[Reborn fic] Six Days at the Bottom of the Ocean
Gen, sort of fluff.
I fear I might offend hearing-impaired readers. If anyone reading this develops a massive dislike for this fic, please tell me and I'll fix the bad parts/take the whole thing down, depending on the amount of damage I've caused. Honest.
No timeframe for this, but it's definitely not as far ahead as 10 years later. Sometime in the near future maybe, during an arc that hasn't happened yet.
Six Days at the Bottom of the Ocean
A few days after the battle, Gokudera vanished. He left a text message with Tsuna saying he wanted to go off and train some more, which was not a new thing - but what happened prior to this message spoke volumes to Tsuna.
Gokudera had been behaving strangely. Whenever he was required to be present, he didn't say a word to anyone and seemed exceptionally watchful - moving into the shadows, out of the way. He skipped classes and begged off from most informal outings, claiming he had "something he had to do." Worst of all, whenever he listened to Tsuna speak, he seemed focused on some unpleasant thought, looking desperate and more than a bit lost.
Of course Tsuna had to ask Reborn about it. Reborn told him, simply, to let Gokudera go his own way. He'd chosen to deal with whatever he was dealing with on his own; it wasn't anyone's place to mess with that.
But in the same breath, Reborn said "Oh by the way, Yamamoto's off for some training, too." He said this so nonchalantly that Tsuna was led to believe it was pointless to worry about kids his own age going off to "train" in unknown parts all by themselves.
Omission isn't exactly a sin in the mafia. Needless to say, were some things that went on without certain people needing to know about it.
Yamamoto went off to "train" where Gokudera was, for example, without anyone else knowing about it. Especially Gokudera.
As a result, Yamamoto was almost sliced, diced and mutilated by the defense system set up by Gokudera to protect his cozy little cabin in the middle of nowhere. Fortunately, being Yamamoto, he was able to slice, dice and mutilate the system's outer perimeter before he could get so much as a scratch.
And being Yamamoto, he got an earful from Gokudera as soon as he was allowed through.
He should have noticed it while Gokudera was showing him to the guest room, grumbling and bitching all the way that he wanted to be ALONE, how difficult was that to understand, a fact like that could only fail to penetrate the thickest of skulls. Gokudera was talking on and on like he was sure Yamamoto wasn't listening, like he didn't want to hear anything Yamamoto had to say.
But realization didn't come until later, over lunch, when Yamamoto cheerfully informed Gokudera that Reborn had sent him over to hone his reflexes with the help of Gokudera's security systems (and, in effect, to train with Gokudera) and in a fit of rage, Gokudera threw a glass of water against the opposite wall.
There was a high-pitched keening noise; an alarm was set off somewhere. Yamamoto asked "Do you hear that?" And Gokudera, whose back was to him, seemed as if he didn't. "I think your house hates that you broke stuff," Yamamoto remarked, and Gokudera said nothing. But several seconds later, Gokudera's gaze fell on a flashing red light on the ceiling. And that was the only time he moved, unhurriedly, to a hidden panel on the wall of the cabin, pressed a few buttons, and shut the keening and the flashing off.
"Go back to the baby and tell him you don't need training," Gokudera spat. "And tell him I don't need anybody looking after me, least of all you."
As Gokudera started to walk out of the dining room, Yamamoto started to say he was being unreasonable. It wouldn't be so bad, in fact it would be good for the two of them, and that worse comes to worse he would just stay out of Gokudera's way.
But Gokudera couldn't hear anything.
Yamamoto was the one who proposed that he fight his way through the security sytems, and once he was out, he wouldn't bother Gokudera again.
"I'll make it easy for you," Gokudera said. He shut off all the defense systems and stood with his arms folded across his chest, waiting for Yamamoto to leave.
It couldn't be that easy, Yamamoto said patiently. He needed to come back with a few cuts and bruises, at least, just to prove to Reborn that he had actually been there and done exactly what was required of him.
"I'd happily supply the required amount of bodily harm," Gokudera acidly replied, "if I were feeling up to it. But I'm not, so just go away already."
What's the harm in letting him stay? Yamamoto challenged. He won't be any problem. He'll cook and clean and not to offend, but god knows Gokudera needs someone to tidy up after him.
