A/N: Hello hello. This is my first venture into the KHR fandom, so we'll see how this goes, LOL. I've just had a crazy muse for writing khr fanfiction after rereading the manga recently.

This fic is going to be more of an eclectic mix of oneshots, two-shots, three-shots, vignettes, etcetera, about the making of Vongola Decimo from where the manga left off. Mostly, it'll be through their high school years and a little bit about once he's actually taken over the Vongola Family. It'll also indulge me in my love for 1827 and 8059, so I hope you like those pairings, haha.

The following chapter is more of a preface to the rest of the fic – and if there are things / scenes / prompts you'd like to see covered, lemme know and I'll try to write it in!

Disclaimer: I do not own PoT.

preface.

summary: the family of Vongola Decimo to a sharply observant outsider.

Mochida Katsuro is a pretty normal guy, all things considered.

He's not a stellar student (but then, how many teens are?) but his grades are enough to get by, and it's not like he's particularly attractive, but he's not ugly, either. He's just kind of one of those guys that are friends with most people in their grade, but never quite makes a standout debut in society or anything; he's just average.

Which he supposes is the stark opposite to Sawada Tsunayoshi, the boy he's coincidentally shared class with for all three years of middle school, and now the first year of high school: chronically, hopelessly, cringe-worthily below-average. Katsuro's never been friends with Sawada or anything, but after spending three-and-running years with the kid in the same class, it's hard to not know about him.

After all, he's the kid who famously managed to single-handedly pull down the class's average with his deplorable scores throughout middle school (and it doesn't seem like his high school grades are that much better, either), the kid who couldn't complete the 15 meter swim test, the kid who made an occupation out of being a, well, loser.

Dame-Tsuna, they called him. No-Good Tsuna.

How did that even happen to someone? How did someone suck so bad, at everything, that a group of teenagers collectively referred to him as Dame-Tsuna?

In any case, the below-average nature of Tsuna soon became an accepted way of life during the days of Namimori Middle School – much like how the volatile and terrifying reign of Hibari Kyoya became an accepted way of life, along with the natural popularity of Yamamoto Takeshi.

Somewhere in the middle of their first year, though, something weird started happening.

Yamamoto Takeshi befriending Dame-Tsuna, for one. And as if their grade's most popular kid – and most athletic – suddenly hanging out with the class loser wasn't weird enough, some kid from Italy transferred halfway through the year.

And this kid, geez, he was a real piece of work, Katsuro remembers. Silver hair and green eyes that already made him stick out like a sore thumb in Japan (and made all the girls swoon), a cigarette always between his lips and an unending supply of glares and cusses to give anyone who so much as glanced his way. There were rumors going around about how he was part of the Italian mob, or summat.

And then he became friends with Dame-Tsuna, too, and for a while there Katsuro remembers wondering if he'd somehow hit his head and woke up in an alternate dimension.

Just when Katsuro thought things couldn't get any more strange, Dame-Tsuna somehow wins over Sasagawa Ryohei, the crazy (but also popular) second-year as well as his younger sister, the prettiest girl in their grade: Sasagawa Kyoko.

That's right around when some real shit started to go down.

It's been a few years but Katsuro doesn't think he'll ever forget the few weeks wherein over twenty of Namimori Middle School students had been hospitalized, with varying numbers of missing teeth. He remembers coming to school and finding out that Kentaro-senpai had been ambushed on his way home the night before, remembers finding out that six additional Namimori students had found themselves on the hospital's roster shortly after.

Katsuro also remembers Dame-Tsuna.

Katsuro's a disgustingly average guy, yeah, but what a lot of people don't know is that he's- observant. He kind of thinks of it as a hobby – watching people (it's really not as creepy as it sounds) and noticing all the details that often go missed by the general public.

For example: Sasagawa Kyoko has a nervous habit where her fingers scratch absentmindedly at her wrist – one will find that after Sasagawa Ryohei's boxing matches, she'll have raw, red skin from where her right hand had scratched at her left. She will also have similar red skin following math, because that's her worst subject.

