Title: This Place Beside Me
Rated: PG-153
Pairings: 5927
Summary: [Early mornings are Gokudera’s favorite time of day. Tsuna knows this because Gokudera has told him so, with that abashed tilt of his lips reminiscent of the dry heat and lethargy of distant afternoons spent on Namimori’s rooftop.]
Comments: Written for kagami222 for the 2008 Christmas round of khr_exchange.

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Early mornings are Gokudera’s favorite time of day. Tsuna knows this because Gokudera has told him so, with that abashed tilt of his lips reminiscent of the dry heat and lethargy of distant afternoons spent on Namimori’s rooftop. And of a younger Gokudera whose stride had carried him with a confidence that was more pretense than truth.

There is something of that uncertainty in him now as he jogs ahead down the slope of the hill, the frayed hem of his jeans grown dark from the grass still damp with morning dew. Behind them, the Vongola fortress sits at the top of the hill, silent and forbidding despite the bright silver banners that Haru had insisted on putting up during her last visit. Light has just begun to crest the eastern tree line where the towers of the Varia mansion rise up above the alders and evergreens.

Gokudera finally stops at the base of the hill. Here, the ground levels out for several meters before the trees grow too thick for any kind of exploding projectiles to be released safely. Tsuna picks a patch of grass where clovers have begun to push through the clipped lawn and sets his jacket down before sitting to keep the seat of his pants dry.

“Whenever you’re ready,” Tsuna says.

Gokudera beams at him and tugs from his back pocket a single mini-bomb.

“What Shamal taught me years ago was that the most important component to remember with a projectile weapon is your weapon’s trajectory. Even with my rocket bombs, the destination of every stick of dynamite has already been calculated before release – to avoid accidentally blowing myself up, of course.” Gokudera grins but there is a guarded look in the way his gaze slides away from Tsuna’s for a fraction of a second, as if in recollection.

“You’d never do that, Gokudera,” Tsuna says, and Gokudera’s face flushes with pride.

“With dynamite, the kinematic equation has to factor in not only velocity, acceleration, and time, but the effect the lit fuse will have on the path of your trajectory.”

At this point, Gokudera’s explanation grows into an exposition on angles, displacement, and terrestrial mechanics, and Tsuna finds himself smiling less in understanding and more in bemusement at the enthusiastic way Gokudera speaks. His hands make grand gestures, long fingers pointing with imagined relish or curling into palms that are broad and calloused and likely warm despite the lingering bite of a cool spring night. He waves his small prop around, animated movements an extension of the expressive way his eyes widen and his lips draw back into a smile, as if there is nothing more enjoyable than teaching Tsuna how to use dynamite at six in the morning.

Tsuna is so rapt with watching Gokudera that it takes him a moment to realize Gokudera has stopped speaking. Rather, he has pushed a hand into his mussed hair and is looking decidedly sheepish for realizing belatedly that he’d lost Tsuna less than five minutes into their lesson.

“Sorry, Juudaime, I…”

Behind him, the sun has broken past the horizon, etching highlights into his hair like threads of burnished silver. Tsuna takes a moment to admire the view and the way Gokudera’s cheeks flush under his focused attention.

“It’s okay, Gokudera.” And it’s Tsuna’s turn to look sheepish now. “I was never very good at physics or…much of anything really. How about a demonstration instead?”

Gokudera opens his mouth, no doubt with every intention of arguing with Tsuna’s self-evaluation, but catches himself in time. They have already had this argument, numerous times in numerous places, the very last of which Gokudera had ended by cradling Tsuna’s face in his hands and whispering against his lips, ‘I wish you could see yourself the way I see you.’ And before Tsuna could reply, added, ‘But you don’t. You don’t, and I love you.’

“Okay,” he says instead, and easily withdraws four mini-bombs.

He lights them each quickly in turn before flashing a grin and tossing them upward, four small cylinders alight against the pale yellow of dawn. The ensuing explosions shatter the silence, echoing up the hill and through the branches of the trees, sending a flock of birds into frantic flight. Tsuna is used to sounds of general chaos and mayhem so he simply smiles in appreciation for the perfection of Gokudera’s craft.

Gokudera is still speaking, something about the degree of launch and initial velocity, as he holds up four more mini-bombs braced between his slender fingers. Tsuna cocks his head and watches the way the thick vein in Gokudera’s forearm grows prominent beneath his skin as his hand moves. Muscles shift and contract in fluid motion, lilting like notes on a music sheet.

Later, if asked, Tsuna will be able to recall nothing of Gokudera’s lesson aside from the way his fingers clench around the sticks of dynamite, the skin of his middle and forefinger stained a dusky yellow where the butt of a cigarette usually rests. He will recall how Gokudera’s technique is nothing less than meticulous, every movement predetermined and skillfully executed, evocative and complex as Gokudera’s hands moving across the keys of his grand piano. But this is all right, because he doesn’t think Gokudera actually expects him to remember the mechanics of his weapon of choice.

They are here, throwing explosives at the crack of dawn, because two days ago, Gokudera returned from a meeting gone awry, unable to meet Tsuna’s eye, and apologized for failing as a right hand man. Tsuna understands feeling useless – experiences it daily, even now – but that is a trait he hasn’t ascribed to Gokudera since middle school. And while Gokudera usually knows it, sometimes, like now, he needs a reminder.

“I didn’t bring any more mini-bombs,” Gokudera says, holding up his empty hands to demonstrate. “I have the larger ones though, if you’d rather… Juudaime?”

Tsuna has pushed to his feet, smiling crookedly at the way Gokudera freezes and waits with the patience he reserves just for Tsuna. He steps close, personal space a forgotten concept between them, and reaches up to tug at Gokudera’s collar.

“Juudaime?”

“Just Tsuna,” he says before kissing him. Gokudera has yet to lower his hands so Tsuna catches them with his own and laces their fingers.

Since their first meeting – before that, even; during that ambiguous stretch of time between the extravagance of Gokudera’s childhood home and the culture shock of a new country – Tsuna believes that Gokudera has had a pre-constructed definition of what a right hand man should be. And while he has done his utmost the last ten years to fulfill that position, Tsuna always wonders what it costs Gokudera, if anything, to put his arms around Tsuna’s shoulders and his lips on Tsuna’s skin in ways that a right hand man wouldn’t dare to imagine.

But then again, even with Reborn as his tutor, the last place he would have expected to find himself ten years later is in Italy, leading the most powerful mafia family in the world. So perhaps they all – No Good Tsuna and Gokudera and the other guardians, even Mukuro with his vague objectives and Hibari with his rigidly idyllic principles – have never been meant to fit the molds created for them.

The sun sits now in the cradle of the treetops, stretching their shadows up the length of the hill to merge with the stone of the Vongola fortress.

The End