Chapter 2
Tsuna can count on his fingers how many times he has walked back home with a classmate. Much to his utter despair, it was less than five. The first one was in kindergarten when he had sprained his ankle and someone (he doesn’t remember) offered to help him hobble back home after the incident. The second time was in primary school and well – it couldn’t really be counted as walking back home if you were chased back home – but those are unnecessary contingencies and Tsuna counts it. Finally, the third time was now or the fourth time really, if he counted this morning.
It’s…Tsuna doesn’t know how to wrap his head around it. He had asked on a whim – asked because there was the smallest possibility of it being accepted and wasn’t something Kaa-san said about the first step often being the hardest? It doesn’t feel real. There was always this understanding, this baseline level that stated: Dame-Tsuna is too much of a freak and a nuisance to be with. For that to be disobeyed, on such an inconspicuous afternoon makes his heart stutter in his chest, the gentleness of a bull in a China shop. It’s almost hard to breathe because he is waiting, oh so patiently, for the other shoe to drop, for this to be a fluke. Tsuna will wake up, dreaming of walking home with someone because he is so starved for affection and normal human interaction that he can’t help but laugh until he is hurling wretched sobs at the idiocy of believing.
“Nee, Tsuna-kun,” Kyoko starts. Her hands are swinging by her sides, and he still can’t believe the school sweetheart is bothering to interact with him. “How did you meet Kage-chan?”
“He uh – he patrols the neighborhood, and um takes care of people,” Tsuna butchers through his sentences, leaning back to shrink on himself more as he stammars over his words. “Well, he isn’t in the best of shape so I was worried. Really worried and I – with my mom, we wanted to feed him.”
Her smile is nauseating, and it shouldn’t be directed onto him. He almost can’t help the sigh of relief of such positive attention turning to Kageyoshi, her touch getting more and more comfortable when she aggressively scratches behind his cheeks. “That’s so sweet of you! Kage-chan is already such a well-behaved boy, aren’t you?”
She is given the dog equivalent of agreement when his tar-slicked fur brushes against her hand in response. It really is such a sweet sight but this is so abnormal that even despite the knowledge that this may be true, he can’t help holding his breath. His fingers curling into the palms of his hands, Tsuna’s mouth curved into a wobbly line and it is too much. There is an understanding in his heart, cooing softly, brushing against his lungs in the hopes to keep him breathing telling him it will be okay, please, it will be okay but his mind is sharp, howling, some ravenous caricature driving its word deep. This will end and it will hurt. You are nothing – this will end in nothing.
It hurts. Tsuna has to swallow down the agony threatening this simple walk, careful to avoid rushing home. He keeps squeezing his eyes shut because he doesn’t want to cry. This – this outing should leave him happy but all it is doing is making his mind spin, his breath ending in cut-off wheezing.
He almost jumps at Kageyoshi’s brush of fur against his cheek, knocking him out of his dazed walking, but it is warm and unconditional. It is something loyal. Humans were confusing, strange things that bullied and tormented him – that the time he felt unconditional love was from his mom pressing her love against his chest hoping to engulf him and everything else ran on this system of triple dog dares. But, Tsuna has watched those films about dogs and read through the web about how the loyalty of dogs was always gained and rarely lost, as if the sole purpose of them was to be a friend – a companion.
He’s never had that before.
The idea of trusting Kyoko-chan leaves his heart racing, some sort of nauseating rumble; an echo of thunder in the horizon bringing a sense of foreboding crushing down. He could, he really could. Tsuna can make the effort to try to extend that olive branch, but he needs a moment, some sort of breathing room. It will take time – time that is occupied by the ending of the school year and Kageyoshi who smells of grime and other unidentifiable scents leaving him to swallow a gag of disgust at it being smeared across his face.
“Oh!” Tsuna sees the family nameplate coming up, “Kyoko-chan we’re here.”
He draws to a stop and Kyoko-chan looks up, past the brick walls and the neatly manicured front-yard. It is a western-styled house, he thinks, not too traditionally Japanese with two-floors and a red-tiled roof that slopes around alongside beige walls, much larger than one would get for just him and his mom. To him, it isn’t anything special or note-worthy – just his home that he has always lived in but he can’t help but look at her, gauging her reaction.
