52. Turf (1/2)

when you need to update your fic of pain and suffering but you're in such a fluffy mood otl

but yeah mega fluff whoop whoop

-turf-

kahiro wakes up with bleary eyes to the sensation of the mattress shaking beside her head. her hand slaps around a little before finally connecting with her vi

ating phone and practically pressing it into her eyes. squinting, she takes a few moments to read the message she's received, then closing her eyes to tap her fingers on the screen in a pattern that has been ingrained into her recently and squashing it against her ear. after a short while of ringing, she hears the unmistakable sound of someone taking in a sharp intake of

eath, taking it as her cue to speak.

"of course i'm awake, you know i don't sleep until one or later, i'm a teenager not responsible."

a muffled sigh of relief travels through the phone, kahiro absentmindedly remembering that she had fallen asleep no later than nine as she tries to suppress a yawn. "how do you even manage to do so much exercise with so little sleep, kahiro?"

his calling of her name wakes her up properly. she doesn't know how he does it but whenever tsuna speaks to her at this time of night, he makes her name sound like a deathly important secret that he's never told anyone and won't ever beyond her.

"what can i say, i'm simply perfect." sitting up, she leans her back against a cool wall that makes her shiver a little. "so, what do you want with the perfect moi?"

a short, choked laugh, followed by some deep, calming

eaths. "...i just couldn't sleep."

ah. again. kahiro sees tsuna in her mind's eye, leant against a wall like her and clutching the phone with sweaty hands, covers thrown off his bed again due to panicked movements in his sleep. "did i tell you the story about this girl who sleep walked at mine this one time and threw a feather boa at me so i woke up to think a duck was attacking me?"

"i can honestly say you haven't." more choked laughter.

"it was a very serious situation you know…" kahiro spins the tale with as loud and optimistic voice as she dares, only too aware that if her parents heard she'd be lectured on calling friends in the middle of the night. but she pushes the boundaries because she knows this is what tsuna needs right now: the sound of her happy, content, stress-free voice.

the knowledge she's safe that had be got from hearing her babble on about nothing important whatsoever.

"...and of course sports is my turf so i started telling him exactly that you don't play basketball like that!" she huffs dramatically, expecting the usual peals of laughter to respond to her story. and she gets it, except the laughs become strained towards the end and are audibly being forced out of his throat. "tsunayoshi?" her voice gets quieter suddenly as a direct result of his a

upt disappearance of amusement at her story.

a sharp intake of

eath. "sorry, i just remembered reborn was in the same room as me and my laughter is fairly...loud."

she resists the urge to wince. he's awful at lying-he rarely

ings up reborn in conversations and only then he uses the infant as an excuse for something. anyway, if the arcobaleno really cared about his laughing, he would have made it very much known by now. "tsunayoshi, what's wrong?"

kahiro can practically hear him debating whether he should tell her or not. "i just...i can't help thinking about what my turf has to be." he's whispering into the phone, making every word sound as though its a secret to take to the grave. "you have your sport and athletics, yamamoto has his baseball, ryohei has his boxing and i have-" tsuna cuts off with a sigh. "the mafia. my turf is the mafia."

kahiro's whole body tenses because tsuna never initiates conversations about the mafia with her, he always steers away from them instead. "you aren't being-"

"fair? it's true though, isn't it? the mafia stuff is the only stuff i know how to do." there's the sound of his clothes rustling and she can see him curling in more on himself now. "my turf is the mafia that only serves to get the people around me into danger."

the girl thinks

iefly before responding. "is this about your nightmare?"

his pause answers her question more quickly than his words. "...you knew?"

a laugh intended to be reassuring. "well, it was an educated guess."

"i'm a pathetic friend." his small voice makes her jolt. "all i do is get you into danger and then lean on you for help because of a nightmare."

but the nightmare is about you thinking i'd died back there, she wants to say but kahiro's too horrified by his words to get them out of her mouth.

"i'm sorry, kahiro."

his apology, barely audible, forces her to choke out a jumbled mess of words that she stumbles over when saying. "fifteen minutes, i'll- i'll text you, alright?"

tsuna begins to ask what she means but kahiro hangs up before he can and he stares at his phone for a few moments. there's an irrational wave of despair that only hits him at night when the world is quiet enough for his nightmares to be louder and he convinces himself for a

ief while that the girl agrees with him and he is a pathetic friend. but he