For another: Hibari Kyoya's infamous for 'biting people to death' (seriously, what is with this insane school and these odd one-liners) when he feels as though there is 'crowding' going on. But people don't realize that there has to be a very exact ratio of space-to-people for Hibari Kyoya to feel 'crowded' – that space to people ratio is, Katsuro's found, roughly one person per fifteen square meters. (This ratio is very flexible depending on how much he dislikes the current parties, however).

So yeah, Katsuro can't help that he notices shit about Sawada, too. It's a habit.

He notices that Sawada's actually really, really clean for a teenage boy their age: his clothes are all wrumpled and in a disarray, yeah, but they're all perfectly washed and never with a stain, if he can help it. His bag is clean, too, and he uses a large volume of napkins during each meal. He's not neat, but he's very hygiene-conscious.

And Katsuro also realizes to what extent Dame-Tsuna is a coward. The kid shakes like a leaf at practically everything, from unexpected noises to the upcoming math test to Hibari Kyoya's presence in the halls (but that's an understandable fear). Out of the corner of his eye, Katsuro's always noticed Dame-Tsuna visibly wavering when his turn to read in literature class approaches, noticed Dame-Tsuna paling, just a bit, when team sports are announced during P.E. (he's started paling a little less since befriending Yamamoto and Gokudera, who are always quick to pick him for their teams).

It's kind of, actually, really sad. Slightly pathetic.

Katsuro happens to be there when Hibari Kyoya announces that Sasagawa Ryohei has been hospitalized, and yeah, he happens to notice Dame-Tsuna's reaction.

It's precisely because Katsuro's so observant that he's so utterly baffled at Sawada's reaction.

Yeah, he'd given his typical, horrified "Hiii" – but had gone right on to inquire about Sasagawa's location, with this strange note in his voice that was oddly and uncharacteristically- determined.

What's up with Dame-Tsuna?

Fast forward a few months, and Katsuro notices when suddenly, Sawada and Yamamoto and Gokudera and Sasagawa show up to school wearing these rings. (Katsuro chooses not to even contemplate on the number of times varying combinations of those guys come to school wearing bandages and crutches on various parts of their bodies – or when they're oddly healed in a very, very short amount of time).

They're silver and they wear it on various areas – Gokudera on his right ring finger, Yamamoto on a chain around his neck, and Sawada on his left middle. They're not identical, because Katsuro notices that they all bear different insignias, but they're alike enough that it's obvious that they're from the same set.

He figures they're some bro-form of friendship rings, and even though it's a little weird, what does he know, right?

And yeah, Katsuro almost loses his shit when the next time he sees Hibari Kyoya, the guy's wearing a similar ring on his middle finger as he holds up his signature tonfas. Like- what the fuck, you're telling him that Hibari fucking-I'll-bite-you-to-death-for-existing-and-breathing-in-my-presence Kyoya is suddenly wearing friendship rings with Dame-Tsuna?

Like shit, man, things were getting weird around here but what the hell is this?

(The fact that only he, Katsuro, is noticing all these small details is also something that's slowly and steadily driving him to insanity, because Hibari-death-is-thy-middle-name-Kyoya is wearing the same ring as Dame-Tsuna and no one else has noticed and the world keeps turning like nothing's wrong).

So Katsuro's slowly going crazy in a corner trying to figure everything out (and he doesn't dare fuckin' just ask, because have you seen the way Gokudera foams at the mouth and everything, glaring at everyone like a dog with rabies the second anyone strikes up a conversation with Dame-Tsuna?) when they get transfer students.

Well. Apparently they're transfer students from Shimon Middle School, but the way Katsuro sees it, it's more likely that the circus stopped by in town and told seven of their craziest acts to go parade the freak-show into Namimori Middle School.

Dame-Tsuna makes friends with them, too, and that's right about when Katsuro's given up on the universe in general.

It's been about a year and a half since then.

