Chapter 7 – Accident
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)
֍֍֍
Three months after Mukuro entered school, Vongola’s Asian branch arranged a big project for the whole company. The company is releasing a new set of jewellery series with jade as the main gem. They will produce bracelets, earrings, brooches, rings and necklaces to be released on the market this summer. For the smooth launching of this jewellery series, all the staff members in the planning department, including Tsuna, are extremely busy. At this time, asking for leave is akin to asking for death. And all members of the department are the assassins.
Although Tsuna always tried his best to finish the work within working hours, he still returned home later than usual every day. Thus, Mukuro gradually became the cook for the Sawada family as a last resort. However, it was probably because Mukuro had watched Tsuna cooking the dishes attentively from the side every time, he became really decent when he was in charge of cooking now. There was no such thing as ‘the vegetables were burnt’ or ‘the soup was blant’ or ‘the omelette became a scrambled egg’ situation that Tsuna was worried about.
Facts have proven that a good mind is not only suitable for school, but also suitable for the kitchen. It only took half a month for Mukuro to adapt to the identity of the chef of the family. The two of them were able to go out with their home-made lunchbox everyday.
Seeing that Tsuna brought a lunchbox to work for the first time, the people around expressed all kinds of surprise and curiosity for him. After seeing it, Chief Kawahira smiled meaningfully to Tsuna and sincerely said, “If you get married, remember to send me an invitation.”
Tsuna felt helpless regarding the situation of the lunchbox. It turned out that the misunderstanding in the chief’s heart had spread to everyone in the office. People wondered if he is currently in a relationship and if it’s going well for him or if he is considering marrying.
However, there is no need for him to justify himself for this matter. Once he tried to, everyone would only gossip even more. Faced with many teasing eyes, Tsuna could only calmly eat the dishes from the lunchbox made by Mukuro and couldn’t help but only sigh in his heart.
In order to encourage Mukuro, no matter how busy he is or how late he gets home, Tsuna will definitely go home for dinner with an empty stomach. Even if it is too late, he will just eat a few biscuits at the company to ensure he won’t be too hungry. This is looking even more critical in everyone’s eyes. In fact, a girl who was actually secretly interested in Tsuna also gave up her thoughts to pursue him. He is about to get married, so what else is there to pursue?
Poor Tsuna didn’t even realise that his chance for getting a girlfriend was inexplicably cut off silently like this. He still insisted on the habit of going home to eat every day. However, as they got closer to summer, he went home even later at night. Basically, he didn’t want Mukuro to wait blindly for him until so late at night so he had to take the time to buy a mobile phone for Mukuro. With this, he can tell him directly if he doesn’t have to wait for him at night, go to bed early, or put the dishes into the refrigerator.
Because of the days of Tsuna going out very early in the morning and returning home very late at night, the time that Tsuna and Mukuro spend together suddenly decreased. It made him feel quite uneasy since this is the child’s adaptation period. Although Mukuro can get to school easily by train, he still deeply blamed himself as a parent. He felt that he had neglected his child and failed to fulfil his duty to care for Mukuro.
Later, this problem of insufficient communication was solved by modern technology so easily.
[Recipient: Muku
Topic: Today’s egg rolls are delicious
Content: But it’s quite salty. I’d like it to be sweeter.]
During lunchtime, Tsuna habitually sent text messages to Mukuro. Tsuna put away the lunchbox into a special bag. It was just a normal bag but it became special since the two of them went to the supermarket to buy it together. The bag was chosen by Mukuro. At least the child had revealed his picky character when choosing the design on the bag.
[Sender: Muku
Topic: Picky eaters don’t grow tall.
Content: You said so yourself.]
? !——At this age, can I still expect to grow any taller? Tsuna wondered to himself
The corner of Tsuna’s mouth twitched a little when he saw the text message. He obviously didn’t like eating sweet egg rolls, but out of the three times he made egg rolls, one must be salty. Did he do it on purpose?
Tsuna silently filled in the ‘Mukuro’s growth diary’ in his heart. This child is slightly black-bellied.
“Are you texting your girlfriend?” Enma’s voice suddenly fell on him. Tsuna looked up from his desktop and smiled helplessly, “Enma, are you here to tease me too?” Tsuna asked.
“For the part that you worked on before, the people in the marketing department said that there is still room to be revised. Their opinions were written on this.” He gave Tsuna a stack of papers. Enma’s question just now was just a casual joke and he didn’t mean it so seriously. After talking about business, he shrugged his shoulders and returned a smile to Tsuna, “These people are really inconsiderate. The marketing department wants us to start a new plan. It feels like a long time before the end of our hellish period.”
Tsuna was obviously only responsible for a small part of the whole proposal. Those assigned to his group have been dismembered, yet there are so many new suggestions…
Tsuna’s ability to pick and choose over these issues has risen to the point of impossibility.
Seeing his expression, Enma shook another stack of papers in his hand empathetically, “Look, I’m as occupied as you. Everyone is busy to the same extent. So you should take it slow.”
“The generation gap between departments is simply synonymous to the Mariana Trench. It’s filled with the unknown.” Unable to hold himself back from rubbing his temples with his hands, Tsuna complained in a bitter tone, “If it’s up to me, I really just want to resign and go home.”
Enma patted him on the shoulder and said to him very seriously, “If you resign, what will your girlfriend do?”
……………………
Fuck this imaginary girlfriend! Go to hell with marriage! This is all pure slander! Tsuna cursed in his head.