Besides, Yamamoto said calmly, nobody else has to know.
Gokudera stared into his eyes for a long time, searching for signs of malice, particularly blackmail. But he found none; he only found concern and a quiet resolve that his own noisy one couldn't quite match up to.
When he had finally accepted that he couldn't win, he sighed, "Fine, just as long as we're clear that I don't need any help, okay?"
Okay, Yamamoto said readily enough. Is this the first time this happened?
"Of course not, you moron. You work with explosives and automatic guns, it's a fact of life. Even doctors can't help. Sometimes I go deaf two, three days in a row."
And now?
Gokudera fumbled for an answer for a split second, but quickly settled on "It's no big deal, all right?"
Yamamoto thought it wise not to say anything more about it.
They spent the rest of the day discussing their impromptu training routine: the plan (Gokudera decided) was that Gokudera was to design and build obstacle courses, "danger rooms" (prototypes of which already existed under the ground, accessible from the cabin, for Gokudera's exclusive use), that Yamamoto would have to overcome. At a total of three rooms, an average of two days per room, they would have six days to get through a whole training routine, and by the time they had fulfilled Reborn's request to train Yamamoto's reflexes, Gokudera would be "fine" and able to return to the front lines.
Yamamoto let him talk. At first, Gokudera still raised his eyes to see if Yamamoto wanted to say or ask anything. But toward the end he forgot and just kept on talking.
Day 1
...was a cinch. Gokudera had planned it like that. He thought it would take Yamamoto a maximum of 12 hours to get through the first room at least, and hopefully the experience would lull him into a false sense of security, because he could certainly be a lot tougher.
Yamamoto finished with the first room in five hours.
So he was a lot faster than Gokudera gave him credit for. He would have to make the next room much harder.
The first thing Yamamoto did upon leaving the first "danger room" was head for the kitchen. Without Gokudera saying anything, he prepared a meal for the both of them: an assortment of nigirizushi that was infinitely healthier than the 3-minute pasta mixes Gokudera had resigned himself to subsisting on, while waiting to recover.
Maybe Yamamoto had asked him what he wanted to eat, and he just failed to catch it. Maybe not. But the fact remained that Gokudera really wasn't looking forward to instant pasta.
Day 2
So the cooking wasn't bad. In fact, it was pretty good, even if Gokudera wasn't that fond of Japanese food. Yamamoto could even cook with hands that were shaking from exhaustion, which was always a plus.
He wasn't able to finish the second room in 24 hours, with breaks in between. Gokudera was pleased with himself. He would have to make the automatic rifles fire faster, perhaps, just to spice things up a bit, but there was no need to change their paths until Yamamoto was already finished.
Without thinking, on that day, Gokudera took the dinner plates from Yamamoto's trembling hands while they were on the way to being served. Yamamoto shot him a grateful smile and a phrase that he didn't catch because he had turned away.
Gokudera had instructed himself strictly not to speak, since with the loss of his hearing, he was aware that he had considerable trouble modulating the tone of his voice. Sometimes he spoke without knowing that he was shouting. Or whispered without knowing no one else could hear him.
So, as much as he wanted to thank Yamamoto for each hearty meal, he decided it would do no one any good to say it aloud. Besides, he didn't want the tardy bastard becoming too cocky.
Yamamoto said something. Gokudera caught the movement of his mouth at the corner of his eye. From across the dining table Gokudera raised his head, met Yamamoto's gaze, and raised his eyebrows in inquiry.
So Yamamoto repeated, slowly, so it would be easier to read his lips, "I said I'll be able to finish the last room in less than an hour. I'm already used to how your automatic rifles move."
Day 3
On days that were quieter than usual, Gokudera would pop in a classical piano CD, turn his beefed up sound system to "insanely loud" and lay flat on the floor.
He "heard" the music triggering his nerves, coursing through his body like a second heartbeat. When he could hear, the sensations energized him; when he couldn't, they comforted him.
But on that day, he was distracted. He could feel the vibrations caused by Yamamoto's training far underground, shaking the wires, shaking him awake, much like the sounds of anyone fighting to stay alive would.
When Yamamoto emerged from the "danger room" he only looked Gokudera straight in the eye once... and it was the look of someone who had been through too much, and was nowhere near done.
