A/N: Hi! This might be a spoiler for those who haven't read chapter 369 and beyond. Referring to chapter 369, when Yamamoto finds a bicycle for them to ride – I quite near died laughing. Pretty much comes in the category of "What is this, I don't even…" and I have no idea what I was thinking when I wrote this. Even the title is unoriginal. -_-
I still optimistically hope you enjoy it!
Disclaimer: These KHR Boys are not mine. Would love to own pocket-sized versions of them, though.
Two Boys and A (Tandem) Bicycle
Gokudera was only slightly above annoyed.
Current company notwithstanding, there was Mukuro to be dealt with. Mukuro, who was currently tending to that boy with the funny hat (was that an… apple?) who looked suspiciously like a Varia member (Fran or something absurd, his name was) from the future. Mukuro who had – god forbid – a concerned look on his face.
"Hold it, Mukuro!"
In hindsight, that was not the best course of action, because the guy gathered up the child in his arms and with a very smug – if somewhat tired – look, he began spiriting himself away.
"We shall meet again." He stated, and Gokudera was happy for a bit – at least the guy hadn't laughed that infuriating laugh, otherwise he'd have slit the pineapple head's throat.
"He's gone!" Yamamoto exclaimed as they both watched Mukuro's form disappear and Gokudera resisted rolling his eyes. Trust baseball idiot to state the obvious.
"Well, shit." Gokudera quirked an eyebrow and echoed the curse as sarcastically as possible.
Taking a pull from his cigarette, he quickly analyzed the situation. Team Uni's boss watch destroyed, Team Verde's boss watch just left before their eyes.
"With Team Verde gone, we have no reason to stay here." He remarked, "We'd better get back to the Tenth's side!"
Just as the last bit left his lips, Gokudera frowned and scanned the skies for a bit, looking for the direction in which Tsuna had flown. Somewhere north from their position and how much was the distance? Five kilometres, five thousand metres, some thirteen minutes remaining till the battle time was up – a constant speed of 6.4 m/s would make them reach just as the time was up.
Impossible, given their current state of near exhaustion.
"But he's five kilometres away!" Gokudera, frustrated, shouted the bit out loud for Yamamoto to hear because Yamamoto was not the kind to do calculations in the head, let alone be capable of multitasking efficiently, "If we were to run there, the time limit would end before we made it!"
Gokudera was already throwing up options in his head as he whirled around to assess Yamamoto's reaction (he thought about staying put but the Tenth needed support – Sawada Iemitsu was definitely a force to be reckoned with. As expected from the Tenth's father!). But no… the idiot wasn't listening, he was looking elsewhere.
Gokudera was a hair's breadth away from cursing up a storm (no pun intended).
"I've found us something nice, Gokudera." Yamamoto said, with a small victorious smile on his face.
Gokudera swallowed his insults and followed the idiot's gaze.
"…A bicycle?"
He blinked for a few seconds as Yamamoto began walking towards it and then groaned. Well, of course, there's a goddamned – and not just any normal one, it's a tandem – bicycle because the universe likes to fuck with him in such inexplicable ways.
Like its most recent attempt of getting him paired up with Yamamoto on several occasions. Worse, the fact that they were actually good at tag-teaming.
Well, yes, Gokudera had grown as a right-hand man – look at how he handled the Tenth's protection program! Sure it fell apart because the Shimons were the ones behind everything (and it was mostly an excuse to spend time in the vicinity of the UMA anyway), but still – it did not mean that he had completely matured to the point of being all buddy-buddy with Yamamoto.
(And the idea that Yamamoto had of being buddy-buddy was pretty much a horror story in itself, so)
"I am not getting on that thing." Gokudera said in his most snobby tone, all too aware that he was sounding whiny right now, much like Adult Lambo.
"But then… we won't be able to get to Tsuna." Yamamoto replied nonchalantly.
Damn, he was a sneaky bastard. It irritated Gokudera that he knew how to rile him up and push his buttons. He masked it with that stupid sunny demeanour – the other boy was grinning brightly, a dim expression on his face – but Gokudera knew that he was pointing out this fact on purpose.
