Chapter Text
“Mom?” Tsuna asks, even as he tugs off his rumpled sweater.
Nana’s eyes stay on her cooking. “Hm?”
Tsuna shifts and bites his lip. He wonders if he should ask his question. “Mom,” he says again. “Mom, when will I meet my marked?”
Nana looks up. Her eyes widen, and Tsuna winces. “Tsuna-kun! What happened?”
“I fell out of the tree again,” Tsuna says. The words are bitter on his tongue. He can remember climbing trees like a squirrel when he was only four. Now he can’t even manage stairs. The cold numbs him to his bones.
Nana sets her cooking aside and gets out the first aid kit. Sitting Tsuna on a chair in the kitchen, she begins treating his scratches, hands hovering over his bruises.
“So?” Tsuna asked.
“Oh. Well, no one knows when they’ll meet their marked,” Nana replies. “We don’t get a timer with them, unfortunately.”
“Is papa your marked?”
Nana’s hands still.
Tsuna shakes his head. “Nevermind, I shouldn’t ask,” he says. He desperately wants to know. Hopes against hope that his supposed father isn’t her marked.
“No,” Nana says at last. “I haven’t met my marked yet.”
Tsuna’s shoulders droop. “So I might have to wait until I’m a grown-up?” he asks. His voice trembles, and he sighs inside. His mother has been very perceptive since the old man stole Tsuna’s fire. He thinks she is angry at his father and his father’s boss, but it’s hard to tell, with how much she smiles. Even his serpent isn’t sure sometimes.
“Tsuna?”
He sniffs. “The - the kids at school,” he says. “They say my soulmates won’t want me, because I’m useless.” He stares at the ground. He believes them. After all, he’s just useless, no-good-Tsuna. One of the teachers even called him that today. He tries, tries and tries to do better at his homework, and at sports, but the piece of him that made him good at it is missing.
“You are not useless,” Nana snarls.
Tsuna looks up at her in shock - he has never heard Nana so viciously angry before. He sees her take a deep breath.
“You’re not useless,” Nana says again. “And of course your soulmates will want you. You’re my Tsunayoshi! How could they not want you?”
Tsuna doesn’t really believe her.
Nana sighs, and pulls him in close, hugs him tight. “You are going to be the best of them all,” she says.
Tsuna cries into her shoulder. He doesn’t tell her only some of the bruises are from his fall from the tree. He doesn’t mention his lunch was stolen (again). He just leans into her, and for a moment, it’s almost like he’s warm.
(Tsuna knows his own uselessness isn’t his fault, is because of a man with cold fire at his fingertips. This changes things.)
(This changes things a lot.)