"The Crown"
It all started with a tragedy. The tragedy sounded like a muffed crunch of something breaking.
Rin was at the dorm where the Kyoto trio resided, with a difficult mission of obtaining Suguro's notes without Suguro knowing about it – probably a very stupid thing to do, since he could just ask for them, but Rin felt bad enough as he was. And Suguro already ended up helping him with a thing or two...
Besides, getting the notes should be pretty easy, since it was that time of the day Bon used to spend at the gym, so only Konekomaru and Renzou were home. And they were cooperative enough – as long as he returns the notes after making copy of them, there wasn't a problem in keeping the whole thing secret. Nobody was getting hurt, after all. And the notes were really good. It would be easier for Rin to just use his brothers stuff, but Yukio had the bad tendency to skipping many thing he found unnecessary or doing strange shortcuts that Rin was unable to make sense of. Suguro, on the other hand, liked to have everything in order and he was even making these little bubbles with bonus information about how to do stuff and why. Rin loved these and they were probably the one thing, that keep his math grades actually decent.
So, as usually, he showed up while Suguro was away and waited for Konekomaru to hand him the notes, exchanging jokes with Shima. But this time, he made a mistake and sat down on the closest bed. And then, there was a crack. He patted the covers, looking for the source of noise. Then he found two pieces of plastic.
"Oh dear!" Konekomaru gasped, almost dropping the papers. "That's Suguro's headband!"
"Man, you're screwed," Shima added lazily from his bed, not even putting his manga away. He sounded way more amused by the whole situation than freaked out, like Konekomaru was.
"So what?" Rin shrugged, looking at two pieces of plastic in his hands. "It's not like he don't have more of these. Hell, I can give him back the hairpin if he really needs it..."
"You don't understand!" The little monk protested. "This is The Headband!"
"...so?" Okumura blinked. Indeed, he didn't understand, why they were making so big deal out of it. It was just a hair accessory, these were cheap.
"The first thing Suguro brought when we moved here to start the cram school," Konekomaru explained in hurry.
"So it's like sentimental thing?"
"Yeah, that would be it," Shima rolled his eyes and sighed deeply. "Seriously, Bon at times act like he's neurotic, or something."
"Try to say it again after I take that manga of yours," for whatever reason, Rin felt obliged to defend Suguro. Because he wasn't that bad. And Shima liked to keep his comics on hand and didn't really liked to share either.
"Do you want to borrow my manga?" Renzou smirked, knowingly.
"Okay, maybe not!" Rin grimaced. "I sort of don't want to think where they have been..."
"The bathroom is pretty close, you know."
"Now I really don't want to touch them..." Rin shuddered." Even with a stick!"
"He's just pulling your leg," Neko sighed.
"Am I?" Renzou grinned widely, clearly having way too much fun than he was supposed to. At times, Okumura was pretty sure that the pink haired boy was acting like pervert only because he was having way to much fun with people and their reaction to drop it.
"So, I'm in trouble, yeah?" Rin sighed, changing the topic back to the important thing.
"Well, duh!"
"What if I buy him a new one?"
"Dude, sentimental? Does that word ring any bells?"
"I don't know, Shima. I'm sure Ryuji would appreciate the gesture…" Konekomaru mumbled hopefully with a small smile on his mouth.
"Yeah, right after giving him a black eye!" Renzou waved his hands around like he was trying to punch something to further prove his point.
"He's not that bad!"
"Oh yeah? Remember, when I beheaded his teddy? He beaten the crap out of me!"
"Teddy?" Rin blinked, a little lost in the conversation.
"It was actually a rabbit," Konekomaru explained, then eyed Shima. "And we were seven."
"That's cute," Rin chuckled, trying to imagine little Bon with his little headless rabbit. His brain had a little problem with creating image of Suguro without his wild hair and piercing. He knew that the rebellious look was quite a new feature, but it was just working for Bon so well it was hard to portrait him without it. So there was tiny little Ryuji in his mind, running around with his cute tiny little piercing and headless plushie, with the wild blond streak on top. Then, there also was mini–version of Shima, pink–haired and running for his life…
"Stop giggling, that's weird!" Renzou groaned.
xxx
Rin talked them into going to the store together. They knew Bon really well, after all, so who could be better to choose something that Suguro would find acceptable? Especially when Rin himself hadn't slightest idea which hair accessories counted as cool and manly and which one were considered girly and would lead to Bon trying beat him into a bloody pulp. But sometimes, even he was able to spot the obvious.
There was this one hairband, right in the middle of pink–red–violet section, standing out proudly like the crown jewels, sparkling so intense that Rin's eyes started watering. It was almost like somebody installed bunch of tiny little lightbulbs in there and then shaped them so they looked just like bunch of pinkish crystals. The pattern was really complicated too – and because of all that sparkling it was hard to recognize where the butterfly started and the flower ended. And then, there was the glitter…
In one world, it was an absolute mess.
"Guys!" Rin gasped, unable to wrestle his eyes away from the sparkling atrocity. "You just have to see that!"
