"I like bananas."
Set TYL. Yes, yes, I do have another story, but this really needed to be written *creates my best puppy dog eyes (which aren't very effective by the way—thought of, tried, and tested)* so do enjoy~!
Redemption
"I like bananas," Tsuna declared as the Guardians settled down for breakfast. The table, which extended from one end of the breakfast hall to the other, was crowded despite its length.
"Bananas?" Gokudera looked up from where he was slicing bacon with a knife and feeding the bits to Uri under the table, "Tenth, there're bananas over there if you want them." He pointed to a basket on the far left end of the table.
"Oh, not plain bananas," Tsuna said absentmindedly as he made swirling patterns on his pancakes, "I like them made a specific way."
"I see," Gokudera said, looking thoughtful, as everyone else tucked this bit of information into the recesses of their brilliant minds, for later use.
After breakfast, Hibari disappeared from everyone's human radar and went off to do who-knows-what. Tsuna had assigned him a mission, but considering the fact that it was a non-killing-related mission he doubted that Hibari would finish it as quickly as the maiming ones. That, however, didn't mean that the raven haired ex-prefect wouldn't do it with less efficiency, but it was obvious that it was a lot lower in his list of priorities.
Hibari had probably gone back to Namimori for his monthly visit, because the ex-prefect always spared time to revisit his beloved hometown.
A kick on the head from Reborn was the signal to Tsuna that he had a lot (a lot) of paperwork to do. "Ay, ay, yes I know," Tsuna said, wincing as he rubbed his head. He stood up, pushing his chair back and wrapping a pancake in a napkin. "Don't destroy anything, alright?" he said sternly to the current occupants of the table, not noticing that Mukuro had mysteriously vanished.
"Hurry up, Tsuna," Reborn ordered, walking lazily in front of the said boss, "I calculated that it'll take at least twelve hours to finish today's paperwork.
"You calculated?" Tsuna glared at the hitman accusingly, "It's more like you threatened someone to calculate for you… not that you aren't able to do so yourself!" he added hastily, dodging the green mallet that came swinging his way.
Tsuna entered his study, squeaked and tried to make a tactical retreat out of the double doors. He tripped over the Arcobaleno's green staff and stumbled, landing on a heap outside the room.
Looking anywhere but the hitman, Tsuna said firmly, "I'm not going in there."
"Then it's coming to you." Seconds later, the Decimo found himself, locked out of his study and surrounded by stacks of paper in the hall, a fountain pen in his hand.
From inside the study, Reborn smirked, before he saw something out of the corner of his eyes. "Oh? So No-Good Tsuna has a deluxe coffee maker that he didn't tell me about?" The hitman made his way over to the machine and noted the bag of expensive coffee beans beside the machine.
Reborn picked up the packet, tore it open, and started the coffee machine. "Oh, look, it's the new model that hasn't even been released on market yet…" His smirk turned cold. "I'm going to have to tor—ask him about why he hadn't told me about it later."
Outside, Tsuna sneezed.
The maids were cleaning up the breakfast table as Uri slunk around Gokudera's legs, purring for more bacon. (When she received none, she dug her claws into said legs and stalked away, hissing, as Gokudera clutched his leg in pain.)
Ignoring the pain in his calf, Gokudera sent his meanest glare at everyone still at the table and snarled, "Did you hear that? Tenth said not to destroy anything!"
"Ha, relax, Hayato! We won't," Yamamoto said, busy packaging the toast and eggs that he'd salvaged as the maids began to clear away everything.
Gokudera snorted inelegantly. "Has there ever been a day where nobody destroyed anything?"
"Yeah, yesterday we didn't break any walls," Lambo said indignantly, tearing open the wrapper of a lollipop. "You can check the records, Stupidera."
"Or ROOMS," Ryohei added helpfully, looking up from where he'd been re-bandaging his hands.
"Idiots! We're not talking about large-scale things like an ENTIRE WING OF THE MANSION!" Gokudera roared, a tick mark beginning to form on his forehead. "How about the cabinet that was split in two?! All the china sets in there shattered!"
"Aha, that would be me," Yamamoto said sheepishly.
"Oh, so the painting that was utterly ripped apart in the same hall was you too?!" Gokudera accused, slamming a hand down on the table.
"No, that was Hibari," Yamamoto said nonchalantly, "We were sparring!"
Gokudera took several deep breaths to calm himself before saying, "Why on EARTH do none of you bother to spar in the training room?"
"We have a training room?" everyone chorused in surprise.
