Hibari Kyoya was standing in the entry to Sawada's place confronted by two small herbivores who, he had been informed over the phone, he was responsible for for the rest of the afternoon. Neither party had spoken a word so far, and Hibari found himself debating whether that was a good thing or not. Weren't kids normally supposed to be loud and annoying? Or were these two, being the offspring of the king of herbivores, just that scared of him? As this thought occurred to him, he realized he had been unconsciously giving the two very small children his infamous death glare for the last several minutes. "That probably explains why they are being so quiet," he thought to himself. Then again they hadn't run away, so maybe they weren't as terrified as he had assumed. "They probably should be, though." The thought made him smirk.
Apparently that was the cue the two tiny people had been waiting for because the older of the two, the girl, finally broke the silence. "Who are you?" Her voice was oddly similar to the chirping of a bird.
"My name is Hibari-san and I'm your baby-sitter for the day." That sounded so wrong, for so many reasons.
The girl must have sensed something was off about this situation because she looked doubtful as she declared "I don't know you." So far the younger herbivore, the boy, had yet to speak, but also hadn't taken his eyes off Hibari. When Hibari failed to respond to the girl's statement, she took a deep breath and seemed to make up her mind. "Well, I guess you must be one of daddy's friends so I'll let you stay if you're good."
Hibari raised an eyebrow as he gazed down at her incredulously. "If I'm good?" he thought, "she can't be older than five; where does she get off. . ." This was going to be worse than he had imagined. The exceedingly small girl heaved a sigh that seemed too big for her frame and turned away heading further into the house. "I guess we can't stand in the foyer staring at each other all day. But what on earth am I supposed to do with them?" Hibari couldn't help but question Sawada's sanity at requesting him, of all people, to watch his two offspring for an entire afternoon. A sudden thought crossed Hibari's mind as he went to follow the girl that had him sweating like never before in his life. "If I have to change a diaper, someone is getting bitten to death later," he mentally cursed. The girl seemed too old for diapers, but he wasn't confidant making any assumptions about the boy. What did he know? The closest interaction Hibari had ever had with small children was generally from about ten feet away. He tended to simply not notice them.
"Hibi-san?" The piping, sing-song voice interrupted his thoughts and he twitched with annoyance at the idiotic nickname.
"It's Hibari-san." He was already straining to maintain his admittedly short patience.
"OK, but I get to call you Hibi-san, because you're my best friend," came the reply.
Hibari Kyoya was a man known to be stoic, stern, and unrelenting. Allies and enemies alike feared him and rarely in his life had it taken more than a look or a gesture to completely cow someone. The man known as Hibari Kyoya did not have friends. He had subordinates and acquaintances. And enemies. Lots of those. No one dared call him a friend, at least not to his face, and certainly not a best friend. Never in all his life had Hibari been faced with anything remotely like this situation, and he found himself uncharacteristically unsure what to do. While he was trying to find an appropriate response, the girl grabbed his hand imperiously and began dragging the reluctant baby-sitter toward a large dining table spread with papers, crayons, colored pencils, and markers.
"Since you're my friend, I'll share my coloring with you, but Koji isn't allowed to use the markers."
Hibari managed to extricate his hand while turning to the lilliputian boy who had followed them to the coloring table. He must have been Koji because after his sister's statement he immediately puffed out his cheeks, pouting, and declared "I'm awowed to use markers!"
"No you're not, Koji!"
"Uh-huh, I'm a big boy!"
"No, mom said you can't use my markers!"
This was clearly going to get out of hand quickly and Hibari, desperate to make the increasingly high-pitched bickering stop, asked the girl, "If he is Koji, what is your name?" Instantly the argument died as Teruko turned her attention back to Hibari. She was distracted so easily it almost made him laugh. Hibari Kyoya did not laugh.
