Author: The Plot Bunny Whisperer
Title: Without Reserve
Rating: T
Genre: Gen
Summary: Kobayashi Hari, newly of Namimori, is a simple man with simple needs who'd really rather be left alone. Unfortunately for him, no one ever listens.
Pairing(s): None.
Warnings: light angst, hints of PTSD
Disclaimer: Don't own, don't care, don't sue.

AN: Ugh, demanding. (Just kidding. Kind of.) I wasn't really planning to post more of this, but I had some inspiration (partially due to kit123 on Ao3) and once I got some sleep (I do not recommend going 43 hours without sleep - really) I decided that I couldn't leave it so unresolved. There might (MIGHT) be one more after this. Maybe two. M.a.y.b.e. But that's it, okay?

Okay.

(Edit: STOP ERASING MY LINES YOU askfheoifh!?)

Enjoy!

Without Reserve (cont.)

Reborn keeps his hand steady, the narrowing of his eyes the only outward sign of his irritation. After sending his student out of the room, Kobayashi seems content to ignore him, stretching his arms over his head and twisting his torso with a relieved sigh at the soft pops from his spine. With another jaw-cracking yawn, the exasperating mystery flits his eyes around the room again, glancing completely over Reborn's silently fuming presence, and landing on the bed a few feet to his left.

Instead of getting up, Kobayashi leans over, long arms stretching to reach under the bed, grasping for something. A moment later he pulls out a small box filled with crumpled papers and magazines, a toy or two, and broken pencils. Irritation is joined by bewilderment as Reborn watches the teen rifle through the box with single-minded focus, and then annoyance when he pulls out a box of green tea Pocky with a satisfied grin.

Reborn nearly vibrates with the force of his ire. Apparently, he hadn't been as thorough as he'd thought he'd been the first time he shamelessly rifled through Tsuna's things and helped himself to the hidden caches of snack food his dame-student had stashed around the room. The thought that he missed something makes him angrier than the thought that the annoying mystery teen knew where it was, though that was a close second. (Perhaps even equally, because it means he had been in Tsuna's room before and often enough that he had his own hidden cache. Tsuna didn't like green tea flavored snacks.)

Kobayashi shoves the box back under the bed with his foot, tearing open the package in his hands with relish. Returning to his slouch under the window, he meets Reborn's eyes and almost delicately snaps the biscuit stick in his mouth in half.

Reborn twitches.

"Temper," the teen rebukes lazily, ignoring the brand new smoking hole in the wall next to his head. His hooded eyes are sharp, however, and his statement comes with a hint of teeth.

"Who are you," Reborn says again, adjusting his aim to make it clear that the next shot would not be a warning.

"Hmm? Don't you know?" Kobayashi twists the half eaten stick between the fingers of one hand, propping his head on the other. The look he gives Reborn is as dry as his tone. "You've only been trying to spy me for nearly a week now." 'Trying' being the keyword, and it rankles somewhat that Kobayashi seems to be fully aware of his attempts.

Three more biscuits are eaten while they stare at each other. Kobayashi is clearly stating that he's not willing to play Reborn's game with his silence, and Reborn is grudgingly impressed with his fortitude. Much older and hardened men have quailed under his gaze before, spilling their secrets without needing more of a threat than his reputation. Whether or not Kobayashi knows of it is uncertain, but the teen remains unmoved – or uncaring, as that is also likely.

Reborn is beginning to realize, however, that his usual method of using intimidation to get his answers is not going to work in this case, so he allows Leon to change back into his true form and return to his favorite perch on the brim of his fedora. Kobayashi watches the transformation with undisguised fascination, head tilted and eyes narrowed, absently nibbling the end of another biscuit as he does so.

"Well, that's new," Kobayashi mutters to himself, ignoring Reborn once again in favor of observing the small lizard. Leon stares back at him with unblinking eyes; the teen seems to take it as a challenge, and the two engage in some sort of staring contest.

He uses the distraction as a chance to observe his mystery more closely. Kobayashi seems like a normal civilian on the surface, but Reborn's vast experience picks up things other people might miss. Despite his apparent nonchalance, there is a subtle tension in the line of his shoulders that reveals he's not as unaffected by Reborn as he seems. He's not unmarked, either; there are scars on his arms and what looks like words carved on the back of his hand. Kobayashi's earlier search under the bed had also revealed what looks like stab wounds and part of what could be an old gunshot on his torso. Something tells Reborn he's not unarmed, but his sharp eyes can't find any hint of a weapon.