“Your home is really nice!”
Tsuna blinks, his hand nervously brushing at his hair. “Thank you? Well – I have always lived here and I don’t think Kaa-san is here – sorry. She is at the college today.”
“Welcome!” Tsuna exclaims, trying to raise morale as he pushes past the open fence, Kageyoshi trailing behind him and Kyoko-chan with his head ducked low. It’s familiar as breathing to walk along the paved stone, fishing his key from his pocket to unlock the door. “The first-floor bathroom should be the best place.”
“Thank you! Excuse my intrusion.”
A sigh of relief is uttered when he is met by air conditioning blowing onto his skin, careful to take his shoes off neatly this time around than toss them haphazardly on the foyer's hardwood floors. He can’t help but glance back to Kyoko at the empty cabinet. “I – we don’t have slippers, sorry. We don’t have many people over often enough and, if it is okay of course, you can leave your bag here.” He sets his bag down on top of the cabinet.
She gives a flippant wave, clearly too good of a person for him to ever interact with, her bag landing next to his and shoes neatly pushed off to the side. “It’s okay! C’mon Tsuna-kun!” She gives the mimed image of pushing her sleeves up, “Let’s go clean up Kage-chan!”
“Mmm!”
Tsuna leads the way, going past the stairs towards the kitchen before turning right, opening the door towards the first floor bathroom and gently guiding Kageyoshi who, much to his chagrin, is likely not going to fit in the tub and takes up the majority of the bathroom space. At the very least, despite it being a little bit cramped, there should be everything they need like soap, a few brushes of Kaa-san who he needs to remember to buy back before its timely destruction, and a cabinet full of towels.
“This might be...”
“A challenge!” Kyoko-chan finishes brightly and Tsuna’s mind immediately realizes there is a girl in the bathroom with him a second to late before she is brushing past him in the cramped space and towards the tub, fiddling with the handle to turn the water on. He stands there, gaping, before shaking his head back and forth abruptly, taking note that Kage was very quiet for a dog, not even shaking at the sound of running water, or shying away from it.
Could dogs be mute?
“Alright! Tsuna-kun can you help me get Kage-chan in here?”
He doesn’t need to do anything because at the question, Kage walks forward and with careful paws, steps into the bathtub sitting down and immediately looking comedic at such a big dog in a tiny space. Tsuna stifles a laugh at the image, coughing into his arm before he opens the bathroom drawer, grabbing another bottle of shampoo and conditioner just in case as he hobbles over, wincing at the sight of the muddied, dirty pawprints on the tile.
This, Tsuna thinks, watching immediately as Kyoko-chan starts hosing down Kage with the mobile shower head, is going to be a mess.
–
The bathroom is a mess.
Destroyed is a better term.
He is covered in dog hair of obscene amounts; he can even taste it in his mouth. It is best to probably burn the towels instead of reuse them and he already knows that there goes at least a month or two savings down the drain at having to replace them. The amount of shampoo burned through, is probably better to be left unsaid and well, Kaa-san needs a new brush, maybe even a new bathroom. It took the same amount of time cleaning the bathroom as it did grooming Kage and now, all tired, wiped out after such an ordeal said to take around thirty minutes that stretched into about three hours, Tsuna felt like jelly.
“I didn’t know dogs could have this much hair,” Kyoko-chan breathes, sounding as winded as him, laying star-fished on the ground of the living room, not even bothering to be on the couch. Her uniform is destroyed and Tsuna, out of embarrassment (and well, he had to change too so it was more so mourning), threw a hoodie and rummaged through his mom’s drawers to grab a pair of shorts to toss her way. While he donned on a faded sweatshirt and sweatpants, slumped partially over the rug and Kage whose large body was pressed up against the couch, clean, groomed, and looking marginally healthier.
“I didn’t even know black fur could stain,” Tsuna quips, nodding in agreement to her words.
