Chapter Text
Tsunayoshi was five years old when his world went cold. All his life, there’d been a fire in his chest, a little torch that kept him warm and made him feel safe. Those times had been full of light and love and warmth. Then the old man came and took the fire from him, locked it deep somewhere he couldn’t reach.
Suddenly, it was like all the color was drained from the world around him, leaving behind shades of grey and black and the faint knowledge that it hadn’t always been like that. The world had once been bright and colorful, and Tsuna craved that colorful existence. Instead of a fire in his chest, there was a black hole consuming anything and everything.
He used to have friends. He used to be a good, attentive student. But that was back when the world wasn’t so cold. His friends drifted from him, and that hole in his chest screamed. His schoolwork slowly degraded. The knowledge flowed through his brain and right back out, never sticking.
Through the years, he drifted, somehow separate from all the other students. It was like they could tell that something wasn’t right with him. Maybe it was more accurate to say Tsuna was painted in shades of grey while the world he was separated from continued its normal existence. He was the outsider. The one looking in from the outside. Everything felt so far away.
His mom had changed when the warmth left too. She drifted even further than he did. They’d once been so connected Tsuna could almost feel her presence, but that had been stolen along with his fire.
He was twelve when he first saw color again. It was captivating and entrancing. The warmth flooded through his limbs, lighting his veins on fire with such alluring heat . His conscious mind snapped into awareness for the first time in so long it left him reeling with the sudden influx of sensation.
The sun was bright and yellow-gold. The concrete beneath him was burning hot in the dry heat of a summer day. His lungs fought for breath, heaving, and wheezing. It hurt. His whole body hurt . A breathless laugh squeezed out of him. And that hurt too. He laughed, eyes bright and clear for the first time since he was five years old. Helpless giggles streamed from him as he took in the wonderfully blue sky. The sky was blue , just like he remembered but so much more beautiful.
His hands clenched at his sides, scraping against the hard ground. He reveled in the feel of the scrapes on his palms and the rocks digging into the bleeding flesh. He could feel bruises blossoming all across his body, aching pain radiating through every inch of skin. Green, so very green , leaves dangled above his head. Had trees always looked like that?
He sat up, still giggling, with a wheeze. His nose was stuffed and crooked, and when he raised a hand to it, oil-slick liquid met his fingers. He pulled back his hand and gazed at the blood. Red, red, red. It was ruby red and so vibrant, and it probably wasn’t healthy for him to be so obsessed with the color.
His mouth tasted like metal, but he loved that too. Food had tasted like nothingness and ash for as long as he could remember. He staggered to his feet, swaying with light-headed elation. His head rolled as he tried to take in everything. The colorful, colorful, houses and the burning bright sidewalks. Then he saw the boy dressed in rich black. Tsuna had never seen such a dark shade in his world of greys.
A pair of tonfa were held loosely in his hands, and Tsuna lost himself in just how shiny they were, even with the speckles of blood dotting them, or maybe that just made them even more beautiful. The boy, a middle schooler by his uniform, watched him warily. He could see him, Tsuna realized. The boy could see him! A slight hysterical laugh slipped in between his giggles.
Then the memories came. The boy, Hibari, ambushed him because he was late for class. Tsuna didn’t even go to the middle school, still stuck in elementary. But that didn’t matter ‘cause Hibari had made him See and Feel, and the other boy could See him. He could see him like they were a part of the same world when everyone else had passed him by.
Tsuna took a shaking, stumbling, step toward the other boy. He grinned, blood straining his teeth. His nose shifted painfully. His eyes burned orange and fire ignited in his veins. He took a deep open mouthed breath and savored the scent-taste of blood and heat.
“Do it again.”
Hibari surged forward with his own savage grin. Animal satisfaction roared through him and he stumbled to meet the boy. A tonfa swung at his head was hastily dodged before pain exploded against his side. A foot met his chest and sent him flying. He was back on his feet before he’d even registered hitting the ground. He sent a clumsy punch that was smacked aside. The fragile bones snapped under the metal of the tonfa, but he didn’t care. The black hole in his chest demanded more. More pain, more heat, more movement.
Bones broke and fractured. His nose poured blood following an elbow to the face. No matter how many times he was knocked down, he kept getting up. The fire burned hot inside him, spurring him forward. It pushed the pain aside and before he knew it, he was dodging attacks that had sent him reeling mere minutes ago.
His mind latched onto a pattern only he knew. Suddenly, Hibari’s attacks were just so predictable , like he could see them happening seconds before they did. That small advantage didn’t help him all too much, but he didn’t mind. He wasn’t fighting to win. He just didn’t want the warmth to leave him. He wanted to keep ahold of the brilliant colors he could see. He wanted to continue to feel this glorious pain.
He wondered if this was what getting high felt like. He could sympathize with druggies if it were. This feeling was too incredible for him to let go. A tonfa slammed into his head, and black spots danced across his vision. Another slammed into his stomach, knocking the breath from his lungs.
His back met grass before a foot stomped down on his shoulder. Steely eyes glared down at him through inky black hair. Tsuna huffed a laugh in between panting breaths. His head lolled as he went limp. He reveled in the vibrating tingly feeling running through his body. Yeah, if this is what druggies felt, then he could totally understand. He thought he was addicted to this feeling too. As black tunneled across his eyes and sensation began to fade, he thought he would do anything to get that feeling back.