20 - [Katekiyo Hitman Reborn] A Game of You
Rating: Gen.
Fandom: Reborn!
Characters: Xanxus/Tsuna
Notes: For ansibs: Xanxus/Tsuna, and I chose the prompt "memories through a sieve" and "unfinished sentences". What happened with this fic was that I got ambitious and wrote it in parallels. There's one part where it's just Tsuna and one where it's TYL!Tsuna that's talking. So this is how it goes: if the number isn't bolded, it's Tsuna, if it's bolded, it's TYL!Tsuna and Xanxus. I hope that's not so confusing... XD
Summary: "...because in their eyes he could see observation and sympathy, expectation, concern; because in their presence too he couldn't do anything without giving pleasure or pain." - Rainer Maria Rilke.






1.

Fifteen years from now, his hands will grow big enough to shade his perturbed eyes from the rays of the sun when they're at high noon. His hands extended, palms outward to the dry summer wind, he blows a kiss to the little birds that fly peacefully in the sky and thinks something like I want to be free.

He takes off his shoes and walks barefoot in the grass, feeling spiky leaves and pebbles nick his soles here and there. He walks slowly, carefully. The school is quiet and closed and he carefully places his toes between spots of bare land here and there where it seems that nobody has claimed it yet; no footprint to mark the accomplishments of a child that has came and conquered. When the school is closed on a Sunday there is no sound that exists within the playground that begs to play, to laugh, to close your eyes and let the sun beat hard upon your skin. The land is open again.

He tries to shade his hands from the torrid sun. They were too small, too childish, and the rays of the sun peeped from the crevices between his fingers, burning his face. He smiled.


1.

Xanxus is a black monolith standing illuminated by the sunset. He is glaring at him as he takes off his shoes and walks slowly on the grass.

"I am not your--"

"--yes, I know." And he walks daintily, trying not to kill anything by crushing it with his soles.

Their conversations were always like this: I said, he said, don't you ever, will you never -- nothing ever gets finished. Whenever he starts, he cuts him off and he doesn't even listen most of the time when he tries to grasp at the words at the tip of his tongue that he wants to say, couldn't say but there's not time; it's too late. They're in the business of the dead and the dying and of those who are neither dead nor dying; it's better not to waste such trivialities when there's more important things to be done.

In his old school, on a Sunday afternoon, there were no ghosts to beg you to come and play and say "I'm sorry" when they really didn't have to; when they least meant it. There was him shuffling his feet among the solemn blades of grass and Xanxus' watch ticking noisily in the silence -- and its beat is loss, loss, loss.

He jokingly shades his eyes from his glare. They burn through the crevices between his hands even though fifteen years had passes and he's sure they've gotten bigger, they still haven't gotten large enough to cover the world; let alone one person who he couldn't say anything; wouldn't let him say what he needed to say, what he couldn't say. What they couldn't say.

Their discourse:

"I think you should--"

"--yes, I know, I have work still, but--"

"--get back to work. For the love of God, you--"

"--it's such a lovely afternoon, and I'm tired--"

"--idiot, you're wasting time by just standing here and--"

"--I'm tired, I'm tired--"

"--you could've wasted this better--"

Why does it always have to end up like this, Tsuna thinks. Nothing ever gets done and in the end, he couldn't even say the words at all. Xanxus isn't going to say it for him. But it's there, it's necessary, and the only reason why they met here was to have an exercise on what Shamal called a "lover's discourse" but they couldn't even get started; have no way of ending it. In time they'll forget about the words and then... what then? What, then?

How many ways can you tell a person you love them so without saying it at all?


2.

He couldn't even open his eyes. The sky was too bright.

Lying down, he placed his blazer over his face to block the sun. Now everything's muffled, even his breathing, and the heat was too stifling so he took it off and just turned his head to the side, smelling the grass.

There may be words forming in his mouth. There must be. But the heat, the heat; it was too hot, too hot, and what he wanted to speak to the world slumbers in his throat.


2.

The shadows are receding. It's getting colder. Tsuna shivers.

Xanxus moves close to him and takes off his jacket, caught himself doing it; clenches his fist and puts it back on himself again.

He doesn't say anything. Just sits down on the grass and looks away.

Xanxus moves away to leave. Caught himself doing it. Stops.

Tsuna looks at his hands and wonders something like, I don't remember how warm he is. He decides he'll speak it out. Timidly, like a child, blushing, he says:

"I don't remember how warm you are."

Xanxus' eyes flickered, glanced at him, looked away. "I see no reason why you have to know that."

"A-ah... that's right..." and he bites his lower lip in frustration. Why does it have to be so complicated? For all the things that Reborn has taught him about how to deal with people, nothing ever came useful to him at times like this. So why, why--?

"I... "

Xanxus.

"I remember how... " and he's pausing now, trying to control his words because he's proud man and there's no reason why he should let this brat know how much he's conflicted behind the monolithic image of the demiboss. "I remember how you laugh. And your stupid smiles."

Tsuna smiled. "I like that."

He looks away. He's afraid to look back; to see himself reflected in his eyes and know that he's loved and made to serve someone who loves. It's a completely different battle and he doesn't know how to play this game. "You're a stupid, spoiled child and you should do your own dirty work, brat."

"I know."

"Then stop sitting here and move."

"I will."

But both of them don't move and whatever it is that they wanted to say to each other slumbers in their throats; raging, raging to be let out and revealed like something so taboo but.

But it slumbers. And so, for the time being, they look away and wring their hands and try to come up with ways how to say "I'm sorry" and "I love you" to each other without giving away too much, without losing too much.

Tsuna sighed. He wishes they would just talk with guns and gloves. That would be easier. Discourse would be so easy if it could just be based on how much you can inflict on someone to let them know how much you feel.


3.

He looks at his watch. 2:00. Already? And all he did was lie on the grass and do nothing, just staring at the sun and listening to the wind slapping his face: get up. Get up, you have homework. Get up, you have chores to do. Get up, or Reborn will find out that you skipped your math sessions with Bianchi. Get up.

He shakes the grass from out of his hair and springs up. He puts his shoes on slowly, notes how worn and creased they are and laughs.

When he leaves the grass is pressed down where he's lain and it struggles furiously amidst the wind and the heat to preserve the shape of the body that ascended from there.


3.

And he watches the stars appear from the sky and the hint of a moon from the horizon and thinks something like, this isn't going anywhere. He tries to speak again, ignores the slumbering words in his throat. It can wait.

"Perhaps... "

"...what?"

"Perhaps we should eat dinner."

"I'm not hungry."

"But it's dinner time, and--"

"I'm not hungry," he repeats, but his stomach says otherwise and Tsuna laughs.

"What the hell are you laughing at?"

"B-but, Xanxus-san, you--"

"Everybody has had their stomachs growl for something sometime, so what the hell--?"

"--let's get dinner." And Tsuna stands up to look for his shoes, laid neatly beside the benches beneath the mantle of the shadows. He picks them up and notes how worn they are, how careless he has been and how tired they must've been for walking. And how he walked, and how he's been in so many different places he's never expected, and --

"Are you coming?"

"Yes, just a moment--" And he puts them on, fitting snugly with his feet and his reddened soles.

This is how they leave: there is a brush of hands, forefinger to palm and, --

They're gone. And the words within their hearts can wait, it can wait. It's special. It can wait.