His body hurts in places he didn’t even know, and he can’t help it but laugh. It’s small, just a little more of a press of air before he can’t help the grin that splits across his face, his fingers curling into his faded clothes, and just laughs. Kyoko-chan joins, something sweet and harmonious to his own that sounds unbridled, filled with joy because that was fun. It was fun. There was nothing new about it, nothing that was particularly exciting, but after the experience, Tsuna feels better – he feels okay, like some weight has been shed because now, his mind is settled, not screaming at the top of his lungs at the ultimate end. It just feels like enough.
Kage behind him – a solid weight who smells of a mix of vanilla and something citrusy dips his head down, head down to give a press of his nose against his cheek. His fur is combed out, no longer in matted tangles – now in simmering waves, gently curling along the carpet and in the faded sunlight of the day. Hues of yellow brush against black, highlighting colors previously missed like the mark of white fur on their chest, the gray fur scattered around their muzzle and around their eyes. He looks pretty, almost untouchable in the calm waves being washed meant and it must feel freeing to not have all that weight underneath you – to be freshly washed, clean from the burdens.
Kyoko-chan’s laughter tapers off, her fingers curled into the rug. “Nee, Tsuna-kun?”
“Yeah?”
“I think you’re a good person.”
He blinks, pauses, the words mulling in his head, before a bright flush of red swallows him. “O – oh! Oh, oh, I um…” he coughs, “T-Thank you?”
“Like,” Kyoko-chan’s arm waves out of the corner of his eye. The sun kissing her skin in a tentative caress. “You — all you did was treat me normally. You didn’t try to make me uncomfortable like other guys at school and well, thank you.”
“That’s – you should be treated normally.” Tsuna squints and he can’t help but reach a tentative hand over. “I’m sorry you are not.”
Her hand is in his and she presses a reassuring squeeze around his palm, pruned fingertips squeezing into his pale skin. They’ve known each other for less than a day and it feels like more. “Thank you.”
They lay quietly.
“Do you want to stay for dinner?”
“I would like that.”
Tsuna closes his eyes. His body aches and he has talked more in the past few hours than he had in years and it feels okay. It is enough. This is enough. He may even be enough, too, but that thought vanishes quickly. That — that is too sudden.
“Any allergies?”
“No, but I don’t like spicy things a lot.”
He files that knowledge for later. “Do you have any favorite foods?”
“Cake!” Tsuna imagines her visibly melting at the way she exclaims it. “I love cake. Cloud cake, velvet, fruit, cream, chocolate — I really love cake.”
“All the cakes?”
“All,” she agrees, “What’s your favorite food?”
“Salisbury steak and Harusame soup.” The thought of the warm dishes makes his heart warm — feeling the tingling, the faint pressure of the heat they give. He loves warm dishes. “Kaa-san can make it really well.”
Her hands are warm, and he can feel the slight calluses raised alongside her palm, small knicks and papercuts of hardened skin. “Do you cook?” Kyoko-chan asks, “I like cooking. Sometimes, I cook and watch videos.”
He nods but realizes that she probably can’t see it from their awkward angle. “Yeah, but I’m probably not as good as you. I — I like it, but I also like my Kaa-sans cooking more. She’s really good at it, so I just do the prep.”
“Good! I think it is a very good skill to know how to cook.” She is very blunt, Tsuna realizes, but that isn’t the best word to describe it. It is more like just being honest? She is a very honest person and some small part of his mind drops its barriers at the fact. “You may not be as good but you can make a meal! That's what counts.”
Tsuna cracks open one of his eyes, drowsiness pulling at him as he watches Kyoko-chan inch closer, her head dropping down right next to Kage’s own, her free hand bending awkwardly to scratch behind his ears. The sound of the front door opening prevents him from closing his eyes, listening to the faint hum, a tune he isn’t sure where it is from. He doesn’t make any notice to move even if Kageyoshi tenses beside him, picking up his head towards the direction of footsteps.
“Tsuna!” Kaa-san calls, “Are you home?”
“In here!”