The rest of that day, the stereo was turned off. Gokudera listened to his own thoughts. What could the matter be, he asked himself, when Yamamoto had already warned him that he had memorized the paths of the automatic rifles - as a natural result, Gokudera recalibrated them to be more destructive, less predictable.
He couldn't be mad about that, could he?
Come dinnertime, however, when Yamamoto had had a shower and a good, long nap, he was his cheerful, unthinkingly chatty self. He tried making his own noodles from the available starch and water, and was even happier afterwards when he managed it.
Gokudera sighed, his anxiety completely dissipated.
They really needed a more efficient way to communicate.
Day 4
It was futile to try and teach Yamamoto sign language. He could remember the basics (baby-speak, really) like "eat" and "sleep" and "milk" (which stuck in his brain only because the motions amused the sense out of him)... but sentence construction and most adjectives went over his head.
Lip-reading usually worked, but when Yamamoto forgot himself and started chattering, Gokudera would groan or sigh as loudly as he could, then stride up and press the tips of three fingers against Yamamotos' windpipe. With a pointed look he would tell Yamamoto Now, TALK but the taller boy would laugh and bat Gokudera's hand away.
It took a while before the dense young man figured out that Gokudera could "hear" things from vibrations. Gokudera had tried to explain this to him with the use of stick figures, diagrams and wild gesticulations, but none of it worked. It was only when Gokudera lashed out and wrapped one hand around Yamamoto's throat - in anger, it seemed at the time - and then started to repeat everything Yamamoto was saying, that Yamamoto finally got a clue.
He was quite amazed with Gokudera for a bit, but he soon learned that Gokudera hated doing it - perhaps because it meant having to touch somebody he didn't particularly like.
As for Yamamoto, well, he didn't mind.
Day 5
In frustration, Gokudera took to yelling, without really caring how he sounded. Later he realized he really didn't care either if he got his point across. He just threw the words out there, because he needed to, because he was angry at something.
On the fifth day he realized he was perhaps angry because his hearing had not come back yet.
He dreamt of sounds, of noises, of people calling his name. But when he woke he heard nothing - only the loud pounding of his own heart as he thought Shit. Shit. It's never coming back.
I'll be like this forever. I'll never be of any use.
What he never told anyone was that losing his sense of hearing felt a lot like being underwater. He was surrounded by vague noises, vague perceptions, things that happened to anything else and anyone else, not to him. He was locked in with his own thoughts, which stimulated only as much as they stifled; every day he woke up feeling less and less himself.
When he wasn't on his guard, it felt like drowning.
Yamamoto skipped breakfast that day. He finished the second room that morning, and asked to see the third room that afternoon. Gokudera had wanted to caution him against it, because Yamamoto's body was not yet rested - the first day of the second room was especially taxing on him, and it showed in how low his bio-stats were while he finished his second run.
But Gokudera had tasked himself not to speak. So he tried to keep it in for as long as he could.
And yet, when from the corner of his eye he saw Yamamoto limping a bit - as he tried to make his way from one end of the kitchen to another, ever his infuriatingly cheerful self - Gokudera found that he couldn't help it.
"Listen you big idiot, this thing I made could kill you," he said, hoping his whisper wasn't too soft, or his shout wasn't too loud, or his words weren't comically garbled. "You gotta rest. This isn't a game. I won't go easy on you. Okay? If I don't get my hearing back, and I don't get used to it, you gotta be well enough to be the Tenth's right hand. You gotta be. All right? Can you get that into your empty skull?"
Yamamoto looked at him long and hard. It seemed he waited until Gokudera had stopped breathing heavily and shivering. Finally he said "Okay."
And then he put away the newly-cleaned dishes, and said nothing else.
Day 6
One day. He finished the third room in one day.
Gokudera didn't know what to tell him. He didn't know what language he should use. Bravo might not be perceived as it should be; Yoku dekimashita might be so formal as to be ridiculous.
So when Yamamoto emerged from the third room, bruised in several places and cooling down, he simply nodded. Yamamoto simply nodded back. Nothing needed to be said, after that.
That night Gokudera couldn't sleep. It was their last day of training, and tomorrow they were due to discuss getting back to Reborn and the rest.