Tsuna groaned as another pen snapped, sending ink splattering all over the document. "Ruined, ruined, ruined," he muttered, crumpling the paper and throwing it over his shoulder. "I thought these fountain pens are supposed to be high-quality?!"
"They are," Reborn said from the other (right) side of the door, drinking his seventh cup of coffee, "You just enjoy burning them up."
"I am not burning them up!" Tsuna retorted.
"Look at your hand," Reborn's calm voice sounded muffled from inside the room.
Tsuna looked down and nearly yelped in surprise when his hand was indeed on fire and melting the pen ever so slowly.
"How you manage to miss a flaming hand but notice a cleverly hidden camera in a wall, I'll never know," Reborn said, opening the door a crack to throw Tsuna a new pen. It bounced off the brunette's head and rolled somewhere behind him.
"Hidden cameras are pretty rare," Tsuna defended, "But I see flaming hands a lot!"
"That would be a good point," Reborn conceded, "If it wasn't your hands that were flaming."
"It's exactly my hands that are flaming!" Tsuna shouted, sounding exasperated.
"Exactly."
"I don't see how this argument is in your favor at all!"
"Everything is in my favor, No-Good Tsuna."
Tsuna had to agree with that.
"Whoa, this place is so cool!" Yamamoto said in awe, as he glanced around the spacious training area.
Gokudera slammed his head into a nearby wall. "You've lived here for three years," he said in a strained voice, "And you've never noticed the training room?"
"Nope," Yamamoto said cheerfully, "I've never been in this side of the mansion before!"
"THERE ARE EXTREME REINFORCED PUNCHING BAGS!" Ryohei roared, dashing over to his section of the training area to examine them in glee.
"That side's probably mine, right Hayato?" Yamamoto said, heading over to the space with lots of obstacles and disposable materials. "Ha, look! There's even a machine that shoots stuff for me!"
Gokudera watched in alarm as Yamamoto turned it on and perfectly rounded stones began shooting out at rapid-fire speed.
"GAH!" Gokudera yelped and dropped to the ground as the machine began to swivel around.
"Hey, this is fun!" Yamamoto said, walking behind the machine. "I'll shoot, and you guys have to dodge, okay?"
"THAT'S NOT HOW IT WORKS!" Gokudera was close to tearing out his silver hair in frustration. "YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO BE THE ONE DEFLECTING THE ROCKS, BASEBALL IDIOT!"
"Ohh, I see now," Yamamoto said, turning off the machine (much to the relief of the silver-haired bomber), "It's kind of like the exercise that Dino-san made me do the first time we had to practice, right?"
"The… the first time?" Gokudera asked, his mind going blank for a moment.
"Uh, yeah, before we had to fight Mukuro, remember?" Yamamoto said, taking his spot in front of the machine and readying his sword.
"Oh?" Gokudera racked his brain and finally found the correct memory. It almost brought him to tears—almost. The right hand man of the most feared boss didn't cry! "That was such a long time ago. Idiot."
"Ah, but that was how this started, wasn't it?"
A resounding bang and clatter from a side of the room distracted them for a second.
"AHA!" Ryohei whooped, holding up his fists in a defensive boxing stance, "ONE DOWN! …Uh, three hundred more to go?" He glanced uncertainly at the admittedly monstrous pile of reinforced punching bags.
The only section of the training area that seemed even remotely used was Hibari's, but the ex-prefect preferred to do his training exercise on living targets and not on unmoving obstacles.
"I'd recommend that you stay away from that section of the room," Gokudera said gruffly to everyone else present. "It's Mukuro and Chrome's." He pointed to the upper left corner.
"I don't think they've used it," Yamamoto said, looking at the seemingly bare area of the room inquisitively.
"They're Mist users, moron," Gokudera snapped, "You never know."
"Kufufufufu~"
"YARGH!" Gokudera leapt away from the spot where he was standing with a manly yelp (that he was rather proud of). "BASTARD!"
"My, wasn't that fun?" the pineapple hair styled illusionist faded into view, "And I was really hoping for someone to fall for my little trap, too…" The area around the previously-bare corner wavered and dissipated, and Gokudera nearly fainted. (That, he was not so proud of.)
The corner had a tastefully arranged rope trap and a cage full of red-eyes tarantulas that were definitely not normal, since they sported pineapple-like hair styles on the top of their heads as well.
In other words, they were monstrosities in more ways than one.