The living room is not usually where he is, preferring the tatami mat that is the first left from the doorway, but the room has its charm. The large, L-shaped sage green couch covered in decorative pillows and the messily crochet blanket his mom attempted a few years ago is pressed up against the back-wall underneath the window. There is a flat screen television perched on top of the wall, right above the thin but sturdy wood cabinet that is covered in small trinkets. On the right-hand side there is a bookcase adorned with old literature and books that are steadily added throughout the months, photos scattered around. The real thing about this room that Tsuna loves however, is the framed photos on the wall, taken out of the family album and enlarged.
Tsuna is next to the coffee table, careful to avoid hitting his head accidentally when he watches his Kaa-san step inside, her eyes sweeping left to right before stilling on Kageyoshi behind him and Kyoko-chan’s hand in his. Yet, the smile that reaches her eyes makes him swallow his embarrassment as she drops the few bags of groceries in her hand and onto the hardwood floor.
“Kageyoshi!” She beams, clapping her hands together, “And who is this, Tsuna? I don’t think we’ve met before!”
Kyoko-chan’s hand slips from his, her movements stumbling but with enough finesse she rises naturally, swiping her hands against her trousers. “I’m Sasagawa Kyoko! It’s really nice to meet you, Sawada-san.”
She blushes, her face pressing against her cheek as she brushes her fingers against Kyoko’s own in greeting. “Oh, none of that now! That makes me sound so old! Please just call me Nana or Nana-san! I hope my darling son has taken care of you.” Because if not… is left unsaid, and Tsuna feels his heart jump, purposely looking away once he feels eyes burning onto him.
“Oh! If you insist, please call me Kyoko in return! It has been wonderful, Nana-san,” Kyoko-chan chirps, she waves an arm his way and Tsuna takes that as his cue to stand up, careful to avoid falling flat on his face as he grips the coffee table and raises up on unsteady feet, brushing himself off. “We cleaned up Kage-chan!”
Her eyes snap to Kage. “I’m so glad you finally got him cleaned up! He looks like such a handsome boy!” She coos, stepping forward with her arms outstretched.
Kage rises, and the slight widening of Kaa-san’s eyes is her only emotion at the size of him before he steps forward, carefully timid and nosing her fingers before brushing his face against hers in greeting. It makes Tsuna smile, feeling warm and giddy and he hopes that Kage stays the night and hopefully forever, he already is fitting in so much. Like a part of their home has finally arrived.
Kaa-san’s fingers scratch at his ears, his cheeks and slowly down his neck all the while whispering nothing but praise. “Are you staying for dinner Kyoko-chan? I’m making curry tonight.”
“If I am not imposing…”
“Oh, nonsense! Tsuna rarely brings anyone home and I would love to know how you met him!”
“Mooom,” Tsuna whines, making a half-hearted glare in her direction. He needs to hide the family photo albums soon.
She turns to him. “Oh no! I have waited years to finally meet a friend of yours and I will not miss this opportunity! Come on you two!” Her hands hover behind their shoulders, pushing them towards the kitchen next door next to the dining table. “Tsuna, set the table and once you are done, help me prep!”
“Would you like me to do anything?”
“Oh Kyoko-chan you are so sweet!” Kaa-san gushes, Tsuna mimes a gagging noise behind her at just how cutesy it is as he gets too work setting up the table. He jumps at the glare she shoots over her shoulder. “If you want, Kage-chan’s bowl is on the counter and there is leftover rice and chicken for him in the fridge if you can make his dinner?”
Kage sits at the barrier between the kitchen and living room, looking back and forth at them as they bustle around. He doesn’t even move when Kyoko-chan places the bowl in front of him, instead waiting patiently and the action causes his Kaa-san to nearly scream, Tsuna flinching back as he peels the potatoes into the sink.
“You!” She points at Kage, “Are so cute!”
His tail wags and he seems to preen, lifting his head up when Kaa-san scratches at his chin. “Such a good boy waiting for us all to have dinner!”
Thankfully, Kage doesn’t wait long since curry doesn’t take too long to make, though his food is moved closer to the table, leaving the hound to awkwardly sit by Kyoko-chan. Her feet swinging back and forth on the chair, her eyes following Kaa-san around the warm kitchen.