Gokudera made up his mind that he couldn't face Tsuna. He had not spent enough time training himself. He needed more time to get used to his new condition - that was the most important thing. He could still be the right-hand man, in spite of the changes...
All he had to do was get used to it.
Without reason, without thinking too much, he sought the presence of Yamamoto. He wasn't sure why he needed Yamamoto's company; all he knew was that he needed to be with someone, and Yamamoto was there.
He slid open the door to the guest room, only to find it empty. The bed was neatly made and clearly not slept in.
For several minutes he searched with sharpened senses, like a wild cat would in the dark, looking for something it needed to live. Then a pine cone fell on his head.
He looked up, and saw Yamamoto waving at him from the roof.
The roof was cold and oddly comfortable, once you'd lent your body heat to the tiles. Gokudera was about to find some way to ask how Yamamoto was doing, if his bruises were healing up fast enough, but Yamamoto talked first, and then he didn't feel like asking anymore. He closed his eyes and, with the surface of his skin, listened.
For some reason, and for over twenty minutes, Yamamoto was talking passionately about the importance of being there for other people, as if it was one speech in a lifetime, and Gokudera privately snickered because all he heard - all he chose to hear - was the pleasant cadence of Yamamoto's voice.
Then there was silence. The tiles on the roof were still. Gokudera opened his eyes. All he saw were the stars, and the silence of the fortress he had built around himself.
Then Yamamoto grabbed Gokudera's right hand, and touched Gokudera's fingertips to his throat - the space in the collarbone where you could actually kill someone if you pressed down hard enough. Yamamoto pressed down gently, and his neck muscles were strangely soft and very, very warm.
Yamamoto said "Everything's going to be all right." And Gokudera felt those words burning.
The next morning, Gokudera woke to a peculiar sort of vibration. It didn't portend danger, he knew, so he didn't feel in a hurry to go and meet it head on. But at the same time, a sort of dread took over him, because -
Because from the bed, he could "hear" his older sister Bianchi's voice. And the Tenth's. And Haru's and Kyoko's and Lambo's (that BRAT!!), and even Reborn's, very rarely.
He rose well past 10 am. He was surprised to find that nobody minded. "Good morning, sleepyhead," was the worst he got, and he got it from everybody -
"Hey, genius," Sasagawa Ryohei had greeted, slinging one arm around both of Gokudera's shoulders. "You made a hell of a training ground here. Good thing the kid knew all the overrides. How come you had to keep it secret from the rest of us?"
Gokudera simply flashed a generic grimace, and pushed himself into the shadows, out of the way.
He went to a quiet spot in the rock garden outside the cabin, where he met "the kid," who was obviously waiting for him.
Obviously, you're still thinking about hiding it, was what Reborn's tiny fingers first said.
Gokudera stared at him. He stared back. How did he know?
After a while, Gokudera shook his head. I'm useless like this, he signed.
Reborn shrugged. His hands said, You would have been more useless if he hadn't come.
Gokudera froze for a second. What do you know? he demanded.
A bunch of things he said not to tell you, Reborn answered, with a guileless smile Gokudera felt like ripping off, one way or another.
That bastard, Gokudera said to himself. A spy for the enemy. So that was what he was.
He wanted you to know something, Reborn signed. He said, We're family. That means you don't have to face everything alone.
Gokudera looked back at the cabin. He saw Yamamoto through the window, sitting and laughing with the rest of the group.
He didn't expect it, but it happened anyway: his fingertips burned, taking him out of his thoughts, remembering the comforting warmth.
You should tell them, Reborn not-so-subtly instructed. He won't tell them for you. Neither will I. But there's nothing to worry about.
Reborn jumped off the rock he was sitting on and made his way back to the house.
At first, Gokudera told himself he was being stupid; he couldn't let himself believe it was all right. He would be disowned, of course, or at the very least taken out of the front lines because of his handicap, and the embarrassment would be too much for him to take. He would have to isolate himself again. With any luck, his hearing would return soon and it would all be back to normal.
And yet, when he looked through the window at the happy young faces inside, he couldn't imagine anything truly bad happening. The thought of staying away to heal - or not healing at all, maybe - suddenly didn't seem so bad.
His perpetually busy mind thought of the right words, the right way, of getting rid of his secret.
