Katekyo Hitman Reborn Fanfiction

Delay

5

Cob webs broke as the door slowly croaked open, raising dust. The hallway remained dark, no sound from within permeating the undisturbed air but the low catching of one lonely choking breath.

Tanned calloused hands, strong and lean, made to protect and fight, to hold tight and give tender safety, shook as they numbly let go of the old weather-treated doorknob. The key remained behind the keyhole, ignored.

For a moment, his legs refused to move. His body was frozen, ice settling in his bones.

He trembled.

Blue blue eyes, normally exceptionally sharp and oh so cunning, were wide and frightened. It was as if he had entered into a timeless dream, the sweet picture of homely normalcy only betrayed by the uncaring disrepair and unbothered traces of time, the cracks of abandonment bearing silent accusation to the devastation that had befallen a once lively and loving home, a hearth and heart to return to after long and cold absences.

Now, only silence greeted him.

He had known, intellectually, what had been waiting for him from the moment the horrifying news had reached him, but knowing, and understanding, realising, really, were completely different things. No words, no freaking evidence presented, could have prepared him for the truth.

To see. To feel.

This ...

This was no home anymore …

… it was a tomb of memories.

A nightmare come alive.

… in the aftermath of death.

Slowly, he forced himself to step into their … into the house. It was a house. Not a home, but a house. A sudden wave of crippling agony ripped through him as the childish imprints of latent sky flames called out, teasingly dancing along his mind and heart, calling out to him, to his parental flames. Happiness. Welcome. It engulfed him, caressing him.

He flinched as the ghostly feeling of a tiny hand in his own registered, only to disappear as if it had never been there to begin with, even while he stared at his empty palm ...

Tears gathered in his eyes as he stopped everything, just for one moment, and let the impressions mingle with his memories, and just – just for that one single precious moment, he could hear them …

„ Anata! You're home! I missed you so much, my love!"

„ Tou-chan! Tou-chan! Tou-chan is back! Kaa-chan, look, look, Tou-chan is home!"

„ That he is, isn't he, Tsu-chan! And do you know what that means?"

„ Aah?"

„ It means we have to show Tou-chan just how much we love and miss him. Can we do that, Tsu-chan?"

„ Yes! Yes, Kaa-chan! Love you, Tou-chan!"

He stood there, unmoving, as silent tears trailed down his stubble-covered cheeks. A sob choked him as he heard the echo of bright childish laughter joined by lovely happy giggling. It was nearly as if he could feel them, their warm presences so strong that it nearly broke him.

The desire to reach out and wrap them in his arms, to pepper their beautiful faces with kisses and simply reassure himself again and again and again of their happiness and health … his shaking hands blindly reached out, clutching at the door frame for support, flinching at the cold and splintering wood beneath his fingers. Blinking down at his palm he saw the white paint of the frame he had painted during her pregnancy laying there … broken apart. Only one more memento of happier times, gone.

Like everything else.

Everything had fallen to devastation.

Slowly, painstakingly, he moved forwards.

Not because he wanted, no. He had to.

It was the least he could do.

The least he owned them.

He entered the next room.

This was her domain.

This calm and bright isle of happiness, the centre of their family life. A table for six, of warm wood, covered by a crème-coloured floral tablecloth she had embroidered herself. Light-brown walls with a lighter-coloured kitchen unit, the crème-coloured crocheted curtains pulled just that little bit too the side to allow a ray of sunlight into the kitchen. A tiny tea-cup with yellow roses on white china sat on the dusty counter, two pieces of sugar next to it.

It was … exactly how he had last seen it.

As if nothing had changed at all.

Here she reigned supreme, her culinary progress of the likes he had never met before or after the first bite of heaven she had gifted him.

'Ruined for plebeians who played at being masters at her art', he would proclaim without fail or shame, a cheeky grin stretching his lips at the way she would fondly roll her eyes and swat at him with her ladle.

'Sweetly biased and such an unrepentant flatterer', she would return every time, that endearing rosy blush dusting her cheeks, belying the pleasure his words brought.

But it was never a lie. She was a goddess in the kitchen – she always was a goddess, deserving of worship for every breathe she deigned to take among the mere mortals she had chosen to grace with her beauty and loveliness – but in the kitchen? In the kitchen she blossomed up, her gentleness gaining an edge that made his pants uncomfortably tight and had led to many happy tidings in this room … chief amongst those was the rather unexpected but utterly welcome creation of their beloved little baby boy on their then brand-new kitchen table, their tiny miracle child, so frail and weak and completely enchanting that since the day he had held his child for the first time, nothing but his safety, his happiness and future, had mattered to the young father who had been wholeheartedly overwhelmed with the situation and his rather unexpected bond with the tiny being in the palm of his hand, much to the silent amusement of his wife … who had swiftly informed him just how normal it was for freshly baked first-time parents to feel that way.

