Chapter 6 – School
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)
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In the evening, Tsuna took Mukuro to a fastfood restaurant. He thought that children would love to eat this kind of meal. He didn’t expect that Mukuro, who began to show more and more emotions, emotionlessly finished eating without saying a word. He ate the meal with an expressionless face from beginning to end.
This situation was beyond Tsuna’s expectation so he tentatively asked, “Do you like the food here?”
“…I don’t dislike it”
Who are you trying to fool? You just obviously paused before answering! Tsuna thought.
But that’s fine. Fast food is not good for the body. If Mukuro ends up liking to eat this kind of food, he will have to worry about his diet. Of course, Tsuna completely ignored the fact that he was once addicted to eating all kinds of junk foods during his junior high school time.
It doesn’t make sense to get in a taxi after shopping at the supermarket since Tsuna couldn’t bear to squeeze a car with a child and many bags of things. But he had no other choice. When he got in the taxi, he began to think deeply whether he should go to get a driving licence or not.
“Ah!” Tsuna called out when he thought of something suddenly due to him thinking of going to a driving school. The taxi driver glanced at him in the rearview mirror in surprise. Tsuna tapped his forehead with his index finger in distress. He had forgotten an important matter.
Mukuro is 12 years old. According to his age, he should be going to school. But school will only begin in spring. So Mukuro will lose the opportunity to learn since he could only enrol a year later than his peers. Tsuna thought to himself that it is better for him to go directly to a junior high school.
But he wondered how to enrol Mukuro in a school since he has no academic qualifications and no foundation at all. Tsuna’s mind became blank. After thinking about it over and over again, he finally reached out to Ryo-nii for help. After all, Ryo-nii can be regarded as a public official, isn’t he?
Tsuna called him to ask about the matter. The other party happened to be planning the same thing for his own child. He was told that the government had taken into account the special background of these children and had already made corresponding notifications and arrangements for some schools. Therefore, these children won’t be having any difficulty enrolling in a school.
“My family members are now asking me to let them take care of Nagi. Which is really helpful.” Ryo-nii sighed to himself. He has been a single man all his life so it is really difficult for him to take care of a little girl. “That kid went to the house next door to borrow soy sauce. She’s my little rabbit. I hope that Nagi can be a little friendlier.”
Tsuna could almost imagine what that so-called ‘little rabbit who borrowed soy sauce from next door neighbour’ must have looked like. Tsuna sympathised with Ryo-nii and talked about his own situation as well. He couldn’t help but to boast a bit when he talked of his own children. “I’m fine with mine. This kid is already willing to get close to me. He’s become more talkative and he’s learning things quickly. Now, he knows how to heat food up at home by himself and would help clean the room.”
After chattering on the phone for a while, he felt a little embarrassed. Tsuna coughed twice to cover his embarrassment and took the initiative to bring the topic back to the original matter, “Then please help me with the formalities. I don’t care if the school is good or not. We should let them live a normal life first.”
The two also talked about how to help the children with tutoring. Although there are thousands of tutoring schools in the world, there is no tutor who was trained to deal with this kind of situation. Thus, they still lament on whether they can do the tutoring themselves. Kyoko is an elementary school teacher albeit being just an intern. There will be no problem for her to teach a child. Ryo-nii suggested that Tsuna send Mukuro to be tutored by her along with Nagi. Since she already will be teaching one child, there should be no problem to squeeze in one more.
This proposal is very tempting, but once Tsuna thinks about it in depth, it is also unrealistic. He has to go to work daily so he can only send Mukuro there after work hours. Kyoko lives not far from Tsuna’s house, but it is definitely not within walking distance. Tsuna was very unwilling to waste his and Mukuro’s time on the road. Therefore, he could only reluctantly reject the proposal.
After all, it is very inconvenient not to have a car.
Fortunately, even though Tsuna dares not to teach anything complex, at least he still dares to teach the lessons from the textbooks for elementary school students. His own elementary school textbooks at home have long been thrown away as combustible garbage. During this period of time, he would try to help Mukuro with some tutoring.
He first sorted out the basic knowledge that Mukuro has and was quite surprised to find that the child could recognize the alphabet chart, as well as some simple mathematical calculations.
“Hey, I wonder… who taught Muku to speak?” Tsuna asked casually when he saw the correct alphabet chart written by Mukuro silently. But he immediately regretted it as soon as he said it. Why did he bring this up? It might open some old wounds.
“They have someone to teach us.” However, Mukuro answered him expressionlessly as he turned the paper over and wrote the alphabets again silently. It was not that he wanted to strengthen his memory, but he wanted to get used to writing with a pen. “Sometimes, they found it bothersome if they couldn’t express their intentions clearly.”
Tsuna understood who ‘they’ are. He took a breath. Although he already had a certain understanding of those beasts in humans’ skins, he still felt that those ‘they’ were really… psychopaths.
Tutoring Mukuro went quite smoothly. It should be said that the smoothness surprised Tsuna. Even though the elementary school lessons are very simple, a 12-year-old child can understand all the knowledge of elementary school in only a month. Tsuna couldn’t help thinking if this child… is a genius?
For each progress of Mukuro in his learning, Tsuna would praise him effortlessly. He found that the child started to smile with the corners of his mouth curled up. Although it was always very short-lived and the child pretended not to smile, at least he has improved a lot in showing emotions, hasn’t he?
For this, Tsuna is very happy.
Regardless of whether Mukuro looks like a beautiful doll, or is so smart that he can be classified as a genius, Tsuna has no high expectations of him. What he hopes for the most is nothing more than Mukuro to gradually forget the past and live a normal and happy life similar to any ordinary children.