"Fuck." He replied eloquently and slinked towards their temporary mode of transport, wishing he could fly like the Tenth. Or shoot fireballs or something, anything to make present company evaporate instantly. Wait, he did have explosives so…
No. The Tenth wouldn't appreciate it, even if he was doing him an enormous favour.
Ah, well, genius is never appreciated in its time anyway, and, no, this wasn't an insult to the Tenth's intelligence. The Tenth was much deeper than that.
Twelve minutes and thirty seconds till battle time was up and they were arguing about who gets to sit up front.
"Look, I can sit in front and do most of the work."
"Is that supposed to be an insult, moron? Because I can very much hold my own."
"But… I want to be called the 'captain'. You can be the 'rear admiral'."
"How do you even know those terms? And how dare you use that suggestive tone with me? I swear if we weren't on the same team-"
"Haha, you're such a funny guy, Gokudera."
"Say that when you're in a bloody coffin. And I'm sitting in front!"
Twelve minutes remaining and they were settling the whole thing with a round of Rock, Paper, Scissors.
"I won! Gokudera, I'm in front!"
"Best two out of three, fucker."
"Haha, I win again!"
"Che."
"Aren't we supposed to get to Tsuna soon?"
Eleven minutes and forty-five seconds to go and Gokudera cussed loudly in every language he knew – mostly Italian with sprinkles of Japanese, French, Spanish and English. Yamamoto seemed to find the whole thing hilarious and only began pedalling once Gokudera had violently threatened to shove a dynamite up some unsavoury body part in the only language the idiot understood.
They had covered mere hundred metres after half a minute when Gokudera realized that they were going in the wrong direction.
"No, Gokudera," his brainless partner insisted, "My instincts say that it's east of here."
"Well, fuck your instincts, it's clear you didn't see where the Tenth flew to. It was north from our position."
"But Gokudera…"
"If you whine anymore, I won't hesitate to strangle you and leave your body for Uni's team to find."
"Again with your morbid jokes, Gokudera. What if yours is the wrong direction?"
"I'll eat Reborn-san's hat."
"…Won't the kid kill you first?"
"Do you want to get to the Tenth's side or not? Pedal harder."
"Okay."
Seven minutes and twenty-five seconds remaining and Gokudera was hot, sweaty and pissed. They hadn't gone much farther than a kilometre and because of the darkness and the lack of a trail and negotiating the various trees had made their pacing terribly slow.
"Go faster, baseball freak."
"I'm pedalling as fast as I can, Gokudera."
"Well, it's not enough. Watch out for those branches."
"Thanks."
"None needed. Who plants these shitty forests anyway?"
Six minutes and five seconds till time was up and Yamamoto interrupted their conversation (which was basically consisted of the words 'Tree' and 'Right') with an inane suggestion.
"Hey Gokudera, I have an-"
"Left. And stop turning around to look at me."
"Yeah. I have an idea, by the way."
Gokudera spluttered ungracefully and began laughing.
"Damn, baseball idiot. I think the Earth stopped rotating for a moment."
"I'm serious!"
"Tree. And I don't care."
"But listen to me! You have those bombs, no? We can-"
"I-"
"-fire them off the-"
"-don't-"
"-back and then-"
"-fucking-"
"-we will speed up-"
"-care! Shut up!"
Five minutes and forty seconds to go and Gokudera realized that they'd probably moved just under two thousand metres from their starting position. Not a promising speed, they were going to be late. He became increasingly paranoid but then rationalized for a bit – the Tenth would win because, well, he was the Tenth! And the Tenth was an amazing, inspiring individual, who would lead the Vongola to a brighter future and-
"Gokudera."
"What?"
"I think it's a good idea."
"No."
Four minutes and twenty seconds, wrist watch rapidly counting down and the two thousand and three hundred mark had been hit. Gokudera's frantic energy came from frustration but now he was getting a little tired and was craving a cigarette.
"But we need to speed up!"
Oh, and Yamamoto was whining.
"Yeah, you be on the back and take the full brunt of the explosion."
Four minutes remaining.
"Well, we can't stop now. And I want to be the 'captain'!"
"Fine, captain, how the fuck are you going to steer through the acceleration?"
"I have good reflexes."