"I'm Teruko, but Hibi-san, you get to call me Teru-chan because I like you." She kept prattling on, "No one else gets to call me that except Dera-kun. He lets me ride on his back like a horse and pull his hair. But he doesn't let me wear his glasses." During this exposition Teruko had climbed into a chair and begun drawing with some crayons. At the last statement, she faced Hibari and made a face. "I bet you'd let me wear your glasses if you had some, Hibi-san." Hibari tried picturing Gokudera, mafia hit-man, right-hand of the most powerful crime family there was, on hands and knees giving a very bossy Teruko horse rides while she tugged on his prematurely silver hair. He was, once again, hard pressed to not laugh out loud.
Koji, meanwhile, had climbed into another of the chairs and picked up a green crayon. "This my pink crown," he declared loudly and began stabbing at his coloring book rather than using actual coloring strokes.
Curious, Hibari asked, "How old are you two?"
Teruko held up four fingers, "I'm four years old and my birthday isn't for a long time, and" here she switched to two fingers, "Koji is two years old. He's a todd-el-er." She over enunciated the last word and was clearly proud of her ability to relay such important information with such clarity.
When Teruko was finished with her report, Hibari heard Koji muttering to himself, ". . .not two. . . I'm six." The boy then nimbly hopped out of the chair and ran deeper into the house, out of sight before Hibari even had a chance to protest. Teruko seemed totally unperturbed by Koji's sudden disappearance and indeed, a moment later he returned with a soccer ball in his hands. "You kick ball wif me, Hibawi-san?" he questioned plaintively, holding a ball larger than his own head out to Hibari.
Hibari paused, about to decline, but when he remembered Teruko's description of playing with Gokudera, he figured it could be a lot worse than playing ball. He stood up to indicate that he would follow the boy outside to play; the four-year old seemed fairly self-sufficient and he felt that she could be trusted to stay out of trouble for a bit. Koji led Hibari to the backyard and ran what Hibari considered to be a ridiculous distance away from him, before turning around to drop the ball to the ground. Without waiting for Hibari to prepare, little Koji drew his leg back and gave the mightiest kick his stubby legs could have managed. Hibari was completely caught off guard by a ball flying at high speed towards a very vulnerable location. Only years of finely honed fighting instincts saved Hibari from a painfully embarrassing experience and he was able to not only avoid disaster, but return the kick with one of his own.
This being Hibari's first time ever playing ball with a two-year old, he miscalculated the necessary force for the return kick and the ball slammed into Koji's chest, flattening the poor boy and knocking the wind out of him. Hibari braced himself for wailing and waterworks but, surprisingly, they never came. After a couple coughs and a few pitiful moans, Koji picked himself up, looked around for the ball, and ran after it. Hibari was even further shocked when the boy came jogging back from the other end of the yard with a grin on his face, eyes lit up eagerly. "That was a good shot!"
They quickly got into a rhythm kicking the ball back and forth, giving Hibari a chance to think. "How did Sawada of all people end up with such a tough kid? And are two-year olds usually this coordinated? Or strong?"
Just as Koji seemed to finally be flagging, his older sister sauntered out, surveying them and the backyard as though looking over her kingdom. She settled her gaze on Hibari with a look that was unnervingly familiar to him, and announced, "I want peace and quiet for my next project, so either be quiet or go away."
The look on her face of deadly seriousness with just the barest hint of a threat was well known to Hibari; it was the expression he himself wore most often. And yet it was so very alien to have that look turned back on him that he had a difficult time not gaping at the little mafia princess.
But Koji was clearly used to this sort of behavior and took it well in stride. He trotted away from the ball toward Teru-chan and, ignoring her threatening look, asked "What you going do?"
"I'm inventing stories for the clouds," she explained. "They look like things and they need to have stories to go with them." Koji watched nonplussed as she spread out a small blanket she had brought out with her and stretched out on her back to see the clouds drifting by overhead. Once he understood what she meant Koji quickly joined her on the blanket, raised his arms above himself and made airplane noises while sweeping his hands through the air.
