A/N: Uh, quick note, I s’pose. Yes, I keep up with the anime, and the manga, before anyone asks, so yeah, no pulling once-overs on me. However, if I’ve spelled anything wrong, or you feel like I’ve made some terrible error, feel free to tell me! :3 That’s all, I think. Enjoy!

Side note: Yes, this supposed to be after the TYL timeskip.

Familiar Stranger

“Sawada…looks different, doesn’t he?” Hana was the first one to notice when they came back from the future. “You do a little bit, too, but not as much as him. What happened?”

Kyoko looked taken aback by the offhand comment on their way home. She stared at her friend for a good minute before she let out a small smile. “We can’t stay ignorant forever, can we?”

Her best friend gave her a strange look, but decided to wait for the Sasagawa girl to continue. She sounded whimsical, and far-off, but not like she was finished. “So, what is about him that makes him look so different?”

“He’s growing up, Hana-chan,” She noted honestly, simply. “Aren’t we all? Tsuna-kun’s just got tougher things to go through to get there than we do.”

“That’s all?” The dark-haired young woman with long hair remarked with a slightly disappointed scowl. “Here I thought something impressive about him had changed.”

There was silence for another moment before Kyoko spoke again, her orange-russet hair shining in the afternoon sunlight, laughing first. “You’re usually the one that notices stuff so keenly, Hana-chan. You haven’t this time?”

“Like what?” Her best friend prodded, sounding very put-off that she hadn’t. “The only thing I’ve noticed is that him and all his friends have been missing a lot of school, and that he’s been wearing that flashy ring on his finger since he came back from that one week disappearing act.” Her dark eyes flitted to Kyoko as she finished up with, “With you, I might add.”

“That too, I suppose,” The young woman remarked, coming to a stop outside of her house. “I mean…his eyes. And in P.E. You haven’t noticed any of that?” Hana shook her head, and her friend let out a knowing smile. “I’m sure you’ve just chalked it up to my liking him, and maybe you’re right, but then again, I know him better than you.”

Hana just let her ramble—when it came the people she loved, Kyoko was a fierce worrier, but it seemed with Sawada Tsunayoshi, she calmed down instead. “And? Let’s hear what I seem to have been missing, oh brave befriender of perverts,” Hana finished, earning a giggle from Kyoko.

“His eyes are full of confidence, now,” She started, and as she began pointing things out, Hana stood listening, recalling that yes, the last time they’d spoken face to face, he surely hadn’t seemed so like his usual ‘No-good-Tsuna’ self. With a quiet smile, he’d waved her off, and trotted off to join his friends, sliding into an easy pace with them, despite how most of them fended off people with their abrasive attitudes. “He’s finally starting to accept the way things are, and his friends hold all their trust in him as a leader.” Although Kyoko wasn’t going into details about those things, Hana wondered how she had discovered these, although she had seen none of that. “You should hear my brother talk about him—he always has wonderful things to say about Tsuna-kun.” Her eyes bugged out at that, but her friend carried on, dismissing her expression with a giggle. “But most of all,” Her smile was small now, and serious. “He’s become really strong.”

“How do you figure that?” Hana grumbled, sounding not at all trusting of her revelation. “Not one thing about Sawada has told me that he’s gotten stronger, Kyoko.”

“In phys-ed, he’s just acting,” Kyoko stressed the last word, making her friend shocked again. “I’ve seen him let out his real strength before. To protect me,” she noted faintly, her eyes shining gratefully. “It’s almost funny how strange it is to see him tripping over soccer balls and falling in the dirt, all of it with a smile.” She had noticed that—when had it stopped hurting? And bruising? “The teachers would have a field day if they saw what he could really do.”

“Kyoko,” Hana finally asked before her friend drifted off into dreamland. “How did you figure all this out about Sawada?”