A lot of kids from Namimori Middle went on to Namimori High School, present parties included. They're all there: Hibari Kyoya with his ongoing disciplinary committee, Sasagawa Ryohei and his boxing club, Gokudera Hayato with his cigarettes and surprisingly high grades, Yamamoto Takeshi and his baseball, and- Dame-Tsuna, who's really, still Dame-Tsuna.

Still bad grades, still hopeless in P.E. class, still treated like a loser by 99% of the school population.

But since halfway through their first year in middle school, Dame-Tsuna had slowly found himself in the smack dab center of a ring of extraordinary people – people who were decidedly above average. Even Sasagawa Kyoko, who's only gotten prettier with the years, remains one of his closest friends.

They're all still wearing the rings (and still no one else has noticed, much to Katsuro's never-ending despair and confusion), and everything's the same as it was in middle school, except for now the whole lot of them disappear every once in a while and there are rumors that someone saw them all at the airport during one of the disappearances on the way to- Italy?

It's a strange sight, and one day, one of Katsuro's friends approaches him about it. It's Harumi Ginta, who'd attended a middle school outside of the district and only started in Namimori this year for their first year of high school – meaning, he's not exactly familiar with the…charms of Namimori.

(Katsuro's kind of looking forward to the first time Ginta breaks the rules, because it's kind of like a rite of passage every Namimori student goes through: getting hospitalized by Hibari Kyoya).

"So I just saw Dame-Tsuna get picked up by Gokudera for lunch again," is Ginta's greeting. Ginta's new to Namimori, yeah, but Sawada being 'Dame-Tsuna' is kind of an accepted way of life at this point.

"Oh. Yeah." Katsuro replies.

"Man, it's so weird – they've been like that since middle school?"

It's only the third month since high school's started. Katsuro remembers the first week, when Gokudera had flipped a shit that he wasn't in the same class as 'Juudaime' (yeah, that whole Juudaime business is weird, too, and there's so many things about Dame-Tsuna that doesn't add up that his existence basically singlehandedly dismantles all laws of mathematics). "Yeah, basically," Katsuro shrugs.

"And Dame-Tsuna's also friends with like- Yamamoto and stuff, huh? And like. The Sasagawa siblings."

And yeah, when an outsider puts its like that, yeah, Dame-Tsuna's situation is even weirder than Katsuro had thought – which was already pretty weird. All he can do is shrug.

"Man! Are they all really friends? Maybe they're just like, suckering him into doing stuff for them. Like. Who knows if they're really his friends."

"No."

"What?"

And Katsuro doesn't really know why he's getting so serious about this stupid thing with stupid Dame-Tsuna, but he can't help it, because he notices all these little quirks about that odd crew that something as ridiculous as "maybe they're just suckering him into doing stuff for them" rubs him the wrong way. "They're friends. Like. Really, really good friends."

Because the rest of the school might just see Dame-Tsuna hanging around the most popular guys in the school for absolutely no reason and no justification, might come to the conclusion that they're friends just so that they can use Dame-Tsuna (because they can't think of any other reason how Sawada could become friends with Gokudera and Yamamoto and the Sasagawa siblings).

But Katsuro sees the way that Gokudera resembles more of a- a guard dog when he's around Sawada, the way he'll brutally look at anyone who approaches Sawada, as if assessing whether or not they're allowed to interact with him. (Actually, Yamamoto does the same thing – it's hard to catch, because Yamamoto always has this permanent bright smile on his lips, but there's a calculating light that seeps into his eyes nowadays whenever someone new approaches Dame-Tsuna, as if, as if they're assessing and making sure that they're safe, and it sends a shiver down Katsuro's spine).

He sees the way that Gokudera visibly lights up when Sawada even so much as glances his way, as if he's suddenly seen the light and everything dear and precious to him. He sees the little things Gokudera does for Sawada that probably even Sawada doesn't notice – like how he'll meticulously check Sawada's desk every morning to make sure that it's clean, how he'll make sure Sawada's favorite lunch combo is still in stock in the cafeteria by scaring off the last person who wants to buy it, like how he'll casually just grab two handouts instead of one when the teacher tells everyone to pick one up, so that he can drop it off on Sawada's desk so that Sawada doesn't have to get up.

