshi-kun!" she says, and she means it, she really, really, really means it.

Her schoolmate's slight grin falls. His steps falter for a beat. He blinks owlishly at her, once, twice, three times.

And then his smile returns with a vengeance, curving his cheeks and brightening his entire face and flooding her to her toes with a warm sort of tranquility. "Of course, Tsuna!" he laughs, carrying in his throat the steady cadence of raindrops outside the window on a sleepy evening, and then they are walking forth again, chattering freely about this and that and everything in between.

When they separate at Tsuna's door, she is flush with bliss. Perhaps she's a little contagious too, because Takeshi also seems to feel more vibrant to her than she's ever seen before.

"See you tomorrow, Tsuna," he says cheerfully, giving her a wide, sweeping wave over his head with both arms.

"See you, Takeshi-kun!" she replies, and she thinks she might spill over and explode from how happy she is because this is something that friends do, and to be able to say this to a real friend, afriendafriendafriend, is just, just, she cannot even begin to describe the feeling. She waves her hand vigorously after Takeshi, who walks backwards and waves too, and she thinks they must look really stupid, just grinning and waving like this, but she doesn't care. "Bye!" she repeats, and he laughs.

"Bye, Tsuna!"

She giggles delightedly and waves even harder, and Takeshi keeps walking backwards until finally he rounds the corner and she can't see him anymore. Somehow, they've managed to prolonged the fifteen minute journey to Tsuna's home far longer than should be reasonable; already, the late winter sun is sitting low and pregnant on the western horizon.

The abrupt thought that maybe this is a dream hits her like a trainwreck, makes her want to cry, but if it is a dream, she's determined to enjoy it until the last.

She knows her mama never locks the door when she's home so she throws the door open and sheds her rainboots and kit all in a pile in the entryway. "Mama!" she cheers, dashing into the kitchen. The house phone, she notes, has been moved onto the kitchen table from the living room. Her mother is making dinner for the two of them the way she always does, fostering each dish with such care that a stranger would assume a special occasion, and Tsuna is overwhelmed by a rush of so much love for this woman, raising her nearly single-handedly even though it must be so difficult to have a child like her. She throws her arms around her mama's waist and hugs her tight. "Mama, guess what? I made a friend today!"

"Oh," Mama gasps, immediately putting down the wooden spoon in her hand and twisting around in Tsuna's arms. "Tsu-chan! That's wonderful, is that why you were so late home? I was so worried, you know!"

The relief hidden in the lines of her face makes Tsuna impossibly sad (I would never leave you lonely, mama, thinks the child), but still she smiles bright and babbles all about her new friend Takeshi-kun and how he really loves baseball and his father the sushi chef, and can we please go eat at TakeSushi this weekend?

And of course her mother listens attentively to every word; even if it's because she wants to make sure that Tsuna's new friend is real, Tsuna doesn't mind so long as she's making her mama happy too.

She goes to bed that night with a soft, empyreal smile, barely there but just enough.

Tsunako finds her precious umbrella the following morning.

On the walk to school, the brunette sees a girl she knows only too well swinging an umbrella by its familiar white handle. When she peers closer, she can read Tsunako scrawled in gold along the curve, and her heart catches in her throat.

That's - that's mine! she thinks. She's not sure if she should feel relief or dismay, because while it's great that she's found it again, the realization that she has to talk to Megumi to get it back fills her belly with dread that sludges through her arteries into her legs and cements her feet to the ground.

But… that was given to her by Papa, and she treasures it. Not because gifts from Papa are few or far in between, but because every single present is a reminder that he's still thinking of her and missing her even when he's far, far away. She hasn't seen him for over a year now; she misses him dearly. So she has to get it back no matter what.

Tsuna pulls her sleeves down over her hands, wraps the loose ends tight around her knuckles and stiffly treads forward to tap the girl on the shoulder.

"K-Kato-chan…" she tries, her heart beating like hummingbird wings against her ribcage.

"Yes?" Kato Megumi turns to her, skirt fluttering airily around her knees. It takes a moment but as soon as the girl recognizes that it's Tsuna, a strange sort of smile twists her mouth, a little cruel and a little gleeful and much, much too familiar. They are both the same age and nearly the same height, so why, she wonders, is Megumi so good at - at hurting?

No, not just Megumi. Tsuna finds all little girls frightening.