Reborn allows a small tendril of his Flame to curl outwards, probing Kobayashi's aura as softly as he can in search of the other's Flame. If he's Flame Active, along with those old wounds, it raises the likelihood of a Mafia connection; a person his age with Active Flames would never go unmolested for long by the underworld. It could also explain Reborn's inability to gather the information he desired. A decently powered Mist could easily confuse his bugs and mess with his cameras, but he'd have to be rather powerful to confuse Reborn himself. That would put him on the level of Viper of the Arcobaleno – or even above, as Viper had never been able to fool Reborn's senses for very long. Certainly not for a full week.

His search comes up with nothing, however. Kobayashi does not appear to have a Flame at all. There's definitely some sort of power there, the like of which Reborn has never felt before, but whatever it is, it isn't a Flame. Kobayashi feels as Flameless as any other civilian, and that just fuels Reborn's curiosity even more.

"Did you find what you were looking for?" Kobayashi asks suddenly. His eyes haven't left Leon, but the corner of his mouth is quirked in a funny little smile – not quite mocking, but… knowing, almost.

"No." Reborn glares darkly, allowing irritation to hide his surprise as the grin widens.

"I'd be surprised if you did," Kobayashi says cheerfully. "Well," he amends, "maybe only a little."

The bedroom door opens then, waylaying Reborn's (potentially violent) response. Tsuna enters backwards slowly, a service tray carefully balanced in his hands. With a soft rattling of china, he places the tray down, looking uneasily between the two of them and then blanching when he notices the new hole in his wall.

"Re-born," he whines, glancing at his neighbor in half panic, half concern, wide eyes searching for evidence of a wound.

"You're one hundred years too early to scold me, dame-Tsuna," Reborn says darkly. He launches himself into a flying kick, one of his usual methods of disciplining his reluctant student… and misses, as a tanned hand reaches forward, grabs the bottom of Tsuna's shirt, and pulls the boy to the floor. Tsuna falls with a surprised oof, and sits dazed for a moment. Reborn narrows his eyes, but still manages to whack his student on the head with a Leon-fan on his way back to his seat.

"Introduce me," he orders, ignoring Tsuna's pout.

"Ah… Hari-san, this is my home tutor, Reborn," Tsuna says reluctantly, rubbing the top of his head. "Reborn, this is my neighbor, Kobayashi Hari."

"Oh good, you remembered the milk this time," Kobayashi says, completely ignoring the introduction. He pours the tea into one of the three cups – a green one, whereas the other two are plain white, that has a small bit of milk in the bottom of it – a strong scent of mint filling the air as he does so. Tsuna's nose scrunches in distaste.

"How can you drink it like that?" he complains, filling the other two cups and nudging the bowl of sugar cubes closer to his guest.

"Shut up, it's delicious." Tsuna rolls his eyes at the deadpan remark, but his smile is fond. It sounds like a familiar argument to Reborn, and he wonders how long the two have actually known each other. Long enough for Kobayashi to have a "usual," at the very least, to have his own snacks in his student's room, for Nana to be aware of his eating habits…. There's too many questions and not enough answers for Reborn's comfort.

"You seem rather close for being just neighbors," Reborn says, looking between them demandingly.

"He wouldn't leave me alone," Kobayashi says impassively. Tsuna scratches his cheek with a finger, flushing in embarrassment.

"It wasn't like that. I just thought you were interesting," he mutters in denial. "Hari-san moved in a few years ago. I met him when I hid in his yard from… uh, some kids." ("Bullies," Kobayashi coughs into his cup. Tsuna ignores him, though he does blush again.) "Anyway, he was my tutor before you came, so I guess that's why we seem close."

Reborn stares. His mind snaps another puzzle piece into place, that being the contradiction between Tsuna's low, if decent, grades in school and the just above failing that they had been reported to be in his CEDEF file. They weren't nearly up to Reborn's perfectionist standards, but they hadn't been horrible either. Even his nickname, dame-Tsuna, had been said by his peers more as a habit that actual fact. It also explains why Nana hadn't hired Reborn immediately, as expected, but several days later instead.

"He's also the school nurse for Nami-Middle," Tsuna adds almost as an aside.