"See what?" Renzou turned around, completely not expecting the horror he was about to face. Then he screamed.
"What is all that rocket about?" Konekomaru sighed, joining the group. He also stared down at the shiny eyesore. "And what do you want to do with that?"
"This," Rin said in very serious voice. "Is a crown."
"...and?" Neko raised eyebrow.
"Don't you see? This is perfect!"
"If you are thinking what I'm thinking then you are suicidal," Renzou commented with a painful grimace.
"But this is a crown!" Rin protested. "I just... I have to!"
"And I do not want to have anything to do with it at all," Konekomaru said, raising his hands and slowly walking away.
"You are ditching us?" Renzou protested. "How can you? Don't you want to see the reaction, when-"
"I definitely don't want to hear the reaction," the little monk mercilessly cut in before Shima was even able to finish the sentence.
"I never knew you are so heartless!" Rin moaned. He wanted the crown.
"There are many thing you don't know," Renzou declared trying to sound mysterious, but his voice was slightly cracking.
They ended up walking with one normal headband, since Rin preferred to stay alive and one sparkling crown. The clerk from the shop was looking at them even after they closed the doors behind them.
xxx
"Hey, Bon..." Rin started, desperately trying to keep his face straight. But the smile was traitorous, no matter how hard he tried his mouth just keep on twitching and trying to form a grin.
"Told you to not call me that!" Suguro growled, but that wasn't actually an angry growl.
"Look, I need to tell you something..."
"You failed something again?"
"No!" Rin protested quickly. "Well, not exactly..."
"You can't not exactly fail an exam!" Suguro groaned.
"Oh, bug off, I'm not here to talk to you about tests!"
"Then what is it? Literature?"
"Why do you think that the only reason I have to talk to people is to beg for help with my grades?"
"Because they are horrendous?"
"Oh, bug off!" Rin grunted unhappily. Suguro was kind of right, his grades were bad. Not on the level of we-are-throwing-you-out-of-the-school-now, but they were pretty close. And he actually had to ask for help once or twice. Surprisingly enough it was just the thing to put Suguro in really good mood which was making the situation even worse from Rin's perspective.
"So what do you want?" Ryuji finally decided to surrender.
"I sort of broke your headband the other day..." Rin said, trying to not chuckle.
"And what's so funny about that?" Ryuji instantly looked furious, his eyes narrowed and there was a very painful death in them. Suguro never ceased to amaze with his ability to turning the death glare so quickly.
"Hey, it's just a headband!"
"You can't wander around and break things that belongs to other people! Even if it's just a stupid headband!"
"I'm not finished!" Rin protested. "I brought you a new one!"
"And you think that is going to solve everything?"
"Hey! I'm a decent human being here!" Rin protested. "I admitted my mistake, and all!"
"How did you even got near enough my stuff to destroy something?" Suguro groaned, massaging his temples. He was so going to get a migraine attack…
"That's actually a pretty long story," Okumura chuckled nervously, then just handed him headbands. Both of them, because he needed Bon to stop asking questions before Shima and Neko end up in trouble… and he doubted he would be brave enough to give Suguro the crown on any other time.
"What the hell is it?" Suguro stared, completely forgetting that he was supposed to be angry at Rin. The pure horror of the sparkling atrocity had truly astonishing powers.
"A crown," Rin answered, now with a wide, toothy grin on his face.
"And what the hell do you think I'm supposed to do with that?"
"Well..."
"You don't want to tell me..."
"Well, it's not like you will get any less manly with that in your hair," Rin shrugged, trying to keep his face straight and uninterested.
"Why in the world would I even want to wear that?!" Suguro screeched.
"Because you're manly enough to wear it around like it is nothing? Or are you?"
"Oh, what the hell?!" Suguro growled. "You are freakin' baiting me!"
"What?" Rin chuckled. "Are you looking for a way to chicken out of this? Princess?"
Suguro, naturally was too proud for his own good and he ended up with the sparkling disaster of a crown on his head when the lessons at the cram school started. He even gained bonus points by acting like nothing was wrong with the picture at all. He was actually good enough at it that most of the class didn't spotted anything different about him. Even Yukio seemed to be oblivious.
Until Kamiki happened, of course.
„What's up with the crown?" Izumo asked, frowning slightly at Ryuji's headband. "You're coming out, or something?"
"It was a dare," he growled, eyeing her angrily, desperately trying to not to blush and failing at it.
"Dare?" the girl blinked. "Who would even care to dare anybody to do something like that? It's just stupid."
"That would be Rin," Konekomaru added helpfully.
Izumo eyed the half–demon boy, who was grinning stupidly in his corner of the classroom, then looked back at Suguro, who still was looking rather stupid. And sparkly. Tiny flakes of glitter managed to invade his hair and were shining like cute little rainbows. A little bit even managed to get on his nose, making Suguro rather amusing to look at, especially with his usual grumpy expression.
"You're both dimwits," she sighed heavily.