Disclaimer: KHR is not mine, nor do any of the characters belong to me. I make no profit.

Tsuna was very familiar with the condition of being helpless.

He'd spent many years of his shining youth existing in said state, it was a well-practiced condition.

Helpless described him and school, bullies, gossip about him, and the amount of time his mother spent alone in her room on certain special occasions. In general, most of his life.

Tsuna learned a more severe degree of helpless once his Mafia training started. Helpless was watching people you cared about (more than yourself) get hurt for your sake. Helpless was having your father plan your life out for you while increasing amounts of (increasingly powerful) people agreed with him. Helpless was nights awake remembering how Byakuran spent his last moments at your hands.

Fourteen is rather young for killing.

It helps a little when he considers that the current Byakuran is alive, or is it that the Byakuran of his world is alive? (He can never catch up with dimension vs. time travel, no matter how many diagrams Gokudera draws to try and explain it)

But helpless, he realizes finally, is having your life almost certainly halved by a career choice. Helpless is looking ahead to the future and knowing that the few remaining years he has will be spent doing everything he despises. It is killing and losing bits and pieces and dragging everyone he loves down with him. Under the banner of Duty.

Helpless feels a lot like suffocation.

Ok. So I was looking around my new fandom and found a fic where Tsuna doesn't want to be a Mafia boss, and he sticks with that until about 3 chapters from the end, where he suddenly changes his mind and goes for it. Can't remember the fic name, but that got me started. And of course I read "Things Left Unsaid" by Hitokiri-San, which had me wondering.

And then, Cywscross had a conversation on Tumblr about the same topic, and so I felt inspired. This is going to be a series of short stories, attached ficlets really, set in a universe where Tsuna does not want to be a Mafia Boss. And people actually listen.

I know that Tsuna's character growth comes because Reborn tutors him to that purpose, forces him out of complacency. But I also feel for Tsuna because I have been in that position, where everyone is planning things for you and you're expected to just go with the flow. We all have those moments eventually.

Anyway, a few things to keep in mind:

1. AU. Mostly manga centric, but I will be changing things.

2. Very floaty timeline. Fics will play fast and loose with the canon timeline, and the fics themselves WILL NOT be chronological.

3. This has no real 'plot' per say, it is more of a character analysis. Don't expect a solid start and finish.