…What?

—•—

The house is bigger than he really needs it to be. It's meant more for a small established family or a newlywed couple just starting out than a single man and couple of house elves. Regardless, it's much better than the gloomy ancestral Black home, and the neighborhood is quiet, clean, and friendly. Harry feels more at home here on his first night than he ever did in all his years in the Gryffindor dormitory.

Leaving Grimmauld has definitely been one of his better decisions. Even Kreacher, who has begun to show his years in recent months, seems more full of vigor if not cheer. Winky is definitely the happiest of all of them, humming and all but buzzing with joy as she pops about, rearranging this and cleaning that.

The wards on the house have already been placed. While he didn't expect to have to need them for protection, he did need to make sure that anything magical was obscured from prying eyes. The wards available in Japan were much more advanced than the ones he is used to, Japanese magicals having a much higher requirement for secrecy; it was a small country with a large population, so they had wardsmithing down to a near art form. He had everything from obfuscation to pest control to mild muggle repellants, although as he was in an entirely muggle neighborhood those had been placed solely around the second level, which was where everything even slightly related to magic would be stored. Should he choose to, he could have company over and the wards emplaced would ensure that his company didn't get too curious about going upstairs or ask too many questions about Winky and Kreacher (whom he had ordered to stay out of sight should that come up anyway).

Not that he expected to have much company, but better safe than sorry.

He adjusts the newly hung certificate on the wall and steps back. Every time he looks at it he feels a rush of pride, in himself and his accomplishments. His degree was something he earned through years of hard work and dedication, and countless hours of sleep deprivation. Not a single person could claim it was undeserved or handed to him on a silver platter simply for his name. Best of all, it was a choice he made for himself – and that alone made it worth it.

Now he has a title he could actually be proud of. Doctor Potter – or Kobayashi Sensei, considering – had a rather nice ring to it, really.

While Kingsley and Headmistress McGonagall had been disappointed, Molly had cried tears of joy when he announced that he had enrolled in St. Mungo's advanced healing course, a fast paced study of the healing arts that was designed to eek out novice healers in the quickest way possible through the use of time turners and healer-regulated wit-sharpening and memory retention potions. It involved two years of accelerated learning, six months of which was at CMU, the Cambridge Magical University for the muggle-based courses, and a further year of apprentice studies under a Master Healer.

His apprenticeship had been all but usurped by Poppy Pomfrey, who was a Master of Pediatric Healing, when the time came for him to seek out a Master to apprentice under. Harry had no objections to this; Madam Pomfrey had long held his respect, and (most importantly) his trust. Pediatrics had been his field of choice, and getting hands-on experience in a school full of children and teenagers with more hormones than common sense was far and above what any other Master had offered for the so-called prestige of having the Man Who Conquered under their tutelage.

(He very much doubted that McGonagall had not had a hand in that. She had been extraordinarily smug the entire year he spent at Hogwarts during his apprenticeship. The fact that she had 'just happened' to hire a part-time, semi-retired Auror to teach Defense that year, who 'just happened' to need an assistant teacher for the younger years, and that his schedule 'just happened' to have those specific blocks of time free, couldn't possibly have anything to do with that, of course.)

It also didn't hurt that aside from being his mentor, Madam Pomfrey had made a rather good therapist as well. His talks with her, and later McGonagall (and just the once with Dumbledore's portrait) had seen him through some rather rough nights there. It had been easier, perhaps, while he was still in the medical courses; long nights with more study than sleep had kept the worst of it at bay. But once he'd been in Hogwarts, where he didn't have to push himself so hard, where so many of his worst memories had taken place, his nightmares had come back with a vengeance.

He would never be one hundred percent, and he could accept that now, but at least he was no longer so close to the edge of self-destruction. And he had come very, very close. Without his drive to advance, to learn all he could – without the promise of the freedom that awaited him after – he very likely would have fallen off of that precipice.

In the end and with a shiny new Mastery under his belt, Harry said his goodbyes, packed up his life in England, and took the first portkey available to the Japanese Ministry of Magic. It was there he met up with Tanaka Akashi, an associate of Madam Pomfrey's, who set him up with a new identity and yet another accelerated course in Japanese language, history, and culture; and eventually, a job as a school nurse in the middle school of a small, quiet town – which is exactly what he wanted.