"Che. They're not that great."
Three minutes and forty five seconds and Gokudera was becoming a little desperate.
"Damn. We still have to cover twenty five hundred metres."
"Wow, how do you know that?"
"I calculated it, duh."
"Really?! How?"
"Taking in account the general diameter of a common bicycle wheel, I first calculated the circumference and then, taking rough estimation of the rotations per minute of said wheel, after correcting for friction, I-"
"Wow, I don't get that at all. You're so smart, Gokudera!"
"Ugh. Praise from a simian is not going to please me."
"Haha, what's a simian?"
Three minutes and eighteen seconds.
"What do you say to my idea now?"
"Look, if you want me to shove a dynamite in your mouth and up your ass and light the damned fuse, all you have to do is ask."
Three minutes and five seconds.
"You know the other day, Jirou and Kojirou were playing in my room with Natsu and-"
"FINE! We'll go with your shitty idea, just shut the fuck up. Your inanities are grating my ears!"
Yamamoto laughed his very infuriating carefree laugh and Gokudera massaged his temple. They still had close to two kilometres to cover and, hell, they needed to go faster. He mentally tabulated his arsenal of explosives and Air Bombs it was – they needed an enormous shockwave but, in Gokudera's opinion, one wouldn't be enough.
Two minutes and fifty two seconds.
"If we die here, I am going to fucking haunt you in your afterlife. Possibly sell your soul to our respectful alien overlords."
"Does that mean we would be friends even after we die?"
"Fuck you, Yamamoto. Fuck you and your thick head."
"Haha! Well, I'd like to fuck you too."
"Seriously? Even as a joke that's not funny."
"But my teammates think it's funny…"
"God, that's because you're all a bunch of fag-"
"Gokudera, uh, Tsuna?"
"Shit! The Tenth…"
Two minutes and forty seconds were remaining and Gokudera, without much fanfare, carefully positioned the Air Bomb before setting it off. Because they were going to end up with some serious injuries, if not in a complete death state, anyway, so he might as well embrace the idiot's stupidity.
Two minutes and thirty seconds to go and Gokudera was staring at the damned bombs. There has got to be a better way to go rather than being blown to smithereens with bits of the bicycle sticking out of their bodies. He was completely fine with blowing other people to kingdom come, it was a little therapeutic if he was being honest about it, but himself? Propulsion, Gokudera supposed, he could do, but he was flying without a fucking map here! There were calculations to be done on paper, he didn't have baseball moron's dog-like instincts, he was human for Christ's sake-
Yamamoto turned around with an enormous grin.
"Gokudera is scared…" he said in a singsong voice and Gokudera hauled off and slapped the back of his head.
"Eyes on the road, asshole." He said, now thoroughly pissed and determined in the worst way possible, "I'll show you who's scared."
The tip of Gokudera's cigarette was still smouldering so it took ten more seconds of waiting for the fuse to light up after which Gokudera had just a moment to adjust the trajectory and throw out a smug remark.
"Hah! Deal with this, motherfu-"
Two minutes till countdown was up and the acceleration was choking them with their own words. At least Gokudera caught the not-so-manly yelp that Yamamoto let out when the bicycle had bucked forward unexpectedly, so he was rather satisfied, if a bit watery eyed. Thank god for decorative eyewear, even though they impeded his vision. Slightly.
Also, it was hot as hell behind him. He was pretty sure some of his new fancy jacket had been scorched.
One minute and thirty seconds were left and Gokudera had completely given up on judging the distance they'd covered. That and they were beginning to lose speed. Since he didn't have enough Air Bombs to waste, Gokudera thought for a moment.
"Hey, idiot, attach these to the handle bars up front! Fuse side facing away from you!"
"What… Gokudera, are these Rocket Bombs?"
"Version X, actually. And if you want to get there on time, listen to me!"
"Okay… but-"
"God, shut up, it was your idea and its already so fucking hot here and we're late and I'm stuck with you and life's a-"
"Um, so, what do I do again?"
"What? Oh, yeah, here, light up the fuse once I say so."
"Wow, your new cigarettes are pretty cool!"
"Could you focus, already?"
"Haha, sorry, sorry."
