Chapter 35 – The Second Remaining Problem
Novel Title: 跨越千万星辰 (Across Thousands of Stars)
Author：御小凡 (Yu Xiaofan)
Translator: K (@kin0monogatari)
Protagonists: 泽田纲吉 (Sawada Tsunayoshi -MC), 六道骸 (Rokudo Mukuro -ML)
*Please read at Novels Space.space, the original site of translation. TQ*
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After continuous psychological construction and physical adjustments, Tsuna looked no different from usual. As long as he didn’t think about that annoying guy, he indeed felt no pressure. The accumulated work of these past few days had already squeezed his life enough. He no longer had the energy to spend his thoughts on educating that scum.
Currently, for Tsuna, the most troublesome thing was Reborn’s daily escort home. If he said he was staying in a hotel, it’s easy to imagine the kind of questions he would have to face. But he didn’t want anyone else to know about this. So Tsuna could only be dropped off at his own apartment building every day. He waited until Reborn left and then walked to the hotel.
And so…two days passed by like that. And then, he received a call from Takahiro Hirano.
Tsuna still would entertain Mukuro’s school teacher no matter what. After exchanging a few polite words with him, he began to ask the purpose of the call.
“Mukuro hasn’t come to school for five days,” Hirano’s voice also sounded helpless. Namimori High School’s management was lax. Otherwise, he wouldn’t only know about it today. “He had asked for leave for the first two days. But for the last three days, we haven’t been able to contact him at all. I wanted to ask if something happened at home.”
Could I really tell you what happened?
What mischief is this kid up to again?!
After a few seconds of confusion, Tsuna calmed down. “Do his classmates have any idea where he went?”
Hearing that even the student’s parent was asking this, Hirano understood the seriousness of the situation. “They have no idea. I went to his house, but no one was there. You’re not at home either?”
Tsuna definitely wouldn’t be found at his own house these past few days. He was holed up in a hotel. After exchanging a few words with Hirano, he hung up the phone irritatedly and pondered for a while. In the end, not trusting the situation, he dialled Mukuro’s phone.
“The user you’re trying to reach is out of the service area.“
If he’s not really in some remote area, then he probably removed the battery.
Tsuna gritted his teeth and called Kyoko to ask for Dokuro’s phone number. The girl said she didn’t know where Mukuro was either. Tsuna then asked her for Ken’s and Chikusa’s phone numbers.
As a result, these two people also said they hadn’t heard from Mukuro in the past few days.
Tsuna suddenly had a headache. He sat in his office chair, turning left and right in frustration. Eventually, without realising it, he lightly patted the armrest and let out a long sigh.
He got up and grabbed his bag. He left the office and gave a couple of messages to Ryo-nii who ended up confused. He then sent a text message to Reborn as he walked to the taxi stand.
Twenty minutes later, Tsuna was at the doorstep of his own house. He hesitated for a moment before mocking himself for hesitating even when he had reached this point. He took out his keys and unlocked the door.
Whether it was his imagination or not, the sound of the door unlocking seemed unusually heavy. Once the door was opened, Tsuna furrowed his eyebrows. The air in the house was heavy with a stale odour. It was as if the windows hadn’t been opened for days.
The place didn’t look like anyone had been living in it at all. He had been somewhat uncertain before. But now that he was here, Tsuna’s heart tightened. Without even taking off his shoes, he rushed into Mukuro’s bedroom.
No one was there.
Tsuna’s mind was a bit dazed. He quickly took out his phone and called Mukuro’s number. He dialled twice in a row. But of course, it was still out of the service area. Leaning against the door, he stared blankly for a while, not sure of what to do.
What’s going on? Missing for five days? Plus the two days of taking care of himself, where did he go for the remaining three days? He left as soon as I did?
Holding his forehead, he returned to the living room sofa. A mixture of anger and worry filled him. Regardless of what Mukuro had done, he was just a high school student. Him disappearing for three days was definitely not something to be taken lightly about.