His hand gently touched the table, hazy gaze drifting around the once loved and cared for room, soaking in the little things that showed just how deeply ingrained and important this place was. All the little things he had at one point in time taken for granted now filled him with a pain that quite shockingly drove the breath right out of his constricted chest.

The small kanji scribbled on the table in orange and blue, spelling the name of his baby boy in shaky writing.

A fake yellow rose, won at the annual fair just before he had asked for her hand like a stammering fool, carefully sitting in a delicate glass vase on the window still.

Her favourite cook book sat at the kitchen counter, the yellowed pages opened to show it was handwritten, a wedding gift from her mother on their wedding day, with clever little notations in his wife's delicate script scribbled on the sides … a gift she had intended their boy to inherit on his own wedding day.

He gripped the counter painfully at the childish heart drawn next to a note, reminding her that their boy loved his Onigiri with Tuna but to leave the sharper furitake alone to avoid stomach pains.

This was the centre of their family life. He, sitting at the table reading the paper while sneakily watching his loved ones, his beloved at the stove, humming while preparing their meal and their little happy boy colouring energetically in his books and chatting amiably with his stuffed toys to the amusement of both of his parents.

It was the picture of a happy family.

One whose remains now lay scattered on the dust covered ground.

And he could never recover them.

The only pieces still there were his own.

He would never be whole again.

… he didn't want to be.

It was strange.

Somehow, he felt numb, and at the same time, heavy.

Each step up the staircase felt like his breath became thicker and sicker, as if an eternal cold was settling in his bones while fire lit him aflame in a sea of despair, blurring blue blue eyes. Blunt fingernails buried in tanned flesh and even as the wetness of upwelling blood began to drip down his clenched fists, he felt nothing. Not the pain of broken skin or the need to stop the flow slowly dripping down his hands.

What could he feel? What was the correct response?

What was he supposed to feel?

… at the moment, he was torn between a deep abyss-like emptiness and a hurricane of shame, guilt, pain, desperation, hopelessness … endless drowning emotions. It felt like he was dying while already being dead, like a soulless puppet watching from the other side as its body is torn to shreds while it is standing in a sea of lava that slowly devours everything in a blaze of agony …

Tears joined blood as both hit the carpet covered steps, slightly grey from dust that whirled up when he moved upwards.

The door on the right beckoned him, but he moved past it, not able enter and face that particular reality, hesitating just a moment before opening another familiar door instead.

Their bedroom.

It was still like it had always been. It looked as if his sweet Nana had just made the bed. The covers were undisturbed, the clothes sorted and her vanity strictly ordered.

He stumbled as he moved to their wardrobe, catching himself on the mirror door and staring at his reflection.

A fool stared back.

A callous, cruel, unworthy fool.

A fool, who gambled his greatest treasures, and spectacularly lost.

A foolish man who had lost everything.

His fist reared back and crashed forward, sending shards and splinters everywhere.

He didn't care.

Staring down at the bloodied fist, at his bleeding knuckles and the shattered mirror, he felt nothing. No relief, no satisfaction, no resentment. In this moment, all he felt was a bottomless emptiness. His chest heaved with every laboured breath, and blinking, he realised the way he was panting in exertion.

What a fool.

What a god-damned fool!

Shaking his head, he opened the door and stared.

Nana's clothes hung there, untouched. Orderly.

Slowly he reached out, with his uninjured hand, mindful to not dirty Nana's dresses with his blood, oh she would be so very angry with him if he dared. The yellow silk felt cool beneath his fingertips, a nowadays unfamiliar feeling as he brought the fabric to his face, burrowing his nose in the familiar summer dress she had worn so many times when they lounged in their garden.

The silk was cold, not warmed from Nana's skin.

It smelled like old clothing, not flowery perfume.

He let it fall from his hand and moved back, the back of his knees hitting the bed and making him fall backwards. On his side of the bed. Sitting there, he looked around, and swallowed as the memories drifted away, making way for reality.

Their bedroom didn't look like it had the last time he had seen it. Back then, there was warmth, and laughter in the air. There was Nana, teasing him, dropping her dress like water flowing down her sinful body as she playfully beckoned him to join her.

Back then, the vanity's mirror hadn't been blind.