Sixty seconds and rapidly counting down and Gokudera was completely sure that he needed a new jacket now – the edges of it were smoking lightly – as he fine-tuned the trajectory of the Air Bomb.
"Okay, baseball freak, counting down now, three, two, one…"
A shockwave surged them forward whereas Yamamoto received a face full of Storm flames. Gokudera would've been sadistically pleased but he was keeping one eye on the watch. Yamamoto's legs were a blur on the pedals and he seemed to not be distracted, despite the fact that some of his dark hair had been singed.
Yeah, sometimes the boy needed just the right motivation.
Thirty seconds remaining and they had, miraculously, nearly crashed only twice. Entangling in branches was about as fun as it sounded and they both had nice little bleeding gashes to prove it. Their vehicle was hard to manoeuvre through the thicket but Yamamoto, like always, was getting by somehow.
Gokudera wasn't sure how much distance they'd covered so far and since there was no open space in sight, all they could really do was move forward, preferably in a straight line.
Ten, nine, eight, seven-
Crap, now they definitely weren't making it on time. Tenth was going to be so disappointed…
Three, two, one.
"BEE-BEE-BEE-BEEP!"
"Fuck this beeping is loud!"
"What was that, Gokudera? I can't here you over this loud beeping!"
"BATTLE TIME HAS CONCLUDED!"
"Yeah, thanks." Gokudera addressed the wrist watch sarcastically, "Like we didn't get the message already!"
He defaulted to pouting now since he'd failed the Tenth and they still had to make it out of the damned forest. And, well, Yamamoto was easing his pace now, slightly disappointed at not being able to make it on time and there was no sense in stressing his legs now, was there?
He had sort of come out of major surgery like only a couple of weeks ago. The bastard had like the devil's luck or something.
Nevertheless, the devil's luck thing sort of gave out because Gokudera had conveniently forgotten the Rocket Bombs attached to the handlebars with a sticky rubber-resin adhesive.
Yeah, it exploded in their faces with an enormous amount of smoke choking the two of them and sending them flying the last ten metres or so.
On the bright side, at least the trees had cleared out then.
"It was a good idea to speed up with a bomb, huh?" Yamamoto coughed his witty observation and Gokudera noticed that the fucking bicycle – with which he no longer had any business since he'd reached the Tenth – was unharmed.
"Shut up! It was hot as hell back there!" Gokudera retorted angrily, suppressing the urge to brandish the damaged jacket in his face.
"Ah!"
On hearing Tsuna, they both lit up visibly. At least he was alive and well!
"Tenth! Sorry for running late!" Gokudera apologized, waving excitedly (to be more specific, like a moron).
"Though eventually we did come flying over..." Yamamoto supplied with a tired and somewhat exasperated smile.
Tsuna was regarding their shabby and smoking state with a somewhat wary look.
"Gokudera-kun and Yamamoto!" he choked out, part relieved, part confused.
Iemitsu, on the other hand, was thoroughly confused on seeing his son's two Guardians.
"The two of you are charred…" he observed.
First, his son had failed to recognize his Arcobaleno tutor in his adult form. Then his two, evidently crazy, friends had propelled themselves here with bombs and had made their way out of the explosion, unscathed, but slightly smoking.
He couldn't help but grin as he made his way back to Colonnello and Lal Mirch. The Vongola Decimo and his family were going to be alright.
Omake:
They were lying in the hospital after that shitty battle with that crazy baby with the very long, very weird name and Gokudera cursed his luck for a bit. Sure, now they were being thrown together at every fucking opportunity on the battle field but couldn't they at least get separate rooms in the hospital?
Just when Gokudera was thinking that it was great seeing Yamamoto quiet for a change that the idiot burst out with an obnoxious laugh.
"Haha, we should really get a cycle like that and ride it with Tsuna. It'll be like a new game! Like 'Bike Buddies' or something like that…"
Gokudera cleared his throat and Uri sank her claws in the idiot's face.
He really hated bicycles now.
A/N: …
It's supposed to be funny, but I utterly failed. I don't even know why it came out longer than I intended it to be.
Um, review? *sparkly eyes* Thanks for reading! ^-^