"What an acute representation of your inner personality, Rokudo Mukuro," Gokudera said dryly, before turning and hightailing it out of the training area as fast as possible when the illusionist's eyes narrowed. He ignored Yamamoto's shouts as he sprinted towards the elegant archway when—
"Chrome, my dear?" Mukuro called, and Gokudera almost made it out the door before a rope trap fell on him from a concealed spot above said door.
"I tried to warn you," Yamamoto called, as Gokudera was dragged, kicking and bellowing threats, toward the cage of Mukulas*, as Mukuro had affectionately dubbed them.
(Gokudera would later find out that the pineapple hair styles hurt.)
An hour before lunch, all the the Guardians except Hibari had abandoned the newly-discovered training area in favor of finding the way back to the correct dining hall.
"Is it this way?" Lambo wondered, peering down a hallway lined with rooms.
"Those are the servants' quarters, stupid cow," Gokudera scowled. "Have none of you walked around the place yet?!"
"Nope," all of them chorused sheepishly.
"I just know where to eat, sleep, and go to meetings," Yamamoto admitted, looking embarrassed.
"Is that why you always spar in the halls and destroy everything?!" Gokudera howled, looking incensed. "It gives the Tenth a lot of trouble, you know?!"
"Ah, but it won't happen anymore," Yamamoto pointed out.
"We've found the extreme training room!" Ryohei shouted. "A hundred a three down, a hundred and ninety-eight more to go!"
"Why did they give you three hundred and one punching bags, anyway?" Gokudera muttered under his breath.
"Ah, cheer up, Hayato," Yamamoto said, grinning, "It's almost lunch!"
"Yeah, I guess," Gokudera grumbled, and the party made it down the hall in relative silence.
That is, until Hibari entered the scene.
"You," he snarled, getting into a defensive position as he glared at Mukuro. Gokudera sweat-dropped—did they still hold such a deep grudge against each other after ten years?! (As if he was one to talk.)
"Kufufufu~ You can't beat me this time," the deadly pineapple chuckled ominously as Chrome scooted off to the side. She might have gotten quite a bit stronger over the years, but she wasn't on the same level as Mukuro.
"I plan to stay in the lead," Hibari replied coldly, as Gokudera ran their scores through his head. If Hibari had won thirteen times since he last counted and Mukuro had won twelve, that meant the current score was; Hibari: 129, and Mukuro: 128.
Gokudera needed to break this fight up. "The Tenth told us not to destroy anything during breakfast!"
"He did?" Hibari shrugged as he turned so his back faced the hot-tempered bomber, "I wasn't there."
"I wasn't there either," Mukuro laughed his… unique laugh.
"I thought you were at breakfast?" Gokudera said suspiciously.
"Ah, I just wasn't there for Tsunayoshi-kun's announcement," Mukuro said easily, and then the two clashed in a flurry of sparks and burning glares.
"What." That was Tsuna's cold answer once the non-fighting Guardians raced down the halls to warn their boss of the situation.
"I'm sorry, Tenth! I couldn't stop them!" Gokudera apologized, bowing.
"It's okay, Gokudera," Tsuna sighed, pushing back paperwork and checking his hand yet again to see if it wasn't flaming, then rubbing his temples. "You would only have gotten hurt if you tried to stop them, anyway. I'm glad you didn't try," he added kindly, "Because then there'd be three hurt people in the infirmary today."
The Guardians shivered at the sudden waves of violence and anger coming off their normally calm boss.
"Where are they?" Tsuna stood up and brushed off his pajamas (he hadn't bothered to change into a suit since there wouldn't be any visitors today).
"Here, Tenth!" Gokudera led the way down the hall and they'd almost reached that particular unfortunate hall when Tsuna came to a halt and pushed all of his Guardians back, just as the wall exploded. Roll, Hibari's box animal, came piercing through the entire wall and it crumbled, sending up dust and ending up in a pile of debris on the plush carpet.
The sounds of metal clanging against metal could be heard from beyond the hedgehog, but even the sound of their two strongest Guardians fighting wasn't as terrifying as the Tsuna his Guardians saw now.
Gokudera almost wanted to speak up, but he feared for his life.
There was a shadow covering Tsuna's face and nobody wanted to break the tense silence. Gokudera almost felt sorry for the two Guardians about to be on the receiving end of the Tenth's anger, but (to his eternal shame) it was actually kind of hard.
Tsuna stalked past Roll and, putting a hand on the hedgehog's side, shrunk it back down to normal size, where it remained nestled in the Decimo's hands.
"What. Do you think you're DOING?" Tsuna asked coldly, setting Roll down on the floor and crossed his arms, silently demanding an answer.
