"Mukuro and Chromes! Up on the stairs!"
There was lots of cheering, shy smiles being received from the various mist guardians who stepped out and up from the crowd. Settling upon the steps, they struck cool poses, some getting down on their knees and pointing their tridents toward the crowd, or even at each other. Chatter erupted through the crowd, an occasional squeal of "Ohh, that Chrome is so cuuuute!" and "The Mukuro is so tiny, it's adorable!"
"Ah… what's all that noise, over there?" A certain cheerful voice said to his two friends. "Look, the crowd!" He pointed to the gathering of people, many of which looked alike to himself.
"Hey, idiot, we're here on a business trip, not to survey the cosplayers at this stupid convention, okay?" The silver-haired one grunted, turning to face the shortest of the trio. "Juudaime, tell him to focus!"
The brunette was obviously distracted by the crowd too, which threw the smoker into dismay that he wasn't being paid attention to. "Geh…" He muttered. "T-those tridents… those… are definitely…"
"Haha!" The tallest laughed happily. "It's Chrome and Mukuro, isn't it?"
"No way! I thought they were staying in Italy." The silver-haired one sneered, rather disgusted. He and his friends found themselves wandering closer to the crowd, as if to get a better look at those up on the stairs. The crowd was counting down already, and by the time they hit zero, a Mukuro on the steps shouted "All Hibaris!" and the mist guardians changed places with the clouds that manifested from the crowd.
"They are," the boss said, his eyes fixated on the different versions of his cloud guardian who were now upon the steps. "These are cosplayers, Hayato. It's kinda obvious, they're all mostly being… um, our teenage selves…" The words felt awkward on his tongue.
"They're all so cute and tiny!" Yamamoto said stupidly, charmed by the many cosplayers of him he saw mingling in the crowd. "It makes me miss being that young. What about you guys, Gokudera, Tsuna?"
"Don't call the boss so informally, you scum!" Gokudera scoffed. "I don't miss it. It's when you were a baseball idiot and I, admittedly, was an idiot too. Juudaime, however!" He turned toward the brunette with practically sparkling eyes. "Juudaime was always amazing, even 6 years ago!"
"Guh… Hayato, stop." The 20-year-old groaned. He rather seemed to avoid the question posed by his rain guardian. "Geez… well... I knew Akira made a manga on us… I just… didn't know it's gotten so far…" He glanced around. "Look, there's even Byakuran, Enma-kun, and some Vindice cosplayers!"
"They're pretty good, too!" Yamamoto commented as the single Enma cosplayer went up to the steps. The crowd was screaming and awwwing over the fact that he was alone, curled up on the steps. A young Tsuna cosplayer in the Namimori uniform dashed up to the steps and sat next to the Enma, which caused the crowd to go wild.
"Maybe sometime we should read it. See how much she's screwed with our lives." Tsuna said somewhat sarcastically. "Reborn probably wouldn't want us to spend our time reading manga, though."
"Juudaime, if you want to read the manga Akira made of us, then go right ahead! Reborn can't control your life." His right-hand man said. "I think Reborn would love to read it too!"
"He'd also love seeing cosplayers of himself!" The rain guardian laughed as the Reborn cospalyers appeared on the steps. He took out his camera and began taking some pictures, to later show the hitman tutor. He faced his boss. "Anyway, we're here now, and there's nothing we're doing today in particular! Can we please just hang out here? This is pretty cool, don't you think? Look, there's cosplayers of you!" The gathering had apparently started to do shipping pictures, and so Tsuna was called up to the front.
Gokudera shot a glare at him, as if saying that he was being nonsensical. He opened his mouth to say something only to be interrupted by Tsuna's sigh.
"Well…" The brunette started. "I… I suppose so. They are pretty good cosplayers… it's kind of amusing to see how they portray us. A little bit insulting, I admit," His face twisted into a frown as he watched a Hibari kneel down and propose to a Tsuna. 'How uncharacteristic…' he thought, watching the two actually kiss. '…but quite adorable… if only Hibari-san would be like that in real life too…' He shook his head free of the thoughts. No way! Was he actually approving of him and Hibari together as a couple? Absurd! He wasn't gay! He wasn't! He groaned, finishing his statement. "A little bit absurd, but what's to say we can't have a little fun here in America? Especially with people, I guess, who know our story… maybe we can hear their opinions on us." He shrugged shyly.