Hibari had been summarily ignored during all of this and neither child seemed to notice him approach and seat himself behind them. "This is not turning out as awful as it could be," he thought. "These two aren't so bad; maybe we'll all survive this day after all." He took this lull in the action as an opportunity to relax a bit, leaning back on his hands, listening to Teru-chan's chirping voice telling disjointed tales about the shapes she saw in the clouds.
"See that one?" she asked no one in particular, "it's a turtle and his name is Turtle and he likes to swim, but he gets tired and can't get back home. Then a super-hero comes to save him from the bad guys and bring him back home."
"What super-heewo save him?" Koji interrupted.
Teru-chan paused to think before turning to the almost forgotten Hibari. "Are you a super-hero, Hibi-san?"
Hibari was caught off-guard by the question. Was he a hero? The 'super' part was a no-brainer. Obviously he was superior to the herbivores he was constantly surrounded by. But a hero saved people and worked for the greater good. Hibari couldn't remember ever saving someone when it wasn't in his own best interest. He certainly didn't spend time on the lookout for people in need of his help. He finally settled on trying to dodge the question altogether. "What kind of super-hero do you mean?"
But Teru-chan was having none of it. "You know, the kind with cool powers and super strong. Are you super strong?"
"Yes."
"And can you do stuff other people can't do?"
"Yes."
"And you always beat the bad guys?"
"Yes."
"So, you are a super-hero. I knew you were anyway." She sounded so smug as she said this. "You look like you would be good at beating up bad guys." Hibari was taken aback by the four year old's sharp intuition. He was equally surprised by the next thing she said. "Hibi-san, will you teach me to be a super-hero like you? Daddy says I should be a princess, but I'm already one and it's kinda boring. Daddy says I shouldn't go looking for a fight."
"That's because Sawada is an herbivore." It slipped out before Hibari had really thought about it. He must have been seriously off-balanced by these two kids who didn't act anything like their father. Ordinarily, nothing just slipped out from Hibari. Normally it was hard to get the man to say more than a sentence or two at a time.
"What's an herbivore?" Teru-chan looked at Hibari full of curiosity. Hibari glanced toward her brother before answering her and found to his relief that Koji had fallen asleep. "I might as well give her an honest answer," he thought.
"An herbivore is. . ."
Hibari quickly found himself explaining things to Teru-chan that he had never before needed to put into words. Strangely, she didn't seem to think anything was wrong with Hibari's unique world-view. Instead she eagerly agreed with everything he said and Hibari couldn't quite tell if she was agreeing because she understood and sympathized or if it was because she was four and didn't know how to stop nodding her head.
The conversation didn't last too long, as they were interrupted by a cry from a newly woken Koji. "Wook, wook, a wobin is coming!" The first part Hibari assumed was supposed to be "look, look" mostly because Koji was pointing up into the sky at something. But the "wobin" part had him completely lost until he actually saw what the boy was pointing at.
"That isn't a robin, Koji-san. His name is Hibird," Hibari explained.
Both children ooh-ed and aah-ed as the small yellow bird landed on his shoulder, chirping "Hibari, Hibari" in a voice much like Teru-chan's. Hibird immediately went into his rendition of the Namimori Middle anthem and Teru-chan was so excited after his performance she leapt to her feet clapping and grinning, looking like she was about to explode.
"Can I pet him? Will he say my name? Does he live with you? Can I feed him? What does he eat? Will he do any other tricks? Oh, Hibi-san, I love him!" Teru-chan was nearly tripping over her words to get them all out as quickly as possible.
Hibari responded to the torrent of questions calmly, hoping that if he kept his cool, the overexcited fireball of a girl wouldn't jump on him or hug him or some other ridiculous thing. "He might let you pet him if you are very careful. You have to stop hopping about and move slowly or you will scare him away."
Teru-chan abruptly stood stock still and replied, "I'll be super soft to you, Hibird. Will you let me pet you softly?" The fluffy bird chirped quietly at her, and Hibari was pretty sure Hibird had understood her. Teru-chan reached her hand out toward Hibird so slowly that it caused Hibari to roll his eyes at her complete 180 change.