It was the most fear-inducing experience of everyone's lives.
Once Tsuna had worn the two down, beat some sense into them, and then hung them by their collars on the castle battalions (metaphorically of course, because Tsuna wouldn't resort to violence to solve a problem) everyone was thoroughly humbled, even the ones that were just spectators.
The worst part, however, was when Tsuna walked away and disappeared during lunch. When they asked the maids, the young lady in question informed that the Young Master had requested for his lunch to be brought to his room.
The Guardians looked at each other (Hibari leaned against a nearby wall and closed his eyes) and immediately felt guilty.
"I think we should make it up to Tsuna," Yamamoto volunteered.
"Tsuna-nii hates us now," Lambo sniffled, sounding distraught, and for once Gokudera felt like he had something in common with the teenager.
"What should we do for Bossu?" Chrome asked softly, and everyone put their minds to it.
"Hey! Didn't Tsuna say that he liked bananas during breakfast?" Ryohei suddenly said.
"Bananas?" Gokudera raised an eyebrow. "But he said that he liked them made a specific way."
"Really?" Yamamoto looked excited. "Then let's give Tsuna banana desserts!"
"Everyone split up and make a list of how bananas can be made!" Gokudera barked, and all the Guardians disbanded to their own rooms.
An hour after lunch, Yamamoto said, through the communication devices everyone was wearing, "I'm going to give Tsuna a banana milkshake, okay?"
"Milkshake? Okay," Gokudera agreed, and they all stopped whatever they were doing to listen to the outcomes of Yamamoto's gift.
"Oh, hi, Yamamoto," they heard Tsuna say faintly through the device, "What brings you here now?"
"Here, Tsuna, would you like a banana milkshake?" Yamamoto offered.
"Huh? Okay, thanks, I needed something to drink anyway."
Once the Shigure Soen Ryu expert exited the Decimo's study, he muttered into the device, "It was average. I don't think it's the right one."
They were all very disappointed.
"Okay! My turn then!" Ryohei volunteered, and they all swore they could hear the fist pump. "Banana bread!"
They made sure to space out the 'gift-givings' so that Tsuna wouldn't have so much food to eat all at once.
After Ryohei's banana bread, they tried grilled bananas, banana cheese cake, bananas in milk, banana cookies, banana muffins, banana and spinach salad, banana smoothie, banana cream pie, banana milk, banana ice cream, banana chocolate, banana pancakes, banana skewers, frozen banana hot chocolate, banana bundt cakes, banana turnovers, banana granola bars, banana Hors d'oeuvres, and even banana shrimp basmati rice salad.
By the seventh time, Tsuna seemed to have caught on to what they were doing, and he was immensely amused. He confided in Reborn about his Guardians' sudden generosity and they shared a rare laugh together. That, however, ended up with Reborn eating half of his banana-themed impromptu snacks (because Tsuna would get fat otherwise).
"Don't you think we seem kind of suspicious?" Lambo whispered to Gokudera as they crept down the hall, holding a banana pudding.
Gokudera snorted. "Ya think?" he whispered fiercely. "But Tenth's favor is more important now!"
Lambo was doubtful. "If you ask me, he seems more entertained than angry right now…" But Gokudera ignored the Lightning Guardian's words and the continued down the hall.
To all of their immeasurable relief, Tsuna ate with them at the table during dinner. However, for fear of reawakening their boss' anger, everyone stayed silent.
After three minutes of nervous silence (Reborn was smirking the whole time, that sadist), Tsuna finally gave in and said, "I'm not mad at you anymore, you know."
There was a collective, drawn-out sigh of ease, and the atmosphere around the table relaxed significantly.
"Say, Gokudera, Yamamoto, and all of you," Tsuna began, looking curious. "What were you trying to do just now, anyway?"
"You mentioned you liked bananas during breakfast, Tenth," Gokudera explained, "So we thought it'd be a good idea to try and, uh," he looked nervous, "Make you less angry by giving you bananas?" It ended as a question.
Tsuna began to chuckle, and it soon turned into uproarious laughter. He wiped his eyes and took a deep breath to calm his laughter.
"All that effort, you thought up banana shrimp salad for goodness' sakes, and you forgot about banana sundaes?"
There was a collective sound of hacking as everyone choked on their own food.
*The Mukulas (Mukuro-tarantulas) may or may not make an appearance in later stories, ones that are part of this series that is.
Oh, and I had so much fun searching up all the banana desserts/food—I had no idea so many existed! Humans are so creative! If you're wondering, there're 22 foods up there. X)