He imagined it would feel a lot like coming up for air.
I fear I might offend hearing-impaired readers. If anyone reading this develops a massive dislike for this fic, please tell me and I'll fix the bad parts/take the whole thing down, depending on the amount of damage I've caused. Honest.
No timeframe for this, but it's definitely not as far ahead as 10 years later. Sometime in the near future maybe, during an arc that hasn't happened yet.
Six Days at the Bottom of the Ocean
A few days after the battle, Gokudera vanished. He left a text message with Tsuna saying he wanted to go off and train some more, which was not a new thing - but what happened prior to this message spoke volumes to Tsuna.
Gokudera had been behaving strangely. Whenever he was required to be present, he didn't say a word to anyone and seemed exceptionally watchful - moving into the shadows, out of the way. He skipped classes and begged off from most informal outings, claiming he had "something he had to do." Worst of all, whenever he listened to Tsuna speak, he seemed focused on some unpleasant thought, looking desperate and more than a bit lost.
Of course Tsuna had to ask Reborn about it. Reborn told him, simply, to let Gokudera go his own way. He'd chosen to deal with whatever he was dealing with on his own; it wasn't anyone's place to mess with that.
But in the same breath, Reborn said "Oh by the way, Yamamoto's off for some training, too." He said this so nonchalantly that Tsuna was led to believe it was pointless to worry about kids his own age going off to "train" in unknown parts all by themselves.
Omission isn't exactly a sin in the mafia. Needless to say, were some things that went on without certain people needing to know about it.
Yamamoto went off to "train" where Gokudera was, for example, without anyone else knowing about it. Especially Gokudera.
As a result, Yamamoto was almost sliced, diced and mutilated by the defense system set up by Gokudera to protect his cozy little cabin in the middle of nowhere. Fortunately, being Yamamoto, he was able to slice, dice and mutilate the system's outer perimeter before he could get so much as a scratch.
And being Yamamoto, he got an earful from Gokudera as soon as he was allowed through.
He should have noticed it while Gokudera was showing him to the guest room, grumbling and bitching all the way that he wanted to be ALONE, how difficult was that to understand, a fact like that could only fail to penetrate the thickest of skulls. Gokudera was talking on and on like he was sure Yamamoto wasn't listening, like he didn't want to hear anything Yamamoto had to say.
But realization didn't come until later, over lunch, when Yamamoto cheerfully informed Gokudera that Reborn had sent him over to hone his reflexes with the help of Gokudera's security systems (and, in effect, to train with Gokudera) and in a fit of rage, Gokudera threw a glass of water against the opposite wall.
There was a high-pitched keening noise; an alarm was set off somewhere. Yamamoto asked "Do you hear that?" And Gokudera, whose back was to him, seemed as if he didn't. "I think your house hates that you broke stuff," Yamamoto remarked, and Gokudera said nothing. But several seconds later, Gokudera's gaze fell on a flashing red light on the ceiling. And that was the only time he moved, unhurriedly, to a hidden panel on the wall of the cabin, pressed a few buttons, and shut the keening and the flashing off.
"Go back to the baby and tell him you don't need training," Gokudera spat. "And tell him I don't need anybody looking after me, least of all you."
As Gokudera started to walk out of the dining room, Yamamoto started to say he was being unreasonable. It wouldn't be so bad, in fact it would be good for the two of them, and that worse comes to worse he would just stay out of Gokudera's way.
But Gokudera couldn't hear anything.
Yamamoto was the one who proposed that he fight his way through the security sytems, and once he was out, he wouldn't bother Gokudera again.
"I'll make it easy for you," Gokudera said. He shut off all the defense systems and stood with his arms folded across his chest, waiting for Yamamoto to leave.
It couldn't be that easy, Yamamoto said patiently. He needed to come back with a few cuts and bruises, at least, just to prove to Reborn that he had actually been there and done exactly what was required of him.
"I'd happily supply the required amount of bodily harm," Gokudera acidly replied, "if I were feeling up to it. But I'm not, so just go away already."
What's the harm in letting him stay? Yamamoto challenged. He won't be any problem. He'll cook and clean and not to offend, but god knows Gokudera needs someone to tidy up after him.
Besides, Yamamoto said calmly, nobody else has to know.