Boys are simple, even if they try to hurt her, they are simple about it. They may make fun of her for being stupid or having bad grades or falling asleep all the time, for tripping on her face or slamming into someone by accident, but they are straightforward, almost clean, in their mockery. "Dame-Tsuna is so stupid!" or "Dame-Tsuna tripped again!" or "Eww, cooties!"

Just sticks and stones.

But girls… girls have a way with words and eyes and bearing that is at once terrible and extraordinary. Like birds of prey, they taste weaknesses and tear into them with the ferocity of bloodhounds, framing their words pretty and razor sharp, the gleam of polished silver as a knife drives deep into bone. Her bullies are monsters in ribbon and lace, and Tsuna is terrified of them, all of them.

"What is it, Tsunako-chan?" Megumi asks, twisting the name in her mouth and spitting it out disgusting and mutated and nothing like it should be. Tsuna wants to say that it sounds too foreign to recognize, but it doesn't, it really doesn't, she's heard it far too many times.

"That…" the brunette starts. She pauses at the knife slash of Megumi's lips but very carefully does not flinch as she clears her throat and soldiers on. "That's m-my umbrella, Kato-chan… could you please r-return it to me?"

"This is yours?" Megumi gasps, her tone faintly mocking. "No way, I don't believe you. It's waaay too cute to belong to an ugly girl like Dame-Tsunako."

"I-it has my name on it," Tsuna protests, gesturing a timid finger at the gilded inscription. Megumi makes a sour face and drops the pretense of ignorance.

"I'll have mommy scrape it off for me later," the girl sneers. She tosses her glossy black hair and gives Tsuna a careless shrug, little shoulders doing a little hop. "It's just an umbrella, don't be so selfish. And it's mine now anyways - finders keepers, losers weepers!"

"But I d-didn't lose it, I know I didn't! You just t-took it!"

"I didn't take it," sniffs Megumi. "You're the one who left it where-ever and forgot about it."

"No. Y-you took it from my cubby. I know you did." Tsunako isn't sure where she's getting this confidence from. What Megumi is saying is honestly rather plausible, but the warm place in her belly pulses with the knowledge that it's a lie lie lie.

"You don't know that!"

"I do. I know you took it."

There is a moment's pause, and both girls stare stubbornly at each other. Then the mulish set of Megumi's jaw relaxes into a scoff. "What-ever. If you tell anyone, I can just hide it and say you lost it. Who'd believe you over me? And who'd even care, anyway, it's Dame-Tsuna - "

"I would," cuts in a boyish voice from beside Tsuna's ear. An arm falls comfortably over her shoulders, and Tsuna bites her lip harshly because can't cry, can't cry - but oh she is so happy, it wasn't a dream - don't cry! "I would believe Tsuna. And I'd care a lot, since she's my friend."

"T-Takeshi-kun!" Megumi sputters, taken off-guard. "When did you - wait, what do you mean by friends? Since when did Dame-Tsunako have friends?"

Takeshi's mouth is curved in a smile but his eyes are carved of hailstones. Despite the joy of seeing her new friend again, Tsuna finds the overall effect too disturbing for her to be able to relax into him; that kind of expression is chilling, even - or perhaps especially - on his young face. "Are you saying Tsuna can't have friends?"

"That's - well, why would you be friends with her? She's not even good at anything, even the teachers say so!"

"If Tsuna can't have friends because you think she isn't good at anything, that must mean you only have friends because you're good at a lot of things, huh?" Takeshi chuckles lightly, and it sends a shiver crawling down Tsuna's spine. "I can list a lot of things you're good at off the top of my tongue, actually. Like… Lying. Stealing. Bullying others. Being no-good at all."

"I'm not - I'm not a liar! Why are you believing her and not me? I didn't steal the stupid umbrella, I'm telling you that the idiot just lost it. Don't call me no-good, you, you, moron!"

Takeshi shrugs off the insult and replies, "But isn't that what you've been calling Tsunako?"

"B-because she is. Don't put us on the same level!"

There is a brief silence and then Takeshi nods solemnly. "You're right," he concedes. Tsuna's heart plummets to her stomach for a breath until he continues, "Comparing Tsuna to you is unfair to her. She deserves much better than that."