This is what Tsuna understood from his father’s words that… “If you choose to do something, you must be responsible for the decision you made.”
And since the child has been regarded as his own family member, this level of dedication is a given.
After the national school winter vacation is over, Mukuro will take the middle school entrance examination. After all, he skipped a whole elementary school year. Tsuna does not dare to take this matter lightly. The guy who would normally work overtime, suddenly turned into someone who would clock in and go home right on time. The department head couldn’t help but be curious about Tsuna’s recent private life.
“Have you got yourself a girlfriend?” His department head raised one eyebrow as he teased Tsuna. Tsuna didn’t know how to answer and secretly thought that if he told him directly that he didn’t have a girlfriend but he already has a child, what would his reaction be like?
This must not be said. The power of gossiping in the office cannot be underestimated at all.
Tsuna’s life then revolves around him going to work, taking care of the Mukuro, going to work, and taking care of Mukuro day by day. In a blink of an eye, it was already time for Mukuro to take the entrance exam. For the whole month, Mukuro stayed at home and studied. Tsuna watched him study without making a fuss. His quiet appearance made him feel distressed at first so he promised to take him to the amusement park after the exam.
When Mukuro heard the promise, he only looked up at him and then continued to bury his head in the book, exuding the aura of ‘I have no interest in this proposal’ all over his body. Tsuna insisted that it was just that he had no idea what the amusement park is about. Without understanding the concept, naturally Mukuro would not look forward to it. So he filled himself with some expectations of Mukuro enjoying his time when they were able to visit the amusement park after the exam.
The school that Ryo-nii applied for Mukuro was called Kokuyo Junior High, which had its own affiliated primary school and direct high school.
On the second day after learning the name of the school, Tsuna asked for leave and took Mukuro to Kokuyo Junior High to familiarise himself with the way there. This school has a school bus passing by on the street in front of his apartment building. To this, he is satisfied. But as soon as he arrived at the school, Tsuna had second thoughts.
To be honest, this school gives Tsuna a very bad feeling. There is an atmosphere of the school having lots of ‘bad influences’ in it. The school uniform is obviously green in colour, but seeing the students coming and going does not make anyone feel energetic at all. Rather, he felt gloomy. Nonetheless, when he thinks about it, a school that would allow a child like Mukuro to enrol while skipping so many grades should really not be a very good one…
He walked around the school from outside of the gate to take a look. The facilities are not looking bad. He couldn’t see more of what the inside looked like so he could just settle for less for now.
Standing at the school gate before leaving, Tsuna ran his fingers through Mukuro’s hair, “I have wronged you…”
“How’s that?” Mukuro didn’t look sideways at all when he followed Tsuna around the school. It was as if he didn’t care about where he would go to school in the future.
“From now on, you should go to junior high and then directly enter high school…” Tsuna bent down to look into Mukuro’s eyes. These eyes, which are now wearing coloured contact lenses, look no different from ordinary people. He reached out and touched the corners of Mukuro’s eyes with the pulp of his thumb. “Would it be uncomfortable if you wear them for a long time?”
“It’ll be fine.” Mukuro squinted his eyes slightly. The shape of his almond eyes was stretched into looking like phoenix eyes. Tsuna stood up straight, “Remember to take eye drops if your eyes feel uncomfortable.”
The child nodded. Tsuna took his hand and noticed that his body temperature was a little low so he couldn’t help but hold his hand tighter. It seems that even if he didn’t show it on his face, the child would feel cold in such weather, wouldn’t he?
When he came home, he seriously began to plan in his mind to learn how to drive.
The entrance exam only takes half a day to be completed which indicates how simple it should be. On the same day, Tsuna took a day off and waited at the gate of Kokuyo Junior High. The leave he had taken in the past two months was more than any that he had taken in the previous year.
Tsuna exhaled a breath and a white condensed mist formed in the air. Tsuna held the bottled black tea he brought in his coat pocket and felt relieved after confirming that it had not completely lost its heat. He looked at the school gate idly.
Half an hour later, the bell rang. Tsuna saw students coming out of the gate one after another and Mukuro was among them. He was walking with his head down, but suddenly he seemed to have noticed something and immediately raised his head to look in the direction of where Tsuna was standing.
Tsuna, who also saw him, waved at him. And when he approached him, he touched Mukuro’s face with the still warm black tea bottle in his pocket, “How did you do in the exam?”
Mukuro held the black tea bottle with both of his hands and replied indifferently, “I did okay.”
“So confident?” Tsuna raised his eyebrows in disbelief. In exchange for the little kid’s silent glance, he smiled and ruffled the top of Mukuro’s hair, “Okay. Then let’s just have some fun in the afternoon. Let’s go to the amusement park.”
Mukuro had an obvious ‘I don’t want to go’ expression on his face after hearing this. Tsuna squatted down halfway while laughing, “Muku, you missed a lot before. Whether it’s the things that you hate or the things that you like, you still have a lot of things to experience from now on. How can you know if you like or hate something if you don’t try to experience them?” Tsuna smiled as usual, “Didn’t we agree on this before? I will accompany you to find the things that you like one by one.”
Mukuro’s eyes were half drooped with his thin eyelashes. After a while, he slowly asked a question that he had wanted to ask for a long time.
“Why are you so nice to me?”
“Because Muku is my family.” Tsuna leaned forward, touching the tip of the child’s nose intimately. Their breaths intersected, intimately intermingle in the air. “I want to treat you well.”
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*Author’s Note: Tomorrow is Sunday, I probably won’t be online. So I will update the day after tomorrow -YXF
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*Translator’s Note: The eye shapes in Chinese are as included in the picture below – K
Next update: 2023.05.16
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