Gokudera stared into his eyes for a long time, searching for signs of malice, particularly blackmail. But he found none; he only found concern and a quiet resolve that his own noisy one couldn't quite match up to.
When he had finally accepted that he couldn't win, he sighed, "Fine, just as long as we're clear that I don't need any help, okay?"
Okay, Yamamoto said readily enough. Is this the first time this happened?
"Of course not, you moron. You work with explosives and automatic guns, it's a fact of life. Even doctors can't help. Sometimes I go deaf two, three days in a row."
And now?
Gokudera fumbled for an answer for a split second, but quickly settled on "It's no big deal, all right?"
Yamamoto thought it wise not to say anything more about it.
They spent the rest of the day discussing their impromptu training routine: the plan (Gokudera decided) was that Gokudera was to design and build obstacle courses, "danger rooms" (prototypes of which already existed under the ground, accessible from the cabin, for Gokudera's exclusive use), that Yamamoto would have to overcome. At a total of three rooms, an average of two days per room, they would have six days to get through a whole training routine, and by the time they had fulfilled Reborn's request to train Yamamoto's reflexes, Gokudera would be "fine" and able to return to the front lines.
Yamamoto let him talk. At first, Gokudera still raised his eyes to see if Yamamoto wanted to say or ask anything. But toward the end he forgot and just kept on talking.
Day 1
...was a cinch. Gokudera had planned it like that. He thought it would take Yamamoto a maximum of 12 hours to get through the first room at least, and hopefully the experience would lull him into a false sense of security, because he could certainly be a lot tougher.
Yamamoto finished with the first room in five hours.
So he was a lot faster than Gokudera gave him credit for. He would have to make the next room much harder.
The first thing Yamamoto did upon leaving the first "danger room" was head for the kitchen. Without Gokudera saying anything, he prepared a meal for the both of them: an assortment of nigirizushi that was infinitely healthier than the 3-minute pasta mixes Gokudera had resigned himself to subsisting on, while waiting to recover.
Maybe Yamamoto had asked him what he wanted to eat, and he just failed to catch it. Maybe not. But the fact remained that Gokudera really wasn't looking forward to instant pasta.
Day 2
So the cooking wasn't bad. In fact, it was pretty good, even if Gokudera wasn't that fond of Japanese food. Yamamoto could even cook with hands that were shaking from exhaustion, which was always a plus.
He wasn't able to finish the second room in 24 hours, with breaks in between. Gokudera was pleased with himself. He would have to make the automatic rifles fire faster, perhaps, just to spice things up a bit, but there was no need to change their paths until Yamamoto was already finished.
Without thinking, on that day, Gokudera took the dinner plates from Yamamoto's trembling hands while they were on the way to being served. Yamamoto shot him a grateful smile and a phrase that he didn't catch because he had turned away.
Gokudera had instructed himself strictly not to speak, since with the loss of his hearing, he was aware that he had considerable trouble modulating the tone of his voice. Sometimes he spoke without knowing that he was shouting. Or whispered without knowing no one else could hear him.
So, as much as he wanted to thank Yamamoto for each hearty meal, he decided it would do no one any good to say it aloud. Besides, he didn't want the tardy bastard becoming too cocky.
Yamamoto said something. Gokudera caught the movement of his mouth at the corner of his eye. From across the dining table Gokudera raised his head, met Yamamoto's gaze, and raised his eyebrows in inquiry.
So Yamamoto repeated, slowly, so it would be easier to read his lips, "I said I'll be able to finish the last room in less than an hour. I'm already used to how your automatic rifles move."
Day 3
On days that were quieter than usual, Gokudera would pop in a classical piano CD, turn his beefed up sound system to "insanely loud" and lay flat on the floor.
He "heard" the music triggering his nerves, coursing through his body like a second heartbeat. When he could hear, the sensations energized him; when he couldn't, they comforted him.
But on that day, he was distracted. He could feel the vibrations caused by Yamamoto's training far underground, shaking the wires, shaking him awake, much like the sounds of anyone fighting to stay alive would.
When Yamamoto emerged from the "danger room" he only looked Gokudera straight in the eye once... and it was the look of someone who had been through too much, and was nowhere near done.