Unable to stop herself, the brunette's hands fly to her mouth and she gasps. She knows Megumi better than she really wants to, so she also knows that there is no conceivable way the girl won't fly into a snit from a snub like that. There will be retaliation, later, and Takeshi shouldn't have to deal with something like that just to stick up for her. On the other hand, Tsuna is astonished by his vehement defense of her; she's never experienced anything like this before, and she doesn't know how to feel about it. Dazed, maybe. Or overwhelmed. Perhaps just a shade giddy? Well, even if she doesn't know how to feel, she does know which emotion fills her most strongly right now - so she'll settle on touched.

"... I won't forgive you for that," the noirette in front of then hisses quietly, eyes slanted and her body still. "I'll make sure you regret being so horrid to me."

"You mean like how you're horrible to your own friends?" Takeshi says amiably, his mouth stretched in a frighteningly convincing easy grin. "Maybe Suzume-chan should know why all her stationary is going missing..."

"That has nothing to do with me - "

"... Or maybe Rin-senpai would like to know who's been spreading rumours about her parents' divorce. Saito-kun has been wondering why none of the girls have been wanting to talk to him, too. And I think Kyoko-chan should be told who's been ripping up her homework and throwing it in the trash, don't you? Haha."

Tsuna watches fascinated as Megumi slowly goes red, a blotchy spread of colour inching unflatteringly over her skin. She's never seen the girl looking less than adorably pretty, even if her words are ugly to the touch. It's part of the reason why she has so many friends; children are easily taken in by springing curls and spinning skirts and satiny ribbons, after all.

"How?!" Megumi demands, voice risen in a shriek. "How could you possibly know about that?"

"I have the best eyesight of anyone in our grade - and you aren't really hiding yourself well, you know."

Megumi looks about ready to throw herself at Takeshi and start clawing at those aforementioned eyes. "You don't have any proof, they won't believe you, and if you dare, then I'll make every day at school for you absolutely horrible…"

Enough.

Something fluid and burning trickles down Tsuna's spine and pools into the recesses of her body at the threat - because she knows intrinsically, intuitively, that this is a Threat. And Threats must be dealt with. Tsunako and her friend are going to arrive at school on time. They are going to have a fun day together. This affair is finished. Megumi will not bring harm upon Takeshi, not now and not ever.

"I know you stole sensei's special bracelet," Tsuna murmurs quietly. "The one from her fiancé."

The tirade cuts immediately.

"What," Megumi breathes.

"Woah," says Takeshi.

"Takeshi-kun might not, but I have plenty of proof. I know you stole it from her bag last month when everyone was out for the earthquake drill. That day, I brought a camcorder for show and tell and I never got to show it. But when you threw my bag on the floor before we left, I guess it fell out and turned on, because it recorded everything. Sensei thought she'd lost the bracelet herself, and she even got into a fight with her fiancé over that, did you know? I heard her yelling on the phone behind the school." Tsuna leans forward invitingly, hooded eyes burning with a strange sort of heat, and hums, "I know you still have it, too. There's no telling how much trouble you'll get in. You might even get suspended. Do you want to risk it?"

Megumi goes pale in less than half the time it took for her to go colourful, and from her barely parted lips is emitted a high sort of gasp, almost like helium escaping a balloon. Her eyes are large and perfectly round when she meets Tsuna's gaze. Abruptly, the girl throws the nearly forgotten umbrella at her, spins on her heel, and dashes down the empty street back home, presumably to be rid of the incriminating evidence.

The brunette already has an arm up to grab the flying item. But then she looks at the airborne umbrella - really looks at it - realizes what she has done, and immediately fumbles the catch.

"Hup," says Takeshi, stretching forward to snag the handle before it touches the floor. He spins it between his fingers and then hands it to her with an odd look on his face. The kindling warmth between her ribs extinguishes and leaves a bone-weary chill that she doesn't know what to do with.

"I-I'm sorry, Takeshi-kun," Tsuna whispers, experience forcing her to interpret the expression as resentment. She ducks her head. In place of the uncharacteristic sharp certainty of earlier is a jarring void that has her reeling and uneasy. "I didn't mean for you to get involved. What if she still does try to get back at you? It's my fault, I'm sorry, I'm really sorry…"

"Tsuna," the boy interrupts. She peeks up through her hair to see that his eyes have slid to the side, something almost like self-contempt in the upward quirk of his mouth. "I was the one who just butted in because I wanted to help. Actually, I was walking just over there," and here he gestures past the sharp bend in the road, "from the start. I should have hurried and said something right away but I didn't think it would get so bad." Takeshi pauses and then shakes his head. "No. I should have said something a long time ago. I'd known Megumi was a bully for a while now, but I didn't know she was so terrible to you. To be honest, I… before, I'd even thought that it wasn't any of my business. I hadn't even thought to care. Tsuna, I'm the one who's sorry. As a friend, I'm really no-good at all."

