Chapter Text
I.
Namimori dies in the moment Sawada Tsunayoshi is born.
Brown eyes snap wide open. Lost in the sensations and blurry world that fills his eyes, Tsuna remembers everything in that instance.
Towns are not countries, just the same way countries will never be towns. But for all that the personifications of town have been – human, mortal, living and dying and reintegrating – towns are able to pass on the memories of their history to the next incarnation. Tsuna is newborn, and Tsuna was an old man. Tsuna was a girl who trot down the river bay, singing happy songs to fluttering birds; Tsuna was a sick man, whose ailment was cursed by dying crops; Tsuna was a young man who encountered a man of Italian descendance with hair as gold as wheat – and more. Tsuna was an old man who smiled at the bumbling grandchildren dancing around. Tsuna was a child who laughed and spread arms wide, welcoming the strange and not-too normal Italians into his humble abode.
Tsuna is Namimori.
And that has been the same ever since he was born.
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II.
Tsuna is not sad when his father leaves for Italy.
On the contrary, it seems only natural for Italy’s child to return home.
Still, Sawada Nana is his, and Tsuna is disheartened to see her in pieces.
That’s why, from time to time, when Nana is out shopping with him in tow, Tsuna does his best as his months-old self to flash a sloppy smile around his pacifier at the kinder residents of the town. He sees their life history at a glance. Asahi Sakura, a nursery teacher who always stays up to the wee hours of the night waiting for a late parent, loving every child like her own; Isogai Kazuma, who loves and loves and loves but is never able to find time for himself; Yamamoto Tsuyoshi, a single-parent who lives to date in spite of his harsh life for the sake of his child—
“Guwuah!” Tsuna squeals, waving a chubby hand at his resident.
“T-Tsu-kun-?” Mama’s hand shoots to him, steadying him on her back. Her words are laced with fondness, even as tired as she is. “Don’t move around so much, geez—” She chuckles.
“My, what an adorable child you have there, dearie.” An old lady smiles where she had been picking her vegetables. Kanzaki Michiko, retired, with five grandchildren of her own—
“Heheh. Thank you.” Nana places a hand, abashed on her cheek. “The first few months have been hard to handle, but Tsu-kun makes it all worth it.”
Tsuna croons into his mother’s ears, earning another bubbling giggle.
“What a loving pair you are~” Michiko offers a wrinkly smile. “Let’s see here… If you don’t mind this old lady being nosy, there’s a couple of veggies here that I know would be good for kids at this little one’s age. If you like, this old lady could share a couple of my recipes...”
“Eh? Really? Please do share a few of them with me!” Nana doesn’t pass on the opportunity.
It’s in this way that Tsuna helps with whatever he can in his limits as Namimori Personification in the first few years of his life. Being a single-parent is tough afterall, and Nana needs all the friends she can get.
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III.
“Konnichiwa, my child,” Smiles Japan down at him whilst Nana is busying herself associating with the local mothers’ association.
The image of a stranger in his early twenties – clad in fashionable oversized shirt, neat ironed trousers, and a matcha green shawl wrapped over his shoulders – near one of the children he’s nowhere dressed down enough to have should be shocking enough. But nobody takes note of them, just the way Tsuna wants it. Just the way Japan desires it.
“Ah-pah!” Tsuna squeals, eyes curving in pleasure as he lifts and drops his hands excitedly.
Japan’s smile is gentle, pleasant, as he drops down on his knees to be on more level height with him.
“I take it that you are happy in your current life?” Japan questions with eyes brimming with fondness. Tsuna cocks his head, ‘Why wouldn’t I be?’ And Japan chuckles anew. “I’ve come to inform you that I’ve laid to rest the body of your predecessor – of Maehara Takuya-kun.” Japan averts his gaze for an instance, both out of instinctive habit and politeness, to shield his pain from Tsuna’s bright-eyed gaze. “Please tell my child in heaven to rest in peace, knowing he’d rejoin this land by my side.”
Tsuna slowly frowns. Tsuna falls just as he crawls forward to reach for Japan’s hands, chin hitting the pavement on the side of the sandbox painfully.
He wails, loud and dishevelled, causing the melancholic Japan to fuss and hover.
