A/N: For ChikyokoFukui. Have fun this weekend! :D
Disclaimer: Katekyo Hitman Reborn belongs to Akira Amano
"Laugh at the night,
at the day, at the moon,
laugh a the twisted
streets of the island,
laugh at this clumsy
boy who loves you,"
"Your Laughter" by Pablo Neruda
It all starts with the few rare moments I-pin takes the time to act like a girl.
"Do you think I'm pretty?" She asks when she manages to speak some semblance of Japanese.
Lambo remembers being surprised that I-pin was asking such a girly question. And then he remembers remembering that I-pin was a girl. He also remembers senseless words strung together like plastic pearls dropping from his mouth.
"The Great Lambo-san is better than you at everything! I'm prettier."
He also remembers the great, big bruise he got after I-pin retaliated with strikes of her tiny fists.
She was seven then, and she had never been vain. She still isn't. But Lambo can't help but feel like this isn't the kind of world a lady should be raised in. I-pin has never had a chance to act her age or act like a girl. He knows this world of blood, gore, and gunpowder is her world just as much as his own, but the feeling never leaves him.
"Do you think Hibari would like what I'm wearing?"
He remembers her constant questions grating on his nerves like sandpaper over wood.
"How am I supposed to know what that frigid idiot likes?" He used to cry out in exasperation.
"You're a guy. Aren't you supposed to know what other guys like?" She had asked with a patience that belied how deadly her fists were.
"I don't care what you wear. That dress looks the same as the other two before."
She had looked crestfallen at the bright orange dress she was wearing. Lambo had thought all the ruffles were ugly, but was thankful he had had enough piece of mind not to tell I-pin at the time. I-pin was volatile at twelve. She had gone to the dinner party that night in her regular red qipao top and baggy black pants. He thought she looked much more natural in her normal clothes than any of the crazy dresses she had tried on that day.
She looked pretty just smiling.
"What do you think I should wear?"
"Just wear your regular uniform. Hibari will probably get a kick out of seeing you in the Naminori School uniform. He loves that school and all that." Lambo said offhandedly. Being fifteen is hard. Being fifteen and having a best friend who is a fifteen-year-old girl with crazy things looping through her head and martial arts skills that could out match his own was even harder.
"Great idea!"
"Besides, it's not like the meeting requires you to dress in a suit or anything." Lambo grumbled as he tried to tie his own tie properly. He cursed quietly under his breath until I-pin finished dressing, and came over to help him.
She had never seemed so short until she was standing with her eyes directed at his tie. She barely came up to his chin. She carefully smoothed out his tie after she finished tying it, and had smiled up at him. He gave her a hug impulsively and realized he could tuck her head under his chin comfortably enough. Lambo felt her cold nose press against his color bone.
She stepped away quickly with red flushing across her cheeks.
"Are you getting a fever? You shouldn't go to the meeting if your sick."
"Is this dress too short?"
"…Uh"
Lambo had trouble looking up from I-pin's legs. It wasn't like he hadn't seen her ankles before or anything, but she had really long legs that he never noticed before. Really long legs. And the black of her dress just made her skin look even paler. He knew that I-pin wasn't the kind of girl who skulked around indoors to try and make her skin paler, but he hadn't realized how strong her legs looked before either. He's been kicked in the gut a few times, and he wonders why he hadn't noticed before.
"Well?"
"…No?"
"Give me a definite answer. I don't want to buy this dress and later realize that I can't wear it because it's too short. That's wasteful." I-pin said with a sniff and a glare.
"I'll pay for it. I know that Tsuna said this world wide family get together was a black tie affair and stuff. You're my plus one, and no gentleman would allow a lady to pay for something he suggested."
"Still. I want to be able to wear this dress again. I don't want to grow out of it, since I like it so much. And since when did you become such a smooth talker?"
"…It's not too short. Honest." Lambo choked out.
"Okay. You could have just said this earlier." I-pin said with a huff and quickly returned to the fitting room to change back to her regular clothes.
"I doubt you'll grow out of it at seventeen." Lambo muttered under his breath. He blinked and he swore the images of her legs walking away were burned into his retinas. When did she walk like than anyway? Her hips didn't sway side to side in a ridiculous way, but her walk had become confident and measured somewhere along the line. He hadn't noticed all these things until today.
It was probably something he ate this morning. Did Gokudera slip something into his breakfast?
"What do you think is my best feature?" I-pin giggled as she read aloud from a magazine.
Lambo sighed and pretended to think with his head in his hands.
"Your smile."
"That doesn't count silly!" I-pin laughed again and through the magazine at Lambo's head. At eighteen, I-pin had developed the crazy hobby of taking magazine quizzes. He dodged quickly, and he swore the magazine made a deadly "wooshing" sound as it passed by.
"Okay, okay…your laugh. I really like your laugh." Lambo said, putting as much honesty as he could into his answer. And he found that it was very true.
"Really?" She asked when she had stopped smiling.