"No!" she cries, shaking her head vehemently, shocking both herself and Takeshi with the burst of sheer volume. Tsuna's cheeks bloom an embarrassed pink, but with much effort she keeps herself from recoiling and bulldozes on. "Takeshi-kun has nothing to be sorry for. You had no reason to involve yourself before, and I never expected you to, either. I've never even thought anything like that! So don't ever call yourself no-good, okay?" When Takeshi continues to feel unconvinced, she insists, "Takeshi-kun, you don't get how amazing it is that you care now. That's more than enough! So don't ever say bad things about yourself, okay? Because I - I can't stand that!"

She hates it so much, and she doesn't understand it either. Tsuna has never once thought to blame someone else for not caring, for not stepping in, only ever blamed herself. If only she could be prettier, if only she could be smarter, if only she could be better in some way, then the torment wouldn't happen in the first place. If only she wasn't so no-good.

And worse, it's only been a single day, and she's already infected Takeshi with her no-goodness, made him think that's he's no-good too, even though that's not true at all. The right thing to do, of course, is to spare him of her inadequacy and just stop being friends before it's too late; but she's too selfish to do that, and something tells her that the consequences of such an act will be disastrous in the way only a shattered heart can be.

So when he hands her an over-large grin and a platitude that is worse than false, she reaches forward and grasps his hands in both hers. She needs him to get it, needs him to understand how grateful she is to him just for calling himself her friend, for trying to protect her from one of her bullies, for being concerned about her at all. She needs him to accept just how enough he is. She needs this so much, so much, and her very marrow thrums with it, a feverish current that sibilates through her bones to her blood, her flesh, her skin, the air itself, breaking upon them both in a wave of sheer emotion.

In that interstice between sensation and comprehension, Takeshi watches her with wide, wide eyes. Then his counterfeit smile crumples into itself and in its place draws something smaller and so much more vulnerable. Tsuna peers up at him through her bangs, her own smile big and bright, because she thinks - he's finally got it, hasn't he?

"Okay?" she asks hopefully.

He smiles shyly back at her and answers, "Okay."

And that's that.

can turn so cold

Tsuna carefully pushes on the door until it yields a small gap and slides through to the rooftop, wary of hinges that are fond of squealing when least convenient. She had come immediately after recess earlier as well, afraid of Megumi's potential retaliation. Kyo-san hadn't been here then but he is sure to be here now: it's lunchtime, after all.

At the very beginning of first grade, she had received the school lunches and eaten them in the classroom, like everyone else. But at some point during the year she had been identified as an easy target, and then the bullying had started. It became both painful and mortifying to stay in the classroom without adult supervision, but when she'd started escaping to hidden corners to eat, her tormentors instead zeroed in on her when she was picking up her portion or during the retreat that followed. Uncovered food atop an open tray, she had soon discovered, was far too dangerous. Many days were spent either without any lunch or covered in it before she had begun to bring in packed lunches instead, as an obento was safer and didn't require her to stand vulnerably in a line besides.

Even after all that, though, Tsuna hadn't been safe during break periods for a long, long time. The girls would stumble across her, both purposefully and by accident, and as the year went on, available hiding places dwindled to a perilously low number. It wasn't until she met Kyo-san once more that she could let down her guard; by happenstance, he had one day strolled right under the branch she had been sitting on and taken one glance at her shivering form - she had been afraid of falling to her death at the time, as she'd found it terribly tricky to balance herself, her lunchbox, and her chopsticks on a tree limb that wasn't particularly thick - before demanding that she come down right this instant, little animal. She'd packed her bento and scuttled down the trunk in record time, and then was led directly to the rooftop, where she finished the rest of her lunch next to him in companionably terrified silence, undisturbed by anyone else.

