I'm fine.

A sentence that rings alarm bells right away. At least it should – when it comes from a boy that was notorious for whining and complaining about everything. However …

Nothing.

Not a single word expressing their doubts.

Not one sideways glance of ill-hidden concern.

No one worried when he became silent. When he started to keep to himself.

At most? There was a certain gratefulness that, finally, the future Don of the biggest Mafia Famiglia in the World had stopped being a wimpy brat and started to man up. Why worry when the boy-heir, who most Mafioso still treated as if he would be their downfall, finally started to show progress?

Progress was something they desperately desired in that useless little boy.

But … no one ever said that Criminals were the most brilliant of people. Not even those proclaimed themselves geniuses. Because, while yes, progress was another step forward, was the tangible prove that something was moving along …

No one ever stopped to contemplate what kind of Progress Sawada Tsunayoshi made.

If they had?

They would have seen that his goal and theirs?

Didn't align.

At all.

(I'm not going to be my father.)

" Wow, you got 89 on your last test! Did an alien replace you? Or a double ganger?"

(Translation: Who did you cheat from, Dame-Tsuna?)

I'm fine.

" Tsu-kun, I'm so happy that you are taking your studies more seriously. However, Tsu-kun doesn't neglect his friends for it, does he? You need to pay attention and work for your friendships, Tsu-kun, friendships break all the time, and we wouldn't want them go away, no?"

(Translation: You are finally starting to do something right. Now don't mess up with your friends, it's a wonder they are still with you after all this time.)

I'm fine.

" You are finally getting the hang of it, Dame-Tsuna, took you long enough. No whining about working today, brat?"

(Translation: Thank fuck, finally he's shutting up.)

I'm fine.

" Oi, mini-trash, are you going to cry about that shit stain? It was necessary to put the trash down."

(Translation: Don't be such a pussy. We deal in death.)

I'm fine.

" Jyuudaime, are you sure you don't want to come to the club with us? Many of your future acquaintances are going to be there, and it is a good way to make connections. Besides, it's going to be even more awesome with you there."

(Translation: I want to show everyone that I'm the right hand of Vongola's heir, so be there to show yourself and prove me right.)

I'm fine.

(I'm not going to be your puppet.)

When outsiders looked at Sawada Tsunayoshi, a young man barely having reached the cusp of adulthood, they couldn't help but think: What a cold-hearted man.

None of his friends, guardians, family or subordinates would believe them. In fact, they would take immediate offence to such words. Those foolish enough to verbalise their impression? Would find themselves threaten within an inch of their lives.

Because to them?

Tsuna was an innocent boy at heart and soul, he was warm and inviting – to a degree that often seemed alarmingly naive. He always had an open ear for everyone; he would hug freely and comfortingly, help at home, go shopping with his mom, play with the children and spent time with his friends. His teacher, Reborn, would remark with quiet pride that his student had, under his tender mercies, developed a spin of steel and was finally getting the hang of his academics, starting to prepare for university in Italy. He had already sent out applications, after all, and several came back with a positive response. Even the wider family in Italy would say that the young man had started to show that he would be capable of leading the family – with help, obviously, still to kind-hearted to leave him to his own devices – but everyone who claimed to know him, would say one thing: What a kind-hearted young man.

Who was right?

Those who had never met him before, who were not biased in their impressions?

On the other hand, those who knew better, knew him for years and could read him like an open book?

The answer?

Neither.

(I'm not going to be your shadow.)

I'm fine.

I'm fine, don't look at me.

I'm fine, I'm fine, listen and don't worry about all the lies.

I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine, believe and trust in me, in my smile and every poisonous lie, believe and trust that you have made me hide who I am.

I'm feeling just fine.

I have gotten used to the knifes sticking out of my back.

I have collected them for a long time now.

I'm just fine.

… I'm bidding my time.

(I'm not going to be your anything.)

(Ever.)

He smiled gratefully as he shook hands with the man in front of him for the final time. The strict grey suit and salt-and-pepper backcombed hair only helped him to relax – for most people like him, who had been, one way or another, involved with organized crime, a man like Hikaru-san would raise their hackles and turn on the fight-or-flight-reflex. But he wasn't like most others.