The rest of that day, the stereo was turned off. Gokudera listened to his own thoughts. What could the matter be, he asked himself, when Yamamoto had already warned him that he had memorized the paths of the automatic rifles - as a natural result, Gokudera recalibrated them to be more destructive, less predictable.
He couldn't be mad about that, could he?
Come dinnertime, however, when Yamamoto had had a shower and a good, long nap, he was his cheerful, unthinkingly chatty self. He tried making his own noodles from the available starch and water, and was even happier afterwards when he managed it.
Gokudera sighed, his anxiety completely dissipated.
They really needed a more efficient way to communicate.
Day 4
It was futile to try and teach Yamamoto sign language. He could remember the basics (baby-speak, really) like "eat" and "sleep" and "milk" (which stuck in his brain only because the motions amused the sense out of him)... but sentence construction and most adjectives went over his head.
Lip-reading usually worked, but when Yamamoto forgot himself and started chattering, Gokudera would groan or sigh as loudly as he could, then stride up and press the tips of three fingers against Yamamotos' windpipe. With a pointed look he would tell Yamamoto Now, TALK but the taller boy would laugh and bat Gokudera's hand away.
It took a while before the dense young man figured out that Gokudera could "hear" things from vibrations. Gokudera had tried to explain this to him with the use of stick figures, diagrams and wild gesticulations, but none of it worked. It was only when Gokudera lashed out and wrapped one hand around Yamamoto's throat - in anger, it seemed at the time - and then started to repeat everything Yamamoto was saying, that Yamamoto finally got a clue.
He was quite amazed with Gokudera for a bit, but he soon learned that Gokudera hated doing it - perhaps because it meant having to touch somebody he didn't particularly like.
As for Yamamoto, well, he didn't mind.
Day 5
In frustration, Gokudera took to yelling, without really caring how he sounded. Later he realized he really didn't care either if he got his point across. He just threw the words out there, because he needed to, because he was angry at something.
On the fifth day he realized he was perhaps angry because his hearing had not come back yet.
He dreamt of sounds, of noises, of people calling his name. But when he woke he heard nothing - only the loud pounding of his own heart as he thought Shit. Shit. It's never coming back.
I'll be like this forever. I'll never be of any use.
What he never told anyone was that losing his sense of hearing felt a lot like being underwater. He was surrounded by vague noises, vague perceptions, things that happened to anything else and anyone else, not to him. He was locked in with his own thoughts, which stimulated only as much as they stifled; every day he woke up feeling less and less himself.
When he wasn't on his guard, it felt like drowning.
Yamamoto skipped breakfast that day. He finished the second room that morning, and asked to see the third room that afternoon. Gokudera had wanted to caution him against it, because Yamamoto's body was not yet rested - the first day of the second room was especially taxing on him, and it showed in how low his bio-stats were while he finished his second run.
But Gokudera had tasked himself not to speak. So he tried to keep it in for as long as he could.
And yet, when from the corner of his eye he saw Yamamoto limping a bit - as he tried to make his way from one end of the kitchen to another, ever his infuriatingly cheerful self - Gokudera found that he couldn't help it.
"Listen you big idiot, this thing I made could kill you," he said, hoping his whisper wasn't too soft, or his shout wasn't too loud, or his words weren't comically garbled. "You gotta rest. This isn't a game. I won't go easy on you. Okay? If I don't get my hearing back, and I don't get used to it, you gotta be well enough to be the Tenth's right hand. You gotta be. All right? Can you get that into your empty skull?"
Yamamoto looked at him long and hard. It seemed he waited until Gokudera had stopped breathing heavily and shivering. Finally he said "Okay."
And then he put away the newly-cleaned dishes, and said nothing else.
Day 6
One day. He finished the third room in one day.
Gokudera didn't know what to tell him. He didn't know what language he should use. Bravo might not be perceived as it should be; Yoku dekimashita might be so formal as to be ridiculous.
So when Yamamoto emerged from the third room, bruised in several places and cooling down, he simply nodded. Yamamoto simply nodded back. Nothing needed to be said, after that.
That night Gokudera couldn't sleep. It was their last day of training, and tomorrow they were due to discuss getting back to Reborn and the rest.
