I was re-reading KHR and this happened. Gokudera might be slightly out of character.
Disclaimer: I do not own KHR or its characters.
Tick tock tick tock
He watches the clock absentmindedly, willing it to speed up. It doesn't work. Instead, the hands of the clock seem to go slower and slower until each second becomes painfully dragged out.
Gokudera grits his teeth, diverting his attention down to the makeshift table for four, which was basically two tables for two pushed together. His usual spot in the slightly dingy diner. Their usual spot. He's still not sure why the bastard even bothers inviting him out to eat when he comes so late every time.
Still, the painful wrenching of his heart at the sight of the other man seems to distract him from the tardiness every time.
A bell above the entrance of the diner dings, signaling someone's arrival. He's about to turn and see who it could be when he hears giggling. Hibari doesn't giggle. His laugh is more short-lived, more of a haughty deep scoff.
It's a group of women. Gokudera signals the waitress, and orders something random from the menu. He's not that hungry, but he hopes that eating will help pass the time, and hopefully, the sight of him eating by himself will be awkward enough to keep the women from sitting near him.
No dice. The annoying girls sit on the table for two pushed against his table and all he can do is hope that none of them sit in front of him. One does anyway, but her coy giggling is slightly muted by the sound of the clock ticking. Gokudera scowls at the girl flitting eyelashes across from him, hoping she'll get the message, before he turns his attention back to the clock.
He quickly calculates how long he's been here, how late the prefect is, how long it would take the prefect to get to the diner walking at the pace he usually walks at. The calculations add to his disappointment and growing irritation.
His food arrives though, and he manages to distract himself in the steaming dish. He twiddles his thumbs, drums his fingers against the tabletop, chews absentmindedly, and eyes the clock. The girl across from him, slightly miffed at having her attentions ignored, leans forward, her lower arm pressing up against her chest to emphasize her breasts.
Gokudera half-expects Hibari to storm in and demand his seat back, but of course nothing happens. Instead, Gokudera relocates to a single two-person table for the girl's sake as doubts flood his mind. Maybe the prefect is being held up by delinquents at Nanimori. Maybe he fell asleep and Kusakabe forgot to wake him up. Maybe he forgot that he had invited the bomber out in the first place.
Maybe Hibari just wanted him to make a fool of himself by waiting for nothing.
He scratches his head, debating for the first time whether or not he should just leave when the bell rings again, sending a jolt of electricity through his system. His enthusiasm dies when he sees the turftop filing in with the baseball idiot.
"Hey, Gokudera!" the baseball idiot calls to him, waving amiably.
"What the hell are you guys doing here?" Gokudera demands, getting to his feet.
The baseball idiot laughs nervously, scratching the back of his neck. "Uh, you see-"
"We're extremely sorry, but Hibari got into an extreme accident with the Ten Year Later Bazooka," the turftop interrupts, not looking the least bit sorry.
They step aside, but instead of the older Hibari strolling in, a little boy waddles into the diner, grinning and holding a ball.
"What the-" Gokudera is at a loss for words, even as some of the loud neighborhood kids follow the black-haired boy into the diner.
"Giannini extremely tampered with the bazooka!" the overly excited boxer continues.
So this is what held Hibari up. He's relieved, but disappointed at the same time.
Yamamoto goes over to little Hibari, gesturing to Gokudera. "Hey little guy, do you want to have lunch with uncle Gokudera?"
The boy looks up at Gokudera with earnest gray eyes that narrow slightly when they land on him. No spark of familiarity flares up in those eyes. Of course that would be the case. He wasn't the prefect of Nanimori yet. He's just an ordinary kid, even if he's Hibari. He can't read him quite like the normal one can.
The boy nods anyway, making the silver-haired bomber's heart wrench even as the boy continues, "After playing." Even as a child, he was a boy of few words.
Even as a child, nothing changes. The turftop and the baseball idiot sit near him, making conversation with him for the first time in a while. The teen Hibari had barred them from interacting too much with Gokudera, and Gokudera had never really missed it too much until now.
"You should have been there! Tsuna went crazy trying to figure out what to tell you, and what to tell Hibari after he goes back to normal," Yamamoto says, laughing loudly. "At least the boss'll have a day to figure that out!"
"Ha, as if I'd let the tenth get beat up by Hibari," Gokudera replies. He hasn't been touching it, but his food has slowly been disappearing since the turftop sat near him. He shoots Ryouhei with a glare.
"I am extremely hungry! My extreme training extremely builds up my extreme appetite!" the boxer reasons.
"You don't have to say extreme for every single little thing, turftop," Gokudera says, sighing. The three of them converse among themselves, but Gokudera's input slowly dwindles down to nothing. He glances over at the children running and playing around the diner, watches as a waitress hands Hibari a piece of candy and coos over how cute the boy is.
He suddenly wishes he wasn't such a stubborn bastard so he could do the same.
He manages to put up with half an hour of this before getting up and leaving.
"Wait, Gokudera!" Yamamoto calls. "Where are you going?"
"None of your business, baseball idiot," Gokudera answers irritably, not looking back as he steps out.
It didn't even matter if Hibari was a kid, or if he was the current Hibari; the skylark would always keep him waiting, wouldn't he?
Somehow all my stories end up slightly or very abusive. :I
