Chapter 12

The next chance he gets to be alone with Huo is that same night when they're both preparing to get in bed. He's exhausted because of all the running around he's had to do that day. With the police being a constant presence, he now needs to be more careful. He's a minor working without a contract in both places and while it's not exactly unusual, it's still against the law. Working under that kind of pressure is tiring, but it doesn't stop him from asking Huo what his real name is before the man moves to turn off his lamp.

"I don't have a name," is his answer, which he doesn't understand even if he's sure it's not a lie. He turns off the light and settles on his right. "In the Triads, we're given numbers to identify ourselves. We can only be given names once we reach certain notoriety."

"That's… is that why your name means fire?"

He can see Huo nod thanks to the faint light coming from the window. "Only the Triad's aces are given the name 'Huo-long'."

"Oh." Tsuna frowns. Long means dragon, if he's not mistaken. Fire dragon does seem weirdly fitting, but… Just a while ago he was thinking about names and how they factor in one's identity, though not like this. He hadn't meant it in a completely literal sense. Huo-long is a name with a specific persona already in mind, more of a title and not something his friend grew up with and made his own.

It's wrong.

He takes a deep breath, refocuses his attention on the person who he feels has been watching him intently as he thought, and asks, "What do you like me to call you?"

Huo hums in a distracted way as he reaches a hand to ruffle his hair out of his eyes. It's probably the time for Tsuna to cut it before it puffs even more. "What do you mean?"

"Well, Huo is your position, right? You can choose a name now. I'll call you that."

His hand stills from where is retreating to his side.

"Will you?" he asks softly.

There's a familiar weight that settles on his shoulders when he considers the question as if something big is going to happen if he says 'yes'. He says it anyway because it also feels so right.

A smile, so warm it cannot be hidden by the dark of the night. "You're a good person," he says. Then arms settle around him, bring him close to his chest, slowly, as if giving him the option to push them away, but Tsuna doesn't protest. He's tired and his headaches have been a constant this last week; they both need it.

When his head is under Huo's chin and Tsuna's face is so close to his neck he can almost hear the pulse underneath the skin, he hears him murmur, "I like the name Fong."

Tsuna feels his breath catch in his throat, but denial is his friend so it doesn't take him long to regain it. First Reborn's dad and now Fon's, too?

It must be Fate. Or his intuition trying to be funny.

"Follow your intuition; it'll lead you to your goal."

Tsuna presses even closer, let's their flames warm each other. "Fong means wind, right? It suits you."

"Not yet," Fong says, burying his nose in his hair.

"Not yet," he repeats because the wind is free and Fong feels too caged for that. "But it will."

- x -

Lately, surprises seem to be something he's receiving every morning and not a thing that happens from time to time whenever he steps out of his apartment, where he will have to interact with people his intuition will lead him to. Going by the previous statement, the surprises have incremented since he's now interacting with others inside his apartment, too. He should probably just learn how to live with them and continue with his life.

The thing is, he remembers falling asleep with Fong in his bed-couch which luckily is more than big enough for both of them. He even remembers waking up at two to go to the bathroom as Fong mumbled some Confucius weird thing when he returned and held him close again.

That begs the question: why has he woken up between Fong and Renato.

He is too wary to even breathe.

(His reaction is probably the reason Renato decided to join in, but still)

At breakfast, after pointedly ignoring the elephant lying next to him to stand up to wash, he even has the gall to say, "I had forgotten how comfortable sleeping next to a Sky is, even with that excuse for a bed."

"Don't talk about me as if I'm an object!"

"You are very comfortable to sleep with."

"Don't encourage him, Fong," he mutters, returning to the bathroom to change his clothes. There's no reaction from Renato at the change of name, but again, he always takes everything in stride. He wonders if that unflappable confidence is the one that makes him able to wear a pink pajama covered in big, bright yellow stars with the number '1' inside of each of them without feeling self-conscious.

At least he also knows where Reborn got that.

- x -

Before he leaves, Fong for some reason out of nowhere decides to say, "You should always be wary of the other shoe before it drops."

Tsuna does his best to just bury the weird comment deep inside his mind as he works, but it doesn't really go well. He's not sure if Fong is talking about the Mist user or the reveal of his Sky status or the seal thing on his flames he still sees Fong and Renato mumble about.

He doesn't know if Fong knows everything that happens like Renato seems to, but he will not put it past him.

Just as he goes to bed that night with two men he wants to ignore the existence of lying next to him, Tsuna decides to chalk it up as one of the weird things Fong says out the blue.

"My arm is not a teddy bear."

Tsuna presses Renato's arm tighter against his chest. "You're the one who wanted me to use it as a pillow."

"Only the upper arm," he grumbles but doesn't do anything else. Tsuna can't see his face as he's giving him his back but going on by Fong's expression, it must be something funny.