Listening for Patterns in the Sound

When Tsuna is twenty, Reborn is finally called away by another family for his assistance. It's announced over dinner between them, and it hangs in the air long after the end - the food on the Tenth Vongola's plate untouched, the smell enough to make him feel sick. That's a flaw Reborn could never quite fix - Tsuna was always awfully exposed, always at risk for it. He thinks maybe he's just become too good at reading him, but he doesn't linger on this. They both know there's too much truth to it; they both know this moment should have come long ago, but Tsuna kept conjuring excuses and Reborn kept humouring him.

This is the final test, and the frantic disappointment in Tsuna's eyes confirms his student is well aware of it. Eager to please, as usual, but the thing is, Tsuna never will cope well with change. He shifts, surrenders. His fork noisily drops onto his plate, and his eyes fix onto it, wide. "You didn't prepare for this?" Reborn asks, reaching for his glass.

"I thought," Tsuna starts, and he pauses to frown, to swallow and to try and still his restless hands, "I thought I'd know what to say, but..."

Reborn's jaw tenses, and hopelessness floods Tsuna's body like it has the past twenty years - one thick, scorching wave of anxiety. The tight-lipped, unimpressed frown of Reborn made itself scarce in his recent years, and now it's luxuriating in their goodbye, and Tsuna is stiff from the sadness; one more screw-up, one more incomprehensible loss. He's still berating himself for denying Gokudera his chance at Japan's top university and Yamamoto his chance at a future in baseball. This is his sacrifice for the family: don't be an embarrassment. It's hard to bite his tongue so often, and now, all he want's to say is there's so much to fix, there's so much for you here.

He can't form a word.

"Thursday," Reborn states, and Tsuna hesitantly nods.

He manages a mile on the road home before he has to pull over, hyperventilate, dry heave out the window and cry on the phone to his mother. Repeatedly.

It comes quick enough. That morning, Tsuna sleeps in, and he has to stumble in his pajamas and slippers that hardly fit anymore through the base, open the door wide; so much force that it bangs onto the shelves beside it and pierces the wood.

The room's empty. The bed's made. Tsuna perches on it slowly, half expecting his former tutor to leap out at him, to punish him for falling for the trick. It takes a moment to convince himself the reality.

The base is silent, still sleeping, and this is one of those times when Tsuna regrets more than any words will allow.

None of this stops the family's life, the Vongola name even more powerful now than ever. Over breakfast, Tsuna's informed he's the only person who didn't say goodbye to Reborn.

"Don't worry about it," Gokudera tells him, one hand patting his boss on the back. "Reborn probably won't even care." This reminds him that Gokudera is simply the worst person to ask for assurance in situations like these, and understandably, Tsuna decides on Yamamoto's help instead.

They both wear almost matching salesman smiles, but Yamamoto's strains; he's on repair duty after Jirou and Kangaryuu demolished most of the training room, steadying the ladder for Ryohei, a job that would be painfully easy if not for the boxer's tendency to flail his limbs at random intervals. "It's not like it's the last time you'll see him, Tsuna. You can always tell him the next time he visits," are Yamamoto's admittedly uninspired words of wisdom. Tsuna feels like he misses the point entirely.

"Would you mind giving us a hand?" Yamamoto asks, his hopeful smile undeniable.

Gokudera gave him an easy schedule for his first few solo days, so Tsuna doesn't hesitate to say yes, glad for the distraction.

This also ends up being one of those times he regrets more than the forty grand on repairs.

"An off day," Yamamoto remarks easily, shrugging. Over one of his shoulders, Tsuna sees another light spark and die out. "It's just your nerves, I bet."

"Off day," Gokudera repeats in a voice dripping volatile loathing. He shoots Yamamoto a glare. "As if. This is the Tenth, he doesn't have off days."

"Haha, alright, then what would you call this?"

Tsuna lets out a deep, shuddering breath, cracking open an eye to take in the extent of the damage.

It's horrendous.