It was actually a relief to be able to introduce himself to his new boss and peers as Kobayashi Hari. Harry Potter may have been a famous figure and source of intrigue for the nosy and judgmental magicals of Britain, but Kobayashi Hari was simply an eccentric twenty-three year old foreigner with a medical degree who wanted a simple, quiet life in the middle of nowhere, half a world away from where he grew up. He was almost giddy with exhilaration for his successful escape from a world that had only ever taken from him without bothering to take notice of the harm it caused him personally nor ever placed his own hopes and desires in consideration to their own.

Namimori is everything he never realized he had always wanted, and everything he knew he had needed. It was a fresh start. A new home, a new name, a new life, and a job waiting for him that he thinks he will actually enjoy.

He almost couldn't wait.

—

Tsuna takes back anything good he ever said about summer break. Summer was a horrible, miserable time of year, and if it were up to him it wouldn't exist at all. At least at school he had a reprieve from his usual group of tormentors – several blessed hours of it – but during summer, when they had nothing better to do, it always invariably led back to this.

This being Tsuna running through the streets of Namimori for either the safety of home or a good place to hide.

He makes a sharp turn at the corner, nearly tripping from the effort, and speeds up again. One more block and he'd be home free. A desperate whine builds up in the back of his throat as the shouting and jeering of his pursers grow louder. They are much faster than he is, and even with his head start he wasn't likely to make it all the way home. He's so close, too; it wasn't fair!

His head whips back and forth, eyes questing for a place to hide out where they can't find him or least for long enough that they get bored searching and wander off for other pursuits. A certain house catches his attention and he realizes with a start that he recognizes it – or at least, the color of it. As he grows closer, his heart speeds up and hope blooms in his chest as he sees the house directly behind it on the next street. That was his house. He skids to a stop in front of and has a wild thought. The house has been empty for months, and he hasn't heard of anyone moving in. Perhaps, if he cut through the yard and hopped the fence into his own….

He hesitates, hopping back and forth on his feet, but a shout from (much too) close by decides him. Quickly, he slips through the unlocked gate and scurries around the back. He's so close to safety he can almost taste it, and the thought has a buoying effect.

Apparently not enough of one, however, as he jumps, hands reaching for the top of the wall and missing. He tries again, but only succeeds at scraping his hands and arms against the rough stone the wall is made of, and then his knee as the force of his jump trips him and causes him to fall into it. He stays crouched on the ground, eyes tearing up from pain and fear, clenching his small hands in the fabric of his shorts, the whine from before finally finding its escape in a plaintive, keening tone.

One of the boys had to have seen him enter the yard, and would tell the others, and then they would come in too, and he was cornered, so they'd catch him, and then beat him up again, all because he was too short to reach the top of the wall! It's the fear that keeps him from bursting into wailing sobs (what if they heard him, they would definitely know where he was then!), but only just.

"Hey. Brat."

Tsuna shrieks, bullies be damned, at the flat voice that sounds from behind him. He turns so quickly he's nearly dizzy from it, his eyes wide in shock. There's a man standing in the open doorway of the house, with jade green eyes shadowed by dark bangs, arms crossed and lips turned down in a frown. Tsuna has the sinking feeling that the house is not as abandoned as he had first thought; judging by the furniture he can just see from further in the house, he's right.

Tsuna remains there frozen, and flinches when the man takes a step forward. The man pauses at this and opens his mouth, but before he can say anything the shouting of his pursuers returns.

"I saw him go in here! Dame-Tsuna's probably hiding back here like a little baby."

"Yeah, we've got him now!"

"Let's get 'im!"

"So that's how it is," the man mutters, frown deepening into a dark scowl. He glances at Tsuna for a moment then seems to make a decision. "Go on inside" he says, nodding his head toward the open door. Despite the blank, angry look on his face, Tsuna can't help but feel reassured by the gentleness of his voice. "I'll take care of them."

Tsuna has only an instant of indecision, but he wipes his face and stands, shuffling forward uncertainly towards the man and the possibility of safety. He looks back once, and the man meets his eyes with a soft, mischievous smile. Tsuna's eyes grow wide at it. No one, aside from his mother, had ever looked at him like that before; like he was worth protecting.

"Don't worry. You're safe here."

Half awed and completely assured by the promise, Tsuna nods back at him and goes into the house. That word had never felt truer.