Gokudera made up his mind that he couldn't face Tsuna. He had not spent enough time training himself. He needed more time to get used to his new condition - that was the most important thing. He could still be the right-hand man, in spite of the changes...
All he had to do was get used to it.
Without reason, without thinking too much, he sought the presence of Yamamoto. He wasn't sure why he needed Yamamoto's company; all he knew was that he needed to be with someone, and Yamamoto was there.
He slid open the door to the guest room, only to find it empty. The bed was neatly made and clearly not slept in.
For several minutes he searched with sharpened senses, like a wild cat would in the dark, looking for something it needed to live. Then a pine cone fell on his head.
He looked up, and saw Yamamoto waving at him from the roof.
The roof was cold and oddly comfortable, once you'd lent your body heat to the tiles. Gokudera was about to find some way to ask how Yamamoto was doing, if his bruises were healing up fast enough, but Yamamoto talked first, and then he didn't feel like asking anymore. He closed his eyes and, with the surface of his skin, listened.
For some reason, and for over twenty minutes, Yamamoto was talking passionately about the importance of being there for other people, as if it was one speech in a lifetime, and Gokudera privately snickered because all he heard - all he chose to hear - was the pleasant cadence of Yamamoto's voice.
Then there was silence. The tiles on the roof were still. Gokudera opened his eyes. All he saw were the stars, and the silence of the fortress he had built around himself.
Then Yamamoto grabbed Gokudera's right hand, and touched Gokudera's fingertips to his throat - the space in the collarbone where you could actually kill someone if you pressed down hard enough. Yamamoto pressed down gently, and his neck muscles were strangely soft and very, very warm.
Yamamoto said "Everything's going to be all right." And Gokudera felt those words burning.
The next morning, Gokudera woke to a peculiar sort of vibration. It didn't portend danger, he knew, so he didn't feel in a hurry to go and meet it head on. But at the same time, a sort of dread took over him, because -
Because from the bed, he could "hear" his older sister Bianchi's voice. And the Tenth's. And Haru's and Kyoko's and Lambo's (that BRAT!!), and even Reborn's, very rarely.
He rose well past 10 am. He was surprised to find that nobody minded. "Good morning, sleepyhead," was the worst he got, and he got it from everybody -
"Hey, genius," Sasagawa Ryohei had greeted, slinging one arm around both of Gokudera's shoulders. "You made a hell of a training ground here. Good thing the kid knew all the overrides. How come you had to keep it secret from the rest of us?"
Gokudera simply flashed a generic grimace, and pushed himself into the shadows, out of the way.
He went to a quiet spot in the rock garden outside the cabin, where he met "the kid," who was obviously waiting for him.
Obviously, you're still thinking about hiding it, was what Reborn's tiny fingers first said.
Gokudera stared at him. He stared back. How did he know?
After a while, Gokudera shook his head. I'm useless like this, he signed.
Reborn shrugged. His hands said, You would have been more useless if he hadn't come.
Gokudera froze for a second. What do you know? he demanded.
A bunch of things he said not to tell you, Reborn answered, with a guileless smile Gokudera felt like ripping off, one way or another.
That bastard, Gokudera said to himself. A spy for the enemy. So that was what he was.
He wanted you to know something, Reborn signed. He said, We're family. That means you don't have to face everything alone.
Gokudera looked back at the cabin. He saw Yamamoto through the window, sitting and laughing with the rest of the group.
He didn't expect it, but it happened anyway: his fingertips burned, taking him out of his thoughts, remembering the comforting warmth.
You should tell them, Reborn not-so-subtly instructed. He won't tell them for you. Neither will I. But there's nothing to worry about.
Reborn jumped off the rock he was sitting on and made his way back to the house.
At first, Gokudera told himself he was being stupid; he couldn't let himself believe it was all right. He would be disowned, of course, or at the very least taken out of the front lines because of his handicap, and the embarrassment would be too much for him to take. He would have to isolate himself again. With any luck, his hearing would return soon and it would all be back to normal.
And yet, when he looked through the window at the happy young faces inside, he couldn't imagine anything truly bad happening. The thought of staying away to heal - or not healing at all, maybe - suddenly didn't seem so bad.
His perpetually busy mind thought of the right words, the right way, of getting rid of his secret.
He imagined it would feel a lot like coming up for air.