The next day, she'd tiptoed back to the roof during lunch with two of her mama's delicious obentos in her hand to express her gratitude. And then he'd imperiously decreed that she do the same for the day after. And the day after that. And after that. And then eventually the rooftop became as much hers as it was his, so she'd never stopped coming back, extra bento in hand.

So Kyo-san is definitely here right now; the problem is, he always seems to be napping when she comes in. He turns grouchy and irritable whenever he is woken by any means but his own, which isn't too unreasonable in itself, except that Kyo-san can be woken with even a whisper of noise and his temper is of the vengeful, destructive sort. He'd once broken the door off its frame in a rapid flurry of strikes because it'd squeaked too loudly upon her entrance. The warped, distorted scrap of metal had been too far gone to be salvaged; strangely enough, an anonymous donation had come in the next day, more than enough to replace the door, and the school made no sign of looking for the perpetrator. Kyo-san didn't seem to have been reprimanded either, though maybe the administration didn't know he'd done it.

In any case, since that event Tsuna has always made sure to treat the rooftop door with utmost care so as to prevent further damage to the poor school.

She pads across the roof and thanks her indoor shoes for their soft soles when she spots inky lashes fanning high on rounded cheeks, looking like shadowy bruises against the pale skin. Hands interlocked upon his torso and head resting on a neatly folded bundle of cloth, Kyo-san is stretched out on their wooden bench, fast asleep.

The bench had been installed by the school in the middle of her first year as a donation from some affluent family, and Tsuna often wonders about it. The only students to frequent the roof - that she knows of - are Kyo-san and herself, as well as the ever elusive Hibari-senpai. Occasional visits from the school janitor notwithstanding, none of the school staff even approach the stairwell leading here and they most definitely don't loiter long enough to require a bench. So quite frankly, she finds the piece of furniture to be an impractical investment on the donor's part, since it appears to her that its primary function is to serve as Kyo-san's temporary bed, with the auxiliary purpose of being sat on by Tsuna twice a day. Not that she doesn't appreciate being saved from sitting on the coarse, hard cement roof, but only two (maybe three) people in the entire school ever make use of it so it seems a bit of a waste to her. Regardless, it's there and she resolves to be thankful for that.

Tsuna crouches and unknots the cloth around an obento box. She places the coloured fabric on the ground beside Kyo-san's head, folding it into neat quarters to muffle any noise before placing the bento box on top of it. Carefully, ever so carefully, she raises the top compartment of rice and sets it beside the bottom compartment of side dishes. Her job finished, she scuttles to the other end of the bench so she can sit and settle with her own lunch.

She happily lifts the lid off her obento box as Kyo-san's fingers start twitching. By the time he takes the first sniff, she's already holding an egg roll between her chopsticks. Tsuna watches with a rice-filled grin when Kyo-san gives several more sniffs, his nose leading his head to loll to the left. Slowly, ever so slowly, his eyes flutter open and zero in the open lunch box below him. The upperclassman reaches for the food and slides his feet over the edge of the bench in one swift motion. Without another word, he begins eating.

"Hamburger steak," he says, after a period of quiet chewing. The bleary haze of sleep is mostly gone from his eyes now, meaning Tsuna is finally free to make a reasonable amount of noise.

"Yup," Tsuna answers brightly, kicking her feet as she munches on a piece of the aforementioned. "Mama made her homemade hamburgers last night to celebrate, and we had lots left, so she made more for lunch!"

"It isn't your birthday," Kyo-san states, but the upward lilt marks it as a question.

"My birthday's in October," she agrees. "It's just, yesterday, I - I made my first friend!" Tsuna looks to her upperclassman with large, cheerful eyes, hoping for some words of congratulations, some sort of acknowledgement, because surely this is a momentous occasion for someone like her.

Kyo-san pauses. Puts his bento box down. His hands are curled into tight little fists in his lap and his eyes are blank of emotion and he's staring straight at her. "First. Friend?"

He is hurt. Kyo-san is hurt. She can feel it, a sharp ache between her ribs. But why is he hurt? It can't be...

"First friend?" he repeats lowly, irises dark as pitch under the umbrage of his fringe, and she hears a lash of something angry and injured echoing in his breath.

"You… hate crowding," she tells him, struggling to understand this response. She begins to fiddle with the ends of her sleeves, slowly pulling them to her knuckles.

"Yes."

"I'm a herbivore; the w-worst kind."

"Yes."