“Erm…ermm………” Japan’s wide eyes dodge to his citizens who are now turning towards them. He squeezes his eyes shut and does the one thing the mothers across the nation do. “Ittai, Ittai, fly away~!” He rubs the top of his child’s head gently.
The mothers look away, thinking him to be another young father wedded too early.
Tsuna sniffles under the nervous touch and giggles, looking up at the befuddled expression of his country.
“You town personifications are always such a handful, aren’t you?” Japan sighs, tired but fond as he pats the fluffy brown locks gently.
‘We are, but then again, so are you.’ Tsuna thinks but doesn’t say, leaning into Japan’s touch. It feels just like how his predecessor, Takuya, remembers it. Countries are immortal, and countries can befriend each other. But at the same time, nothing’s everlasting between countries due to ever changing political climates. (“That’s why,” Takuya said to him in another moment of peace. “We’ve got to be there for our countries as towns, because we’re all they have.”)
Tsuna will work hard to be a good family to Japan.
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IV.
Namimori doesn’t let him leave, sweet as every one of his predecessors are.
“Gyappu!”
Tiny hands cling on firmly to the edge of his trousers. Japan has neither the heart nor the will to shake his leg out of his dear child’s grasp. Namimori has always been special in that way, a town more deep-rooted in the heart of Japan than everyone knows. (With perhaps, the exception of a few underground leaders.) Still, Japan attempts to struggle as is only fit, steps faltering to lower himself to his knee and place a too-hesitant hand on soft locks.
Namimori peers at him with the same bright eyes of Takuya.
“Namimori-kun,” Japan starts softly. “This cannot persist.”
Namimori remains peering at him with unrelenting eyes.
“Muhoan!” An attempt to say his name.
In his eyes, Japan sees days of the past, holding young Takahashi Juri’s hand as she balances herself on uneven rock fragments, crossing a river; sinking deep into a cushion as Kasa Akifumi at age sixty knits thick brows and fans the smoking fish he caught for this occasion; admiring the fireworks which spark in dark eyes when Maehara Takuya rises from his bow before his restaurant and recognizes him. Bright, fleeting laughter in every idyllic moment of the day he spends in Namimori.
“Muhoan.” Sawada Tsunayoshi – much to his dread – pouts. And that’s about as much as Japan can take.
“Namimori-kun,” He sighs. Namimori’s face brightens into a cherub smile. “You are impossible to reason with.” He sighs again, sitting down by the edge of the sand box.
“Guahaha!” Namimori claps his hands in jubilance.
Japan smiles and resigns himself to another lifetime spent having his heart lifted and dropped by another version of Namimori. He reaches forward and picks up the buckets.
“Please pardon my intrusion in your work then.” It slips his mouth out of habit. He makes up for the too-polite words with a slanted line of his mouth. “What do you suggest we make today?”
The town personification focuses hard on conveying it with his eyes.
“Osaka Castle?” Japan frowns, perturbed. “How about a different location? You’ve had me making that in every one of your incarnation—”
Namimori quivers his lower lip.
“—I understand! I shall get to work at once!” Japan couldn’t get his hands on the buckets fast enough.
Namimori holds onto his pants’ leg tightly till the sun sets and his mother comes. Mid-sip through another cup of jasmine green tea, Japan wonders how it’s so easy for him to be roped into Namimori’s pace every time.
Stilling as Namimori giggles and chases his mother’s apron strings to elicit a gentle laugh from her, the answer surfaces through decades of memories like before. (It’s hard to remember when time is distorted. It’s hard to forget, when Namimori is reborn every time.)
Japan sighs as he sits down his tea, chest warm with respite from the suffocating pace of his citizens. He catches Namimori when he crawls up to him and watches with widening eyes when he begins to crawl up his knees, standing for the first time to his tearing mother’s standing ovation. And Japan can’t resist parting his lips, speechless, because Namimori chose that moment when he’s there to show this to him.
(Namimori is to Japan what sunflowers are to Russia – a warm, bright home to return to.)
Japan makes a note to visit more.
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V.
There is an angel in Isogai Kazuma’s life going by the name of Sawada Tsunayoshi.
Because each time he’s rejected or broken up with, the baby on the other side of the fence never fails to listen to Kazuma ramble about the unfairness of his life.