Tsuna looked around the room. It seemed that in just a few days, the warmth had disappeared completely. Though it was his own home, the atmosphere had changed so much.
Suddenly, his gaze froze and slid to his bedroom door. It was partially opened. It was just like the rest of the room, looking quite dishevelled. Tsuna suddenly stood up and walked a few steps to the bedroom door. He pushed it open and saw a lump on his bed.
“Mukuro!” He angrily shouted this out without hesitation. But the lump on the bed only moved slightly and gave no other response.
Daring to pretend to be dead with me!
Tsuna walked over with an annoyed expression. The lump was because his whole body was wrapped in a blanket. Only his hair was sticking out from the top. He didn’t seem to mind the blanket being pulled away. He remained curled up with his eyes closed without reacting.
Tsuna was about to say something. But then he noticed that Mukuro was still wearing the same clothes as when he left. Had he not changed his clothes in these few days? He suddenly had a suspicion, “Have you been lying in this bed for three days straight?”
Mukuro didn’t make a sound. He only moved his head a bit and buried his face in the pillow.
“Get up and talk to me properly!” Tsuna sat down on the bed with furrowed eyebrows. He forcefully pulled him up. Mukuro, with half-opened eyes, looked terrible. His lips were dry and colourless. Even his overall expression seemed somewhat dazed.
“You…” Tsuna’s mind spun for a moment, looking at Mukuro’s state. He then tried hard to compose himself. “You’ve been lying in bed without eating or drinking for three days and nights?!”
Mukuro responded after a while. He moved his head slightly and made a sound. But then there was no other reaction.
“You dare to pretend to be dead!” Tsuna’s head was spinning. He felt a bit dizzy. How did this guy hold up for so long without eating or drinking anything?
“And you’re in the mood to laugh!” Tsunayoshi’s head was pounding. He couldn’t believe that this brat was trying to provoke him. How could he have the audacity to provoke him even after everything that had happened? Wasn’t he the one who had spoiled this kid to be this stubborn?
“Okay, come with me to the hospital quickly. Do you even realise what you look like?” Tsuna grabbed Mukuro’s wrist and tugged at him. The other party fell to the side weakly. He resumed the curled up posture from before. This time, his back was turned to Tsuna.
“No.”
In an instant, Tsuna staged a galloping beast performance in his heart. He just wanted to grab this guy by the neck and yell at him; “You brat will die!” But the skin he just touched with his palm was not of a normal body temperature. So he quickly bent down and lowered his head to feel Mukuro’s forehead. The other party did not refuse him.
Sure enough, he had a low-grade fever and was still sweating profusely.
“Anyway…” a low and extremely aggrieved voice said, “You don’t even want me anymore.”
Tsuna stopped in his tracks. He looked at the back of Mukuro’s head speechlessly.
Who was the one who got fucked that day… He wondered. Why was he the one feeling like he did something wrong now?
After all, the boy in front of him is none other than Rokudo Mukuro.
It was the person who has lived with him day and night for nearly six years. No one has lived with him for such a long time except his parents. It is this person who has been watched over by himself and has been watched over by him for so long. From the time when he was a child and looked like a delicate doll, he had watched how he turned into such a handsome boy step by step.
Tsuna had to admit that even though Mukuro had done such a bad thing to him, he couldn’t simply leave this guy alone.
After a while, he asked him with a straight face, “Are you doing this on purpose?”
The body lying on the side flinched.
Sighing, Tsuna understood this person’s character quite well in this respect. How could he seek death just like that? This was a tough trick. The purpose is to make Tsuna soft-hearted.
Well, it was kind of successful.
“Mukuro.” He sighed and called Mukuro’s name, full of helplessness. There was nothing he could do about this kind of conniving personality since he was just a child, “You have to know that this time, you are very wrong.”
Mukuro muffled back a few words, “I just did something that made both of us feel good.”
“Was that the kind of thing that you should do to me? We are both men. And I am your guardian. In fact, for the legal relationship, you should have called me Dad.”