Gokudera just rolls his eyes. "I'd call this the work of an idiot." And belatedly, Tsuna realizes, if there's one thing more unhelpful towards his headache, it's when Gokudera's in his mood of talking in constant italics, Yamamoto's in his mood of laughing at completely every word spoken, and the two of them begin a ridiculous argument for a ridiculous reason. As though this - the complete train wreck of a practice room - wasn't bad enough for him.

At this moment, all Tsuna wants is to send a message requesting assistance to Reborn:

Take me with you.

The girls, of course, are much more understanding of his problems. He doesn't voice them at all, but Bianchi knowingly passes him a cup of her own hot chocolate, brewed with extra love. It's black as tar and the smell it emits is ungodly, but Tsuna appreciates the effort, the undying horror in his smile faint. "You need to relax," Haru tells him in her military tone, one finger wagging, her eyebrows drawn to purely horizontal lines.

All the other girls - and Fuuta - nod their agreement, and Tsuna is convinced.

"You're right. Of course you're right. Reborn'll be back, it's not the end of the world."

Although the pre-mafia boss Tsuna in his head is still insisting with no doubt in his shrill, cutting screaming, that it is.

Relaxing winds up being a bad idea too, or at least the attempt was. He spreads in his old garden, eating his mothers food, drifting to sleep on the grass, feeling immensely better.

Then Lambo and I-Pin join.

Really, all that mattered in the end was the sheer luck that his mother hadn't been in - or in the vicinity of - the house at the time.

The depression continues for around a fortnight. Tsuna keeps being handed level-headed, reasonable advice, keeps following it to the word and ended up having to pay multiple Namimori inhabitants enough to move across continents. Hibari is one of them, after a little incident with the middle school. Now he shows up at meetings to simply threaten his boss with a lot of tonfa and ring throwing at Tsuna's head, along with the added plus of his homicidal expressions of disdain. The constant threat of death by biting is added to the list of Reasons Why Reborn Needs to Come Home (Part 2).

Bianchi says she's been getting calls from him. And Kyoko, and Yamamoto, and Chrome, and pretty much everyone else in the base apart from Tsuna too.

"What did he say?" Tsuna asked his Mist guardian in a loud, distraught tone.

Mukuro swirls his tea with his spoon, a smile stretching across his face. "He said not to tell you."

Progress: Tsuna goes a whole day without dropping, breaking, harming or exploding anything, or anyone.

His guardians set up a party to celebrate it.

The survival is quite a landmark for him, really; a whole week passes with only the most minor of mistakes. Then, it happens.

Tsuna awakes abruptly one night because he can't get a breath. With wide, disbelieving eyes, he sees Reborn above him, hand over his mouth, fingers pinching his nose shut. He waves his arms around wildly, thinking this is the creepiest goddamn nightmare, ever.

Reborn lets him go with ease. He looks at his watch when he talks to him - for the first time in two months. "There's something you want to say to me?"

Taken aback, Tsuna stares at him without a word. He shuffles into a sitting position, slouching in embarrassment. Reborn and sentimentality have never mixed right, so he refuses to look his mentor in the eye when he speaks."It's just, you've done all of this for me and I didn't get a chance to say it before you left, but," and he takes a breath, shuts his eyes, and lets it out, finally, "Thank you. Thank you for everything." Apart from all the traumatic abuse he now has vivid memories of, but he thinks it best to leave this part out.

The smile is small on Reborn's face. There's a pause. "That's it?"

"Yeah," Tsuna says, feeling lighter, breezy. "That's all."

A fist collides into his cheek, literally knocking the smile from his face.

"I did my job in record time. Until I'm assigned a new one, I'm living here, and you - you go make me my breakfast, I'm tired from the flight."

Tsuna wishes he'd never come back.

Disclaimer: Not mines.

AN: Quickly written for Tsuna and Reborn's birthdays. I've hardly wrote them, ever, so a word on the characterization would be awesome. I didn't read over it because I know I'll find horrible mistakes, but I hope it works alright.

I love writing gen for KHR. Love it. More than most pairings, it's just insanely fun.

Small Edit, because you should not trust writing in the late hours. Dear christ, you should not.