It's a little disconcerting, but Gokudera looks at Sawada like he's his savior, or something.

And the way Yamamoto looks at Sawada isn't too far off, though with him, it's a little more lax than Gokudera's intensity. Gokudera's about a hundred times more loud and aggressive and upfront about it all, so it's easy to miss it, the way that Yamamoto is just as protective about Sawada as Gokudera is, because Yamamoto doesn't yell and glare openly at every person who looks at Dame-Tsuna the wrong way. Instead, he lingers in the back and lets Gokudera do the yelling, but his friendly smile turns a touch cold and it's as if he'll be ready in a second's notice to take over if Gokudera isn't enough.

He's scarily observant and is liable to turn up whenever their classmates whisper nasty things about Dame-Tsuna, to sidle up to Sawada and sling an arm around him and laugh over the whispers so that Sawada won't hear the girls behind him murmuring about how lame he is. He also makes it a point to always, always pick Sawada first for teams during P.E., which doesn't seem like a lot, but Katsuro also notices how relieved and grateful Sawada is whenever he does.

Sasagawa Ryohei isn't around as much because he's a year above them, but in the odd moments he stops by to say hi to Sawada, he takes this look around the classroom and rests his eyes on a few of the students, as if to say- Take care of Sawada, he's in your care. He gets this extra jump in his step (which is saying a lot, considering it's Sasagawa and all his steps already have too much jump) and a bit more excitement in his voice when he's around Sawada, and it's like Sawada invigorates this man, who's already in a constant state of invigoration.

Katsuro's not gonna say that Hibari Kyoya's all friendly with Sawada or anything, but yeah, he does notice that Hibari looks at Sawada a little differently. Like, there's this way that Hibari looks at people in general, like he's a lion looking at a herd of sheep, as if he couldn't care less- lions, after all, don't concern themselves in the matter of their prey. But the way he looks at Sawada has changed a little, is a little less predatory now, is certainly a lot less condescending, and he's starting to look at Sawada like he's more…tiger, than sheep, now.

It's a terribly mixed group that'll throw anyone for a loop: Yamamoto Takeshi and Gokudera Hayato and Hibari Kyouya and Sasagawa Ryohei and Sasagawa Kyoko and Dame-Tsuna, and they're nothing like one another, and it seems that they all share only one common factor: Sawada Tsunayoshi.

(It's strange, too, because ever since their third year of middle school, there've been odd moments when suddenly all those boys disappear for a few days on end at a time, amid rumors that they've gone off to Italy, of all places. It doesn't make sense, but then, nothing about Sawada does).

It's rare that you'll see all of them (including Hibari and Kyoko) in one place, but in the odd moments you do, you see something that'll make you blink twice.

Because when they're all gathered in the same place, they natural flit about and take their places around Sawada, like Sawada's the sun and they're the planets that gravitate about him. And yeah, that's a good word to describe it: gravitate, the way that they all move around him, putting Sawada in the center as if he's the sky and the sun and the moon and the stars. It's oddly protective and there's nothing short of adoration in their eyes (except Hibari) when they look at him.

It's unsettling.

And Katsuro doesn't get it, no matter how much he observes and looks at them, he doesn't-

-but there are these moments.

Moments like when Sawada talked Yamamoto off of the roof (that's largely forgotten by now by the rest of Namimori High), like when Sawada frowns sharply whenever someone makes an offhand comment about how volatile and foreign Gokudera seems, like when Sawada's somehow the first to arrive whenever he hears that any one of them have gotten into some kind of trouble.

In moments like those, Katsuro thinks he can kind of, sorta, just barely start to understand. A little bit.

He can never dwell on it long, though, because Hibari Kyoya is patrolling the halls and he really can't die yet he's only sixteen-

A/N: So? What'd you think? It's my first time writing KHR and a lot of these things are just headcanons I like to fancy myself with, so I'd really appreciate feedback on what you thought. This chapter is also just the prologue / preface, so things'll start picking up starting the next chapter, oho.