"How dare they insult the Juudaime like that…" Gokudera growled lowly as he watched the Hibari and Tsuna couple. "Hopefully they don't know too much about the mafia. Akira didn't reveal too much, I pray."
"Well, even if she did, I guess our life does seem pretty fictional!" Yamamoto laughed. "Nobody would believe it's possible to use flames as a weapon, after all."
Tsuna laughed as well. "Haha, I guess you're right, Takeshi! She could be telling the story as accurately as possible, and most of these people would probably believe it's fictional and that we're not real…"
"I wonder what would happen if they knew we were here." Yamamoto contemplated the thought.
"Impossible." Gokudera sneered.
"Hey, look guys!" A Tsuna from the crowd squealed, catching everyone's attention. "It's the TYL trio! TYL Tsuna, Gokudera, and Yamamoto!" People's attentions were almost immediately turned toward the three standing a little ways from the back. Gokudera wore a face that said "back off" while Yamamoto had a gentle welcoming expression. On the other hand, Tsuna looked completely dumbfounded.
The Mukuro who had been leading the gathering cheerfully shouted toward them. "Come on up, you three! TYL people, up on the stairs!"
Different cosplayers went up on the stairs. Yamamoto tugged on Tsuna's sleeve. "Come on! They called us up!"
"Tch! We're not even cosplayers, Yamamoto!" Gokudera growled at him. Yamamoto shrugged.
"But they think we are! Come on, come on! Pleeeeease, Gokudera?" He gave the other a toothy grin.
Tsuna rolled his eyes. While the other two were arguing, he noticed that the crowd of cosplayers were watching intently, laughing at their bickering. He heard a few people comment, "Wow, they're so in character!" or "They look soooo much like the characters!"
"Come on, you two. We wouldn't want to keep them waiting, now would we?" Tsuna said loudly, although in a low voice that sounded almost like a seductive purr, easily overpowering his companion's argument. The other two straightened up in attention, following their leader up to the steps. There were many squeals from various girls in the crowd, obsessing over how sexy this group was, especially the boss.
It was then upon the steps that Tsuna had no clue what to do once more. Letting out a sigh, he looked to the others before stupidly asking out loud, "What do I do?"
"Pose!" Yamamoto said enthusiastically, with someone else in the crowd shouting "Like a boss!" as an add-on. Many people laughed, and Tsuna gave them a charming smile. He very much liked this group of people – it was here that he actually felt normal and accepted by this society, and he had no need to involve everyone else here in his dangerous life.
There was definitely something special about cosplayers and conventions that normal people wouldn't really understand. Tsuna smile gently – it was here that these people would accept him and love him, regardless of his background or who he was. It was a nice feeling.
Maybe this was why Reborn loved cosplay so much. Maybe it was a community where he didn't have to be the top hitman, and that people can appreciate him for just looking good. (Since, Tsuna would never admit, Reborn did look pretty good. The boss just always paid attention to his strength and how scary he was more often than how he looked.)
"Five, four, three, two, one!"
The trio walked down from the steps. Gokudera turned toward Tsuna. "Are we going to go now?"
"No! Pleaaasseee, Tsuna, can we stay?" Yamamoto pleaded. He got looked of annoying shot at him from Gokudera.
Just as Gokudera was about to begin another fight, Tsuna smiled gently. "Of course. Let's stay until the end of this little gathering, shall we?"
Author's Note: Hey everyone! I realize this might be a little bit confusing, so here are some things to clarify. Tsuna, Gokudera, and Yamamoto are 20 years old (so not exactly TYL, but they aren't teenagers either) and they're on a mafia business trip of some sort. They happen to come upon a convention with Reborn! cosplayers. This takes place in the world that we live in, where these three exist as real people. Their friend and the amazing Akira Amano wrote and illustrated the whole Reborn! story that we know and love, based completely on their lives.
This is essentially just a "what if they were real and actually existed" kind of thing, and what would happen if we, as cosplayers and fans, met them. What we would think of them and vice versa. There are little snippets of what happened in real life too! Some of the scenes that happened at the gathering, like the 0027 and 1827, happened at Anime Expo's Reborn gathering (which I was at; thus why I included it =D)
I threw in some pretty random stuff, like the subtle 1827 and my personal opinion on cosplay toward the end. I really hope you all enjoyed reading this!