Tsuna stirs and mom brings drinks to the table, firing off questions about Kaa-san and responding about her own life. In about twenty minutes, Tsuna learns Kyoko-chan has an older brother, she can list off every type of frosting, her least favorite thing to make is omurice, and her friend Hana has been with her since preschool. He also learns that she knows the best way to incapacitate someone and proudly got fourth place in a boxing tournament when she was ten.
It’s a little bit scary, but her brother (“Ryohei! He’s a bit of an eccentric person, but I love him so much!”) wanted her to know at least how to protect herself and well, Tsuna doesn’t expect Kaa-san to offer pointers, but he carefully keeps quiet, hiding his fear at the idea of being on the receiving end of a kick to the back of the knee. He quite likes the idea of being alive, thank you very much, and watching his Kaa-san get caught up in the conversation, sitting across Kyoko-chan, he can’t help the soft smile.
He picks up the ladle and carefully scoops out rice on three plates before laddling curry, having to make two trips to carry all the plates as he sits them in front of the two. “Bon appetit!” Tsuna says, doing his best French accent (he definitely butchers it) before sitting down right next to Kaa-san.
“Oh you should have asked me to help!” Kaa-san scolds, picking up her spoon.
Tsuna shakes his head, hiding his grin by swallowing water. “You looked like you were having fun.”
“Oh! Nana-san this is amazing!” Kyoko-chan gushes, figurative stars in her eyes as she starts eating a bit more quickly. “What’s your secret?”
“Grated apple!” Kaa-san puffs up in pride and out of the corner of his eye watches her scoop some curry to drop carrots and potatoes into Kage’s bowl (which, he doesn’t think they can eat curry, but well, they need more food anyway.) “It adds a bit of sweetness to mellow out the salty! Don’t you think so, Kyoko-chan?”
“Mmm!” Kyoko-chan hums.
Tsuna knows enough manners to not talk with his mouth full, but he can’t help the enjoyment he is getting at just being surrounded by people. It really does feel warm. It is such a strange contrast to the cold that he is used to, the way it follows in his footsteps, trailing like a persistent echo and well, he only met Kyoko-chan today! How can people bond so quickly and suddenly? Is this a normal thing? Maybe he has a crush? That’s the only way he can think to explain their sudden bond, but that doesn’t feel right because she really just feels like a friend, some sort of intuition humming at the edge of his mind telling him, no, not the right one.
It really is so strange, but, Tsuna can’t stew on it because he should enjoy these moments even if they may be temporary. He isn’t sure if Kyoko-chan will come back and by God, he hopes she does. This is the first time someone has hung out with him willingly, has actually put some amount of effort into being kind to him for no reason other than to get something out of him. It’s too much and not enough. It’s enough and it is enough because Tsuna doesn’t think he can stomach the idea of having more than what is offered.
“Can we hang out again?” Tsuna asks, his nervousness obvious. Skin rubbed raw, fidgeting with his nails as he guides Kyoko-chan towards the gate of his home, finger picking at his sweatshirt. Kage trails behind him and Tsuna has a feeling they will not stay the night no matter how much he aches for them too. There will be a blanket and pillow outside on the porch for him anyway.
“Of course,” She speaks softly, mightier than him, much stronger than him. His own patheticness bleeds into every ounce of his being even as he catches her eyes, kinder than what he deserves. Open to him. “This was very fun.”
“It was.”
I had fun. Tsuna looks up at her, and towards Kage who stands beside him. “Can you walk her home tonight?” May you come back?
There is an inkling. This is not a normal dog. This dog's teeth are too big for his maw. This dog will follow you until death and stay guarded at the grave. Tsuna couldn’t care less as too intelligent eyes gaze into him, and an almost imperceptible nod is given.
“Friends?”
A hand is in front of him in the likeliness of those of western movies.
“Friends.” He shakes her hand, holding it in his. “Get home safely, Kyoko-chan.”
–
In the morning, Tsuna looks out towards the porch and Kage is there.
Kaa-san holds her newspaper against herself, barefeet skimming against the grass of the backyard as a cup of tea has long gone cold. She is sitting next to him, her finger carding softly through ruffled curls and Tsuna can't swallow his own cheer of joy at the sight.