Title: Failings

For: demoerin

Prompt: "Contrary to general belief, I do not believe that friends are necessarily the people you like best; they are merely the people who got there first." -Peter Ustinov

Pairing/Character: Gokudera, Tsuna

A/N: One thing I never got-If Tsuna supposedly died in the future, then how did his future self make a cameo at the end?

And, ending...is bad. And this whole thing is rather short. *sigh*

Summary: He won't lose Tsuna again, not after facing that bleak future.

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It's suffocating. He feels it every time he closes his eyes, black walls engulfing him, wooden bars that his fists are useless against.

Only, Gokudera isn't in it. No, it's (amazing, strong, brave) Tsuna, his boss, his friend (though he doesn't dare to say that).

The person he failed to save.

And this might be the future, the future they are changing, but it doesn't change this feeling all the same. He promised, promised with every fibre of his being, with every thought in his mind, that he would protect Tsuna.

There were nights where he spent tinkering in his room, putting different quantities of powder together, adding random pieces of technology here and there. Explosions were frequent, charring his face a coal black (like the coffin, like death, like the loss-), weapons failing to do what he designed. Books lay scattered on his bed, open to formulas and equations, text jumping to his eye when he looked for references.

Somehow, he managed to make something.

That something wasn't enough.

Tsuna looks back at him, smiling, eternal, present. He's at his front door, staring at the street as though he's surprised to see it's still there. The shockingly clear, blue sky; the lazy pace of strangers; the soft rustle of leaves-it amazes everyone at times, remembering how it used to be (will be?) in the future.

"We're late..." Tsuna sighs when Gokudera catches up, but there is a happy lit to that complaint.

He's so bright, sometimes. When Tsuna tells him he's important, he half wants to yell at him to take it back, he doesn't deserve it, not then, not anymore.

Instead, Gokudera clenches his fist. He might never gain the right to accept this gift Tsuna is giving him, this title of ally and protector. He might never be the right-hand.

However, he will make sure these warm hands never turn cold again.

(He will keep hearing that beautiful word, friend.)

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