And the vanity's chair hadn't lain in the middle of the room, toppled on its side from the way it had fallen as his wife had kicked it away under her precariously balanced feet.

Allowing for gravity to do its work as the rope around her delicate neck tightened until it broke.

And ended her bright life.

His Nana was dead …

… dead …

No … no, he couldn't …

Crashing through the door, panting for air, he fumbled along the walls, gasping and blinded by tears. His chest ached, burning with a pain he hadn't allowed to touch him it until this moment. Breathing was like inhaling shards of glass. Every heartbeat only seemed like such an unreasonable chore. Grasping a door knob he escaped into a room, collapsing on the carpet as his sky flames roared like wildfire beneath his skin, a raging despairing beast filled with self-loathing and grief the likes of which he had never tasted before.

There was nothing, nothing in this damned world more painful than seeing the remains of the rope dangling from the ceiling that had taken his beloved wife, his soulmate from this world.

Nothing.

And then he looked up.

And screamed incoherently.

No.

Nonononononononononono.

No!

Wild eyes stared at the deceivingly soothing pale blue walls.

At the light-brown desk and chair, the wardrobe, the bookcase, the bed with its yellow covers and the forest-green curtains half-open, at the manga's thrown around and the pencil drawings plastering the walls.

It was all so familiar.

And at the same time, dead.

Tsuna.

His boy.

His baby.

No … no … no no no …

He shakily drew a breath in, but it seemed to escape before reaching his lungs. Black spots danced before his eyes as he crawled to the tidily made bed. Drying blood crusting his fingers, he buried them in the faded fabric and tiredly looked up …

Straight at Snuffle-chan.

That terrible patched up monstrosity that once upon a time could have been named as a stuffed lion, with its lost left eye and patchy out-washed fur stared blankly back at him. It had been his first gift for his little baby boy, the first stuffed animal Tsuna had ever gotten, and he loved that terrible old thing fiercely, unwilling to even part with it for a much needed wash. Nana always had a rare fight on her hands when she needed to wash it, and he had spent more than one evening blow-drying the dratted thing so that his wailing baby boy would be able to sleep.

… if he was honest, than he always had the strong suspicion that the sky flames he had imbued in it when he had to leave for the first time still called to his child, that like and like would always call to each other.

It had made something in his heart glow.

Pride and Thankfulness for a small mercy.

A kind sweet reassurance that even apart, Tsuna would always know that he was loved.

Now, it only deepened the emptiness.

Reaching out, he gently took it and pressed his face into the dratted cherished toy.

Tsuna …

He loved Nana.

He had loved her from the moment that he had met her, and that love never ceased.

And it would never cease.

She was his soulmate, his one and only.

But …

Tsunayoshi was his child. His blood. His family.

Tsuna was the only one he valued even above the Famiglia. And in his desperate bid to make the world a safer place for that fragile little being they had created together, he had lost sight of what truly mattered.

His son.

He had forgotten that it didn't matter how safe or perfect he made the world, if Tsuna wasn't there to enjoy it. Everything he had done, every pain and ridicule endured, every death that tainted his hands – everything was worthless.

Looking at that empty bed …

… it had all been so fucking useless.

He didn't know how.

How do you move forward?

How do you keep going on, with your life's reason is gone?

Nana, he loved as his wife. He could survive her death. He had to.

Tsuna?

… how? How could he even try? …

… he … wasn't even sure if he wanted to … try, that is …

How could he go on without his son?

Iemitsu shook, sobs breaking free as he pressed his face deeper into the old toy, the barest hint of Tsuna's scent wafting up and choking him. All that he had left was the old lion, nothing remained of his son, nothing for him to hold onto … nothing but an old stuffed toy, a handful of pictures and his rare memories.

Where had all the years gone?

The experiences they should have shared?

He had been gone. He had chosen to work for a faraway future, forgetting the present and neglecting his wife and son. He had left Nana to feel lonely and abandoned, and caused Tsuna to grow up with a father he believed to be a useless layabout who didn't give two fucks about his family …

… and still, they had loved him. This two unbelievable people had loved him despite all his faults and failures, despite the pain he rained above their lives … they loved him.

Him. Sawada Iemitsu. He had been loved.

And he had gambled that love away, losing focus of his greatest treasure.

And where had the engagement in the Famiglia brought him? To a tomb that was once his home.

He had tried to protect Tsuna and Nana from his familial relations, from the dark world of the Mafia his forefathers had condemned him to, only to lose them both to the reality of life.

He should have been there. He should have stood beside them.

Instead, they had fought alone.

And lost.