Thankfully.

Don't get him wrong, he had still been touched by violence, crime and sin, but he had never let it corrupt him, every time he had harmed another being, it had been in defence of his friends and family, every time he had learned how to navigate in a world of blood, he had done so knowing that the game he played was a dangerous one, a long one, and just one fucking step out of line could give it all away. However … it was over. He had won.

Finally, for the first time in five years, he could breathe.

Because after two years of hard work, of tears and crippling fear, he was finally free from the shadow of his blood, from the call of those who wanted him to follow into their murderous footsteps.

Did he regret leaving his family and his friends?

Yes.

He regretted leaving his Kaa-chan, leaving his little brothers and little sister. He regretted having had to lie to his friends all along, manipulating them to free himself, but they had made it undeniable clear – in words, gestures and actions – that they would have never agreed with the decisions he had made. Decisions he had never considered himself entertaining ever, but … it wasn't as if they had left him a choice. As if anyone, anyone at all, had listened from day one to his decision.

He had said, again and again.

He would not become a Mafia Boss.

Never ever.

Fuck, he had screamed it so often to the high heavens, and had earned nothing but scorn and ridicule.

Nothing but: You don't have a choice.

So yes, he would miss them. He still loved them.

But …

He would never regret accepting Hikaru-san's offer. He would never regret accepting that single warm hand on his shoulder, the broad chest that had dried his tears when he had broken down, when he had despised himself so much that he wanted nothing more than to put a fucking bullet through his own skull.

When he had pressed the barrel of the gun against his temple.

His hands dripping red … red, red, red.

There was that point, the moment when he had killed for the first time … and though it had been in self-defence … he had still killed another human being. That was something … something he could never forgive himself for. He had been ready to pull the trigger – only for that kind older man to stop him.

A stranger had showed more compassion than his own family.

When he had buried himself beneath his studies to escape, when he had nearly starved himself in punishment, when – finally – he had collapsed beneath the weight his own sins, there had only been one person who had looked at him, who had taken his 'I'm fine' with a smile …

… and called bullshit.

He would be forever be grateful and indebted to the old man for not taking his lies at face value, for actually listening and not just shrugging it off – but helping him make his dreams a reality.

His dreams. His ambitions. Not anyone else's expectations.

He would have thought that the retired police officer would have tried to arrest his family, would have demanded him to spy in exchange for help (something Tsuna could have never done – he still loved his family to much for that kind of betrayal), but none of that had happened.

Hikaru-san only had one demand.

'Live a happy life. Live a worthwhile life. Make that damn I'm fine a reality, boy.'

Nothing else. He could have tried to demand anything, but all he had wanted was for Tsuna to truly be okay.

And he was going to be.

Fine, that is.

For the first time since he had been thirteen, he would be able to look in the mirror and say 'I'm fine' …

… and it wouldn't be a lie.

(On that day,a trembling handshake between a young desperate man and an old retired police officer sealed the future. Because on that day, a pact was made.

A pact to kill Sawada Tsunayoshi. A pact to save the hopeful young man from a fate worse than death.

And even on his own deathbed, at night when his wife was already fast asleep, the old police officer would smile, gently stroking the pictures of a happy young man throwing his tiny daughter in the air, carefree and in peace with the world. He would look at that picture, at the young American woman laughing in the background at her silly husband and daughter, and his heart would be filled with nothing but happiness and grandfatherly pride.

He never regretted killing Sawada Tsunayoshi. He did it to save the young man in the picture, a young man who no one would ever link to a barely legal adult killed in a freak fire at one of the local warehouses the boy had liked to hang out. Thankfully, he had been the only causality, burned beyond recognition, not even bones or teeth left to identify him with.

Killing Sawada Tsunayoshi was the one morally grey act in his life Hikaru didn't regret, even when the Ninth called him to demand why the corrupt old police officer hadn't watched better over the young man.

Because looking at the pictures in his hand?

Everything had turned out just fine.)

~ The End. ~