“Well, it’s a long story. One I’m probably not allowed to tell. But as for the simple observations—those were easy. Tsuna-kun wears his heart out on his sleeve, you know.” She stated that factually, and her friend nearly chuckled at that—that she had known for a long, long time. “Maybe one day I can tell you, Hana-chan, but until then, you’ll just have to trust me.”

Her friend cocked an eyebrow, but hitched her bag back over her shoulder. “Alright. If you say so.” With a resolve to notice everything Kyoko had at school the following day, she waved goodbye. Coincidentally, as she was leaving, turning around to go towards her own home, she ran into a certain spiky-haired brunette walking along and chatting with the smoking, silver-haired teen who wore a bright smile she’d never seen on his face before. Both of them looked happy, and calm, but then the taller of the two branched off, and she waited to see what happened, her suspicions of their direction confirmed.

Sawada Tsunayoshi stopped outside of the Sasagawa household with a smile, Kyoko leading him inside with a smile to match. “Mom made dinner for you, Tsuna-kun. I hope you like traditional Japanese food!” Hana’s eyes bugged out when he made no awkward remark back, only laughed a little bit, and followed her inside, teasing. “Maybe a little less than Italian food,” he finished, and Hana was nearly confused.

Then, she shook her head with a small smile and continued to head home. Maybe those two idiots would get together at last, especially if Sawada was already frequenting their house for dinner on school nights.

-

“Hana was curious. I had to tell her something,” Kyoko had said with a grin after dinner, where she, Ryohei (who was watching sports with their father), and Tsuna himself were reclined, chatting. “I didn’t let on anything about the mafia. I don’t think it’s time for that…yet.”

“In the future, she was a reliable friend still, right?” Tsuna had checked and received a small nod in reply. “I’ll do my best to protect her as well, then. I wouldn’t want anyone you consider close to be hurt, either.”

She flushed a little at that, but did little else. “Anyways, how was your day, Tsuna-kun?”

He started with a satisfied smile. “P.E. was terrible! I felt like I was moving too slow, and that Reborn might pop out of the bushes and shoot me if I didn’t go faster, but then I remembered that I had to keep face, since it was school.”

“You should just smoke them all, Sawada!” Ryohei noted loudly, as usual. “Show them who’s the most extreme boss at Namimori Middle!”

“Hibari-san would kill me for trying,” The young man sighed at that, and Kyoko laughed. Ryohei continued on, ranting on about how Hibari was this and that. “Other than that, Kyoko-chan, nothing really happened. I nearly failed my science quiz, but I surprised even myself when I got a seventy-two. As for geography, we can thank Reborn for my flying colors—he’s been drilling me on that nonstop, even through training, saying that it’s important for a mafia boss to know where everything is.”

“Sounds tough,” The young woman murmured, and he waved that statement off with a smile. “You’ll be alright though, won’t you?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Tsuna replied easily, and glancing down at his watch (a gift from the ninth after their tale of the future had been told) and realizing how late it was. “Well, thanks for dinner. Tell your mother it was delicious.”

“Will do, Tsuna-kun,” She hopped up to walk him to the door. Ryohei yelled goodbye from the couch, his eyes still trained on the television before he suddenly beat them out the door and started flailing about their yard. “Take care of yourself, alright?”

“Yeah, I will,” He said softly, stepping outside with a calm smile. Once he discovered that his Sun Guardian was running about wildly, he soothed him with words, and made him burn that excess energy off in his usual way—going for a jog around the city. Kyoko stared after his silhouette until he was long-gone, and her amber eyes shut as she thought back on Hana’s statement earlier.

“Sawada…looks different, doesn’t he?” With a quiet smile, she remembered all his various faces and phases—awkward, brave, curious, stunned, and scratched—in one form of himself, his brown eyes were full of warmth and a quiet confidence that was slowly building, and in another, his amber eyes shined with determination and were thinking ahead of his enemies. Kyoko laughed a little bit to herself.

Little does she know, she thought, that Tsuna’s the soon-to-be leader of the best mafia family in Italy. I’d surely say he looks different.