Dead-Eyed Tsuna (KHR!)

Chapter 7: The Introduction Of A Goal

Warning: Chugging a thick beverage, slightly detailed description of bodily harm

Kyouko stands in the kitchen, chewing her lip thoughtfully. Tsuna is healthy and...reasonably stable, as much as he can be when he's delirious with fever. He was lucid enough to express himself properly, though, and Kyouko is still struggling with what he was expressing; the plan to put him in the Disciplinary Committee worked, sure, but he's submerging himself in violence, and he's doing it on purpose. Not...not gang violence or criminal activity or bullying or whatever, but competitive fighting.

She's never liked Ryouhei's boxing, to be honest. She never understood the need to fight to the point he had to find a controlled environment where he was allowed to do it. The rules were always vague to her too, battling in their boxers with mittens on. Is it to avoid grabbing onto their clothes while they fight? Why bother, when they have the mitts to stop that? Why both bandage your hands and put mitts on? Apparently it's twice as dangerous because you don't feel the impact and could end up destroying someone's jaw because you couldn't hold back, and in her opinion they should really have softer hand-cushions if that sort of thing is going to happen. Like oven mitts. Why can't they be reasonable and wear oven mitts instead of giant cushioned red balls of death?

Tsuna's case is...worse and better at the same time. Kyouko isn't oblivious so much as very bad at focusing on the right things, but she knows enough to realize that Hibari is not a very positive influence. He's either the perfect, still calm of an undisturbed pool of water, or tumulus rage like a storm in the middle of the ocean, for no reason whatsoever. Kyouko is very worried about Hibari Kyouya, actually. She had him under observation for about a month, and the best she can figure out is that he simply doesn't have a transition period between calm and rage, and also he likes hitting things.

But Tsuna is the perfect positive influence for him. Tsuna is never severe or sharp or jagged, everything about him is muted and quiet and reserved, and even when he's panicking he's so very still, and maybe some people don't like that, but she's sure Hibari would. Tsuna is hard on himself, and he doesn't even care enough to be a negative thinker, he just considers failing as something that is, and it doesn't even upset him anymore. She thought that — well, if he could make Hibari...calmer, or at least give him a few stages between 'collected school authority' and 'violent animal', Tsuna might, perhaps, maybe think of himself a little better? And maybe just be a little happier.

Kyouko had partly succeeded with that, yes, but she also forgot that Hibari really likes hitting things somewhere in there, and now Tsuna is getting into competitive fighting, and for goodness sakes, getting a tonfa to the head is his idea of fun. She's sure if her brother never accidentally punched him in the head, they'd probably get along. Maybe. Tsuna doesn't seem to remember it happening, but he's pretty obviously afraid of Ryouhei anyway. The point is, why on earth do all the boys she knows feel excited by fighting? At least...at least...at least Yamamoto focuses on something safe, like baseball!

At the same time, the entire point of his matches is to not get hit, so it's better. A little bit better. And when she thinks about it, stabbing her rice, everyone she knows is like that. Mochida has kendou, and Hana has shooting games, and she's pretty sure that Gokudera boy is so excited about being a tutor that he counts too. Everyone has something.

Kyouko doesn't have much of anything.

She pushes her rice away so she can rest her head on the table and squint in aggravation in the general direction of the television, which is talking about how someone had dumped a bunch of garbage on the beaches of the tourist town two miles off from Namimori. She feels irritated. And left behind. Surely there's something she can do, right?