"Yeah. You sound really happy, even though we grew up in all this crazy." Lambo made a sweeping gesture at the windowless room they were in. Metal walls decorated with Korean boy band posters and Chinese scrolls surrounded them. Giovanni had made special adjustments to I-pin's room so that her training center was connected. She was no Guardian so she didn't have any specific needs to account for. But her training room was high-tech nonetheless.
Lambo was kind of jealous, but not really. He got pimped out lightening rods on the top floor of the secret base. Sometimes, he sneaked into the shooting range to practice his aim with a gun. He wanted to broaden his skills from just shooting lightening from the horns on his head. As much as he loved being the master of lightening, it got really old really quick when enemies expected that spray water at you would stop your attacks. Some people were born stupid. Limiting himself to specific attacks that singled him out as a Guardian wasn't any fun anymore. He figured it was good to increase the size of his horizons.
"What crazy?" I-pin said with another giggle and flung herself at him. She landed on Lambo and they had a half-hearted scuffle that I-pin won. As she sat on his stomach, she said, "It's never crazy when you're around. You're just Crybaby Lambo."
"Hey, beautiful." Lambo said with a smile as he brushed a knuckle against I-pins cheek. He had just been walking back to his room from an intense training session with the other guardians when he had spotted I-pin walking by.
"You're just saying that aren't you?" I-pin sounded accusing as she regarded him with her knowing brown eyes.
"No. I'm not." Lambo replied with an earnestness I-pin could hardly believe. She never believed him, but he thought that the scar running across her cheekbone was beautiful. It was almost horizontal and ran a length a little longer than her left eye. It was like some ancient tribal mark of bravery in Lambo's eyes. Everything about I-pin was beautiful at nineteen. Everything about her was full of life and vitality, and the stupid saying goes that life is beauty.
He knows that life in the mafia resulted in scars. He had a multitude of them himself and he knows that I-pin had them too. But this was the first scar that showed on her face. She had cut her hair to chin length after she received the scar, and Lambo had never figured out why. She had grown her hair all the way down her back only to cut it short when she received a scar. Recently, she had taken to wearing long sleeves to hide the blade marks scarring her arms. He thought that was silly since everyone living under the roof of the secret base was covered in scars, inside and out. Haru had been shot at a few times, and even Kyoko has gotten into a few fights in her time. Why be afraid of something that was just like a physical feature like a nose or an eye?
"Really, now."
"Really. You're beautiful. You know that. You're getting old, and forgetting things." Lambo said with a crooked smile.
"Yeah. We're all getting old." I-pin said with a sigh, and returned Lambo's crooked smile.
Lambo twirled a length of I-pin's short hair around his index finger and brushed a knuckle over a scar. He then murmured a good-natured "Later" before walking away.
He never did see the curious look I-pin gave him as she glanced at his retreating form. Or the slow spreading smile that graced I-pin's lips after his departure.
"You look like a flower." Lambo said with a smile on his face
"Well, you taste like flowers." I-pin laughed a little breathlessly as she leaned against Lambo.
"Really?"
"You started this poetry fest. I think that flowers are open and a little bitter, but always pretty in some way or other. Doesn't that represent you perfectly, Lambo?" I-pin asked with another laugh.
"When you put it like that it all makes sense now!" Lambo said with sarcasm in his voice but fondness radiating from his eyes. I-pin smiled up at him, and fingered one of his four braids.
"You never change. Aren't you a little too old at twenty-five to be wearing cow-print and wooing girls?"
"Girls? What girls? The only person I'm wooing is you. And I was wooing you with a kiss." Lambo said with a laugh. He quickly sidestepped a half-hearted roundhouse kick that I-pin executed, and caught the punch that followed the kick.
"You are so frustrating. But you knew that already." I-pin said with a laugh and leaned in close to kiss Lambo again.
Lambo felt her lips press against his and he automatically snaked an arm around her waist and a tugged the hair tie holding her shoulder-blade length braid. I-pin's lips were warm and her teeth were teasing as she nibbled on his lower lip.
Steps echoed in the empty hallway as someone approached.
"Do you guys have to do this in the hallways?" Gokudera asked with obvious annoyance.
I-pin turned her face lazily towards Gokudera and leaned her head against Lambo's collarbone.
"At least we don't do this in public hallways like you and Yammamoto managed that one time at the one dinner party that we are no longer allowed to mention. Ah, forbidden gossip travels the fastest."
Lambo laughed so hard his sides were in stitches at Gokudera's flushed face.
"Sometimes, I think the only reason I put up with you is to listen to you laugh. You have a nice laugh." I-pin said drily as they gasped for breath in a forgotten corridor within the secret base.
Running from explosives definitely takes your breath away, Lambo thought. But as he glanced at the brightness in I-pin's eyes as she took another deep breath he decided that a little exercise was worth it.
"Yeah, well, I love your smile too."
"Look at us. We're absolutely ridiculous together."
"I know, but you love us." Lambo said as he gestured between them like some sort of string connected them.
"Yeah."