The young man who entered Caeruleus a few weeks after Verde settled in had Tsuna's Intuition ringing warning bells as soon as he saw him.
It wasn't that the stranger looked threatening, in fact, he seemed pretty friendly with his easy-going smile and slightly awkward behavior. But there was something about him that told Tsuna to be cautious; or rather not about the young man himself, but about something tied to him.
The brunet tried to figure out what the problem was while he prepared drinks. It was the shop's policy to offer a seat and refreshments to customers, especially new ones, before talking business, and it had the added advantage of giving Tsuna or whoever was in charge time to observe the potential new client.
He was a blond young man, probably barely out of his teenage years. His clothes were rather casual, and an elaborate tattoo peaked out of one sleeve and the collar of his T-shirt. He smiled amiably to Tsuna and to I-pin and Shoichi when they caught his gaze, but there was a hint of nerves in the way he kept fidgeting with his hands. More worrying was the suit-clad older man that had accompanied him and was standing at attention behind the couch. Tsuna had been trained by Kyoya long enough to spot the outline of a gun through his vest (although he still had no idea where the Cloud stored his beloved tonfas. The most popular theory among his friends was a pocket dimension, but Hayato's suggestion that UMAs were involved had some merit).
Probably Mafia, then, and the blond young man had to be pretty high in the hierarchy to be allowed to wander around in a casual getup and with a bodyguard. The son of a major individual in a Famiglia perhaps? Anyway, that meant caution.
While he was still in the kitchen, Tsuna sent a short message to Ken, Chikusa, Mukuro, Byakuran and Verde to stay out of sight, and a text to Hayato asking him to also keep Lambo – who had accompanied him on a job today – out until he gave the all clear. No need to risk the blond young man recognizing any of them before he assessed the situation more clearly.
With a tray holding a glass of apple juice for the stranger, some water for his bodyguard (the man had turned his offer of a drink down, but Tsuna had manners, thank you very much, and he had to practice them or risk losing them and end up like most of his beloved but often rude friends) and some soda for himself in hand (experience had shown him that people were more comfortable if you drank something with them), Tsuna returned to the office, distributed the drinks and said the customary welcome and short exposition of Caeruleus. The blond listened intently before speaking up.
"Well, you can call me Bucephalus." He introduced himself with a nervous voice and slid a twitchy hand through his hair . It was so obviously a fake name that Tsuna had to force his face not to contort into a dubious expression or spout a disparaging comment. He fully blamed Mukuro's bad influence. "You see, I used to have a tutor, not so long ago. A demon from Hell – you would not imagine how much of a slave-driver he was, not to mention the punishments." He shivered in remembered dread. "A-Anyway, he was very good at his job, questionable methods aside, and he taught me several languages, like English, French, Russian, Chinese, Spanish or Japanese.
In fact, Japanese was one of his favorites, probably because of their cosplay culture. He loved dressing up in all kinds of weird outfits to freak me out.
It's been almost half a year since he deemed my training complete and left his job as my tutor. I haven't seen him face to face since, although we stayed in contact." At that point, his eyes that had been jumping all around the room settled on Tsuna, and the brunet could easily see the fear inside them.