Hibird did indeed let Teru-chan pet him, but when Koji moved to follow suit, Hibird seemed to feel that the younger boy would not be so gentle, and flew over to the edge of the roof just over the back door. Koji's little face fell and he looked on the verge of tears. Disaster was averted, however, when Teru-chan, ignoring her brother's impending temper tantrum, requested, "Can you teach us that song? Then we can sing with Hibird." The mental picture that came to his mind was almost too much for Hibari, and he nearly burst out laughing. Instead his lips made the barest hint of a smile as he agreed to teach them his favorite song.
Koji, it turned out, was the better singer of the two, but they were both rather tone deaf, and despite the hilarity of teaching Sawada's kids to sing as though they were more of Hibari's pets, Hibari's patience was wearing dangerously thin. So when Koji interrupted the practice to announce that he "made a poopie" Hibari thought that perhaps they wouldn't all survive the day. Teru-chan then advised Hibari that he should change Koji's diaper, to which Hibari responded, flatly, "No."
Koji, who until now had been proud of his progress learning to sing, screwed up his face and began wailing. It seemed that all the things Hibari had been dreading about this day had come all at once. He even considered briefly the possibility of simply leaving the two young children to fend for themselves until their parents came back home. However, even Hibari wasn't that cold. Cooly, he got out his phone. Kusakabe had just answered the call when an angel came to Hibari's rescue.
"Moshi moshi."
"Never mind, Fuuta just got here, so I won't need your help after all."
"Yes,sir."
On the other end of the conversation, a puzzled Kusakabe thought that perhaps his boss was losing his mind or maybe he just heard wrong. Hibari was asking for help, and it was something that Fuuta, of all people, could handle. WTH, the world might be ending!
Without another word Hibari hung up, and started toward the house to leave. Fuuta called to him as he left, "Don't worry about the kids, Tsuna-nii told me to relieve you as soon as I could."
Even if Fuuta hadn't come to take over babysitting, Hibari was done. A breathless Teru-chan caught up to Hibari by the front door as he was putting on his shoes to leave. "Will you come back to play with me again?"
"No."
"Oh." her smile disappeared, "I thought you were going to teach me to be a super-hero." Her voice was quiet, but she, amazingly, didn't look like she was going to cry, and Hibari found himself saying the unthinkable.
"You can come to my house and I will teach you super-hero stuff."
He stepped out of the house and as he went down the walk, Teru-chan called "I've changed my mind! I want you to teach me to be a carnivore instead!" Hibari didn't turn back, only lifted a hand in acknowledgement.
Tsuna had been so worried, having to get Hibari-san to watch the children, that he had made himself a little sick to his stomach. The blissful relief he felt when Fuuta had called to report that everyone was still alive, no one was in the hospital, and he had just fed the kids, was indescribable.
He did wonder, vaguely, how Hibari had fared with the kids, but decided he really didn't want to know the details. He assumed it involved a great deal of evil looks, and threats of being bitten to death. He also figured he would have to soothe two terrified children at bedtime and probably deal with a nightmare or two. . .a week. . . for years.
Tsuna was surprised later to find that not only were his children not terrified for their lives, but they were instead happily singing an off-key rendition of the Namimori Middle anthem at the top of their lungs as they got ready for bed. Koji was asleep before his head hit the pillow, as usual. Teruko demanded the usual two stories before bed, threw a fit when her father accidentally called her 'Teru-chan'(he hadn't been given permission for that privilege), and regaled him with stories about her newest favorite person in the whole world, Hibi-san. Tsuna listened distractedly to her description of the amazing Hibird, trying to picture anyone calling Hibari-san by that silly nickname. The next thing she said, though, grabbed his full and undivided attention.
"Tomorrow I need to go to Hibi-san's house for my new lessons."
"What?! What lessons?!"
"Hibi-san says he's going to teach me to be a carnivore like him."