Sitting up immediately, Mukuro looked straight at Tsuna with frighteningly bright eyes, “But I never regarded you as a father!!”
He had lost too much energy after all so, after saying this loudly, Mukuro frowned in pain. His breathing became short of breath.
Without rebutting immediately, Tsuna just looked back at him quietly. He spoke again after a while, “Whether you treat me as a father or not, I should not be the object of your desire.”
Mukuro laughed out loud and took a deep breath, “I didn’t fuck you to deal with my desire. Don’t you understand? I have that desire because I yearn for you.”
The conversation has never been so naked before. Tsuna did not answer. But Mukuro kept asking, “Why can’t I have desires for you? Is it wrong? Is it wrong for me to like you?”
His tone was so insistent and stubborn. His extremely fast speech seemed aggressive. But Tsuna was silent. He didn’t know how to make it clear to Mukuro. In the end, he just lightly changed the focus to another subject, “It is against the law to have sex without the consent of the other party. And have you considered the harm and insult this kind of thing will cause to the other party?”
“Then what do you want me to do? If it wasn’t for that, even if you know what I feel for you, would you just tell me that it’s wrong? Would you then smile and get farther and farther away from me? I want you. This… I can’t control this kind of thing.”
Due to long-term hunger and thirst, Mukuro’s brain’s ability to control emotions plummeted devastatingly. It was hard for Tsuna to imagine that Mukuro could be so out of control in normal times. Mukuro thought that he should just smile and make things work out. Maybe there are other ways to make things work out if he thinks more about it. There was no need to have such a quarrel with Tsuna. He could deceive him and conceal a lot of things. He could gradually lead Tsuna towards where he wanted and finally own him completely. He’s very good at this kind of calculative thinking since has been doing it for a long time. He was also successful most of the time.
But now Mukuro doesn’t want to do this anymore. He was so tired that he was flustered. It was as if suddenly all his attachments were meaningless, “You said you’d be with me forever. You said you’d forgive me no matter what wrong I did. You said so.”
Those promises had literally come out of Tsuna’s mouth. It left him a little speechless. Tsuna looked at Mukuro with his head bowed. His forehead was covered with his bang, covering his eyes. His lips were pursed in a frown. It made the teenager look like a frustrated child.
Tsuna opened his mouth to speak. But before he could speak, Mukuro spoke again in a low voice, “You don’t even know.”
It’s not so much a confession. It was more of him reflecting on himself, “You don’t even know what Tsunayoshi Sawada means to Rokudo Mukuro. I was just a shell. There was nothing beautiful about this world to me. Even if I just die, I will not feel regretful.”
His voice gradually softened. There was a profound indifference in it. But this indifference took Tsuna’s breath away. It was the first time he heard Mukuro talk about the past. He talked about his thoughts and feelings before he was 12 years old.
The children who survived from the hell on earth were destined to have eccentric personalities.
“It’s you who showed the colours of this world to me. Whether it’s common sense or deeper feelings, these things in me are attached to you. Why can’t I like you, the one who gave me these? How could I not like you when you gave me these things?”
Mukuro finally raised his head for Tsuna to see his expression. Those eyes captured Tsuna’s heart instantly.
They were deep and persistent. It was heart-wrenching to look at.
He didn’t dare to look directly but also couldn’t move his eyes away. He just felt that the softest part of his heart was collapsing in pain.
Forget it…….
There was no need to bother on this matter anymore.
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*Author’s Note:
[This is unrelated to the story. It’s an interview time about food]
Author: Since the London Olympics just concluded, let’s talk about impressions of British food.
Tsunayoshi: [Thinking] “No matter what kind of ingredients, I have the confidence to make them look completely unappetizing.” That’s the feeling… Maybe this is also a remarkable talent…
Mukuro: [Shrugs] “Making what goes in and what comes out look the same.”
AN: Two for two. |||||||||
-YXF
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Next update: Tomorrow
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