He knew that it would be a mistake. He knew.

And still …

Childish sky flame residue danced across his skin, and despite every instinct screaming at him to save himself … he couldn't.

He opened his mind, heart and soul.

He slipped into his son's memory.

It started with a cough.

Nana kept him home. In bed. Safe.

The cough wouldn't leave. It persisted. Fatigue started.

Being careful. Bed rest.

It grew worse. His body started to ache, the cough grew painful and deep, so deep that his throat sometimes started to bleed. Barely anything stayed down, and after a time, he wouldn't even try.

Not even his mother's begging eyes or pleadings would sway him.

Hands started to tremble. Sleep was rattled by the pain in his chest, keeping him awake.

His mother started to despair. She called his father, but the absent man never called back. She sought their doctor, and blood work was drawn, scans were made, they were told that the old man feared that more than a violent form of the flu or pneumonia was at work.

Than the answer came.

Cancer. More tests were necessary. There was a shadow on his chest, the doctors said, and near his liver. More tests were necessary.

More test, and ever more. Invasive. Painful. Partially dangerous. The doctors said they were necessary, but they worried.

He had grown so weak, they weren't sure he would awake from the anaesthesia, thankfully he woke.

But … it was bad.

Cancer, they repeated. A wandering form of cancer, originating in the pancreas. Pancreatic cancer. Metastases spread into his liver and lungs. Too far gone, chemo wouldn't work. His body was too weak to withstand the treatments. All they could do was give him the best pain killers and hope for a peaceful and quick end. Palliative medicine.

He was thirteen when he received a death sentence.

And all he could feel was regret for leaving his mother alone in this unforgiving world.

Iemitsu gasped as the memories let him go, tears streaming down his eyes.

Oh, his boy. His beautiful courageous little boy, who lived through so much pain, so much devastation and still only thought of his mother, still only feared leaving her alone. Iemitsu knew just how well-founded that fear had been.

Tsuna had passed away in his sleep, an oxygen mask all that had kept him breathing in the last few days, to weak and pained to even stay awake if bouts of intense pain didn't startle him into consciousness. He had peacefully fallen asleep in his mother familiar loving arms and not woken up again, a tiny fragile thirteen year old that should have seen the world, experience joy and laughter and all the mistakes youths made.

But Tsuna had been forced into a quick and deathly fight he had lost before the battle even began.

And Nana, his beautiful beautiful Nana, had decided to join their joy, to not let her baby boy go alone. Two days later, she had followed him, taking her own life.

In the span of two days, Iemitsu had lost his entire life, his family, those he loved above all else.

And he didn't know.

For three years, he didn't know.

And now, that he knew …

He didn't … there …

It hurt.

Fuck, it hurt so much.

Nono had told him not to visit.

After they had sealed Tsuna's flames when his son had barely been five, they had kept their distance. Iemitsu had called randomly, he had sent gifts and pictures and he received the same in return, but he hadn't come home in eleven years. He had tried to protect Tsuna from Vongola, from the blood of Mafia men that flowed so strongly through both of their veins. Tsuna had even then been a brightly shining sky, so welcoming and accepting, and Iemitsu had been gripped by fear – fear of losing his son to unsavoury characters, fear of the physical semblance Tsuna bore even as a child to the Vongola Primo, their ancestor. So he had stayed away, content in the knowledge that distance would keep the seal strong and his boy safe.

But for all that he saved him from the Underworld's attention, he couldn't save him from the fast growing malignant cancer that took him from this world in the span of not even four months once it had been triggered. He couldn't safe his wife from following their son, his absence too present for her too cling to.

But during all this, he continued on, ignorant. He paid for a house that was empty, he send pictures and presents', never knowing that it wasn't Nana's temper finally snapping but her demise that prevented her returning of pictures. He lived in blissful ignorance, until suddenly, he didn't.

Until he wished to see his family, against the Ninth's advice, only to find the ruins of his life were waiting and his failures screaming bloody murder. This, this was not something he had ever been prepared to deal with.

Never.

A child should never die before their parents.

Not ever.

His legs buckled as he tried to stand only to fall back down, staring at the toy in his hands, mind empty.

What was there left?

What was left to continue for?

Iemitsu took a shuddering breath.

He didn't know what to feel, he didn't know if he felt too much, too little, the right way … he didn't know if he even wanted to feel … one way or another …

… he just didn't know …

… he didn't know if he wanted to continue in this world.

A world without his family.

Nana.

Tsuna.

A world without them …

… was that a world worth living in?

~The End. Companion to 'Dead End'~