After Enma left, Tsuna flicked through the proposal depressedly. The more he looked at it, the more depressed he felt. This is like completely asking him to make a new proposal altogether! The launch date is already so close! Do those people in the marketing department have no sense of time or what?! Tsuna really felt like he wanted to throw this stack of papers on the table and yell at them for being ridiculous!
After reading the suggestions on the proposal halfway through, he gave up on continuing to read. Tsuna took out his mobile phone and looked at his messages. After dawdling for a long time, he wrote a text message to Mukuro.
[Recipient: Muku
Topic: Remember to drop eye drops
Content: Don’t forget this.]
The other party replied back in a few minutes.
[Sender: Muku
Topic: Will not forget
Content: I’ve set the alarm clock for this. Once every half an hour.]
Tsuna was dumbfounded and laughed. He was about to send a message when he suddenly remembered that this kid was supposed to be in class at this time, wasn’t he?
[Recipient: Muku
Topic: What are you doing now?
Content: You are not still in class, are you?]
Sure enough, the other party replied and said that he was in Chinese class.
[Recipient: Muku
Topic: You’re in class!
Content: Don’t play with your mobile phone during class time!]
After educating the kid, Tsuna finally turned around to face the proposal. He had long heard that the marketing department is like a field of hellish fire. He never thought that the brutality of this department could spread across departments all the way towards him. Speaking of which, Tsuna seems to have never met the head of that department. But he indeed heard that he is called Hibari… or something?
I really want to see what kind of person he is…, Tsuna thought bitterly.
After he was lost in his own thoughts for a while, he realised that things still needed to be done. With a mortal determination, Tsuna decided to devote himself to revise the proposal all day and night. And it was in such days without any respite that Tsuna received a call from Kokuyo Junior High.
The caller is Mukuro’s head teacher.
In the past few months, he was never worried about Mukuro in terms of studying or living. Thus, receiving this call made Tsuna faintly feel bad. The school invited him over and said that he couldn’t explain about what happened clearly through the phone. They wanted Mukuro’s guardian to come as soon as possible.
Such ambiguity is even more frustrating for Tsuna. He immediately withstood the enormous pressure and the murderous looks on everyone’s face with the morale of ‘If I can’t ask for leave, just consider me absent from work.’ The chief looked at him with worry; “Is your girlfriend about to give birth?” Tsuna almost couldn’t catch his breath when he was asked this.
Can the girlfriend be pregnant without sex?! How will you let me face this imaginary girlfriend in the future?! Can I even get myself a girlfriend?! My innocence has been ruined by this nonexistent girlfriend! Tsuna thought to himself tiredly.
But now is not a good time to explain himself. Let the gossip spread for all that he cared. What Tsuna is more worried about is what happened to Mukuro at school. He thought about all kinds of possibilities, but the answer he finally got completely put him out of his desperate situation.
They said that Mukuro pierced someone’s palm with chopsticks from a lunchbox.
It took Tsuna a long time to digest the subject, object and predicate of this sentence. He turned his head to look at Mukuro who was sitting beside him in disbelief. It is impossible.
“Pierced someone? How is it possible to pierce someone with chopsticks? That is not possible. Not only that, he is just a child. How can he have such strength? Even if he wants to do it, he won’t be able to do it.”
That’s right, there must be a misunderstanding somewhere. With a mere chopstick? That is not even a sharp weapon. How can Mukuro have the ability to pierce someone’s palm like that? Mukuro looked weak and gentle.
“Everyone in the class saw it.” Mr. Ando raised his glasses with his fingers. His expression looked quite serious. Even Kokuyo, who has a bad school reputation, had never seen this kind of accident happening before since they were just a group of middle school students and they couldn’t cause any big disturbances. This is the first bloodshed he saw since he became the head teacher. It is impossible but it happened anyway. “If the opponent’s palm is injured on the nerves, it could cause the kid to be disabled.”
Mr. Ando didn’t see what happened at that time. It was the class leader who brought the crying Ishibashi to the office for him to look at. The bright yellow chopsticks were dangling in his palm, looking very awful. Ishibashi is the bully of the whole grade and Mr. Ando can already guess that he would grow up to be a gangster in the future. He usually runs rampant among this group of young children, but he didn’t expect for Ishibashi to suffer like this this time.
Before Tsuna came, he also asked for Mukuro to come and see him. He was only a twelve-year-old child. But the look in his eyes made Mr. Ando, as an adult, feels fear for a moment.
This out of place sense of fear was maintained until the person named Tsunayoshi Sawada arrived. Mr. Ando was very sensitive to find that when Tsunayoshi Sawada stepped into the office, the oppressive atmosphere on Mukuro suddenly disappeared. It disappeared like everything was just a joke.
“I suggest you take your child to visit the hospital.” Ando suggested. If possible, he really didn’t want to have any contact with this weird child. He could let him be for 3 years and after that, the kid would be the problem of the high school next door. It would no longer have anything to do with him.
Mr. Ando looked at the strange father and son leaving and heaved a long sigh to himself.
֍֍֍
*Author’s Note: Who felt bad for the inexplicably cut off of Tsuna’s chance for getting a girlfriend? -YXF
֍֍֍
*Translator’s Note: The texts that Tsuna and Mukuro sent to one another is through email hence the ‘sender’, ‘topic’ and ‘content’ sections. This is probably because the time for this story’s setting would be those era before the existence of LINE or WeChat. Back then, Japanese people commonly sent email to one another instead of SMS especially during the 90s. -K
*GLOSSARY:
- Black-bellied: A black belly is a person who is secretly quite dark inside. They didn’t show their bad personality on the outside but they’ll secretly do bad things.
Next update: 2023.05.23
֍֍֍