"I-it's not just t-that, though, I'm useless, and a l-loser, and no good and a n-nuisance, and, and - "

"Stop." The command forcefully snatches the air in her lungs and grips it tight. Kyo-san's eyes narrow dangerously, promising violent retribution if she dares continue. (Only she doesn't know if she's even the target of his wrath, and somehow, that's more frightening than the alternative.)

"... Oh."

Tsuna does stop, but of her own volition because it's enough, she understands now - and suddenly she must fight the wash of molten heat behind her eyes, because she understands, and it feels like a supernova is blooming into existence between her lungs, intemperate and ebullient and radiant, it hurts but it feels so good.

"I didn't know - I thought - you, you didn't - I - " she hiccups and then presses the heels of her hands tight against her eyelids. The two of them sit still for several moments, Kyo-san in silence and Tsuna curling into herself, trying her best to calm the influx of tears before they can spill over. She can feel his furor slowly receding, like waves from the shore, and it helps, it helps so very much.

"Sorry for being stupid," she whispers, when she finally can. "Thank you." Tsuna brings her hands away to give him a bright, watery grin, big enough to crinkle her eyes shut, wet lashes dewing against her cheeks. "Thank you." She feels the rest of Kyo-san's ire extinguish, and this makes her smile only wider.

The two children return to their lunches, and if Tsuna inches close enough for any other herbivore to be deemed crowding, well, Kyo-san doesn't seem to mind very much anyway.

AN

WHY DO I GENDERBEND ALL THE PROTAGS OH MY GOD

So this is my thingy. My khr thingy. I had tons of fun writing it, plus I've wanted to get into dat KHR thug lyf for a while now. Lo and behold, it's even less of a proper self-insert than Sol. I hesitate to even call it a self-insert (esp. since there's never going to be personal details in the first place), because it's Tsuna from start to finish, and until Reborn comes in, the 'past-life' memories don't even exist to her. Not when she's awake, not when she's asleep, its only effect is to make her fall asleep at extremely inconvenient junctions, and the consequences of that.

This is actually the longest single chapter I have ever written. Most of my chapters average ~3000-5000 (not counting my drabblish fics), and this is 9950-ish. It was supposed to go from age 4 to 12, but I decided that would be too long and take too much time to post. So I split it in half, ages 4-7 in one chapter and 8-12 in the next.

Sorry to my fans of literally every other fanfiction I have up, for not working on any of those, i'll… get to that… eventually? i just really wanted to get this out first, please forgive OTL

As always, if you find any mistakes, gimme a shout so I can fix it. Literally, you can give me a review of a single word I mispelt (and its general location) and I'll be grateful.

Notes:

- During nosebleed speech:

- "Can't breathe."

- "Tsuna's bleeding!"

- 'Iemitsu Sawada' as opposed to 'Sawada Iemitsu'. An Italian speaking to a fellow [culturally versed, if not 100% ethnically] Italian would use the more familiar western order of names, I think. Or it could be that they were speaking in Italian.

- *onii-chan = big brother. She's not actually calling Hibari her older bro, that's just what kids in Eastern Asia call male children/teens who are older than them. Can also be used as a casual (very informal) substitute for 'young man' by adults.

- Hibari's birthday is may 5. The new school year starts april 1. Kids start primary school the april after they turn 6. I was envisioning that scene to be early march, so Tsuna'd be in school the next year, while Hibari is in the last month of second year primary.

- Elementary school in japan is shogakko, junior high school is chuugakko. Just like in canon the middle school is called Nami-chuu, I had the elementary being shortened to Nami-sho (partially because I'm lazy and it's much shorter to write, partially because it sounds more natural).

- If it isn't super clear already, Tsuna still doesn't know Hibari Kyoya = Kyo-san, because as canon demonstrates, Tsuna is so? obtuse? HOW CAN HE NOT TELL THAT CHAOS IS REBORN, LIKE, IMMEDIATELY. oh my sweet, simple child, how i adore you.

- The Cradle Affair occurred 8 years before the Varia Arc. Meaning it happened when Tsuna was 6. And Ietmitsu's gonna be piled with work, dealing with the aftermath.

- the bold and italicized section titles are lyrics from the song "Light The Fire Within" by Leann Rimes. Cliche? yes. Corny? maybe. Do I care? not in particular, haha.

- if you have any other questions or if anything's confusing you, feel free to ask away