“—She said that I’m just not good enough for her.” Kazuma laments as he sits, knees pulled to his chest. Tsunayoshi nods sympathetically on the other side of the broken fence. Kazuma sniffles, lowering his head. “I don’t get it… Where did I go wrong? Even though I posted my genuine credentials when I was online dating… What’s so bad about me that she didn’t find my degree enough?” He sobs tearlessly into his knees. All his tear ducts have been emptied the night before.
“Guwah…muah…!” Tsunayoshi reaches a tiny stout hand through the broken section of the fence, hoping to pat him.
Kazuma watches him flail, trying his best to not step out of the lawn like the kind lady next door told him not to, and Kazuma sadly extends one hand of his through the bushes to the boy.
The little one-year-old – two? Kazuma rarely pays attention – pats his knuckles comfortingly.
“…I’m the worst…” He grits out, burying his face into his knees. “To need a kid like you of all things to pity me… I’m the absolute worst…!” He bemoans into his knees.
Tsunayoshi’s light pat on his hand falters.
“Oh? Tsu-kun? Is someone there?” The kind lady next door could be heard.
Kazuma flinches, withdrawing his hand as if burnt.
“Mama!” Calls out the boy.
“Oh, my?” The bushes are parted. He’s got to run. He’d be taken as a pervert if he doesn’t!
B…But…! His knees are too weak to stand…!
“Are you okay, Isogai-san?” Concerned eyes bear down at him. Kazuma shakily opens his eyes, stunned that she’s not screaming at him. “Creep” is something he’s all too used to hearing from girls. Only half ever make it through the first date without one-upping him.
Sawada Nana leans down towards him, an apologetic smile on her face.
Kazuma flinches when she kneels down before him.
“I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to overhear, but I was just worried about Tsu-kun’s behaviour this past few days—” Her face is full of compassion. “You must have been terribly hurt by your ex. You don’t look like you’ve been taking care of yourself, Isogai-san… Are you okay…?”
No, obviously he isn’t.
Kazuma flinches at his own thought, curling in on himself.
Pathetic man snapping at a woman offering her kindness. This is why his exes all left him, for sure.
“That… was a stupid question to ask, wasn’t it?” Nana’s smile is strained.
Oh. Did he say it aloud?
“I-I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to say it like that – No, I shouldn’t even be thinking of it in the first place—I’m—” Kazuma flinches at the words that rises to his mouth. It’s an echo of the words his ex has tossed at him. His voice continues, faltering, weak, quivering. “—no good…”
A moment of silence.
Kazuma expects her to ban her son from ever listening to his bemoaning again.
“Issho! No!” Tsunayoshi lifts and slaps his hands down, looking downright affronted. Kazuma flinches at the wide-eyed look he’s given, all teary and worse – accompanied by a well-placed tremble of his lips. God, this is why he wanted to maintain some bushes between them all this time. Why did he submit himself to the full force of The Pout?
Nana giggles.
“That’s right. You shouldn’t put yourself down. You’re a much more handsome man than you think, especially once you take better care of yourself.” He doubts it. Is he really…? “For starters, why don’t you come over once you’ve tidied yourself up? I would love to give you some tips on dating over dinner.” She giggles demurely and Tsunayoshi looks back and forth between them like he’s watching a match.
“B-But—” He has no reason, really.
“Issho!” Tsunayoshi squeals, delightedly throwing himself forward to squeeze through the bushes.
Kazuma decides he’ll be damned if he refuses the boy who’s been listening to him for a whole year, especially right in front of his mother. (He swears the boy’s planning it though. That’s an awful time to choose to be affectionate.)
“I-I’m leaving myself in your capable hands.” He dips his head in a bow.
“Oh, please don’t…! I should be the one thanking you for playing with Tsu-kun all this time…! And here I thought Issho was an imaginary friend.” She giggles.
…They’ve been doing this for a year already… right?
Kazuma looks down at the toddler in his hands and he sees that same exasperated look. He decides it’s a Sawada Nana thing to be oblivious and ups his frequency of correspondence with Tsunayoshi beyond the usual heartbreak sessions. (It’s nice, he discovers, to know the Sawada family who lives beyond the bushes next to him.)